Checkmate With Bishop: A Hellions MC Novel by J. A. Hornbuckle

large conference room.
    “Absolutely!  But why he felt the need to fucking include me with you dipshits is something I just can’t work out,” Huff pronounced, his voice getting fainter as the two walked back to their offices.
    Turning his eyes back to Trey who was standing behind his conference room chair, Bishop queried, “is it gonna be a problem?  Me reconnecting with Dory?”
    Trey went quiet, going still as if he was thinking both deep and hard.  “I’m guessing you think this is a loose end, the thing with Dory, yeah?”
    Bishop nodded and let out the breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding.  “I want, I mean I need to tell her good-bye, buddy.  And I want to fucking do it face-to-face before…”
    Trey closed his eyes and swallowed deep before he responded.  “Nah, it ain’t gonna be a problem.  Surprising?  Yeah.  As in ‘hell yeah’.  But a fucking problem?”  Trey shrugged his large shoulders.  “Uh-uh.  Not unless it fucks you up even more than you already are.”
    “I’m not fucked up,” Bishop countered indignantly.
    “Tell that to the judge, amigo, ‘cause I just ain’t feeling it.”
     
     

Chapter Eight
     
    “Holy sh…erm, moly!  Check it out, Mom!” J.R.’s voice bounced off his window and throughout the SUV.   After putting my car into park, I glanced to see what he was so amazed by, but it was only a motorcycle parked in the space closest to hotel reception.
    “Damn,” he breathed, his head still turned away as he stared, oblivious to my request for him to watch his language.  “It’s a beauty, isn’t it?  A 1961 Harley Sportster in freaking primo condition.  Check out that pin-striping.  I think that’s still the original engine too!” My boy turned his wide eyes to me.  “Have you ever seen anything so amazing?”
    I shrugged as I unlatched my seatbelt and opened my door.  “Missoula has a couple of motorcycle clubs so I’m sure you’ll get to see a lot of them while we’re here.”
    “Seriously?”  J.R.’s voice had gone back into the squeaky range before he began to get out of the car.  “Do you know any guys that ride?  Do you think they’d take me out on one?”
    I’d spent years trying to dissuade my kid from his fervent interest in bikes but had never succeeded. He’d even started collecting the small die-cast replicas of Harley Davidson motorcycles, painstakingly explaining what made each one so important, so special.  And at some point, I’d just given up the fight, blaming his interest on some weird genetic predisposition he’d inherited from Stan.
    Even though it was just after nine, the sky was just then getting dark and the lights from inside the office seemed bright.  I glanced through the windows and saw Ally was laughing with a tall man who was leaning his elbows on the counter.  There was something about him that was familiar but that was bound to be the case.  I’d had the same sense of déjà vu when we’d eaten dinner at the Black Bear Diner and then taken a window shopping stroll through old downtown.  Things in Missoula were slow to change and I had spent most of my life there, so things and people were bound to seem familiar.
    But there was something about the man talking with Ally that had my eyes going to him again and again, trying to attach a name to the body but failing.  Maybe it was because of the Hellion vest he wore, the same patch adorning the back as what Stan used to wear that made me wonder if I knew him.  But when I caught sight of the braid that hung down his back, almost all the way to his belt, I knew I was mistaken.  No one I knew had hair that long.
    Going to the door of my room, I pulled the keycard out of my purse, watching as J.R. went to his own door.  “Aren’t you coming in?”
    “Sure, but I want to do this myself,” he explained, copying my movements.  “I’ll be gaming if you need me.”
    “Only for a couple of hours, buddy, and then you need to shut it