Spring Romance: NINE Happily Ever Afters

by Tessa Bailey

  “Amina Daylee,” Emmett said from his chair across from Presley’s desk.

  “Oh.” I jerked, surprised by his answer. When had the cops released her name? Maybe they’d done it while I’d been at the station, waiting in a stiff chair for over an hour to be told I wasn’t going to see Dad. Again. You’d think with the amount of taxes we paid they’d at least get a seat with a goddamn cushion.

  Amina Daylee. I ran the name through my mind over and over, but it didn’t sound familiar. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “She went to high school here,” Presley said. “Moved away after graduation. She was recently living in Bozeman. Has a daughter who lives in Colorado.”

  Not a shock that Presley had already tapped into her gossip circles to find out about the victim. “Let’s find out more. How old was she? Does she still have ties here? How might she have known Dad?”

  Since I couldn’t ask him how he knew her, maybe I could find the connection myself.

  “They went to high school together,” Emmett said. “She’s a year younger than Draven.”

  “Always one step ahead of me.” I chuckled, but my smile fell fast. “Wait. If the cops just released her name this morning and I came right here from the station, how did you figure all that out already? Was it on Facebook or some shit?”

  Emmett and Presley shared a hesitant glance.

  “What?” I demanded. “What happened?”

  Presley blew out a deep breath and then slid a newspaper out from underneath her own stack of paperwork.

  “Fuck.” Bryce Ryan was becoming a bigger pain in my ass every fucking day.

  Was I going to have to start reading the goddamn newspaper?

  “They did a special piece on the victim today.” Presley brought the paper over. “Amina was her name.”

  I ripped the newspaper from her hand, reading through the front page quickly. Right in the center was a picture of Amina Daylee.

  Her blond hair was cut just above her shoulders. Her makeup was light, not hiding a few wrinkles here and there. In the photo, she was sitting on a bench in some park, smiling as the flowers bloomed at her bare feet.

  My hands crumpled the paper into a ball, the crinkling sound filling the office. I should have had that photo days ago. I should have had her name. I shouldn’t have to open the paper to a bunch of new fucking information.

  I’d done some digging on Bryce Ryan since Dad’s arrest. Her story seemed straightforward. Grew up in Bozeman. Moved to Seattle and worked at a TV station. I’d found some old video clips of her on the internet, reading the news with that sexy voice. Then she’d quit her job, moved to Clifton Forge and bought into the paper.

  Her routine was boring, at best. She was either at home, the newspaper or the gym. The only random trip she’d taken had been to the Evergreen Motel on Sunday.

  When the paper was balled as tight as I could get it, I chucked it across the room. Except my aim was shit and I hit Emmett in the head.

  “Hey!”

  “Fucking Cody Pruitt. He probably gave her all this info the day he kicked me out of the motel. That pissant never liked me.”

  If I hadn’t shown up, would he have told her anything? Or had he spewed it all out of spite?

  “What are we going to do?” Presley asked. “Do you think he did it?”

  “Draven?” Emmett asked. “No way.”

  According to the article, Dad was the only person seen coming or going from Amina’s motel room between the hours of eight p.m. and six a.m. the night she was murdered. Bryce was generous enough to note in her article that he hadn’t been seen with blood on his hands.

  But that didn’t mean shit. Dad had mastered the art of washing away blood a long, long time ago.

  “He didn’t do it,” I assured Presley.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because if Dad had killed Amina Daylee, they would never have found her body.”

  “Oh.” Presley sank into the chair, her chin dropping.

  She’d started working at the garage about six years ago. It had been right at the time when the Tin Gypsies were tapering off our illegal undertakings. Or at least, the really illegal ones.

  Presley had been hired to help in the office as Dad retired. She hadn’t minded overlooking some things happening at the clubhouse. The parties. The booze. The women.

  The brothers who thought they might intimidate her a little. Presley was pint-sized, but her personality was full of fire, and she’d had the guts to put each man in his place when they acted like an asshole.

  And her loyalty to Dad and me, to Emmett and Leo ran bone deep. She was the little sister I’d never had.

  Marcus’s visit to the garage last week hadn’t been the first. Presley had never once hinted she’d tell the cops anything, not that we’d given her much to report. She had our backs, covering for us when we’d done stupid shit at The Betsy now and then. Leo had her on speed dial for the nights when he was too drunk to drive.

  She was part of our family. We didn’t tell her details of what had happened years ago. It was best she didn’t know. All of those secrets had been buried in unmarked graves.

  Pres was smart. She knew what evil men we’d been.

  Maybe the evil men we still were.

  “What’s the plan, Dash?” Emmett asked.

  I shook my head. “I don’t want any more surprises. I underestimated the reporter. That stops now. She’s digging—deep—and we need to stop it.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Work. Is Leo in the garage?”

  He nodded. “He’s finishing the pinstripes on the Corvette. Isaiah is doing the routine jobs on the board.”

  “What about you?”

  “We got a new Harley rebuild to bid.”

  Normally, we did those together so we could bounce ideas off one another. “Can you do it alone?”

  He nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Good.” Following Bryce to the motel hadn’t ended the way I’d hoped. Guess it was time to try a different approach.

  * * *

  I walked into the Clifton Forge Tribune, taking a quick look around. I’d lived my entire life in this town yet hadn’t been in this building before. Up until now, I hadn’t had to bother with the press.

  “Hi there. Can I help you?” The guy at the front was a dead ringer for Santa Claus. In fact, I think this guy was Santa during the annual Christmas stroll on Central.

  “Just looking for Bryce.” I pointed to the door that I assumed led deeper into the building. “Is she through here? Never mind. I’ll find her.”

  The wheels of his chair rolled across the floor, but he was too slow to stop me. I pushed through the door. Bryce was sitting at a desk near the back, alone in the room.

  Her eyes lifted from her laptop, her gaze narrowing as I strode down the aisle. She leaned deep into her chair, crossing her arms over her chest. Then she quirked an eyebrow, all but daring me to unleash hell.

  “Sorry, Bryce.” The man from the front caught up to me, his heavy steps thudding on the floor.

  “It’s okay, Art.” She waved him off. “I’ll deal with our guest.”

  The moment he was gone, she recrossed her arms, the movement pushing her breasts higher.

  My eyes involuntarily dropped to her cleavage. The woman had a great rack. When I met her eyes again, that smirk was even stronger. Busted.

  “Mind if I sit?” I slid a chair away from the empty desk in front of hers, straddling it backward.

  “What can I do for you today, King?”

  King. I’d hated that fucking nickname ever since kindergarten, when little Vanessa Tom had called me King every time she snuck up on me at recess and pinched me. But there was no way I’d let my annoyance show in front of this woman. She already had the upper hand.

  She knew it too.

  Goddamn it, she was a piece of work. Bryce sat there, looking bored as she waited for me to answer her question. I chose silence, studying her face for a few long moments.r />
  Her full lips were irritating, mostly because I couldn’t stop wondering how they’d feel when I licked them. Her beautiful eyes drove me mad because they saw too much. I hated that her dark hair was my favorite length, not too long to get in the way and blow in my face when she was behind me on my bike.

  Everything about her pissed me off because of my body’s reaction.

  “Read your story.” I plucked a copy of today’s paper off the desk. “Looks like Cody was more forthcoming with you than he was with me.”

  “I never reveal my sources.”

  I tossed the paper aside and met her gaze. The silence settled and I counted to ten. Then twenty. Then thirty. Most people cracked by fifteen, but not her. Bryce kept that arrogant smirk on her face like she’d been born with it. Her eyes were bright and they held my stare without so much as a hint of fear.

  Damn this woman. I liked her. That was my real problem. I liked her. Which was going to make threatening her a hell of a lot harder. That, and she didn’t seem to be intimidated by me one bit.

  “You don’t scare easily, do you?”

  “Nope.”

  “What’s your game here?”

  “My game?” she repeated. “I’m not playing a game. I’m doing my job.”

  “But it’s more than that, isn’t it? You’re after more than just the details of this murder.”

  She lifted a shoulder. “Maybe.”

  “Why? What did we do to piss you off?”

  “This isn’t personal.”

  Yeah, right. No one worked this hard when it wasn’t personal. This entire thing went deeper than her need to do her job. She wasn’t reporting a murder investigation for the good of the populace. Everything about this was personal.

  Why? What was driving her to push so hard? From what I’d found out about her, she’d been successful on TV in Seattle. Had they fired her? Was she trying to prove herself to an old employer? Or her father?

  Or herself?

  “What do you really want?” I asked, going for broke. Sometimes the best way to get answers to your questions was to toss them out there.

  She quirked an eyebrow. “You expect me to just lay all my cards out?”

  “Worth asking.”

  Bryce leaned forward on her desk, her eyes finally showing that addictive spark. “I want to know why the Tin Gypsies shut down.”

  “That’s it?”

  Bryce nodded. “That’s it.”

  I’d been expecting something more. Maybe that she wanted to see all the former Gypsies rotting in prison. “Why?”

  “You were the leader of one of the most powerful motorcycle gangs in the region. I’m sure that meant money. And power. Yet you shut it down without any explanation. For what? A life as a grease monkey? No way. It’s too easy. It’s too clean. You’re hiding something.”

  “We’re not,” I lied. We were hiding so much that if she knew the truth, she’d never look at me the same way again. There’d be no more hints of attraction, no checking me out when she thought I wasn’t noticing. She’d look at me like the criminal I’d been.

  Like the criminals we’d all been.

  “Ah, yes. The standard deflection.” Bryce rolled her eyes. “Sorry. I’m not buying it.”

  “There’s no big story here.” Another lie that she wasn’t going to believe.

  “If that’s the truth, then why did you break apart?”

  “Off the record?” I asked.

  “No way.”

  “Of course not.” I chuckled. And of course, she wasn’t cutting me any breaks. I’d always liked the feisty ones. “Then I guess we’re at a stalemate.”

  “A stalemate?” She scoffed. “This is no stalemate. I’m twenty steps ahead of you and we both know it. Why exactly did you come in here today?”

  “My dad is innocent. If you give the cops some time, they’ll prove it too. You doing your best to prove to the world he’s guilty is only going to make you look like a fool.”

  “I’m not scared to look like a fool.” She’d called my bluff—like always—but I wasn’t buying it. Something flashed in those eyes that looked a lot like the first sign of weakness.

  “You sure about that? New reporter in a new town, going balls-out on a murder investigation like she’s some wannabe fucking gumshoe. She sticks her neck out there to try and slime a well-known citizen. A business owner who gives back to his community. When he comes out clean, you’ll be the one who looks dirty. You’re part owner here, right?”

  “Yes. Your point?” she asked through gritted teeth.

  “My point is . . . my family has lived in Clifton Forge for generations. We’re well-known. And well liked. In their day, so were the Gypsies.”

  “So you’re saying if I don’t take your side that people in town will hate me? I can live with that.”

  “Can you? Small-town newspaper, can’t be making a ton of money. It only takes one rumor that you’re printing false information for people to stop reading.”

  The color rose in her cheeks, the fire flaring in her eyes. “I don’t like being threatened.”

  “And I don’t like repeating myself. You had your warning. Stay out of this.”

  “No.” She looked me dead in the eye. “Not until I get the truth.”

  My temper spiked and I stood, shoving the chair from out of between my legs so I could lean over the desk with my arms planted wide on its surface. “You want the truth? Here’s the truth. I’ve seen and done things that would give you nightmares. The truth would make your stomach curl. You’d go running from this town and never look back. Be glad you don’t know the truth. Back the fuck off. Now.”

  “Screw you.” She shot out of her seat, leaning in to stand nose to nose so the only thing separating us was the desk. “I’m not backing down.”

  “You will.”

  “Never.”

  The sound of her teeth grinding drew my attention to her lips. The urge to kiss her was stronger than it had ever been with her, or with any other woman for that matter. With the desk between us, I probably wouldn’t get kneed in the nuts.

  I leaned in an inch and her breath hitched. When I tore my eyes away from her lips, her gaze was locked on my mouth. Her chest was heaving, her breasts rising and falling underneath her V-neck blouse. My threat to her livelihood hadn’t done a goddamn thing except turn us both on. Was she ever going to back down? Son of a bitch.

  I was one second away from saying to hell with it all and smashing my lips on hers when the door behind her flew open. Lane Ryan walked in, wiping his hands on a greasy rag. He took one look at me and his daughter and the smile fell from his face. “Everything okay?”

  “Great.” Bryce dropped into her chair, combing a lock of hair behind her ear with her fingers. “Dash and I were just discussing today’s paper.”

  I leaned back from the desk and took a deep breath, my cock swollen and painful in my jeans. I turned away from Bryce and her father, taking a moment to let it calm down as I righted the chair I’d shoved away.

  Then, I stepped up to Lane and held out my hand. “Good to see you, Lane.”

  “You too, Dash.” He shook my hand, giving me the side-eye, no doubt worried about his infuriating daughter.

  “I think we’re done here,” Bryce said, standing from her desk and swiping up her laptop. “If you’ll excuse me, I have somewhere to be.”

  We were not done with this conversation, not by a long shot, but until I got my dick under control, there wasn’t anything more to say. “Yeah. Same.”

  I nodded to Lane, shot Bryce a glare, then turned and marched out of the Tribune.

  Goddamn it. She wasn’t going to back down, no matter how often I threatened her. If anything, my visit had just spurred her on.

  Which meant I was going to have to get creative.

  Chapter Six

  Bryce

  “Smug bastard,” I muttered, shuffling papers on my desk as I looked for my notepad. “How dare he come in here and threaten me? How dare he—ahh! Wh
ere is it?”

  The notepad I’d been searching for was nowhere. Not in my car. Not at home in a basketful of unfolded laundry. Not on my desk, which was now a total mess.

  I kept different notepads for each of my stories, a place where I could make notes so I didn’t forget anything. Pink was for birth announcements. Black for obituaries. Red was for the Fourth of July rodeo and festivities. And the yellow one was for Amina Daylee’s murder.

  The last time I’d seen it had been yesterday morning. I remembered making a note against the steering wheel in my car that Amina’s middle name was Louise. Her daughter lived in Denver. I’d written it all down so I wouldn’t forget, then tucked the notepad into my purse with the others.

  Retracing my steps, I’d come right into the newspaper after that. I’d dumped everything from my purse onto my desk to organize it as I worked through my various stories in progress. I’d been in the middle of wrapping up a piece for Sunday’s paper. It was a no-brainer—the schedule for Clifton Forge’s Independence Day weekend celebrations. I’d had all of my notepads right here by my keyboard, the red one open as I’d typed, when—

  I shot out of my chair. “That asshole!”

  Dash had to have taken it. The thing couldn’t have just disappeared, and I’d looked everywhere. But how had he known it was the right one? Shit. He must have seen it at the motel when I’d been talking to Cody.

  Luckily, the notebook held nothing I couldn’t remember. The act of writing down my notes was usually enough to commit them to memory. And most of the information in those pages had already been printed.

  Still. I was mad. “Gah. I can’t believe he did this.”

  “Who did what?” Sue looked over her shoulder at my outburst.

  I huffed and sat down. “An asshole thief stole my notepad right out from under my nose.”

  All because I was so distracted. Distracted by the danger that surrounded him and the allure of discovering all his secrets.

  “Sorry, dear.”

  “It’s my own fault,” I muttered, giving her a nod to return to her work.

  It was definitely my fault.

  Dash had leaned in close and his smell . . . God, he smelled good. The spice of his cologne mixed with the summer breeze was a heady combination. Under the spell of that scent and his unwavering hazel glare, I’d feared for a split second that he’d kiss me. That I’d kiss him back.