by Jessie Cooke
With a tired, frustrated sigh he said, “I guess we ought to get out there.” The guys had somehow gotten a copy of a course used annually by the National Rifle Association to find the best shooters in America. They’d built a course for Beck based on that with the space and the tools they had. Wolf had seen the plans for it and decided that when this was all over, he was going to make every one of the sonsabitches that set it up take the test themselves. He was rooting for Beck, despite all the headaches he knew this was bound to cause for him in the near future. He saw her running every morning. Jake said she was working her ass off in the gym four days a week and he hadn’t heard a whisper of her fucking around with any of the guys either. He did notice that Jace spent a lot of time around her; he’d even came back after only being gone for a week. Wolf could tell the big guy had it bad for Beck, but he assumed it was a one-sided thing.
He put his arm around his old lady, thanking God she was strong because he felt like he was about to fall over. Practically using Blair as a crutch, they walked together out to his bike. He started to climb on and she said, “Huh-uh, I’m driving.” Wolf laughed. Blair could ride...but Wolf...riding bitch? “I’m not kidding. You haven’t slept. I’m not riding on the back, and you’re not driving.”
“Then let’s take one of the vans.”
Blair put a hand on her hip. “Seriously? Here I thought my old man was one of the few left around here that didn’t have a chip on his shoulder about women doing ‘men’ things.”
He chuckled. “Baby, you hunt, you fish, you ride this bike as well as I do...I don’t have a problem with any of that. But I’m the president of this club. What will people think about me riding up bitch?”
Blair moved her arms, crossing them over her chest, and said, “And all this time I thought you didn’t care what people thought.”
“Fuck me. Alright. Let’s get this over with.”
Blair giggled, which didn’t make him feel any better. They both put on their helmets and gloves and Wolf slid on behind his woman. He couldn’t help it, he looked around to make sure no one was watching. Not that it mattered; they’d have to go through the manned gates and then ride up to find a crowd in the property in the foothills.
As they went through the gates, Cubbie waved at them. To his credit, he was smart enough to keep a straight face. The drive up the hill only took about half an hour and by the time they got there, the warm air and gentle vibrations had almost put Wolf to sleep. If he didn’t have a clear picture in his imagination of being splattered across the pavement on Freeway 41, he might have taken a little nap. Blair drove up behind the collection of Harleys, and Wolf was about to breathe a sigh of relief when he looked over and saw Maz and Sledge a few feet away. Sledge looked like he was biting his bottom lip, but Maz was grinning like an idiot. Wolf stepped off the bike and glared at the Frenchman as he took off his helmet.
“What are you smiling at?” Wolf growled at him.
“Heureux de vous voir, patron.”
Wolf squinted and looked at Sledge. “What the fuck did he say?”
“He says he’s happy to see you, Boss.”
Wolf flipped them both off and listened to Blair laugh as they walked toward the course. He saw Beck standing several feet away, bouncing up and down on her toes and looking focused. She was dressed in cargo pants and a long-sleeved shirt and ball cap. She had on running shoes and her goggles were sitting on top of the bill of her cap. She looked like a professional, and like she was ready to go. Wolf made eye contact with her and gave her a little nod. She winked at him and then looked at Bruf, who was running the show, and said:
“Can we do this?”
Bruf looked out toward the course and yelled, “Everybody out?” When he was sure there was no one in the path of where she’d be shooting he looked at Beck and said, “Ready?” Wolf noticed that Beck looked over at Jace first. Jace gave her a little smile and she actually smiled back. That might have been the first genuine-looking smile that Wolf had seen on her face since she arrived. Maybe there was more to their relationship than he thought. What an odd couple, though...
“I’m ready,” she said. Bruf looked at Ransom and said:
“As soon as she moves, start the timer.” Ransom nodded and Bruf raised his arm. Beck flexed her hands at her sides and Bruf yelled, “Go!”
Beck ran through an open gate, picked up off a table a pistol that Wolf knew was ready to fire. She fired at a Texas star hanging from a tree about twenty yards out. She hit it with one shot, dropped the pistol into a bucket next to the table, and ran to the next station. There, she picked up a rifle, sighted it, and began shooting at paper targets, three of them, hitting two dead-center in the chest and the third just slightly to the right. Wolf couldn’t see her face, but he’d be willing to bet she wasn’t happy about that. She dropped the rifle into a bucket and ran back to the pistol table. Pulling the pistol back out of the bucket, she shot the second Texas star on a tree about five yards out past the first one. After securing the rifle again, she ran over to the clay target station, picked up the shotgun there, and yelled, “Pull!” The clay target was released and she shot it out of the sky, and then a second and a third before dropping the rifle, barrel down, into the bucket.
Her next station was a bullseye pistol stage. She had two targets, and five minutes to fire ten shots, with an additional five minutes to hit the same spot on the targets a second time. The targets were at twenty-five yards and Beck was only allowed to use one hand. Wolf watched as she held out the pistol and began to shoot, thinking about the strength she had to have in her arm and hand alone to be able to do that. He looked toward the targets and from what he could see, nearly every shot was hitting center mass. When her ten shots were finished, she reloaded and had about a two-minute break before Bruf called for her to fire again. Wolf watched again, practically in awe. He wouldn’t know for sure if she was hitting the same spots until afterwards, but it sure as hell looked like she was hitting close, from where he was standing.
For the next hour, they all watched, amazed and impressed as she went through station after station, completing all twelve stations within the allotted time, and with time to spare. She was covered in sweat, and breathing hard when she finished, but she still had that cocky fuck you all I’m better than you look in her light blue eyes. Wolf couldn’t help but smile as Bruf began to go from station to station...reporting that she passed at each one. By the time he reached station twelve, some of the cocky looks on the assholes that wanted her to fail were beginning to fade...and Wolf thought it served the bastards right. He thought about Coyote. If the old man were there today, he would have been proud...Wolf knew he didn’t have any right, but he was proud of her as well.
Beck sat in her room at the club knowing there was no fucking way she was going downstairs looking the way she did. She was brimming with adrenaline when she got finished with the shoot and she wanted nothing more than for Jace to take her up to her room and fuck her brains out. But...he was such a damned girl. He insisted that she wasn’t getting any unless she agreed to go out to dinner with him. Dinner...like a “real” date. She rolled her eyes. He told her to dress up because he was taking her somewhere nice. She thought that was her out. She didn’t have any “dress-up” clothes with her. He had just smiled and when she got to her room she saw what he’d been smiling about. Fucker. He’d bought her a dress...and shoes, and panties and a bra...what the fuck? Dude had to have help. No way did he walk into a store and buy that shit alone. It fitted her perfectly, all of it, and that wasn’t the worst of it. She’d found one of those department store cases of makeup in her bathroom and hair...stuff...products and shit that she didn’t even know how to use. What the actual fuck?
She looked down at herself again and then looked across the room at her reflection in the mirror on the dresser. She looked like a “real” girl. She hadn’t looked like that since her high school prom and she’d only gone to that to make her mother happy. She picked up her phone, about to call
Jace and call the whole thing off, when he tapped on her door and then opened it and stuck his head inside. The look on his face when he saw her might just have been the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. His eyes almost glowed and she could see the lust there...but something else too, something softer. She felt her heart getting bigger, and mushy, so she said:
“I’m not going out like this. It’s ridiculous. We’re not teenagers. Let’s just fuck.” He smiled and stepped into the room. He was wearing jeans, but they were brand new and he had on a long-sleeved black shirt with silver snaps up the front. His boots were black cowboy boots and his face was freshly shaved. His hair was usually slicked back, like he just wanted it out of the way, but now it looked like he had actually styled it and it made him look a lot less scary than usual. “You look...good,” she said.
He chuckled. “Thanks. You look...like a goddess.”
She rolled her eyes. “I look ridiculous, like a kid, dressed up and trying to look like a Disney Princess.”
Jace went over and held out his hands to her. She took them and he pulled her to her feet. He kissed her lips, softly, and said, “Hottest princess I’ve ever seen.”
“Fuck me, Jace.”
He laughed again. “Nope. But, I will sneak you down the back stairs and make sure no one is around so you don’t have to be seen like this around the club. I know that’s what you’re worried about. You don’t want these guys to see you looking like a girl. But just as a side note...you could walk around here in a gunnysack and they’d all still know. You’re too hot to hide it, baby.” She snorted at him and said:
“Go make sure there’s no one around. If one person sees me...” He laughed again.
“They won’t. I’ll be right back.” Beck watched him go back out into the hall and when he wasn’t looking, she smiled. No one had ever gone through the kind of trouble for her that he was willing to. At this point, most men were telling her she was psycho and looking for an exit. This one...God help her...might just be a keeper.
21
Forty minutes later, Beck and Jace sat in a booth in the back corner of a restaurant that looked like dinner was going to cost Jace his entire week’s pay. Of course she had no idea what a week’s pay looked like to him...they’d never talked about it. But she was sure that dinner at this restaurant was going to put a heavy dent in whatever it was. Jace had gotten her out of the club unnoticed...for the most part. But he failed to tell her that Cubbie, one of the prospects, was driving them to the restaurant. He told her that it was because they were both dressed too nicely to ride the bike, but she wondered why he hadn’t just driven them in the van himself. She was mulling that over when she first saw the restaurant. She held her tongue, however, until they were seated at their table and then she said, “This place is...” She was going to say “ridiculous,” but the light in his eyes warmed her blood again and mentally kicking herself she said, “Nice.”
That made his eyes look even happier, so she was glad she’d forced herself to be nice. She almost chuckled. Her mother would be proud, not to mention surprised. Their biggest arguments all of Beck’s life had been about how “crass” she was. That was the word her mother used. Beck preferred to think of it as “realistic,” but whatever. She picked up the menu just as the waiter appeared at their table and said, “Wine list?”
Jace looked questioningly at her and she frowned. “You have beer?”
“Of course,” the waiter said.
“I just want a Bud Light.”
Jace looked like he was suppressing a smile. “I’ll have the same.” The waiter bowed slightly and left. Beck returned her attention to the menu. After perusing it for several minutes she said, “There aren’t any prices on here.”
Jace smiled. “I’m buying, so don’t worry about it.”
“Why aren’t there any prices?”
“It’s the same price for whatever you order, so just get what you like.”
She twisted her mouth to the side. “Steak?”
“Sure.”
“What are you getting?”
“The lobster platter looks good.”
“I don’t do fish.”
“No? No kind of fish?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“It smells.”
“That’s all you got?”
“Yeah, I don’t like things that smell. I’ll have the prime rib.”
He nodded and again, looked like he was trying to suppress a smile. He lifted his hand and motioned the waiter over, gave him their order, and once the waiter was gone he said, “So...you were amazing today. I was so impressed.”
She felt a bubble of excitement again. She had done better than even she thought she could. “I was pretty damned good, wasn’t I?”
He smiled. “Yeah, you were. Where did you learn to shoot like that?”
“In the Navy...I guess. It was always just kind of natural from the first time I picked up a gun.”
“You have a lot of natural talents.”
“I’m hearing that you do too,” she said. The waiter brought their beer and she took a drink of his while he looked like he was trying to decide what to say next.
“Where did you hear that?”
“Around the club. I’ve heard them say you do pretty much everything like a pro. Where did you learn to shoot?”
“On the streets.”
She raised an eyebrow. Jace was not an easy person to figure out or put into any kind of box. But she’d never thought of him being “on the streets.” He didn’t talk a lot, but when he did it was articulate. She had him pictured as a well-educated loner when he was younger. “Elaborate,” she said.
He shrugged. “I’m not good at talking about myself, or my past.”
“Try.” She saw his face soften again. She liked the way it did that when he looked at her. It was an entirely different face than the rest of the world saw.
“My dad was a colonel in the army. My mom took off right after I was born. For the first ten years of my life, I practically raised myself. He was always gone and the babysitters he left me with couldn’t control me. I was big and aggressive...pissed at the world most of the time. I was a horrible kid.”
“And then?”
He chuckled. “Well, I didn’t get any better. But my old man got remarried and they had a kid, my sister...Rosie.” Beck could see that light again in his eyes, only this time it was when he talked about his little sister. Unfortunately getting him to say a full sentence was like pulling teeth sometimes.
“And...?”
“My stepmother was afraid of me and she talked my old man into sending me to military school. It was a boarding school. I hated it there, but the old man would do anything to make her happy, and he didn’t really know me or like me much anyway. I only got to come home for holidays and a couple weeks during the summer, but when I was home, I spent a lot of time with Rosie...of course under the scrutiny of my stepmother. I liked her and she got pretty attached to me. Then when she was five, my old man and her mother split up. She moved to Connecticut and took Rosie with her.”
“Where were you living?”
“Boston.”
“And where was your school?”
“It was in New York, but when she left, the old man got depressed and angry and he had even less interest in me than before. So, when I refused to go back to school that year, he didn’t fight it. I was supposed to be going to public school but most of the time I didn’t go.”
“Hung out with a bad crowd?”
He chuckled. “Not really. I was kind of a loner, still am, I guess. I did meet this old homeless vet. He’s the one that taught me street survival 101, basically. Rosie came and spent the weekends with my dad and that was the highlight of my week. As she got older, and she still wasn’t talking, my dad paid less and less attention to her. I don’t think he had any idea what to do with her, how to relate to her. He was a smart guy. He was an officer in the military and commanded troops and shit...but he couldn�
��t educate himself about his autistic child. He didn’t even notice how amazing she was...is. She’s a freaking genius. She could use a computer without anyone ever showing her how by the time she was seven. She could write, spell, count...all of it on a computer. She started communicating with me by writing what she wanted on the computer.”
“She never learned how to talk?”
“She talks now...when she wants to. I figured out that she just didn’t talk, because she didn’t want to all that time. I did a lot of reading about it. People with Asperger’s sometimes just don’t talk to avoid having to interact with other people. When she talks, she doesn’t really have any emotion in her words, you know? I don’t know how to describe it, but her tone is always the same. She doesn’t really understand emotions...” Beck was smiling. “What?”
She shook her head. “Nothing. I was just thinking she was lucky to have you.”
“I hope so,” he said. “I screwed up, a lot, trying to figure it out. At sixteen I quit school and left my dad’s home. He told me if I left, I couldn’t come back and to not expect any help from him. I just told him to fuck off and I went to live on the streets in Connecticut, so I could be close to Rosie.” The waiter interrupted him with their food. Beck was annoyed. This was the most the man had spoken to her since she met him. When the poor waiter asked if there was anything else they wanted she shooed him away, and not politely.
“Is your steak cooked okay?” he asked.
“It’s fine. Go on.”
“Um...well, I was seventeen and Rosie was seven when her mom was in an accident. She didn’t die, but she was...brain damaged, I guess is how you say it. My old man didn’t really have a choice but to take Rosie. He let me move back in because he didn’t want to take care of her.”
“But it was good that he let you be there for her, right?”
“It would have been, I guess, but I wasn’t...completely normal and stable myself. When I was eighteen I got arrested for beating the shit out of a guy in a bar.”