Guts & Glory: Walker (In the Shadows Security Book 4)

by Jeanne St. James

  “I have a hard time believing Frankie doesn’t care about you talking about her pussy.”

  Hunter chuckled. “You gonna tell her?”

  Walker grinned. “Fuck no. I’ve seen the damage she can do with a baseball bat. Not only on Taz’s head but your Range Rover.”

  Hunter’s chuckle died. “Yeah. I almost cried over my Rover. Anyway, seriously, how’d it go?”

  “It went.”

  Hunter’s fingers flew over the keyboard. “She know about your leg?”

  Walker sat back in his chair and ran a hand down his cheek which was back to being smooth after shaving this morning. “No.”

  “She know now?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You showed her your ugly-assed stump?” he asked in surprise.

  “Ain’t as ugly as Mercy’s face.”

  “Or Steel’s and he doesn’t even have an excuse.”

  “Yeah. He was just born ugly.”

  Both of them swallowed their snorts when the door opened and Steel walked in.

  “What are you doing here?” Walker asked him.

  Steel stopped, took a good look around the room and said, “Last I checked, I work here.”

  “Don’t you have a job?”

  “To annoy the fuck out of you two.” His eyes landed on their mugs. “Jewelee make coffee?”

  “Frankie made mine.”

  “Ellie made mine,” Walker announced, then waited.

  Steel moved closer and perched his ass on the corner of the desk. “Yeah? She’s sweet.”

  “Don’t get any ideas,” Walker stated.

  Hunter chuckled and told Steel, “He showed her his stump.”

  Steel’s toothpick went from one side of his mouth to the other. “Damn. Were you looking for a sympathy fuck?”

  “Works every time,” Walker answered, feeling the tightening of his jaw, even though he knew Steel was just busting his balls.

  “Are you glad I pressured you into taking her home?”

  “No.”

  “Shame, then. Thought you guys would’ve fucked for old time’s sake.”

  “If we did, I wouldn’t tell you.”

  “I’ll tell you,” Hunter cut in. “They did. He walked in here with a ‘just laid’ swagger.”

  “Didn’t know Peg Leg could swagger.”

  Hunter raised his hand. “I witnessed it. Swear to fuck.”

  Walker dropped his head and shook it. After a second, he lifted it and shot a frown at Steel. “You here to work or just be a dick?”

  “Work, I guess. D doesn’t have a job for me. Meeting Slade at the gym later to spar. May even teach Diamond’s kick-boxing class this afternoon since the women in there are...” He whistled low. “The shit they wear. I keep them kicking and punching the whole time and I get to watch tits and ass bouncing everywhere. Enough to cause an earthquake.”

  “Good thing you have a micro-dick and they can’t see your boner, or they’d have you arrested for being such a fucking perv,” Hunter warned him. “And now I’m telling Frankie not to take that class if you’re filling in.”

  “You’re gonna deny me the pleasure of your woman’s luscious tits and ass causing a tsunami?”

  “Yeah, since they’re mine and I don’t share. So, remember that.”

  “Need to sign up Rissa so—”

  “Fuck,” Walker barked, his eyes sliding toward the door Steel left open. “You know better than to let those fucking thoughts come out of your mouth. Jesus, you wanna die?”

  Steel quickly looked toward the door. “He ain’t here.”

  “You don’t know that,” Hunter whispered, dropping his head and typing even faster.

  “He’s a fucking ghost,” Walker whispered, then raised his voice. “Now get the fuck out or sit the fuck down and help us dig.”

  “Will you tell us what Ellie did with your stump?” Steel asked with a grin.

  “How about if I shove it up your ass? You helping or not, Steel?”

  “Helping.”

  “Then sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up.”

  For the next few hours, the only words spoken were about what they were finding online. Even though he could see both Hunter and Steel bursting at the seams to find out what happened between him and Ellie.

  Walker hacked into McMotherfucker’s business bank accounts and found nothing out of the ordinary other than the man being in debt. Their joint personal bank accounts were financially anemic, too, only holding the minimum to keep them open.

  They didn’t have to hack into their credit card accounts since they were still held jointly, and Ellie texted him the info when he asked. However, all five were maxed out. Worse, none of them had a small limit. In fact, just in credit cards alone, McMaster had stuck Ellie with over two hundred thousand in debt. And since they were never divorced, she would be held liable.

  Any real estate McMaster had invested in had been sold. Some at a loss. The mini mansion they’d lived at—and Ellie sold—barely covered what was still owed in a mortgage. However, she did pull some equity, which was what she had the brokers hand over to the men who’d killed her husband.

  Her husband.

  Walker set his jaw. McMaster had had what Walker had last night. He’d had Ellie for years, over sixteen to be exact, while Walker only had her completely for less than one before he enlisted.

  He forced his wandering thoughts back to the business at hand, since his blood pressure was rising.

  With no large chunks of cash coming or going from his business or personal accounts, McMaster probably had more accounts Ellie didn’t know about. Possibly offshore. Or in some shell corporation’s name.

  The more they dug, the more Walker discovered what a shitty businessman McMaster was, a complete opposite from the two elder McMasters. The apple not only fell far from the tree, it rolled away and fell into a ditch.

  McMaster had been in the middle of filing for bankruptcy, too. Ellie hadn’t mentioned that, so maybe she didn’t know. Doing that, the asshole would destroy her credit, too. Not that her credit was great now, since still being legally tied to him had sunk her financially. She would be hard-pressed to get any kind of loan in the near future, even a small one. She had no collateral and was drowning in debt she might not even be aware of.

  And that was all before the 1.3 million dollars she owed whoever the mystery men were who killed McMaster.

  Unfortunately, they hadn’t dug up one piece of good news that would give Ellie some hope. Not one.

  Hunter tried to find out who held the account Ellie had wired money into. It came back to a AAA Acme Corporation, which made it a shell, obviously. They needed to find out who was behind that dummy company and why McMaster owed them so much.

  They had seven days left until the deadline. He and Hunter both agreed, they needed to fly to Denver, talk to the office manager and any employees who might give them some clues during the day and then break into McMaster’s office at night to search for anything that might help them.

  They needed to find out who was behind all of this. If they had that, they could form a plan from there.

  But nothing in the records they dug up today gave them anything solid to work with.

  And time was ticking...

  After Steel left to meet Slade at Shadow Valley Fitness, Hunter went to go pick Leo up from daycare since his woman, Frankie, had to work until five at Shadow Valley Body Works. Slade, Leo’s uncle, had gotten Frankie a job in the Dirty Angels MC run business after she moved from Manning Grove to Shadow Valley to be with Hunter.

  Walker had a headache from staring at computer screens for hours.

  He should head over to the gym, too. Or he could go home and get cardio another way...

  Like putting on his blade and going for a run.

  Or... taking Ellie to bed and working up a sweat.

  The third option was sounding the best, even though he needed to get a real workout in.

  Maybe he’d go home, do a warm-up with Ellie, go for
a run, then fuck her again afterward.

  His cock seemed to like that idea and so did he.

  Before Hunter left, they’d decided to spend another day in front of the computers, make some calls and then hop on a plane and shoot to Denver for a couple days.

  After that, he was tempted to head to Delaware, where McMotherfucker’s father now lived, to pay the man a little visit. Maybe encourage him to pay his son’s debts. Especially the one hanging over his daughter-in-law’s head.

  If he couldn’t be convinced, then Walker might have to take further action.

  Instead of turning left out of the warehouse lot to head to the gym, he turned right toward the DAMC compound. Normally when he rode his bike, he took the long way home to put in a few extra miles to enjoy the restored machine that sat between his legs.

  Today, the urge to ride directly home was strong. He didn’t fool himself with denying why that was.

  He’d been tempted to fuck her this morning before he’d left but she’d already slipped from the bed, made coffee and was sitting out on the back deck.

  He didn’t bug her. Instead he showered, got dressed and headed out with a mug of that coffee. He had only stuck his head out the door and told her he was leaving and wasn’t sure when he’d be back.

  He also told her to text him a list of groceries and anything else she needed so Jesse, his weekly housekeeper/sometimes cook, could pick those items up for her.

  Ellie had only nodded and gave him a small smile.

  And because of that, he wondered all fucking day if she regretted climbing into his bed. He didn’t want to keep her there if she only felt obligated. Especially when he’d made it one of his rules.

  You’re in my bed while you’re here.

  He didn’t ask. He told her.

  Just like the day he met her at the lake for a swim and told her he’d enlisted.

  She’d been shocked and hadn’t said much. Probably because she’d been in disbelief. And it wasn’t until he’d been gone for months, when he called home to tell her he was headed overseas, that she said it was over between them.

  Even now, if she didn’t want to be with him, he wasn’t going to force her. And Steel’s earlier words hit him. He didn’t want her fucking him out of pity, either.

  He pulled his Harley into the garage between his truck and his Charger Hellcat. On his way into the house, he paused and stared at his Ford.

  He shouldn’t have kept it in storage all those years. But he had a hard time getting rid of something that meant so much to him. After being discharged from the Army, he hadn’t had much. In fact, he came home with less than that, since he was missing the lower portion of his left leg.

  But he had his pride, his dignity, and his memories.

  One of his best being all those nights in the back of his old Ford with Ellie.

  So, after he met Ryder for the first time in a small town in Kentucky outside of Fort Campbell, the man convinced him to join D’s crew. At the time, he couldn’t understand why any “security” team would want a cripple to be a part of it. But as he learned to live without his leg, learned to walk again with the use of prostheses, eventually learned to be able to live with the way he was and stop feeling sorry for himself, he realized he needed a new venture. He went home to New York, took the truck out of storage, drove the rust bucket to Shadow Valley and never looked back.

  Eventually he had Crash, the DAMC member who ran Shadow Valley Body Works, restore it for him and it was the first thing he moved into his new house. He rarely drove it because, every time he had, he imagined Ellie snuggled up against him, his arm around her, her head on his shoulder as he drove to “their spot.”

  Then he’d remember what they did at their spot.

  Now, that old memory took him right back to his newest one, last night’s.

  He needed to rectify that fuck up and set things straight with her.

  As he opened the door from the garage into his laundry room, the smell hit him. He knew right then and there, it sure as hell wasn’t grilled cheese sandwiches with tomatoes and ham slices.

  No, the fuck it wasn’t.

  Whatever it was smelled goddamn delicious and made his stomach growl. Apparently, a day full of two protein bars, ten cups of coffee and three slices of cold pizza weren’t enough to satisfy him.

  But the smell of her food wasn’t the only thing that made his mouth water. He paused at the doorway of the laundry room, which led into the eating area off the kitchen and leaned his shoulder against the jamb to take it all in.

  Ellie was wearing black clingy leggings of some sort, similar to what a woman would wear to yoga, and another one of those camisoles, this time in teal. What she had on left not one thing to the imagination, it clung to every single one of her curves.

  She must not have heard him come in since she kept her back to him, and he saw she had a wire running behind her neck from ear to ear and her cell phone was tucked into the waistband of her leggings.

  He wasn’t sure whether to be amused or worried, since anyone could have breached his house and kidnapped or killed her before she was even aware someone was there.

  His attention was drawn back to her ass when she grabbed a set of hot pads, opened the oven and bent over to pull something out.

  At that sight, he was ready to pull something out and it wasn’t a casserole.

  He reached down and adjusted himself but stayed where he was. He liked watching. And waiting… Even though he was very ready to eat.

  But now it had nothing to do with food.

  She continued to fuss with something on the stove, but then she froze.

  Was he busted?

  No, she reached out, planted her hand on the counter, tipped her head back and shuddered.

  What the fuck?

  Her eyes were now squeezed shut, her bottom lip tucked between her teeth before her head fell forward, her hair covering her face. A second later it snapped back up and she went about doing what she’d been doing, like nothing had happened.

  He had no idea what that maneuver was about. And as she turned toward the fridge, he could even see a flush running from her chest up into her cheeks and a soft smile on her lips.

  One would have guessed she just had a spontaneous orgasm.

  But that couldn’t be right.

  After closing the fridge door, she turned and froze once again. Her whole body jolted when she spotted him, and she slapped a hand to her chest so hard that it had to hurt. “Oh! You scared me.”

  He pushed off the door jamb and sauntered over to her. Reaching up, he plucked one of the earbuds from her ear. “What’re you listening to?”

  “A... an audiobook.”

  His eyes dropped to her hard nipples. “Must be a good one.”

  The flush in her cheeks darkened. “It is.” She pulled the other earbud out and fiddled with her phone.

  His soft, sweet Ellie could still get embarrassed. “You need to stay more aware, El. I could’ve disabled you, raped you, and killed you because you weren’t paying attention.”

  Her pink cheeks quickly turned pale. “What?”

  “You couldn’t hear me. You were... distracted. Anyone could have walked in. You have people who want you dead, Ellie, take that seriously.

  “I am. And they don’t want me dead, they want their money.”

  He leaned in until they were almost nose to nose. “You got 1.3 million, sweetheart?”

  She only hesitated for a second. “No.”

  “Right.” He slid his eyes from her back to the stove area. “What are you making?”

  “Um... Dinner?”

  Walker raised a brow at her. “Since it’s about that time of day, I could’ve guessed that. I’m talking specifics.”

  “I’m making roasted chicken with lemon and garlic with a side of cheesy garlic mashed potatoes and green beans.”

  At first, all he heard was two dishes with garlic. He hoped he had mouthwash. But once the rest of the meal sunk into his brain, it all soun
ded great.

  He hadn’t had a good home-cooked meal like that in ages. “Will it keep?”

  “Do you need to...” Her eyes tipped down to his leg.

  “No. I want to go for a run.”

  Her eyebrows knitted together. “A run?”

  “Yeah, you know, like jogging but only faster.”

  Her pretty green eyes widened. “You can run?”

  “I can do a lot of things, El.”

  “I... I...” The breath hissed out of her and the color was back in her cheeks. “Shit. Sorry.”

  His soft, sweet Ellie.

  He ran a thumb over her heated cheek. “Baby, it’s okay. You learn to adapt, remember?” He ran it over her bottom lip next. “Dinner will keep?”

  “Yes. I can keep it warm. I wasn’t sure when you were getting back, anyway.”

  “Give me about forty-five, then we can eat. I assume Jesse dropped off everything you asked for?”

  “She did. She said she was on her way to Z’s house. I had no idea who she was talking about.”

  “He’s the president of the Dirty Angels MC, the club which owns this compound.”

  “A motorcycle club built this neighborhood?”

  “Yeah, well, we all built our own houses, but the land was obtained by them and then sold for cheap to anyone in the club who was ready to build.”

  “But... But you’re not a part of the club?”

  “No. I just work for their enforcer, Diesel. So, we’re separate but, in reality, not completely.”

  “We? As in all of the Shadows you work with?”

  “Yeah.”

  He stared down at her and she stared back at him. Her lips parted as he dropped his head down closer.

  He wanted to kiss her. Hell, he wanted to do more than that, but he needed to get one thing straight first....

  “El, made a rule last night I maybe shouldn’t have made.”

  “Which one?” she whispered.

  “The one where I said you were going to be in my bed.”

  “You don’t want me in your bed?”

  The corners of her lips had turned down while his twitched. “I do. But I don’t want you to feel obligated. I only want you there because you want to be there, so I’m going to let you break that rule if you want to.”

  “I don’t want to.” She lifted to her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his. “I don’t want to. I think you need to go run now so we can...”