Brother Blues_Stepbrother MC Biker Romance

by Terri Lane

  “I’m so excited,” she said. “I’ve never been to a dude ranch.”

  “You’re going to love Montana,” Trevor gushed as Spencer typed the address into the GPS and carefully guided the truck out of the parking lot and onto the highway. “And the owners are friends of ours. It’s going to be great two weeks, even if it’s a working vacation.”

  Trevor and Lara talked the entire way, with Spencer interjecting now and then like he always did. Lara enjoyed the easy way the three of them connected, and how each twin was distinctly different than the other. She could count on Spencer to provide quiet comfort when she needed to relax, and Trevor was always up for a laugh and a long talk into the night. Identical or not, they were completely different and Lara loved so much about both of them.

  When they finally pulled off the highway and she saw the huge farmhouse in the distance, she sat up a little taller.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said, almost whispering in awe of the vast land stretching out behind the farmhouse and the beautiful, two-story building with an inviting wraparound porch.

  There were enough chairs to lounge a small army, and Lara was glad that she had brought a few projects to work on. Even though she knew she would be busy moving cattle and taking care of whatever horse she was assigned for the vacation, she was looking forward to quiet time spent in one of those rocking chairs, sewing away and sharing good conversation with the friends that they made.

  A pair of blond haired children flew out of the house an instant after Spencer parked, their heavily pregnant mother hot on their trail, laughing and trying to catch them as they yelled in unison that they didn’t need a bath. Lara could see from where she sat that they most-definitely needed a bath as they were both covered from head to toe in mud and leaves, and giant toddler grins.

  Trevor helped Lara out of the passenger side. Spencer got out, walking up to the man who had appeared to welcome them and shaking his hand. Trevor held Lara’s hand as she walked around the truck, smile on her face, eager to greet the owner of the dude ranch.

  When they made it to the driver’s side of the truck, the smile slipped off Lara’s face and her stomach dropped. She stared at the man, her face blank.

  He smiled at her, holding his hand out, but she didn’t take it.

  “Hi Lara,” he said, still smiling despite her blank stare. “I’m happy you’re here.”

  “I thought you were dead,” she said, then closed her mouth, looking around to make sure the children weren’t in earshot. “I thought you were killed in the shootout.”

  She looked to Spencer for reassurance and was rewarded with a rare smile.

  “It was part of the plan,” he said. “When I gave up all the information I had to the Feds, I had to die in order to go into witness protection. New life, new name, and new home.”

  “You snitched?” she said, shocked.

  “I did. I didn’t get into the mob life because I wanted to, and I made a promise to my wife.”

  “How did-” she stopped and shook her head. “I saw them take you out in a body bag.”

  He laughed.

  “You should have felt the dye packs that the agent shot me with. He was the only one who knew, so I was still wearing a thin vest, just in case someone else shot me, but they still stung.”

  “What about the coroners?” Lara asked.

  “They were US Marshalls,” Spencer said.

  “Wow,” she said. “I can’t believe this. And your wife?”

  “She’s due in a month or so.” He stepped forward, taking her hand in his and smiling. “I’m so sorry that I almost blew you up in your car.”

  She laughed, shaking her head and amused.

  “I can’t even believe that I’m saying this, but don’t worry about it.”

  “Thank you,” he said. “Your forgiveness means more to me than you will ever know.”

  He led them inside, showing them to their room, one king-sized bed in the large room upstairs. Lara opened the window, staring out into the vast, open space, her smile a mile wide.

  “What?” Trevor asked, standing behind her and wrapping his arms around her.

  Spencer stood beside them, looking out the window, and reaching out for Lara’s hand.

  “Nothing,” she said dreamily. “Everything is just so perfect. I can’t believe how lucky I am.”

  “Trust us,” Spencer said, squeezing her hand and leaning in to steal a quick kiss. “We’re the ones who are lucky.”

  THE END

  = Bonus Book 16 of 20 =

  Untamed Wolf

  Keli

  “So, can you please tell me again what happened?” I sighed deeply, rubbing my eyebrows hard. I had one of those headaches that could only come from a long, stressful day of work. It sat right in the back of my brain and made it hard for me to strain my eyes.

  Being a police officer was never easy, but this was one of my more challenging days. The criminals I’d had to put up with were difficult ones who wanted to make my life as hard as possible, as if they got a kick out of torturing me. Then to make it worse, just before I was about to be set free, to get back to my tiny one bedroomed apartment to eat some greasy Chinese takeaway before crashing into bed, an idiotic group of teenagers decided to rob their science teacher’s home...or attempt to, making it feel like I was never going to get home.

  I couldn’t leave just yet, not until the questioning was done.

  “I had nothing to do with it, Officer Blake,” Gabbi Rymeria insisted again, sticking to the same line as before. "I wasn’t at Mr. Luca’s home to steal with the others. My teacher...he asked me to come to his home to pick up some extra work, and when I was there...well, he made his unhealthy interest in me clear.”

  With her long dark hair hanging over her porcelain skin, and mossy green eyes that sparkled when she spoke, plus a curvy teenage body to die for, I could see what some dirty old pervert teacher would see in a girl like this. But I wasn’t totally convinced that I bought the story as a whole. Something about the story didn’t totally add up.

  Is this all part of the plan? Or maybe she is having an affair with Mr. Luca... Anything was possible.

  “When you say unhealthy interest, do you mean he is attracted to you?” I asked tactfully, hoping to ease my way into that particular subject. In my experience, this was something that would never be easy to talk about.

  “Oh no, nothing like that.” Gabbi’s eyes widened, and she looked horrified at the suggestion. “No, he’s more interested in my heritage. He kept asking me about who my dad is and how my mom died. It was weird, he was getting a little aggressive when I didn’t want to talk about them with him.”

  ‘Family?’ I wrote in my scruffy handwriting. ‘Look into father, how did mother die?’

  “Why would he want to know that?” I asked, hoping that I’d be able to dig deeper into this weird mystery tonight, but all Gabbi did was shrug and continue to sulk. “Okay, so you didn’t know that the others from your school would turn up tonight, hoping to steal from him?”

  “No one likes him in school.” I could see that, Mr. Luca was like an annoying weasel, not that I liked to judge crime victims of course. “But I didn’t know that was going to happen.” She paused thoughtfully, tapping on her bright red lips. “It’s good that it did though, who knows what would have happened if they hadn’t come?”

  I huffed loudly and reread my endless notes. It did seem that Gabbi might really be telling the truth, after all she was the one who called the police. Just because all the jigsaw pieces didn’t totally fit together to make a whole picture, it didn’t mean it wasn’t the truth.

  “Okay, well I don’t think that there’s any more we can do tonight,” I gave in, my bed calling me too loudly. “No one actually managed to take anything, and from what you have told us it seems like you weren’t involved. Your father has been contacted and is on his way.” Weirdly, Gabbi’s facial expression didn’t twist up in fear at the mention of a parent in the way that most teenagers did. “
But be aware that we might be back in touch.”

  “Right, okay.” More sulking. Still, she looked beautiful doing it, so why not? Gabbi was almost unreal she was so pretty. I had a feeling that she would spend a lot of her life fighting off ‘unwanted attention’.

  In all honesty, I had been like that myself once. With my long red and golden hair, and warm brown eyes that everyone seemed to like, people flocked to me. When I was young and carefree, men liked to approach me all the time. No one ever stuck though, I never found any of them fascinating enough to sustain my attention, but that was probably because there was always someone else around the corner. I naively couldn’t see a world where that attention would die.

  Then I got accepted into the police force and everything changed. My long hair had to be knotted back out of the way, I couldn’t wear the makeup that I loved to flatter my best features with, and the bulky cumbersome clothing covered up my body. But it was more than that; I lost time, I got too busy, and I lost the desire to party and date. Unless it was someone incredibly special, I couldn’t see myself making time for a man these days. If I did, it would be under the assumption that he was ‘the one’.

  “Shall we go to the waiting room, your father might already be here?”

  I couldn’t help myself, I wanted to see Gabbi’s dad. I wanted to see him, to try and glean what might be so interesting about him to some oddball science teacher.

  Gabi stood up and shuffled her feet along, acting like everything bored her. That was such a teenage trait, I couldn’t understand why it appeared to be so uncool to like anything. We walked into the waiting room, and the only man sitting in there literally took my breath away for just a second. He looked so much like his daughter it was unreal; same dark hair, same mossy eyes, same gorgeousness that seemed to be out of this world. I couldn’t help but wonder if this girl got any features from her mother!

  “Mr. Ry—Rymeria,” I stammered, feeling awkward now for some inexplicable reason. “Thank you for coming.”

  ****

  Baz

  “Why am I here?” I growled at my daughter, ignoring the blabbering idiot of a police woman. “What the hell is going on?”

  “Dad, I didn’t do it,” The excuses rolled off her tongue right away, as if she’d been planning them for hours. “Whatever you think that I’ve done, it wasn’t like that at all.”

  I rolled my eyes, my hot temper boiled in my chest, my heart hammered with sheer rage, it was difficult to keep control of myself but I really needed to because I was in a public place. The last thing I wanted was for my secret to be revealed. I had managed to contain my real self this long, I didn’t want to blow it now because Gabbi was acting crazy again.

  “So, you’re telling me that you weren’t involved in a robbery? That the man who called me to come here to get you was lying?”

  “I haven’t been arrested have I?” I shook my head and closed my eyes in distress. Gabbi knew well how little faith I held in the authorities. I had always held the belief that they didn’t very often get it right, and I stuck to that now. “I’m telling you, Dad, I didn’t do it!”

  Gabbi had always been a little bit petulant, a little challenging due to her nature that was very similar to mine, but ever since her mom was killed in that awful car accident she’d pretty much gone off the rails. I felt terrible for her, I knew that she was suffering grief awfully, but what could I do when she wouldn’t even talk to me? It was her mom that she was always close to, that she’d open up with. Neither of us knew how to change a lifetime of old habits.

  If we hadn’t managed to fix it in the last three years, I wasn’t sure that we could ever do it. I just kept clinging onto the inane hope that once the teenage years had passed, everything would get a lot easier.

  “Mr. Rymeria, I think you need to take a chance to listen to what your daughter has to say, it’s a very troubling story...”

  I spun around to face the policewoman who seemed determined to buzz around me like an irritating fly. Her rounded face was admittedly sweet, and her brown eyes made me want to lean in closer, but I was angry goddamn it, and a nice face wouldn’t change that.

  “I don’t know what my daughter has been telling you, but I can assure you that it isn’t true.” I wouldn’t have someone I’d never met before acting like she knew my daughter better than me. Mostly because I was insecure that it might just be the truth.

  “Well, I think once you hear what Gabbi has to say...” For the love of God, it seemed that she wasn’t about to give up. Why hadn’t she gotten the hint yet?

  “What is your name?” I snapped, throwing my hands on my hips in anger. “Officer...?”

  “K—Keli Blake,” she stammered, her fear at my over the top reaction shining through. “I’m Officer Keli Blake, and I really think that you need to listen to Gabbi.”

  “I will not.” I moved closer to her, trembling as I tried to reel myself in. It wasn’t even this police officer that I was angry at, but she was pressing every single one of my buttons. It was almost as if she knew what would wind me up, and she was doing in on purpose.

  “Her science teacher, Mr. Luca has shown an unhealthy interest in her, and I think it might be something that you should take a look at. Your name was brought up when he spoke to her...”

  I grabbed Gabi’s hand, needing to get out before I truly lost it. I was only just holding it together now. “I don’t need your advice, thank you, so we will be going now.”

  “We might need to be in touch...” Keli called out from behind us, but I wouldn’t give her any more of my precious time. “There may be more questions.”

  As the fresh, cold air hit my face, my body cooled and I could feel the red fading from my cheeks. Finally I started to feel more like myself, and I could think a lot more clearly.

  “I’m sorry,” I muttered sadly to Gabbi, wishing so desperately that I could find a way to pave over the chasm between us. “I shouldn’t have gone off like that, it’s just hard to think of you in jail. I never know what you’re thinking these days.”

  “I really liked Officer Blake,” Gabbi pouted, folding her arms across her chest as she slid into the passenger’s seat of the car. “She’s the first person who truly listened to me about Mr. Luca. I can’t believe you upset her like that.”

  Mr. Luca...some creepy pervert teacher that possibly needed a stern speaking to. Unless Gabbi was lying and he actually was a nice guy who she tried to rob. It was so hard not to know anymore.

  “Right, well let’s try to not have things like this going on anymore. What about your future...?”

  “Oh, don’t start on at me about my future again, we both know what it’s going to be. I will have the same future as you, no matter what direction I go. If I’m good and I do all my work, I will end up like you, if I’m bad and I spend my whole life acting out, guess what, same thing?”

  I wondered how many other parents felt like I did, guilty for the genes that they’d passed on to their children, worried that they were going to turn out just like them without them even trying.

  The only problem for me was that it was far more than a fear, I knew what I’d done, what she would become, and there was nothing that could make it right.

  ****

  Keli

  Urgh, it’s been a long week, I thought wearily as the Sunday night shift ended. I hadn’t been expecting it, but the day with the teenage robbery was actually the easiest that I’d had to suffer. I cannot wait until this day is over with. With three days off coming up, the day was dragging painfully.

  “Officer Blake,” the receptionist crashed into the break room where I was sitting with my lukewarm cup of coffee, scanning my eyes over one of the endless pieces of paperwork that I needed to complete. “There’s someone here to see you...” My heart sunk, I hated it when people came in with my name in mind. It always resulted in a terribly difficult conversation. “And he won’t take no for an answer...”

  Baz Rymeria’s face peered from behind her, which only ma
de the terror that had been struck into my heart worse. The case on his daughter had long fizzled out, there wasn’t anything that we could do other than slap the kids’ wrists and give them warnings. Gabbi wasn’t even included in that, so why the hell was he here?

  “It’s okay.” There was no point in trying to fight it, from what I’d seen of this man the last time that he was here, he wouldn’t take no for an answer. “I’ll talk to him.” Luckily there was no one else in the break room. I hoped the informal setting would bring this unwelcome chat to a close before it had time to get serious. Plus, I had the perfect escape route with, ‘oh, well I have to get back to work now...’ “Please, Mr. Rymeria, take a seat.”

  His face wasn’t filled with the same red rage as the last time that I saw him, his eyes held sadness rather than anything else. I wasn’t sure how to feel about that, it likely meant bad news, and from the way that I felt, an argument might have been preferable, even if I did have to stay professional.

  “What...can I do for you?” I wasn’t sure what it was about this man, but I always felt incredibly wrong footed around him, like nothing I could say would be right.

  “It’s Gabbi...” His head fell into his hands, I could almost feel the distress emanating off of him. “She’s gone.”

  Oh no. Missing persons were always the worst cases to deal with, there was so much heartache, so many unanswered questions, so few clues, and the constant assumption that the police weren’t doing anything when actually they were throwing all that they had into it.

  “Okay,” I sighed as quietly as I could manage. “And you would like to report the case?” He didn’t have to come directly to me about that, but there was no point in saying that. Sometimes a familiar face was the only thing that could bring people comfort in turmoil.

  “No, no, it isn’t that.” His eyes met mine and I felt a jolt of something in my chest. Maybe it was the sheer desperation that he was displaying, as if this was the first time in his life that he’d ever been helpless. “I think I know where she is, I have a note from her...” He tugged it out of his pocket and slammed it on the table in front of me, nodding at me to read it.