Crash

by Elana Johnson

  Lucas stepped right next to Maverick, pressing his shoulder into the club president’s. They both stared at Brit, almost daring him to try to take one more step into this building. Brit’s dark eyes sparked with fire, and he did not want to give in.

  Someone knocked on the door again, and the two police officers swung around. “Expecting someone?” Brit asked.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact,” Maverick said. “I ordered pizza. I thought you were the pizza guy the first time.”

  Brit retraced his steps and opened the door, and sure enough, a pizza delivery guy stood there. “Maverick Malone?”

  “That’s him.” Brit hooked his thumb over his shoulder toward Maverick and Lucas. He and Barry went outside, the night swallowing them whole only a moment later. Lucas could still feel their eyes on him though, as he held the pizza boxes while Mav signed for the food.

  Then the door closed, Mav locked it, and he walked calmly away. Lucas was shaken, though, and he didn’t feel much like eating or talking.

  “Come on, House,” Mav said. “Let’s eat upstairs and just chill for a few minutes. There will be plenty of time for club business later.” He knocked twice on the door where Vice and Electron were, and somehow that translated to, Pizza’s here. We’re going upstairs to eat.

  He led the way, and the three of them followed him upstairs to his huge loft, where he lived with his wife and step-daughter. Karly was pregnant again, this time with Mav’s baby, and he was ultra-protective of her and his step-daughter Navy.

  Lucas didn’t blame him. If he had a wife and kids, he’d do whatever it took to keep them safe. He’d never pictured himself as father material before, but watching Mav and now Vice with their women, and Lucas could admit he’d like someone soft to kiss hello at night and welcome each new day with.

  But as he took a couple of slices of Philly cheesesteak pizza, he wasn’t sure if that someone soft would be, or even should be, Julie Paige.

  Worry snaked through him on her behalf though, and he knew it wouldn’t be simple to walk away from her, especially if she was in trouble.

  Which meant Lucas was in trouble.

  Big trouble.

  Chapter Five

  Julie didn’t hear from Lucas before she went to her meeting the next morning. She still wanted to be on the same schedule as him, and his words, You called the cops? rang through her ears as she rode the elevator to the third floor.

  She wasn’t late, but she felt like the last one to approach the circular nurse’s station in the middle of the floor. The rooms sat around the station, each of the doors an almost identical distance away. Morning meds had already been distributed, and Julie had just returned from her first break to make the meeting.

  “Hey, girl.” Melinda gave her a smile and took another sip of her coffee. She looked utterly exhausted, as she’d been on the overnight shift but hadn’t gone home yet. She lived a half an hour away, outside the city limits of Forbidden Lake, and she wouldn’t have made it home before she had to return for this meeting.

  Robert glared at the two of them as if talking before a meeting wasn’t allowed. “Are we all here?”

  “Annie’s in oh-six,” someone said, and a rush of relief moved through Julie that she wasn’t the last one there.

  “I don’t see Cindi either,” Melinda said, glancing around. She’d worked the third floor longer than anyone, and while she was friends with everyone, she was Julie’s best friend.

  In the end, Annie came out from Mr. Draper’s room, and Cynthia came power-walking toward them, her face a little too pink. “Accident right out front,” she said, panting as she plunked her purse on the counter. “Sorry I’m late.”

  “It’s fine,” Robert said, though it didn’t sound fine. “We have a new nurse to welcome.” He turned to the man standing next to him. “Everyone say hello to Ned Holliday.” Robert smiled at Ned like he alone would save the third floor. Maybe the whole hospital.

  Julie barely managed to refrain from rolling her eyes. She smiled at Ned, because it wasn’t his fault Robert was a sexist, chauvinistic boss. Ned had a head full of thick hair, with a pair of bright blue eyes that would have their female patients swooning. If Julie didn’t have her bearded, tattooed…boyfriend? …she might be interested in that pair of eyes on Ned.

  She wasn’t sure what Lucas was. But she literally felt no spark when she shook Ned’s hand, despite his good looks. And with Lucas, there were entire fireworks shows happening when he simply texted her.

  Which she wished he would do. What had happened last night? Surely he was okay; he hadn’t done anything wrong.

  Her mind moved to Lawrence, and where he could possibly have gone, but Robert pulled her back to the meeting with, “Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve been transferred to the emergency department.”

  He wore a huge smile, and a cheer erupted from the nurses gathered at the station. The emergency department was the top of the tier for management positions, as there were so many moving pieces. It took a level head and clear leadership to keep things going smoothly there, and as much as Julie didn’t want to admit it, Robert was meticulously organized.

  She grinned and laughed and congratulated him as much as anyone, because his transfer also meant she wouldn’t have to work with him anymore.

  “Your new team lead will be Melinda,” he said, nodding to her, and another cry went up.

  “You didn’t say anything,” Julie said, grabbing her friend in a tight hug. She kept it short, as everyone wanted to congratulate her. Julie couldn’t help the slight sting right behind her lungs at being left out. But she wasn’t truly left out, and she knew it. At least intellectually.

  But she shared everything with Melinda, and she’d known her friend had started applying for managerial positions at the hospital.

  You’re just an oversharer, she told herself. And she was. Most of the time, if she had a thought it came out of her mouth. She was working on that, but she hadn’t mastered the skill of keeping a secret yet. She didn’t understand secrets. Why couldn’t everyone just be honest about things?

  “Our new shift schedule starts on Monday,” Melinda said, taking control of the meeting. “I’m going to take change-requests for the next ten minutes, and then I’ll be making a new rotation that will be in effect for the next three months, when we’ll revisit it. Of course, I’m not a tyrant, and if something comes up where you need a permanent shift change, just come talk to me.”

  Julie’s heart pulsed out a couple of extra beats. Next week, she should’ve started the swing shift, but that was the one Lucas was leaving.

  She turned to Melinda and waited for Jane and Lily to give their requests, and neither of them were for the overnight hours. Melinda took notes on her phone and nodded, her eyes coming to Julie’s. Pure professionalism lived there, and Julie’s heart swelled with love for her friend.

  “I want Shift C,” she said.

  Melinda’s eyebrows went up, but she said, “Okay,” made the note, and turned to the next person.

  Twenty minutes later, Melinda rearranged the shift board—and Julie got her requested shift—and said, “I’m excited to be here with you guys. I love the third floor.”

  The meeting broke up after that, and those that weren’t working grabbed their things to leave.

  Julie thought of her cell phone in her locker, just a few steps away in the break room. But she had patients she needed to check on, and reports to write, and notes to input into the computer.

  So she’d text Lucas the good news about their schedules aligning later.

  Two more days, she told herself as she plucked a chart from the holder outside the room and checked the notes.

  Julie sat in the cafeteria, the pie plate in front of her empty. It had been empty for about twenty minutes, and Lucas should be going on his break at any moment. Her heart beat a little too hard for a moment, and her stomach twisted. She shouldn’t have eaten so much turkey and mashed potatoes. Or the pie.

  But the hospital cafeteria se
rved a holiday-type meal once a month, and she loved it.

  Ten bucks for turkey, potatoes, yams, rolls, and pie. Oh, the pie. So much pie.

  “Hey.” The chair across from her scraped as Lucas pulled it out.

  In her turkey-infused mind, she hadn’t even seen him come in. “You okay?” he asked, leaning forward and peering at her. “You didn’t even see me coming.”

  “I was just thinking.” She smiled at him. “Did you get my text?”

  “I’m here, aren’t I?” He gave her a sly grin that said he knew such a thing made her knees weak and her heart boom in her chest.

  “That you are.” She reached across the table and touched his hand. Those fireworks shot through her, and surely he’d be a robot if he didn’t feel that.

  But his eyes said he sure did.

  “What happened last night? With the cops?”

  He heaved a big sigh and wiped his free hand down his face and beard. “They showed up at the clubhouse, and there’s this one guy that’s just…a jerk, you know? Anyway, Mav and I talked to them. I told them everything I know about your brother and what happened, and then they left when the pizza arrived.”

  “Wow. Pizza.” She’d eaten pizza with Lucas before, and it was fun.

  “It wasn’t a party,” he said with a grin. “But Mav’s good with people, so it worked out.”

  “And that’s it?”

  “Well, then we had church, and I was up almost all night.” He yawned as if she needed proof of his exhaustion.

  “And how was church?”

  “Complicated,” he said.

  She knew he wouldn’t tell her what they did or talked about at their motorcycle club meetings, as she wasn’t a member of the Sentinels.

  He leaned closer to her though, his expression turning more earnest. “I have a couple of things we need to talk about though.”

  “Oh?”

  “First, how many pieces of pie did you eat today?”

  Julie blinked at him and then swatted at his shoulder. “Only two, Mister.”

  “Great, then I can have three.” He grinned at her, this flirtatious version of Lucas almost more than Julie could handle. She dropped her eyes to his mouth, fantasies of kissing him blooming to life instantly. “What else?”

  He dropped his chin, his eyes focusing on something on the table. “You called me your boyfriend last night.”

  Her muscles seized. Her throat closed. “That was…that was just for Lawrence.”

  “Was it?” He lifted his eyes to hers. “Because I wouldn’t mind if it was for us too.” He lifted one powerful shoulder in a shrug. “I mean, now that we’re on the same schedule, I’d be able to take you out.”

  Warm honey flowed through her veins as a slow smile spread across her face. “Is that an invitation to dinner on Monday night?”

  “Sure,” he said with a chuckle.

  “Okay,” she said, shaking her hair over her shoulders. “But we can’t do anything Tuesday, because I’m planning to sleep forever that day.”

  Lucas tipped his head back and laughed, and Julie sure liked that she could elicit such a response from him. “Deal,” he said.

  “Is that it?” she asked, pushing back from the table. “Because I think my dinner has settled enough that I can eat a third piece of pie.”

  “One more thing,” Lucas said, and Julie paused. He took a few extra seconds, obviously trying to find the right words to say.

  Julie’s heart pounced in her chest, and she wondered what he could possibly have on his mind.

  “Your brother and I…” he started. “We have a history I don’t like. But I need to know if you’ve found him or not.”

  “No,” she said, her mind whirring. “A past?”

  “I’ll tell you about it over pie,” he said. “And if he’s really missing again, Julie, we—me and Maverick and the other club members—think it has something to do with a different motorcycle club. One of our rivals. A bad club.”

  “A bad club?” Julie was having hard time keeping up with everything he was saying.

  “An outlaw club,” he amended. “The Devil’s Breath.”

  Julie almost repeated him again but stopped himself just in time.

  Lucas took a breath. “He must have dealings with them, Jules. We need to know what they are.”

  “You think they have him?”

  “Yes,” Lucas said simply. “And if they do, and he’s valuable to them, he’ll be fine. If he stops being an asset….” He let the sentence hang there, and Julie didn’t like the cold fingers moving through her abdomen.

  “He left my phone at the library,” she said, her throat so dry.

  “He did?” Lucas’s eyebrows went up.

  She nodded and tried to swallow. “Remember I gave it to him to call my mom? It wasn’t on the steps and everyone was gone by the time she showed up. We traced it to the library.” She tapped it. “No problems. No scratches. Nothing.”

  “Nothing?” He picked it up. “Can I?”

  “Yes, let me unlock it.” Her pulse picked up speed again. “What are you—do you think he—?” She didn’t know how to finish, because she didn’t know what he was thinking.

  She tapped her PIN quickly and handed the phone to Lucas. “What are you looking for?”

  “A message,” he said. He tapped and swiped a couple of times and looked up at her. “He didn’t just leave this on accident.”

  Julie jumped up and rounded the table to sit right beside him. Her thigh pressed into his, and yes, that got her nerves rioting. But really, the half-panic, half-excitement streaming through her had to do with what they might find on her phone.

  Chapter Six

  Lucas had a hard time thinking with his beautiful girlfriend sitting next to him, but he had a very limited amount of time before he’d need to head back to the security desk. Minutes. And if he found something on this phone, he’d need to call Mav too.

  “Probably not email,” he muttered to himself. Lawrence would’ve had to type too much, and emails were too easily traced. He tapped on her apps, praying that she had a note-taking app, and that Lawrence had left her something. Even a one-word clue would be something. It would be more than he currently had—which was a whole lot of speculation. And Lucas was very tired of all the speculating, circular talking, and maybe’s.

  He just wanted to know what was going on, and what Lawrence was doing for the Devil’s Breath. And he hadn’t dared say anything to anyone, but if somehow the Breathers claimed Lawrence, they could extend that to Julie….

  And then it wouldn’t matter what labels they put on their relationship. If the Breathers claimed the Paiges, Lucas wouldn’t be able to see Julie, despite them now being on the same schedule.

  His chest felt like it was collapsing, his ribs getting closer and closer together. His lungs couldn’t expand properly as he continued to swipe and tap. “He didn’t leave you a note in your app,” he said, sighing. His shoulders slumped. “That would be the best place for him to leave a note.”

  He looked up at the ceiling as if it would have a clue for him.

  “I don’t use the regular app,” Julie said. “And Lawrence knows that, because I used to send him haikus from a different app.” She took the phone from Lucas, and it was his turn to look over her shoulder. “It’s this one.”

  She tapped and gasped, her phone falling to the table with a clatter. Lucas swiped it up and looked at the screen.

  Devil’s Breath. Williamsburg. They’re having me do legal

  Lucas read the words with dread filling his stomach, leaving no room for that pie he wanted. He didn’t have time now anyway. He read them aloud, and then looked at Julie. “He’s a lawyer, right?”

  She nodded, her eyes as large as tennis balls.

  “I need to make a call,” he said, pulling out his own phone. He snapped a picture of the note on Julie’s phone and stood up. “I’ll call you later, okay?”

  “Wait,” she said, jumping to her feet. “That’s it?”


  “This is….” He cut himself off before he could make the situation worse by saying something to scare her. “How much do you know about motorcycle clubs?” he asked. But he really didn’t have time for this discussion right now.

  “A little,” she said.

  “I have to start getting back,” Lucas said. “Walk with me?”

  Julie did, and Lucas said, “I’ll call you on my dinner break and fill you in on the basics,” he said. “But basically, your brother works for the outlaw, rival club, and that means everything I said earlier stands. If he’s valuable to them, he’s good.” He started tapping, and the line started ringing. “I have to tell Mav.”

  Julie nodded, and Lucas wished he had more time. But Mav answered with, “Did you talk to Julie?” and a twinge of guilt moved through Lucas. He didn’t want to use Julie, but she was the closest one to the situation—and they now had a clue.

  “He’s in with the Breath,” Lucas said. “I’m headed back to my post right now, but we found a note on Julie’s phone. I took a picture of it, and I’ll text it to you.”

  Maverick let out a long sigh, and that summed up how Lucas felt about the situation too. “And the two of you?”

  “What about that?” Lucas asked, still in a bit of shock that he’d told Julie he wouldn’t mind being her boyfriend.

  “They could claim her,” Mav said. “Don’t tell me you haven’t thought of that.”

  “I’ve thought of it,” Lucas admitted. “But they haven’t yet.”

  “Might not be wise to get too involved,” Mav said. “In case they do.”

  Lucas was already too involved, but he didn’t confess that. He wanted to toss back to Mav that he hadn’t given up Karly though the Hawks had claimed her. And he wasn’t the only one who’d paid for that mistake.

  “Noted,” Lucas said, because he wasn’t going to argue with his boss, mentor, and literal savior. “I have to go.”

  “Text me what you found,” Mav said. “I’ll get Electron and Vice in here tonight.” He sounded tired too, just like Lucas was. At least Mav could sleep as long as he wanted in the morning, as he had a manager to open the motorcycle shop.