by Rie Warren
“Oooh, denied.” My best friend nodded.
I glanced at Javier. “Gotta crowbar handy?” Because I was gonna beat Josh’s ass with it.
“Right here, jefe.”
“Traitor.” Josh stomped away after cuffing Javier on the back of the head.
I spent the remainder of the afternoon bent over my ride, misshapen and malformed as it was. I knew the Chief was destined to become a beauty. Just like Wildcat, if she just let her guard down. But hell, I knew all about keeping those walls in place and everyone else out. There was some shit even Josh didn’t know about me. Like the last time I’d helped restore a bike . . .
I blinked past the sweat distorting my vision, making my eyes wet. It was just sweat. Only sweat, nothing more, ever. Wiping an arm across my eyes, I turned my face up. I caught the shadow of a woman behind the windows next to the counter where Ray worked.
Cat.
My skin heated from my neck all the way down my chest and lower. I rolled to my feet. Working out the kinks in my muscles, I leaned back and stretched. My abs, my biceps, my chest contracted. Cat watched me the entire time.
Dropping my oil rag onto the saddle of my motorcycle, I crooked a finger at her.
She shook her head.
Digging my thumbs into the low waist of my coveralls where the sleeves tied around my waist, I jerked my chin at her.
“C’mon, darlin’. Just give me a shot,” I whispered.
Her movements pure feline, she entered the bay. Even the plain slacks and pressed shirt couldn’t hide the roll of her hips or the sway of her breasts. As always, her chin held a stubborn tilt. I knew what color her eyes were, but I didn’t know what her jet-black hair looked like loose, or how she’d claw my back when I made her come, or how soft her lips would feel against mine. I didn’t know if she was tattooed up and down her arms, or if that was just more garage gossip.
I laid one palm on the side of her neck. Her pulse kicked against my skin with its fast beat. “Your eyes are beautiful, Wildcat.”
“Nick.” Her growly low voice dropped to a delicious whisper.
“No. They’re more than beautiful. Why do you always hide behind the glasses?” My voice rumbled as I moved closer.
“Nicky,” she said on a sigh. “You’re one to talk. I can’t even think straight when you look at me. Your eyes are so unusual. Violet-colored, and your . . .”
“And my what?” Jesus, it felt like we were making love, right here, right now.
Her hand circled my biceps. Her thumb caressed the intricate black lines of the tat inked there. She dragged a short nail across the throbbing blue vein on the clenched muscle of my arm. “You got my attention.” Cat pulled her hand back. “I shouldn’t be saying these things to you. I’m not a poet.”
“Me either.”
“No, you’re a player.”
I laughed so loud it overrode the power tools singing inside the cinderblock den of Stone’s garage. “If you’re referring to what you heard in the office—”
“Pandora? Is that even her real name?”
“Lord, I hope not.” I leaned against the wall opposite Cat. “Let me take you out to dinner.”
She remained silent. I rubbed the back of my neck. Asking her out was a stupid move to pull when I knew I didn’t want to get trapped by this particular woman or anyone else. The last time I’d done the date thing had been—let me see—oh yeah. Never. Because someone always got hurt.
For some reason, Cat mesmerized me. It wasn’t just her looks. It wasn’t just her ’tude. There was something hidden inside of her—locked away—that called to me. Against my better judgment, which was bad at best, I needed to find out what made her tick, instead of the fact that I just plain ticked her off.
“I don’t do dates.” Her hand moved to flip her mirrored shades down over her eyes.
I couldn’t let her shield herself from me. “Neither do I, Cat.”
She halted from lowering the sunglasses. “I thought you were gay.” She played her ace in the hole.
Oh yeah, that little bit of false advertising is gonna come back to bite me in the ass over and over again.
“You bought that line of bullshit as well as anyone else did. Josh and me—a couple? We sank before we could even swim.”
Her glance fell to my boots—where my feet braced apart—my hands—open and unfolded at my sides—anywhere but at my face as she shook her head.
“What? Do you have a boyfriend?”
Looking skittish, she stepped back and her heel hit the wheel of my bike. She stumbled, but I caught her around the waist. The heat of her breath slipped across my throat.
“No boyfriend. No dates. No relationships. I can’t.”
“Hey, at least look at me while you give me the brush off.” I tilted her face toward me.
“Is your real name Nicky Love?”
I lifted her hand to my lips and kissed her knuckles. “Nicholas Loveland.”
“Catarina Steele.” Opening her palm, she slipped warm soft skin against rough, daylong stubble.
Now we’re getting somewhere.
“Hot as fire, Catarina. You’re a hellion inside, aren’t you?”
She tugged her hand free and shifted away from me. “I’m nothing like that.”
Leaning close, I caged her between my arms and the wall. “That’s right. You’re as cool as they come.” Her eyes flipped wide then slammed closed. “With everyone but me.”
“That’s because you’re an arrogant sonuvabitch!”
I grinned and backed up before she had a chance to knee me in the balls. But that didn’t mean I was letting her go. Obscured from the rest of the garage by a tall chest of tools, I yanked Cat to me. She could spit, hiss, bite and fight all she wanted. I could take it. The sounds of the busy garage hid our conversation, creating a heated cavern enclosing the both of us.
“Nah. I think it’s more than that . . . what are you scared of? How can you be scared of anything, Wildcat?”
Her breasts heaved inside her shirt. “I’m scared of clowns.” She sneered. “And spiders. But I’m for damn sure not scared of you, hon.”
Spinning on her heels, she walked out into the parking lot.
Fuck me.
Cat was frightened of something, that’s why she kept running. And she scared the ever-loving shit out of me in ways I’d never expected.
I watched her go with another big blaze in her hotrod out of the lot, me in her rearview.
Get used to it, Wildcat. I’m here to stay.
Chapter Three
Home Truths
BACK IN THE BOONIES, set within three acres of wilderness and facing the deepwater dock on the Wando River, I sat on the deck of my house surrounded by pine trees, peace . . . and the never-ending social media succubus.
Incoming messages were delivered to me in bleeps and blips via the laptop balanced on my knees. They also rattled at me from my take-no-prisoners personal assistant on speakerphone. Marjorie was a Boston breath of fresh air when I was otherwise drowning in the leagues of us artistically minded writers.
About as big as my thumb, the petite woman had raised her brood of five children and run her husband’s chain of dry cleaners like she was a platoon leader during wartimes. The mister had died of an untimely heart attack when Marjorie was fifty-two. Several years later, she’d rediscovered a love for romance novels and developed a passion for organizing flighty writers. After meeting her at a mid-Atlantic convention, I’d courted her like she was the last female on earth, recognizing her Yankee no-nonsense attitude for what it was.
Fucking priceless.
Marjorie took care of my book blasts, blog tours, cover reveals, editing schedule, ARCs, and daily calendar. That was just the public shit. In the background, she managed parts of my personal life from hundreds of miles away. For instance, any emails or phone calls from my parents were routed to her.
She also had a fair few words of wisdom to impart about one Pandora Box. None of us knew Pandora’s real name or
any real-world information about her. It was probably better that way.
I was in no mood to consider the Pandora predicament or Marjorie’s unveiled threats about how she could stow Miss Persistent in Davy Jones’ Locker at the bottom of the sea. Who knew? Marjorie could have underworld contacts I didn’t know about. She definitely possessed a rare ability to get the impossible done against all odds and at the last minute. The likelihood of her being personally acquainted with hit men and mob bosses was not beyond the realm of possibility.
I was a fiction writer, after all.
Abruptly ending my Skype call with Marjorie while she squawked at me, I set the laptop aside and ignored the rest of the piling-up messages. Outside Mt. Pleasant city limits by a good ten miles, I’d gone from small-town metropolis to middle-of-nowhere in two turn-offs and one mile-long dirt road devoid of any other houses.
I relaxed in my chair as evening hovered around the darkening edges of the horizon. The sun was a huge fire-orange disc sloughing into the water so slowly it felt like I should hear the sizzle when it met water.
Viper clicked up beside me. I rubbed her right ear until one hind leg rat-tat-tatted the teak boards of the deck. I never had managed to teach her the fetch-me-a-beer routine, but the girl was still young and capable of learning new tricks. Unlike me.
I took a deep drink of the beer I fished from my back porch cooler and shoved my bare feet onto the railing in front of me. Linking my hands behind my head, I blew out a breath, thinking about a kiss that could’ve been.
It was the third week of September. The crickets had died down, making way for the migration of yellow butterflies and swallowtails. The geese were back in town, honking up a racket, going off in time with my unending messages.
All this land was mine, in addition to the big-ass wood cabin filled with rustic furniture and handmade throw rugs. Because I needed two thousand square feet of space to myself. Right. This type of isolation wasn’t exactly what the doctor ordered for a writer who spent most of his time in front of a computer or in his head. But I was fixing to change that, starting with the Indian Chief bike and—maybe—Miss Wildcat Steele.
She appeared to be making a point about not showing up at Stone’s when I was around. Either that or she’d hit the nail on the head when she’d said I was an arrogant son of a bitch, since I sat here thinking I had something to do with her no-show. One week had passed, then two and three. During that time, I hadn’t gotten a single visual of her at the garage during my Wednesday and Thursday bike restoration days.
It didn’t matter one damn bit.
I always woke up worked up in the middle of the night with Cat’s name on my lips, my hard cock in my hand, and come soon smeared over my fist a few long, hard pulls later. Made for some decent erotic scenes for the Witches book at least.
I could handle the jokes Josh and his guys cracked about her and me—or rather the fact there was no her and me—but I couldn’t lie to myself when I was alone at home.
I couldn’t lie to myself about the big Loveland family secret either, where money mattered more than feelings . . . shame . . . pain.
No one outside the family knew, not in these parts. No one could. Not after so long.
I scanned the river in front of me. The sun disappeared, swallowed beyond the horizon just as the moon rose in its wake. Shattered reflections of the sunset curled on frothy waves headed ashore.
My phone went off one more time, and I answered it on automatic, thinking it would be Jackée with busybody business. I immediately wished I hadn’t.
I knew the voice that would soon numb me. For the past three years I’d let Marjorie handle this shit. When I’d hung up on her earlier, she’d probably been trying to warn me about this upcoming call.
“Nicholas, darling!” Mother’s diction was perfect. Nothing ever chipped her varnished surface.
“What do you want?” I didn’t want to waste any more breath on my fuck-off-and-run folks.
“So harsh, my love. Why must you always be this way?” she simpered.
“I can name a million reasons, but if you want me to narrow it down to three . . . because you deserted me, you disowned me, you dropped me off when I was fucked up, and then you hightailed it out of my life. Okay, that’s four reasons.”
“Fourteen years is a long time to hold a grudge.”
“You would know.”
Viper rumbled beside me, but this was one battle she couldn’t fight.
Mother’s pleasantries continued. “You father and I are coming to town at the beginning of November. To see Myra.”
Emitting a harsh laugh, I let my head drop back against my chair. “Is the guilt finally festerin’ away at you?”
“I wish you’d enunciate properly. You were sent to the finest schools, Nicholas.”
“I like the accent. It feels like home, a home Mimi and the Stones made for me. Somethin’ you wouldn’t know a single thing about.”
Her ragged breath came across the line. “Nicholas, darling, don’t be that way. We’d like to catch up with you.”
“You had plenty of chances to catch up with me when you ditched me after Daniel died.” My voice was cold, but the wounds were fresh cut. “I told you when I turned eighteen I didn’t want to see you again.”
I ended the call before Mother started with the you’re all we have left routine, because that shit was so damn tired. I hadn’t needed them back then, I certainly didn’t need sock puppet parents now that I was in my thirties.
After cooling down, I picked up the phone again and dialed the one person who had always been there for me.
Mimi was too proud to ask for a helping hand in these later years of her life, but she’d never had to ask me. And I’d make damn sure she never would. I was always there for my grandmother, no matter what.
She answered on the same black rotary phone with the crimped cord she’d been using since the 1960s. It delivered me right back in time, as did every trip to her little cottage-style house in one of the older Mt. Pleasant neighborhoods.
The day I’d arrived, I’d felt more like a scared kid than a teenager. I’d flown down south on my own, having been packed up and parceled off by my folks the week following the funeral so they could go on their healing trip to Europe from which they’d never returned.
Mimi had opened the screen door wearing the denim pedal pushers and chambray sleeveless shirt that were her summer uniform. Back then her braid had been more black than white. Love and laughs and losses deepened the ever-vibrant landscape of her face. Mimi’s eyes had been almost as sad as they’d been at the funeral. She’d wrapped me in a strong hug.
“Mimi’s here now, my boy. Don’t you worry none. We’ll get you cleaned up and settled in, and then I’ve got dinner all ready for you.” She’d pulled back and smiled. “Big strong handsome boy. I made you some homemade pie after you tuck into the fried chicken.”
Because feeding the stomach fed the heart according to Mimi, and it all boiled down to love.
She’d shown me to my room. It had been a quarter of the size of the one in the large, luxurious apartment in Boston, but homier, with a small bed covered in a patchwork quilt. While she patted my face, Mimi told me she’d bled her fingers over piecing the calico and tan squares together for me in the past few days, preparing for my arrival.
The single window didn’t overlook busy streets where bad things happened to kids who went off the rails when no one was paying close enough attention, but a field strewn with red poppies and wheat-colored grasses.
When she left me to unpack, I’d kicked my suitcase against the dresser and lain down on the quilt, running my fingers over the knots of yarn she’d tied in the corner of each square. Lying there, listening to my mimi bustle around the kitchen a short hallway away, a knot had unraveled in my gut. This would be my home, and she was my kin.
“I take it you heard then,” said my straight shooter grandma as I returned to the present from my woolgathering.
“Yeah.”
“You won’t see your folks.” She knew the score.
“Hell no.” With my jaw locked tight, I walked through my house to the den. Talking to Mother had sullied the air outside.
“Forgiveness is a strength, Nicky, not a weakness.”
“I can’t forgive them.” I fell into a deep armchair, eyeing the fireplace with wood stacked beside it, ready and waiting for the slow appearance of frosty winter nights.
Mimi’s gruff old-girl voice lowered to a whisper. “I was talkin’ about forgivin’ yourself, my boy.”
My throat constricted. I’d never forgive myself. “So I’ll pick you up tomorrow. Usual time. We’ve gotta run the Saturday Piggly Wiggly gauntlet.”
She gamely took my deflection in stride. “Ooh now, did you hear about that new gourmet food shop out on Coleman Boulevard. From them Virginians. Southern Seasons?”
“Actually, I think the brand comes from North Carolina.” I waited for her to take the bait.
“Don’t care one way or t’other. They’re all north of us, they got the gall to call that chain anything southern at’all.”
“I heard it cost the same as a monthly payment on a new Cadillac SUV for a wheel of their gourmet cheese.” I rolled my head against the back of the chair, relaxing into our normal banter. “Why, you got an itching to break into the social security savings?”
“You are purely wicked, my boy.” Her giggles were welcome. Until she started getting out of breath.
“We can do that. I’ll take you to lunch at their swanky overpriced restaurant after.” Anything so I didn’t dwell on how few years she had left.
“Nicky, you oughtta be courtin’ girls your own age, not cartin’ around this old bag of bones.”
“Darlin’, don’t you know you, Gigi, and Viper are the only girls in my life?”
She harrumphed. “You know I gotta see your parents when they come to town.”
“Mimi, don’t worry about me, it’s nothing to do with—”
“One day you’ll understand.”
I imagined her rubbing the liver spots over her gnarled hands, hands that had made peach cobbler and fried chicken dinners for me. Hands that had planted a summer garden every year I could remember and still did no matter how high the heat or how hard it was on her arthritic knees to kneel in the soil of her kitchen-side plot. Her hands had always been strong enough to put me back together.