So, yeah, Mac was a risk-taker by nature. And Mirrie? Was a risk he’d take blindfolded and with his hands tied behind his back as he jumped off a cliff backwards in to shark-infested waters. The woman was worth it. She was everything. She always had been.
“Earth to Mac. Come in, Mac.”
He blinked, startled. “Huh?”
He turned his head. Jax Hamill’s dark green eyes were gazing at him with a combination of amusement and exasperation.
“What’d you say, man?” Mac asked.
“Oh, nothing much,” Jax growled, looking all pissed off and intimidating-as-hell, as usual. “Just that I’m thinking about asking Sarah to marry me.”
That caught Mac’s attention. “For real?”
Jax sighed.
“Uh, yeah, for real,” Aidan Carter said from behind the bar. “He did buy the ring.”
“Yeah?” Mac exclaimed.
“Yeah.” Matt ‘King’ Kingston rolled his eyes. “He did just show it to us.”
“What?” Mac glanced down at Jax’s huge hand, saw the delicate box open in his palm. “Fuck off!”
“Yeah, so.” Jax looked nervous, which was highly unusual for him, but he was determined to get this conversation back on track. “What do you guys think?”
“I think it’s perfect,” Aidan said.
“Yeah?” Jax stared down at the diamond ring, doubtful. “It’s not too much?”
“Too much?” King said. “Like, too big?”
“Yeah.” Jax stared at the ring some more. “Sarah’s not big in to materialistic shit and doesn’t care about spending my money… I just wonder if maybe she’d want something smaller. Less flashy?”
All four men gazed down at the ring now, considering that.
“Well,” Aidan said, deliberately exaggerating his Texan drawl to sound warmer and more comforting. “I think she’ll love it.”
“You do?” Jax looked at his bartender hopefully. “She won’t think it’s… vulgar?”
The other men blinked.
“Vulgar?” King echoed. “Where the hell’d you pick up that word?”
“From the woman at the ring store,” Jax admitted. “She kinda freaked me out, actually, going on and on about finding the perfect ring for Sarah’s personality and values and wardrobe. I mean, she lives in fucking jeans and she’s smart and strong and adores her family and she loves me despite all my bullshit. I mean, what kind of ring do you buy a woman like that? What kind?”
“Right,” Aidan said, trying not to laugh at Jax’s near-panic. God, the man was seconds away from a full-on breakdown and it was so unlike him to lose his cool, it was almost shocking. It was also hilarious. “Well, I think you did real good.”
“You do?”
“I do.”
Jax turned to King, his silent plea evident.
“Me too, man,” King said, his rough voice gentle. “I see no reason to freak out about the ring… I think she’ll think it’s gorgeous.”
Jax shifted his attention to Mac now, not without misgivings. Mac was one of his closest friends, sure, but he was also dismissive of anything even remotely approaching a romantic commitment. Mercilessly, he teased and tormented Jax about Sarah, and King about Naomi, and Aidan about Gabi and as the last single man standing in the group, he seemed happy as hell to be that way. The thought of what Mac might have to say about an engagement and marriage made Jax tense up even before the other man opened his mouth.
Mac stared at Jax, amazed and envious at what he’d found with Sarah. Jax, Curves’ most notorious manwhore ever – except for Mac himself, maybe – was so in love with that woman, he was going to promise her forever. Mac was shocked to discover that all he wanted was the chance to offer that exact thing to Mirrie… but at the moment, he had no fucking clue how to even get her to talk to him.
“Congratulations, man,” Mac said gruffly, pushing aside his anger and loss. He stepped forward and gave a surprised Jax a quick one-armed hug and slapped him on his broad back. “The ring is perfect and you two are gonna be very happy together.”
He stood back again, looked at his friends. They were staring at him like he’d just sprouted a second head.
“What?” Mac asked. “What’s wrong with you guys?”
“Us?” King said. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Me?” Mac blinked. “Uh, nothing. Why?”
“Why?” Jax said. “Because you just missed a prime fucking opportunity to laugh your ass off at me being pussy whipped and stuck fucking the same woman for the rest of my life.”
Mac drank some beer, said nothing.
“Yeah,” Aidan said. “You never pass up the chance to ream the three of us for being idiot slaves to monogamy. So what gives?”
Mac shrugged. “Nothing.” He flashed them a half-hearted grin. “Decided to give you boys a night off from my bullshit.”
They stared at him some more, stunned.
“Who the fuck are you?” Aidan demanded. “We never get a night off from your bullshit.”
“Never,” King agreed.
“Ever,” Aidan added.
“Come on, guys.” Mac shook his head. “Back off, yeah? Gimme a break?”
“Why?” Jax got in on it now. “You dying or something?”
Mac stuck his hands in his jeans pockets, stayed silent.
“Mac?” Aidan’s voice changed now as he dropped the joking tone. “You OK?”
“Sure.”
The men stared at him harder, trying to read his body language. Mac was an irreverent, charming playboy most of the time about most everything, but right this second? He looked all tense and wound up. Clearly, something was on his mind.
“Mac?” Now King gave it a go. “What’s going on, man? Is it something at work? You catch a really hard case?”
Mac sighed.
“Come on,” Jax said. “Talk to us, yeah?”
Mac drank some more beer, thought about it. The idea to ask Aidan what he had on the Fallen Angels had been growing all day and was now in his head full-bloom. Mac didn’t know if Aidan would give up what he'd used against the MC to retrieve Gabi in one piece – but he knew he was going to try to find out. It may be his only chance to keep Mirrie safe and get her back.
But King and Jax were also worth including in the conversation, Mac thought. King was a guy in charge of a pretty hardcore, kick-ass group of pros and having a guy like that in his corner would never, ever hurt. And Jax? Well, the man wasn’t ex-military or even ex-law-enforcement the way that Aidan was, but he was smart and tough and loyal. He’d do anything to help a friend and if Mac asked, Jax would move heaven and earth to have his back.
“Can we go somewhere more private?” Mac asked now, his voice low.
Without a word, Jax jerked his head towards his office. They all headed out of the main bar, past the groups of women undressing them with their heavily made-up eyes, down the hall. Jax unlocked the door, waved the guys in. There they all stood, arms crossed, looking at Mac.
“OK,” Jax said in his husky voice. “Talk.”
Mac turned to Aidan and said, without preamble, “I need to know what you have on the Fallen Angels.”
Aidan blinked and then his face closed up. “Why?” he asked, cagey as hell.
“Because I have kind of a… problem with those fuckers and I need some leverage.”
“And you want to use mine?” Aidan said.
“If you’ll let me, yeah.”
Aidan stopped, really looked at Mac. He didn’t have the first clue what was going on with the guy, but it clearly wasn’t great. Mac’s usual bravado and joking arrogance were nowhere to be seen and the man standing in front of Aidan was worried, uncertain. Humbled, even. What the hell could make Shane MacIntyre look like that?
“Mac?” King asked now, his voice low. “What are you mixed up
in with those assholes?”
“It’s – complicated.”
“Then talk slow so we can keep up,” King said shortly. “But leave nothing out, you hear me?”
Mac hesitated. “I can’t tell you everything, guys.”
“How come?” King said.
“Because it involves someone else. I don’t want you to know about them and their part in it all.”
“Then no go,” Aidan said. He turned to the door and reached for the handle.
Mac started. “Wait! That’s it? You won’t tell me what you have?”
“Nope.” Aidan shook his shaggy blond head. “No fucking way.”
“Why?”
Aidan turned back to face him. “I don’t hand out my secret weapons of mass destruction without knowing what they’re being used for.”
Mac grinned a bit at that. “So it’s a nuclear option, huh?”
“You’re goddamn right.” Aidan paused, decided to act on his hunch. “Is she worth going nuclear over?”
Mac jumped about two feet in the air. “How’d you know…”
Aidan shrugged. “A wild guess. So I was right? This is about a woman?”
Mac sighed and sat down heavily on the sofa. “Yeah.”
His friends moved closer, intrigued. They’d known Mac for just over five years, off-and-on. He’d been a Curves regular for a while, then he’d kind of dropped off the planet for a year. He’d reappeared almost three years earlier and taken up with the women of Curves with a vengeance: frequenting the back rooms, taking the women home, going back to their places. Light and loose and casual: that was Mac’s choice of romantic interlude.
In all that time, he’d never – not once, not ever – even hinted at being even mildly interested in a specific female, let alone caring deeply about one. The man was a dedicated player, a happy and satisfied single guy, a serial womanizer. The fact that he was going to take on a notorious and dangerous MC for a woman was nothing less than a bombshell.
King launched in to the questions. “Who is she?”
“OK, guys, look.” Mac rubbed his eyes. “Anything I tell you stays here, yeah? Doesn’t leave this room?”
They nodded, then shook their heads.
“I mean it,” Mac said. “This is serious – she can get hurt badly. She already has been once.”
“Mac,” Aidan said quietly. “We ain’t going to get a woman hurt. We ain’t looking to get anybody hurt. Not after what happened to Gabriela when she got all mixed up with those fuckers.”
“Yeah, I know.” Mac sighed again. “OK. It’s Mirrie.”
“Who?” Jax and Aidan demanded even as King said, “Holy fuck! Really?”
Mac laughed for the first time in two days and it felt damn good. “Yeah, really. Mirrie.”
“Christ, man.” King whistled. “Now I really want to hear this story.”
“Who’s Mirrie?” Jax repeated.
“She’s Naomi’s friend,” Mac said.
King left it at that. In actual fact, of course, Mirrie was Naomi’s friend and AA sponsor but King took the ‘anonymous’ part of the group seriously. Aidan knew about Naomi’s alcoholism – Aidan was six years sober himself – but Jax and Mac didn’t and King wasn’t about to share his girlfriend’s private life. He just nodded and waited for Mac to carry on.
“She’s also Donovan Kane’s younger sister,” Mac said.
“What?” Aidan blurted. “What?”
Again, King kept his mouth shut. He’d figured this out about Mirrie a long time before, but he’d never let on. He figured that she’d cut off all ties to her Dad and brother for a good reason and if she wanted to go by ‘Miranda Campbell’, King wasn’t about to blow her cover. Why the hell should he? In his opinion, everyone deserved a second chance at a great life and from what he’d seen, Mirrie had grabbed her chance with both hands and made good on it.
“Yeah,” Mac said. “She’s Miranda Kane. And now I have a fucking long story to tell you.”
“Hit us with it, man,” Jax said. “We’re not going anywhere.”
Mac started to talk.
**
Twenty minutes later, Mac finally fell silent and looked at his friends. To a man, they were quiet and thoughtful. He leaned back against the sofa and waited.
“Holy fuck,” Jax said at last. “I had no idea you were so heartbroken when you disappeared for that year, man. I’m sorry.”
King and Aidan nodded fervently.
Mac blinked. Of all the things he’d expected from these three hard men, sympathy about lost love wasn’t one of them.
“It’s OK,” Mac said cautiously. “I mean, it was bad at the time but I have a chance with her again. I can make it right.”
“And we’re gonna help you do that,” Aidan said. “Starting with my leverage.”
Mac felt the tension melt out of his body. “Yeah?”
“Hell, yeah,” Aidan said, his golden eyes as warm and bright as a sunrise. “So, here it is, OK? Ace Cuddy, VP of the Fallen Angels? Is gay.”
Jax and Mac cursed simultaneously and King grinned at Aidan. He knew this, of course, since he’d been in the room when Aidan hit Ace with his knowledge of that information.
“Jesus Christ,” Mac said in a strangled voice. “Yeah, that’s fucking nuclear, man. How’d you figure it out?”
Aidan shrugged. “He had a serious and long-term relationship with a local business owner and they met here at Curves sometimes. Used the back rooms for their… encounters.”
“Really?” Mac racked his brains, trying to think who Ace might have been with at Curves. “Who was the boyfriend?”
“The guy owns a café down on Brock Street and Ace paid him off to keep his mouth shut. Anyway, the point is, it’s all true and it’s what I threatened Ace with when the Fallen Angels took Gabriela. After that, Ace couldn’t be helpful enough.”
“I can imagine.” Jax was still shocked. “If those boys knew that their VP was gay, they’d skin him alive and that’s just for starters.”
“For damn sure,” Aidan said with great satisfaction. “Me, I have no problem at all with the man’s sexual orientation, but it’s not exactly A-OK in a motorcycle club, you know?”
“Uh-huh,” Jax said, a bit dazed. “So… what do we do now?”
Mac turned to King. “You help me find Mirrie? Where she works, maybe?”
King hesitated. “And if I found out? What would you do?”
“Go see her. Talk to her.”
“Even after she told you to stay away from her?” King said, his eyes very dark in his rugged face. “Even after she said she doesn’t love you anymore?”
“She does,” Mac said quietly. “I know she does, but she’s scared and for damn good reason, man. You don’t know what they did to her when she defied them and tried to walk five years ago. If they found out that she and I were back in contact, maybe back together? They’d do their worst.” He hesitated, looked at Aidan almost timidly as he thought about Gabi. “And we know that their worst is pretty fucking bad.”
“And you think that if you told her about Ace, she’d be willing to try with you?” King said. “You think she’d come back? Take that risk?”
“Yes,” Mac said simply. “I saw her eyes, Matt. I saw how she felt. If I can promise her that she’ll be safe with me, she’ll come back to me. I’m sure of it.”
King narrowed his dark gray eyes. “You’re pretty confident in your charm and appeal, man.”
“What can I say?” Mac said, a bit of his bluff and bluster reappearing. “I’m a goddamned catch.”
King grinned at that. “Debatable.”
“What if you tell her about Ace and she still tells you to fuck off?” Aidan said suddenly. “What if she really doesn’t want to take the risk?”
Mac felt a stab of pain deep in his chest as he formulated h
is next words. “Then I’ll back off.”
“For real?” Jax asked. “You’d respect what Mirrie said?”
“Don’t get me wrong, man. I’d fucking hate it if she said no and I’d tie myself in knots to persuade her otherwise.” Mac paused, feeling a bit sick at the thought of losing her all over again. “But…if she stuck to her guns, then I’d leave and she’d never see me again.”
“So you agree that the final call is Mirrie’s?” King said.
“Yeah.” Mac pushed his hair back with rough hands. “It’s her decision.”
His friends gazed at him, believing him. Mac was a lot of things, but an asshole wasn’t one of them. If Mirrie really couldn’t or wouldn’t trust him to keep her safe, then Mac would let her go. It may well kill him, they knew now, but he’d do it.
“OK, then,” King said. “Give me a few days and I’ll find out where she works, then it’s up to you to convince her to give you a chance. And if she refuses even after you give it your best shot, you leave the woman in peace. Deal?”
“Yeah, absolutely.” Mac took a deep breath, nothing but grateful to be given this chance with her. “Deal.”
Chapter Four
Three days later, Mirrie dragged herself to work at The Web Café for the seven a.m. shift. She both felt and looked like hell and she knew it: she’d barely slept or eaten since running in to Shane at the art centre event. She thought about him constantly; she saw him everywhere; she longed for him in a way that kicked the breath right out of her. God, she missed him.
Memories washed over her now: Shane visiting her in the hospital on the pretext of ‘checking her over’, but really, just to see her. Shane sneaking her favorite white chocolate chip cookies past the nurses and doctors; Shane holding her up as she took her first shaky steps; Shane finally asking her to dinner after a gentle six-month dance of flirtation and unwavering belief in her. Shane kissing her, undressing her, carefully running those large hands over every inch of her fragile body. Shane lying next to her after making love, stroking her face, whispering that she was the strongest, bravest woman he’d ever known and that he loved her.
Gentle Curves (Dangerous Curves Book 4) Page 4