Worth The Battle (Heaven Hill Series)

by Briscoe, Laramie

  “You good?” Liam asked, his eyes locking with those of the member he had all but forced into therapy.

  “I’m good,” Layne nodded.

  It looked like Liam wanted to argue, but at the same time he wanted to take his man at his word. “If you need anything, you let me know.”

  Embarrassment flooded through Layne. He hated to be singled out, but knew that it was a necessary evil in what he was going through. “Don’t worry, pres. I will.”

  Those words seemed to pacify the man wearing the president’s patch on his leather because he whistled loudly, bringing everyone to attention.

  “I know this is an odd place to ask everyone to meet, believe me, I’m aware of that, but we have a situation.”

  The members of Heaven Hill all looked at one another, eyebrows rising in suspicion.

  “Meredith got a call that Tyler thought we should take a look into. Her contact at the bank specifically called her and asked for our protection.”

  “What?” Jagger breathed from where he sat on his bike. “The same one that could have told us about Money Bags a few months ago? You know, the one that could have kept B from being held hostage and almost killed?”

  “One and the same.”

  There were murmurs all around, and Liam patiently let them talk amongst themselves as he and Tyler stood facing them. When the quiet mumbling died down, Liam put his hands on his hips and widened his stance. “I know y’all might be worried about this, so we’re gonna take a vote. This guy apparently seems to think that he has some info for us.”

  “What kind of info?” Layne piped up.

  “He seems to think he knows why Jessica’s here.”

  That sent rage through Layne’s body. No one was supposed to know she was in Bowling Green, much less why. “Are you fucking shitting me right now?”

  “No, I’m not fucking shitting you right now. That’s why I wanted to put this up for a vote. Do we go talk to him or do we let his ass rot?”

  “I say we go talk to him,” Steele said from where he sat on his bike. “I’ve found some pretty interesting programs on her computer, and I’ve done a little checking. Something is going on with that girl. I hate to say that, Layne, but I don’t think she’s being completely honest with you. I think we’d be stupid not to check it out.” Everybody nodded in agreement, even though hardly any of them had been privy to what he had found on Jessica’s computer.

  That didn’t sit well either. There was a possibility that she wasn’t being completely honest with him? She was the one person he’d always assumed was honest. His mind whirled in a circle, not sure where everything fit. All of a sudden, he wasn’t sure that he did want to check it out.

  “If you don’t want to go, you don’t have to,” Liam offered, reading his mind.

  “No, if we agree to go, we go as a group. I don’t stay behind because I might not like what this guy has to say. That’s not the way this works,” Layne argued. “But I do have a question.”

  Liam raised his eyebrows. “Yeah, what’s that?”

  “What’s he doin’ here?” He pointed at Rooster who leaned against the back of the building.

  A look passed between the lawman and the pres. “He’s riding along.”

  “Is he riding along as a lawman or an outlaw biker?” Layne knew he shouldn’t be asking that question, that Liam would probably tell him to shut the fuck up, but he couldn’t help it. He was feeling on edge, and he had to get that nervous energy out somehow, even if it meant picking a fight.

  “I’m just riding along.” Rooster shrugged.

  “Then can I plan on getting arrested in a few nights because of what you may see us do?” he goaded.

  “Look, man.” Rooster held up his hands. “The ‘why’ of me being here doesn’t concern you, and you’re obviously spoiling for a fight, but you’re going to be gettin’ it some other place this night. I have no desire to go toe to toe with you.”

  “You still didn’t answer my question.”

  “No, you’re not gonna be arrested in a few days. Alright? That good enough for you?”

  Layne could feel Liam’s eyes on him before he spoke. “Get your shit together, or you’re not coming with us. That’s all I’m sayin’ to you right now.”

  He nodded, knowing that if he opened his mouth, more shit would spew forth. He couldn’t seem to stop it right at this moment.

  “We done?” Liam asked, using the voice that he usually reserved for Drew.

  “Yeah.” Layne swallowed hard.

  “If there are no more fuckin’ questions, let’s go. Y’all follow me; we’re supposed to be picking him up. Rooster’s gonna go ahead of us and make sure there’s not an ambush waitin’.”

  Layne wasn’t sure how he felt about this. His instincts were at an all-time high, telling him that something about this wasn’t right. But now he questioned whether he could trust those same instincts that had brought him home from war.

  “You lookin’ to get that patch ripped off your back?” Jagger asked quietly as he came to stand beside Layne, putting his helmet on as they got ready to ride.

  “No, but I did want to know what the fuck a member of the sheriff’s office was doing here. You have to admit, it ain’t right.”

  “I’ll admit that I’m interested to see how this is all gonna play out, but I’m not tellin’ my pres it ain’t right. Get your head in the game, buddy. You need to call Doc Jones and make another appointment.”

  Jagger spoke the truth and Layne knew it. That was the first call he would be making after they made it home from wherever this ride was going to take them.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  It seemed silly to ask Jessica if she was okay, obviously she wasn’t, but Bianca couldn’t stop herself. “Wanna tell me what went on back there?” The tone she used was one that most people used with hurt animals or small children. Bianca was worried that it wouldn’t take much more to scare Jessica off for good.

  Jessica inhaled deeply, wondering what exactly she wanted to tell the other woman. Granted, they had become friends, better friends than she’d probably ever had in Hollywood, but it wasn’t easy for her to let others in. It came from years of keeping things to herself, of not ever letting anyone get too close. It was something she figured she would struggle with for the rest of her life—opening up to others and knowing exactly when they were really her friend. “I don’t know, it’s stupid,” she sighed, running her hand through her hair. It was a nervous gesture, one that many people had tried to make her get rid of.

  “No, it’s not. Anything that upsets you isn’t stupid. And trust me, the things that those guys do are sometimes stupid. Loving them is hard,” Bianca admitted.

  Those words surprised Jessica. All the women here made it look so easy, like they accepted everything without ever questioning anything. “You think so? You seem to take it in stride.”

  “I didn’t always,” she laughed, rolling the window down on the Mustang. Once it was down, she stuck her hand out and let the warm wind of the summer night caress it as she moved it to the beat of the song on the radio. “I had to learn that sometimes I don’t need to know everything, sometimes I have to trust my man. That’s hard. Not because of Jagger, because it’s easy for me to trust him, but giving someone else my love? Love can kill you. Love can destroy you. I trust him enough to give him that love, but that doesn’t mean that it’s easy. I worry about him all the time, and I even worry about myself.”

  “Because of what happened to you?”

  “You’re not putting this conversation back on me, girlfriend. This conversation is about you. We can talk about me another day.”

  A friend who was selfless, that was even more of an anomaly in Jessica’s circle. She blew out a breath. “Things just got weird.”

  “What the hell do you mean they got weird?”

  “Layne and I haven’t been together since he got back from Iraq,” she started. “Tonight, we kind of were.”

  “You kind of were?” Bian
ca giggled. “So you acted like two horny teenagers on the side of the road somewhere?”

  Shame burned high on Jessica’s cheeks. They had. Anyone could have seen the two of them, and then what would she have done? She had escaped here to get away from nude pictures, and here she had gone crazy on the side of the road. Her life was beginning to move in a direction where even she couldn’t make heads or tails of what her thought process was. “I guess you could say that.” She ran her tongue along her lips and cast her eyes downward.

  “There’s nothin’ wrong with that, you know.”

  “Yes there is.”

  Bianca sighed and checked her blind spot before pulling off the road. She put the car in park and turned in the driver’s seat to face Jessica. “Okay, let’s be honest with each other here. What’s really going on? Why are you having such a freak out about getting your freak on?”

  If it hadn’t been such a serious thing for Jessica, she would have snickered at the play on words from Bianca’s mouth. “Because, who does that? I ran here because I had nude pictures get exposed, and I was so embarrassed that happened, but I’m perfectly okay with shucking every part of clothing off the top half of my body and letting Layne have his way with me on the side of the road? What the fuck is wrong with me?”

  “Nothing,” Bianca told her softly. “Nothing is wrong with you. You want to know what I think?”

  Tears pooled in Jessica’s eyes. “Yes, because right now, I’m not even making sense to myself.”

  “I think that you’re okay with whatever Layne wants to do to you because he has such a hold over you. You want him to be in control, you want to be whatever he wants you to be. With him, you can lie back and just enjoy it, even if you aren’t sure about where his head is all the time. With other people, you always worry; you care about what they think of you. You’re comfortable with Layne because he was your first love. But at the same time, you worry that he’s going to hurt you emotionally. You’re scared to let yourself feel with him. That’s what I think.”

  Jessica inhaled and exhaled loudly. “He was, he is, but I just don’t know what to trust with him anymore. You say Jagger’s hard to love; he hasn’t had the mindfuck of Iraq.”

  “I didn’t say Jagger was hard to love. His personality is hard to love, and don’t judge. Jagger’s had a mindfuck of his own.”

  They sat in silence for a few moments.

  “But what I’m getting at,” Bianca continued, “Is you have to make a decision. Is living this life worth Layne?”

  Jessica didn’t quite understand what Bianca was saying. “I’m not sure I follow.”

  “I’m afraid you’ve been a little wishy-washy when it comes to Layne—you’ve been able to come in and out of his life at regular intervals since the two of you met one another. With this life, with these guys, with their enemies, you can’t do that. You can’t just be seen with him one day and then not be seen with him the next. That’s not how this works, and I personally don’t want to get attached to you and count on you as a good friend and have you leave. You either are in this lifestyle or you aren’t. That’s one thing I’ve learned in the short time I’ve been here. Please don’t lead him on.”

  That struck Jessica. Could she be in this lifestyle? Would she willingly give up a career that she had spent most of her life building? Wasn’t that what she was thinking about when she’d hopped on the plane to Nashville? Now those decisions seemed monumental. “Do I have to make those decisions now?”

  “Not right this second, no. But I do feel like you need to know what you’re getting yourself into. Things with these guys aren’t always black and white. People don’t come after just them; sometimes we get caught in the middle. You’re a big name, Jessica Shea. I think, before you go any further with Layne, you need to decide if you want to be Jessica Shea, movie star, or if you can be Jessica Shea, erotic romance writer.”

  “As an erotic romance writer my name is Felicity Heart, if you really want to know,” she said softly.

  “If you’ve already got a pseudonym picked out, then this is something you obviously want to do,” Bianca pointed out.

  This was why she hated getting close to people. When she did, they got inside her head and wondered why she did the things did. “I have commitments,” she tried to explain.

  “Look, I’m from bumfuck, Kentucky, just explain this to me. What is really going on here?” Bianca tried again, her tone soft and pleading.

  “I’ve always, in every facet of my life, done what everyone asked of me. There are contracts that say I have to do what people tell me, there are endorsement deals that say I have to absolutely hold up to a moral compass that not many people could,” she swallowed roughly against the hardness in her throat.

  “But that’s not you?” Bianca guessed.

  She turned her face, her green eyes wide and bright. “It’s so not. I am not any of the things that people want me to be. I’m a young woman who enjoys going out and having a good time, I’m the type of woman who would fly hours to see a soldier for a booty call. The type of woman who writes erotic romance for God’s sake. I don’t want to pretend anymore. It’s driving me insane.”

  “Then be who you want to be. Life is way too short to spend it pleasing other people.”

  “That’s easy for you to say,” Jessica smiled softly.

  “It is. A few months ago, I wasn’t sure if I would make it out of a school cafeteria in time to ever see Jagger again. I wasn’t sure if I would even be able to take another breath. It is easy for me to say, because I say go for it. Life isn’t guaranteed. I’m just saying that before you make that decision that you want to be with Layne—you need to take a close look at how these guys live their lives here. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “I appreciate it, I do, but I’ve got a lot of thinking to do.” She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and looked out of the window. Even though it was nighttime, the same moon that had allowed her to see Layne in the darkness allowed her to see the roadside landscape. As far as her eye could see, there were rolling hills, houses, and a little bit of farmland. This was so different from LA, but it calmed her somehow. The anxiety she felt in the city she didn’t feel here.

  Bianca started the car and checked her blind spot to ease back onto the road. She shifted gears and kicked the car up a few miles per hour faster, causing Jessica to hold on tightly to the door handle. “So you and Layne, huh? Gettin’ freaky on the side of the road. Didn’t think you had it in you, Hollywood.”

  A small smile played on Jessica’s face as she cut her eyes over to the other woman. Gradually, a laugh bubbled up from deep within her throat, and she continued until tears ran down her face. This time, however, those tears were good tears. Tears born of laughter and a memory that she would always keep with her. “That wasn’t Jessica. That was Felicity Heart,” she gasped, laughing harder.

  “We should totally get Felicity Heart up on stage at Wet Wanda’s. We could put a wig on you and turn the lights down real low in the club. It could be research.”

  The idea held weight, but Jessica wasn’t sure that she wanted to say that right now. There was a part of her personality—the one that caused her to write erotic romance in the first place—that enjoyed sexual attention like that. However, the bigger part of her personality held the fear of rejection and judgment. It was something she would have to think about. “It intrigues me, but I’ll let you know.”

  “I can see it inside of you, Jessica Shea. You want to let loose. No one knows you’re here. Why not?”

  “You are such a bad influence on me,” Jessica laughed as they turned onto the gravel driveway that led back to the clubhouse.

  “I need someone else to corrupt…the school system makes me be moral. I’m going to have to live vicariously through you for the rest of my life. That’s why I hope you stay,” she winked as they parked and each got out of the car.

  “I’m flattered, honestly.”

  Glancing over at the other woman, Bianca decided t
hat she was telling the truth and smiled a genuine smile. If anyone deserved a woman by his side, it was Layne, and there wasn’t anything that Bianca wouldn’t do to make that happen.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The side of town that Heaven Hill was heading to was one that was unfamiliar to Layne. Sure, he had driven his bike through the Olde Stone area, but it was a gated community. He had never been able to time it just right so that he could get inside. He watched as Rooster pulled up to the keypad and punched in a set of numbers. The gates opened easily, and he motioned for them to follow him inside. Rooster—there were something that struck him as odd about there being a lawman on this bust. He wondered just what side of the law Rooster had decided to play. Since the incident at the school with Bianca, Rooster had been hanging around more and more at the clubhouse, and he had a feeling that Liam was trying to figure out just what in the fuck Rooster wanted to do too. It seemed as if he was at a transition point in his life.

  The houses were huge as they drove down roads that were laid out in what would have been a maze if they hadn’t been following someone. He wasn’t sure if he could get out of here quickly if he had to. The cars that sat in the driveways were worth more than three of his bikes combined. They were obviously way out of their league here, and he had to question where this banker had gotten so much cash. Bankers were well off, but this was more money than he was sure he would personally see in a lifetime, even doing illegal shit.

  They rolled to a stop in front of a large home, and he made it a point not to look too closely at the house. He already felt inadequate enough as it was when it came to his life. He didn’t need another reminder.

  “Is he here?” Tyler asked as he got off the bike and took a look around.

  No car in the driveway, the garage was locked tight, no lights on in the house. It looked closed up for the night.