Shelter From The Storm (The Bare Bones MC Book 6)

by Layla Wolfe

  He had twisted me around so we were face to face. His back was to the wall, and my legs dangled against his hard chest. Suddenly the airy summer dress I’d put on that morning seemed completely insubstantial. It felt like I wore a dress made of tissue paper—or worse, that I was naked. Suddenly we felt so intimate my pussy lips bloomed with arousal. My pubic bone rubbed against his collarbone, and my bare thighs below my hemline could actually feel the ridges of his six pack.

  When I strained to yank the arrow from the wood, I squirmed more than was necessary. He had the side of his face pressed to my belly, sending torches of heat arrowing into my womb. It was then I had to admit that I was, maybe literally, on fire for this man. We synced together. We had good chi. I hadn’t done it with anyone since leaving Corpus Christi, but I wanted to do it with him. Just blow off a little steam, really.

  By the time he let me down, I could tell my panties were damp. He let me down slowly, too, sort of corkscrewing me, letting me squiggle erotically. My mons veneris bumped down over his pectorals, over that six pack, banging lightly on his enormous pewter belt buckle. With my hands on his bare shoulders, by the time my toes touched the ground, it was like we were dancing. Just the two of us in an enormous silent ballroom. Except the ballroom was lit by fluorescent tubing. And there were posters on the wall for The Hunger Games and Brave. And a guy with a red afro was waddling through the shooting lanes holding a bunch of new paper targets.

  I’d never noticed how much shorter I was than Fox. I lingered there, looking up with adoration. He just exuded virility and stamina. This close, I could breathe in his natural musky scent. It was as though each breath I took filled me with a drug I needed—a drug I was quickly becoming addicted to. I knew I was gazing at him starry-eyed, and possibly even cross-eyed. I didn’t care.

  But suddenly he broke the trance. Businesslike, he picked up our other arrows from the floor and strode back to the bow racks. I was completely stunned and more than a little dejected. He could’ve kissed me. I even sort of owed him at least one kiss after he’d saved me the day before. But he just walked off, and suddenly a guy wearing a business suit was walking across the shooting pads.

  “Slushy!” cried Wolf Glaser, on his way in the front door with a tray of our smoothies. “I should’ve asked you if you wanted something.”

  “No worries,” said the lawyer, trying to get past Wolf with his briefcase.

  Slushy. The club’s lawyer. Fox and I looked at each other at the same time. Now I knew it wasn’t a juice bar down here. His law office was somewhere.

  Wolf was trying to say, “Hey, I’d like you to meet—”

  But Fox beat him to it. With his hand out, he got smack in the lawyer’s path. “Fox Isherwood. Dr. Driving Hawk has got me researching why the fuck Ochoas would be in the Leaves of Grass backyard snooping around. I’d appreciate any insight you’ve got.”

  Slushy didn’t say hello. With his free hand, he pointed at Wolf. “This guy’s for real?”

  Wolf never lost his shit-eating grin. “Oh, he’s for real, all right. A for real sicario, a friend of Slayer’s.”

  Slushy relaxed. “Oh. All right.” Only then did he shake Fox’s hand. “The Ochoas? I should say I know them. I used to cook the books for them, hence the name Slushy.”

  Fox had a look of recognition. “Ah. Back in the pirate days, the ship’s cook was named Slushy. He made slush or something.” How the hell did he know that? Did he study maritime law? It just didn’t look like the sort of thing an inked, muscular killer would know.

  Slushy pointed at him. “Exactly. And although they left me for dead in the middle of the Sonoran desert, it all worked out for the best. I traded up, not down. Ochoa owns the whole Four Corners area.”

  Fox said, “Near the meteor crater. Show Low.”

  “Right. That’s where Ruben Ochoa’s plantation is, plus a lot of other unsavory items.”

  “I heard human trafficking.”

  “Exactly. He’s got dungeons over there, pits built into the ground to hold beaners he’s selling into domestic slavery on this side of the border.”

  Fox said, “Some sick fuck. You guys don’t deal in that.”

  “Oh hell no!” barked Wolf vehemently, almost spilling his drinks. I took mine out of the tray. “We deal in legitimate, honorable stuff that’s on the up and up, like iron and work!”

  Slushy explained to me, “Guns and drugs.” To Fox he said, “I’m here to tell you I’ve gone straight. The Bare Bones is the best thing that ever happened to me. I can practice the law that I love, earn straight green, and watch The Big Lebowski on my widescreen. Can any of those Ochoas say they’re not constantly on the run looking over their shoulder?”

  Again, I exchanged glances with Fox. This time, we were uneasy. Both of us were running, looking over our shoulder. I didn’t know what Fox was running from, but I lived in such holy terror of someone from my old days recognizing me, I’d started seeing a counselor who prescribed anti-anxiety drugs for me.

  Slushy continued, “I’ve even got a Facebook profile with something like my real name on it. I can ‘like’ my daughter’s photos of her dog, and penguins giving noogies, and photos of Charlie Hunnam shirtless.”

  “Well,” said Wolf, “you don’t ‘like’ those ones.”

  “No,” agreed Slushy, “I don’t ‘like’ those ones. But you get my point. I live life above board, everything out in the open. There’s nothing to see here, just keep on moving.”

  I thought the lawyer was protesting too much. Good gracious, Ignatius, he worked for an outlaw MC, not a legit riding club. But maybe compared to the Ochoas, the Bare Bones were ten One Direction members rolled into one.

  “So what’s your opinion?” Fox asked. “Wolf and I have to go snoop around there without being seen. Why do you think they’re scoping out Lytton’s farm?”

  “I’ve got to say it’s that Gunhammer thing. They want to see what you’ve got that they don’t have. They’re dying for Gunhammer’s backing so they can seem legit, but I’m telling you, if Gunhammer even slightly investigates between the covers over there, he’s going to find some…”

  “Unsavory stuff,” repeated Wolf dully.

  Fox’s phone chimed then. He held up a forefinger to excuse himself, and he stepped back a ways to read a text. It was then I was able to identify his back piece. It was a verse from Ezekiel that said,

  The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyrannies of evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity…

  And that was all I was able to read.

  Slushy was saying, “I’ll tell you, Wolf. I’m trying to convince Lytton of the value in Gunhammer’s backing. He’ll have a legit and well-known tech tycoon vouching for him, not to mention his dough. The problem comes when pot’s still illegal in the eyes of the feds. That’s the sticky wicket that makes investors in pot startups a bit queasy.”

  “Wolf, we’re out of here,” said Fox, putting his phone back in its holder.

  In a hot second, Wolf was tossing his green shake into the garbage. “What’re we doing? A stakeout? A ride-along?”

  “No. Lytton had a dashboard cam on one of his shipments going down 17 near Camp Verde. There’s been an explosion.”

  “Oh boy! An explosion! Is it the Ochoas? They’re sabotaging our shipments of weed now?”

  Fox said, “I’ll tell you as we walk to our scoots. Pippa, sorry about the short lesson. Maybe Slushy here can continue it. He must be good at archery, having an office right back there.”

  I didn’t anticipate how upsetting it would be, seeing Fox walk off. I chalked it all up to rampaging hormones, but I was really sorry to see him go. It was like he took with him some cloud of oxytocin that my system needed. My body literally craved him.

  “Ah, can I get a rain check on that lesson?” Slushy asked me. “I’m late to my Mandarin class. Got to keep up with the tools of the trade! There’s a World Music show later at a club a few blocks up. I li
ke their single malt scotch…”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  FOX

  Something other than my cock had stirred when I lifted Pippa up to retrieve her arrow.

  True, I hadn’t been near any women other than hookers in over a year. Maybe it was just having a fresh, relatively innocent gal in my arms that stoked my sappy, emotional flames. She had an innocent powder scent, especially between her breasts. I could breathe that in, because I’d intentionally twisted her around so we faced each other.

  I could have turned her the other way and enjoyed the press of the rise of her butt against my chest, but I really wanted an excuse to brush my face against her cleavage and inhale.

  What a fucking pervert. I was supposed to kill her. Now I was wondering what perfume she wore.

  Only a flaming box truck could have wrenched thoughts of Pippa Lofting from my head. That did the fucking trick. I pulled my Panhead to the shoulder of the pump station access road, Wolf Glaser pulling up behind me. I even removed my shades in awe of the sight. Wolf, walking up to where I straddled my bike, had already removed his. Our jaws hung open.

  Wolf said, “This is sure enough a bizarre sight in the middle of this shit.”

  Frowning, I glanced sideways at him. “Apocalypse Now?”

  He was back to his usual grin. “Yeah. I always wanted to say that.”

  Wolf’s attempt at comedy sort of wrenched me from my reverie. Getting off my saddle, I got as close to the burning truck as I dared. The back doors had been flung open. Someone had thrown some kind of incendiary device into the interior to set the boxes of weed alight. Whenever the wind shifted, I’d get a whiff of Lytton’s prize-winning pot full in the face. I certainly didn’t fucking need that, so I whipped my bandanna into a mask tied at the back of my neck. I replaced my shades so I could get closer.

  One burnt driver lay on the passenger side of the road. He was already a crispy critter, and if I stood there any longer, the stench emanating from him would get in my clothes and hair. Out of an ounce of compassion I kicked him onto his face as a way of putting out the flames. The black crust covering his face and chest was probably tar to make the gasoline and gunpowder stick. I glanced inside the cab. Two other drivers had each been shot once through the forehead.

  They hadn’t been here to hijack the shipment. They’d been here to destroy it.

  The dashboard cam video that Lytton had sent me showed several masked men—they could’ve been Ochoas, who knew?—stopping the truck by the rest stop back a half a mile. Some of them rustled around inside the cab, but ultimately made our driver take this access road so as not to be seen. That was enough for Lytton to call me, and that was all I’d seen. Now I grabbed the dashboard cam to save it from destruction, walking back to stick it in my saddlebag.

  Wolf was still standing where he had been, next to my scoot. But his grin was even wider this time. He was deeply inhaling the smoke wafting from the truck.

  Grabbing his sleeve, I rattled him harshly. “Jizzmonger! We’ve got to get the fuck out of here before pigs get here. But we’ve got to take those two bodies with us.”

  He nodded, dazed. “Give them a proper burial.”

  “Well, not exactly. We’ve got to get them down the road to that pump station.” Good thing it was a Sunday and no employees would be working there.

  Wolf looked around. “Too bad we didn’t think to bring a cage.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Wait a minute.” Wolf whipped out his phone, thumbed it up and down, and punched “dial” on someone’s number. “Hey, Pedro. We need to call in a favor. A favor.”

  “Necesitamos un favor,” I shouted over Wolf’s shoulder.

  “Right,” bellowed Wolf, in that güero way of assuming a non-English-speaker was just deaf. “Necessary un favor. We’re on that road behind the rest stop south of your gas station. Can you bring your cage—”

  “Traer tu coche,” I said into the phone.

  Wolf looked at me with irritation, as though I was the one blowing the translation. “Yes, bring your coach, and take the access road to the pump station. You’ll see a burning truck.”

  “Verás un camión en llamas. Llega aquí rápido.” Get here fast.

  “Yes. Don’t bring your llama. That’s too slow. Get here fast. Got it, Pedro?”

  Apparently Pedro got it, and Wolf hung up to let the guy jump into action.

  We moved our scoots over the next rise in case any cops arrived, then waited for Pedro with folded arms, leaning back against our rides.

  “That Pippa Lofting is hot,” said Wolf. “Smoking hot, I’d say. She’s a firecracker.”

  I snorted at his description. “She’s pretty,” I allowed.

  “There was something between you. When I got back with the smoothies, it was like I’d interrupted my parents rutting.”

  “Thanks a lot!”

  “No, not in a gross or disgusting way. You know, in the way that people suddenly jump apart, clearing their throats, looking but not looking at each other.”

  We had already finished what little “rutting” we were going to do by the time Wolf arrived with the shakes, so I dismissed him as wrong. “She’s all right. I’m not sticking around, though. Once this job is done, I’m out of here.”

  “Why don’t you stick around? We have Slayer on retainer but he doesn’t live here. Not sure where he lives, actually. Such a man of mystery. Who do you work for, anyway?” I remained close-lipped. “Oh, that’s right. Privileged information. I get it.”

  “I’m the man of mystery,” I asserted, and then Pedro was coming down the road in a trashed Corolla.

  It was time for me to make a phone call.

  The Ochoa men stood near a large pipe that went downhill to a lined evaporation pond. I sat on the pipe, up a bit from the three Ochoa narcos. I’d put on my slouch cap and shades, and replaced my bandanna over the bottom half of my face. Lytton had said to keep our IDs from the Ochoas, so I did. I held my Springfield to prevent them from getting any closer. But I held it casually, to let them know I was on their side—doing them a favor.

  I said dramatically, “As you can see, those men you thought your guys killed are still alive. And they’re threatening to tell their whole story to the police unless you tell them why you sabotaged their truck.” I paused. “And give them two hundred large to replace the marijuana you burnt.” That last part was Wolf’s idea. Of course I didn’t really give a shit whether or not The Bare Bones were reimbursed for their loss. I was just carrying out Lytton’s—and Jones’—assignment.

  Ruben Ochoa said thinly, “Vato, people get fucked in this neighborhood, they don’t go to the cops—they come to me.” His bandanna was worn like a hippie headband over his fade haircut. He was shorter than me, like most Mexicans were, but his goatee and suspenders marked him as a man of position. “I respect that you came to me first with this news. Manuel. Are those the guys you hit?”

  Manuel lifted his shades and bent forward, as though that got him closer to the corpses two hundred yards away. He nodded.

  I said, “Well, The Bare Bones has always had a good relationship with the Ochoas. They’d like to keep it that way. They just want to know why you’re burning their trucks.” I took another risk. “Sending men to spy on their pot farm.”

  At this point, Wolf randomly waved one of the dead guy’s arms. We’d positioned the bodies as though they were taking a break, leaning back against the berm that ringed the entire pond. With shades and bandannas on, you couldn’t tell they’d been shot at all. All Wolf had to do was splay himself flat behind the berm to make the stiffs look lively.

  “Joder!” spat Ruben. “I tell you—what did you say your name was?”

  “I didn’t,” I said mysteriously. “But you can call me Zorro.” Which was, of course, “fox” in Spanish.

  And Ruben didn’t laugh. “All right, Mister Zorro. I’ll be frank with you. The latest changes in marijuana reform law have led us to rethink our position as brothers in the trade. We don’t
sell that much to your Pure and Easy dispensary to make much of a difference. We’re both racing to get the Gunhammer backing, or I’ve got several other sources of legit financing in mind. We both want to go straight, at least as far as marijuana goes.”

  “We already are straight. You’re the one using all the pesticides and rerouting creeks to irrigate your roided-out plants.” This irritated Ruben. His mouth became a thin line, and he made a motion for the iron stuck in the back of his pants. “Once the inspectors start poking around your farm they’re going to find all kinds of violations. You’ll never go legit.”

  Ruben pointed at me. “That’s why I wanted to find out how Lytton runs his farm. He won’t share trade secrets.”

  “And why should he?”

  “Because we’re brothers in arms! We’re all in this together. My man was just collecting intel, on a fact-finding mission. And suddenly he’s a ghost.”

  “I wouldn’t know about that guy,” I said hurriedly, “I’m just a messenger.”

  Wolf waved the other stiff’s arm now, and this time Ruben really did pull his piece. He wavered it between me and the other side of the evaporation pond. “We know someone buried him. Jorge would never leave and not come back.”

  That was unfortunate that the pinche guey lurking around Lytton’s farm had been on a first name basis with Ruben. I held up my hands in surrender. “Look. Lytton’s worked hard to build his rep. He’s got a doctorate from MIT, and he’s been crossing hybrids for ten years. The only way you could hope to rival him with his innovative varieties is by following the same rigorous practices.”

  Ruben took two steps toward me, pressing the barrel of his piece to my temple. He snarled, “I think you know what happened to Jorge. How else did you know someone was spying on Leaves of Grass?”