Jack & Coke (The Uncertain Saints Book 2)

by Lani Lynn Vale

  I looked back at her.

  “And how did you get to be that again? Was it my beer that you dropped the drug in, or my Jack and Coke?” I challenged.

  She snapped her mouth shut, knowing when it was time to shut up and leave.

  Which was good for her, because I was about to fuckin’ lose it.

  She left with a stomp of her feet, and I smiled.

  Goddamn that woman was a piece of work.

  I turned back to the TV, groaning when Annie’s commercial came on.

  God, now that woman was somethin’.

  She was a fuckin’ beauty, and I’d give my left nut to have her.

  “Come down and visit me,” my Annie on the commercial smiled at the camera. “I’ll give you a massage and style that you’ll love.”

  Maybe a massage was in my future.

  Chapter 2

  Almost every hand you’ve ever shaken has had a dick in it at some point.

  -Proven Fact

  Mig

  “Can you repeat that? I don’t think I heard you quite right,” I said into the mic I had in my hand.

  I was working a case with the local Sheriff’s Department, and I was currently about five minutes away from the only diner in town to get food.

  Something I’d told to about three sheriff’s deputies, one of those being my good friend, and MC brother, Ridley.

  Ridley was a member of the Uncertain Saints with me. He’d also been one of the men that’d recruited me for the club.

  “I said there’s a man wielding a chain saw at the diner. I’m asking you to be cautious when you go,” Ridley replied seriously.

  I pinched the bridge of my nose with my forefinger and thumb, and sighed.

  “Got it,” I said, pulling into the driveway that would lead me down to the diner.

  The diner was located on Uncertain’s claim to fame, The Caddo River.

  I dropped the mic into its holder and got out of my company issued truck.

  I was a DEA agent stationed in Uncertain, Texas.

  The Caddo River was also the reason I was here as an agent.

  Caddo was a hotbed of drug and firearm transport activity.

  After about four major busts within two weeks of each other, the DEA opened a satellite office in the little town of Uncertain.

  The DEA and the Texas Rangers were on a joint task force that was commissioned to combat the drug and firearm trade that was taking over this small town. Although it’d slowed down since we’d started it, there was still a lot of work to do.

  Movement in my peripheral vision had me turning in time to see Griffin, a fellow member of the Uncertain Saints, as well as one of the Texas Rangers on the joint taskforce, walking toward me.

  “See you’re in that cage instead of on your bike,” Griffin said, swinging his leg over his bike to dismount.

  “My boss got upset with me that I had a ‘perfectly good company vehicle’ that I wasn’t using,” I answered as we both walked around to the back of the diner.

  “You know about the chainsaw wielder?” I asked.

  Griffin nodded. “Heard it on my scanner,” he said, indicating the portable radio on his belt.

  When he was on his bike, he had to take the portable radio since it didn’t have a scanner like his company-issued vehicle did.

  Something I did as well when I was on my bike.

  I took the issued vehicle every couple of days to make my boss think I was using it.

  Mostly I hated it, and usually tried to take my bike since riding in a cage made me feel closed in and claustrophobic.

  See, I was an adrenaline junkie, and nothing gave me more of a rush than flying a F-16 through the sky at Mach 2.

  The closest I could get to that feeling was riding my bike at over a hundred miles an hour. Sure, it wasn’t fifteen hundred miles an hour like I could do in the air, but it was nothing to sneeze at either.

  I nodded, and we both made our way into the back door of the diner that led into the kitchen.

  “You’re gonna go get him, right?” Elton, the cook for the diner, asked.

  I nodded and pushed the kitchen door open slightly to see what was going on, and froze.

  A familiar woman with dark brown hair, a very distinctive tattoo on her shoulder, from collarbone to elbow, of a peacock, and a look of death in her eyes, reared back and slammed the napkin holder over the man wielding the chainsaw’s head.

  The chainsaw dropped to the floor with a clatter, sputtering for a short time before the engine finally died.

  The diner was completely silent as the man who’d had the chainsaw in his hands turned around with a look of rage in his eyes.

  “Freeze,” I said to the man as he reared back his hand to strike out at Annie.

  Annie didn’t look scared in the least as she backed away from the man whose fist was still raised.

  And then even further until her back was against the counter

  I wanted to reach out and touch her.

  My hands practically burned with the urge, but I didn’t.

  Instead, I moved around the counter and placed my body in front of hers, protecting her from another man that wanted to do her harm for the second time in less than twenty-four hours.

  “Put your hands behind your head,” I ordered.

  I sounded like a fuckin’ broken record.

  First this morning, then this afternoon.

  The chainsaw wielder raised his hands part of the way up, albeit very reluctantly.

  “Turn the fuck around and put your hands on your fuckin’ head!”

  Obviously, he wasn’t moving fast enough for Griffin’s liking, because at Griffin’s shouted order, the man jumped, turned and placed his hands all the way on top of his head.

  Griffin had him cuffed in seconds, and I finally replaced my weapon in the holster under my arm.

  “Nice swing,” I said, tossing that comment over my shoulder at Annie.

  Annie’s brilliant smile lit up the fuckin’ room.

  “My father taught me everything I know,” she responded cheekily.

  I winked at her and turned around, addressing Francine behind the counter.

  “Can you make me and Griffin a burger and fries to go?” I asked her.

  She blinked, then nodded slowly.

  She was one of the oldest waitresses I’d ever seen, but she was damn fine at her job.

  She reminded me a lot of my grandmother, and I couldn’t wait to introduce my Nonnie to her.

  They’d get along famously.

  I’d been stationed in Uncertain, Texas for a while now, and not once had I convinced her to come down.

  “As soon as you get yourself a fine woman, I’ll come,” was always my Nonnie’s answer.

  My Nonnie had yet to meet my wife, and I hoped she never had to.

  I planned on taking our child up to visit Nonnie and my mother the week he or she was born.

  What I didn’t plan on doing was taking Jennifer with me.

  I knew it’d be a fight, but I didn’t really care at this point.

  Even the thought of my Nonnie being in Jennifer’s presence made my stomach churn.

  My Nonnie was what you would call softhearted.

  She loved everyone and everything.

  I had no doubt that Jennifer would get my Nonnie to love her.

  Jennifer was a manipulative bitch, and she’d use absolutely anything to get closer to me.

  To sink her claws in further.

  “You should go into the protection business or something,” Annie supplied as I turned to survey the room.

  I looked down at her twinkling eyes, and snorted.

  “You do know I’m a DEA agent, right?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  “I guessed you were by the shirts I see you wearing on your way to work,” she teased.

  She was out in her yard every morning watering; I saw her every morning as I left.


  It wasn’t a surprise that she knew what I wore to work.

  “Here you are,” Francine said from behind me.

  “What the hell?” I asked.

  It took them less than three minutes to get it done.

  “It’s on the house, too. I snagged another order so you wouldn’t have to wait any longer,” Francine explained.

  I nodded.

  “Oh, okay. Thank you,” I acknowledged.

  Francine smiled a little wobbly.

  “You deserve that and so much more,” she said emphatically.

  ***

  Annie

  I watched Mig talk to Griffin as surreptitiously as I could.

  “What are you looking at?” My sister, Tasha, asked me.

  I tilted my head in the direction of Mig and Griffin.

  “The one on the left. With the tight black jeans and black t-shirt that says DEA on the breast pocket,” I whispered.

  My sister’s eyes went to Mig, and she smiled.

  “That’s your neighbor, isn’t it?” She confirmed.

  I nodded. “Yeah, that’s him.”

  “Who’s the other guy?” Tasha asked.

  I glanced quickly in their direction, then turned back to my cold burger and limp French fries.

  “The other one is Griffin Storm. He’s married to Lenore, you remember her, right?” I asked.

  “She’s the one that owns Uncertain Pleasures, correct?” She said, popping a cherry tomato in her mouth and looking at me with a raised brow.

  I nodded in confirmation. “Yeah.”

  I’d met Lenore when she was dating Griffin and then became friends when I’d bought my shop that was directly next to her sex toy shop, Uncertain Pleasures.

  We’d hit it off, and now we swapped services.

  I cut Lenore’s hair, or gave her a massage, in exchange for her giving me free sex toys.

  Or condoms.

  Or anything I wanted, really.

  I’d not moved beyond the former two, though.

  I was too chicken to try any of the more adventurous stuff without having that little push in the right direction. And without the right man, that would never happen.

  “I thought you said Mig was married,” my sister asked.

  I looked up at her. “He is.”

  She gave me a questioning look.

  “Then why is he looking at you like he wants to eat you alive, one slow, luxurious lick at a time?” She questioned.

  You know those times that you know you shouldn’t look?

  Like, with everything in your being you want to look, but you know if you do, you’ll be caught looking?

  Well, I was caught looking.

  And I liked it.

  The way his eyes met mine made me feel like we were the only ones in the entire diner instead of it being filled with nearly fifty people.

  He held my eyes for a long time.

  So long that I knew it would be considered more than just a glance.

  The only thing a married man should be doing, anyway.

  “Maybe he’s not happily married,” Tasha offered when Mig finally looked away from me.

  I shrugged.

  “She yells at him a lot, and he just takes it. I don’t know if they’re happy or not, but I know from what I can see, it isn’t all sunshine and roses,” I answered, trying in vain not to look back at Mig.

  Except when I did, he was leaving, and I was left feeling bereft.

  I watched the muscles in his back play with the movement of his arms.

  Watched the muscles bunch as he reached his arm forward and pushed open the diner’s door.

  Then I licked my lips as I watched him walk to the SUV that I hadn’t seen until now and drop in it.

  I’d have had to climb into it.

  But Mig was tall.

  Really tall.

  At least six foot three or more.

  He rolled his window down and looked in the direction of the diner once more, and my breath caught when his eyes met mine.

  He smiled.

  A quick, almost imperceptible flash, but I saw it.

  And I blushed.

  His grin got wider.

  How he could even see that from where he was, I didn’t know. But I knew he knew what he did to me.

  With one last look, he slipped a pair of shades over his eyes that reminded me of the ones baseball players wore, the sporty type where the lens came to a point at their cheekbones.

  They covered up his beautiful gray eyes that always reminded me of storm clouds. Then he placed his heavily tattooed arm on the door, and started to back out of the parking spot.

  I watched until I couldn’t see him any longer.

  “Oh, you’ve got it bad,” Tasha teased.

  I returned my gaze to her.

  “He’s married,” I answered with a sigh.

  She nodded. “Well, from what I could tell, y’all definitely have some chemistry going on. But you need to be careful, because that’s exactly what your new business does not need: you being known as a home wrecker.”

  I snorted.

  “The man’s a biker…isn’t it expected that he’d cheat?” I asked, pushing away the basket containing my lunch.

  My stomach was in knots as I thought about him being married.

  Tasha was right though; I totally had the hots for him.

  And I’d had them for a long time.

  I’d been in Uncertain, Texas for going on six years now.

  My parents had moved here at the end of my senior year.

  My father had just gotten out of the military, and he’d decided to open a fishing and bait shop off the side of Caddo Lake.

  So I’d been here the day Mig had arrived in town.

  He’d ridden in on his Harley, dressed in a black leather jacket, tight faded blue jeans, and his signature wraparound sunglasses.

  And here I was, years later, still just as hot for him as the day I’d seen him for the first time.

  I’d never told anyone about my avid crush on Mig, though.

  I was too scared of all that was him.

  Secretly, I was worried that if I admitted my crush, he’d somehow find out.

  He was good like that.

  Then I’d moved into the house next to him, completely by accident, and about died.

  But he’d been exceptionally cool about everything.

  And he’d become a friend, even if from a distance.

  A friend that I had the hots for…who was married…with a kid on the way.

  Yeah, fuck my life.

  Chapter 3

  Ladies, if you see a man eating BBQ wings with a knife and fork, it’s likely he doesn’t eat pussy right either. Run. Don’t look back. You can thank me later.

  -Tasha to Annie on the eve of her marriage to Ross

  Annie

  Ross: I think about you every day.

  Me: I think about pizza every day.

  Ross: Don’t you miss me even a little bit?

  Me: Let me think about it.

  Ross: Well?

  Me: Well, what?

  Ross: Do you miss me?

  Me: No.

  Ross: Not even a little bit?

  I thought about that for a second.

  Did I miss him at all?

  No.

  Did I miss being with someone?

  Yes.

  Would I take Ross back to get that back?

  Hell fucking no.

  Me: No.

  I placed my phone down onto the coffee table, then turned my head to study my front yard.

  It’d been mowed.

  By Mig, no doubt.

  Jesus, did the man ever slow down?

  I wished I’d have gotten up the courage to talk to him when I’d first moved in.

  Then Ross would’ve never happened.

  And I might be happy right now, living the life his wife was living instead of my mis
erable excuse for an existence.

  I stood up when I saw Mig walking towards the road and his bike, watching as he straddled the bike, gave a hard glare at his house, then started his bike up with a roar.

  My brows rose as I saw him speed out of the little road we were both located on, and laughed when I heard his bike all the way to the highway.

  My phone rang just as I moved back away from the window, and I smiled when I heard Lenore’s voice.

  “Hey! Wanna come hang with me so I won’t be the only girl?” Lenore asked cheerily.

  I thought about my life and how I never did anything.

  How I would never meet another Mig if I didn’t get myself out there, and I came to a decision.

  I was going to have to get over my crush on Mig.

  And I was going to have fun doing it.

  “Sure,” I said, walking to my bedroom to get dressed. “Where am I meeting you, and do I need to bring anything?”

  I made a half-assed attempt to fluff up my hair, and in the end decided to put it up in a high pony tail, following it up with a swipe of mascara as I listened to Lenore give me directions.

  “Where is this place?” I asked after she’d told me what turns I needed to take to get there.

  “It’s…shit. I gotta go. I’ll see you there in ten, I forgot I was supposed to bring beer.”

  I shook my head as I reached for my tightest pair of jeans that I had, shimmying into them and wincing when I pinched my belly in my attempt to button them.

  After three more tries, I got the button done and the zipper up before I threw on a plain black halter top, slipped my feet into a pair of flip flops, and started towards my front door.

  I grabbed my purse, and armed the new alarm, being very sure that I got the numbers correct, before I backed out of the house, locked the door with the key and hurried to the street where I’d parked my car.

  Although there was parking in the back of the house, I liked parking out front because it gave me more opportunities to see Mig.

  And yes, I realize that I have an unhealthy obsession with the man.

  But a girl can fantasize!

  It was literally a hundred and fifteen out, and no matter how many years I’d been dealing with this humid Texas heat, I’d never get used to it.

  I followed Lenore’s directions to a T and found myself at a house that was about a hundred yards shy of the river.