by KB Winters
Today I wasn’t really choosing, but I had to drive up to San Diego because my business ethics course—surprise, surprise—required all students to show up for the test. In person. What the hell good was taking online courses if they could still summon you far and wide, I didn’t know. But the test was over, and I was pretty sure I kicked ass despite my shitty test taking skills. Knowing I’d mastered most of the material left me feeling confident, and that made for a relaxing ride back to Brently.
Even though I didn’t enjoy the long drive, I did enjoy the scenery that seemed to switch between lush green grass and water so blue it almost looked fake, and dry swaths of golden earth. Both gave me the kind of relaxation that comes from familiarity, from looking at a place and knowing right where I was. The first few times I drove by myself I felt panic set in at the idea that I didn’t know where I was going or how to get back to Brently even though Magnus had given me a GPS.
Now I didn’t have that problem. It turned out, I had a damn good sense of direction, pretty ironic if you asked me. But helpful and it was a skill I tested regularly.
The day started so well that I should have known it wouldn’t stay that way. I got to school and found a parking spot, I did well on the test, and the drive home was relaxing. At least until about an hour outside of Brently when my van coughed, choked, and then died in spectacular fashion. “Damn you!” I smacked the steering wheel in frustration, but it was my own fault. Magnus told me this old van was a piece of crap, but I had to have it. And now I was stuck between two towns in the hot desert heat. I needed help, and I had only a few options.
Talon was too pregnant to do that much driving, so I wouldn’t even ask her. I would have called Charlie, but she’d left a few days ago to take a cruise, to get away from reminders of CAOS and the man the club had stolen from her too soon. That meant I had to use my AAA service which was fine, it was exactly why I paid the damn fees every year. I made the call and climbed back in the van to at least avoid sunburn and dehydration.
No sooner had I settled in with an audio book on my phone did I hear the roar of a motorcycle. It was a sound I had gotten used to over the past few years, but it always caused a rise in my anxiety. I waited for it to pass but when it didn’t I went on alert, scanning my mirrors to see where the bike had gone and more importantly, who it belonged to. I nearly jumped out of my seat when a knock sounded on the passenger window.
Cash.
“You gonna roll down the window or what?”
“Or what,” I answered like a child.
“Car trouble?”
“Not once AAA arrives.” The nice woman on the phone said forty-five minutes. I could listen to a few chapters until then.
“Damn. I’m right here Minx. I can give you a ride home.” He smiled but I could tell he was frustrated with me, probably because he thought I was playing games, but I really wasn’t.
“Thanks for the offer, but I’ll wait. I don’t want to leave my van here unattended.” That was part of the reason, anyway.
“Fine. I’ll wait with you and then you can let me take you out to dinner.” He flashed that panty-melting smile, and I squeezed my knees together, refusing to be moved by his gorgeous smile or those laughing eyes.
“No thanks. I have no itch that needs to be fucked,” I said pointedly.
He groaned and smacked the roof with his palm. “Dammit, Minx.”
Exactly what I had expected. Anger, not an apology. He probably didn’t owe me one because he didn’t understand why I wasn’t ready, but my stupid emotions didn’t get the memo, and they were well and truly offended. “You’ve done your duty by offering, Cash, so thank you.” Leaning against the headrest, I closed my eyes and hoped he would go away though I knew that was unlikely. Despite his harsh words to me last week, he was a good man.
“It’s not duty, Minx.”
“All the more reason for you to continue on your journey home.”
I heard the heavy footfalls of his boots walk away, but I realized he wanted me to hear him walk away. Any other time the man moved with the stealth of a ninja, but now he sounded like an old woman with a cane and a bad cough. I waited but the loud roar of the motorcycle never came. He was still here.
Damn him.
Finally, the AAA driver arrived and hooked my van up to the tow, promising it would end up at Mick’s place just as I had requested. “You got a ride?”
“If you could just take—”
“Yes, she does.” His words had the desired effect on the skinny gray-haired driver who shuffled back into the truck and pulled into traffic.
“I told you I don’t need your help. More to the point, I don’t want it.”
The bastard smiled. “Well, it looks like you’re stuck with it now. May as well agree to dinner, too.”
“I don’t need to agree to anything since you’re making all the choices, do I?” This. This was why I’d been keeping my distance from men. This loss of control left me feeling shaken and vulnerable, two things I fucking hated more than I hated the bitch who orchestrated my kidnapping.
“Minx.” I kept walking toward the bike, and he followed on my heels. “Minx, come on.” He sighed heavily, but I didn’t turn to face him because I didn’t want him to see how close I was to losing my shit. “If that’s really how you feel then.”
“Then what,” I asked without turning. “You’ve sent away the only other ride I had, so just forget it. Come on.” Fifteen minutes later the bike came to a stop again. Dinner, I guessed by our location. We both dismounted the bike and headed inside the greasy spoon diner that looked like a shithole compared to Black Betty’s. It was just called ‘Diner’, and the green pleather booths were more ripped than whole. Half the chairs were missing from the counter, and everything was covered in a layer of dirt. The thing I’d learned about these kinds of places was that they’re hit or miss. Despite the shitty outside, the food might actually be good.
“Hungry?”
“I guess.” We sat and Cash tried to catch my gaze, but I refused him. Not because I was mad, which I was, but because I needed to break this strange hold he had over me.
“You plan on being mad at me all night?”
I shrugged. “You’re a long way from Brently out here.”
He laughed and shook his head. “You know I do things other than sit around the clubhouse all day, right?”
I didn’t know, actually. No one ever told me shit. Hell, lately I hadn’t even been getting hours at the bar so no, I didn’t know. “Like what?”
“Me and a few buddies have a partnership in a franchise of dispensaries up and down the state, and we take turns providing security for the money runs.”
“An entrepreneur. Impressive.” I knew some of the club guys like Mick had businesses outside the club, and I assumed they all knew this shit could fall apart at any moment. Magnus had learned that lesson the hard way.
“Does it make you more interested?”
“No. But it makes me think that maybe I misjudged you.” We placed our orders with the middle-aged waitress, and I tried not to think too hard about his knees brushing against mine or the way his helmet had given him bedhead that only made him look hotter and sexier.
“You thought I was just some dumb biker”
“No.” I slowly drank my tea as I searched for a way to say it without offending him. “Men who choose to join these types of organizations don’t tend to do much planning for the future.”
“That’s true, but you forget we’re all veterans. Planning has been drilled into us until it’s second nature.” He shrugged. “Some guys don’t live that way because they hate it, but for some of us, it has become a way of life.”
“Okay.”
“That’s it?”
“Yep.” Finally, the waitress arrived with our food, burgers and fries for both of us. I dug in and moaned. “Definitely a sleeper.”
“A what?”
“You know, it looks like the kind of place that will give you food poisoning, but
damn this burger is amazing!” It had bacon and avocado on it with smoked Gouda.
“You could still get food poisoning,” he pointed out.
I froze at his words and grinned. “Totally worth it.” We made quick work of our food, but still the sun was sinking in the sky when we walked out to his bike. “You guys have something against actual cars?”
He flashed that damn panty-melting smile again, and not gonna lie, those bad boys melted right off. “Wouldn’t make sense for a motorcycle club to drive minivans, would it?” His lips twitched, and I bumped my hip against his.
“You’re not funny.”
“Yet you’re smiling.” He pushed me up against the pickup beside his bike with his big body shadowing out all other light. “Why is that I wonder,” he brushed a kiss along one side of my jaw, then the other. “Maybe you actually like me,” he whispered before nibbling my ear and kissing his way to my mouth. “Is that it, Minx, you like me?”
He didn’t wait for an answer, just took my mouth in a blistering kiss that made me forget all of my reservations about him. Made me forget that we were in the middle of a parking lot on the side of the freeway. Forget that this man kissing me was a distraction. But dammit, he was deliciously distracting, doing things to my mouth that I felt in my pussy. Moments under his spell and my skin became slick. Slippery. And his hands—big and strong and compelling—never moved from my hips. He pulled back, and I knew I wore a stupid, hazy grin. “I really like doing that.”
He grinned. “Me too,” he responded and stepped back to help me on the bike. In no time, we were eating up the pavement toward Brently. The night air chilled my overheated skin, but a prickle of awareness washed over me, and I didn’t know the cause. I’d learned years ago to listen to that instinct, and I held myself stiff and looked over my shoulder.
Nothing.
Weird. Maybe I imagined it, I thought. It wouldn’t be completely odd for me to feel in danger when no danger existed, but this didn’t feel like that. I looked again, and just as I turned back two sets of lights flipped on. Bike lights. “Cash,”—I patted his shoulder and shouted in his ear— “we have company.”
He took a look of his own and revved the engine, throttling faster down the highway. The roar vibrated my whole body which was still on the edge from that kiss. It was a strange mixture of fear and desire that I wasn’t sure I liked, but seeing as I was pressed tight against the hard body of a former SEAL, there wasn’t much I could do about it. He crossed between cars on all sides, making a serpentine motion down the road to put some distance between us and the bikers giving chase. Five minutes later the lights couldn’t be seen, and he slowed onto the side of the road and turned off the lights. “Shit.”
“I guess you know who that was?”
He nodded as he removed the helmet. “Got a pretty good fucking idea.”
Of course he did. “Club shit?” Lately there had been too much club shit going on for guys who proclaimed to be the good guys.
“Yeah.”
“Okay then. Get me home please.”
He nodded and climbed off the bike and walked away to make a call that lasted maybe twenty seconds, and then we were back on the road. Forty minutes later I closed and triple-locked my door behind me and let out a few calming breaths. My hands shook and my teeth chattered, only a hot tea with a shot of whiskey would do me any good, so I marched to the kitchen on autopilot.
I couldn’t say for sure but I was pretty sure some bad shit was brewing—again—and I had a feeling this time, things would end with a simple club vote.
***
Cash
“Those fuckers tried to run me off the road, and I had Minx on the bike with me!” I fumed, pacing in front of the Church doors where Mick and Roddick waited for me. “They had to have been following me because I only came up on Minx by chance.” I froze. “Unless they were following her.”
Roddick stood, an imposing figure, stood broad with arms crossed and a dark scowl on his face. “No more following them on your own. Teams from here on out.” He stared me down to make sure I heard him.
“Got it.” Goddamn Rocky and Wagman had become a pain in my ass and the club’s. Right about now I wanted to kick my own ass for not voting to get rid of them all. “They’re moving drugs over the border for the Mexican Devils.”
“Yeah, Dante told me they tried to sell some to his crew which is weird since the cartels don’t fuck with black.” Mick scratched his beard, his gaze darting between me and Roddick. “Think we should take that news to Lazarus?”
Roddick blew out a breath and scrubbed a hand down his beard. “You mean some enemy of my enemy type shit?”
He nodded. “Exactly. It would relieve us of the headache they’re causing by hanging around Brently. Plus, if Lazarus finds out on his own we’ll be cleaning bodies up off the streets of Brently, and then we’ll have to worry about Sheriff Darlington.”
I nodded. “If they’re following me they might be following others, so we need to make sure everyone keeps their heads on a swivel.” I was so fucking amped up from that chase, I knew it would be hours before I came down. Knowing one of those crazy bastards could have started shooting with Minx between us made me so damn mad I didn’t think I’d be able to stop myself from hunting them down and filling those assholes full of lead. “I need to get out of here,” I grumbled, still pacing like a caged animal.
“Come on, let’s go grab some food.” Mick clapped me on my back and pushed me toward the exit. “You’re too damn wound up, man.”
“Minx was on the back of my bike, bro. Last time fucking Wagman let a few bullets loose.” I shook my head, still fucking fuming from that shit. “I got a bullet with that motherfucker’s name on it, Mick.”
“If you have to, just make sure it’s justified. The last thing we need right now is to start more shit with the cartel.”
I knew what he was saying was right. We were still rebuilding our numbers and getting back to trusting one another again. CAOS wasn’t ready for battle, and I’d be damned if I pushed us there before we were. But I had a strong urge to fuck some shit up right about now.
“So you and Minx, huh?”
I grinned as we walked into Black Betty. “She’ll deny it until her dying breath, but yeah.” I wanted to ask Mick about her past again because I knew she was hiding something, but for some reason, I wanted her to be the one to tell me. “Skittish as hell, though.”
Mick took the booth near the back, facing the window. I didn’t like having my back to the door, but I trusted Mick with my life. Had done so many times in the past, except those last three years after he’d retired. “Yeah, well, she has a good reason to be skittish. If you mistreat her, Talon will cut off your balls so…you know.”
Yeah, I knew, but still I laughed at the image of his little dark-haired spitfire coming at me. “Yeah, I got it,” I sighed. “But the truth is she’s more likely to mistreat me,” I told him. She was scared, and I knew people often struck out when they were too scared to act, which meant I needed to be careful. I liked Minx, but settling down wasn’t on my immediate agenda. “You think we’re gonna end up in the shit with Wagman and Rocky?”
Mick nodded, but his answer came slower. This was why I respected Mick so much. He never made snap decisions. He thought about shit before he spoke. “They’re trying to make some cash as freelancers which comes with more danger, but they know how we operate so they know how to work around us. Most important of all, those assholes want revenge.”
Yeah, I knew how fucking dangerous that could be. “Who would’ve thought we left the middle east behind and still ended up at war?” It’s not exactly how I pictured retirement, but when I left the SEALs I was lost. After a decade of structure and order and unattainable goals, my head was fucked up without it. Meeting up with Mick and CAOS had given me new goals that were doable. It had given me a purpose. I could be a badass outlaw without actually being a bad guy.
“Yeah, but this is the first time we’ve had to deal w
ith shit like this. Some guys need more money because they’re not smart enough to come up with a side hustle like the rest of us. If I didn’t have the mini mart and service station, I might be more understanding.”
I nodded, understanding perfectly. Years in the service with no home, no bills, and no debt meant most of us had come out with a shit ton of cash saved to invest in something when we got home. Guys like Toro and Wagman spent until they were broke and then bitched about being broke. “Still they could have taken it to Rod.”
When the waitress—not Nadine thankfully— dropped off our food, we dug in and ate in silence for a few minutes. Though I had just eaten, I inhaled my club sandwich. It wasn’t close to what I wanted to release this tension, but I was pretty sure it was my only option if Minx’s goodbye was any clue.
“You gotta remember, Cash, some of these guys are old school. They didn’t volunteer like we did, hell even like Roddick did. Coming back with what we came back with when you didn’t want that shit in the first place? Breeds a fuck of a lot of resentment.”
“I guess.” I couldn’t stay calm and think about those fuckers, so I finished off my sandwich and onion rings and ordered a beer. I needed to focus on something more compelling. Like a certain sultry brunette with more curves than a San Francisco street and big brown eyes that could drown a man if he wasn’t smart enough to reach for air.
I feared I wasn’t quite that smart.
Chapter Four
Cash
“You gonna hit me with that?” My lips twitched as I eyed the bat Minx held in her hands, a wary smile aimed my way.
“I might. You planning on making a habit of dropping by unannounced?” Despite her harsh words, she stepped back and let me in. “No food this time?”