by Ana Stone
Zeke stayed where he was, in the rear of the back bay. West stopped at the entrance of the first bay door. “Gentlemen,” he said and put up his right hand to give the brim of his hat a mock tip.
“West?” Rice asked as he wiped his hands on a work cloth.
“One and the same,” West answered with a smile. “How are you, Rice?”
“Good. You?”
“Couldn’t be better.”
“So what brings you back to Harmony?” Rice asked.
“Business,” West replied. “Eli still running the place?”
“Yeah.”
“He around? I’d like to have a word with him.” West’s tone was congenial.
“Yeah, in the office.”
“Thank you,” West replied and headed for the office. Just as he reached the door he paused and looked across the open bays at Zeke. “Long time, Zeke.”
“Yep.” Zeke replied.
“What say we have a drink and catch up while I’m in town?”
“Sure.”
“Great.” West opened the door of the office and walked in.
Zeke looked out in the parking lot where Roxy sat behind the wheel of the police cruiser. Her eyes met his and she lifted her phone to her ear. A moment later his cell phone rang.
“Yeah?”
“We need to talk.” She kept her eyes on him as she spoke.
“Now?”
“Later.”
“I’ll call when I’m free.”
“Okay. Bye.”
Zeke shoved his phone back in his pocket and stared thoughtfully at her. He wasn’t sure where things stood between them. Where they’d left it last time was… well limbo. With West in town, it could complicate things. Trouble was he didn’t know how far he could trust her.
He shoved those thoughts to the back of his mind. He’d deal with that later. Right now, he needed to think about West’s arrival in town.
Inside the office, Stella was giving West a hug. “It’s been what, five years since you were here?”
“About that, yes ma’am,” West replied with a smile. “And you haven’t changed a bit.”
Stella chuckled. “And you still have the same gift for bullshit you always had. You keep in touch with your mama? Haven’t heard from her since she moved away after – after your father’s passing. She’s doing well?”
“Yes, ma’am. She’s living down in Wilmington and doing fine.” West tried to keep his tone light. Talking about his folks was the last thing he wanted to do. But he wasn’t about to let Stella know that.
“Well good. You tell her hi for me the next time you talk. So, what brings you here, West?”
“Actually, I need to speak with Mr. Justice,” he turned, hat in hand, in Eli’s direction.
“About?” Eli asked.
“Right to the point. Just like I remember,” West replied then pulled his identification from inside his jacket’s breast pocket.
“CIA?” Eli asked when he looked down at the identification.
“Yes sir.”
“What does the CIA need to talk to me about?”
West didn’t read any fear or anxiety in Eli’s tone or stance. Not that he expected to. His brother Reese ran the MC and while they might be brothers, they were as different as night and day. Eli was a man of honor, a man whose word was his bond and a man who’d give a friend the shirt off his back.
Reese was just the opposite. Which is why West wanted to break the news to Eli. He knew how Reese would react. With hostility, lies and possibly threats.
“Well, actually it’s about the MC, Mr. Justice. You see, we have reason to believe that your club is supplying guns to the Mexican Mafia, who just happens to be in bed with one of the biggest cartels in South America.
“A nasty bunch, I must say. Heavily into drugs, as you might imagine, but also rumored to be in bed with certain – let’s call them dissident factions that the agency considers a threat to national security.”
Eli’s expression didn’t give anything away, but West did notice the way his eyes flicked briefly at Stella. “I just run the garage, West. It’s legit as they come. Which you probably already know, but if you don’t feel free to check.”
“Oh we already have, Mr. Justice, and as you say, Renegade Motors is clean. But as I said, I’m here about the MC and that – well that’s not so clean now is it?”
Eli didn’t comment. West smiled at him. “Look, Mr. Justice, you and I – we go back a long way. I don’t want to see any harm come to you or your family, so I’m here to help. If you know anything that will help me in my investigation, I can assure you that I can protect your family in exchange for your cooperation.
“Otherwise,” he shrugged. “Well, otherwise, as much as I’d hate to do it, I’ll take you down with them.”
“You do what you have to do.” Eli said.
“Yes, sir.” West put on his hat and started for the outer door, but paused and looked back at Eli. “The Renegades are going down, Mr. Justice. Whether you go down with them is up to you.”
He opened the door and walked out, suppressing a smile. Before he and Roxy got out of the parking lot, Eli would have Reese on the phone and Zeke would probably be storming the office wanting to know what went on.
He got into the cruiser beside Roxy and grinned. “I think we’re done for the day, Deputy. If you wouldn’t mind dropping me at my hotel?”
“Sure.” She gave him a look ripe with curiosity.
West checked his watch. “On second thought, it’s past office hours. Would you like to have a drink?”
She cut her eyes at him, then away as she backed up to leave. “It’s kind of early for me. I’d planned on going to the gym for a couple of hours. How about afterwards? Say around seven thirty?”
“That’ll be fine. What watering hole do you recommend?”
She pulled out onto the road. “Pete’s is pretty good if you want to get something to eat.”
“That sounds good. You want to swing by and pick me up?”
“Sure.”
“Great, it’s a date.”
He turned and looked out of the window. He could almost hear her grinding her teeth. She probably had a lot of questions. He looked over at her and smiled. He’d give her answers, when the time was right.
Right now, she didn’t understand who he was and what he meant to her. But soon she would. And when she did, it would change everything. He’d put an end to the Renegades and she’d help him do it.
As soon as West got out of the car in front of the hotel, Roxy pulled out her cell phone and dialed Zeke.
“Yeah?” He answered on the fourth ring.
“We need to talk. Now.”
There was a long pause before he replied. “Meet me at my house in twenty minutes.”
“I’ll be there.”
It took her five minutes to get home and five minutes to change out of her uniform. She walked over to Zeke’s and sat down on the steps to the front door to wait.
Five minutes later he pulled up in the driveway. She got up as the garage door opened and followed him in as he pulled the bike in and parked it.
“Zeke—“
He held up his hand as he interrupted. “Yeah, I know. West Franklin, NCS.”
“Exactly. What’s his interest in the MC?”
He walked passed her, unlocked the door to the house and walked in. Roxy followed. “Well?”
Zeke turned to face her. “Seems he’s looking to nail the MC with gun running and drugs.”
“And?” She asked.
“And what?”
“Can he?”
“What do you think?” With that he turned and started down the hall, stripping off his shirt.
“Where’re you going?” She followed.
“To shower.” He stopped at the bathroom door, unbuckling his belt.
“Fine.”
He went into the bathroom and continued to undress.
Roxy followed and leaned against the door frame, watching. Mayb
e he thought she would give up, but he didn’t know her. She wasn’t going to let something like the sight of a naked man deter her from getting answers.
Zeke sat down on the toilet, pulled off his boots and socks then stood and started to remove his pants. When he had them down around his hips he paused and looked at her. “I don’t need an audience – unless you’re going to join me.”
“I want answers Zeke.”
“And I want a shower.”
“Fine.” She kicked off her flip flops and snatched her shirt up over her head.
Zeke stopped in the act of undressing as she reached behind her back to unfasten her bra. “What’re you doing?”
“Isn’t that obvious?” She peeled off her bra, dropped it on the floor and shimmied out of her jeans.
“Roxy.”
She straightened from the task of removing her pants and moved her eyes to his face. His eyes moved from her breasts to the junction of her thighs where the white triangle of lace covered her sex. After a moment his eyes made the return trip, stopping to lock with hers.
There was power in his gaze, a potent combination of lust and anger that threatened to weaken her resolve. She couldn’t allow that. She willed herself not to respond.
“Well?” She asked archly. “You going to shower in your pants?”
He snorted a sound of derision, slid off his pants and challenged her with his glare.
She had intended to reach in and turn on the water in the shower, but instead found herself frozen in place. Damn if he wasn’t something to see. The face of a dark angel, the body of a warrior, scarred by battle, inked completely on one arm, half of the other and one side of his chest sporting the head of a dragon whose neck curled over his shoulder. The tail of the dragon swept in along beneath his ribs on the right side of his body and circled his torso.
Further south was evidence of the heat between them. Undeniable truth.
She couldn’t help but look, and admire. Couldn’t stop the flood of longing from swelling within her and eclipsing her anger and determination.
“Zeke.”
Christ on a crutch. There it was again. His name falling from her lips like a prayer. It undid him. Obliterated his anger, evaporated all other thought but wanting her.
He reached for her and she met him, her arms working up around his neck, fingers fisting his hair as her lush full breasts crushed against his chest. Their mouths met in a clash of lips and tongues.
The collision of their bodies did not remain static. They waltzed against the wall a foot back and thudded against it into a tangle of limbs. Roxy’s hands reached for purchase as he pinned her against the wall, pulling towels from where they hung on the rack.
With a groan deep in her throat, she grabbed his arms, fingers digging in as she tried to turn him against the wall. Her foot slid on a towel on the floor and she might have fallen had he not wrapped his arms around her and marched her over to the counter.
He lifted her up on the counter and she wound her legs around him. He reached between them to move the offending lace that barred his entrance. Just as he angled to push himself against her wet sex, reality shifted. His vision swam and it felt like the earth had tilted beneath his feet. A heartbeat later, a cloud of darkness obliterated his vision.
As quickly as it had come, it departed. Only now he was no longer in his bathroom, with Roxy pinned on the counter in front of him. Now he was in what looked like a small kitchen in a trailer. Everything looked old and dirty.
Except for the woman in front of him who was naked with her legs wrapped around his waist as he held her pinned against a wall.
Roxy blinked, willing back the slight wave of nausea the sudden shift had provoked. Where was she? A travel trailer? An old one. She turned her eyes to the man who had her pinned against the wall and a wave of love and desire claimed her.
She had barely enough time to register the thoughts before he hiked her up higher against the wall and curled his pelvis beneath her. Then he took her.
It was lust, primal and hungry, but favored with love just as intense. She took and gave, exulting in the riot of sensations and the satisfaction he gave her time and again. She cried out as she felt him pulse inside her, his body going rigid at the onset of orgasm. He drowned out the sound with his mouth.
Ever so slowly he lowered her so that she could put her feet on the floor.
And in that moment, she was suddenly back in Zeke’s bathroom, propped against the countertop.
His eyes were unfocused for a moment, his face blank. Then he blinked and looked at her.
“Did we?”
She looked down and shook her head. There was evidence of his orgasm on her thigh but she was quite certain they’d not had sex. At least not in this reality.
“No,” she looked up at him as she answered.
“But…”
“I know. What the hell’s happening to us, Zeke?”
“I don’t know. I wish I did. All I know is that no matter where we go I—“
“Love me.” She finished the words she knew he couldn’t say.
“Yeah.” He suddenly pushed away from her, his hands going to work back through his hair. “What the fuck?”
“I—“ Before she could finish telling him that she had no more of an idea than he, they both jumped at the sound of someone pounding on the kitchen door and yelling Zeke’s name.
For a moment they were frozen in place. He snatched up his jeans off the floor and slid into them. “Stay here.”
Roxy went for her clothes the moment he left the room, closing the door behind him. She dressed quickly, trying to hear the muted voices coming from the direction of the kitchen. It was ten minutes before the voices stopped. A few seconds later Zeke opened the bathroom door.
“Trouble?” Roxy asked, as if the look on his face wasn’t answer enough.
“I have to go.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere you don’t want to know about.”
“But that’s just it,” she argued as he turned and headed across the hall to a bedroom. “I do want to know.”
“No,” he shot over his shoulder as he opened a drawer in the chest and pulled out a t-shirt. “You don’t.”
“Zeke, talk to me. Please.” She implored as he got clean socks from another drawer.
“I can’t.” He muscled his way past her to go back into the bathroom.
She hesitated for a moment then followed. He was sitting on the toilet, putting on his socks. “Why won’t you let me help?” She asked.
“Help?” He looked up as he pulled on his boots. “Help how? You’re a cop. What I’ve got to try and fix is not something you can be involved in. You know that.”
“The mess with the NCS and the MC?”
He stood and faced her. “Just what has Franklin told you?”
“Nothing.”
“Then let’s leave it that way.”
“Why?”
“Because I want you to stay alive!” He yelled and grabbed her by the upper arms. “Don’t you get it? If you get involved you could get killed and as fucked up and crazy as it is, I don’t think I could take that.”
“And you think I can?” She asked softly.
His grip eased and some of the anger went out of his face. “I can’t do this – whatever this is. I can’t feel about you the way I feel. I don’t even know you, Roxy, and we’re—we’re in different places, different circumstances. My circumstances could get you thrown in prison or killed and I can’t live with that. I won’t let you be involved.”
“I already am,” she argued without heat. “Please, just hear me out. I can help. At least try. We both have experience we can rely on, Zeke. You’re an operator. I’m intelligence. Together we can figure a way out of this – a way that protects the people you love and sends the guilty to jail.”
He searched her eyes for a long time before he shook his head. “This is my problem. You’ll just have to trust me to handle this. My way.”
�
�In other words, you’re shutting me out.”
“I’m protecting you.”
“From what?”
“From me,” he said sadly and released her. “I have to go. Lock up on your way out.”
With that, he walked out. Roxy watched him go, heard the sound of the outer door close and the roar of the engine as he started his bike.
She turned toward her reflection in the mirror and stood there for a long time, studying the woman in the mirror and searching her own heart. Finally she turned away. He might think he was protecting her, but she wasn’t going to back down. She would find a way to see him safely out of this mess.
And when that was done… well, she couldn’t see that far down the road.
Her phone rang and she pulled it from her pocket. West Franklin. She’d forgotten all about him. She headed out of the house. Maybe Franklin was a source she could tap into. The hard part would be getting him to trust her.
With her mind on just how she was going to accomplish that feat, she hurried home to change for her date with him.
Chapter Twelve
West smiled as he left Mayor Dillon Morris’ office. No doubt, right now Morris was close to shitting his shorts. West had played it tough and unforgiving with the Mayor, letting him know that the NCS knew all about his crooked business practices and his associations with criminal elements “up north”.
He offered Dillon a deal. Help him nail the Renegades and in return he got a get-out-of-jail free card. Immunity from prosecution.
Dillon jumped on it like the proverbial duck on a June bug as it was said in the south. He would work to find out who the MC’s contact was with the Mexican Mafia and the cartel, and would try and muscle his way into the meth operation at the phosphate mine.
West had an idea of how Morris would try and go about that. Police Chief Art Phillips. West was pretty sure Phillips had his fingers in all the dirty pies in Harmony.
He pulled out his cell phone and called the task force office in Morehead City. “I want full surveillance on Dillon Morris. Harmony Mayor. House, car, office – 24/7. I want to know where and what he eats and when he shits. Got it? I’ll be in touch.”