I need to ride.
Just outside of town is one of my favorite roads. It twists and turns through the foothills outside Tanner Springs, past fields and farms, with the mountains miles away in the background. I let my body work with the bike, leaning deep into the curves. I try as hard as I can to force Samantha’s image out of my mind. But in doing so, my thoughts turn toward the past. Toward the most fucked-up period of my life. The time I try hardest to forget. And the one person I wish more than anything I’d never laid eyes on.
I speed up a little, taking the curves faster than I should. I’m trying to outrun my thoughts, I know. I don’t like thinking about any of this. Remembering that my brother might still be here if I hadn’t fucked up so badly. If I hadn’t let my guard down and betrayed him.
I drive and drive, working hard to empty my mind of everything that’s chasing after me. After a while, I feel the tension start to ease a little from between my shoulder blades. Eventually I slow to a near-stop on the wide open, deserted road, then turn the bike around and head back into town, feeling almost human again.
On my way back to the clubhouse, I pass through downtown and happen to drive by The Lion’s Tap, one of the local dive bars. It’s just past three in the afternoon, at the beginning of early happy hour for the drunks. The usual crowd of smokers is hanging around by the front entrance.
As I ride by, a familiar figure happens to catch my eye. Before I register who it is, a petite blonde happens to turn around at the sound of my bike. We lock eyes.
Anita.
She gives me the finger, her face contorting into an ugly scowl, then sneers and turns back toward her group.
All the anger and rage I rode out of town to escape comes flooding back.
As if the universe wants to hammer home the fact that I have no business messing with Samantha Jennings.
A few minutes later I slam into the clubhouse, pushing open the door so hard I think for a second I’ve broken it. At the bar, Jewel and Skid’s old lady Rena jump.
“Jesus, Hawk,” Jewel gasps, putting her hand to her chest. “You scared me half to death.”
“Sorry,” I scowl. “Give me a beer and a shot.”
I catch Jewel raising her eyebrows slightly at Rena. “Sure thing,” she murmurs, and heads off down the bar to grab my drinks.
“Hey, Hawk,” Rena says cautiously. She’s sitting a couple of stools down. She doesn’t come into the club much, so she must be waiting for Skid.
“Hey.” It comes out louder and harsher than I want it to, and I feel bad, but fuck it.
“Okaayyy,” Rena drawls, and rolls her eyes. “I’m gonna just go over there for a while.” Her stool scrapes on the floor as she gets up. I don’t glance over.
Jewel sets my beer and my shot in front of me. I slam the shot and motion for another, which she gives me without a word. When I slam that, too, she gives me a questioning look.
“Just set the bottle up here,” I say darkly. “It’ll be quicker.”
Behind me, I can hear Rena whispering softly with a couple of the club girls. Looks like I’ve successfully scared away the women. Good.
Unfortunately, the men won’t be so easy. A couple minutes later, Thorn comes ambling up and sits down next to me. “Hey, brother, all right there?”
“Not in the mood for conversation,” I mutter.
“Jaysus, who pissed in your corn flakes?” he chuckles, undeterred. Thorn loves weird American expressions, especially when he can use them to piss one of us off.
“Fuck off, Thorn,” I bite out.
“Ah, come on. You got a drink in front of ya, you’ve got my fine company. What more can you want, then?” He raises his own beer and gives me a cheesy grin.
“I swear to God, Thorn, I will beat you to death if you try to cheer me up.”
He whistles. “Some people are just determined to see the world as all bad. Come on, lad. Turn that frown…”
“Thorn, you mother—”
“Hey, brothers,” Brick’s deep voice interrupts, probably saving Thorn from a broken jaw. “Jewel,” he calls. “Beer.”
“Careful,” Thorn warns him. “Hawk’s in a foul mood.”
Brick snorts. “What else is new?” He leans against the bar and takes the beer from Jewel. “So, have you heard?” he continues. “Rock, Angel, Ghost, and Geno met with Ozzy and his crew. Looks like they reached a deal with the Death Devils to take the guns off our hands.”
“That’s great,” Thorn nods. “When are we doing the transfer?”
“Rock set up a meet at a spot right on the border between our two territories. They’ll meet us there with a couple of their trucks,” Brick replies. “Should be in a day or two.”
Even though I’m in no mood to celebrate anything, this is good news. “I’ll be glad to get that shit out of our hands,” I admit.
“Yeah,” Thorn agrees. “Things are getting too hot right now. I keep expecting the news that Holloway’s goons have found out the warehouse is ours and raided it.”
“That piece of shit dead fish-eyed little fuck,” Brick glowers. “Every time I see his face I want to punch it.”
“You and me both,” I say, and allow myself just the slightest smile. Beating the shit out of Jarred Holloway is maybe the only thing that would put me in a good mood right now.
“There’s our boy!” Thorn crows. “All sunshines and rainbows.”
“Jesus Christ, Thorn, you are fucking annoying,” I growl, but he’s so goddamn ridiculous I find my mood lifting in spite of myself.
“Hey,” another voice says behind us. I turn to see Angel. “Saddle up. Rock wants you guys to head out to the warehouse and take inventory of what we’ve got out there.”
“Now?” Brick asked, his face registering confusion. “I thought the gun transfer wasn’t for a couple days.”
“Rock wants to get shit ready,” Angel replies. “I think maybe he’s getting antsy. Doesn’t want the Devils to change their minds. Wants to nail down the details, get it done as soon as we can.”
Good thing I’m only a couple of shots down, I think. I was working on getting good and hammered. Twenty minutes from now and I’d be in no shape to drive.
I stand up, as do Brick and Thorn. With a twinkle in his eye, Thorn grabs the whiskey bottle that was sitting in front of me. Then three of us head outside and drive out to the warehouse, to take stock of the guns.
13
Samantha
“Sam, these are just so, so gorgeous,” Jenna gushes. “I really don’t know how to thank you enough!”
We’re sitting on the couch in the main room of the carriage house, my laptop hooked up to a large monitor on the coffee table. Jenna’s here to pick out the final photos for the wedding album. She and Cas have already looked at the pictures online, but I like to do this part face to face. I want to make sure that clients feel free to tell me about any changes or adjustments they’d like to make.
“It was a really fun wedding to photograph,” I tell her truthfully. “Not to mention one of the most interesting ones I’ve ever done.”
Jenna’s eyes sparkle. “Yeah, the Lords are definitely something else,” she laughs. “I wasn’t quite sure what to expect myself, to tell you the truth. Our wedding was the first time I’ve seen the men try to clean up and act respectable for a little while. Not sure they pulled it off.”
I laugh, then watch as Jenna continues to click through the images herself. I take notes as she makes a comment on one photo or another.
Eventually, Jenna comes to the pictures of Hawk playing the guitar. I draw in a sharp breath as one after another, I see his strong hands stroking the strings — the same hands that made me gasp with pleasure. The sensual lips that burned my skin. The dancing, mocking eyes that turned dark and stormy as he pulled me against him…
When I came back to the carriage house from getting yelled at a second time by Gram, Hawk was gone. I don’t know what I expected, exactly. I didn’t actually ask him to stay until I got back. I wan
ted him to, but it felt too weird and needy to actually say it out loud. So instead I just said, “I have to go,” and hoped for the best.
Frankly, when I got back and saw he was gone, part of me was a little bit relieved. Before Lourdes knocked, we were definitely about to… Well, let’s just say that as turned on as I was, I wasn’t going to stop him, whatever he did. My body had completely short-circuited my brain and all I could think about was having Hawk push himself deep inside me, deep enough to stop the ache that was driving me mad with longing. Having to stop and go talk to Gram had brought me at least part of the way back to my senses. But I’m pretty sure that if Hawk had still been there when I got back, we would definitely have finished what we started.
As relieved as part of me had been, I still spent the rest of that day horny and frustrated. And when night fell and I couldn’t take it anymore, I fumbled in the drawer of my nightstand and found my battery-powered boyfriend. It wasn’t enough — it wasn’t nearly enough — but at least it allowed me to fall asleep that night without going crazy. Thinking about it now, heat begins to grow between my legs.
“These pictures of Hawk are amazing,” Jenna says, cutting into my thoughts.
I swallow quickly and look at her with a bright, probably stupid-looking smile. “You think so?”
“Yes. I’ve never seen him quite like this. He’s usually so…” Jenna frowns for a moment. “Brooding.” She eyes me curiously. “Did you happen to talk to him at the wedding at all?”
Ha. “Um, yes, I did have a… conversation with him.” My face starts to grow hot.
“Oh, well then, you know what I mean,” she laughs.
I should change the subject. Like, right away. But Jenna actually knows Hawk. Somehow, I can’t stop myself. I want to talk about him. Even if it’s just something superficial.
“Actually,” I continue slowly. “He just came over to the house and fixed my grandmother’s leaky faucet in the main house.”
“Whoa, really?” Jenna asks, clearly astonished.
“Yeah,” I nod. “I went to the hardware store to try to figure out how to fix it myself, and ran into him. Unfortunately Gram has kind of burned all her bridges with the handymen in town. She’s never satisfied with their work and then she threatens not to pay them.”
Jenna snorts. “That sounds about par for the course with Mrs. Jennings.” Jenna, I found out about half an hour ago, is the daughter of the former mayor. She grew up just across the street — in the house that is now occupied by the much-despised Cantwells. So Jenna’s known Gram for years. I find myself wanting to ask her what happened to her father — why he left town and where he is. But I sense it’s not something I should talk about unless she brings it up first. I don’t want to upset her if it’s something painful.
“So, Hawk volunteered to come over here and fix it for you?” Jenna whistles softly. “Wow. That’s not something I would expect him to do. Hawk’s kind of the ‘keeps to himself’ type. Though, he is amazing at fixing things.”
My heart skips a beat when she says this. Somehow, the notion that he came and fixed Gram’s sink for me — not just because he’s the kind of guy who does stuff like this — makes me feel almost giddy. But then I remember how he left without even saying goodbye.
“Yeah. It was pretty nice of him.” I try to sound casual, ignoring the lump forming in my stomach. “And you should have seen the fur fly when Gram came home and found a huge tattooed guy in a leather vest in her kitchen. I thought she was going to spontaneously combust.”
Jenna starts to giggle. “Oh, my gosh. I would have paid money to see that!”
“I think the humor was lost on me at the time,” I say wryly. “Since I was the one she ended up taking it out on. She still hasn’t forgiven me, even though I reminded her that I got her sink fixed for free.”
Jenna and I work on the wedding photos for a little longer, but at this point it’s mostly chatting about our lives and getting to know each other better. She tells me about growing up in Tanner Springs, leaving as soon as she could manage it, and then eventually coming back and getting together with Cas, whom she’d had a fling with when she was barely out of high school.
“Oh, wow,” I exclaim when she tells me that Noah was the result of that fling. “So you haven’t been together since Noah was a baby?”
“No, not at all. In fact,” Jenna says with a pained look, “I didn’t even tell Cas I was pregnant at the time. When I came back to town, Noah was already four. I didn’t tell Cas he was the father until a couple months later. By then we were back together. I was petrified that he would be so angry he’d break up with me.” Her the pain in her face gives way to relief, mixed with love. “I never could have imagined that we’d end up like this — Cas and me together, with two children. Sometimes I still can’t believe it all worked out.”
“That’s quite a happily ever after,” I remark, wishing I believed in them for myself.
“What about you?” Jenna asks, leaning back against the cushions of the couch. “How did you end up deciding to come to Tanner Springs?”
I tell her how I’m here allegedly take care of Gram. She laughs uproariously at the idea that Gram would need taking care of.
“I know, it’s ridiculous, right?” I laugh along with her. “To be honest, though, I think Gram was just lonely. As irritating as she can be, I think she just likes having someone besides Lourdes to boss around. And I’m pretty much the last family she has left. Well, other than my dad, who’s her son. But God knows where he is. Neither one of us has seen him in years.”
“Wow,” Jenna breathes. “That’s rough.”
For a moment, I’m silent. I really want to ask her about her own father, but she doesn’t offer any information, and something stops me.
“Was it hard to leave your life in the city?” Jenna asks then.
I snort softly. “A lot less hard than you’d think. It helped that I’d just gotten out of a two-year relationship when I found out my ex-fiancé was cheating on me.”
“Oh, my God. Your fiancé. I can’t imagine.” Her eyes widen in sympathy.
“Yeah. Even better, it was with our freaking wedding planner.” I shrug and laugh. “Though she wasn’t the first one, to be fair. Just the first one I found out about.”
“Oh, Sam, I’m so sorry. You must have been destroyed.” She shakes her head.
“Well, let’s just say I needed a change of scenery after that. My ex is a fairly well-known sports writer. So I ran into people who knew him pretty often.” I smirk at her. “So you see why leaving the city had its attractions.”
“I think you and I both came here looking to escape,” she tells me. “I hope your story ends up as well as mine has.”
“I’m not sure that’s possible,” I grin. “Seems like you hit the jackpot.”
“Oh!” she says suddenly. “That reminds me. I have a question to ask you. I just started a job a couple months ago working for the school district’s community ed program. I was wondering — and if this is something you don’t want to do, that’s fine — would you be at all interested in teaching a community ed class in photography? It would only be one night a week,” she continues hastily. “And it doesn’t pay much, unfortunately. But they’ve had people asking for a class like that, and of course I immediately thought of you.”
“Hmm…” I hum, thinking for a moment. “Actually, it sort of sounds like fun. Plus, maybe if it ends up going well and becomes more of a regular thing, Gram will get off my back about getting a ‘real’ job.” I look at Jenna. “Sure. I’d be up for that.”
“Excellent!” she beams happily. “And who knows, maybe you’ll end up getting some more business from it!”
14
Hawk
The MC gets to the warehouse the day of the meet-up to pick up the guns, to discover that the locks have been broken off the doors. Inside, it doesn’t take long for us to confirm the worst: all the crates of 9mm pistols and AR-15s are gone.
“Jesus fucking
Christ goddamn son of a bitch!” Angel shouts, running his hands through his hair. We’re standing in the warehouse, looking around at the empty space where the crates were stacked the last time Brick, Thorn, and I were out here. Some of the other shit is gone, too, but it’s clearly the guns they were after.
Rock is angrier than I’ve ever seen him. He turns to me. “When were you here last?” he barks.
“Two days ago,” Brick says. “To pack everything up for transport. Everything was locked up tight when we left.”
Tweak comes up to us, looking grim. “Looks like the surveillance cams have been shot out. The ones I’ve looked at so far, anyway.”
“Goddamnit,” Rock seethes. “Go check the rest of them. See if you can get any footage out of them at all. We need to figure out who did this.”
“You think it’s possible the Death Devils did this?” Ghost asks, his face a mask of anger. “You think they’re fucking playing us?”
“It’s possible. Hell, anything’s possible.” Rock is silent for a moment, but he looks like he’s going to explode. “But if it was them, it’s not like anything we’ve seen from them before.”
“Yeah.” I nod. “It’s been pretty much peaceful coexistence with the Devils up until now. The Iron Spiders, on the other hand…” I don’t bother to finish my sentence. The rest of the men know exactly what I’m thinking. The Spiders have been trying to push into our territory for a while now. They’ve got plenty of motive to try to fuck with us.
“How would they know where this warehouse is?” Gunner bites out.
“I dunno. Shit, maybe they have someone working for them in our territory.” After all, they managed to turn Charlie Hurt, Jenna’s old landlord. He’s dead now, but the Spiders could have other people spying for us. It stands to reason that they’d try, anyway.
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