He laughed, shifted the bags in his arms a bit. “M’lady.”
“You need a hand?”
“Yeah, thanks. Grab this one. It’s not very heavy.”
They piled the bags on the kitchen counter and then – without a word – they started to unpack the groceries together in companionable, comfortable silence. Jo was just putting the honey on the shelf when she noticed that Silver was standing there with a weird look on his face.
“What’s up?” she said shutting the cabinet door. “Did you forget something?”
“Nope. I actually… I got you a housewarming present.”
“You did?”
“Yep.” He handed her a bottle. “Welcome home, Jolene.”
She stared down at the rose bubble bath, astonished and then touched. “Silver. You didn’t have to – thank you.”
He shrugged, a bit embarrassed. “I know how much you like your bubble baths.”
Emboldened, she looked up at him now, wanting to meet those eyes, wanting to see if he was also thinking about that incredible bath together. If memory was moving over his skin the way that it was hers; if he was slowly but surely feeling his breath quicken.
One glance was all it took for her to confirm that yes, he was. God, the heat and desire in those silver depths were so huge, so deep, they were practically tangible. Jo felt an answering burst of want in her stomach so sharp that it was almost pain. But she didn’t mind: it reminded her that she was alive and whole and all woman.
“Thank you,” she said again, her voice huskier than usual. “For everything you’ve done. For last night and this morning. For the house and the gift.”
“You know you’re welcome.”
“I know.”
Silver stepped towards her and she didn’t move even one inch back. He reached out, his hand almost cupping her cheek. “Jolene –“
Just then, Silver’s cell rang, breaking the moment. Jo jumped and Silver cursed.
“Jesus,” he said and grabbed his phone off the counter. He looked at the number and suddenly any sign of desire was gone. He was all business when he looked back up to meet her gaze. “It’s Ice.”
“Oh,” Jo whispered, suddenly very afraid of what might be coming down the phone line at them. “OK.”
“You ready, baby? For whatever it is that he has to say?”
“No. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to hear it.”
“That’s my girl.” He swiped to accept the call, fixed his eyes on Jo’s face, not liking how ashen she was. “Hi Ice.”
Jo stood there clutching the bottle of bubble bath in both hands, trying to stop her shaking as her thoughts raced and twisted back on themselves. It was real now, really real: Brian was back in her life, he was in her space, he was watching her. Wolf, Scars, Ice, Silver, all the guys – they were involved now. They were going to look at and talk to and think about her differently.
Everything was different and she didn’t want it to be. She wanted things to go back to the way that they were yesterday. Except for this house. She’d definitely want to keep living in Silver’s house. But everything else could be the same.
“Uh-huh,” Silver said and she tensed. It was only an ‘uh-huh’ but it sounded ominous. Then again, pretty much anything was going to sound ominous right about now. “I see. Yeah. OK. I’ll do that, Ice. Yeah. Yeah, I’m sure. Every day. Yes, both ways, to and from.” He paused. “End of discussion, I’m doing it. Tell Wolf. Yeah. Yeah. Bye.”
He disconnected, set the phone back on the counter. He gestured to the chairs at the kitchen table. “Sit, Jolene. We gotta talk.”
She sat without a word and he joined her. Her heart was in her throat as she waited for what surely had to be more damn bad news.
“OK, so.” Silver cleared his throat. “Davis got back to Ice, and I’m sure you won’t be surprised to hear that the theory that he floated this morning was bang on. Your ex got your information from his buddy at your lawyer’s firm.”
“That James idiot got my file?”
“Yes, and apparently that was a huge mistake. Millicent had left it out of the stuff that was to be re-distributed but some intern accidentally added it to the pile. It looks to me like Millie was trying right to the end to protect you by not passing your personal info around, and someone dropped the ball. When the lawyers divided up the clients, Worth didn’t get you at first, but he knew that you’d been coming in and out to see Millie, so he traded with another lawyer. He made sure that he got what he needed and passed it on to Brian.”
“And James Worth volunteered all of this to Davis when asked nicely?”
“According to Ice, yes.”
“Davis didn’t… ummm.” Jo hesitated, not sure how to put this. “Persuade him?”
“No, Jolene. It wasn’t necessary. Davis sat down across from him in his office and asked very politely for what he wanted to know. Worth answered. Very eagerly, Ice told me.”
“So… threats?”
“Probably, at least at first.” Silver grinned. “But you’ve met Matt Kingston, right? Davis gives the man a run for his money in terms of size and demeanor. If I were James Worth and I had that sitting across from me asking me questions, I’d sure as hell be cooperative too.”
“Who’s Matt Kingston?”
“Zee told me that you ladies hit Curves a few weeks ago, right?”
“Yes.”
“You met King.”
“Oh!” Jo laughed as the penny dropped. “His name is Matt Kingston?”
“Yep.”
“I know it’s ridiculous, but I actually thought of him as nothing other than ‘King’. It suits him, and it never even occurred to me that he might have another name. Seems superfluous in his case.”
“I know what you mean.” Silver became serious again. “So, now we know for sure how your asshole ex found you. We can pretty much guess why he wanted to, and last night showed us what he wants to do to you if he gets ahold of you again. We’re ahead of the game in some ways, but way fucking behind in others.”
Jo was very much liking all the ‘we’s’ that Silver was using. It had been a long time since she’d felt a part of any ‘we’ situations, and being able to hand over at least some of her worry and fear into other hands was a massive relief. She nodded as he continued:
“Now, I know you’re safe in this house. That’s not even up for discussion, so I want you to relax when you’re here, OK? You’re also safe anytime you’re on Road Devils property, because Wolf has told everyone about your shithead ex and the boys won’t ever take their eyes off you. That’s a guarantee. But Wolf and Scars and Ice were talking about the rest of the time, specifically, when you’re going to and from work, shopping, going for coffee. Stuff like that.”
“OK,” she said slowly. “What are they thinking?”
“They’re thinking what I told them to think, which is that I’ll be taking you to and from work every day.”
“You?” She felt completely wrong-footed by that information. “Uh – isn’t that a hassle?”
Right away, she knew that she’d said exactly the wrong thing: his face darkened, his eyes narrowed, his lips tightened.
“Were you not listening to Wolf earlier?” he asked her, his words slow and quiet. “When he told you to stop insulting us by saying that it’s a hassle to keep you safe? I thought that he was pretty fucking clear myself, but maybe you missed it?”
“No,” Jo said hastily. “No, I got it. I’m sorry. I just – I’m not used to people looking out for me and helping me. It’s – Silver, it’s all new for me and I’m still getting used to it, so my default setting is to make sure that I’m not a burden. But I promise not to ask again.”
“You better not,” he said, still very stern. “It’s truly offensive to keep questioning our words. We’re grown men, we say what we mean.”
“OK,” she
whispered. “Thank you and I’m sorry.”
“So. I’ll come and pick you up every morning and bring you to The Garage. I can organize my schedule however I want – one of the perks of management, baby – and we’ll leave whenever you’re done work. I can take you shopping or anywhere that you need to go and bring you home again. I’ll make sure nobody’s following us to and from here, Ice and his boys will make sure nobody’s watching you at work, and they can put out their local feelers and contacts to find Brian. Between us all, we got the bases covered – and we got you. Questions?”
“Just one.”
“Shoot.”
“Can we stop at Krispy Kreme on the way to work for donuts and coffee?”
He blinked. “What – every morning?”
“No!” she said in mock indignation. “I’ll burst out of all my new clothes if we do that! Just most workday mornings. Like… three out of five. I’m buying.”
Silver’s eyes twinkled. “OK, sweet thing. Three out of five days it is – and we’ll take turns buying. Deal?”
“Deal, querido.” Jo felt a wave of happiness just wash over her: it was an amazing feeling, knowing that she had so many people wanting to help her. “Deal to all of it.”
Chapter Sixteen
Two weeks later
“Ummm… a layer of tortillas now, right?” Silver asked, holding a tortilla in one hand and a spoon in the other. “Or, wait… the sauce?”
“Nope,” Jo said from over at the counter where she was cutting avocado. “Cheese.”
“Gah,” he said. “Why can’t I do this? Why?”
She laughed and rinsed the knife under the tap. “I have no idea, querido. It’s pretty simple: tortillas that cover the whole pan, then enchilada sauce, then the cheese mixture. Do that three times, finishing with cheese on the top layer.”
“Then avocado and sour cream?”
“Uh-huh.” Jo dried the knife, turned her attention to the cilantro. “And a bit of this.”
“Damn,” he muttered as he slathered the sauce on unevenly, stared in despair at his crap efforts. “Maybe I should have taken you out for dinner tonight, huh?”
“You said last week that you wanted to learn how to cook!” she reminded him merrily. “You also said that you felt ready to try Mexican and one of my papi’s favorite recipes!”
“I know, but I kinda thought that we’d start with nachos or something.” He sprinkled the shredded cheddar and Monterey Jack mixture over the sauce, then reached for more tortillas. “Like, throw some nacho chips from a bag onto a plate, add cheese, throw in the microwave. Open store-bought salsa and guacamole and sour cream. Dip and eat and call it a day. I didn’t think you’d trust me with chicken enchilada casserole bake right off the damn bat.”
She paused with her knife in mid-air. “Seriously? Microwaved nachos?”
“Yeah.” He frowned at the exposed edges around the tortillas, shifted them so the area of the whole baking dish was covered. “I ain’t Gordon Ramsay, baby.”
“I dunno.” Jo opened the fridge and took out the sour cream that she’d made that morning before going to work; it tasted better at room temperature, so it needed to warm up slightly. “That macaroni and cheese that you made last week was pretty good. Restaurant standard, I’d say.”
“Only because you taught me to pour the milk into the butter-flour mixture slowly, and then add the cheese a bit at a time for four minutes as I stirred.”
“See?” She gave him a dazzling smile from across the kitchen. “You’re a fast learner and we’ve only had ten cooking lessons together.”
“So maybe there’s hope for me?”
“It’s possible.”
“I’ll take it,” he told her. “OK… that’s done. Do I add the avocado and all that now?”
“Nope.” She nodded at the pre-heated oven. “Put that in to bake for sixty minutes on low. The toppings go on after the cheese has melted.”
“Yeah, that makes more sense.” Silver carefully picked up the tray, headed over to the oven. “I mean, who wants to eat cooked avocado and hot sour cream, right?”
“Cooked avocado isn’t bad in a few dishes,” she said opening the oven door for him and setting the timer. “But it doesn’t work here.”
“OK, well.” He slid the tray into the heat, shut the door. “Now what?”
“We wait.” Jo washed her hands and Silver followed suit. “We have about an hour to kill.”
“Wanna kick my ass at poker again tonight?”
“Hell yeah, querido.” She grabbed her glass of wine and headed for the coffee table in the living room. “What do you owe me now?”
“I don’t remember,” Silver said in a deadpan voice as he followed her. “Ten bucks is it?”
“Ten?” she retorted. “Try two hundred!”
“Yeah, yeah.” He sat on the sofa and took a sip of whiskey. “You aren’t really going to hold me to that, are you, sweet thing?”
“Like hell I’m not, big guy. I want to buy this cute wrap dress that I saw downtown, and the thing is two hundred bucks on sale. You’ll be paying up, I promise you.”
“Unless I win tonight.”
Jo snorted. “You never win.”
“That is a damn fact and why is that, anyway? You’re a shark.”
“Not a shark,” she said airily as she shuffled the cards with all the cool elegance and lethal skill of a Las Vegas dealer. “I just have a good poker face.”
“You do.”
“It’s weird that you don’t and why is that, anyway? I’d think that you’d have needed one all those years that you and the boys were into your criminal activities. I mean – I imagine that there were times when you had to hide your thoughts, or not give anything away to an enemy or whoever.”
“True.” Silver stretched a bit, still feeling a bit sore from the gym the night before. “But I have an awesome poker face for drug dealers and kidnappers and general bad guys. It seems to desert me when I’m playing cards with you, though.”
“Huh.” She dealt the cards expertly. “So you can’t cook and you can’t beat me at cards. What good are you, then?”
“Hey!” he said in mock indignation. “I can make restaurant-standard mac and cheese! You said so, not even two minutes ago.”
“Know why else I’m a good poker player?”
“No.”
“Because you can’t tell when I’m lying.”
Silver stared at her sitting on the floor, all casual in black leggings and a loose denim shirt, her gorgeous hair piled up on her head, dark tendrils sneaking out and curling down her neck and over the delicate curves of her cheeks. She was so mouthwateringly beautiful like this, so relaxed and natural, and in these moments he was barely able to stop himself from just pinning her to the floor and kissing her smart little mouth.
For this reason, the past two weeks with her had been a never-ending exercise in frustration. They had also been the best time of his life.
When Silver had told Jolene that he’d be taking her to and from work every day, it hadn’t occurred to him that he’d have so much damn fun with the woman. OK yes, he knew that he’d enjoy being around her intelligence and warmth, and God knows he’d like looking at her beauty first thing every morning and at the end of every day.
What he hadn’t expected was what had happened on the third day that he’d brought her home.
On that day, he’d pulled up in front of her house and come in to make sure that everything was OK. As was their established routine, she’d made him a coffee while he’d quickly reviewed the security cam footage from that day, looking for anything weird or unusual. It had been clean and clear, so he’d finished his coffee and was about to head out the door. That was when something different had happened.
As it turned out, Jolene was one hell of a cook. She’d told him that her father had taught her, and sh
e loved it. While he’d been sitting in the laundry room off the kitchen, amazing smells had wafted in, making him hungry. Despite that, the first two times that she’d asked him if he wanted to stay for dinner, he’d declined for some reason.
Until the third day, when she’d asked him for a hand before he left for the evening.
She’d made a pizza – which smelled fucking unbelievable and had made Silver resolve to order one the second that he walked in his front door – and had forgotten the oven mitts across the room. He’d brought them over to her and peered into the oven at the bubbling cheese goodness.
“Wow,” he’d said, eying the thick crust, the bacon piled high, the huge black olives. “I’m guessing that’s not frozen, huh?”
Jolene had laughed as she’d slid the pizza out. “Nuh-uh. Homemade from scratch.”
“The crust too?”
“Of course.” She’d set the tray on the cutting board. “If you get the crust wrong, it all goes wrong.”
“I just throw extra cheese on mine. Seems to help.”
“Help with what?”
“Freezer burn taste.”
She’d looked horrified. “Frozen crust?”
“Sure. Not everyone knows how to make that from scratch, baby.”
“But it’s so easy.”
“Not for me.” He’d shrugged and put on his boot. “I’m a dismal cook.”
“So what do you eat?”
“Ummm. Well, I eat at Satan’s when I can and I get takeout a lot, and I guess I have lots of processed and canned stuff in my cupboards. Bagged veggies, some fresh fruit.” He really thought about it. “Oh. And coffee and whiskey.”
She’d stared at him in sheer disbelief, then she’d pointed at her kitchen table. “Sit.”
“What?”
“Sit, I said.”
“Jolene –”
“Sit your ass down, Silver. Now.”
He’d sat, one boot on and one still in his hand.
That had been the best pizza of his life, the best meal of his life. And as he’d driven home two hours later, a Tupperware container of pizza on the passenger seat next to him, he’d known that the food hadn’t been the reason why he’d loved it so much. Or not the main one, at least.
The Devil's Silver (The Road Devils MC Book 2) Page 28