The Skeleton King (Dartmoor Book 3)

by Gilley, Lauren

  Becca gasped.

  Emmie whacked her shin against the desk and she bit down hard on her lip to keep from cursing.

  Walsh stood in the threshold, in his cut, jeans, a green and white plaid shirt. Sunlight coming in from the open barn doors struck highlights in his wheat-colored hair. His expression was unreadable, his eyes white-blue and bright.

  His gaze moved between the three of them, lingering on Emmie, and she crossed her arms, feeling like she ought to cover herself for some reason.

  “You heard?” she asked.

  He nodded. “Saw it on the news.”

  Another trowel full of sadness got heaped on her grief pile as she realized what Davis’s death meant. “Then you’ll know the developers are going to get the farm for sure. His family’s going to fight and wind up carving this place into bits; they won’t have any option but to all sell to Gannon.”

  Stone-faced, Walsh said, “Hate to break it to all of them, but the paperwork’s already signed, and we closed yesterday afternoon. The farm’s mine.”

  ~*~

  Dolly had nosed him awake for her usual six a.m. trip outside, and he’d turned on the TV like always, and there had been Davis Richards’ photo up on the screen. Local millionaire found dead in home. Suspected heart attack. An autopsy would be performed. Everyone’s thoughts and prayers were with the family.

  Walsh’s first thought had been Thank God. Because the accelerated closing, the quick transfer of property into his hands had ensured that Briar Hall was his, and couldn’t be contested by any of the family.

  His second thought had been Emmie. Because his little barn manager with the T&A was going to be devastated by the loss.

  He was pleasantly surprised to find her dry-eyed, consoling her coworkers. She was in shock, he saw, as she stared at him. It hadn’t penetrated yet that Richards was dead, and she was coping.

  He was impressed again. Women like Maggie Teague, like Ava Lécuyer, hell, even Michael’s Holly – they coped, shoving the grief down in the heat of the moment and handling what needed to be handled. Like he’d told Rottie and RJ – the old ladies.

  He wouldn’t have blamed Emmie Johansen for sobbing like the teenage Becca beside her, but he was glad she wasn’t.

  He opened his mouth to ask her if she’d step outside with him a moment, but she was on her feet before he could form the question.

  “Let’s go out to the tables,” she said as she walked toward and then past him, her stride brisk, boot heels clicking over the concrete.

  Walsh followed her out the front doors and around to the pavilion. Emmie sat not on the bench of a picnic table, but the tabletop itself, small hands gripping the edge hard. Her face was grave, her eyes tired, but she didn’t have that red, puffy look of a woman who’d been crying.

  With all professionalism stripped away, she stared at him with obvious suspicion. “How the hell did you manage this?”

  “The process started before I ever showed up. Richards said over the phone he wanted to sell to anybody besides those developer wankers. Even,” he said with a wry half-smile, “an outlaw biker.”

  She looked like she’d been punched. “What?”

  “We closed yesterday afternoon.”

  “How?”

  Walsh wasn’t the international Money Man for every chapter of the Dogs because he was slow on the uptake. Before he’d ever talked to Ghost, he’d initiated contact with Richards, set the closing process in motion, set everything up with Ethan as if the sale would be green-lighted. He’d figured it better to back out than drag his feet, and he’d been right.

  He wanted to smile at her again. “You do know how real estate works, right?”

  She waved a hand, like she wanted to swat at him. “I don’t understand. Amy said Brett had talked everyone into selling to Gannon.”

  “He was trying to do that. Richards didn’t want this place to get bulldozed. Turns out, he was as sentimental about it as you are. When I agreed to keep all his staff on, that was the final push – he sold to me without contest. I didn’t even have the house inspected. Wham–bam, and all that.”

  “I…” She rubbed at her eyes, wincing as if they hurt. If she’d found the body last night, then she hadn’t slept. She was too tired to make sense of this.

  “You own it?” she asked, voice strained. “You really, legally, honest to God own Briar Hall?”

  “I do.”

  “Shit,” she said, dazed. “Shit…” And then in a flurry, she burst up from the table, leapt down, and flung her arms around his neck. She trembled all over, the shiver passing into him as her breasts pressed into his chest. “Thank God,” she whispered, and he felt her breath against his neck, warm and gasping. “Thank you, thank you.”

  His imagination conjured an alternative scenario, one in which her arms were wrapped around him, and she was gasping against his neck for a very different reason.

  “Thought you couldn’t work for a big scary biker.”

  She pulled back, and then seemed to realize what she’d done and withdrew her hands, pressing them together in a nervous gesture. She smiled though – one of those breathless relieved smiles that had little to do with joy. “Finding a loved one dead tends to change your perspective,” she said. “And…” Her brows went up. “Biker, maybe, but you’re not very big.”

  “I could resent that, you know.”

  She snorted.

  “I’m big where it counts.”

  “Ew,” she said without inflection. Her smile dropped away, eyes widening in sudden dread. “Oh, man. The family. Amy and her brothers and sisters.”

  “What about ‘em?”

  “They’re going to be pissed. Shit.” She rubbed at her forehead like she had a stress headache and paced away from him. “They wanted to sell to the developer. They thought Gannon would give them more money.” She glanced over. “How much did you give him, by the way?”

  “Full asking price.”

  She whistled. “Not that it’s my business.”

  “It’s not.”

  “But that’ll help. It’s all about the money with them, so that’ll definitely help.” She dropped onto the picnic table bench with a deep sigh. “Okay, so…”

  “Emmie?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Who gives a shit if the guy’s bastard kids are pissed off?”

  She stared at him. Blinked.

  “They can’t do anything. This isn’t their farm.”

  “It’s…” She sucked in a breath. “It’s not, is it?” Her smile was exhausted and wobbly. “It’s not.”

  “Leave the kids to me. You don’t have to worry about any of that anymore.”

  She shivered hard, a full body chill moving through her.

  “You alright?”

  She kept smiling, shaking her head. “Fine.”

  ~*~

  Emmie felt relieved. A big, overwhelming, muscle-relaxing relief that she couldn’t blame on the hot shower she was taking. It bothered her – she should be sobbing like Becca – but there was nothing to do about it. All the dread that had lay coiled in her belly like a snake for the past weeks was gone. Briar Hall was staying Briar Hall. She was keeping her job. Nothing was changing…

  Well, she assumed nothing was changing. She hadn’t asked Walsh about her salary, or talked much about barn policy, or inquired as to any changes he might want to make.

  Assuming he wanted to make any. Assuming this was a legitimate venture for him, and not some strategic MC move –

  Shit. She’d seen that on TV. Clubs like the Lean Dogs owned all kinds of business that served as fronts. Hell – the Dogs had all those shops down on Industrial, that big Dartmoor complex.

  What if Walsh was going to run drugs out of Briar Hall? What if…

  Stop, she told herself. Be glad for the moment, and worry about the rest later.

  Becca and Fred had told her to go up and grab a nap, that they’d take care of all the afternoon chores, but Emmie knew that would be impossible. She was always too
tense to sleep during the day, and she felt guilty taking any time off from work. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone on vacation.

  After her shower, she dressed in cutoffs and a tank top, not worried about saddle time today. Today was all about muddling through and handling the inevitable fallout with the Richards clan.

  She only made it as far as the bottom of her apartment steps when the shit hit the fan. Becca was waiting, nibbling at her lower lip, bouncing one foot with the toe braced on the concrete. Her eyes flared unhappily.

  “Amy and Manny are in the office waiting on you.”

  All the muscles that had relaxed under the hot water immediately tightened. “Awesome.”

  Eight

  There were five Richards siblings, it turned out, each one more distraught than the last: Manfred, Junior, Gail, Jan, and Amy. Manny and Amy, from what Walsh could tell, held one another in extreme contempt, and had been shouting, screaming, crying – on Amy’s part – for the better part of an hour.

  They wanted the sale contested on account of Richards’ mental stability. They wanted to see all the documents, talk to the lawyers. They thought Walsh was a swindler who’d used grifter-magic to talk their father into selling to, as Manny eloquently put it, “a fucking white trash loser who couldn’t even fucking talk right.”

  It had been halfway amusing at first, but now, Walsh was done with the lot of them.

  He put thumb and forefinger in his mouth and whistled loud enough to burst their eardrums.

  “Ah!” Amy yelled, clapping her hands over her ears. She was a beautiful woman in a physical sense, but she’d cried off all her makeup and her face was blotchy and swollen beneath. Listening to her talk to her siblings had turned her truly hideous in his eyes.

  “Who the hell do you–” Manny started.

  “Shut up,” Walsh said in his calmest, flattest, most emotionless voice. With his accent, it always got under Americans’ skin. It was the voice that had launched prospects into action. The voice that had sent club sluts stumbling out of his bed in search of their clothes.

  “If you wanna cry about it, do it somewhere else,” he continued. “This place – not yours. And you” – he pointed at Manny – “and you” – the rest of them – “just lost your goddamn father, and you’re bitching about where his estate ended up? Shame. Shame on all you assholes. Take the money I gave him, and get the fuck off my property before I call the cops.”

  The women stared at him agog, mouths falling open.

  “Go on.” He gave them a little wave. “Off you go.”

  They fumed a moment, but ultimately turned around.

  Manfred lingered, glaring.

  “Oh,” Walsh told him, “and if I hear of you down there yelling at my manager again, you’re gonna find out the difference between a biker and a real biker, mate. We clear?”

  Manny said something that sounded like “fuck you,” and stalked off after his brother and sisters.

  Walsh was then alone, in his new front yard, looking down at his new farm, more than a little stunned with the turns of life that had led him to this point.

  Technically, it was the club’s farm, and the Knoxville crew was going to do a major run as favor to Texas for their loan.

  But in this moment, he felt proprietary and peaceful inside. He did love farms. Oh, how he loved farms.

  It was evening, and the low sounds of horses nickering floated up from the barn. He watched the Richards all leave in their various cars, and then climbed the porch steps, went into the expansive house, its industrial kitchen, and found the champagne he’d left in the fridge earlier.

  He glanced around the room as he stripped off the foil. The appliances would probably stay, but the table, the dishes, the pots and pans – all of the furniture in the rest of the house – would no doubt be hauled away by Richards’ children. It was theirs, after all. The house hadn’t been sold furnished. And Walsh wouldn’t miss any of it – it was just stuff. But he would be in the lurch furniture-wise. His own bed, table, and TV wouldn’t go far toward filling this cavernous home.

  Any regret he felt over Davis Richards’ death was slotted in his usual Unpleasant Things mental drawer, and he went back out to the porch to enjoy his chilled champagne on the porch, overlooking his new domain.

  He’d just gotten settled in a rocking chair when he noticed a lone figure cresting the driveway, cutting across the flagstone path toward him. Emmie had swapped her riding outfit for short cutoffs and another tank top, this one navy. Instead of boots, she wore a pair of those ugly leather Dansko clogs every chick at every barn wore.

  Her hair was down, and that pleased him into a momentary stupor. It was sheared straight off at the ends just below her shoulders, and was a tangle of tight curls, a dozen different shades of blonde.

  He liked for his women to look like women, and her combination of curvy and fit, small but emotionally sharp-edged was pushing all of his buttons.

  She reached the base of the porch steps and paused, looking up at him. “Can I come up?” she asked.

  He bit back a smile. “You don’t have to ask that.”

  “I always did before…not because he asked me…I just…” She shook her head hard and walked up the few steps, clogs loud on the wood. “Sorry. Old habits.”

  “S’alright.”

  She came to the chair beside him, hesitated, then sat, arms braced on the chair arms that were really too tall for her, looking stiff and uncomfortable.

  “No lessons tonight?”

  “They all canceled. Because of what happened.”

  “Figured.”

  She looked down at her lap and fiddled with the frayed hems of her shorts, then gathered a breath and looked over at him. “I realized there’s some things we didn’t talk about. Important, boss/employee stuff. I think we ought to walk through it.”

  He couldn’t help it: it was a small disappointment that she hadn’t come up here just to see him. Then again, he wouldn’t have wanted her if she’d been that kind of girl, would he?

  “Yeah.” He fitted a thumb at the base of the champagne cork and sent it flying with a fast movement. Emmie gasped at the loud pop. “I’m celebrating,” he explained, taking a long swig of the foaming crystal bubbles. “I can drink and listen at the same time.”

  She looked flustered. “Okay.”

  He gestured for her to continue.

  “Right. Okay. Well, we didn’t discuss salary before.”

  He shrugged. “It won’t change. I went over all that with Richards.”

  Her brows plucked in surprise. “Yeah, but I thought…” she trailed off, lips compressing like she’d thought better of it.

  “You thought I’d shaft you?” he asked.

  “No. I didn’t think – this is just a bit of a change, is all. I sort of…” She gestured around her head with both hands.

  “The salary won’t change. Not for you or the other two. How do you pronounce Fred’s real name, by the way?”

  “He won’t tell me.”

  “Well, I can copy it down on a check, at any rate. So it’s all good. No worries for you.”

  “I can’t help it. I’m a worrier.”

  “Anal retentive, are we?”

  “No.” She looked scandalized by the idea. “Practical.”

  Walsh nodded, trying not to laugh. Her presence left him in better spirits than anything had in a long while. “Alright, Miss Practical.” He leaned toward her and offered the champagne bottle. “Stop raining on my parade.”

  She looked at the bottle, then at his face. He was delighted to realize she’d put on lip gloss for this little chat. Not so practical after all, was she?

  “I don’t have hepatitis, love.”

  Still staring at him, her hand extended slowly.

  “You’re not one of those no-drinking religious types, are you?”

  Lips compressing, she took the bottle and lifted it to her mouth, took a healthy sip. His eyes followed the way her lips pursed around the bottle
where his had been. The way her throat moved as she swallowed.

  “At least, I don’t think I have hepatitis,” he said, and she choked, eyes going huge as she fought to keep the champagne in her mouth.

  “Joking,” he said mildly. “I don’t fuck around with the club sluts.”

  Finally recovered, Emmie thrust the bottle back toward him, her expression angrier than it should have been. “Oh, that’s a nice thought. Excuse me, I’ve got to–”

  “Run go sit by yourself up in that apartment that smells like horse shit?”

  “It doesn’t smell,” she insisted. She was getting to that adorable, indignant state of annoyance. “And I–”

  “Just want to be a martyr?”

  “Would you stop it?”

  “Would you sit down and drink your damn champagne?” he countered, without inflection.

  Emmie had been pitched forward in her chair, and all but threw herself back, lifting the bottle and taking another swig.

  “You won, love,” Walsh added. “You’ve got your farm, your job, your students, and you never have to deal with those pricks again. Be happy about that.”

  She looked like she wanted to say something, but took another swallow instead.

  ~*~

  There was a reason she didn’t drink very often. Two, actually, one being the fact that her father was an alcoholic and she was afraid that trait was hereditary. Secondly, because drinking always made her relaxed and chatty – and there weren’t many people she wanted to be that way around.

  Somehow, she’d managed to choke down half a bottle of champagne in the last half hour, and her worst nightmare was coming true – she was getting too candid with a hot stranger.

  Because as her inhibitions were stripped away one bubble at a time, she admitted to herself just how wildly attractive she found him. No, screw attractive – he was hot. The weathered lines on his face, the thickness of his hair, the compact musculature under his shirt – hot. And he was just her size, too, which was an added bonus.

  She stared at him, and he stared back with a narrow-eyed, unreadable gaze that she found unnerving at other times – completely enthralling now.