“You two talk, I’m going to take a bubble bath,” she called over her shoulder.
“Guess she talked some sense into you about the girl?” Reaper asked, turning to him when she was at the top of the stairs, having watched her until she was up them.
“Maybe,” he muttered, not wanting to admit that that was exactly what she’d done.
“Huh, well that’s at least one thing we don’t have to rehash then,” Reaper said, taking a seat in the rocker while Burner sat back down on the little bench waiting for him to say something else.
“I wanted to talk about Blade’s meet. I talked to Death earlier but something just isn’t sitting right with me for some reason. It’s like my skin’s crawling on this one. He’s never required us to meet him before and it worries me. Do you think it could be a trap?” Reaper finally asked.
“Like I told you earlier, I don’t know. It could be that what he has to say is something we have to see to understand I suppose. It’s hard to predict him and before when I was contacted by him I didn’t know who he was. I still can’t figure out how he knew about me not really being a part of their club. That’s been bothering me because those calls began a long time before I found the mole and left the club. He would text me with dates and times of shipments or with a time and a place they were going to snatch women.” Leaning forward, he rested his hands on his knees.
“Yeah, I wondered how you knew about the other groups moving women. It didn’t make sense to me at first and I worried they’d found you out and taken your phone but the raids went off without a hitch so I dismissed it.” Reaper frowned as he rocked slowly in the chair, silence stretching for a long time before Burner finally spoke again.
“It was odd. One night about six weeks in I was drinking with Viper and his cronies because they were just starting to trust me and I got a text with a time and date that said shipment. That was it. At first I wasn’t sure I should even tell you about it but I decided to send it the morning of the shipment. I was a mess all day worried I had sent the club into an ambush.” Burner closed his eyes remembering the way he’d felt that first time he moved on the intel those texts had given him. “But four hours later I got your text and knew that you’d rescued fifteen women that night. It was the first time I realized what I was doing was going to save lives. That was the night I knew I couldn’t quit because they were assholes.”
Reaper watched him, his face shadowed by the darkness so Burner couldn’t make out his expression. He knew what he’d just told Reaper was the first time he’d actually said anything about what he’d experienced while with the Headhunters. He could still remember the glee that had flooded him when he’d heard they’d actually gotten some of the girls free from the Headhunters. It had been what he needed to give him the strength to keep going but even that feeling had faded by the end.
“I know what I asked you to do was hard, and I never meant for you to be with them as long as you were.” Reaper’s voice was hard and Burner imagined a dark scowl on his face.
“I know that,” he softly replied before adding, “I never blamed you.”
“Maybe you should have,” Reaper grunted.
“No, it wasn’t your fault and you have to stop trying to fix me because you feel responsible.”
“I was responsible, Burner. I sent you into hell and didn’t even think about how it would affect you.” Reaper stood, pacing to the railing before turning back to stare at him. Burner could see the frown on his face despite the darkness that surrounded him.
“You weren’t responsible. I knew that you would pull me out if I told you I wasn’t handling it well but I didn’t. It’s my fault, Reaper not yours. Let’s not talk about who deserves the blame for something we can’t change. It’s done. Blade is still a wildcard to me because I have no idea what he’s up to. It could be a trap or it might be legit.” He shrugged, leaning his head back into the wall behind him, looking at the roof of the porch trying to think. He heard Reaper shift and glanced at him, seeing him move closer.
“I don’t agree that I am completely free from the blame over what’s going on with you but I agree that Blade’s knowing about you being a spy before you left the club is very strange. You had no idea it was him?” Reaper asked, sitting down beside him, his legs stretching out before him.
“No, he barely spoke to me and he was hardly ever at the compound I was at. Like I said, I have no clue how he knew about me. Until that crazy bitch nabbed Roz and he helped her, I had no idea he was even the one sending me the information.” He shrugged, his mind trying to think of any clues Blade might have given him that would have clued him in but he came up with nothing.
“Huh, Death asked me my thoughts and I told him I didn’t know what to think but I would talk to you. He promised not to go alone to any meet but we both know him. He might do it if he thinks it will benefit the club. Damn, I wish you had a better read on Blade.” Reaper punched the arm of the bench, his frustration over the situation clear.
“Death isn’t stupid. Even if he goes alone he’ll make it in our territory and public. He can handle this, even if it is a trap. Blade is definitely a wildcard though.” His mind wandered to Kelsey.
Burner found himself thinking about what Sarah had said about him deserving to be happy and he knew he was going to have to discuss with her sisters where she’d gone because it was the only way he was going to find her. It wasn’t a pleasant thought because Hanna was mean and he was sure that Greta was just as bad. Kelsey had complained several times about them being overprotective and he snorted because she had no idea what overprotective was yet but she’d learn. He would be worse than her sisters now that he had decided that she was his.
“I know but I’m telling you, something is off, I can feel it,” Reaper said.
Burner turned to him, not discounting Reaper’s words because Reaper’s ‘feelings’ had saved their asses more than once in the past.
“Talk to Death about it. He trusts your gut as much as the rest of us and he should listen to you. I’m going to go if that’s all you needed though. I need to stop by Tricky Bitches tonight.” Reaper raised a brow at him and he shrugged. “Yeah, I am going after her. Your girl is convincing.”
“Yeah, she is,” Reaper said, a grin splitting his face before he asked, “You going to stop starting fights over her now? Cause you need to patch her if you’re not.”
“Shut up, I’ll put it up for a vote next week at church. Happy?” he snarled as he stood, moving down the stairs of the porch.
“Immensely. I’m hoping she will keep you out of trouble.”
Burner climbed on his bike but not before he shot a bird at Reaper for being an asshole.
Chapter Twenty-three
Burner walked into Tricky Bitches at about eleven-forty looking towards the bar, dismayed to find that both Greta and Hanna were working the bar. It was busy so he sat down at a booth and watched them serve drinks for a little over an hour. Burner had sipped two whiskeys, hoping that this wasn’t going to be as bad as he thought it would be. He was watching Flame charm some girl at a table nearby, thinking of how to approach Kelsey’s sisters when Hanna sat down across from him drawing his attention.
“What are you here for?” Hanna demanded.
“I need to talk to you about Kelsey,” Burner said after a long pause because he hadn’t really thought of a better way to start this conversation with her.
“Why?” Greta demanded, sliding into the booth beside Hanna.
“Because I need to know where she is,” he flatly replied, eyeing the two women warily.
“And you think we’re going to tell you?” Hanna snorted out a laugh and rolled her eyes.
“I was hoping,” Burner mumbled, feeling a tightness in his chest at the thought they may not tell him. He had already looked for her when she first left but had found nothing to point him in the right direction. He could likely work some of his contacts but he didn’t want someone to think the club was looking for her and mistakenly hurt her i
n some way to get on the club’s good side.
“Not going to happen. You’ve already hurt her enough,” Greta growled through her teeth, her eyes narrowed.
“I need to talk to her and I promise I won’t hurt her again,” Burner told them, his hands gripping the sides of the table trying to soothe his tight nerves.
“Ha, and you expect us to believe that? She left for a reason. She doesn’t want anything to do with you anymore. I’m glad because personally I don’t think you’re good enough for her,” Greta snapped and leaned forward, a scowl making her eyes look a little squinty.
“I know,” Burner said, old insecurities raising their ugly heads before he pushed them down because regardless of whether or not he deserved her, he was going to keep her. Kelsey was his, she just didn’t know it yet, but she would and so would her sisters. His jaw hardened as he sat back eyeing the two of them in contemplation, wondering what to say to them to get them to help him find her. It wasn’t an easy thing for him to do as they both wore hard unyielding expressions that put some of the looks from Reaper to shame. These two had really good poker faces, that was for damned sure.
“If you know then why are you here?” Hanna asked.
Burner noticed that Greta had tilted her head slightly while watching him in an oddly assessing manner that had him shifting in his seat. Why was she inspecting him that way? Like he was a bug she wanted to understand. Burner shifted again, his eyes darting around for a second before they landed on Hanna again.
“Look, are you going to help me or not?” Burner demanded.
“Not,” Hanna snapped. Greta just watched him and he felt like his skin was crawling a little. Burner stiffened his spine and leaned forward putting on his best ‘I mean business’ look, his hands pressing to the hard surface of the table.
“You might as well tell me because I will find her eventually and I will talk to her. Either when I figure out where she is or when she comes back here to see you two. I refuse to give up on this and you not telling me where she is now isn’t going to stop me, it will only delay the inevitable.” He waited as the sisters glared at him for a long minute before Hanna leaned forward too, her nose almost pressing against his.
“You don’t want to piss me off, Burner. The only thing saving you at the moment is a promise I made to my sister, but don’t push me or you won’t like the results.” Hanna’s voice was tight, almost arctic.
“Besides, who says we can’t go see her?” Greta asked, before she stood up. Hanna did the same and both of them walked to the bar without looking back at him. Burner wanted to follow them to yell and argue but he sensed that was the wrong approach with them so he got up and threw some credits on the table to cover his tab and walked out. He climbed on his bike and headed to Kelsey’s house for some sleep. He’d deal with this in the morning; tonight he was exhausted.
Burner screeched as he hopped out of the bed, brushing at his stinging chest only to find it was covered in something really sticky. He looked down to see honey spread all over his chest along with more than a dozen ants stuck in the goo. Another one bit him and he glared at Hanna who stood at the foot of the bed with an evil grin on her face as she watched him.
“I warned you to stay out of our sister’s bed, asshole,” Hanna growled.
Greta was standing near the door and she wore a slightly horrified expression as she watched him dance around. Burner turned, heading for the shower to get these damned bugs off him before they bit something important.
“Where are you going? I said get out!” Hanna screeched.
Burner turned for a second to glare at her. “I am going to get a shower so that I can get these fucking ants off me and you can like that or not but it’s happening. If you follow me in that bathroom you’re going to see more than you bargained for because I am taking a shower before I leave here,” he growled before rushing into the bathroom.
Burner ripped off his boxers hopping on one foot, trying not to fall over in his haste to get the biting insects off. He turned on the water before getting in, not caring that the water was cold as shit as he lifted the soap and began washing off the honey and the ants. He was bitten a few more times on the chest before he finally got them off. He let out a little sigh of relief and finished washing himself before turning off the water and getting out. He grabbed the towel from the rack on the back of the door, hearing the sisters’ voices as they talked.
“I can’t believe I let you talk me into doing that to him. What was I thinking?” Greta muttered and he wondered as he pressed his ear to the door to hear better if she was wearing a guilty look because she should be. What they’d just done to him was just wrong and it was likely Kelsey’s bed now had ants.
“Please! He got what he deserved.”
“You do know that Kelsey will kill us if she ends up with ants in her bedroom because of this, right?” Greta asked her sister. Burner grinned because she’d just echoed his own thought.
“She won’t. I’ll take all the bedding and wash it. And I’ll make sure to get them all up before I leave tonight. We really did a good job of dumping them in the honey though so that they would bite him instead of escape,” Hanna was saying and Burner frowned. Damned little witch, she was diabolical. He wrapped the towel around his waist still pressing his ear to the door to eavesdrop on them.
“I kind of feel bad for the man, Hanna. He’s staying here so that he can be close to her and I think we should tell him where she is–” Greta was saying, her voice sounding sympathetic. Hmm, maybe if he could talk to her alone she would tell him where Kelsey was because she felt guilty for dumping ants on him. He then immediately doubted that plan because she was too loyal to her sisters.
“No, he got what he deserved. He broke in here again when I already told him not to come back here. He’s an asshole,” Hanna growled.
“Hanna, I think you’re a little biased when it comes to men after what happened with––” Greta began but Hanna cut her off again.
“Don’t you dare say his name! I am not biased. Burner is only trying to use her, Greta. He just wants to play with her.” Burner wanted to step out of the bathroom and protest her assessment of his character but he was too curious to see how this fight between them would play out to do so.
“You can’t even bear to hear his name and you’re telling me you’re not biased? I rest my case on that one. Kelsey went to the cabin to get away from him, that’s true, but I don’t know if she would want us to tell him where she is or not. Maybe we should call her to ask.” Burner grinned; Greta had just given him the clue he needed to find Kelsey and he hadn’t even had to talk to her alone. He was glad because he wasn’t sure that her guilt would be enough for her to tell him where she was and if she called Kelsey, he was sure she wouldn’t want them to tell him where she was.
“Greta, she went there so that she didn’t have to deal with him, so no, we shouldn’t call her to ask. If she’d wanted us to let him know where she was, she would have told us,” Hanna retorted before falling silent. “Wait a minute, I don’t hear the water anymore.”
Shit.
Burner reached down and turned the knob on the door, letting a scowl break out on his face as he stepped from the room even though what he felt was elated that he would be able to find Kelsey with the information they’d inadvertently just given him. He had the blue terrycloth towel knotted around his waist, holding it up with one hand.
“You don’t want a show, you’ll get out so I can get dressed,” he barked
Hanna crossed her arms and glared towards him for so long he thought he’d have to drop the towel and get dressed with her watching. Greta solved that dilemma for him by jerking her sister out of the room and slamming the door. Burner ditched the towel on the dresser and grabbed a pair of clean jeans from the space he’d created in Kelsey’s middle drawer a week ago. He stepped into them pulling them up over his hips and zipping up before hooking the snap. He then went to where his pants from last night were, picking them up before snaggin
g the towel off the dresser to carry them both to the laundry hamper in the bathroom.
Shutting the drawer on his way to the door, he walked into the living room to see Hanna in the kitchen drinking a cup of coffee while Greta sat at the table. He moved into the living room watching them both warily.
“You come back here again and I will talk to Reaper about you stalking my sister.”
Burner stared at Hanna a little awed that she thought that would make him hesitate to come back here, because it wouldn’t. He knew if Reaper said anything to him it wouldn’t be to stay away, it would be to try not to allow them to find you there. Reaper wasn’t an idiot and he knew telling him not to stay here was a lost cause. He was frankly surprised Hanna didn’t know that after finding him here a second time.
“I want to know where your sister is,” he demanded, not wanting them to be suspicious that he already had a damned good clue after finding out they owned a cabin.
“How many times do I have to tell you, we are not telling you where she is,” Hanna grunted as she moved into the living room. Walking to the door, she jerked it open and commanded, “Leave and this time don’t come back.”
“I’m not leaving,” Burner snorted. He needed to make it look like he was still trying to get information from them because otherwise they would suspect he knew a way to find her. It they did, they could warn Kelsey and she might run again.
“Why are you so keen to talk to her now when you broke up with her a few weeks ago?” Greta asked softly.
“Because I want to fix this,” he muttered, trying to play on her sympathies.
“You should have done that before you were an ass to my sister,” Hanna snapped.
“Hanna, we should call her,” Greta said after she studied him for a long moment, her eyes assessing him. Burner almost cringed at that because now that he knew he would be able to find her by figuring out where the cabin was through his contact with the property recorder, he didn’t want them to warn Kelsey he was coming. Not that they would know he was but if they called her, she would guess he was coming after her because she knew him after spending three months as his lover.
Burning Desires (Blue Bandits MC Book 4) Page 22