To Have and to Harley

by Regina Cole

  Bethany bit her lip. Trey’s friends had weird names, but she couldn’t remember all of them. Reaching desperately, she grabbed the first one that came to mind. “Wolf. His name is Wolf.”

  Sarah’s mouth fell open. “Huh? Really? What kind of a name is Wolf?”

  Bethany smiled weakly. “Um, it’s a family name? I mean, yeah, it was his mother’s maiden name. It’s kind of a tradition in his family.”

  Sarah leaned back in her chair. “Well, get it, girl. I’m proud of you. Bring him around sometime when Mark and I are in town. We can do a double date.”

  Bethany laughed a little weakly. “Sure, I’ll do that.”

  Thankful that the conversation was over, at least for now, Bethany drained her coffee. If Sarah didn’t leave soon, she was going to need some alcohol, the fact that it was barely 8:00 a.m. notwithstanding.

  She hoped that Sarah and Trey could get to know each other better soon, and Trey’s undercover work would end so all this deception could stop.

  Sarah was right. Lying really wasn’t Bethany’s strong suit.

  * * *

  Trey’s morning was going even worse than Bethany’s.

  He leaned against the corrugated metal wall of the old airplane hangar, squinting against the brightness of the sun.

  There had been yells and cursing from inside the building, but they’d gone quiet a few minutes ago. Any minute now, Wolf would come out to inform him of what progress had been made in their investigation.

  Trey’d had to bow out at 4:00 a.m. Let someone else have a turn, because if he’d been left with the bastard, they’d be leaving him for the vultures this morning.

  The rusted iron hinges squeaked as Wolf pushed open the door and moved onto the cinder block that served as a step.

  “Boss,” Wolf said as the door shut behind him.

  Trey looked at him with an arched eyebrow.

  “It’s deeper than we thought.”

  Trey sank into a crouch, his mood dropping further and faster than his body. He’d suspected as much, but hearing Wolf confirm it sucked balls. “How deep?”

  Wolf crossed his arms, looking out across the field toward the strip of woods that separated them from the highway. The sound of car engines was barely audible from this distance. “There are at least four other dealers, maybe more.”

  Trey’s knuckles cracked. “That means there’s a supplier too.”

  Wolf nodded solemnly.

  “Who?”

  “He’s not giving that one up.”

  “Shit,” Trey spat, shoving off from the wall. Long grass swished around his boots as he paced. His brain somersaulted with the numerous possibilities. Most of the big-time cookers had moved on when the Shadows had grown in numbers two years ago. They’d moved east, toward Greenville or the military base in Fayetteville. The odd entrepreneur had popped up every now and then, but the Shadows had always managed to convince them to move on before their network grew.

  Until now. Whoever was working the area obviously knew who to look out for and had constructed his dealer network accordingly.

  Damn it.

  “What do you want to do with Rat?”

  Trey stopped. He’d love to kill the lowlife, but he didn’t want the blood on his hands. Letting the cops have him was another option, but Trey decided against that instantly.

  If the police were looking into the same ring the Shadows were, there was a good chance they themselves would get busted for any number of things. No, they’d handle this one on their own. They’d let the cops take care of any cleanup after the fact, once the Shadows had ensured that none of these bastards would set foot on their territory again.

  But the key was the supplier. That was the hinge point upon which everything hung. With the supplier named, they could take down the whole network.

  “Let him go.”

  Wolf started. “What?”

  Trey turned to his second. “Let him go, and have Flash and Jameson tail him. I want to know who he talks to, where he goes. Every bit of it.”

  Wolf nodded, his dark eyebrows knitted together.

  Trey strode toward the bare dirt path where four bikes were parked. Body and soul were twitchy, uneasy. He didn’t like this feeling. He wasn’t used to it.

  He’d trained himself to be cool, calm under pressure. His temper was a weapon to be used. But right now it felt as though he had a broken safety on a nine millimeter. And all he wanted was to gather his dearest close to him and protect them.

  Faces and names flashed through his frontal lobe. Wolf. Jameson. Ace. Dean. Flash. Doc. Rocco. Hawk. Lars. Stone. Mac. The whole crew at Ruby’s. Their families.

  And then the ones he’d met so recently. The ones who’d changed his life from top to bottom. His mother. His sister. His soon-to-be brother-in-law.

  And the last face, the one that stayed with him, asleep or awake, angry or afraid, alone or in a crowd, was hers.

  Bethany.

  Trey slung his leg over his bike, but he didn’t crank the engine. Instead, he pulled his cell phone from his pocket.

  It was after eleven. She’d said she had that interview early this morning. Surely she’d be done by now?

  The need to talk to her overcame his good sense, and he swiped through his contact list before he allowed himself a second thought.

  When the call went to voicemail, he gave a disappointed sigh before the beep.

  “Hey. Just calling to wish you luck for your interview this morning. I…” He what? Rushing on without a second thought, he kept talking. “I hope it’s going well. It went well. Talk to you soon.”

  He cut the call and let his hand, still holding the phone, fall beside his leg.

  He was all shook up inside. He wanted her to do well. Of course he did. But if she got this job, then she could very well be moving away.

  Wouldn’t that make things simpler for you, his subconscious whispered. If she just leaves, then she’ll never find out you are a lying sack of crap.

  He cranked his engine and shoved the phone back into his pocket.

  There were lies stacked on lies. Trouble over trouble. All to cover up the fact that he was who he was.

  Not good enough for any of them.

  Before he could pull away, Jameson exited the building and waved at him.

  Trey cut the engine. “What is it?”

  Jameson held out his phone, his expression thundercloud dark. “It’s the floral supplier. They need a credit card to confirm the order.”

  Trey’s situational awareness had whiplash. All he could picture was meth dealers crushing up petals for some fancy new formulation.

  “The flowers. For the wedding.” Jameson nearly spat the word. He looked over his shoulder to where Flash was “helping” Rat leave the warehouse. Helping via boot to ass.

  “Dammit,” Trey said as realization dawned.

  In the midst of all this drama, he’d forgotten the cock-sucking wedding.

  “Hello?” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet.

  As he held a polite, businesslike conversation with the floral warehouse on the other end of the phone line, he watched as Flash escorted Rat into the pickup. Rat’s ugly face was even more pinched than usual and a little swollen from his “encouragement” to talk the night before.

  All in all, he had gotten off easy.

  “I’m sorry, what now?” Trey had missed that last part.

  “I was just confirming your order. Three hundred peonies, one hundred orchids, and one hundred lilies. That’ll be $1,249.99.”

  Trey’s eyebrows hit the damn nape of his neck.

  “For flowers?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Trey shook his head but rattled off his credit card number.

  It wasn’t like he couldn’t afford it. Their regular under-the-table secur
ity gigs alone meant a comfortable life for all of them, especially with the way Lars invested their earnings. The numbers whiz had ensured they could live off their dividends for the next few years, even if they didn’t pick up another paying gig. And Mrs. Yelverton had given Trey a healthy amount up front for wedding expenses and would reimburse him for the rest. But the incredible amount for such trivial things—fragile beautiful objects that would last for a matter of hours at most—seemed like a tremendous waste.

  As he finished the call, he handed the phone back to Jameson.

  “Should be good to go now,” he said.

  Jameson shook his head. “Seems stupid to be dicking around with this wedding stuff when we’ve got a nest of wasps right here in our territory.”

  “There’s nothing else to do with the flowers until they get here the day before the ceremony. So stop your whining.” Trey nodded toward the truck. “Once you drop him off, keep close. Let me know where he goes.”

  Jameson turned without another word, irritation plain in the set of his shoulders.

  Trey watched him go.

  He was tired of this tension. This drama. And in an instant, he knew where he wanted to be.

  He cranked his engine and headed toward her place.

  He’d wait for her, and then maybe they could celebrate her successful interview with lunch and an afternoon nap where they wouldn’t sleep.

  Tomorrow, she might move away. His lies could blow up in his face. But for today?

  He’d take the comfort of her presence over the agony of worrying about the wedding, the Shadows, his new family, or the seventy-five other issues that competed for his attention.

  He just didn’t give a damn about anything but Bethany for the moment. She was the cure for his anxieties, and he’d get blind-drunk on her presence as long as he could.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The phone buzzed in Bethany’s purse, and she pulled it free just in time to see the name of the caller. Her pulse stuttered, her heart racing as she hastily pressed the power button to silence the ringer.

  “Who’s that?” Sarah was mounding spinach on her plate with tongs from the salad bar.

  “Unknown caller.” Bethany got busy with the cherry tomatoes, grabbing about six more than she’d intended. Oh well.

  As she finished building her tomato-overburdened salad, her mind was whirling. He’d called. Why hadn’t he texted? Had something gone wrong on the job? Was he hurt?

  A thousand different possibilities charged through her brain as she took her plate back to the table she and Sarah were sharing in the corner of the restaurant.

  “I’ll be right back,” Bethany said. “Restroom.”

  Alone in the stall, she listened to the voicemail. God, it was so good to hear him. Reassured, for the moment at least, she washed her hands and returned to the table.

  “Thanks for grabbing lunch with me,” Sarah said as she unwrapped her silverware. “Mark’s back home, and I’m going to be spending the rest of my evening slaving in the library, so I really appreciate it.”

  “No problem,” Bethany said, smiling. She’d call Trey back when lunch was over. Hopefully he wouldn’t be busy with work… God, could she really have a boyfriend in such a dangerous job?

  Boyfriend. She smiled down at her tomatoes. That was such a weird term to apply to Trey, but it was true.

  “You must be thinking about Wolf again.” Sarah’s smug voice yanked Bethany back to the present.

  “What? Oh yeah. Sorry. Tell me about this paper you’re writing.” Bethany took a big bite of her salad and crunched determinedly as Sarah began to talk about drug formulations and patient compliance and all sorts of things Bethany didn’t really understand.

  By the time lunch was over, she’d almost managed to forget what Trey had told her. Almost.

  “Thanks again,” Sarah said. She picked up the check despite Bethany’s protests. “No, I got this. You just keep making my wedding beautiful.” Sarah winked and waved as she walked toward the door. The server thanked Bethany for the tip, which she had had nothing to do with.

  Oh well.

  As Bethany walked into the bright spring day, she squinted against the brilliance of the early afternoon. And then a vibration started in her handbag.

  Excitement surging, she reached blindly into the bag and swiped the screen to answer without even checking to see who it was.

  “Trey?”

  A derisive sniff sounded through the phone, and Bethany’s heart sank as quickly as it had risen. “Still with that lowlife? I shouldn’t be surprised. My Marine didn’t have much taste in the opposite sex either.”

  Bethany bit the inside of her cheek at her grandmother’s bitter tone. It hadn’t exactly been Bethany’s mother’s choice to die in a training accident on the military base. Considering how her grandmother loved to idolize the military, Bethany would have thought she’d have loved a daughter-in-law who was in the service.

  Not so much. The only blessing of her mother’s death was that she’d been spared a lifetime dealing with Grandmother Trudy.

  “What do you need, Grandmother?”

  The wheedling tone replaced the bitterness as if it had never been there. “I have a doctor’s appointment this afternoon, and they won’t let me see him unless I pay my past-due balance.”

  “Why do you have a past-due balance?” Bethany marched quickly to her car, not wanting the curious stares of the restaurant patrons as they walked in and out of the building behind her.

  “I had to have some tests run a few months ago. My secondary insurance policy lapsed, and Medicare only covers part of them.”

  “Tests? What kind of tests?” Bethany shut the car door behind her.

  “A CAT scan and a biopsy.”

  Her heart went cold. “What for? How did they come back? Are you sick?”

  A sharp note entered her grandmother’s voice. “It’s not your business, girlie. But I need to follow up with my doctor, and the office is being difficult about the money. Now will you help me out or not?”

  Head thumping against the seat, Bethany stared toward the car’s ceiling.

  “How much?”

  “Six hundred dollars.”

  Bethany sighed and shook her head. It was always like this. Her grandmother should have plenty of money. But she claimed she was always broke. And then when new items showed up at the house, she claimed to have gotten them for free or discounted heavily. There was always enough money for what she wanted, never enough for what she needed, so she appealed to the closest sucker.

  Which was most often Bethany.

  “Who’s your doctor? I’ll call and make a payment.”

  “That’s not necessary, just give me the cash, and I’ll take it with me to my appointment.”

  “Oh no. No, no, no. Not happening. Either you give me the office number and I call to make a payment, or that’s the end of this conversation.”

  Sounding incredibly sour, her grandmother rattled off the phone number. Bethany cut the call with a weary sigh and dialed the doctor’s office.

  She knew exactly what would have happened if she hadn’t stood her ground. Her grandmother would have pocketed at least half of that money for whatever piece of junk she had her eye on adding to her hoard and given just enough to the doctor’s office to keep skating by.

  “I’d like to make a payment, please,” Bethany said when the receptionist answered the phone.

  She rattled off her credit card number when prompted, and once the amount had been applied, she asked a question.

  “That account belongs to my grandmother. She’d mentioned that she just had a biopsy. Is there any way you could let me know the results?”

  The receptionist was polite but firm as steel. “I’m sorry, but that violates our privacy regulations. We aren’t allowed to give out any information on our patients
.”

  Bethany sighed. “I know. I’m sorry. She’s just a really…difficult person.”

  A note of compassion entered the receptionist’s voice. “I understand that. I wish I could help you.”

  “Thank you anyway.” Bethany disconnected the call and closed her eyes.

  God. The day had really gone off the rails. Lying to her best friend. Her grandmother squeezing more and more out of her, and then the bombshell that something might be really wrong with her.

  Stress was eating her up inside, and there was only one place she wanted to be.

  She picked up her phone and dialed. She pressed send on his number with no hesitation, just a desperate longing for the comfort and happiness that flooded her whenever she was in his presence.

  He was the cure for everything wrong in her world, and at least when she was with him, she could pretend everything was perfect.

  He answered on the third ring.

  “Hello?”

  She smiled, rubbing her thumb along the steering wheel. “Trey? Can I see you?”

  * * *

  His bike hugged the curves of the road as he made his way to her. The urge within him, the draw to see her, goosed his gas pedal even faster than usual.

  Her call had come while he was stopped at a light, and he’d pulled over and cut the engine to talk to her. And he was glad. It sounded like she needed to be with him as much as he needed her.

  Her building came into view, the lot mostly empty in the midafternoon. The other tenants were at their office jobs, enjoying the weather at the park, or doing whatever normal people did on a Wednesday afternoon.

  But Bethany’s car was in her spot. Apparently she’d pulled in only a few moments before, because she was climbing out of the driver’s seat.

  His chest warmed as he looked at her, his engine purring as he slowed enough to pull into the space beside her. God. Had there ever been another person he’d been as drawn to? As comfortable with? If things were different—

  He stopped that thought in its tracks. Today wasn’t about that. Today was about the opposite of that. Enjoying her company to the fullest.