by T. S. Joyce
Ava would run the second he tried to suffocate her with attention like this.
Oh, who the hell was he kidding?
Ava was going to run anyway.
Chapter Nine
“I just don’t understand why you won’t let me pay his bill,” she said for the third time.
The woman in customer service, Charlotte, her nametag read, was a sour-faced old bitty with what looked to be permanent frown lines on either side of her mouth and who wore about a gallon too much perfume. “Because it’s Trigger Massey,” she answered, also for the third time.
Ava plastered a smile on her face, though it probably looked more like a frown, and then clutched her purse strap in a strangle hold to control herself from choking this unhelpful heifer. “Charlotte. That’s a lovely name, by the way. It’s a two-hundred-dollar bill, which started out as twenty-three dollars and eighteen cents for one grocery bill on a lean month. You sent him to collections before the billing cycle was even through, and you’ve charged him interest for the past three months. I can’t believe you would make it this difficult on purpose. He’s trying to do the right thing and pay his debt, so surely you wouldn’t keep someone from doing that on purpose. Would you? Do you mean I can’t pay it because I’m not Trigger? He needs to pay it? Because I can go grab him, and we can take care of this right now.”
Charlotte popped a big pink bubble with her gum and chewed loudly three times before she said in a bored voice, “You better not fuckin’ bring him up here, lady. Hairpin Trigger ain’t welcome at customer service.”
“Why not?” Ava said too loudly, completely irritated now.
Charlotte gave her an empty smile. Smack. Smack. Smack went her gum. “Because he don’t pay his debts.”
Ava pursed her lips against a scream. “Well, all right then, I can see you’ve been as helpful as you can possibly be, Charlotte,” Ava said, connecting a call on her phone.
A flicker of worry drifted across Charlotte’s face. “What are you doing?”
Ava leaned on the counter, and when Ben picked up at her office, she gave him the code phrase. “Hello, this is Ava Dorset with Dorset Financial Planning. I’m having trouble paying a bill to keep a client from another round of collections.”
“Damn, again?” Ben asked. “Okay, bla, bla, bla, give her the ‘serve the paperwork’ spiel now.”
“Oh, you can have the paperwork drawn up today? That’s fantastic. When can I expect them to be served?”
“List the place,” Ben said in a bored voice, the sound of his mouse clicking in the background.
“Remmy’s Grocer, Darby, Montana—”
“That’s enough,” Charlotte exclaimed, reaching for the phone.
Ava jerked away and gave her a narrow-eyed warning look. “It’s right off Main Street—”
“Fine! Just pay his bill and be done.”
“Great,” she muttered. “She seems to be working with me again for now,” she said to Ben on the phone.
“Faaantastic,” he drawled.
“I’ll call you back if it’s not withdrawn from collections immediately.”
“You do that. Hey, when are you coming back to work? It’s boring here with all dudes. No one gets grossed out by my jokes when you’re gone.”
Trying to keep a poker face, Ava told him, “Thank you for your help. I’ll be in contact soon,” and hung up the phone before Ben launched into a string of dick jokes to try to make her blush. He did that a lot. Ava handed Charlotte her credit card so she could have a nice paper trail to go along with the receipt. Trigger could pay her back later when his bank account didn’t look quite so empty. She’d gained read-only access to it this morning and spent fifteen minutes trying to work out how he lived on so little.
“What are you doing?” Trigger asked, six bags of groceries dangling from his hands.
Ava gritted out, “Charlotte here has been kind enough to let me settle your bill here. Haven’t you, Charlotte?” She hated when people were prejudiced, and the people of this town seemed to have a big problem with Trigger. First those guys who stirred up trouble on the chip aisle, and now Charlotte. She was beginning to think settling all his bills was going to be as big a jagged pill as this experience.
Charlotte just stood there glaring at Trig as she handed Ava a receipt.
“You didn’t have to pay for that,” he said as they made their way to the exit.
She needed to get the heck out of here before she verbally fileted Unhelpful Charlotte. “First step to cleaning up your finances is to stop the interest you’re accruing, and the late fees. It’s a waste of money. You’re just bleeding your income into these little meaningless debts, so today we’re going to go from place to place and settle them, and you can pay me back when you get the ranch up and running again.
“Ava, I can pay you back now.”
Icy wind blasted her face the second she stomped out the sliding glass exit doors. “What?”
Trigger looked over at a police cruiser, where that asshole who had touched her hair was leaning against the open window, talking to an officer. They were both looking over at Trigger with hateful glares.
Trig cleared his throat. “I think we need to talk.”
“Yeah, clearly, I need to know what’s actually going on here. I thought I was coming in to clean up your finances, but I get a feeling every settlement will be just as difficult as Unhelpful Charlotte made it in there!”
Trigger snorted and pursed his lips against a smile.
“This isn’t funny! What’s going on? If you can pay me back now, why haven’t you settled these stupid little debts already?”
“Because they won’t let me, Ava. Not because I can’t afford to pay them back.”
Her mouth flopped open. “You have fourteen cents in your bank account.”
“Because I hate banks.”
“Whyyyy?” she asked through clenched teeth.
“Because that asshole’s mate runs the bank,” he said, jerking his chin at the hair-touching douche-ball. “I keep cash.”
“Then why are you living on beans?” she asked, her voice echoing across the parking lot.
“Because I like beans, and it was the end of the week. We haven’t made a grocery run in a while because it’s a miserable experience,” he explained, jamming a finger at the grocery store. “I ain’t exactly welcome around here, Ava. And most weeks I want to hole up at the ranch and get through my work—it is a substantial amount of work, I promise you that—and not deal with these turd biscuits in town.”
She gave an unexpected laugh at his insult and then tried to recompose her face to look severe.
“What?” he asked, his dark eyebrows low under his cowboy hat.
“You said turd biscuit. I can’t keep up a serious conversation if you use insults like that.”
“My point, Ava, is that some people in this town want me hurt. And the biggest way to hurt me is by hurting my ranch. There’s a dozen of those debts, and I have just as many debt collectors calling me every day. You think I haven’t tried to settle them all? I have. There is more going on in this town than you know.”
Those words felt like a slap, and the smile fell from her face. “That’s the problem, Trig. There was always more going on than I was allowed in on. You think I just left because my dad was a deadbeat? Because I wanted to escape? I wouldn’t have wanted to so badly if I wasn’t always on the outside here. Explain now.”
Trigger inhaled deeply, relaxed his shoulders on the exhale, the grocery bags dangling at his thighs. He shook his head and glared at the police cruiser. “I can’t give you the answers you want.”
It stung. His denial stung. She’d thought they were in a different place, but here was the famous Trigger shutdown. And just like when she was a kid, she got hit with that insecurity. She wasn’t cool enough to let in on the town secrets. Outsider, outsider, outsider, that’s what she was, right? That was her destiny.
Her eyes burned, and she blinked hard. “I’ll find a ride back
to the ranch,” she murmured as she walked away.
“Where are you going?” he called.
Pissed at him having this much control over her emotions, she ripped out her to-do list and jammed it up in the air. “I have shit to accomplish.” Good and angry, she fumbled for one of the thirty pens she kept in her oversize purse. She had to click it three times because her mittens kept getting in the way, but finally she marked off:
Grocery shopping
Snow boots and warmer jacket
Settle the general store bill
Settle the bar tab at the GutShot
Trigger squinted, as if trying to read it from way over there, but Ava just shoved it back in her purse and made her way toward the row of clothing shops down the street. Snow boots next, and then she was going to the bar.
“You can’t fix everything, Ava!” Trig called.
“Watch me!” Oh, ye of little faith. She would show him. The grocery store was the tip of the iceberg. She jammed her pointer finger in the air and repeated out loud. “The tip!”
She heard the ridiculously loud engine of Trig’s truck roar to life, and good. He should leave. She was mad enough to breath fire, and she would barbecue his ass if he talked to her right now.
She was neck-deep in her fury, slipping and sliding down the sidewalk on the other side of the parking lot, when Trigger pulled up beside her. The man didn’t get the hint. She wasn’t some girl whose anger was short-lived, no. She got embarrassed, hurt, and then she had a long fuse that burned slowly. He was barking up the wrong damn tree if he was looking to make amends right now.
“Go away,” she said, refusing to look at him as he coasted right beside her.
“Get on in the truck, and we’ll talk about this. Talk about why your face is so red and you look pissed off.”
“Hard pass. I want to be left alone right now.” These shoes hurt. Her ankle almost went ninety degrees twice as she hit ice on the sidewalk, and she was cold thanks to the windchill, but she would die of hypothermia before she got in that truck right now.
“You’re stubborn, Ava Dorset.”
And there went that fuse. “Takes one to know one!”
“I didn’t use stubborn as a noun!”
“Aaah!” she shrieked. And because her rage was infinite, she scooped up a handful of snow, packed it quick, and chucked it at his open window before she could stop herself. Only she missed the direct hit to that jerk-faced ninny, and it hit the edge of the door and exploded all over Trigger’s face. The truck skidded to a stop, and whoa, now he looked mad. His eyes were fiery and bright, and his face had twisted into something fearsome.
“You want to know what’s going on?” he growled in a gravelly voice.
Ava crossed her arms over her tits. “Yes.”
“You really, really think you can stomach the truth behind this town?”
“Yes!”
“Even if it involves your brother? Even if it involves everyone you grew up with? Even if it will change your entire view on the world? Even if I know—know—you’ll wish you could go back and realize ignorance is bliss? You still want me to spill it?”
Well, that sounded fourteen percent intimidating, but she stomped one shoe in the snow, nearly rolled her ankle, and firmly nodded once. “Yes.”
Trigger took off his hat and tossed it in the passenger’s seat, then ran his hand down his snowy face. “Fuck!” he said so loud his voice echoed down the street. “I have to do this in phases.”
“Great, more stalling.”
“Phase one,” he gritted out, ignoring her pop-off. “Get you some goddamn shoes that won’t kill you. Two! We’ll go to the bar. That’s next on your to-do list, right?”
“Well, yes, but I don’t know how you read that from so far away, and anyway—”
“Three! I can’t just tell you what’s wrong with this place. I have to show you, and I need Colton’s help for that.”
Trig put his phone to his ear and stared at her with the angriest expression she’d ever seen on a man’s face.
“Who are you calling?” she asked.
“Your brother.”
“Why?”
“Because if you’re going half-cocked into that bar, I want back-up. Get in the truck.”
Part of her wanted to flip him off for telling her what to do, but a bigger part of her wanted to straddle his lap and grind against him right now until he didn’t look so mad. She didn’t really know what that said about her other than she was turning into a sexual deviant around Trigger. He was this animalistic, dominant, dangerous but protective man, and she liked that shit. He was hot when he was mad, and double-hot when he bossed her around. She hadn’t ever liked anyone telling her what to do, but when he bossed her, she wanted to save a Harley and ride that damn cowboy.
She would never stroke his ego like that though, so she kept those horny sentiments to herself and lifted her chin primly and strode slowly around the front of his truck. He watched her the whole time with narrowed eyes, and a little piece of her felt triumphant for annoying him.
But when she opened the creaking truck door and slid onto the leather seat, he immediately shrugged out of his jacket. And as he talked into the phone, telling Colton to meet them at the GutShot, he laid his warm jacket over her lap, and something awful slithered through her middle—guilt.
He wasn’t bossing her to be demanding. He’d wanted her in the truck so he could do this—tuck his jacket around her legs and point all the heater vents right at her. And when he hung up the phone, he huffed a steadying breath and asked, “Is your ankle okay?”
Ava’s anger evaporated like fog on a sunny morning. “I’m fine.”
He gripped the steering wheel with both hands and stared forward. “Thank you for what you did in there. I should’ve been appreciative. I watched you argue with that old battle ax, and you didn’t back down until that debt was paid. For me.”
“It’s my job,” she murmured, staring out the window at the scenic mountains that surrounded the town.
Trig huffed a humorless laugh and rolled up his window. “Charlotte runs with the Darby Clan. That’s who those guys were that wanted trouble.”
“Are they an MC?”
“They used to be the Devil Cats. Now they’re somethin’ worse.”
Ava stared at his handsome profile as he stared out the front window. A man like Trig couldn’t be pushed, or he would disappear like a ghost, or shut down like of piece of rusted machinery. He would go still and quiet and never open up again if she got impatient. She was coming to realize he was a lot like her. So, she waited, because if this was reversed, Trig would have to wait for her to be good and ready to talk.
“I told you they’re animals,” he murmured. A car honked behind him, and he lifted his blazing gaze to the rearview mirror and eased his foot onto the gas and out onto the main road. “Well, I meant it. They aren’t like other men. This town’s chock full of men who don’t make sense anywhere but here.”
“Bad men?”
Trig nodded. “Not because they woke up one day and had the devil in their soul. Bad because they were born that way. Born with fire lickin’ at their hearts, and sometimes it gets hard to fight when there is so much darkness in a man. You understand?”
“Is it like that for you?”
“Yes,” he said, no hesitation. “I’m made up of mostly fire. It’s always been like that. It’ll always be like that. This town is full of monsters. You can’t take off down the street like you just did. Darby’s different than when you lived here. It’s got more shadows now, and those shadows have their attention on you.”
“Are you the shadow?”
“Not this time.” Trig looked over at her, then jerked his chin to something out the window. There was a bench outside of a bootmaker’s shop, and on it sat one of the men from the store. The nice one. Kurt. He wore a deep frown but was relaxed, one long leg stretched out, the tread of his work boots caked in snow. His eyes were right on her.
“He�
�ll be tailing you now.”
“Why?”
“Because he ain’t got no choice. Chase is his boss, and he has a lot of pull in this town. And Kurt has a boy. A little one. If he minds Chase’s wishes, the boy gets protection, and around here, that’s worth more than gold.”
“Why did you stop being friends?” she asked, completely disturbed by being watched.
“He was part of my club, and when I dissolved the MC, it put his kid in danger. Family first with men like him.” Trig’s voice softened. “For men like me. Kurt had to find someone who offer his boy protection, and Chase can do that.”
“Chase is the one who touched my hair?”
“Mmm hmm. He’s the leader of those boys and trouble down to the marrow in his bones. While you stay here, you stick close to me, you hear? No runnin’ off. I know you’re used to independence, but that don’t exist here. Independence makes you rogue. Independence puts a target on you.”
“You’re independent, and so is Colton,” she murmured, beginning to understand.
Trigger trapped her in that golden gaze of his and offered her a sad smile. “Exactly.”
Chapter Ten
The GutShot wasn’t at all what Ava had expected. From the name, she’d imagined a forest and hunting theme—dark wood floors, pictures of trees, old rifle décor, and taxidermy deer and wild boar heads on the walls. This place was beer keg tables, eclectic mix-and-match chairs, and an antique green bar with a row of chrome and black motorcycle seat chairs along the front. Eight men sat on the bar stools, and each was currently looking right at her and Trig.
“The fuck are you doing here?” a balding man in his mid-fifties with no less than four missing teeth and a paunch said from behind the bar. He wasn’t looking at her, but at Trig instead. Eric, she remembered from when she lived here before. He used to run the three-screen movie theater in the middle of town.