Biker Blues: Morgan (Biker Blues Book 3)

by Dale Mayer

  And she was the same in bed. She focused on her pleasure. His pleasure. She was there one hundred percent with him all the way – every damn time.

  And he was sure she had no idea how special she was.

  But he knew.

  And he’d make sure she understood every damn day.

  Pulling her tight into his arms, he closed his eyes and joined her in sleep.

  Chapter 9

  Waking up to a cold, empty bed sucked. Especially after last night. Still, for all the emptiness beside her, there was a warm ring around her heart. Morgan had never said he’d loved her before. She’d known he did, but she’d always found men reticent in their declaration of how they felt. Morgan was worse than most. And she’d been the opposite. But since he’d come back, she hadn’t said it to him. She lay there and realized that she hadn’t, even after last night.

  Frowning, she had to consider that. She did love him. She had no doubts in her mind.

  But she had refrained from telling him. Why?

  Was she punishing him?

  Or still protecting herself from more hurt? Not that it would do any good. She already had the emotions. So not verbalizing the words wasn’t going to make the hurt any less. No, she was likely still punishing him. As in he wanted to hear the words but she hadn’t forgiven him for running off. Which made her a piece of shit. Because she had forgiven him. She just wasn’t sure that he wouldn’t do it again.

  So by withholding the words, she was possibly contributing to him leaving again. So not what she wanted.

  She threw back the covers and wondered if he’d been up long enough to have made coffee. Her muscles were loose and easier to move after last night’s massage, but there was a deep ache inside. She glanced down at the bandage, wishing she could rip the damn thing off. But she needed to protect the wound and keep it clean so for the moment, it had to stay. Her bags from last night were on the floor. She smiled. At least she had clean clothes.

  Getting dressed was easier but seemed to take longer. Then again, it might be the extra primping she was doing. She wanted to look her best this morning.

  No reason. Just because she loved him.

  Downstairs, there was no sign of him. But there was a half-empty pot of coffee. She poured a large mug, dosed it with cream, and carried it out to the back yard. It was empty. He had to be in the garage, but it was quiet. Still, she walked over and tried the door. It was locked.

  Worried, she wandered over to the front yard, only to find that it was empty, too. She retraced her steps back to the house and called out to him.

  “Morgan? Where are you?”

  No answer.

  She ran upstairs and grabbed her phone she’d left on the charger. She checked for messages. Crap. He’d texted her over an hour ago saying he’d gone to the police station.

  Relieved, she walked back downstairs and sat out on the front deck chairs and looked around. He had found himself a lovely home. The front looked out onto a cul-de-sac and the back yard backed out to crown land. He could walk forever in that direction and likely did a lot of hiking and biking out there. As far as she could see, there were fields and forests. No one lived in that area at all.

  Lovely.

  Was it someplace she could live?

  She thought she might. There was a shop here for Morgan and it was how he made his money. If she could go back to working from home, she wasn’t against it.

  It was also a family neighborhood and appeared to have lots of kids close by. More thoughts for down the road. She loved kids. As in, would really love to have kids. Three would be nice.

  What would Morgan think of that idea?

  They’d spent so much of their time in bed, she hadn’t gotten to know him all that well. Maybe she’d intuitively known that they wouldn’t be together for long.

  Or maybe she’d been afraid he’d walk so she’d kept her own barriers up. She had no idea.

  She texted him that she was up and sitting outside enjoying the morning.

  He responded by telling her to go back inside and lock the door.

  She glared down at the phone.

  Except he was right, what he said sent chills down her arms, leaving goose bumps behind. She got up and walked back inside to refill her coffee and check her email.

  Everything was normal. Her horoscope said it was going to be a rough day and maybe she should consider going back to bed and staying there.

  She gave a startled laugh. “Like I need more doomsayers.”

  But it made her pause. If even all the stars and planets were warning her about today, then what the hell was she supposed to do to fix this?

  The truck roaring up the street toward the house at the end was so obviously Morgan’s truck, it made her smile. Damn, he was fast. And worried. But he needn’t be. She was fine.

  And she told him so as soon as he walked in. “I’m fine.”

  He raced over, picked her up in his arms, and kissed her hard. “You’re more than just fine,” he said when he let her come up for air. “I’m so sorry for having to leave you this morning. I was going to wake you up then figured that was hardly fair.”

  She shook her head, her hand reaching up to stroke his cheek. “Not to worry. I needed my sleep and honestly, I feel fine.”

  “Good.”

  He stepped back. “If you left any coffee, I’ll grab one.” He disappeared out of the room. She waited a long moment for him to return. When he didn’t, she called out, “What did the cops have to say?”

  He popped his head back into the room, “Nothing much. They just wanted to go over the facts of the case.”

  She nodded. “And you told him about the money, the keys, and everything else now?”

  He nodded. “It was the best solution.”

  “What did he say about the money?”

  “He agreed to let me keep it in case Borg came for it. Of course I was speaking hypothetically as I certainly didn’t take the money in. However, Borg is well-known to the police. Only they have nothing on him, and he’s very careful to not leave any evidence.”

  “He certainly didn’t with us.”

  “Exactly.” He was quiet for a long moment as he drank his coffee, but studying him, she could see his mind worrying on the problem.

  “So what’s bothering you?”

  He turned that deep gaze in her direction. “They want to set up a sting.”

  She frowned. “What kind of sting?”

  “Contact Borg, have him come to collect the money and nab him then.”

  “But what good would that do? He’d have the money, but there’d still be no evidence of him having gotten it any illegal way. That makes no sense.”

  “Well, it does in another way. Before I went to the police, I stopped and asked Dean about the tattoo. He wasn’t happy to hear that there are photographs of his ass either.”

  *

  She bolted to her feet. “He has a dragon tattoo? One we have pictures of?”

  He nodded. He hadn’t been looking forward to telling her this part.

  “Which one?”

  “The last one.” He hoped it was. He hadn’t taken a good look at it. Dean was still supremely angry about it. Another of those moments when life turned to the left while he was planning on going right.

  “Well, who was his artist?” Jazz cried.

  This was the part that was going to be hard. “He doesn’t know.”

  She stared at him numbly. Then sat down hard, “What?” She shook her head. “How is that possible?”

  “He said he was at a local party, got really drunk, and when he woke up in the morning in his own bed, he had a sore butt and a fresh tattoo.”

  Morgan ran a hand through his hair. He couldn’t imagine it, and he’d been to more than his fair share of blind drunk parties and several where he’d woken up completely unaware of what had happened the night before, sometimes not even knowing where he was. Thankfully, those days were long behind him. And he’d been lucky. He’d never woken up with a b
ody piercing or tattoo he never asked for.

  Dean had been pretty upset about it and asked those he’d seen at the party. Only no one claimed to have done it or seen who’d done it. He also got a poor reception to his questions – the place had been full of artists and people that wore lots of ink to begin with. Several people thought the tattoo was great and others thought it was an amateur job. So he hated that not only did he get a tattoo, but he didn’t even get a good one.

  Jazz stared at him, open-mouthed. “How is that possible?”

  Morgan waited for her to ask the right question. “I have no idea.”

  “Wait. A party here? In town? With lots of tattoos? Where?”

  That was the right question. But she was going to hate the answer. He took a deep breath, knowing she was going to lose it, and answered honestly, “At Roxy’s house.”

  Chapter 10

  “That’s not possible.” But she couldn’t work up any strength in her voice. Roxy loved parties. It was Jazz who didn’t. Jazz spent enough time with people at the shop, she didn’t want to spend her non-working hours with them, too.

  Roxy was different that way. She loved to socialize and hated being alone.

  The party could have been at her place. It also brought this damn problem back full circle to her shop. “Roxy wouldn’t have done that to him.”

  “No, she probably didn’t do it.” Morgan knew the next fact was going to be hard. “Dean said you were there, too.”

  “I was?” She frowned at him. “I went to one party over the last six months. It was Perl’s birthday. But I don’t remember seeing Dean.” She tried to think back. “Then again, there were a lot of people there.”

  “You might want to consider the good thing here,” Morgan said quietly. “Dean is alive, and that means the other one could possibly be alive, too.”

  “Only Billy was killed?”

  In a way, that made a hell of a lot of sense. Billy had been part of the problem here. So if someone had taken him out, they had provocation. “It would be really nice to think that sending out the images of the tattoos was a diversion,” she suggested. “Someone is throwing the cops off the trail. Trying to keep the focus away from themselves.”

  Morgan shrugged. “I have no idea. But Dean is going to the cops now and fessing up. He’s hoping to get a complete pass on his involvement, but there’s no way to know how that will turn out.”

  “At least he’s getting a clean start.” Jazz loved the sound of that. “Sounds like this will work out well for him.”

  “It will if he has something to offer. He should be able to give them a lot more information than they had before. Hopefully enough to find Billy’s murderer.”

  “Yeah.” Jazz leaned her head back, her mind consumed with the thought of what Dean had gone through. He certainly wasn’t the first to wake up with a tattoo on his body. Maybe the ass dragon was a bit much, but… “Does he remember anything about that night?”

  “Not a whole lot.”

  “Did he have sex with anyone?” At his sharp look, she shrugged. “I’m still wondering if a lover did this. If so, it was likely the same lover that Billy had.”

  “And might be responsible for his murder, you mean?”

  “It’s hard to not consider.”

  Morgan pulled out his phone. “I’ll ask him.”

  “I thought he was at the police station?”

  “It’s almost eleven. He should be done.”

  She hated what Dean had done, but a part of her was more worried what he’d do with his fresh start if he’d lost everyone in his life already. It would be hard to be alone. He’d feel like shit. In a complete about face, she blurted, “Invite him to lunch.”

  “Ah, what?” Morgan, his phone in his hands, lifted his gaze to stare at her. “Remember that holding a gun to our heads part?”

  “He was against a wall and trying to find a way out.” She leaned forward. “He was a victim too. I’m afraid of what he’ll do once he’s cleared the air with the cops. He might have no one left to turn to.”

  “You’re too damn generous,” he bit off.

  “No, it’s fallout. You two were friends, right?”

  He nodded.

  “Good friends?”

  He gave a sharp nod.

  “Until you left?”

  His gaze narrowed.

  “And then he turned to Billy.”

  He closed his eyes, his shoulders slumping.

  “Making him an easy target for your brother, who was likely already waiting in the wings.”

  “Shit.”

  *

  How could she do that so easily? She could make him see another point of view, another side to an issue that he hadn’t considered. He had planned to never let Dean back into his house, never mind his life. Some things were just unforgivable.

  Like pulling a gun and waving it at Jazz. She might be ready to forgive that – he sure as hell wasn’t.

  “He never hurt us,” she said quietly. “And he never took the money.”

  “He might have hurt us and he did take the money,” Morgan countered. “Just because he gave it back doesn’t make his actions forgivable.”

  “Neither does anything he did make him unforgivable.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Remember, you can’t save the world.”

  “No, but maybe we can save a few of Billy’s victims.”

  Shit. As an answer, it was hard to argue with.

  “Fine. I’ll invite him over for coffee.” He glared at her. “Not lunch.”

  She smiled at him knowingly, and he realized he’d already lost this battle.

  “We might need to go to the cops as well.”

  She lost her smile. “Why?”

  “Your store. If it’s being used as a front for something much more sinister, you need to make sure they know that you didn’t have a hand in it and that you want this mess stopped.”

  She glared at him. “I didn’t know anything about it.”

  “Good. Keep up that outrage in your voice as it will help the police believe you.”

  “No, it won’t,” she said. “They’ll think I had something to do with all of it, if for no other reason than I run a tattoo parlor.”

  “Hey, where’s this coming from? It’s not like you’re doing anything illegal through the shop, so they have no reason to discriminate against you. You’ve had good dealings with the police since you’ve been open.”

  “I know that, but it seems like the noose is tightening around me and I’ve done nothing,” she cried. “As if I’ve been set up.”

  “And maybe you have been. But we don’t have to let them succeed.”

  “And what am I to tell the police?”

  “You tell them what you’ve told me,” he said in a soothing voice. “They don’t believe you’re guilty, but they need to know what you know. Tell them everything, including the fact that you believe you’re being framed, and trust that they will do their job.”

  “Since when do you believe in the police so much?”

  Morgan shrugged. “I’ve been on the other side way too much. I’ve seen the good and the bad when it comes to law enforcement, but I don’t have any reason to believe these ones are idiots. Shawn has been very forthcoming. I’m inclined to believe him.”

  She sat back and stared at him. “So what, do you want to invite him for lunch, too?”

  With a great shout of laughter, Morgan said, “No, not at all. I’m trying to get you to ease back your panic and trust them – him – a little more.”

  “Right, well, just in case you’re wrong, don’t mind if there’s a little bit of panic snugged into a far corner ready to be pulled out if I need it.”

  “Not required. But I’ll go and call Dean if you want me to?” She nodded. He got up and dialed Dean. There was no answer, so he left a message. “He’s not answering. He might still be with the police.”

  “How long was the visit likely to be?”

  “Not so long. I thought he’d be hom
e by now.” He smiled at her. “Not to worry. We can take some time at the shop this afternoon if you want. Roxy was supposed to bring you some work, only she forgot. Instead, we could go there for a few hours. You’ll feel better and maybe you can pack up a few things to bring home to work on. Would that work?”

  She smiled. “Yeah, that would be good.”

  Chapter 11

  The shop was doing a bustling business. As soon as she walked inside, there was a chorus of cries and well wishes. She grinned, feeling more at home than she had in a long time. “Hi everyone.”

  She wandered the shop, just thankful to be there. She visited with old friends that were in getting work done, and they were all happy to see her.

  It felt wonderful.

  Morgan was next door checking out if there’d been anything else going on in the area lately. He’d sprung it on her on the drive over. She didn’t plan to stay here for long, but just being here felt so wonderful – so damn normal – it’s what she needed to do.

  And he could do what he did. Worry.

  She made her way to the back room where she puttered around putting things to rights. There would be inventory to do soon, and of course the bookkeeping as the second quarterly review was due, and so were the taxes. Business had been good lately. There was so much more she wanted to do here.

  Including maybe teaching. She wanted to focus on doing more – giving more. Maybe do more volunteer work. Women who’d had a breast removed and were looking for a different answer. She’d done a wonderful project for a young man who’d lost his leg above his knee. He wanted to memorialize his loss while celebrating the fact that he was still alive.

  She’d loved that job. It had so much meaning for both of them.

  More jobs like that would be wonderful. She knew there were a lot of people who couldn’t afford tattoos, so maybe she needed to consider pro bono work for some of these people.

  “Don’t you look happy with yourself today?” Roxy said, walking over to her desk, two full cups of coffee in her hands. She set them both down and pulled up a chair. “I’ve got a few minutes before the next client. So catch me up, how is the investigation going?”