by KB Winters
“You never have to thank us for that, brother.” Cross stepped in and took my hand, wrapping an arm around my back. “Glad to see you’re settling down here. Maisie seems good.”
“She is.” Despite all my worries about screwing up my kid sister, she was thriving here in Texas. She had half a dozen guys to dote on her, a loving grandmother figure and her favorite woman in the world on the ranch. What more could she ask for? “Thank God for that.”
“You’re getting emotional in your old age,” Max joked. “Feels good, doesn’t it?”
I nodded, because hell yeah, it kind of did.
“I have something for you.” Cross dug into his black leather bag and pulled out a big manila envelope and my heart rate accelerated.
“It’s official. Reckless Bastards, Opey Texas Chapter.”
“Fuck man, are you serious?”
He nodded and my inner kid leapt out, wrapping him in a big damn hug. “Thank you.”
“You’ll always be a brother, Gunnar.”
We said our goodbyes and Wheeler drove them to the airport so I could spend time with Maisie after being away for so many days.
I turned, expecting to find Peaches still glaring at me, but I should have known by the way my shoulders relaxed that she’d gone inside. Once again, Peaches shocked the hell out of me. She hadn’t run upstairs to the guest room, instead she was sitting at the table with Maisie. Smiling and looking like a wet dream in a floral dress, her damp curls spilling in all directions and no makeup on her face. The cherry on top of that sexy ass sundae was that she didn’t have a bra on under her dress. Her tits jiggled freely beneath the thin fabric, driving me crazy.
“Did you ladies leave any food for me?”
Peaches looked up with a glare just for me but Maisie wore a bright, beaming smile and jumped from her chair.
“No more food, Gunny. We ate all the slider burgers and they were yummy!”
I picked her up and tickled her belly, loving the sound of her joyful laughter. “Then I better get one from your tummy!”
“No, Gunny! You have some.”
“Martha left yours in the warming oven,” Peaches said as she stood, ruffling Maisie’s hair. “Check ya later, kid.”
“Will you be here in the morning, Peaches?”
She froze and turned at the question, eyes soft and kind of sad. “Yeah kiddo, I will.”
“Don’t leave on my account.” I didn’t want her to leave, but I knew I was still in the shit house with her.
“You need some alone time with Maisie.” She didn’t give me a chance to say anything else before disappearing upstairs. I knew she was pissed, and I expected the cold shoulder for a while so I’d put up with it.
I dropped Maisie in her seat, grabbed my food and joined her at the table. It was damn good to be home, in my own bed and surrounded by my people. My things. “So kiddo, tell me about your day.”
That was just the opening she needed to take a deep breath before spilling every detail of her day, starting with a sausage patty with a biscuit and grape jelly. “It was the best sandwich I ever had!”
I listened and chimed in with a response in all the right places while I enjoyed my sliders, mashed potatoes and corn on the cob. There was a long moment of silence that had me thinking maybe I’d missed some part of the conversation. “What?”
“I said why don’t you marry Peaches? She’d be a good mommy for me ‘cause she already is.”
Thank fuck Holden chose that moment to interrupt us because how in the hell was I supposed to respond to that? “What’s up, Holden?”
He tweaked Maisie’s nose, making her giggle, before turning his attention to me. “Suspicious activity on the perimeter.”
I was on my feet before the rest of the sentence was out of his mouth, heading to the gun closet and then right out the door.
“Stay in the house with the girls, Holden.” I turned back to look him in the eye. “Keep Peaches inside this house. Whatever it takes.”
He nodded, and I took off, confident they would be safe until we figured out who tripped the sensors. My heart thundered as I made my way to the barn where the ATVs were kept, with Cruz at my side. I wondered what in the fuck I would find out there.
“Anyone see anything?” I asked on the run.
“Nope. Ford and Slayer are already on the way and they have radios.”
It took a few minutes for us to get to an area on the northeast side of the property, right along the fence. “What did you find?”
“Looks like a fucking kid,” Slayer said, disgust in his tone as he pointed a flashlight at the debris. “Four bags of potato chips, candy, dead flashlight batteries and a half empty can of soda. Not a pro,” he said, and I had to agree.
“Could be a diversion,” Cruz offered. “Fuckers are dangerous because they work more often than they should.”
I didn’t disagree completely. “Slayer is right. At least one of the people after Peaches wants something from her, otherwise she’d already be dead. So would we,” I told them because I was trying to be as honest as I could about this trouble. Peaches had drilled it into my head enough, whether I wanted her to or not.
“Damn. When Peaches does trouble, she does it big, don’t she?” Cruz grinned and clapped me on the back. “I’ll take the north fence before I head back.”
“Thanks.” We all took an edge of the property to check on our way back to the main house and bunkhouse, and for now it had to be enough. Tonight was our first theme night at The Barn Door and I had two hours to check everything over before the doors opened.
I checked on Maisie when I got back to the house, but she was already tucked in bed so I dropped a kiss on her head and ran to a steaming hot shower to loosen the aches in my muscles. Sleeping in a fucking car for two days was bullshit, and a dumb idea for a man over the age of twenty-five. My aches had aches and I still had hours to go before I could stop running, stop moving.
And I hadn’t had one goddamn minute to talk with Peaches since we got back to Hardtail. She ignored me, after yelling at me that if I was gonna bring her back, she would’ve liked to ride in the helicopter with Holden and Cross. It was a fair point, but we both knew if I’d given her a choice, she would have run off without me.
Dressed in fresh jeans and a shirt, I was ready to head to the club to make sure everything was in order for the night. The club did a steady business, even though we were closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and I wanted to keep the momentum going. Too lost to my own thoughts, I ran right into soft, feminine curves at the bottom of the stairs.
“Peaches. Just who I was looking for.”
“Where else would I be, Gunnar?”
“You’re still pissed. That’s okay, you’re hot as fuck when you’re pissed off.”
She wanted to argue and maybe I said it to get a rise out of her, but it was true. Before she could give me another piece of her mind, I pulled her close and slammed my mouth down on hers, kissing her deep and slow until her nails dug into my shoulders and her tongue danced with mine. Only Peaches could turn a kiss into an erotic experience and eventually I had to pull back or fuck her.
“Tonight when I get back, we should talk.” There was so much I wanted to say to her and now I was sure of what I wanted to say. It felt right. Free. A smile touched my lips as a weight lifted from my shoulders.
Peaches smiled but it didn’t reach her eyes, and the tone was all off when she said, “Sure.” It was non-committal and if I had time, I might have asked a few more questions.
“See you later,” I told her and ran back out to the ATV.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Peaches
I couldn’t sleep. It was quiet as hell except for the low humming beat drifting in the air from The Barn Door, but still I couldn’t sleep. It didn’t have a damn thing to do with the fact that I’d spent the past two nights with Gunnar, one in his arms and the other with him right beside me in the car. No, it had nothing to do with that. It couldn’t be because I was s
till pissed at him for being high-handed and stubborn, for thinking he knew what was best for me and for putting everyone on the ranch in danger.
Because of me.
It was stupid as hell. Sweet and kind of chivalrous, but those were just synonyms for stupid, weren’t they?
He wasn’t totally stupid though, hiding the keys and the car so I had no way of escaping except on foot. And even that wasn’t possible because there was always a pair of eyes on me. Even now. Holden was downstairs on the front porch with a shotgun in his hand, looking every inch the menacing cowboy protecting his property. He should be at the club, not playing bodyguard to me.
I told him as much earlier after Gunnar took off, but he just flashed that aw shucks cowboy smile, tipped his hat and stood sentry on the porch. Even now, from my spot near the window, I could see him there in the darkness, nothing but the cherry of his cigarette visible as the moon passed behind the clouds.
Other than a few clouds in the sky, the night was beautiful. Almost magical in the still beauty of it, a thick layer of mist rolling across the land. The moon lit up the night once again, and I caught a flash of something, or rather someone, darting from the bank of trees near the driveway to the trees closer to the bunkhouse.
I banged on the window frantically, trying to get Holden’s attention. He looked up and I pointed towards the trees.
“Someone’s there!” I kept pointing with one hand and lifted the window with the other. “I saw movement, looked human.”
Holden’s look was suspicious at first, and I knew Gunnar had told him to make sure I didn’t leave the house. Finally he stood and started towards the bank of trees and I stepped back, feeling a sudden urge to check on Maisie since Martha had the evening off. It was probably the kid the guys assumed was camping out on the property, but I needed to see Maisie.
To be sure.
Something felt off. I couldn’t describe it, and I couldn’t shake the damn feeling, so I listened to it. Slipping into my sneakers and grabbing my butterfly knife, I tiptoed down the hall to the little girl’s frilly cowgirl-themed room. A shocked gasp came out on a rush when I pushed her door open. Maisie looked up with a terrified smile, sitting frozen on the lap of a smiling blond man.
A mildly familiar smiling blond man. “Who the hell are you and what are you doing here?”
He looked up, not at all shocked by my appearance, which told me the kid out there was nothing but a distraction. “I think you know the answer to that question.”
He was low key and smug with that gun in one hand, aimed at Maisie. “You all right kiddo?”
“Peaches!” She moved towards me but the asshole gripped her shoulder tight.
“Ow!” she yelped.
“Watch it, asshole!” I wanted to gut that motherfucker for even touching her, but I had to take my time. Get her out of harm’s way first.
“I’m just making sure she’s comfortable,” he insisted with a slick smile that was trying a little too hard to be innocent. “You are a hard woman to track down.”
“Yet here you are.”
He smacked his lips in an admonishing sound that was meant to make me feel chastised. All I felt was annoyed. And terrified for Maisie who had tears pooling in her big blue eyes. “You’re too damn smart and that’s your problem, but your weakness is that pregnant friend of yours in Mayhem. Well, that, and that NSA agent with a drinking problem he hides with a gambling problem.”
So he’d caught me by listening to one of my calls to Vivi. And I always used a burner. She’d be so pissed to know that. Fuck, we needed to step up our security game.
“You’re here so you must want something. What?” If he didn’t want something from me, he could’ve put a bullet in me while I slept, gotten in and out without being seen. This was messy.
Desperate.
Desperate people made plenty of fucking mistakes so I just had to keep calm and let this play out.
He laughed. “You know what I want. The file.” He squeezed Maisie closer, his smile never wavering. “Don’t bother denying it.”
“What file? The one of you murdering a U.S. citizen, because I haven’t seen that file. But I’ve heard plenty about it.”
“Don’t fuck with me, bitch! I will rip this little girl to shreds right in front of you.” He held the cold metal to her head, making Maisie cry out as tears streamed down her face.
“Okay fine, I know what file you’re talking about, but I don’t have it. After you showed up at the ranch, I sent it to the New York Times.”
“Bullshit. I haven’t seen anything about it on the news.”
In for a penny, as the saying goes. “Yeah, they blew me off. But now that Bob’s dead, I’m guessing they’re fact-checking as we speak and getting plenty of no comment type of comments.”
He didn’t believe me, and I knew I needed to sell it for just a little longer. “It doesn’t matter. They have the info and it will come out, before or after you do what you’ve come to do.”
“So fucking proud of yourself,” he sneered and stood, nearly dropping Maisie, who cried out again. “Find the file and I won’t kill her in front of you.”
“If anything happens to her, you’ll wish you were dead. Gerald Randolph Stranson. Divorced father of four. It’d be a shame if you weren’t able to see those kids ever again.”
I might have a weakness, but he had four of them.
“I hold all the fucking cards, little girl.” Just to make sure I got the picture, he pressed two fingers to Maisie’s shoulder until she cried out.
I couldn’t take it, watching tears run down her frightened little face, but I had to get her away from him. Safely.
“You might have the cards, but your name is the one piece of evidence no one has yet, and if you piss me off or kill me before I’ve adjusted the auto-send email to fifty four different media outlets, the world will know.”
“You’ll be dead.”
“I’m dead anyway,” I told him, ignoring Maisie’s shocked gasp because I had to. “But I’ll die happy knowing they got you too.”
That much was true, and I hoped that sleazy bastard could see it in my eyes, that I wasn’t fucking around.
“Give me the fucking file!” His outburst cost him, jostling and scaring Maisie, which made her pee herself. He dropped her and she headed right towards me, arms extended.
“Peaches!”
I saw his intent the minute Stranson raised the gun, and I took a step to the side, pushing her out of the room.
“Run, Maisie! Don’t stop until you find one of the guys!”
“You bitch!” He smacked me right across the fucking face as I turned back to him, sending me staggering back against the wall.
I smiled and pushed off the wall as I slid the knife from my back pocket.
“I’ve been called worse,” I assured him just in case he thought I still had any feelings left to hurt.
“Who’s the bitch now?” I asked as I shoved the blade deep in his gut and took off running.
“Run now, and I won’t stop until the girl is working in whore houses all over Europe. Asia. The Middle East. All before her tenth birthday.”
His words stopped me cold and his laugh said he knew it.
“She’s a weakness.”
“You want the file? Fine, let’s go get the fucking file, but if you put your hands on me again, I’ll cut your dick off and shove down your eye sockets. Got it?”
He nodded and raised the gun so it was aimed right at my chest. “Try anything funny and you’ll be dead before you finish the thought.”
Once we were away from the main house, I could press my luck knowing that Maisie would be well protected. “As long as we understand each other.”
I took a deep breath and one step forward, preparing for the longest fucking walk of my life.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Gunnar
“Where is she? Where the hell is she?”
Holden called thirty minutes ago with a call that no parent ever wa
nted to fucking hear, telling me Peaches was missing as Maisie bawled her eyes out in the background.
“Well?”
Slayer had gotten to the main house first and pointed toward the kitchen.
“Poor thing, not even hot cocoa could stop the tears.”
I understood his baffled tone because hot chocolate was my sister’s favorite thing in the world, and a guaranteed way to cheer her up or distract her easily.
I made my way toward the sound of her tears, dropping to my knees the moment I set eyes on her, curled up against Holden’s massive chest.
“Maze, honey, how are you?”
“Gunny!”
She slipped from Holden’s lap with all the energy of a coma patient, dragging her feet towards me before she flung herself in my arms.
“Gunny, the bad man had a gun and said he’d kill me if I didn’t sit in his lap so I did. And then h-h-h-he wanted to take me but Peaches wouldn’t let him.”
She sniffled, her sobs growing stronger as she relived the trauma. “He scared me so bad I peed my pants and I r-r-r-ran to Peaches b-b-b-but she pushed me and told me to run away. W-w-w-why did she push me away, Gunny?”
Whoever said raising kids was easy had no fucking clue what they were talking about because her tone was enough to rip me in half, to tear my heart right out of my fucking chest. But to hear her cry like that, that nearly brought me to tears.
“She was trying to keep you safe, Maze. You know she loves you.”
She nodded and wiped her eyes with a watery pout. “But she yelled, too.”
“Because it was serious and she wanted to make sure you ran. And you did, didn’t you?”
She nodded. “Right to Holden, but we was too late. Peaches is gone.”
Gone. That motherfucker had gotten her and she’d put herself between him and Maisie. “You did great, Maisie.”
“She’s a damn fine cowgirl already.” Holden’s words pleased her and she beamed a smile up at him.
She gasped and turned back to me. “Peaches called him Gerald, and he got real mad, then he got madder when she said she sent the files to New York time. What’s that?”