Page 8

8

“ S imon?”

He glanced in the rearview mirror. The Charger continued its way south toward Juliana’s condo. “Yeah?”

“You saw him, didn’t you?”

He dropped his gaze to see her head tilted up and her eyes, shadowed with worry, steady on his.

He inclined his head. “He’s headed south.”

“Toward my place.” He didn’t have anything to say to make her feel better, so remained silent. “Why would they send two people? Wouldn’t it be easier to, I don’t know, peg me as a freak or a conspiracy theorist if I ever came out and spoke about what I heard? Or, at the very least, they could deny it or say I misunderstood. Sending two people after me seems, well, it makes them look even more guilty than they might otherwise.”

“Even if they took the approach of discrediting you, you might still pique someone’s interest. Didn’t they mention a reporter?”

“Anna Palmer, from the Chronicle.”

“If she’s already looking into one or both of the men you overheard, my guess is she wouldn’t dismiss you as easily as others might.”

He glanced in the mirror again as she considered his point. When he didn’t see the Charger, his shoulders relaxed and he held his hand out to her. “He’s out of sight, you can sit up now.”

She set her palm in his and pushed herself into a normal sitting position. She took a moment to stretch her back, then he brought her hand to his lips, kissed it, and set it on his thigh. Heat shot through the denim of his jeans and straight to his groin when her fingers curled around his leg, but he didn’t release her. He liked the anticipation too much.

“How much farther?” she asked. They’d passed the hospital on the north end of town and were heading into a more residential area.

“Ten more minutes,” he answered.

Five minutes ticked by before she spoke again. “Lowery and Polinsky need looking into, but is there a chance your friends will be able to ID the two guys in Mystery Lake? They can’t be good guys. Not if Lowery or Polinsky hired them. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find that they have a warrant issued for them and we can let the police know?”

“Viper didn’t say, but I’d be surprised if he doesn’t have pictures of both, which will help. It might take a while, but we’ll ID them,” he said.

Another minute passed before she spoke again. “Did you know Daimler was also one of the first people to build and patent a motorcycle? I think it was in 1885.”

“I did know that, actually,” he said.

She frowned. “It seems like I should know when the first motorcycle club was founded, but I don’t.”

He liked how she turned to weird facts when nervous, and judging by the way her hand tensed under his when he turned onto the long driveway to the clubhouse, she was definitely nervous. He hoped it had more to do with meeting his brothers than the idea of the club.

“Yonkers MC,” he said. She looked at him. “Established in 1903 and still active. It’s the oldest club on record, although the culture we’re more used to now didn’t start until around the Second World War.”

“Really?”

He nodded. “The whole one-percenter bullshit started even later. Or I should say it took off even later. A few of those clubs formed in the thirties and forties, but they didn’t start earning their reputations until a few decades after.” He pulled into a spot and turned his truck off. Several other vehicles were scattered around the lot as well as a dozen bikes.

His gaze landed on the clubhouse, but he made no move to exit the cab. When he and Mantis and a few of the others had decided to settle in Mystery Lake, they’d known exactly what they wanted to do, and they’d built the clubhouse to accommodate their mission. At close to eight thousand square feet, it lay tucked into the trees. Constructed from natural materials and materials colored to complement nature, it blended into the setting unobtrusively. But it wasn’t the construction of the building that he wanted to explain to Juliana before they walked in.

“Talk to me,” Juliana said, turning her palm up and curling her fingers around his.

He huffed, amused but still surprised that she seemed able to read him. “Fine, but what I’m going to tell you isn’t something a lot of people know. It isn’t a secret, but once I tell you, you’ll understand why it’s not something we talk about.”

Her eyes widened a smidge and she nodded.

“There will be women there. I think there are four or five, not including Dottie our…house mom, or manager.” She frowned, and he rushed on. “But it’s not what you think. Well, not entirely.” An eyebrow went up. He almost growled. “Okay, I’m not doing a good job of this, so here goes.” She nodded in encouragement. “We are part of a network that helps people in abusive relationships escape those relationships. Most, but not all, are women. Often with kids. Sometimes, if those women don’t have a safe place to go, they stay at the clubhouse until they do.”

She frowned again. “Okay,” she drew the word out. “That was not what I was expecting, and I have so many questions. We’ll save those for later, though. You didn’t want me to be surprised by the presence of women in the club?”

He shifted. There was more to it than that. “I also wanted you to know that there may be a few women there who are… with some of the members. Maybe for the day or night or week. They’ve had so many choices taken from them that on occasion, one of the aspects of their life they want to take back is sex—the decision to have it, the decision with whom to have it, and the decision to stop.” He paused, then added, “There’s no one there who is or was ever with me, though.”

She studied him, and he fought the urge to squirm. He hadn’t done anything wrong, but he didn’t like talking about his past sex life with her. She’d been the only woman to pique his interest in a very long time, and even alluding to the fact that he had, at some point, been with other women felt like a threat to the relationship growing between them.

“There’s no one in there”—she pointed to the clubhouse—“that you’ve had sex with?”

“No,” he answered before she even finished. “No one I’ve ever even kissed,” he added. “Until you, it had been a long time since a woman caught my interest.”

“It’s not really any of my business,” she said, her tone not giving anything away.

“It is your business. It is very much your business,” he said, rubbing his thumb over her hand. “This may be jumping the gun, but until you tell me to get lost or until we decide that this thing between us isn’t going anywhere, you are the only woman who will have my interest, my attention. I need you to know that. I want you to believe it, too, but that’s something only you can decide.”

The home he’d grown up in hadn’t been a happy one. He’d suffered the effects of his parents’ profligate lifestyle, including strings of nameless lovers, drugs, alcohol, violence, and worse. Joining the military had severed his ties to that period, but only years of therapy had helped him understand that he had a choice in how he wanted to live, as his own man. Now, with the exception of a drink or two, he never invited those vices into his life. He never had meaningless sex, never touched drugs, and only ever used violence to defend himself or someone needing protection; he never threw the first punch.

“You can’t possibly believe I’d ever tell you to get lost,” she said, her smile lightening the comment even more than her tone.

“You might,” he replied.

“If nothing else, I’ll keep you around because you’re pretty.”

He snorted. “You want me to decorate your wall?”

“I suspect I’ll want you for a lot more than that, but I’ll keep the offer in mind.”

Heat shot through his body and his hand involuntarily tightened around hers. If not for the arrival of Monk on his bike—the rumble of the engine interrupting the moment—he would have kissed her. Probably even hauled her onto his lap so he could feel her curves against him, her legs straddling him.

Later, he told his body. His priority now was keeping her safe.