Page 4

CHAPTER 4

Toxic

I watched her as she sank down in the chair opposite of me. She was keeping a close eye on us, but didn’t seem as tense as before. “Did you get to talk to Keely?”

She nodded, giving me a weak smile. “Sorry about before.”

I shrugged. “You show up uninvited on farm land, and it’s expected to be welcomed at gunpoint.”

“You sound like you have first-hand knowledge of that,” she replied and smiled at me.

That smile damn near knocked the breath out of me. It was the first genuine smile she’d given me. But I could see the exhaustion in her eyes. It made me want to take care of everything. To take care of her. Fuck. I was already a damn goner. Dad had been right. It was just an instant knowledge that this woman was mine. She belonged to me. I eyed her, wondering how receptive to that she’d be. “Grew up on a ranch in Wyoming,” I told her, trying to set her more at ease.

“Long way from home.”

Glancing over, I caught Butcher’s gaze. He was staring at me with a strangely perceptive look. He arched a brow, a smirk crossing his face. Clearing my throat, I focused back on the woman. “What’s your name?”

“Billie Callahan.”

“That’s an interesting name. Don’t know many women named Billie,” I said with a grin.

“Old family name,” she said with a shrug. “Keely didn’t tell you my name?”

“There wasn’t a whole lot of information exchanged,” I told her. “Just heard you needed help and headed on out.”

She straightened up in the chair and studied me, then Butcher. “You just came out. Without knowing what’s going on?”

I shrugged. “Keely needed something. She’s a friend. That’s enough.”

She shook her head. “I would do that for her, too, so I get it, but… You don’t know me .”

“Don’t need to,” Butcher replied.

She looked shocked. “This… This could be dangerous. I can’t ask you to help me.”

“You need the help, don’t you?” I asked, trying to keep my voice soothing. She was like one of those prickly mares I loved so much. Scared and aggressive because she didn’t know what else to do. “Besides, Big Guy here needs a little danger or he gets bored.”

She studied Butcher for a moment, then spoke. “Someone’s…” She let out a sigh and raked a hand through her thick hair.

I wanted so fucking badly to be the one doing that right now. My dick hardened in my jeans, so I shifted to ease the pressure. I caught Butcher’s smirk again. That fucker knew me too well. He knew what I was doing.

“I have no real proof,” she continued. “But I think someone’s trying to run me off my ranch.”

“Why do you say that?” I asked.

“First our ranch hands started disappearing. They wouldn’t even answer a text.”

Butcher and I exchanged glances. “Disappearing?” he asked.

“We found out later that someone was paying them to go work at other places. I thought maybe they were just paying more, but now I think it was to work anywhere but here.”

I frowned. “That’s fucking weird. A good crew is usually pretty loyal.”

“Right?” she asked, sounding exasperated. “And they were a great crew. No one would talk to me except my foreman. And he left, too. It was almost like he was scared to tell me what was going on. And then the calls started. And the letters.” She swallowed hard and her eyes darted away from me.

I could see the tears there. It wasn’t hard to see that this was a tough woman. She had handled that shotgun like a pro, and was clearly keeping this place running the best she could. I could see the exhaustion in every tense line in her body. She was worn down. And that was likely the reason she was close to tears. She didn’t strike me as the type to sob at every misfortune. It just sounded like she had a lot of it.

“How long has this been going on?” I asked.

“About five months.” She scrunched her nose in a way that made me grin. It was damn adorable. “Almost six now.”

“Long time,” Butcher said.

“Do you know who it is?” I asked. “Who do you think is doing this?”

She stood up, her boots thunking against the wooden floors as she grabbed something off the counter.

My eyes dropped to her ass. Ho-ly shit. The woman had a world class ass. It was thick and juicy and I wanted to take a bite out of it. She had thick thighs that turned into flared hips that eventually nipped in a bit at her waist. My mouth was fucking watering.

Butcher’s stare was boring into the side of my head, but I ignored the fucker, eyes flashing back up to Billie’s face as she came back to the table. Every time she looked over at Butcher my eyes dropped down to her tits. They were a little more than a handful and I wanted to weigh them in my hands. Her body was strong and thick. She wasn’t a petite woman and that was exactly how I liked it. Not that I was usually picky. I liked all kinds, but this was the kind of body that inspired a man to stay in bed all damn day.

Butcher handed the letter over to me. I saw the company name and frowned. Fission Solutions. “Never heard of them.”

“Me either,” Billie replied. “And I’ve been trying to look into them. Then today…” She broke off, raking a hand through her hair again.

“What happened?” I asked.

“I came in from the south fields and saw a car driving off. I found my Grandpa out back. Someone beat him nearly to death,” she whispered.

“And you think it was this company?” Butcher asked.

She looked up at us, desperation in her eyes. She wanted us to believe her. “I don’t know who else would do something like this. I don’t understand why anyone even would. He’s an old man. Harmless.”

I knew exactly why they would do this. She was a single female living with an old man. Only a fucking coward would be targeting her. “No other enemies?” I asked.

She shook her head. “We mostly keep to ourselves. Especially lately. It’s been…a lot…running this place. I don’t have time to make enemies.” She gave me a wry smile.

Didn’t I fucking know it? I knew exactly what it took to run a ranch this size, and it was a lot smaller than mine back in Wyoming. Still, it was too much for one person to handle alone. “Well, I can give you a hand for a while. Until we can figure out what the hell is going on.”

Until I can figure out whose ass to pummel.

Relief and confusion mixed in her gaze. “I don’t really know why you’re offering to help, but I’m going to take it.”

Both Butcher and I chuckled at that. She was a straight shooter. I liked that.

She tilted her head, studying me. “I’m kind of at an impasse. I don’t know how to find out what’s happening. Keely is sending a cease and desist letter for me.”

I snorted at that. “Lawyer shit. We’ll look into it for you.”

“How?” she asked. “Are you…like…cops?” She tilted her head again. “Should I call the cops?”

“Hell no,” I barked, making her jump a little. “We’re former military. All the men in our club are. We have ways of finding shit out.”

“That makes you sound all mysterious.” She tilted her head toward me and smiled.

Fuck. She was going to be the death of me. I just knew it. I was going to end up doing whatever it fucking took just to get smiles out of her.

She seemed to realize I was staring at her and the smile slipped off her face. She cleared her throat. “Well, thank you so much for feeding my animals. And helping me with this. I don’t know what else I can do, but I can pay you for the ranch work.”

I shook my head. “No need.”

Her eyes hardened and she lost the softness that her vulnerability had created. She was back to being watchful and untrusting. “I insist.”

“Alright,” I said, just to keep an argument from happening. “I’ll be back in the morning. Help with some of the chores. If you want to stay with your Grandfather at the hospital, you can show me how you like things done and I’ll take care of everything for the next few days.”

“Thank you.” Her voice was soft again.

She was in a difficult place. And it couldn’t have been easy to see someone she loved lying in a hospital bed. It was why she was flipping back and forth between resignation with what was happening and what I assumed was her more natural personality. Either way, I was a fan.

“We’ll get out of your hair. What time do you want us here in the morning?”

She stared at me, biting at her full lower lip. “Five?”

“Done.”

“What,” Butcher muttered under his breath.

“See you in the morning,” I told her, standing and all but shoving Butcher out the door. “Don’t be alarmed if you see random trucks, motorcycles, or bikers roaming around. We’ll make sure no one sneaks in to hurt you or the animals.” We left before she could comment.

“Five in the fucking morning?” he grumbled. “Feels like I’m back in the military.”

I chuckled. “Better get to sleep early,” I told him.

“You get to sleep early,” he shot back. “I’ll drive.”

We got maybe a mile down the road before he started in on me. “So…”

“Don’t,” I muttered.

“Noticed you couldn’t keep your eyes off her.”

“When do I ever bother to keep my eyes off a woman?” I asked.

He snorted out a laugh. “True enough.” There was a pause, but I was only lucky enough to have it last for a few moments. “This was different.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“It was.”

I sighed and shook my head. “You wouldn’t know what fucking different was if it bit you in the ass. Remember how long it took you to realize you were in love with Isla?” I pointed out.

He nodded as he stared at the road in front of us. “All good points…”

“But,” I said with another sigh.

“But this was different.”

“Okay, fucker. Tell me how.”

He wasn’t going to be able to. Butcher wasn’t exactly an expert on human emotion.

“You didn’t flirt with her.”

I looked over at him, mouth hanging open. “What?”

“You flirt with everything that moves and is female,” he said with a shrug. “You smiled at her. Really smiled. And didn’t flirt at all.”

“...her grandfather is in the hospital,” I sputtered, shocked that he’d picked up on that. Who’d been teaching this asshole about emotions? It wasn’t Isla, she was as clueless as he was.

“Which normally you would use to get into her pants,” he pointed out.

“I’m not that much of an asshole,” I growled.

He looked over at me with a smirk. “You absolutely are.”

Yeah, alright, he wasn’t wrong. And he wasn’t wrong about how I was feeling about Billie. Which was shocking as fuck. But I wasn’t exactly ready to tell anyone a damn thing. I was still trying to understand it myself. After years of hearing Dad say that it hit you this way, it was mind blowing that it was actually true. She’d damn near knocked me on my ass.

I needed to process everything before I decided what I was going to do about it. No. That was a lie. I already knew what I was going to do about it. But I still needed to fucking wrap my head around it. Then I’d charm the pants off my woman and claim her. “Shut up,” I told Butcher because the fucker was still smirking at me.

“You going to be as bad as Lock?” he asked.

“You’re one to talk,” I shot back. “You kidnapped your woman just to keep her close instead of telling her you wanted her to be yours.”

He shrugged. “Worked, didn’t it?”

I chuckled. “Yeah. The only woman on the planet that would have worked on.”

“You’re not wrong.”

“Think there’s any way to use this situation to get Keely back into town?” I asked. I needed the attention off of me for now.

“You think Lock will do anything about it if she does come home?” he replied.

“I don’t think he’s going to be able to resist. He’s going to lose his shit soon and doesn’t even realize it.” Our president was a ticking time bomb. He didn’t know yet what the rest of us did. He’d found his old lady. He was trying to resist it, though who the fuck knew why. He was only hurting himself in the long run as he stuck his head in the sand. At some point he was going to have to face reality.

“You going to be like Lock?” Butcher asked again, putting the fucking spot light right back on me.

“No, you stubborn asshole. I just need a fucking minute to breathe.”

He chuckled. “Thought so.”

My best friend was a dick. But he wasn’t wrong. Somehow the guy who didn’t know shit about how people ticked had me figured out better than anyone.