Page 23 of Warrant (The Berserker’s Rage MC: Wyoming Chapter #1)

Ainsley

“ C ome on, Cadet,” I said, opening the door of my Tahoe and letting my border collie puppy jump out. I had her on a leash because she hadn’t been on a farm yet. Border collie puppy plus first time on a farm equals me running a lot to catch the little demon. The leash was a must for now.

Laughing, I watched her spin in the cool morning air as she tried to take in all the sights at once. We were headed over to the corrals when Laurel waved me over.

She’d put out a notice about sheep herding classes and since today was my day off, and I had an energetic young dog who was meant to do things like that, I’d figured why not? Not to mention I hadn’t heard from the sexy biker who’d been taking up a lot of my time until the last few days.

Which is exactly what you want.

Chiding myself wasn’t working. I couldn’t seem to keep my mind off Warrant even though I kept telling myself this separation was good.

Honestly, even if I wasn’t thinking about him in a romantic way, or the other way—that is to say, tight muscles grasping my body and making me scream out for more kind of way—this lack of contact would be concerning because it made me wonder what kind of trouble he was getting into.

The man’s middle name had to be Mischievous, Trouble, or maybe Pain in the Ass.

“I’ll be with you in a minute,” Laurel called out and I waved in acknowledgement as I watched her and another owner run a dog through his paces with the sheep.

“Ainsley?”

Turning, I saw Maya heading my way. I’d gotten together with the girls another time since our first meeting and I was really starting to like them.

Beside Maya an older Jack Russell Terrier trotted along with her.

He wasn’t on a leash, but obviously was well trained, unlike my little terror who was straining at her leash to get at a butterfly.

Frustrated, she turned and went to war with the leash, tugging and growling at it.

“Hi Maya,” I said with a smile. “Who’s this?”

“Oh, this is Reginald Barktholomew the third.”

I blinked at her, then looked down at the dog, who I swore was wearing a look of bored disgust. If I had to guess it was either at his owner for his name, or at my puppy who was desperately trying to get at him to nip at his chin to entice him to play.

I pulled Cadet a little further back so she didn’t bother the older dog. “That’s…”

Maya grinned. “You can call him Reggie.”

“Nice to meet you Reggie,” I said after a brief pause where Maya looked at me expectantly. “What were you guys doing here? Herding sheep?”

“No, we were here doing barn hunt. Reg was built to chase rats.”

My lip curled up. Give me a bad guy in a dark alley with a gun over a rat any day. Their beady little eyes gave me the creeps. “What is barn hunt?”

She laughed at the look on my face at the mention of rats. “Don’t worry, the rats are contained in clear plastic tubes. Basically they put these tubes under the hay in a maze and the dogs use their noses to track down where the rats are. Reggie loves it.”

“I bet,” I said with a smile down at the small dog. He sure was cute even though he had that sort of air of a person who thought they were more sophisticated and all around better than you.

“Uh oh.”

“What?” I asked, looking back at Maya.

Her gaze was fixed on something behind me. Before I had the chance to turn, she said, “Looks like you’re about to be busy. I’ll see you next week for the girls’ lunch. Bye!”

She and Reggie scurried off as I turned around with a frown to see what had sent her running. I sighed, even as my heart jumped a bit, as I saw Warrant climbing out of an SUV. “You better not have stolen that,” I told him.

He grinned at me and opened the back door. Beau jumped out, spotted me and came trotting over. The bloodhound flopped down at my feet, laying his massive head on my sneaker. He didn’t let the puppy that was now jumping all over him deter him from his nap. Within seconds he was snoring.

I wasn’t sure how an energetic man like Warrant had such a lazy dog, but they seemed to fit together so well.

Like peanut butter and jelly. My eyes narrowed when I saw Warrant messing with something in the back seat.

I didn’t move though, because I didn’t want to disturb Beau. My curiosity was killing me.

My eyebrows shot all the way up when Warrant plucked a young girl out of the back seat of the SUV. “And you really better not have stolen that,” I said, planting my hands on my hips.

He has a kid?

Did that disappoint me? I wasn’t sure. And before I had the chance to examine the rush of feelings flooding me at seeing him holding a little girl—around two or three years old was my guess—he was standing in front of me. And yes, I had to fight down the squishy feeling in my ovaries.

“SUV belongs to the club,” he said with a grin. He shifted the girl in his arms. “And Aella here belongs to one of my club brothers.”

I didn’t remember any of the guys’ files saying they had kids. Maybe Denison’s research hadn’t delved that far into their personal lives. I’d just assumed they were all single and carefree.

“Hi, Aella,” I said with a smile.

The little girl smiled back at me, then hid her face in Warrant’s shoulder.

“I have a favor to ask…”

Looking back up at Warrant, wariness set in. “What kind of favor?”

“I need you to look after Beau and Aella for me.”

My mouth dropped open as I searched his face. There was no humor, no sign that he was joking around, and there wasn’t even any shame or guilt for asking. “That’s…that’s a huge favor, Warrant.”

“I know.”

“How long?”

“No idea. Hopefully only for today.”

I scowled at him. “You want me to watch her for an unknown amount of time? How do I even know her parents are okay with her staying with a stranger?”

“We’re sort of in a jam here, Ains,” he said. There was pure honest truth shining there in his eyes. That scared me.

Damn him.

“I don’t really know what I’m doing with kids,” I admitted.

“It’s not that hard,” he said with a grin because he knew he was about to get his way. “She can poop on her own, makes everything else real easy.”

The last thing I wanted was to get involved in whatever this was, but I couldn’t exactly let a child suffer because of Warrant’s choices. I wasn’t even certain this was his fault, though for now I was going to hold it over his head, just as a default. “I gu-”

“Great!” He was placing Aella into my arms before I could even finish agreeing to babysitting. “Aella, you’re going to love playing with Aunt Ainsley. You know she’s the Sheriff! How cool is that?”

“Really!” The little girl squeaked. “Aunt Murphy used to be F…B…I. Now she’s, um, bad guy hunter. Something.”

I smiled back at the girl, unsure how to respond to a bad guy hunter something, “That’s really cool.” To Warrant I asked, “What are you doing?” as he opened up the back of my Tahoe.

“Putting her car seat into the back. I’ve included everything you should need to watch her. Except maybe food,” he added. He wasn’t looking my way because he already knew I was glaring at him.

“Forge could watch me,” Aella said.

“Who’s that?” I asked her.

“A friend she met recently,” Warrant said, giving the girl a conspiratorial look. “He can’t watch you, Kid. Don’t worry, you’ll like Aunt Ainsley.”

“Here’s her stuff, in case she needs to stay overnight. And Beau’s dog food and bowl are in the back too.”

My head whipped up and I watched Warrant as he transferred everything. “Overnight? But you said-”

“Thanks so much for this, Baby Girl,” he said, cutting me off. “I’ll make it up to you.”

I wasn’t sure how he was going to do that, but the charming smile he was throwing my way almost made me want to forgive him. At least until he started backing out of Laurel’s driveway. “Wait!”

He didn’t wait. He didn’t turn around. He didn’t even have the decency to look in the rearview mirror as he left me with a snoring hound, an excited puppy who was currently peeing herself, and a quiet young girl.

“Every time he shows up he reminds me why I should keep my distance,” I muttered.

“I like Uncle Warrant. He’s funny.”

Staring down into the girl’s face, I nodded. “Yeah. He is.”

“I get down now?”

“Right. Sure.” I put her on the ground and she giggled as she squatted to pat at Cadet.

Shaking my head and wondering how I let myself be put into this situation, I tried to figure out what to do. “Are you hungry?”

“No. Daddy made pancakes.”

Okay. Daddy wasn’t far. But daddy was a biker, and if he can’t watch you…

what is he doing? What are the odds that the teddy bear that was found in that abandoned car was hers?

The club was clearly connected to that car, and to this girl, and all of a sudden she just pops up?

I wasn’t sure what was going on, but I was going to look into it.

“Hey, Ainsley, I’m ready- Oh.” Laurel’s eyebrows shot up as she took in my new crew. “You have a few more joining you.”

“I guess,” I said with a guilty smile. “I can reschedule…”

“No, this is great. Your kiddo can help Cadet here wrangle some sheep.” She eyed Beau. “Something tells me he won’t be any help.”

We both laughed as we followed Laurel into the corrals where she had the sheep contained.

Aella listened intently as Laurel went over the basics and how none of what we were going to do today hurt, or stressed out, the sheep.

They were used to being herded by her farm dogs and it was the way she moved her flock from one area to another.

It didn’t take long before Cadet and Aella caught on to the basics and began to run after the sheep.

If nothing else, this should end up wearing them both out and making it easier on me and Beau.

I glanced down at the sleeping dog and shook my head.

I wasn’t sure he was going to be much of a partner in crime when wrangling the young later on in the afternoon.

His main priority seemed to be catching up on his beauty sleep.

Looking back down the drive, where Warrant had disappeared, I wondered what was going on that they’d leave one of their kids with a woman they barely knew.

Whatever it was, and I really hoped my suspicions were wrong, I just wanted everyone to be okay.

And swore that I was going to get answers out of Warrant when he showed back up later.