The Billionaire's Dare (Book 4 - Billionaire Bodyguard Series) (10 page)

First, Adam stopped off at a flower shop. Something she might not have thought to do, in her current state of mind. He kept the motorcycle idling on the kickstand, returned with a dozen roses, and pressed them into her arms. Then they were back on the road, cruising at twenty-five miles an hour, the best speed this town offered. Yeah, he’d promised her a helmet the next time they rode, but this seemed a good a moment as any to buck the rules. He seemed to do that a lot around her.

When he’d asked her to guide him in the direction of the nearest cemetery, she’d thrust her arm south. So when he found a set of open metal gates, creaking in the wind louder than his v-twin engine, barricading what appeared to be a field of headstones, he steered his handlebars onto the dusty, rarely-traveled road between them.

The place looked as worn, sun-bleached and forgotten as the rest of this godforsaken town. His tires crunched over small stones, flattened crispy patches of brownish grass. He scanned the terrain, keeping an eye out for recently disturbed soil. They passed weather-beaten headstones, some sitting cockeyed in the ground with dates carved into them from 1890 to 1930. During small talk on the drive in, Marissa had revealed most of the town’s miners left after the stock market crash of 1929. Sure seemed like it.

After passing a spider web of deep cracks in the parched earth, he angled toward a collection of newer looking plots. He shifted down to second gear and rolled along slowly. The grass looked greener in this part, less depressing. A couple sprinklers spat arcs of water, as if for show, since most of the drops dried up before hitting the ground.

Finally his glance fell on a fresh grave. He shifted to first gear, clenched the brake. Marissa hopped off the seat behind him before he came to a complete stop. Crushed red rose petals drifted behind her, falling like thick, shiny drops of blood onto the desert floor.

Shoving his heel against the kickstand, he rested the bike and shut off the engine. He stared at the painfully bright gleam of sunlight bouncing off his handlebars.

This was about Marissa’s loss, her grief. He needed to be strong for her, and he would be, but memories of his own father made his eyes well up.

Damn, I miss you, Pops. Something fierce.

*

A fierce sense of betrayal cut
through her like shards of glass in her veins. The anguish of coming here too late scraped her raw. Her heart burst into a flaming ball in her chest. A funeral pyre of regret. Hot tears slid down her cheeks. Sadness greater than she’d ever known spilled out of her soul. Followed by brittle emptiness, as if any second her nerves might snap and she’d collapse into a pile of fragile tinder.

“I should’ve stayed,” she whispered, her fingertips caressing the temporary white cross that bore his name. The way she’d wanted to reach out across the distance so many times and touch his weathered face, look into his vivid blue eyes… Now she’d never have that chance.

Home
had remained a real, living, breathing possibility as long as Grandpa had been alive. His spirit embodied the concept, this place, where he’d created a decent life for her. This place, carved from dust and stone, miners’ hopes and dreams, offering the hint of possibilities for a better way. But
home
no longer existed, because
he
no longer existed. One more spirit swallowed up in the vortex of this dead-end, nowhere ghost town.

Hopeless defeat bowed her shoulders.
Now where do I belong?

Witness protection had erased her from this place. Her lips twisted bitterly at the irony. She was a ghost here, too.

Glad for Adam’s thoughtful foresight, she unclenched her hands from the long-stemmed roses in her grasp. So she could commemorate Grandpa’s memory in some small way. She hadn’t noticed the wicked thorns piercing her palms and fingers.

A few flecks of her blood mingled with the rose petals as she placed them on the newly
turned earth. Fitting, she thought. The angry red pricks on her hands reminded her she was alive, the only relative left to venerate his passing. His memory would continue on through her, a living tribute to his life of hard work and sacrifice so she’d have a better future.

A ray of hope sliced through her regret. She would do whatever it took to keep him alive in her heart. This beautiful man, who’d given her so much…more than a million thank-you’s could ever convey. She prayed he might somehow feel her gratitude, without the words she wished she’d told him face to face.

She collapsed cross-legged beside his grave, sitting there for a long time. Breathing in all the wonderful times with him, when she’d been the love of his life, when he’d saved her, watched over her, cherished her. And she had worshipped him right back.

In her mind she flung open all the locked doors to those memories, doors she’d shut to protect her secrets and her sanity. Images, conversations, and laughter echoed inside her grieving heart, softening the pain of loss.

“I will make you proud.” Her fingertips traced the petals of the rose nearest her. “I promise.”

The words brought on a fresh flow of tears, but they caught on her upturned lips. She hadn’t expected to walk away from his grave with a smile, let alone the lightness filling her chest. As if he were right beside her, helping to hold her spine straight and proud, telling her everything would be okay.

To her amazement, she believed him.

Maybe she wasn’t so lost after all…?

Minutes passed like hours, as she sifted the dirt, watching it flow through her fingers. Sand through the hourglass of this finite life. She promised from now on to make every tiny grain count. Since she no longer needed to protect him from her remade identity, perhaps in the future she could share their adventurous stories with someone.

A certain someone came to mind. She glanced over her shoulder at the man who’d stepped in to make this trip possible, offering the protection she’d needed to come here.

Adam leaned against the seat of his motorcycle. Black boots crossed at the ankles, arms crossed over his chest. His features appeared drawn, the corners of his eyes pinched behind aviator sunglasses, his jaw tight with the effort of containing something powerful behind his typically careless façade. Sweat glistened on his forehead and upper lip, but he remained still as a statue carved in bronze. A shell of hard masculine beauty encasing sensual, softer parts she’d only glimpsed in passing, when he thought she wasn’t looking.

She stood, dusted off her hands, and made her way to him. His stoic expression didn’t budge as she approached. She wished she could remove his sunglasses, look into his eyes—piercing green disks that revealed more than they hid…not that she’d ever tell him. If he knew, the stone of his exterior might invade those beautiful windows into his soul, and she’d hate to be shut out of that narrow access to his true emotions.

Briefly she flicked her glance behind her at Grandpa’s grave, then refocused on Adam. “Thank you. I needed that time. More than you can know.”

His chiseled lips parted. “Maybe I do know.”

Capturing her in a fluid movement, he widened his stance and clamped one arm around her waist, the other around her shoulders. He dragged her against the hard planes of his body.

The burst of affection surprised her. His heart beat hammered against her ear like a wild Mustang, untamed but in need of care and kindness, even a gentle touch.

Answering the call, she reached around his waist and clasped her hands between the taut ridges of muscles along his spine. Dampness met her wrists through his black t-shirt. The pleasant male musk of deodorant, cologne and sweat filled her nostrils. She breathed him in, releasing a sigh of appreciation.

The bristle on his chin nuzzled against the top of her head as he gripped her in a powerful embrace. “You know I wouldn’t do this for anyone but you,” he murmured.

At a loss for words, sensing the weight of his admission, she nodded against him, closing her eyes and absorbing the moment. His heat and strength.
Her awe and acceptance. Together they entered into a space of silent understanding that, unexpectedly, they needed each other more than either of them had thought.

Despite what he believed, and had told her insistently, they weren’t so different. Perhaps he’d finally opened himself to the possibility.

Maybe I do know…
His words cycled through her mind. What did he know? What did he understand about her experience no one else did? She tucked the thought away to unpack at a later time.

The blast of a dozen motorcycles split the air like a bowling ball striking pins. She jumped and he instinctively tightened his arms around her. He turned at the waist and they both glanced toward the road, where Bucher and his gang roared past the gates of the cemetery.

“Shit,” Adam muttered. “We don’t need him all up in our business.”

She swallowed against the growing tightness in her throat. “We should go, before he sees the new roses on Grandpa’s grave.”

“Right.” Adam straddled his bike in one fluid movement and she hopped on behind him.

She followed his movements, climbing onto the seat behind him.
Please let them leave us alone.

The Harley beneath them hummed to life. With the minimum of noise, Adam lifted the kickstand and sped toward the cemetery gates. They reached the apron of the entrance as Butcher and his crew made a sharp U-turn and descended on them.

Balling her fists in Adam’s shirt, she tensed her thighs against his. The gang had seen them, and now blocked them from leaving.

Crap.
Her heart leaped into her throat.
Breathe, keep breathing. They don’t know it’s you. Unless you give yourself away.
Panic consumed her, fists shaking.

Adam cupped one hand over the points of her knuckles, setting his feet on the ground to steady his bike as the gang surrounded them.

Oh, God. She choked on her fear and coughed, before she hunched down behind Adam’s shielding shoulders. But he was just a man—impressively built, intimidating, hardass of a guy—but flesh and blood all the same. He could only protect her to a point.

The firm grip of Adam’s hand over hers vaguely reassured her. If she could choose anyone as her protector, it would be him any day, hands down.

Amidst the loud idling, Adam’s voice rose strong and confident above the noise. “What’s up, my friend?”

Butcher stepped his motorcycle forward. “You ain’t from around here.”

Adam shrugged. “In town to honor a relative’s memory.
Can’t blame a guy for reliving memories of better times.”

“Can if you’re getting in on my game,” Butcher countered, sliding his yellow goggles onto his forehead.

Adam casually lifted his sunglasses to the top of his head. “No idea what you mean,” he replied casually, lifting his sunglasses to the top of his head.

Fascinating, she thought. Adam seemed to know how to talk to guys like Butcher, reaching him on his level, following the gang leader’s cues and matching them. She’d bet Adam had been an excellent bounty hunter, acting like “one of them” while carefully laying his traps.

Adam continued, “I’m taking my girl around town till my cousin shows. He was a friend of Tate’s.”

Butcher arched a ruddy eyebrow. “That right?”

Adam nodded.

“Uh-huh.” Butcher took a drag off his cigar. “Cemeteries give you some kind of kinky thrill?”

The men in the gang chuckled in unison at their leader’s gross humor. Marissa wanted to gag.

“Nah, man,” Adam said, “just paying my respects.”

Butcher narrowed one eye suspiciously. “That all you’re doing here?”

Adam shrugged. “Later at Tate’s I might shoot some pool, throw back some shots. Care to join me?”

“Might.” Butcher continued to squint menacingly. “You ain’t here for the auction?”

“What auction?” Adam asked in a baffled tone.

Pausing, Butcher sized up Adam. Then he released a snarl-laugh. “Says the guy related to Tate, with the hundred-thousand-dollar custom Harley-Davidson.” He snapped his goggles back over his beady black eyes. “Yeah, you dig in those deep pockets and buy me and all my guys shots tonight, Trust Fund. And stay out of the auction.”

“Cool. Later.”

With his back to her, she couldn’t read Adam’s response to Paul Butcher nick-naming him Trust Fund. Such an absurd title, considering Adam’s background, she felt defensive for him.

The gang sped away, kicking up stones and dust into their faces. As the dust settled, Adam removed his sunglasses and wiped them with the underside of his t-shirt. “Just the kind of guy every girl wants to take home to Ma.” He muttered, “Asshole.”

Marissa peeked over his shoulder. “All charm and class,” she said, adding to his sarcasm. She unclenched her hands from his sides. “You handled that very well.”

“I would’ve fought for your honor, sugar, but I was kind of outnumbered.”

“And outgunned.” They hadn’t bothered to hide how much heat they were packing. Flaunted it, even, as though they held no fear of repercussions from local authorities.