Hell for Leather: Black Knights Inc. (3 page)

And perhaps it was the fact that his electric-blue eyes never wavered from her face, or maybe it was the grounding effect of seeing the soft summer breeze ruffle his thick brown hair over his brow, but the sharp edges of the fear she’d been carrying around all afternoon and evening seemed to smooth out. Just a bit.

“Uncle Theo and I rode down to Marion yesterday evening.” Was it her imagination, or was her voice a little steadier than it’d been only seconds ago? “We checked into a motel because Uncle Theo said Charlie’s house is a dump not fit for company. I gather Charlie doesn’t actually
live
in Marion but outside of it somewhere. And the fact that I have no idea where is
another
part of the problem.” She shook her head at herself. Why,
why
hadn’t she asked her uncle more questions? “But anyway, this morning Uncle Theo woke up early to drive out to Charlie’s. He told me they’d likely do nothing but talk about the old days and I’d be bored to death. So, he left me to sleep in and catch up on some reading. He was supposed to come back for lunch. We were going to go to the diner across the street to grab a burger before hopping on the bikes to make the return trip. It was all going to be easy peasy.”

It occurred to her then that it was funny—not funny “
ha-ha
” but funny “
sucky
”—how quickly things could go from easy peasy one minute to freakin’ shitty the next.

“He didn’t show up for lunch. He’s not answering his phone. The local hospitals haven’t admitted a man with his description. And the Marion police told me I’d have to wait twenty-four hours before they’d open an investigation. But I
can’t
wait twenty-four hours.” She reached out to grab Mac’s muscular forearm where the sleeve of his motorcycle jacket was shoved up. His coarse male hairs tickled her palm, and his flesh was hot against the pads of her fingers. A
zing
of awareness shot up her arm. She tried to ignore it. It worked. Sort of… “I
know
something’s wrong. He wouldn’t just disappear like this. Something’s happened to him, Mac. S-something
bad
.”

And just like that, all her momentary calm disappeared. A sob she fought desperately to control strangled the back of her throat.

Don’t panic.

The words of the mantra had lost their meaning and, with that, their power. Truth was, she was beyond panicked. She was straight-up, without-a-doubt terrified. Terrified with a capital T. Terrified right down to her very soul.

A muscle ticked in Mac’s five-o’clock-shadowed jaw, and the look on his face was—

“Shh, now. You don’t know that for sure,” Zoelner whispered, throwing an arm over her shoulders.

“But I
do
know that for sure,” she insisted, her eyes imploring Mac to believe her. Despite all rationale, despite their rocky relationship—or more like their rocky
non
-relationship—it was only
his
opinion that mattered.

She thought she saw him nod, just a quick jerk of his dimpled chin. Then again, perhaps the dim light of the street was playing tricks on her, because the words he growled were, “We’ll just have to wait and see.”

She opened her mouth, but she was stopped from pressing her case further because suddenly and unceremoniously Mac grabbed her wrist and yanked her out from under Zoelner’s arm. Then, before she could utter a squeak of protest or, more likely, slug him on the shoulder for manhandling her, he hustled her up the steps until they were standing in front of the brownstone’s wide wooden door.

“Geez,” she huffed, rubbing her wrist. Although, in all honesty, she didn’t
really
mind his manhandling. Because his manhandling meant that he was touching her. And the feel of his calloused palm was—

Holy
shit! Seriously, Delilah? How pathetic can you be? How many times does the guy have to tell you “no” before you’ll get the hint? And how screwed up are you to be mooning like some lovesick teenager when Uncle Theo is freakin’ MIA?

The answers to those questions were simple. In order, they were: one, very pathetic; two, apparently at least one more time; and three, pretty darned screwed up. Then all thought flew from her head when Mac used the keys to unlock the front door and the smell of sawdust mixed with cigar smoke immediately assaulted her nostrils. Those two scents would always remind her of her uncle. And, just like that, she lost hold of the tenuous thread she’d managed to keep tied around her emotions.

Her chin began to wobble.

Never a good sign…

And her nose began to burn.

An even more petrifying harbinger of things to come…

No, no, no. Don’t do it. Don’t you cry like a weak-kneed ninny.

But it was too late. The waterworks broke past the levee and now there was no stopping them.

At least that’s what she thought.

Then she felt Mac reach down and lace his thick, warm fingers through hers…

***

Mac was
still
drunk.

It was the only way to explain why he’d unceremoniously yanked Delilah from Zoelner’s embrace in order to satisfy the demands of the green-eyed monster that roared to life inside him the moment the former CIA agent threw an arm around her shoulders. Because there was no doubt whatsoever that he shouldn’t care one whit whether or not another man was comforting her…touching her. Not after he’d spent most of his life avoiding women like her. And certainly not after he’d spent the last handful of years avoiding her
in
particula
r
.

The fact that he
did
care
had
to mean that, yessiree, he was still drunker than ol’ Cooter Brown. And
that
would also explain why, when he saw her little chin start to wiggle, he went against the grain and all his good sense and grabbed her hand.

Then again, maybe he was giving too much credit to the booze for that last move because, truth was, he’d always been an easy mark for a pretty little gal with tears standing in her eyes.

And Delilah’s tears?

Man-oh-man! They were
particularly
gut-wrenching because usually she was the kind of woman who, as his father used to say, wouldn’t think twice before charging hell with a bucket of ice water. Although, when he glanced down, it was to find her eyes dry as bones and wide as pie plates.

No doubt her shock was due in large part to the fact that he was actually, factually,
willingly
touching her. Especially since it was no big secret he’d spent a good amount of the time they’d known each other endeavoring to do exactly the opposite.

See, the problem was, he’d always kind of figured touching Delilah was similar to taking a hit of crack cocaine. Once was enough to get a guy good and hooked for life. And when he felt her cool, slim fingers hesitantly close around his, when the softness of her breath tickled his chin because she was gaping up at him, succulent mouth open in a little O of surprise? Well, you can bet your bottom dollar Little Mac took notice. And
Big
Mac? Well, he knew he’d been right all along…

He may have stopped the tears that had threatened to spill down Delilah’s cheeks, but he also just took that first hit of crack.

Mistake, asshole. Huge mistake!

Dropping her hand like the thing was a molten-hot cattle prod, he cleared his throat and turned to find Zoelner standing directly behind them. The guy was wearing an infuriatingly sly smirk as he lifted his Styrofoam cup to noisily slurp at the last of what had to be disgustingly lukewarm coffee.

Mac narrowed his eyes and pinned him with a look that clearly stated,
Whatever
it
is
you’re thinking of sayin’, you better check it at the back of your teeth lest you find those teeth shoved straight down your throat.

But either Zoelner was still too sloshed to recognize the unspoken threat in his eyes, or, more likely, he just didn’t give a rat’s ass, because his sly smirk morphed into a devilish grin right before he opened his mouth. Luckily, Mac was saved from feeding Zoelner a five-finger sandwich—obviously men should never be allowed to drink; it caused them to revert to their lowest common denominator: i.e., freshman year of college—when Delilah cleared her throat and said, “Let’s do this, shall we?”

Stepping over the threshold, she flipped a switch. Instantly, the room was washed in bright light from the single bare bulb hanging from a socket in the center of the ceiling, and Mac realized what it was he’d been smelling…

Sawdust.

It covered the large space in a fine powder, dusting the drop cloths lying over the bare wood floors, blanketing the power tools stacked here and there, and standing a centimeter thick on the sawhorses set up in the center of the room.

“So this is Theo’s latest project, huh?” Zoelner asked, pushing Mac from behind, forcing him to follow Delilah into the house. “What happened to that old Victorian he was fixing up in Lakeview?”

“He finished it two months ago,” Delilah said, walking toward the sawhorses.

“Did he end up selling it for what he was hoping?” Zoelner inquired, strolling over to a big thirty-gallon trash can pushed into one corner and tossing his empty coffee cup inside.

“About fifty grand more than he was hoping for.”

“Wow.” Zoelner whistled. Delilah turned to gift him with the first smile…well, half-smile, really…she’d worn all night. Mac felt his hands curl into fists.

Whoa. What the hell is
that
all
about?
Perhaps it was still a remnant of the scotch? Though, if he was being honest with himself, that excuse had just about run its course. “Am I mistaken, or did we come here for a reason?” he demanded, feeling unaccountably…
something.
Something he refused to name.

“Yes.” Delilah nodded, her smile disappearing as quickly as it’d arrived. And,
damnit,
now he wanted to kick his own ass for being the cause of that. “Yes, we did. I’ll run upstairs to the room he’s using as his office. I know, way back in the day, before he plugged everything in to his iPhone, he used to keep an address book in the top drawer of his desk. Maybe it’s still there. And maybe it has Charlie’s information in it.”

Aloud Mac said, “Sounds good.” But inwardly he instructed himself
not
to watch her climb the steps to the second floor. Unfortunately, what he
told
himself to do and what he
did
were two entirely separate things. The truth was, Delilah was dynamite from any angle. But with a set of buttery-soft leather chaps hugging her legs and revealing the jean-clad wonder that was her perfect, heart-shaped derriere, the view from behind was, in a word,
staggering
. He hadn’t heard Zoelner cross over to him, so he jerked when the guy clapped a heavy hand on his shoulder.

“She’s the kind of woman you hate to see leave but you love to watch go. Am I right?” Zoelner winked at him.

“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” he insisted, his back teeth grinding so hard he wasn’t sure if it was them he heard crackling or the plastic drop cloth beneath his booted feet.

“
I
don’t know what you’re talkin’ about
,” Zoelner mimicked, doing a fairly good impression of a Texas drawl, before snorting so loudly Mac figured it was a wonder the guy didn’t swallow his tonsils. “You keep using that phrase in reference to your relationship with our oh-so-tempting bartendress. Which leads me to believe you’re completely full of shit.”

“First of all, I don’t
have
a relationship with our oh-so-tempting bartendress. And secondly, I believe you’re still piss drunk.”

“You might be right,” Zoelner admitted with a lopsided grin. “About the piss drunk part, anyway. But tomorrow I’ll be sober, and you’ll still be full of shit. So, there.”

And,
see
, that little tit-for-tat proved Mac’s theory about the lowest common denominator. He frowned, which only caused Zoelner’s grin to widen. Then the guy shrugged and glanced around the room. “Man,” he said. “Ol’ Theo sure has his work cut out for him with this place.”

And
that
reminded Mac of what had been bugging the holy hell out of him for the last few minutes. “How in the world do you know so much about what’s goin’ on in the lives of Delilah and her uncle anyway? I mean, a Victorian in Lakeview? Seriously?”

Zoelner slid him a look that questioned the validity of his college degree
.
“I know so much about what’s happening in their lives because I, you know,” he made a sarcastic gesture with his hands, “actually
talk
to her and stuff when I go into her bar to have a drink.”

“As opposed to?” Mac inquired.

“Grumbling and growling and giving her dirty looks all the time.”

“I don’t do that.”

Zoelner’s face flattened. “Dude,” he said, “you really have no idea just how bad you’ve got it, do you?”

Mac refused to respond to that question based solely upon its preposterousness. He knew what it was like to “have it bad.” He’d had firsthand experience with “having it bad.” And
he
most certainly did
not
have it bad for Delilah. In fact, he’d go so far as to say—

A hard
thump
sounded directly above their heads. And Mac discovered what it was like to have a full-on heart attack. Because that
thump
was immediately followed by the sound of Delilah’s bloodcurdling scream…

Delilah had just switched off the overhead fixture to her uncle’s upstairs office, plunging the space into inky darkness, when the faint light drifting up the stairwell from the lower level illuminated the fact that the door beside her…moved. And not the kind of movement usually seen in an old house full of loose hinges, strange drafts, and suffering from the occasional effects of a settling foundation.

Oh, no. This kind of movement had purpose behind it. It had…a
person
behind it!

Everything that happened next occurred in ultra-slow motion, like an old 45 vinyl record being played at 33 RPMs. And for what seemed an eternity, she watched, dumbfounded, completely transfixed, as a large shadow emerged from behind the door.

On instinct, she stumbled back, her legs moving like the soles of her biker boots were mired in Super Glue, her heart skipping a couple of sorely missed beats. A million half-formed thoughts had time to spin through her brain—not the least of which was
What
the
hell?
—right before she slammed into the doorjamb, hitting her head.

Crack!

All thought ground to a halt, extinguished by the sharp pain cleaving her skull in two. A bright kaleidoscope of stars burst before her eyes, momentarily stunning her and distracting her from the set of arms that reached out to seize her around her waist.

This
isn’t happening…

This
can’t
be
happening!

Fortunately, her instincts took over for her bruised brain because she let loose with a scream to do a Chicago Bull’s cheerleader proud. A sweaty hand clamped over her mouth.

“Shut up, bitch,” an accented voice hissed in her ear just as the world ubiquitously decided that,
yep
, the need for the weirdo, slow-mo time warp had passed. Time once more resumed its usual course, and it was then she realized her heart and lungs were set on overdrive, each threatening to come bursting through her ribs. “If you behave, I will not have to hurt you.”

Yeah, well she couldn’t promise the same thing. Because she was going to take the first opportunity she could find to inflict some serious damage to the guy who was holding her hostage. And it
was
a guy. The deep voice and large body told her as much, even if the darkness precluded her ability to see him. Of course, the fact that the stars dancing in front of her eyes had suddenly grown propulsion packs and were zinging across her vision in a dizzying array of luminous flashes wasn’t helping matters.

Don’t you dare pass out. You have to fight back!

And yeah. She could do that. With an old trick her uncle taught her when she turned fourteen and grew a set of D-cups…

Lifting her leg, relying on her sense of touch and location alone, she kneed the sonofabitch straight in the happy-sack. Soft flesh gave way to the hard crunch of her attacker’s pelvic bone.

Bull’s-eye!

She mentally shot a fist in the air as her assailant howled in agony. She used his distraction to twist out of his grip. Unfortunately, he was blocking the doorway, so the only direction she could run was back into the pitch-black office.

She didn’t hesitate. She stumbled inside and allowed the darkness to swallow her whole.

“Delilah!” Mac’s voice boomed up the stairs.

It seemed as if minutes had passed since she’d screamed in terror, but in reality she figured the whole struggle had barely lasted two seconds.

“Delilah! Answer me!” Mac thundered, his tone sharp with fear. But answering wasn’t an option. She couldn’t allow the intruder to discern her exact location within the room. She didn’t know if he had a gun. She didn’t know if he—

Her thoughts screeched to a halt when her hip slammed into one corner of her uncle’s desk.

Oh, thank heavens, the desk!
If
I
crawl
beneath
it, maybe he won’t be able to find me. Maybe that will give Mac enough time to
—
No, wait! The letter opener!
She’d seen it lying on the corner of the desk when she was searching—turns out quite unsuccessfully—for her uncle’s old address book. It was a weapon!
Hallelujah!

But where was it exactly?

Her hand silently scrabbled across the wooden surface. Searching…searching…

She detected movement by the door. A shadow, dimly outlined by the miniscule amount of light, straightened and took on the vague shape of a man just as her hand landed on a smooth length of cold steel. Then the shadow shifted, sliding into the darkness, and Delilah knew this was it. Not daring to move, barely daring to breathe, she listened…and waited…

She could hear Mac and Zoelner’s footsteps pounding down the hallway as her eyes searched the darkness to no avail. Her fingers curled around the hilt of the letter opener so tightly her knuckles ached.

“Delilah!” Mac yelled again, much closer now. Oh, how she wanted to answer him, just shout out his name so he could come and save the day. But it was too risky. She had to rely on herself here. Only herself…

Off to her left, something rattled, and she blindly turned in that direction, holding the letter opener out in front of her. Then, heavy footsteps. Very close by.

It was time.

The moment had come.

Her blood raced through her veins and roared between her ears, making it difficult to hear anything besides the pounding of her heart. Then a large hand landed on her arm and with a banshee yell, she turned and struck.

The blade of the letter opener hit something hard yet yielding and a loud “mmph” was immediately followed by a muttered curse. Delilah pulled her hand back to stab again just as the room blazed into view. Her arm froze in mid-strike, because it was
Mac
who was standing beside her. Zoelner, over by the doorway, still had his hand poised in front of the light switch.

For a few interminable seconds, they all seemed frozen in a motionless tableau, each of them blinking against the sudden glare. Then a rustling sound drew their attention to the far side of the room where jean-clad legs were quickly disappearing out a window that had been covered by a large, black garbage bag.

“Get him!” Mac bellowed and Zoelner sprang into action, racing across the office and lunging for the set of brown Timberland boots slipping over the windowsill, missing his mark by no more than a hairsbreadth.

“There’s scaffolding!” Zoelner yelled, yanking the garbage bag from the window casing, revealing the missing panes of glass and the rusted rails of the framework attached to the back of the house. “I’m pursuing! You stay with Delilah!”

“Roger that!” Mac shouted as he grabbed her hand and hustled her toward the door, half-dragging, half-carrying her because her legs seemed to have transformed into wet noodles. The letter opener fell from her nerveless fingers to clatter dully against the floorboards.

She turned back in time to see Zoelner hop over the sill—obviously the adrenaline coursing through his system had negated the effects of the booze—just as Mac gave up on her ability to ambulate by herself. With a quick dip, he hooked an arm under her knees and then…weightlessness…as she was lifted into the air and pressed tight against his broad chest.

“Mac, I—”

“Hush.” He cut her off, running toward the stairs, taking them two at a time. Later she would marvel at the sheer strength of him, at the feel of his hard muscles moving against her, but right at that moment, her head was spinning so fast it made it impossible to think.

He jumped from the third step, and they landed on the lower floor with a
thud
that had her back teeth clacking together and the pain in her abused head ratcheting up another degree. Then Mac raced to the center of the front room where he carefully lowered her next to the sawhorses. And it was a good thing he chose that precise spot, because, to her utter chagrin, she found herself relying on the sawhorse’s support to remain upright.

Gulping in great mouthfuls of air, she watched helplessly as he yanked a mean-looking black handgun from the small of his back. Quickly and efficiently he pulled back on the slide and the
clicking
sound, indicating a round had been chambered, seemed particularly vicious in the harsh quiet hanging over the room like a death shroud.

“I have to check the rest of the house. There might be others,” he told her, his blue eyes blazing with a light she’d never seen before.

It was the light of battle.

And it startled her almost as much as it fascinated her. Because right there and then, she realized that in all the years she’d known Mac, this was the first time she’d ever really
seen
him. The
real
him. Which shouldn’t have surprised her, she supposed. Because if it walked like a hero and it talked like a hero, then it was probably—

“I need you to stay here,” he told her brusquely as he bent to remove a small pistol from a holster secured around his ankle. Straightening, he handed her the weapon and she was surprised at how light it felt. And how warm. His body heat had seeped into the metal. “This is a Beretta 3032 Tomcat,” he said, quickly explaining the gun’s basics. “You have six in the clip and one in the throat. That’s only seven bullets total. So if you have to fire, you better make sure your shots count.”

She nodded jerkily, and he ducked his chin, peering into her face. “Are you okay? Can you handle this?”

And those were fair questions. You know, considering he’d had to
carry
her down the stairs.

Geez, way to instill confidence, Delilah…

But even though her heart was racing about a hundred miles per hour, and even though she was still dizzy, she’d be damned if she continued to play the pathetic damsel in distress card with him. She was Delilah Fairchild, the ass-kicking, Harley-riding, shotgun-toting beer-slinger-from-hell! And,
yes,
she could do this!

“No problem,” she said, press checking the chamber to see that, indeed, he hadn’t been lying about the one in the throat.

“Good.” He nodded, something that looked gratifyingly close to admiration sparking in his eyes. And then he did something even more stupefying than earlier when he grabbed her hand…

He leaned forward and planted a kiss in the center of her forehead. It was quick. Just a fast press of his warm, surprisingly soft lips against her skin, but it was enough to erase her fear and shock and have her toes curling inside her biker boots. Then he leaned back and grinned. And, as if her mind wasn’t already blown to freakin’ kingdom come, he went one step further and
winked
at her.

Holy hell! Bryan “Mac” McMillan kissed her. Then grinned. And then
winked
.

Okay, maybe that knock to the head had been harder than she thought, because that couldn’t be right, could it? She blinked, hoping that might help clear away what had to be a mirage…or else a delusion brought on by a concussion. But no amount of eyelid flapping erased the sight of Mac’s big, square teeth flashing whitely against the dark shadow of his beard stubble.

And the cray-cray just kept on coming, because then he reached up and chucked her on the chin. She was gaping at him when he turned to disappear through the doorway leading to the back of the house.

What
the
hell
is
happening?
She felt like she’d been eating at the buffet of the bizarre all day, but that little display of Mac’s definitely put the cherry on top of the weirdo dessert of it all.

In the span of a few minutes, he’d gone from his usual Mr. Cranky-Pants to Sir Kissy Smiles-A-Lot.

“Lower level’s clear,” he said, reappearing suddenly, causing her to jump and instinctively raise the weapon he loaned her. “Whoa!” He lifted his hands, splaying the last three fingers of his right hand wide while his thumb and forefinger kept hold of his pistol. “Ventilating any mofo that comes at you is the general idea, darlin’. But I was kinda hopin’ you wouldn’t think to do as much to me.”

“S-sorry,” she said, lowering the little handgun and gulping in sawdust-tinged air that scratched at her already dry, itchy throat. “I just…I’m not…” She stopped and shrugged.

And that’s when he did it
again
. He freakin’ went and
winked
at her before turning to jog up the stairs.

Okay, so now it was all crystal clear. Somewhere, at some point, she’d fallen into a parallel universe. Shaking her head at this place heretofore referred to as Bizarro-Land, she winced when the movement caused her bruised brain to jostle against the sides of her skull.

Lifting a hand, she rubbed at the lump forming on the back of her head—
ow
—just as the front door burst open. Spinning, she raised the pistol, supporting the butt with her free hand just as her uncle had taught her, then blew out a harsh breath when she realized it was Zoelner stepping over the threshold.

“He got away,” he informed her, panting as he placed his hands on his hips and bent at the waist. “Fucker disappeared into the labyrinth of alleys around here, and I didn’t dare follow in case he was packing. Didn’t want to find myself stuck in a fatal funnel.”

Huh?
“What’s a—”

That’s all she managed to get out before Mac reappeared on the stairway. “Fatal funnels are hallways and alleys,” he answered the question she’d been in the middle of asking. “And they’re the last place a guy wants to be when the bullets start flyin’.”

“Oh.” She nodded. “Makes sense.” And that was about the only thing in this entire weird-ass day that
did
.

“Who was he?” Zoelner asked, and Delilah’s chin jerked back when she realized he was looking directly at her.

“You’re asking me?” Unconsciously, she used the pistol as a pointer and aimed it at her own chest. When she looked down and realized what she was doing, she gulped and carefully set the weapon atop one of the sawhorses. “I…I have n-no idea. I didn’t get a chance to see his f-face, and I certainly didn’t recognize his v-voice.”