Shelter From The Storm (The Bare Bones MC Book 6) (16 page)

PIPPA

T
he air was cooling down with the sunset. An unreal, magical quality hung over the scene, enhanced by the bowl of starry sky above, infused with pot smoke—of inferior quality to our Young Man Blue, of course.

We took part in a religious pilgrimage, surging forth from the One Finger Salute to the ground where they had already built a wooden pyre for the Burning of the Bike. I got to know people I’d only heard of in Pure and Easy. I chatted awhile with Roman and Gudrun. Gudrun was the club lawyer Slushy’s daughter, a nurse’s assistant. Roman had headed up the indie rock band Little Accident before giving it up with revenge in mind for his father’s murder. Gudrun had been drugged and held prisoner in the same trap house as Tracy when Roman and Wolf had busted in, guns blazing from all accounts, to save them.

Tracy had told me the romantic story as we walked to the bar. Well, the saga didn’t start so romantically really, with Gudrun’s addiction to prescription painkillers leading them into a sleazy house where they’d been drugged and held in preparation for transport as human cargo.

“This was how I knew Wolf was the one for me,” she explained. “He came in in a shower of smoke and body parts to whisk me off to safety.”

“Then why did you spend so much time with Tobias?”

Tracy had paused, screwing up her face. “You know how you get distracted by something that isn’t right for you? You’re too afraid to believe in the dramatic, romantic story of someone else.”

I remembered how Fox had told me to create my own story. That was how my story would eventually mesh with someone else’s. Had he meant his own? “Yes, exactly. Sometimes the most dramatic story strikes fear into you. It makes you think your whole life with that person will be like that.”

“Right! I knew Wolf led a life of danger. All Tobias does is play video games and design spreadsheets for the Leaves of Grass. After the trauma I’d been through, I wanted safety. Security.”

“I can relate to that.” I really could. “When I first came to Pure and Easy, I felt safe inside my little space over the biker bar.”

Tracy laughed. “That’s rich, huh? Safe space over a biker bar?”

“I know. I totally saw the irony. But after all I’d been through with Russ, it was like a safe haven. I didn’t want any complications.”

“I had a boyfriend once who hit me,” Tracy confided.

I’d always felt like a fraud with that story about an abusive ex-husband. I felt I did a disservice to women who really
had
been beaten by men. The way I justified it to myself was remembering that
my
Russ had been abusive in his own way. Certainly selling your girlfriend to a ruthless cartel was a parallel sort of abuse.

And that was a story I couldn’t tell.

“That’s terrible,” I said lamely. “Was it just once, or repeatedly?”

Tracy shrugged. “Once was enough for me. But my point is, I’m going back to the danger of Wolf now. Wolf did something for me no one else ever did. He
protected
me. Don’t get me wrong—Tobias is a great guy. He’s certainly the brainiest as far as computer stuff goes. And Wolf can be sort of a doofus.”

“Sort of a turkey,” I agreed wholeheartedly.

Tracy looked shy. “But you know what? He made me feel
wanted
. He made me feel
secure
. He made me feel like…”

I easily supplied the words. “Like a lady.”

Tracy snapped her fingers. “
Yes
! That’s
it
! I realized Tobias and I were more like good friends. Wolf and I are
in love
.” We stopped in front of a street stand where two tattoo artists were at work. One filled in a realistic back piece on a guy depicting Marlon Brando on a bike. Tracy said slyly, “What about you and Fox? He’s hellafine. Is he sticking around?”

“I don’t know,” I said, suddenly despondent. “I wish he’d stay. But his apartment is in Nogales. That’s where he works out of.”

“Oh,” Tracy said innocently. “Does he work for the Jones cartel?”

You know how they say blood ran cold in someone’s veins? Well, mine did. It was like my brain was one of those instant cold packs and some giant had squeezed both sides of it to make it pop. I don’t know how long my brain was in the deep freeze. Eventually I somehow came out of it long enough to ask in what I hoped was a casual tone, “Why would you say that?”

“That’s their power base. Or so I hear. Course, it could be the Ochoas or the Presencións or any number of warring cartels.”

I flipped my hair over my shoulder. “Oh. I heard the Jones cartel was based in Laredo, Texas.”

Tracy shrugged. “There are all sorts of routes, but they all lead to Los Mochis in Sinaloa. Anyway, look at him. He’s probably a freelancer like Santiago Slayer. Fox is a
güero
, a white man. Why would he work for a cartel?”

I became irritated. “I know what a
güero
is.
Güero caca leche
.” That meant
white man who shits milk.

“Oh.” Tracy looked at me, obviously aware of my irritation. “Well, I just want to say that I really like working with you on this whole CBD hybrid thing. If you want any help with your bud and breakfast just let me know. I know a lot of field workers who could help you with cleaning, building, maybe being maids, that sort of thing.”

“What? Oh, yeah. You mean people you don’t need at Leaves of Grass, extras hanging around looking for work? Sure, that’d be great. Lytton closed the sale on the old motel, so we just have a thirty day escrow before we can start work around the end of June.”

“You got a name for it?”

“Yeah. Smoky Mountain High.” I’d just made that up on the spot, but it was good enough for now. “Let’s go.”

Then we were at the bar, where I learned more people’s stories. I learned that the stunning, confident beauty Bellamy Jager had been a high school friend of Maddie and June, but she’d been sucked up into a cult. The ink slinger
cum
adult film actor Knoxie Hammett had saved her.

I knew Fox intended to save me. Or
did
he? I had to find out if he really worked for the fucking Joneses.

At the One Finger Salute, I had to endure sitting next to Fox at a long table with other Bare Boners and Bone Lickers. The roar of chatter layered above twanging country rock was enough to drown out any subtleties of conversation, and I kept glancing up at Fox’s beautiful, impassive face to see if anything betrayed him.

Of course, all I saw was a man completely in control of himself, a master of all he surveyed.

When it was time to walk to the square where they’d burn the bike, Fox took my hand. The sincere smile he graced me with was beyond question. Only evil guys in movies had the ability to thoroughly and completely fool their victims. Or didn’t they say Ted Bundy’s mode of operation was to hypnotize women into a false sense of security? With his good-looking charm, he’d skillfully set the stage to entrap them. Is that what Fox was doing? Setting me up until he could pop me off?

But he could’ve done that at any step of the way. And he’d told me his real name. At least, I thought he had.

“So Fox,” I said in a light tone, swinging our locked hands, “tell me more about your brother.”

I carefully watched his face. He did look around to see who might be listening. But the surging mass of stoned, high, euphoric partiers could care less what we were saying. Wolf and Tracy walked nearby, along with Knoxie and Bellamy, and Ford and Maddie, but they were all lost in their own worlds. Still, Fox drew me closer and leaned down to speak.

“Trent was our parents’ second and last kid. Once they realized he had MD, everything fell apart. My father blamed my mother for having lied, for not telling him she knew she carried the gene. I don’t know when he got involved in gun running, but he blamed her for that, too. My teen years were spent overhearing his conversations with guys named Eduardo and Alejandro.” I opened my mouth to speak, but Fox beat me to it. “I know what you’re going to say. How ironic I wound up conversing with guys named Carlos and Juan.”

“Yes, I was going to say that.”

“Well, it didn’t start out that way. After they divorced and stuck Trent in a ‘home,’ I vowed to become a lawyer, to fight for his cause. No one else seemed to give a shit. My mother said her fingers were just worked to the bone, and my dad was off in Laredo.”

Laredo
. The Jones’ backyard, or so I had thought. I butted in. “Was it the Jones cartel he worked for? Reason I ask, when I was held in their warehouse in Corpus Christi, all I used to hear about was Laredo. That was their main port.”

I definitely felt him stiffen. I was clinging to his arm, and although he kept walking, there was a robotic tension to his step. “No, not the Joneses. The fucking Avilars.”

“Oh.” I’d heard of them. They had a dedicated military wing that used submarines to smuggle in the Gulf of Mexico. “They’re rivals of the Joneses.”

He only said, “I know. And now I can’t help my brother aside from sending money, because I’m stuck here.” He corrected himself, looking down at me and clasping my hand in both his large palms. “You know what I mean.”

He must have hypnotized me with his warm, loving gaze, because I heard myself saying, “I know what you mean.” And grinning like a moron.

By that time, ZZ Top’s “Tush” was blaring from the square. I could see the bike they were to burn lifted ten feet above ground on scaffolding. A few guys with jerry cans were up there splashing diesel on wooden pallets that had been piled up around the base. We were latecomers to the display, so we squeezed in next to Wolf Glaser, who had Tracy sitting on his shoulders.

I hadn’t talked to him in a while. “How was jail?” I asked mischievously.

Wolf’s trademark wide grin never left his face, even though Tracy was hollering with her hands full of his hair and do-rag. “Oh,
awesomesauce!
I showed the rent-a-cops how to break into a fifteen cubic foot gun safe, and they showed me where to get a cheap deal on stun guns.”

“Really? You’re a safecracker, too?”

“Not really. I just showed them how to blow the door off by drilling a hole and inserting a depth charge.
Hey, everyone!
Gather round!”

Which was strange, because “everyone” was pressing in on Wolf about as tight as a game of Tetris. So no one gathered round, but that didn’t stop Wolf from bloviating to the skies above.

“I want everyone to know! This woman here slung around my neck is my heart’s desire. I have wistfully wished for her from afar for a year now—a year during which I pined, sobbed, and drank Colt 45 malt liquor from a coffee mug while watching
I Am Cait
.”

“Here, here!” Maddie cheered from her perch atop Ford’s shoulders. But no one else listened, because guys with long torches were now sticking them inside the pyre. Wolf had to yell louder to be heard above the hoots.

“I knew I couldn’t continue that way any longer, and I was right! I had anguish to the right of me, misery to the left, and there I was—stuck in the middle with myself!”

I laughed, but when the pyre finally flamed up, the clamor of the crowd hurt my ears. Even I couldn’t hear Wolf Glaser, who was standing about two inches from me.

That was all right. I wanted to get lost in the flames that licked at the Harley’s tires. Fox stood behind me, his arms around my waist, our hands locked together. His torso felt like a slab of warm marble, and every cell of my body wanted to believe in him. He was completely too good to be true, a knight in shining armor who had ridden up to save me from the depredations of the police.

“That’s fuckin’
hot!
”

“Burn, baby, burn!”

“White hot!”

As the entire bike was engulfed in flames, the heat became so intense that people moved back. We were one of the last people to do so, the heat so strong I felt my eyebrows must have been singed. I just wanted to bask in the cleansing purge of the bonfire until my body was melted against Fox’s.

When we did move back, I turned my back to the fire so he could cradle me to his chest. I felt like a tiny doll when he held my skull in his palm. My cheek was pasted to his blazing chest and I breathed in his sweat.

There was no way a man who smelled this good, who felt this good, could have bad intentions toward me.

But hadn’t I told myself that about Lieutenant Commander Russ Heston?

Yes. That’s exactly what I told myself about Russ Fucking Heston.

I took a sucking bite from Fox’s throat and I could have sworn I heard him purr. When I pulled away I saw his eyes had slid shut and he seemed to be basking in the beauty of the moment. In a weird way, that gave me an even bigger push to grab his hand and pull him away from the bonfire. Not many people were leaving—everyone wanted to be there when the inferno reached its height.

“What’s so urgent?” Fox chuckled, allowing himself to be led.

“Over here.” We passed by a knot of smokers and walked into the fresh air by the corner of a fence. I couldn’t really look Fox in the eye. If I did, I knew I’d be a goner. I would lose my nerve. So I looked at a fire hydrant and said sort of creakily, “You didn’t just come here to see the sights did you.”

When I looked at him, he still wore his smile, only confusion tinged it. “What do you mean? To Run-a-mucca?”

I looked away again. “No. I mean to Pure and Easy. You came in with Santiago Slayer, saying you just wanted to see the sights.”

But his confusion had only grown deeper. His smile was fading fast. “I
did
want to see the sights. The red rocks.”

“But you never saw any red rocks, did you?”

“Pippa, what are you trying to get at? You can be straight with me.”

But I found it very hard to be straight. I’d been with so many lying men in my life, I’d become accustomed to not wanting to really
know
the answers. I had to squeeze my eyes shut, and the question came out all in one flood of words. “I want to know if you were sent by the Jones cartel to track me down, to bring me back, or maybe to—”

“No.”

“—to—”

“
No.
”

“—to bury—”

“No, Flavia!”