The Billionaire's Dare (Book 4 - Billionaire Bodyguard Series) (11 page)

An awful thought struck her as she recalled Butcher’s warning about the auction. Did he plan to return to town? Did he want to set up a new illegal circuit using her grandfather’s bar?

Distress pinched her forehead. “Adam, let’s go back to the motel. I want to get online and research Butcher’s crew, see what they’ve been doing—or what they plan to do.”

He nodded. Rotating his wrist, he lifted his feet onto the pedals, shifted gears and steered them toward the motel.

A lead weight dropped into her stomach as she dreaded what she’d find.

*

Adam left Marissa at the motel. He locked the door behind him, waited until he heard the deadbolt turn from the inside and the chain slide across its rail. They were both on the same mission—to find out Butcher’s stake in returning to Rogerstown.

While she studied the group’s website, Facebook activity, police blotters and any online news articles mentioning the gang, he did what he did best. He took action, riding his motorcycle to Tate’s Bar.

As a bounty hunter, whenever he’d trailed a recent skip, he’d hounded their haunts. Never took long to find their go-to spots after a couple hours of asking around. Just like escaped prison convicts or fresh releases, they always went back to their comfort zones. Basic human nature in respect to survival. Plus, they loved to brag. The arrogant idiots fed on the need for acknowledgement. Their suffering or heroism, real or imagined, let them
become
somebody. Few resisted the temptation to indulge in the comfort of the familiar—for necessity or fame.

Unconvinced Marissa’s beloved Grandpa Tate had completely washed himself of the filth from the shadowy underworld he’d once served at his bar, Adam needed to sift through the slush like a miner panning for gold flecks. Tate’s Bar offered a rich vein for mining, and also the right people to help him uncover Grey Wolfe MC’s demons.

He’d occupied that shadow-realm himself in his bounty hunting days. Skating the thin line between criminals and law enforcement. No doubt he and Tate would’ve had plenty in common on that front. He wished he’d met the man. Absorbing the physical stamp his life left on the world offered the next best option.

When he pulled in, Butcher and his gang’s absence raised his eyebrows. Why wouldn’t they strut their stuff here? Since they hadn’t arrived, where were they and what were their criminal minds planning?

Hell, he’d offered to buy everyone in the gang drinks. They wouldn’t pass that up, even if Butcher had thrown Adam the ultimate insult. Trust Fund? He scoffed. Though better they underestimate him than assume he’d come sniffing around for information.

Dusk had barely darkened the bar’s doorstep. The night was still young. For guys like Butcher the night was their domain. Fortunately for Marissa’s cause, Adam had once ruled the night alongside them.

The thrill of the chase hummed in his veins. Senses heightened, he picked up layers of sound, a car passing on the quiet street, a few voices drifting from the bar. The skin on the back of his neck tightened and the hair on his arms rose. He parked, strutted to the bar entrance and whipped open the interior shutter doors like he owned the place. Confidence ruled in places like this, around people like Butcher. The best part? If he wanted to he could own this place.

Another thing he planned to siphon from these people—info about the auction Butcher mentioned.

He strolled up to the bar. Glancing up and down the long, worn plank, he frowned. Too slow, yet, but he needed to work with the time given. Leave Marissa alone too long, and hell knew what her grief mixed with anxiety might drive her to do. Like show up here and compromise the secrecy she prized. Secrets she refused to share with him. That stung. He hated not knowing her truth.

But he did his best work under pressure. He grinned to himself and pulled up a stool.

The bartender approached, whipping a dingy-white towel over his shoulder. The guy looked mid-thirties, natural caramel skin tone suggesting a part-Mexican background, and lanky as a stretched-out rubber band. The guy offered a forced smile, his eyes pinched with pain. Marissa wasn’t the only one suffering Tate’s loss.

“What can I pour you tonight?”

“Bartender’s choice,” Adam said. The response typically ended with two shots, one for him and one for the bartender. “Yours is on me. I don’t drink alone.”

The man lifted a bony shoulder and turned to three shallow shelves of bottles behind the bar.

Adam took the opportunity to absorb at a glance the pictures tacked to a narrow corkboard hovering above the booze. The corkboard ran along what looked like
a boxed-in
vent some drywaller
had half-assed, since most of the pictures curled at the edges, making the people tough to distinguish. Damn, he’d hoped to spot a young version of Marissa in one of them.

A sudden memory curved his lips at the corners. Pops had shown him and Liam the basics of construction, their home in a constant state of repair. Not disrepair, because Pops had chosen the beat up old house the family moved into on the nicer side of town so he could make it how he wanted. Three months after they’d crammed their stuff inside its shabby walls, Trey and Cade’s dad, Uncle Jake, came by with his tool box to fix the hot water heater. Pops hadn’t read the directions—probably because, like Adam, he couldn’t—so they’d suffered through three months of cold miserable showers to protect Pop’s pride. After that, Adam figured the dream house Pops pictured was a pipe
dream. Great at fixing motorcycles, lousy at fixing houses. Pops had winged it for years. He’d taught his boys through trial and error, mostly error, how not to make a home. In more ways than one. Pops wasn’t an easy man to live with, even in the good times. Adam wished he hadn’t inherited the man’s wicked temper and itch for solving disputes with his fists. The house stayed a “construction zone” until the day he died.

No wonder,
when they moved to Denver, Liam had bought a shiny McMansion in the suburbs, and Adam had moved into a rental above a bar, to avoid responsibility for remodeling an existing place. They’d learned their lesson.

The bartender returned with two pale golden drinks in rocks glasses. He held a bottle of Rose’s lime juice in his hand. “Snakebite all right?”

Nodding, Adam arched an eyebrow as the bartender floated lime juice on top. “What’s the base?”

“Yukon Jack.”

Damn.
He winced internally.
I should’ve picked.
“We drinking
to Tate?”

The bartender raised his glass. “To Tate,” he said, his voice cracking as he spoke the man’s name.

A handful of others at the bar raised their glasses. “To Tate,” they echoed. All drank together.

In the wake of collective swallows and glasses hitting the bar, sadness hung over the patrons like rainclouds blocking any ray of sunlight. Tate’s death had deeply affected these people, like they’d lost a brother.

The bartender collected all the glasses and began rinsing them in the triple sinks behind the bar. Adam had chosen this spot in front of the sinks on purpose. Here Tate’s hired help couldn’t avoid his pointed questions.

“How’d the funeral go?”

The brackets deepened around the bartender’s mouth. “Fine, I guess. The whole community turned out. Never easy, losing a man who inspired you to reach for better things, out in the world and inside yourself. He left a hole here that will never be filled, whoever ends up owning this place.”

“Any contenders?” Adam wondered.

The man shrugged, mechanically moving his arms up and down, side to side, as he washed glasses. “Nothing firm.” Then he eyed Adam from beneath the shelf of his black eyebrows. “Why are you asking?”

“I heard something about an auction.”

“We’re all in limbo until Friday. We considered taking up a collection, some folks looking into a joint ownership, but we’ve come up short.
It’s not looking good for us.” A curious, hopeful sparkle lit the man’s eyes as he stared at Adam.
“I’d hate to see this place close down. We all would.”

“What about Paul Butcher?”

The man tensed. “Why? Are you with him?”

“No, man.” Adam held up his hands. “I’m in town with my girl, came to pay my respects to family. I’m a distant relation of Tate’s.”

The bartender whipped the towel off his shoulder and began drying the glasses he’d washed. “How distant?
Because I’ve never seen you before. He never talked about family much, except—” He cut himself off as his lips formed the M in Marissa’s name. “Anyway, you’re a stranger in a place where everybody knows everyone. You and Butcher’s crew are the most recent arrivals. We’re not sure who to trust. If people look at you funny, that’s why. We’re all on edge, and seeing outsiders coming into town doesn’t help.”

Sliding a quick glance at the group of guys clustered at the end of the bar, spearing him with shady looks, Adam realized his situation. A damn good thing Butcher hadn’t come in for the shot Adam had offered, because for Marissa’s sake he needed to make friends with these people and distance himself from Butcher at all costs. No love lost there.

“Can you guess what Paul Butcher and his gang want?”

“I don’t want to try to think the way they do, but it’s chilling to watch them rumbling through the streets again. Bad things happen when they’re around. We’ve been there before. They almost tore the town apart. If they want to move back in and take over with their shady operation, there’s no one to stop them. We have one chief of police and two young cops. People here are tired and losing hope of jobs returning after the recession hit. We don’t have the fight in us to close the gates on Butcher. Tate might’ve, but he’s…you know.”

“Man, I’m sorry to hear.” Sincerity steeped Adam’s tone. He might’ve guessed but he’d had no idea how dire the situation was in places like this, Tiny-Town America barely hanging on, and he doubted Marissa knew either. She’d be devastated. And if she found out, she might compromise her cover to try and help. He couldn’t let that happen. “I didn’t know you were all in such a tough spot.”

“If Butcher’s gang stays and lays its claim…unless a miracle rolls in, I don’t see things ending well. For any of us.”

When the shutter doors popped open behind him, he noticed the new arrival lightened the depressed looks on the male patrons’ faces. “Hey guys. Bones, sorry I’m late,” a cheerful, husky female voice announced. “The motel needed extra help since Sandra called in sick.”

The bartender waved off her apology and smiled.

Bones.
A perfect nickname for the bartender, Adam thought.

As the woman breezed in, Adam watched all heads turn to follow her movements. She wore a tight black top with a corset-tie in front boosting her cleavage. She set her half-smoked cigarette in the groove of an ashtray and hugged each patron as if she were the resident cheerleader. Her processed blonde hair appeared crispy to the touch, though the waves framed her slender face well. Too many trips to the tanning salon and too many cigarettes had left her looking older than her years, he suspected, having seen similar wear on some female bartenders in Las Vegas. But her outgoing personality brightened her appearance and Adam understood why she turned heads.

His head turned, too, as he glanced up at the corkboard collection of photos. He recognized her from one of them. Then he spotted it, and saw a younger version of her standing arm-in-arm with a petite blonde with Marissa’s smile. Damn, he’d found her, proof she’d owned a life here long ago. Ten years, he guessed. Marissa looked cute as always, now a little curvier in all the right places, with dark hair that worked better with her creamy skin.

When the woman passed his barstool, she arched an eyebrow expressing clear interest. Adam sighed inwardly but smiled back at her. While any potential source of information required his attention, he would make it clear he was taken.

The strange thought startled him. Taken? Yeah, he was taken with Marissa, but not by her. Though the idea held an appeal he hadn’t considered in…hadn’t considered
ever.
A sensation he didn’t like pinched his chest. He didn’t stop to inspect it.

“Who’s the hottie at the bar, Bones?” the woman asked loud enough for Adam to hear.

“Down, girl,” Bones joked. “He came to town to pay his respects to Tate. Distant relative or something.”

“Interesting.” She curved her hot-pink lips at him. “I’ll have to give him my official Rogerstown Welcome.”

“Don’t make the regulars jealous, Brittany,” Bones said, a thread of caution
tightening his voice. “We need to keep what business we have.”

Waving off the concern, she grabbed a shot glass, a bottle of whisky, and winked at Adam. “They’ll enjoy the show.”

Once more the shutter doors banged open, and the latest joiner caused Brittany to groan aloud with disappointment. “Damn, he’s like clockwork. Can’t I have ten minutes to settle into my shift?”

Bones tossed her a crooked grin. “You ask too much of the lovelorn.”

“He can go love and lorn on someone else for a change,” she muttered. “Sorry, cutie,” she told Adam, leaning over the bar to caress his hand, offering a view of her cleavage. “Your ‘welcome’ will have to wait. Red Eye isn’t good at sharing.” She turned to Bones. “I’ll be in the back filling out the liquor ordering form.”