“You popped up in the trunk like a serial killer,” I accused.
“That’s true. So, do I get to control the radio, or are you set on listening to the same playlist for the next several hours?” he asked, sounding fine with either scenario.
“You can pick the music,” I said. “But I’m not sharing my cheese puffs with you,” I told him as we both climbed into the front seat.
“But the corn chips… those are up for grabs?”
Somehow, though this made absolutely no sense whatsoever, just having this man—a complete stranger—beside me made it feel a hell of a lot less scary to go back home.
I was just going to file that away to deal with sometime later.
Or never.
Never sounded good too.
CHAPTER FIVE
Sway
Caged animals will always fight or flee.
And while this woman did have a lot of attitude, something about the way she carried herself, about the uncertain gleam in her eye, had me certain that she wasn’t going to be at the cabin when we came back after talking to Slash.
Working on that assumption, I’d been hanging around the town, curious if I would see her car heading out.
Then, sure enough, there was her SUV with the dogs in the back.
I’d ducked into the general store, grabbed the bones I’d seen there, then quickly bribed the dogs who were in road-trip-mode, not guard-mode, so they accepted the bones and ignored me as I climbed in the trunk and softly shut the door.
Then we were off.
Ducked down back there, I texted Coach about what was going on, not contacting Slash myself because I knew he’d blow a gasket that I’d stowed away in the poor woman’s trunk.
I’d expected her fear when I’d finally shown myself, but not the rage. The knee-jerk reaction that seemed, if I wasn’t completely off the mark, like a trauma response.
You didn’t enjoy the company of women as much as I have without picking up on that sort of thing.
Someone, I thought, had fucked with this woman.
Was that why she was hiding out in the woods, letting her contracts run late, possibly screwing up her reputation in this whole black market gun world?
Someone had scared her?
Done something worse?
Why else would a woman leave her house and live in the middle of nowhere, surviving—it seemed—on canned goods and pantry staples, with no internet or TV, no… nothing?
Someone had her on the run.
I suddenly felt guilty as fuck for coercing her into going back to that house, to face whatever happened there.
I only managed to comfort myself with the knowledge that I would be there this time. She wouldn’t be alone to deal with whatever had sent her running from her home.
“What?” she asked, feeling my gaze on her profile as I flipped through her pre-saved satellite stations.
“So, you’re really attached to this seventies vibe you got going on, huh?” I asked.
“What? Oh, it reminds me of my dad,” she admitted, tone guarded. Sore spot, it seemed.
“He who taught you about all the building shit?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“He passed?” I asked, watching her gaze flick to mine, the pain still raw in those pretty gray eyes of hers.
Yeah, gray.
Which was somehow even prettier than the blue or green I’d been expecting.
“When I was nineteen,” she told me.
“And you’re, what, twenty-seven… eight?” I asked.
“Nine. It’s been a decade.” But the pain was as fresh as if it had been just months before.
“Was he all you had?” I asked.
“He was,” she confirmed, gaze fixed out the window, giving me a full view of her tight jaw.
“I’m sorry. That sucks,” I said. Not eloquent. I imagined Coach would have some philosophical shit to spout that would make her feel a lot better. But I didn’t have those kinds of words. “Do you not like talking about him?” I asked.
“No one has ever asked,” she admitted. “He was a lot like me. Reclusive. More into his projects than people. He didn’t design weapons,” she clarified. “That’s my thing. He did design some fantasy ones, though. Like out of books or movies he liked.”
“That’s an interesting project. Coach, he likes to build shit. With wood, though, not metal. And Crow, another brother, he has a girl who does pottery.”
“Do you have any hobbies?” she asked.
“Does eating pussy count?” I asked. Partly because that was just what I would normally say, and partly because I wanted to see her reaction to it.
Her head whipped over, brows raised, eyes a little round.
“No,” she said, the sound snapping, concise.
Then her gaze was back on the road.
But it was too late.
I saw it.
Just a flicker of a flame, tamped down before she thought I could see it. But I did.
Not that I was going to try to pursue her.
If for no other reason than Slash would have my fucking head on a platter.
I’d already done my fair share of fucking the wrong woman and getting myself in trouble for it. I needed to think with my head for a change. Especially since this wasn’t just about me, or even just about my club, but all of the clubs. I didn’t give a damn about my reputation, and the Shady Valley crew was used to my bullshit, but I didn’t want to drag the Golden Glades or Navesink Bank guys down with us.
“So, where do you live?” I asked after we had our first stop, each taking a dog to stretch their legs and do their business before we got gas and some food and got back on the road again.
“You managed to track me down to a cabin in the woods in the middle of nowhere, but you don’t know where I live most of the time?”
“We weren’t looking for you at home since your email pinged in Modoc.”
“I guess that makes sense. I live in Santa Monica.”
“Santa Monica? Really?” I asked, not even trying to hide my surprise.
“What?”
“I dunno. Just not the vibe I get from you, I guess.”
“I like the beach.”
“You go a lot?”
“No. I like looking at it,” she said, shrugging. “My condo has a water view.”
“Did you grow up in that area?”
“Bakersfield,” she supplied, making my brows shoot up.
“Bit of a rougher area,” I said, but that was probably putting it lightly. Last time I’d heard, the crime rate was ninety-something times the national average.
To that, she just shrugged. And I couldn’t tell if that was because that was a sore spot, or if she just never felt that unsafe there.
“My dad had a repair shop there. We lived in the little house behind it,” she supplied. “We didn’t go out much. We both just liked staying in and working on our projects.”
Because she didn’t volunteer anything else, because she just didn’t seem like someone who would think to keep the conversation going, I went ahead and admitted, “I’ve never spent much time by the beach. Shady Valley is as landlocked as you can get. But I spent some time by the shore in Jersey a while back when we were visiting the mother chapter.”