Black Dogs Motorcycle Club: Full Series Box Set (28 page)

Eva said nothing. She
couldn’t find any words to spit at this man. Tears stung the back of her eyes
and she focused all her energy on keeping them hidden.

He removed his hand from
Eva’s face and abruptly turned away from her. He sauntered back out around the
bar and toward the door. “Until we meet again,
señorita.
Don’t forget
the message. And for your own good, I wouldn’t tell anyone else we were here.”
The silent man held open the door for Ramirez and they both disappeared out
into the dusty morning sunlight.

The door shut hard and Eva
felt her body’s tension collapse. Her legs began to shake. She shuffled until
she felt the stool underneath her and sat down. Tears began to pop out of her
eyes even though she wasn’t crying. Through the blurry tears, she could see the
barflies looking up from where they had hunkered down, staring at her with
wondering, cowardly looks.

Just a few minutes later,
Charlie came in from his work in the yard and went straight for the fridge in
the bar’s back room, talking obliviously about the roughness of the job and the
stubborn oak branches. When he wandered into the bar room and saw Eva, he
paused mid-drink of Gatorade and came over to her.

“Hey, you look sick. Are
you all right? What’s wrong?”

Eva felt like her blood
was taking its sweet time pumping again, getting her brain working. Seeing
Charlie broke the last of the spell the fear of the moment had cast on her.
“I’m okay. But some… some men just came in here…”

Charlie looked around,
confused, at the same barflies that had been there since ten a.m. “What men?
Did they hurt you?”

“Two men—they wanted to
speak with the owner. I told them it was me and they refused to believe me.
They…” Eva thought of the fingers on her arm and face and shook her head. “I
don’t know what they wanted, but something’s not right. They said they were
going to come back tonight to speak with the owner, that it was very
important.”

“Uncle Owen didn’t say
anything about expecting business,” said Charlie.

She looked toward the
closed door of the bar. “I don’t think Uncle Owen was expecting them, either.”

~ FOUR ~

From the blackness of absolute unconsciousness, Will
heard the distant blaring of a high-pitched alarm. He tried to ignore it, tried
to push it away into the swirling dark and return to silence, but the insistent
rhythm continued without pause. His brain latched onto it and drew him out of
sleep like a moth to a flame, and he groaned out loud as his body was pulled
back into consciousness. Several parts radiated with throbbing pain, including
his head and his fists, with his stomach growling with unabated hunger. Most
urgently, he had to pee like a fucking race horse.

With his eyes half-open in
the late morning sun, Will stumbled to the bathroom and relieved himself before
he dropped back onto his messy sheets. He tried hard to fall back into sleep,
but it was no use. His brain was awake.

He lay there in bed, his
forearm over his eyes to shield them from the light. His thoughts drifted in
and out of a haze that still felt a little drunk. Nonetheless, memories from
the night before rattled around his skull like trapped rats, scratching at him,
refusing to be ignored. Blurry eyes examined cut marks on his knuckles as he
stretched his sore hands. They were still smeared with dried blood from the bar
fight. The scars would soon be new additions to a growing patchwork of injuries
he’d earned in the last couple years.

Will took a deep breath.
From the half-open window above his bed came a cool, dewy breeze that made his
skin feel relieved. He could smell someone’s Sunday morning baking in the air
and the scent triggered an immediate sadness in him that almost overrode his
shame.

After a few minutes he
forced himself to roll over and take a swig of water from the bottle he kept
perpetually filled on his nightstand. He drank half of it, and then pawed
around for his phone, which he had again failed to plug into the charger before
he fell asleep. He found it in the pocket of his jeans, crumpled up on the
floor, ignored since he split from his MC brothers the night before.

Twelve unread texts and
two missed calls; all of the texts were from Jase, as was one of the calls. The
other missed call was from his president, Henry. Chief Black Dog.

The dull ache of shame
spread through Will’s chest. He thumbed his screen to quickly scan Jase’s
texts, messages that started only half an hour after he left Will and the bar
fight, and grew increasingly angry and worried as the night had progressed.

You’re gonna drive right
off the edge if you don’t get your shit together.

I sure as hell hope you
went home. I’m not bailing your ass out of County in the morning.

Are you fucking kidding
me? Can’t even text me back? What the fuck is wrong with you??

You better not be a
goddamn minute late tomorrow.

Will toggled through them
absently before tossing his phone onto the floor. Right now, the MC was
gathered up to host an end-of-summer community breakfast, one of the many
positive PR moves that Henry implemented on a regular basis to make sure
LeBeau’s citizens remained happy and loyal to the club. Douglas brought out his
enormous barbeques and overlaid them with griddles to cook up pancakes, bacon,
and sausage for anyone who wanted to stop by. They laid out picnic tables and
blankets, hired magicians and jugglers. Henry took a rare audience with members
of the general public. Tommy Castillo, one of the younger members, had gone out
of his way to learn how to make balloon animals for these occasions, and the
kids adored him for it. Even Ghost found a way to adapt his decidedly
unfriendly life skills by leading the older kids in water gun battles. It made
the MC look softer than they were, and gave them a chance to make sure the
town’s loyalty to them was strong, so they would forgive the next inevitable
gunfight or explosion.

Will imagined that Jase
was probably standing next to Douglas at the grills right now, wearing some
apron with a stupid joke over his cut, trying to pay attention to flipping
hotcakes and checking his phone at the same time, waiting for Will to call. Or
maybe Jase wasn’t waiting anymore. Will was hours late. Jase had to be a fool
to think he was still coming.

Will knew he would draw
some deep ire for missing the event today, and not just from Jase. But he
didn’t care. That tiny ache of shame in his gut was wholly drowned by the tide
of anger that washed in when he thought about Henry and the MC. For the last
two years, he had tried with every fiber in his being to overcome and forgive
what had happened. But it was like Will had no control anymore—not over
himself, and not over the events that happened to him.

The scent of baking in the
air got stronger, and Will felt tears on his face. He wiped them away with
anger. Like a cruel joke, the inferno that consumed his grandmother and her
shop had smelled of cinnamon and sugar, smelled of her baking, and now he
couldn’t stand the scent. It made him think of fire and pain.

As intrusive thoughts of
the blaze tried to surface in his mind, Will pushed back, clamping them down
hard with another memory: the look on the faces of the men who had set the fire
as he pumped a bullet into their brains. Three of them. He could still remember
them, kneeling on the gray concrete floor of the abandoned factory, mouths
gagged, eyes full of hate and fear. His MC brothers and the hierarchy of the
cartel had watched him take his vengeance. In the name of alliance and mutual
benefits, a deal had been struck after the bakery fire, giving the cartel
transit through the mountain pass with the MC’s blessing and protection, so
long as they never set up shop in LeBeau or Howlett directly. Amended to that,
Henry had demanded they turned over the arsonists for the innocent blood they
shed.

Will could still feel the
weight of the gun in his hand, heavier somehow in that moment than it ever felt
before or since. He could remember the burn of righteous rage that tore through
his veins. He could still remember thinking the world would feel better once
this was finished. But after the rapport died and the gun smoke cleared, he had
stared down at three cold and bloody bodies and felt nothing. Not relief, not
justice, not catharsis. It was like he had stepped directly into a dark forest
with no map or compass as soon as he fired the gun.

Anxiety raced down Will’s
body as he lay in bed, his brain overloading with rotten memories and toxic
feelings. He just wanted to go back to sleep. He rustled around a few moments,
trying to find some space in the bed where he could feel comfortable, but it
was useless. Angrily, he lifted himself onto his feet.

His agitation grew as he
paced his room, as if he was caught in a labyrinth of thought he couldn’t
escape. Finally the building pressure popped, and Will growled as he punched a
hole in the drywall next to his bookshelf. The shelf rattled against the wall
and spilled a few titles carelessly to the floor. His already-injured hand lit
up in a fireworks show of pain, and while it hurt like a bitch, it also took
Will’s focus off his mental anguish for a few precious moments. He felt blood
running down his dry skin, knuckle wounds torn open just as endorphins rushed
through his system to treat the pain, making his vision sharp and the ache in
his muscles just a little number.

Will grabbed a dirty shirt
from the floor and wiped the blood off his hands as he stared down at the pile
of books. Even though they only joined a growing mess of clutter and chaos, he
couldn’t bring himself to leave them there. Not his books. Making sure he
didn’t have blood on his hands, Will picked them up with care and put them back
on the shelf one at a time. Fingering the spines, he couldn’t help but long for
the time when reading made him feel better. He was so anxious lately that he
could barely concentrate on a magazine.

Will sighed to himself.
Everywhere he turned, more pain seemed to await him. He wished he could just
sleep through it all, that he didn’t have to go through the hassle of social
exposure and protocol to lose himself in the warmth of a woman. He wished he
could be drunk forever. All of his days felt dark, but some days—like today—got
darker than dark.

There was only one place
to go on days like this. At first he had fought it as a poor idea; now, he
didn’t care. The land where his grandmother’s bakery once stood had been bought
shortly after the fire, and on its ashes, a bar was built. It felt like fate to
Will. He had found himself there more and more in recent months. Some days, it
was like he ached for it.

Some nights, he wondered
if he would die there, too.

As he shuffled for the
shower, Will heard his phone buzzing and ignored it again. He didn’t want to
talk to anyone today. Today, he just wanted to sit and drink.

After his shower, he found
some moderately clean jeans and a white shirt to pull on, ignoring his cut that
dangled from the living room recliner. He didn’t want to think about the MC
today, either. He even left his phone lying on the floor of his bedroom as he
left, and he didn’t even bother to lock his front door.

He simply climbed on his
bike and headed out in the late morning sunlight toward Howlett, anxious at the
idea of drinking away the darkness.

~
FIVE ~

After the confrontation with the two strangers, Eva
asked Charlie to take over serving so she could catch a nap. She assured her
overprotective brother that she wasn’t harmed and maybe she had just
overreacted, but she couldn’t admit to him how frightened she had been. She
also didn’t want to admit to herself how the adrenaline charging through her
veins made her feel more alive than she ever had. Instead, she took a slow walk
through the forest and back to the house, made herself some tea, and promptly
fell asleep, surrounded by her aunt’s creepy porcelain doll collection. Even
the lumpy bed didn’t stop her.

It did a fine job
recharging her. When she woke, Eva didn’t feel the fear anymore. She told
herself she had misinterpreted the exchange with the men. Maybe it was all some
joke she and Charlie weren’t in on. Maybe Laura was right—she was seeing things
like she was in a story, dramatic and larger than life. Those men probably
wouldn’t even come back. She took a shower and grabbed a book before she headed
back to the bar, snacking on an apple as she walked.

Someone had started up the
jukebox in the corner, which held a fine selection of old outlaw country, and a
few classic rock songs. Two men that Eva suspected were farmers talked lowly at
one of the tables, sharing a pitcher of cheap beer. One of the regular bar
flies claimed his seat at the end of the long oak bar, just next to the video
poker machine that went ignored most of the time.

Charlie stood behind the
bar, leaning over a book he had spread open on the glossy surface.

She looked down at the
small, uniform text arranged around complex-looking diagrams. “Christ, what are
you trying to fix now?”

“There’s an emergency
generator out back,” said Charlie, thumbing over his shoulder like she didn’t
know where “out back” was. “Owen didn’t say anything about it, but it looks
like something’s wrong with it. It hasn’t been used in a while.”

 “Yeah, probably because
something’s
wrong with it
,” said Eva in a mocking tone. She nudged him out of the way
to grab herself a pint glass and filled it carefully from the draught. “You
don’t have to repair every little thing broken around here, you know. You can
just relax… read a
real
book.” She shook her own at him.

“This
is
how I
relax,” said Charlie without looking up.

Eva gave him a face that
he ignored. She felt a little sting of pain that she recognized as loneliness.
She wished her brother could find even some pleasure in the company of others,
and not just his constant problem-solving.

She took her beer and her
book and settled into the small two-person table just next to the bar, closest
to the back room, where she would be least likely to be disturbed should they
get some sudden rush of customers. The thought made her smirk as she looked
over the perpetually empty room.

It didn’t take long for
her to settle in and surround herself in her typical comfort zone. The music of
the jukebox floated just soft enough to provide background fodder for her busy
brain while it devoured page after page, stopping only for occasional sips of
beer. She was five chapters deep when the door to the bar swung open.

For a second, Eva’s heart
jumped. Was it the strangers returning? She held her breath until the new
arrival walked across the floor and straight for the bar. When Eva saw him, her
heart jumped a second time, but it wasn’t from fright. The man was deeply handsome,
an unblemished face full of boyish charm juxtaposed with a jawline square and
cut like marble. Rust-colored scruff grew in a short beard and moustache, and
matched the loose curls on top of his head that looked like they hadn’t seen
scissors in a while. His white t-shirt fit snugly over his chest and arms,
revealing lean muscle lines. Despite that leanness, he nonetheless exuded a
strength that reminded Eva of the strangers from before. Something predatory.

A surprising heat rushed
through her chest and into more intimate places. It only worsened when he
licked his full lips and absently pushed his hair back from his face as he sat
down in front of Charlie at the bar.
Christ, he’s so hot it hurts.

As if he could hear her
thoughts, the man lifted his gaze and trailed it across the bar until it landed
on her. It was then that Eva realized she had stopped to stare at him
mid-drink, with her mouth half-open and her pint of beer hanging in the air.
She cleared her throat and dropped the beer back on the table as she averted
her eyes back to her book, trying desperately to at least look like she was
again lost in the text.

When she dared glance back
up again, he was still looking at her. Staring, even. His brown eyes were so
deep, they looked endless from where she sat, and held a sadness that Eva
couldn’t help but feel. His face had gone much softer, and when he looked at the
book in her hands, she saw the ghost of an endearing half-smile.

Charlie suddenly looked up
from his manual on the counter. “Oh, ‘scuse me, I didn’t see you there. What
can I get you?”

The man held her gaze just
a second longer before he turned to Charlie. “Two shots of whiskey and a
stein.”

Eva’s stomach fluttered at
the sound of his voice, a deep timbre spoken softly, deliberately. She couldn’t
believe herself, getting all worked up over some… well, what was he? He
certainly looked dangerous, but she couldn’t place exactly why. Plenty of guys
kept in shape and carried knives. Plenty of guys had scars on their arms, and
their neck. It was something else in the way he carried himself. Whatever it
was, it didn’t frighten her like it had with the strangers. Instead, Eva felt
honest-to-god arousal in a way she hadn’t felt in months—maybe even years.

An unwelcome, paranoid
thought protruded into her mind—that maybe this dark, handsome stranger
was
related to the earlier ones. Was he here to continue the work they had started?
He didn’t look particularly agitated. She did hope he wasn’t with them. It
would certainly tarnish his handsomeness.

Charlie served him and Eva
heard the man ask, “You new here?”

“Yeah, there’s been a bit
of an ownership shake-up. Temporary,” said Charlie, holding his hands up as he
said the last word. He stretched one of them out to the man. “I’m Charlie
Murdock. Owen had some family business to attend to. My sister and I will be
running things in the meantime. Hopefully, you shouldn’t feel too much of a
difference.”

The man looked at
Charlie’s hand a moment before he shook it. “Will.” He took a pause. “You and
your sister?” he added, trailing his gaze back over to Eva before Charlie could
answer.

“Eva, over there,” said
Charlie as he nodded toward her. Both men looked at her and Eva squirmed a bit
in her chair. She raised a hand in an awkward wave, and then pretended to dive
back into her book. She could feel Will’s eyes on her still, but she didn’t
dare look up and confirm it.
Laura’s gonna love this
, she thought.

She didn’t hear Will say
anything else, but she did hear the sound of both the shot glasses being put
back on the counter, one after the other. Her gaze flicked up and over the book
for another quick peek. The man was just sitting on his stool now, staring at
some empty point behind the bar, lost in thought. And not a happy thought, if
she had to judge. She didn’t envy whoever he must have been thinking about.
There was an air about him that reminded her of a half-sleeping wolf.

The song on the jukebox
changed to something from Jimi Hendrix and Eva started to try and get back into
her book. She’d only read a few paragraphs before feeling compelled to pause
for another glance up at dark, handsome Will at the bar. After a few minutes,
she realized she wasn’t digesting anything she was reading. All she could think
about was how strong Will’s hands would feel on her.

Eva cleared her throat and
blushed to herself. She saw the stranger look up for just a moment and again, like
before, his face softened just a touch when their eyes met. She took that as a
sign that maybe he liked what he was looking at.

The door to the bar swung
open again, and Eva heard the approach of multiple footsteps at once. Her heart
dropped when she saw the familiar leather coats and dangerous faces of the
Latino strangers who had threatened her before. She froze. The blood drained
from her face.

When her gaze flicked back
to Will, she saw something come over him, like he was reading the thoughts on
her face. His back straightened, and the lines from his face disappeared as his
expression became a blank slate of coldness. Something dark erupted in his
eyes.

Oh, Christ,
thought Eva. Was this
Will’s cue to attack? Was he with them, after all?

From her left, she heard
Charlie call out obliviously, “Afternoon, guys. What can I get you?”

Her eyes stayed fixed on
the men as one of them stalked over to the farmers’ table and suddenly slapped
the half-empty beer pitcher into one of their laps.

“Closing time, gentlemen!
If you would be so kind as to collect your shit and
get the fuck out of our
bar
,” shouted the man with the close-cropped hair, exaggerating every word
and syllable.

The men groused and leapt
from their seats, only to be shoved harshly for the door with cruel hands and
threats of broken bones. The old barfly near the poker machine didn’t wait to
be told; he lurched off his stool and bee-lined out the front door and into the
sun. The man with the bun walked up to the bar.

“What the fuck do you
think you’re doing?!” yelled Charlie, his arms up.

Eva held a white-knuckled
grip on her book as she watched the man in the bun approach Will from behind.
She waited for him to clap a trusting hand on his back, call him by name.

Instead, the man in the
bun put one of his arms on the bar on Will’s left side. He leaned in to give
Will the same threats the others had received.

“Did you hear that,
asshole? Get on your fucking feet,” the man in the bun growled right near
Will’s face.

In a flash, Will turned
into an animal. He held the man’s wrist steady with one hand and lifted his
thick, half-full stein glass with the other. The heavy stein came crushing down
on the man’s forearm, filling the room with the sound of snapping bones and
painful screams.

The man in the bun grabbed
his broken arm to his chest and stumbled backwards into the wall and over a
table only a few feet from where Eva sat. She leapt to her feet and scrambled
out of the way, scared he would try and hurt her in revenge, but he only
writhed on the floor, screaming in Spanish.

Breathing hard, Eva looked
up. Will was on his feet, a deadly coldness in his eyes as he turned to face
the other thug. Even though the Latino man had height and weight on him, Will
looked like twice the force, standing there with his back straight as an arrow,
his broad shoulders puffed out. He waited like a patient viper until the thug
took a heavy swing at him. Will ducked quickly beneath the punch and came back
up with his own, straight into the man’s nose. Blood gushed from the wound
almost instantly and the thug howled in pain.

“You picked the wrong
fucking bar,” said Will quietly to the man as he stumbled, bleeding, trying to
fumble for the door. Will turned and grabbed the collar of the man on the floor
and yanked him harshly to his feet. The man howled in pain, spitting at him and
calling him terrible things. He pushed and shoved both of the injured men, one
after the other, until he had them both out the front door and disappeared from
sight. Eva and Charlie could only stand, frozen and staring, completely
overwhelmed.

After a few tense moments,
Will came back in, yelling at them with a fury that Eva had never heard from
anyone. Even though it wasn’t directed at her, it terrified her just the same.
“You tell whoever the fuck sent you that they just made the last mistake of
their short, pathetic fucking lives!”

He slammed the door shut,
the color in his face already making him look more alive. Without a word, he
turned and locked it, pulling the chain on the neon
Open
sign. “Lock the
back door,” he said to neither of them in particular.