Hard Core: Biker MC Motorcycle Club Menage Steamy 3 Story Bundle Set (Hot Tales From a Hard Road Book 1) (24 page)

Wiley groaned. Jackson said, “I know you’d do the same for me.”

Jackson packed the handguns into his belt. He couldn’t think of a safe way to carry the three-foot knife so he left it outside on the deck.
 

Wiley groaned when Jackson prodded the gun into back of his neck. Jackson chuckled as he said, “I know you’d do the same for me.” Wiley crawled on his belly into the cabin.

Hendricks sat on a chair on the far side of the cabin, near the only other door. The door was closed. He kept the pump action pointed at Jackson as he came in. “Just a formality. Since you’re holding an AK.”

Two more rifles were propped by the side of him, along with what looked like a box of grenades.

Jackson asked him, “How did you know it was me, Hendricks? Were you expecting me, or did you see me on the road behind you?”

“Both. But the hastily improvised explosive device was the clincher.”

“Maryette here?”

Hendricks inclined his head towards the door. “Probably under the cot, after all the noise.”

“She here of her own free will?”

“Go in and ask her.”

“I think I’d better keep a bead on Wiley. Just till we get clear.”

“You were always good, Jackson.”

“So. Why is she here?”

“It’s a place the DA doesn’t know about. There’s an idea in the club that he may want to talk to her. Before McGhee’s hearing. It would be more convenient if he didn’t have that opportunity.”

“She under a subpoena?”

“Nope. Far as I know.”

“OK, no problem.”

Hendricks said, “Well, aside from you knowing that she’s here. If the DA asks you?”

“I’d have to tell him. Is that likely to happen?”

“Probably not.”

Jackson thought. “Maybe you should give me your cell number now.”

“Will you use it to let me know if the DA asks where Maryette is?”

“I couldn’t do that, Hendricks. But I told you there was something I wanted to talk over with you.”

Hendricks held his gaze. Jackson went on, “Maybe I’d call in the next couple of days.”
 

Hendricks nodded, “Before the hearing?”

“Or maybe it could wait until after.”

Hendricks nodded. “You could be taking a chance.”

“I hope not.”

“Good enough. You want to see Maryette before you go?”

Jackson look down at Wiley. “Would I be taking a chance?”

From the ground, Wiley said, “Nah. You’re good.”

Hendricks told Jackson, “You should probably hand him back his trinkets before you leave, though.”

In the other square room, Maryette sat on the cot by the window. Jackson was immediately relieved.
She’s obviously not being held captive
, he thought,
Hendricks would never leave her alone in a room with a window if she was.

Her smoky voice curled into his head, almost too quiet to hear. “Have you come to save me?” His heart thumped.

“Do you need saving?”

“No.” She looked up at him, “I might like it though.”

 
“Are you being held here against your will?”

“What will you do if I say, ‘yes’?”

“Don’t play games with me, Maryette.”

“You’re no fun.”

“I just wanted to make sure you were safe. And I can see that you are.”

She stood and slowly crossed the floor to him. “Is that
all
you wanted,” she said, close, looking up at him. The warmth of her body was unsettling. His throat was dry, “Are you sure that’s
all
, Jack?” she lifted an eyebrow as her teeth teased her red lip.

A strong surge of sensation cascaded through his chest and his stomach. His blood pumped so hard he heard it beat. His cock stiffened so fast it jammed, still pointed downwards and his pants tightened awkwardly around the top of his leg. He had to get out of there. Even if he were to follow the throb of his physical instinct, a cabin with Hendricks and Wiley in the next room wasn’t going to be the place.
 

Chapter 10

They were all back in Judge Hooper’s courtroom, Bishop included, for the hearing on McGhee’s arson and trafficking charges. The evidence was compelling and plentiful, and McGhee had offered Jackson nothing of any use in the way of mitigation.

Turned out Gracey hadn’t cared too much about losing the original charge. When McGhee had been languishing in the state pen awaiting trial for the later indictments, Gracey had offered him a plea bargain on the Treacher case. DA Bishop was none too pleased about it though.

Treacher then made a sudden and miraculous recovery from his injuries and said that he was unwilling to testify. It was shortly after that when he had an equally sudden setback leaving the hospital. He emerged out of a seventh-floor window.

No amount of energetic defense on Jackson’s part was going to make a difference and Judge Hooper was relaxed and businesslike handing McGhee five for the arson and two to ten for trafficking.

All of the easy money and the good money in criminal law was in defending. Jackson knew that. The prosecution has to get more or less everything right. One hole and they’re sunk.
 

Effective use of the presumption of innocence meant that for most of the time a competent defender only had to get enough right for reasonable doubt. He also knew that he wasn’t entirely comfortable with the easy money, nor with its sources.

Not when it meant defending the McGhees of this world. Those thoughts led him again into thoughts about his father and that left him torn. Jackson wanted to believe that the connection between he and Karl was purely biological. That it was finished nine months before he was born.

He’d like to have thought that he and Karl had nothing in common. That they didn’t share anything more significant than markers on a chain of DNA.

‘A man’s entitled to a fair trial and a good defense,’ Karl would say. Jackson’s response would be, ‘Sure, but when he’s guilty, he ought to be a man and say so, not hide behind lies, technicalities and confusion.’

Jackson’s way of solving the contradiction was, for now, to hone his legal skills while he worked defense and keep his options open to crossing the floor later on.

Chapter 11

Late on a hot Thursday evening, Jackson was in the office grinding through a brief with a bottle of bourbon and Foo Fighters for company. He was pretty sure everyone had left, he’d already had the evening’s banter with Ella Mae, the cleaner.

Even over the guitar grind on the Zeppelin speaker, he heard her heels from the first click at the far end of the corridor. His heart banged in his chest and he stopped moving. He couldn’t think how she could have even got into the building.

He tried imagining that it wasn’t her. It was someone else. Or something else. It could have been someone pulling a flight bag with a clicking wheel. It could have. But he knew that it wasn’t.

Her hazy silhouette filled the frosted glass of Jackson’s office door and as she reached out for the handle he said, “What is it, Maryette? Why are you here and how did you get in?”

Her scent drifted in ahead of her. The light was behind her as she opened the door and stepped inside. Then she leaned back with her hands behind against the door her to close it.

“Good to see you, too, Jackson.” She looked at his hand on the tumbler. “Thanks, don’t mind if I do.”