Hell on Wheels (Four Horsemen MC Book 6) (10 page)

Axel hoped his slack-jawed sexual reaction didn’t show on his face. “So, uh, you want to get a soda?”

“Nope. I’m from Chicago,” she said. “We drink pop.”

Damn, the woman had a sassy mouth. Made him want to kiss it. “Well, you’re in the South now, and you’re havin’ a soda with me.” He walked over to the Coke machine against the wall and slid some quarters from the pocket of his jeans. The machine only dispensed the small glass bottles. He thought they tasted better than Coke in a can. “What’ll it be?”

“Sprite,” she answered. He chose a regular Coke for himself and tried real hard not to think about Charlie’s curves. After handing a frosty bottle to her, he lifted himself up on a washer, swinging his legs. He was full of nervous energy, thinking about her and the damn drug-smuggling operation.

But he couldn’t talk about that with Charlie. Not with anyone outside the club. Times like this, made him wish he had an old lady, someone to confide in.  He couldn’t tell an old lady everything of course, but a lot of it. Axel was grateful Ryker had that kind of support now.

“You look deep in thought,” Charlie said.

Axel shook his head. “Sorry, thinkin’ about my family.”

Charlie nodded. “Must be nice to have family.”

“Just you and your father?”

“Yeah, I’m an only child.”

Axel bet she was lonely. Charlie didn’t have anyone else to lean on. Ryker, Axel, and his mom had been a trio. Things had gone off the rails, but they still had each other.

“What about your mother?” he asked.

“I don’t even remember her. My dad said they hooked up in Phoenix and they did some small jobs together. My mom apparently had wild streak and she loved the excitement of it all, but they stopped stealing when she got pregnant.” She bit her lip. “For a while, they settled down. He even got a job at a steel factory in Pennsylvania, making good money. Legit money.”

There was a wistfulness in her tone that tugged at his heart.

“But she left in the middle of the night,” Charlie said, her voice hoarse. “Dad said she pinned a note on his pillow saying she couldn’t do it anymore. That she loved me more than anything, but she couldn’t stay with him.” She shook her head. “He wouldn’t let me read the note. Said he threw it away, but that doesn’t sound like the sort of thing you’d toss.”

“You think he lied to you?”

Charlie nodded. “I didn’t realize it, until I was older, but I never let on.”

“Why?” he asked.

“It was such a beautiful lie.” Her faltering smile just about broke his heart. “I think she fell in love with his bad-boy mystique and ended up with a husband and kid instead. That must’ve been a disappointment.”

Axel swallowed the lump in his throat. His own mother loved him more than anything. She’d never have left him or his brother, not for any reason. And he knew what she was trying to say. “
You
aren’t a disappointment.”

Charlie stared at the wall and her eyes looked suspiciously watery. “She didn’t want me and she never contacted us again. I think that speaks for itself.”

“Did you try contacting her after your dad died?”

“Hell no.” Charlie tossed her head. “If she doesn’t want me, I don’t want her.”

Axel just realized something. Charlie had a rigid exterior, but it was a shell, protecting the vulnerable parts inside. He might not have the kind of intuition Voo or Shep possessed, but he could see it plain as fucking day. She had a good heart, even if she did terrible things.

 “You know, it’s funny. After she left, he went back to a life of crime. He tried to be a good person because of her, and it backfired on him.”

“That’s what I wanted to be…a good man,” Axel said. All his life, he’d craved something normal. “I thought I’d go to college. I don’t know, maybe be an accountant or something. Be an upstanding citizen.”

Charlie laughed. “Yeah, but where’s the fun in that?”

A citizen’s life seemed so much simpler to him. Especially now. If his life plan had worked, he’d be married by now, with a mortgage and a couple of kids. That sounded like a dream to him. “You actually like living outside the law?”

She thought about it a moment. “Love it, actually. I’m not about to change.”

Axel was downright flummoxed by her. Charlie was a born outlaw, she loved the life, and she could handle whatever came at her. He’d never been attracted to a bad girl before, but he found her brand of wicked intoxicating. She was exactly the wrong kind of woman for him, but his body didn’t seem to care.

He swayed closer to her, and she did the same. Charlie placed a hand on his chest, but it wasn’t to push him away. Instead, she slipped a finger under the collar of his shirt and he shivered at the contact. Just the feel of one fingertip. His lips hovered over hers. God, he wanted to kiss her so bad….but he couldn’t.

Axel cleared his throat and scooted away. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. I meant what I said about not dating anyone.”

 He couldn’t afford to get attached. Dating, marriage, children, all of it was off the table. Hell, even sex was. He wouldn’t spend the night with a woman then run from her the next day. It wasn’t fair. He clasped his hands over his lap to hide the effect she had on him.

 “Tell you what. Let’s go for a little ride,” Axel said after a minute or too. “You told me the truth, and I should do the same for you.”

She waved a hand at the washing machines. “But your clothes…”

“This won’t take long, and they still have a ways to go.” He fished the keys from his back pocket. “I wanna show you something.”

Axel drove them down to Hellfire Lane and parked on the side of the street. He could drive there in his sleep he’d done it so often. It was the middle of the nigh and all of the houses were dark.

Axel shut the engine off.

“Okay, I give. Where are we?” she asked, turning toward him.

He sighed. Axel wasn’t one to string women along, but he didn’t relish having ‘the talk’ with one, either. “Look, I…apparently have a thing for you. And I’m doing a shit job at hiding it. But this thing isn’t going anywhere. It can’t. I don’t want to get involved with you.”

Charlie raised her brows.

“That came out wrong. I…can’t get involved with you.” Damn, he was rusty when it came to talking to women.

“Why? It’s not like I’m asking for a marriage proposal or anything. I’m not going to be in town long. I told you, we could fool around, have fun.”

Axel hated empty one-night stands.  “I appreciate the offer, Robin,” he said, using his pet name for her. “God knows you’re beautiful. But I’m an all-or-nothing kind of man. I’m not into—”

“Having fun?” she asked, teasing.

Axel didn’t so much as crack a smile. “Not the horizontal kind. I take sex seriously. I take all of it seriously.  Dating, love, marriage, romance. You name it.”

“Why are you living like a monk then? You sound like Mr. Commitment Guy. Why aren’t you married with a wife and lots of babies?”

“I was in love once. And it didn’t go well.” That was the understatement of the century. “That’s why we’re here.”

 “Let me guess, is this the woman in question?” she asked, nodding to the house they were parked near.

Axel chuckled without humor. “Yeah. Nancy was my high school sweetheart and this is her house.”

“Tell me about her. I’m guessing she did a number on you.”

“We were in all the advanced placement classes together, we joined the same clubs, and she was my date to every high school dance. We even got accepted to Texas A & M together.”

“And that didn’t happen?”

Axel shook his head. “I wanted to marry her. But I realized I couldn’t leave Hell.. My family needed me, the club needed me. Instead of going to college, I joined the Horsemen.”

“And Nancy didn’t want to be part of your new life?”

He ran a hand along the steering wheel, staring at it rather than Charlie. It made the true confessional stuff easier. “I don’t blame her. She’s a good woman and she married a respectable man, one she can be proud of.”

“And now you’re what…? Stalking her?” she asked.

“God, no.”

Fuck, he knew it sounded crazy. Half the club thought he was still hung up on Nancy. Axel had heard there was a pool betting he’d end up an old maid or something.
Talk about a safe bet.

 “I come here more than I should,” he confessed. “I wanted to see the road not taken, you know. What my life could have been like with her.” He didn’t even mean to start doing it. After a particularly shitty day, he’d been driving around town to clear his head, and he saw Nancy with the kids through the window. They were playing some board game together and laughing.

And it nearly brought him to tears.

Since then it’d become a little obsession. He wanted Nancy’s normal life. It looked like paradise to Axel. She didn’t have to worry about rival gangs or gangsters gunning her down. She got to enjoy her family, live the American dream. Who wouldn’t want that?

 “I get it. I understand the need to have stability, a home. Are you still in love with her?” she asked.

Axel didn’t see any judgement in her gaze, just understanding.. He didn’t think he could talk about this with anyone in the club.  They’d assume he hated it, or hated them. But that wasn’t the case. Axel wondered what he’d missed out on.

He shook his head. “That was years ago. I’m pushing forty now, and I’ve definitely moved on. But I’m in love with her life. And I can’t help but think I could’ve had all that, too.”

“And that’s why you aren’t into casual sex?”

 “Anything less than all of this seems like settling.”

“Wow. Who knew? You’re a male romantic.” Charlie whistled. “You’re like a unicorn.”

He chuckled. “I reckon. Don’t tell anyone, though. I’d never hear the fucking end of it.”

He’d said it jokingly, but she squeezed his hand. “I won’t. And thank you for telling me. It explains a lot.” Charlie sighed. “I gotta stop propositioning you, huh?” she asked, raising a brow.

They stared at one another and the heat rippled between them.

Being hit on by Charlie was the most action he’d gotten in years and he enjoyed it more than he should. Fuck if he could find the will to tell her to stop. “Forget I said anything, Robin. Sexually harass me all you like, but it isn’t leading to anything.”

Charlie giggled and some of the tension in the pit of his stomach eased. “You never know, you might fall in love again.”

“Yeah, maybe.” But Axel doubted it. He wouldn’t bring a good woman into this life.

They sat in friendly silence for a few more minutes before Axel started up the truck. “Okay, true confession time is over. What do you say we finish those clothes and rustle up an early breakfast in the diner?”

She grinned. “Let’s do it.”

He put the truck in gear and they took off.

Chapter Eight

Charlie watched from Hades’ parking lot as Axel hopped on his bike and took off down the highway. They’d finished their laundry and had coffee and donuts together. He’d been quiet most of the time.

Something was bothering Axel, and it was more than his lost love, Nancy.

Over the years, she’d observed her father getting ready for a big job plenty of times to read the signs. Axel must have a scary gig on the horizon. She
felt
it, even if he hadn’t voiced anything to her. She wondered what could’ve rattled the big, bad biker.

But why was she suddenly so curious?

For the most part, Charlie stayed in her own lane and didn’t get involved with other people. If she didn’t know any better, she’d say she was worried about Axel. The only human being she’d ever cared about was her father, and she hardly knew Axel, but he’d made an impression on her.

Although she couldn’t dwell on his problems. She had a big one of her own.

Charlie had to get Byron Beauregard to hire her. Beauregard needed a maid, and it would be a damn good cover. Rich people overlooked their hired help. With any luck, she’d get up close and personal with his vault on her first day at work.

She strolled downtown to scope out one of Beauregard’s
Help Wanted
signs. As she walked down the streets, she admired the collection of hell-themed shops: Perdition, Bloody Hell Tea Room, Inferno Firearms, Diablo Diamonds, to name a few. All of them featured blazing red signage.  Despite the moniker, Hell was kinda quaint, and it appealed to her in a way she hadn’t expected.

There was nothing big or flashy or remotely corporate. It felt curiously homey.  Eventually, she found a red and black
Help Wanted
sign, like the one Axel had described, along with a phone number and a couple lines about the maid position. Charlie pulled out her cell and thumbed in the number.

 A woman answered on the third ring. “Beauregard residence.”

Charlie had prepared a spiel for the call. A grifter had to be creative enough to craft a story the mark would believe. “Hey there, this is Charlene Nash. I saw the sign on Main advertising for a maid.” Charlie used an excited, almost breathless tone.

“Thank you for inquiring about the opening. My name is Nettie Sinclair, the housekeeper.” Her voice crisp and cool. Charlie noticed she annunciated every single syllable. “Are you enquiring about the position, or did you just happen to notice the sign and called out of curiosity?”

Ouch.

Nettie must feel the need to establish her authority.
Quickly, Charlie tried to glean anything else useful. She thought the woman sounded older. Maybe in her fifties? She had a Southern drawl as well, though it differed from Axel’s and Dani’s accents. Charlie had traveled around the country and discovered a few types of Southern accents. Nettie had an aristocratic sort of one, like Jimmy Carter.

“I’m calling about the job. I don’t have any maid experience, ma’am,” Charlie said, tossing in a term of respect to placate the authority issue. “But I’m a hard worker and I learn fast.” She’d anticipated this question. If she lied and said she had loads of professional experience, Nettie would ask for references, which weren’t easy to fake. And after working with Charlie a few seconds, Nettie would plainly see she’d been lying.