Secondhand Smoke (Dartmoor Book 4) (12 page)

              They fell into step beside one another, ears filled with the sounds of Tally’s heavy breathing and the sand shifting under their feet.

              “You’ve been worried,” Emmie observed, “but I’m guessing this is one of those things you can’t tell me about.”

              A sideways glance from under the brim of her helmet, wry and questioning.

              He grinned back, echoing her expression. “You’re sharp, you know that?”

              “Hmm. And you’re easier to read lately than the horses. What’s going on with you?”

              He exhaled deeply. What was wrong? He wasn’t entirely sure, but he thought it had something to do with one morning a week ago. The night before at dinner, Bea had been harassing them good-naturedly about giving her grandchildren. He hadn’t put much stock in it until the next morning, just before the alarm sounded at six, when Emmie rolled toward him through the sheets, voice heavy with sleep in the darkness.
“Do you want to?”
she’d asked.
“Have kids? I…I want to, King.”

              She was feeling safe now, secure in the knowledge that she could take a little maternity leave and not lose her job. Delighted by the prospect of loving and being loved and making children together.

              But she couldn’t conceive of the burden already placed upon him. He had her now, and his new employees, his mother, his half-brother, who he’d thankfully placed in a job at the Dartmoor auto shop working on cars with Michael. Marriage had given Emmie wings. Walsh didn’t regret it for a second, but with the dead dealers, with the threat of Ellison – he was stressed, and that was putting it mildly.

              He took another deep breath and let it out. “I said I’d tell you all I was able to, didn’t I?”

              He sensed a sudden tension in her. “You did.”

              Here went nothing… “The man who had you kidnapped,” he said, and watched her eyes go round, “he’s still in town, and he’s still trying to get to the club.”

              She reached out and braced a hand on Tally’s steaming shoulder.

              “It was never personal about you, love, I don’t want you to worry about that part of it. He was trying to force the club’s hand – and I think he’s going to keep trying, only I don’t know how, and I don’t know which direction he’s going to come from.”

              She swallowed, slender throat working, and glanced ahead of them, across the blinding white sand. The breeze played with the trailing end of her ponytail and lifted the scent of sweaty horse to his nostrils. “Okay.” She was making a supreme effort to keep calm, for his sake and Tally’s, and he loved her all the more for it. “Well, what does this guy want? Is it revenge?”

              “Maybe at this point, after…but no, not really. He’s just ambitious, and he wants our territory. Powerful people don’t like for other powerful people to stay in business.”

              “Guess sometimes it sucks to be the big dog in town, huh?” She snorted. “No pun intended.”

              “Yeah.”

              “So. What do you need me to do?”

              He glanced over at her with surprise, and she stared levelly back at him.

              “I know I can’t ride around on a bike, doling out ass-whoopings. I’ll leave that to you.” Quick grin. “But I’m serious. What do you need from my end? What can I do to help?”

              She had floored him, completely, and he suddenly didn’t have the businesslike grace to express that properly. He put an arm around her waist – her clothes clung to damp skin; she smelled faintly of clean perspiration and horse hair – and drew her in close as they walked. “Just have my back, yeah?”

              “Always.”

              He kissed the shiny plastic side of her helmet and hoped she understood the love behind the gesture.

~*~

Maggie’s gaze was fixed to the paper in her hands as Ghost walked into her central office at Dartmoor. It was a crisp day, and the breeze came in through the propped-open door, stirring the invoices and tidy stacks on the desk. Maggie didn’t seem to notice any of it, or even him, as he braced a hip against the corner of the desk and folded his arms, waiting.

              Her eyes lifted, bright with alarm, face tweaked with it. “Harry stopped to get the mail on his way in, and dropped it off to me.”

              “Right.” She was building to something and he knew it, didn’t push her.

              “This” – she shook the paper – “didn’t have a stamp or an address on it, so whoever sent it must have put it in the mailbox himself. It was made out to ‘Mr. and Mrs. Teague,’ so I opened it, thinking it was an invitation or something.”

              “Invitation? Everyone we know works here.”

              “I know,” she said grimly, turning the paper to face him. “Which makes this creepy as shit.”

              He took the note from her and read it, quickly:

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Teague,

I know we’ve never met, but I’m a good friend of your son’s, from back in school. I’m real sorry about what he’s going through, and I want to let you know I’m here if you need me.

              It was unsigned, and the handwriting was slanted and hurried.

              “Friend from back in school?” Ghost asked, glancing at his wife. “He never had any friends save Kev. And all of us.” He plucked at his cut for emphasis.

              “Certainly no one he would have told about Tonya,” she said.

              Ghost turned the note over in his hands several times, looking for clues. There were none.

              “Someone’s trying to screw with us,” Maggie said.

              “On several fronts,” he muttered, handing the paper back. “Hold onto that. God knows that it means, but I don’t believe in coincidences anymore.”

              “Hmm.”

              “Where is he, by the way? Aidan?”

              “Clocking hours at the shop. He’s been here all morning.”

              He frowned. The little delinquent – he was late more often than not these days, off running errands and keeping to himself. Fatherhood – yeah, that’s what he needed. The kid would be better off going to someone else. Someone who didn’t have his head stuck up his ass.

              “Don’t look like that,” Maggie said.

              “Like what?”

              “Like you hate your own son. I won’t tolerate it.”

              “He’s my son,” Ghost said, hotly. “I’ll think whatever I want about him.”

              “No you won’t,” she countered. “You’ll stew, and fuss, and eventually realize he’s no different from you, and you’ll get over yourself, so you might as well cut to the chase.”

              “Did I ask for your opinion?”

              “No,” she sighed. “That would have been the
smart
thing to do.”

Nine

“What are you gonna do about–” Tango glanced over his shoulder to ensure that Mercy and Carter were occupied all the way on the other side of the garage. He turned back and dropped his voice a notch. “Greg?” he whispered.

              They worked on either side of a particularly banged-up Night Train, and Aidan frowned at the greasy guts of the machine. “Well, since going back in time and pulling the damn trigger isn’t an option,” he whispered back, “I’ve got no fucking clue.”

              “If Ghost finds out…” Tango started.

              “What? You gonna tattle on me?”

              His best friend gave him a level look. “Never.” Another covert check. “I’m just thinking it would be a good idea to deal with the guy before all of this blows up.”

              “Yeah, and how do you suggest I do that?”

              Tango sighed, which meant he had no answers on that front.

              “Hey, Kev?” a female voice called from beyond the doors, and the sound of it moved through Aidan like electricity.

              Tango was the one closest to the door, the one in sight, and therefore the one she’d called to. He stood, and shaded his eyes against the sun with one hand. “Hey, Sam,” he called back, and all the while, Aidan’s pulse was skyrocketing.

              He straightened, and over Tango’s shoulder could see Sam peering into the garage bay, arms folded across her middle in uncertainty. She wore jeans and a cream sweater, her hair down, wavy and snarled from the breeze.

              Beautiful.

              “Is Aidan working today?” she asked.

              Before Tango could answer, Aidan ditched his tools and stepped up to the door, hastily wiping his hands on the front of his embroidered garage shirt. “I am,” he said, and noticed the way Sam pulled back, lips tightening, like she’d been hoping maybe he wasn’t around.

              But that didn’t make sense, because she was asking after him.

              Unless she was only asking so she could avoid him.

              When in the hell had he ever analyzed anything social to this degree? The woman was going to kill him with all this self-doubt.

              She fixed him with a look hard to describe. “Do you have a second?”

              “For you, I’ve got all the seconds,” he said, giving her his widest, most charming grin.

              She didn’t smile back, merely turned and walked back through the parking lot, wanting them to have some privacy.

              Tango gave him a sympathetic shrug as he started to follow.

              Mercy called to him: “Don’t think I don’t see you striking out over there, man candy.”

              “Bite my ass,” he called back, and went after Sam, heart thumping hard against his ribs.

              He hadn’t ever noticed her walk before, when they tracked side-by-side up and down the hall at the school. But now, behind her, he took note of the efficient strides, the way she didn’t waste effort with popping her hips and swaying her torso. She walked like she was going someplace, like a woman who had more important things to worry about than sex appeal. She didn’t flirt, she’d told him not that long ago, and no, she didn’t. It wasn’t part of her DNA, he supposed.

              Part of him wanted to catch up to her, put a hand under her elbow, link them physically. But he kept pace behind her, realizing where she was headed: the elevated garden in the no-man’s land of the parking lot. The oasis of small gnarled fruit trees and babbling manmade waterfall. The nursery crew had put in the yellow autumn flowers – pansies? – already and the apple trees were going red and gold in the tops, the apples shiny and tight-skinned.

              Sam reached the low stone wall that ringed the garden’s foundation and sat on it, legs crossed, arms still folded. Nothing about her posture invited Aidan to join her so he stayed on his feet, pulling up in front of her, trying to look casual. Like all his skin wasn’t prickling with nerves.

              “I came to get my oil changed,” she said.

              “Good, you need to keep up with that.”

              “And I thought while I waited…I would…” She took a deep breath and looked at him, the brightness of the sun making her eyes hard to see clearly. “Okay, let’s just get it over with. I know we’ll still see each other, me spending time with Ava and all, and I don’t want things to be strained. So let’s just agree to put what happened–”

              “What happened?”

              She appeared startled by the question. Her cheeks pinked. “Well, when you lost your head and said something to me you didn’t mean–”

              “I meant it.”

              “Aidan, you kissed me.”

              “I meant that too. Do I need to do it again to prove it?”

              “No.” She held up a hand as if to ward him off. “You don’t.”

              “Don’t tell me you didn’t like it,” he said, grinning, loving the way it made her blush even more. “I could tell you liked it.”

              With visible effort, she drew herself up and said, “That’s not what I wanted to talk about.”

              “Why? Too real for you? You only like sex when it’s in books?”

              She bolted up to her feet, arms slamming down to her sides, hands balled into fists. In a tight voice, she said, “I’m trying really hard to be patient with you.”

              “So don’t be. Doesn’t it ever get old being so damn perfect all the time?”

              He expected a sharp retort, but instead she stared at him, gaze softening, filling with sadness. She sat back down, hard, like her legs were tired, and that was when Aidan joined her, sitting down close beside her on the cold stone of the wall.

              “It gets old,” she said in a low voice. “Not being perfect, because I’m
not
perfect.” She rubbed at her forehead with two delicate fingertips, brows crimping together. “But looking out for Mom, and Erin, and work, and school, and…all of it. I don’t mind it, not at all. But sometimes I wish…” She trailed off, biting at her lip.

              A strange impulse hit him. He wanted to touch her; and not in a sexual way – well, he did, but that wasn’t the urge that overcame him now. Now, he didn’t fight the desire to lay a hand on the back of her head, cupping gently, delighted by the silken texture of her pale hair.

              She glanced at him, startled.

              “Sometimes you wish you got to do something fun? Just for you?” he guessed.

              Her smile was faint. “You’re a fantasy, you know that?”

              He lifted his brows in questioning surprise.

              “Just because you’re a quiet, mousy kid who studies all the time, it doesn’t mean you aren’t still terribly feminine. It doesn’t mean you don’t have a violent crush on a bad boy who refuses to cover his tattoos up at school.” She smiled again, pretty and wistful. “You were my schoolgirl fantasy, and I can’t even say why. I’m not sure that ever went away, even though I know better.”

              He wasn’t sure what to do with the bombardment of sentiments her words brought on. Mixed shock, gladness, and then the gut-punch of her “knowing better.”

              “Ouch,” he said.

              “I haven’t been fair,” she continued, “letting you come see me every afternoon. You make me feel sixteen, and all fluttery” – she gestured to her chest – “and in that sense, I’ve been using you. Just like I think you’ve been using me,” she added, tone gentle. “We’re not being honest with each other.”

              He sat, staring at her a moment, smelling the coconut of her shampoo as the breeze blew the blonde lengths toward his face.

              “I’m sorry.
What
?”

              “We’re using–” she started.

              “No, I heard. I just wanna know why you actually believe all that bullshit you just said.”

              It was her turn to stare.

              “Sam,” he said, a tightness in his chest, in his words. He’d been able to talk every girl he’d ever casually wanted into his bed. And here was this one, who he was suddenly so hungry for, and she wanted him, too, but goddamn her self-control, she was pushing him back. “If you want me, and I want you, I don’t understand what the problem is.”

              She studied him. “I used to think being wanted was enough. But now I’m not so sure.”

              She started to rise, and he latched onto her wrist, keeping her at his side. “You won’t even try?” he asked.

              The wind pulsed around them, stirring her hair, and he knew by the light in her eyes that she didn’t misunderstand, and that she was considering. She cracked the seal on her imagination and let herself wonder: taking her glasses off, his fingers knotting in her hair, his mouth bruising hers, the salt taste of damp skin.

              “Some days,” she whispered, vibrating with restrained energy, “when it feels like the shit won’t stop coming, the only thing I want in the world is for us to try.”

              He didn’t resist when she shook off his grip and stood.

              She walked away without looking back.

~*~

A little bit dumbfounded, Aidan was still sitting on the wall ten minutes later, plucking absently at his hair, when his dad came striding through in his typical broom handle-up-the-ass military strut.

              He stopped, pivoted on one heel, and gave Aidan The Stare. Similar to Maggie’s Look, but less subtle. “You’re just sitting there?”

              Aidan lurched to his feet, surprised to feel the shakiness in his knees. “Headed back.”

              Another dose of Stare. “Chapel in ten,” Ghost said finally, and headed that way without waiting.

              Just as well. He had no intention of walking alongside the man.

              Aidan met his brothers coming out of the bike shop, Carter putting up the lunch sign and locking the door.

              “Brother,” Mercy said, laying a heavy arm across his shoulders and feigning confidentiality, though his voice was loud. “What in the name of all that’s unholy are you doing with that poor Sam Walton girl?”

              Carter said something under his breath that sounded like “choking her.”

              “Nothing,” Aidan said.

              “Nothing
yet
,” Mercy corrected. “But you’re trying to do something.
Oui
?”

              “I don’t speak French, asshole.”

              “Ah, but you speak Woman. And methinks you’re speaking the hell out of it to that girl.”

              “ ‘Methinks’? Now what the hell language are you using? – You know what, whatever. I don’t owe you an explanation.”

              “Sam went to school with us,” Tango said helpfully.

              Still holding Aidan in what was fast becoming a headlock, Mercy spoke over top of him. “Oh yeah, that’s what Ava said.” To Aidan: “Trying to rekindle something? Did you bang her in high school?”

              “What? No.” He tried to shrug the massive arm off his shoulders, but it held fast.

              “Sam was sort of a bookworm, sit-in-the-front-row kind of girl,” Tango said.

              “So she was too good for our boy here, is what you’re saying.”

              “Yep,” Tango said with a grin.

              They had reached the central office in their trek to the clubhouse, and Aidan ducked out of Mercy’s grasp with a decisive shove. “Fuck y’all. I’ll catch up in a sec.” Ignoring Merc’s hearty suggestions that he was a spoilsport, among other things, he left them behind and went into the office.

              Maggie darted him a glance as he entered, then refocused on the computer. “Hi, baby,” she said, half-distracted.

             
Baby
. She’d called him that from the beginning, when he’d been nothing to her but the snot-nosed kid of the man she was dating. He could remember her so vividly then, blonde hair flying in the window, with her red lipstick and Ghost’s jacket draped across her shoulders. She’d looked like a harpy at first sight. But her smile had been warm, and she’d pulled him into a hug, and called him baby. She’d never treated him as anything less than her own.

              And he’d insulted her.

              “Mags.”

              Something in his voice snared her full attention, and she pulled back from the keyboard, eyes coming to his face. “What’s the matter?”

              More of her warmth and concern, which he didn’t deserve.

              “The other morning,” he said, and found that it was hard to hold her gaze, wanting to squirm with shame. “At the house, the things I said…”

              Her lips pursed in understanding, and she nodded. “Don’t worry about it.”