by Jessie Cooke
“About fucking time!” she snapped when she saw him. He’d never seen her before. He had been with a lot of women over the past year, but he was sure he’d remember this one. At the same time, he wasn’t surprised that she knew who he was. Everyone on the Southside knew who he was. Okay, almost everyone. But he knew it wouldn’t be long. He didn’t say a word now, but he kept his eyes on hers as he slowly took one step at a time down toward her. Fuck, she was hot. She was petite, but her tits were huge and barely covered by one of those handkerchief/bandanna halter tops. It was bright yellow with blue flowers on it. She had on a matching wraparound skirt, tied low on her hips so that her tan hipbones showed just above it and alongside a flat, sexy stomach. Her hair was blonde and looked bleached by the sun. It hung down to her waist in spiral curls and she had a scarf, which matched the outfit she was wearing, tied around the top of her head. Huge gold hoop earrings graced a tiny pair of ears and hung down to a pair of tan shoulders, and her skin looked like silk. Her light-blue eyes were locked into his and there was a fire burning behind them that made him want to throw her down on the floor and fuck her…Right. Fucking. There.
She didn’t take a step back when his boots hit the floor, and something about how she stood her ground made his still half-hard cock throb. “Well, hello, beautiful,” he said with a smile. He saw her right hand coming up out of the corner of his eye and he grabbed it by her skinny wrist with his big left hand before it made it to his face. Her left hand was already moving, and he grabbed that too.
“Let go of me!” she screamed. He could feel all the muscles in her arms tensing up.
“So you can hit me, or scratch me? I don’t think so. Who the fuck are you?” He felt her arms relax, but he wasn’t fooled. Just as her leg started to bend and her knee head for his crotch, he flipped her around so that her arms were twisted up behind her pack and she was facing away from him. That only made the little wildcat more determined to kick him. He let go of her arms, wrapped his quickly around her chest, and picked her up off her feet. As he carried her through the great room, everyone stared, some of them smirked, and fucking Hawk was laughing his stupid ass off. They would all be lucky if he didn’t wire the old clubhouse up with explosives while they were sleeping tonight and send them all straight to hell. “In the office, Hawk, now!” he barked at the laughing fool. His fucking road-name should be Hyena.
Doc’s chin was going to be bruised, and when he tossed the little polecat down into one of the office chairs, she came at him with her claws and drew blood on one of his arms. “Fuck!” He pushed her back down in the chair and as she tried to come at him again he yelled at Hawk, “Duct tape!” She froze.
“No! I won’t be tied up like an animal.”
“Then stop fucking acting like an animal. Stay in that chair and I’ll give you five minutes to tell me what’s got you so pissed. Get up again and you’ll find yourself hogtied in an irrigation ditch. Got it?” She didn’t answer him, but she didn’t move either. He left her there and went around to take the seat at the head of the table. He took a bandanna out of his pocket and pressed it into the fresh scratches on his arm. Hawk sat next to him, still smirking. Some days Doc wasn’t sure why the fuck he kept him around. “Talk,” he told the woman. As he looked at her across the table he wished she wasn’t so fucking hot. He was having a hard time thinking about anything other than what he wanted to do to her.
“You killed my grandfather,” she spat at him. He supposed that was a possibility, but he’d need a name, and maybe more to be sure. He looked at Hawk. Hawk looked as lost as he was and shrugged.
“What was your grandfather’s name?”
“David Paxton.” Doc again looked at Hawk. Hawk shook his head and shrugged again. It was probably a good thing he’d left his piece up in the room, because he might be tempted to shoot the worthless motherfucker.
“I don’t think I did.”
“Trust me, you did!”
He rolled his eyes and sighed. “Can we back up here? How exactly did your grandfather die?”
“He died of a broken heart,” she said. Her pretty eyes were filling with tears and as vulnerable and sexy as she looked, Doc was beginning to wonder if it was possible that she was mentally unstable. He waited and when she didn’t go on he looked at Hawk and said:
“I told you I was too fucking charming. I’m even breaking old men’s hearts now.” The little woman pulled the gun out from under her skirt so quickly that Doc didn’t even have a chance to react. But Hawk saw it coming, thankfully, and Doc remembered in an instant why he kept him around. The woman was on the floor, on her stomach with her hands behind her back, and Hawk had the gun to her head. Doc got up and walked around where she was screaming and scratching at the floor. He waited for her to settle down slightly before saying, “I’ve never killed a woman. I’ve never ordered one killed. I’ve never even put my hands on one in anger before. But little girl, you are testing my fucking patience. I’m walking away now and going back upstairs to finish what I was in the middle of when you came in here screaming like a lunatic. Hawk here is going to show you off the ranch. You won’t be let back on, and if you try…the orders up front will be shoot to kill. Now you have a nice day.”
Without saying another word and knowing Hawk would do exactly what he’d just told the woman he would, Doc left. When he walked back out into the great room he saw Jamie, sitting in Coyote’s lap. He gestured at her with his head and she got up and met him at the bottom of the stairs. The look in Coyote’s eyes told Doc everything he needed to know about what the man was thinking…but, as long as he was smart enough to keep his mouth shut about it, they were okay…for now.
4
“Her name is Dallas Paxton.” Doc sat at the table where Hawk was sitting, shoveling French toast into his mouth and gulping coffee. He didn’t ask what the girl’s name was…but he hadn’t been able to get her off his mind. “Her grandfather was the old man that threatened the boys with a shotgun and refused to leave his place.”
“Fuck, the old geezer with the pot?”
“Yep. The one Duckie called the sheriff on.” Doc had thought it ironic the day his realtor called to tell him that he’d had to call the cops to evict an old man and a young woman off one of the plots of land they’d bought. There were thirty acres of farmland spread out around the six acres the Skulls already owned when Doc took over the ranch. Ten of those acres had been bought easily. They had been for sale for quite some time, ever since Carlisle was arrested and people in the farming community realized their peaceful part of the world was going to shit. The Skulls had gotten a great deal on the acreage, but the old man’s place had been right in the center of it. Doc had done some finagling and the bank loan officer with a cocaine problem had done a little more. When the bank called the old man’s loan, Doc had sent the guys out to make him an offer. It was generous, at least Doc thought so. The old man had chased them off the property. That had been three months ago. The bank finally foreclosed on it the month before, and the sheriff had to physically remove the old man and his granddaughter. Doc hadn’t thought anymore about it except to chuckle when he was told the entire basement was filled with marijuana plants and growing equipment. “Old guy had a heart attack two weeks ago. Had fucking nothing to do with us…he was seventy-eight years old, for Christ’s sake. That nutcase granddaughter of his is damned lucky you wanted her left breathing.”
Doc laughed. “She give you a run for your money getting her off the property?”
Hawk straightened his arm. There were three long scratches almost identical to the ones that she’d left on Doc’s arm. Then he put his leg out from under the table and pulled up the leg of his jeans. Even through all the hair Doc could see a dark purple bruise on Hawk’s shin. Hawk was a ruthless SOB; Doc wondered if the girl had any idea how lucky she was. “I tried just putting her outside the gates but an hour later Izzy called and told me she was still out there, screaming obscenities and harassing everyone coming on or off the property. So,
I rustled me up that new prospect, James, and I tossed her in the back of the van and we escorted her all the way home. She’s got an apartment in Dorchester, piece of shit, rundown place. She was hollering as we took her out of the van, telling people we kidnapped her and shit. Nobody cared. Hell, James got two buys while we were there.”
Doc shook his head, still smiling as he pictured the woman. By all rights he shouldn’t be so amused by her, but he was. And not just amused…turned on as hell. He’d fucked the shit out of Jamie the night before, the entire time pretending it was Dallas Paxton, whose name he hadn’t known at the time. He liked the name and now that he knew it, he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to easily forget it. Doc took out the notepad that he always carried in his pocket and asked Hawk for her address. Hawk gave him a look that said he knew what Doc wanted it for and didn’t approve, but for once he was smart enough to keep his mouth shut.
“What I came down here to talk to you about was Carlisle,” Doc told Hawk, who finally finished his French toast. Amy, one of the club girls, raced right over to pick up the plate, bending down too far as she did, so that her tits were almost completely exposed to Hawk, who didn’t pass up an opportunity to look down her blouse.
“Can I get you anything else, Hawk?”
“How about one of them Bloody Marys you do so well, baby?”
She smiled as she straightened up. “Sure. Doc? You want anything?”
“Coffee.” Doc and Hawk both watched her ass as she walked away. She used to bartend at their favorite bar but somewhere along the way Hawk had recruited her out to the club. Doc got the feeling Amy pictured herself as an old lady someday. That would change as soon as she really got to know Hawk, Doc was sure.
“Is it time?” Hawk asked, when the girl was out of earshot. Conversations like the one they were having would normally take place in the office or the meeting room if they were going to share it at church. But it was nine a.m. and all the men that worked the night before were still asleep and the rest of them were already out hustling. It was just Hawk and the girls, and the club girls knew the rules. If Doc or anyone caught them trying to be a part of club business, they were out on their ass with whatever they’d walked in with.
“He’s outlived his usefulness,” Doc said.
“Rat got the accounts all in order?” Over the past year, Doc had funneled over $300,000 into about five separate accounts that Carlisle would be able to access when he got out of prison. One account was used to transfer money to Doc’s books every month, but in the past year that only amounted to a little over a thousand bucks. Doc wanted his money back, and his accountant Rat and their communications genius, a guy named Paul, who recently learned how to hack into the brand-new computer system at the bank, had been working on that end of it for over a week. Rat had just notified him that morning that it was done. Doc didn’t trust computers. In his mind they were an instrument of the government and he assumed that any information put into one was filtered straight into some command center like the communications centers they had when he was in the army. But he was also smart enough to realize that times were changing, and Paul assured him that nothing he was doing could be traced back to the club. Trust was hard for Doc, but sometimes in his business it was a necessary evil.
“Yep,” Doc said, in answer to Hawk’s question. They fell silent when Amy delivered their drinks. Hawk smacked her on the butt and winked at her while she was there. As soon as she left he said:
“Making it look like suicide?”
“Nah, nobody’s gonna believe that old narcissist killed himself. He loves himself way too much. Treager’s gonna arrange for something to go down.” Treager was a corrections officer that Doc had brought over to his side. Unfortunately for Treager it wasn’t by his choice. Doc had sent guys out to find out what they could about every CO with access to Carlisle, and Treager’s gambling addiction played right into his hands.
“You don’t think that CO will break?”
“He’s got way too much to lose. He’s got an ex-wife collecting alimony and gearing up to collect half his pension when he retires, two kids in college, a new wife not much older than those two kids who’s pregnant, and two mortgages. Plus, he owes a bookie over a hundred grand.”
Hawk whistled through his teeth and said, “If he was smart, he’d off himself.” Doc had that thought himself. People got themselves into some heavy shit. He did hope Treager didn’t decide life was no longer worth it. Even when Carlisle was gone, Doc could foresee having a CO on the payroll as being useful. He was tired of talking about Carlisle, though. Like he said, the man had far outlived his usefulness. It was time for the world to know that the Skulls weren’t surviving and thriving thanks to some old, fat gangster living in a 6 x 6 cell. The Southside Skulls was his now and he was going to take it to heights that no MC had seen before.
“Are you kidding me?” Dallas was talking out loud to the almost empty apartment. She did that a lot now that her grandfather was gone. She dropped the curtain and ran down the hallway to her bedroom. Opening the closet, she stared at her grandfather’s rifle that she’d only just gotten back from the sheriff’s department a few days before. Commonsense was poking at the edges of what she wanted to do with it. It would feel so good to put a hole in the center of that arrogant outlaw, but even murderers of losers go to prison and Dallas had to be free. With a sigh that was more of a growl, she slammed the closet shut just as the knocking began to sound on the front door. She stormed back down the hallway and ripped the door open.
Doc Marshall’s incredibly blue eyes started on her face, but like a trail of hot lava they moved slowly down the rest of her body and back up, before settling on her face once again. It pissed her off, but mostly because it left butterflies in her belly. He smiled then, making it that much worse. Why doesn’t God at least make criminals as ugly on the outside as they are in? “Hello there.”
“Hello there? Seriously? I’m sure you’re here to make my life even more miserable, if that’s possible…and you open with ‘Hello there?’”
His body shook with a silent laugh. He was laughing at her and that pissed her off too. “I’m not here to make your life miserable, Dallas.” The way he said her name made the butterflies in her belly flap their wings. Damned traitorous body!
“Just looking at you makes me miserable,” she said. That wasn’t exactly a lie. Just because God blessed him with everything a man should have on the outside, and more, didn’t mean she still didn’t loathe him.
He smiled again, like her hatred amused him. “Well then, I’ll make this quick.” He reached into his pocket, and she flinched. Damn it! The last thing she wanted to show him was fear. He was probably like a dog and could smell it. He raised an eyebrow like he was surprised that she might think he was going for a weapon. Instead though, he pulled out a wad of cash, rolled up into what looked like a small roll of toilet paper and secured with a rubber band. He held it out to her and she looked at it like it was a snake, about to bite her.
“What is that? Hush money?”
He laughed out loud at that. “Darlin’, I bought your granddaddy’s place legally. You’re welcome to pull up the public records and take a look. I didn’t say a word to the law about that garden in the basement either.” Her face went hot. Damn him! “Point is, I got no reason to want to hush you about anything.”
“So, you’re paying me for my grandfather’s death?”
He laughed again. “If you aren’t the most stubborn…”
“I don’t want your dirty money,” she said, taking a step back and slamming the door in his face. As soon as she did, her chest began to hurt and she felt like she couldn’t breathe. She didn’t want his dirty money, but damned if she didn’t need it. Her grandpa had left her with nothing and when he died she had less than a thousand dollars in the bank. She’d rented the apartment before he died and thought they would at least have the retirement check he got every month to live off of until she found a job. But she was nineteen and she’d
never had a real job, so no one was calling her back. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do…the only way she’d ever known to make a living was that greenhouse in the basement. But she’d starve before she took money from that gangster and his ilk. Probably soon.
5
“Order up!” Joe’s deep voice was grating on Dallas’s nerves today more than usual. After searching for weeks and spending every cent of money she had, she finally landed a job at a greasy spoon in a bad neighborhood. The tips and the one free meal a day had kept her alive that week, even though they amounted to only pennies a day. She just had to pray that her first check at the end of the week would be enough after taxes to pay her rent. She was already behind and her landlord…or slumlord as he was called more often…actually scared her. She didn’t want to have to ask him for more time, especially since she was sure he’d say no. On top of all of that, every time she turned around, one of those bikers seemed to be watching her. Most of the time it wasn’t the blue-eyed devil himself, but they were watching her, and she didn’t know why. “Dallas!”
“I heard you, old man, do I look deaf?” she snapped at Joe, her boss.
“You sure are a sassy thing for a girl with no experience who practically crawled in here on her hands and knees begging me for a job.”
She sighed and wiped the sweat off her forehead with her wrist. Her wild tresses were tied back as well as she could get them, but still, every so often a thick lock would escape and stick to her face…the spots the flies hadn’t already taken up, that is. “I’m sorry, Joe. I’m just feeling a little bit stressed today.” She picked up the two plates in the window and carried them around the counter and over to the booth where two middle-aged men in cheap suits waited. They looked like traveling salesmen. She’d been avoiding them since she poured their coffee and took their orders. Something about the way they looked at her gave her the creeps.
