Mask of a Hunter

by Sylvie Kurtz

  Her hands clamped against his wrists and the ridges of her fingertips connected with each beat of his pulse. When was the last time he’d been so aware of anyone? This was all Falconer’s fault for making him responsible for her well-being.

  “Don’t do that again.” She speared him with a frosty gaze that contrasted with the heated flush of her cheeks and the molten gold of her eyes. Bedroom eyes. A shiver of anticipation torqued through him. He throttled back a curse. He was used to having women look at him with that kind of heat. This should not rattle him. “Ever.”

  She wasn’t his type. He went for tall, uncomplicated women who didn’t care for strings. And Rory came with a whole snarled ball of knotted strings. Way too complicated. But this wasn’t a relationship; it was a necessity if she was to navigate through gang territory without getting lost. Taking responsibility was a character flaw, and Falconer had gone and made him responsible for her hide.

  Keeping his hand solidly planted by her head, he down-shifted the rev of his pulse. “What do you know about the way gangs work?”

  Her eyes pinched, wary once more. “Not much.”

  “It’s a tough world you’re walking into, Rory.” Damn if he didn’t want to taste those lips again, feel that sweet fire stoke him. “It doesn’t work by the rules you were brought up to believe in. The gang’s a man’s world.”

  “Then maybe what it needs is a woman to shake things up. Muscle isn’t the only way to get to the heart of something.”

  Her tongue darted out, wetting her lips. He swallowed hard.

  “Not muscle, sweetheart. Male bonding. That’s something you can’t do. No one’s going to talk to you. Not when they have to answer to Mike.”

  She snubbed the truth with a gooselike honk. “But they’ll talk to you. Because you have a penis.”

  “You got it.”

  She rescued a strand of her hair from beneath his palm, sparking a flash in her golden eyes when finger struck finger. “So you’re saying that to get anywhere, I’m going to have to go through you.”

  He jacked one shoulder, slanting closer, though everything in her sent out emergency flares ordering clearance. “Me or another guy. Thing is, you know where I stand. This is a job, nothing else. With them, it’s their life. And like I said, you’re not going to like the way their rules work. A biker chick knows her place. You don’t. Someone’s going to want to teach you a lesson.”

  “This is grossly primitive.” A hand fluttered at her neck.

  “No, sweetheart. It’s survival. And if you want to get something out of them, you’re going to have to color in the lines they draw.”

  Rory was right. She couldn’t act. But maybe that was to both their advantages. “As my old lady, you’re more likely to be tolerated.”

  She shrank against the wall as if he’d suggested they get down and dirty right here, right now. “That won’t work. No one would believe I’d choose someone like you.”

  “Ouch.” He grinned crookedly and twisted a corkscrew of hair around a finger. “They would if you stopped looking like you’d sucked a lemon when you’re around me. I’m told I’m quite charming.”

  “And modest, too.” Her eyes squared in annoyance. “Besides, I’m only here for a week.”

  He pushed away from her, giving her breathing space. “They don’t have to know that. Make them think you’re thinking more long-term. Ask about a job at the library.”

  She swiveled out of his reach and grabbed the handles of Hannah’s stroller. “What would that gain me?”

  “Acceptance.” He tweaked Hannah’s nose. She laughed and made him grin. “And maybe the answers you want.”

  Rory shoved at the hopeless mess her bun had become. “So where do these biker people hang out?”

  He curled his fingers against the urge to comb through the wild red temptation of Rory’s hair. “You can’t go to a biker bar on your own.”

  “Seems like a good place to meet people.” She smiled that saccharine smile he was coming to associate with him losing a round. “I’ll see you at the bar with the half motorcycle sticking out of the building at seven.”

  Before he could answer, she strollered Hannah around the building and onto the sidewalk.

  She’d maneuvered him into a neat corner. But what the heck? The Hangout was tame enough on Thursday nights. She’d get a taste of the fulfilling life of a biker chick. The chances she’d blow his cover were slim. Maybe an evening out would convince her she wasn’t the right person for the job of finding Felicia. Better she learn with him there to watch over her hide than stir up a bonfire of trouble on her own.

  And if the gods were smiling on him, she’d pack up and leave in the morning. He shook his head. “Yeah, right.”

  Before he headed back in, he took a detour to the warehouse. Felicia’s Vulcan was still up on its blocks. He tossed off the protective tarp. The red paint gleamed under the fluorescent lights. Clean. Too clean. He checked the tires and found soft earth caught in the treads. Fresh. Why had she taken the bike out and washed it before putting it back on its blocks as if it had been there all winter?

  Or maybe someone had done it for her.

  He let the tarp fall back into place and headed to the industrial shelving for a case of motor oil to take back to the shop. All around him metal shelves groaned with new and used car and motorcycle parts ready for sale.

  How hard was it for someone who owned and operated a garage stocked with used parts to make a car disappear?

  Chapter Four

  Lunch had gone well, Rory thought as she slipped onto a stool at the bar of The Hangout. With Felicia missing, Rory hated leaving her niece to anyone’s care, but Hannah was comfortable with Penny, and Rory needed to see and be seen—as Ace put it—in places that were not baby-appropriate.

  She was pretty sure Ace had agreed to meet her here tonight, but she didn’t see him anywhere. A quick glance at her watch told her she was on time. Of course, no self-respecting biker probably gave a hoot about getting anywhere on time—except maybe to a drug deal. Maybe not even then. Stop it! If she kept this up, she was going to drive herself crazy. Concentrate. She was here to gather information, not wallow in anxiety.

  “Want anything, honey?” the bartender with the greasy gray crew cut asked.

  “I’m waiting for someone.”

  Sitting at a bar wouldn’t normally fall under her choice of entertainment, but she was trying to step into Felicia’s shoes and walk a mile in them. And that mile couldn’t last more than a couple of weeks—less two days already—if she wanted to hang on to her job. That meant bending a few of her iron-clad rules of survival.

  She didn’t want to think about what would happen if she didn’t find Felicia in the time she had left.

  A clue, Felicia. Just give me a clue and I’ll find you.

  Absently, Rory cracked a peanut she’d taken from the bowl on the bar and swiveled to look around the back end of the room for Ace.

  The low lighting of the place imbued everyone inside with a soft edge—even the bikers swilling beer. Muted conversations buzzed around her. The barn-plank walls sported black-framed photos of women in various stages of undress, bikers and their motorcycles. Pool balls clinked on a table at the back end of the room. The two men playing there were too scrawny to be Ace. Along the wall, booths with high wooden backs gave a certain privacy to patrons. She didn’t spot Ace there either—with or without a bimbo wrapped around him.

  The waitresses wore barely there black shorts and tight white tops with plunging necklines. Looking at the jacked-up bosoms, she could understand why men called women’s breasts a rack. Took some sort of powerful bra to offer that kind of hydraulic support. Fake, she thought, as she glanced at the too-firm chest of the waitress strutting by with a full tray. Rory tugged at the hem of her denim jacket.

  She’d tried to dress for the occasion and figured a denim jacket and jeans would be proper biker-bar attire. Obviously she’d misjudged her intended audience. Compared to the other women
in the place, she looked like a mummy swaddled in linen wraps.

  The front door opened. Ace walked in, and she silently sighed her relief. She was beginning to think he’d stood her up. He paused at the door and scanned the room purposefully, challenging everyone inside. He was the biggest cat in the jungle and wanted everyone to know it. A beautiful animal, she reluctantly admitted. Egocentric and arrogant, too, but beautiful.

  No warmth showed in his dark eyes when he spotted her. He bellied up to the bar and ordered two beers before he deigned to acknowledge her. Great start, she thought. She didn’t even like beer.

  “Come here often?” She wished she could take back the peevish edge to her voice. It was nothing personal. She was the fish out of water and he was the native who was going to show her the lay of the land. He was acting a part, and according to her research this afternoon, that meant posturing like a chauvinist.

  “You want in, sweetheart, you’re going to have to leave your ego at the door.” His voice was low and had a dangerous purr to it.

  “I’m…yes, I’ll try.” She twirled the cold bottle, leaving a trail of condensation rings on the oak surface. “I did some research. I understand. It doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

  He turned his back to the oak bar and faced the room. “You have to realize that what you read and what is don’t always jibe.”

  She mirrored his pose, watching the men and women interacting as if they were specimens in a zoo viewing area. “So tell me then, Mr. Expert, why are women attracted to these kinds of men?”

  He took a draft from the bottle, then gave her a long searching look that had her putting out a search-and-rescue call for her breath. “The macho image. The illusion of freedom. There’s a certain kind of excitement about the lifestyle.”

  “But…” She shrugged. “Why would anyone want to be treated like…tissue—cheap and disposable?”

  “Don’t try to analyze it. Just try to feel it.”

  Feel it? Feel what? The underlying ripple of anger emanating from every man in the room? The self-loathing disguised as machismo? The male arrogance as pungent as sweat? Rory counted a dozen men wearing the biker uniform of choice. “Are they all Sons of Steel?”

  “Most.” He jerked his head toward the large patch on the back of the leather jacket of the man bending down over the pool table for a shot. “That’s a Sons of Steel. The ones without the fist and piston logo are wannabes.”

  Rory stored the information for future reference. “That makes you a wannabe.”

  “You catch on quick.”

  She decided to ignore the sarcastic edge to his voice. “Are you going to introduce me?”

  “That’s not how it works.”

  “Then how does it work?”

  “They set the pace.”

  One of her legs jittered against the rail of the stool. “So I’m supposed to just sit here and wait for someone to make the first move?”

  He crooked a grin. “You got it, sweetheart.”

  She frowned. “Stop it with that.”

  “What?”

  “The ‘sweetheart’ bit.”

  The smile now crept into his dark eyes, deepening the fan of lines at the corners. He was laughing at her. “Get used to it.”

  She looked away—at anything, but him. “I have no intentions of becoming compliant.”

  Yet her research had pointed out the importance of appearing subordinate around the men. It was like turning back the pages of history and landing back in the Stone Age.

  “Then you might as well go home.”

  “I can’t.” Felicia was all the family she had left. She needed to find her. She needed to bring her home. She needed, well, one last chance to make up for her mistakes. And according to Ace, she also needed him to accomplish the feat.

  The door opened and two men came in. One was short and squat and reminded Rory of a pug dressed up as a biker by its eccentric owner. Mud crusted his boots and the smell wafting from him reminded her of rotted garbage. The other man wasn’t as tall as Ace, but he was well-muscled. Rugged more than handsome. A scar ran like barbwire down the right side of his face. His dark, ponytailed hair matched equally dark eyes. His gaze flicked over her, then Ace. He nodded at Ace. Ace nodded back, acknowledging wary respect.

  “Show time,” Ace mumbled, draining the rest of his beer.

  “Who is he?” she whispered.

  “Deacon.” Ace turned his back to her, shutting her out.

  Patience. He’s playing his biker role right now. Wanting to appear comfortable in this smoky, smelly place, Rory sipped at her beer and tried not to cringe as she swallowed the bitter brew.

  Deacon sat at the bar and signaled for two beers. The bartender set one up in front of Deacon, the other in front of Ace. Neither she nor the pug were offered anything.

  “You work for Mike,” Deacon said. The chain linking his wallet to his belt clinked as he shifted on the stool to take in the room.

  “Tuned your bike last time you took it in.”

  “Clutch’s been sticking.” Deacon lifted his beer to his mouth.

  “Bring it in and I’ll take a look at it.”

  “I hear you spent time locked down.”

  Ace didn’t answer, and Rory wished she could see his face. Locked down? Did that mean prison? Was that part of his cover?

  “Makes some buggy,” Deacon said.

  Ace shrugged and drank a swallow of beer.

  “We got a hack on the payroll there. Pangborn. Delivers meth. You know him?” Deacon casually cracked a peanut open and shot the exposed meat into his mouth.

  Ace’s beer bottle was halfway up to his mouth. He slowly put it back down on the bar’s scarred oak surface and pushed it away.

  “Something wrong with the beer?” Deacon asked.

  Ace faced Deacon, and Rory feared a fight was about to break out. Quickly, she located the exit sign.

  “What’s wrong is the person who bought it.” Ace’s voice was low and hard. “If there’s a guard named Pangborn, he was hired after I got out. I don’t like your face or the chinless lap dog busy licking your boots.”

  Pool balls stopped clicking. Glasses stopped clinking. Conversations stopped in mid sentence.

  Then soft laughter erupted from Deacon. He punched Ace on the shoulder. “I love it. You’re right about Tank here being a lapdog. But he’s got his uses, you know. He’s real good at sniffing out excrement.”

  Tank gave the sort of lip-curling smile that indicated he loved spending time nose-deep in manure.

  The entire room exploded with laughter and conversation resumed.

  Deacon jerked his chin in Rory’s direction. “That your old lady?”

  “Trying her on for size.”

  Rory hoped her wince didn’t show.

  The men resumed a conversation peppered with motorcycle parts and performance. She could have been a fly on the wall, a spent peanut shell on the bar, a dirty napkin on the floor for all the attention her presence got. Was silent suffering the correct reaction for a biker’s woman? Rory crunched another peanut shell between her fingers and peeled the red paper skin off the nuts. She wasn’t a biker woman. Everyone knew she was Felicia’s sister. There was no need to play any other role.

  She watched Ace and this Deacon person interact in a leisurely, relaxed fashion. Even if she agreed to pretend to be Ace’s “woman,” it was important for her to stay true to herself. As Felicia’s sister she might decide to stay in Summersfield. She might decide to take up with one of the locals. But she would draw the line at complete subservience.

  Glancing at her watch, she inwardly groaned. Only an hour, but it felt like days. Enough. Ace wasn’t going to introduce her to anyone. He thought her incapable of adjusting and fitting in. But how could she prove she was if he didn’t give her a chance? She didn’t need him. She’d find another way to talk to these people.

  Without saying a word, she rose and walked out of The Hangout and into the cold night air. Breathing in deeply of breeze u
ntainted by cigarette smoke and testosterone, she started back toward Felicia’s apartment.

  The town common was deserted. The bushes surrounding the veterans’ statue now appeared to be perfect hiding places for thugs and thieves. All the shop windows were black and the poles bare of flags. Old-fashioned streetlamps cast pools of yellow light on the sidewalk, exaggerating the shadows of nearby buildings. Now and then a car swept by as slowly as a predator hunting for prey. Rory clenched her tote bag close to her side and wrapped her hand around the can of Mace she’d placed in the pocket of her denim jacket.

  A few minutes later, determined footsteps echoed on the sidewalk behind her. Gripping the can of Mace, Rory whirled to face her attacker. “Oh, it’s you.”

  Ace caught up to her. “You shouldn’t have left.”

  Too aware that he towered over her, she curled her shoulders against the wind and kept walking. “You turned your back on me and pretended I wasn’t there. What else was I supposed to do?”

  “Wait.”

  “I’m not a biker woman.”

  “Biker chick.”

  “Whatever.” She eased her grip on the can. “You were supposed to introduce me.”

  “You left.”

  “You made me look bad.”

  “You’re the one who was sitting with your nose stuck up in the air as if you couldn’t stand the stink.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t usually frequent bars.”

  “You can bet everyone in there knew that.”

  “I’m not a biker chick.” She tripped over the word. “I’m Felicia’s sister. It doesn’t matter if I’m comfortable in a bar or not.”

  “It does if you want them to spill their guts.”

  He had a point. She’d felt uncomfortable and had more than likely looked it. “Who was that Deacon person?”

  “President of the Sons of Steel.”

  “You seemed on edge.”

  “He was checking me out.”

  “Is that good or bad?”