No Way Out

by Simone Scarlet

  I looked at this big, beautiful man and felt my heart swell.

  “A new start is a new opportunity,” I told him. “I watched Daddy run this place for a lifetime… Maybe it’s time I took a different direction.”

  Mason’s brow furrowed.

  “What did you have in mind?”

  Straightening up, I brushed Barney’s hairs from the front of my dress, and asked: “Do you remember the wine from last night?”

  “Vaguely,” Mason admitted. “I mean, it was good… But I kind of got distracted by something before I could really take the time to appreciate it.”

  My cheeks burned and my ass throbbed at the memory.

  “Hungry Hawk is a vineyard that’s not too far from here,” I told him. “There are a few in the area.”

  I gestured towards the stripped dirt, and empty tunnels.

  “I was thinking… Instead of replanting cannabis, and going through all the hassle again with licensing, and the police, and the risk of something like…” I gulped. “Like what happened happening again…”

  “Grapes,” Mason interrupted me.

  Well, he didn’t really interrupt me. He just completed my thought.

  “Yeah,” I nodded, turning to look lovingly up at Mason, and reach out to take his hand. “I thought we could grow grapes here, instead.”

  “I like how you said ‘we’,” Mason teased me.

  My cheeks burned.

  “I didn’t mean to…”

  “No,” he winked, squeezing my hand. “I’m down for the ‘we’ bit.” He turned his icy blue eyes out towards the land. “I’m just not sure I know a lot about growing grapes.”

  I laughed at that.

  “As opposed to what you knew about growing cannabis?”

  “Ha,” it was Mason’s turn to blush. “I guess you got me there.”

  I laughed, and squeezed his hand.

  “The statute said we could only grow two acres of cannabis,” I explained. “So, that means we’ve got nearly thirty acres that’s just dirt and meadow. We could grow a lot of grapes on that.”

  Mason looked at me, and I wasn’t sure if he was impressed, or bemused.

  Eventually, I concluded that it was the former.

  “I guess we start small,” he told me. “Maybe sell our grapes to the local winemakers, until we’ve got enough capital and know-how to make our own wine…”

  He laughed bitterly.

  “But that’s going to cost money, baby. A lot of money. And in case you didn’t remember, I quit my job yesterday.”

  I stared up at Mason, and smiled at him in that same way my late mother had used to smile at my father – when she knew something that he didn’t.

  “About that,” I told him, and gently yanked his hand.

  Mason narrowed his eyes, but obediently followed me.

  I led him off the porch, over to my old Pontiac Sunfire.

  This was going to be fun.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Mason

  What the hell was this beautiful girl playing at?

  Tugging my arm with one slender hand, Christi hopped off the porch and dragged me to her car. The top was still down, and the vinyl seats glistened with morning dew.

  She released my hand as we got to the car, and walked around to pop the tiny trunk.

  I just watched her, bemused by her actions, but drinking in how beautiful she looked in that cute, almost-see-through summer dress.

  From the open trunk, Christi pulled out a thick, fully-stuffed FedEx envelope – practically bursting at the seams.

  She stepped over to me, and offered it up the same way a proud cat will serve up a half-eaten mouse to their owner.

  Suspiciously, I took the envelope.

  “That arrived yesterday morning,” she explained to me, as I studied the thick package. “I have a post office box that it got delivered to.”

  I peered at the envelope. The address on it was Phoenix, Arizona – and I didn’t recognize the name…

  Then it clicked.

  “Holy shit,” I breathed.

  Christi’s smile widened as she heard that.

  Fingers trembling, I opened the top of the envelope – dreading what I’d find inside.

  Out burst two stacks of banknotes – followed by a deluge more, as I tipped the envelope over.

  There were nine or ten, inch-thick stacks of banknotes in there – twenties and hundreds, all crumpled and used.

  What must that have been? Two hundred grand?

  “C-Christi,” I looked up. “What the hell?”

  She just stood there, crossing her arms in front of her, and smiling that sexy, mysterious smile of hers.

  “There’s a note inside,” she told me. “I opened it yesterday morning.”

  And there was – a hand-written note on a sheet of legal paper, casually folded and stuffed into the bottom of the envelope.

  I recognized the handwriting before I’d even pulled it out.

  Christi,

  Hope you’re safe, and you and Recon are together, and my plan worked with the cops and Feds.

  If you two stuck to the story, they’re off searching for those two dickbag cops – even though by the time they find ‘em, the two of them will be nothing but sun-bleached bones.

  Me and the boys stopped off in Phoenix as planned. I ain’t writing where we’re going next, but with the haul we made from your dad’s place, I can promise you the weather will be good, and the tequila will be flowing freely.

  Before we parted company, Recon made me promise to ‘do right by you’ – and, in all honesty, I figured I was just by letting the bastard live. But when we got paid for what we took, I started to get what you normal people call ‘feelings’ and I didn’t like it one goddamned bit.

  So, in this envelope you’ll find your share. It’s not the half million that Recon asked for, because I took a percentage out in return for letting his ass live. But it’s a good chunk of money.

  And you deserve it, kitten. For what those cops did to you. For what I did to you. You’re a good kid, and even though no woman will ever replace my Bertha, I kind of loved you – or as close to it as a leathery old son of a bitch can get.

  So, I hope this money helps, and I hope it makes us even. You won’t be seeing me, or the Knuckleheads again – but just know that I appreciated every mile I rode with you, and every night I spent fucking your little brains out.

  I hope Recon takes care of you. He might have double-crossed me, but I know he’s a Ranger at heart, and that still means something in my book.

  Be good, kitten. Be happy. Make me proud.

  Coyle

  I read the letter in stunned silence.

  I never would have expected it. Not from a man like Coyle.

  But as he’d demonstrated when he let me live, instead of executing me in front of his gang…

  Coyle was a man who was only predictable in his unpredictability.

  As I raised my eyes from the note, I saw Christi bundling up the banknotes, and stuffing them back into the envelope.

  “I have no idea how much it costs to start a vineyard,” she told me, looking up into my eyes. “But it sure is a start.”

  And that much was true. Once again, Coyle had defied our expectations, and demonstrated that the heartless leader of the Knuckleheads wasn’t quite so heartless after all.

  I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around Christi’s slender frame.

  She sunk gratefully into my embrace, resting her head against my chest.

  Like that, wrapped in each other’s arms, we turned and looked out across the wide expanse of Christi’s farm.

  It didn’t look like much now – but soon, it would be born again.

  Just like Christi and I had been, after our months of riding with the Knuckleheads.

  It had been a wild ride, and there were parts both good and bad that would linger with us forever.

  But one thing was certain:

  If it wasn’t for Coyle, and the Knuckle
heads, I’d have never had the opportunity to meet Christi.

  And as I stood there, with my arms wrapped around her slender body, I realized what a gift that had truly been.

  I’d been thinking I should have been grateful to Coyle for sparing my life the other night…

  …but just then, I realized I wouldn’t have had a life worth sparing, if I hadn’t met Christi.

  So, Coyle had saved my life twice, if you looked at it. And as Christi and I embraced, I made myself promise that I’d do right by that leathery old bastard – by making sure that the life he’d given me would be one worth living – and that I’d be living it with Christi right by my side.

  I turned my head and looked down into her beautiful face.

  It would take months to transform this farm, and years to watch it grow.

  But that just made me excited to think of how things would grow with Christi during that time.

  With the gift Coyle had given us, we wouldn’t just be planting grapes. We’d be planting the seed of a whole new life together.

  Christi looked up at me, and we kissed.

  She’d done the impossible. She’d taken a broken, lonely, nomadic old soldier like me – and she’d inspired him to plant roots. And as long as we were together, whatever grew from those roots would be beautiful.

  I kissed Christi once again, drinking in the taste of her lips. And then I turned to looked out once more across the sweeping vista of the farm.

  Today was the first day of our brand-new lives together – and I couldn’t have been more excited.

  The End

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you for reading this book!

  Thanks so much to my Advanced Readers, who kindly provided early reviews in exchange for a free copy, and for all of my subscribers who continue to give me encouragement and faith to keep writing.

  And thanks to you, for reading this novel. There is nothing that means more to a writer than knowing that people visit the worlds we’ve made up in our head – and hopefully leave with a smile on their face. You’re the best.

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  I look forward to hearing from you! And thanks again!

  Love, kisses and other indoor sports,

  Simone Scarlet

  New York, 2018