“I will.”
“So, I’m off.” He turned, and she took a second to enjoy the view. With those strange eyes and blond hair, Silver practically glowed with an unreal light. Add in the fact that he was built… like, seriously built, and you were on to a winner. According to Wolf, the man was a black-belt in karate and practiced religiously. That certainly explained the body and the calm strength, and she admired how his muscles shifted and moved under his clothes.
“Yeah,” she said. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow night.”
“You’re coming to the party?”
“I am. Wolf talked me into it.”
“Excellent… you’ll let me buy you a shot?”
“A shot, huh?” Despite her intentions to stay distant and aloof, she found herself teasing him suddenly, her naturally bright personality bubbling on up to the surface. “You got a specific one in mind?”
“An Orgasm?” he quipped. “Sex On The Beach?”
“Not a Blow Job?”
“Aw, doll. Your pleasure first.”
She laughed, liking him just fine now, not feeling any menacing vibes from this one. “Yeah, we’ll see.”
“Take it easy, Zee.” He set the key down on the kitchen counter. “You need me, you call.”
“Thanks. I will.”
She shut the door behind him and looked around, still slightly disbelieving that it was all happening so fast. She’d been in Denver for less than seven hours, and she had a job that paid well, she had an amazing house for her and Keira to live in, and she had her best friend back. Life was weird, no doubt about that, but it was also pretty damn good.
**
Wolf cursed and slammed his cell on the coffee table. The redhead on his lap jumped.
“Something wrong?” she asked tentatively.
“Yeah.” With no effort at all, he lifted her off his dick, set her down on the sofa next to him. “Play time’s over, baby. I gotta go.”
Right away, Alyssa pouted. “But we just got started.”
“Yeah, I know.” He was already on his feet, taking off the condom, zipping up his jeans. “But it’s work.”
“You’ll be back soon?”
“No. I’m leavin’ town. Take care now.”
Without another word, Wolf spun and left the room. He had the courtesy to shut the door so she could struggle back into her minute panties and tiny skirt with some privacy, but his mind was already up in Fort Collins, at the Warriors MC clubhouse. He needed to have a face-to-face with their Prez and now… no waiting on this one.
He cursed again, pulled out his cell, pushed the button for Scars’ phone. He waited impatiently, and the second he heard his VP’s voice, he launched right in.
“Yeah, man. I just talked to Mace up in Fort Collins. We got a problem.”
Scars put down his burger. “I’m listening.”
“Dawson and his boys were up there last night, tryin’ to pull the Warriors into some of their shady deals for Jensen.”
“What the fuck?” Scars said. “Mace’s guys don’t do anything dirty. They never have. Dawson knows that.”
“I know. But Mace said there was quote ‘pressure’ unquote.”
“What kind?”
“Not so subtle. Dawson said that Jensen would ‘very much appreciate the Warriors’ cooperation’, and their decision to not cooperate would be ‘very disappointing’. End quote.”
“Damn.”
“Uh-huh.”
“They worried?”
“Hell, yeah, they’re worried. I gotta go up there now and talk to them. They want to know just who the hell Dawson and his guys are, and nobody knows better than us.”
“Yeah, of course. You want me to come with you?”
“Naw, I got this. You finish up with the suppliers, and come on back to Denver.”
“Sure.” Scars closed his eyes, pissed off all over again at Dawson. “Anything else?”
“Yeah. I hired Zee.”
“You what?” Scars sat up straight in the restaurant booth.
“Yeah. She starts part-time on Monday.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Nope. You’ll meet her tomorrow night, at the party. Keep an eye on her for me, huh?”
“You won’t be back by then?”
“I don’t think so, or if I am, it’ll be late. I’ll drop by the clubhouse if things are still goin’ on, though, fill you in right away in person.”
“OK.”
“Thanks, man. And really… watch Zee, alright?”
Something in his President’s tone caught Scars’ attention. “Why? Is something wrong?”
“No.” Wolf kicked the bar door open, headed over to his motorcycle. “She just doesn’t know anyone except me, and she may feel a bit overwhelmed. Make sure she’s OK at the bar and make sure she gets home safe.”
“I will.”
“Thanks, man.” Wolf straddled his motorcycle and sighed. “I gotta go home and pack a bag, and then I’m out of here.”
“Call if you need backup. I can be there in two hours.”
“Yeah. See you tomorrow night, I hope.”
Chapter Four
The next morning, Zoe struggled up the steps to the house, her arms loaded down with grocery shopping. This was her third trip out and back in four hours, and she was ready to collapse on the floor. But first she had to unpack her beloved mint chocolate-chip ice cream.
She dragged herself across the living room to the kitchen, plunked the bags on the counter, started to unpack the food. She did that, and then with nothing but happiness in her heart, she fell on the sofa, exhausted.
As she lay there with her eyes closed, she worked hard to summon the energy to drive the twenty-plus miles out of the city to IKEA. She groaned aloud at the thought of facing the Saturday crowds, but Keira needed a crib and a changing table, so Zoe’s choices were limited here. If she had more time, Zoe would find something second-hand, but the baby would be there tomorrow, and shoving her in a dresser drawer to sleep was a no-go.
“Argh,” she muttered to herself. “OK, move your ass, Zoe. Baby needs a bed.”
She got to her feet, took a deep breath. Just then her cell rang. She glanced at the number, answered.
“Hey, Wolf,” she said. “What’s up? How’s Fort Collins?”
“I just wanted to let you know that I for sure won’t make it to the party tonight,” he said, his voice rough. “I’ll need to stay here another night.”
“Things not going well?”
“Things are fine. I just want to make sure all the loose ends are tied up.”
She knew better than to ask what that meant. Yeah, the Road Devils may have been running their businesses legally, but she wasn’t so damn sure about more personal shit. And what Dawson had done was nothing but personal.
“Yeah, OK.” She shifted her weight a bit, trying to stretch out her sore lower back. “So I won’t show up either.”
“What?” Wolf blinked. “How come?”
“Because I don’t know anybody but you, Wolf.”
“You know Kansas and Silver.”
“Um. Not really.” She sighed. “Besides, I’m wiped out, and I still have to head out to Centennial.”
“What for?” His tone sharpened. “What’s out there?”
“IKEA.”
“You have furniture, Zee.”
“Not a crib or changing table.”
“Aw, fuck. Of course. Sorry, baby girl… I forgot about that.”
“It’s not your job to remember, Wolf. It’s mine. But I’ve been running in and out all morning buying clothes and food, and now I have to drive all the way out of town, and fight the weekend crowds at IKEA, then haul everything home and assemble it… it’ll take me hours, and the last thing I’ll feel like doing after is meeting a bunch of scary bikers.”
“They ain’t scary.” Wolf considered. “Much.”
“No, it’s OK. I’ll meet them another time. God, I’ll be smack next door to the bar and the club
house five days a week. Meeting them is inevitable.”
“So skip the party, Zee, if that’s what you want. But no way I’m lettin’ you deal with all this furniture crap on your own.”
She cocked her head. “Huh?”
“Yeah. Not happenin’. I’ll send a few of the boys out to IKEA this afternoon in a cage, and they’ll bring you everything and put it together. What exactly do you need?”
For one of the very few times in her life, Zoe was utterly, completely, totally stunned. The thought of a pack of scowling, leather-clad bikers descending on IKEA’s baby section and perusing cribs – among the happy families, and young couples, and glowing mommies-to-be – was literally breathtaking. Unable to stop herself, she giggled… and she never giggled.
“What?” Wolf said. “What’s funny?”
“Where do I begin?”
“What?”
“Nothing.” She took a deep breath. “Look, it’s OK. I can handle it.”
“Baby girl.” His voice gentled. “I know you been handlin’ things on your own for a while now, and you don’t ask for help, even if you need it. That’s why I ain’t waitin’ for you to ask for my help, ‘cause I’d be waitin’ forever… I’m just givin’ it to you, whether you like it or not.”
She was horrified when tears sprang to her eyes. She couldn’t speak.
“So listen up, yeah?” he said. “You don’t have to do this on your own. Not anymore. You’re home now, and you got me, and I know you ain’t comfortable around them, but you got the boys in your corner, too, believe me. We’ll do anything you need. You just ask us, Zee, and we’ll do it for you.”
She swallowed hard.
“Zee? You there?”
“Yeah,” she managed to whisper.
“You heard me?”
“Yeah.”
“So. What do you need, baby girl?”
“A crib.” She wiped her tears away. “A mattress, bed sheets and bumpers for the crib. A changing table.”
“Got it.”
“Wolf?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Now, you relax, OK? Hang out, watch TV, have a bath, whatever. The guys will be there in a few hours with the baby stuff, and if you think you want to come to the party tonight, come to the bar with them.”
“I can drive.”
“Not if you’re gonna have even one drink.”
“But – ”
“No ‘buts’. Someone will get you home safe when you’re ready to go, you just ask. We always have at least three sober guys, just in case.”
“In case what?”
“In case shit starts.”
“Oh. Right.”
“So.” She heard the smile in his voice. “Go have a bowl of mint chocolate-chip ice cream and kick back.”
She burst into laughter. “God, Wolf. You know me so well, huh?”
“I do.”
“OK, then. I’ll wait here for the guys. And I’ll see about dropping by the bar tonight, OK? I’m picking up Deanna and Keira from the airport at noon tomorrow, so it’ll be an early night no matter what.”
“All good.” He paused. “Hey, Zee?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m glad you’re here. Really glad.”
“Yeah.” She brushed away a few more tears that bubbled up. “Me too.”
**
Kansas, Ice and Jinx stood shoulder to shoulder staring down at the crib. They were way the fuck out of their element here, and they knew it, but they were going to get Zee’s baby girl the nicest damn crib in the place. If only they knew what the hell they were looking for. To their relief, the changing table had been straightforward – it was just a table that extended out from some shelves for shit like diapers and cream and clothes – but the crib was a whole different thing.
Jinx turned to the other men. “This one?”
Lost at sea, they shrugged.
“So… this one?” Jinx repeated.
“What about this one?” Kansas said, wandering over to yet another crib that looked exactly the same.
“It’s the same,” Jinx pointed out.
“No, it’s not.” Kansas read the sign attached to the bars. “On this one, the side goes up and down.”
“Oh.” Jinx blinked. “Does that matter?”
“I fucking don’t know.”
A gasp behind them caught their attention, and they turned around to see a little girl with her mother.
“Mommy, he said a swear,” the kid whispered, horrified and delighted. “A really bad one.”
“Yeah. Sorry about that,” Kansas mumbled. “Just trying to figure out these goddamned… these gosh-darned cribs. They all look the same, you see.”
Bianca Morgan stared at the three of them, even more taken aback than her daughter at what was standing in front of her. All three men were sporting tattoos and huge boots, they were all wearing matching leather vest things with patches that read ‘Road Devils’. She almost passed out when she realized that she was face-to-face with real, live motorcycle gang members. The urge to grab her daughter and run was pretty strong, but she didn’t want to piss them off.
“You’re – you’re crib shopping?” Bianca asked them, aiming for terrified politeness. “For – for one of your babies?”
“Naw, hon,” Kansas said in his rough voice. “Not one of ours. A friend’s.”
The woman in the trim little cardigan and with a messy ponytail blinked at being called ‘hon’ by a guy with a shaved head and a neck tattoo.
“Ummm. Well.” Despite herself, she walked a bit closer, thinking that it wouldn’t hurt to help them a bit. “We bought this one for Linda’s baby brother.”
“You’re Linda?” Kansas said to the girl.
She nodded shyly, clutching her Mom’s hand.
“What’s good about this one is that the whole frame moves up and down,” Bianca said. “So when the baby is small, you can keep it all the way up, but when the baby starts to sit up or even stand up, you can lower the frame and mattress to the floor. That way, the baby can’t fall out or climb out and hurt themselves, and your friend doesn’t need to buy a whole new crib.”
The men stared down at the frame, thinking about that.
“That sounds good,” Kansas said.
“So this one?” Jinx said for the third time.
“Yeah,” Kansas said, and Jinx wrote down the code on his order form. “Now we need sheets and – what was it?”
“Bumpers,” Ice said, speaking for the first time.
“What are bumpers?” Kansas asked Bianca.
She and Linda rolled their eyes at the cluelessness of men.
“You tie them to the crib so the baby doesn’t bash their head against the bars,” Bianca explained.
“Makes sense,” Ice said. “Shock-absorbers for impact. Like on a car.”
“Exactly.” Bianca nodded. “There are some cute ones with the bed sheets.”
“Well, we need sheets,” Jinx said. “So we’ll just head over there. Thanks for –”
“Is the baby a boy or a girl?” Linda interrupted.
“A girl,” Jinx said.
“You ever bought anything for a girl before?” Linda asked him, skeptical and suspicious.
Jinx shrugged, grinned a bit. Yeah, he’d bought things for girls before: drinks, and handcuffs, and sexy panties, and ribbed condoms. None of which were standard fare in IKEA.
“Uh. Not a baby girl,” he told her. “Why?”
She huffed. “Because you don’t know what you’re doing.”
The men gazed down at her, thinking that her sass was awesome. Her mother looked embarrassed and petrified, though.
“Linda,” she chided. “Don’t insult the nice men.” The big, tattooed, scary, criminal, nice men.
“We’re not insulted,” Kansas said. “Linda’s bang-on, actually. We don’t know what we’re doing. We could use some help here, if you want to give it.”
“Yes!” Linda sounded e
xasperated. “Of course I do. I know what girls like.”
“Then lead on, honey,” Kansas said to her. “We need a set of sheets.”
“Uh, no,” Bianca said, getting into the spirit of the thing now. “You need several sets of sheets.”
“Yeah?” Jinx asked her.
“Yeah. Babies go through sheets like crazy. They spit up on them, they drool on them, they… well. Their diapers can sometimes get a bit too full.”
“Urgh,” Kansas said, shuddering at the words ‘full diaper’. “OK, we get it. So, maybe four sets?”
“Five,” Linda said decisively. “Plus two sets of bumpers.”
“How old are you, sweetie?” Jinx said.
She blinked. “Almost six.”
“You are darn smart, you know that?”
“I know that.” She stopped in front of the shelves of bed sheets. “I’m best in my class at math and reading.”
“I believe it,” Kansas said. “So… which sheets?”
Linda took her job seriously, they were highly amused to see. After debating the merits of zebras versus giraffes, with Kansas an enthusiastic participant and a strong proponent for the giraffes because “long legs are awesome, honey”, they had all they needed. Or they thought they did.
After thanking Linda and her mother, and dropping them off in the bathroom section of the store, the men headed for the check-out area. Their path led them straight through the toy section.
Jinx paused. “Guys?”
“Yeah?” Kansas said.
“Do you think we should – should get the baby something? From us?”
“Like what?”
“I dunno.” Jinx looked around helplessly. “A – a teddy bear?”
“What about this?” Ice asked, surprising his friends by holding up a mobile. “Don’t babies like these things?”
The others shrugged.
“Should we track down Linda and ask her?” Jinx said, only half-joking. “She’d know.”
“Naw,” Ice said, his cold blue eyes showing a rare glimpse of humanity. “Let’s fly solo on this one, boys. Let’s get the… music thingy.”
**
Zoe opened the front door of her rented house, and watched as three guys carried in boxes and bags of stuff from IKEA. They stood in her living room, arms full, nodded at her.
Solid Gold (Unseen Enemy Book 8) Page 23
