With a nod and a chin lift, Mason wordlessly interrupted, giving him permission. Reuben sucked in a harsh breath of relief, knowing he would have been going anyway, but this way, Mason made it easy for him. Easy for him to keep his solemn—if unspoken—promise to make up for his cowardice. For walking away, for closing his ears to the tortured screams coming from the rig. For letting his brother touch something that was sassy, sweet, cute, and loved, breaking that beauty in ways Reuben knew would never be healed.
He couldn’t undo the past, no matter how much he wanted…needed, even prayed for a chance to walk a different path. He couldn’t change history, but he could hold tightly to the future. And he would. He had promised himself he would. For the rest of her life, Mica Scott would be safe from Ray. Reuben would make sure of it. She wouldn’t see Ray, didn’t have to think about him, and—please, God, someday—she wouldn’t have to remember time spent with him and what he’d done to her. No skeletons in her closets to bring her grief. Not as long as Reuben could keep her safe.
***
Three nights later, leaning a shoulder against the wall behind the clubhouse, Reuben took the first untroubled breath he had drawn in days. The first free-feeling lungful of air since learning his family had won the bid for the college rodeo at UI in Springfield. Tension had coiled around him as soon as he knew their trucks would be rolling into Mica’s town, bringing the chance of Ray with them, because once he'd lost Mica, Ray had dropped from the circuit. He had gone home to help run the business, taking over when their old man died.
At least that was the official line presented to the public.
Reuben knew differently, which was why Ray coming to Springfield scared the absolute shit out of him. Because the unofficial, back-door talk said Ray was looking hard. Obsessively going through his contacts trying to find the one woman he never thought would walk away from him, using the business to hide his inquiries.
Finally, after a weekend which seemed as if it lasted for-fucking-ever, everyone was safely at home. A none-the-wiser Mica tucked back into her on-campus apartment, and him standing just outside the club’s base in Chicago. Since patching into the Rebels, he chose to keep a room at the clubhouse instead of renting a place. This had the dual benefit of giving him access to the few amenities he needed, as well as making sure he stayed deep in his brothers’ pockets, keeping him in the middle of things within the club. As a prospect, he still worked to prove himself every day, and this situation immersed him in the club in a way he found he liked.
He shifted, tipped his head back, and closed his eyes, resting and relaxing for a moment. Still filled with nervous tension from the weekend, he was trying to unwind before heading to bed. By himself. He knew if he were looking for company, he could have it at the drop of a hat. There were plenty of girls inside who would be happy to help him. Party dolls, prospects of a different sort, proving themselves, ready and willing to do whatever any member wanted.
He could have his pick of them, but as always, not one of them drew any interest from him. Even now, when the emotional response to a satisfying day was to want to master something, not a single one of those women were what he wanted in his bed. None of them were his dream woman, the one girl who ruled his thoughts. Most would think it was the girl he kept safe, but they’d be wrong.
“Bee,” he breathed and his cock swelled in response. Just her name enough to make him hard, his thick dick straining the buttons on his jeans. My hometown beauty. In the West Texas countryside, where ranches could be miles apart, neighbors were separated by pastures, surrounded with barbed wire fences and dangerous ravines. In those situations, you took the time to build relationships with the ones who lived closest to you. For Reuben, Brenda McCoy had been the only kid within fifteen miles, which meant they were automatic playmates and became good friends growing up.
She was now Brenda Calloway, and the proverbial girl-next-door had been helping out with DN since before his father’s death. He hadn’t seen her in more than five years, not since his last night in Lamesa, when he left to begin his search for Mica. Brenda had built a life, a family, something he would never allow himself to have, deciding long ago the risk of his father’s blood too much to take on. He hadn’t seen her since he'd walked away from where she lay sleeping in the bed they had shared, his retreating footsteps echoing in his ears, a decision he regretted every day.
Bee.
With a guttural groan, he slipped one hand down, cupping himself through the fabric of his jeans. Stomach muscles tense, his cock twitched and jerked in response, the heat from his hand adding to the growing need to feel something…anything around him.
His mind briefly returned to the women inside the clubhouse, but he pushed those thoughts away. They weren’t what he wanted. He wanted Bee.
Fingers working at his waistband, he unfastened the first two buttons. Corded muscles in his arm tightened as he pushed a hand into his pants, the urgency to feel trumping any concern he might have over potential discovery by his brothers.
Cupping his palm around the shaft of his erect cock, his fingers ringed the base with a brutal grip and he hissed, feeling the blood pulse and throb in the engorged head as he tightened down a second time. Fuck. Bee.
With his other hand, he shoved his pants down and open in the front, bringing his cock out into the heat of the Chicago summer night. Humid, unlike the nights in Lamesa, but his mind painted over the empty clubhouse courtyard with an image of the room shared with Brenda, memories lending the air an acrid, desert tang.
“Reuben,” she whispered through a delighted giggle, her mouth slipping down his jaw to his neck, teeth delicately nibbling on his skin, lifting her mouth to his for a sweet kiss.
Her hand moved down his stomach, fingers delving under the covers she had pulled over them, her sweet modesty making the contact even more gratifying. Two years earlier, with tightly clenched teeth he had listened to her high school boyfriend brag about his backseat conquest, torturing Reuben with inept pictures painted by crude words.
At the time it had upset him, thinking about the asshole wedging his hips between her legs. Aggrieved him even more knowing the bastard hadn’t held her in enough regard to keep his mouth shut about what they had done. Reuben had provided a lesson about respecting a woman, making it an unforgettable and bloody one for the boy.
Now, lying beside her, the knowledge she had been with someone else didn’t bother him as much. Knowing she wasn’t a virgin would make their coming together easier. He would have liked to be her first, had wanted that for himself, but life conspired against them. He wasn’t a virgin either, but he hoped his experience in this arena would be an advantage tonight. He wanted to make it good for her, make it memorable. Make her love him.
He groaned into her mouth when she touched him, her palm stroking the underside of his rigid cock. Twisting on the bed, he rolled her onto her back and slipped a knee between her legs. The soft pillows of her breasts pushed at his chest, flattening against him, peaked nipples teasingly rough as they rubbed across his pectoral muscles. Pushing a hand into the panties she’d left on while disrobing, he found her wet—soaked. Her pussy lips swollen and hot when he slid his fingers between them, the tip of his middle finger teasing, slowly circling her entrance.
Her hand jacked him, moving up and down his shaft, fingers wrapped around with a firm hold, not tentative. Pausing to cup her palm over the head, she rolled her thumb across the sensitive spot just under the rim, jerking a curse out of him as he jolted and shivered in response to her touch. He pulled a similar reaction from her when he pushed his finger deep, gliding steadily inside until his knuckles were pressed against her body, then he crooked his finger, curving and stroking before pulling out and thrusting back inside. “Bee, I wanna be in there.”
She gasped a breath and her head moved, nodding. Rolling away, he pulled his cock out of her hand and grabbed his wallet from his pants. Three years ago, he had put a condom in there, hoping for a time like this with her. His lucky
condom. Rolling it on, he moved and stretched out over her body, supporting his weight on his forearms. Looking down, he held her gaze as he pushed slowly, gliding inside on one long stroke, feeling her all around him. He watched as her deep blue eyes filled with a light he had never seen, chest swelling with pride as her lips moved, breathing out his name. His name on her lips, “Reuben.” His Brenda, finally.
With a groan that echoed through the night, he flung his head back, semen splashing onto the grass at his feet. Swaying shadows of supple, wind-blown trees danced across the evidence of his desire for a woman thousands of miles away. Still, after all this time, she could take him there with only a memory. “Bee,” he breathed again, his tone filled with sadness and loss. When he stopped trembling, he tucked himself away. Buttoning up his pants, he turned, striding into the clubhouse and his home.
Going home
Six years later
He leaned his head against the curved wall and stared out the window. The pre-dawn view remained unchanging for a moment, lights twinkling in the distance while nearer lay motionless shapes. Then a growing, growling roar filled the space around him and his head lifted as a jet flashed past, hearing the bark of its big wheels on the runway as it landed.
The speakers crackled and he heard the first officer’s smooth voice. "We are next in line for takeoff, folks. Flight attendants..." He stopped listening at that point, feeling the chassis of the plane jerk and sway beneath him as they taxied onto the runway.
He felt the familiar kick of the engines revving, the coiled potential of the plane waiting impatiently for the pilot's guiding hand. Thrust backwards into his seat, he watched out the window as the cement and buildings surrounding the complex pattern of roads built for wide wingspans fled from them, faster and faster until, with a jerk and a bounce, they were airborne. Headed home.
For the first time in eleven years, Reuben was on his way back to Lamesa, Texas, where his family had owned land since 1879. The town where the legacy of his grandfather's stock contracting business had flourished; and, where, once he arrived, he would be the sole surviving member of the Nelms clan.
Home.
Eyes turned back to the window, but he didn’t see the bank of gray clouds visible over the edge of the slowly flexing wing. Instead, the image filling his head was a picture saved for months on his phone. The stark black-and-white image showed a flat stretch of land, trailing out into the distance as far as the eye could see. Dotted with mesquite brush, the foreground of the photograph held the sharply slanting edge of a ditch. Dumped into that ditch as if it were last week’s trash was a body.
It lay in a heap, twisted, one arm caught underneath the torso so the elbow stuck up like the broken slat in a fence, awkwardly angled over the rest of the figure visible in the shot. Sand and dirt had drifted across the face, but he would know that compact, powerful body anywhere, having seen it in too many places and across too many years to count.
Familiar, known, hated…Ray, his brother. Killed due to his own actions because Reuben had never been successful at stopping him from being the jackass their father had raised them both to be. Try as he might, he hadn't been able to prevent his brother from traveling such a wellworn path.
Gaze still absently tracing the horizon through the tiny airplane window, he sighed, shifting slightly as his shoulder rubbed against the man seated next to him. Right about now he was sorry he hadn't taken advantage of the upgrade offer from Digger, the club’s resident travel expert, but he hadn’t wanted to chance any delays. He needed to be in Lamesa yesterday because it sounded like he had already ignored things for too long as it was. A little unpleasantness along the way would just get him more in the mood to deal with all the uncomfortable things waiting for him at the journey’s end. A short detour in his life.
His plans were to be on the first fucking plane out of there the moment he dealt with the things that needed his attention. He’d pull a U-turn, gladly leaving the shithole of a dust-covered town in his rearview for the last time. He sighed again, then grinned humorlessly when the guy moved away, giving him a few additional inches of space. Either his own considerable and intimidating size, or a belated respect for his leather cut caused the movement. He found himself uncaring which, simply thankful for whichever it was. For years now, Reuben had been a fully-patched member of the Rebel Wayfarers, based out of the Chicago chapter, and during this time, he found when most people realized the affiliation, they gave him, or any of the Rebels, a wide berth.
Reuben, or Duck, as he had become known in the club, was finally headed home nearly three years after his brother's death, because he had received a troubling message. He rubbed his forehead with finger and thumb, trying to ignore the headache he got every time he tried to figure this out. Brenda had left a confusing message on his phone; maybe more than one. He shook his head. Definitely more than one.
Duck scoffed at himself, twisting to find a comfortable position in the tight seat, thinking about the dozen or more messages she had left over the past few months. Simply hearing her voice still had the ability to cause him pain. Each message a raw reminder that the longing for Brenda hadn’t diminished with time. My Bee. After torturing himself with the first few messages, he first started archiving, then deleting them. Until the most recent one.
Without meaning to, he drew the memory of her last message into his mind, again hearing the trembling tone of her voice as she spoke. “Reuben, you either come home before the weekend, or I’m calling the auction company. Not foolin’ around here, big man. I’ve given you ample time to make this right, and you’ve been putting me off, but no more.” The steel in her voice showed itself, and she had finished with, “I'm done. Come home, or lose it all.”
‘Come home, or lose it all’ was a joke, because he had already lost it all. Lost his father to his brother’s treachery, and then lost his brother to the bastard’s own stupidity. Lost his other dream to another rodeo king.
A rasping snore broke into his thoughts and he looked left to find his annoying seatmate had dozed off, chin resting heavily on his chest. Yeah, I shoulda listened to Digger, he thought. Probably shoulda listened to Bee, too. He leaned back, tipping his chin down, hoping to make the trip go by faster by trying to sleep.
They landed in Midland, the closest connection Digger could find to Lamesa, and Duck prepared to deplane. Stepping out from the seat, he yanked his duffel bag from the confines of the overhead bin, hooking the strap over his shoulder. That accomplished, he then stood in the motionless line, head and shoulders bent awkwardly in the aisle of a plane sized for normal people. As the passengers slowly cleared from in front of him, he made his way off the aircraft and up the jetway, digging out his phone.
A brief message from Digger announced he had arranged ground transport and with laughter underscoring his words said Duck would undoubtedly recognize the driver. The humor in his voice didn’t bode well for Duck, and he listened to the voicemail a second time, frowning at the abbreviated message.
Stalking through the terminal and into the parking lot, he carefully scanned the trucks idling at the curb, trying to pick out which should be the so-called familiar face. He saw a beat-up, black four-by-four pickup with the company logo on the door sitting in the line of vehicles, and a moment later saw the petite face peering out at him from behind large round sunglasses, finely-drawn features half-hidden in the glare of the windshield.
The face and fall of dark hair from underneath the cowgirl hat settled his memories and his head tipped back on a groan. Feet stuttering to a stop, he stared upwards for a moment, shaking his head and muttering, “Digger’s gotta be fucking kidding me.” Duck pushed his feet into action again, continuing on his way as he shrugged the duffle’s strap higher on his shoulder.
The driver opened the door and moved to stand on the running board, tipping her hat backwards on her head. Leaning her elbows on the doorframe so she could excitedly wave with both hands, she wore a broad grin on her face, those sunglasses under that cocke
d-back hat managing to somehow look both stylish and ridiculous.
“Fucking shit,” he muttered, tossing his bag into the bed of the truck and reaching for the frame of the driver’s door. “Slide the fuck over,” he growled and slapped the top of the truck in frustration when her response was to stick out her tongue and giggle. Goddammit, he thought, I do not need this brand of fuckery today.
“Happy to see you again, too, grumpy.” She laughed as she slid across the bench seat, settling on the passenger side and buckling her seatbelt. “No, really. All jokes aside, I’ve missed you, Reuben,” she said, reaching over to lay one small hand on his forearm, laughing aloud as he shook it off with a growl. “Digger didn’t tell me who I was picking up, just said I’d recognize my passenger. It really is good to see you. You comin’ back home? Thinkin’ of comin’ back to the circuit?”
He sighed, looking over at the girl sitting across from him. “Essa,” he greeted her, ignoring her questions. “You wanna tell me what the hell you’re doing in Midland, girl?” Without waiting for her response, he put the truck in gear and pulled away from the curb, easing into traffic as he prepared to drive the still-familiar patterns away from the airport and out into the country towards the ranch. Back home. Away from his found family, surrounded everywhere by painful memories. Fuck.
“Y’all’s annual rodeo is only a few weeks away. I came out to help Brenda deal with all the vendors. There’s a slew of ‘em, and they all have different demands. It’s a lot for her to keep up with, so I said I’d help out. I showed, and she put me to work.” She said this quickly, aiming her shades out the window and he interrupted his survey of the changes in the city to glance her way, studying her for a moment.
“Since when do you work for DN Rodeo?” he asked, and watched in surprise as she twisted her hands in her lap. Essa, or Esmeralda Waldon, was a long-time rodeo competitor. A successful one, too. Talented, she rode barrels and raced poles, honing her remarkable aptitude and competing professionally for the past several years.
Duck (Rebel Wayfarers MC Book 8) Page 2
