by D. D. Ayres
Suddenly he came around her, engine roaring, until he had pulled up alongside.
Cole glanced at him. He wore jeans and a dirty white T-shirt, revealing arms lean and sinewy and so browned by the sun and wind they looked like tree roots. As he moved a little ahead of her she spied his denim vest and the insignia on the back. The name PAGAN was emblazoned on a patch between his shoulders. Below it a separate patch depicted the god Surti, the Norse god, sitting on the sun and wielding a sword.
Her stomach did a flip as her hands flexed tight on the handlebars. As a law-enforcement officer she was familiar with gang symbols. After all, Maryland was the reputed home of the outlaw motorcycle gang. But meeting one on this lonely stretch of the road was not a good feeling. Not good at all.
He grinned and motioned for her to pull over.
Cole shook her head and motioned him to go ahead then looked away, hoping he would get the message.
Instead he swung his bike inward toward hers and, reaching out, grabbed her butt.
Shocked by the intimate gesture, Cole swerved sharply away from him, almost onto the shoulder. She caught herself before she could spin out. The bike wobbled as she corrected the drift but she didn’t go down.
She looked around as he roared away, just past a bend in the road. She had lost speed and rolled to a stop, hoping he’d just go on now, content he’d frightened her.
Woman on a bike. Har har. Go away.
Sweat had popped out on her face and neck, and began to trickle down her chest as she debated what to do. She turned and squinted, trying to see if there was on-coming traffic, but the ribbon of road behind her was empty. If she went on, he might be lying in wait for her.
No reason to go ahead. She was just testing out her new toy.
Returning was not retreat, she reasoned calmly. It was, in this instance, a calculated maneuver to defuse the situation.
She was barely a mile back down the empty road when a rising whine, keener than a chain saw, signaled that he had turned around and was coming back, fast.
“Shit. Where the hell is a traffic jam when you need it?”
She forced herself not to speed up. It was clear that his hog could overtake hers and she didn’t want to get caught in a confrontation at high speeds with an unfamiliar bike.
This time, he screamed past her, leaving her choking on dust.
He began braking almost immediately and turned quickly, kicking up dust and leaving, she knew from the smoke rising under his rear wheel, rubber on the road.
Her heart began to pound in earnest. He wasn’t done with her. And that wasn’t good. She blinked the sweat out of her eyes, afraid to take a hand off the handles.
He had rolled to a stop 50 yards in front of her, teeth gleaming through the tangle of his beard. As she neared him he signaled for her to pull over.
Cole’s gaze shifted left and right, calculating if she could get around him by using the other lane. Maybe. Or he might kick her bike as she passed, sending her spinning off into the trees. Then what?
Control the situation. Survive. Police Academy 101.
It took her a few seconds to remember she wore a weapon in a pancake holster at the small of her back. She had gotten out of the habit of being armed at all times while on Harmonie Kennel property. But leaving the property had prompted the habit to return. She owed another thank-you to the police academy for that.
She stopped ten yards away and cut the engine. Not pausing to use the kickstand, she let the bike drop as she dismounted, jerked off her gloves, and reached with both hands for her gun. Though her hands were sweaty, the weight of the Keltec PT3A pistol felt reassuringly good as her fingers closed over the butt.
She took a wide-legged stance as she brought her weapon forward and braced it with both hands. “Police officer. Dismount, slowly, and get down on your knees.”
She was happy to hear the strength of command in her voice.
He didn’t move to dismount but he did raise his hands.
She pitched her voice louder. “Police officer! Dismount!”
He dismounted.
With the light at her back, she could see him better now. With eyes sunk deep in his head and razor-sharp bones beneath sunken cheeks, his face had an almost grinning-skull quality to it.
He started walking slowly toward her, moving on the balls of his feet, arms held away from his sides. She calculated the odds of hitting a target at this distance. Keltec PT3A was a close-in weapon best used at a distance of less than seven yards. He was closing in rapidly.
“Halt! On your knees!”
He was grinning, seemingly unimpressed by her gun. “You wouldn’t shoot an unarmed man.”
“Try me.” She slipped free the safety. “Halt. Now.”
He grinned. “You’re afraid of me. Yeah. I smell pussy fear.”
“Move a foot closer and you’ll smell blood as a bullet tears through you.” She moved her aim a little bit lower, smack at the center of him.
He paused. “Just fucking with you, bitch. You can’t take a joke?”
Cole was done talking. Her full concentration was on when and if she’d pull the trigger.
He seemed to sense she was serious. “Pussy cops. Fuck you!”
He began backing up but he didn’t turn his back.
She watched him, keeping him centered in her sight as he retreated. No way would she release her stance until he was out of sight and hearing.
She heard road noise before she saw the car in the distance coming up behind him. He heard it, too. He slung a leg over his hog and started it. He revved the engine until the air seemed to bleed and then he came straight at her.
Cole held her breath and pretended she was doing firearms training simulation. He was just a target she had hit many times before.
At the last second, he veered away from her, catching her in the heat of his exhaust as he passed.
Cole swung around, coughing fumes, gun still on target. She didn’t move until he was a blur and the car at her back began laying on the horn.
She sheathed her weapon as she turned toward the approaching car and waved at the driver to stop. She didn’t know what he’d seen, so she reached for her wallet to show her ID.
The driver, a kid of about eighteen, and his friend hopped out of opposite side doors. “You spin out?” Apparently they hadn’t seen anything, or been paying attention until now.
Cole nodded and pocketed her wallet, still straining for the sounds of the retreating Pagan biker.
“You need help?” asked the companion.
“No. I got this. Thanks.”
She moved to her bike and put the kickstand down. Then she came around and squatted down, put her butt against the seat, grabbed a handlebar in one hand and the back of the bike with the other, and pushed with her feet and legs until it was upright.
The two teens clapped in approval. “That’s a pretty nifty maneuver.”
She smiled. Nothing like what they would have witnessed had they come along a few minutes earlier. She could take care of herself.
Even so. The acceleration of her heart was giving her a head rush and she had begun to tremble.
“Here you go.” One of the teens scooped up and handed her her gloves. “That’s a beauty of a bike.”
She nodded, then sucked up a breath and pushed pride out of the way. Ninety-five percent of police officers went their entire career without ever using their service weapon in the line of duty. She’d almost switched sides to the other five percent this afternoon. She owed herself a little protection while she decompressed.
“Would you guys mind following me back to Harmonie Kennels? It’s just a few miles. If my bike has suffered more damage than it appears, I might need a lift.”
“Sure thing.”
She slung a leg over and started the engine. If Hugo had been with her, she wouldn’t have needed to rely only on her weapon.
Bikes were fun but she’d had enough fun for a while.
* * *
X wai
ted until the sound of the bitch’s bike had faded before he stopped on the side of the road to take a leak and grab a smoke. When those two urgent needs were handled, he pulled out a bottle of Southern Comfort from his saddlebag and took a deep swallow.
He was pretty pleased with his plan so far.
After that night in Georgia a month ago, he’d had no trouble tracking a DEA K-9 unit’s license plates to D.C. Then it had become a matter of spreading a little cash around for eyes to watch the office building until Rhino was spotted and followed home.
Rhino was a narc, all right. A narc named Scott Lucca.
X spit a stream of liquor between his teeth just to watch the golden stream arc through the afternoon air like piss.
He could have killed the bastard a dozen times that first week. But that would have been too easy. Over too quickly. He didn’t want him dead so much as fucked up.
So he’d waited.
The wait gave him a chance to spread a little more money on the street and weave together a web of informants who watched Rhino when he wasn’t watching. He’d hoped to find a wife and kiddies, someone he could easily terrorize. But Rhino was being a monk. And then came a break: an informant spotted him headed up Interstate 95 in his private vehicle.
It always took luck. Anyone who lived on the edge knew that luck counted as much as preparation and heart when it came to survival, and the hunt.
Rhino had gone north to visit his parents. Weakness number one.
The sighting of Rhino with a woman by a pansy-ass wannabe biker out of Baltimore had been the next piece of luck.
She, too, was a cop. Weakness number two.
X poured a bit of whiskey on the ground then ground it into the dust with his heel, homage to a pagan god all his own. Then he twisted the cap back on his bottle and remounted.
He now had all he needed to take the son of a bitch down. He was just going to do it bit by bit. Like checking out the reason Rhino was in Virginia had given him a chance to follow his woman’s movements.
So, that was Rhino’s bitch. She didn’t look like much of a good time. But maybe after he’d had Rhino’s piece of ass, he’d toss her to the informant as payment. If there was anything much left of her.
Patience was a virtue. Payback was a bitch.
* * *
Scott didn’t return until after she was in bed for the night. She lay listening to him move about, speaking occasionally to Izzy. He came near her closed door once and stood there so long she almost called out just to end the suspense. Finally, he moved away without even tapping to see if she was awake.
Was he avoiding her?
Or, was she avoiding him?
She sat up, disturbing Hugo, who was curled in a pile of fur at her feet. She reached out and stroked him until he resettled.
Hugo seldom slept with her but tonight she needed comfort. She had wanted it to come from Scott. The longing surprised her in its intensity. Yet she was afraid he would misinterpret her need as sexual. She couldn’t handle that option tonight.
She certainly wasn’t going to go whining to him about the incident with the Pagan biker this afternoon.
A shiver rocked her hard. She sat up
She had yet to tell anyone, even Richards. The fact she’d been harassed by a douche bag on a motorcycle would only reinforce to the men on the task force team her vulnerability as a woman. She’d fought too long and hard to gain respect as a female police officer to go running to the DEA, or even Yardley, with a Big Bad Wolf story. Red Riding Hood had saved herself. That shit was standard operating procedure these days.
The ease with which she’d not only changed her mind about Scott, but felt this sudden intense urge to rely on his big solid strength for emotional support was dangerous, and foolish.
She squirmed around on the bed until she could lay her head against Hugo’s bulky back, and pushed her hand into his fur for reassurance.
As she drifted off to sleep, she pretended it was Scott’s warmth surrounding her.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Scott woke up at Harmonie Kennels to find Cole gone. He hadn’t wanted to awaken her when he came in after midnight. But he had expected—correct that—hoped they could talk this morning in private. Hugo wasn’t here, either. They must be training already.
Scott let his anticipation of seeing her ebb into disappointment as he crossed to her room. He’d been a jerk to her from the get-go on their trip to New Jersey, and all she’d wanted to do was help. He wanted to apologize and explain. If he could find the words for the guilt, sense of helplessness and fear that had been motivating him.
He paused in her open doorway, taking in the twisted sheets on her bed and the shed of telltale dark dog hair at the foot. On a nearby chair lay a biker helmet and gloves and a jacket.
What the hell?
Newly awakened, Izzy padded in behind him and went to sniff the bed and then the biker gear before circling back to be petted.
Scott bent and stroked her. “Looks like we’ve missed a few things.” She licked his face in response.
It had taken him longer than he expected to get his parents settled at the residence inn. His father demanded to see the house but his doctors recommended he wait at least a week before he subjected himself to anything that might upset him. So Scott had stayed on two extra days to make certain the details of insurance and police reports were taken care of. That required an inventory that, much as he would have liked to, he couldn’t compile alone. He hadn’t lived at home since he went to college. Things could be missing or broken that he would never remember or know were part of the household.
He had taken his mother to the house yesterday morning, after hiring a nurse to sit with his father. He had tried to prepare her, even made her promise to not tell his father the worst of it, no matter how distressed the experience made her. Teary-eyed, she’d promised. Then she had shocked him with her reaction to the cleanup.
“Who did this?” she kept asking as she wandered from room to room, astonished by the progress she had not expected. While not anywhere near restored, the house was no longer a homeowner’s worst nightmare.
He told her who was responsible.
“Nicole did this for us? Why?” That question had been on Scott’s mind since the moment Cole piled into his truck for the drive to New Jersey.
After she had finished making her preliminary list, his mother had come into the kitchen where he was sitting. “Tell Nicole thank you from the bottom of our hearts.” Her eyes had softened and she’d put a hand on his shoulder and added very quietly, “She still loves you, son.”
That couldn’t be right. Little more than two weeks ago, Cole hated his guts. She had ripped him a new one and then kicked him out of her home. His ulterior motives shot to hell, he had given up on her when she suddenly changed her mind and decided to join the task force, despite his participation. She ran hot and cold with no stops in between. Even the sex, he suspected, was a game designed to keep him off balance and at a distance. “Noel” had had sex with “Sam.”
She’d certainly worked to keep him at arm’s length at every opportunity. Until his mother’s call.
Cole had waded into his family’s disaster as if it was her own, helping out without asking. Even when he’d behaved like a douche toward her, she’d kept her temper. Through it all she’d had his back.
He felt a lump of an unwanted gratefulness forming in his throat. He wasn’t accustomed to anyone having his back. He worked best alone or with Izzy. He might not have Gabe’s finesse for making chicken salad out of chicken shit. But he knew how to survive. Until Cole.
Scott swore under his breath, reluctant to acknowledge the damn ache in his chest every time he thought about her. And he thought about her almost constantly these days.
He moved across the room to pick up one of her socks and toss it into an open drawer. Instead, he found himself gazing at a drawer of pretty but impractical underthings.
He felt like a perv but he couldn’t stop himself from snagg
ing a pair of purple lace panties and holding them up for a better look. It didn’t take much imagination to picture what she’d look like in them or, better yet, out of them. After the other night, he’d been hard-pressed to think of anything else in the solitude of his bed. He was pretty sure he’d dreamed about her each night. This scrap of purple satin and lace was the last thing anyone would expect the sensible, logical Officer Jamieson to wear.
Yet he knew that she was wholly, sensually female.
A rush of lust pushed hard down through him. He would remember that night in the shower with her for the rest of his life. And always want more.
Scott rubbed an eye, fighting the urge to return to bed. But that wasn’t going to stop thoughts of Cole from running through his head. Was he misjudging her? In dealing with everyone else he could think of, Cole was warm and generous, if intense. Even when called on the carpet with Lattimore, she’d rallied and defended her point of view. Only around him was she defensive and hostile.
Maybe that was because she didn’t know where she stood with him. How could she? For fear of running her off before he had a chance to get close to her, he hadn’t given her anything but attitude. But she scared him this time in a way she hadn’t the first time around. She was no longer an impressionable young woman who thought he made the sun rise and rest. She’d seen and known the worst about him, and held it against him. And yet, when he needed her, she’d been there, no, insisted on being there to help take care of the two other most important people in his life. The emotions he’d felt behind that nearly undid him. And so he’d doubled down on locking out his emotions out of fear that, if she saw how really badly he wanted her back in every way, she’d run. No wonder she kept her own emotions on high alert.
And yet, she had blown his mind a few nights ago by simply walking into the shower with him. She had been all satin skin and smooth places and sweet curves and warm, wet dark places he could not get enough of. She’d been that brave. And he’d said nothing. He’d been a goddamn coward, pretending that because they called one another Noel and Sam, he couldn’t confess then and there that he wanted her back.
Even as he shifted through these thoughts, Scott knew they were correct. In so many ways, large and small, he hadn’t been giving her a chance to want him back. Nor had he been trying to learn the new woman she had become. He’d been so busy trying to go slow and be cool, he hadn’t even dared ask for her cell phone number. Something he didn’t realize until she was headed back to Harmonie Kennels and he needed to talk with her. In trying not to crowd her, he was pushing her away.
