Kellan

by Jayne Blue

  “It’s four o’clock in the morning,” Justin’s groggy voice filled my ear as I pressed my phone against it. Kellan had emerged from the bedroom and threw on his jeans. I couldn’t help that my eyes took in the way they hugged his body in all the right places.

  “Can you come pick me up? I’m on Bradley Street. Kellan’s bike is parked out front and I’ll drop you a pin.”

  Justin made some guttural noise but finally answered. “Yeah. You’re lucky. That’s about five minutes from where I am. You okay?”

  “Yeah. Just come get me.”

  I tapped the screen to end the call and turned away, not wanting to meet Kellan’s eyes just then. I could feel him though. He leaned casually against the wall near the kitchen, his arms crossed in front of him.

  I found my skirt and slid it on. My underwear was ruined. My blood warmed replaying the instant when Kellan tore it to shreds and entered me. But to protect myself, I could be strong. Kellan was a bad boy. His shit was too heavy for me. He knew it. I knew it. One of us had to be a grown up about this. It was sex. It was just sex.

  I took a deep breath and finally turned to face him. He was calm, but his eyes raked over me, hard and predatory. An answering heat flared within me. I’d have to learn to shut it off.

  “Justin’s on his way.”

  “I heard.”

  “I really am sorry. You get it though, right?”

  Kellan shrugged. His eyes held that bemused expression that drove me nuts.

  “I’ll see you next weekend,” I assured him. “Nothing’s changed. I’ll do my job.”

  He pursed his lips and nodded. God, I think it would have been better if he said something. Anything. I think I wanted him to be angry with me. Fight back. Call me a slut or a liar. Something. Instead, he just stood there, leaning against the wall where it opened to the kitchen. His eyes flashed fire though he kept his smile in place.

  Then, Justin was in the doorway.

  “You ready?” he said, peering in through the screen. Kellan raised a hand to wave but didn’t move from his spot.

  I picked my bag up off the floor and slid it over my shoulder. I turned to go, feeling Kellan’s eyes blazing into my back as I left.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Kellan

  I knew from the look on Colt’s face it was bad news. I followed him in to the backroom at the Den and damn near held my breath the whole way. It wasn’t Mallory. She was safe. She could be pissed at me all she wanted. She could push me away out of fear or stubbornness or whatever the hell spooked her the other night, but she wasn’t getting rid of me that easily. I’d give her space and a little bit of time. But that girl was in my blood now. I wasn’t going anywhere.

  I could wait, for now. The shit with the club provided an unwelcome distraction but a distraction. Except now when Colt turned around and sank into the chair at the head of the table, my gut clenched. Whatever happened had to be even worse than I thought.

  I looked around the table. Brax was missing. My heart sank straight down into my boots. Sank, then hardened to stone. If they’d gone after one of my brothers, they’d gone after me. And this had just gotten a whole lot worse.

  I didn’t sit down. Couldn’t. I clenched my fists and pressed them into the table, my heart racing.

  “Where is he?” I said before Colt even had a chance to talk. My voice sounded low and hard. I kept one fist on the table, the other played with the handle of the Glock I carried in a hip holster.

  “He’s still at the hospital,” Colt answered.

  I squeezed my eyes shut tight. “What happened? Where’d they get a hold of him? And why the fuck didn’t I get a call straight away?”

  Colt gave me a look of confusion, then his lips tightened into a grim line. “Brax is cool. He’s not the one who got hurt. It’s Jeannette.”

  My blood ran cold.

  “She was coming home from a night class at the community college. Somebody jumped her in the parking garage. Fucking security cameras were useless. Piece-of-shit rent-a-cops they had there. Nobody saw a thing.”

  “How bad?” I said, trying real hard not to smash some shit.

  Jeannette. Sweet, ginger-haired Jeannette. She’d been here since the beginning. A single mom, she had two teenage boys at home. She had ’em when she was a teenager herself. But she’d kept her shit together, was raising them right and going to school when she could find the time. She was trying to get a paralegal certificate and wanted to go to law school after that. I told her if she made it that far, I’d help her with tuition.

  “How fucking bad, Colt?”

  “Broken collarbone. A few scrapes. She’s pretty shook up, Brax said.”

  I didn’t want to ask the next question but needed to know. “What else did they do to her?”

  “Brax says nothing. Just pushed her down. Didn’t even take her wallet. Just her phone. She had Brax go in the cloud and wipe it, but she said it was a while before she thought to have him do it. I’ve got new phones for everyone in this room. She doesn’t think she had anything personal about any of us but I don’t want to take a chance. All the employees too. She did say she had names and addresses of some of the other people she works with.”

  My heart raced. Was Mallory’s information something she kept? I needed to get my eyes on her as soon as possible. Fuck it if she didn’t want to hear from me yet.

  “Did they say anything to her? The other girls who got approached wouldn’t say shit afterward.”

  Colt nodded. “Yeah. They hadn’t run into the likes of Jeannette yet. I wish she’d have just not said anything. Jase said she gave whoever it was a piece of her mind.”

  “Jase. He’s not going to sit on this now, is he? And fuck it, I don’t want him to. I say all hands on deck.”

  Colt sighed. “You let me worry about my brother. Obviously, we’ve got bigger problems. And our numbers are low. Brax is gonna want to be by Jeannette’s side until we get a handle on this.”

  “Jeannette get anything off the guy?”

  Colt nodded. “A hunk of skin from his forearm where she scratched the hell out of him. Guy was wearing a ski mask. She gave a basic description of what she could see to Jase. They’ll get DNA and hopefully that will help.”

  I pounded my fist on the table. “Is there anyone here who doubts where this is coming from? This kind of chicken-shit crap has the Hawks written all over it. They’re going after the girls to try to scare them from coming back. They’re stirring up trouble down by the docks to keep the locals on edge. So what are we going to do about it?”

  I gave Colt my laser focus. He clenched his jaw hard and looked around the table. Every one of them—Mac, E.J., Joker, Tate—wore the same grim expression. This was the start of a club war. There could be no doubt. And here we were. A seven-member M.C. with one of our guys at his lady’s bedside.

  We were vulnerable. If we couldn’t hold the town ... hell ... if we couldn’t hold our own businesses together, we were in serious trouble.

  “What’s the plan?” I asked.

  Colt spread his hands on the table. “We need backup before we make any kind of move. And we need more proof. There’s just as good a chance this is somebody else trying to make us think the Devil’s Hawks are starting shit up again. We’re gonna be cold, but we’ve gotta be calculated. Believe me, nobody wants to start smashing shit more than I do. But I’m not going to put anyone in this room at risk without a bigger army.”

  I looked Colt square in the eye again. He and I both knew the Hawks were the ones with the biggest reason to come after us. Colt would probably never tell me all of it, but I knew something major went down before he came back from the Green Bluff charter. Something between the California chapter of the Devil’s Hawks and our own guys out there. Colt had been at the center of it. He came back to Lincolnshire in part because he’d been on the run from something. Thank God he had. But now, it was time to finish whatever he’d started back in California.

  “You’re going back to Green Bluf
f, aren’t you?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Like I said. We need backup. This isn’t the kind of thing I can take care of with a phone call. And if it is the Hawks looking for payback and new territory, my family isn’t safe here.”

  I shut my eyes tight and steepled my fingers under my chin. Colt had a wife and kid on the way. He, more than any of us, had the most to lose if this got any further out of hand. If it was the Hawks, they’d come after people who worked with us. So far, they’d kept the unspoken code not to touch anyone’s family. But Jeannette was a blurred line. My gut twisted thinking about what that might mean if they decided to cross it any further.

  “I get it,” I said though I hated the thought of him lighting out of Lincolnshire right now. It was temporary, I knew. But in the last year since he’d been back, I’d come to depend on Colt like a true brother. We’d picked up right where we left off when we were teenagers. He was the one who first brought me into this club.

  “I’m going to get my family out of town. And I’m going to come back with reinforcements. Green Bluff needs to be in on this. If the Hawks are starting things here, it’s only a matter of time before they bring it down there and to the rest of the charters. Everyone needs to be ready. In the meantime, I need you to keep shit as under control as you can while I’m gone. Until I get back, the club is Kellan’s.”

  Colt looked around the table. He got no questions from anyone.

  “The gym can run itself until I get back. You guys keep your focus here at the Den. I’m not going to tell you to put everyone on lockdown yet. But that might come. Kel, that’s your call. You do what you think is best.”

  I exhaled. The weight of that decision hit me like an anvil in the chest. Sometime soon, I’d have to decide whether we’d be better off closing the Den until the danger passed. Giving that much would feel like a surrender, even if it was short term. I’d worked so fucking hard to get this place off the ground.

  “Keep our people safe,” Colt said. “We’re going to take those fuckers down. I swear to God.”

  “You bet your ass we will,” I said. I got some grunts and nods from the other guys. We all knew the drill. We were just fucking hoping we wouldn’t have to run it this soon.

  “Good. Meeting adjourned.” Colt rapped his knuckles on the table and the rest of the guys dispersed quick, leaving Colt and me alone in the room.

  “Jase is worried,” Colt said as soon as E.J. shut the door.

  “Jase is always worried.”

  Colt laughed. “Yeah. I guess he is. Is Mallory okay?”

  My turn to laugh. “Yeah. Other than the fact she pretty much wants nothing to do with my sorry ass now, yeah. She’s good.”

  “You think she’s gonna bolt?”

  I leaned back in my chair and ran a hand through my hair. “At the moment, if she sees somebody with a Great Wolves cut she might run in the other fucking direction. But as far as the bar goes, she says she’s not leaving.”

  Colt laughed. “This shit never gets simple, does it?”

  I shook my head.

  “You in love with her?”

  For a second, it felt like the air went thick like tar.

  Colt’s smile widened. “I’ve known you since we were kids, Kel. I’ve never seen you like this with a woman. She’s got you spinning.”

  I ran my fingers hard over my chin and shook my head. “She really fucking does. I’m an idiot and kind of an asshole. Thought I’d just be able to get her out of my system.”

  “Yeah. That’s how it starts.”

  “How’d it happen with you? I mean. How did you know you’d found the girl you were ready to throw it all over for?”

  Colt’s eyes went somewhere else. He had a warmth to his expression for an instant as he relived the answer to my question in his mind. Then his eyes went dark and he locked them with mine. “The second somebody tried to take her from me and do her harm and my own life didn’t matter anymore. And it happened in an instant. It wasn’t something I had to think about. Does Mallory matter to you like that?”

  I focused on my hands lying flat on the table, then on breathing in and out. The answer was yes.

  “The other night, when Jase called to tell me she was in trouble, Colt, I swear to God, I left here ready to do murder. So yeah. I’d kill for that girl. And I think if anything happened to her, you’d maybe have to kill me next.”

  Colt reached over and gave me a light slug in the shoulder. “Yeah. That’s it. Congratulations. How does Mallory feel about all of this?”

  I shook my head and laughed. “I think she’s scared shitless of it. She’s not really used to letting people in. Things got a little heavy between us the other night and she pretty much ran for the hills.”

  “Smart girl. Did you go after her?”

  I chewed the side of my lip and slowly raised my eyes to meet Colt’s. “I, uh . . . I thought maybe I’d let her have some space.”

  Colt arched a brow at me. A slow smirk lifted the corner of his mouth. “You know that old saying about how if you love someone, set them free?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. That was kind of my logic.”

  Colt slapped my shoulder again, this time hard enough to make it sting. “Yeah. That’s rookie bullshit. That girl’s a wildcat, just like us. Go after her.”

  “Ah, so drag her back to my cave?”

  “Well, I fucking hope I’ve taught you a little more finesse than that, asshole.”

  “Sheeit. You never taught me dick. Everything you know you learned from me.”

  Colt flashed a middle finger first, then his gold-banded ring finger next. “Eat shit. You’re still single. And at the rate you’re going I don’t see that changing.”

  I slugged him back. Then something shifted between us. The gravity of the shit swirling around our heads settled back down like a yoke around our necks.

  “What do you give our chances?” I said.

  Colt stood up and pushed his chair out of the way. I rose with him. “Depends on how far and how fast the Hawks are willing to escalate this. We don’t have the numbers to survive a full-on war and you know it.”

  I swallowed hard and nodded. “I get that. Just, do your business fast. You know you can count on me to keep shit together in the meantime.”

  “I know. I’m just sorry it turned this heavy this fast. And I swear to God I’m gonna get us out of this and back to normal.”

  I threw an arm around Colt as we walked toward the door. “Brother, the day shit feels normal around here is the day I’ll know we’re all fucking doomed.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Mallory

  “You can’t live on Hot Pockets and fruit juice, Mitch,” I said, emptying out the remnants of his lunch bag. “Vegetables. Meat that doesn’t come in sealed plastic. Maybe a piece of fruit once in a while. What happened to the lunch I packed you this morning?”

  He sat on the living room floor, his thumbs a blur as he worked his PlayStation controller.

  “Shit!” he swore, tossing the controller to the couch.

  “Language!”

  He came back to the kitchen and plopped down on one of the bar stools under the counter. “Oh, I ate that one too. That’s just my sixth-hour snack you’re cleaning out.”

  I shook my head. “Where the hell do you put it all?”

  “Language,” he countered.

  I had a hold of the sprayer nozzle from the kitchen sink. I turned and doused him with a quick burst from across the room.

  “Dad still out cutting the grass?” I asked.

  Mitch nodded, reaching across the counter and grabbing an apple from the bowl. He made a big show out of biting into it. I smiled wide and clapped my hands together.

  “You singing tonight?” he asked.

  I wiped my hands on a towel and sat on the bar stool opposite him. “As far as I know.”

  “Good. I like this new job. You’re different.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. You smile more.”

  My hea
rt flipped. I tried to paste on a smile now, but Mitch had been watching my face closely. He was going to ask me about Kellan. He’d been asking me off and on since that day a few weeks ago when Kellan drove me home and Dad tried to take his head off with a baseball bat. And I had no idea what I would say. I hadn’t talked to him since last weekend and I’d ignored the text and call he’d made to me. It was better this way. I was starting to feel for him and I just couldn’t let it go any farther. I didn’t need to be in the middle of club drama. I didn’t need to risk us flaming out and ruining my only source of income.

  But as I sat across from my brother and tried to keep my face neutral, I knew it was all bullshit. My blood ran hotter, my pulse beat faster just thinking about Kellan and the way he made me feel in the dark. I smiled a little more brightly and tossed the kitchen towel toward Mitch. He ducked and it landed on the floor behind him

  “Don’t get excited. It’s just a gig. A better gig than most, granted. But it’s just a gig.”

  “You’re full of shit. You’ve got a new boyfriend. I told you I liked the guy. He seems cool. You should let him come around more?”

  “Let?”

  “Yeah. Let. I know you. The minute you start getting serious with somebody, you run for the hills.”

  I had half a mind to go back and get the sprayer nozzle. “You’re giving me relationship advice now? You’re twelve.”

  “I know a few things, I’ve been around.”

  I bit my tongue. “Oh yeah? You want to share your vast wisdom with the ladies?”

  Mitch sat back. I had to suppress the urge to reach across the counter and smooth down the cowlick at the front of his hair. Since he was a baby the thing stuck straight up by mid-afternoon every day. If I wore one, I could set my watch to it.

  “I could give you a few pointers. Guys don’t like chicks with drama. It’s a big turn-off.”

  “Who said I have drama? And maybe he’s the one with the drama. Ever think of that?”

  “Oh yeah. That guy didn’t seem like drama. He seemed pretty pulled together. He runs his own bar. Let’s see, last guy you dated flunked out of medical school. The one before that was a friend of Bruno’s, which should have been your first tip-off.”