“You can’t fix it if they hate me,” she shot back, still not looking at him.
Yep, fucking Tiny. “Listen, he’s looking out for me, alright? We do that. They want to make sure the women we have with us are the kind that can lump it. That’s it, babe.”
“Was he like that with Gertie?” Now she turned to him, one eyebrow arched. Her eyes were so fucking cold.
Tank frowned. “What?”
“Was he outright rude and dismissive like a complete twat when he met Gertie?”
Tank shrugged. “I can’t remember. Does it matter?”
“Of course it does. Or is she just a bit more acceptable in his eyes?”
It took him back a full step or two. With a deepening frown he had to ask, “What are you talking about?”
“Appearance wise, Tank. Christ, you can’t be this thick.”
“Why the fuck would he care about the scars, Rose?”
It was her turn to be surprised, and it made him wonder where he’d gone off the rails now. Jesus, she was confusing him. “The scars?”
“I can’t follow what the fuck you’re talking about, Rose!”
“I mean my skin, Tank. Not the scars, all of it!”
That threw him for a full loop. He caught on way too slowly. “You think he doesn’t like you because of your fucking skin tone?”
She gave him one of those incredulous looks he really didn’t like on her. “I know the look, Tank. I don’t see it a lot, but trust me. I know bloody well what that was all about.”
“You have to be …” He didn’t even finish. He jammed his key into the ignition, turned it and slammed the shifter into drive. “You have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about,” he informed her, turning with his arm on the back of the bench seat to see where he was reversing to. The weird thing was he knew Tiny didn’t think like that. But he sure as shit wasn’t going to tell her that distrust was coming from her profession of all things. “But I’m really starting to get pissed that you’ll find any reason to push me away. I might stop trying to get you back. Then where would we be?”
Chapter Twenty
Now Rose was scared.
After the incident at the clubhouse, a place where she really hadn’t wanted to be in the first place, Tank had dropped her off, pissed as she’d ever seen anyone, and left. And she hadn’t heard from him since.
That was three days ago.
She was still mad. That Tiny asshole had looked at her like she was less than human and dismissed her. She’d meant it when she said she didn’t see it that often, but it still really stung when a stranger saw you as not being good enough for someone, based entirely on something that you couldn’t control. Okay, so Tank’s friends looked out for him. That was good. But this was bullshit she didn’t want to deal with on top of everything else.
Not having Tank at least stop by for three days was killing her.
On one hand, she had to admit he was right about her shutting him out. She knew she had a tendency to close shop when she was unhappy or, in this case, humiliated and insulted. And if she was going to be with him, really with him, she had to get over that and tell him when and why she was unhappy.
She should have told him about her fear of leaving her apartment, too. Since he dropped her off she hadn’t set foot outside, telling herself she was worried she’d miss it if he stopped by. But she was scared to leave her apartment. Having him with her at the store or out for a walk was safer. On her own, she wasn’t safe. With him, no one would dare try anything on her.
But was that just her using him? Or did she honestly have feelings for him that ran much deeper? The kind of feelings that were terrifying?
She’d had that before. That all-consuming need to be with someone because they made you feel whole. In New York, literally her first month in the U.S. Too young to know it was a dumb idea, too naïve to realize a married man wasn’t going to leave his life for the stripper he paid to twirl around a pole at his club.
She pushed the thought away. It wasn’t the same situation. The MC owned Rebel Circus, sure. But in no way did she feel Tank was her boss. And he never made her feel like her job depended on anything he had to say.
No, she liked him. She cared about him, and the fact that he cared for her gave her that warm, gushy, happy feeling that she wasn’t sure she was comfortable with. It was scary. She’d never had it to that degree before. It wasn’t the sex, it was just him.
The sex was a mind-blowing perk.
The afternoon of the third day, she was contemplating whether it was worth her time to shower, trying to remember whether she’d showered the day before or the day before that, when the door buzzer brought her around. A signal from the outside world.
Rose nearly ran to the buzzer on the wall next to her door. She pressed the button, her “Yeah?” a breathless question.
“Let me up. It’s Tank.”
Okay, so he still sounded pissed. And he wasn’t just coming up, even though he had a key. He was here, though, and her heart picked up a bit just to hear his voice, as gruff as it was. Without a word she buzzed the front door open and then slid the safety chain out of place and unlocked the dead bolt. While she waited she darted to the washroom to splash water on her face. She had no time to do anything more impressive.
His footsteps were heavy, which made sense. He was a big guy. But at the sound she remembered her behavior the last time she’d seen him, and it shamed her.
When he passed through the door, she fought against the urge to throw herself at him. He wasn’t smiling, he didn’t look pleased. He was still angry, and that made her angry all over again.
Dammit, she was the one being treated like shit. Not him.
“Pack a bag,” he said gruffly, leaning against her kitchen counter and crossing his thick arms over his thicker chest. That leather kutte was nowhere to be seen, and she wondered why he wore it sometimes but not others. Then she clued in to what he’d said.
“What?”
“Pack a bag. You’ll be gone a few days. I’ll take you somewhere quiet.”
That made her nervous, against all the trust she had for this man. “Why?”
His jaw thrust to one side. “You want to be left alone. I’ll give you a couple days alone. Somewhere safe. So don’t worry about that. But you want to be alone, I’ll give you that.”
She shook her head. “No, no. I’ll just stay here.”
“You’re hiding, Rose,” he finally barked. “Have you left this apartment since Thursday?”
She didn’t even know what day it was presently.
“I’ll leave you be, but I gotta know you can stand getting out of this fucking apartment. Something’s up, but you gotta step out of it for a bit. No one else will be around, so you won’t have to deal with that, but I want you to try this.”
Rose felt stuck. She didn’t like being told this kind of thing. She was an adult, dammit. She crossed her arms. “What if I say no?”
He nodded slowly. “Then that’s it. You’re really on your own. We’re done.”
“What?” Jesus, she sounded like an idiot.
“My friend has nothing against you and your skin color, honey. You’re reaching for things to push me away. I don’t know why because I happen to think this is good. And I think you agree. But I can’t take this bullshit. I don’t need drama in my life. I got lots already. I care about you, and I always wanted a woman I could count on to be my calm, be a constant when my life goes to shit.” He swallowed hard and she felt an odd prickle in her nose. “I don’t know if that’s you. You won’t talk to me, you won’t tell me what’s going on with you. And that shit won’t sit right with me.”
“Like you tell me everything going on with you?”
His eyebrows went high. “I’d tell you anything I could. Club shit I can’t. You know that. It’s for your own good.”
“Well I have my reasons, too.”
Now he looked close to smiling, but it didn’t happen. “You got secrets that might get me dea
d, English?”
She swallowed hard. “No.” It sounded pitiful.
“You decide right now. Like I said, I got no patience for this. You try this or I walk away and that’s it.”
Not for one second did she think he was kidding, or just “testing” her. He meant every word. She was backed in a corner, and the fact that he was offering her only one way out still didn’t bother her. She wanted him more than she wanted to keep her secrets and her life to herself.
“Okay,” she whispered. “I’ll go. I trust you.”
He nodded. “Dress comfortable and warm.”
That made her frown but she headed for her bedroom, thrown for a real loop while deciding where to begin. Her thoughts were mud, so she grabbed her suitcase and set her body to doing something productive.
She had jeans, pajama pants and wool socks. Those were warm, right? And a few long-sleeved T-shirts that she added. Oh, and her hoodie. Essential dance school attire.
Underwear, of course. She didn’t bother with anything pretty. He was leaving her alone somewhere and she had no idea how that was going to go, but it was scarier to possibly lose him.
There was even a knitted cap and matching mittens set she’d forgotten she’d had. She hadn’t needed it in California, but at the sight of it she had to smile. It had been in Chicago, shopping with the girls when she found it.
It was tucked into the side of the suitcase, too, and then she zipped it closed, staring down at it while she noticed that her heart was fluctuating again. She was leaving the apartment, one, and Tank was going to leave her somewhere to be alone with her thoughts.
Rose’s palms were sweating. Prickles of apprehension crawled up the back of her neck. Setting foot outside of her apartment was so daunting she was all but paralyzed.
“You ready?”
She jumped, spinning to the doorway and trying to laugh off how badly he’d startled her. “Sorry. Yes, I’m packed.”
With a sharp nod he crossed to the bed and grabbed her suitcase by its handle. She wanted to wrap a hand around that arm, knowing how strong and big it was. But she didn’t. He was still guarded and angry, so she stepped back while he swung the bag off the bed then turned for the door, not another word spoken.
-oOo-
The drive was silent, uncomfortably so. She rode in the pickup truck that she hadn’t known he even owned until recently, until he’d been injured, come to think of it.
And she hadn’t even asked how he was? Jesus. Rose had to get it together here.
She didn’t ask then, though. She maintained silence, only answered his three-word questions with one-word answers.
“Need to stop?”
“Nope.”
“Hungry yet?”
“Yes.”
She hated it. But she was following his lead, and he was shut right down on her.
When he pulled off a dusty road onto a two-wheel path through some trees, she felt fear. The trail, because you couldn’t call it a road, was close and narrow, the shadows deepening with the trees around them. When they pulled up to a shack, she couldn’t have been more surprised.
“What is this?” she asked, turning to him in surprise. The first time she’d asked him a question.
“Hunting cabin,” he replied, trace of a smile on his lips. “Haven’t been here in a while. Usually helps to clear the mind.”
The truck door groaned loudly as she climbed out, the dry foliage underfoot giving a crunching welcome. The scent was amazing. It smelt cool and green and damp, with a slight tinge of wood smoke from somewhere. And the stillness was something else. She’d never known such … quiet, and yet the air was full of rustling leaves and birds, and she thought water as well.
Tank was climbing the two stairs to the front door, her suitcase in his beefy hand. He unlocked it and pushed it open in the time it took her to climb up onto the narrow porch and follow him inside.
It was one room. A kitchen cabinet ran along the shorter side of the cabin to the left. On the far wall, centered in the room, was a woodstove. The back of a couch was facing her, turned to the woodstove. Another was to the right, and right behind it a double bed with wool camping blankets on it. To the left of the woodstove was a kitchen table with four chairs. Too much furniture for the room, which made her love it right away. Except that …
“Where’s the bathroom?”
At that he chuckled, and some of the tension in her belly uncurled. Just a little. “Outhouse right out there,” he instructed, pointing through the kitchen window. “And bathe in the water out front, but the tap brings water from the river, too, so don’t drink it. I brought some bottled water for you.”
He set her suitcase on the bed, then turned and left the cabin. Alone, Rose moved to the kitchen counter and set her hands on the chipped Formica top. It was battered and scarred. The place smelled stuffy, like it hadn’t had a door or window opened in a while. There was also the trace scent of smoke in here, too.
Rose turned a skeptical eye to the woodstove. Was this the only source of heat in this place? She had to assume so. He’d told her to bring warm clothes.
“So, think you can handle this?”
She turned back to the door, seeing him set two water cooler bottles down on the ground. “I think so.” What else could she say?
“I’ll show you how to get the fire going, I’ll get the electric hooked up. It’s touchy, though, so don’t count on it to always be on. I’ll cut some wood, too.”
With that he was gone again, and Rose took a long, deep breath.
This was about as out of her element as she’d ever been. She thought Markham was the sticks? Jesus, it had a strip club. This place was right off the grid. When she pulled out her phone she wasn’t at all surprised that there was a total of one bar of coverage here.
Rhythmic, dull, thudding sounds echoed through the back wall, and through the window over the kitchen table she could see the huge rock where all the apparent wood-splitting took place. Tank had shed his flannel shirt to do it, and that was when she noticed he was still bandaged while chopping said wood.
She shot out the front door and circled around the cabin. She waited until he’d swung, then asked, “What are you doing? You’re hurt.”
He stopped, eyeing her up. “Stove runs on wood, English. Only way to keep warm. It’s cold here at night.”
Rose ignored the way him calling her English warmed her somewhat. “What about your stitches?”
“They’re fine. I’m a fast healer, don’t worry.”
She watched him decimate another section of tree trunk bigger than her torso and decided maybe he had it under control after all. Then she decided she liked watching him chop wood just fine. The hair, the beard, the axe in his big hands, his back and arms straining with every swing.
Yes, she liked that just fine.
If he knew he was being watched, he gave no sign of it. She perched on a log bench as he grunted and struggled to make a handy pile of burnable kindling, sweating nicely before he was done.
This was a strange day. Undoubtedly one of the strangest she’d ever had, and it had her uncomfortable and confused.
“That should last you a while,” he grunted after a knee-high pile had accumulated around his feet. With a sigh he tossed the axe to the side, then leaned down to collect an armful of cut wood.
At least this part she could help with. Without a word exchanged, some was piled up next to the wood stove, the rest placed close to the front door for easy access. Then he showed her how to build a fire in the heavy, cast iron stove.
“You can cook on top of it, too,” he informed her as he crumpled up a wad of newspaper and tossed it into the stove before grabbing a box of matches off the sofa behind him. Rose knelt down next to him for the lesson, trying to ignore the heady scent of him. “But the whole thing gets really hot, so you’ll want to be careful.”
She learned the intricacies and tricks of the wood stove. When the fire was roaring, Tank closed the glass door and stood, grunt
ing.
She put a hand to his ribs and stood with him. “Are you okay?” she asked, finally. “I mean, that was a lot of work.”
Tank took her hand off his side then reached for his flannel. He shrugged it on, not meeting her eye. “I’m fine, English. Don’t let the fire go out, and you’ll be all right. You should have cell service out back if you need to call me.”
And then he was gone, leaving her to this strange little place of his. The rumble of his truck died off fast, and for a full minute Rose listened to hear if he was coming back. Maybe it was a joke or a trick.
But he didn’t.
Chapter Twenty-One
This was a lot more like it.
The club rode ranks around the semi, loaded with Sachetti goods, Tiny at the wheel. It was midday, a quiet weekday ride obeying the speed limits and enjoying the sunshine on his face.
It was good to be riding again, too. Cooped up in the clubhouse and his cage was not good for his mental state. Out here, wind in his face, this was the last bit he needed to be completely healed.
It felt right this time, this run. Not like the stuffed animal fiasco. The guys loading the truck had been more in line with what he’d expected: greasy, unwashed illegals with shifty eyes. Working quickly. No need to ask questions, just get the job done.
The Red Rebels still didn’t look in the crates. Before they rolled out Tank had shifted one back and forth, satisfied that it weighed more than the wood that made up the box. That was as close as he’d gotten to being curious.
Their destination was Port Hueneme. That meant travelling right through Dirty Rats territory, but Anthony Guidinger told them they’d be left alone in that particular part of town.
It seemed to be true. Port Hueneme’s town limits were well behind them and not a single stink-eye had been sent their way. Nary an unfriendly face to be seen.
At the pier they hung back, letting Tiny maneuver his rig into the loading dock behind a docked ship while another group of Italian-looking gangster-movie extras. With a curt nod, they each set to work transferring cases with a loader. Armed men stood to the sides, their postures wary and alert.
Expose Page 14
