Fear the Beard (The Dixie Warden Rejects MC Book 2)

by Lani Lynn Vale

  She stopped at the backdoor and toed her shoes off when she saw all the other shoes belonging to the other workers, and wiggled her sock clad toes.

  The socks she was wearing had words on them.

  “Do your socks say ‘fuck this shit?’” I asked, bending down to get a better look.

  “My mom got them for me on my first day of nursing school,” she admitted, sounding strangled. “She knew how nervous I was and went out of her way to make it easier for me.”

  I chuckled as I pushed open the door, and immediately narrowed my eyes when I saw yet another flaw in the floor.

  “The floors are pretty,” she said. “What’s wrong with…oh.”

  I snorted. Yeah, oh.

  “They were supposed to use paint thinner to get the floors clean before they sealed them, tackling the overspray of white paint that they got on the floor as they were painting the trim. This shit,” I pointed at what I assumed was putty from where the painters dropped it. “Should’ve come up, too.”

  “And that?” She pointed at a bubbled-up piece of the floor.

  “That, I assume, are air bubbles underneath the sealer,” I said. “Wait until you get a look at the living room. You can see footprints in the stain.”

  So I took her around the house and showed her every single detail that had annoyed me over the past week as they finished up.

  “What’s that?” She toed something with the heel of her foot.

  I looked down, and my eyes narrowed.

  Bending over, I tried to get the nail up, but stopped trying when I realized they’d sealed a goddamn nail onto the fucking floor.

  This was just one more thing in my day of fucked up.

  The whole project had started out okay.

  The slab had been poured on Christmas Eve. The framing had started on the first day of the year…and that was where things started to go wrong.

  The framers refused to come some days due to the mud that surrounded the house, but since there would be so many contractors coming up and down the driveway, I didn’t want to put twenty grand into something just for them to ruin it.

  So I’d held off, and it had added nearly a month onto the construction timeline because of rain delays.

  Then the roof went on, a different color than I’d originally chosen—with five thousand more in costs due to a fuck up because of the builder’s inability to calculate shit correctly.

  Followed by the Dallas Cowboy paint. Then the trim that was all wobble jobbled due to the shit job they’d done on framing.

  It literally was one thing after another with this house, and it all kept coming. Leading me to now, standing in my house, pointing out imperfections in the paint, the scratch in the newly-installed counters, and the crappy floor job.

  “It isn’t that bad,” she finally said. “A few cosmetic things…but this is one seriously beautiful house. I would kill for a house like this.”

  I’d kill to have you in my house, snuggled up to my side. Your deliciously curvy body there beside me every night for me to do whatever I damn well pleased with it.

  Luckily, I was able to hold my tongue.

  My cock, however, was a different story.

  At least I was wearing jeans today, making it much easier to conceal.

  “It’s definitely my dream home,” I told her. “And the day I’m finally moved in, with my shit in here instead of a goddamned storage facility for the last year, it’ll feel more real. Right now, it’s like I’m in limbo, waiting. Always fucking waiting.”

  She grinned.

  “I hear that if you’re married when you’re building a house, it’s the most harrowing time of your relationship due to all the stress of construction,” she grinned. “And since you’re not married, you have to carry all of that without anyone to help share the load. Pairing all of that with your duties in the ER and as a teacher, I can imagine you’re stressed.”

  I laughed.

  “Kind of like being a single parent to an infant, who is holding down a full-time job while going to nursing school and doing clinicals?” I teased.

  She snorted.

  “Yeah, kind of like that.”

  “Sir!”

  I turned to find Jody hurrying toward me.

  Meeting him halfway, I stepped out onto the porch and then moved even further so that I wasn’t in the way of the men working.

  “We’re going to fix it!” he promised over and over again. “I talked with the builder, and we think that we can find a way to make it look good.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest.

  I knew what I looked like.

  A six-foot-three man with heavily muscled arms and wide shoulders sporting a cut indicating that I was a member of a motorcycle club—The Dixie Wardens, Alabama Chapter, to be specific. Dark hair, trimmed beard. Defined, muscular legs encased in a pair of blue jeans that had definitely been worn and used exactly like they were intended for—work. I was an intimidating bastard, just like I’d intended to be.

  His eyes stopped on the tattoos curling around my wrists, and he swallowed thickly.

  “I would hope that you’re going to fix it,” I told him bluntly. “Since you were the one to fuck it up in the first place.”

  Tally snorted and turned her head to study the grounds, then walked off when she spotted the ducks and chickens that were directly behind me.

  When we’d gotten closer, the drake had started demanding food, knowing if I passed him I wouldn’t be able to resist.

  “We’re going to fix it. You’ll be happy,” Jody promised.

  I wanted to laugh at the ridiculousness of that statement.

  “If you wanted me happy, you’d have done it right the first time,” I replied. “Now all you’re going to do is appease me, not make me happy.”

  He swallowed and nodded. “I’m going to go to the store today and buy what I need to fix the problems. We’ll make it right.”

  “I sure as hell hope so,” I told him, then turned around and started for Tally, who was trying to get one of the chickens to eat out of her hand.

  “This one is about to start laying,” she informed me.

  “How do you know?” I asked, remembering the discussion I’d had with her at one point during our shift yesterday about my chickens and how I was waiting for them to start laying eggs.

  “I looked it up for you on my phone,” she waved it at me. “They’re ready to start laying when their little comb and wattles darken into a redder color.”

  She indicated the red area between the chicken’s eyes and beak.

  “Hmm,” I murmured. “What else gives you that indication?”

  “When you pet them, they squat,” she demonstrated, and I watched the chicken do just that.

  “Impressive,” I murmured. “I’ll have to keep an eye out.”

  She stood and walked to where I kept the hand sanitizer.

  “They say you can get some fake eggs at the feed store that’ll help them figure out where they’re supposed to go and do it at.” She grinned at me over her shoulder. “I’ll go look for you if you want.”

  “We can go after breakfast,” I told her. “Are you ready?”

  She wiped her hands nervously on her pants, and I had another realization.

  She was nervous around me.

  Well, that made two of us.

  She scared the ever-loving shit out of me.

  Chapter 9

  Don’t be sad, laundry. Nobody is doing me, either.

  -Tally’s secret thoughts

  Tally

  I cursed and started to run across the parking lot toward my car.

  Tommy—what I’d just started calling him since he was tired of me always adding the ‘doctor’ onto the first part of his name—followed at a much more subdued pace.

  He looked almost as if he were out for a casual stroll instead of walking during the middle of a freakin’ downpour.

  “Do you want a
ride?” I yelled at him.

  He shook his head and pointed at his motorcycle, and I did nothing but shake my head.

  He waved his bag of fake eggs at me, and I grinned before diving into my car, escaping the rain.

  I watched him leave, totally surprised to see that he was almost completely unaffected by the rain.

  That shirt he was wearing, though, was definitely affected.

  As he finally made it to his bike, it was soaked. By the time he drove out of the parking lot, I realized that I needed to see him without that shirt on in better lighting than I had the last time. Mostly because if the defined chest and hardened nipples that I could clearly make out, as well as those bright tattoos, were anything to go by, I’d like what I saw.

  That was if I could ever get him out of those clothes…and to do that I’d have to work up the nerve…and graduate.

  Because I didn’t see him doing anything with me while I was still in school. He had a career to protect, after all.

  That didn’t mean I couldn’t enjoy the sight of him for the next few months.

  ***

  “You’re joking.” Hadley leaned into the counter in front of me, opening the wrapper of her fifth mini Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. The ones that we kept in a jar on the counter in front of the cash register for impulse buys.

  “No,” I shook my head.

  “God, that’s so hot.”

  I’d just told her what happened the night before, and she was practically drooling.

  “Elba is going to freak…and, oh my God, when Arianna gets wind that…” I stopped her before she could continue.

  “This goes no further than the two of us,” I ordered her. “I don’t want to get in trouble for something we haven’t done, and I don’t want him to get into trouble either. So keep it under wraps.”

  She pouted.

  “Fine,” she sighed. “That’s gonna suck seeing him every day when your hoo-ha is going all crazy for him.”

  “I don’t see him every day,” I said. “Saturday and Sunday I’ll be studying my ass off like always, and I won’t see him.”

  She gave me a look.

  Thunder boomed, ruining her hard stare and causing her to jump in surprise.

  “Jesus,” she breathed, placing a hand to her heart.

  I picked up the chocolate she’d just unwrapped and put down on the counter, and threw it away.

  “Hey,” she snapped. “That was mine.”

  The fact that it touched the counter was enough to make me want to vomit.

  Thinking about the number of people who had come into the convenience store where I worked, and touched this counter where she put her candy, was enough to make me nauseous. Her putting something in her mouth that had touched the counter that nearly every customer touched at some point during their visit was enough for me to declare the food unfit for consumption.

  “Um, no,” I shook my head. “I haven’t cleaned the counter since I arrived over four hours ago. In that time, a large man wearing jeans that hung around his crotch leaned up against it, scratched his balls—inside his pants—and touched the counter with a very dirty looking hand. Then there was the woman who scratched her head and some unidentifiable nastiness fell out onto it…”

  She lifted her lip in a silent snarl.

  “Fine,” she shivered. “That’s gross. I hate that you have to work here.”

  I shrugged.

  “It’s worked out well. When Brett left, I was able to step right in since I’d spent enough time here watching him work that I knew how everything was supposed to run. Plus I get paid eleven dollars an hour. Where else am I going to find a job like that with good hours, that works well with my schooling and child?

  She shrugged, not having an answer.

  “I still hate that you work here. At any given time, someone can come in here and rob you,” she admitted.

  That was true, it could very well happen. It actually had happened to my brother when he’d been working here for a half a year.

  However, there was now a shotgun underneath the counter, so if something did occur, I’d at least be armed.

  Mama Moring didn’t fuck around when it came to the safety of her employees.

  “It’ll be okay,” I said. “What…oh shit.”

  I hurried around the counter and looked in horror at the rain that was coming down, and the water that was starting to creep closer and closer to the door.

  “Uh, oh,” she groaned. “That’s my signal to get the hell out of here. I have to drive through this shit to get home.”

  Hadley lived over an hour away and drove in every day to go to school and clinicals. She worked as a waitress at Cracker Barrel and still lived at home with her parents.

  She was a hot mess, and she was an even worse driver.

  “Get out of here, but be careful on the way home, okay?” I caught hold of her arm. “And remember that just because it doesn’t look that deep doesn’t mean it won’t sweep your car away. Text me when you get there!”

  She rolled her eyes. “Yes, Mom.”

  I held the door open for her, and ignored the way the buzzer that indicated the door had been opened continued to chime.

  I watched as she ran to her car, her feet sloshing through about four inches of water that was now covering the entire parking lot.

  Oh hell, it was also covering the road.

  If this rain continued like this—and it was likely that it would since the weatherman said we’d be getting another eight days of rain—it could definitely turn into something that had the potential to be catastrophic.

  My thoughts strayed to Tommy and his driveway.

  Poor guy.

  I would hate to pay all of that money just to watch my driveway wash away like his was doing.

  Then again, if it continued to rain, Mama Moring would be dealing with a flooded store and the loss of all her inventory.

  Mother Nature really didn’t have a care in the world…the bitch.

  ***

  “I’m closing the store,” I told Mama Moring. “If I don’t, I won’t be able to get home, and to be honest, there hasn’t been a single customer in the store for over four hours. Plus, my mom was called in to work, and Dad’s busy with the dogs. If I don’t leave now, there’ll be nobody to watch Tallulah.”

  “That’s fine, darlin’,” Mama Moring said with her raspy smoker’s voice. “I’ll get there in the morning…see what I can do.”

  There wouldn’t be anything she could do. In fact, it was unlikely that she would even be able to get here in the morning.

  If she was smart—which she was—she’d stay her happy ass on her front porch and watch the water go by.

  She’d be one of the few who would be able to stay in their homes since she was up on the highest hill in Mooresville.

  My family, however, was not that lucky. We were on one of the lowest lying properties in the entire area. If it flooded—which it was already doing—our place would be one of the first places to go under.

  “all right, Mama Moring. Call me if you need anything.”

  She hummed in understanding and then hung up on a hacking cough without saying goodbye.

  Shaking my head, I waited, bouncing from foot-to-foot, for my mother to get here with Tallulah.

  Then an idea struck me, and I grinned because sometimes I was so smart.

  Grabbing my purse, I ran outside to my car and practically dove inside once I got the door open.

  Starting the 4-Runner up once I was situated, I backed out of my parking spot, right up to the gas pump.

  If I had to wait, I might as well get gas, you know, just in case.

  Five minutes later, my gas tank was nearing the thirty-dollar mark when my mother pulled up with Tallulah in tow.

  I waved at her through the glass, and smiled at my mom when she pulled up on the opposite side of the gas pumps.

  “Hey, baby,” my mom called. “You going straight
home?”

  I nodded. “I am,” I confirmed.

  She went to Tallulah’s side and unbuckled her from her seat while Tallulah chattered up a storm about Doc.

  I assumed she was referring to Doc McStuffins, but what did I know?

  Most of it I couldn’t quite comprehend, but I got the gist as she said “Doc”, “up-up”, and “mine” in the same sentence.

  “I take it you let her enjoy her show the entire day?” I teased my mother.

  Mom shrugged.

  “It was raining. What else is she supposed to do? Tear up my house and break my things?”

  I snorted.

  “You’re terrible,” I rolled my eyes.

  “I thought that I was going to have a few years of nice things, but then you come back with a vengeance,” she countered.

  I snorted.

  “You wouldn’t know what to do with nice things, anyway,” I informed her none too gently. “Your house would probably catch on fire if you brought home something that wasn’t replaceable.”

  She sighed.

  “That’s not the point here,” Mom said. “She broke my table. How the hell does a baby break a table?”

  I didn’t know the answer to that, so I took Tallulah and secured her into the car.

  The moment I had her strapped in, I reached for the blanket that she always demanded she have, and placed it into her lap.

  She pressed her face to it and nuzzled it as I closed the door.

  The gas pump clicked, signaling it was finished, and my mother hung it up while I grabbed the receipt.

  “Do you need any before I go close down the pumps?” I asked.

  She shook her head.

  “No,” she declined. “Your daddy filled mine up for me when he went out for sand bags.”

  I nodded my head. “Was it bad when you left?”

  She grimaced. “He had to move the dogs into the house with him because it was getting too bad. Now they’re currently shitting all over my garage and running in it.”