Something About a Bounty Hunter

by Em Petrova

  “How do you know he’s in a club?”

  “He’s seen wearing their patch on his leather vest.”

  “Cut,” he automatically corrected.

  His boss raised a brow. Nobody besides his family knew Wes had been spending time with the Bighorns.

  “Okay, you seem to know a little about this world. You’ll know right where to look. Easy money in your pocket.”

  “Yeah, easy money.” The hard way. He’d be betraying the people he’d come to think of as friends and hauling away one of their own wouldn’t earn him any points with Stormy.

  Damon was looking at him too closely. Wes stood and turned for the door.

  “You know them.”

  Without looking back, he gave a nod to Damon’s question. “I know where I can find them.”

  Wes went outside and got in his truck. He drove without conscious thought to direction. He just needed to get out of here, see the mountains.

  Fucking hell. His bounty was a Bighorn? He didn’t know anybody named Alexander Bonner, but then again he only knew nicknames and almost no last names were used among the crew. For all he knew, his bounty was Stormy’s father.

  He had some decisions to make.

  For the first time ever, he could ignore a bounty set before him and let someone else find Bonner.

  Or he could dig a little deeper and try to get the guy out quietly, without anybody discovering he was responsible. Bonner would just suddenly disappear and they’d hear through the grapevine he’d been captured.

  He reached back through the memories of all those parties and all the Bighorns he’d come in contact with. The Green Hills chapter had ridden with them and co-hosted several events during the time Wes had been involved in the club. He could pluck nearly every name from his memory on cue—and those he couldn’t remember would be pulled to the surface as soon as he saw a face.

  There was no way he’d ever been introduced to Alexander Bonner.

  Hell. He was in a touchy predicament. He felt a hard-core loyalty to the club, wore their fucking patches now. They’d accepted him, and now he was going to betray that trust by searching within their own group for the fugitive he hunted.

  * * * * *

  Perfume. Not just any perfume but cheap perfume, the kind that burned your nose hairs and made you think of seedy bars and strip clubs.

  Wes’s nose was filled with the odor, so thick he could almost taste it.

  It definitely wasn’t Stormy’s scent.

  He’d gone to bed alone, unable to get Druid off his tail long enough to even give Stormy a goodnight kiss. So who was this person plastered against his side, naked?

  He opened his eyes to see the bleach-blonde passed out next to him. The bikers called these women sweet butts, but he didn’t see much sweet about ’em—women who slept with anybody wearing leather. It was sad, really, but Wes had seen worse.

  How the fuck had she landed in his bed? He sure as hell hadn’t invited her.

  All at once he realized she’d been sent to him. By Druid.

  He bolted upright.

  The sweet butt moaned and grabbed her stomach.

  Wes shoved her. “Don’t puke in my bed! Go to the bathroom!”

  She stumbled and lurched across the room, half-naked and too skinny. She made it to the door and into the hallway before he heard her retch.

  The disgusting scent of vomit hit him, and he groaned. “What I wouldn’t give for a breath of clean ranch air,” he muttered, thinking of Eagle Crest. He got up and closed the door.

  He’d fallen into bed wearing jeans and boots, a habit he’d formed from his job. He never knew when he’d have to hit the ground running—literally. He located a black T-shirt and his cut slung over the back of a chair. The leather sported a brand-new full member patch. He was now a Bighorn.

  He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror beside the door. Black hair, black stubble on his jaw, black clothing right down to his steel-toed shit-kickers. The only thing that wasn’t black were his eyes, and they were damn close.

  He opened the door to find the sweet butt on her hands and knees with a bucket and cloths, cleaning up her own sick mess. She looked up at him, eyes bloodshot and blonde hair falling into one eye.

  “Sorry, Dirty. I didn’t mean to almost puke in your bed.” Her voice was raspy around his nickname, her words still slurred. She was still drunk and probably would be till noon.

  He wanted to ask who the hell had sent her there in the first place, but she didn’t need to be involved in Druid’s game anymore.

  “Next time try not to drink so much,” he said as he walked out of his room and shut the door.

  He made it outside and to fresh air. He closed the door of the club and leaned against the wall, dragging in deep breaths of the mountain air.

  The club sat high up where a man could think and see clear to the next state, and the views reminded him of Eagle Crest. Damn, he missed home.

  “Dirty.” The grating voice made him turn.

  “Sundance,” Wes said with a nod of acknowledgement.

  The guy’s face was craggy from a hard night of partying, but his blue eyes never missed a thing.

  “Smoke?” Sundance removed a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his cut and shook a few loose.

  Wes shook his head. “Need a drink before I smoke. Cotton-mouth,” he lied. Thing was, he hated lying to Sundance. The man was one of the good old boys.

  Sundance chuckled, the sound like tearing paper from decades of smoking. “Hard drinking’ll do that to ya. The keg against the far wall inside isn’t empty yet.”

  “Nah, not for breakfast.” Wes shot him a smile. “What are you doin’ out here so early?”

  “Just seein’ my lady off. She’s headed home for another week. Got the grandbabies coming and she’ll be babysitting while our oldest daughter’s on a business trip.” Sundance had a strangely normal family—who he lived apart from, up here in the mountains, away from those he claimed to love the most. And that would be his wife of thirty years.

  Wes nodded and turned to look over the snowy tips of the mountains spread out before them. “Sounds like a real fun time.”

  “Oh yeah, Darlene loves those grandbabies somethin’ fierce.”

  Wes didn’t ask if Sundance did too. He did in his own way, Wes supposed.

  But the talk of family made him miss his own.

  Sundance pushed out a heavy sigh. “A man can’t get closer to his Maker than in these mountains, can he, Dirty?”

  “Pure peace,” Wes agreed, only half meaning it. He loved the mountains and enjoyed the club and fellow brothers, at least when he wasn’t supposed to locate one of them and haul him in to face criminal charges.

  He wanted to return to Eagle Crest—take Stormy with him. But getting her away would have the Bighorns tailing him and that meant they’d learn he was a Roshannon. Then know what he did for a living. Odd they’d accepted him as one of their own without asking many questions. It seemed knowing he could shoot and hold his tequila was enough. The biker culture had its own code, and if you were loyal, they didn’t care what you did in your spare time.

  Then again, he hardly knew what any of the Bighorns did for a living either. They came and went from the club, and he assumed many had jobs, but they didn’t discuss it and nobody asked.

  First and foremost, he was a Roshannon. And a bounty hunter.

  Before he left for Eagle Crest, he needed to figure out who Alexander Bonner was.

  Aunt Winter would be upset—he hadn’t been home in too long. He’d been busy. Wanted to spend time with Stormy.

  Or maybe he was hiding from his real reason for not going home.

  “I’d love to get on two wheels,” Wes said. Wyoming weather was unpredictable as hell, and the clouds banking in the West heralded bad weather.

  Sundance clapped him on the shoulder. “Rain’s comin’. I feel it in my leg.” He tapped his fingers against the thigh of his leg that had more plates and screws than most foreign
cars could boast. “You’re just like your mother. Never could sit still for long.”

  Wes’s throat clogged off, just as it always did at mention of his momma. But lately more so when he thought of his uncle—and what the man could really be to him.

  “Yeah, I can’t sit around here all day. I’ve gotta be on the open highways.” Wes held out a hand to Sundance, and they clasped fists in the way of the club brothers.

  “Give ’em hell, Dirty. Take as many prisoners as you fucking can.”

  Sundance didn’t know how true his words rang.

  * * * * *

  Stormy set down the handfuls of bags she’d driven into town for, aggravated that her father had sent her on such a stupid errand. The list he’d given her was ridiculous, with a mix of food items and things she could only get at a hardware store, seemingly unrelated.

  It wasn’t the first time she’d been sent on a club errand, yet she couldn’t help but feel they were keeping her away for a reason.

  “Where’s Dirty?” she asked as soon as DeeDee looked up from the tabloid she was reading.

  “Look who it is!” DeeDee smiled too brightly. Or was that Stormy’s imagination?

  DeeDee pushed back to stare at her. “Oh my God, girl, you’re more beautiful than ever. That crisp air agrees with you. Come sit down and I’ll get you some hot coffee.”

  Ignoring the bags she’d dumped on the kitchen floor, she crossed the room to the table.

  “Now sit right down here and we’ll have a good talk over coffee. Never get enough girl time, do we?”

  Stormy shrugged. DeeDee was always exuberant but this might be overkill. She looked at her friend closer.

  DeeDee set a steaming mug on the scarred wooden table before her.

  “Thanks for the coffee. What’s been going on around here today?”

  “Same old. Lynn fusses about making the beer runs and the bitch is about to get kicked out. You know not pulling your weight’s a crime around here.”

  Stormy watched the door of the kitchen, eager to go find Dirty. They hadn’t been alone in too long, and she’d been burning for his touch all night long, hoping he’d come to her door. But the party had raged on till morning and she hadn’t gotten a chance to slip into his room either.

  DeeDee was quiet. Strangely quiet.

  “Shit. What is it?” Stormy asked.

  DeeDee didn’t respond at first. Silence hung in the air like a heavy weight.

  Her friend rested a hand on her forearm and Stormy looked up, dread hitting her chest. “Some things have been going on, Stormy.”

  Oh fuck. “What is it? Did my dad start shooting holes in the walls again?” Her voice wobbled.

  DeeDee’s eyes were ringed with concern.

  She stared at her friend.

  “Dirty had a woman in his—”

  Before DeeDee could get the words out, Stormy pushed away from the table, leaping to her feet. Her cup rocked, sloshing coffee all over the surface. Pain stabbed her. She and Dirty had never committed to each other, but there was an unspoken rule that neither was sleeping around.

  “Don’t get so upset, Stormy. This shit happens with men. They have needs…”

  “Jesus, you don’t really believe that crap, do you, Dee? That men can’t stay faithful and keep their peckers in their pants for a few days?”

  “Well—”

  Fury rose up. “Who was it?” Figured as soon as she had two minutes alone to think that she wanted a life outside the club—and Dirty—that he’d go fuck someone else.

  Her friend eyed her like she was a ticking bomb.

  “Tell me or I’ll find someone who can.”

  “No, no. You want to hear this from me.”

  Stormy gaped at her. That could only mean the worst. “It was Spazz.”

  “No, not Spazz.”

  Stormy narrowed her eyes at her friend and stalked around the table to stand over her. “DeeDee, who told you when that whore from the other chapter was after Sam? I always got your back. Now you’d better have mine.”

  “Damn, you know how to hurt a woman. You know you’re my best friend, Stormy.”

  She pushed out a sigh and closed her eyes for a second before opening them again, temper more in hand. At least until she thought of some slut’s hands on Dirty. “The name,” she demanded.

  “Kylie.”

  Her jaw might have hit the floor. But the pain was in her chest. “That whore? Dirty put his hands on her?”

  I will not lose my shit. There are no promises between us.

  Just a whole lot of chemistry and some stupid feelings I need to shut down.

  Her chest felt like it was being flayed open by betrayal.

  She was so dumb to believe what they had was something more.

  Except when they were alone, his kisses blazing over her lips, she belonged to him in the way only a woman could belong to a man.

  “He fucked that skinny bitch?” Her words came out breathless, her heart racing too fast to give her a chance to draw air.

  DeeDee stood and caught her arm, surprisingly strong for her size. “She came out of his room, that’s all we know. I guess we don’t know that he fucked her.”

  “And where exactly is he?”

  “He rode out this morning.”

  “On one of his vanishing acts again?”

  DeeDee nodded.

  It bothered her that she didn’t know where he went, and he didn’t tell her. But it was clear she was far more invested in this non-relationship than he was. She figured he went back to his ranch to help the uncle he’d mentioned, but now her mind whirled around the possibility that he had a girlfriend, fiancée or wife somewhere.

  She could hardly breathe. “And where can I find Kylie?”

  Tightening her grip, DeeDee shook her head. “You can’t kill her. It’s her job to be here for the guys.”

  Stormy loved this club. But if she stayed with the Bighorns until she was a hundred, she’d never understand this twisted thinking that a man could fuck anyone in his path simply because he had a big engine between his legs.

  Stormy strode out of the kitchen. Behind her, she heard DeeDee’s chair tip in her haste to rush after her. In the main room, a group of guys had just come in, cold still clinging to them and a draft racing through the space.

  “Welcome back, Stormy. Looks like you’re in a twister state of mind,” her dad joked.

  “Where’d Dirty go?” she demanded.

  Her father looked her over, his eyes full of the same concern she’d seen on DeeDee’s face. “Don’t know. Just left as always. This about Kylie?”

  Stormy’s chest felt like someone had ratcheted a cable around it. She didn’t want to think about why that was—she just wanted to know the truth. “Does everyone know about him and Kylie?”

  Four other guys turned their gazes on her. All at once, she realized she couldn’t do this. This jealous woman was not her.

  She ran her fingers through her hair. DeeDee took her by the shoulders and led her back into the kitchen. For five minutes, she listened to her friend talk nonsense about how they might not have fucked, but Stormy was finished caring. If he wanted to bone all these skinny sluts, then let him. She didn’t need him.

  Even if he gave her orgasms that made her view constellations up close and personal.

  Not to mention making her feel excited about finding a new path in her life.

  She slumped in her chair and DeeDee stopped talking. Her friend caught her gaze. “You okay, sweetie?”

  Sure. She just had to figure out how to guard her heart against one muscled hulk of a man with dark gray eyes that could slay with a single glance.

  “I’m fine.” She chewed her lip. “What needs done around here?” She needed to take her mind off Dirty.

  “Big party midweek. Green River chapter’s coming for a spring ride.”

  “Does that mean Alexander’s coming?”

  DeeDee shrugged. “Could be. We’ll be ready to give him a big homecoming if he is.”


  A few months ago she’d be thrilled to see her brother again, but now with all that was going on, she was too distracted to care as much.

  “Tell me what needs to be done.”

  “Couple of us are going into town to get supplies.”

  Stormy cast a look at the bags she’d just brought in and one woman was now emptying. “What the hell did I just buy then?”

  DeeDee looked away and then back. “You know we need a lot of food and liquor to host the Green Hills crew.”

  “I guess.” She was past caring. “I’ll help in a few. I just need a minute alone.” Stormy had been about to burst into noisy tears since hearing Dirty had Kylie in his bed. But she was not going to waste a drop on that asshole.

  She walked toward her room, not even gracing Dirty’s door with a glance.

  The fucker. Worse than her out-of-control feelings was the fact she never thought Dirty to be that man. For some reason, he’d seemed different. Because of that, she’d believed she could have a different life with him.

  Not that she didn’t love the Bighorns, her father and all the people who’d become family to her. But she was sick of the same thing day in and day out. Chores, parties. The world was bigger and she wanted a piece of it.

  Dirty could have shown it to her. They could have explored it together.

  She didn’t know this side of him. Why now, after all this time? What had changed?

  Hell with it. She didn’t need him. Didn’t need—

  Warm arms encircled her from behind. She froze dead, her hand mid-reach for the doorknob to her room.

  “Fuck, you look good.” Dirty’s chest rumbled against her back. Her ass fit oh, so perfectly against his groin. And his bulging erection said he felt it too.

  She couldn’t draw breath for fear of screaming out all the hurt. But worse, she couldn’t risk smelling him.

  Leather, spice and man. That combination was lethal to her senses.

  She breathed shallowly through her mouth. He wrapped her closer to his body and skated his lips across the side of her neck. She panted harder.

  “I thought you left,” she choked.

  Knee him in the balls or wrap her arms around his neck? The decision was a no-brainer after what he’d done.

  He landed his kiss next to her ear, sending shudders of pleasure through her body. Her nipples hardened. As if knowing this, he cupped her breasts. Stroked his thumbs back and forth over the points distending her top.