The Skeleton King (Dartmoor Book 3)

by Gilley, Lauren

  “What are you doing?” he asked, and she thought he almost smiled.

  Shit, she couldn’t tell him what she was sitting here thinking. She’d have to come up with a convincing lie. “I’m wondering what part of England you’re from,” she said. “And if everyone there is as hot as you.”

  Damn it! She wasn’t supposed to say that part.

  His smile was slow, sly, and pleased.

  “Oh no.” Emmie turned away and slapped her forehead down into her palm. The darkening lawn before her swayed. Way, way too much champagne. “Is there any chance you can pretend I didn’t say that?”

  “Not in the slightest.”

  She groaned. Gapped her fingers and twisted just enough to see his smiling face through them. “I didn’t mean it, you know. It just came out. Like champagne-induced word vomit.”

  His laugh was quiet, but it did twirly things to her insides.

  “Here.” She thrust the bottle toward him, the liquid inside sloshing thanks to her unsteady hand. “Take this before it gets any worse.”

  “Worse? You gonna start telling me why you think I’m so hot?”

  “I said ‘hot,’ not ‘so hot.’”

  “Big difference?”

  “Huge.” And for some reason, the word huge heated her cheeks until she knew they had to be pink. What had he said before? Something about not being small where it counted? “Shit.”

  He laughed again – what a smoky, wonderful sound it was; she had no idea a laugh could have a British accent, but it was making her blush all the harder. God, she’d lost all self-control.

  She really did need to get laid apparently.

  But then Walsh seemed to take pity on her, grabbed the bottle back from her and said, “So how’d you end up at this place anyway? Why’s it mean so much to you?”

  A nice safe, non-sexual topic.

  Emmie lifted her head, squinted against the heaving of the lawn in front of them. Night was fast falling, and it made her vision even blurrier. “I was eight,” she said, “and I wanted riding lessons more than I wanted to take my next breath. Mom finally relented, looked up Amy in the paper classifieds – that was back when people went to the newspaper for information, you know.”

  “Hmm.”

  “And I had my very first riding lesson on an Appaloosa named Cheyenne. He was a hundred-years-old, but he was sweet, and I – God, even though I was on the longe line, and all I did was trot a little, it was like someone had given me wings. Like I could fly. Like who I was, and what I was, what I looked like, how small I was – none of that meant anything. It sounds hokey, but it was electric. It felt like destiny clicking into place.”

  “You’re right. That does sound hokey.”

  “I know, I know.” She leaned back in her chair, pushed her feet against the porch boards to set it rocking. “But I get all hokey when I drink.”

  “And when you talk about horses.”

  She smiled. “Yeah.”

  They rocked in silence a moment, the song of crickets filling up the gathering darkness around them. She’d left the lights on down in the barn, in her apartment and the office; their glow was a happy one.

  “So you didn’t tell me,” she said, “what part of England.”

  “You mean you weren’t just trying to get in my pants?”

  She snorted, finding his quip funnier than she normally would have. “Um, no. I really wanted to know.”

  “So you can come onto me?”

  “So I can know who I work for,” she said, shooting him a level look that was thrown by the way her head didn’t want to lift off the back of the chair. “And for the record, I don’t ‘come on’ to anybody.”

  “Shame.”

  “Not really.”

  “I think it is.” His smile had dropped away, his expression more serious and thoughtful. It seemed to be his default expression: composed, emotionless, analytical.

  Emmie liked looking at him – something about his features and the tight way he was put together drew her eye the way a well-built horse did at a show ground – and she was drunk enough to give into temptation. She stared at him without being too ashamed about it. “London, right? You’ve got that little bit of – something in your voice makes me think London.”

  “Familiar with the place, are you?”

  “I cliniced with a trainer from London once. You sound like him.”

  He nodded. “London.”

  “Why’d you leave?”

  His fast non-smile said so many things. “That’s a very long story that doesn’t need telling to a woman I’m trying to impress.”

  She felt her face grow warm. “There’s not a lot that impresses me.”

  “Give it a bit. I expect that’ll change.”

  ~*~

  Walsh couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this cocky. Or talkative. Pre-club, he’d been earnest, awkward, kind with women. He’d hadn’t wanted to be anything like his no-account, seed-spreading father. But then…after what happened with Rita…

  By the time he’d joined the club, he’d become cool and detached with the ladies. Just enough effort to get what he wanted, and that was it. They were lucky if they got a goodbye afterward.

  But somehow, now, the hard and soft sides of himself had coalesced into something snarky, talkative, and surprising. He was flirting with this woman, and he was enjoying the hell out of it.

  She was watching him, her eyes a little glassy from the alcohol, her face flushed prettily, her breasts straining against her shirt every time she inhaled. He had a feeling she wouldn’t be this talkative if not for the champagne, but he would take what he could get.

  “Well…so much for being humble,” she said, flustered by what he’d just said.

  Walsh was afraid if he turned loose of the idiotic grin he wanted to flash, he wouldn’t be able to rein it in. “You don’t believe me?”

  “You’re not as charming as you think you are.”

  He started to refute her – and his watch beeped. “Ah, shit.”

  “What?”

  “I almost forgot Dolly.”

  Emmie recoiled against the back of her chair. Too tipsy to hide her disappointment, she frowned. “Who?”

  “Dolly. My dog.”

  She blinked…and then he saw the relief wash over her. So she was interested enough to be bothered by the sound of another woman’s name. Score for him. “Oh. You have a dog?”

  “You’ll like her. She’s a good girl. Good farm dog.”

  Emmie nodded. “We used to have a dog here, long time ago. An Aussie named Bert.” Her smile was wistful. “It’s been forever, but I still miss him sometimes.”

  Walsh would have happily sat there and watched her face cycle through one expression after the next until the drink eventually sent her off to dreamland. But Dolly was waiting, and that meant this moment had come to an end.

  Unless…

  “You want to come with me?”

  She looked surprised.

  “To get Dolly. You wanna come?”

  Fear, just a touch of it, edged through the champagne fog. “How are you gonna get a dog on the back of your bike?”

  “I have a truck, too.”

  “Oh.”

  “So do you?”

  She swallowed with obvious difficulty, like a skittery teenager in a horror movie. “I probably shouldn’t.”

  Walsh stood, wincing as every joint in his body cracked. “I only bite if you want me to, love. But stay here if you like. Be all lonesome.”

  “I’m not lonesome,” she protested hotly.

  “Sure you’re not.”

  “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she muttered behind him, and then the champagne bottle was plucked from his hand.

  When he turned around, she was swallowing down the dregs and surging unsteadily to her feet. “Where is your dog?”

  “Not far.”

  Nine

  She was astounded by her own stupidity. No one in her right mind would allow herself to get
into a truck with a confirmed outlaw, who was also a stranger, after dark, on the way to an unknown destination. Just stupid.

  But here she sat, in the passenger seat of a Silverado old enough to have Chevrolet etched into the chrome bar across the tailgate, watching the headlights skim across mailboxes and shaggy roadside grass, breathing in the old tang of smoke embedded in the cloth seats.

  She was quickly sobering up, the fizzle in her veins being replaced by an uneasiness that left her cursing her own slip. She couldn’t believe she’d had so much to drink. Couldn’t believe she’d agreed to go anywhere with this man.

  A glance across the cab proved that Walsh watched the road with practiced ease, one hand cocked at a loose angle on the wheel, the other on the arm rest between them.

  “Worried I can’t keep on this side of the road?” he asked, and she glanced away, ashamed to be caught staring.

  “Worried I’m about to be cut up into bits and bricked into a wall.”

  He snorted.

  “No offense.”

  “Not real trusting, are you?”

  “Not really.”

  “That’s good.”

  Emmie took a deep breath and let it out in a rush, let her head fall sideways so her temple rested against the window. Her pulse pounded behind her eyes and she hated trying to make sense of the situation. At this point, she had to trust he wouldn’t kill her, and accept the fact the she’d put herself right here, in this spot.

  “What’s it like?” she asked quietly. “Being a Lean Dog?”

  He gave the vocal equivalent of a shrug. “It’s like having loads of brothers. Lot of riding. Lot of work.”

  “Work?”

  “Bein’ part of a family that big isn’t like being on vacation, love. Yeah. It’s work.”

  Emmie frowned at her ghostly window reflection. She’d heard any number of things about the Lean Dogs MC: that they were ruthless killers, drug dealers, ex-cons, para-military types, anarchists. Some of the rumors amongst polite female society verged toward tales of baby-eating and satanic rituals.

  She’d never heard it spoken of as a family.

  “Brothers, huh? Is that why you joined? Are you an only child?”

  This time, the sound he made was derisive.

  “Take that as a no.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Do you have a family of your own? Is there a Mrs. Walsh who’s gonna move in at the farm?”

  “You’ve got a lot of questions, pet,” he said, not unkindly. It almost sounded like he was smiling.

  “I’m drunk, for one,” she admitted. “Also, I’m getting to know you, remember? I’ve only ever had one boss, and he’s dead now…And you’re some sort of…well, I don’t know what you are. Because I haven’t decided what a Lean Dog really is yet. That’s why all the questions.”

  There was a pause. Then, “Wait till your head’s clear, love, then decide how much you really wanna know about the Dogs.”

  She was working to form a comeback – brain sluggish and heavy – when the truck slowed and lurched over a broken curb, into the patchy yard of what looked like a tiny shack of a house. The headlights washed across it and she saw that it was in good repair, the siding faded, but not termite-eaten. A lamp was on somewhere inside, its glow shining through a window. And on the porch, fluffy tail thumping and tongue lolling, was a black and white and blue Aussie-type dog, ears pricked up as she spotted her master’s truck.

  Emmie climbed out much more clumsily than Walsh – shit, she shouldn’t have had that much to drink, for so many reasons – and heard him whistle.

  “Dolly-girl,” he called, and the dog barked in greeting, nails clicking as she scrambled off the porch to go to him.

  When Emmie reached the front of the truck, standing in the headlights, she saw Walsh crouched down in front of the dog, ruffling the thick mane of multicolored hair at her throat. Dolly licked his face, panted happily – then turned to Emmie.

  “Hi, baby.” Emmie extended a hand to be sniffed.

  Dolly did so, then licked her, and stared up at her with intelligent, mismatched eyes, one blue and one gold.

  It was love at first sight, on Emmie’s part. She joined Walsh, crouched down in front of Dolly, getting hit in the face with warm dog breath, smiling hugely.

  In the headlights, Walsh watched her with what seemed like an approving half-smile.

  Okay, she thought, a guy with a dog like this couldn’t be all that bad. Right?

  ~*~

  Walsh had never brought a woman to his house. It didn’t matter that Emmie didn’t go in, that they loaded Dolly up and turned right back around for Briar Hall – it still rattled him, a little. Nothing illegal ever happened at his little place. He held no ill-gotten gains there; the club had never touched it. So it was for purely personal reasons he’d been shaken to see this new pretty blonde in his life standing in his front yard.

  He couldn’t stop fantasizing about getting her in a bed somewhere, and that wasn’t like him, dwelling on someone, wanting in this way; he hadn’t been with anyone who wasn’t a complete waste of hairspray in years. And years. Maybe ever, if he counted Rita among the list of nothing-specials…

  It was one thing to have a woman at the clubhouse, where it was about the way leather, and smoke, and danger sharpened the sex drive. It was another thing to have a woman who was worth a damn see where he lived and pet his dog.

  Dolly liked her right off. Of course she did; Emmie was an animal person. And when Emmie fell asleep on the ride to the farm, Dolly half-flopped across her lap and the two of them made a homey picture in the passenger seat. A picture that was less cute when they pulled up in front of the barn at Briar Hall, Dolly jumped out, and Walsh realized Emmie was out cold.

  “Emmie. Em.” He prodded her shoulder gently. Then less gently. Nothing.

  She’d fallen asleep against the door, her hair across her face, and the blonde curls rustled as she let out a deep breath…and stayed asleep.

  “Brilliant.”

  He got out and walked around – Dolly was already off smelling things, snuffling through the dark around the sides of the barn – hoping Emmie would stir before he reached her.

  She didn’t.

  When he opened the passenger door, she fell out, or at least started to. He caught her and eased her back into the seat, so she was in a slouched, semi-upright position. She gave a very unladylike snort that made him grin, but again, didn’t wake.

  Walsh sighed. Tenderness was a dangerous, dangerous thing. It had made a complete fool of him once before, and he wasn’t anxious to repeat the experience. Tenderness had served Ghost, and Mercy, and Michael, Rottie – all his married brothers – well. But for him, tenderness was only ever a trap. One he carefully avoided. One made less avoidable by what he was about to do.

  Shit.

  “Come on, then,” he said to the sleeping barn manager, gathered her up in his arms, lifted her against his chest with one arm beneath her shoulders, the other beneath her knees. He was thankful for her smallness, her lightness. Not so thankful for the way she settled in against him and didn’t stir.

  The barn lights were still on, so he didn’t have to stumble through the dark. The apartment stairs were alongside the office, narrow and steep, but he managed, even getting the knob turned and the door open without dropping his burden.

  The lights were on up here, too, and illuminated a cozy, wood-paneled space that looked like a barn loft, despite the furniture. She had a TV and a computer, he saw as he crossed the room. The air smelled like shampoo, and lotion, and clean sheets, not like horse piss; a faint undertone of fresh-cut hay.

  A comfortable, well-taken-care-of apartment. And a lonely one. He knew loneliness so well he recognized its taint here, the cold drafts of it that rushed across his skin.

  When he set Emmie down on top of her quilt-covered bed, she rolled away from him immediately, tucking into the fetal position, spine curved like a protective shell against him.

  Walsh braced a hand
on the mattress, noting the way it dipped beneath his weight as he leaned forward to peek at her face. “You still asleep for all that?”

  She was, and making a distressed sound in the back of her throat, brows crimped together like she was having a bad dream.

  He didn’t need this. He so did not need this.

  Withdrawing, he found an extra folded quilt at the foot of the bed, shook it out, draped it over her. “Sleep in tomorrow,” he said, though she couldn’t hear. “Let the others worry about it.”

  Is that what he’d do? Sleep late in the massive four-poster bed the movers weren’t coming to take away until the morning?

  No. He wasn’t sure he’d ever rest easy in that dead man’s house. Davis Richards kicking off was much too convenient. And whatever the cause, he knew for damn sure the universe never shifted of its own accord in his favor.

  Ten

  “Michael…”

  For almost forty years, his name had just been his name. The two syllables people used when they wanted to catch his attention; something scribbled at the top of his paychecks.

  But when his old lady said it, when she was naked under him and he was touching her, his name on her lips was something to be savored.

  Holly shifted, like his hand between her legs wasn’t enough, lifting against him, the sheets rustling. Her nails dug into his shoulders. “Michael,” she said against the underside of his jaw, that breathy, turned-on, helpless voice he loved hearing when he was inside her.

  He grinned against her hair, the side of her face. “What?” he asked, fingers playing against her wet heat.

  It was still dark, and so it didn’t feel like morning yet. The birds were still asleep. The neighborhood was still hushed. No one awake but them, in this stolen moment before the day arrived and responsibility claimed their attention. A perfect, steaming moment to just be a man and a woman, instead of all the other things they were.

  “You know,” Holly groaned, and her hand slid between them, wrapped around his cock.

  That put an effective end to his teasing.

  He braced up on his arms above her, stared down into her flushed, heavy-lidded face – she was smiling, beautiful, hungry. God, he needed this. He –