The Skeleton King (Dartmoor Book 3)

by Gilley, Lauren

  But need was a relative term, after all. And at this point, they only had a semester left.

  “I thought it was generic,” Ava said of the book. “No room for imagination at all.”

  “Hmm,” Sam murmured in agreement. “I thought–”

  Sound of a bike rolling up into the driveway.

  Ava could identify a bike by sound. “Aidan,” she said, and Sam’s stomach clenched. Not a big girlish butterfly clench like it used to, but a quick squeeze to remind her that she was always going to be devastatingly attracted. It helped that they were on friendlier terms now. That he indeed remembered her from high school. She didn’t know that she’d call them “friends,” but he greeted her by name and was kind to her.

  When Ava started to heave her pregnant self up from the table, Sam got to her feet. “I’ll go let him in. You stay put.”

  “Thanks,” Ava said with a sigh. “It’ll take me five minutes to get out of this chair.”

  Aidan was in the process of knocking when Sam answered the door, and just like always, she was flooded with a wave of holy hell, why does he have to look like that?

  With the sun behind him, his hair stood up in messy dark curls, his wide shoulders limned in warm afternoon light. He wore his usual uniform of obnoxious band t-shirt, cut, jeans, boots, and too much man-jewelry. He needed to shave.

  He was stunning, and that was before he smiled.

  “Hey, Sam.” He gave her the lady-killing grin, the one that no doubt dropped panties all over Knoxville. “Are you guys ever not studying?”

  “Nope. Summer semester is killer.” She stepped back and let him come in, relocking the door after to keep things safe…and to situate herself behind Aidan for the ass view on the way back to the kitchen.

  “Sis,” he greeted Ava, and headed straight for the fridge.

  “Bro. Why’ve you always gotta eat my food?”

  “Drink your beer,” he corrected, uncapping a Bud and sitting down at the table. “I wanted to…” He made a face. “Get a…ah, a female opinion. I guess. Yeah.” He glanced over at Sam. “Both of you, I guess, since you’re here.”

  Sam took her seat and propped her elbows on the table, curiosity piqued more than it should have been, pulse thumping just a little.

  “Somebody mark this down on a calendar,” Ava said.

  “Female opinion on what?” Sam asked.

  Sensing that she was the more receptive of the two, Aidan directed his strained expression toward her. “I’ve gotta…I mean, I’d like to…” He took a deep breath and blurted out the rest on the exhale. “I need to take a chick on a date, and I haven’t ever really done that, so I need to know where to take her so she won’t laugh my ass out of the restaurant.”

  She couldn’t have heard right, could she? “A date?”

  He fiddled with the label of his beer. “Yeah. Like, a real one.”

  “Is there some other kind of date?”

  “There’s the Aidan kind,” Ava said, smirking, “which tends toward condoms and backseats rather than candlelight and roses.”

  “Oh, like you’re so romantic,” Aidan told her.

  “When my back’s killing me and I can’t sleep” – Ava laid a hand on her round stomach – “Merc reads Dickens to me in bed. Let’s not compare levels of romance.”

  Aidan muttered something and took a swig of beer. “So, can you help or not?” His expression softened as he turned back to Sam. “Any ideas?”

  Yes, I have an idea, she thought. Why don’t you ask someone, anyone else about this? Anyone but me. “Well, Doug took me to that boutique steakhouse by campus a time or two.” Guilt tugged at her, briefly, as she thought of her coworker. Not her boyfriend, no, they’d only been out a few times, and it was obvious to both of them that things weren’t going to get serious. “It’s got the ambiance, but isn’t as pricey.”

  “You probably can’t dress like that, though,” Ava said.

  “I don’t have anything else to wear.”

  “Well, dig something up. And no cut. A place like that won’t appreciate you flying colors.”

  He made another face and downed more beer.

  “Who is this mystery woman?” Ava asked. “She must have the best rack in the world to get you to go legit.”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “Jesus.” Ava leaned over and tried to feel his forehead. “Are you sick?”

  “Leave off, brat.”

  Sam might have laughed at their antics if her stomach hadn’t been churning. “Where’d you meet her?” she asked quietly, and both siblings looked at her, as if startled by her tone.

  Ava’s brows crimped, like she was worried. What’s wrong? her eyes said.

  But Aidan couldn’t read her the same way, because she wasn’t someone he paid attention to, just his little sister’s friend, and some girl he sort of knew. “At the farm where Walsh is living. That big place, Briar Hall.”

  Sam nodded like she knew. She’d seen the name on corkboard fliers around town, ads for riding lessons and horse boarding.

  “Poor girl,” Ava said.

  “If you take her flowers,” Sam said, “take lilies. Everyone gives roses. She won’t be expecting lilies.”

  It killed her, just a little, the way his smile was without heat or interest. “Thanks.”

  Twenty

  He woke with the thumping of helicopter blades in his ears. The sound faded as his eyes opened, an old echo of memory that brought with it the sting of kicked-up sand against his skin, the hot desert air full of the smells of livestock and too many humans crowded together.

  He didn’t dream of Afghanistan often. He didn’t like to think of that simple mission and how horribly sideways it had gone.

  It was Emmie. She was dredging up old guilt and heartbreak, prodding at scabbed over wounds. She was something good and innocent, and he was failing her, hurting her. And that in turn was hurting him.

  I gotta get furniture, he thought as he rolled off his mattress and his joints protested the movement. Thirty-nine wasn’t that old in regular years, but in ex-jockey, ex-RAF, current-biker years, that was ancient when it came to knees and shoulders.

  His phone started ringing before he could get fully upright, and he cursed as he scooped it from his jeans pocket and answered it. “ ‘Lo?”

  “We’ll be there at noon,” Ghost said without greeting. “Have your manager at the house, alone.”

  ~*~

  “Don’t tell me you’re going out with him.”

  From Chaucer’s back, Tonya shrugged. “So what if I am?”

  Emmie took a deep breath and told herself to be patient. She hadn’t slept well, and was exhausted. Still shook all over when she thought about what she’d seen last night. And shook even harder when she remembered the cold flatness of Walsh’s eyes, the way her lover had turned into her captor and overlord in a blink.

  But it wasn’t Tonya’s fault. She knew nothing about the Lean Dogs or what they’d been doing in that empty field next door.

  “So, you’ve got a lot going for you,” Emmie said carefully as Chaucer walked in circles around her. “And he’s got…pretty much nothing going for him.”

  “He’s hot,” Tonya said matter-of-factly. “And he’ll make my father furious.”

  Ah, it always came back to that with heiresses, didn’t it? Pissing Daddy off, as a way to rebel against all those handouts they seemed to resent so much. The pressure of living up to expectations of perfection is so difficult, Emmie had always heard. Yeah, well, try working sixty hours a week for minimum wage and dragging your deadbeat dad off bar stools. Let’s compare lives and then we’ll see who needs to rebel against something.

  “Be careful,” Emmie warned. “These guys aren’t pretend outlaws. They’re the real deal.”

  Tonya gave a haughty sniff and collected her reins, heeling Chaucer off around the arena.

  “We’ll work on tempis next lesson, okay?” Emmie called to her back.

  Tonya acknowledged her with a q
uick whip salute.

  Emmie slumped back against the rail and shut her eyes. They felt full of sandpaper. The soreness between her legs had nothing to do with riding – horses, anyway. And she hated the physical reminder of her stupidity.

  The sound of multiple bikes approaching brought her head up, and there they were, a whole pack of Dogs sweeping up the driveway, headed for the house. Sinister in their black and white.

  As the ringing faded, and then shut off, someone cleared his throat behind her. Even his wordless murmurings had an English accent.

  “You need to come up to the house with me,” Walsh said, and his voice was low and careful.

  “Not like I have a choice, do I?” she asked, bitterly, and he didn’t respond because he didn’t have to.

  Damn him, his club, his…everything. And damn her for letting it get to this point.

  Walsh seemed to want her to walk ahead of him, motioning her forward when she turned around. Like he was a gentleman or some shit. Whatever. She folded her arms across her middle and marched up the driveway, boot heels striking loud against the asphalt, chin lifted. She wasn’t going to skitter around like a frightened mouse. If she had to face down this criminal club, she’d do it with her head held high.

  Walsh opened the front door for her when they reached the house, and she walked past him without acknowledgement, determined not to show fear as she headed for the din of voices echoing around the living room, heart knocking against her ribs.

  There was still no furniture, so they were standing, and that made them seem twice as tall and intimidating. The uniformity of their cuts, the wallet chains, the boots – they were like a military regiment. They looked at her with blank appraisal. Nothing sexual or leering, just an emotionless evaluation. Military again, she thought.

  There was the super tall one with the long black hair. The young ones who’d been by the arena – Tango, Carter, and the one who had the hots for Tonya. RJ and Briscoe who she’d met outside of Bell Bar. A few she didn’t know. And the one whose cut read President. He was by far the most frightening, and it was him she looked to, tilting her head, clenching her teeth so her jaw wouldn’t tremble.

  He gave her a small smirk, like he could see through her façade, but appreciated the effort.

  A hand touched her back – Walsh – between the shoulder blades, and then he stepped around her, moving to stand beside his president. Making it very clear that they were on opposite sides of this issue.

  She hated herself in that moment for ever letting him touch her.

  The president stepped forward. “It’s Emmie, right?” There was a semblance of a smile on his face, but it went nowhere near his dark eyes. He extended his hand for a shake. “I’m Ghost.”

  She put her hand in his, and didn’t wince when he squeezed hard. “Nice to meet you.”

  His smirk widened. “Walsh speaks highly of you.”

  She lifted her brows. “Just trying to do my job.”

  “And save your farm, right?”

  A cold chill rippled across her skin. “Right. Since I have nothing else in this world to live for.”

  She flicked a glance to Walsh, and saw him blink. No other reaction, though.

  “I’d like to think we understand one another, then,” Ghost said. “You have something to protect; I have something to protect.” His chin tipped, making his eyes look darker, harder. “It’s in both our interests for you to keep what you saw last night to yourself.”

  Or he’d have her killed. There was no misunderstanding him. And he’d brought his entire club with him to drive home the point. To scare her.

  Asshole.

  “I didn’t see anything last night,” she said. “So I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  A slow, malicious grin brought out the lines in his face. “That’s a good girl.”

  She’d never wanted to slap someone so bad.

  But she held her composure. “Was that all you needed from me? I have lessons coming in.”

  Ghost dipped his head in mock chivalry. “Yeah, we’re done.”

  She kept it together until she was halfway down the driveway, and then the shaking started. It began in her hands and traveled up her arms, turned her thighs to water so she had to stop and lean against an oak tree, palms pressed to the sturdy trunk as she struggled to catch her breath.

  The problem with letting the devil into your bed, she reflected, was that the devil always had friends.

  And she had no one.

  ~*~

  “What did you say to her last night?”

  Everyone had trooped out of the house save Ghost, and he stood on the other side of the massive kitchen island from Walsh.

  Walsh poured a generous dollop of whiskey into his coffee and slid the bottle across in offering. “I reminded her she’s got nothing to live for ‘cept this place, and that if we get busted, the farm gets taken away from her.”

  “And this place is enough leverage?”

  “It is for her. Bloody loyal, obsessive thing,” he said sourly, disgusted with himself, with the spectacle that had just taken place. He was all for a show of club strength, flexing some muscles to drive home a point, but to a five-foot girl? Who’d done nothing but be in the wrong place at the wrong time? That made him sick.

  “I’d like to believe that’s true,” Ghost said.

  Walsh gave his president a level look. “It is.”

  The man twitched a smile. “You like her. Kingston Walsh cares about somebody.”

  “She’s an innocent in all this. I don’t like collateral damage.”

  “Me neither, but sometimes it happens.”

  “No offense, prez, but that answer’s not gonna cut it with me this time.”

  Ghost snorted. “If these were the old days, back when Duane first got patched, I’d tell you to tattoo your name across her chest, chain her to your bedpost, and give her a few good licks with the belt so she understood she was your property, and she didn’t speak out of turn.”

  “But these aren’t those days.”

  “Thank Christ for that. Look, she’s a little doll to look at. And I give her credit for putting on a brave face just now. But you know I can’t afford to overlook a loose end that’s this loose. What she saw, that could put all of us away for the rest of our lives. I won’t let that happen. You’re my number two guy, Walsh, and I trust you more than anybody else, but brother, I will not let this club, and all the families tied to it, get destroyed for one girl. I can’t. Family comes first, and she’s not family.”

  Walsh nodded. He understood – the brotherhood, the family built around it – that was the first priority. It trumped anything personal, and it crushed any outside threats.

  He remembered Michael’s tortured expression at the table a year ago, when he’d thought Holly would wind up a casualty of the club. Walsh felt some of that bile pushing up his throat now. He was invested at this point, and he couldn’t just…

  Wait.

  Light bulb moment.

  “What if she was family?” he asked. “What if she was my old lady?”

  Ghost affected surprise. “It would be better for her. Doesn’t change the fact that I can’t let her squeal, you understand.”

  “Yeah, but…”

  The wheels were turning now. Make her his old lady, bring her into the fold, let her meet the women and see the softer side of things, let her have a taste of being part of the kind of family she didn’t have now.

  Of course, that was assuming she’d even be willing to talk to him.

  But she was a smart girl. If he explained it to her…

  Yeah. He could make it work.

  He hoped.

  ~*~

  Aidan spotted his brunette as he walked to his bike. She was down in the arena, hands loose on the reins as her horse walked around in laps, staring out across the rolling fields with that picturesque thoughtful expression models always had in catalogues.

  “Catch up with you back at the shop,”
he told Tango as he walked past him down the driveway.

  Tango rolled his eyes. “Yeah. Good luck, Romeo. I’ll have some ice ready for the burns.”

  Aidan flipped him the bird over his shoulder and then pushed his hand through his hair, tugging the unruly curls into place. He hadn’t shaved that morning – shit. But he was wearing cologne. And his clothes had only been worn once, and not the usual three times.

  He popped a piece of gum and buffed his sunglasses on the hem of his shirt. Before he slipped them back on, he checked his reflection in them. Same old sharp jaw and dark eyes that always looked back at him in the mirror, a younger version of his dad’s face. But suddenly he was looking at it more critically. Should he start using a fancier shaving cream? Something with moisturizer? Get some of those teeth whitening strips?

  Fuck it, chicks like your face, he reminded himself, popped on the shades, rolled his shoulders a couple times, and approached the fence.

  Tonya noticed him with a slight turn of her head, but she made him wait, completing her lap around the arena before making her leisurely way toward him. The horse was tired, chest and neck lathered with sweat, its nostrils flaring wide and pink as it caught its breath.

  “Are you supposed to look that beautiful while you’re riding a horse?” Aidan asked, giving her his best, most devastating grin.

  She gave him only a small smirk in return. “Does that line ever work?”

  “All the time, sweetheart.”

  “Ooh, impressive.”

  This was a first for him. Except for his sister, the ladies never gave him a hard time, criticized his game. It threw him off.

  “My mistake, then.” He rapped a hand on the rail and took a step back. “I was thinking you’d like to come out with me, but I guess I’ll have to find somebody who’s impressed.”

  She shrugged.

  He turned around and made it three steps before she said, “Go out where?”

  Aidan grinned. Still got it.

  ~*~