Mountain Man's Price (Mountain Men Book 3)

by Ava Grace

  Luke nodded. “Thanks, that would be great.”

  We ordered a bottle of dry white wine plus a bottle of water, but as we perused the menu, Luke only drank from his water glass.

  “What’s good here?” he asked, over the top of his menu.

  I raised my eyebrows in surprise. “You’ve never eaten here before?”

  “Nope, never.”

  “Why not?”

  He raised one of his shoulders. “Never had anyone I wanted to bring and this is not exactly the sort of place you come with the guys.”

  I lowered my gaze.

  I was touched that he liked me enough to want to bring me to a fancy restaurant, but I didn’t want to give him false hope that something was going to develop out of this thing that was going on between us. It wasn’t.

  “Everything’s good,” I said, answering his earlier question. “But the Pollo Parmegiano is to die for.”

  He closed his menu. “That’s good enough for me.”

  After we’d ordered dinner and Paolo had left again to talk to his other customers, I took a few sips of wine for Dutch courage then cleared my throat.

  “Luke, there’s something we need to discuss.”

  “Okay,” he said amiably. “Shoot.”

  I sighed. “Look, this is great,” I said, nodding over my shoulder to the restaurant, “But about I wouldn’t want you to think that this is something…more than it is.”

  “More than what?” he asked.

  “More than casual.”

  He leaned back in his seat and stared at me steadily. “We’re back to this?”

  “We were never off it,” I said. “We are not dating, Luke. We’re…” Honestly, I didn’t know what we were. “Friends,” was the only thing I could come up with.

  Jesus, I was starting to sound like a broken record, even to my own ears, but I couldn’t think of any other way to get my point across.

  “I like you,” I went on. “I do, but this thing between us isn’t going anywhere. I need you to understand that.”

  Luke took a piece of bread out of the basket, broke a piece off then dipped it in the little pot of olive oil before popping it into his mouth and chewing. Slowly.

  “Luke!” I said, exasperated. “I’m being serious. Aren’t you listening to me?”

  After he’d finished chewing, he swallowed his mouthful then leaned forward across the table. “I am listening,” he answered. “I just don’t like what I’m hearing. Let me ask you something. Did you enjoy what happened between us the other night?”

  Heat rose in my cheeks, but I wasn’t going to lie. “Yes, I did, but…”

  “And would you like it to happen again?”

  I sighed. “Sure, but…”

  “Then I don’t see a problem here.”

  “The problem is that you’re not looking for casual.”

  “And you are?”

  I lifted my chin. “Yes.”

  Was I?

  I didn’t even know what I wanted any more, but I had to stick to my guns. There was a reason I hadn’t wanted to get involved in a relationship with Luke and that reason still stood. I could easily fall in love with Luke and that would be bad. Very bad. I’d already had my heart broken once that year. I wouldn’t survive it a second time.

  “So am I,” he said, making me blink.

  “Huh?”

  “You just admitted to me that you enjoyed what happened between us the other night. You also admitted that you’d like it to happen again. Perfect,” he said. “Because I want to it to happen again too.

  “So this is my price.” He nodded to the restaurant at large. “I don’t want to just turn up at your door and fuck you up against the wall.”

  I gasped and cringed at the same time, turning in my seat to ensure no one had heard him.

  “However,” he continued as if he hadn’t noticed my unease. “And I’ll make myself perfectly clear here. I am looking for a relationship, but if you don’t want one, that’s fine. This is my price. I want to be friends.”

  I eyed him dubiously. “Friends?”

  He nodded. “I want to bring you lunch now and then and I want to enjoy a nice dinner together. I’ll fuck you all you want if that’s what you’re looking for, but you’ve got to do something for me and this is it. This is my price. Take it or leave it.”

  He leaned back in his chair with a satisfied expression as if we’d just resolved everything, but we hadn’t resolved a darn thing.

  “You’d be happy with a casual relationship?” I asked, unconvinced.

  “I can get behind that.” He grinned broadly. “What should we call this casual relationship we’re having? We’ve already established that we’re going to be friends so, friends with benefits?”

  I frowned.

  I felt as if I was walking into a trap, but I couldn’t work out what it was exactly.

  Why would he offer me this if he wasn’t happy about it?

  “Friends with benefits?” I questioned.

  He nodded. “That’s right.”

  “Okay,” I said hesitantly.

  He nodded. “Good. That settles it.”

  I blinked. “It does?”

  “Yep. Ah, look, here’s our dinner.”

  I pulled my bottom lip into my mouth then leaned back in my seat.

  I let the subject dropped as dinner was served and also while we ate, but I wasn’t convinced that the issue was fully resolved. Luke had done a one-eighty. He seemed adamant that he wanted a relationship so could he really be content with something casual? And should I have been questioning his motives, or should I have grabbed the gift that had been handed to me with both hands?

  Because at the end of the day, I was attracted to Luke.

  Very much so.

  And I did want to sleep with him again.

  In fact, I wanted it more than I wanted my next breath.

  Perhaps I could have something casual and mutually beneficial with Luke without my heart getting in the way. Other women did it so why couldn’t I?

  I was feeling marginally more optimistic by the time we arrived back at my house, and, if I was being honest, I was looking forward to the benefits part of our new friends with benefits relationship. As Luke walked me to the door, butterflies danced in my stomach and an image of the other night flashed through my mind. I could hardly wait for the repeat performance.

  I walked in then stepped aside for Luke to follow. I was about to make a joke about the fact that this would be the second time he’d see more of my house than the hallway when his cell phone started ringing.

  Luke groaned as he checked the caller display then nodded to the phone. “Sorry, I need to get this.”

  I shrugged then switched on the light in the hallway.

  “Yeah?” he said into the phone. “What? Oh, come on, you’ve got to be shitting me. Now? Dude, you have got some bad motherfucking timing. Yeah. I get it. Alright, I’ll see you in ten.”

  I’d only heard one side of the conversation, of course, but it was enough to know that our night had come to an abrupt end. Luke slid the cell phone back into his pocket then lifted his head to meet my gaze.

  “Vi, I’m sorry. I gotta bail. Coop needs me at the clubhouse. He’s called a meeting.”

  I shrugged as if the information wasn’t all that important, but I was actually kinda bummed. I’d been looking forward to getting him out of that jacket and shirt all night. I couldn’t believe that I’d had sex with him, but I still hadn’t seen him naked. I’d felt his muscles moving against me, but I’d hoped that on our second time together, I would actually get to feel them moving on top of me.

  “It’s cool,” I said, unsure if I was trying to convince myself or him. “I’ve got some work to be catching up on anyway.”

  Luke leaned in and kissed me long and hard. I groaned as he pulled back. How did he get me so breathless with one little kiss?

  “You’ve really got to go?”

  “Yeah. We’ll catch up again soon, okay?”
r />   “Sure. Thanks for dinner. I enjoyed myself.”

  Luke raised an eyebrow. “Can I have that in writing?”

  I slapped his shoulder. “Very funny. I do actually enjoy your company, you know. I just…”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. You’re just not looking for anything serious. I’m good with that, remember?”

  He kissed me again then headed back out to his bike. “Catch you later,” he said over his shoulder.

  As I watched him speed away, I tried to assess how I felt about the night and realized that I was pretty positive about the whole situation, all things considered. I’d enjoyed dinner. I enjoyed Luke’s company and I was fairly certain that I’d been about to enjoy certain other activities with Luke.

  But we weren’t dating and were definitely not in a relationship.

  Friends with benefits.

  Huh.

  Perhaps I could do casual, after all.

  Chapter Eight

  Luke

  As I headed into church, I had a fairly good idea of what was about to go down. For Coop to call an emergency meeting so late at night, Ian must have talked to him. It was about time. What Ian had told me earlier that day had been playing on my mind and I’d decided that if he hadn’t told Coop what was going on within a day or two tops, I was going to have to do it myself.

  I strode into the meeting room then took a seat at the large, rectangular table. Coop nodded to me when he met my gaze. We waited maybe ten more minutes for the rest of the brothers to arrive then my pop closed the door, shutting us all in together before taking his seat next to mine.

  Dev, our secretary threw a notepad down on the table then opened it to a fresh page, his pen poised, ready to take the minutes. He looked at Coop expectantly as did the rest of us.

  “Sorry for calling you all here tonight at such short notice,” Coop began. “But a rather serious issue has been brought to my attention and I thought you all should know about it right away.”

  “What’s up, Coop?” one of the brothers asked.

  Coop sighed. “I had a visit from Ian earlier. He was in pretty bad shape. Someone did a number on him. Face is all busted up. So are his ribs.”

  “He piss someone off?” my father asked. “That boy is always looking for trouble.”

  Coop shook his head. “It sounds as if trouble found him this time. Before I get onto the details of our chat, I think you all should know something. He looked like shit. He was holding onto his gut like that was the only way he could keep his insides in so I asked him to show me his injuries.

  “His stomach was swollen. Damn fool wouldn’t see a doctor so I ordered him to see one. Drove him over to the ER myself.”

  I leaned forward in my seat. “He okay?”

  Coop held my gaze. “The doc said he has internal bleeding.”

  I slammed my fist on the desk. “Fuck.”

  “He going to be okay?” my father asked.

  Coop shrugged. “Too soon to tell. They thought it might have been coming from his liver. They were about to do exploratory surgery as I left. His family is all there with him. I’m going to head on over there to check on him as soon as we’re done here. I’ll keep you informed.

  “Now, on to the other reason that I called you all here. Any of you boys know about the deal Ryker had going on with a man named Steele?”

  A chorus of ‘no’s’ rumbled around the room.

  “He’s the drug dealer who was supplying Ryker, apparently,” Coop explained. “It looks as if Ryker owes him money. A lot of money. Fifty grand to be precise.”

  A few of the brothers whistled and others muttered curses and I could tell from the look on everyone’s face that they had a fair idea of where this was going.

  “This Steele, whoever the hell he is, thinks that Ryker’s debt now belongs to the club.”

  “The fuck it does,” Hunter, our road captain spat. “Ryker and that stupid little shit Owen were the only ones involved in buying drugs from that piece of scum.”

  “Yeah, it’s got nothing to do with us,” Dev added.

  Coop leaned back in his chair. “My thoughts exactly. I don’t know about you boys, but personally, I take offense to that asshole threatening us. Whatever Ryker was involved in was his business.

  “The thing is, Ian seems to think that this Steele is willing to go to war with us if he doesn’t get what he wants. You all know what that means.

  “Every brother here will have to watch not only their own backs but their friends’ and families’ backs too. And I think I’d be right in saying that no one here really wants to have to do that. We’ve always been a peaceful club. And I’d like it to stay that way.

  “I called you all here today, not only to tell you what was going on but also to share with you what I intend to do about it. Some of you might not like this, but I’ve decided to take this matter to the police.”

  When the room broke out into a frenzy of objections and arguments, Coop shouted over everyone to be heard.

  “Now wait just a Goddamn minute! Hear me out!” He waited for the chatter to quiet down then spoke again. “I know that many of you here haven’t got a lot of respect for the law, but this is something we must do.

  “I’ve got a couple of friends who work in the sheriff’s department, most of you here will know them yourselves. They’re Creede residents so they’ve got as much at stake in this as anyone here. They care about the people in this town.

  “I say we bring them in, work together and try to flush this asshole out. How much of a threat can he be to us from behind bars?”

  The room went quiet while everyone thought about what Coop had said. Creede’s sheriff, Ethan Walker, and his deputy, Rick, were my friends too. I respected them and I knew we could trust them. So I was down with Coop’s suggestion.

  “In my opinion, we can use all the help we can get,” I said to the room at large.

  My father nodded. “I agree. Like Coop said, apart from the odd fist fight, we’ve always been a peaceful club. We’re not in a position to go to war with a bunch of high school kids let along a fucking drug dealer.

  “He seems to be pretty high up on the food chain too, considering that Ryker had fifty grand’s worth of shit on loan from him. What if he’s got a fucking cartel backing him?”

  Silence descended around the room while everyone digested that. When I looked around at my brothers, it was evident that what my father had just said had hit home. The expressions on their faces ranged from a mild dose of fear to out and out panic.

  “Look, we don’t know that for sure,” Coop said, “But it’s something we need to consider when we’re making our decision. I know you think it might be easier to just pay Steele, and trust me, I thought about doing that myself, too, but how can we be sure he’d stop at fifty thousand?

  “How long would it take before he came back looking for more? We’ve got to nip this in the bud or we’ll be paying this fucker for the rest of our lives and where is the money gonna come from, eh?

  “How long will it be before every one of us here is doing something we don’t wanna be doing to give that asshole what he wants? We’ve got to make a stand and show him that we’re not gonna let him push us around. We cannot give him money. It would solve nothing.”

  Murmurs of agreement echoed around the room.

  “So we put this to the vote,” Coop said. “All those in favor of me talking to the sheriff, raise your hands.”

  Although some seemed reluctant, every brother in the room put their hand in the air so Coop brought down the gavel with an assertive thump.

  “That settles it,” Coop said. “This shit is too much for us to deal with on our own, my brothers. I’m calling in the sheriff. Let’s hope that together, we can bring this fucker down for even daring to threaten us. Meeting adjourned.”

  After the men had filed out of the room, Coop pulled me to one side.

  “You knew about Steele, didn’t you?”

  “How do you figure that?”

&nbs
p; “I saw your face when I delivered the news about Ian. You weren’t surprised.”

  I nodded. “I met with Ian here earlier today. He told me what had happened and I convinced him to talk to you about it.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I figured he should tell you himself.” I met Coop’s gaze and held it. “I only planned on giving him a day, two at most and if he didn’t speak to you, I would have.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Listen, Coop. Internal bleeding? Shit, I had no idea. I asked him if he’d been checked out and he said he was fine.”

  “Yeah, he’s a stubborn son-of-a-bitch. Don’t lose any sleep over it. You weren’t to know.”

  It was of little consolation.

  I should have pushed him to see a doctor.

  Coop slapped me on the back and his mouth curved up into a knowing grin. “Why have I got bad motherfucking timing by the way? What were you doing earlier when I called?”

  I muttered a curse. “I was with Violet. And I reckon I was minutes away from my good evening turning into a great night.”

  Coop barked out a laugh. “I thought as much. I saw your little display at The Tavern the other night. How’s it going between the two of you?”

  “She’s fighting me at every turn.”

  “I wouldn’t have expected anything different. She’s been burned once so she’s gonna be looking to protect herself from it happening again. Stick with it, it’ll be worth it.”

  I grinned back at him. “I intend to.”

  Chapter Nine

  Violet

  I strode into Buck’s Steakhouse to meet with Luke and headed straight to the bar where he was sat nursing a beer. When I took a seat next to him, he looked me over from head to toe then let out a low wolf whistle.

  “You look stunning,” he said simply.

  Color rose in my cheeks. I hadn’t expected the compliment, but it was nice of him to make it. “Thanks.”

  I got the bartender’s attention then ordered a Mojito. As he set about making it, I turned to Luke.

  “You tricked me,” I accused.

  His eyes widened. “What? How?”

  “This is a date.”

  “It’s not a date. We’re friends, remember? Friends eat dinner together.”