“I’m an ATF agent. Why?” Mig asked shortly.
Mig wasn’t big on answering questions, especially ones that came from women.
He, for some reason, thought it was because all women were out to make his life a living hell like his wife did.
It could never be an innocent question, according to Mig.
Lenore’s brows rose at Mig’s short answer, and she leaned forward.
“You’ve got to have the worst attitude on the planet earth,” she declared as she leaned even closer. “You remind me of someone I used to know.”
Mig’s brow rose. “Oh yeah? Who’s that?”
Lenore leaned back and smiled. “My grandfather. He was so awesome,” she gushed. “He used to yell at everyone but me, though. No one else was saved from his abuse.” She smiled dreamily. “He used to go pump gas and complain that the pump pumped too slow. Or when he got a cake from the bakery and the colors were wrong, he’d make them remake it or he’d get his money back. He was the king of complainers.”
It bothered me that she was fond of the fact that Mig resembled her grandfather.
In fact, I was downright jealous of Mig in that moment.
Lenore hadn’t so much as said a single nice thing to me in the time I’d been sitting there, and I was getting really irritated with that fact.
Which was probably why my mouth got away from me.
“Why the fuck are you ignoring me?” I asked shortly.
Lenore slowly turned to face me with a ferocious frown on her face.
Mig picked up his beer to hide his smile, and I wanted to beat the shit out of him.
“You want to know why I’m ignoring you?” Lenore asked sweetly.
A little too sweet, in fact.
I nodded my head. “Yeah, I fucking do, or I wouldn’t have asked.”
I was getting just as pissed as she was, which wasn’t a new thing.
In fact, I’d always had temper problems.
When I was younger, my mother liked to call me her little bull baby because I was like a bull in a pasture. If something pissed me off, I would charge it.
I had gotten a check on that part of myself when I’d gotten into the military and the army boot camp sergeants knocked the absolute shit out of me for talking back to them.
But it never went fully away.
And there were times that it reared its ugly head when I least wanted it to.
“Shit,” Remy sighed. “Why don’t y’all take this outside?”
Neither one of us listened as we both made our way to our feet.
Lenore stood about six inches from me as she moved so close to me I could see the different hues of her beautiful, angry eyes.
“I am not the type of woman that you just fuck and sleep with,” she said angrily. “I am a woman that you should take out on dates. I am a woman that you should call and give updates on your daily life. I am a woman that deserves to know that you’re alive and not dead in some fucking ditch on the side of the mother fuckin’ road!”
Ahh, the fucks were back.
Got it.
And I was just as angry as she was.
“I haven’t had fucking time to call you the last week,” I replied just as angrily. “I’ve been working. I’ve been trying to catch the piece of shit that killed my son.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Well, would it have killed you to tell me that?”
I glared at her. “I was busy.”
“I see,” she said in a deceptively quiet tone. “So what I’m hearing, basically, is that you’re busy, and I don’t rank high enough on your to-do list to warrant more than a quick fuck every few days followed by a nap. Got it. I see where I stand.” She narrowed her eyes. “Unfortunately, that doesn’t work for me, so I’m thinking that maybe you should leave me the fuck alone and tell your damn friends to do the same.”
My ‘friends,’ as she called them, were protecting her, and had been for nearly two weeks now.
They’d been taking turns watching her during the day and into the night until she got home.
When she got home, they used the surveillance I’d rigged up at her house to give her her privacy, but they were still able to ensure her safety by keeping an eye on the feed.
“My friends are there to make sure you don’t get shot at like I did yesterday,” I hissed, moving so close that her nose was touching mine.
Her eyes widened.
And I wanted to keep shouting at her, but I could tell that my words had thrown her.
“Y-you were shot?” She stuttered.
I fucking loved her stutter.
Hell, I fucking loved her!
Which was a startling realization in that moment.
I hadn’t loved anyone since my ex-wife.
Someone that I thought I could count on forever.
But I couldn’t, and in this moment, when I realized how deeply I felt about this woman who was so extremely upset with me, I knew I’d have to let go of the anger I still held for my ex-wife.
Oh, I could still be pissed off at her husband, but I didn’t have to be pissed off at her.
Because if she hadn’t cheated on me, I wouldn’t have Lenore. I wouldn’t have just realized I loved her in the middle of a goddamn bar.
Deeply.
I refused to think about how Tanner’s life would be affected right now.
About how much I knew he’d adore Lenore.
He always loved when I was happy, and right now, with the love, concern, and anger on Lenore’s face, all emotions she felt for me, I knew.
Tanner would’ve approved.
And that was enough for me to realize that I loved the hell out of the woman in front of me.
I pulled her in so my mouth could touch hers, and I smiled against her lips. “I’m okay. It was a misunderstanding.”
Mig snorted at my back, and I kicked out with my foot, knocking him off his barstool and causing him to laugh.
“You’ll tell me what happened later, though, right? I’m not believing it was a misunderstanding,” she breathed.
She smelled like those fruit margaritas she’d been drinking, and tasted like tequila.
An odd conversation Lenore and I once had popped into my mind about her not liking the taste of alcohol, and I hid a smile.
Tomorrow was bound to be fun for her.
She hugged me tightly before letting me go.
I let loose of her briefly to retake my seat, then pulled her between my thighs.
She fit perfectly in my arms, and I buried my nose in her neck, loving the smell of the lotion she’d put on each time she got out of the bath.
I’d have to remember to ask her which one it was and buy her some more.
She had about a gazillion bottles in her bathroom of just lotion alone.
“What. The. Fuck,” Remy suddenly snarled, pulling my attention to him.
I saw he was gazing somewhere over my shoulder, so I turned to see what caught his attention, and my eyes widened when I saw the woman drawing Remy’s gaze.
“Shit,” I muttered, as Remy stood and started to barrel his way through the crowd of dancers.
He came to a stop in front of a tall, skinny guy in jeans standing next to a horror-stricken Jenna.
Then, as if in slow motion, Remy pulled back his fist and slammed it into the man’s face that had been kissing Jenna.
The man went down like a rock, falling to the dance floor where he’d been standing only moments before, while Jenna stared on in shock.
“You bastard!” Jenna screamed.
“What the fuck, Jenna? What the ever loving fuck?” Remy bellowed in anger. “What are you doing?”
“You weren’t even supposed to be home tonight!” Jenna shrieked. “Why are you even here?”
Yeah, like that was going to go over well, I thought.
“I’m here because they moved our rig today,” he bellowed. “Not that you wanted to know since
you’re out practically fucking in front of the goddamned town!”
“I would’ve loved to know! I bet she knew!” Jenna pointed at Lenore accusingly.
Lenore raised her hand to point at herself in mock horror. “Me? Don’t bring me into the middle of this!”
“You are in the middle of this! How can you not see that my husband loves you!” Jenna screeched.
Lenore narrowed her eyes and I tightened my arms around Lenore’s waist to halt her forward progress in the direction of Jenna.
“Do you see what I have right here?” Lenore yelled back.
But she was pointing at me, patting my face as she reached up with her free hand that wasn’t locked around my wrist in a death grip.
“I see you have a stand in for my man,” Jenna hissed.
Lenore laughed.
“Griffin’s not a stand in for your man. Me and Remy don’t have the kind of relationship that Griffin and I have. Griffin’s my man. Remy’s my friend. They both have my heart in totally different ways, and if you’d clear the jealousy out of your heart, you’d see that.” Lenore ground out.
I squeezed Lenore’s waist.
Although it had crossed my mind that Remy and Lenore were in love with each other, I never actually saw anything more between the two of them then a brother/sister relationship. It was a sibling-like bond that had formed between the two of them over the many years and experiences that they’d shared together.
And since Lenore and Remy had been together, as best friends, since childhood, they had that bond that most family would have.
That closeness had bothered me…until now.
When I saw the devastation on Remy’s face. Saw the love he had for his wife wither and die as he realized what he thought he had with her wasn’t real. That it was just a figment of his imagination.
I’d experienced that very same realization myself, only I’d found out a hell of a lot faster than him.
“I want you to get your shit out of our house. Make sure you get all of it, because you won’t be coming back,” Remy said tonelessly. “You’ve got an hour. How about you get your man here to help you.”
“But that’s not enough time! And I don’t have anywhere to go!” Jenna screeched.
By now the whole freakin’ bar was watching this all go down, and not one of them seemed surprised in the least that it was happening.
Something Remy was quickly realizing.
He turned woodenly to Lenore, and I could practically feel the grief welling off of him.
“You knew, didn’t you?” He asked.
Lenore’s eyes started dripping with tears, and with the whiniest of voices I’d ever heard come out of her mouth, she pointed at me with accusation. “He wouldn’t let me tell you! It’s all his fault!”
Our evening only deteriorated from there.
***
“Well that was thoroughly exhausting,” Lenore said as we walked up her front walk.
I’d been pouring water into her for the last hour, so she was significantly less drunk than she had been when I’d first gotten to her. I had to say, though, the woman sure made a competent drunk. I’d never seen anything like it. If it weren’t for the ‘fucks’ I would’ve never known she was lit.
“Tell me about it,” I agreed, slowing down when I saw the crack in Lenore’s front door.
I could hear Doogan barking wildly from somewhere in the house, and I suddenly had a very bad feeling.
“Lenore,” I said, halting her in her tracks. “Here’s my phone. Call Wolf and Mig.”
Carefully, she took the phone from my hands and stayed exactly where she was.
She scrolled through my contacts as I removed the gun from the holster on my belt.
With a two-handed grip, I kicked the front door open, revealing the massive mess inside.
Lenore’s living room was destroyed.
Her couch was literally ripped to shreds, as if someone unleashed all of their rage upon the unsuspecting piece of furniture.
The paintings that’d been on her wall were shredded and broken.
The movies, every single one of them, were broken into pieces.
Her flat screen was smashed.
The only thing left in the entire room were the lights, which lit up the devastation.
“Oh, God.”
She kept close to my back as I walked throughout the house, finally coming to a stop at the laundry room door where Doogan’s bark was much more pronounced.
I opened it softly and moved just in time for Doogan to barrel out of the doorway and head straight for Lenore.
He didn’t knock her down, though.
He buried his head between her knees and leaned into her, seeking comfort and making sure his mistress was alright.
I was happy that he was alive.
It could’ve been easily the other way.
He could’ve been broken, lying next to the china that was on the kitchen floor.
After a quick check of the laundry room produced a similar state of destruction, I walked out into the living room just in time for Mig and Wolf to enter.
“Good shake up job,” Wolf observed.
I grunted in reply.
“I think this means they didn’t get the message you tried to send,” Mig supplied dryly.
“What message?” Lenore asked with confusion.
I turned my glare on Mig, and I curled my lip in annoyance at his slip
“You fucker.”
“Griffin, don’t call him dirty names because I found out you were bad,” Lenore reprimanded softly. “You need to go ahead and tell me what we’re dealing with since I’m obviously in the middle of it now.”
Mig and Wolf had smiles on their faces about a mile wide, and I tossed them both a glare as I took a hold of Lenore’s hand and started walking her out the door.
“You’ll take care of this, right?” I asked the two men over my shoulder.
They both nodded.
“Good.” I said, walking into Lenore’s room to grab a few stray articles of clothing. Underwear. Bra. Shorts. A shirt. I wasn’t sure if any of it matched, but it’d work for now until I could get to the store tomorrow.
Once done, I went back into the living room to find Lenore was hugging Doogan’s head to her belly while she looked around the room with worry.
“Let’s go.” I said, holding out my hand.
“Doogan?” Lenore asked worriedly. “What about him?”
“I’ll handle him.” Wolf promised.
“Where are we going?” Lenore asked worriedly as I pulled her to my bike.
I stopped at the side of my bike and handed her the helmet I’d bought just a few days before.
She started strapping it on, but kept her eyes on mine, waiting for my answer.
“We’re going to Alabama,” I answered instantly, shoving her shit into the saddle bags next to my extra set that I always kept in there for times like these.
“Now? But I’m hungry!” She said worriedly. “What’s in Alabama?”
I straddled my bike and offered my hand in assistance.
She ignored my hand and mounted behind me, placing her feet on the pegs of the bike and wrapping her hands around my middle.
After shooting off a quick text to my mom, I shoved the phone into my pocket and started the bike.
Proud that she’d be willing to go somewhere with me without me telling her any more details, I tossed a smile over my shoulder and pulled her mouth to mine by a hand at the back of her head.
She grinned when I released her lips.
Then, that smile disappeared moments later when I yelled, “My mother’s in Alabama.”
Chapter 17
You don’t always need a plan. Sometimes you only need balls and a beard…and your momma.
-Lenore to Griffin’s mom
Griffin
“Are you sure your mother wants to meet me?” Lenore asked loudly over the roar o
f the bike.
I sighed and pulled the bike over, shutting it off at the end of my mother’s driveway. I stared up at the quaint white cabin with the dark red shutters. It was on stilts with the ocean at its back, stretching out for miles.
The setting sun played along the white sand of the beach making it practically glow with the beautiful red and blues covering the sky.
“Yes, I’m sure. She wants to meet you, and she’s excited,” I told her for the fortieth time.
“What’s she cooking?” Lenore continued.
I rolled my eyes.
“I don’t know. I didn’t bother to ask.”
I was bringing Lenore to my mother’s.
Firstly, because my mother wanted to meet the woman that was ‘changing her little boy.’
Secondly, because I wanted to get Lenore away from whatever threat was looming over my right shoulder.
My mom lived in near secrecy off the beaten path in Alabama.
She had a quaint little cottage along a thirty-mile stretch of the coast she shared with a few equally private, long-time residents.
She, as well as the others that lived in this section, had excellent security.
My mother needed it, and not because she was a famous chef.
She needed it because my father was a psycho and liked to show up when we least expected it.
At one point, my pop was a good guy.
But when he came back from his last deployment, he was different.
Harder.
More…something.
Crazy was definitely part of that something.
It didn’t all happen at once.
It slowly built and built until there was literally no other recourse for my mother and I had to put some distance in between us.
He had good days when he could hold a conversation with you and no one would be the wiser that he was troubled. It was the bad days, though, that had increased in frequency that were the problem. The days where he perceived everything and everyone as a threat to his family.
And that meant the maid. My mother’s brother, who was also a military man.
The family dog.
The family dog had been the last straw.
The proverbial one that broke the camel’s back.
My father shot our family dog, Sparkle – right in front of me – for barking at me because he wanted to be fed.
Whiskey Neat (The Uncertain Saints MC Book 1) Page 16
