Dirty Looks (Dirt Track Dogs: The Second Lap Book 1)
Page 9
He turned on his heel and stalked off.
Blister went to follow, giving Aaron’s shoulder a good-natured shove.
“Hey,” Aaron said, pitching his voice low. “Any chance you could keep this off my sister’s radar?”
Blister smiled, his scar keeping one side of his mouth straight. “Not a chance. My mate’s going to be thoroughly updated on your hijinks as soon as I see her.”
Aaron sighed. “Yeah, fine. We’ll catch up soon.”
Blister shook his head, looking exasperated. “Don’t make me come looking for you.” And then he trotted off to catch up with Drake and Sunglasses.
“Will Barb be alright?” Sally asked, sounding more than a little shaken. She cleared her throat, but it couldn’t erase the freaked look in her eyes.
“They’ll take care of her,” Aaron murmured, turning to meet Lexington’s gaze. “They won’t hurt her. I promise.”
“They’re good guys—” Rider added, and then stopped short. “Well, I guess I don’t know what the hell they are.”
Aaron glanced at his friend. “You’re fixin’ to get a crash course. And Rod too, I’m guessing.”
Rider swallowed hard, straightening his shoulders so he looked a little more badass. The action had the desired effect. “We’re going to need a lot more beer for this.”
Aaron nodded in full agreement. “Let’s go find the others.”
Lexington followed him, because she was still shaking and at this moment in time, he made the better leader. And because she had the distinct feeling she’d follow him just about anywhere anyways.
He was hers.
Chapter Ten
Lexington was bouncing along in Aaron’s truck for the second time, but this ride out to DTD’s property felt all different. She was pretty sure her and the girls had thoroughly fucked themselves out of any chance of becoming part of the pack. It seemed like fate was determined to leave them looking like irresponsible trouble-makers. Every time a dog was around, it was like the vixens were caught with their pants down.
Aaron maneuvered the truck across a small low-water bridge and Lexington could feel the tension wafting off of him. She turned to see he was ramrod stiff in his seat, jaw set and fingers gripping the wheel until they were white, where moments ago, he’d been the calm one, so sure things could work out with the wolves.
“Don’t usually take this road to the highway,” he rasped.
The truck slowed going over the small bridge and then he gunned the engine once they were across. Like he was running away from it.
“Wanna talk about it?” she asked, hoping he would. And hoping whatever was bothering him wouldn’t break her heart.
Aaron was quiet for a long time, just staring out the windshield, but she knew he wasn’t ignoring her question. He was building up to something big.
With a deep breath, he said, “My parents died on that bridge.”
Aw, damn. It was worse than she thought. Her human was missing his parents. She could feel the sadness that filled him through their newly budding bond, but her mouth didn’t seem to work. She couldn’t think of the right thing to say, to make it better. And she really, really wanted to make it better.
“They tried to cross in a storm, when the water was above the bridge. Their car got swept into the creek and by the time the sheriff found them…” He shook his head slowly. “They were gone. Both of them, just like that. I didn’t get to say goodbye,” he said softly.
Tears pricked Lexington’s eyes but she had a feeling Aaron wouldn’t appreciate her crying for him, so she pushed them down until the back of her throat burned with them.
“I’m so sorry that happened to you,” she whispered, but he was lost in the past, his brow furrowed with memories.
“I was an asshole afterward,” he muttered. “I couldn’t deal with being in this town, around all the people who knew them, all the people with the pity in their eyes. And Annie… I couldn’t look at Annie and see her sadness, that was bad enough. But it was… it was her strength that sent me running for so long. How shitty is that?” He shot a glance at Lexington and then back to the road.
Damn it, he was tearing her heart up with this. If there was one thing her human was not, it was shitty. He’d taken her on, with all her problems, with her six other foxes and their fragile situation, and went headlong into finding a way to help her.
He was amazing. Strong. Sure, he had years’ worth of scars. Like he said, life armor. But they were beautiful. And if he was still a work in progress, it was okay by her, because she was one too.
“Not shitty,” she choked out. “Grief makes people do things they would never do otherwise.”
“She was solid, kept things going smoothly at Red Cap. Took care of me when I was drunk off my ass trying to drink away the grief. She was a rock even though she was hurting too, and I just couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t stand that she could keep going when I was falling apart. So I left. Didn’t say goodbye to the guys, gave my sister some lame ass excuse about finding myself, and then got the hell outta dodge.” He turned the wheel taking them onto the highway. “Stayed gone for nine years. Took me nine years to get my shit together, and still… I’m working on it.”
“You did what you needed to do, Aaron. To get through a hard time.”
“I ran away.” He found her gaze and held it. “Something I’m never doing again. Running is for assholes without wheels.”
Lexington chewed her lip, because she didn’t exactly agree. She wasn’t black or white on this. She was steadfastly in the gray.
“Sometimes running is necessary.”
His forehead creased in a frown.
“For survival. Sometimes running is the only thing you can do.” Holding back the tears was getting harder, but she wouldn’t let them fall again. Not over her past.
“You and the vixens ran,” he whispered almost to himself, but she nodded anyway. “Tell me what happened.”
Lexington ran a shaking hand through her hair and let out a long breath. Come on, fox. Let’s get this done with. Mate needs to know.
“My time was coming up. Ragan had just given birth to Kit and she was a mess. She’d already been won a season prior, in a brutal battle between the male she was in love with and another.” Lexington cringed. Ragan’s story wasn’t hers to tell, but it was the catalyst that got the vixens moving. It was an important part of why they were here. “And like I said, they fight to the death. The one that lives wins the female. So she lost her love and was bred by his killer all in the same night.”
“Fuck,” Aaron muttered. He stared out the window with a fist over his mouth, like he didn’t trust himself to keep silent.
“She had a hard pregnancy. Her animal was so broken she wanted to give up. Me and the girls kept her going as best we could, and when Kit was born, things changed. She started caring about life again, started wanting to fight back. But the last straw was when they announced the next fight. I was to be the prize.”
The cab of the truck went hot with the rage rolling off Aaron, but Lexington pressed on.
“We knew it was only a matter of time before Barb and Seraphina and Sally were in the same situation. So we took Kit, packed what we could carry in my truck, and ran.” She recalled driving through Iowa with Barb, Sera, and Sally jammed in the bed of her truck with their meager things, while Kit slept in his car seat next to Ragan in the front.
But the story wasn’t over.
“We thought we were clear. Thought if we just left, that would be it. We’d be on our own and free of the skulk. But Ragan’s mate came looking for her. Hunted her down like prey. Beat her all to hell for leaving and taking his young with her. That was when we realized we needed a new plan. We needed another family group. Wolves, because they treat their females as equals, and love them better than they love themselves. We worked our asses off to buy a few bikes, found someone who knew a thing about dirt tracks, and set out to make ourselves valuable.” She drew in a shuddering breath. “I hope it w
asn’t all for nothing.”
Aaron was silent as they carried on down the highway, nearing the DTD clubhouse. He was so rigid she wanted to reach out and touch him just to make sure he was still warm and breathing.
“What happened to Ragan’s bastard mate?” he growled.
“We… took care of him. And ran some more. Ran until we found Mac.”
Took care of him was really the best way of putting it. There was nothing left of him when their foxes were done.
“Good,” he rasped. “Good. Men like that don’t deserve to breathe air.”
Lexington nodded her agreement. The memory of Ragan, bloody and torn on the floor while baby Kit screamed from the little nest she’d made for him on the bed was something she’d never scrub from her mind.
But somehow, she felt lighter having aired all her sordid past. Aaron knew it all now. The entire reason she was here in Cedar Valley, and why the Dirt Track Dogs were so important to her.
Aaron reached across the bench seat and the hillbilly drink holder hole to where her hand was resting on the thread-worn upholstery. Tentatively he touched his fingertips to the back, almost like he was asking permission. But then he pulled away, yanking his hand back so fast she would have laughed had it not been so… disappointing.
Inside, her fox whimpered, and Lexington swallowed hard at the lump in her throat.
She stared at his profile as he shook his head. “Not right,” he muttered, and her heart took a dive to her feet.
“Not right? What’s not right?”
“Me, touching you right now. When I’m so angry. When I want to hurt things. It’s not right.”
“Oh.” She really wanted him to touch her. It seemed like every time he did, those ancient wounds from her past ached a little less.
“To think of how close I came to…” He shook his head, frustrated.
“To what?”
He met her eyes across the seat. “To never being here, in this truck with you. I think of all the ways things could have gone differently. What if you hadn’t run, hadn’t fought, hadn’t succeeded? You wouldn’t have ended up in Red Cap the same night I did. Wouldn’t have rode in my truck out to DTD. Wouldn’t have tried to walk back to town while ripping my heart out with your tears.” He clenched his jaw, but she got the feeling he had more to say. And with a fuck-it shake of his head, he let her have the rest. “We wouldn’t be bonding right now.”
Bonding. So he knew what she’d been trying to ignore.
She held her breath for what he’d say next.
But he didn’t say anything. Instead, an odd calm swept over him. One she could see physically, wiping all the tension from his face, his neck, his shoulders. Even his white knuckle grip turned pink again, and his breath seeming to come easier.
His expression eased, like he’d just realized something amazing. “It’s the same for me,” he murmured under his breath, but she heard.
“What do you mean?”
“Fate,” he said, sounding awed. “It’s real. It’s a goddamn thing. That shit is real. Certain events, heartbreaks, trials… they sent me away from Cedar Valley. But certain things also brought me back. And that’s why I was sitting in the bar when you showed up.”
Fate. She believed in fate. Mostly that you could choose your own if you were real careful. She’d fought to be able to choose hers, but maybe he was right. Maybe their steps were ordered.
“There was someone else,” Aaron said carefully.
His words chilled her. But he said was. There was someone. Not is. Not currently. She clung to that, still raw from her confession and hearing about his loss.
She focused on the scenery outside her window. The trees were full and green. Teeming with life. She wanted the same for herself and the others. Life that was full and worth living. Was that so much to ask for? And she wanted it with Aaron.
“Back in Memphis,” he continued. “I never resolved things with her. It just… ended.”
Lexington took a deep breath and turned back to him, keeping her expression as neutral as possible. But Aaron was frowning hard like he’d expected more reaction from her. What exactly was he expecting? Inside, her fox was reeling in denial.
Mine, mine, mine. My human.
She couldn’t afford to look weak right now, while they were minutes away from the club where one of her vixens was being held. She had to be strong. Had to find that backbone of steel she’d been growing ever since she’d led her vixens away from their dangerous skulk. She needed to end this conversation fast, before her heart and animal lost nerve.
“I understand,” she said quietly, but this only made his frown deeper, the lines on his brow creeping into his hairline.
Even though they were sparkly new, it was hard knowing her mate had loved another before her. She’d never felt romantic love for anyone else and wouldn’t ever. Her heart was meant for him, but him being human meant... it meant… he could give his to whomever he wanted. Maybe it would be her. Maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe it would be the someone he spoke of now. Maybe he’d already given it away and that’s what he was trying to say.
She cleared her throat and pulled her gaze away to focus on the road. No time for this. No time for falling in love. Focus on the goal. Focus on the vixens.
She’d come here for them, and found Aaron along the way. He’d been a sweet distraction, when she wanted more. But it was time to put that aside.
She twirled a lock of hair around her finger as she stared ahead at the road and breathed in Aaron’s scent that filled the truck. She let it calm her a smidge. Things were bleak but they weren’t twenty story buildings crashing down in a heap of rubble.
A phantom smile worked its way up her lips.
She had everything she needed. She had her girls and Kit. Whether things worked out with the dogs or not, whether she mated or not, she always had them, and they always found a way over their hurdles.
Always.
Moto 101: When life gives you dirt, build a jump.
Yes, she had everything she needed. She rubbed absently at the ache in her middle.
Except mine, her fox whimpered. Except him.
Chapter Eleven
Aaron pressed the gas pedal to make his truck go faster. The quicker they settled this shit with the wolves, the quicker he could settle things with Lexington. And he needed to make things right, because he was all twisted up inside over her.
There was no denying the bond that was growing between them. Not now, when he could feel her sadness so blatant and strong that it choked him.
He’d been trying to explain how fate had brought the two of them together through tragedy. He could see it like a roadmap leading him to a treasure. Losing his parents, running away, hunting the paranormal, Mina, his war with the Memphis shifters, meeting the Dirt Track Dogs, relinquishing his vengeance. They were all stops along the journey to his destination, guiding him right to her. Right to this bond that threatened to swallow him up.
And Lexington had been on the same journey, fighting for freedom, for her safety and her vixens’, working, training, learning, and hurting. They came from two different directions, but they’d arrived at the treasure at the same time.
The magic of it had Aaron marveling in wonder, and he’d wanted her to see it too. And Mina was part of that magic. He didn’t know if she’d loved him. They hadn’t had time to figure it out. But she’d helped him get here, to this possibility of happiness. Telling Lexington about her was important.
But then the sick feeling of rejection swept over him like a wave that wanted to pull him under, and she’d shut him down with an I understand. What the hell did that even mean? There was no way she could understand, because he hadn’t explained yet.
All he knew was he wanted to get that ugly feeling far away from her. The gut-punching thing he felt through their bond, he wanted it gone.
Staring out the windshield, he marveled at the connection. It was wild, feeling like your emotions and thoughts and dreams were tied to another
’s. An invisible chain that connected them in some supernatural way. The feeling couldn’t be explained, though he’d heard many people try in his years. There weren’t right words to describe it. But now that he felt it, he understood why shifter males were so protective of their females. Why they fought wars with the hunters that hurt them, deserved or not.
Why they used females as weapons against hunters the way the Junkyard Dogs had done to him with Mina. They’d been trying their best to hurt him. Except, he’d never felt this connection with her. She mattered. She was a lost life. A star burned out before it was able to burn bright. A friend. More even. But he’d never felt like his life was connected with hers.
Not like he did right now with his fox.
“Everything’s going to be okay,” he told her, and he felt the truth of it deep down. He glanced at her, hoping she felt how sure he was the same way he felt how sad she was. “I’ll keep you safe. I’ll keep you…”
He’d meant to follow that with something, but his voice just stopped, because that’s what he meant. He’d keep her. With him. Always. No matter what the wolves said, or what the foxes from her past did. He’d keep her, and one day they’d dig into that treasure together. He’d finally do Gracie proud and become a real Uncle Scrooge rolling and diving in his gold coins, because somehow he knew life with Lexington was going to be rich.
Aaron glanced in his rearview mirror as he turned onto the Dirt Track Dogs’ long driveway. The two vehicles following his, turned as well. Rider’s truck and Rod’s… hot rod. The ’67 Mustang Fastback was slick as night with a midnight pearl paint job and chrome everything, and he’d insisted on driving it, saying the guys from DTD had been drooling over it for months. Aaron didn’t think it would sway Drake any, but he’d take all the help he could get.
Aaron drove around to the side of the club where DTD’s practice track was. They’d gathered there, around two giant sized charcoal grills. A pile of wood was heaped over to the side, waiting to be lit for a bonfire.