“Yeah,” said Jase suddenly. His baritone voice sent shivers down Maggie’s spine. She did her best not to let it show. “So she is.” After a pause, he took three hard steps towards the bar and came to stand right in front of Maggie. She only came up to his shoulders. She forgot what it felt like to feel so small next to a man, and it wasn’t just his size that made her feel that way. The smell of his musk sent overwhelming waves of memories through her mind.
Maggie blinked hard, waiting, watching him. He let her stew in her worry for a few moments, and then without warning, he backhanded the beer she had been drinking from the bar. It went crashing into the wall, spilling suds all over an ancient poster of Willie Nelson.
Jase bent down low towards Maggie’s face. His whispered words pierced her heart in ways she didn’t know were possible. “Go home.”
With that, Jase turned abruptly and stalked out of the den, down the hallway, and out of the clubhouse. Seconds later, the sounds of a roaring bike echoed down the long driveway.
Shaking and pale, Maggie felt herself rooted to the spot she was standing. She stared at the empty space where Jase had been like she was caught in a bad dream.
“Jesus,” said Drake from the doorway of the den. He shoved his phone in his pocket and, completely oblivious, thumbed towards the clubhouse front door. “Obviously I’m not the only one who didn’t know who she was.”
~ THREE ~
Jase had driven almost five miles outside of LeBeau before he realized he was actually on his bike. The sudden rage that enveloped him when he saw Maggie sitting at that bar was unlike anything he had ever felt in his relatively young life—and that was saying a lot for a guy who was professionally angry. One moment, he had been close enough to kiss her; close enough to strangle her dead; close enough that he could still smell her lingering perfume in his thick beard. Then he was suddenly aware of the swirling colors of the falling twilight as he tore down a country road at twice the speed limit, wind whipping his face without mercy. The moment spooked him when he realized he had no idea what had happened between here and there.
He slowed his bike down as he came around a curving hillside, and pulled her over at the first shoulder that was wide enough to park safely. The bike rumbled between his legs for a few moments before he killed the engine. Instantly the sounds of the coming night came rushing in to fill the silence: bullfrogs, crickets, the final songs of day birds. Jase tried to focus on the visual of his anger melting away like the patient, slow drip of wax from a burning candle; sometimes he could daydream his way into some level of calm. Some of the stars twinkled brightly, out early in the night sky and he did his best to focus on them. But all he could see in his head was Maggie, sitting there at the bar, like she had never left; joshing around with Castillo; drinking the MC’s beer and acting like she owned the place. Like she hadn’t just up and abandoned it one sunny summer day much like this one.
The back of Jase’s neck pulsed, tense with stress and heat. He moved to rub it away and was shocked to see his hand trembling when he lifted it.
“Fuck,” he sighed heavily and felt suddenly weighted.
Why was she here? Why now? After all this time… after Jase had worked so goddamn hard to stitch up the bleeding wound she had left behind in him. A wound that was infected and pulsing for over a year afterward; a wound that nearly drove him to self-destruction. Only the guiding hand of the MC had saved him from himself. It was the second time Henry and the boys had saved his life, and he wasn’t even thirty yet. He owed them everything. And Maggie had almost made him lose it.
He found himself wishing someone had bothered to call or text him and warn him about her return, but Jase immediately wondered if that really would have helped. He tried to imagine calling himself about the news, trying to keep it from ending in rage, and he failed. He knew deep in his heart that this was just a mini-apocalypse he would have no choice but to face and endure. He used to rehearse this emergency on nights when he couldn’t sleep, nights when he felt weak. He thought if he could be prepared for it, he could find some way to make it easy to endure. But now he felt that maybe there was never a way for it to be easy.
As the last light died from the sky, Jase revved up his bike once more and headed back into town at a significantly slower speed. Regardless of how calm he had felt on the country road, every mile that led him back to LeBeau only recharged his anger a little at a time. He didn’t have the luxury of taking time for it to completely die. He had to talk to Henry and find out just what the hell was going on. No more surprises.
He pulled up to the MC and saw the strange SUV he had noticed before was gone. It had to have belonged to Maggie; only he hadn’t realized it at the time. He took a deep breath, grateful he wouldn’t have to see her again.
When he passed through the den, Beck shouted at him over the Roy Orbison on the jukebox and the sound of laughter at the pool table that he needed to make a liquor store run. Jase tossed a hand at the old man and didn’t reply. He headed straight through the den and up the stairs to the conference room. Without thinking, he simply opened the doors and barged in.
Henry sat at his place at the head of the table, lost in thought. He jolted to attention when Jase entered, looking too surprised to be mad at the show of insolence.
Jase took time to close the doors behind him before he spoke. “How the fuck could you not tell me she was here?” The question came out bitter before Jase could do anything to stop it. But he didn’t take it back and he didn’t apologize. He stood over Henry and waited for an answer.
Henry shook his head and waved a hand. “It’s not like that, son.”
“What is it like? Is your phone broken?”
“I know you’re angry, Jase, and you have every right—“
“I don’t fucking need your permission to be angry!”
That was the line. Henry jumped to his feet and met Jase with hard eyes. Jase put down the finger he realized he’d been pointing at his club president.
“Why don’t you sit the hell down and we talk about this like civilized men, eh?” said Henry. It was half-serious, half-sardonic. “Or I guess we could just tear each other apart over her, like she’s always wanted us to do.”
A few deep breaths later and Jase was feeling more himself. He apologized to Henry and slumped his way into Beck’s chair. “I never expected to walk into that room and see her sitting at that bar again. I feel like my last sanctuary has been… breached.”
“I’m sorry for that,” said Henry. “She came with no warning. And I was still in too shocked to think about calling you.”
Jase nodded. “What is she doing here?”
“She says she needs help. Some small-time dealers tried to bully her into a racketeering scheme at her job,” said Henry.
Jase frowned. “Do you believe her?”
“I believe it would take something equally as dangerous or difficult to get her to come back here after all this time. Whether this is the actual truth, I don’t know. But something big is going on. I really…” Henry trailed off, then cleared his throat and continued. “I really believed I would never see her in LeBeau again.”
Silence fell as both men, for very different reasons, contemplated the return of Maggie Oliver. Already the clubhouse felt different to Jase. It felt like it was on the horizon of some growing storm.
“What did you say to her?” said Jase.
He had interrupted another daze. Henry blinked a few times and then said, “She’s my child, Jase. Of course I told her we would help.”
Jase nodded, but then stopped. “Wait, we?”
“We, as in the MC, yes. Maggie seems pretty convinced that these assholes are threatening enough that she had to leave Eagleton just to feel safe. She will be a liability to us and to the town if we don’t intervene… to say nothing of the fact that I’m not leaving my daughter out in the woods to be devoured by wolves.”
“I’m not saying you should...”
“Really?” said Henry. He looked J
ase in the eyes. “You sure about that, son? Didn’t you just bust through my beautiful cherry-wood doors without knocking to tell me I should do just that?”
Jase felt uncomfortable at the insinuation Henry was making. He was furious as all hell at Maggie, yes. He would be happy never seeing her face again. But seeing her hurt? Or dead? Thoughts like that turned his stomach to stone. He shook his head. “I didn’t know she was in danger. She was just… suddenly there at the bar. Like a bad dream. I wasn’t ready for it.”
“Yeah, I guess she picked up a lot more about tactical thinking than I assumed,” said Henry. He actually chuckled to himself a little at that.
“I’m glad she came to us—to you—if she’s in trouble,” said Jase. “But to be perfectly frank, I’d prefer it if she got the fuck out of town after all of it has blown over.”
Henry was silent a minute as he looked at Jase. “You don’t want her stay to be extended, then?”
“Not if I have any say about it, no,” said Jase. He put his hands on his knees and leaned forward. “Maggie left LeBeau. She abandoned it for a different life. She doesn’t get to come back and just hit the reset button on all of that. This is our town and we deserve to be here without her dragging up the ghosts of the past. We’re the ones who stayed and took care of it.”
Henry licked his lips. He took a breath before he responded. “She may very well not want to stay, anyway, Jase. Let’s worry about one thing at a time.”
“Such as?”
“The sooner we can take care of this threat against her, the sooner she can stop being on the run, and start…well, whatever life she ends up choosing,” said Henry.
Jase nodded. “I agree. What do you suggest?”
“I’m going to put some feelers out to some allies around Eagleton. We don’t have a chapter very close to there, so we are going to need to hire some people to do the work for us.”
“You’ve got an Afghani group up there. We’ve never met them directly but I know they work for Aamir. Maybe he could set up contacts.” Since the wars in the Middle East, the MC had found their best gun-running allies in the natives from that region, who happily sold American weapons back to the States and out of the hands of insurgents.
Henry said, “Yep, already on my list. I’ve also got a call in to the Broken Pillars and the Gladiators, to see if they have anything we can use. Once we figure out who these morons are, we’ll have a nice talk with them, make sure they are settled to leave Maggie in the ‘loss’ column of their dipshit operation, and move on. We’ll work the details of that out once we have more information on them.”
“Sounds like a plan. Let me know how I can help.” I want to get her out of here as fast as fucking possible.
“Actually,” said Henry, and Jase’s blood immediately went cold at his tone of voice. It was that tone he had heard a million times since the MC had ‘taken him in’, and since Henry Oliver had become his father figure. “I do have a job for you, Jase.”
“Don’t…” said Jase. The word fell out of his mouth before he even realized it was in his brain.
“She’s my daughter, Jase. My only child. I can’t risk anything happening to her, despite our differences,” said Henry. He sighed and wrapped his fingers together on the table. He leaned forward towards Jase. “Maggie needs a detail on her every minute until I am confident she hasn’t been tailed here. Until we know more about these guys, I have to assume they’re big and bad enough to have followed her out of town.”
Jase closed his eyes. “Henry, please…”
“Beck is not the soldier he used to be. His eyes are getting worse. I need my best soldier on her, Jase. And you are my best soldier.”
“Fuck that. What about Will? Or Ghost?”
Henry shook his head. “Will is not a better soldier than you. A better spy, maybe. And Will is also not going to intimidate anybody from a distance.” Henry made a gesture from Jase’s legs to his head, as if to say you’re a giant, kid, you know that! “Ghost is too fresh to the club for me to let him close to Maggie.”
Jase pushed to his feet, angry and feeling trapped. “Do you really understand what it is you’re asking of me?”
“I’m not trying to put you in a world of pain, son, but my back is against the wall. You’re the best man I’ve got. She’s my only child. I’m supposed to change my tactical plans based on the fact that you two fell in love once?” Now Henry stood up to meet his face. “If I put your feelings, or hers, ahead of my battle instincts, then I might lose her for good. Is that what you’re asking me to do, Jase?”
Jase froze, quiet. Of course, rational Jase would never ask Henry to do anything like that. He trusted Henry with his life. But rational Jase was currently losing the fight to emotional Jase, and he couldn’t get his pounding heart to slow down at the thought of having to spend entire days around the knife of a woman that had gutted him. He wanted to give Henry the right answer, the answer he deserved, but it wouldn’t come out. He stared at the floor in shame and shook his head. It was all he could do.
“Trust that if I had another option that worked this well, I would take it,” said Henry as he put a big hand on Jase’s shoulder. Jase couldn’t return it, couldn’t look up to meet Henry’s eyes. He was in too much pain, and he didn’t want Henry to see it.
“I need you to be with Maggie and keep an eye on her wherever she goes. Drake is with her right now, setting her up with a temporary place to stay. I’ll give you the address and have you go relieve him when you’re ready. I’ll check in with you periodically to get updates, and let you know how the intel search is going,” said Henry.
Jase swallowed against a tight throat. “I can be ready in a half-hour.”
“Thank you, son. I have every ounce of trust in you. I know you will protect my little girl better than anyone else in this MC could.”
For whatever reason, that pierced Jase’s heart as hard as the favor itself had. There was a whirlwind of emotions flying around Jase’s mind as he contemplated why. Shouldn’t he have every reason in the world to gladly see Maggie get some comeuppance? Where was that hungry bear-heart that had made him the most trusted young soldier the MC had in five counties? She was just a woman, and he had had dozens of them. She was just another woman.
But that was a lie, and Jase knew it.
~ FOUR ~
Maggie took one more wandering tour around the small house Drake had “acquired” from his realtor friend. It had the same kind of Nuclear Age charm that the entire town of LeBeau held. It wasn’t the prettiest property, but it had character. It was clean, not far from the clubhouse, and the small bedrooms felt more cozy than confining. The sliding backdoor opened into a modest yard ringed by giant, leafy trees and a six-foot privacy fence. Had she actually been house-hunting, Maggie probably would have put this place in her top five.
As far as Maggie could tell, Drake’s connections with the realtor gave him and the MC access to rent a place for straight cash as long as they needed it. Nothing was written down or signed, of course. After their chat, Drake and the realtor in the fine black suit had gone outside, and the realtor threw the “For Sale” sign from the yard into the back of his big shiny Escalade. Drake came back inside with the keys for her and the promise that it was hers and paid for until she decided to move. He carried in the single box of possessions she had managed to get out of Eagleton before she fled and put it on the white Formica counter.
“The old lady who used to live here died about four months ago,” said Drake, even though she hadn’t asked. “But her kids took their sweet-ass time getting her shit out of here, so it’s only been on the market a few weeks.”
“She took care of the place, at least,” said Maggie. She distantly wiped her hand across the sill of the kitchen window. “Did they leave a bed?”
“A what?” said Drake. He plucked away at the keypad on his phone screen.
“A bed…” said Maggie. “You know, where people sleep and stuff.”
Drake looked up at her
with a scrunched face. He wandered back to the bedroom without saying a word, then immediately came back muttering curses under his breath—mostly to himself, it sounded like. He walked right past the kitchen and into the front yard, his phone already up against his ear and calling someone to solve this new problem.
Maggie let out a low chuckle at him and shook her head. He was a weird guy, but at least he’d been mostly behaving himself since they left the clubhouse. That was not to say he hadn’t made her uncomfortable, though. On the car ride over, Drake didn’t hesitate to ask her why Jase had thrown her beer at the wall when he walked in.
“Jase and I… go back,” she had said. The anger in his eyes still simmered in her memory, rooted, refusing to budge. “We have history.”
“What, did you break his heart or something?”
“Why do you say that?” she asked, surprised.
Drake shrugged without moving his eyesight from the road. “I can’t really think of any other thing that Jase would still be pissed about after all these years. He’s a fighter, not a grudge-holder. He fixes his problems fast. You musta done something deep. I’ve never seen him like that—well, not outside of a legitimate fist-fight, anyway.”
Maggie let the conversation fall into silence. When they pulled up to the house, the realtor was already waiting in his shiny black SUV, and Maggie was thankful to give the subject a chance to be forgotten entirely. The rest of the time had been spent nailing down the details of her rental, and now she waited while Drake tried to find her an actual place to sleep. The house was adorable, but there was no way the carpet was soft enough for 40 winks.
“Alright, alright! I’ll owe you, Joey, just get this done for me, pronto!” Drake ended whatever call he was on as he walked back through the open front door. “Sorry about that, darlin’. I’ve got a guy on the way with a few pieces. They may not be choice…. Fuck, they might not even match….”
Unplugged: A Bad Boy Rockstar Romance Page 19
