Caught Between Hawk and Gunner

by Marla Monroe

  Since they’d bought the owners out when they’d decided to retire to Las Vegas, finding enough help had become an issue. They needed the help. Bad. But if she didn’t need the money, she wouldn’t stick around so his paying for the repairs wouldn’t exactly be interfering. She didn’t have to leave if she didn’t want to, right?

  No matter how he looked at it, though, there just wasn’t another option. Her sticking around for even a few weeks was dangerous for his sanity, and with the shit getting deeper as they pushed forward with their plans to make Settler’s Point a sort of biker sanctuary, keeping his head where it needed to be was imperative.

  She had to go.

  Chapter Four

  Her nemesis crossed the bar in long strides, reaching the door and shoving through it before Jackie had enough time to appreciate his tight ass that flexed with each movement in well-worn tight jeans. Despite his asshole attitude, she couldn’t help but admire the man’s exceptionally honed body.

  I need someone to remind me why I am where I am right now because I must have forgotten the last ten years of my freakish life.

  As soon as he’d let the door slam behind him, Jackie slid her gaze toward the back table once more. There, without his helmet to hide his face had to be the sexy-talking biker she’d ridden behind. Between the vibrations of the bike between her legs, the feel of his hard abdomen beneath her hands, and the memory of his deep, panty-drenching voice, she’d had one hell of a fantasy while she’d showered the night before. That had been followed by her sexy ménage dream later that night.

  She’d caught a brief flash of the mystery biker’s face when they’d first walked in, but his bastard of a friend had gotten in the way, and by the time he’d walked away, his friend was already past and taking a seat in the back. Now all she could see was the side view of him. Not that she’d complain. He had a nice one.

  She was pretty sure she’d seen dark eyes, and she could still tell that he had dark brown hair cut in a shaggy style that just barely curled at his shoulder. He was shorter than his friend, maybe six feet to the other man’s six-three. They both seemed to have the same aversion to shaving, since both men still had scruffy faces.

  But, Jackie didn’t mind the scruff, it was the first guy’s attitude that sucked. One minute he’d acted like he was going to kiss her then he’d taken one look at her scars and changed his stripes. Evidently he was one of those black and white people who didn’t see the shades of gray in between. It was kind of hypocritical to her considering his lifestyle as a biker. Of course, she was straying from her gray area into that “it’s either black or it’s white” group if she pointed out his obvious appearance.

  I just need to stop it already. Land this job or jobs, and pay to have my truck fixed so I can get back on the road.

  On the road to where, though? She still hadn’t fleshed out that part of her great plan to start over. Jackie was just proud of herself for putting the plan into motion and leaving. She could worry about where she would end up later.

  The sound of the door slamming again jerked her thoughts back to the bar, the glass of water she’d asked for sitting in front of her, and the feel of someone’s focused stare on her back. Jackie resisted the need to turn and see who it was. She was already pretty certain it would be bad biker boy. She expected him to walk past her to the table where his friends were, so when a hand appeared next to hers on the bar, all the air in her lungs evaporated even as all of it around her disappeared.

  “We need to talk.”

  His words right next to her ear caused her to shiver, and suddenly she could breathe again.

  What the hell just happened?

  “What about?” Her voice came out husky instead of uninterested like she’d planned.

  “Your truck and what you need to fix it,” he whispered close to her shoulder.

  “W—what are you talking about?”

  “Fixing your truck so you can be on your way. That’s what’s keeping you here isn’t it?”

  Suddenly Jackie’s body felt as if menopause had claimed its next victim with a vengeance. Why had it chosen her when she was barely twenty-nine? She was sure her neck and face had turned blood-red by the heat that radiated off her skin.

  “Don’t worry. As soon as I earn the money to fix it, I’m out of here.” Now, why had she told him that? Why did it matter to him if she stuck around or not?

  “How much?” he asked, leaning closer to her. He seemed to be putting all his weight on the hand next to hers on the bar, since it had turned red except for his fingertips and the creases at the wrist that were now white.

  “How much for what?”

  “To fix that miserable excuse for a truck. How much is it going to cost to get you back on the road?” he asked again.

  Jackie had to think about taking the next breath and the one after that. Something about how he stood over her, crowding into her from behind, drugged her and took away her reasoning ability. Had the heat burning her skin boiled her brain as well? If she hadn’t been consciously controlling her breathing, Jackie was sure she’d have passed out by now. They were in a world of only two, and nothing else mattered around them. He sucked in her oxygen, and she fought to find more.

  “Eight hundred dollars,” she finally told him.

  Their little world popped when he said something so obviously made up that even her colorful language couldn’t have competed. She pulled away from him, redefining her space.

  “I thought you said it was a busted radiator. What the hell else is he doing, lining it with gold?”

  Jackie told herself not to turn around, but she never was one to take her own advice. The instant she did, she regretted it. Hot eyes, dark as sin, glared at her as if she’d purposefully put the hole in her own radiator just to piss him off. The scowl that drew his brows together into a single line didn’t worry her. It just added fuel to her already stoked anger.

  “Don’t yell at me, asshole. It’s your damn town that’s gouging visitors with jacked-up prices and sob stories. If I could get the fucking parts I could fix it myself, so back the hell off, biker boy!” She knew better, but she poked her finger in his chest twice then turned her back and grabbed the glass of water off the bar to ease the tightness in her throat.

  “I’ll pay for the work on your truck. All you have to do is leave as soon as it’s finished.”

  Had she heard him right? Jackie wasn’t sure. She slowly turned to face him, swallowing down all the emotion boiling in her chest until it rested in the pit of her stomach to roll some more.

  “What did you say?” Her voice sounded soft and steady even to her.

  He hesitated for all of a second. “I said I’d pay for the repairs.”

  “As long as I leave as soon as it’s ready,” she finished.

  “Yeah.”

  She drew in a slow breath then let it seep out of her skin before answering him with a smile.

  “No.”

  * * * *

  “Duke said you were interested in working both jobs. Said you have experience, that right?” Scoot, the bar’s manager shifted in his seat behind the dented metal desk.

  “That’s right. I’ve worked every position in a bar and a restaurant at one time or another. I don’t mind hard work or long hours. I just need the money to fix my truck,” she told him.

  “I see. So you’re not planning to stick around?”

  It was a trick question. She was sure of it. He wore the same leather vest that her nemesis and the other guys had on, so she was positive he’d already had a conversation with a certain pissed-off biker before he’d joined her in the office. If she said no, he could decide not to hire her. If she said she would stick around for a while, he might not because of the asshole biker.

  “I can’t very well go anywhere without my wheels. I won’t leave you hanging. I promise.” She settled on evasive honesty. It usually got her by.

  Scoot nodded but didn’t say anything for a few seconds. Then he leaned back in the chair and ran
a hand over his face, stopping to pull at the short goatee that looked like the only beard he could manage to grow. Scraggly didn’t even begin to cover it. It looked more like a rat’s tail that should have been on the back of his head instead of on his chin.

  “Got legal ID?” he finally asked.

  “Yeah.”

  Relief trickled down her spine like the sweat that had already made that same trip several times now. Jackie pulled her wallet out of the backpack she’d sat on the floor by the chair. Sliding out her driver’s license and Social cards, she held them out to the man.

  He took them before pulling out a drawer that made a god-awful racket and digging through some folders. Tossing a form down on the desk in front of her, Scoot got up and walked the two steps it took to get to the primeval—or maybe prehistoric was the right word?—dirty copier sitting on top of an equally ancient metal file cabinet. He had to slide a blade across the paper when it had finished printing.

  “Fill that out, and you can start tomorrow at three. You’ll cook till nine then wait tables till close. Can you handle that?” he asked before handing her cards back across the desk.

  “No problem. Thanks for giving me a chance.”

  He sighed and shook his head. “Don’t thank me yet. This isn’t going to be an easy job. Place fills up early and doesn’t let up till we kick them out around two. If you make it tomorrow, we’ll look at the schedule.”

  “I’ll make it. I’ve worked in worse, I promise you.” She quickly filled out the paperwork, putting the hotel down as her address even though she didn’t know what it was, and made a mental note to get a prepaid phone and give Scoot the number when she came back in the next afternoon.

  “Do us both a favor and avoid Gunner, will you?”

  “Who?” She had a sinking feeling he was referring to biker boy, though.

  “The guy who wants you gone. I don’t know what your history is and don’t give a flying fuck, but I’m still here when you’re nothing but exhaust fumes. If I didn’t need the help so fucking badly, I wouldn’t hire you. Remember that if you get a wild hair to do something stupid like piss in his beer or spit on his burger, got it?”

  “Yeah. I’ve got it.” She shoved the paper and pen across the desk and stood, picking her pack up off the floor as she did.

  Without a second glance at the man who’d simultaneously answered her prayers and kicked her puppy, Jackie opened the door and walked out without closing it behind her. She pulled the pack’s strap over one shoulder and made a beeline to the door. Since she’d been in the office, at least a dozen or more customers had settled at various tables, the noise level already twice as loud as when she’d first walked into the wide-open room. Despite the burning knife she could feel digging into her back from someone’s stare behind her, Jackie didn’t spare a single glance in the direction of the table of bikers in the back. She didn’t even know if he was still back there, nor did she care.

  The second she’d cleared the door, Jackie felt pounds lighter. Once she’d put a couple hundred yards between her and the bar, she was able to breathe normally and nearly forget the feel of Gunner’s heated breath against her skin. Almost. The lingering pressure that had teased her body while he’d had her caged against the bar wouldn’t let her get by that easily, though. If she let her guard down, it all rolled back over her like a bulldozer, piling it all right back on top of her as if it had never been gone at all.

  What is it about him that pisses me off and makes me want to lick every inch of his skin at the same time? He’s an asshole. I shouldn’t even care that he is.

  Jackie stopped just outside the office of the motel and thought about it for a second. Was she angry that he’d offered to pay to have her truck fixed just to get her out of his hair or was she angry that her scars mattered to him for some reason?

  “Why do I care either way? To care implies that his opinion matters to me and it doesn’t.”

  It really doesn’t.

  “You talk to yourself lot?”

  Jackie jumped then smiled as the tiny old Asian woman shuffled down the walkway and opened the door to go inside. The woman probably thought she was one or two noodles shy of a full brick of Ramon noodles.

  She slipped into the office behind the woman and stood at the desk to wait for the elderly lady to walk around the side to greet her. She looked up at Jackie and smiled so big it looked like it should hurt.

  “You stay more, or you check out now?”

  “I stay, um, I need to rent the room for a few weeks if that’s okay.”

  “Rent by night or by month. Don’t do hourly, got it?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Don’t worry. I don’t do hourly, either. So how much for a month?” She truly didn’t want to stay that long, but depending on how long it took her to make what she needed, she’d cut her losses and leave as soon as the truck was fixed regardless of where she was in the month.

  “One thousand for month. Includes weekly room change. You put garbage in bag in Dumpster in between,” she said, showing the pearly white but crooked teeth with her dangerously wide smile again.

  “If I rent it for the month, can I pay you by the week? I only have enough for one week until I get paid.”

  “How you get paid with no job?” the woman asked, her brows lifting high enough to disappear into her hair.

  “I’m working at The Wagon Master Bar and Grill. I start tomorrow afternoon,” she told her with a smug smile.

  The elderly woman narrowed her eyes before answering. “No visitors in room and no loud bikes in parking lot. I let you pay end of each week. You already paid two nights of month’s rent. You make noise and you go.”

  Jackie couldn’t decide whether to be insulted or laugh. She was tough but smart and just as cute in her own Hannibal smile way.

  “Thanks.” She almost chuckled when her landlady huffed then turned and left her standing there.

  Fifteen minutes and one vending machine trip later, she sat on the bed in her room drinking a Diet Sprite because that was all that was in the machine and eating a mixture of crunchy Cheetos, peanut butter crackers, and a honeybun for dessert. It wasn’t nutritious or even good, but it stopped the gnawing pain in her belly and didn’t require walking to and from the store with a load of groceries. She’d make that trip tomorrow before work.

  Right then, all she wanted to do was soak her sore feet in preparation for being on them all night when she got to work the next day. Why hadn’t she thought to buy a pair of sneakers while she’d been out? Waiting tables and short order cooking in boots wouldn’t be easy, and when she pulled them off to go to bed, it would probably be more along the line of pure hell.

  “Better add Band-Aids and Epsom salts to the list, as well. I’m going to need a damn truck to get everything. Too bad mine’s in the shop.”

  Jackie snorted and crumbled up all the wrappers from her meal. She scooted to the edge of the bed and tossed the expanding ball at the garbage can, missing it by a good foot. She would pick it up later. Right then all she wanted to do was take a nap that would lead into going to bed for the night. And while she was making plans, she planned not to dream about two leather-clad bikers with howling wolves on their leather vests.

  Chapter Five

  “Spit it out, Gunner. What the fuck is going on between you and that woman, what’s her name, Jackie, right?”

  Hawk wanted to knock some sense into the other man, but that was more Gunner’s style, not his. Or least it hadn’t been until they’d picked up a certain hitchhiker. Now Hawk wanted to bring some violence down on his best friend. What was it that had gotten under the other man’s skin? She’d ridden on the back of Hawk’s bike, not Gunner’s, so nothing had happened on the ride into town. The other man had been all about trash talking as they carried her to the garage. Somewhere between the time Gunner had gotten off his bike and helped their hitchhiker off Hawk’s, something had happened that had turned his friend from a smooth-talking Valentino to Dr. Jekyll’s Mr. Hyde.


  “Nothing’s going on with her.” He stared at Hawk for a second. “She just rubs me the wrong way, and I sure as hell don’t need the distraction with everything going on right now.”

  “That’s right, you don’t, but don’t give me some bullshit about her rubbing you the wrong way. The way you were talking on the ride after we picked her up, you were planning on having her rub on you in a different way. What happened? Did she say something I didn’t hear or do something I didn’t see?”

  “No! I told you there’s nothing to it. I just don’t like her. Now don’t fucking bring it up again.” Gunner jammed his helmet on and started his bike, slinging gravel as he tore out of the parking lot.

  “Nothing my ass.”

  Hawk pulled out of the lot at a slower pace than his buddy had. He thought over when they’d stopped at the garage to let the woman off to what had happened. Normally he could recall events in detail without having to think about it, but he’d already been thinking about what needed to be done to get ready for the parts store’s grand opening in a month. He’d seen Gunner’s slow smile as he helped her off the back of his bike and knew from experience what he was up to. After that, Hawk had tuned it all out and went over the list in his head again to make sure he hadn’t missed something.

  The next thing he’d known, Gunner was walking away from the woman with a disgusted expression Hawk hadn’t seen since one of the parties they’d been invited to at a sister club out in Vegas on one of their trips. It had all started out just like any biker bonfire with drinking, smoking a little weed, and getting it on with sweet butts. Next thing they knew, several of the guys from the host club were pissing all over some of the women like fucking dogs. He’d seen a perfect description of what he felt on his friend’s face, and they’d made it an early night.

  It still made him gag at the thought of treating a woman that way. Sweet butts might be mutual property, but they were still women and could walk out anytime they wanted to. Gunner seemed to think that those women hadn’t really had that option. They weren’t attending any future events of that club that was for damn sure.