by Krane, Kasey
Clasping my hands in my lap so I didn’t make a fool of myself, I pressed on.
“So what did they do for jobs in Deming? I looked online - it’s just this dot on the map. You guys registered about 15,000 residents at the last Census?” I had a hard time wrapping my mind around a town that only had 15,000 people in it. That sounded like an oversized truck stop to me, not a whole town.
“Well, that was the brilliance of our dads. Deming is only an hour from the US-Mexico border, and a lot of shit,” he cleared his throat, “uhhh…stuff gets transported over the border. Especially after NAFTA, trade between the countries is a huge business. But anyway, they started this long-haul trucking business back in the 70s and have been growing it ever since. Our trucks are pretty recognizable. I’ll point out the next one I see to you. Once you see one, you won’t forget it.”
I opened my to mouth to ask him to clarify when I spotted a sign - five miles to Las Cruces. “Hey, before I forget, would you mind if we stopped in Las Cruches? I need to use the ladies’ room.”
He burst out laughing, which I found simultaneously charming - his laugh was even more enticing than his chuckle - and annoying. I was pretty damn sure he was laughing at me, and I wasn’t overly fond of being the butt of a joke, especially since I didn’t know what the joke was.
“Las Cruucesss,” he finally got out.
“I’m sorry, what??” I asked, perplexed.
“Las Cruucess. That’s how you pronounce the name of the city coming up. Although I’ll admit, it does look like Las Cruches.” He shot me a grin. “It’s Spanish, although what the hell it means, fuck — hell — darned if I know.”
“I’m from New York City,” I said, putting him out of his misery. “I can swear with the best of them.”
“Oh good, ‘cause the chances aren’t real high that I can keep from swearing for a whole week,” he said and then swerved into the other lane, including a middle finger and a horn blast in the maneuver.
“I’m guessing the chances aren’t real high that you can go a whole minute without swearing.”
He grinned. “You know me so well, and it’s only been an hour. Oh, there’s a Dead Legion truck!” he said and pointed at a semi barreling down on the other side of the freeway.
Holy fuck.
No wonder he’d said I would never forget it once I saw one. The semi had a red cab with black swirls painted over it in a dramatic pattern, which was cool, but not scary. It was the teeth in the grille that got me. The grille at the front of the semi - not normally a fascinating part of a semi - had these teeth at the top and bottom that made it look like a zombie with its mouth partially open. They glowed faintly and I figured that at night, they probably lit up. Seeing a zombie coming at you at night like that…
Holy fuck.
I was glad he’d warned me about the trucks beforehand. Seeing one without warning would’ve given me a heart attack.
He grinned at me.
“Like I said, pretty distinctive trucks,” he said as he pulled onto the off ramp and began heading towards Las Cruces. “It’s been one of our best marketing tools. No one forgets what our trucks look like, so when a business owner goes to book a trucking company, they automatically think of ours. Not to mention that all of the gangs in the area know not to rob one our trucks, so companies know their shit will be well protected by the Dead Legion.
“But, we’re here,” he said, pulling up to a gas pump. “I’ll fill up if you want to run in and use the bathroom.”
“Oh!” I said, looking up. We were sitting next to a gas pump. How had I missed this? I hurried into the store - oh heavenly AC! - and used the not-so-clean bathroom, then wandered back outside. The Spanish came at me at every direction - signs in English and Spanish, people chatting in Spanish as they passed me…I felt like I entered another country. In New York, we had Chinatown and K-Town but this…this felt even more intense. Here, I was the outsider, with my blonde hair and my Brooklyn accent and my high heels. I knew I stuck out in this crowd.
I looked over and saw Bishop watching me from the truck. He was cleaning the windshield but he was alert. Suspicious. Watchful. He was watching me to make sure I was okay. The way he held his body, the way he watched anyone who dared to walk too close to me. He was on high alert. It made me feel stupidly warm and fuzzy inside.
I crossed through a lane of vehicles and finally made it back to the truck. As he turned to put the squeegee away, I saw metal glint on his hip.
What the hell…
He turned back and there I saw it - the biggest handgun I’d ever laid eyes on. I looked up and we locked eyes for a moment. He gestured towards the cab of the truck and I hopped in, using a tissue from my purse to open the door.
He got in too and started the engine but didn’t pull forward.
“It’s just a gun,” he finally said, and patted his hip. “I didn’t have it on earlier because the TSA isn’t exactly happy about seeing Desert Eagles or, really, any handguns in an airport. They get all sorts of twitchy about it. But I get all sorts of twitchy without it on, and…this isn’t the best part of Las Cruces. I’d hate to be here after dark. I hope seeing it on my hip doesn’t freak you out, or you’re gonna spend a week freaking out.”
The choice was clear - accept the handgun or go back to New York. He finally pulled forward and started heading back towards the freeway, giving me a chance to think.
“I don’t have anything against guns,” I finally said, which had the added benefit of being completely true. “I just didn’t expect to see it so it threw me off for a moment. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen such a big handgun before.”
“That’s actually on purpose. This gun is a fucking cannon. The recoil on this thing is outta control. But it can also be spotted from a mile away and it helps deter idiots who might otherwise think of startin’ something with me. I would hate to have to kill someone if my gun can do my talking for me instead. But when I do need to take care of business, it certainly can. All of our drivers carry a Desert Eagle too. It’s been years since someone tried to hijack one of our trucks. Between the grilles, the paint job, and the handguns, our drivers are damn scary.”
“Does Ghost run the trucking part of the club or do you?”
“That’s 100% my job. Ghost doesn’t know much more than it pays the bills. Some of our drivers are also Dead Legion members but most of them aren’t. I figure it’s more important that you have a CDL and like to drive a truck for hundreds or thousands of miles than it is that you’ve patched into the club. Back when I first started hiring drivers who weren’t also club members, some guys were pretty pissed but they’re over it now. Loving to ride a motorcycle and loving to drive a semi are two very different things.”
As he spoke, his eyes flitted from the side mirrors to the rearview mirror to the road in front and back again. He was the most alert person I’d ever met.
“Make, model, and color of the last three vehicles we’ve passed,” I said impulsively.
“What?!”
“Without looking in the rearview mirror, tell me the make, model, and color of the last three vehicles we’ve passed,” I repeated.
“Toyota Camry, red. Ford Lobos, dark blue. Peterbilt 579, also red.”
A little too late, I realized that I had no way of verifying his answers. Unlike Bishop, I hadn’t been paying attention and we just crested a hill, so I couldn’t see anything in the rearview mirror. But somehow, I knew he wasn’t lying.
I was saved from having to admit my ignorance when he spoke up. “The Peterbilt 579 especially caught my eye, so that one was a bit of a cheat for me. That’s their new hybrid line and I’ve been contemplating adding one to our fleet.”
“Hybrid semi? Really?” I had no idea that those even existed.
“Yeah, they’ve been out for a bit. They’re an electric/gas hybrid and for a company like ours that spends way too much money on filling the gas tank, it seems like a great idea. We don’t buy many cabs brand-new though, so I need to cr
unch the numbers to see how long it’ll take before we get make back our money on it.”
I stared at him in shock. What happened to my Caveman Special? Hidden beneath his five o’ clock shadow, leather cut, and red bandana was…intelligence. I assumed I’d be spending the week with a group of hillbillies who needed to take their boots off to count to twenty. But Bishop…
Bishop wasn’t anything like I expected.
And that scared me shitless.
5
Bishop
Okay, so she didn’t have an oversized rat in her purse. And she had all the right curves in all the right places.
But that didn’t mean I liked her. She was too smart, and too beautiful, and too likable to be liked.
When I threw her Louis Vuitton bags into the bed of the truck, I was pretty pissed at that point. Who packs two bags for a week-long trip? Fucking ridiculous. And her muttered complaints about the heat, the trip, the alignment of the moon…she just rubbed me the wrong way.
But now I wanted to rub her the right way. From her pink toenails up to her luscious thighs and fuck-awesome tits, she was one hell of a package. Her accent was jarring but I figured she’d moan the same way all women did when I got them into bed.
But she wasn’t rubbing her way up my thigh. She wasn’t asking me about my tats like a lot of the girls at the bars did. She was asking me about the hybrid engine of a Peterbilt 579. Jesus fucking Christ. What woman asks about semi engines? She was absolutely nothing like any woman I’d ever met, and fuck-all if it didn’t scare the ever livin’ hell outta me. I had the distinct feeling I’d be safer with a Desert Eagle trained on me by a Sangre member than I was at the moment. I shifted uncomfortably. We needed to get back to where she was annoying me and I was mentally strangling her.
“So how long have you been a member of the Dead Legion?” she asked, cutting into my thoughts. I responded without thinking.
“I was patched in when I was 21, but you could call me an Acquaintance from birth. My mom swears the first word I said was ‘Deaf Leshon” but my dad always claimed it was ‘Da’. They both agree it wasn’t ‘Ma’, much to my mother’s chagrin.”
Dammit! Now she’s got me talking about my family. How the hell is she able to get me to open up?
“The stages of membership of the club. They are Acquaintance, Hang Around, Prospect, and then Member, right?”
I just stared at her for a moment, and then remembered I was driving and jerked my eyes back to the road.
Who was this woman?
Other than groupies and Old Ladies, I’d never met any female who knew the structure of the MC membership. She was supposed to be a spoiled rich, pain-in-the-ass journalist who snapped her gum and asked ridiculous questions like how many people I killed last week. She wasn’t supposed to be…this.
“Yeah, that’s right. How do you know so much about motorcycle club structure?”
“I did my research before I came,” she said with a smile. “Surprised that I actually know what I’m talking about?”
“A little bit,” I said with a laugh. “Most women just ask me if they can ride my motorcycle.”
She quickly glanced over at me and then back at the road. “Oh I don’t doubt that,” she said with a nervous chuckle. “But I’m not most women.”
“Clearly,” I said slightly under my breath. I could see her smile out of the corner of my eye.
“Do you want to go grab dinner with me?” I shot a look at the clock in the dashboard of the truck. “A late lunch?”
What the fuck had I just done?
I was forced to be in my truck for two hours, which was a complete waste of time when I had better shit to do than be errand boy, and drive in traffic and listen to her New York and the very last thing I should want to do is continue this torture.
But somehow, Jules made it…not so torturous.
Fuck, fuck, fuck and double fuck.
Nevertheless, I held my breath, and waited for an answer.
6
Jules
“Yes, I’d love some dinner…lunch…linner!” I finally finished, and blushed. I turned into an idiot around this guy and truly, I should be happy to be rid of him for the day, but there was something earthily sexy about him. I watched his hands on the steering wheel, turning into the parking lot, his tats flexing and dancing on his arms as he moved. I let myself imagine for just a moment. I closed my eyes and bit my lip, imagining him running those hands up and down my body, the callouses skimming over my nipples, him reaching down and wrapping his lips around—
“Do you want to get out? Or would you like to stay in the truck?”
My eyes popped open.
Mortified. I was absolutely mortified. How long had we been sitting there while I daydreamed about him sucking on my tits?
“Coming!” I said a little too cheerfully. I gave him an over-bright smile and hopped out of the truck. The blast of heat was awful but at least I could pull my dress away from the backs of my thighs.
Fuck.
Unless Bishop went for sweaty, he wasn’t going to look at me twice. If I wasn’t so hungry, and if my heart didn’t skip a beat at the mere thought of spending more time with him, I totally would have left in favor of a shower. I was sticking to myself in places that weren’t exactly sexy.
Bishop opened the door to the restaurant and two things hit me: The wall of cool air and the amazing smell of Mexican food. It wasn’t that I never ate Mexican food back in New York, but I was pretty sure it was going to be more authentic here. Plus, there were just so many ethnic food choices in NY, I didn’t often find myself choosing burritos. They seemed so…uninspiring.
But now, they smelled divine. Everything smelled divine. My stomach rumbled, reminding me that I hadn’t eaten since early that morning, before I’d left for the airport. I didn’t get my curves by eating two celery sticks a day, that’s for damn sure.
I felt weird. Foggy.
I stumbled and then sat down a little too hard in a booth. I stared uncomprehendingly at Bishop when he spoke to me. There were words, but they didn’t penetrate the cotton.
Cotton.
Why was I thinking about cotton? I tried to remember but the thoughts were slipping away and I couldn’t hold on.
A look of worry crossed Bishop’s features, but my vision started to tunnel and I grabbed onto the table to steady myself.
Then there was a glass in front of me with a straw and Bishop was shoving it into my mouth. Why was Bishop shoving things at me? I sucked down obediently, and the taste of lemonade exploded across my tongue. God, that tasted good! I sucked down faster but then Bishop was taking it away and shoving chips and salsa at me.
“Eat!” he said, and I obediently did. Halfway through the chips, I started to feel more coherent.
Fuck!
I did not just do that.
“Jules, you scared me,” Bishop said, staring at me intently. Brown eyes. Chocolate eyes. Delicious eyes. I wanted to dive into them.
I ate more chips and salsa. Obviously, my blood sugar levels still weren’t high enough.
“Are you diabetic?” he asked. “My mom is, and if she doesn’t eat for too long, she goes all fuck-weird on me, like you just did.”
“I…uh…” I stumbled. “I don't know, actually. I know that sounds weird, but I keep putting off the testing because I don’t want to know. I usually just make sure that I eat regularly but I forgot to today and between that and the heat and the traveling, it got worse than normal.” Stop rambling! Shut up…“I…I’m sorry to have scared you,” I finally finished lamely.
He stared at me a moment longer, obviously trying to decide whether to push the issue or let it go. Finally, he shrugged.
“I ordered lunch already. When the waiter came by, you didn’t seem capable of making a decision so I made one for you. Speaking of which, it sounds like lunch is on its way.”
I cocked an eyebrow at him, confused, but then I heard it too. I turned to see a waiter making his way towards our table
with a platter of food that still seemed to be cooking. Popping and sizzling noises were emanating from the platter as if it were alive. The short Hispanic man placed the platter in front of us along with containers of tortillas, sour cream, guacamole, and extra salsa. My stomach rumbled at the sight.
The waiter disappeared as I stared at the mountain of food in front of me. Good thing I wasn’t a timid eater, right?
“What is it?” I finally asked as the cast iron pan continued to sizzle and pop.
“Fajitas. Beef. You know, for a girl from New York, you sure seem to know shit about Mexican food. They have Mexican food in New York City, right?” He opened the container of tortillas and offered me one before pulling two out for himself. He loaded them up and began eating, watching me intently for a response.
“To be honest, in New York, there are so many different kinds of ethnic food available, Mexican just seemed a little too…boring. Why eat a taco if you can eat a Kachumbari for lunch?” I dug into the fajita platter and served myself. God, it smelled delicious.
“Ka — uh what?” Bishop stared at me as if I’d grown another head. I chewed and swallowed - yup, as delicious as I’d expected - and explained, “Kachumbari. It’s this tomato and onion dish from Madagascar that is just delicious. Light and fresh and yummy.” His expression did not change. Somehow, I guessed he was not a big veggie eater.
“I think I’ll stick to my beef fajitas.”
“I thought Mexican food was hotter?” I asked, confused. I was used to spicy food but this food barely registered on the heat factor. I glanced up and stopped, heart thumping again. Fuck Bishop was hot. He had this tiny dab of sour cream on his upper lip that I ached to suck off. His eyes did not seem any less chocolatey brown than they had before. Apparently, the desire to dive into them was not related to my blood sugar levels after all.
“I ordered mild salsa because I didn’t know what heat tolerance you had. If you like it hot, you should talk to Knight.” His tongue swiped out and caught the bit of sour cream, disappearing back into his mouth again and I sighed inwardly. I suddenly found myself strangely jealous of sour cream.
