Doin' a Dime

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  “Thank you for lunch, Hunt,” I said softly, looking up into his eyes.

  He ran a calloused finger over my brow.

  “You’re welcome, babe,” he said. “See you at dinner.”

  Then, without another word, he left me standing there watching him go.

  And I was left wondering if there would ever come a time where I didn’t hate seeing him leave.

  CHAPTER 16

  Question: when stirring up some shit. Do you start clockwise, or counter-clockwise?

  -Text from Wyett to Hunt

  HUNT

  “Where are the dogs going?” I asked, staring at the empty room, the dogs with their leashes attached, and the half-eaten bag of dog food at their sides.

  “Laric has a place,” Wyett answered. “He volunteered to keep them when I asked him about possible kenneling options.”

  “Okay.” I looked around the foyer, taking in the multiple suitcases.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  And would she care if I brought my computer to work? Because I was onto something with her aunt, and I didn’t want to take the time off because I knew that a breakthrough would be coming soon.

  “Umm.” She paused. “Well…” She turned her face away from me and started to mumble.

  “You what?” I asked in curiosity, loving the way she was trying not to let me hear, but explaining nonetheless.

  “I signed you up for a motorcycle training course,” Wyett repeated. “You said that you needed to learn how to ride. And it doesn’t seem smart to me to just get on it without the least bit of knowledge on how to ride it. Knowledge is power. Isn’t that what you always said to me when you tried to justify why you hacked into my life?”

  She did have a point.

  But still.

  “Okay,” I said, not knowing what else to say. “You at least did it out of town, right?”

  She gave me a look. “I’m not dumb. I signed you up for a course in Gulf Shores, Alabama.”

  I blinked. “Why so far away?”

  “Because if I’m going to be forced to be out of town for three days straight doing nothing, then I’m going to hang out at the beach while I do nothing,” she answered.

  Her answer made a lot of sense, too.

  “Okay,” I hesitated. “When is the camp?”

  She looked at her watch, then gestured to the dogs that were behind us. The dogs that couldn’t decide whether they wanted to hang out with me or her. Honestly, I was really kind of jealous of her attachment to them at this point. “Now. They could come with us, but Laric offered to keep them.”

  I looked at the dogs, then at her.

  “I don’t have a motorcycle,” I told her.

  She grinned wickedly. “I know. But… I have a friend at the hospital that I work with. She’s a really great lady. Her father is a mechanic and does custom bikes. I called yesterday and told them that I wanted one. Explained a little about you. Told him your likes and dislikes, and then made arrangements for the motorcycle to be delivered to Gulf Shores for you.”

  I scratched my head. “But…”

  “No more excuses, Hunt.” She pointed at me. “I want to ride on the back of a bike. And I can’t do that unless you’re okay with me getting on one, wrapping my arms around another man, and being pressed close to him.”

  I really, really didn’t like that option.

  “Let’s go.”

  • • •

  I was at a motorcycle driving course.

  Feeling like a complete dumbass.

  “You’re in a motorcycle club, and you don’t even know how to ride a motorcycle?” the instructor asked the man at my side.

  I side-eyed him.

  Other than him being a dumbass and me not being one, we really did have a lot in common.

  Other than he’d worn his ‘cut’ while I’d worn jeans, a long-sleeved Henley t-shirt, and a bomber jacket that was the only thing I could scrounge up at such short notice.

  Though, my ‘short notice’ outfit had totally turned my girl on this morning as I’d left.

  She’d seen me in my clothes and her eyes had gone electric.

  Not that I don’t love your work uniform of sweatpants and a tight white tee, because holy God. But you in jeans and a Henley with a bomber jacket on? My God.

  I was grinning over her words when the instructor, as well as the rest of us, heard the man’s reply to the instructor’s earlier question.

  “There’s no bylaws in our club that you actually have to learn how to ride a motorcycle,” the man replied. “Not to mention, you’d have to be able to afford a bike, or know someone that has a bike, for you to practice riding. I didn’t have that until I got into the motorcycle club. But by then I realized that it was unsafe for me to just hop on and start riding without a little bit of instruction. So here I am.”

  Here he was.

  And he had a valid argument under his belt.

  I looked at him with new eyes.

  Most young guys his age would’ve popped off, gotten hot under the collar, or downright exploded.

  Not him.

  I was exceptionally surprised.

  Over the course of the motorcycle riding instruction, his quick wit, fast thinking, and jokes had me smiling more than once.

  And by the time we were done, and I was headed home with the motorcycle Wyett had procured for me, I planned to bring him up to Lynn.

  Because holy shit.

  After getting to know the kid, I’d realized rather quick that he was someone that Lynn would want on his team.

  “Is that smile over the fact that you now know how to ride a motorcycle, or because you’re seeing me?” My wife batted her eyelashes at me as I pulled up to our rented house on the bike and shut it off.

  I threw my leg over and immediately got rid of the jacket.

  I may look ‘hot’ in it to her, but I was scalding, and really needed a fucking air conditioning break.

  The moment it came off, I groaned.

  “Hate to break it to you.” I tossed the jacket onto the stairs beside her butt and sat down, my eyes taking in the ocean view with her. “But it was neither of those things. I met someone.”

  She stiffened, and I placed my hand over her knee.

  “Not that kind of someone.” I soothed my hand up the length of her thigh. “A man. I like him a lot, and I thought that he would be a perfect fit for Lynn.”

  “You were the one that brought most of the men in, right?” she asked. “You were the one to do all the research? Recommend which ones?”

  “Yes,” I confirmed. “I was. He had a few that he was looking at, sure. But I was the one to do all the research. Present it to him and recommend which ones he take a closer look at.”

  She nodded in understanding. “What’s so special about this guy that you met today?”

  “Nothing at first.” I paused. “Other than he was in a motorcycle club and didn’t know how to ride a motorcycle.”

  She burst out laughing. “Did you tell him that you were in the same boat?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t tell anyone anything about me. That’s why I’m able to stay so safe. Everything that I have, I’ve hidden. There are a lot of people out there in cyber world that would love to take my fucking head off. Or, my fictional head, anyway.”

  “What does that mean?” she asked.

  “It means that I’ve made a lot of enemies. There was a movie star once that I made sure paid dearly for what he’d done to a friend of a friend. Though, before he hurt that friend of a friend, he’d tried to hurt me. And let’s just say, I don’t take kindly to that. I buried him. And enjoyed doing it. But he has a lot of fans that would just love to make my life a living hell.” I paused. “But that’s just one instance. There are quite a few more that would love to cause me harm. That’s why we’re always going to be careful about who we give information to. And although I liked that guy, I don’t trust him with your life.”

  Her face softened even more, an
d the first rays of the setting sun reflected off of her eyes as she turned to look at me with the sweetest smile on her face.

  “As for why I liked him, I don’t know,” I admitted. “Kid was ex-military. Ex-con. Was very free with why he was ex-both. He caught a recruiter trying to molest a young college girl. He stopped it. They buried the case and he was dishonorably discharged. Months after that, the recruiter was caught doing it again to another girl, and this girl just so happened to be the girl he was crushing hard on, and he lost it. Reacted badly. Beat the shit out of the guy with a tire iron. Served six years of a twelve-year sentence. Now he’s with a motorcycle club and trying to make something of himself.”

  “Sounds a lot like some of y’all’s stories,” my wife teased as she pressed her hand to my chest.

  I grinned. “That’s what I was thinking. I’ll bring him up to Lynn. See what he has to say.”

  She yawned loudly.

  “What did you do all day?” I asked as I rounded my arm around her waist and pulled her closer to me.

  She leaned into me and let her head rest on my shoulder.

  “Studied. A lot,” she grumbled. “Right there on the beach under my umbrella. I burned my toes.”

  I looked at said toes, and sure enough, all ten were burned.

  “Ouch,” I said. “That looks like it hurts.”

  She groaned. “It hurts now. Just imagine what it’ll feel like tomorrow.”

  The thought of her being hurt, even on her cute little toes, hurt to think about.

  “Tomorrow I’ll rub some aloe on it.” I paused. “If we can find some. I drove by the Dollar Store on the way home so I could grab a drink, and five out of the seven people in line had it in their carts.”

  She laughed. “I can see why.”

  “Want to walk on the beach with me?” I asked as I stood up, holding out my hand.

  She placed her hand in mine, and together we walked hand in hand down the length of the beach until we reached the jetty, then back.

  We passed other couples, too.

  Some with families of their own. Some with dogs. Others with their grandkids even.

  And as I passed each and every one, I made a mental note to have that kind of life with Wyett.

  Hopefully soon.

  This year it was just the two of us.

  Next year, who knew what it would bring?

  • • •

  Wyett was asleep on the couch, her face pressed against my thigh, and her arms were thrown around my waist.

  She looked extremely uncomfortable, but I left her alone because I liked having her there.

  We were out on the back deck.

  It was way past midnight, the waves were crashing ferociously from a summer storm that rolled in just after we’d arrived back at the rental, and I had my computer perched on the arm of the couch as I was turned to it awkwardly.

  The awkwardness was because I didn’t want to put it in my lap and have the fan blowing on her face, nor did I want the brightness of the screen to bother her sleep.

  Shortly after dinner Lynn had sent over some information on a couple of items he needed me to look into, and I’d gotten immersed in the complexity of it while Wyett had read a romance novel by my side.

  After finishing up with my work, she’d still been reading, so I’d switched over to my new hobby—bringing down Stella Villin.

  Once again, everything seemed okay on paper, but the damn woman had a reckless streak a mile wide.

  When we pushed and dug, she got even meaner.

  Meaning, she had more to hide.

  And I wanted to find out what.

  At first, it was only a hunch that had me continuing to search.

  Wyett rolled and moved, causing her arm to finally come unglued from behind my back, and her face nestled even more into my lap, no longer making her neck look broken from the odd angle.

  The new position, however, had her hot breath fanning the top of my cock.

  Better and worse, for sure.

  Grinning, I went back to work.

  That’s when I found what I’d been searching for.

  A random payment of a million dollars, paid over the course of the last ten years, to a man in New York.

  A man that, after doing some research on him, I now realized was a hit man.

  A hired hit man.

  A man that was hired by Stella, Wyett’s aunt, to kill her family.

  What. The. Fuck.

  CHAPTER 17

  Book whore. Spread those pages, baby.

  -Text from Six to Wyett

  WYETT

  He waited until our vacation was over, and I was seconds away from being home, to tell me about his suspicions.

  “I’m sorry, but what?” I asked, hoping he hadn’t said what I thought he said.

  “I think your aunt might’ve killed your parents,” he repeated. “I’ve done some digging. She has a very high payment she made to a man out of New York. He’s great on paper. The problem is he’s just that. On paper. It took me a moment to realize that I needed to look more in depth in him. So I did. And found out that he’s a hired contract killer. He’s wanted in four countries and is on the FBI’s most wanted lists.”

  I felt bile rise in my throat.

  “And, as of yesterday, an anonymous tip went out that showed his whereabouts as of about thirty-six hours ago,” he continued. “They picked him up this morning.”

  My stomach dropped.

  “What?” I breathed.

  “Yes,” he confirmed. “He’s in the custody of some FBI members out of Kentucky. He’s being thoroughly questioned. And, I also forwarded your aunt’s information, the payments, as well as a few other things I thought might help, to them. Hopefully, with any luck at all, they’ll be bringing your aunt in on charges.”

  “My aunt killed my family.” I couldn’t wrap my head around that. “My family was really good to her, Hunt. I mean… how does that even work? She was a crazy asshole and hid from them when she did them wrong. My dad always made sure to stay in touch, though. Then she puts out a contract to kill them, and actually succeeds. Then, on top of that, she’s given their kid to raise? Oh, and if that’s not good enough, when that kid is of age and starts to challenge her, she tries to take that fortune away from her, too? I’d be surprised if I didn’t have another hit out on me.”

  Hunt froze for a moment.

  Then he cursed and started to pull out his phone.

  When that didn’t go quite as planned, he pulled over, got out of his car, and then yanked his laptop from his bag.

  That’s when I realized that something was wrong.

  “Fuck!” he cried out.

  I widened my eyes and stepped out of the car, my eyes going to the cars that were passing us on the very narrow shoulder.

  “Hunt?” I called out. “We’re literally a few minutes from home.”

  “Fuuuuuck!” he bellowed.

  I looked at the cars that were starting to slow, some of them looking like they were going to pull over completely.

  “Hunt, get your ass in the car. Let’s go!” I ordered.

  That seemed to snap him out of it.

  He folded the laptop almost gingerly and walked around to the driver’s side again.

  He got in, buckled his seat belt, then looked to enter traffic just as I buckled myself in.

  But instead of turning back toward home, he swung a bitch and headed in the opposite direction.

  “What’s going on?” I asked softly.

  He didn’t answer at first, his fingers tightening and loosening on the steering wheel.

  I looked back behind us at the trailer he was towing with his motorcycle on it, then at how fast he was driving.

  He was going well over the speed limit.

  And when I say ‘well over’ I mean he was going fucking thirty over. In a fifty mile per hour zone. While pulling a trailer.

  Jesus.

  “I think I have an idea where your head is at.” I paused. “Likely,
this pissiness has a lot to do with me. But, just sayin’, if you kill us before we get wherever you’re going, it won’t matter.”

  He grumbled something under his breath, but my words worked and he slowed down to a more manageable level.

  “We’re going to see Lynn,” he answered grumpily.

  When we arrived, the first words out of Six’s mouth upon seeing us was, “I have tequila!”

  • • •

  I was so drunk.

  Like, so drunk.

  If I had to write a scale of my drunkenness, it would be wayyyyyyyy over there.

  That made no sense.

  But whatever.

  “Another glass?” Six asked me.

  I pursed my lips, then held the glass out to her.

  “Move it a bit to the left,” Six urged, a laugh in her voice.

  “Why aren’t you drinking?” I asked. “Are you pregnant?”

  She rolled her eyes. “You know I am, moron.”

  “Oh, yeah.” I giggled. “I remember. I want to have babies, but not for another couple of years. At least until I have my schooling done. Or maybe when I get some good work under my belt. Maybe next month.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Next month?”

  I sighed and pushed my hair out of my face.

  A lot had escaped my ponytail, and I was to the point where I should probably redo it, but my hand-eye coordination was a bit off with all the tequila I’d partaken of.

  “Hey, what’s that?” I asked, flicking my chin in the direction of a couple of canvases.

  “I’m going to try to paint something.” She paused. “I was bored. And they had those canvases on sale. And the paint. And you know how I like to try new things. I also thought it’d be fun to do like a time lapse kind of thing and post it to my social media accounts for a bit of a change, you know?”

  I did know.

  With Six being a nature videographer, she posted a lot of wildlife, flora, and fauna videos on her social media.

  The only problem was, they also liked to see different things that weren’t just ‘nature.’ And they absolutely loved when Six posted videos of herself, what she was doing, and things along that nature.