Brody: The Bang Shift (3 page)

She was leery of men, but she wasn’t afraid of her son. Oh, he had his moments of teenaged moodiness, and like other young men who liked to test the limits of their parents, he pushed her when he could. But she did everything possible to counter the bad Collins genes in his system with love, support and understanding. Her boy really was a good kid.

“What if we go in half?” he asked with a hopeful smile, and she tried her best not to smile in return. So he wanted to play a war game. It was much better than living it.

“I’ll consider it.”

“Thanks, Mom.” Grinning, he kissed her cheek before walking way.

She shook her head and walked outside. The yard was small and the flowerbeds were in shabby shape. She could weed them later and maybe plant some flowers before fall set in. It wouldn’t take much to liven up the place.

“Yoohoo?” a female voice called from behind her.

Xan turned around as she stood back up, facing the approaching woman. She looked to be around her age with auburn hair pulled loosely in a ponytail and a voluptuous figure spilling out of her skimpy shorts and tight tank top. “Can I help you?”

“Oh no, girl. I was just coming over to introduce myself and welcome you to the neighborhood,” she said as she walked up to Xan. She offered her hand to shake. “Hi, I’m Roxanne Willis, but you can call me Roxie.”

Xan shook her hand briefly and smiled. “Xan Bradley. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Same here. You gettin’ settled?”

“Trying to. We still have to run to town and get a few things.”

“Well, this is a small town and the neighborhood is quiet, so you’ll like it if that’s your thing. If you like partying and the night life, then not so much. There’s not much to do out in these parts. So where’re you from, anyway?”

Xan was used to all kinds of neighbors. She didn’t even have to think about her answers when people probed her about where she’d been in life because her responses flowed without effort. “All over. I’m a traveling nurse, going where the needs are.”

“Oh, you working at the hospital in Conway? Surely you ain’t working in Little Rock? That commute’s a bitch.”

“No. I’m working here for Dr. Peters.”

“Oh, that’s right. Joann’s quitin’ after she has that baby. She’s due any day now.”

The front door opened, making Xan turn around to watch Scott walk out. Her son shamelessly stared at Roxie’s breasts before looking at her eyes. The boy needed a father to teach him how to look at a rack without getting caught. Xan felt as if she’d be betraying her sisterhood if she coached him on that.

“Scott, this is our neighbor, Roxie Willis.” She turned to look at Roxie. “This is my son, Scott.”

Roxie smiled brightly. Xan felt her mother claws extending. She didn’t know Roxie from a hole in the ground, but the last thing she wanted was some cougar prowling around her son.

“Oh, this is great,” she said excitedly, then turned toward her house. “Chad!” She whipped her head back around. “I have a boy too. Looks about your age.”

The boy in question came out of the house across the street and headed their way. Xan was relieved that Roxie’s sudden interest in her son seemed more genuine now.

“Yeah, Mom?”

“C’mere and meet our new neighbors.” She turned back to Xan. “It’s just the two of us. His daddy left when he was seven.”

Chad closed the distance between them and nodded to Scott who returned the manly nod of recognition.

“Chad, this is Xan and Scott Bradley. Y’all, this is my son, Chad. He’ll be a junior this year.” Roxie wrapped her arm around Chad’s shoulder and rubbed it affectionately, motherly pride shining in her eyes, and Xan’s relief from her earlier assessment grew. Roxie wasn’t interested in her son. She was just animated.

“Scott’s starting his junior year too.”

The boys looked each other up and down, and Scott’s eyes narrowed briefly. “You got
Battle Warfare
?”

“Nah, but I got
Bloodbath Four
,” Chad said, shoving his hands in his pockets and rocking back on his heels. “You wanna play?”

Scott shrugged his shoulders as if it didn’t matter much to him, but Xan saw the excitement in his eyes. Her boy loved those damn video games, and if Chad was anything like him, then he just found his new best friend.

“I’ll be back later, Mom,” Scott said casually as he followed Chad.

She fought a smile as she nodded at him.

“I swear Chad is drawn to those games of his like a fly on a honeysuckle. If your boy’s the same, they’ll be fast friends.”

Xan laughed. “I was thinking the same thing. It’s nice to have someone his age around and someone to show him around school if they hit it off.”

“Oh, Chad’ll give’em the dime tour.” She paused as she looked around, her gaze landing on the car in her driveway. “Say, what’re you doin’ with one of Laverty’s cars?”

“Who?”

“Bill Laverty. He owns Laverty Rentals in Conway. Rents cars and limos.”

“Oh, I, er, had some car trouble just outside town. Had to have the car towed.”

That piqued her interest. Her eyes gleamed and a wicked grin flashed on her face. It seemed like the smallest thing got this lady’s attention. Xan wasn’t used to expressive women. Hell, she wasn’t really used to women period. She understood why she never got too close to men, but she never really got close to women, either. Attachments were hard to break, and once a gal got a girlfriend, those bonds were solid. Men could be dumped. Friends couldn’t.

“So you met the hunks of Sheppard’s Garage?” She laughed seductively. “Girl, those men have women coming for miles just for a damn oil change. If they made a mechanic’s calendar with nekkid photos of those guys, every woman in the tri-county area would gobble them up.”

Now that she believed. Those men were gorgeous, but it wasn’t the lot of them that’d kept her up last night. It was one long-haired Viking who did. Every time she shut her eyes last night she’d pictured his massive body towering over her, him ripping her clothes right off, buttons flying, lace disintegrating. She’d masturbated three times last night, which was a first for her. Once was just not enough.

And she didn’t just fantasize about him taking her, though she did dream about that. She thought about him possessing her in every way, fucking her in every way. She never got off on giving head, but just thinking about sucking him off got her hornier than she’d ever been. And anal sex? Just one more thing she’d thought Marco had ruined for her, but the thought of Brody pushing past the tight ring of her ass damn near made her come. She’d spent the night in one fantasy after another, torturing herself with what that man could do to her, with what she could do to him, until she couldn’t resist the temptation anymore to touch herself, and then she went through the cycle again. And again.

“Yeah, I’ll bet,” Xan finally managed to say, forcing the erotic images from her brain.

“So which one helped you? It wasn’t Teddy, was it?” Her smile faltered a little.

“Teddy? I don’t think I met—”

“Bear,” she said suddenly. “The younger bald guy with a goatee and green eyes. You can’t miss him.”

From the sound of Roxie’s voice she never missed an opportunity to look at him, and since she singled him out from the group, Xan figured Roxie had a little thing for the big lug.

“Oh yeah, Bear. I met him. Just didn’t know his real name. Brody, er, Brutus is the only one who introduced himself with his real name.”

She seemed a little relieved by that, as if keeping his real name a secret from her somehow meant he wasn’t interested in her. She was fine with that. Brody was the only mechanic who got her engine running.

“Brody, huh? I only know Teddy’s real name. He doesn’t like it. His family used to call him Teddy Bear, which fits because I think he’s a big ol’ softy, but now they just call him Ted, or so I’d heard. I figured he dropped the Teddy part when he moved here. The only one in that group that’s from around here is Hunter, but he grew up being called that. Apparently he has a horrible name, so we’ll never know what his real name is.” She giggled as she flung the red hair, flowing out of her ponytail, over her shoulder and propped her hand on her hip. She seemed giddy at the prospect of gossiping about the town hunks, and Xan was apparently a glutton for punishment. She could feel the question forming on her tongue. She didn’t need to ask it. She needed to keep her head clear, needed to forget about—

“So, what do you know about Brody?”

When Monday morning finally rolled around, Brody was no closer to finding a way out of this torturous assignment than he was on Friday when he’d been given it.

He recalled Colonel’s words.
Keep your eyes glued to her ass. Where she goes, you go. Report back Monday morning at our regular debriefing meeting. We’ll go from there.
When he’d tried to get answers as to why he’d had to do that, his boss had given him the cold shoulder, as was his right. It was Brody’s responsibility to follow orders, not question them.

So he’d scoped out her house, watched her talk to her neighbor and her neighbor’s kid. The boys seemed to have hit it off because they stayed over at the Willis’ house all afternoon, and then the Willis boy stayed the night with Scott.

Brody strapped on his leathers before getting on his Harley and revving the engine, thinking that he was happy Xan’s boy had found a new friend. He wished he knew how hard it was making friends at that age, but seeing as how he didn’t remember his youth, he could only guess. But it seemed pretty hard at that age. Hell, it was tough making friends as an adult.

He knew he had a tough time trusting the guys at work and eventually befriending them. Roc, Blade and Bear were already there when he came on. He hit it off with Bear and Blade right away. Bear was Colonel’s unspoken second-in-command, so he was like another boss. But Blade became his brother from another mother. They were tight. Sure Blade liked to get under his skin and pull stupid-ass pranks, but his carefree personality seemed to counter Brody’s don’t-fuck-with-me attitude.

Roc, on the other hand… Brody shook his head as he backed his bike out of his driveway and headed down the main drag to the shop. Roc was a mean son of a bitch. No ifs, ands or buts about it. It took Brody years to get comfortable enough around him without always being on alert, ready to kick his ass. Roc was vocal about everything. If he didn’t like something, he’d make sure everybody knew. Brody had never seen him snap at an innocent person before, but Lord help the perps they’d taken in. Some of them got a beating beyond necessary at the hands of Roc. He was a hard-ass and made no apologies about it.

Gage and Hunter came along after Brody. Hunter had been from around here and moved back after something went down in another city. He didn’t talk about it much, and Brody never pushed for answers. Gage also had a haunted look about him, but he was still the newbie, and Brody didn’t trust him fully. It took time to earn his trust. Granted, Gage hadn’t done anything to make Brody question him—he lived by the book, doing whatever he was told and never complaining, but it was to the point it seemed almost too practiced—he just hadn’t earned his keep yet. Both of those guys had secrets they didn’t share, and Brody respected their privacy. He had his own secrets.

What little Colonel had found out about Brody’s life made him appreciate the need to keep his past in the past. He didn’t want to go shouting from the rooftops that he’d been a hired killer.

Brody parked his bike and strode into the shop. He stripped off his leathers as soon as he could. In cooler months, he’d leave them on longer. In the middle of summer, he hated wearing them. He was already sweating, and the air conditioning was shoddy in this building. He entered their meeting room, seeing that everyone else had already made it in.

“It’s about damn time you got here,” Colonel growled.

Brody grunted as he took his seat. He was here with two minutes to spare. It wasn’t as if he needed brownie points for showing up early. Colonel narrowed his eyes, glaring at him briefly before turning to the rest of the guys.

“Let’s get started so we can open the shop. We have a new assignment, which I’ve tapped Brutus for. He’s to get close to Xan Bradley and know every move she makes.”

“You never said to get close to her,” Brody growled. “You said to stay on her. I can tell you everything she did this weekend without once having talked to her.”

“That might work for now, Brutus, but eventually you’ll have to get friendly with her. The FBI wants her watched, so you know the score. I’m not pissing off our client because you’re too pigheaded. She’s a private person, so the only way you’d be able to do your job is to get close. I’m not saying you have to marry the bitch, just be her friend.”

Brody felt his hair standing on his neck at Colonel calling Xan a bitch. He knew nothing was meant by it, that Colonel generally respected women. But now Xan wasn’t a woman to Colonel. She was a mark. Brody tamped down the urge to forcibly remind his boss just how womanly the little minx was.

That’d get him nowhere in the argument he was trying to present. He didn’t need to be around her any more than he absolutely had to. He’d spent his days following her, his nights dreaming about her. Her vanilla and womanly scent enveloped him to the point of madness. He couldn’t get that scent out of his system. Everything he smelled, tasted, was her. He’d made his dick raw masturbating so much this weekend, envisioning her in every sexual position imaginable, and he still wasn’t sated. No, there was no way he’d be getting close to that woman. His sanity and his cock couldn’t take it.

“So what’s the deal with that little doll, anyway?” Blade asked.

Colonel straightened, his all-business mask forming on his weathered face. “Xan Bradley, AKA Alexandria Collins, is the ex-wife of Marco Collins, second-in-command in the Collins crime family.” At the blank stares everyone gave him, he continued. “Also known as the Colleoni family before migrating here from Italy.”

Fuck.
Everyone had heard about that international mafia. They were a ruthless bunch who had their hands in everything from drugs and money laundering to human trafficking and arms deals.

“The feds’ve had a jones for taking down that family for years and had at least one agent working deep undercover within the organization, if not more, when evidence gathered had disappeared, which just so happened to be around the time Marco had tried to kill his wife. He was brought up on attempted murder charges. They knew it was probably their only shot to stick it to him, so they went at him with everything they’d had, showing the attempt on her life was premeditated, and she’s been under federal protection ever since. And now Marco Collins has a parole hearing next week. He gets out, he’ll kill her. He doesn’t get out, he’ll still want her dead.”

Colonel sighed, rubbing his head. “We’ll all do our part in keeping an eye on her, but she avoids men like we’re all the devil’s sons. When she’s around a group of men, she clams up and is even harder to penetrate, so it’d make our job easier if only one of us gets close to her, which is where Brutus comes in. We watch her until we get orders otherwise. I’m sure the feds will swoop in and take her if the shit hits the fan. Right now, we’re just eyes.”

Brody’s head was swimming. He didn’t want anything happening to her. The thought of some sicko trying to kill her had his blood boiling, fists clenching. This was worse than he’d imagined. He knew he had to avoid actually getting close to Xan, but he didn’t want anything happening to her. If the feds had them watching her, then Marco’s men could be on to her, and she was in deep shit if that were the case. If he stayed close enough to watch over her but far enough like he’d done this weekend, then he could jump in if she needed help.

He recounted her activities over the weekend, which didn’t amount to much, and Colonel dismissed everyone. Before his boss left the room, Brody grabbed his arm and pulled him aside.

“Listen, boss. I’ll shadow her, stay on her tail, but I can’t get to know her. It’s best if I stay hidden in the background.” He didn’t want to tell him that he recognized her from his past. He knew the circumstances behind his accident were shady. Evidence showed it was more likely he’d been beaten with a baseball bat and left for dead, rather than some car accident. Besides the fact there was no car, the markings on his body showed a violent attack. Until he could place why he knew her, he needed to keep that little tidbit to himself.

”I don’t want you to stay hidden, but I don’t expect you to do this all by yourself either. I know you can’t watch her 24/7, so when you’re not with her, one of us will always be tailing her. Maybe even when you
are
with her too. But this is your gig, man. You’re point on this assignment so don’t fuck it up. I don’t know what your problem is but you’d better get your shit together.”

“Colonel—”

“Fuck, Brutus. You never complained about orders before, and I’m getting damn tired of hearing you do it now. You don’t have a fucking choice.”

Colonel stalked out of the room and Brody growled under his breath. Oh, he had a choice, all right.

He’d just follow her like he’d been doing, and let the chips fall where they may.

Because no matter how attracted he was to her, he’d be damned if he inserted himself into her life when she had enough problems already.

* * * * *

Xan didn’t have any trouble finding Dr. Peters’ clinic this morning after seeing Scott off to school. She hadn’t even needed Roxie’s directions. With a town this size everything was a stone’s throw away, according to Roxie, and she’d been right.

What Roxie failed to prepare her for was the extent of the nosy people around here. Oh, small towns had their appeal, but everyone seemed to know about everybody else. And being the new girl, every patient she’d encountered wanted to know her story. She figured she should’ve guessed this would’ve happened. After all, Roxie didn’t seem to mind gossiping about the locals.

Of course when Xan had asked her about Brody, Roxie wasn’t much help. All she knew was that he’d moved here about ten years ago and, with the exception of taking an occasional woman to bed, and never the same one twice, he kept to himself. Xan figured he hadn’t grown up around here—he had a country accent, but it was mixed with something else and definitely lacked that twang she’d heard in the locals. But she didn’t really care for the one-night-stand tidbit she’d learned.

She guessed since he was single it was his right to get a piece of ass wherever he could, but it still irked her for some reason she couldn’t identify. She didn’t like the fact she was attracted to him. He was too big for her comfort level, and now it seemed he was too impersonal to allow himself to get involved in a relationship. Big with commitment issues. Yeah, she didn’t need a man like that. Hell, she didn’t need a man at all. She’d been doing just fine without one for the last twelve years.

But even as she tried to be logical, her body was rejecting the idea. Her brain was even betraying her with thoughts like if he had commitment issues then he wouldn’t hover around if she were to fuck him.
I could get laid, and he wouldn’t call the next day.
That idea held both appeal and irritation for her. It was a moot point anyway. She wasn’t going to act on her attraction.

She sighed as she gathered the charts from the busy morning and prepped the ones for this afternoon. Being in a small town, she wouldn’t have thought Dr. Peters would be as busy as he was, but since he was the only doctor within twenty miles, he had a little racket going on. She chuckled as she finished prepping the charts, but before she could file the ones from this morning, her phone buzzed.

“Hello?” she answered right away, not wanting to get in trouble for taking a personal call on the clock. It
was
her first day and all.

“Xan, hi, it’s me, Agent Jack Parsons.”

“Oh hi, Agent Parsons.”

“How many times do I have to tell you to call me Jack?” He laughed affectionately. “Did you get settled?”

“Sure did. Thanks. I’m at work now, so I can’t talk long.”

“Then I’ll get right to it. I just wanted to let you know you’re being watched. I can’t tell you any of the specifics, but you’ve already encountered our backup. You still need to watch your back, but we had to take preventative measures.” He sighed and Xan’s stomach dropped. Jack Parson sighing was never a good thing. “Marco’s up for parole next week.”

“What?” Oh God, this wasn’t happening.

“Listen, Xan, I don’t want you worrying about this. We knew this was coming. I just wanted to let you know we’re already taking precautions for the worst-case scenario.”

“And that being my ex-husband gets out of prison, hunts me down and kills me in my sleep?” she asked sarcastically.

“Xan, we are
not
going to let that happen. You have to stay vigilant, be wary of your surroundings, but don’t put your life on hold.”

She took a deep breath. She knew he was right, but it was really hard to think logically right now. Her palms started sweating and her head was pounding. “Okay. Keep me posted,” she croaked.

“Xan,” he murmured. “You’ll be fine. I’ll call you next week to let you know how it goes. In the meantime, call me if you need anything. We’ve got you covered. Trust us, kiddo. We know what we’re doing.”

Trust them? She didn’t have a choice. She quickly ended the call and shoved the files on the shelf before walking into the hall to call the next patient, trying not to freak out, and not doing a very good job. Ten years went by way too fast for her liking. She wanted to cry, to scream, and she didn’t know how to get her emotions under control long enough to get by the rest of the afternoon.

But walking into the lobby jolted her thoughts.

Her lungs locked, seeing Brody sitting in the waiting room with a bloody towel wrapped around his hand. She should be grateful for the needed distraction, but instead she felt a sense of panic. She looked at the chart and numbly called out Ms. Roger’s name, never taking her eyes off him. He was hurt, and she wanted to run right to him and see if he was okay.

She quickly got Ms. Rogers in room 4, taking her vitals and noting the reason for her visit, before rushing back out into the lobby.

“What happened?” she asked before she even reached him.

He stood slowly, towering over her, but she was too concerned with his well-being to feel uncomfortable with his size. “Sliced my hand working on your car.”

“Oh shit. How bad?” She gingerly took his hand and unwrapped the towel. “Does Dr. Peters know you’re here?”