Fractured & Formidable: The Sacred Hearts MC Book V (2 page)

“I’ll catch you later,” I said and gripped Disney by his
narrow shoulders, giving him an easy shake.

He went a little off balance and nodded absently, finding
his feet. I let him go and went for the back, for the new media room, where the
girls liked to hang out. The club’s meeting that had been called was going to
start in about a half hour, so I was pretty sure the girls were going to be
settling in back where the heavy wooden doors could be closed and we could be
sure they couldn’t hear a damned thing. It was even darker in the large room
made for watching the big screen TV. I let my eyes adjust and swept my gaze
across the seated girls and women looking for my Red.

“Hey,” Trig said from where he lazed on the huge couch.
Ashton was artfully draped across my big friend’s chest, her long and straight auburn
hair tucked behind her ears. She faced the television but her dark lashes
rested against the pale skin beneath her eyes, which when open were golden like
the sun.  She looked angelic and so peaceful. When I’d first seen her, I
thought she was so beautiful in an ethereal sort of way. I’d had some empty
space on my arm just waiting for the right face to complete an angel on my
right side and as soon as I laid eyes on her I knew it was meant for hers.

The deep bass of my friend’s greeting caused her eyes to
flick open. She sucked in a tremulous breath and glanced sideways. She smiled
sweetly when she saw me and it made me smile too. I reached out a hand and she
took it with the hand that she didn’t have trapped between her and Trig.

“Hey man, hey Sunshine,” I kissed the back of her hand,
“What’re you guys up to?”

“Mm, relaxing before I have to let him go,” she murmured.
Trigger chuckled.

“Only for a little bit,” he chided.

“I know, I still miss you even when you’re only two doors
away,” she said. She looked exhausted, which given the amount of time and
frustration she’d been expending in my garage, trying to slog through
years
of water logged and half crisped paperwork to reconstruct ORI’s books. Books
that hadn’t made it out because the computer had burned… Shit! Who could really
blame her for being so wrung out? Trig and I exchanged knowing looks. We needed
to get his Sunshine girl some help.

“Up you go baby. Come hang with us ‘til you can’t,” Trig
said and sat up with Ashton in his arms. She giggled and finished getting up
off of him on her own. We went out front and they grabbed a spot at Reaver and
Hayden’s table.

“Be right there. Grab me a water,” I told Trig.

I hit the head and when I came back out, Sunshine and Doll
were laughing at something Reaver said. I plucked the waiting bottle of water
off the table, cracked the seal and downed it in three gulps. I crushed the
bottle between my hands and screwed the lid back on setting it back on the
table. Hayden and Ashton both gave me wide eyed looks.

“What?” I asked. They burst into a fit of giggles and I
grinned.

“It’s impressive no matter how many times you see it,”
Everett said and Dray pulled out a chair for her. She smiled and leaned over to
kiss him, which he returned enthusiastically. She sat down, missing it when he
shook his head behind her in that way that said,
God damn I scored and I
fucking know it!
Reaver and Trig broke out into grins to match my own. Yeah
he had. Everett was both a looker and had a good head on her shoulders, that
and she’d brought Red into my life.

“You want your usual Babe?” he asked her. Everett nodded but
she was looking at me. I looked back. Dray smirked at me like I was in for it
and stalked off in the direction of the bar, stopping to talk to a member on
his way and I saw it for what it was... Ambush.

Since when did the VP of this club get his own drink, let
alone a drink for his Ol’ Lady? Usually it was Everett bringing him a beer or
whatever with that sexy as hell walk of hers, sashaying that tight ass through
the tables. Well, all right, might as well cut to the fucking chase, only one
thing this could be about.

“No Red?” I asked mock innocently.

“Mm-mm.”

She narrowed her eyes at me and disapproval radiated off
her, couldn’t really say I blamed her. She protected that girl like a mama
tiger protected her cub.

“Why?” she asked and her tone was icy at best.

I shrugged a shoulder noncommittally. Everett rolled her
eyes and shook her head.

“You know, I would much rather see my best friend get
involved with a guy who was
serious
about her,” she blurted. I leaned
back in my seat, tipping the two front legs off the floor. Trigger, Ashton,
Reaver and Hayden all sort of rose as one.

“On that note!” Reaver crowed, and Trigger clapped me on the
shoulder.

“Later Partner, good luck.” he said and both men ushered
their women away from the potential conflagration about to erupt at our table.
I ignored them, my eyes square on the pissed off woman across from me.

“Oh I’m serious, Irish. Serious as a fuckin’ heart attack,”
I said, which ironically was what my pops and I think hers had both died from. I
winced on the inside at my poor choice of words, but didn’t let it show or back
down. Everett crossed her arms and I couldn’t tell if it was to hold the anger
or the hurt in. Yeah, low blow, unintentional as it may have been.  

Her tone, when she said the next, told me all it needed to,
I’d indeed hit her where it hurt.

She said to me, “You hung around for a minute, I’ll grant
you, but then what? You stood her up. Not a call, didn’t even give her the time
of day. You hurt her
feelings
Zander, she thinks you pretended to be
interested in her to get on Dray’s good side since he was your mentor.”
Everett’s face crumbled into lines of sadness for her friend and I fought down
a surge of fury. Touché. One low blow for another. I sighed and stopped the
verbal sparring match in its place.

“You know that’s bullshit,” I told her flatly, and she
nodded, the simple gesture saying clearly,
yes, yes it was
.

“I know, I get that now, but Mandy
doesn’t
know, and
that’s really all that matters isn’t it?”

She had me there and with that, truce had been declared. No
clear winner when it came to this match, unless you counted Red.

“Prospecting ain’t no joke, I couldn’t start anything with
her; not when I wasn’t ever going to be a-fucking-round,” I said and winced
inwardly at what a whiney defensive cunt I sounded like.

“And now?” Everett asked pointedly.

“Now my damned shop’s been blowed the fuck up, and I’m stuck
between wondering if I should try, and if I should leave her alone for her own
damned good,” I said truthfully.

It was something that had been weighing on my mind but at
the same time, I was
definitely
leaning towards trying. I was pretty
damned sure this interrogation was stemming from me asking Dray if Red was
still single while we were hauling shit out of the burned out shell of Open
Road Ink week before last. Everett searched my face, carefully looking me over.
Whatever she saw there must have satisfied her because she nodded carefully,
more to herself than at me I think.

“You embarrassed her,” she said almost too softly to hear,
“When you didn’t return her calls, and now you’re asking Dray if she’s single?
What is that? It’s been
over
a
year
.” I nodded, everything she
was saying was absolutely correct.

“Sounds shitty and sounds lame, but I was busy with
prospecting, and you guys were busy with the shop and now, well now I’m
completely out of fuckin’ excuses.” I tipped my chair forward with a hard bang.
Everett wasn’t phased in the slightest. She stared me down, willing me to say
more but I had nothin’.

Well nothin’ except, “So is she single?”

Everett let out an exasperated breath and told me exactly
what Dray had told me.

“Yes,” then added something I really didn’t want to hear,
“But you have some competition. I think some of the guys coming around this
last week on your little protection detail,” she rolled her eyes at that and I
crooked a half grin, “are sweet on her. Which,
who can blame them
?” she
raised her eyebrows.

Dig the knife a little deeper why don’t you Sweetheart?
I thought to myself. I sighed and leaned my forearms on my knees and contemplated
her.

“Okay, Sister. What’s your end game? Why we talking about
this?” I asked. She let out a breath and sighed and threw up her hands. Her
gaze, hard as steel and the color to match, pinned me to my seat.

“I see the way you look at her when she’s around and she’s
not
looking. It’s the same way Dray looks at me when I
am.
Why do you hide
it from her?” she asked and she was genuinely curious.

“Because I didn’t want to get her hopes up when I was so
fucking balls to the wall busy with the club. I didn’t want to hurt her
feelings,” I swore under my breath and kicked my anger at myself back down into
the deep dark hole it crawled out of.

“Mission fucking accomplished,” I groused, my tone dripping
with caustic sarcasm.

“Well, she’s pretty well had it with waiting around and the
shop is pretty well in order once we get the numbers side of things handled…” She
contemplated me for like a full minute.

“I’m not going to help you,” she said and I felt myself
deflate a little on the inside but damned if I’d show it.

“Nor am I going to dissuade you from trying,” I guess I
could be grateful for
that
at least. She pressed on, “Just know, I am,
and always will be on Mandy’s side,” she motherfucking smirked, “If she calls
you a son of a bitch, then you’re a sorry S.O.B. you get me?” she asked and I
couldn’t help it, I smiled. It was so something Dray would say… ‘You get me?’
He was rubbing off on her just as much as she was rubbing off on him.

Something flitted across Everett’s face, something
undefinable that wiped the smile off my own. It looked like a flicker of
concern with a chaser of fear and I wanted to know just what that look was for
where my Red was concerned but just as soon as I opened my mouth to ask, Dray
was back and setting shots down on the table.

“No thanks man, I’m training, remember?” Dray looked at me
and a flicker of dark humor slid through his equally dark eyes. He seized on
the opportunity.

“The fuck says I brought one for you?” he asked and downed
first one shot and the second in rapid succession. I smiled and laughed.

“My bad man, my bad.” I stood up and looked down into
Everett’s lovely face and tried to communicate with my own expression that I
wanted to do right by Mandy and fix whatever was busted. Maybe even break
something of my own, whatever had Everett scared for Red was a good start.

“I get you,” I told her and she nodded carefully and looked
relieved.

I had a pretty full week this week, what with Trig and I
finalizing shit with the insurance company, as well as staying on a regimented
training schedule. I was actually pretty amped about returning to the fighting
circuit but I swore I would make time for my Red in the middle of this cluster fuck
too. It sounded like if I didn’t, that I had the potential to lose her all
together and I wasn’t about to do that.

“I’m glad that you do,” Everett said softly and raised her
glass before downing the shot and something told me that something had
happened. Something was really bothering her where my Red was concerned, which
made me instantly redouble my efforts to get to and get Red talking to me. This
shit, this fucking hardcore attraction between me and her had waited long
enough, which was no one’s fault but my damn own.

Mandy…

“Mornin’ Mandy-girl!” Zeb called from the kitchen doorway. I
looked up and smiled at the New Zealander.

“Good morning!” I called back. He was sweet and had been
telling me all about his home country which sounded green and lush and beyond
beautiful. I had made the mistake when we’d first met of asking if he was
Australian. He’d frowned at me hard and harder before saying with distinction
that no, he did not indeed herald from “that country full of Gormless Bastards”
which had left me blinking stupidly at him. He’d grinned after he’d said it and
then informed me that he was something called a Kiwi which had left me blinking
even more stupidly.

Zeb had laughed and then had begun to fill me in on all
things New Zealand and we’d pretty much made fast friends after that. It was
almost easy to forget why he was here, that he wasn’t just a new and usual
customer, but that he was a member of The Sacred Hearts and here to protect
mine and Evy’s business because of some faceless,
at least to me
, threat
called The Suicide Kings.

Well, not
entirely
faceless. I’d seen a few of them
here or there, riding by at one point or another in my travels around town. It
was a forty-five minute drive to my parents who lived in the next county and I
would go every Sunday, both for church and to have Sunday dinner with them, and
that’s where I saw The Suicide Kings. Mostly.

“What ‘cha thinkin’ about girl?” Zeb asked and slipped up on
a stool in my ultra-modern industrial kitchen.

“I was thinking about how it was easy to forget why you’re
here,” I said softly and checked the chocolate I had melting in the double
boiler. Zeb’s face lost that easy grin of his, and I marveled to myself how the
tribal tattoos etched into his face around his left eye and along his left
cheek didn’t stand out as foreign to me anymore. The blue swirling lines were
just a part of him, his past and his family.

“Aww, you ain’t scared are yah eh?” he asked me. I shook my
head. No, I wasn’t scared for me or for Soul Fuel. I sighed. I was thinking a
lot about Zander if I had to be honest with myself. I knew the whole story
through Everett, that Zander was okay, but I still couldn’t help but feel a
keen sense of loss, a deep dread over the whole thing. It’d been nearly two
weeks and you would think that those feelings would diminish by now, but no… if
anything they’d just grown stronger. I didn’t hear Zeb get up. I’d been so lost
in my own thoughts. I startled when the dark leather of his jacket edged into focus
a heartbeat before his fingertips grazed my neck, thumbs beneath my jaw, gently
tilting my head up to look at him the couple of inches that separated our eyes
from being on an even keel.

“No! No, I’m not scared. I mean, that’s why you’re here
isn’t it?” I asked and smiled. He was a good friend to be so concerned. He smiled
down at me, his brown eyes kind.

“That’s right,” he said. I took a halting step back and he
let his hands drop.

“Rush is gone! Hey Zeb, what can I get you!?” Everett called
from out front. He winked at me and called back.

“Whatever that thing was that you give me yesterday!” he
retreated a few steps and with a final grin and another wink went out front, I
assumed to take up his usual post at the corner table near the register.

I smiled to myself and shook my head. It was Zeb here most
of the time, occasionally a man with hair as fiery as my own nicknamed Duracell
would sit in, and in the evenings there was either a very quiet and reserved
brother who had ‘Blue’ on his vest, or an uncomfortably flirtatious one who
went by Grinder. Duracell seemed unreasonably angry about just about
everything.  Over all I preferred Zeb and Blue to the rest.

I resumed my work with a rather single minded determination
to focus on chocolate and nothing but chocolate, thinking of nothing else. I
looked up to find Everett in the kitchen doorway.

“He likes you,” she said and I scowled.

“Who Zander?” I asked without thinking. She laughed.

“Well him too, he said as much last Saturday night,”

I frowned, “He has a
fantastic
way of showing it,” I
muttered darkly. Everett sighed and slipped up onto the stool Zeb had vacated.

Zander… One moment he’d seemed so very enthusiastic about
seeing me, dating me… then we had actually set a date and I’d wound up sitting
in a restaurant an hour and more waiting for him to arrive. He hadn’t. No call,
no text, no response to
my
calls or texts. Dray had told me that Zander
was a prospect and that it happened sometimes. That prospects were a lot like
fraternity pledges and they were all in until they became fully patched members
or brothers. It’d made sense but it had still hurt, and then I had just plain
gotten angry when I’d simply never heard from him again. We’d crossed paths
over the last year or so but he would simply watch me, never really saying
much. This odd little half smile on his lips.

I’d asked him why. Why he’d stood me up? Why the silence
after expressing such a keen interest, and all he’d given me was a simple
nonchalant one shouldered shrug and a sniffed “I got busy.”

 It’d been cold and had hurt deeply. I had felt like it was high
school all over again. Rejection sucked and having the reputation of being the
goody-two-shoes preacher’s daughter had done nothing whatsoever when it had
come to dating to this point. Still, the darned biker was never far from my
thoughts. His easy smile and his caring nature during the crisis when my best
friend had been shot had gotten his name etched on my heart, and I couldn’t
forget him no matter how much I wanted to sometimes.

“I know,” Everett’s voice was gentle, kind and sympathetic,
snapping me out of my spiral of thought, but it brightened to teasing when she
said, “But I wasn’t talking about Rev, I was talking about Zeb.”

I looked up from what I was doing and raised an eyebrow, “
What
?”
I asked. Zeb was a good friend, he had no interest in a plain girl like me. The
bell chimed above the door out front and Everett slid off the stool on to her
feet.

“You need to quit selling yourself short, Sister,” she said
and ducked out of the doorway and to the front to fix someone’s coffee.

The door chimed again and I heard her exclaim, “Heya Lass!”
and after a few more random clangs and bangs ask, “The usual Ghost?” which
piqued my curiosity. Usually Ghost came in alone. The conundrum of Zander and
Zeb momentarily forgotten I finished up what I was doing so I could go out and
have a look at what was up out there. I blinked when I stepped out of the
kitchen to see Duracell at his post. Apparently Zeb had just come in for
coffee. I wiped my hands on the old fashioned dish cloth over my shoulder and
heard Everett say,

“I can’t keep up with the damned books Shelly, I need help,”
I rolled my eyes and corrected Ev who liked to think that the whole world
rested solely on her shoulders.

“
We
need your help,” I took the last empty seat at
the four person table with Ghost and Everett and looked Shelly over, surprised
to see her here. She looked just awful. So very thin with deep dark circles
under her eyes. Her usually so-carefully done hair grown unkempt. While I was
studiously looking her over, Ghost stood up and made to take his leave.

I waved him off, and said that we would take Shelly home.
Then Everett and I spent the next fifteen minutes convincing her that she was
the right person for the job at hand, which she
was
for a multitude of
reasons. I watched the young lady follow my childhood friend to the back office
with a heavy heart. Poor Shelly had one horrible cross to bear. I stood up and
smiled at Duracell who smiled back at me over the newspaper he had open on his
table.

“Where’d Zeb get off to?” I asked and Duracell smiled.

“Think he just came in to see you,” he said shaking out the
newsprint pages.

I scoffed, secretly flattered and slipped back into the
kitchen. I found myself praying for Shelly to find some solace and happiness, to
heal, and while I did, set back to work making some maple crèmes for the
season. The hours passed along with the different chocolates and projects and
before I knew it Everett was at the door with Dray just behind her.

“You okay if we go home?” he asked, eyeing me speculatively.
I smiled and nodded.

“I just want to finish these up for Hayden’s birthday,” I
said, adding, “Don’t you worry about me, my car is just out in the lot,” he
nodded.

“K, there’s a brother out here. He’ll stay until you leave,”
he raked me with his dark eyes. Over the last year, Dray had become quite the
protective older brother type. Not that I minded. Everett was happy with him
and he was so very good to my friend. Way better than Jerry had ever been. I
rocked back on my heels.

“Dray it’s fine, send him on his way and stop worrying so
much!” I admonished and his dark gaze hardened to obsidian.

“No,” he said simply. Everett laughed.

“Shelly is still here, Reaver is on his way to pick her up
since he’s done with whatever he’s doing.” I nodded absently and brought the
molds for the starfish out of the chiller.

“Okay,” I said.

“Love you,” Everett said and waved over her shoulder. I
smiled at them.

“Love you guys too!”

“Bye Red,” Dray said and I nodded, my focus on getting the
starfish filled with rum out of the molds without cracking their shells,
leaving them to leak. I heard the bell above the door as Dray and Everett left
and all was silent. It was telling. I bet dollars to chocolates that it was Blue
on watch. I smiled to myself.

“Hi Mandy,” the voice was right behind me and so unexpected
I bleated out a little frightened scream. Reaver laughed and steadied me, his
hands on my shoulders.

“God!” I exclaimed, hand pressed over my rapidly beating
heart. My kitchen felt like Grand Central all of a sudden.

“You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that Reaver! You
scared me half to death!” I cried. He grinned and if I didn’t know what a sweet
guy he was I would have said it was feral.

“Sorry,” he said with a shrug but didn’t sound like he was
one bit, “Seen my cousin?”

“Office, through there,” I pointed and he nodded his thanks
and looked me over. He came out a few moments later with Shelly, who looked
tired but almost happy. It made me smile and after a short exchange and one of
my chocolates they both left smiling. I heard the shop bell chime signaling
their leaving and felt my shoulders sag in relief. I closed my eyes and
relished in the quiet for a moment as I finished up, putting the starfish into
individual paper cups and nesting them into Tupperware.

I didn’t see him coming, my back turned as it was. I didn’t
hear him either, I was just suddenly pinned flush against the kitchen counter,
strong arms around my waist his breath warm against the side of my neck where
his nose was buried in my hair behind my ear. I cried out, my hands flying to
the arms that pinned me.

“Hi Red,” he said to me, his voice velvety smooth, rich like
the darkest dark chocolate you could eat and still have it be palatable. I
jumped, startling hard and shuddered in his embrace, my hands squeezing one of
his muscled forearms where it went around my waist above my hips. I let out a
breath I hadn’t realized had stuck in my throat and swallowed hard. My heart
hammered in my chest for a second time that night and I couldn’t turn around to
see if this was real or if I was dreaming even if I wanted to. He’d caught me
fast.

“Hmm,” He hummed out in pleasure, and placed a kiss behind
my ear and I closed my eyes, awash in tingles.

“What are you doing Zander?” I eked out.

“What is that?” he asked, ignoring my question.

“What is what?” I stayed rigid, stiff in his arms.
What
did he think he was doing!?

“That smell? Sweet and clean but like flowers,” he asked and
took a half step into me, pressing me tighter into the counter. I bent forward
slightly to get away from his lips which tickled the back of my neck when he
spoke. I felt hot, flushed, from his proximity and I was growing angry with my
body’s betrayal even as longing and a desire for him swirled in my blood.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, and it
sounded sullen, my voice uneven to me. I bit my lower lip, and shivered
involuntarily when his chuckle vibrated through his chest and thrummed
pleasurably down my spine. He stepped back, his arms sliding back, hands coming
to rest on my jeans covered hips. I turned to face him. It really was him and I
felt a wave of humiliation and hurt, of anger and loss, all these old emotions
climbing to the surface where I thought I’d locked them away.

His chocolate caramel eyes sparkled with good humor, his
dark hair was growing too long again, winging out from beneath the brim of his almost
ever present red baseball hat. I pressed back into the counter and he stepped
forward, trapping me between it and him once more. His powerful thigh slid
between mine and I raised my chin defiantly. He looked up at me slightly. There
was about a four inch difference in our height. I was five foot nine, like
Everett so that made Zander five foot five or so.

“I’ve missed you, Baby,” he said softly and I scoffed.

“How can you miss something you’ve never had… or wanted?” I
asked. He smiled this tight lipped little smile and captured the back of my
neck in one hand, stroking the side of my throat beneath my jaw with his thumb.
It was a light caress that had me forcing down a shudder
. I was supposed to
be upset, I was supposed to be angry!
So why was it so hard to hold on to
those feelings? His arm slid around my back, a steel band at the base of my
spine, crushing me to him. I didn’t even realize I was letting him guide my
mouth to his until his warm breath ghosted over my lips.