Motorcycle Man (13 page)

But Elliott was brilliant, a genius and not one of those socially awkward or arrogant geniuses. He was easy to talk to. He was funny. He was sweet. He was thoughtful. He was generous and he was kind. He never missed Lanie’s birthday and always bought her the perfect present, not always something expensive, but always something she wanted or something meaningful. Ditto with anniversaries. She said he made her laugh. She said he listened when she had a bad day. She said he held her when they slept. And she said she knew beyond any doubt she was the most important thing in the world to him. So Goddess Lanie saw beyond Elliott’s looks and he became the most important thing in the world to her.

They were a love match. Surprising to some, I was sure, but real. And because he made my best friend happy, I adored him.

“
What’s up?” I asked, moving forward only to be tugged back, again bizarrely, into Tack’s body. This was bizarre not because he was holding me, which, I was getting, he intended to do whenever the hell he felt like it. No, it was bizarre
how
he was doing it.

In the hall, his natural badassness made me feel casually safe.

Right now, his tight hold and the feel of his hard body, statue-still and weirdly alert at my back, made me feel he was intentionally keeping me safe.

What on earth?

“Uh… I was wondering –” Elliott started.

“Is Lanie here?” I asked because I didn’t want Lanie there. I was a little panicked that she’d come storming in at any moment, see Tack, see his kids, see the evidence of fajitas and the movie and lose her mind.

Lanie might be pure elegance from top-to-toe but that didn’t mean she couldn’t be pure drama and when Lanie let it rip, watch out.

“No,” Eliott replied, his eyes went over my shoulder and up and he asked, “Can I uh… Kane… er, Mr. Allen, can I talk to you?”

I stared at Elliott wondering what he was on about and who he was talking to.

Elliott’s eyes flitted to me then back to Tack when he finished, “Alone.”

That was when my body went statute-still.

It stayed statue-still for approximately a nanosecond before I heard Tack say to Elliott, “Don’t move,” then he turned me around, let me go, grabbed my hand and I found myself tugged down the hall. Then I found myself in my room and the door was again closed.

I tipped my head back to stare up at Tack.

“How do you know that guy?” he asked.

“He’s my best friend’s fiancé,” I answered.

Tack looked down to the floor and muttered, “Fuck.”

Okay, now he was scaring me again but for a different reason.

“What?” I whispered.

His head came up and his eyes caught mine. “I’m gonna take him out to the back deck. When I do that, I need you to promise me you’ll stay in the living room with my kids and you won’t listen. Can you promise me that, Tyra?”

Ohmigod! What was going on?

“Why?” I breathed.

“Promise me.”

I leaned in and put a hand to his chest. “Why?” I repeated.

His hand curled around the back of my neck and his face dipped close. “I’ll explain why later if you promise me now, baby,” he said gently.

I stared into his eyes as fear filled my heart. Then, for some crazy reason, I nodded.

“Words, baby, give me the words,” he demanded.

“I promise,” I whispered.

His head tilted, his mouth touched mine, he let my neck go and grabbed my hand again. Two seconds later we were in the living room.

“Back deck,” Tack growled then he prowled to the kitchen and disappeared, Elliott following him and the whole time he did, he avoided my eyes.

I heard the door slam and my body jumped when I did.

“You okay, Tyra?” Rush asked quietly, my eyes slid to him and it was then I realized I was trembling.

“Yeah, honey, I’m fine,” I lied and threw him a fake smile. “That movie just freaked me out a bit and your Dad was um… helping me out with that.” I kept lying.

“Yeah, bet he was,” Tabby said on a giggle then collapsed in a full body plop on my couch.

But Rush didn’t move. He studied me like his father had a tendency to do and I guessed he didn’t buy the fake smile or the lies. I didn’t have time to consider the fact that Rush was seventeen, nearly eighteen, and astute. Something bad was happening and I only had time to consider that. So I curled into the armchair Tack had vacated and after a moment’s hesitation and further study of me, Rush stretched out on the floor again and started the movie. We watched perhaps five minutes of it before we heard the backdoor open.

I jumped out of the chair and Rush paused the movie like he’d been listening for the door too. I was on my feet and Rush was at my side by the time Elliott and Tack reentered the room.

Elliott came straight to me and grabbed my upper arms. I felt Rush close to my side but all I could see was Elliott’s pale, plainly freaked way the hell out face and panicked eyes.

“Don’t tell Lanie,” he begged on a whisper.

“Get your hands off her,” I heard Tack growl and felt Rush get closer and Tack closing in but I only had eyes for Elliott.

“Don’t tell her what?” I whispered.

“Don’t tell her,” he pleaded.

“Man, what did I say?” Tack bit out and Elliott’s head jerked to the side and up.

“She can’t tell her,” he told Tack and his fingers tensed, digging into my arms so much they caused pain.

“She’ll do what she’s gotta do. Now, I’m not gonna say it again. Take your fuckin’ hands off her or I’ll make you do it,” Tack warned.

Elliott paled further, released me and took a quick step away.

Then his eyes found mine and I saw his were wet. “I had to,” he whispered. Both his hands went to his hair and he repeated, “I had to.”

Then he ran, actually
ran
to and out the front door.

When it slammed behind him, I jolted out of my freeze and ran after him, calling, “Elliott!”

“Movie on, you and your sister stay in here, get me Rush?” Tack ordered in a low, serious voice. I was interrupted in throwing open the door when he caught my hand and I found myself dragged yet again to my bedroom.

I didn’t fight it and the minute the door closed behind Tack, I got in close. So close, my breasts brushed his chest and both my hands went to his tee at his abs and curled in.

I tipped my head back and whispered, “What’s going on?”

I was freaked out and near tears. I felt a chill on my skin. And my stomach hurt.

Tack’s hands came up, palms to my jaw, fingers curled around my ears and neck.

“Tell me what you know about him,” he demanded quietly.

“Um… he’s a computer programmer. He’s a nice guy. He’s really smart. He’s getting married to my best friend in the whole world. Their wedding date is just over six weeks away.” I shook my head in short shakes, not breaking eye contact. “I don’t know… um, I like him. He loves her and I like him.”

Tack’s hands left my face and one went to his back pocket. He pulled out his phone, flipped it open, hit a few buttons and put it to his ear.

“Tack –” I started but stopped when one of his hands came to my jaw again but his thumb rested on my lips.

“Dog,” he said into his phone, “Elliott Belova just left Tyra’s house. Pick him up. I want him at the Compound in an hour. I’ll meet you there.”

I felt my eyes get wide as Tack flipped his phone shut and shoved it into his back pocket. Then my fingers curled deeper into his shirt and I pushed closer.

His thumb slid from my lips to my cheek and I whispered, “Please, talk to me.”

“Your friend just offered me half a million to whack the big man in the Russian Mob.”

I blinked and swayed at the same time and Tack’s arms went around me fast and tight.

Then I breathed, “What?”

“I think you heard me, baby,” he said softly.

“Whack?” I whispered.

“Murder, kill, assassinate,” Tack explained.

“
I know what it means,” I shook my head. “Do you… do you
do that?
” I asked.

His arms tightened briefly before he said low, “Fuck no, except five minutes ago when I was moved to consider it when that fuckwad stood on your back deck and offered me five hundred large to end another guy but it wasn’t the guy he wanted me to end I was considering ending.”

“Then why… what… why…?”

Tack’s face got close and his arms got tighter.

“This guy, Red, this guy is not a good guy.”

“But he’s Elliott,” I said stupidly.

“He is not a good guy.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I say it because he offered me five hundred K to kill someone. I say that because I know he’s not as smart as you think because he’s dumb enough to get involved with some seriously fucked up shit. And I say that because I just found out he’s got the love of a woman who’s probably a good woman and she’s gonna end up brokenhearted, hurt or worse.”

I felt my breathing escalate.

“Why do you say that?”

“This shit, the kinda shit he’s in, leaks and no one’s safe.”

I gave him my full weight as I heard my breath hitch and felt tears fill my eyes.

“Tack,” I whispered.

“She’s gotta cut him loose.”

“Tack –”

“Yesterday, Red.”

“Oh my God.”

“You get me?”

“My God.”

His hand came back to my jaw, the pads of his fingers digging into my neck. “Baby, do you get me?”

I pulled myself together and nodded.

“You go to her,” he ordered.

“Okay,” I whispered.

“But you wait. I want you on the back of one of my boy’s bikes when you do.”

I nodded.

“I’m bringin’ him in and he and I are gonna have a chat.”

I nodded again

“She needs to be here, she’s on the back of one of my boy’s bikes. I’m done with him, I’m comin’ here. If she needs you, you bring her here. You do not stay there. I’m puttin’ your house on radar. You’re in this bed tonight when I get to you. Yeah?”

I nodded again.

“Give me the words, Tyra.”

“If she needs me, I bring her here, only on the back of one of your boy’s bikes and I’m in my bed when you come to me.”

“That’s it, baby.”

I swallowed and felt a tear slide partway down my cheek but it didn’t get very far before Tack swept it away.

“That’s the only tear he gets, darlin’. This is not a guy you cry over.”

“I’m crying for Lanie,” I told him as another tear spilled out of my other eye.

That one didn’t get very far either because Tack’s head dipped in and his lips kissed it away. That felt unbelievably sweet but my heart hurt so much, when he did that, I closed my eyes and tears spilled down each side.

I felt his forehead against mine, another swipe of his thumb to wipe the wetness away and I heard him whisper, “Baby, I can’t keep up.”

“She’s my best friend,” I whispered back.

“She’s in good hands,” he said. That made me open my eyes and look into his brilliant blue ones.

I did not know this man. He freaked me out. He scared me. He infuriated me. And he excited me. I fell in love with him once and started to do it again. All of this in less than two weeks.

And I had absolutely no idea if I could trust him.

“Promise?” I whispered and he nodded. “Give me the words, Tack.”

To that, he grinned, his mouth moved to mine and he murmured, “I promise, Red.”

Then he pressed his lips lightly to mine, touched his tongue even lighter to my lips and then his face moved an inch away.

Then he said, “Need a set of keys, darlin’.”

I nodded and it was me who took his hand before I led him to my kitchen where there was a Kokopelli key holder on the wall by the backdoor.

I grabbed a spare set and gave Tack the keys to my house.

Metal Detector

“You okay?” I asked Lanie who was tucked into the double bed in my guest bedroom, her eyes red and puffy, her nose red and swollen and about a thousand used Kleenexes littering the nightstand and floor by the bed.

“No,” she snuffled, reached out to the Kleenex box, snatched another one out, shoved her face into it and burst into loud tears.

“Honey,” I whispered, stroking her hair back.

I was sitting on the bed beside her, although for the last hour I’d been lying in it with her. She was inconsolable until about two minutes ago when she’d pulled it together and I thought it was safe to leave her.

Apparently it wasn’t.

Earlier, Tack had taken off after having a quiet word with Rush in the kitchen, giving his daughter a kiss on the cheek and one on the lips for me. Rush and Tabby had hung around until Brick roared up on his bike. Rush walked me out to Brick’s bike and promised to lock up behind him and Tabby. I’d gone to Lanie, explained what had happened with Elliott and what Tack told me about him not including the fact he was picking Elliott up to have a “chat”. I didn’t think Tack’s “chats” were like any kinds of chats Lanie and I could comprehend and I figured Lanie would know that.