Pack Challenge (7 page)

“Why maybe? Why not yes?”

“Jesus, Marrec. What is the big deal? It’s a freakin’ party. Not the prom.” Thank God. Her prom turned ugly right quick with Miki and Angelina starting that brawl and all. Talk about a long night in jail.

“You know I’m worried about you, right?” Of course he was worried about her. Marrec always worried about her. You’d think the man didn’t have six kids of his own and more grandkids than Sara cared to think about. And his protective attitude seemed to trickle down to his whole family and—because everyone respected the old coot—right through the entire town. They all protected her. Like it was their job or something.

“Why would you be worried? Could my life be any quieter? I mean, nothing has changed for me in like ten years. Actually, I think Lynette’s death has been the most exciting time I’ve had in awhile.” Not a lot of wakes turn into a party unless you were in New Orleans, but everyone hated her grandmother so it wasn’t really a huge surprise. “So why you should worry about me, I don’t know.”

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“Because. You deserve more than what your grandmother convinced you you deserved.”

Sara rolled her eyes, shoving the chicken chow mein away from her.

Maybe it was her annoyance at this ridiculous conversation, but the smell had started to seriously bother her. “Come on, Marrec. What exactly are you expecting for me? That my two years of community college will lead to a high life of big business? Or maybe now I can go for that medical degree.”

“You are such a smart ass.”

“No. I’m a realist. Always have been. I have no delusions. Never could afford them. I just wish everybody would stop worrying about me. You know, I can take care of myself.”

Marrec grunted as he closed the lid on his empty container. “Yes, yes.

We all know how scary dangerous you can be.”

“You don’t have to be so sarcastic about it.” Okay. So maybe Miki and Angelina were ten times scarier than she was, but she had her dangerous moments. Ask anyone who’d been around her when she’d been drinking.

“Just do me a favor, okay?” Marrec stood up. “Go to the party. Meet the people there.”

Frowning, Sara shook her head. Usually Marrec went out of his way to get between her and a pack of bikers. Now he wanted to toss her into their laps. Strange. Very, very strange.

“Look, I’m going. Okay? So stop askin’ me.”

“Good.” Marrec shoved his empty containers across the counter to her. “Thanks.”

She watched the ornery old bastard head to the back of the store. “I guess I’m taking out the trash?”

“Yup. Ya are.”

Grumbling, Sara took her and Marrec’s lunch containers outside and tossed them in the Dumpster next to the shop.

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“Is that you, Sara?” she heard Jake, from Jake’s Auto, yell over the six-foot-high wall separating Marrec’s shop from his.

“Yup.”

“Randy’s coming over.”

“Randy. Randy. Randy,” she chanted in a high-pitched voice as a one-hundred-pound red-nosed pit bull came around the corner. His leash and pinch collar still attached, although Sara never had to use them. His tongue hanging out, he trotted over to her and waited for his daily hello.

As much as it hurt, Sara crouched low beside him. “Is this my Randy? Is this my good boy?” She rubbed her hands along his flank. He growled and lay down on the concrete on his side. She continued to rub his thigh and back. “Who’s my pretty boy? Who’s my special guy?” Randy, as always, rolled over onto his back and Sara rubbed his belly, continuing to ignore the growing pain in her leg. She couldn’t disappoint Randy. “Who’s my good boy?”

“So, can I be next?”

Sara gasped in surprise at Zach’s voice, but she needed to get that under control. She hated the show of weakness.

“Um—” was all that came out before sweet, lovable Randy jumped up and charged straight at Zach, his teeth bared. Sara caught the leash and yanked Randy back, the dog’s jaws snapping shut mere inches from Zach’s face. But Zach didn’t move. He didn’t even flinch. In fact, he stared at Randy as if unimpressed with the sight of the one-hundred-pound dog trying to turn him into a midday meal.

Sara, still keeping a strong grip on the leash, turned her head to yell over the wall, “Jake! I need you!” She heard a vicious snarl and when she turned back, Randy had backed off, tail between his legs.

He ran behind Sara—whimpering.

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She looked at Zach who stood in the same position he had been in five seconds before. Leaning against the wall, his arms crossed in front of his chest, completely relaxed.

“What did you do to him?”

“Not a thing.”

Jake came around the corner. “What in hell…”

“You better take him, Jake.” Sara handed over the leash.

Jake took it, but didn’t leave immediately. “You sure y’all okay?” He sized Zach up with narrowed eyes. “Randy don’t usually act like this,

‘cept when he don’t like somebody.”

“I’m fine. Really. Thanks, Jake.”

Jake gave Zach one more nasty look, and dragged the whimpering Randy back around the concrete wall.

“I’ve never seen Randy act like that.” She regarded Zach closely. “He really hated you.”

“But I’m so charming.”

Sara gave a short laugh. “Yeah. Right.” She headed back to the store.

“So, why are you here?”

“Julie’s new bike. I need to get it.”

“Well, then, come on.”

Zach caught her scent as soon as he’d gotten out of the pickup truck the Pack brought with them for hauling stuff around. He followed it to the side of the shop, but never expected to find her lathering up some pit bull. Shamelessly, in fact.

Who’s my good boy?
Was she kidding? Hell, he could be her good boy.

Her
very
good boy. Or her very bad one.

As he watched her tight ass move into the store, he knew one of Marrec’s Pack—
Jake, right
?—watched him. Zach turned and snarled at

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the nosy bastard, sending that weak-willed pit bull whimpering for safety and causing Jake’s eyes to glance away.

When Zach turned around, Sara stared at him. “Did you just…snarl?”

“I have a cough.”

“A snarling cough?”

“Something like that.”

Looking truly distrusting, Sara went into the store and Zach followed behind her. “
Marrec
!” Sara screamed into the back. “Someone’s here to pick up that girl’s bike!”

“Gimme ten minutes!” Marrec yelled back.

As she perched herself on the stool behind the counter, she caught Zach’s expression. “What?”

“Are you always so loud?”

“You’d be amazed.”

Zach smiled. “Kind of a screamer?”

She blushed and rolled her eyes. “Cute.” He liked it when she blushed—it looked good on her.

Zach leaned against the glass case. “You and your friends are definitely coming to the party, right?” Before Sara could answer, Marrec yelled from the back, “Yes, she is!”

“He doesn’t think I get out enough,” Sara muttered.

“Do you?”

“Not lately. Death in the family a few months back.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. No one else is.” Sara winced. “Okay. That was bitchy.

Forget I said that. I mean, she wasn’t that bad.”

“Who?” Although he already knew.

“My grandmother. She raised me…sort of. Died about six months back. The last few months I’ve been busy sorting out all her finances and

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business. I just finished cleaning out her house a few weeks ago…well, I guess it’s my house now.”

“Find anything cool? When my father died, my mom and I found a ton of cool stuff at their place.”

“Some. Had to give a lot of it back to the government, though.” Zach frowned. “Give what back to the government? Money?”

“No.” She started counting off on her fingers. “The M-16. The armor-piercing ammo. The rocket launcher. The grenades.”

“Your grandmother had a rocket launcher?” Sara chuckled. “Apparently she was expecting some kind of attack.

She was extremely paranoid. I don’t even know where she got that shit from. And you know what? I don’t wanna know.” No wonder the Pride waited until the old bitch died. Even they couldn’t handle a full-on assault from military weapons. Yates hadn’t been kidding—that old woman had been truly dangerous.

“Did you get any money for that stuff?”

“No. I just wanted it gone. I have my daddy’s old shotgun, which I use for huntin’. And Miki and Angelina gave me a pump-action shotgun couple of years back for,” she smiled while making air quotes with her fingers, “‘basic home defense’. So, I don’t need much more than that.”

“You a good shot?”

“I’m okay. Miki’s better. I’ve seen her nail a buck at two-hundred feet.

Right between the eyes.”

“That’s a lovely story. Learn that in etiquette school?”

“
Texas
etiquette school.”

He liked that too. She didn’t shrink away from his teasing or get insulted. She rolled with it.

“You work here long?” He looked around the impressive store. Marrec did some amazing work. There were custom-made bikes here he’d seen on the pages of some of his chopper magazines. They weren’t merely bikes. They were pieces of art.

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“Since I was fourteen. Marrec said it would keep me off the streets.” Zach glanced out the window to what had to be the quietest town he’d ever been in. “Big gang problem around here? Lots of cow jacking?”

“We have all sorts pass through our little town, thank you very much.

Bikers. Cowboys. The always dangerous rodeo clowns.”

“Rodeo clowns?”

“Don’t ask.”

Zach shrugged. “I don’t want to know.”

“Any other condescending questions about my town?”

“Oh, I’m not being condescending. I’m very interested in your tiny little town, with its tiny little people. I bet you guys even have a movie theater.”

Sara barked out a laugh. “You certainly are a charmer.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“By who? Your mother?”

“She does adore her son.” He looked out the window again. “I thought there’d be desert. Coyotes. Clint Eastwood.”

“You’re in Hill Country. We have rivers, canyons and forests. You want desert, you need to hit the Panhandle.” Zach leaned across the counter and smiled at her. “You’ll have to show me around some time.”

“I have been known to go off alone with strange bikers,” she responded sarcastically. “It’s a thing I do. Like eating glass.”

“Does this mean you won’t go out with me tonight?”
Wait.
Why are
you asking her out?
Probably because she was a major piece of ass and looked like she could suck a golf ball through a hose.

“No. That means I won’t be showing you around my town.”

“So you will go out with me tonight.” He didn’t phrase that as a question. He didn’t want her to think it was an option.

That didn’t seem to mean much to her, though, as she smirked and said, “I’m not going out with you.”

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“Why?”

“Because I have sense.”

He heard the front door open and she frowned.

“Oh, shit,” she muttered under her breath.

“Well, hello, all.”

Angelina walked up to the counter, a brown paper bag in her hand.

“I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”

“He’s here to pick up that girl’s bike.”

“The one who crashed?” Angelina glanced at Zach. “How is she doing anyway?”

“Right as rain.”

“That’s interesting,” Angelina said, thoughtful. “She’s a mighty fast healer.”

“That she is.”

Angelina turned back to Sara. “I came to drop this off. Didn’t want Miki to see.” Sara took the paper bag and looked inside.

“Christ!” She slammed the bag shut and tossed it into an open backpack behind her. “I hate you.”

“Just watching out for my friends.” Angelina turned and strode out of the store. “See ya at the party, Zach.”

“Bye.” He didn’t turn around, too busy staring at the blush creeping up Sara’s neck and straight to her hairline. “You okay?”

“Fine,” she bit out way too quickly. “Just fine.” Zach wasn’t buying it. “Can I see what’s in the bag?”

“No!” She almost yelled it. “Tampons.”

“I’m ready,” Marrec called from his workshop. “Send him back.”

“You better go.” She tried to shoo him from the room.

“You know,” Zach moved toward the workshop entrance, “when my sister and I were teenagers, she always threw out ‘tampon’ when she didn’t want Dad to see our bag of pot. But you and your friends seem

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amazingly straight edge to me. So it makes me wonder…what’s really in that bag?”

Zach backed into the workshop as Sara’s face turned a darker crimson. Then he hit a wall and turned around to find that wall was actually Marrec.

“Having fun?” Marrec asked, his arms folded across what might be a normal chest for a bear. The man was short but powerfully built. Red wolves were always a little “stunty”, though.

“Loads.”

“You know her father died when she was very young.” Of course he did. That’s why they were here in the first place.

“And I kind of took his place. She’s as close to me as any of my daughters. And I’ll kill any man who fucks with her.” Zach wondered if Marrec already had. “Good to know.” Once Zach disappeared in the back, Sara shoved the bag filled with boxes—and boxes!—of condoms into her backpack. She was going to kill Angelina when she saw her.

She had one friend throwing condoms at her and the other telling her men were nothing but trouble. But as much shit as the three of them talked, they probably knew less about men than anyone on the planet.

They all had their own ways of keeping people at bay. Miki had her intense distrust of…well,
everyone
. Angelina had her fortress of ice. And Sara had her armor. They’d all destroyed potential relationships in record time and without much regret. And although they never discussed it, none of them ever really believed they’d find true love or romance or any of that other crap.