Rush - Blue Devils MC Book 2 (Book 1 Included FREE for a short time only!) (16 page)

Right.

Fucking.

Now.

He smoothed her shirt back down her belly and said lightly, “I don’t know if fucking on a thin blanket like this is really a good idea. Why don’t we pack up and head back right now and have fun when we get home?” He was pulling her up into a sitting position - away from the flicking tongue - and then standing her up and brushing her off and quickly gathering up their things and stuffing it all into the backpack.

“Wha—what?” Blue stuttered. She was staring at him as if he’d lost his mind. “Is everything okay?”

“Of course!” he assured her brightly. “All right, I’ve got everything! Let’s go! This time, I’ll follow you.” He gestured in front of him so she could take the lead and she looked at him as she walked past him, total confusion with a hint of anger mixed in evident on her face.

“I don’t really understand what the hurry is,” she said, a little pissy. And he didn’t blame her but he fucking couldn’t tell her what was going on, not while the snake was still in view.

“It’s getting hotter!” he said, as if this was an announcement that would come as a complete surprise to her. “Also, we should go let Turbo out.”

They walked out of the oasis and around the bend and like a light switch had been flipped, they were back to the browns and tans of the desert. They hiked for a minute in silence, Blue’s shoulders tightening up with every step and he knew she was getting more angry by the moment. Finally, they came to a curve in the path where a rock face lent them some shade and he stopped and reached his arm out and grabbed hers.

“Blue, wait, I—”

“You know,” she cut him off angrily, “they say women are the ones with mood swings, but God almighty, I’m starting to think you’re trying to prove them wrong. I thought we were about to, you know, have sex, and then you’re dragging me off down the mountain side. There’s either something wrong, or there’s something wrong with
you
. Tell me right now which one it is, because if I’ve fallen in love with a crazy man, I want to know right now. And don’t you
dare
try to bullshit me.” She crossed her arms defiantly and stared at him, jaw clenched. He got the impression that she was just barely restraining herself from punching him in the eye.

“There was a…there was a snake back there. Right next to your head. It was coiled up.” Color drained from her face and she just stared at him. “I knew I couldn’t tell you, so I dragged you away. I’m sorry if I pissed you off, but it was right there,” he gestured up past her right ear and she was as white as a sheet and he knew he needed to stop describing the snake before she passed out on him, “and I couldn’t risk telling you what was going on.”

She leaned against the rock wall, silent, trembling, and neither of them moved a muscle while she thought through it all. She finally looked at him and whispered, “I’m sorry, Rush. I shouldn’t have gotten angry. I shouldn’t have doubted you. I knew something was wrong and I didn’t like that you were hiding it from me, but you’re right, telling me would’ve been the very last thing in the world that would’ve helped.

“Can I ask a favor of you?”

“Absolutely,” Rush said, reaching out and catching her elbow before she passed out on the trail.

“Can you go back and kill it? You have your gun with you, right?”

“I do, and I would love to,” he said with a smile. “Don’t move - I’ll be right back.” He dropped the pack at Blue’s feet after retrieving his Desert Eagle from it and hurried back up the trail and into the oasis. He saw the snake stretched out in the sun, on a limestone rock, and without a moment’s hesitation, brought his gun up and shot the head clean off. The sound echoed off the rocks as Rush turned around and headed back down the trail.

When he got back to Blue, she was trembling and he pulled her against him while she shook. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I hate killing things, but…not
those
things. They should all die. I never could’ve gone back to the oasis if I’d known it was still there, waiting for us.”

He leaned down and kissed the crown of her head, stroking his hands down her back, soothing her. “I would’ve killed it while you were there but I was more concerned about getting you away from it.”

They stood there for countless hours or days or minutes, he really couldn’t tell, until she straightened up. “I feel much better,” she said with a small smile. “You ready to go home for real this time?”

Rush reached out and took her hand as they walked down the path and out of the shade of the rock cliff. “Well, I’m sure Turbo would appreciate it if we came home and let him out,” he said and grinned at her. “Poor boy hates being left behind, but I don’t think he could’ve made it up this mountain.”

“Sometimes, I look at him and all I can see is his adorable puppy face and giant paws. I knew you were in for it when you brought him home with dinner-plate-sized paws.”

“When paying for his dog food, I do have to wonder if I should’ve adopted a smaller dog,” Rush agreed with a grin as they headed down the hill, legs burning from the strain. “After you left the first time, I swear to God, Turbo moped for weeks. I think he missed you almost as much as I did.”

She turned and smiled back at him. “Well, at least the leg of your favorite chair is safe from attack. You can’t get rid of me now.”

Rush looked at her back as she trotted happily down the hill, wild curly hair swinging with every stride, and swore to himself that he’d never give Blue a reason to doubt her trust in him.

He was going to make her the happiest woman alive, or die trying.

Chapter Sixteen

Hannah Blue

The next couple of days passed in a happy blur. They worked on the house together, and Hannah even went with Rush to the clubhouse to sort out a cargo issue. The other Blue Devils were respectful, if not overly friendly, and she knew that it would take some time for them to trust her, just like it would take her time to truly accept that part of Rush’s world. In high school, it’d been easy to ignore it, dismiss it, and she realized that this hadn’t been fair to Rush. She truly couldn’t claim to love Rush if she didn’t also love his MC and the biker lifestyle.

After breakfast one morning, the doorbell rang and as usual, Rush checked his phone for contact from the Blue Devil guards outside who were still watching over them. Hannah tried not to laugh - she doubted the
Chupas
would be so kind as to ring the doorbell if they were coming to kill her - but she appreciated him looking out for her anyway. Satisfied that there were no messages and the person on the front porch must be a friend, he headed for the front door, Turbo on his heels. Any visitor was a potential petter, and Turbo wanted to be available, just in case.

But before Rush even got to the door, it burst open. “Old man, you took so long to get to the door, I thought maybe you’d fallen asleep in your easy chair!” Lain heckled Rush, and Hannah’s shoulders relaxed. The door opening before Rush got there had worried her for a moment. She slid off the swing-out chair in the kitchen and headed down the hallway to the foyer.

“Hi Ella!” she said happily when she saw her standing next to Lain.

“Hannah!” Ella squealed. “Hannah, I have to show you something.” And then she began waving her arm around in the air and Hannah had to duck to avoid getting whacked and Lain started laughing.

“Darlin', maybe Hannah could look a little closer if you weren’t hitting her upside the head with it.”

It?
Hannah leaned over and oh fucking Lord, there was the largest rock she’d ever seen on Ella’s left ring finger.

“You got engaged?!” Hannah squealed and they danced around, hugging each other, as Lain and Rush stood off to the side, a little unsure as to how to deal with squealing females. Hannah looked up at Rush, catching his eye, and thought,
Someday, this is gonna be us.

As if he could hear her thoughts, he winked at her and she felt the heat rise in her cheeks. She looked down at Ella’s ring again, trying to follow along as Ella outlined every minute detail of the admittedly gorgeous ring. Hannah didn’t have a clue what clarity or inclusions or cut meant though, so Ella’s explanation was sailing right over her head.

“So the guys have to go do MC stuff, so I thought you and I could look at wedding magazines,” Ella said, and rifling through her purse, she pulled out three wedding magazines. “Wanna help me pick out a dress?”

Lain’s grin widened and he said, “I think that’s our cue to get the hell outta Dodge, Rush. Ready to go talk to the Copper Lode police? I was hoping we could see if they had any more…questionable leads that we could follow up on that they weren’t necessarily equipped for.”

“Let me grab my cut,” Rush said and then as he passed Hannah on the way back out the door, he pulled her in for a kiss. “I love you, Miss Blue,” he murmured into her ear, and she pulled back and stared up into his gorgeous face. “I love you too, baby,” she murmured. They kissed for a little longer until, sadly, Lain dragged Rush out the door with him, leaving Ella and Hannah behind.

They snuggled down on the couch in the living room and began going through the magazines, ripping out pictures of dresses that would flatter Ella’s lush figure and discussing potential venues for the wedding.

“God, I can’t believe this is happening,” Ella said happily. “When Lain and I met, I wasn’t sure we were both going to live through the experience. He was such an ass at the Phoenix Airport that first day!

“And then, when I found out about the
Chupas
and the gun deal, I couldn’t
believe
that Lain had been a part of it.” She shook her head in disgust, and Hannah froze, her hand in mid-flip.

“What?!” she said and her voice was breathy and not quite even and the words kept rolling around in her mind, “
Chupas
and the gun deal,” but surely she heard Ella wrong.

Surely.

“Well yeah, that’s what was going on when I first got here. It’s why Brock was trying to get rid of me.” Ella looked at her curiously, and Hannah could see it on her face - Ella thought Hannah knew all about…this. Whatever it was she was telling her. Whatever it was that had happened before Hannah had come back home.

Whatever it was that Rush had most certainly not said a word about.

“Brock Whitson?” Hannah said quietly. Her mind was whirling and she was having a hard time breathing.

“Yeah, did you know him?” Ella asked.

“He’s a real bastard - I can’t stand him. We graduated together - Lain and Rush and me and Brock. All the same year. I’d thought he’d moved away or something.” Hannah knew she was rambling. She had to shut up.

“Oh no,” Ella said, confused. “Brock was the president of the Blue Devils when I came out here. That’s why I was here, actually. Dan, my boss, he’d had a crush on Brock for years back in high school and had thought that Brock would make a great person to interview about what it’s like to be in a motorcycle club for
Pout Magazine
.”

“Tell me everything,” Hannah said, her voice hollow. She couldn’t cry, not yet. She had to let Ella tell her the whole story, and
then
she could cry. Once she knew everything.

But not until then.

“Well…” Ella said, obviously confused about where this was going but trying to please Hannah, “I came here to interview Brock but like you said, he was a real bastard. I figured out halfway through my trip that the Blue Devils and the
Chupas
had a gun deal - the Blue Devils were going to sell a shit ton of guns to the
Chupas
right after I was scheduled to leave. So I pretended to get on an airplane, came back to Copper Lode in a rental car, and talked Lain into listening to me. He hadn’t realized that the
Chupas
were going to use the guns to kidnap your students, of course, and once he realized what was going on, a lot of the Blue Devils fought back. Brock is—”

The door opened and in walked Rush and Lain.

“—dead,” Ella finished simply.

Something snapped inside of Hannah. Something snapped and she saw red and she stood up from the couch just as Rush walked in, a greeting on his lips and she reached down and grabbed her shoes that she’d kicked off when she’d been looking at wedding magazines with Ella and daydreaming about marrying Rush someday and surely, surely that hadn’t just been fifteen minutes ago that she’d been having that daydream because she felt like she’d aged 50 years and she fucking
threw
her shoe at his goddamn motherfucking piece of shit head and started swearing as she picked the other one up and threw it just as hard. He dodged instinctively as he held his hands up defensively and the mirror behind him shattered and Ella was crying and Lain was picking her up and carrying her out of the house as Ella was yelling, “I caused this, I can’t leave!” but Hannah couldn’t even spare her a glance as she left because all of her being was focused on this—

“Goddamn motherfucking piece of shit!” she yelled and the words were pouring out now. “You were going to sell the guns to the
Chupas
?! The
Chupas
who then kidnapped my students at gun point and then
shot me?!
” She looked around the living room for something else to throw and Turbo whined and crawled underneath the couch, lifting up one end into the air as he shoved his old bones under it and she couldn’t get herself to care because something had just broken inside of her.

Broken into a little million pieces, just like the mirror.

She spotted the bookcase and grabbed a thick tome off it and swung around, glaring wildly at Rush.

“How could you?!?!” she yelled and she threw the book at him but it opened and caught the air currents from the AC and dropped harmlessly to the ground.

Fuck!

“Blue, I’m sorry!” Rush held out his hands to her, pleadingly. “Just let me tell you what happened.”

“I
know
what happened!” Hannah hollered back, and a part of her, a small part deep down couldn’t believe she was actually yelling like this. Was actually this angry. She didn’t
get
angry, at least not very often, and certainly not like this.

But this was a betrayal of the deepest kind, the sort of betrayal that was unthinkable.

Unbelievable.

“Brock was the president of the Blue Devils,” she said, listing the items off on her fingers like she was making a grocery list instead of a list of the absolute worst facts she could think of. “You, as a member of the Blue Devils, voted yes when he asked at the table if you wanted to sell guns to the
Chupas
. Am I right so far?”

Rush gave one jerky nod of the head, his jaw clenched.

“You did it because Lain said yes, and you Always. Fucking. Do. What. Lain. Wants!” She slammed her fist into the palm of her hand with every word, advancing on him, white-hot anger boiling up in her. “Then, when
Lain
decided that it wasn’t okay for you to go through with the deal, you backed him in that decision too, right?”

Rush gave another jerky nod of the head.

“No wonder you fucking love dogs,” she spat out disgustedly, eye to eye with him. “You’ve never been anything but Lain’s lapdog. You’ve never told him no. He wanted you to stay here after high school? Done. He wanted you to vote to sell guns to the
Chupas
? Done. He wanted to you fight against Brock? Done.

“I can’t love a fucking lapdog.”

She turned away from him in disgust, and he said, his voice breaking, “Blue, I didn’t know. We didn’t know what the
Chupas
were going to do with the guns. And we never sold them anything - we backed out before it happened.”

She turned back to him and said scornfully, “Because someone else told you to. Someone else actually did some fucking research and thought for themselves. You never did, not once.

“I’m going for a walk. I have to get out of this house. Don’t you dare send anyone after me. I swear to God, if I see a Blue Devil trailing me, I’ll call the police and report him for stalking me.”

She walked out of the house and slammed the door so hard behind her, she heard a wall hanging crash to the floor behind her.

She took off running. She had to think.

She had to get away.