Wild Fire (Chaos #6.5)(45)

“Anyway, come and look.” She grabbed his hand and dragged him toward the bar, all the way babbling. “So, I had my laptop, as you know. And Tyra came in and asked what I was doing, so I told her, and hers was in the office at the garage, so she grabbed it. Then your mom showed, and they live close, as you also know, so she popped back home to get hers. And finally, Elvira and Tabby showed, and Vira had hers in her car, so she went out and got it. And I showed them how to Google up a storm, even though Vira knew how to Google even better than me, and we got a lot. But you gotta look at some of it.”

She stopped at the stool she’d left and looked up at him.

“Do you want to sit or…?” she asked.

“You sit,” he grunted.

She nodded, slid up on it, but did it being bossy.

“But you gotta look, so get close.”

He got close all right.

He came up to her back and leaned into it as well as both of his hands in the bar, trapping her between his arms and putting his jaw to the side of her hair.

After he did this, all the women gave each other looks.

Georgie didn’t miss a beat.

“So, last night, before Jackson got handsy—”

Dutch growled.

She twisted her neck to look at him. “It wasn’t fun, but it’s over, honey.”

“We still haven’t talked about that.”

“I know, we’ll debrief, sometime later, but now, listen.”

He felt the men come up behind him as he nodded go to Georgie.

She looked back to her laptop.

“So, okay, before Jackson proved he was a total dick, he told me the neighbor’s name, which I think Eddie and Hank kept from us because I acted like a lunatic and I think they feared for her life.”

This was not an incorrect assumption.

“And?” he prompted.

“So, yeah, we got busy on Google and Facebook and we found her.”

He was not certain what the excitement was about.

“And this is good because…?”

She turned to look at him again, her eyes dancing. “Because she has friends.”

“Babe, not sure black-market bad guys have Facebook pages.”

“How about we check,” she suggested. “We’ve compiled pictures of all her male friends. Then we collected other info about her Facebook friends so we’d be ready to roll if this dude is one of them. I’ll click through and you let me know if any of them are the ones you saw Carlyle with at that bar.”

It was worth a go, so he lifted his chin.

She turned back to her laptop.

He leaned deeper into her and gave the screen his attention.

She clicked.

“No,” he said.

Another click.

“No.”

This went on for fifteen fucking clicks, he was getting over it when shit had to get done, and she hit her mousepad and the guy showed up on her screen.

“Fuck, that’s him.”

“Ohmigod,” Georgie breathed.

“Name,” Elvira demanded.

“Gary Bronson,” Georgiana told her.

“He’s one I looked up,” his fucking mother said. “What do you want? Address? Car he drives? What?”

Before anyone could answer, one of a cluster of cells sitting on the bar started sounding.

Since the screen said Kraken Calling, he knew it was Georgiana’s.

She snatched it up, engaged, put it to her ear, and his head dropped once again that day, this time in disbelief at what he heard and the no-nonsense tone in which it was said from his cute, sweet, skipping Georgie.

“Talk to me, bro,” Georgie demanded.

Honest to fuck, he had no idea if he wanted to laugh or shout.

“Can someone tell me what the fuck is happening?” Boz asked.

“Really?” Georgie squealed.

At that, Dutch lifted his head, put his hands on her hips and whirled her around to face him.

She was back to beaming.

“Where? Now? We’ll be there as soon as we can! Thanks! I owe you one! Text the address and we’re on our way! See you soon!” She hung up and cried, “They have Carlyle!”

Dutch put both hands to her thighs, got close to her face, and sucked in a massive breath.

“Okay, did we just spend an hour sitting around the table talking about doing what our women were sitting at the bar actually doing?” High sounded harassed.

“Seems like it,” Hop answered.

“Who’s Kraken?” Tack asked.

Tack didn’t miss much, and he was close, so he didn’t miss that.

“A street tough Georgie knows,” Dutch answered, staring up close in Georgie’s eyes.

“The chick that skips knows street toughs?” Arlo queried low.

“Brother, clearly she’s an all-rounder. You should see the woman in a robe. I’m gonna dream about that until the day I die,” Roscoe put in.

Dutch would not be surprised if his body started buzzing since the noise in his head was so goddamned loud.

“Am I in some kind of biker’s babe trouble?” she asked quietly.

“I’m not sure how to answer that,” he told her.

“That means I’m in some kind of biker’s babe trouble,” she surmised.

“I would tell you to be less you, but that would suck, because I like all that’s you. But I do not need Roscoe dreamin’ of you in your sweet robe.”