Shelter From The Storm (The Bare Bones MC Book 6)(38)

Which was strange, because “everyone” was pressing in on Wolf about as tight as a game of Tetris. So no one gathered round, but that didn’t stop Wolf from bloviating to the skies above.

“I want everyone to know! This woman here slung around my neck is my heart’s desire. I have wistfully wished for her from afar for a year now—a year during which I pined, sobbed, and drank Colt 45 malt liquor from a coffee mug while watching I Am Cait.”

“Here, here!” Maddie cheered from her perch atop Ford’s shoulders. But no one else listened, because guys with long torches were now sticking them inside the pyre. Wolf had to yell louder to be heard above the hoots.

“I knew I couldn’t continue that way any longer, and I was right! I had anguish to the right of me, misery to the left, and there I was—stuck in the middle with myself!”

I laughed, but when the pyre finally flamed up, the clamor of the crowd hurt my ears. Even I couldn’t hear Wolf Glaser, who was standing about two inches from me.

That was all right. I wanted to get lost in the flames that licked at the Harley’s tires. Fox stood behind me, his arms around my waist, our hands locked together. His torso felt like a slab of warm marble, and every cell of my body wanted to believe in him. He was completely too good to be true, a knight in shining armor who had ridden up to save me from the depredations of the police.

“That’s f*ckin’ hot!”

“Burn, baby, burn!”

“White hot!”

As the entire bike was engulfed in flames, the heat became so intense that people moved back. We were one of the last people to do so, the heat so strong I felt my eyebrows must have been singed. I just wanted to bask in the cleansing purge of the bonfire until my body was melted against Fox’s.

When we did move back, I turned my back to the fire so he could cradle me to his chest. I felt like a tiny doll when he held my skull in his palm. My cheek was pasted to his blazing chest and I breathed in his sweat.

There was no way a man who smelled this good, who felt this good, could have bad intentions toward me.

But hadn’t I told myself that about Lieutenant Commander Russ Heston?

Yes. That’s exactly what I told myself about Russ Fucking Heston.

I took a sucking bite from Fox’s throat and I could have sworn I heard him purr. When I pulled away I saw his eyes had slid shut and he seemed to be basking in the beauty of the moment. In a weird way, that gave me an even bigger push to grab his hand and pull him away from the bonfire. Not many people were leaving—everyone wanted to be there when the inferno reached its height.

“What’s so urgent?” Fox chuckled, allowing himself to be led.

“Over here.” We passed by a knot of smokers and walked into the fresh air by the corner of a fence. I couldn’t really look Fox in the eye. If I did, I knew I’d be a goner. I would lose my nerve. So I looked at a fire hydrant and said sort of creakily, “You didn’t just come here to see the sights did you.”

When I looked at him, he still wore his smile, only confusion tinged it. “What do you mean? To Run-a-mucca?”

I looked away again. “No. I mean to Pure and Easy. You came in with Santiago Slayer, saying you just wanted to see the sights.”

But his confusion had only grown deeper. His smile was fading fast. “I did want to see the sights. The red rocks.”

“But you never saw any red rocks, did you?”

“Pippa, what are you trying to get at? You can be straight with me.”

But I found it very hard to be straight. I’d been with so many lying men in my life, I’d become accustomed to not wanting to really know the answers. I had to squeeze my eyes shut, and the question came out all in one flood of words. “I want to know if you were sent by the Jones cartel to track me down, to bring me back, or maybe to—”

“No.”

“—to—”

“No.”

“—to bury—”

“No, Flavia!”

He shook me by my shoulders so violently I had no choice but to shut up. An instinctual fight-or-flight reaction made me open my eyes, and he was not a pretty sight to see. It was then for the first time I saw the hitman side of him. I suppose it’s there in every man, especially every man who has seen bloody battle. There is some off-kilter, crazed PTSD look in a combat veteran’s eyes when he’s fighting to preserve something he holds dear. I’d seen it in Russell’s eyes when he cold-bloodedly turned me over to the Joneses. And I’d seen it in the eyes of the baby gangsters working in the warehouse when the ATF had raided us.

“No what?” I shrieked.

“No I am not going to kill you!” And he angrily took several steps away, his back to me, then stopped.

I wasn’t about to let up. “But you admit you work for the Joneses.”

He came back, looking frantically from side to side. “Keep it down, woman! Yes I sometimes work for the f*cking Joneses. But that’s not what this is about.”

“Oh, it’s not, is it? You’re a sicario for the Joneses and I’m testifying against the Joneses and it’s just a f*cking coincidence you show up in Pure and Easy?” I had to force myself to shut up in order to hear the answer. I could have screamed forever.

“Listen, Flavia, the answer isn’t that simple. Maybe I was sent originally to track you down. But once I saw you, once I realized their beef against you wasn’t legit—”