Ink (The Haven Series) (29 page)

She turned to look at him, eyebrows raised but a smile tugging at those pouty pink lips. “You’re getting awful nosy, all of a sudden, mister ...” she said, in just the right teasing tone to get away with it – especially since Sam knew she had a point.

He didn’t usually ask so many questions of the chicks that hung around the club. Not the personal kind anyway. In fact, the less most of them talked the better in his book ... But Ashley was different. That was all it was though. Different, not special. He didn’t have feelings for her and knew that wasn’t denial talking. It was just that, compared to the other women that frequented the clubhouse, she was something of a breath of fresh air. She didn’t seem to be looking to be anyone’s old lady, had no illusions about her place in the grand scheme of things. Hell, she wasn’t even planning on sticking around - when you’d have trouble getting rid of some of their regulars with a 9mm and a shovel ...

Stubbing out the butt of his cigarette and then reaching out, Sam wrapped a lock of her tousled red hair around his fist and tugged her closer. “You gonna make me ask twice, darlin’?”

“Los Angeles,” came the eventual answer to his initial question, complete with a little smirk that told him she was more than happy to play along with his big-bad-biker routine – despite knowing he could back it up if he had to. “If I’m gonna be a famous actress by the time I’m thirty, that only gives me four years to make it in Hollywood ...”

He released her abruptly, to a look of near disappointment from the girl that their little game seemed to have ended almost before it began. “You’re twenty-six?”

“In two months--”

“Christ, Ashley,” Sam groaned, collapsing back on the bed and throwing an arm over his eyes. “I’m pretty sure I
’ve got socks older than you.”

“Well, you know what that means, don’t you?” she said in an unusually solemn voice, leaning over him and trailing her fingertips lightly down his stomach to the edge of his towel.

“What?” he asked warily.

“You seriously need some new socks.”

Despite everything, he laughed at that and pushed himself back up on his elbows to shake his head ruefully. “What I need, doll, we ain’t got time for,” he drawled, tempted as he was by the thought of putting those full lips to good use again. “Go on, get your ass outta here. And Ash, you hear anythin’ else, you let me know, okay?”

“Of course,” she nodded without hesitation, shooting him a mischievous smile as she blew him a little kiss on her way out the door. “Catch you later, handsome.”

“I’ll hold ya to that, doll,” he grinned.

***

Spotting Sam sauntering from the direction of the dorms, still tugging his t-shirt over his head, Colton signalled to him with a jerk of his head and the sergeant quickly crossed the bar to join him - just as Will and the others emerged from the sanctity of the clubhouse church.

“Prospects are still on clean-up duty,” Colton informed his president. “How d’ya want us to handle this shit, boss?”

“Publicly, we do nothing ...” Will began, holding up a hand when he saw the looks exchanged by his sergeant and enforcer. “Hear me out, boys. I don’t want us giving these bastards any kinda credibility. We act like they’re a threat, other people start to think we’re an easy target. They start to believe they’re a threat. I ain’t having my club look like it’s pissing its pants over some jumped-up little shit-heads. Yeah, they disrespected us, but they’re just little boys who like drawing on walls to try to make a point ...”

“And privately?” Sam asked. “You think we need to take this one-eight-seven shit seriously?”

“Privately, we up our security. No heading off solo on club business, no getting sloppy. And we keep our own close and everyone else at arm’s length until we know more about exactly who’s behind all this. Our Reno brothers are gonna stick around a little longer, so I’ve asked Chip to start looking into known Norteños in this area - see if he can find out who’s looking to move up and who's calling the shots. Sam, you think our little redheaded friend might be able to help identify any of the gang members who’ve been hanging around Dixie’s joint lately?”

“Maybe,” he nodded. “Can ask anyway.”

“Good ...” Will trailed off as he heard a phone start ringing in Colton’s pocket. “Take it, man – I reckon we’re about done here for now.”

As they drifted off to process the latest goings-on, Colton caught the name on the caller id and answered his cell on the way out into the yard for some air.

“S’up?”

“Colton, hey ...” came that familiar voice. But something was off – he could already hear it. “I, uh ... Shit, you’re probably busy – I wasn’t gonna bother you with this, but I thought you’d need to know ...”

“Something happen?”

“Kind of. I had a visit today ... from an Agent Hunt. Asking questions. Questions about you and Sam.”

A frown darkening his already stern face, Colton could feel his heart sink just a little. He knew how this played out – cursed himself for not thinking of it sooner. “Okay. Sit tight – I’m coming round.”

Hanging up before she had time to even respond, he stro
de back towards the clubhouse, intending to let his brothers know he was headed out, but meeting Will in the doorway.

“Problem, son?” the president asked, taking one look at his tense stance.

“Hunt’s on to Callie,” Colton admitted bluntly, getting a frustrated grimace from Will that was nothing compared to how he was feeling.

“Damn meddling bitch ... She actually got anything to use, or just trying the usual shit?”

“Dunno yet. Didn’t want to get into it on the phone, so said I’d go round. That a problem?”

“Course not, brother. But listen, Colt, you know if the feds are hell-bent on sniffing round the girl, there’s really only two ways you can handle it,” Will shrugged. “Bring her closer, or ...”

“Cut her loose.”

***

He wasn’t worried about what might have been said, not by Callie anyway. Even leaving aside the fact she didn’t really know anything worth spilling, she knew when to keep her mouth shut and was more than sharp enough to think on her feet and handle whatever was thrown at her.

No, he wasn’t worried. Just pissed as hell.

If the Fallen had a problem, they dealt with it right at the source. They didn’t go after third parties and, while the odd threat might be made against the family of some bastard who had it coming, it was rarely anything other than idle – a means to an end. Not that it paid to let that be known.

They were the outlaws, but lived and breathed by their own particular brand of morality and yet the so-called good guys of law enforcement didn’t think twice about turning up the heat on whoever looked like an easy target. Choosing not to focus on the harder to crack bikers and instead going after wives, daughters, sisters, mothers.

His own ma had been grilled plenty, until she got too sick for even the law to get away with harassing her about the activities of her only boy. And Maríana Greene aside, it had been a hell of a long time since there’d been anyone else they could connect to Colton. Until now.

Urging his bike on a little faster, he knew he could no longer deny there was a connection between him and his little blonde tattoo artist that went much deeper than ink. He could see now how it had woven itself over the years, beginning back before either of them realised at all and twisting ever deeper - just as her fingers had once twisted that bullet out of him, his blood on her hands.

But after everything she had done for him ... it was going to come back and bite her on the ass.

They all knew how it played out - the mind games, constantly being watched, pressed for answers you didn’t have to questions you knew better than ask. The law would always ask though. And ask and ask and ask.

Powerful as the Fallen were, there was no ending it. You either lived with it or ... you got out.

***

As if thinking about it on the ride over wasn’t enough, one glance at Callie’s pale face was all it took for it to strike Colton all over again that she should still have been concentrating on recovering - not having to worry about second-guessing some bitch of an agent with an agenda.

In the short time she’d been on the line, he’d been torn between appreciating how she’d kept her cool under fire and hating that she was being dragged into this shit because of him. Had realised it was the second time he was about to rush to her side, yet been convinced it was his responsibility to make things right.

The only way to do that though was to stamp on whatever it was that was growing between them and keep on stamping until it was dead.

But now he was just acutely aware of her stood there, those gray eyes following him as he paced her bedroom floor - obviously hating having to push aside that independent streak, but doing it to keep him in the loop. Club's hitman or not, could he really kill everything he was coming to feel for her?

"Hey," he said, almost sternly, as he stopped in front of her and reaching out a hand to caress her cheek. Distracted from his own thoughts by the strain etched across her brow. "Stop stressing. You did good, baby."

“Doesn’t feel like it,” she admitted quietly, though even the little touch and the inadvertent endearment that he somehow failed to bite back did seem to help reassure her.

“Wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it. You handled that bitch and then you brought this shit to me. You did the right thing, Callie.”

Huffing a little sigh, she nodded reluctantly before letting her gaze drop to her feet. “I just ... You wanna tell me why a federal agent even wants to know if I’m sleeping with you? Or Sam? Or both of you, for Christ’s sake? I didn’t think to ask if she’s got me pegged as a serial two-timer or if she just thinks threesomes might be my thing – and she probably thinks I’m a great big s
lut because I didn’t deny it.”

“That g
ash don’t know shit about you,” Colton growled, his hands itching to be wrapped round Hunt’s throat and having to make do with clenching into fists instead.

“No? I cheated on a boyfriend who cared about me, just so I could screw around with some biker ...”

“Some biker, huh?”

“I didn’t mean it like that, Colt
...” Callie sighed again, as his eyes narrowed dangerously – even though he wasn’t sure why it mattered to him – and when his response came, it was hard to say which of them was more thrown.

“You ever think maybe some biker fucking cares about you?”

***

CHAPTER 33

Colton had never bought into that
you’re-too-good-for-me
self-imposed martyrdom bullshit. For a start, it had been a hell of a long time since there’d been a woman in his life good for anything more than a casual fuck. But he was also firmly of the opinion that any guy who wound up with a chick who was too good for him should just quit whining about it and either cut her loose or man the fuck up, be what she needed, and thank his lucky stars.

But that incredible little gray-eyed bitch was definitely too good to be treated like some club slut. And even if he could respect that, he found himself wondering - not for the first time - if she really needed, or deserved, the rest of the shit that came with being dragged further into the turbulence of his life ...

FLASHBACK

Despite everything, her beauty not quite ravaged by illness – not yet anyway – but certainly faded, she still retained a touch of the same class she’d always held. Her long silver-streaked hair may have been a little rumpled where it lay against the plump pillows, but it was otherwise brushed into soft dark waves and her lips were touched with just a hint of dusky rose stain. Her confinement largely to bed rest in recent weeks didn’t seem to have allowed her standards to slip.

“I suppose my big strong son is expecting me not to notice how he’s holding himself, not to ask what trouble he’s run into this time.”

“You know me too well, ma,” Colton said wryly from the doorway, where he’d paused despite knowing better than to think anything would slip past the sharp-as-a-tack woman - cancer or no damn cancer. As she never tired of reminding him, there was nothing wrong with her mind. “How ya feelin’?”

“So-so, I guess. Now, come here and pretend you’re not too tough to give your poor old mother a kiss.”

Going through the ritual of feigning a grumble, the biker crossed to her bedside and leaned down with an arm cradling his lower abdomen to graze his lips against her clammy forehead. He didn’t miss the look of concern that flared in brown eyes that had lost their shine though, and something twisted guiltily in his gut. He probably shouldn’t have been up and about himself, but his visits were a routine he tried not to disrupt and, even knowing the chance of hiding the truth was slim, he’d made the journey rather than have her worry over his absence.

It had proved only the lesser of two evils though, rather than a real solution.

“Show me,” Maríana Greene commanded, on hearing the slight groan as he straightened up. Her eyes challenging him to refuse, until he reluctantly tugged the hem of his plain white t-shirt up with one ringed hand to briefly reveal his heavily bandaged side. “Oh, my boy ...” she sighed. “Tell me what they did to you this time.”

Thankful the wound at least hadn’t bled through, knowing that would have looked far worse to her, he let the soft material fall back in place and eased himself down into the chair by her bedside. He tried in vain to find a comfortable way to sit after the long drive – one that hadn’t been made all that much easier for swapping his bike for a borrowed cage. He knew she wasn’t expecting details and that it would be easier in the long run to just give her something. “Got followed on the way back from Reno,” he scowled at the memory. “Caught a bullet, but it ain’t for you to be fretting over.”