Ridge Creek (25 page)

“Yeah,” he replies instantly.  “It doesn’t do that well
though.  It does do just enough business to cover the public eye view of boxes coming
and going however, which is the reason we keep it going.”

“Do you any other drugs?  Harder drugs?  Is there anything
else I need to know?”

“No other drugs.  As to anything else, there might be a few
things but they have more to do with individual people and they are not my
stories to tell.”

Jake pushes up from his box and steps towards me.  Placing a
hand lightly against the back of my neck he asks, “What do you think?”

Breathing out a huge sigh I wonder what I do think.

Pot?  It’s not the worst thing on earth and who am I to
judge Jake on how he makes a living?  Who am I to judge a person who has only
shown me kindness since the first moment I laid eyes on him.  Someone willing
to protect me and offer me a chance at a new life.  Someone who didn’t question
my background or judge me in any way.  Someone, who I have a niggling feeling
in my gut I could grow to love. 

“Where does Holders fit into all this?” I ask, still not
able to lift my face from my hands as I consider all the information I have so far.

“Nothing,” Jake answers instantly again.  “That’s Ma’s and
it’s separate to all this.  Zane and I paid for that legitimately from trust
funds we received when our father died.  It was a tribute to our father who was
a qualified chef.  It gave Ma something to focus on after his death.  She was
lost without him and needed a new direction.”  Sliding his hand slowly down my
cheek, he slides his finger under my chin and gently tips my head back so I can
see his eyes.  “What do you think?”

Slowly chewing the inside of my mouth as I think, I find
myself taking in the view that is Jake in front of me.  An enormous man.  A
gorgeous man.  A man who has proven to me that he takes care of his own. 

What do I think?

“Are you asking me whether selling pot fits within my new
morality levels?”

“Yes.  And no.  I don’t give a fuck about the pot.  That is
what it is and you can either deal or you can’t.  I want to know what you think
of me.  Us.  You know what I am.  You now know what I do.  Is it going to
change whatever it is that I can feel growing between us?”

Drawing a slow breath through my nose I already know my
answer.  I knew it hours ago when he told me he’d killed Tony. 

“No.”

I watch as a tiny smile, lifts the corner of his mouth. 
“Good.”

I grin back at him.  “You suck at running a business.”

“I know,” he agrees as his tiny smile turns into a huge
grin.  His eyes sparkling brightly.  I get the feeling the weight of the world
has lifted from his shoulders.

“I’m gunna fix that,” I announce as I start to push myself
up from my box.

“Are you now,” he murmurs as his hand slides from my chin
and down my neck towards my breast.

“I am.  To make this work, we need the Harley shop
thriving.  As far as I can see you also need an ordering system…” My sentence
cuts off as his fingers find their target and tweak my nipple sending a jolt of
electricity down to my core.

Stopping myself from buckling at the knees I straighten
fully and lean in to his chest.  My head lolling forwards until my lips connect
with his neck.  “An online ordering system,” I murmur softly while blowing warm
air against his neck.

“Huh?” I hear him grunt as lets go of my nipple to grab me
by the hips and push me away from his body to look me in the eyes again.  “What
do you mean an online ordering system?”

“I’m gunna build you a website and I’m gunna sell your
products for you online.  All of them.  Harley parts and pot.”

“Y
ou’re
fuckin’ shittin’ me?” He says looking confused.  “I’ve just told you I’m a
fuckin’ drug dealing criminal and you’re already designing a website in your
head to help me with that?”

Smirking, I lean forward and nip his bottom lip playfully. 
“Exactly.”

“Jesus,” he mutters as I feel his hands start to roam up my
back. 

Oooh, time for round three.

Giving his lip one last nip, I lean back to look at his
face.  “Just one more thing…”

I feel his hands falter on my back as a brief look of
concern flashes across his face.

“I need to bring Emma in.”

Jake stiffens and his look of concern turns into an outright
look of alarm.  “No fuckin’ way…” he starts before I cut him off quickly. 

“She’s gunna be our new security manager.”

“No she’s fuckin’ not!” Jake snarls.

“Yes she is.” I snap back, annoyed that he is getting so
upset so fast.

“She builds people new identities, can hack into just about
any government system on this planet and can run background checks for us. 
She’s in.” I announce firmly, my eyes narrowing.

I watch as Jake’s eyes widen.  “She’s that fuckin’ good?”
“From what I saw yesterday of my new profile she’s better than good.  She’s the
best.”

Jake studies me intently for a few moments before nodding
and relaxing.  “I’ll run it past Zane first but I guess we could use the help.”

Smiling softly, I lean back in to nibble on his bottom lip
again.  “Perfect.  Can we go back to bed now?”

Jake doesn’t answer me.  Instead he grabs me by the waist,
hauls me over his shoulder and swings to open the door.  I squeal as my head
narrowly misses crashing with the door frame.  “Shh,” he grunts as he swings
the door open and strides down the hall to the bedroom.

Smiling, I do.

Tickets

“Jesus,” Emma murmurs.

“I know,” I murmur back.

“Do you think they’d get shitty if we threw a bucket of
water on them?” Emma asks with a hopeful look in her eye.

“I’m thinking the positives would outweigh the negatives,” I
mumble as her eyes widen again and I swing my attention back to the shop
front.  We are both leaning against the door frame between the shop front and
the communal room watching the show.

The show being Jake, Zane, Luke and three other men we don’t
know, hot and sweaty, grunting and groaning as they drag massive flat packs of
shelving into the shop front.  It’s almost more than a girl can take watching
them as their muscles bulge left, right and center as they maneuver the packages
through the front door.  Emma and I agree that our favorite moments are when
they bend down to pick up or put down heavy loads.

The shop front is already looking better.  True to his word,
Jake spent the day with Zane sorting through the boxes in the shopfront and
removing any boxes that shouldn’t have been there.  They then removed and
stacked most of the remaining boxes in the communal room to create clear space
to install the new shelves. 

Arriving home after our shopping trip with Luke, it was
surprising to discover they had achieved so much so quickly.  Judging by the
number of men behind us in the communal room drinking beer, I do however
suspect they had some help.

From his position holding the front door open for the men to
shuffle through, Pops calls out softly.  “I’m thinking these boys need cold
beer delivered by the pretty woman folk.”  He is grinning huge and I can see by
the amusement in his eyes that he can see the enjoyment in ours.

Emma chuckles and flicks him a nod, grabbing me by the elbow
to drag me back through door. 

Walking back across the communal room towards the bar, I
dart my eyes around the room.  At a quick count, I reckon there are about
fifteen men scattered throughout the room.  Where the hell did they all come
from?  Most of them I’ve never seen before, many of them look
rough.

Rough as in, heavyset, slightly overweight, bearded biker
men with low quality tattoos in unusual places.

Spotting Bill and Towball at the pool table, I flick them a
small smile.  I then settle my eyes on the bar to avoid making eye contact with
the many men whose eyes have locked on the two woman wandering among them.

“It’s like a fuckin’ bull ants nest in here,” Emma mutters
quietly and I nod my instant agreeance.

“Why do you think they are here?” I ask quietly as we round
to the back of the bar.  Emma shrugs and flicks me a ‘stop talking, I think
they can hear you’, look.  “Surely they didn’t need
this
much help to
clear the shopfront?” I murmur again.

Flicking me an annoyed look because I didn’t manage to
uphold my silence for more than a brief second, Emma heads straight to the
fridge and grabs two six packs of beer.  Handing me one, she grabs a bottle top
opener off the bar and gives me a shove to turn me around and point me towards
the shop front door again.

“Later,” she hisses as she pushes past me and beelines for
the door.

Hurrying to keep up, I trip and with a squeak, find myself
off balance and falling forward.  Before I manage to throw a hand out to save
myself, I see movement in the corner of my eye.  A huge, hairy bear of a man
quickly shoots his hand out to catch my elbow.  I teeter against his arm before
regaining my balance.

Looking up into the face of the man attached to the arm, I
gasp as I see dangerous dark brown eyes staring down at me.  Huge brows hang
over his eyes and he has massive cheekbones.  One cheek has a long, angry red
scar zagging across it.  He has a long, thick dirty beard and he reeks of
cigarettes.  His eyes skim over my face quickly, in a casual disinterested
way.  I sense he is about to look away when I see his eyes falter briefly as he
looks into mine.

His dark eyes narrow slightly as he studies my eyes for a
moment.  His grip tightens on my arm as I watch a shadow skitter across his
before his face blanks out to disinterest again.

Recognition?

“Gotcha,” he grunts as I quickly snatch my arm away from his
hand.

“Thanks,” I mumble quietly as I look towards the door ahead
of me to see that Emma has already disappeared through into the shop front.

Fuck.

A sense of self-preservation shoots through my body and I
feel my heart start to race.   This is one scary looking biker and my instincts
vibrate there is something not right about him.

“What the fuck?” I hear him grunt as he takes a step away
from me, a look of confusion now on his face.

Without looking back up at him, I start jogging towards the
door.  I need to get out of here and as far away from him as possible.  There
is something not right about him and I don’t plan on hanging around to find out
what it is.

*****

“Right.  Knock yourselves out girls,” Jake announces as he
and Luke push the final glass fronted cabinet into place and hand us the keys
to the small barrel lock that will secure its doors closed.

“It looks great!” I chirp happily looking around the shopfront
at the many lines of empty shelves as well as the three lockable glass cabinets
along one side wall.

“Glad you’re fuckin’ happy,” Jake grunts pinning me with an
angry look.  “No more changing your fuckin’ mind.  Where they are now is where
they fuckin’ stay.  If you change your mind again, move them your fuckin’
selves.”

I wipe the grin from my face and nod my agreeance.  My eyes
slide to Emma and I can see she is mirroring my contrite look.

So he might just be a little pissed off at us.  I shouldn’t
blame him.  We have been the site managers from hell over the course of the
last three hours.  Constantly changing our minds about shelving locations,
we’ve had the men dragging and shuffling the massive, now fully assembled
shelves around the room.  On one occasion we even had them drag a shelf all the
way across the room only to change our mind and have them drag it all the way
back.  We were losing public popularity by that point. 

With hindsight, we may have been better prepared if we had
have drawn ourselves a site map of the proposed shelving
before
the men
assembled them.  Woops.

“Time for the meeting,” I hear Zane grunt as he lifts
himself from the floor where he has been securing a shelf to the floorboards. 

Meeting?

Jake and Luke nod towards each other, an unspoken message
travels between them.  The three extra men who have been helping them all
afternoon, throw a glance towards Jake and then walk silently through the door
to the communal room.  Luke and Zane follow shortly after.

Turning to me Jake pins me with serious green eyes.  “Gotta
meet with the boys.  Discuss what we were talking about last night.  You and
her,” he points to Emma, “stay in here out of the way until we’re done.  Tell
me now if you need anything.   I’ll get the boys to shuffle all those boxes
back in but I’m lettin’ you know in advance, I’m gunna be locking you in.  You
are not involved in this meeting.  Got it?”

Taken aback and confused at the fast change of events, I
blink and nod. 

“You want me to order you two a pizza or do you wanna grab
some of your fancy green shit outta the fridge before I lock you in?”

Flicking Emma a glance, I see her shrug.  “Pizza?” She
mumbles as she pets Jambo who is sitting quietly on her shoulder.

“Right, you got ten minutes to grab anything else you want
from your rooms or the fridges while the boys shuffle those boxes back in. 
Your pizza will be delivered to the shop front door.  I’ll get more delivered
through the garage for the men.  Do you need anything else?”

Still stunned that we are essentially being told we are
grounded to the shop front, I shake my head. 

What the fuck?

I throw Emma a confused look and she shrugs again.  Holding
her palms up to me, I realize she has no idea what is going on either.

“Okay,” I murmur as I slide my eyes back to Jakes.  He is
still looking deadly serious, his stance slightly stiff and his jaw firm.

“One more thing,” he says looking at Emma but still facing
me.  “A word in private.”