Wanted: County Knights MC (3 page)

              “Jackson!” Jerry called from the doorway of the office. I tightened the last bolt and stood up, shooting him a glare first. I hated being beckoned like some fucking dog. I owned the fucking place. Jerry wised up. “Sorry,” he mumbled, and walked over to me. “The Honda ready? She’s here.”

              Somewhere in the pit of my stomach a sour twisting started. My eyes instinctively went to the large window, searching her out. If I had thought myself prepared, I had been a fucking idiot.

              She was older. Not just in years, but in looks. The stringy blonde hair I remembered always being pulled back in a ponytail hung around her shoulders with a gentle wave from the humidity. Still the same silvery blonde, but there was nothing stringy about the woman standing at my front desk. A backpack hung from one slender shoulder, accentuating her toned muscles. When she glanced my way, not seeing me yet, I could make out the subtle beauty that had captivated me so damn hard when we were in high school. Piercing blue eyes narrowed as she waited to hear back from Jerry about her car. Her t-shirt had pinched tight around her chest from holding her bag, showing me exactly how much more woman she was now than the last time I saw her. Full breasts filled out her shirt. Had they always been so beautiful, or had the years of telling myself she was an innocent kid warped my memory of her?

              “Jackson!” Jerry waved a hand in my face, breaking my stare. She still hadn’t seen me, but she was walking to the window, peering into the garage.

              “Yeah. It’s done. Discount her. Parts only.” I shoved my way around him, heading to the sink to clean off the grease before shuffling into my office to hide. 

              “Jackson?” A soft voice froze me as I took a step. “Jackson.” A firmer voice now. Insistent. Fuck.

              I looked over my shoulder, just to verify what I already knew. Anna stood in the doorway of my garage, holding the door and searching me with her eyes. When I turned around completely, I couldn’t help the smile that started to tug at my lips. Fuck, she was gorgeous. Tears sprung to her eyes, and I shook my head. That’s why I needed to hide. She didn’t need my sort of complicated in her life.

              “Anna.” I forced a neutral tone, and made no move to close the gap between us. I didn’t need to, she walked into the garage, ignoring Jake calling her from the front desk to stay out of the restricted work space.

              “You’re here.” She shook her head and grinned. “Of course you’re here. I see you. When did you get back to town?” Her standing in full view now, I could take in the curves of her hips, the tightness of her thighs. The capris yoga pants she wore hid nothing from me.

              “A while ago. Your car is ready. Jake will check you out, and Jerry will bring it around front for you. You should still get a full tune up, but you can bring it back another day for that. Or to another shop closer to home.” I turned back to the sink, needing to busy myself and get away from her before I wrapped her in my arms. The urge to touch her, to just feel her under my fingers became too much. I needed the distraction.

              “Oh. Uh. Well, I’m only about a half a mile away. So I guess I could bring it back. Maybe next month.” I heard the waver in her voice and knew it for what it was—her shield. She wanted to get to the heart of it all, she wanted to ask me where the fuck I’d been for the past seven years. Why the hell I didn’t call her from juvie, or return any of her letters, but she wouldn’t. Not yet. 

              “Okay.” I nodded, not looking over at her. I knew what I would see. I would see disappointment, hurt, and I wasn’t ready for that yet. I needed to steel myself against her first. To remind myself that it was for her benefit. “Like I said, Jake will get you all set up.” I yanked a paper towel from the holder and nodded toward the door she had just walked through.

              “I heard you.” A little more heat in her words, maybe she was recovering quicker than I thought she would. “Jackson. Where have you been all this time?”

              “Around.” I looked over at Jerry. “Can you get the Honda pulled up front? She’s in a hurry.”

              “No, I’m not,” she countered, her eyes burned into me. “I’m free the rest of the afternoon.” Her chin went up an inch, and her shoulders rolled back, but she sucked in the left corner of her lower lip.

              “Liar.” I tried not to grin and it damn near killed me. 

              “Well, I could be free,” she mumbled, casting her glance down.

              “Anna, you should go.”

              “Jackson, I’ve tried finding you for years.”

              “Well, you found me. Now you should go.”  

              Her feet shifted uncomfortably, and that damn lip trembled. “I don’t understand. After you…when you went away, you just disappeared.” The engine of her car started, and we both ignored Jerry as he pulled out of the garage. 

              “It was better that way. Now go, Anna.” If she took another step toward me, I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands at my sides. I knew I would pull her in for hug, and then I’d never fucking let her go. And she needed to go. “Anna, I never contacted you because I didn’t want to. I didn’t answer your fucking letters because I didn’t want to. Don’t you get that?” I forced the harshness into my voice, ignoring how much the words grated against my conscience.

              She blinked a few times. “You blame me for what happened.” I almost didn’t hear her, she spoke so softly. “It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t—”

              “No. I told you how many times to stay clear of that fucking asshole if he came home. Didn’t I? I said if you see him, wait in the house. Lock yourself in your room until I got there. But you didn’t. You stayed on the fucking porch.” Everything I said was true, but I never once in all the years of my going in and out of the system did I blame her for what happened. She had been too innocent. Had given too much credit to the wrong people. “Your car’s out front. Forget the bill. Just go.”

              Walking away from her at that moment had to be the right thing to do. I needed to put distance between us, even if I had just torn open wounds for her. It was best she knew what sort of man I had become since we’d last seen each other. I wasn’t that loving, caring little boy she loved. I didn’t need that shit.

              I heard the soft sob escape her as I walked by, but ignored it. I walked into my empty office and slammed the door. Fuck. Once I was sure she had left the garage, I looked through the blinds of my office to check, I went out to let Jerry know to write off the parts for her job. 

              I saw her pull out into the street, her wheels squealing as she took the turn too damn fast. A loud roar of an engine caught my attention, and I ran out into the front of the garage. She drove through the green light, but the engine I’d heard belonged to a Challenger, going too fucking fast and not even trying to stop at the red light. I screamed out to Anna to stop, but my words were lost in the sounds of metal crunching, a high pitched scream from within her car. The Challenger plowed right into her passenger side, pushing her several feet into the intersection.  

              My lungs burned as I sprinted to her.
Please let her be okay.

CHAPTER THREE
Anna

              He was there. Jackson was there, not more than a mile away from my apartment. How long had he been there, working and hating me? Whatever dream I had of our reunion, being kicked in the gut and tossed out hadn’t been it. 

              “Anna!” I heard him yelling, and I wanted to get away. Everything seemed hazy, dust clouded around my car. “Fuck! Hey!” The car jostled again and wheels spun, kicking more dirt up around my car as it sped away. 

              I needed to get out of the car. I needed to get home. I needed to go crawl under my covers. Everything in my body hurt when I tried to move. Jackson yelled at me again to stay still. But fuck him.  He’d just told me how much he didn’t want me in his life, how much he blamed me for what happened to him. He could just screw off.

              My door opened, and then he was there, squatting down and looking me over. He lifted my arms slowly, felt around my torso. There had been a time when having his hands on me like that would have ignited a fire inside of me, but when he did it then it just hurt. I tried shoving his hands away, but he told me to knock it off.

              “Fuck you.” I groaned and tried to swing my legs out of the car. He stopped me, shoving them back in.

              “Wow. Big words for such a little thing.” He held my legs inside the car and pressed his hand to my shoulder. “Stop trying to get out. Just stay the fuck still until the ambulance gets here!” I knew that tone. I’d heard him using it before. People jumped when he used it, not me, though.

              “Let me go, Jackson. Shouldn’t be too hard for you.” I tried to see his face, to witness if my words had any impact on him, but the tears flooding my eyes made everything too blurry. For once I wish I could get my body to listen to me and not cry. But it was Jackson, I’d never had to hide my emotions from him. Not until that moment.

              “Just stay put.” Sirens blared behind him.

              “Is the other guy okay?” I asked, suddenly aware that I wasn’t the only person involved in the accident.

              Jackson snorted. “Just like you to think about someone else. No. The fucker took off. Stop talking. And stop fucking moving around.” His heavy hand rested on my knee to keep my legs from moving around. The familiar sensations all flooded back to me, as though the past seven years hadn’t happened. I wanted to look at him, to memorize the man before me, but the pain in my shoulder kept me obedient to him.

              “I don’t want to go to the hospital.” I rolled my head toward him. The ambulance doors flew open and several men jumped out the back carrying medical cases over to me.

              “I know, baby, but you have to.” I wasn’t prepared for the tenderness in his voice. 

              I closed my eyes for a minute, letting Jackson do what he did best—take care of me. I didn’t want him to, I wanted to shove him away and scream, but the pain in my shoulder started to shoot down my back, and my face hurt. 

              The paramedics made quick work asking me too many questions to answer, and prodding me everywhere before they agreed to let me out of the car. When I tried to stand up on my own, the hulky men quickly pushed me onto a gurney and started strapping me down. I fought against the restraints, but quickly let them subdue me when I heard Jackson arguing with one of the paramedics.

              “Like hell I’m not going with.”

              “Follow us to the hospital. You can see her there.”

              I wanted to argue with him, to tell him to just go home and not to bother following me, but my head hurt too much and I wanted to close my eyes just for a second, rest my eyes for just a minute.

***

              An annoying beeping pulled me from sleep. My eyes fluttering open took more energy than it should have to make such a simple movement. Moving my head turned out to be a bad decision on my part, a blinding pain shot through me. 

              “Anna.” That soft voice. So familiar. “Anna, don’t move too much. They haven’t come back in yet with the x-ray results.”

              The vision in front of me slowly came into view. Jackson. His hair was longer than the last time I saw him. That horrible morning so many years ago. Shaggier, too. It took away some of the fierceness of his square jaw and firm set eyes, but he still looked like a force to be wary of. He always had that look. Everyone else saw it, hallways would clear for him in high school. I never saw anything but the gentle side of him, then again, he’d never turned those dark eyes on me before.

              “Go away,” I managed to whisper. Remembering how quickly he dismissed me earlier brought a new sort of pain to my chest. The lingering sort that wouldn’t be fixed with a little white pill.

              “I’m not leaving.” I assumed he was smiling by the lightness of his voice, but I refused to look at him again. “Anna.” His hand touched my arm, sending a jolt of electricity through my skin.

              “Excuse me, but visitors aren’t allowed back here.” A nurse marched into the room, pushing a small cart with her. “Only family is allowed. Are you family?” I looked up at her, seeing her glare down at Jackson. The woman didn’t know who she was going up against.

              “Please, go.” I pulled my arm away from his hand.

              “Sir.”

              “Give me a minute,” he growled at the nurse. She probably dealt with a dozen stubborn family members a day, so she didn’t appear to be the slightest bit afraid of his scowl. I had to give her credit for bravery, not many people could say they stood up to him when he had that look on his face.

              “Are you a family member or not?” She placed her hand on her hip and stared back at him. I didn’t turn to see his expression, but I could feel the anger starting to roll off of him. 

              “He’s not. But can I have just a minute with him before you kick him out?” Who knew why I came to his rescue, maybe because all those years ago he had done even more for me. A lot more. Saving him from the wrath of one overworked and underpaid nurse didn’t seem that big of an act when compared to all of the times he came to my aid when we were kids.

              With a raised eyebrow she moved her glare from him to me. Although her expression softened, the firmness of her tone didn’t decrease. “Fine. Just a few minutes. You got banged up pretty badly, and until that doctor gives the all clear, you don’t need anyone coming in here giving you all sorts of trouble.”

              “I know.” I couldn’t help but smile at the thickness of her attitude.

              “And that one is all trouble.” She pointed at Jackson then turned on her heel and marched out of the room, yanking the curtain around my bed to give us some privacy.

              “Battle axe,” I heard Jackson mutter, but didn’t respond to him. My shoulder burned when I tried to turn toward him and stilled. He jumped from his seat and hovered over me. “What is it? Where does it hurt? I told you not to move it.” If I hadn’t been so mad at him, I would have laughed at his overprotective side shining through.

              “It’s fine, Jackson. I probably just banged it up real good. I’m fine. Really. Sit down.” I tried to shove him away with my good hand, but he captured it and easily pinned it down to the bed.

              “Quit squirming,” he ordered me with a dark stare. Knowing him well enough to know he wasn’t going to release me until I complied, I nodded. Satisfied, he released my hand and sat back in his chair. I did my best to ignore the tingling his touch left behind. “Do you have any enemies? Someone who is trying to get back at you for something?” I didn’t miss the accusatory tone in his voice and it pissed me off more.

              “No, Jackson. Making enemies, that’s your MO, not mine.” My little outburst sent another sharp pain through my shoulder. “It was just a hit and run. Why would someone want to hurt me?” I gave him a pointed look. His piercing stare wasn’t easy to hold for long, and I ended up caving, looking away from him.

              “Think about it. Anyone at work? Some ex-boyfriend?”

              Ex-boyfriend? Right. “If anyone was going to run over anyone after my last breakup, it would be me driving over his cheating body.” A flash of anger courses through his eyes, settling in his expression, but I didn’t know if it was the idea of me having a boyfriend or that he cheated on me that pissed him off.

              “Some idiot cheated on you?” The gravity of his tone struck me. Could this man who just tried to throw me out of his life after seven years of hiding from me actually still care?

              “It’s no big deal.” I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to ignore the pain in my shoulder. It was getting worse and the pain meds they gave me, if they gave any at all, had worn off. “It’s not an ex. And other than one guy at school being mad because I got the intern placement he wanted, there’s no one at school. I don’t think anyone at the women’s shelter would do something like this.”

              “What women’s shelter? Is that where you’re staying?”

              “I work there. I tutor the residents at night, help put together resumes, babysit some of the kids while their mom’s go on interviews. That sort of thing.” He stared at me, his eyes softening. When we were kids, he told me time and again to get my mom to leave my step-dad, to run to one of the shelters in town. I even managed to get my mom to think about it once, but Gerald had heard us talking. He promised to stop drinking so much, to get some help for his temper. And for a solid week it was going fine, but then he stopped for a drink with his friends. I heard him come home, I heard him throw his fist into my mom’s stomach. When I tried to intervene, I felt his rage on my back, too. He promised he’d find us if we ran away from him. He’d drag us from the shelter and we’d have more than a few bruises to show for his trouble. Mom wouldn’t listen to a word about the shelter after that.

              “You can’t make much—”

              “Why are you here, Jackson? Didn’t you tell me to go home? That it was better for me to stay away from you?” Tears sprang to my eyes remembering his words. He dragged his hand through his hair and blew out a long breath.

              “Whoever hit you did it on purpose. What about the guy from school?” he pressed on, ignoring the topic of him tossing me out.

              “He wanted the intern spot I got. Of course he’s pissed, but I doubt he’d try to kill me. It was an accident, Jackson. It happens.” Where the hell was the doctor? I needed to get home and get ready for work. Sheryl at the shelter needed to get her resume finished so she could take it to the job placement center in the morning. I couldn’t spend all night in the hospital, and getting Jackson away from me would help me focus much better.

              “Ms. Nielsen, I have your test results here. Nothing broken, thankfully.” The distracted doctor said as he walked in, keeping his face buried in the chart in his hands. He hadn’t even looked up at me yet. “Just a terribly banged up arm. You may have torn your rotator cuff, but without an MRI I won’t know for certain. I’m going to give you some pain medications, and a sleeve to keep your shoulder stabilized to give it some time to heal on its own. If you still have pain after a week, you should see an orthopedic surgeon.”

              “Why not do the MRI now?” Jackson interjected. I shook my head. My insurance wasn’t the greatest, and I wasn’t even positive it would cover the emergency room visit. The last thing I needed was more bills.

              “We can if you’d like, but there are a few patients a head of you, and I really do think it can wait.”

              “It’s fine. Thank you. So, I can go home now?” I put my hand up to keep Jackson from interfering again. I knew where his thoughts were headed, and if we didn’t get out of there soon, he’d be demanding the doctor wheel me down to the MRI room immediately and personally.             

              The doctor looked up from the papers, eyeing Jackson, and gave a nod. “Yes. The nurse will be in with your prescription. You should rest today, no heavy lifting for two weeks.”