Whiskey Neat (The Uncertain Saints MC Book 1) (13 page)

I found them on the floor behind the counter, one resting upright next to the wall, and the other upside down partially underneath the counter.

I slipped them on, and headed to the front door where Griffin was already swinging the door open wide for his friends.

“What’s up?” Griffin asked the two men.

I couldn’t see them very well.

Their backs were to the outdoor lights, so all they really looked were glowing shadows.

“You need to get to the clubhouse…now,” the one on the left said.

“Okay,” Griffin said.

That was it.

There were
no ‘why’s’ or ‘what for’s?’ Only, ‘
okay,
’ from Griffin.

“Bring your girl,” the one on the right said this time.

My brows rose to about fifteen feet past my hairline.

I wasn’t theirs to command.

I was my own person, and I was the one who made the decision about where I would be going.

But, apparently, I was Griffin’s to command.

Something I found out only moments later.

“Let’s go,” he growled, pulling me along.

I didn’t get my purse.

Nor my phone.

It all sat on the counter next to my computer that was still on.

I hadn’t emptied the till.

I hadn’t turned out the lights hanging over the dildos.

Nothing.

All I got was a yank on the arm and I was made to follow Griffin and the two men.

A twenty-minute ride later did nothing to improve my mood. I held onto Griffin’s body, reluctantly, as we made the last turn into the ‘clubhouse.’

And I hated it instantly.

I could smell the water of Caddo Lake.

I could practically feel the slithery, slimy things trying to get to me.

The dark night air pressed on my body like a second skin, and I wanted to cry.

I really,
really
hated the lake.

Had I mentioned that?

No, hate wasn’t a strong enough word for the revulsion I felt when it came to that particular body of water.

I detested the lake.

When I was fifteen, my father and I used to go on regular runs to the Lake and the bayou.

We’d fish.

We’d laugh.

We’d have fun.

But one day on a particular fishing excursion, it hadn’t been our usual.

That day wasn’t the nicest.

It was dark.

Really dark.

And I’d been reluctant to go out with my father, but I hadn’t wanted him to go alone.

So I’d gone with him.

My father had an old boat.

It wasn’t the prettiest, but it ran like a top…until it didn’t.

We’d gotten out on the lake, about four miles out from our truck, and the boat had started that puttering sound.

You know the sound.

All vehicles make that sound when they aren’t working correctly, and my father’s boat was not an exception.

So there we were, four miles out, when the sky opened up.

It was raining terribly, and the water in the boat was filling up fast.

My heart had started pounding as I used the lid of my dad’s tackle box to start bailing out water.

It did no good.

Within less than thirty minutes, the boat was so filled with water that we had no other recourse but to get out and swim.

“Get off, Queenie,” Griffin rumbled, startling me out of my personal hell.

I tried to shake off the past, but I was still scared as hell.

I hadn’t been this close to the lake for nearly ten years.

In fact, since that day, which also happened to be the eve of my fifteenth birthday.

And my birthday was five days away.

It was too close for comfort for me.

I held onto Griffin’s arm tightly, unintentionally digging my nails into his skin. When he tried to remove his wrist from my grip, I started to hyperventilate.

“Your girl’s about to run,” one men who’d driven beside us the entire way here, said.

I was beyond caring at that point, though.

Mostly because I could hear the soft swells of the water lapping against the shore getting closer and closer, and I was fairly sure I was about to have a full on panic attack any second.

Griffin, of course, misunderstood my fear.

He thought I was scared because I was at his clubhouse.

And he was getting pissed.

“Would I ever fuckin’ hurt you, Lenore?” He growled, pulling me closer.

I couldn’t see him.

My eyes blurred with my tears.

My breathing became choppy, and my face was now slicked with a thin layer of sweat.

“Lenore,” he growled, yanking his hand from my grip and placing both of his big hands on my face. “What the fuck?”

My knees buckled.

“Mother fucker,” he growled. “Goddammit. Mig, go get the fuckin’ door.”

The moment his foot stepped onto the dock I passed out.

And then it was just the darkness of sweet nothingness.

“You didn’t have to kidnap her,” a deep voice growled.

“I didn’t fuckin’ kidnap her. She was fine until we pulled into the parking lot,” Griffin said defensively.

“She’s going to think we’re a bunch of thugs who kill people,” another added.

“We do.”

I didn’t want to touch that one.

Reluctantly, I opened my eyes, and immediately squeaked in surprise when I saw Griffin’s face nearly touching my own.

His eyes were lined up with mine, and I was breathing in the air he was exhaling.

“You okay?” He asked.

“Y-yeah,” I croaked. “What happened?”

His brows rose. “You passed out when we pulled into the parking lot.”

Then the realization of what I’d done dawned.

“Shit,” I groaned. “I’m sorry.”

“What was that all about,” he asked, holding his hand out for me to sit up.

I took his offered hand and sat up, swinging my legs over the side of the couch and took in the room.

We were in a huge, open floor plan house.

I was sitting on a couch in the middle of the living room, and directly in front of me was the kitchen.

I knew I would find an open window that would look out onto the lake, so I stayed directly where I was, not moving a muscle.

“Are there blinds on that window behind me?” I asked, staring at four men standing at the kitchen counter.

“Mig, hit the blinds,” Griffin said, not waiting to see why he had to close the blinds.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I heard them close in the next instant.

I finally started to take in the room once I realized it was safe.

There were five men and one woman spread sporadically around the room now, and I was rendered breathless when I took the men in.

Every one of them was handsome.

Every. Single. One.

Even the older one with all the tattoos with the woman standing at his side.

They were standing closest to the door, and watching me with varied expressions on their faces.

Sorrow.

Annoyance.

Understanding.

Anger.

Indifference.

Griffin, though, looked like I’d killed his pet bunny.

“What’s wrong with you?” I asked worriedly.

“I’m not going to fucking kill you.”

I raised a brow at his tone.

“I never said you were,” I countered.

His eyes narrowed. “Then why are you passing out at the thought of coming here?”

I laughed in his face.

And he didn’t like it if the way his face darkened was any indication.

“I’m not scared of you, or your big…
f-friends
,” I said, looking around the room at the men who didn’t hide the fact that they were listening to our conversation. “I’m scared shitless of the lake. Which you have me on. Literally on. Can’t stand the lake. It gives me heart palpitations.”

Griffin’s brows lowered. “You were just at the lake with me at the diner.”

I knew he was thinking I was lying, but I wasn’t.

“First off, that was the
daytime
. I could see exactly where I was. Secondly, I couldn’t see the lake. Big – no
huge
– difference,” I informed him.

His brows rose. “Really? You’re that scared of the lake? Why?”

“How long have you been in Uncertain?” I asked him.

That was probably something one should know if they were sleeping with the man, but I didn’t. We’d never got to many personal questions.

And it was embarrassing to ask that in front of his friends.

“Year or so,” he answered.

I nodded, turning to the other men.

“How about you?” I asked Mr. Pissy in the corner.

He was really pissy looking, too.

What had I done to him?

But he answered. “Year or so.”

I nodded, turning to the next man, Mr. Indifference. “You?”

“Two.”

Moving to the next man, Mr. Sleepy who looked like he wasn’t affected by anything, ever, I asked. “You?”

“Six,” he said with a yawn.

I nodded and moved on to Mr. Sorrow.

“Five,” he answered without me asking.

Finally, I settled on Mr. Understanding.

“You?” I asked softly.

“Twelve.”

He was the oldest.

And he was also the only one with a woman at his side.

“Ahh,” I said. “Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner! You know who I am, don’t you?”

He nodded. “Yeah, I knew the moment he brought you inside.”

Most did if they lived around here.

I was the girl who killed the largest alligator on record in Caddo’s history, an almost fifteen-foot, nine-hundred-eighty-two-point-four-pound monster.

Out of self-defense, of course.

“What are you talking about, Peek?” Griffin asked, finally standing up to face the man by the door.

The woman patted his arm and walked to a computer in the corner, typing as fast as she could.

Her fingers were a whirlwind as she typed, and I jumped when a screen started to lower from the ceiling directly in front of me.

“Whoa,” I breathed.

Then I winced when I saw the picture.

It was awful.

I looked like a big pile of shit.

My hair was sporting dirt and twigs. I had dirt smudged on my face. My jeans. My white shirt. I’d smelled god awful that day, too.

And directly behind me was the most massive alligator I’d ever seen in my life.

She was being hoisted in the air by a forklift.

Her massive jaws were clamped shut with about two thousand feet of duct tape.

Her beady, black, dead eyes were staring off directly at the camera as I stood with the gun slung over my shoulder.

“What the fuck. You killed that?” Mr. Pissy asked.

I looked over to him.

“Yeah,” I croaked, turning away from the screen.

And in doing so, I caught a fantastic glimpse of Griffin’s ass.

His jeans were really tight.

And I could see the gun at his back very clearly, even though I was sure it was supposed to be concealed.

“That’s gotta be a record, huh?” He asked.

“You don’t even know the half of it, Mig,” the man Griffin had called Peek, said.

No, that was right.

He didn’t.

“So enlighten us,” another voice ordered.

This one from the other side of Griffin.

Mr. Sleepy who didn’t look very sleepy anymore.

He was also the one I’d seen with Griffin at the bar.

Wolf was his name.

The man who’d taken over Griffin’s son’s case.

I shivered when I thought about recounting the story, but they all looked so eager that it was hard to say no, so I didn’t.

“When I was nearly fifteen I went to check trot lines with my father, about four miles past the one fifty-five boat ramp,” I started, my remembrance putting me back into what I’d felt that day. “It was threatening to rain, but I went with my dad anyway because I didn’t like him having to go alone.

“His boat broke down about four miles upstream, and the skies opened up around the same time. It was raining so hard and fast that the boat started to fill up,” I explained. “It was a small flat bottom with one of those huge motors people use to get them into the places that don’t have much water.”

“Muddy Buddy,” Mr. Indifference answered.

I nodded, the name sounding familiar, and looked up at Griffin whose blue eyes were watching me avidly.

“Yeah, that,” I nodded, keeping my eyes connected with Griffin’s. “The rain just kept coming down, filling the boat, until it finally couldn’t hold any more. I was trying to bail us out, but it was useless, like trying to empty a pool with a spoon, “I replied with a sad, slow shake of my head as I recalled just how hard I had tried. “We sank.” I swallowed. “I had my father’s two twenty-three across my shoulders.”

“So what’d you do?” Griffin asked.

“Swam. Luckily, the life jackets hadn’t been tied into the boat, so they floated up,” I answered. “My dad made me put on the vest, and we swam until I just couldn’t swim anymore.”

“Then what?” Wolf asked.

“We got off on the bank, resting against on old abandoned dock,” I told them. “Didn’t notice the huge gator slides…nor the huge nest of alligator eggs that were nestled in the rotting dock.”

“When
did
you notice?” Griffin asked, his face starting to pale.

I stiffened as I recalled those first horrific moments.

“When the gator pulled my dad off the dock by his upper torso,” I answered.

Gasps filled the room.

“My dad was under before I even realized it,” I said. “And I didn’t know what to do. I knew from experience that the lake was over forty feet deep, and that’s what gators do. They take their victims to the bottom and drown them.”

Griffin’s eyes looked pained.

“But the gator let my dad go, coming back for me, since her nest was still in jeopardy,” I whispered. “But I was waiting for her. The moment she came out of the water like those huge whales do at Sea World, I shot her head full of two twenty-three rounds.”

“You killed her?” Mig asked.

I nodded. “Yep.”

I remembered how the alligator had come to rest half on, half off the dock.

The only thing in the water was her huge, fat tail.

“And your dad?”

I looked over at the man who’d asked.

“He wasn’t breathing,” I answered. “He’d floated up to the top of the water and downstream about thirty yards,” I shivered. “I had to swim into the murky water to go get him, but I managed to bring him back to the dock. I pulled him directly onto the bank next to the huge gator.”