Chapter 14

“What on earth did you do to Ryan?” Jacey complained. “I ran into him at the gas station and he wouldn’t stop bitching.”

April stood at her kitchen sink and ran water over a colander full of potatoes. She was making cheesy scalloped potatoes for Joanna and her family, the old family recipe kind with the cream of celery soup and extra butter.

A foil-covered turkey already sat on her kitchen table in its roasting pan. There were two pies, one peach and one apple, which her sister Maggie had taught her how to make. A white ceramic baking dish brimming with green beans and onions waited in the oven. She wanted to bake the scalloped potatoes with it to save time.

But no matter how much chopping, baking and broiling she did, guilt continued to gnaw a hole in her stomach. And now Ryan was going around telling everyone what a horrible person she was.

April gouged the eyes out of a potato with the sharp end of her peeler. “I’m not in love with Ryan. And the last time I checked, that was our private business. I can’t believe he’s talking to everyone about it.”

“He said you were hot for somebody else,” Jacey replied. “But how can that be true? I’m your best friend. If there was some other guy, you would have told me.”

The peeler slipped and skidded over her finger. April gave a yelp and then the water at the bottom of the sink ran red. Jacey ran over to see what had happened.

“What is wrong with you?” Jacey asked, with her usual eye-rolling lack of sympathy for physical affliction. “You just dropped a glass, like, ten minutes ago. Are you drinking lattes again?”

April wrapped a paper towel around her thumb and applied pressure. “A little help for the wounded here? I have Band-Aids in the bathroom cabinet.”

The sound of Jacey’s voice receded as she went to find the Band-Aids, but it was all variations on the same theme: Why was April so clumsy all of a sudden, was she drinking lattes, and why would Ryan keep insisting there was some other guy she was hot for?

April stared at the blood seeping through the towel on her thumb. The pain hadn’t set in yet, but it would, just as the pain hadn’t set in yet with Brandon, but it would. Yesterday was…God help her, she couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Everything about yesterday had already taken on a dreamlike quality, including the ride back to her car. Matthew was sitting with Long Jon in the truck, waiting to follow Brandon the rest of the way home. She hadn’t wanted the day to end. With a heavy heart, she’d climbed off the bike.

But as she turned to go, Brandon grabbed her by the arm and said, “When can I see you again?”

“I can’t,” she’d replied, her voice catching.

“Baby, come on. We passed that exit miles ago.”

“You don’t understand. I took an oath of service.”

“That means you can’t have a personal life? Do they fucking own you even when you’re off?”

“If it means dating a client?” She bit her lip and looked down at the dull gleam of the road in the moonlight. “Yes.”

“I don’t accept that.”

“And they won’t accept this.”

Even in the darkness under the bridge, she could feel desire radiating off him in waves. Ignorant as she was of men, she knew Brandon’s interest was sincere. No, it was more than sincere. It was personal. And that was what made it impossible to resist.

All those women. All those nameless encounters. Few of them had been personal.

But this was.

“Then come to the house on Monday,” he said. “You can say you’re there for Matthew.”

She shuddered at the thought. It was bad enough that she was doing this at all. But to use her job as an excuse?

“Are you going to make me come get you at your house?” he asked her, and she knew he wasn’t joking.

The taste of him was still on her lips. In her blood. She must have been drunk with it when she said, “I’ll drive over after work on Monday and we can talk about it. But that’s as far as I go. Don’t expect more from me.”

Back in the real world, Jacey rattled the box of Band-Aids in her face. “April! I’ve been calling to you for five minutes. And here I thought I was the deaf one.”

“Sorry,” April said. “I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

Jacey peeled open a plastic bandage and then smoothed it around April’s thumb. “You’re probably just tired from all this stupid cooking. Who on earth is going to eat all this?”

“My boss,” April said. “She just had a baby and has a ton of other mouths to feed.” She returned to the sink and went to work on the potatoes again, more carefully this time, making sure she kept her fingers away from the peeler.

Jacey plopped down at the kitchen table, crossing long perfect legs that were tan even before summer, and scrolled through her phone. Her dark hair was in its usual glossy ponytail, thick enough so that the ends formed a clean, trimmed wedge. April couldn’t get her hair to do that because it was too straight to stay in the elastic band.

“Why does Ryan keep going on and on about this other guy?” Jacey asked her. “He went crazy about it for five minutes, which was a real drag because I hate all those fumes at the gas station and I really had to pee.”

April thought with a pang, I love the smell of gas stations. And now they will always remind me of Brandon. “I don’t know,” she said. “But Ryan won’t return my phone calls. I wish you would talk him out of hating me. It’s why I didn’t want to date him in the first place. I knew it wouldn’t work out and then he’d resent me for it.”

“Ryan’s not so bad.”

“I didn’t say that.” April glanced over at Jacey to make sure she heard her. Jacey couldn’t read her lips if her back was turned. “Please. Take him to lunch or something and explain that I’m just not ready to date anybody right now.”

As far as lies went, that wasn’t the worst. But it was her best friend she was lying to, just like it was her boss she was cooking dinner for, all to appease her guilt.

But which was worse? Saying no to a man she had the strongest imaginable attraction to—and would regret not being with for the rest of her life? Or telling a few lies?

She sliced a few more strips off the potato and felt her stomach tighten. Maybe the answer depended on which part of her body she asked.

“What happened to that guy at the shipping warehouse?” April asked, desperate to change the subject.

“Didn’t I tell you? He got fired. And he was so mad about it, he didn’t want to see me anymore. Said I reminded him of what happened.”

April looked over her shoulder at Jacey, but she didn’t seem too torn up about it. Jacey never was. When something bad happened, she never blamed herself. She just shrugged it off and went on living her life. In fact, if the shoe were on the other foot and Jacey were a caseworker attracted to a client? She’d probably keep right on dating him.

One of the many things April admired about Jacey was her refusal to beat herself up over stuff. But April knew what Jacey thought about her shy, scaredy-cat ways because Jacey never hesitated to tell her. If you don’t get out of your shell, April, pretty soon your shell will be too old to get out of.

Yet something told April that even Jacey would call her a fool for dating a guy like Brandon. She would say that April was out of her league, setting herself up for heartache, seeing only what she wanted to see. And it was probably true. She was in the deep end of the swimming pool and didn’t know how to swim.

No matter how many reasons April gave herself to not see Brandon, they all melted in the blast furnace of her desire for him. She wasn’t thinking clearly. Not anymore.

Because the awful truth was she couldn’t wait to see him again.

* * * *

The thing Brandon liked best about his house was the isolation. Except for that asshole farmer, there was no one around for at least a quarter of a mile. If April was ever going to feel comfortable coming out here, it would be because of the privacy. And Brandon loved everything about the idea of getting her out here.

She haunted his every waking moment. Even now, walking out to the garage, he remembered how she’d trembled when he kissed her. The soft warmth of her skin, her hair. The way she felt on the back of his bike. Sometimes it took more trust to share the saddle than it did to share a bed.

And he was determined to share a bed. Not because he wanted to be April’s first—he didn’t care about that. But because he just wanted April in whatever condition she came in, virgin, non-virgin, technically almost a virgin. People were way too hung up on that shit.

A woman you wanted as badly as he wanted her? Hell, that was just Christmas.

Yet he couldn’t shake a sense of impending doom. There would be a price to pay. There always was. He didn’t know what it was or when he would have to pay it, but guys like him never got to be with girls like her without the world demanding its pound of flesh. And cutting it out of him was going to be painful and bloody.

Even that wasn’t enough to put him off. Maybe he really had lost his fucking mind.

Maybe April was a dangerous obsession.

Brandon turned the corner to the garage and spotted something shiny in the distance, something that looked suspiciously like the chrome fender of a motorcycle glinting in the sun.

He squinted to get a better look at it. His Choctaw blood told him that whoever that was out there meant trouble. Long Jon was nowhere to be seen. Brandon had a premonition that Long Jon was talking to whatever douchebag owned that motorcycle and he might be about to do something stupid.

The gravel driveway leading to the garage wasn’t a long one. It stopped at a dirt farm road which ran in front of the property and had barely any traffic because of a dead end. On the other side of the road were open fields, blackbirds and telephone lines. Farmer Bill clanked away on his tractor in the distance.

Brandon started down the driveway and then toward the road where it ended in a thicket of trees. Sure enough, his old prison buddy Doc Thompson stood talking to Long Jon. Cutty was on the bike next to his parked one. When Brandon showed up, Cutty looked ready for takeoff, which might have had something to do with Brandon putting him in a chokehold last time they’d met.

Well, didn’t that just figure.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Brandon asked Doc. He didn’t bother looking at Cutty because Cutty wasn’t important enough to look at.

“Howdy-fucking-doo to you, too, McBride.” Doc crossed his arms and leaned back against his bike. “Still doin’ the grease monkey thing? Must feel real good, being all holy and law-abiding and above it all, right?”

Brandon swung his gaze to Long Jon, who had the grace to look away. He had the same expression Matthew had when Brandon caught him looking at porn on his cell phone.

“You wanted me to be a better friend to you?” Brandon said to Long Jon. “Well, here it is. Walk away from these assholes. Whatever it is they’re trying to talk you into, walk away.”

“Now why’d you have to go and interrupt our meeting like that?” Doc drawled. “Long Jon here strikes me as someone who’s more’n capable of thinking for himself.”

Brandon knew if it came right down to it and fists started flying, Long Jon would probably side with him. Doc knew it, too. Cutty was about as useful as a tit on a bull, so Doc couldn’t count on much help there.

“You’re still recruiting for that lame-ass bank job, aren’t you?” Brandon shook his head. “If it were worth even half a fuck, you’d think somebody would have taken you up on it by now.”

Long Jon rubbed the back of his neck before shoving both hands in his pockets the way he did when he was undecided about something.

“Goddamn, McBride, if you don’t mind me sayin’,” Doc told him, lifting one leg over his bike and dropping into the seat, “I wish you’d mind your own fucking business.”

If the odds of beating Brandon’s ass had been in his favor, Doc probably would have said something a lot more cutting. Brandon wouldn’t have backed down either way. He loved a good street fight. It was simple, fast, efficient, winner take all. And Brandon made sure he was always the winner.

“Don’t come around here anymore, Doc,” Brandon said. “You too, Cutty. If I see either one of you assholes again, I’ll smash your face in.”

Doc gave him a long look while throttling open the Harley. It was a look that clearly took his measure. Unlike Cutty, Doc was old enough to wait things out before coming back to get his revenge. He would, too. Brandon knew that. But for now they were on his turf. As he had proven more than once, the only man who could put him down would have to be toting an automatic weapon with enough firepower to level an entire city.

“That was stupid,” Brandon said to Long Jon after the two other men drove off. “What the fuck were you thinking?”

“It’s easy money,” Long Jon said sheepishly. “I’m running mighty low on funds.”

“How is going back to County going to solve your money problems?” Brandon replied. They walked up the driveway to the garage. “You know better than to do business with Doc and Cutty.”

“Yeah, but my bike still needs fixin’. Those parts ain’t cheap, you know.”

Brandon knew that was true. There were some parts he could cobble together out of Kleenex and spit, but there were others, like the transmission, that required a whole bunch of cold hard cash. And while he’d never charge a friend like Long Jon for fixing the Harley, he didn’t have the thousand bucks to buy him a new transmission either.

“Can’t you wait?” Brandon asked him. “Something’s bound to turn up. I’ve got money coming in this week. We’ll figure it out.”

Long Jon shook his head. “Listen to you! I don’t even know who you are anymore. Next thing I know, you’ll be wearing a helmet.”

“Like hell I will.” But Brandon didn’t take offense. He kind of liked laying low and staying out of trouble. When you weren’t running from the law all the time, you could focus on other things, like making sure your kid brother didn’t waste his time doing drugs and other juvie crap. Matthew hadn’t so much as jacked a vending machine in months.

“Besides,” Long Jon said with a sly grin. “I need to move outta here before you and April get too hot and heavy. The only thing worse than seeing you turn all law-abidin’ is seeing you in love.”