I continued to glare at her even as he grabbed the back of my shirt and started to haul me towards the door like he had when I was a kid. “Come on, Dash.”
Once we were back in the parking lot I wasted no time in swinging a leg over the Harley and pulling weight up off the kickstand. Jules put his hand over mine on the throttle and gave it a little squeeze.
“I know you think you should go after those men, that you want to defend your brother. I know you aren’t afraid of a fight, afraid of their close mindedness and bigotry, but if you start something, if you are the instigator that puts me in a tough spot, son . . .”
I shouldn’t be surprised that my intention to go knocking at every dive bar in the county until I found the guys that injured Dalen was clear on my face. I was still choking on rage and a desire for retribution for what had happened to Dalen. “They were looking for me and found Dalen instead. He got hurt because of me and I can’t let that slide.”
“Son, I know exactly what you are capable of and that could lead to trouble. You need to be smart and you need to think through whatever you do next. You may think just because you didn’t tell me where you were or what you were doing that I didn’t keep tabs on you. You’re my son, Dash. I’ve always known exactly where you were and what kind of hot spots you were in. I’m not too proud to use my badge and my position to get information that my son isn’t willing to share. I never wanted you to enlist because I didn’t think you were in a place where you could handle losing brothers in arms and seeing what the ravages of war can do to people. You’d already had so much death in your life I couldn’t believe you were actively chasing after more of it. I should have known back then that you were looking for a reason. Your mom and Caroline died senselessly, but when you went to the desert, well, that was death and destruction that made sense.” I stared at him like I was seeing him for the first time, which maybe I was. I hadn’t been trying to see through my darkness, I’d simply become comfortable in it, feeling my way around with my eyes squeezed shut. I was seeing a whole lot of things for what they were now that Dalen had prodded me hard enough to get them open. “I didn’t want you to be a solider, but dammit if you weren’t the best soldier you could be.”
I gritted my teeth and one by one uncurled my fingers from around the throttle. “We both know someone found those guys and sent them on a mission to give me a beat down. Someone called in that bogus call to you so that you were out of town and set this in motion. This is all tied to the stuff that’s been happening since Dixie and I left Denver.”
“I agree, but I still don’t think it tracks with a vendetta drug dealer might have with towards you.”
“Then what? I didn’t piss anyone else off in Denver except for a few drunks that got handsy with some of the ladies. I put the fear of God into an abusive boyfriend of one of the cocktail servers but he’s locked up now as well. So who could it be?”
Jules chuckled and reached out a hand so that he could grab my shoulder. He gave me a little shake and looked at me with lifted eyebrows. “You’re smart, Dash, so think it through. If you didn’t piss someone off in Denver and the trouble followed you from there then it must be the other person with the unseen adversary. Dixie is a sweetheart, but that doesn’t mean the whole world is in love with her. We all have skeletons, even if hers are pink and fluffy.”
I couldn’t imagine Dixie having any kind of enemy. She was everyone’s best friend. She was the constant cheerleader and sun that never stopped shining. “I’ll ask her. I doubt she’s got skeletons, pink or otherwise, but something’s gotta give before someone ends up dead.”
“I agree. I’m taking your brother to get him checked out and then dropping him off at the house.” He looked at me over his shoulder with a smirk. “That was a good call with the tape. Those are instincts not everyone has. You know that if you stick around we could always use another deputy on the force. You have more training than most of my guys and since you started off as an MP in the service all you would have to do is take the state’s test and do the physical.”
I stared at him for a long minute and then shook my head. “You didn’t want me to be a soldier but you’re okay with me being a cop?”
He gave a shrug as he stopped at the door of his patrol car. “What father doesn’t want his son to follow in his footsteps? I’m gonna send a cruiser out to Sassy’s. I’ll let you know when we round up the suspects, though something tells me you’re going to find them first. Make good choices, son.”
I stared after the car for a long minute until it was gone from sight. Every instinct I had was screaming at me to fire the Harley to life and go exact justice for my brother. My muscles were tense, my jaw was clenched, and my heart was beating so fast that it was all I could hear. I was used to letting my family down. I was comfortable doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. I promised Dalen I would show the fuck up and that was exactly what I was going to do.
Chapter 15
Dixie
I got Elma home without further incident. Getting the wheelchair inside took a little finessing and some muscle but I managed it. I made a mental note to ask Church if he was handy with a hammer and a saw because she was going to need a ramp to help her navigate coming in and out of the house until she was healed enough to use the walker. Once I had her comfortable on the surprisingly chic leather couch (no giant cabbage flowers or pastel prints for Elma Mae) with all her recorded shows fired up on a flat screen I knew most men would be envious of, I went to work finishing the laundry that had caused her tumble in the first place.
After I had that easy chore handled, I discovered that the hand rail leading up the stairs was loose, another thing I was putting on Church’s list of things to look at, and I asked for a rundown of other things I could help her with while we waited on Church to get back. He’d sent a message that Dalen was with Jules and that the cop had gone all kinds of protective parent and insisted the younger Churchill get his head checked out. My brooding biker was on his way back home now, and I could tell that Elma was excited to finally get some time with him.
She asked me to organize all the food that people from the community had brought by and stocked her fridge with. There was no way she was going to get to it all before it went bad, so she asked me to find something that would feed all of us, plus the nurse that was coming in and staying with her for dinner, and divvy up the rest and freeze it. She also asked me to water her flowers in the yard and to bring all the stuff she would need that was upstairs in her master bedroom downstairs since there was no way she was making that trip until the brace came off. Her kitchen was something that would leave even the Barefoot Contessa impressed, so it was no chore to bop around the fancy marble countertops and stainless steel appliances.
I left something that looked like a giant dish of lasagna in the fridge for dinner and then made my way outside to tackle the flowers as the sun was going down. Being from the city and living in an apartment most of my adult life I’d never had a garden. We were lucky to have a small square of grass in our front yard to play on when we were kids, so Elma Mae’s sprawling, lush landscape was like something out of a fairy tale. I had no problem picturing Alice and the Mad Hatter at tea amongst the flowers and fauna. I spent more time touching the velvety soft petals and smelling the fragrant blooms while daydreaming about the perfect intimate garden wedding than I did actually watering the plants. It was so very easy to get lost in all the wonderful things Church’s home had to offer that I couldn’t imagine how hurt and how scared he must have been to leave it all behind without a backwards glance. I knew he would hate it, but it made me feel sorry for him. He was absolutely right that there was a lot of goodness here to turn your back on.
Lost in my own little world I didn’t hear his bike or the heavy fall of his boots as he walked up behind me. I also must have tuned out him calling my name because when his hand landed on my shoulder it freaked me out. I jumped. I screamed. I flailed around like a lunatic and when I whipped around to confron
t my unseen assailant I sprayed him right in the face with the hose that was still dangling out of my hand.
Stunned that it was friend and not foe, I stood there with the hose trained on him as he swore at me, yelled my name, and tried to evade the water. It didn’t work. He was drenched. Head to toe, sopping wet as I gave him an unwanted shower. He snatched my wet weapon out of my hand and bent the green rubber until there was a kink in it big enough to stop the flow of water. He shook his sandy head, water droplets flinging every direction as those better than hazel eyes narrowed threateningly at me.
“Seriously?” He ran a hand over his face as I struggled to contain a laugh. The humor died when he shrugged out of his soggy leather jacket with a grimace, leaving him in nothing more than a soaking wet T-shirt that clung to every defined muscle he had. The boy looked good without even trying, get him wet and make him a little angry and everything that made me a girl sat up and took notice. Jeans that clung to all the parts of him that I didn’t want to share made my mouth water and my cheeks pink. I wanted to snap a picture of him so I had it when real Church was gone and battery operated Church was all I had left. Hell, I might not even need the vibrator. The picture would be enough to get off on.
He shook his head again and swiped a hand down the back of his neck, where water was rolling down the collar of his shirt. “Didn’t you hear me calling your name?”
I threw up my hands in exasperation. “Obviously not. You scared me.”
He looked down at his dripping front side and then back up at me with a smirk. “Are you sure you didn’t just want to get me wet?”
I laughed and let my eyes roll over him in an obvious way. “I mean, I’m sorry-not-sorry that I got you all wet.”
One of his eyebrows quirked upwards and I felt like an idiot for not knowing exactly what was coming next. Before I could let out a sound or put my hands up in a defense he let go of the hose and I was hit in the face with an onslaught of water. It was cold, so I squealed and he was too fast for me to evade when I darted to the side to escape the spray. The chilly wetness stuck my shirt to my chest and had my curls falling heavily into my face.
“Stop!” I held my hands up in surrender and barked out the order over a laugh. I had to shake my hair out of my eyes to look up at him and when I did my knees almost buckled. It wasn’t a full smile; the light didn’t reach his eyes or shine out of him and it didn’t make his perpetual scowl lighten up, but man oh man, did it transform his face from something beautiful to something that was better than beautiful. The barest hint of his teeth, the tiniest indent in his cheek that hinted at the fact he was probably hiding a dimple or two, the lift of his brow from frowning to not . . . it all made my heart turn inside out and solidified that I might want him for myself but I wanted that smile for the rest of the world. No one should be kept from something so stunningly special.
While I was enraptured and unable to move he made his way over to the spigot to turn the water off. When he came back his shirt was in his hand and the late afternoon sun was kissing his bronze shoulders, making him look like an ancient bronze statue come to life. “What were you daydreaming about so hard that you didn’t hear the Harley or your name?” It was an innocent enough question but one I wasn’t going to answer truthfully because he didn’t need to know that I had him standing at a flower-covered arch in Elma’s yard waiting for me to walk down the aisle towards him. I was afraid that would kill that glorious smile when it was so newly resurrected.
“Uh . . . I had a little run-in at the hospital.” I pulled the front of my sticking T-shirt away from my stomach and wrung it out in my hands. It would serve him right if I pulled the thing off in front of God and everyone but I didn’t want to give Elma Mae a reason to go back to being nasty to me. I was sure a half-naked redhead running around her yard would have the neighbors talking, that was if they could get past all the golden glory that was Church.
“What kind of run-in?” His rumbling voice dropped lower and all the humor fell away from his handsome face. Leaving the grumpy, glowering one I was so familiar with back in place. “Elma Mae still giving you the business?”
I shook my head, which sent water flying in all directions. He had to step back to avoid getting wet. “No. We came to a truce. She was testing me and I finally stood my ground and passed. We’re pretty much best friends now.” I wiggled my eyebrows at him but his stern expression didn’t waver.
“What happened at the hospital, Dixie?” There was no room for argument or further beating around the bush.
“I was in the parking lot moving the truck and I had my head in the clouds as usual.” I was daydreaming about him then as well. It was like an addiction; one I was going to have to quit cold turkey pretty soon. “This black SUV came roaring out of a parking spot a few yards away. They almost hit me. It was close enough I could see my reflection in the door. There were no other cars around because I parked that big-ass truck like shit, so it was obviously deliberate.” I held up a hand before he could speak. “And no, I didn’t get a look at the driver or a license plate because I was too busy thanking my lucky stars I didn’t get run over.”
“Dixie.” My name was coated in concern and exasperation. He dropped his soggy T-shirt to the grass and reached out and pulled me to his bare chest. I was so stunned I didn’t immediately react because I couldn’t believe he was hugging me of his own volition. “Are you okay?”
I let out a shaky sigh and leaned into him. His skin was like warm silk stretched over iron and stone as I rested my cheek on his naked pec. I wrapped my arms around his narrow waist and let my fingers trace lazily over the twin little indentations that rested right above his backside. It was the best hug I’d ever had in my life, partly because I hadn’t had to ask for it, it’d just been given, but mostly because it came from him and I knew a few days ago there was no way that he would have willingly pulled me into his arms. He cared. He might not care the way I wanted him to, but he cared nonetheless.
“I’m okay. It shook me up a little and it made me nervous to have Elma in the truck with me on the way back here but nothing else happened.” At least nothing else happened that I was aware of.
“You know all of this is connected somehow, right? You almost getting run down, someone setting the good ole boys on me and getting Dalen instead. Someone is mad we left Denver and the more incidents that occur the more it seems like someone is downright pissed we left together. My drug dealer seems unlikely but Jules is going to check into him and I spent all afternoon looking for the boys that put a beating on my brother but they must have gone to ground, so there won’t be answers from them until I find them. This all feels like it might point to someone you rubbed the wrong way, pretty girl.”
I jerked back and looked up at him with wide eyes. “I don’t rub people the wrong way, Church.” In fact, I went out of my way to make sure I didn’t.
He grunted and lifted his hands so that he could tunnel his fingers through the damp spirals that were a kinky mess all over my head. He used his palms to tilt my head back even farther so that we were staring into each other’s eyes. “I know you don’t think you do but I need you to think back, is there anyone that gave you any kind of bad vibes lately? Anyone from the bar seem unusually irritated or annoyed at you? I know you’ve been online dating and there can be some real oddballs on the internet. Did any of your dates strike you as strange or off?” I wanted to squirm after he asked the question. I wanted to forget the disaster online dating had been and I wanted to forget the reason I had been so desperate in the first place was because of his irrational fear of getting close to anyone.
“There were only a handful and they were all pretty weird.” I let my hands fall from around his waist and went to take a step back but he wouldn’t let me go. His multicolored gaze kept me rooted to the spot as he told me to explain what I meant by weird. I groaned and raised my hands to hold on to his wrists while I talked.
“The first guy seemed nice enough but halfway through dinner I wen
t to the bathroom and when I came back he was gone and so was my wallet. He took it right out of my purse and disappeared.”
“The fuck?” His outraged growl actually made me smile.
“Yeah well, I preferred him to the next guy, who never bothered to disclose that he was married and that he and his wife were swingers looking for a third to play with while the kids were out of town. He also used a picture that was wayyy out of date, because when I went to meet him I hardly recognized him. He was like . . . the same age as my dad.” I wrinkled my nose at the memory as Church swore again and tightened his hands on the sides of my head.
“The last guy was actually very nice. He was quiet. He was shy. I don’t think he’d ever been on a date before.” His eyes narrowed to slits and his mouth pulled down into a frown that I was sure had scared men that were far bigger and fiercer than I would ever be. “I might have given him a chance, or at the very least a second date if—” I paused as an animalistic sound rumbled loud and possessive out of his chest. “If he hadn’t brought his mother along with him. Our entire date was chaperoned and monitored, and while he was nice enough she was a shrew and a bully.” I felt my brows draw together as memories of that evening played through my mind. “In fact she was angry when I wouldn’t let them into my apartment for a drink. Way angrier than the situation called for. It was obvious that she was the one that set the date up and was the driving force behind it, so she was far more upset than he was when I pulled the plug.”
“You got a name on the mother and son duo? It may be a long shot but it’s as good a place to start as any.”
“But that’s crazy. It wasn’t even a real date. She couldn’t really have been so angry that she followed us down here and tried to run us off the road. Who does that?”
He leaned forward and kissed my forehead before stepping back and rolling his heavy shoulders. “You’d be surprised how little it takes to set someone off, especially if they’ve only got one oar in the water.”