Shelter From The Storm (The Bare Bones MC Book 6) Page 7

  I’d had many a piece glued to my head in my time, but this guy seemed like more of a loose cannon than most. He definitely didn’t have all the dots on his dice. It was one of those situations where he had a piece, and I had a piece—a literal Mexican standoff. However, his barrel was closer to my brains. “Through the grapevine, ese!” I could’ve probably buried him faster than he could me, but it wasn’t worth taking the chance. “Those are the guys threatening to go to the pigs, not me.” I tossed my head in Wolf’s direction.

  That did the trick. Ruben turned his irate, huffing face onto the sludge pond and in an instant, had blown the arm off one of the stiffs across the water. I was sure he meant to plug the guy in the head, but with that idiotic gangsta side grip he used, it was much harder to aim.

  “That’s what I think of your fucking Eminence Front,” he snarled, referring to Lytton’s famed pot. He shot again, getting another arm. I was almost entirely sure that dirt berm would be a sufficient shield for Wolf. I was rewarded when he waggled the arm of the remaining corpse, in a wobbly sort of “fuck you” gesture.

  Ruben shot at that body. Again, he got an arm, so he kept shooting. A leg. Another leg. Just the berm. An arm. Oh, a head.

  Trying to calm Ruben down, I said, “You definitely gave them outlaw justice. I’ll give your message to Dr. Driving Hawk. You’d like to open up a dialogue.”

  “There’s my fucking dialogue,” growled Ruben, plugging the berm a few more times for good measure.

  “I’ll tell him you refuse to pay for his burned shipment,” I said with the utmost respect. I could’ve taken him out now, he was so preoccupied with taking his anger out on a pile of dirt. I hoped Wolf had given up playing puppet master by now and was crawling back around the side where we’d parked our rides behind a shed.

  Ruben lifted his chin at his two associates. “Ir a buscar los cadavers.” Go get those bodies. The two guys trotted off, and Ruben shoved his piece down his pants. You tell Lytton I’m sorry, but this means war. It’s every man for himself out in this desert, eh?”

  I nodded. I actually couldn’t agree more. I stuck my piece back into my 501s, too, and shook his hand. “I’ll pass the word along.”

  “We’re good,” said Ruben.

  We went our separate ways. The fact still remained that Ochoas had buried three Bare Bones men, not just once like normal narcos, but now twice. And he’d destroyed a shipment of grade A pot that had been destined for Phoenix dispensaries.

  From the shed I could see Wolf continue to crawl on hands and knees along the berm. I waved an arm at him to hurry up. He ran half-crouched the rest of the way.

  “Oh, man! I am so going to impress Tracy with what I just did!”

  I was actually impressed, too. I jammed on my lid and started my scoot. “We’d better rip it out of here. Ruben’s about to find out those guys were already dead.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  PIPPA

  We were walking out to our targets to collect our arrows when I dared ask Wolf Glaser what had happened the other day.

  I mean, I knew better than to outright ask anyone associated with The Bare Bones what was going on. That was a given. It was a man’s world for better or worse, and sometimes I didn’t even dare ask Madison or June what was up. Men rushed around whispering in each other’s ears or making signs with their eyes. They gathered in separate groups to talk about stuff I was certain was more interesting than what we women discussed.

  But today I had the nerve. It had been four days since Fox had lifted me up to grab the arrow in the wall. I hadn’t seen him, even though I’d been hanging around The Bum Steer, Leaves of Grass, and now I was up behind their enormous airplane hangar, The Citadel. Fox simply wasn’t around, and it was not my place to ask about him. Had he accomplished his task for Lytton and gone back to—wherever the hell it was he came from? My hunger for him had ballooned into a painful jones that had me thinking about him every five minutes. My work was fascinating, learning the particulars of the pot trade. But even a lesson on feminized clones didn’t distract me for more than four minutes, and my mind was back on his muscular ass, the carved ripple of his abs, the meaning behind the Ezekiel verse on his back.

  “There was something Fox said about an explosion?” I said meekly. I was too weak to pull my arrows from the hay bales—hell, I was a biochemist, not an athlete—so I had to use this rubber clamp thing to yank them. Even then, I was straining so badly I had to put my knee against the target.

  Wolf frowned. “Explosion?”

  I lowered my voice. Slushy and a real buff, macho older guy named Sax were taking their arrows out of two more bales ten yards farther than ours. “The other day, at The Hip Quiver. Fox said there was an explosion, and the two of you ran off.”

  “Oh. That.” He sauntered over, sticking his arrows into his own hip quiver that was slung jauntily around his waist. Then he babbled like a boy on Christmas Eve. “Yeah, it was something! One of the Leaves of Grass transport trucks exploded! Well, it didn’t spontaneously explode. Someone firebombed it to sabotage our weed shipment. Just to be assholes. It was acramazing.” To add to my hot and bothered mood, Wolf easily whipped my six arrows from the bale like taking candles from a cake. He grinned ear to ear as he handed me the whole sheaf.

  “Oh. So I guess you guys…finished whatever you needed to do?”

  Wolf lost the grin, and huffed. “Just ask what you want to know, woman. We like plain talk around here.”

  “Do you? I mean, every time I accidentally ask a question about Lytton, or Ford, or even about August who isn’t even a member of the motorcycle club, I get hit with this stony stare. Like I was asking for a backdoor into a terrorist’s cellphone logs.”

  “You want to know where Fox went.” Wolf started walking back to the shooting line, and I had to jog to keep up. “Just speak plain English! Women never fail to amaze me with their roundabout, backstabbing, completely obtuse—”

  “Yes,” I cried to get Wolf back on track. “That’s what I want to know. I don’t really care about your business. I want to know if Fox is still around.”

  “I thought as much. You know, women and cats will do as they please. Men and dogs should just relax and get used to the idea.”

  “Actually, in this case it’s the men who are doing as they pl—”

  “Ah, women are like a scaly wall, unable to be climbed!” Wolf froze, his fist accusing God of wrongdoing. “Wait. Women are like a fortress you cannot destroy. Wait.”

  “Tracy again?” Slushy and Sax had returned their arrows to the arrow holders, so I followed suit and took my bow off the rack. “Maybe you should date someone else, Wolf. Get your mind off Tracy.”

  “Who said it was about Tracy? Weren’t we talking about Fox? You know, why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?”

  I paused, about to nock an arrow. “Why buy a pig just to get a little sausage?”

  Wolf looked confused, so I shot.

  Aside from getting me away from my work, I was really enjoying archery. The indoor range was all right, but someone had set up this whole outdoor range behind the hangar, and it was like being on the moon. Maddie told me that hippies often came up there to meditate, believing it to be a powerful vortex for their kundalini or some such horseshit. I could see why, though. The vista was open for miles, a vast landscape of sandstone castles formed by eons of wind. The Army, of course, had chosen the best site for their airbase back in the early twentieth century. The whole base was shut down, mothballed, being turned over to civilian use. A few facilities still housed Navy men, and I’d seen some officers with government plates. The Bare Bones had just taken over one of their unused hangars, and it came with views a realtor would give her left bunghole for.

  “Anyway,” said Wolf, effortlessly getting another bullseye, “Fox is still around. We haven’t completed our op yet. He’s staying with Lytton and June.”

  My arrow went wild. I had “thrown it away,” as Fox would say, and damned good thing someone
had built up that earthen mound behind the bales. Or someone in the not-so-nearby town of Cottonwood would be running around like William Tell’s son.

  What the fuck? Fox was staying in the same house as June? The girl I spent hours talking to each day? And she hadn’t bothered to mention it to me? I’d told her how Fox had saved me from a ticket, although I’d left out the part about his lawyer background just in case he was entrusting me with a secret. I’d like to think so, anyway.

  I’d spoken of him in glowing tones to June. I’d even asked a few blunt questions, like was he married, but June said she’d only just met him, too. She thought he was a smoking piece of man candy, too, but being in the hitman trade made him sort of, well, undesirable. June said something about his expiration date probably coming up soon. That was true.

  But I’d seen her at least three times since then and she hadn’t mentioned Fox was living with her? I could always casually drop by there on my way to or from Leaves of Grass. I could make up some plausible story about sharing a new brainstorm I’d had, something I didn’t want to text her, like there was mold growing on some early-flowering Young Man Blue plants, so I’d moved my medicinal Dabba Doo seedlings away from them. Or the forecast called for a five degree drop in temperature, so we’d better roll the awning—

  “Pippa!” brayed Wolf. “Are you at all interested in hitting that hay bale? I’m not walking down to that berm. I’ve spent enough time crawling around behind dirt walls.”

  I didn’t know what that meant, but it was fine talk coming from a guy with Utility Belt Syndrome. Even when engaged in a sport, Wolf Glaser insisted on strapping every possible device to his belt. In addition to his quiver, an arrow puller, can opener, level, binoculars, Allen wrenches, water bottle, and a rangefinder jangled when he walked. Then again, he had made five of six bullseyes. I’d just turned a dirt wall into a porcupine.

  I was trudging back to the shooting line when I noticed June’s Jeep coming down the runway from the direction of the hangar. She kept driving off the tarmac in puffs of orange dust, heading to where our cages and scoots were parked. That traitor. I turned my back on her.

  I was surprised that Wolf came down to the berm to help me collect my wild arrows. He was harrumphing up a storm.

  “God damned bobble-headed nerd boy,” it sounded like he was muttering as he handed me an arrow. “Fucking shiznit gameboy.”

  He induced me to finally turn and look at June’s Jeep. There was Tracy, the subject of all of Wolf’s angst, and Tobias, the office manager for Leaves of Grass. He was the target of Wolf’s wrath. And I kid you not, my heart literally skipped a beat when I caught sight of Fox, leaning into the back of the Jeep to grab some bow cases.

  Fox! The focus of all of my passion! And Wolf was so self-involved he couldn’t be bothered to mention that part.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said, whipping an arrow from Wolf’s hand. “I’m starting to think you enjoy bitching and whining about not having Tracy. She’s not that stuck on Tobias, from what I’ve seen. Why don’t you just talk with her?”

  Wolf was wide-eyed. We started back. “She isn’t? How do you know she’s not? What makes you say that?”

  I sighed. “I don’t know, just a sixth sense women have. I’ve never seen her being physically affectionate with him.”

  “But they share a bedroom at the plantation house.”

  “Well, yes, they do. But you know what? Not everyone is single when you wish they were. Talk to her! Or look, I’ll just ask her, like grade school kids.”

  Wolf clutched my arm. “No! Don’t! Wait! Yes, do! Oh, I don’t know!” He hit himself in the forehead with his palm.

  “Hi, Wolf!” called Tracy, waving. She had a down-to-earth Midwestern wholesomeness to her, and I could see her appeal.

  I elbowed Wolf. “See?” I whispered, before going off to do some charming of my own.

  “You’re still here,” I stated. Fox was at a picnic table taking a tube of bowstring wax from the bow case, probably Lytton’s.

  He looked sideways at me and grinned, but didn’t stop his work. “I’m still here,” he agreed affably. I liked the way he put his boot on the bench to prop his bow while he waxed. “Not done with my job yet.”

  “Your job…doing the same thing Santiago Slayer does?”

  Now he looked at me. Assessing, sizing me up. As if wondering how much to entrust me with. What the hell. I was just a lowly pot store employee. He must’ve decided I was too lowly to be dangerous. “Not this time, not really. We’re just checking up on your rivals, the Ochoas.”

  “Oh, the ones with that godawful Mi Manera weed? People like it because it’s so damned cheap, but we don’t tell them how many pesticides the Ochoas spray on it.”

  He laughed sunnily. He was even more handsome when he was relaxed like this, looking forward to some good shooting. “Well, they’ve been riding us lately, so we’re hitting back. I wouldn’t look forward to any more Ochoa pot in your store.”

  I wanted to talk about more than pot, but I had to at least let him shoot a few rounds before asking my questions. He was a sight to behold, all muscles and sinew, with the string drawn fully back. I took some surreptitious pictures of his back, then I became sad when I realized I had no one to send them to. Oh. Madison. I sent the photo to her, and typed:

  Does anyone know who he is and where he came from? I’m dying over here. <3

  I grinned. That’d get her attention. Sure enough, she instantly texted back:

  Ford probably knows, but he’d never tell me. I know Fox lives in Nogales, so he must work for beaners. Or a club that deals with beaners. He is one smoking hot cool drink of water.

  PIPPA: Whores and metaphors don’t mix. :)

  Nogales. That told me approximately nothing. I vowed to discover more. I just wanted a cheap roll in the hay with him, but still, it’d be nice to know who I was rolling with.

  After he’d shot—expertly, of course—a few rounds, I went up to him.

  “Fox.” He’d know I was serious because I used his name. “I have a sort of sensitive question to ask you.”

  “Oh yeah? Shoot.”

  “Can we go over there?” I waved toward a shed of some kind.

  “Sure.”

  He hung his bow on the rack and we walked to the shed. “Wolf sure is chatting up Tracy,” I said mischievously.

  “Is that the girl he’s always going on about? And she’s with that bowl-headed dork? I’d say he could get up on that.”

  “I’d say so, too. Although Tobias does have quite the personality. He’s a tech genius and does all the surveillance for the Bones.”

  “Is that so? Then I might have need of him.”

  “Yeah. If you want to put a tracker on anyone or look up their cell records, that sort of thing. He’s your man.” We went behind the shadow side of the shed. With a slightly creepy shudder I realized the sign over the door said UXO STORAGE. That was nice of the army to put the unexploded ordnance far away from the hangar.

  I folded my hands in front of my skirt. “Fox, I’ve got a sister. Now I’m going to trust you on this. Can I trust you not to tell another living soul? Not even Ford or Lytton?”

  He seemed mystified enough to promise anything, so of course he nodded. “Sure thing, Pippa. If I couldn’t keep a secret, I’d be out of a job.”

  “Good. Because my life literally depends on it.”

  Not only did he nod again, he took my shoulders in his hands. He sort of bent at the knees to look me in the eye. “You can rely on me.”

  I was so stunned at his touch, my dilemma with Shelda temporarily took wings and flew into the stratosphere. But he took his hot palms off me and folded his arms respectfully.

  “For governmental reasons, I’m not allowed to contact my sister. Or anyone in my family. I’m a federal witness in an important case and I’m here for my own protection.”

  He nodded. “WITSEC.”

  Oh. I hadn’t seen that coming, how savvy he was to such things. “Exactly. WITSEC.
” It felt weird saying it aloud. “I’m from Corpus Christi, Texas.”

  “No shit.”

  I frowned, but relaxed when I saw he was giving me shit. “Did my accent give it away?”

  “You’re shore as shootin’ not native to these parts,” Fox said with an exaggerated twang. “Go ahead.”

  “So the DOJ—that’s the Department of Justice—sort of screwed me over on this one. Shelda was supposed to be relocated with me. She agreed to it, and everything, even though she’s not a witness. I’m single”—I said pointedly—“so there was no spouse to relocate. I wanted Shelda, and my sweet dog Monstro.”

  “But they didn’t.”

  I wiped my eye on the back of my hand. “But they didn’t. They relocated her, because her safety was threatened by the same people I’m testifying against. But I have no idea where she is. They assured me my dog is with her, but who knows? Oh, God!”

  This time Fox did wrap his arms around me. I’d admitted my most deadly secret to him. If he’d been a different sort of man, he could have used this against me in all sorts of lethal ways. It was a big step, admitting this. But the end would justify the means if only he could find Shelda and Monstro for me.

  Turning my head, I pasted my cheek to his bare flesh. I breathed in his essence, sort of an outdoorsy scent. I even dared to snake my hands around his incredibly taut waist, to be soothed by the solid plane of his torso.

  “And you want me to track her down.”

  I nodded, a tiny little kid’s nod.

  He took my chin in his fingers and forced me to face him. “Do you know what you’re asking?”

  I shook my head.

  “Pippa, I’m on the run myself. I can’t enter New Mexico or they’ll nail my ass to the floorboards. In case you wondered why someone would give up a thriving law practice to become a hitman, well, that’s why.”

  “Did you—”

  I was going to say “commit perjury” or some other legal term for lawbreaking, but he stopped my words by pressing his thumb to my lips.

  “I have a brother I can’t see either, in Taos. He’s disabled—he’s got muscular dystrophy, and I wire money every month, but I can’t go back to see him.” He didn’t remove his thumb, so I let him talk. I knew how it felt to have no one to talk to. He must’ve figured since I entrusted him with my big secret, he could spill to me, and I was honored. “Every day it breaks my heart that I can’t see him. He must be confused.”