Something About a Bounty Hunter Page 5

  But that was the problem—her dad would never let her have any relationship with anyone in or out of the Bighorns. He’d taken his protective act through her teen years right into adulthood. He didn’t see her for what she was, and right now she was a woman half in love. Who wanted to hop on the back of Dirty’s bike and have him show her a bigger world than what she had right here.

  Her father squared up against the man who’d just thoroughly and very satisfyingly loved her. She attempted to move between them but her father gently set her aside.

  “Stormy, stay out of this.”

  “How can I when it’s about me? You don’t want Dirty around me because you know I like him.”

  Dirty jerked his gaze to her. Her heart throbbed at what she saw there and prayed her father didn’t see it too. Dirty wanted her as much as she wanted him, and anybody with eyes could tell. DeeDee had known it from day one and there was no stopping the momentum now that they’d touched each other.

  Her body still hummed from the pleasure he’d given her and she could taste his body on her lips.

  “Fuck. I knew I couldn’t trust you. Should have killed you after you took my daughter on a ride without my permission.”

  “Sir, I’d like to get on your good side in this matter.” Dirty glanced to the side where two Bighorns had just pulled in with a truck. They got out and carried a duffle bag past the group in front of the door.

  Stormy could guess what was in that bag—weed they liked to party with and probably the supply of Oxy and other things they enjoyed. She stayed out of that crap and as far as she knew, her father did too. Alexander had always been a concern to her, but she couldn’t control him any more than her father could control her.

  Her father waited till the pair disappeared inside the club before speaking to Dirty. His brow low, eyes narrowed. “You want to see my daughter.”

  “I do.” Dirty didn’t cower in the face of her father’s glares.

  “You aren’t a Bighorn. Not even a new recruit.”

  “What does that matter, Dad? I can be with someone else. A rancher even.”

  Dirty met her gaze.

  “Is that all he is? A harmless shit shoveler?” Her father grunted.

  “I’m asking your permission to see more of Stormy, sir.” Wes reached for her hand, and she entwined their fingers, clinging tight. She was on the verge of happiness or hell. But if her father sent Dirty away without his blessing, that didn’t mean she wouldn’t find a way to see him again.

  And again.

  He was in her system now.

  Her father gave a hard nod. “I’ll think on it. In the meantime…” He pointed at the road.

  Dirty squeezed her fingers one more time and looked into her eyes. Then he released her and walked over to his bike, got on and rode away. She wanted to yell for him to take her too. The club didn’t feel as free as it once had.

  Chapter Four

  Rivulets of sweat ran down Wes’s spine, wetting his shirt. His muscles burned with each bale of hay he tossed onto the truck.

  “How’s it goin’ down there, boys?” Uncle Matthias asked from his perch on the tractor that hauled the hay wagon.

  Wes shot his cousins a look. The three of them had always hated haying season but more so as adults who realized their labor could be cut by the purchase of a machine that picked up the bales and shot them onto the wagon.

  “Be better if you weren’t such a cheapskate, Dad,” Aiden grumbled.

  “You missed one, Aiden.” Matthias grinned as he pointed toward one Aiden hadn’t picked up.

  Wes hooked his gloved fingers under the twine of two more bales and hefted them. Walking behind the wagon this way and working this hard at least kept his mind off Stormy.

  Or at least for a few minutes at a time.

  He didn’t want to think about what would happen if he returned to the club to hear Druid’s response to him was no.

  Wes didn’t do no.

  Especially when it came to Stormy.

  After most of the hay was up and hauled back to the dry shed, Uncle Matthias dismissed them all to shower and rest. Aiden and Judd made a beeline for the house, but Wes hung back.

  Matthias jumped off the tractor and faced Wes.

  Sundance was the only man he’d suspected to be his father—except Uncle Matthias.

  It all fit. They were about the same size, with the same dark hair and angled jaws. Their eyes the same steel gray. One time Wes had actually compared his hands to his uncles and thought they shared the same slightly bent forefinger.

  But he couldn’t speak the words.

  “What’s up, Wes? Didn’t get enough of hayin’?”

  “Well, I do wonder why you don’t purchase better equipment.”

  He chuckled. “Maybe I like having my boys around me like old times.”

  My boys. Wes was a nephew. Wasn’t he?

  “The twins are so busy with their new wives that I miss the hell out of them. And you’re spending more and more time at that club.”

  Wes looked down at the grass springing up around his boots. “Yeah.” He’d spend a hell of a lot more time there if he could.

  “Your aunt still hates it, I have to tell you,” Matthias said.

  Wes nodded. “She tells me every chance she gets.”

  “Seems there may be another reason you’re spending so much time away lately. A woman?”

  Snapping his head up, Wes met his uncle’s stare. “Not just any woman.”

  Matthias’s smile cut across his cheek in exactly the same way Wes’s did. Nature or nurture? He had no fucking idea and wasn’t ready to ask outright.

  His uncle leaned against the tractor. “So this woman… I’m guessing she’s worth your time.”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “I’m sensing there’s a problem, though.”

  He always was good at rooting out troubles in him. As a kid, Wes rarely had to say what was on his mind before his uncle would bring it out in the open, much to Wes’s relief.

  “Bikers are close people. The Bighorns are the same. They don’t mind me coming around, but they don’t want me to spend time with this woman either.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Stormy.”

  Matthias nodded. “Women named after seasons or acts of God can run you around good, believe me.” He looked toward the house and the woman named Winter he’d spent a lifetime with.

  “Her father’s trying to stand in the way,” Wes said.

  “Daddies get protective of their daughters. Seen it with my own father when my sisters started dating.”

  “This is different. It’s more old-fashioned than that. Like I don’t belong to their society, so his daughter can’t go outside the group.”

  “Does he have a man picked out for her already?”

  Now that didn’t sit well with Wes. He clenched his jaw—and his fists. “Not that I know of, but I wouldn’t put it past him.” He racked his brain for anybody he’d seen showing Stormy interest but could come up with no one.

  “So you need to become one of them. Is that what you want?”

  “I enjoy it, but I’d rather be at Eagle Crest.”

  He nodded. “So you have to show him that his daughter can have a life outside the club.”

  “No idea how to do that. Last time I took her on a ride, the guys surrounded my bike and forced us back.”

  “Don’t like the sounds of that, but I trust you can handle yourself.”

  Wes nodded.

  “Seems to me you have to get her away for a while and make her happy outside the club.”

  Wes met his uncle’s—maybe his father’s—stare. “Bring her here?”

  Matthias clapped him on the shoulder and they started toward the house and cool glasses of iced tea. “I’m sure Judd’ll thank you for bringing someone new around to get your aunt’s mind off something besides Cecily’s waistband. C’mon, son. Let’s go inside and cool off.”

  Wes gave him a light punch on the arm. “Doe
sn’t look as if you even broke a sweat.”

  His uncle leveled his gaze at him. “That’s what I’ve got strong boys for.”

  * * * * *

  “C’mon, Dirty.” Druid grabbed his shoulder on his way to the door.

  Alarms went off in his head but he got up and followed. Outside, two men flanked him, drawing weapons.

  Dirty’s pulse slowed. It wasn’t the first time he’d been in a situation with armed men who disliked him. He’d come out alive then and he would now. Too bad he’d be taking out a few Bighorns in the process—that surely wouldn’t get him closer to being on their good side and seeing more of Stormy.

  “What is this? My sidearm’s in my saddlebag.”

  “You won’t need it. You can use mine.” Druid slapped him on the back, but he didn’t feel a hint of brotherhood in that touch. Was it pistols at dawn then? Or in this case pistols in midafternoon?

  His mind went through the motions of disarming the men around him and incapacitating them. An elbow jab, knee to the balls, arm twisted upward to dislocate.

  Nope—he wasn’t dying today.

  They crossed the yard as a group and rounded the garage where the bikes were stored. When he spotted Sundance and some of the others setting up targets, Wes almost laughed.

  Druid shot him a glance, probably hoping to see him discomposed. Wes’s years of hiding his emotions served him well now. He gave him a bland look in return.

  “Let’s see if you can shoot, Dirty.” Druid held out a .44 Special on his hand. Too easy—all the Roshannons preferred a .44.

  He accepted the weapon with a nod and aimed it away and to the ground as he checked the chamber. Locked and loaded. He waited till the Bighorns had the targets set to go and moved into position behind him.

  “Let’s see what you can do.” Sundance sounded much less menacing than Druid. Then again, Wes and Sundance had found common ground from the start with his mother.

  Wes took aim at the first target, a human figure with the rings on the chest and one on the forehead.

  He squeezed off a shot and it hit where the eye would be.

  Druid laughed. “He missed.”

  Wes gave him a crooked smile then directed another shot that punched through the target, creating a second eye. Then a nose. Finally, he shot one through the heart and one through the head.

  Silence descended over the group and then Sundance said, “The boy can shoot.”

  Several chuckles sounded. Wes extended the weapon to Druid and nodded his thanks.

  He started walking back to the club, but Druid stepped in front of him. “Now you need to know how I shoot.”

  “Why would I care about that?” He met the man’s gaze.

  “Don’t let him scare you off, Dirty,” Sundance said.

  Wes hitched a thumb in his jeans pocket and watched as Druid reloaded and fired a perfect group through the heart of the human target. The ragged paper flapped in the mountain breeze.

  When Druid turned and walked back inside without a word, Wes gave a low laugh. If he thought that was going to scare him off seeing Stormy, he didn’t know anything about a man’s determination.

  Sundance grinned. “You passed the test, son.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yeah, you can shoot like a pro and didn’t flinch when Druid challenged you. Other men haven’t done so well.”

  “This is some sort of test to win his daughter?”

  “No. Druid won’t let you have her that easily if at all. But he might not growl as much when you look at her now.”

  Wes’s lips tipped into a crooked smile. The guys continued with practice, but Sundance took him back into the club. When Wes saw what was going on in the main room, his instinct was to stop and look more closely. His years of hunting down criminals wasn’t easily forgotten.

  And the Bighorns were showing him how they really liked to party. The black duffle was set atop a table, the zipper open to reveal baggie after baggie of weed and prescription drugs.

  Wes had suspected they were buying, dealing or both. But the fact that they were letting him see had to be another test.

  He glanced up to see Druid watching him. Wes gave a chin nod to acknowledge him and moved to the table where he’d been sitting earlier staring at Stormy. Only she wasn’t in the room—none of the women were. Did they ask them to leave when they got out the duffle?

  Druid circled behind the bar and came out with two bottles of tequila. Fuck, Wes hated drinking games, but it seemed this might be another test.

  He tried not to let out the sigh he was holding in. One thing he’d learned early in adulthood was that he was big enough to hold his liquor. If they were having a drink-you-under-the-table pissing contest, Wes would win hands down.

  But besting Stormy’s father at this wouldn’t be a win for him any way he looked at it.

  With a clank, Druid set a bottle before Wes. The guys zipped the bag and put it away again. Then they gathered around the table as Druid took a seat opposite Wes. He opened his own bottle and eyed Wes.

  “I’m a beer man really.”

  Druid twisted his lips. “Beer’s for pussies.”

  “Fine. How much are we drinking?” Wes picked up his bottle. He’d have a sour stomach and a hell of a headache tomorrow but there didn’t seem to be any other course. If he walked away from Druid’s challenge, the man would keep trying to best him.

  “We drink till you pass out.”

  Wes nodded and raised the bottle to his lips. Before he took a sip, he lowered it and eyed Druid. “I don’t think your daughter needs a man who can hold his liquor. I’d say having a man who can support and protect her is better.”

  Sundance’s eagle eyes sharpened.

  “Who said anything about my daughter?” Druid glared.

  Wes glanced at the door, expecting to see Stormy there but she wasn’t. He upended the bottle and swallowed the burning drink with smooth gulps.

  When he set the bottle down again, it was one-third lighter. He waited while Druid did the same and they stared at each other. The liquor didn’t take effect quickly, as Wes knew it wouldn’t. He was still clear-eyed and clear-headed when Druid’s speech began to slur.

  “S’again,” he said.

  Resigned, Wes drank. Half an hour later, he was still upright and Druid listing to the left like a ship about to sink. Someone produced a knife and set it on the table between them.

  Wes looked up, feeling hazier than usual but knowing if he had to get up and fight his way out of here, he could. “Are we carving our names in the table next?”

  One guy laughed. “Wouldn’t be fair—Druid’s name has more letters.”

  “I see your point,” Wes said dryly.

  “Five finger fillet,” the guy said.

  Great. Now they wanted him to sacrifice a finger to prove himself. The knife game where you stabbed the table between your outstretched fingers wasn’t going to end well.

  Wes looked at Druid. “Is this really necessary?”

  “Yesss.”

  Movement in the doorway drew Wes’s attention and he barely realized what Stormy was doing until she plopped into his lap.

  Her father didn’t register what was happening at first, a testament to how the alcohol affected him. But Wes planted a hand on Stormy’s side as she cuddled closer, her thigh riding close to his crotch, now bulging at the first feel of her weight on his lap.

  She leaned in to whisper, “I can’t let you lose a finger. When Dad drinks, there’s no winning.”

  Wes reached up to brush the hair from her temple and then placed his mouth against her ear. “I need all my fingers to stroke your pussy.”

  A shiver ran through her and she steadied herself with a hand on his chest.

  Finally, Druid’s mind caught up to the situation. “That’s my daughter. Get your hands off her!”

  Stormy didn’t move. “Dad, why don’t you sleep it off?” She looked past him to the doorway where two women stood as if waiting for her cue. They cam
e forward and each cozied up to Druid. In seconds, they were fawning over him and he forgot all about a drunken game of five finger fillet and his daughter being in the lap of a man he didn’t want her with.

  Stormy was resourceful, he’d give her that.

  Sundance jerked his head toward the office off the main room. “Can I talk to you, Dirty?”

  Reluctantly, he let go of Stormy, though he couldn’t resist letting his hand linger on her hip as she got up.

  Stormy threw him a concerned look as he followed their president. An office with a table large enough to seat eight members. The ruling body of the Bighorns.

  The duffle sat on the table. Wes stared at it.

  “I’m not going to ask you to make a run, Dirty.”

  He met Sundance’s stare. “You know what happened to my mother.” She’d OD’d on sleeping pills the Bighorns had probably provided to her.

  He nodded. “And I was damn sorry for it.” He lifted the bag to reveal two patches on the table. A new recruit and the arching insignia of the Bighorns.

  Wes’s chest constricted. This meant…

  “They’re yours, son. If you want them,” Sundance said without hesitation.

  Wes twitched to life. “I never expected it.” He reached for the patches, sliding them across the shiny tabletop with two fingers.

  “I know you probably thought Druid was just testing you for rights to his daughter.”

  Wes chuckled. “That’s true.”

  “Over the past few weeks you’ve shown us that you’ll be an asset to the Bighorns. That is if you want to become a member.”

  “I do,” he said at once. Aunt Winter would hate it, but he had no intention of living any differently than he did now. Only having more time with Stormy.

  “You’ve been helpful and proven yourself as loyal, though we got off in a bumpy way. We like having you around.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  Sundance extended a hand, which Wes shook. “I have to say I’m mighty fond of Stormy. Look at her like a favorite niece. I only want what’s best for her.”

  Wes stiffened, on alert, prepared to be mowed down by Sundance as well.