Shakedown (Souls Chapel Revenants MC 8)

That made me feel remotely better knowing that it wasn’t just my touch that she spurned.

Just as she was about to head even farther away from me, I got her attention by softly calling her name. “Belle.”

She paused mid-step, then turned her head curiously to the side, causing that mass of curls to fall all around her left side.

“Yes?” she asked.

I jerked my chin. “Come here.”

I needed a cover if I was going to stand here for any longer, and she would be a great one.

Frowning, she marched her way toward me, her face an adorable mixture of confusion and curiosity.

“What?” she asked when she was practically toe to toe with me.

Her head was tilted way back on her neck, and she was staring at me like she could see straight into my soul.

I brought my hand up, not quite touching her, but giving her the understanding that I was about to.

She didn’t flinch away, so I pressed my hand to her arm and closed my fingers around her wrist.

She didn’t flinch.

Okay, so maybe it wasn’t my touch, or anyone’s touch, as much as she just needed warning that the touch was happening.

Noted.

“Do you mind standing here with me for a few seconds?” I asked, squeezing her wrist lightly.

Her small wrist felt tiny in my hand. I could practically wrap my fingers twice around it.

She frowned. “Why?”

I reached up and tucked a swath of curls back behind her ear, not even realizing I’d done it until my fingers touched the inky, silky strands.

My eyes flicked to the man that was on the move, but again, following the woman and her unruly children.

“Because I want to keep an eye on that man right there.” I jerked my head toward them. “And I don’t want to make the woman nervous. I’m not dressed very inconspicuously, but he is. She hasn’t made him, but she’s definitely made me.”

To give her credit, she didn’t whip her head around and stare at the man and woman behind me.

She stayed exactly where she was, head practically all the way back, and stared at me.

“The one with the seventeen kids and the man following her around in the lingerie section?” Belle asked, surprising me.

I nodded.

“I clocked him in the frozen section,” she mused. “I actually called the cops about him. Or, at least, I called my dad. Who said he would call someone. But since we’re not in his jurisdiction, he couldn’t come himself.”

Souls Chapel was no-man’s-land. Nobody worked this particular stretch of the county. The one and only cop that we had that roamed around here, Briggs, was actually out doing fuck knew what at the interstate.

“We were called,” I said. “Since we do a lot of the patrolling in the area. No cops means that we get to do a lot more stuff our way. And this is going to be done our way.”

Belle tilted her head, shrugged, then turned around and started walking. “Let’s go find out where they’re going,” she urged.

I fell into step beside her. “I’m going to hold your hand.”

Belle looked over her shoulder at me, wrinkled her nose, and then offered me her hand.