Pagan (The Henchmen MC 8)

"He made Benny and I wear helmets. Like the roof was going to fall on our heads or something."

"I still can't get a read on that one," Mina declared, sounding irritated about it. And, being that her job was being able to read people, I guess that made sense.

"Let's just say that he has reasons to be so secretive. And protective," Bethany said a little cryptically, making it clear that while Reeve was an enigma to all the rest of us, he must have opened up to her at some point.

After a couple more minutes of bullshit, we went and checked out the progress next door. Which, thanks to the aforementioned over-protectiveness of Reeve, I hadn't seen myself in two days. But it was really coming along. Actually, it looked like they had already painted the ceiling and the trim. So they would likely be getting to my walls pretty soon.

I really needed to order my supplies.

After that, Benny reminding me that we still had some evening clients, the girls shuffled off with promises to drag me along the next time they went training up at Hailstorm or hit She's Bean Around for some coffee.

Benny and I went to work, and by the time we were finished cleaning up for the day, there was a chime behind me. And my immediate reaction? Hope. That it was Pagan. That he got back from wherever he was early. That he would take me back to the compound and we could get hot and sweaty for an hour before we had a meal and, well, a good long talk about whatever the girls were being so secretive about.

And while I did turn to find a biker, it wasn't Pagan.

"Hey, mami," Roderick said, giving me one of his trademark charming, dimple-laden smiles, all white teeth and infectiousness.

"Hey there, Mr. Tall, Dark, and Spanish," Benny crooned at him, giving him a lazy grin.

"'Sup, Benny?" he asked, giving him a smile the same wattage as the one he gave me.

"What are you doing here, Roderick?" I asked, drying my hands with paper towels.

"I am under strict orders to pick your pretty little ass up and deliver you to the compound. I am also to feed you. I think he might have also said something about giving you a nice massage that might lead to more..."

"Think you might have fantasized that part," I said with a laugh. Roderick, while his flirtation was borderline inappropriate, didn't mean a word of it, which was maybe where most of his charm came from. He just did it to get a rise out of you, to make you smile, to make you laugh. Harmless, really.

Though I bet he got loads of tail on the nights when Cyrus would take all the other probates out on the town with him since I 'neutered the best wingman he ever had.'

"Don't get me wrong, I love my man," Benny said, grabbing his bag of stuff to take home with him. "But he doesn't offer me a backup man to take care of my needs when he's out of town. Does she get foot massages too? Wait, don't tell me. I'm jealous enough. Goodnight, Kenny. I'll see you in the morning," he said, giving me a one-armed hug, then heading out the door.

"You about done, or you need some help finishing up?"

Seriously, I really did hit the jackpot.

I went from being all but alone in the world and stressed out every waking (and let's be real, every sleeping) moment, to being surrounded by awesome people, with a business that was soon to be thriving.

I wasn't down in that hole anymore, praying to some day see the light again. I was back on solid ground with the sun shining down on me all the time.

"Nope, we're all set," I said, giving him a smile as I grabbed my stuff. "So, will you tell me where Pagan went today?"

"Sorry, mami, I don't think it's a good idea to get on the bad side of any of the patched members right now."

"So I guess you're also not going to tell me what this big secret is that everyone else seems to be in on but me?"

"You're going to have to ask your man that one."

"When he gets back from who-knows-where doing God-knows-what?"

"See?" he asked, dimple on display again. "Now you're getting it."EIGHTEENPaganIt wasn't that I was keeping it a secret.

Not really.

I guess it was more that I wanted to be able to go into it without a bunch of noise in my head, a bunch of other peoples' opinions coming in and pushing out my own.

Well, I didn't really have much of an opinion on it to be honest.

All I knew was a couple days after I took that money out of my trust, I got a letter to the beach house. Will, my house sitter, found it and thought it looked important, so he called me.