Still Standing (Wild West MC 1)

I didn’t want to face the consequences if I tried to jump down.

Buck exited the front door and closed it behind him.

I sat on the counter, ate my sandwich, sipped at my Coke and resisted the urge to get a plate to put his sandwich on.

I needed to live more and not worry about stupid stuff like sandwiches on counters. My life was such that I knew, in enumerable ways (of which that day I was reminded of a few), that a plate for a sandwich was not the least bit important.

I told myself this, but I still found it hard not to find a plate.

I was finished with my sandwich by the time Buck returned and I felt my belly get tight when I saw the man who walked in with him.

Detective Rayne Scott.

Darn.

What was he doing here?

I didn’t really want to know.

I just wished he wasn’t here.

I’d never forget him. Tall, dark-haired, interesting light-brown eyes, athletic build and incredibly good-looking.

He was also the detective who’d worked with the FBI locally in investigating and eventually arresting my ex-husband.

And me (without the arresting part).

I gazed at him remembering that I never wanted to see him again.

Never.

He wasn’t mean to me.

He was professional, all business, but not mean. Even the three times he was in the room with the men who interrogated me.

That said, although he was only doing what he was paid to do, he’d rocked my world so immensely, it came crumbling out from under my feet.

He had a job to do, I understood this logically, and I was just caught in the fallout.

It was Rogan who did the deed. I understood this logically too.

But that didn’t change the fact that Detective Rayne Scott was a major player in the events that ruined my life and led me to the dire predicament I currently found myself in.

Now he was there, looking no less handsome, wearing a chambray shirt and jeans, and I was sitting on a counter in a faded black T-shirt with a busted lip, a swollen face, and I didn’t even want to think of what my hair looked like.

Hells bells.

I continued to gaze at him, immobile.

He returned my look, something working behind those interesting brown eyes, something deep and meaningful and maybe even painful, before he clipped, “Jesus.”

“You’ll give us a minute,” Buck stated.

This wasn’t a request, it was statement, and it was clear he was displeased.

Rayne Scott didn’t take his eyes off me as he nodded.

Buck came at me, put the beer bottle down by my hip then lifted me carefully off the counter to set me equally carefully on my feet. He took my hand and guided me out of the kitchen, up to the landing and into the bedroom. He flipped on the overhead light and closed the door.

Then he turned to me and dropped my hand but only so his hands could come to rest on my waist.

“That man is a cop,” he told me.

“I know, he was one of the team that arrested Rogan,” I told him.

This news did not make Buck happy. I knew this because his eyes flashed, and his mouth got tight as he studied me.

Then he went on, “No fuckin’ clue how, but he heard about what Esposito did to you.”

Fabulous.

I looked away.

“Toots, eyes to me,” Buck ordered gently.

I looked back at him.

“He wants Esposito. He knows Esposito caught you in his net and he’s here to convince you to press charges about what happened today. What he’s not sayin’ is he’s also here to convince you to inform on Esposito and his crew.”

Oh no.

I couldn’t do this.

With all that had happened, neither Tia nor I had ever considered going to the police. We’d lived the kind of lives that you knew you never, but never, snitched.

Never.

“I’ll never snitch,” I whispered and saw Buck’s eyes flash again, this time not with irritation but something else, something that looked an awful lot like approval.

“Then don’t.”

I felt my eyebrows go up. “You don’t think I should talk to the police?”

He slid his hands at my waist around to the small of my back and pressed in so my body was almost touching his and my head had to go back farther so I could look up at him.

“Bikers, babe, we take care of our own business,” he said quietly but firmly, and I felt a thrill race up my back at vague thoughts of whatever other “business” they might have. “You’ve had it shit and you’ve had it shit for a while, today worse than others. But you got another decision to make. You can walk out there and trust Scott or you can stand right here and tell me you trust me.”

I didn’t speak, and he pulled me closer so our bodies were brushing and his hand came up to thread into my hair as he dipped his head closer to mine.