I got paid for this, but it was one less headache for the brothers. I didn’t know if they had a lot of headaches, but everyone could use one less. And I knew for a fact at least Chap was glad I was around so he didn’t have to deal with the office.
And Buck and I gave a happy home to the kids when they were there.
It wasn’t like we were fake and tried too hard and forced them to do happy things all the time or took them shopping to spoil them (well, I did that with Tatie, but the time was nigh for her room and the situation prior was extreme).
It was hanging out in front of the TV, on the deck, eating breakfast together in the mornings, dinner at night if the kids weren’t off doing something.
But they came home to two people who wanted above all else for them to have fun when they were gone and come home safe and sound.
And when Buck wasn’t being King of the Castle BIKER! he was sweet and loving, affectionate, funny. All of this in a rough, no-nonsense way, but it worked for me.
He thought I was “gorgeous,” but he didn’t feel the need to tell me every day and make it weird or seem false.
He was just real with me. He was just himself, yes, even the bad parts, and he gave me that, and I could be myself (for the most part), and he made no bones he liked me just as I was.
And he went out of his way to give me a beautiful soaking tub.
So I bought cookies and took them to my super-cool car, thinking that maybe, all this biker babe stuff, and the biker babe’s place in the biker lifestyle, really wasn’t all that bad.
In fact, most of it was really super good.
I’d stowed the bags in the trunk, slammed it down, and suddenly, I felt someone in my space.
Too in my space.
I cried out because I felt something unpleasant in my side, sending something equally unpleasant zinging through every inch of my frame.
After that, I went down.
* * *
I was tossed, kicking and struggling, on a bed.
Seconds later, the bonds securing my wrists and ankles were snipped.
My hair was in my face.
I shook it out, and my body stilled.
Standing beside the bed was Imran Babic, Bosnian lunatic.
Oh no.
He sat on the bed, and I scooted up it, shoulders to the headboard, remembering to be terrified.
But I stopped scooting (but not being terrified) when he leaned across me, resting his weight into his hand at my opposite hip.
“Did you…did you…?” I swallowed, shoved more of my hair out of my face and forged ahead, “Did you kidnap me?”
“No, Clara, I’m checking up on you.”
Yes.
Definitely a lunatic.
“You tased someone, bound them and took them to an unknown location to check up on them?” I asked.
He grinned a grin that I was pretty certain could be sketched and printed next to the entry for “psychopath” in dictionaries.
Through it, he answered, “I couldn’t be assured you’d accept a written invitation to dine with me.”
This wasn’t good.
His eyes traveled my body and it didn’t take a clairvoyant to note he liked what he saw.
This was worse.
His attention came back to my face. “You’re looking well, Clara.”
I’d gone semi-biker babe that day, and now I was regretting it.
I was wearing my own cashmere turtleneck sweater, but I’d paired it with tight, faded jeans I’d bought while out with the girls and spike-heeled boots I’d also bought out with the girls.
The jeans had some fraying and rips in them, and I was pretty certain strippers wore my boots when they were off-duty and some of them when they were on.
The boots were hot, and I knew this because, the second I walked out wearing them last weekend before Buck took me and the kids to the Valley Inn, Gear had said, “Shit, Clara, those boots are fuckin’ hot.”
Buck, on the other hand, had taken one look at them, his eyes running up the rest of me, and then he’d laid another big wet one on me right in front of his kids.
Clearly, Bosnian lunatics also liked off-duty stripper boots.
“Uh…thanks,” I muttered.
He moved so his hip was resting against my hip, and I tensed.
“I’ve been worried about you,” he told me.
“I’m good,” I assured him quickly. “Really good. Life’s good. I’ve got a job. A car. A man. It’s all great.”
He shook his head and his eyes went funny. “You miss your friend.”
My heart skipped and I stared.
“My friend?” I whispered.
“Tia,” he whispered back in a scary way.
Oh God.
What did he know about Tia?
“Tia?” I asked, and he nodded. “What do you…?” I swallowed again. “What do you know about Tia?”
“I know what West Hardy won’t tell you because he knows you’ll leave him if he does.”