Still Standing (Wild West MC 1)

Though, “the woman of a biker” comment was perplexing.

I decided to sidestep that, because…

Priorities.

“I’m worried about Tia.”

“I’ll eat. I’ll make a few calls, get the word out Aces High wants her. We’ll find her.”

This made me feel relief.

“Thanks,” I murmured.

Buck turned his head and grinned at me.

No teeth, but still, his full lips framed by that beard tipped up was also pretty terrific.

Who was I kidding?

It was fabulous.

He then piled an alarming amount of shaved roast beef on the sandwiches.

“It’s weird,” I remarked while he was doing this, “that she didn’t take her phone.”

“You can track someone through their phone. She knew enough to find and dump the device on her car, she knew to leave her phone behind. Smart.”

This was partly good, partly bad.

I didn’t want Esposito to find her (once he, um…recovered), but that also meant we couldn’t.

Further, it meant I couldn’t communicate with her and she had no idea where I was.

I watched him put two slices of muenster cheese on the beef, then topped the cheese with the other slices of bread, pressed in, picked one up and handed it to me. Then he went back to the fridge, returning the mayo and deli products and coming back with a beer and a Coke. He popped the top of the Coke for me, twisted off the cap of the beer and flicked it into the garbage.

I stared at my humungous sandwich.

“This is a big sandwich, Buck,” I noted.

“Yep,” he agreed, downing a gulp of beer then putting it on the counter and picking up his own sandwich.

I stared at a big splodge of mayo coming out the side.

“With a lot of mayo,” I went on.

He took a huge bite, his eyes on me. I watched as he chewed and swallowed.

Then he said, “Babe, like I told you, you gotta live more.”

“I tried that,” I reminded him quietly. “It didn’t work very well for me.”

His eyes grew dark and intense in an instant and it was fascinating as well as a bit scary.

“Don’t do that, Toots,” he said softly.

“What?”

“Twist yesterday to bad in your head. Don’t do it.”

“He knew I spent the night with you,” I explained. “He heard about it. It made him angry. He said it was disrespect. He said…”

I stopped because the memories were coming back in a flood. Esposito’s rage. His bad guy holding me while Esposito took that rage out on me physically.

And all this was a lot, so I couldn’t go on speaking.

“You laughed last night,” Buck broke into my thoughts. “You smiled. You opened up. You told me straight out you hadn’t laughed in a long time, darlin’. What we had was good. What he did with it is whacked. That’s on him. Don’t let him twist that. You do that, he beats you a different way.”

He was right.

He was right and I liked it that he thought what we had was good.

I liked that a lot.

So I turned to my sandwich and took a bite. It hurt to open my mouth that wide, but it couldn’t be denied it tasted great.

As I was chewing, I looked back at Buck to see he was grinning down at the counter before he took his own bite.

He looked handsome grinning. He also looked handsome eating.

God, I was such a dork!

Time to put my mind to other things.

“Did you see my purse at my apartment?” I asked and his attention returned to me.

“Wasn’t lookin’ for your purse, babe, was lookin’ for you.”

“So you didn’t see it?”

“No, why?”

“Because Mrs. Jimenez gave me her nest egg so Tia and I could go on the lam. I need to give it back to her.”

He took a slug of beer and set it on the counter. “When the boys go get your shit tomorrow, I’ll tell them to look for it.”

After he said that, he took another huge bite of his sandwich.

But I was blinking at him.

And this blinking was repeated and rapid.

“When the boys go to get my shit?”

He swallowed and said, “Yeah,” then took another big bite.

“Why are they getting my shit?”

He replied through a full mouth, “Bringin’ it up here, Toots.”

What? My brain screamed.

“What?” I whispered, but I’d lost his attention.

He’d turned his head and was scowling out of the plethora of windows that, by day, showed a magnificent landscape, and by night, showed moonlight-shrouded pine trees which was no less magnificent.

They also showed the headlights of a car coming up the lane.

“Fuck, what now?” he muttered, putting his sandwich on the counter and grabbing his beer. “Stay there,” he ordered as he walked away while taking a pull on his beer.

I didn’t have any choice but to stay there.

Sitting on the counter didn’t feel great on my hip but nothing felt great on my hip.

The rest of me felt okay, muted pain in my ribs and face, but this was because I wasn’t moving much.