Always Someone’s Monster (Battle Crows MC 1)

“You gonna finish those, friend?”

I blinked, looking up at Price, yet another of Clem’s uncles, and shrugged. “I was thinking about it. Why?”

“Because I’m still hungry, and you’ve been stirring the white sauce into swirls in the beans for the last two minutes,” he answered.

I grinned and passed the plate over.

Nearly all of my rice and beans were still there.

Normally, I would’ve eaten everything there was on the plate, but we’d gone Mexican food tonight, and I hadn’t slowed down once on my chips, hot sauce, queso or tortillas.

And I haven’t met a single woman yet that was able to resist hot sauce and queso at a Mexican restaurant.

“Thanks,” Price rumbled.

Price, also known as Trinket by his family, was the middle uncle. He was in his mid-thirties, had a light dusting of gray hair growing at his temples and in his beard, and had that hot middle-age man vibe going on just like Haggard.

But, where his eyes were blah and boring, Haggard’s eyes were a stunning light blue that took your breath away if you looked at them too long.

I looked away, feeling my heartbeat accelerate when the man at my side shifted in his seat to hand the waitress his empty plate.

His hand brushed my shoulder blade, and I felt my heart pick up speed.

Jesus, if it kept doing that, it’d stop beating eventually due to overworking it.

Luckily, I was able to control myself for the rest of dinner, even though Haggard’s thigh never moved from touching mine.

And as we walked out of the restaurant a half hour later, I was very much aware of how short my skirt was and how thin my shirt was.

I could almost feel his eyes on the small of my back.

“Are you carrying?”

I blinked, looking back at him over my shoulder.

“Yeah.”

“Really?” Easton asked, speeding up so he could walk at my back and inspect the gun that he now realized that I had.

“What kind of gun are you carrying?” Easton asked.

I lifted my shirt until he could see the gun, causing him to whistle. “How the hell did you hide that?”

I could feel the heat from the man at my back now, and I almost felt like squirming underneath his penetrating gaze.

“A good holster and a flowy t-shirt,” I teased, letting the shirt fall back down over the compact-sized .45 caliber handgun.

We made it outside, and I walked right up to Clem, who was holding on to Boston.

I went to Boston’s other side and we smooshed him between our bodies, causing him to groan. “Why are we doing this?” I asked curiously.

“Boston has a girl over there he likes, so I thought I’d embarrass him,” she answered.

“Y’all,” Boston warned.

“Girls.” Haggard caught me by the upper arm and pulled me away from Boston. “Don’t embarrass him too bad.”

I started to laugh. “I gotta go. My dad is home.”

And unsupervised with the alcohol.

“Same,” I heard echoed by three of the siblings.

“Your dad is right here,” Clem’s grandfather teased.

I rolled my eyes and walked to my car, my eyes taking in its dilapidated-looking state.

Once upon a time, I was supposed to get Jasper’s car after he bought a new one.

Once upon a time, my brother wasn’t supposed to die, either.

Now, that car sat in my driveway collecting dust because I refused to drive it, and my dad refused to sell it.

So there it sat, while I drove the biggest piece of shit that my father could find.

Though, there was a method to his madness.

When Jasper started driving, his assumption was that Jasper would get into at least one accident. And if he was in the car he was in—an old Buick LeSabre—then he’d survive the accident, and so would the car. And if the car didn’t, oh well.

Funny enough, it hadn’t been Jasper that’d had an accident in it first. It’d been me.

Jasper had allowed me to drive home because I’d asked—at fourteen—and some old lady had pulled out in front of me. I’d hit that old lady’s Buick with my Buick, and in the battle of the Buicks, mine had won out.

When we’d scrambled out of the car, Jasper switching to come out my side, and me come out his, the old lady had been so pissed at me—him—that she hadn’t paid attention to where we’d come from or where we’d been previous to the accident.

She’d lit into Jasper, who’d just taken it, like it was all his fault.

My dad had arrived about fifteen minutes into the screaming match the old lady had going on, only to take one look at the accident scene and know exactly what had happened.

So had every cop there, which then had the woman issued a citation for failure to yield.

The aftermath? The Buick got a new paint job and a buff out.

That was it.

Throwing myself into the car that I didn’t lock, I turned and checked out the back seat—because I’ll be damned if I’m going to drive down the road without first making sure nothing or no one was back there—and stuck the key into the ignition.