AJ Read online

  He felt his face go hot. “Yes. Sorry. What did you need?”

  “I dropped my earring.” He continued to stare at her, waiting for her to go on. After a few seconds she said, “You’re standing on it.”

  “Oh, damn! I’m sorry.” He moved his right foot and she said:

  “The other one.” He shifted his left foot and underneath it he could see a turquoise and silver earring. She bent her knees and squatted down to pick it up. “Oh no, it’s broken.”

  “Damn, I’m sorry,” he said, again.

  She looked up at him from the floor and her brown eyes softened as she said, “Oh no, don’t be sorry! It’s not your fault.” She started to get up and AJ held out his hand. She placed hers in his much bigger one and he helped her to her feet. Her hand was soft and he had an almost overwhelming desire to caress it...and the rest of her.

  “I’m really sorry,” he said one more time. “I’ll pay to replace it.” She smiled and his heart beat faster.

  “They aren’t worth anything, in dollars,” she said. “Ama made it for me.”

  AJ knew “Ama” meant mother in Diné, but nothing about this woman looked Native American...except maybe those big, brown eyes. “Your Ama?” he asked.

  “Hey, man, you want to move up?” the guy behind her barked out in a sharp, annoyed tone. AJ would have told him to fuck off, but he didn’t want to look like an asshole in front of the sexy redhead, so he took two steps forward and caught up with Finn in the line. Then he looked back at the woman and she smiled again and said:

  “The mother of my sponsor family. She asked me to call her Ama. She’s so kind. She made me the earrings for my birthday last week.”

  “Well, happy birthday...says the guy with the big feet that crushed your present.”

  She laughed and it was even sexier than her smile. “Thank you.”

  “So, you’re being sponsored on the reservation? Navajo?” There were two reservations close to where they were currently. One was Navajo and the other Hopi.

  “Yes, Navajo. I’m a photographer on assignment. Everyone has been so kind. Do you live on the reservation?” AJ felt a pang of something...defensiveness, maybe? He shook it off quickly and said:

  “No, I actually live in Tempe. I’m just...visiting.”

  “Hey AJ, what do you want?” Finn was finally at the counter and there was three feet of space between them again. The guy behind the hot redhead was still glaring at AJ. AJ ignored him, smiled at the woman, and said, “Excuse me,” before turning around and telling the sandwich maker what he wanted. He handed Finn money for his sandwich and then turned back to the woman and said, “Can I at least pay for your lunch, since I can’t replace the earring?”

  “That’s not necessary...”

  “I’d like to...”

  “You can pay for mine for holding up the line,” the guy behind her said.

  Fuck off was right on the tip of his tongue then, but before it rolled off the woman looked over her shoulder and said, “Piss off.” When she turned back to AJ she still had the pretty smile on her face. He laughed at the pout on the asshole’s face even as Finn, arms loaded down with sandwiches, tried to nudge him out of the line and out of the way. The sandwich maker cleared her throat loudly and looked at the redhead pointedly as she said, “Can I help you?” That was when AJ finally processed that he was in everyone’s way. He pulled out his wallet again and took out a hundred-dollar bill. Handing it to the woman behind the cash register he said:

  “That’s for her order.”

  “That’s really kind of you, thank you,” the redhead said. “That’s way too much, though...”

  “What’s your name?”

  Finn had taken hold of his sleeve now and was tugging on it like he was an unruly child as she said, “It’s Jolene, what’s yours?”

  “AJ,” he told her, still holding her eyes, captured in his.

  “Hey, I hate to break this up, but the guys...and a meaner-than-a-snake pregnant lady...are waiting for their lunch,” Finn finally said. AJ delved into his wallet again and he heard Finn sigh and say, “I’ll meet you outside.”

  AJ didn’t look at him, but he nodded. Then he pulled out one of his cards and held it out to Jolene and said, “I’d like to visit the reservation while I’m here. If you have any free time, maybe you could show me around?” Jolene took the card and he heard the lady behind the counter let out an annoyed sigh of her own. He knew he’d better get out of there before everyone wanted to kick his ass. He walked backwards toward the door, not wanting to take his eyes off Jolene, at least until she agreed to call him. She let him get all the way to the door before smiling and saying:

  “Sure, I’ll give you a call.” He felt a huge grin cover his face. It had been a long time since he’d met anyone who even came close to making him feel so excited.

  “Thank God, now can you order your fucking sandwich?” the guy behind her snapped. That made the smile fall off AJ’s face and he took a step back toward them. Jolene beat him to it again, though. Turning to the woman behind the counter she said:

  “I’ll need six turkey sandwiches with everything, and will you please use the change from the money that nice man left to pay for the rest of this line behind me...except for Mr. Impatient here—he can pay for his own fucking sandwich.” She turned and smiled sweetly at the guy behind her and then looked over at AJ and winked. Still grinning like an idiot, he finally left with butterflies in his stomach, and finally something to look forward to.

  7

  California, Westside Skulls Clubhouse

  Jace wasn’t happy about having to go to California. He had enough shit of his own that needed to be done back in Phoenix. He had sent Boots and Vic out to deliver the girl the night they had taken her from the bar. Boots called him when they got there to let him know they had delivered her safely, and then with Jace’s blessing he’d gone on to Sacramento to visit his family before heading back to Phoenix the next week. Vic drove straight back with the payment from Wolf for their job, and Jace thought it was all over. That was until Wolf called him two weeks later and said he needed him back in Fresno, ASAP, and all he would say was that it was about the girl. Jace was unhappy about it, but once again, he couldn’t say no to Wolf. And to say his old lady was unhappy about it was an understatement.

  Jace knew that Beck’s hormones were raging and she was worried that she wouldn’t carry the baby to term, so he let her have her say without fighting back. More often than not, that was what he did and sometimes it just pissed her off even more. He hated to argue, though, most of all with the woman he loved more than his own life. But he listened and a lot of the time through her seething anger, she made quite a bit of sense. This time she’d told him Wolf and Dax were still treating him like he was one of their nomads instead of the president of his own club, and if he was being honest, that was almost what all of this felt like. He still couldn’t say no, however, so he’d postponed the rest of their fight, told the guys to make sure they took good care of Beck while he was gone, and took Vic back with him to California. Now he sat in the office, waiting for Wolf. The president had met him at his bike when he got there but then turned him over to the girls to feed and asked him to meet him back in the office in an hour.

  “Jace.” Jace looked up to see Bruf walk in. Every time he thought he was over the fact that Beck had shown up in California looking for the Brad Pitt lookalike, he had to think again. He hated feeling jealous, even when he had no reason to. He had the most beautiful woman in the world and she loved him, not Bruf. He told himself to get over his stupid shit and stood up and shook Bruf’s hand.

  “Hey, man, how’s it going?”

  Bruf sighed. “Things have been a little tense, and weird around here lately.”

  “Sorry to hear that. Is there a problem with the little package my guys delivered a couple weeks ago?”

  Bruf chuckled and said, “One after the other, but she’s not the cause of the tension, just one of the effects.” The sound o
f the door opening again drew both of their attention. Wolf, his VP Manson, a guy named Maz whom Jace knew, but not well, and another guy they called Ash all came in. Jace greeted them all and once everyone’s hands were shaken Wolf said:

  “Have a seat.” He looked at Jace then and guilt began to ooze out of Jace’s veins into his blood as Wolf said, “First of all I want to apologize to you. I know you probably have a dozen things or more that aren’t getting addressed because you’re busy helping us with our shit. I would have loved to leave you completely out of this, but you’re too damned good, Jace. Nobody has any idea who walked into that bar that night and took that girl and left that little Garibaldi bastard unconscious, not even Garibaldi, or the girl. I knew I could count on you—you don’t make mistakes and that’s exactly what we needed. So, I’m sorry I’m taking you away from your club, but I hope you know how much I appreciate you coming.”

  Jace tried not to look guilty about thinking Wolf was treating him like he was still a nomad. He nodded at his old friend and Wolf went on, “This girl, she’s been hiding for eight months. That job at that bar was her third one in that time. She stays about three months and moves on. You probably know even better than I do: unless you have a ton of money and resources, disappearing off the face of the earth is no easy task. She made mistakes and that’s how Hunter tracked her and obviously the Garibaldis too. We need to make sure that doesn’t happen again.” Jace had a million questions, the first one being why Wolf cared, but he held his tongue and waited. Wolf went on, “Her real name is Madison Benning.” Wolf paused and Jace frowned. The name meant something to him, but for a few seconds he couldn’t grasp what it was. Suddenly a light came on and he said,

  “Motherfucker! Grant Benning...Hawk? She’s Hawk’s kid?” Wolf nodded. “No offense, Wolf, but then why are you taking this all on? Why isn’t Hawk handling it, or Dax?”

  Wolf sighed. “Hawk hooked up with this girl’s mother in New York maybe five or six years before the fallout between him and Doc happened. Hawk told Dax that Doc knew about the kid, and that he was in love with her mother. He even said he’d planned on bringing them to the ranch eventually. But then the shit happened with Doc, and Hawk was kicked out of the club. For a while he lived with the old lady and the kid in New York, but when shit got heavy with the Sinners, he sent them to live with her folks in Vegas. The kid grew up just believing her parents were divorced. Hawk would go out west and see her whenever he got a chance but he told Dax he never spent too much time there because he didn’t want to attract any of his enemies toward his family. The kid grew up and she was in college and working at one of Garibaldi’s casinos. She’s a smart kid, I guess...must have gotten it from her mother,” Wolf said with a roll of his eyes. Jace nodded; he wasn’t sure he believed too strongly in Hawk’s intelligence himself. “Anyway, she was working as an Assistant Controller...”

  “I’m sorry, Wolf. I don’t know a lot about casinos.”

  “That’s okay, I had to ask too. A controller is someone that plans, organizes, and directs all the financial and accounting activities of the casino. Big-time responsibility. So, she was working as the assistant and it turns out this controller, Walter Hale, was working two jobs. He was Garibaldi’s ‘loyal’ employee for close to twenty years, but he was also informing the Feds for the past dozen or so. This particular casino had been hit with IRS audits and fines for compliance violations like crazy for a while. Garibaldi knew someone was talking and when they finally found out it was Hale, Anthony went to handle it.

  “What Anthony didn’t know, however, was that even though it was after hours, there were still four employees on the floor, waiting for Hale, who was holding a meeting. Those employees included Madison. Thinking they were doing the right thing, they all agreed to testify after Anthony was arrested. That was when the old man found out who the witnesses were. Somehow he also found out where the safe house was. They made that explosion look like a gas leak, but what they didn’t know was that Madison and two of the witnesses were sleeping in rooms in the basement. They got out and they all decided they’d had enough of being star witnesses for the prosecution and took off. The other two haven’t been seen again. No offense to them or their kin, they’re not our problem anyway. But Madison called Hawk. He wanted her to tell him where she was. She was too scared and hung up before he could get anything out of her.

  “That’s when Hunter started looking for her, using the number she called from as a start. It was an Arizona area code. She’s changed her name three times in eight months, but ultimately what she did wrong was buy a new Social Security number from the wrong guy, a guy with a big mouth who talked to anyone with enough money to buy his information. Hawk wanted to go and get her himself, but Dax wouldn’t let him. Dax...well, all of us...would like to keep the club out of this. Having Garibaldi as an enemy is not what any of us want.”

  “So we picked her up and brought her to you...and now what? Where does she go from here?”

  “Well since the Feds are also looking for her, we can’t just stick her on a plane and get her out of the country. To boot, she’s all Hawk’s kid and she’s not being all that cooperative. The thing is, though, she wasn’t going to school to work with money. She doesn’t have her degree yet, but she was pretty close to it. She’s going to school to be a botanist, specializing in rare species of desert plants.” Jace cocked an eyebrow and wondered if Wolf was going where he thought he was. Jace worked so hard to keep the shit out of his club, far away from it. Are they about to ask me to hide this woman at my club? Hawk’s daughter? Shit. “Dax, Hunter, and Hawk are working on finding Anthony Garibaldi. As soon as the DA lost their witnesses, a judge let him go for lack of evidence but he hasn’t been seen since. Hawk came out and spoke with Madison. He got her to agree to cooperate and keep hiding out until they find him. Dax was the one that came up with the idea of hiding her in plain sight.”

  “At my club?”

  “No,” Wolf said. “Dax talked to Rock and Rock talked to his son, Tommy. Tommy is going to give her a job at his museum, working in the indigenous plants section or some shit.” Jace could see this was all giving Wolf a headache. Jace could relate. None of this had anything to do with either of them. This was all Southside shit running downhill. “But they are asking that your club keep an eye on her.”

  “An eye?”

  “Two eyes,” Wolf said. “Twenty-four hours a day.”

  Jace had a dozen men in his club. He’d have to give one up a day for...? “How long?”

  Wolf shrugged. “That’s the part that sucks the most, I can’t give you a timeframe. Until they find Anthony Garibaldi and make sure Madison is going to be safe to return to her own life...It’s a huge imposition,” Wolf said. “Fucking huge. Trust me, I know. Dax says that since all this happened, Garibaldi has discovered Madison’s link to the Southside Skulls. If Dax sends a man out here, or men, to watch her...it would be like drawing a map for the old gangster and his sons. Originally I was going to keep her here, but she’s a headstrong little shit and unless we let her have some say in what happens to her, she’ll be nothing but trouble. This request though, Jace, is just that. It’s a request and even Dax has said that you have the option to say no. You can take this back to your club, to church if you need to, or you can tell me no right now and we move on. It’s up to you.”

  “Tommy Tsosie knows who he’ll have working for him?” Tommy and Jace had started out on bad terms, but over the past year he’d watched the young man turn an old building on a small piece of property into a passion that people would be able to learn from and enjoy for generations to come. He had also just gotten engaged. He was a decent kid and Jace wasn’t sure he was comfortable with them involving Tommy, and he was surprised that Rock had agreed to it.

  “He knows we’re protecting her. I’m not sure he knows from who or what. His old man has the full story. I’m not sure if you know but Rock did some business with Doc back in the day, so that’s his connection to the Southies.”
>
  Jace didn’t know. Rock had told him about his life as a nomad for the Tarantulas but he’d never mentioned knowing the Southside Skulls, Dax, or Doc, or whoever he did business with. Sometimes this business was so tightlipped that even the president who thought he was on top of everything didn’t know shit. “If I say no, then what?”

  Wolf shook his head. “I’m sure, knowing Dax, he has a backup plan, but they haven’t shared that with me.”

  Jace nodded. He wasn’t going to say no. He would call Beck and have her run it by the guys, but he knew they wouldn’t say no either. Maybe, if it was just about helping out a stranger...but despite Hawk’s not so stellar reputation with...most humans...Madison Benning’s being his daughter made her family, Skulls family; and likes and dislikes aside, it was what they did, they protected their own.

  8

  Phoenix, Arizona

  “Ama, why am I so nervous? Do you think it’s a bad sign?” Jolene had spent way too much time this past week thinking about the man she met at the sandwich shop. She couldn’t figure out why she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him. Sure, he was hot, but she’d seen and been hit on by plenty of hot men in her life. This one she had seen and spoke to for all of ten minutes and she hadn’t been able to get him out of her head since. Finally, while she was making plans for a trip up to Window Rock and to the zoo there, she decided to call him. He’d acted excited to hear from her and hadn’t hesitated to say yes when she invited him to go with her to take photographs at the zoo even though it was a four-hour drive there and back. She was sure to tell him it was a “work” assignment, so he wouldn’t think it was a date, but even she could hear how silly that sounded. They were going to spend an entire day together. It was not only a date, but it would be the first time she’d ever asked a man out in her life. Maybe that’s why she was so nervous as she waited in her sponsor family’s hogan for him to pick her up. Maybe if she was going to ask a man out, she should have started small, with coffee, or lunch. Or maybe, it was because she’d agreed to let him drive her...on his motorcycle.