CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

"Is this where you live?" Ruby asked as they pulled up in front of the comfortable ranch-style house with its two-car garage. It could have been any small town single-family home in Northern California with its mowed yard and ample landscaping of pecan, orange, and date trees. The only thing that gave it away as belonging to a member of the Steel Jockeys were the three massive Harleys parked out front--two belonging to the homeowner and one to his wife.

 

It was a fairly innocuous comment, but to Joe, conscious that it was the first thing she'd said to him in an hour on the road, it meant something had gone wrong.

 

Colt had called Joe's phone at the rest stop, asking if everything was going okay with, as he termed it, Plan A. He was grateful Colt had called because he was running out of places to hide.

 

Luckily, as he'd found out, there'd been big news. Aaron Beeson had left his compound in Mexico and had resurfaced at some point yesterday. He'd called headquarters and told Colt he was riding north for a parley about the incident with Tony, and he sounded like he was open to seeing reason.

 

Joe only hoped that that might lead, in turn, to answers about what had happened to Kyle--if not the whole truth. Then at least something could put to rest the Jockeys' howling for someone's blood. More importantly, Colt had insisted to Joe that it was safe to take Ruby back to Madelia; that if Beeson made trouble or the Reapers tried to come after them, Colt would have his back. Colt had gotten the same grudging agreement from A.J. and Rex.

 

They wouldn't resort to violence--not yet, anyway. Not while Joe still had any chance of hammering out a peaceful solution. He was absurdly grateful--not for the first time--that the large biker was around to back him up.

 

Unfortunately, none of that explained why Ruby Clarke had gone from a living, breathing woman on the back of his bike to a solid block of ice. As soon as he'd rejoined her after ending his call with Colt, she'd shucked off his jacket and wordlessly handed it back to him.

 

He'd tried asking her if anything was wrong, but she'd cut him off, stomping back to his bike and ensconcing herself on the back. Now, short of demanding to know what he’d done wrong, all he could do was treat her gently and hope stress or exhaustion were to blame, although he doubted it. It filled him with an almost crippling anxiety.

 

"It’s our sergeant-at-arms’ place. But I crash here whenever I can find an excuse to.” He tried to sound casual as he cut the engine, knowing that even with the new, quieter pipes, Colt would be able to hear him arriving six blocks away.

 

He suspected that Sean Donovan, in his blatant effort to seduce Ruby away from him, had told her how poor he was and that she'd been expecting a hovel. There was so much else he wanted to say to her, to explain to her about him and his past. But some of these were things he’d told no one he didn’t cared about--let alone someone he did.

 

He hopped off the bike, unsure whether he should try to be gentlemanly and offer to help Ruby down. He knew he'd never accept his hand, which would leave him inevitably looking foolish, but he also risked her thinking him a churl for not helping her, confirming whatever nasty impression she was already forming of him.

 

Talk about a lose-lose situation.

 

In the end, thankfully, he didn't have to. Ruby jumped off the bike even before he did. It was as if she didn't want to be close to him for even a second longer than she had to.

 

“Anyway, his name’s Colt. The best way to describe him is a massive, terrifying teddy bear.” As if on cue, the manual garage door started to rumble and the massive, bearded biker stepped out into the driveway.

 

Colt's nineteen-year-old daughter, Regan, bounded out the front door behind her father, throwing herself at Joe, with her long, straight black hair flowing behind her.

 

"Hey, Lollipop," he said affectionately, ruffling her fruity-smelling hair as she gazed up at him adoringly. He pulled away quickly, not wanting Ruby to get the wrong impression. Regan once had a crush on him of course, as any teenage girl would on the boy he'd been back then--a cocky, brooding juvenile delinquent with long blond hair, who just so happened to be staying in the bedroom next hers and whom her father had flat-out forbid her to spend any alone time with.

 

It certainly wasn't as if he'd never thought about it--he'd met Colt when he was a teenager, invited into the man's house when his only other options were prison, a foster home, or the streets. At the same time, his eldest daughter had been ripening like a particularly juicy, low-hanging pear. Joe was flirtatious by nature and Regan was inevitably receptive.

 

A few times, they'd managed to come within groping distance. But it had never gotten very far. The sheer number of times Colt had threatened to cut the boy's nuts off if he ever caught him in her bedroom was enough to ensure that. Regan's body was also naturally boyish, small-breasted, and narrow-hipped. Thankfully that had never been Joe's type, which was why as the years wore on, they had grown to be more like siblings than anything else.

 

Kyle, on the other hand, was out more often than he was in, and he knew that in the year leading up to Kyle's death, he and Regan had become close. Regan had finished school and started a job, giving her breathing room to meet him out of the range of parental supervision.

 

He wasn't sure if Colt and Holly even knew there had been something going on between them. He himself wasn’t even sure how far it had gotten. He knew that Kyle had started carrying a photo of Regan in his wallet next to Ruby’s, and that he’d talked about how he’d wanted to go legit partly because it would convince Colt to allow him to get serious with her.

 

Joe closed his eyes, said a quick prayer, and introduced Ruby to the towering sergeant-at-arms, hoping Colt wouldn't insist on a massive bear hug, as he'd been known to do. That was why he’d warned Colt on the phone about what Ruby had been brainwashed to believe about the Steel Jockeys. That she was jumpy and that for now, it was strictly hands off. Colt merely grabbed her hand in his massive paw and ushered her inside.

 

"Joey and I have some business to attend to over at the Bird," said Colt pointedly as he stood in the doorway, exchanging a look with his younger colleague. "I'll be back in a few hours."

 

"You're coming back for dinner, aren't you Joe?" asked Regan.

 

She fluttered her baby-doll eyelashes at him, But Joe's eyes were trained only on Ruby, as Regan's had been earlier, sizing her up in a way he knew she hoped wasn't obvious. Ruby glanced shyly at Joe and raked her fingers through her wind-whipped chestnut hair, probably afraid she wasn't making the proper impression.

 

If Joe hadn't so been afraid that she hated him, he would have whispered in her ear that she looked beautiful--because she did. Not even a ride through the worst elements could change how much he enjoyed looking at her. If Regan’s body screamed “sisterly” to him, Ruby’s screamed the exact opposite--for better or for worse.

 

"I'm cooking lasagna. Your favorite. And Kyle’s." Regan said.

 

"Don't worry, Joe.” It was Colt's wife Holly, emerging from the kitchen with a small laugh. "I'm supervising. After all, she's using my recipe and I have my reputation to keep intact."

 

"And of course by supervising, she means pointing out every single thing I'm doing wrong, beginning with turning the stove on." Regan put her hands on her hips.

 

"What can I say? That's how my mother taught me," said Holly brightly as she stepped forward and shook hands with Ruby, doing her best, Joe knew, to put her at ease. "Better cooking through constant criticism. At last we meet the sister Kyle talked so much about," she said. "You look exactly like him."

 

Ruby stepped back, seeming surprised. It had to have been downright strange for her, Joe thought, to meet these people with whom her brother had obviously been so close to. Yet they were virtual strangers to her, talking about his favorite meals like they were his second family. He wouldn't have known how to act in that situation--not that he'd ever had the opportunity, having so little family to begin with.

 

"Did...did he come here a lot?" Ruby's eyes seemed to brighten a little, and Joe realized Holly had said precisely the right thing to put the younger woman at ease. Someone who had been this close to her brother--who had cooked him dinner for crying out loud---couldn't possibly be untrustworthy.

 

"As much as he could," laughed Holly. "There aren't exactly a lot of dining-out options in Madelia," she said. "He always said this was the best restaurant in town."

 

"And the cheapest," Joe joked, trying to do anything to put Ruby at ease. He hated to see her so tense, and hated even more to think that something he'd done had probably been the cause of it. But what? How could anything cataclysmic occurred in the brief time it took for him to answer a phone call? He was starting to fear he looked as tense as Ruby, and that's not what Ruby needed.

 

Joe resisted the urge to put his arm around her. A day ago, he might have done it, but her icy demeanor had chilled him. Plus, he already knew that all three of them--Holly, Regan, and Colt--had their eyes peeled for any clues as to the nature of their relationship.

 

Joe didn't know who to be disgusted with more--them, for thinking so little of him that he would stoop to taking advantage of the woman he'd vowed to her brother to protect--or himself, because he knew that, despite his best efforts, he almost had. The upside was, none of them would mention it in front of Ruby. Holly had already taken the young woman's handbag and hung it on the closet door, inviting her to have a seat on the sofa. Plus, the fact was, he had that reputation.

 

As they trooped inside, nobody even bothered to mention the fact that Holly was Regan's stepmother, not her mother, which showed how well they got along. Age-wise, she looked closer to her sister. Holly was only in her late thirties, her naturally light blonde hair in a pixie cut. Her housewifely air belied the fact that she was a born biker girl--each ear was triple pierced, and her full-sleeve tattoos only peeked out from the edges of her t-shirt.

 

If Ruby said something to make Holly really laugh, she might catch a glimpse of her tongue stud. She was Colt's second wife, the mother of his youngest daughter Morgan, who wasn't home from school yet. Regan's mother, who lived in Ross Canyon, had divorced Colt after only a few years of marriage. Holly had been in her stepdaughter's life a long time. Colt's middle daughter, Susannah, lived with her mother in San Francisco, the product of a brief relationship Colt had had after his first divorce. The breakup had been acrimonious and Colt hadn't seen Susannah in years, which Joe knew pained the older man.

 

"Come on," said Holly. "I've got something for you." She raised her eyebrows and looked in Joe's direction.

 

Ruby looked down at the carpet, as if she found the toe of her ballet flats fascinating. The way she bit the full bottom of her pouty carnation-colored lip as she looked at up at him, that perfect mix of defiance and vulnerability that she clearly had no idea she had, had Joe wanting to tie himself down so he wouldn't grab her and carry her down the street to his bedroom right then and there.

 

Colt waited until he and Joe got around the side of the house before he let loose.

 

"Don't say it," Joe interrupted when Colt opened his mouth. "She's only a few years older than Regan you know."

 

"I'm not going to say anything," Colt vowed. "I promised Holly I'd behave myself while Ruby's here, and I intend to. But just let me say--"

 

"Colt!"

 

"Hold on, kid. Let me finish. Let me just say there are some good genes in that family. And if that makes me a dirty old man," Colt put his hands to his chest, "I’ll wear that title with pride."

 

Joe leaned down and kicked a clump of grass clippings with his boot. "And you wonder why Ruby didn't want to have anything to do with the Jockeys? She thinks we're a bunch of degenerates completely lacking in self-control. Nothing anyone's done so far has done much to convince her otherwise."

 

"Like?"

 

Joe gulped. Flashes of last night on Desiree's sofa bed flew by on a reel--Ruby's neck arching under the touch of his mouth, the way her lips had parted, letting in a little gasp of air, just at the second he touched her skin, as if she was biting into some irresistible piece of low-hanging fruit. And that had only been for starters, but already he could almost feel the tightness in his jeans--which he should have been ashamed of, by the way, and would probably make sleeping tonight an impossible task.

 

He was no better than Sean--no better than Colt, no better than the worst impressions Ruby had of anyone who belonged to this M.C. But Colt couldn't know that. Not when he would have such easy access to Ruby for the foreseeable future. Joe knew Colt would never put his hands on her that way in a million years, but his good-natured and relentless teasing was what made him a good dad, and Joe had no illusions that he would hold back.

 

Ruby had been so cold and standoffish on the journey that it had been torture for him riding in front of her. Every time he tried to shift his weight on the bike he felt her minutely edge away from him. If fighting his encroaching desire weren't enough, he had to face the prospect that Ruby would want nothing more to do with him ever. There was no question about it, he decided. He had to find out what had happened or what he had done to make Ruby's affections turn. And the only way to do that was to ask.

 

"She already had to spend most of last night fighting off Sean Donovan,” Joe said, trying to shift the spotlight off himself. “Now it looks like I'm going to have to keep her away from you too."

 

Colt's eyes crinkled, looking Joe up and down, and Joe knew that he'd possibly said too much.

 

"Relax, kid. Something tells me I'm not her type."

 

"That's for sure," Joe laughed, glancing back at the kitchen window, at a slight flutter of the curtains. He couldn't help wondering what they were doing in there; whether Holly had sat Ruby on a kitchen chair succeeded in putting her at ease. Whether Ruby's lips had parted in a genuine smile, not the tight little grimace she sometimes wore when she was just holding it together.

 

Although he trusted Holly and Regan with his life--they'd gotten him out of more scrapes than he could possibly enumerate, and forgiven him for his trespasses a thousand times over--he knew he wouldn't relax until he was back there sleeping. If not beside Ruby, then at least in the same house. Unfortunately, there was no reason he could think of to justify that--not when he had his drafty, sparse garret above the bar and not when Colt was looking over his shoulder with a shit-eating grin, assuming all the things Joe had hoped desperately that he wouldn't assume.

 

Colt cleared his throat, and Joe spun around, feeling guilty. "Tell me again what you two have been up to for the past day and a half," said Colt. "You know I think Holly is still sexy as hell, but some ideas to help spice things up in the bedroom never hurt."

 

Joe punched Colt on the arm, though it was like hitting the side of a buffalo. "Kyle was my brother."

 

"So that means what exactly? That Ruby is your sister? For someone you have absolutely no attachment to other than brotherly, you seem to be dragging your feet a lot about leaving her alone," pointed out Colt casually.

 

"Fuck you," said Joe, waving him off, trying to keep a sense of humor about it so he would resist decking the gigantic man in the face and getting it back so hard it would flatten him.

 

"By the way, you are coming back for dinner, aren't you?" Colt's eyes twinkled. "I hate to think the three poor ladies over there are resigned to spending an evening with only me for company."

 

But Joe had already had enough. He had thrust his hands in his pockets and was already halfway down the driveway to where he'd parked his bike. He kept his eyes on the road, knowing that the only thing that would make him forget Ruby and the aching that was threatening to become a genuine pain, was riding as fast and fiercely as he could into the horizon. It was the only thing that ever let him forget.

 

But there were some things too important to leave behind.