Chapter Thirty-Four
Rebel
I walked away from Elle, sure this was when Jack told me how much he didn’t approve of me marrying Elle. He’d been all smiles around his daughter, but I expected the truth now that we were alone. He’d have to get used to me because I wasn’t letting her get away no matter what her father thought about it.
“Son, you are a miracle worker.” He clasped my shoulder. “I haven’t ever seen my girl so happy. Thank you.”
I whipped my head to him but he was serious. “You don’t care that I’m a biker?”
“Known lots of good men and more than my share of bad ones—being a biker doesn’t make you one or the other. But loving my daughter, putting that smile on her face, that makes you the best kind of man.” He slapped my back. “Besides, Gus vouches for you.”
I stopped. No one had ever accepted me so easily, sure he’d had time to check me out, dig into the Brotherhood, but his approval eased something inside me that I didn’t even know was there. “I love your daughter, and I’m happy you two worked things out.”
“We’re too much alike, hell I raised her to be a carbon copy of me, so no doubt she got my stubborn streak.” He shook his head. “Thank god she did because I’d have made a mess of her life if she’d let me. Hell, I didn’t do a great job on my own.”
There was a no-bullshit honesty about him I liked. Elle had it too, but hers was tempered with diplomacy. Jack had given up diplomacy.
“Tell me about the last couple months, and why this merger is so damn important.” He picked up four horseshoes. “It’s more exercise if we walk end to end, and Doris bitches that I need that exercise.”
“Fine by me, but really Elle should tell you the story.” I didn’t want to piss him off now that he liked me.
“Just the basics.” He threw the first horseshoe.
“Well, I guess it all started because you pissed me off.” I was a no-bullshit kind of guy too. I told him about our business deal, then the marriage deal. “In my club, a woman you want to be with forever joins the club with you as property.”
I threw a horseshoe, waiting for the explosion.
“Know about that shit.” His face didn’t give away any clues as to what he thought about it.
I threw another horseshoe, this one rang on the pole. “Anyway, part of that would involve her business, but I didn’t want her business, just her, so I thought it better to walk away. My brothers had a different idea. The merger gives us an equal stake in each other’s companies and we provide the cash to expand the bail bonds businesses and Elle has the experience to run the whole thing, plus it gets around the business worries I had.”
Jack nodded. “You’ll let her lead the whole thing?”
“She’s the one who was raised in the business, I’ve been doing it a few years, way behind on that curve.” Besides, no one let Elle do anything. “Elle earned that place.”
Jack grinned wide. “Knew I liked you first time we met.”
“I didn’t like you, but you’re growing on me.” I tipped my beer to him.
We continued playing the game and talking. He was a tricky bastard and beat me soundly.
“So what’s my girl’s last name?” We walked back toward the deck
I stopped. “It’s Jackson, she isn’t changing it.”
He frowned at me. “Why?”
“Bikers don’t really do marriage, hell I hardly use my name. No reason for her to take it.” I had no desire for her to wear my father’s name. I sure as hell wasn’t proud of that heritage.
“Hunh.” He started walking again, whistling “The Yellow Rose of Texas.”
I collected Elle from the kitchen and we said our goodbyes with a promise to come to dinner next week. We’d have to work out the day since Sunday brunch was out unless they wanted to come to Barden.
“You okay?” I asked as we walked to my bike.
She turned to me, happiness lifted up her face. Damn, I loved seeing her happy.
“I’m real good, making up with Daddy and Doris healed something inside me.” She laid her fisted hand on her chest. “I was so worried about it and it was so easy.”
“He loves you, baby.”
“Yeah, he does. He likes you too.” She leaned up on tiptoes to give me a quick kiss.
And maybe the dinner healed something inside me. Not many people accepted me, let alone trusted me with a treasure like Elle, but her father did. I had no doubt about it.
* * *
I paced in the living room of Elle’s townhouse. She was upstairs doing whatever women did to drive men crazy. “Get your ass down here,” I yelled up the steps. “Dresden will be gone before we get there.”
A moment later, Elle appeared in the red dress. The dress she’d worn the first night I’d seen her and she looked even hotter tonight than she had then. “Fuck, baby, you can’t wear that.”
“Why not?” Her face puckered into a pout.
“I’ll be fucking hard all night, and where’s your gun?” I tried to sound anything but desperate.
She slid up the slinky red material to show me her thigh holster. “Right there, honey.” She gave me a sexy smile and I was lost.
“Good thing we’re taking your truck,” I grumbled.
We made it out of the house and to the club without me losing my mind and fucking her right where she sat, but I really wanted to.
“Let me help you down,” I warned her before I hurried to her side of the truck. I lifted her down, letting her body slide down mine. It was sweet torture.
I placed my arm around her and we walked into the Red Light Club. The dance music irritated me when we walked in the door but Dresden was the designer drug dealer to the dance crowd. Tonight he was supposed to be here, so I’d suffer the music. Elle’s body moved with the beat as she made her way through the crowd. My intel said Dresden liked the corner stool at the bar.
We walked toward an open pocket at the bar. When I got closer, I noticed a cut. Fucking Charlie sat at the bar, the crowd stayed away from his Bandit cut. This was the last place I expected to see him. “Amigo, you swim in strange waters.” I grasped his arm in a handshake.
“I was about to give up on you.” He whistled. “Damn, Elle, glad I stayed for the show.”
She leaned up and kissed his cheek. “Good to see you, Charlie.”
I convinced the two guys next to Charlie to move on, helping Elle up onto her bar stool before I sat next to Charlie. “What can I do for you?”
“Just wanted to say thank you and share a drink.” The bartender set a bottle of whiskey between us.
I leaned over to Elle. “Maybe you can take care of Dresden while I catch up—”
“Oh no.” She grinned at me, knowing I was giving her grief. “Last time I came back to collect you, you passed out on the way home.” She ran her fingers down the deep cut of the dress. “You will be fucking me tonight.”
“Oh, baby, you can count on that.” I grinned at her. Charlie handed me a glass of whiskey which I passed to Elle.
He held up his glass. “To friends.” We clinked glasses before I downed my whiskey. Elle sipped hers while watching our target.
“You made it work between you.” Charlie spoke into my ear because the damn music was loud and entirely too fast.
“Yeah, we made it work.” I remembered telling him she wasn’t my girl. “I’ll be patching her into our club soon.”
“She’ll be hotter with your patch.” Charlie poured another round of whiskey.
“If that’s possible. You good? Everything settle the way it needed to.”
“Better than I expected. Life’s good, and I’m here in Dallas now, overseeing our business here.” He smiled wide. “Lots of time for us to get drunk.”
“Sounds like a plan, but tonight, I’m a working man.” I waggled my brows.
“Working to get that dress off, maybe.” He glanced over at my mark. “Elle could take him. Can’t believe she took Spike down on her own.”
I laughed. He was right, she could do it on her own but she didn’t have to, she had me. I’d always be there for her. “She’s tough, but I like keeping an eye on what’s mine.”