Chapter 24

Eat the tacos, your cowboy boots will still fit.

-Fact of life

Evander

I was released within four hours of my arrest, and I had an idea that had a lot to do with the fact that my woman had come to the police station and pleaded my case.

“Don’t leave town, Lennox.”

I flipped the officer off, Detective Mueller, the same one who’d done a shitty job investigating my case the first time around, and kept walking.

“Watch your step, boy.”

I halted and turned, causing Detective Mueller to reach for his service weapon.

But that was all I did. I only watched him watch me, but it was enough.

He wouldn’t be saying anymore stupid bullshit…at least not to my face.

“Have a good night, Mueller.”

Then I walked out, unsurprised to find Kennedy there, already waiting for me.

The moment the door shut, she was sprinting toward me.

Her face looked like shit, and she already had the start of a black eye forming.

I stopped just short of her and braced myself by dropping one foot back.

Thank God.

The moment she was close enough, she launched herself at me, practically strangling me with her arms.

I coughed slightly and held her just a little bit tighter, then remembered the whispered words between the two officers from earlier, right outside my cell.

“Let me see your arm,” I demanded, setting her away from me.

Resigned that I wouldn’t stop until I saw the state of her arm, she took one more step back and lifted the sleeve of her shirt up to her shoulder.

What I saw made my eyes go wide.

“Holy shit.” I delicately allowed my fingers to move down her arm, just barely brushing her skin.

The move was enough to cause her to flinch, though.

“I’m going to fuckin’ kill him,” I turned on my heel and started my stomp back inside.

She halted me by fitting her hand into the gap between my back and my waistband.

“Don’t,” she ordered. “I’m starving. Take me for food and then we’ll go back to the club and discuss what’s to be done next.”

I stopped, but only because I knew she wouldn’t let go. She’d let me drag her inside with me before she did.

I clenched my fists at my waist and dropped my head, counting to ten very slowly.

When I got there, I decided that ten wasn’t long enough to get this kind of anger under control and continued on to twenty.

Once I got to nineteen, I had some semblance of control, and lucky for me, when I turned around, she’d covered her bruises. Or, maybe it was lucky for Officer Rogers.

The man was dead. I didn’t care what I had to do, I’d beat the shit out of him before the night was through.

Nobody laid their hands on my woman, not like that. And if they did, they had to face the consequences.

No matter what.

I gave her the calm that she thought she needed, however. I let her think that I was back in control, when in reality I was in the red zone.

“Where do you want to go eat?” I teased lightly.

I could eat, too.

It’d been a while since I’d had something, and I’d need my strength to beat the living shit out of that asshole, Rogers.

Little fucker.

“I’d like to go to El Hat,” she said.

I winced.

I hated that restaurant. And it wasn’t ‘El Hat.’ It was ‘El Sombrero’ but everyone in the entire city called it ‘El Hat’ for some reason.

The seating was too cramped, and I couldn’t fucking breathe without blowing over the salt shaker on the next table.

“Okay,” I shrugged. If that’s where she wanted to eat, that’s where we’d go.

She held out my spare key and smiled apologetically. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

Before she could get in, though, I stopped her by placing one hand on her belly and pushing her against the truck door.

“I don’t care what you have to do to make sure that you’re safe,” I told her. “Even if you have to burn down the whole town around you. You’re safe and that’s all that matters to me. Got me?”

She blinked, and then nodded, eyes wide and—need I say it—turned on. “Yeah, I got it.”

Her voice was husky and sweet, causing a little bit more of my control to unravel.

“I fucking love you, you know,” I told her.

Her eyes were smiling as she said, “I love you, too, Evander Lennox. So freakin’ much.”

I meant to give her a sweet kiss. One that wouldn’t get us in trouble for public indecency.

But that sweet kiss turned into a straight-up ravaging the moment I touched my mouth down to hers, and she went wild in my arms.

The only thing that caused me to pull away from her, even for a second, was the amused throat that cleared directly behind me.

I looked over my shoulder and saw Rafe standing there.

“I have news.”

I growled.

“I have to take Kennedy to eat, then we’ll meet at the club.”

He shrugged. “I’m not really a team player yet. I’d rather give this to you now and have you take that information over.”

I looked back at Kennedy.

“You mind if he comes with us?”

Her smile was delicate at best.

“Not at all.”

I dropped another kiss to her mouth. “It’ll be okay, baby.”

She looked away. “Sure, it will.”

***

Two hours later, I was full of chicken fajitas and white cheese queso, staring at the bowl of dwindling chips with a worried expression.

“So you’re telling me that Balthazar had exotic peacocks…and that that dog killed the peacocks, too?”

Rafe nodded. “Information I’m getting from his two men, yeah. He went over there to confront her, just like you did. Gave him the same bitchy attitude.”

“You give this information to the cops?”

Rafe looked at me, and then over to Kennedy, who was still shoveling food into her mouth from her plate. Rice and beans. Yuck.

Assured that she wasn’t paying as much attention as she would have normally if we had her full attention, I nodded at Rafe to continue.

“You know I can’t do that,” he muttered. “Part of the gig.”

Rafe wasn’t here for just me. He was here for a few things. One of those things was a lot bigger fish than Balthazar.

Balthazar was a tiny little guppy compared to the massive, five-hundred-pound tuna that he was after—whatever that may be.

I gritted my teeth.

“Well, how do you suggest I get this information to the right people?”

“Call your brother.”

I looked over to Kennedy, who was no longer eating, and grimaced.

My apologetic eyes flicked up to Rafe, and I winced.

He shrugged it off.

But I knew that shrug wasn’t a throw-away move. He trusted me to take care of her and, essentially, him.

If she told the wrong people that Rafe wasn’t just here to help out at Hail Auto Recovery, people would start asking questions. Questions led to answers. Answers led to death.

It was a vicious cycle, and I wouldn’t put Rafe in danger like that. Not when he’d had my back when nobody else did.

Still did.

He was putting his own mission in jeopardy to ensure that I got out of this whole fuckin’ mess unscathed, and I wouldn’t let him down by allowing Kennedy to do anything that could possibly harm him. Even inadvertently.

“Okay,” I said. “Why my brother?”

I didn’t like talking to my brother. Talking to my brother led to me getting angry, and I’d already had one too many visits with jail this week.

The old feeling of claustrophobia had reared its ugly head while I’d been in there for those few hours, and it’d been enough to remind me that I didn’t want to do that shit again. I’d run away to Mexico or fuckin’ Timbuktu if I had to in order to stay out of jail.

The only problem now was that I would have to take someone with me.

But I could do it.

I always had a backup plan.

It was funny that Rafe and Kennedy had mentioned who the rest of the boys had brought in. Silas, the man who was offering up whatever information he could dig up on Balthazar and the police chief was the same man who had helped me with my backup plan— the one that was going to get Kennedy and I out of the country if it ever became necessary.

I just hoped that I never had to use that plan, because using that plan meant never coming back, and despite the fact that my family was all a bunch of assholes, I would still worry about them.

“Your brother, I think, saw the error of his ways,” she wiped up what was left of the sour cream from her enchiladas with one finger. She brought the white cream to her mouth and licked her finger clean before continuing. “He wants to help, even though he’s not sure how.”

I gritted my teeth against the moan that threatened to spill from my lips at the sight of her licking her finger clean.

“Goddamn,” Rafe muttered, looking away.

I grinned at him.

Kennedy had no fucking clue what she did to people. Even a man like Rafe; a man I’d never seen with another woman in the entire ten years that I’d known him, wasn’t immune to her innocent little move.

“I’ll call him. Give him the information,” I cleared my throat and stood up. “Thanks for all that you gave us, Rafe.”

Rafe wasn’t stupid.

He knew that I was more than affected by Kennedy’s impromptu show.

“But wait, I haven’t eaten my sherbet yet!”

I looked down at the colorful frozen dessert that the waiter had put down in front of her the minute that I’d paid the check and picked up one of the spoons that hadn’t been used. “It’s to-go sherbet, now.”

Then I hauled her up by her hand and pulled her in my wake, all the while listening to Rafe’s chuckling laughter behind us.

“Evander,” Kennedy said, tugging lightly on her arm. “What are you doing?”

I pulled her with me until we were out the door.

The moment that we were buried in the shadows of the building, I pushed her up against the brick wall and dropped my mouth down onto hers.

Again, it was only meant to be something short and sweet, but the moment my lips touched hers, I forgot all about short and sweet. All I wanted was her. All I tasted was her. All I craved was her.

Her hands went to my shoulders, and one of those shapely legs lifted to curl around my hip.

I dropped one of my hands to that leg and leaned into her, allowing her to feel what she did to me.

“We’re leaving.” I told her, breathless from the kiss. “You fuckin’ kill me.”

She gasped when I ground against her once more before pulling away.

“What brought this on?” she breathed heavily, pressing the sherbet cup to her chest and drawing it along the tops of both breasts.

I watched her, and then grinned.

“Get on my bike.”

I was glad that the truck was switched out for my bike. The idea of her pressing up against me was highly appealing.