Scar

Lynn's a gorgeous woman and I'm happy just looking at her. It was the same back then, when the MC was stuck in her town on a job for over a month. I visited her diner at least once a day after I saw her working there. My favorite times were when it was empty so we were alone. We watched TV together, but mostly I just watched her. Should've watched her more closely. But maybe I can make up for that now. After I figured that out, I could fall asleep easily, but before that I kept tossing and turning and cursing my luck for only getting her after she'd already been used up and spent.

Only thing is, I don't know the first thing about ranch work. I had a couple of dogs growing up, and I know a lot about hunting animals—tracking them in the wild for days and then killing them, even skinning them afterwards—but taking care of them, not so much.

I don't want to make a complete fool of myself today. So I've been waiting for Doc in his office since dawn. I know he likes to come in here and prepare everything right after breakfast, which he eats early. I could go find him in the dining room, but I'd prefer to keep this meeting private because my patience for the brothers' jokes at my expense is thin at the best of times.

Doc was a farm boy from Texas before he went to war as an army doctor, which was all long before he joined the MC. I hope he can give me some pointers about cows and horses and such.

"Scar? I didn't know you were waiting for me," he says as he finally walks into the infirmary, as he wants us to call the huge ass room on the ground floor that he transformed into a futuristic doctor's office over the years. Good thing he did, since the MC's been throwing a lot of work his way, and he's good at patching us up. We're lucky to have him.

"Your arm been bothering you?" he asks, while I'm still deciding how to ask what I need to know.

I cleared it with Cross that I might be away for a couple of days last night. He didn't ask for my reasons, so I didn't give them. But he's the only brother I can trust not to poke fun at me when they find out what those reasons are. Good natured poking fun, but still annoying as hell. Especially since that whole beauty queen and monster fairytale ain't happening anytime soon, going by the beauty queen's belief that she's had all the sex she was meant to have. It's good she can find humor in it, even if it's a very dark kind. I can't find much humor in anything, let alone that.

But ranch work is sweaty, hands-on business, so who knows, maybe she'll change her beliefs. A guy can hope…

I flex the arm I got stabbed in while we were rescuing Ice and taking Lizard with us. "Nah, it's pretty much healed. Just throbs sometimes when the weather's bad."

"That was a million dollar wound," Doc says as he goes about tidying up the already very tidy counter by one of the walls. "A centimeter to the left and you'd have lost the use of your arm for good. If the nerve had been severed and not just nicked—"

I don't exactly know how big a centimeter is, but judging by the way he uses the word, I assume it's very small.

"Let's be thankful it happened how it did and stop talking about it," I say more harshly than I wanted to, mainly because knives and cuts are like my kryptonite, have been my whole life, and I still get nightmares of choking on my own blood as I die from a knife wound. Besides, saying I'm lucky when it comes to wounds is too stupid an exaggeration to even grace with a comeback.

"Alright, then why are you here?" Doc asks, equally harshly since my tone clearly didn't sit well with him. He's got a temper, our good doctor does, and I sometimes forget that. I'm also going about this all wrong, since I wanted him in a good mood, but that ship has now sailed.

"I'm helping a friend on a ranch today," I say. "And seeing as I know nothing about livestock and you grew up on a farm I was hoping you'd give me some pointers."

"A friend, huh?" he says and grins. And he doesn't have to say anything more to make it clear the beauty queen story has reached him too.

"Do I know him?" he adds, but I know full well he knows it's a she.

He was still patching up soldiers in some war when we rescued Lynn else I might have brought her to him to fix. Tank's been pretty excited over the prospect of me reuniting with her, and he's been telling the whole MC about it. I guess even that pretty red-headed girlfriend of his can't rein him in completely.

"Yeah, OK, it's my beauty queen friend, what of it?"

"Nothing, I'm just asking," he says, throwing his hands up as though in surrender. "Ranch work you say? Makes perfect sense that you volunteered for it. I'd wrestle a bull for a beauty queen any day, though I don't recommend it."

His eyes glaze over like he's remembering doing just that.

"No bulls, I hope," I tell him. "Just a bunch of goats and some horses and such. I think I saw some cows too."

"And I take it you've never worked with any of those before?" he asks, grinning at me.

I shake my head.

"In that case, I'd suggest you don't start now," he says and laughs, but stops when he glances at my face and sees what must be a very murderous look on there.

"Fine, fine, my serious advice would be to let her take the lead and show you the ropes," he says, just a shadow of a grin still on his face. "It'll bring you closer, if nothing else. But in general, just do easy shit like digging holes and general shoveling stuff. You won't make too much of a fool of yourself doing that."

I nod because he's right and it's sound advice. Doc can always be counted on to give sound advice.

"It would take years for me to explain to you how to handle livestock like a born cowboy," he goes on. "But as a general rule of thumb, you gotta let the animals know who's boss. That means you show no fear, and no pussyfooting around them either. Knowing you, that shouldn't be much of an issue. Just treat them as you do anyone you're trying to get something out of. No causing extreme pain, but a little goes a long way, which you of course already know.”

He's right. I might be the club's torturer, but I avoid going to extremes. Nine times out of ten, the fear of extreme pain is the better way of getting info than actual pain. Once you hurt them bad, their info turns more useless too. The guy who thought me all I know told me that too, and he was right. My face and the stories people tell of me are enough to have guys shaking. I don't have to do much to get them talking once they're alone in the room with me. And it's not exactly that I'll miss the work now that we won't be having so much need for it, it's just that I'm good at it, and I'm not good at much else.

"Show 'em who's boss and no fear. Sounds like good advice," I say and hop off the examination table where I've been lounging.

"And let her teach you," he adds. "That should be enough to get things rolling."

"There’s also that hope," I say then leave.

It's almost seven thirty. I need to hit the road if I'm gonna be on time to meet Lynn. Doc didn't have a whole lotta advice for me, but what little he gave me, I plan on following. Because I'd like to spend a whole lot of time with Lynn, and if it's sweaty, hands-on time, so much the better.

* * *

Lynn

I've been at the ranch since seven fifteen, waiting for Scar to arrive. I only went into the house to say good morning to everyone and tell them a friend of mine will be helping out today. Then I came right back out to wait for him before they could ask any questions. Now it's almost eight, and he's not here yet.

I'm starting to worry he won't show, which I'd like to believe wouldn't be like him, but I really don't know him that well. Back when I still worked at that diner he showed up like clockwork at three PM or ten PM, when it was slowest. Sometimes it was just the two of us in there for hours, since most of the afternoon shift was so dead, even the cook when home to nap on most days. We'd sit at the bar, watch TV and he'd listen to me talk about myself, my next pageant, and later also about how I didn't really want to be a supermodel anymore, how I wanted to work with animals, how I sometimes felt like I was just doing the beauty queen stuff to make my mom happy.

I'd just found out there was a vet technician program at the local community college when we met, and I told him about wanting to attend that too, even before I told my mom about it. A huge part of the reason why I took the job at the diner was so I'd have some funds of my own when I decided to tell her that I wanted out of the beauty pageant sphere. I think I was too hard on her at the time, she would've supported me in that decision just like she's always supported me in everything else. Scar listened like he cared, so I kept talking even after I realized he wasn't quite so open about his own life.

The rumbling of a Harley approaching brings me back to the present, and my fear of the sound is mixing with the giddy excitement that he didn't go back out on his word after all. Or is that because I'll see him again in a minute?

I can't answer that question so I ignore it.

"I'm not late, am I?" he asks in answer to my greeting as he parks the bike next to me and gets off.

He's wearing an old denim shirt which has seen better days, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, showing off his forearms. I always liked looking at guys' forearms, and their hands, but that was so long ago, I'm remembering it as though through a sheet of fog.

"You still half asleep or what?" he asks, grinning at me as he takes off his leather sleeveless jacket — his cut, is what it's called — and puts it into one of the saddlebags on his bike.

"Sorry," I say and shake my head like that'll help dispel the fog in my brain, which is now parting and showing me glimpses of other things I used to like too, besides guys' arms. "You're right on time. I'll introduce you to the others and then we can get started."

He nods, but walks closer to me and not in the direction of the house. It's a rush, this way he looks at me, like me and him are the only two people in the world and he likes it just fine that way. I used to feel that way around him back then too. And I liked it. I like it now too. Although the thick dark clouds that are my fear of that kind of thing are roiling angrily just behind the fog showing me these things.

"About that…" he says and pauses for effect, or maybe it's to wait for my eyes to focus on his. I manage it by ignoring the rest.

"I don't want people knowing who I really am," he adds.

"That should be easy, you never told me much about yourself," I say, because kidding with him comes easy too. But his face tightens into a very hard expression, telling me this is a subject he's serious about.

"Don't worry, no one here knows anything about my past either. No one except me, you and my mom do," I say growing more serious too the longer I speak.” I was going to ask you not to tell them anything about me either, or about how we know each other. I just told them you're my friend from way back."

He grins, the tightness gone from his face.

"I didn't mean to get harsh with you over it," he says, and I know he means it, but kinda not, too. He always got this way when I tried to ask him about his life and never told me anything. "I won't tell anyone anything. But that's not all I wanted to ask you…"

He pauses again, and this time it's purely for effect because I'm looking at him as intently as I rarely do at people. I nod to encourage him to keep talking.

"I don't actually know jack shit about helping out on a ranch," he says and chuckles. "I said yes, because it was you asking, but honestly, I don't know if I'm gonna be a whole lotta help. Except if you just need help shifting some heavy objects. I'm pretty good at that."

I don't doubt it, and my gaze shifts from his forearms up to his bulky upper arms, the muscles of which aren't hidden by the shirt he's wearing at all. His back is wide and his chest is wide too. I bet he's as strong as an ox.

There's a very soft, questioning look in his meadow green eyes when mine finally meet them again, but that softness is hiding something sharp, dark and dangerous. His eyes are like a cat's, a big predatory cat's. Warm and inviting, but so very dangerous underneath that.

"You guys coming in or what?" Tammy yells from the doorway to the house. I shake from being startled, he just chuckles.

"Yes!" I yell back, grab his forearm and start leading him to the house.

Only I freeze before I even take the first step, and he's kinda rigid too. I release his arm like it burned me. I used to be very feely with my hands, and used to touch people when I spoke to them all the time. But I haven't been doing that anymore for the last twelve years, and I certainly haven't touched a guy like that in all that time. In fact, he might have been the last guy I touched like this. And here I am doing it like it's no thing. Like it's perfectly natural for me to do it. That deserves a pause.

But I have no idea if it means anything, because I'm still petrified of getting touched in return.