Page 24 of Jax

“I said spanner ten fucking times,” he grunted back, green eyes glaring. His face was more of a frown than the pissed-off snarl that took resident on his face most days of the week. I swear this dude was more laid-back, but with his youngest daughter’s sleeping patterns still not fixed, he wasn’t getting a lot of sleep, and I decided not to poke the huge bastard with a stick.

Which wasn’t like me.

“My bad.” I picked out the spanner and slapping it into his hand. He didn’t flinch, his hand taking the extra weight with ease.

“This girl has really riled you up,” Hunter observed, scooting back under the car.

“Don’t go there with me, Hunter,” I replied, not wanting to talk about it. I’d been unsettled since Ronnie arrived and ever since she tried talking to me last night, I felt the urge to run hard and fast in the opposite direction.

“Fine, but be careful what you do with her. The blowout from Ash and her father hasn’t blown over yet. We’ve still got rogue Black Jacks to keep an eye out for.”

It had been eight months since we’d gone to war with one of the evilest motherfuckers in Europe. All over Anna’s best friend who had fled the second she was safe, leaving us to deal with the aftermath. She might not have been an enemy of the club, but she wasn’t welcome as far as I was concerned.

The real enemy of the club was her father, and an underground kingpin of Europe. He had once used a bad group of Russian mercenaries on his payroll to cause us some trouble. Even going so far as to attack Anna. After we were done with them, the few that survived ended up scattered across the country. Even so, we stayed wary; a scorned man could hold a grudge for a long while, and we guessed we hadn’t seen the end of them yet.

“She won’t be here long,” I replied, kicking my foot against the concrete and spinning on the rusty stool until I came to a stop next to the cooler. At the pop of the lid, I heard Hunter’s tired sigh as he came rolling back out from under the car.

He sat up, cranked his neck, and then steadily rose the six feet up onto his feet.

I passed him a beer, and he twisted off the lid with ease. I took my own off, watching him take a mouthful of the cold Corona while I tipped mine back and chugged it until my air ran out.

Hunter watched me idly from where he sat. “You really think she’s going to be fixed that quickly?”

I glanced at his huge figure before turning back to my empty beer. I reached down and took another out from the cooler, popping off the lid. “Ronnie’s problems aren’t mine to fix.”

“I was talking about the horse.”

I froze, beer to my lips and for a second, the smell of it didn’t taste as nice as I expect it to. “Shit,” I growled, setting the beer on the floor next to my feet. I looked down to my arm and the red, raw skin that was beginning to heal over it. The tribal tattoos I had down my arms, representing pride, dignity, and decision hadn’t been damaged as bad as I thought from the rope burn. Although it was noticeable, it wasn’t disfiguring. Still, the idea that the skin could’ve ended up scarring had me unnerved. I didn’t want to look down at my arms and be reminded of Ronnie. I’d see her every time I grabbed a beer, drove my car, or had my hand wrist deep into a girl’s pussy.

I let out a growl of discontent, annoyed at the tension building in my body. I needed to go for a hard, fast drive.

I shoved myself off the stool, the creaky thing giving a screech as it tumbled back and fell. I tossed Ronnie’s keys back at Hunter.

He caught them in a single paw and didn’t stop me as I headed to my bike. I slipped my leg over the black Triumph Rocket III Harley and started her up.

“Brother,” Hunter called from his place by the cooler. “Be careful.”

He wasn’t talking about my riding.

He was talking about her.

I pulled down my glasses perched on top of my head and rode out the garage, hopeful my engine would take me as far away from her as I could get. All the while trying to forget the fact she’d been at my back only hours before.

* * *

Ididn’t think it could get worse. Honest.

But when Jeremiah called Wolf, who called Hunter, who called me, I realized it had.

And here I was, staring down at the shards of glass scattered across the bathroom’s linoleum floor, wondering if it could even be called a window anymore.

“I was out all last night. When I did get back, I went straight to bed. I didn’t notice it until I went to use the bathroom half an hour ago,” Ronnie said to Jeremiah, our old but eager sheriff, who was writing down notes in a crinkled leather notepad. “I don’t think they took anything—not that I have much anyway.”

“So long as you’re all right.” Jeremiah gave her a gentle pat on the shoulder before casting a look in my direction. He said something else to her before wandering down the path and over to the property where the owner of the motel was currently standing.

“You didn’t have to come,” Ronnie said, pushing her brown hair behind her ear. Her hair was a ruffled mess on the top of her head, corroborating her story. Although it was three in the afternoon, I could tell Ronnie had just woken up, and from the drained look in her eyes, she didn’t seem to be fully functioning yet.

“We get a call from Jeremiah if anything suspicious happens. Prez sent me to check it out,” I mumbled, stepping away from the glass as Ronnie approached me. I was aware she didn’t have anything on her feet and her toes were poking out the bottom of her loose pajama pants. Her nails weren’t painted, and her middle toe stuck out the furthest, reminding me that I used to joke about her toes being universally pissed off at the world.

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