Page 35 of Savage

“What’s going on over here?” Mac asked as he approached, looking back and forth between them.

Savage glanced in the direction Mac had come from and spotted Steele and Talon a few feet away. Had they sent Mac to deal with them because he was from the same chapter and knew them better? It didn’t matter. He turned his attention back to the brothers in front of him.

“Not much. Just setting someone right on how to talk about the women of the club,” Savage said.

“You say something about one of the women?” Mac turned to Sackett, one brow lifted. “I thought you had better sense than that.”

“I do. I didn’t say anything about any of the ol’ ladies. I just mentioned his—”

“Don’t say it,” Savage cut him off before Sackett had a chance to say it again, “or you’ll find out that I wasn’t kidding.” He took a threatening step toward the man who’d prospected with him.

“I wasn’t. I was going to say his girl.” Sackett still held his hands out in front of him. As if he could ward off or block a blow coming his way with them.

Mac’s gaze flicked back and forth from Savage to Sackett and back again, the single brow never dropping as if he was seeing something interesting. After a moment, he turned to Sackett.

“I don’t know what you said,” Mac lifted one hand to stop the younger man from speaking when it was apparent he was ready to defend himself. “I don’t care what it was, and I don’t need to hear it. But I suggest you are careful about letting any of the women of this club hear you say it, or anything like it. First, they’re likely to rip you a new one, then they’ll tell their men, and we will all make you regret the day you were born. Got me?”

Sackett looked like he was going to argue, but only for a moment then he took a deep breath. “Yes, sir.”

“Good. Now knock off the sir shit and clean up your mess. It’s almost time to gather up.” Mac turned and walked away leaving the two men staring at each other.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disrespect her. I thought she was a fling for the trip. I won’t make that mistake again,” Sackett said, he slowly lowered his hands, though his eyes never left Savage. “We okay?”

Savage gave him one last glare, then nodded once and turned away, going back to the coffee he’d just poured. He picked it up and took a sip, then deciding it wasn’t too hot to drink, a longer pull from the cup. He went to where the food was laid out, found some hotcakes, eggs, sausage and more. He picked up a napkin, added a hot cake then several pieces of sausage on top of it. At the end of the line, he set his coffee down. He glanced around, but didn’t see any hot sauce or salsa, so he used both hands to roll the sausage up in the hotcake, then wrapped one end in the napkin before picking up his coffee again thinking that it was his own breakfast burrito, if not a traditional one. He took a bite as he headed toward the horse barn where they’d been told to gather this morning.

Savagepulledthefour-wheelerhe’d been riding for the last hour to a stop behind several others as the rest of his brothers pulled to a stop. He killed the engine, following Lurch’s lead.

Since the foreman and local chapter president had been the one to lead the group out here, a group that consisted mostly of the men who’d come up from Arizona. They were about evenly split on dirt bikes and four-wheelers. Most of the locals were taking care of the ranch chores this morning. Savage assumed that was because they already knew what they were about to be shown. He didn’t know what it was but from what had been said, he knew it was club business.

“All right.” Lurch stood at the front of the group; he’d stepped up on the seat of the four-wheeler he’d been driving. Now he looked out over the group of men, all of whom still sat astride whatever they’d been riding. “I wanted to get you out here so you can see some of the challenges we are facing. As you can tell, the land is mostly flat, though there are some exceptions. There are only a few scatterings of cover, either from the surrounding area or aerial surveillance. If we’re going to use this place as a distribution center, for lack of a better term, then we need to figure out how to make these challenges work for us instead of against us. I’m asking all of you, as well as the local brothers, because we have all served all over the world. We’ve all encountered different terrain and challenges and one of you might have come across something or have an idea about how to set up storage for both live and inanimate cargo.”

Savage scanned the group, all of the men who had come up from Arizona, except the two prospects. Demon and Boomer had been assigned ranch work with the locals who weren’t here. The men with them who hadn’t ridden up were Lurch, Ghost and to Savage’s surprise, Malice. Savage didn’t know much about that one, except that he’d been recruited up here, that Ghost had known him during his service and that he’d been patched in after a six-month prospect period.

Savage had been a little jealous, especially when the other man had been patched in before he had. Sure, it had stung a little, but the Tucson chapter had been around for more than twenty years, they weren’t hurting for members. And as far as Savage had understood the referral system and shortened prospect period had been decided on by the entire club. And had been so short-lived that it was over now. And now that Savage had his colors it was less of an issue to him.

“The upside is that once we get our storage and distribution problem solved, we’ll be able to resume product movement back to what it was before we had to scale back. We may look at expanding, depending on need, risk and a few other factors.” Lurch paused and scanned the group. “Questions?”

Murmuring spread through the men, reminding Savage of a big flock of birds.

“What’s the risk of someone not associated with the Souls would be out here and run across what we’ve got out here?” Maverick asked from where he still sat astride the dirt bike he’d ridden out.

“Risk is low. This isn’t like the border country where people go off wandering through ranches. For the most part, unless it’s neighbors coming together to help each other with something like branding, or a search of some kind, people are too busy with their own concerns to go wandering across neighboring ranchland,” Lurch said.

Once more Savage was thankful they’d had enough vehicles that they hadn’t had to double up. While he didn’t mind having someone on the back of his bike, it needed to be the right person, and none of his brothers were that person.

There was more talk about the ranch, club business and how the two would intersect, but Savage’s mind had turned back to the soft, willing woman waiting for him in his bed, or what served for it while they were here.

He couldn’t help but think about how he’d only known her a few days, but he couldn’t wait to find out more to see her in his place in Tucson. The roar of an engine, then another pulled his mind back to the present. A quick glance around told him the meeting was over, and from the way the others were turning around, it looked like they were headed back to the ranch. He didn’t bother to fight back the grin that spread across his face as he started his four-wheeler and followed.

28

Donnadidn’tknowhowlong she’d slept after Savage had left but when she woke it was much warmer in the tent and she didn’t mind when she climbed out of the sleeping bags. She dressed and cleaned up the tent, straightening up the sleeping bag and folding the top down to keep the bugs out, then folded it in half so her side sat on top of his. This way it wouldn’t take up the entire floor. She then looked around to make sure there was nothing that needed to be done inside before venturing out.

Stepping out of the tent, she stood and stretched then closed up and headed toward the bunkhouse and the rest of the buildings where people tended to gather.

She’d only taken a few steps when she realized she had to pee a lot worse than she’d thought. By the time she was halfway there, she wasn’t sure if she would make it. She briefly considered heading out away from the buildings, finding a hallow and just going, but no. That would be farther away than making it to the bunkhouse. Maybe if it had occurred to her while she’d still been at the tent. But she hadn’t needed to go that badly then.

London, Beth and Jailbait called out to her as she hurried past the barn where Savage had parked his bike when they’d come in. She’d waved but kept moving, afraid that if she stopped, she’d lose her battle. By the time she made it to the bunkhouse she could only hope there was an available stall as she pushed her way inside and headed straight for the bathroom.

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