Page 5 of Toxic

He paused, then looked over his shoulder. “Yeah?”

The grin grew slowly over my face. “How’s Keely doing?”

His eyes narrowed. “She’s fine.”

“Yeah? How fine? Like,fine,fine?” I got up off the bed and rubbed my hands down my sides and shimmied a little.

“Fuck off, Toxic.”

Shaking my head as he left, I chuckled to myself. “He’s going to end up snapping like a rubber band if he doesn’t do something about that soon.”

“Talking to yourself?”

I glanced up as I dug my boots out of my closet and stuffed my feet into them. “You ready to take a ride?” I asked.

Butcher was leaning on the doorframe, arms crossed as he stared at me. “Yeah, but Lock didn’t say where we were going. Just that you needed help.”

This was going to be fun. I smacked his shoulder as I walked past. “Let’s go.”

“Hell no!There’s horses out there,” Butcher barked, pointing toward the pasture that had a handful of grazing horses.

“I’m sure there are some in the barn, too,” I told him as I looked around. This was a nice piece of land. The house was an old farm style house and it had a lot of outbuildings, but everything seemed old and worn. It needed some care. The house needed a new coat of paint. So did the barn. The harsh Arizona sun wore that shit off fast as hell.

One of the sliding doors on the barn was off its track, leaving the insides open to the elements. A horse poked his head over a stall door as I went inside, ignoring Butcher’s bitching. “Hey there,” I said, in a soothing voice. Had to be a gelding because the horse’s ears were up and there was a friendly look in his eyes. The mares were never as nice. I had a love for the cantankerous females of the horse world. They were so much damn fun with their moods.

I patted the horse’s muzzle and refilled his hay and checked that he had water. There was sweat dried onto his dark coat, so I grabbed a brush. “Just go keep a lookout outside,” I told Butcher, knowing he was going to get antsy staying inside the barn. I’d caught him up with everything I knew after we parked the truck and took a stroll around.

“I’m not touching these damn animals,” he said.

“You don’t need to,” I said with a laugh. “That’s my job.”

He hesitated, looking like he was going to offer to help anyway. I didn’t want to hear his bitching though. “I’d rather have you out there watching for trouble.”

Nodding, he left the barn and I watched as a small heeler trotted in past him. The dog paused, head turning as she watched Butcher walk away.

“You bite him and he might bite back,” I cautioned her.

The dog looked over at me, ears up, a considering look in her eyes. She must have abandoned her plan because she followed me into the horse’s stall. I patted the gelding’s flank, then started brushing him.

Shit. There were times when I missed this. I loved growing up on the ranch. When I left for the Army, I missed it so damn much. But after I got out of the military, I needed my brothers here. As much as I loved my Pops, and our family ranch, I needed the men I considered family. They grounded me.

And it wasn’t that the Berserker’s Rage MC crew wasn’t like family, they were, but after my brother died… I just couldn’t stay. I needed something new. That was why I’d come to Tucson. Why I switched clubs and became a part of the Viking’s Rampage. It was new. It was mine. Not something I shared with my brother. He’d been a Berserker too, back in the day.

Cypher had understood and he’d let me go. Which was why we still had a good relationship. Why we worked so well with his club now. I loved those men as brothers, but I needed out. They understood and let me go. Hush had done the same when he’d lost his first wife, Lockout’s sister.

I’d been the one to explain to Lock that he needed to let Hush go. Otherwise he’d lose him forever. If he let him go, there was a chance we’d get him back. And we had. But this was myplace and my former brothers understood that. So did my dad. I wasn’t going anywhere.

I’d been trying to get Pops to move down here, near me, but he didn’t think he could leave his ranch. Our ranch. I planned to change his mind. One day.

The unmistakable sound of a shotgun racking back made my asshole clench. Dropping the brush in my hand, I slowly turned and found the barrel touching my nose.

The woman standing there had long dark wavy hair and a fiery look in her gorgeous brown eyes. And wouldn’t you fucking know it? Lightning struck.

CHAPTER 3

Billie

Ididn’t know the truck parked in my driveway. And I hadn’t heard back from Keely yet. Of course my phone died at the hospital. My mind was so preoccupied I didn’t think to charge it on the way home to feed my animals. The sun was starting to sink low in the sky. I paid the Uber driver and looked around as he drove off.

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