Heart of the Hunter (22 page)

Plus, the kid wasn’t half bad. He kind of reminded me of what I might have been like if I hadn’t been taken in by Boston’s version of the Capone family. He had balls for a little kid, enough to sit across from the likes of me and not shit his pants. I had to give him credit for that.

“You
smoke
?” Lucas asked, with a disgusted look in his eyes as he ran past me toward his sister’s car.

“You don’t?” I said as I walked toward him.

“Grace says it’s bad for you and stops you from growing big and tall.”

I towered over him, and looked down as I blew out a thick cloud of smoke.

“Seems like Grace fucking lied to you, little man.”

I ripped his bag off his shoulder and threw it in the trunk of Kelly’s car. Lucas just stood there speechless for the first time since I met him and shuffled his foot across the gravel. I slammed the trunk and walked back around the car.

“But she’s right. It’s fucking bad for you and I’ll beat your ass if I ever see you doing it.”

I shoved him gently into the side of the car and he laughed.

You’re actually not half bad, kid.

“Careful, Hunter. That’s a tough guy you’re messing with.”

I turned around and saw Kelly making her way down the stairs.

“Holy hell.”

I couldn’t tell whether I had thought it or said it outloud. I hadn’t slept in over a day and still had some booze coursing through my veins, but I knew for goddamn sure that she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

“Hunter, language,” she scolded.

She motioned to Lucas standing behind me. I guess I said it, but I couldn’t fucking care less. She had put on a little red and white polka dot dress that hugged every curve of her perfect body and flowed out as soon as it passed her thighs. Her tits bounced as she came down the staircase and I watched her milky white legs as she sauntered her way past me and put her bag in the trunk. As she closed the trunk she ran her hand through her hair, stretched and yawned. The way she looked in that moment, I knew I never wanted anyone else ever again. She was fucking perfection. She looked the way I’d always dreamed my woman would look, and she fucked like her pussy was made especially for me. My cock was getting hard and I thought twice about locking the kid in the house and taking Kelly away from here forever. I was done sharing her with anyone else. It had been a couple hours and I was fucking hard as a rock.

“Well, boys, shall we?”

She opened the door for Lucas and closed it behind him. I made my way to the driver’s side and she glided to the passenger. She stopped as she opened the door and looked at me with those big, green eyes, smiling and then turning away like she was shy.

You are fucking done, pal. That’s your girl.

I tossed my cigarette and got in the car.

“So where is this place exactly,” Kelly said, and then stopped herself and mouthed, “Is it safe?”

“It’s not far, sweetheart. And you don’t ever have to worry about safety when you’re with me. That’s not a brag. It’s the fucking truth.”

She smiled and sunk back into her seat as I started the car.

I wasn’t lying to her. Deacon had checked out the place hours ago and given me the all clear. More than that, I could be driving her into the seventh circle of hell and she’d be perfectly fucking safe. I’d die before I let anything happen to her, or her kid brother, and I wasn’t fucking dying anytime soon. That’s the thing she was slowly learning. When you ride with the fucking devil, all the goddamned demons in the world can’t do shit to you. Wherever she went from now on, she was with me. And that meant she was fucking safe. Nothing could hurt her except me and I was going to make goddamn sure that never happened.

“Lucas, put on your seatbelt,” Kelly said into the backseat.

“Hunter isn’t wearing one,” he protested.

“Hunter is a grown fucking man and can do what he wants,” I said, to no one in particular.

I felt Kelly’s hand gently slap my shoulder as I pulled the car out of the driveway. Lucas buckled up.

Yeah, yeah, darling. Language. It’s not going to get any fucking better so quit that shit right now.

I reached into my pack of cigarettes, pulled one out, and lit it. Kelly looked over at me and then motioned to Lucas in the back seat.

“Oh, I’m sorry, baby. Lucas, you want a smoke, buddy?” I asked knowing full well that wasn’t what she meant.

“Sure,” he called from the backseat.

“Lucas. Over my dead body,” Kelly said sternly, as she glared at me.

I put my burning cigarette in my mouth and took a deep drag as I hit the button lowering Lucas’s window.

“You can’t protect him forever, sweetheart. Nobody’s fucking bulletproof.”

Kelly just sighed and leaned her head back. She reached over and put her hand on my thigh.

“Nobody except you, right?”

I took a deep haul of smoke and blew it out, filling the front of the car and then watching as it got sucked out the open windows.

“You’re goddamn right.”

I pulled in front of the auto shop, parked the car, and killed the engine.

“I’ll be right back. You two sit here.”

I got out and walked around to the back of the car and toward the shop.

“Where are you going?” Kelly called out through the passenger window.

I turned around and stomped out my cigarette.

“Don’t you fucking worry, sweetheart. I’m coming back. I’ve just got to grab some shit and let Dennis know I’m not coming in today. Sit there and I’ll be right back.”

Kelly looked genuinely concerned and it fucking bothered me.

Jesus, woman. What the fuck is your issue? I come, I go, but I always come back. I have half a mind to make you fucking wait.

As I made my way around the building to the back door of the garage, I got the same sinking feeling I did when I left the diner the morning before. It was the feeling I got when I left her alone, unprotected. Something primal inside me. Something was wrong. She was all alone and something was fucking wrong.

I hurried into the garage, hurried through the office, and I sprinted toward the front. Looking out the window, I was ready to throw open the door and create a fucking bloodbath in the streets.

But everything was fine. Kelly was sitting in the front and laughing as Lucas goofed around in the back seat. I could feel myself relaxing. I stood there for a moment and just looked at them. It felt good.

I broke my stare away from them and headed back into the shop.

Fuck, Hunter. Fucking focus, you dick. You’re a fucking family man now, asshole? Get your head back in the game.

I grabbed the whiskey bottle from the table and took a swig as I made my way to Dennis’ tow truck.

Let’s not forget why we’re here, you big fucking ape.

I ripped open the door and felt around under the seat until I had it.

I pulled out the duffle bag and unzipped it to make sure everything was still in there. It was. My steel, my pistol, ammo, and a bottle of booze. Between that and the girl in the polka dot dress outside, what more could a man ask for?

I closed Dennis’s truck, threw the half empty bottle of Jack into the bag with the rest, and made my way back out of the shop.

As I walked to the sidewalk, I could see Kelly’s face light up as she saw me.

I put the duffle in the trunk with everyone else’s bags and climbed back into the driver’s side.

See, darling? I always come back.

“What did you have to get?” Kelly asked, only half interested.

I lit another cigarette and rolled the car windows back down as I peeled the car out onto the only road out of town.

“Essentials, baby. Essentials.”

The mountains loomed around us, beautiful and majestic.

Chapter 42

Kelly

T
HE SUN WAS POURING THROUGH
the window and warming the side of my face as Hunter pulled the car off the highway and down the long dirt road that led to the farm. I could see the house starting to show itself in the distance, the snowy peaks of the mountains looming beyond it. It was a beautiful valley, bathed in the spring sun. It was perfect. I had always imagined having a place like this. A quiet home in the mountains to settle with a good man, nobody but us and the life we shared. Never in a million years did I think it would come true, let alone with somebody like Hunter.

I looked over at him as he hauled away on his cigarette and wheeled the car down the path. I took in his overwhelming presence. His one arm hanging out the window and the other gripping the wheel, the tattoos that started on his neck and continued down his perfectly sculpted torso, and his piercing blue eyes that looked ahead like he knew exactly what was in front of him. I clung to the moment and drank him all in. He was nothing that I ever pictured for myself, but as I sat there with him, I knew he was who I had been waiting for my whole life. No matter what lay ahead for him or me, he would be there to hold me in those huge arms and carry me through it all, the good and the bad. I felt a calm come over me that I hadn’t felt in years and did my best to hide the smile that was starting to spread across my face. He had come for me and he was never letting me go.

“This place is awesome,” Lucas said excitedly from the back seat. “Is this your house, Hunter?”

“It is now, kid. It belonged to somebody I used to know. He doesn’t need it anymore.”

Hunter just kept his eyes on the road ahead. I couldn’t help but wonder how he came to know about this piece of land and just exactly who it really belonged to.

“So, how did you know this person? How did you get this place?”

He kept staring straight ahead.

“Old business associate of the old man.”

“You sure he won’t be coming around?” I asked nervously.

Hunter just laughed as he pulled the car up to the side of the house and put it in park.

“Fucking positive.”

I could feel myself starting to breathe heavily. I trusted fully that Hunter would not put me or Lucas in harm’s way, but I was beginning to understand that this might not be the quiet piece of heaven that I had dreamt about all these years. This was the man I had always wanted, but the life he brought along with him was far from peaceful.

“Hunter, are we? I mean, is it okay for us to be here?”

He looked back to Lucas in the rearview mirror.

“Hey, pal, why don’t you grab your shit from the trunk and go take a look around this place?”

Lucas threw open the door and bolted around to the back of the car.

“Not too far, Luke. Stay where I can see you,” I shouted to him out the window.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, Kelly. I know.”

He ran to the side of the house and then took off toward the barn. It was only fifty yards, but I felt a sinking feeling starting to build in my stomach. I opened my mouth to tell him not to stray so far away, but felt Hunter’s hand grip my thigh.

“Sweetheart. He’ll be fine. No one’s coming here. No one knows we’re here.”

I didn’t call to Lucas, but I still didn’t feel good. Maybe no one was coming now, but they would. When would that be? What would they do? I could feel myself starting to fluster as the weight of Hunter’s life began to settle on me.

“Hunter, who’s house is this? Why aren’t they coming back? How can we just stay here?”

He leaned back in his seat and scratched at the stubble on his face as he sighed. He looked mildly annoyed and I didn’t want to push it, but I was starting to slip out of my fantasy and into his reality.

“Because, Kelly, I fucking say so. That’s how.”

“But what if they come back?” I started to ask but was cut off by Hunter slamming his fist into the steering wheel and wrapping both his hands around it until his knuckles turned white. I stopped talking and sunk into my seat as he turned and looked at me with his wide eyes and all his intensity.

“He’s not coming back because I fucking know he’s not coming back. I know because I fucking killed him.”

I sat in my seat as Hunter spoke calmly.

“He was a piece of shit parasite who did piece of shit things. Things that I won’t say to you right now or ever because you don’t fucking need to know. And I fucking killed him. It was business, I took the order from the old man, but I took goddamn pleasure in making sure that fuck was dead. There’s no coming back from what I did to him. You got it?”

I looked back at him as he turned away. He wasn’t bragging, but he wasn’t lying. Maybe I should have been scared. Maybe I should have felt sick about everything Hunter had just said. But I didn’t. For some reason the awful thing he had just confessed made me feel better. This was a bad man sitting next to me, but he was mine. The unspeakable things he did or could do would never hurt me.
He
would never hurt me. He was both the storm in my life and my shelter from it, and I felt every ounce of nervousness melt away from my body as he laid down the details of his crime.

“Yes, Hunter. I understand.”

I reached out and touched his thigh and moved my fingers over his heavy cock that sat just below the material of his pants. He looked over at me and I ran my tongue over my lips, spreading them open, and took a deep breath.

He reached his hand across the car and wrapped his strong fingers around my neck, pulling me in for a deep kiss. I felt my body go limp in the seat and threw my arm around him to hold myself steady.

He pulled his lips away and rested his forehead on mine.

“Kelly. You’re safe. You always will be. You need to know that. Not understand, fucking
know
.”

I kept my eyes closed as we sat there, our faces touching.

“I know, Hunter. I know.”

Chapter 43

Hunter

I
OPENED THE CAR DOOR
and stepped out into the midday sunshine. I was a long way from the cold streets of Boston and when I turned around to see Kelly standing there, it hit me like a punch in the face. All my life, I had been alone and that was exactly the way I fucking liked it. The only person I ever had to look out for was me, and I did whatever the fuck I wanted, whenever I fucking wanted. Now, standing in the middle of fucking nowhere, surrounded by the highest mountain peaks in the country, I found myself scanning the property not for what could come my way, but for what could be lurking and waiting to take her away from me.