“I wasn’t doing anything wrong, Dad!”
“Right. Crawling around a biker bar asking questions about a crime. That seemed like a good idea to you?”
“I—”
“Going to Ryders looking like a damned plainclothes detective…that seemed like a good idea?”
She felt about sixteen again, complete with the pouty chin. “I told them I wasn’t a cop.”
“Well, great. I’m sure they were fine with that. That’s why Arlo called me and told me to haul my ass over there and get you out.”
Her anger dropped a notch, but the space it left filled up with frustration. “I’m trying to help Jessie. That’s all.”
“You can help by calling up that boyfriend of yours at the D.A.’s office and getting some information.”
Jane threw her hands up. “Dad, I broke it off with him.”
“Can’t you at least call the guy?”
Oh, God. What was she supposed to say to Greg?
Hey, guess what? I’m not the woman you thought I was. I was raised in a trailer and my brother’s been arrested for theft and drug possession. Can you help?
She held back a shudder. “I’ll go to him if I need to, but right now we’ve got to tread carefully.”
“Agreed,” he muttered. “So don’t go back to Ryders again. If there’s any questions that need asking, I’ll ask.”
Jane shot him a doubtful glance. Sure, Mac would be a good tool for intimidation, but he’d made clear that Jessie had made his own bed and would have to lie in it. He wasn’t inclined to help, but Jane needed to do something.
She figured she could gather up bits and pieces of information, and if anything solid came up, she could turn it over to the police.
But Mac was right about her appearance. She did look like a cop. Right down to the conservative black heels. “Have you heard anything new?” she asked.
He slipped the faded bandanna off his head and rubbed a hand over his graying hair. “I talked to Arlo,” he growled. “He didn’t know anything about Jessie snatching purses, obviously, or he would’ve beat the shit out of him for causing trouble with the customers.”
“What about…” She swallowed, afraid to bring up the subject. “I, um…I heard Jessie’s been hanging out with a dealer.”
Mac’s whole face shifted into a terrifying scowl. “That little shit. He’s got some nerve living in my house and hanging out with that kind of trouble.”
“You hadn’t heard anything at all?”
He shook his head, his hoop earrings catching the faint light from the kitchen. “Arlo would’ve told me if Jessie was getting mixed up in ice. And I doubt he was dealing himself. They don’t usually hang out in pairs.”
She nodded, then put a hand over the ache in her stomach. “I wish I knew what the police suspect. Maybe we’re just being paranoid.”
“Maybe.”
Jane reached out to put a hand on his arm. Her fingers looked pale against the crude lines of his tattoos. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, shrugging. “Hey, your grandma wants to see you.” He was obviously hoping to distract her from her sympathy, and it worked.
“Oh, God,” Jane groaned. Grandma Olive was a woman Jane could barely handle on a good day. “That woman isn’t even related to you. I don’t know why you let her keep hanging around.”
Mac shrugged again, his dominant mode of communication when he was upset, then peered out the window as a car drove past.
“Where’s Mom?”
His shoulders tightened. “She went to see Jessie,” he muttered.
Tires crunched on the driveway and Jane walked to the window to see her mom pulling up. “I’m sure…” Jane started before realizing that Mac had left. The door to his small office clicked shut just as the front door opened and her mom came in, face blotchy from crying.
Jane pulled her into a hug. “You saw him?”
“Yeah. He looked good.” The weeping started again, so Jane squeezed harder.
“It’s all right, Mom. We’ll get him out. The new attorney seems really good.”
“Thank you so much, baby. Mac and I will try to pay you back for—”
“No. I want to do this.” She needed to do this, because then she could continue with her fraud and still feel like an almost-decent daughter even though she kept her family hidden. She’d pay for the attorney, and get Jessie out of this mess, and then everything could go back to the way it had been.
Her mom sniffed. “Okay, I’ll go get dinner ready. It’s chili. I hope that’s okay.”
“Thanks, Mom. That sounds really good. I’ll be there to set the table in a few minutes.”
Her mom rushed for the kitchen while Jane walked quietly to Mac’s office door and put her ear to it. Nothing. She knocked and eased it open. “Mac? Are you okay?”
“Fine,” he growled.
She sat in the folding chair at the corner of his metal desk. “Dad.”
His jaw stiffened, but he said nothing. He acted tough, but the idea of his son in jail was clearly too much for him. Mac wouldn’t go visit Jessie, but he’d sit here and worry about him all the same.
“We’ll get him out.”
“Maybe he needs to be in there.”
She thought of all the years Mac had spent in prison and touched his forearm briefly. He hadn’t become her stepfather until she was seven. She loved him, but she hadn’t spent her early years curled up on his lap, so they weren’t touchy-feely, but he seemed so lonely today. “You refused to go see him?”
His face twisted in fury. “He put himself in this position. He knows better. Goddamn it, he
knows
better. And if he were here right now I’d knock him into the wall.”
She nodded.
“After I got out, I promised your mom she’d never have to sit in another prison waiting room again. I wanted something better for her and for you kids. I tried my best to raise him right.”
“This is his fault, not yours.”
“I let him get away with too much. If he gets out, things are going to change.”
She nodded again and put her hand over his, thinking how often he’d emphasized to Jessie that he expected more of his son than he’d made of himself.
Jane swallowed back the threat of tears. “You saved me, you know. You saved me, Mac.”
He shook his head. “I let it go too long.”
“You were a good father to me, and you’ve been good to Jessie, too.” His hand tightened to a fist. “Mom’s getting dinner ready. Are you coming out?”
“I don’t know if she wants me out there. She’s pissed.”
“You know she never stays mad long.”
Mac shrugged, staring down at Jane’s hand on his.
If Jessie went to prison, it would kill Mac. No question about it. She wouldn’t let him be broken like that, not after what he’d done for her.
She could still remember that moment when he’d come to pick her up at that Denver police station. The sight of his strong arms pushing open the scarred doors to rescue her from a terrifying night. She’d felt such relief to see him, but her fear had remained. Fear and shame and regret and defiance. Still, she’d never once thought Mac would hurt her. Her fear had been the disgust she’d see in his eyes.
“I love you, Dad,” she said, and then she left him alone with his worries because there was nothing more she could do. Not until tomorrow, anyway.
Granted, he hardly knew the woman, but he
had
slept with her, which meant he probably knew her better than most other people. They were friends of some sort. Intimate acquaintances, at least. And he could go to a bar if he wanted to. It was a free world.
The fact that he had to justify it to himself wasn’t a good sign.
Still, he threw on his sunglasses and headed out. It was seven when he pulled up, the same time it had been yesterday when he’d driven by. And lo and behold, there was a white BMW parked in the lot, on the north side this time.
His heart beat hard at the sight, telling him how nervous he was. Chase ignored it and pulled in next to the car. “I’m just trying to help,” he muttered as he walked heavily toward the door.
He thought he’d spot Jane as soon as he walked in. She’d blended in at that Aspen bar, but there was no doubt she’d stand out here. He glanced around the crowded room, trying to spot her. Nothing. He looked again.
Well, shit. She hadn’t been lying at all.
Still, Monday was dollar-beer night, and the place was packed. Jane could be here, waiting in line for the bathroom or something.
Chase ordered a Coke and squeezed into a seat next to the wall as a new song began to blast from the bar speakers. Guitar riffs jagged through the air. A few minutes passed, and he was beginning to feel pretty sure that Jane wasn’t in the place.
On the other hand, he was actually starting to have a good time. Not being a drinker, bars weren’t on his to-do list very often, but one of his favorite songs was playing, the mood of the crowd hadn’t progressed past rowdy fun and there was a gorgeous female ass gyrating right at the edge of the crowd of dancers.
Propping his back against the wall, Chase sipped his Coke and watched the show. That tight, round ass was just barely concealed by a denim skirt that stopped close to the top of her thighs. Those thighs were pretty damn nice, too, the muscles tightening in time to the music. They reminded him of Jane’s thighs, and the thought made Chase smile. Considering the way Jane had loosened up in his apartment, he might even talk her into doing a little dance for him if he was lucky enough to get up close and personal again.
Aware that a nice ass was distracting him from watching for Jane, Chase let his eyes roam over the room again. He knew a few people here. One of his part-time employees was parked near a giant inflatable beer can, his arm around a friendly woman. The guy manning the far side of the bar was someone Chase had gone to school with. And the giant who’d just walked in was known to everyone in the Carbondale area simply because he was so tough that people edged away from him: Big Mac MacKenzie. Still, he wasn’t a bad guy. Chase had bought an old bike from him ten years before and Mac had treated him more than fairly.
Mac seemed to be looking for someone, too, as he stood frowning in the doorway for a while before he headed to the back.
Chase finished his Coke and glanced back toward the hot dancing girl. She leaned into a young guy whose hair hung in waves past his shoulders. She was up on her tiptoes, her legs longer, her skirt shorter. “Nice,” Chase murmured, popping a piece of ice into his mouth.
He watched the girl’s lips as she yelled something into the guy’s ear. Nice lips. They were full and luscious just like Jane’s, only painted a deep, shiny red. As she spoke, her eyes cut toward the bar, and Chase sat up too quickly, swallowing a large chunk of ice.
She had eyes just like Jane, too.
He swallowed hard, feeling the ice squeeze down his throat. “Wait a fucking minute…” Jane’s ass, Jane’s thighs. Jane’s mouth and eyes and…“Oh, Christ,” he breathed as she turned on her heels and he caught sight of her front. Jane’s breasts, too, barely hidden by a pink spaghetti-strap tank top. And there was, without question, no bra under there.
Jaw dropping, Chase rubbed his eyes, hoping to clear up his faulty vision. But no, when he looked again, it was still…
Jane?
Jane in a short skirt and heels and a flimsy little shirt? Her hair hung in a straight fall, nearly to the middle of her back. The glasses were gone, and if her occasional squint was any indication, she hadn’t replaced them with contacts.
He squinted a little himself, just to be sure it was really her. It was, though he wouldn’t have recognized her if he hadn’t seen her in sexy underwear and no glasses a few days before.
Jesus.
Shock had muffled his brain for a moment, but as her identity settled into his head, Chase’s mind nearly exploded.
Why was Jane dressed like that? Why was she in Ryders? And
why
was she letting that biker dude stare at her tits?
She frowned at something the guy said, then leaned over to shout into his ear again. Chase found himself leaning forward as if he might hear. As if some shouted conversation on a dance floor could unravel this mystery.
It was a fetish. It must be. Some weird bad-boy thing. She was trolling for big greasy men with tattoos. Men she could use and throw away and never think about again.
Men like Chase.
He was scowling so hard that his head started to ache, so Chase rubbed a hand over his skull and tried to shake it off. Whatever. It had been only one night, and Jane had been pretty damn clear that she was using him. Hell, maybe he’d been the start of this fetish. Maybe he should be flattered.
But flattery had never made his gut burn like a phosphorus fuse.
While he was frowning at the pain, Jane’s friend waved another guy over. Within a moment, Jane had snuck her arm beneath the man’s black leather jacket and wrapped it around his waist. The two men spoke for a long minute while she stared intently at the floor, looking more as if she was taking mental notes than planning a date.
The first guy nodded and disappeared, and Mr. Leather Jacket put his arms around Jane’s shoulders and pulled her smack against him, rocking his hips in time to the music. Jane rocked, too.
Chase stood up to leave. This girl was too crazy for him. He set his empty glass on the bar, vaguely wondering when he’d managed to crunch through all that ice. Shoulders heavy with sudden fatigue, he made his way toward the door, staying close to the wall and far from the dance floor.
He couldn’t help one glance back, but he regretted it when he saw Leather Jacket’s meaty paw resting over the curve of Jane’s ass. “Best of luck, brother,” he muttered.
Hand on the door, Chase was turning away when he caught a rush of movement at the corner of his vision. The rush was moving toward Jane.
He froze, fingers spread wide against the scuffed wood, and watched Big Mac clear a ruthless path through the crowd. He didn’t have to push people to the side—everyone simply parted like a field of grass. Everyone but Jane.
Mac lunged right at her, his hand closing around her upper arm in an iron grip. The music still roared. Chase couldn’t hear what they shouted, but they were definitely arguing as Mac swung Jane around to face him. Her leather-clad dance partner backed away, hands held high in appeasement.
For a few brief seconds the alarm that had been twisting tight in his neck started to relax. Jane didn’t look frightened. She didn’t even look surprised. And Chase suddenly realized why she wouldn’t be. As Big Mac MacKenzie tugged Jane away from the dance floor, it registered in Chase’s brain that
Mac
was the one who’d pulled Jane into the parking lot the night before. She was his girlfriend maybe. Big Mac’s crazy, sleeping-around, drama-loving girlfriend. Probably they both got off on it.
Unbelievable. Chase’s brain was tumbling.
But as he watched, Jane snapped her arm free of Mac’s grip, shaking her head. The big man’s eyes narrowed with fury as a flush crept up his face. As he swung back toward Jane, Mac’s hands tightened into massive fists. His lips twisted into a snarl.
Adrenaline jumped into Chase’s veins with the force of a tidal wave. He surged forward, hoping to reach Jane before those fists landed on her. He wasn’t going to make it. He was still twenty feet away.
But instead of hitting her, Mac wrapped his arms around her body and simply picked her up and carried her toward the door. Toward Chase. Her feet kicked wildly, stiletto heels landing on the man’s shins like a rapid-fire gun.
Chase finally reached them, and dug his fingers into Mac’s elbow. “Get your fucking hands off her, man.”
“Excuse me?” Mac shouted.
“I’m not going to stand here and watch you abuse a woman. Get your hands off her
now
.”
“Chase!” Jane gasped. She gave up her fight and hung limply in the man’s grip.
Mac growled, “Mind your own business,” and tried to shove past him toward the door. But Chase tightened his hold, and Mac finally let Jane’s feet drop to the floor.
“I told you to mind your own business.”
Chase kept his weight on the balls of his feet and his arms loose at his sides. He hadn’t been in a fistfight in a couple of years, and Mac was one big bastard. But as long as he didn’t land a surprise roundhouse punch, Chase would do okay. He just had to be ready. “And I told you to leave the woman alone. If you wanna knock somebody around, try it on me.”
“Chase,” Jane panted, reaching a hand out to flatten it on his chest. “Don’t. It’s okay.”
Mac growled, “Get back,” putting his hand against Jane’s shoulder as if he’d push her, and Chase lost it.
He knocked the man’s hand away and grabbed a handful of his shirt to yank him off balance. The large fist that flew at him was easy enough to spot, anyway, and Chase almost dodged it in time. No broken nose, but his ear exploded in pain before he managed to get in a good jab to Mac’s gut. The crowd shouted approval.
“Stop!” Jane screamed. “Stop!”
Chase shoved Mac away and got his fists up high enough to block another punch. Jesus, Mac was fast for a big guy.
They circled each other as the crowd formed a dense ring around them. “Back up, Jane,” Chase muttered.
“No. Stop it. Please, Chase…He’s not going to hurt me. I swear.” Suddenly she was sliding in between them, blocking their fight with her own body.
Chase dropped his hands and backed up.
“Take it outside!” someone roared from the bar.
“Yes,” Jane urged. “Let’s go outside. Please.” She stepped closer and nudged him toward the door. Chase moved, but he kept his eyes on Mac, just in case. His ear was still throbbing Tom-and-Jerry style, as if it were four times its normal size and pulsing like a siren. He kept moving outside until he was a good fifteen feet from the doorway.
Jane followed him through the front door and walked out onto the gravel to wait, arms crossed and lip caught between her teeth. Her arms pushed her breasts higher, showing them off.
Chase dragged his gaze away, though it cost him a few drops of sweat to manage it. He eyed Big Mac for a moment before looking back to Jane’s barely there outfit. “What the hell’s going on here, Jane?”
Her arms tightened around her body. “Nothing.”
“Nothing.” He let his eyes slide down. “So this is just how you like to party?”
Her cheeks flamed and she dropped her arms. “No.”
“You like guys who treat you this way? Put their hands on you?”
“No!”
“Then why would you hook up with a guy who’d knock you around? You need to get in touch with a therapist or something. This is sick.”
She shook her head. “It’s not what you think.”
“What is it, then?”
Jane pressed her red lips together, stubbornness written in every line of her face.
Mac grunted and shook his head in disgust. “I can’t listen to this. She’s my daughter.”
Jane’s cheeks paled, while Chase felt his face twist in undiluted confusion.
“Huh?”
Mac repeated the same strange words. “She’s my daughter.”
His
daughter?
Chase looked from Mac to Jane and saw absolutely no resemblance. Then again, Mac’s facial hair might be throwing him off. “Your daughter?”
“Yes.”
When he met Jane’s gaze, she stared hard, her eyes shimmering with anger. “This is a personal family issue,” she bit out. “It has nothing to do with you.” She shifted, drawing his eyes to her legs.
“Sorry, but I’m really confused.”
Mac shrugged. “I don’t have time for this, damn it. I’ve got a customer coming to the shop in ten minutes. Jane, keep your ass out of that bar and stop acting like a goddamn fool.”
She rounded on him. “I have every right to be in there. One of his loser friends has gotten him into this trouble.”
“This is your grand idea for helping Jessie?” Mac scoffed while Chase tried to follow whatever the mysterious topic might be. “You put on a short skirt and a barrelful of makeup? What’s that supposed to accomplish?”
“It’s supposed to accomplish getting them distracted enough to talk to me.”
Mac threw his hands in the air. “I don’t want to have to worry about you, Jane! I’ve got enough to worry about.”
Her face fell. “I’m sorry.”
“Stay out of that place, Jane.” He sighed. “I’ll talk to Jessie’s friends, okay?”
“They’re scared of you.”
“Yeah, and somehow I think the threat of my fists could be more effective than the promise of something else from you.”