Chase wasn’t so sure of that, but he held his tongue, because Mac was her dad. His brain was still stuttering over that one. Big Mac MacKenzie was Jane Morgan’s
father
?
Jane muttered something too low to hear while Mac turned toward Chase. “I guess I should thank you for trying to defend my boneheaded daughter.”
“Yeah. Sure.” Chase took the hand he offered.
“Next time I won’t hit you.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Next time I won’t hit
you
.”
“All right, then.” Mac’s mouth turned up in what could have been a small smile. “Jane, if you go back in, Arlo’s gonna call me, so don’t bother.”
Her jaw edged out as if she wanted to pout, but she gave Mac a hug before he left, whispering something in his ear. Chase tried to gather his thoughts, but they were like bouncing footballs, jagging left or right before he could grasp them.
“I’d better go,” Jane muttered as Mac walked away.
Chase glanced up at the night sky. “You’re kidding, right? You’re gonna leave me hanging like this? Jane…what the…Big Mac is your
dad?
”
“Stepdad.”
In high school Chase had known one of the MacKenzies, but her name hadn’t been Jane. She’d been a pale blonde with a world’s worth of problems and a love of thick black eyeliner. Had Big Mac remarried?
Jane was squirming, ready to get away, and the squirming was rather pleasant in her current attire. She looked at the door of Ryders, squinting a little.
“Have you had dinner?” he asked.
“I don’t have time for a date tonight, Chase. And I’ve got to…” She swept a dismissive hand down her body. “My clothes.”
Yeah. Her clothes. “I’ll take you back into Ryders for a burger if you’ll promise to tell me what’s going on.”
Her eyes screamed suspicion. “Why?”
“Because you want to go back in and I want to know what the hell you and Mac were talking about.”
She cocked her head, studying him. Her red lips glistened. “Arlo will call Mac.”
“I’ll talk to Arlo.”
“You know him?”
He shrugged, trying to play it cool. “Sure.”
“All right. I’ll have a burger with you. But this counts as our date.”
Relief swept through his gut. If she’d refused, he wouldn’t have gotten any sleep tonight. His mind would’ve raced for hours, trying to figure out exactly who Jane Morgan was and why she was going undercover at a biker bar. “Deal. But you stay with me. No wandering off on your sting operation or whatever the hell it is.”
He surprised a distracted smile out of her before she made a beeline for the door. Her toe caught on the threshold and she stumbled a little.
“You can put your glasses on if you like. I don’t mind.”
“They clash with the toe ring.”
Chase glanced down. With the visual bounty on display, he hadn’t noticed the silver toe ring. And he forgot it again when she took his hand and pulled him toward an empty booth. The tank top stretched thin across her breasts, revealing the whole lovely curve of plump flesh. His mouth watered in memory.
“Okay,” he murmured as she slid into a booth. “Wait right here. I’ll talk to Arlo. You want a drink?”
She shook her head and Chase rushed off to assure Arlo that he’d assumed responsibility for Jane. The bartender seemed relieved to hand over the burden and happily donated two Cokes to the cause. Chase added a couple of burgers to the order.
“All right,” he murmured as he slid into a seat opposite Jane. “Spill it.”
Except that it wasn’t done. Jane had started over, but she hadn’t gone far enough.
She should have moved to Denver. New York. London.
Why hadn’t she gone farther?
She knew why. Arrogance. John McInnis Architecture had been her very first job. It had been a stepping stone. A way to save money for college. But she’d been good at it. Really good. She’d worked her way from file clerk to receptionist to personal assistant to Mr. McInnis. It had been invigorating, being good at something. Being respected. Being deferred to. Pride had filled her like a drug.
She’d worked for Mr. McInnis for three years before he’d retired and recommended her to help start Quinn Jennings’s new office. Then her fate had truly been sealed, because Mr. Jennings had given her a small stake in the company as a starting bonus. Her transformation had been complete. She’d become a businesswoman. An office manager. A
partner
.
And if she occasionally ran into people from her old life, it didn’t matter. They didn’t see her. She wasn’t that girl anymore. She’d let herself be lulled into thinking she was safe. The static had been reduced to a faint hum. The sound of a television turned on in the next apartment.
Until now.
Chase watched her patiently. She didn’t want to tell him. But even dressed as she was, he didn’t seem to recognize the truth about her. He didn’t point and call her a slut. To him,
this
person was the disguise.
She took a deep breath and blurted out, “My brother Jessie’s in trouble.”
“Jessie,” he said, frowning, as if he’d never heard of her brother. Thank God.
“He’s in trouble and I’m trying to help him out of it.”
“What’s going on, Jane?”
She bit her lip, thinking. “You can’t tell anyone.”
“I’m the soul of discretion.”
Jane glanced nervously around. Jessie’s two best friends were still there, living it up, totally unconcerned with their friend’s incarceration. What jackasses. They were a little blurry to her, but she could clearly see the way they laughed and pushed each other and hooted at every girl who strolled past. Within thirty seconds of approaching them, Jane had been propositioned in the least appealing way.
Hey, you ever taken it from both ends at once
?
Good God. There wasn’t an ounce of subtlety between them. They didn’t seem capable of stealing car stereos, much less dealing drugs.
“My brother Jessie’s been arrested. I think the police are trying to set him up for something he didn’t do.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes. I was hoping his friends might know something. Or I thought they might give something away. They’re obviously Dumb and Dumber.”
Chase craned his neck to see where she was looking. “Those two guys you were dancing with?”
“Yes.”
“You want me to see if I can strike up a conversation?”
Did she? Jane considered his offer carefully, but the further she moved down this insane path, the more ridiculous it seemed. She’d clearly come here tonight out of a crazed need to do something. Anything. Even if it meant dressing up like a floozy and flirting with losers and pissing off her stepdad.
A distracted waitress slapped two plates on the table and hurried away.
Jane sighed. “No, thanks. Mac was right. This was a stupid idea and I don’t know what I’m doing here. I’m tilting at windmills.”
“You’re what?”
“Flailing. Uselessly.”
Chase ignored his burger and reached for her hand. “This is why you were so upset yesterday, right? I wish you’d told me. I’ll help if I can. You seem a little out of your element.”
Did she? Well, that was really nice of him to say. “Thank you.”
He let go of her hand and reached for the greasy burger. “So why do you suspect the police are setting him up for something?”
“They found him with stolen goods, but they’re asking him questions about a woman he doesn’t know.”
“That’s it?”
She shrugged and pushed a French fry around on her plate. “Innocent people get convicted all the time.”
“You think so?”
Yeah, she sure did.
Jane finally took a bite of her burger. Salt and fat flooded her tongue, an abrupt reminder that she’d skipped lunch today. Her body went limp with relief. Maybe she hadn’t been thinking clearly. She hadn’t slept well since Saturday. She’d been skipping meals to make phone calls and do research. Now she was trying to help her brother by starring in a bad movie about the good girl who goes undercover.
How utterly idiotic.
Her eyes burned with sudden tears, but Jane simply closed them and chewed. Every bite left her feeling a little stronger, a little more clearheaded. She couldn’t trust the police or the D.A. to treat her brother fairly. But there had to be a better way than this. There had to be.
“Hey, are you okay?” Chase asked.
“I…” She opened her eyes, praying that no tears had escaped her control. They hadn’t. “I think I am, actually. Thanks.”
“So you don’t want me to escort you around the bar in hopes we can overhear a criminal confession?”
Jane narrowed her eyes. “Are you making fun of me?”
“Only because you have hamburger grease on your nose.”
“Oh. Crud.”
“Also, you look very cute, dressed like that and saying things like
crud
.”
“Shut up,” she demanded, though she was laughing when she said it. And just a few minutes ago she’d been on the verge of crying. Maybe it was the comfort food. Or maybe it was Chase. He was the human version of comfort food. Bad for her. Delicious. A physical reminder of her past. Warm and filling.
Relaxing
.
He reached toward her with a paper napkin and swiped at the end of her nose.
“I’m a mess,” Jane groaned.
“No, I got it.”
“I mean I’m a
mess
. A real mess.”
“No way. You’re the most together person I’ve ever met.”
“Clearly I’m not.”
“Jane,” he scoffed. “You’re smart. You’re calm. You’re professional and capable and a total office badass. You scare big construction guys into behaving like frightened schoolgirls, and you’re what? Thirty?”
“Twenty-nine.”
“Sorry.”
She waved off his cringe. “I’m not professional and capable now.”
He flashed a grin. “No, but you are pretty amazing.”
Jane automatically glanced down to her chest, then looked up to find his eyebrows rising.
“That’s not what I meant. But, um…bravo.”
“Oh, God.” Mortification heated her cheeks to instant fire.
Chase burst out laughing, and suddenly Jane was laughing, too, leaning against the table and laughing and trying to keep her cleavage from becoming indecent exposure, all at the same time.
She was on a date at a biker bar with an inappropriate guy. She was eating a greasy hamburger in slutty clothes while her brother was in jail. And she was having fun.
Jane started on her fries. When she looked up a few moments later, she found Chase frowning at her plate. “What?”
“I’m trying to figure out your fry selection process.”
“My what?” She laughed.
“Your selection process.” He gestured toward her plate. “You’re picking through those fries like you’re looking for something specific. What is it?”
“Um…” She looked down at the fry she was holding. She’d never thought about it before, but she supposed she did have a fry hierarchy. “I like the short ones first. They’re perfectly crispy but tender on the inside. Then the long ones. Still crispy on the edges, but maybe too soft toward the middle.”
“Then what?”
“Then I move onto the long fries with narrow, crunchy ends. If you break the ends off, they’re fine. After that, it all breaks down according to my desperation. How do you choose fries?”
“Me?” He leaned forward, eyes narrowing with concentration. “I study the pile…”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“And then I eat all the ones on top first. The ones on the bottom come last.”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s pitiful. You’ve got no standards.”
Chase shrugged. “I like my fries like I like my women—hot and ready to be eaten.”
“Oh, God.” She managed not to spit out her mouthful of fries, but after a quick sip of Coke, she looked at Chase and found him wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. Then she was lost. She laughed so hard she snorted and had to hope the sound was lost in the guitar solo screeching through the speakers. They were protected a bit by the high backs of the booth, but not nearly enough. She might not have outgrown her taste for men like Chase, but she’d definitely outgrown her love of guitar rock.
Once her laughter died, she threw a hopeless look toward Jessie’s friends. She hated to walk away from this scheme, but knew she had to. “You want to get out of here?”
“Now?” Chase asked. “Well, I’d file an official complaint about the length of this so-called date, but I’ll give you a pass, considering.”
“I’m sorry. I just want to go home and change.”
“It’s fine,” he said. “Let’s get you out of here.”
She took his hand thankfully and let him lead her out. Even over the music she heard one of Jessie’s friends shout, “Hey, babe, where ya going?” Chase squeezed her hand tighter—offering comfort or just feeling pissed, she couldn’t tell.
The darkness surprised her when she stepped outside. It was later than she’d thought, and Jane was damn grateful for Chase’s presence when she was forced to stroll past a rough-looking group of guys. These were real bikers, not guys who liked to ride Harleys on the weekend. She recognized the skull insignia on the jackets, marking them as a gang from Grand Junction.
The men stared at her bare thighs but didn’t say a word, and Jane didn’t protest when Chase walked her across the dark parking lot toward her car.
“Jane, what are you planning to do?”
Her shoulders tightened. She had no idea what she was going to do. Who could she turn to for advice? Chase was the only one who had even a clue who she really was.
They stopped next to her car, and Jane cleared her throat so she could speak past the rising anxiety. “No one knows about my family, Chase. I…” Disloyalty was an ugly feeling, but she wasn’t going to deny her flaws. “I love them, but I’m not like them. I don’t want anyone to know. I don’t want my brother’s legal problems affecting my career.”
“I won’t say a word.”
She glanced up at him, wishing he could help her in some way. Wishing she were the kind of person who knew how to ask for help.
“You can trust me,” he said.
She shook her head against the warmth of his words. “I hardly even know you.”
Though his expression was hard to make out in the dark, his shoulders cast a big shadow when he shrugged. “You know what you know.”
Well, that sort of meant nothing, but he was still right. So far, he’d been a really good guy, despite his tattoos and boots and fascination with explosions. He might not recognize
Don Quixote
, but he did know how to worry over a woman’s safety.
Jane crossed her arms and leaned against the door of her car. “You don’t know anything about the law, do you?”
He was quiet for a moment. His boots scraped against the gravel when he shifted. “Not much, no. My dad was a cop a long time ago.”
“I don’t know what to do.” Saying it should have made her feel weak, but somehow she felt a little better. Or maybe that was the way Chase’s shoulders got bigger when he shifted toward her.
“I can’t say I know, either, but you’ve got to have at least one person you can talk to.”
“Like you?”
His head cocked to the side. “I already know your secret, and you clearly need to bounce ideas off someone. I can be the person who says, ‘Maybe going half-dressed to a biker bar isn’t the best way to help your brother.’”
She reached out her hand to give him a scolding little shove, but he didn’t move. Chase was solid, in more ways than one. And Jane was tempted in more than one way, too. “I don’t want to be accused of leading you on….”
“You mean if you reach out to me I might think you’re my special gal and make a pest of myself?”
She smiled. “Something like that.”
“I’ll try to control myself.”
Hard music leaked out of the bar, offsetting the romance of the starry sky above her. The night might be beautiful, but the setting was dark and seedy.
She thought of the way Chase had confronted Mac, with bared teeth and clenched fists. The threats he’d snarled as he’d tried to protect her, a woman he barely had a connection to.