Worth The Battle (Heaven Hill Series) (23 page)

Layne pulled to a stop and turned the bike off and waited patiently for Jessica to get off before he got off behind her. “Gotta take a piss,” he told the group.

“I just bet you do,” Jessica mumbled.

He chose to ignore those words and didn’t even turn around as he walked around the side and towards the front door.

“Where did y’all go?” Bianca asked when Jessica came around the side of the car and had a seat in the passenger side.

“Nowhere important,” Jessica slammed the door. “We can go if you want.”

“You don’t want to wait on him?”

“For him to
take a piss
? No.”

Bianca pursed her lips and cut her eyes at Jessica. “Give me just a sec.”

Jessica watched as the other woman got out of the car and walked over to where Jagger stood. She waited patiently for Bianca to kiss and hug Jagger bye, rolling her eyes when he playfully smacked her ass on the way back. “Ready to go?” she asked when Bianca made it back to the car.

“I am, but on the way back to the clubhouse, you need to tell me what crawled up your ass and died.”

Layne glanced at himself in the gas station bathroom mirror. He felt like a piece of shit, leaving Jessica like he had. He should have said something, even muttered a few words that he knew she would like to hear. It had been years since they had gotten each other off like that. She wasn’t the normal woman he was used to seeing now. She expected pretty words and promises from him, but he just wasn’t sure he could give her those. His eyes were tired, his shoulders drooped. Carrying around the weight of depression was beginning to take its toll on him. Next time he went to see Doc Jones, he needed to talk to her about it. Figure out how he could be true to his situation, but still have some fun. He was tired of smiling in front of others but knowing that smile didn’t quite meet his eyes, wasn’t quite heartfelt.

He glanced up when he heard the bathroom door open. It was Tyler. “You okay, man?”

“Yeah, why?”

Tyler grinned. “Because Jessica didn’t look like she was okay when she left with Bianca a few minutes ago.”

Shit. They had left before he even had a chance to say anything to her. Was this how it was going to be with her the entire time she was here? A series of coulda, woulda, shoulda’s? Is that what he really wanted to deal with? Suddenly his head was busting, and he didn’t want to deal with any of it. He sighed, rolling his shoulders beneath his cut. “Jessica and I are complicated.”

“We’re all complicated, my brother, but we all gotta learn how to deal with it.”

The other man spoke the truth, and Layne knew it. None of them had stellar upbringings, hardly any of them had any family to speak of—and if they did, they didn’t speak to them for the most part. In their motley crew, he wasn’t unusual, he was the norm. The part that was unusual was he couldn’t seem to get his shit together. “I know,” he spoke softly.

“Anyway, I came in here to get you. We’re ready to head out.”

Layne nodded and squared his shoulders.

“I do have to say, I’m disappointed in you though.”

Those words hit Layne square in the chest. Why was his VP disappointed? “What did I do?”

“Hid in here like a little bitch while your woman sat in the car fuming. You need to man up and face that shit head on. Pretending it’s not there doesn’t make it any easier. Trust me on that.”

There were no words to say, no excuses to make to the older man. He flat out didn’t have any. What Tyler said was truth—just like always. “I’m doing the best I can.”

“We can always do better,” he said gently, laying his hand on Layne’s shoulder.

That was it, wasn’t it? Everybody always wanted more than he was ready to give, but if he didn’t start pushing himself, he was going to push everyone else away. Without a word, he followed Tyler through the door and back outside to the parking lot.

As they made their way around the building, Layne noticed that the group now held a new member. Rooster stood there in street clothes instead of wearing the brown outfit of the sheriff’s office. This was the first time he’d ever seen the lawman in street clothes. The only thing that differentiated Rooster from the members of Heaven Hill were the cuts the members wore.

“You good?” Liam asked, his eyes locking with those of the member he had all but forced into therapy.

“I’m good,” Layne nodded.

It looked like Liam wanted to argue, but at the same time he wanted to take his man at his word. “If you need anything, you let me know.”

Embarrassment flooded through Layne. He hated to be singled out, but knew that it was a necessary evil in what he was going through. “Don’t worry, pres. I will.”

Those words seemed to pacify the man wearing the president’s patch on his leather because he whistled loudly, bringing everyone to attention.

“I know this is an odd place to ask everyone to meet, believe me, I’m aware of that, but we have a situation.”

The members of Heaven Hill all looked at one another, eyebrows rising in suspicion.

“Meredith got a call that Tyler thought we should take a look into. Her contact at the bank specifically called her and asked for our protection.”

“What?” Jagger breathed from where he sat on his bike. “The same one that could have told us about Money Bags a few months ago? You know, the one that could have kept B from being held hostage and almost killed?”

“One and the same.”

There were murmurs all around, and Liam patiently let them talk amongst themselves as he and Tyler stood facing them. When the quiet mumbling died down, Liam put his hands on his hips and widened his stance. “I know y’all might be worried about this, so we’re gonna take a vote. This guy apparently seems to think that he has some info for us.”

“What kind of info?” Layne piped up.

“He seems to think he knows why Jessica’s here.”

That sent rage through Layne’s body. No one was supposed to know she was in Bowling Green, much less why. “Are you fucking shitting me right now?”

“No, I’m not fucking shitting you right now. That’s why I wanted to put this up for a vote. Do we go talk to him or do we let his ass rot?”

“I say we go talk to him,” Steele said from where he sat on his bike. “I’ve found some pretty interesting programs on her computer, and I’ve done a little checking. Something is going on with that girl. I hate to say that, Layne, but I don’t think she’s being completely honest with you. I think we’d be stupid not to check it out.” Everybody nodded in agreement, even though hardly any of them had been privy to what he had found on Jessica’s computer.

That didn’t sit well either. There was a possibility that she wasn’t being completely honest with him? She was the one person he’d always assumed was honest. His mind whirled in a circle, not sure where everything fit. All of a sudden, he wasn’t sure that he did want to check it out.

“If you don’t want to go, you don’t have to,” Liam offered, reading his mind.

“No, if we agree to go, we go as a group. I don’t stay behind because I might not like what this guy has to say. That’s not the way this works,” Layne argued. “But I do have a question.”

Liam raised his eyebrows. “Yeah, what’s that?”

“What’s he doin’ here?” He pointed at Rooster who leaned against the back of the building.

A look passed between the lawman and the pres. “He’s riding along.”

“Is he riding along as a lawman or an outlaw biker?” Layne knew he shouldn’t be asking that question, that Liam would probably tell him to shut the fuck up, but he couldn’t help it. He was feeling on edge, and he had to get that nervous energy out somehow, even if it meant picking a fight.

“I’m just riding along.” Rooster shrugged.

“Then can I plan on getting arrested in a few nights because of what you may see us do?” he goaded.

“Look, man.” Rooster held up his hands. “The ‘why’ of me being here doesn’t concern you, and you’re obviously spoiling for a fight, but you’re going to be gettin’ it some other place this night. I have no desire to go toe to toe with you.”

“You still didn’t answer my question.”

“No, you’re not gonna be arrested in a few days. Alright? That good enough for you?”

Layne could feel Liam’s eyes on him before he spoke. “Get your shit together, or you’re not coming with us. That’s all I’m sayin’ to you right now.”

He nodded, knowing that if he opened his mouth, more shit would spew forth. He couldn’t seem to stop it right at this moment.

“We done?” Liam asked, using the voice that he usually reserved for Drew.

“Yeah.” Layne swallowed hard.

“If there are no more fuckin’ questions, let’s go. Y’all follow me; we’re supposed to be picking him up. Rooster’s gonna go ahead of us and make sure there’s not an ambush waitin’.”

Layne wasn’t sure how he felt about this. His instincts were at an all-time high, telling him that something about this wasn’t right. But now he questioned whether he could trust those same instincts that had brought him home from war.

“You lookin’ to get that patch ripped off your back?” Jagger asked quietly as he came to stand beside Layne, putting his helmet on as they got ready to ride.

“No, but I did want to know what the fuck a member of the sheriff’s office was doing here. You have to admit, it ain’t right.”

“I’ll admit that I’m interested to see how this is all gonna play out, but I’m not tellin’ my pres it ain’t right. Get your head in the game, buddy. You need to call Doc Jones and make another appointment.”

Jagger spoke the truth and Layne knew it. That was the first call he would be making after they made it home from wherever this ride was going to take them.

Chapter Twenty-Three

I
t seemed silly to ask Jessica if she was okay, obviously she wasn’t, but Bianca couldn’t stop herself. “Wanna tell me what went on back there?” The tone she used was one that most people used with hurt animals or small children. Bianca was worried that it wouldn’t take much more to scare Jessica off for good.

Jessica inhaled deeply, wondering what exactly she wanted to tell the other woman. Granted, they had become friends, better friends than she’d probably ever had in Hollywood, but it wasn’t easy for her to let others in. It came from years of keeping things to herself, of not ever letting anyone get too close. It was something she figured she would struggle with for the rest of her life—opening up to others and knowing exactly when they were really her friend. “I don’t know, it’s stupid,” she sighed, running her hand through her hair. It was a nervous gesture, one that many people had tried to make her get rid of.

“No, it’s not. Anything that upsets you isn’t stupid. And trust me, the things that those guys do are sometimes stupid. Loving them is hard,” Bianca admitted.

Those words surprised Jessica. All the women here made it look so easy, like they accepted everything without ever questioning anything. “You think so? You seem to take it in stride.”

“I didn’t always,” she laughed, rolling the window down on the Mustang. Once it was down, she stuck her hand out and let the warm wind of the summer night caress it as she moved it to the beat of the song on the radio. “I had to learn that sometimes I don’t need to know everything, sometimes I have to trust my man. That’s hard. Not because of Jagger, because it’s easy for me to trust him, but giving someone else my love? Love can kill you. Love can destroy you. I trust him enough to give him that love, but that doesn’t mean that it’s easy. I worry about him all the time, and I even worry about myself.”