Wounded (Dogs of War MC Book One) (17 page)

“Come here, we’ll start simple. I’ll show you how to mince this garlic,” he beckoned her over with the knife he was holding.

“I thought you guys and garlic were… incompatible.”

“Silly girl, don’t get your fairytales twisted, come here,” he beckoned again.

Sidney wasn’t sure she wanted to take cooking lessons from this guy. Surely he was just luring her in so he could say something else horrible to her, but she rose and joined him at the counter anyway.

“First you take the clove like this, and you press it with your hands,” he locked one hand over the other, crushing the garlic under his palm, while muscles rippled across his arm under the tight shirt. Sidney swallowed. “Then you get rid of this stuff, and you take your knife and you rock it back and forth. See easy. Now you try it.” He handed her a new clove and the knife and she copied his movements exactly. It wasn’t that hard. “Good good, now you keep going back and forth over it, you can also crush it a little with the flat part of the knife, and I’ll grill up this chicken.”

Sidney followed directions, but soon she lost interest in the repetitive motion and watched him as he cut the chicken into cubes, seasoned it, and placed it in the cast iron skillet. His hands worked so quickly, they obviously had done this many times before, but the long fingers and dexterous movements spoke of artistry beyond cooking. Maybe he was a painter. His face was more delicately defined than Red’s too, strong jawline and check bones, but with the hint of something hidden beneath the surface. It wasn’t an open friendly face but it was… compelling, darkly handsome with his eyes hidden behind the soft fall of black hair as he concentrated on his work.

“Hey, pay attention, you’re going to cut yourself,” Demon dropped tongs he’d been cooking with and before she realized what he was saying he was standing over her, his hand covering hers, stopping the rocking motion of her knife.

An electric bolt raced between them, it started at their hands where he’d touched her and spread throughout her body. The hair on the back of her neck stood up, her throat went dry, and every inch of her skin tingled with awareness. What was happening? She saw he was having the same reaction she was as they stood their motionless, staring into each other’s eyes.

“Sidney…” he whispered, not moving. She sucked in a breath, she was drowning and there was nothing to grasp on to.

“Sidney,” Red said her name from the door and the spell was broken, leaving her hollow inside. She tore her gaze from Demon’s and looked at Red, she was still in shock and couldn’t quite figure out what to do.

She looked back at Demon but he had turned his face away from her, and she remembered that she’d been waiting for Red. Who had been out fighting to save his daughters life. She pulled away ran to him, as much to escape from Demon as in celebration of his return. Arms thrown around him and head buried in his neck, she was glad he couldn’t see her face, because all she felt was loss. The moment she’d been torn from had been so intense, so full of everything that she couldn’t even digest it, and it was gone.

“What’s going on?” Red asked.

She stepped back from him, “I was cooking and he was… helping,” she finished lamely.

Demon gave her a look that told her what he thought about that comment, “Yes, I was… helping.”

Red looked between the two of them, he must have felt the energy that was flowing between her and Demon, the whole town of Three Rivers must have felt it. She felt so guilty. She’d just slept with him last night and here she was having a
moment
with another man today. A man she didn’t even really like.

“Did you find your daughter?” she asked him, wanting to put whatever it was she’d felt in those few seconds behind her.

“Yes, she’s fine, that’s what I was actually coming to find you about. Do you think you can look at her and make sure she’s ok.”

“I’m a vet Red, not a pediatrician.”

“You’ve got more medical training than anyone else around here.”

“You probably want to take her to the hospital, they could give her better care than I could.”

“Oh that will be lovely,” Demon chimed in, “Let’s just explain to them that she was kidnapped by a rival gang and we really can’t get the police involved because we’ve left a trail of corpses all over Al’s Mini-Storage parking lot.”

Sidney and Red looked at Demon, who was now intent on his food preparation again, and then back at each other.

“I’ll go have a look at her,” she followed Red as he led her out the door and to meet his daughter, but not before taking one last glance at Demon. He turned, and his eyes caught hers in the brief second before the door closed and they left him alone.

The little girl was beautiful, in a tragic way. Though her tangled blonde curls bounced with every movement, her skin was pale with cheeks and lips flushed. Sidney was scared she might have a fever. She clung to her little stuffed doll, eyes never leaving Red, while Sidney examined her and asked her question.

“So?” Red asked, anxious.

“She seems fine really. I don’t think they hurt her at all. Just scared the poor thing half to death. She’s a little warm but that could be from anything. It probably got cold in that storage unit last night and her body is just adjusting to being in a warmer place, or she’s getting the sniffles,” Sidney shrugged, there wasn’t much else she could do.

“It scared me half to death too.”

Sidney’s heart hurt for him, she couldn’t imagine having to go through something like that. Knowing your child was out there and at the mercy of the worst kind of men. “Are her grandparent’s ok?”

“Yeah, I had some guys go check on them last night. They were tied up in their kitchen but they hadn’t been hurt.”

“That’s a relief,” people who were capable of stealing children to sell into slavery were capable of anything. “So you’re taking her back home?”

Red looked over at Morgan, his heart in his eyes and shook his head, “No, she’ll stay with me from now on. I’ve got to protect her.”

The love shining plainly from him was almost hard to see. No father had felt that level of dedication to her, “You thought you were protecting her before, you can’t keep beating yourself up about this.”

“I’m not, but I’m also not going to let it happen again.”

Sidney nodded, “I know, but you can’t keep her here,” she waved her hand around the common room. Pool tables and beers and cigarettes, and thought of his room. Not exactly the best place to stow a kid.

Red nodded too, “I know that. I’ve got to get my shit together, but in the meantime I need to ask you a big favor.”

Oh no, she couldn’t keep a kid. She couldn’t even make spaghetti without scorching the sauce. She didn’t have the first clue about how to take care of a child, even one who was as adorable as Morgan was.

“Red I…”

“Sidney, you’ve saved my life once already, and I owe you everything for that, and I know I have no right to ask but… you’re the most decent person I know. Please.”

His golden eyes begged her, full of hope and fear that she’d say no, “Okay,” she agreed, “But I can’t promise I’ll be good at it. She’ll probably eat McDonald’s every night and have funky hair.”

Red picked up her hands and brought them to his lips. “Thank you, thank you.” His warm lips touched her hands and tingles traveled up her arm to her spine. This was ridiculous. She’d never had so many physical reactions to touch before in such a short span of time, from two different men no less.

“Hold on to the thank yous until we see how she is at the end of the week.”

No matter what Sidney said, he had complete confidence in her, and it was a huge relief to know that he had a place for Morgan to go while he got everything settled in the club.

Morgan was his first priority, making sure she was safe and taken care of, but Club business was a close second. Until he knew what was up with Big Dog he couldn’t count on anyone in his life being safe.

“Hey, has anyone heard from Big Dog or the others yet?” Red asked. The group of men who had been standing around rehashing the specifics of the fight all looked around at each other.

“No man, I ain’t heard from nobody.”

“Me neither.”

The rest shook their heads, so far no one he’d asked had heard a word.

The Clubhouse was mostly silent, which wasn’t unusual mid Saturday afternoon since everyone who stayed there was normally still in bed or just getting up and the nighttime crowd hadn’t rolled in yet. He didn’t know if he was going to miss it or not. Sure, it was exciting way to live for someone just getting going, Squint and Squirt were probably having the time of their lives. Being away from their parents for the first time, the drinking and the laughter, and the women. There were always lots and lots of women hanging around. Not his girls, he tried to keep his girls separate from the Club, something that didn’t always work out, but he tried. A lot of the women who hung around just wanted a taste of danger that the men there represented, Red knew that. Which is probably why he had never found an old lady among the biker flies they seemed to collect. They didn’t want him as a person, they wanted to be associated with the Club and his cock. In that order. He was positive that being in the Club was actually a drawback with Sidney, he smirked, she probably wanted some guy who worked for UPS or in an accounting office. Just the events of the past few days were going to be hard to get over with her and she hadn’t even found out about his job yet. That was a conversation he was
not
looking forward to having with her. It was just one of those things she was going to have to learn how to live with, because he wasn’t giving her up. He just had to get all the crap untangled and then he could focus on bringing her around to understanding that they were going to work out, regardless of how rough their start had been.

“Tinker,” Red addressed the large man who was handcuffed to a chair in the commons. “What are we going to do with you?”

“My fate was sealed last night, any extra time I’ve had is just more time for me to reflect on how bad I’ve fucked up.”

Red could understand that, before the fight all he’d had were regrets about not becoming the man, the father, he’d wanted to be. Maybe he could give Tinker the same chance to start over that he felt like he was given.

“You know that we’ve killed almost all of the Hellhounds.”

Tinker nodded, “Yes, it’s kinda hard not to hear all the talk around here.”

“What would you do if I were to let you go?”

The man’s face went blank, as if it was something he hadn’t even considered. Red waited for him to collect his thoughts, “I don’t know, I don’t have any family. The Hellhounds were my family.”

“Your family that put you in a fight to the death.”

He turned his face away from Red’s, “Yes. They did that. But you have to admit that it was a long shot that you would win. Without that…”

“Screeching,” Red provided the word for him.

“Without that you would have been the one with your throat ripped out.” The angry red marks were still clearly visible on his neck, even with their ability to heal so quickly.

“That may be true, but that’s not how it went down.”

“But what was it?”

“I have no idea, even the guys who hadn’t shifted were affected by it.”

“But you weren’t,” there was an accusation in the words.

“I was, but it just doesn’t seem like I was as affected as you were. But that’s neither here nor there, what’s done is done. If I let you go what would you do, where would you go?”

“I don’t know man. I really don’t. My home is with the pack.”

Red nodded, “And if we offered you a place with us, would you be able to be loyal? Follow the rules? We don’t allow druggies and we don’t sell people as sex slaves or Russian brides or whatever bullshit you guys were doing.”

“Why would you even offer me that? After everything?”

Red shrugged, “I believe a man can change. And it might not happen, we’d have to vote on it and I can’t say for sure that everyone would go for it.”

Tinker nodded, “Yes, I can be loyal to The Dogs, hell I never did any drugs anyway and taking those girls off the street… it never set right with me either.”

“Good,” Red patted the big man on the leg, “As soon as we get all this settled down we’ll take a vote. Until then I guess the handcuffs have to stay.”

“No problem man, I’ll take handcuffed over dead any day.”

“So you say you have no idea about why the Hellhounds decided to grab the people they did?” Red had already questioned him but it never hurt to ask a second time.

“Nah, like I said, I’m just the muscle. I wasn’t in on making the plans. That was all Lynard. I know he’d been having some secret meetings with people lately but that’s nothing new. Who wants to meet in public when you’re looking for an Asian girl without a passport to be your ‘housekeeper’?”

“Yeah, I can see that. Well if you think of anything else that might help, let me know. It’d probably go a long way towards getting you patched in,” Red lied. If Big Dog was in on it and thought this guy had information there was no way he’d still be alive much less welcomed into the Club with open arms.