Julie Walker - Born Wild

“Be quiet for a second,” Mac said, his voice barely discernible above another boom of thunder. “I need to think.”

“Well, think faster!” yelled.

He scowled at her. She scowled back. She hadn’t gone through all this, through the hell of yesterday and last night and this morning, just so he could leave a freakin’ message!

“The Coast Guard!” he snapped his fingers. “They can relay a communique to Bill via the sailboat’s VHF radio.” He turned to open the huge metal door with Delilah hot on his heels. He quickly swung back around, and she skidded to a stop, her Converse sneakers squeaking on the slate ground-covering.

“Don’t you even think about leaving me out of this,” she said, lifting her chin. “I’m in it. I’ve been in it. I have the right to see it through.”

He stepped up close to her, his voice a low rumble. “Okay,” he said, and the victorious smile that started to curl her lips turned down at the corners when he continued, “But before you set foot in this building, you need to understand something. You can’t breathe a word about what you see inside.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “Not one word. Not to anybody. Or you could land all of us in hot water.” The expression in his eyes was wary and worried…and perhaps a little bit beseeching. “Do you understand me?”

Her lungs froze in an instant, as did her heart. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, what are they doing in there?

“Do you understand me?” he asked again, reaching up to grasp her bicep and give her a little shake. “I have to know I can trust you. There’s more at stake here than you realize.”

She swallowed, nodding jerkily. He searched her eyes for a second longer before turning to throw open the door. Following him inside, she quickly glanced around, expecting to see…she didn’t know what, especially not after that speech he’d just given her. But to her utter relief and astonishment, the place looked rather ordinary. Rather like she’d expect a custom motorcycle shop to look. The exposed brick wall lining the right side of long hall he led her down was covered with old motorcycle license plates. And when they pushed out into the main body of the shop, she saw all the usual equipment. Bike lifts. Power tools. Blow torches. A big, precision water saw. The place smelled like burned coffee, hot metal, and old oil. It smelled just as she’d imagined it would smell and—

“This way,” Mac motioned, turning to clomp up a set of metal stairs. She followed him, the sound of their footfalls on the treads echoing around the huge space, bouncing against the brick walls painted with massive, colorful caricatures of all the Black Knights. Yup. Nothing out of the ordinary there either. Bikers loved nothing better than to immortalize themselves in murals or in their own tattoos. Then she topped the last riser…

Uh…okay.

Because the lower floor might’ve looked like your typical custom chopper shop, but this second floor? Well, this second floor looked like what she imagined NORAD must look like. Stacked two-high against the far wall was a bank of massive computer screens, all blinking and buzzing, showing satellite images and real-time feeds from places that had to be on the other side of the globe. And sitting in front of that bank of computers, iPod earbuds shoved in his ears, head bobbing to whatever music he was listening to while tossing a pencil in the air, was Ace. The guy she’d been led to believe was the Black Knights’ resident wiring expert. She immediately adjusted her thinking on that score. Especially when he turned and his jaw slung open like there was a two hundred-pound weight attached to his bottom teeth. He yanked the earbuds from his ears. “Delilah? Wh-what the hell are you doing here?”

She swallowed, shaking her head because she just couldn’t take it all in. “M-me?” she finally sputtered. “The better question is what the hell are you guys doing here? What is this place?” She was starting to get the feeling she’d been a lot closer than she ever could’ve imagined with her earlier comparison to Area 51.

“No time for explanations,” Mac cut in, stomping over to Ace. “We need to find the number for our contact in the Coast Guard.”

“Why?” Ace asked him, though his astonished expression was still glued to Delilah’s face.

As Bill filled him in, Delilah made sure she kept her eyes focused straight ahead. Not that the urge to look around wasn’t intense, mind you. It was really, really intense. But if she wasn’t mistaken, this place looked suspiciously like a secret government installation. And those unlucky civilians who stumbled upon secret government installations usually found themselves six feet under, didn’t they? Well, they did in the movies—which was her only point of reference since she’d never seen the likes of anything like this in real life—so, yup, she’d just go with what she knew and focus on seeing as little as possible.

Holy shit. Holy, holy, holy shit!

A chill that had nothing to do with her wet clothes or the cool air of the warehouse slipped up her spine. With half an ear, she listened while Ace contacted the Coast Guard. With the other half, she concentrated on the pulsing sound of all her blood rushing to her head. She couldn’t believe it. The Black Knights are some kind of—

“He says he can’t raise the ship.” Ace turned away from the computers, lowering his cell phone from his ear.

Delilah watched as the two men exchanged a look. “Call Washington,” Mac instructed. “Let him know the situation. Tell him to alert the Ludington police.” Then, Mac said four words she never thought she’d hear outside an AMC movie theater. “And get the chopper…”

Harbor View Marina, Ludington, Michigan

9:27 a.m.

What the hell is the matter with me? Bill thought as he secured the last rope around a cleat on the weathered dock. Eve Edens had professed her love, her no strings attached love, almost two hours ago, and he’d yet to do or say anything in response.

And, yeah, yeah. So, they’d been a little busy fighting a raging storm that’d battered them unmercifully until it finally decided to blow itself out a mere five minutes before they pulled into port. But that was only a small part of the reason why it’d been Mum City inside the cramped wheelhouse. The truth was, he’d kept his mouth shut was because he didn’t know what to say to something like that. A part of him gloried in her confession. She loved him! Everybody wanted to be loved, right? According to Lennon and McCartney, that’s all you needed. On the other hand—there’s always another hand, isn’t there?—a part of him was—

“Your turn,” Eve said, cutting his thought short. She’d emerged from the cabin after donning a dry T-shirt and a clean pair of jeans. Standing at the sailboat’s rail, she was in the process of pulling her damp hair back into a ponytail. The way her arms were raised, he could see the faint outline of her erect nipples. Those sweet nipples. Those sensitive nipples. Those nipples he’s sucked and laved and licked and…

Shit. Now was not the time to be thinking about her nipples. If he started thinking about her nipples, next thing you know he’d be thinking about getting her back into bed. And a man shouldn’t think about getting a woman who’d just confessed her love for him back into bed unless he had something more than slack-jawed silence to offer her.

“I, uh…” He had a tough time meeting her gaze. Her eyes were too sad. Too hurt. Too…something he didn’t want to acknowledge. “I think I’ll go make sure Chris left his extra truck for us.” Chris was an old high school friend who’d moved from the city to Ludington to become a fishing guide. Before they’d pulled away from the dock back at Belmont Harbor, Bill had called and asked the man to leave his spare truck in the parking lot. “Also, I need to stop at the yacht club, if it’s open, to call back to BKI. Let the guys know we made it,” he told her, shuffling his flip-flops against the slats of the dock. “Why don’t you get everything secured on the boat, and after I’ve, uh, checked on everything, I’ll come back and help you with the bags.”

Silence met his suggestion. And he was forced to raise his eyes. She was just standing there at the rail staring at him, chewing on a hangnail. “Billy,” she finally said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I didn’t tell you that to make you—”

“I know,” he cut her off, feeling like a complete ass-hat for fucking this thing up. And he was fucking it up. But, goddamnit! He didn’t know what to say to her! His feelings for her were…confusing.

Yeah, he mentally snorted. Which is like saying advanced nuclear physics is confusing…

“O-okay.” She nodded, still chewing on that nail.

Blowing out a breath—he was quickly becoming disgusted with himself—he regarded her for a second more before turning to traipse up the dock. His flip-flops made a slapping sound that echoed out over the quiet harbor. For all the fury of the storm, its passing had brought on an eerie calm, made even more so by the fact that the marina was deserted.

Yeah, because no sane person would be caught dead out on the lake on a day like this…

Jesus Christ, what a morning! If he lived to be one hundred and eighty, he hoped he never had to experience another like it. When he closed his eyes, the image of Eve’s orange life vest and black hair adrift out in the middle of all that frothing water blazed on the backs of his eyelids. It caused his heart to stutter, his ulcer to start complaining, and his brain to stumble over a series of questions—most of them along the vein of: If you don’t love her back, then why does that memory haunt you?

Shit on a stick! What a morning, indeed…

He shook his head as he stepped off the end of the dock, traipsing up a small slope toward the large, empty parking lot. The air smelled crisp and clean, like wet evergreens and cool, clear water. It looked like his buddy Chris had come through for them. An old, beat-up, blue—well it used be blue, but now it was mostly rust—Chevy sat parked at the far end of the lot. He decided to pull it closer, so they wouldn’t have as far to walk with the bags.

I regret not telling you right from the very start that I still love you. And I will always love you…Eve’s words whispered through his mixed-up, mashed-up skull for about the thousandth time. And even though they caused warmth to pool in his chest and spread out through his limbs, he still didn’t know how to respond to them.

Was he a coward? Had he been accusing Eve of being lily-livered when all this time he was the one who needed to man-up and grow some balls? Was he so afraid of being hurt again that he wasn’t willing to risk—

The sound of squealing tires invaded his thoughts. He glanced up to see a dark SUV careening around the corner into the parking lot, and all his warrior’s instincts sprang to life. But, it was too late…

* * *

Fuck! He was late!

Jeremy torqued the wheel of the big SUV, the second one he’d been forced to borrow from Devon Price since the first one had crapped out on him about two-thirds of the way to Ludington. And then because, you know, he couldn’t exactly call AAA to come give him a tow since that would mean a paper trail, he’d been forced to sit on the side of the road for three fucking hours waiting for one of Devon’s flunkies to deliver him a new vehicle.

Hence, he was late.

But not too late, he assured himself. Because if he wasn’t mistaken, that was Bill Reichert standing in the middle of the parking lot, which meant Eve couldn’t be too far behind. And if he could just get them both back out on the sailboat, maybe he could tie them up, which would give him time to hotwire a motorboat, and then everything could still go as planned.

Yeah, this thing can still work out…

Stepping on the brakes, his stomach sat where his heart should be and his heart throbbed in his throat, he flipped off the safety on the stupid, nickel-plated 1911 Devon had given him.

Why the hell gangbangers thought bright, shiny, nearly glow-in-the-dark guns were something to be coveted he’d never know. Then again, now was not the time to contemplate the idiocy of the thugs who made up the Black Apostles, because Reichert was lunging toward the ratty old truck parked fifteen feet away, and Jeremy couldn’t let the man secure transportation. Shit would go downhill fast if he allowed that to happen.