Julie Walker - Hell for Leather

It’d been barely a year after the towers were destroyed on September 11th. And the United States had told the media the attack was necessary due to the presence of a high-level al-Qaeda operative in the town. But Qasim didn’t know anything about an al-Qaeda operative, high-level or not. And all he found when he returned home to search through the rubble of his life were the mutilated bodies of his friends and neighbors…the shredded corpses of his wife and children.

Before the drone strike, he’d never been tempted to join the groups of bewhiskered men who occasionally came through his village, ranting and raving about justice and the need to perpetrate revenge on all the infidels. But that all changed the night an unmanned plane, flown by a soldier sitting in front of a computer screen thousands of miles away, dropped an AGM Hellfire air-to-ground missile on everything Qasim held dear.

AGM Hellfire air-to-ground missile… He would always remember the name of the ordnance that obliterated his family.

Hellfire…

The newspapers had printed it without thought to what that word would mean to those who’d survived the massacre.

Hellfire…

It was exactly what he and so many others were going to rain down on American mothers and fathers, wives and children, in the weeks and months to come.

Filthy American pigs, he thought again. Though, as he let his gaze once more travel over Theodore Fairchild, he had to give the man credit for his strength. Even after the beating Sami and Jabbar had given him, and even after watching his friend die a wheezing, eye-bulging death, Theodore remained upright, his chin held high, his aging blue eyes bright with fury.

But that strength would only last so long. And Qasim knew just how to strike fear into the hardened heart of a man like Theodore.

Smiling to himself, he tilted his head at his hostage. Theodore was listening intently to his phone conversation. Not that Qasim was concerned. It was unlikely Theodore was able to understand the stilted Arabic he was speaking—stilted because Punjabi was his native tongue and he’d only learned to speak Arabic after joining The Cause. Still, not being able to understand the words Qasim spoke did not stop the old soldier from straining to hear any recognizable phrase. Which was why Qasim winked before saying, “Excellent, Haroun. I look forward to meeting Delilah Fairchild,” he emphasized the name, “very soon.”

Theodore jerked against his restraints, yelling behind the gag, and Qasim allowed a grin to tilt his lips. “I’m going to bring your beloved niece here, Mr. Fairchild,” he said in English, infusing his voice with the promise of death and retribution. “And then you and I are going to make a deal…”

Delilah was mortified.

She could not believe she’d done exactly what she’d promised herself she’d never do…which was break down like a lily-livered ninny in front of these people. These fearless guys who put their lives on the line each day, and these brave women who stood by, dry-eyed, and watched them do it.

How pathetic was she by comparison?

Pretty damned pathetic, a little voice whispered at the back of her head, to which she immediately replied, Oh, fuck off.

Because, seriously? If a gal couldn’t rely on her own subconscious to have her back, then she couldn’t rely on anyone. Hmph. Her inner twelve-year-old crossed her arms and scowled.

Okay, now anger… Anger is good. Anger could fuel the fire that burned inside her. You know, as opposed to the fear that had left her weak and spent and falling apart in the circle of Mac’s strong arms. And, yeah, so she could admit the strong arms thing was the bright spot in an otherwise humiliating little display. But, seriously, even they weren’t enough to overcome all her embarrassment. Some, certainly. A girl would have to be dead from the waist down not to be comforted by the feel of Mac’s embrace—not to mention the warmth of his firm lips on her brow. But not all of it.

And, hey, since she was on the topic, what was with him and the forehead kisses, anyway? He’d broken—more like smashed through—his four-year moratorium on touching her only to grant her the lowliest form of affection? Because, come on, the forehead kiss, while sweet, was sort of like the kiss of death when it came to romance, placing the recipient of said kiss firmly in the friend zone. So was all Mac’s touchy, feely, forehead-kissy stuff an indication that he suddenly wanted to be friends? Was it an indication that—

“…warm up?” Ali, Ghost’s wife, dragged Delilah away from her spinning thoughts.

She looked up from her seat at the long, rectangular conference table to find the heavily pregnant blonde holding a carafe of coffee. At least Delilah assumed the black sludge sloshing around inside the glass container was coffee. Truth was, after having taken a sip of the foul stuff, she couldn’t be quite sure. It smelled like burned rubber and tasted about the same.

“What did you say?” she asked. Eighties music filled the cavernous space that was the Black Knights’ second floor…uh…what exactly would one call this area? The command center?

“I asked if you wanted a warm up,” Ali repeated.

“Uhhhh…” She shook her head, covering the top of her mostly full Styrofoam cup. “No, thanks.”

“You sure?” Ali asked, hoisting the carafe higher, looking very cute in a flowered maternity sundress studded with rhinestones around the collar and hem. But no matter how well Ali played the part of Vanna White, there was nothing that could force Delilah to take one more drink of that sludge.

“Yeah.” She nodded vehemently, then narrowed her eyes when a little smile tugged at one corner of Ali’s lips. “Hey, are you screwing around with me? What is this stuff?”

Ali’s tawny eyes flashed. But before she could answer, her husband whisked the pot from her hands.

“What d’ya think you’re doin’?” Nate “Ghost” Weller demanded in that strange mashed-up way he had of speaking. It was almost like he talked in cursive. “The doctor said you’re not s’posed to lift heavy things.” Pulling out a chair, he gently, as if Ali were a fragile piece of antique china, maneuvered her into it despite her repeated swatting of his hands.

“Oh, for Pete’s sake, Nate,” the blonde groused, scowling up at her handsome, black-eyed husband. “I don’t think a coffee pot constitutes a heavy thing.” She made the quote marks with her fingers, fingers Delilah noticed were pudgy with retained fluid. She’d been around enough pregnant women in her day to know Ali Weller was about to burst. Or as Uncle Theo liked to say, primed to pop.

Uncle Theo… And just like that, she felt the blood drain from her face.

Oh, for heaven’s sake, were those tears burning up the back of her nose?

“A coffee pot doesn’t constitute a heavy thing?” Ghost asked, his expression dubious. “Mmmph,” he finished, shaking his head until his black hair brushed against the collar of his white, 110th Anniversary Harley-Davidson T-shirt.

“Mmmph?” Ali parroted, lifting her brows before turning to Delilah. “I thought I was making progress with him. You know,” she fluttered her hands dramatically, “getting him to speak in actual sentences and stuff. But ever since that double pink line appeared on the pee-stick test, he’s reverted back to his former caveman vocabulary.”

“Mmmph,” Ghost grunted again, plunking down in the seat beside his wife.

“See what I mean?” Ali asked, and Delilah was eternally grateful for the distraction from her own self-pity. She opened her mouth to agree with Ali but closed it again when the sound of Steady’s heavy biker boots clomping down the metal stairs from the third floor snagged her attention.

From what she’d been able to gather the other two times she’d been in the old menthol cigarette factory that now housed Black Knights Inc., the third floor was the living quarters for the operators, those who still resided onsite, anyway. She’d heard a few of the married guys had moved out—no doubt in an effort to gain a little privacy from what she’d come to understand was basically just a big frat house stocked with hand grenades, guns, and all manner of other ruthless, deadly things that went boom.

The first floor, with its soaring ceiling, brightly painted brick walls, and gleaming line of custom choppers, was the state-of-the-art motorcycle shop where all the bike building occurred—and where the cover for the clandestine nature of BKI was maintained.

And then there was this second floor…

As far as she could tell, it was the heart of the operation. The large conference area was open on one side to the motorcycle shop below. Off to her right, a row of metal doors stood ajar and revealed the interiors of half a dozen private offices. And lining one wall, top to bottom, was a set of computers and monitors fancy enough to drive home the fact that, yes, indeed, she really was sitting smack-dab in the middle of a super-secret spy shop.

“Let me check your head,” Steady said. “Make sure that pop you received didn’t leave you with a concussion. And Mac,” he said as he dropped a camouflage duffel bag on the end of the conference table. It landed with a muted thud. “Come over here and take your shirt off.”

Okay… Mac? Shirtless? Talk about one way to rip her mind away from heavy, heartbreaking thoughts of her uncle. She had to concentrate incredibly hard in order to answer the rather simple questions Steady peppered her with as his fingers pressed around on her skull. Not because of any brain injury, mind you. But because Mac was two seconds away from becoming shirtless. And when Mac did as Steady suggested, sauntering over to the conference table from his previous position by the bank of computers, snagging the seat beside her before reaching over his head to grab the collar of his bloody T-shirt and whip the garment off in one fell swoop, she completely forgot her own name. Thankfully, Steady had already finished questioning her and pronounced her sound.

Oh, for the love of tequila…

Tan… Mac’s skin had that I-grew-up-in-the-Deep-South, sun-kissed look about it.

Hard… The thick muscles bulging in his chest and shoulders appeared solid enough to withstand a hatchet strike.

Manly… Hair grew in a patch between his impressive pectoral muscles and arrowed down to disappear beneath the waistband of his faded jeans, screaming male as loudly as a shot glass full of straight testosterone.

Mouthwatering… The corrugated muscles of his stomach bunched when he bent to the side to allow Steady to swipe an antiseptic cloth over his slowly weeping wound.

Delicious… Soap lingered on his skin, and the smell of it was a seductive combination of cool mint and warm vanilla. It made her think of hard Christmas candies and sugar cookies fresh from the oven.

Ink… Around his bulky biceps twined triple links of black barbed wire. A lone fist-sized red, white, and blue outline of the state of Texas with a star in the center covered the hard muscle over his heart. And maybe it was because she’d been raised around a bunch of rowdy bikers, but she always got a little weak in the knees when confronted with badass tattoos inked into tough, tan skin.

Put it all together, add a pinch of I-haven’t-been-laid-in-way-too-long, and what did you come up with? A big ol’ dollop of yeehaw, cowgirl! with a side of wanna take a ride?

And, yes. She’d been wanting to do exactly that for a very, very long time now. In fact, she’d been—

Really, Delilah, that pesky little voice piped up again, we’re back to that? Back to swooning over an emotionally unavailable man? And have you forgotten about your uncle?

Well, sonofa—No, no…of course she hadn’t forgotten about her uncle. In fact, now that the adrenaline had worn off, now that she’d gotten past the part where she was running around—as Mac would say—like a chicken with her head cut off, she was horrified to discover that deep down, down where she didn’t want to look, down where things got dark and scary, she had a very bad feeling that she was never going to see Uncle Theo again.

And just skirting around the very edges, the thinnest, farthest borders, of that possibility made her heart contract so hard it sat in her chest like a black stone of terror. She didn’t realize she’d spoken her fear aloud until Mac threw an arm around the back of her chair and dragged her close to his side. It was also then that she realized her blood was running colder than the dry ice she used in the zombie cocktails she mixed up each year around Halloween. Because Mac’s big body felt hotter than the surface of the sun where it touched the freezing skin on her arm, and his sudden nearness chased away the chill and instantly started a fire burning low in her belly. Despite the fear strangling her heart, a soft ache pulsed between her legs.