Fearless: Complicated Creatures Part Three (74 page)

August—Late Morning

Wes and Chris’s Apartment, Texas A&M

W E S L E Y

W
es rolled over,
groaning. His arm hit something soft.

“Morning, you sexy sonofabitch.”

Startled awake, he opened his eyes. A pretty brunette with bright blue eyes smiled sexily at him. He didn’t recognize her, but even rumpled and sleep-tousled, she looked pretty terrific.

“Hey, angel,” he murmured, unable to recall her name. “Did I wake you?”

“You mean when you smacked me with your arm?” she teased, voice raspy from sleep.

“Sorry,” he muttered, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Feel like someone tried to hang me but the rope broke.”

“Cuervo will do that to you,” she husked, nuzzling his neck.

Scenes from the night before flashed into his mind. Bartending at Dixie’s, the pretty brunette ordering shots near closing, challenging him to keep up. He recalled the laughter, then the swirling. God, the damn room was spinning still… He groaned again.

“You were an animal last night, Wes,” she told him, her lips close to his ear. “Didn’t think you were gonna let me sleep.”

Smooth skin, hot mouth. Wes vaguely recalled pushing her up against the wall, hands in her hair while she struggled with his belt buckle.

“What time is it?” he asked, squinting against the sunlight.

“Dunno,” she shrugged, snuggling up against him. Her hand slid down his belly until she gripped him. “Well, well,” she purred into his neck. “What do we have here?”

“Don’t knock morning wood, angel,” Wes responded with a smile. He figured he could ignore the pounding in his head long enough to give as good as he got. Another go with a nameless tequila bar girl might even help ease the hangover a little. Just as he pulled her closer, his roommate knocked loudly at his door.

“Hey, Wes!” Chris called out.

“Yeah?” he answered, his face buried between the girl’s breasts.

“Some guy just called. Says your bike’s ready—” Chris paused. “You still need a lift down to Austin, or are you otherwise occupied?” he asked, voice amused.

Wes’s head shot up. His motorcycle was finally ready! “Coming!” Wes shouted, more eager to get his bike than he was to get laid again.

The brunette squeezed him under the covers. “Not yet, you’re not.”

Briefly tempted, but not enough, Wes dropped a kiss on her lips before slipping out of bed. “I’ve gotta go, angel.”

The girl sat up, her hair a mess, a little pout on her lips.

“Should I leave my number?” she asked, getting out of bed too.

“Sure,” Wes answered, getting an eyeful of her lush, pear-shaped ass.
And your name too, whoever you are.
“I’d like that.”

She tossed him a smile over her shoulder. “You better call me.”

Now
that
he couldn’t promise.

“See ya around, angel,” he called out before stepping into the bathroom and starting the shower.

Less than two hours later, he and Chris pulled into Ryker’s Automotive, a custom chopper shop down in Austin, his hometown.

As Wes stepped out of Chris’s truck, a voice called out, “You lost, pretty boy?”

Wes turned just in time to see a tatted-up biker approach him from the garage, wiping his hands on an oily rag.

“Nah,” he replied casually. “Just here to pick up your mom.”

“Oh, Jesus, we’re gonna get our asses kicked,” Chris muttered under his breath as the biker crossed his arms, eyeing Wes’s roommate. Chris was a big boy by anyone’s standards, a full 6’5” and over two hundred and fifty pounds of solid beef. He was big enough to be a starting linebacker for the Texas A&M football team, but only Chris’s closest friends realized the guy was a giant, peace-loving marshmallow off the field.

Wes suppressed a smirk.

“You gonna bring her back at a decent hour this time?” the biker replied, expression stern.

Wes could almost feel Chris’s confusion as he glanced back and forth between them.

“Depends,” Wes shrugged, stepping forward. “Your sister going to be around later?”

“Oh my God.” Chris ran a distraught hand down his face. “Wes, are you
trying
to get us killed?”

“Your old lady looks nervous,” the biker observed, gesturing toward Chris.

“You would be too if you were about to be maimed and killed by a psychotic biker,” Chris muttered.

“
Psychotic
biker?” the guy chuckled, visibly amused. “I’m just a mechanic, man.”

“Yeah, and I’m just a lost little lamb at a wolf party,” Chris replied, getting an eyeful of the other bikers working in the garage. “Let’s just get your bike, Wes. Stop talking shit about this nice man’s mom and sister.”

“Nice man?” Wes lifted a brow. “Who—this asshole?” He strode forward, doing the half-hug, half-handshake back-pat thing with the biker. “You done scaring the shit out of my roommate?” he asked, grinning.

The biker smiled back at him through his thick beard. “Can’t help it. He looks just about ready to keel over,” he said, glancing at Chris. “And you play football? Man, I sure as hell hope you’re less of a wuss on the field.”

“Wait—what?” Chris’s eyes bounced back and forth. “You guys are friends?”

“Chris, this is Ryker Whitlock. We grew up together here in Austin,” Wes explained. “Our moms are best friends. Ryke, meet Chris Fields, first-string lineman for the Aggies when he’s not pissing his pants.”

“Nice to meet you, man,” Ryke said as he shook Chris’s hand.

“Oh,
thank Christ
,” Chris exhaled, visibly relieved. “I thought for sure we were dead.”

“Not today, Chris. Not today.” Ryke chuckled before turning to Wes. “Your Panhead’s back here,” he said, nodding toward the garage. “Just finished her this morning.”

“You put in the dual carburetors?” Wes asked, following Ryke and his mechanics into the garage.

“You know it.” Ryke nodded, pointing toward a beautifully restored 1959 Harley-Davidson motorcycle in the bay. “Haven’t taken her out on a test run yet. Figured you’d want to do the honors.”

Wes ran a hand lovingly over the classic lines of the bike’s frame, his fingers tracing over the fine custom details and pristine paint. “You’re a goddamn artist, Ryke.”

His friend shrugged casually, but Wes could see Ryke’s pride. He’d only been customizing choppers and hotrods for a few years, after he dropped out of high school, and he’d really started to develop a reputation for something other than troublemaking and driving his poor mother nuts. “She was a friggin’ disaster sitting in your mama’s garage all these years, but she came together nice, didn’t she?”

“Even better than I remembered.”

Chris whistled as he examined the bike. “Man, you’ve been holding out! I had no idea you had this.”

“It was my dad’s,” Wes replied, offhand. “Left it when he split years back.” Wes nodded toward Ryke. “We should settle the remainder of what I owe you.” Wes turned to Chris. “Thanks for the lift, man. Catch you later tonight at the Sig party?”

“Sure thing,” Chris replied. “Nice meeting you, Ryke.”

“Likewise.”

Chris turned and headed back to his pickup truck.

“You got what I asked for?” Wes asked, as his friend backed out of Ryke’s lot.

Ryke nodded as he led him to his office. “Got you a couple hundred templates,” he said as soon as he shut the door. “You sure you can move that much?”

“Business is about to go way up,” Wes answered with a casual shrug. “Incoming freshman class of five thousand, half of the sophomore class still underage, and all of them just dying to get into the bars on campus—I’d be shocked if I still have all these in a month.”

“You know I’m taking the usual cut for my connect at the DMV.”

“Of course.” Wes nodded as Ryke handed him a stack of Texas state driver’s license templates complete with addresses, names, DL numbers and that
oh-so-important
twenty-one to twenty-three year-old DOB range—the magic number underage would-be drinkers would pay a pretty penny for. All real, all completely believable—the only thing they were missing was the artistry of his Photoshop skills, new pictures, and a very good laminator. God bless Texas and their easily counterfeited IDs.

“Genius,” Wes said with a smile as he reviewed each one in quick succession. “This should be enough to cover this year’s tuition and supplies.”

“Never trust a disgruntled government employee making only a buck over minimum wage an hour with something as important as producing state IDs,” Ryke replied with a grin.

Wes pulled out a manila envelope full of cash, handing it over. “Deposit on the goods and payment for the bike.”

Ryke accepted the envelope. “Pleasure doing business with you, brother.”

Wes tucked the neat stack of templates into his breast pocket. “Thanks, man—for making her beautiful again,” he said as he nodded outside at the Panhead.

“She always was, brother,” Ryke answered. “Just needed a little tender loving care is all.”

Ryke walked him out, watching as he slipped on his half-helmet and sunglasses. Wes started the bike, the roar of the engine filling the garage with a gorgeous, full-bodied sound. He popped the clutch and shot forward, wind blowing past him. As he opened up the Panhead on the highway, Wes reveled in the sheer pleasure of the moment on the back of the only good thing his father had ever left him.

*

August—Sunrise

Fort Hood, Killeen, Texas

S A M A N T H A

From the open
door of the CH-47 Chinook helicopter, Sam watched the sun rise—its hot, yellow tendrils spreading over the vast Texas plain. She relished the cool morning air beating past her and whipping through her fatigues. Summer was ending, but by late morning, the temperature would be sweltering, and she’d be sweating her way through field training, carrying a heavy pack on her back and praying for it to feel this cool again.

“You ready for this,
chica
?” Rita Ramos asked as she leaned toward Sam’s ear, speaking just loud enough to be heard over the heavy
whump whump whump
of the double rotors. “Ranger Challenge training won’t be easy—these assholes don’t exactly want us here,” she said, looking in the direction of the predominantly older, male cadets occupying the bench seats around them.

Sam smiled at her. “Who says girls can’t be Rangers?”

“Every single jackass sitting behind us,” Rita replied with an eye roll. “Sometimes I think we’ve got more to worry about from our own squads than from the brigades at the other schools.”

Sam caught Alejandro’s intense, dark gaze from across the chopper’s fuselage. He watched her grimly, lips turned down in a disapproving frown.

Rita glanced back. “Ignore him,” she muttered. “Alejo’s just pissed you’re a sophomore and you keep showing him and his crew up at the field training.”

He’s also pissed because I’m the only person here who refuses to kowtow to him,
Sam thought, noting the deference of the crew that surrounded him, the way everyone automatically conceded to Alejandro like he was some hotshot deity on the rise.

“I’ll have to watch my back,” Sam murmured, looking away to watch the plains streak past them.

“Hey, we watch each other’s backs.” Rita nudged her as the Chinook banked, descending into Ft. Hood, a three-hundred-and-forty-square-mile military installation—one of the largest U.S. bases in the world. The rolling, semi-arid terrain made Ft. Hood perfect for training and testing military units. For years, it had been the Army’s premier stateside military base because it was the only post capable of stationing and training two armored divisions.

As the chopper landed at one of Ft. Hood’s massive airfields, Sam and Rita were among the first to disembark and fall into formation. The fifty-person group organized quickly, lining up by class, rank, and file, postures stiff and straight as Colonel Sasser approached with the other officer instructors. He paced before the front row, examining the line with cool gray eyes and a stern expression.

“Since 1876, Texas A&M University has been a steady source of some of the most important commissioned officers for the United States Armed Services,” Colonel Sasser began. “Few know that during World War II, A&M commissioned more officers than West Point.” He directed a hard and meaningful stare across the cadets. “You want to be the best?” he asked. “You want to be officers in the greatest army the world has ever known?”

The cadets straightened infinitesimally as he passed, postures ramrod, demeanors stern and proud. Though Sam could only see Sasser peripherally, she knew the exact moment his unwavering gaze fell on her. She knew she looked downright diminutive compared to the rows of powerful young men standing in silent, polished succession.

Her chin came up a fraction of an inch under the weight of Sasser’s stare. She was going to kick ass at this. Her plan was to separate from the pack and make a name for herself as someone other than a low-rung freshman like she’d been last year, or worse,
her daddy’s daughter
. Rich, entitled, and a
Wyatt
—the path to the future all laid out for her in a neat little row.

Sam knew what her father had in mind for her. Four years Navy, followed by business school, maybe marry one of the guys he would have vetted and approved of, then take over as the head of Wyatt Petroleum. Sam could see it all cascading, like dominoes falling one after another in perfect sync, right according to plan. Well, she wasn’t falling into lockstep just because Robert Wyatt expected her to. She didn’t believe in predestination. She believed in being her own woman, making her own calls. And taking on the Challenge was going to be the first big step toward proving it.