Mica (Rebel Wayfarers MC) (4 page)

“Babe,” came the expected single-word response, which triggered a wide grin from her. Looking at her as he dropped into his usual chair, he asked, “Was your day good?”

Sighing, Mica said, “Best part of my day is right here—sitting right here, right now.” When she heard the intake of breath, she realized he might think she was talking about him. Smiling again, she thought to herself;
Let him
, because it wasn’t entirely wrong.

4 -
   
Better to know

“Mischy, you there?” the boy’s voice called quietly, but even with that volume, the sound echoed through the barn. Sobs filtered from the last stall on the left, now empty of an equine occupant. “Mica, I’m here. Mamma told me what happened.” He walked down the wide run between the rows of stalls, naming the remaining horses in a litany in his head as he went, already knowing which ones were missing and had been loaded into the trailer earlier in the day.

“Oh, Mike, why did he have to sell Spirit?” He slid down to sit next to her against the stall wall, and she leaned over, crying into his shoulder. “We had really good run times posted in the last few heats at Playday last weekend. He was coming around in training and was going to be a good’un,” thirteen-year-old Mica said, knowing that everything on the ranch had to make money in some way or it would be discarded, but she would never understand it when her dad cut what he saw as losses so early in the game.

“When is the auction, Mike? Do you know which one they are taking the horses to this time?” Mica’s thoughts ran amok in her head. She first considered the amount of cash in her savings account from training and selling foals and calves; it was pretty healthy. Then her mind was mulling over which of the older boys from the rodeo club might be able to get their hands on a truck and trailer. That way, she could get her horse back home after she bought him from her own dad at the auction. Then Daddy
would see how serious she was about this horse. She knew Spirit was the real deal and would take her all the way to Vegas for Junior National Finals, but she realized that Mike wasn’t answering her, so she asked again, “Which auction, Mike?”

“Not an auction house, Sis. Sorry, he’s headed to the east coast and the sales.” Mike hung his head, knowing the mental plans Mica was making had been smashed to the ground by his words. The sales were where horses went that had no further use, where they were parted out for manufacturing components, or for overseas food sales.

Horses don’t come back from the sales, ever, and Spirit would never be coming back to his stall. Their father had broken his promise to Mica again, and stripped her of a horse that she had allowed herself to get emotionally attached to, even though she knew it was a big no-no on a ranch like theirs, where everything had a purpose and a reason for being, even if that reason was to bring in cash from the sales.

Her breath stopped in her throat, and squeezing her eyes tightly shut, she hiccupped out a single, last sob and then stilled with some effort. “Well that is that, then.” She drew in a huge breath through her nose, and then slowly let out a big sigh through pursed lips, calming herself as she’d done so often in the past. “I got chores to do; I better get on ‘em, or I won’t get dinner tonight. ‘If you don’t work, you don’t eat’ like Daddy says.” Mica was as emotionally practical as someone twice her age; she was not a romantic by nature, and knew when things were stacked against her. In a small voice, she ended with, “He sure was a good’un, Mike. I’m sorry Daddy didn’t see the potential. Spirit wasn’t just a hay burner.”

Standing and brushing the straw off her seat, she reached down and gave her brother a hand up, pulling him to stand beside her with a hardened and calloused hand, her nails all bitten down to the quick. “How are you so much taller than I am?” she asked him, asking a familiar question to change the topic and punching his shoulder lightly.

“Dunno, just special I guess,” was his pat response as he searched her face for any lingering plots or dangerous thoughts. “You okay, Mischy?”

Moving out of the stall and flipping her plaited hair over her shoulder, Mica said, “Yeah, Mike, it is what it is. I’ve got the Jamison’s two-year-old colts coming in tomorrow; they are pasture green and barely halter broke, so I’ll be starting from the ground up with ‘em. That’ll keep me busy, for sure. Plus, I have to be ‘spectacular’ with them Daddy said.” The Jamison family had lived around here for a long time, and Mica knew if she did well with their colts, they could recommend her and her dad to their friends.

Grabbing a pitchfork and a wheelbarrow, she moved up the alley to the first occupied stall on the right-hand side. Mike walked a bale of straw to between that stall and the next, withdrew a folding knife from his pocket, and snipped the ropes in two that held the bale together. He turned to leave the barn, knowing he had his own chores to complete by dinnertime. “Thanks, Mike. It’s better to know, right?” came softly from behind him and he responded in kind, “Yeah, it’s a
lways better to know for sure.”

5 -
   
Reality strikes

Mason looked at the lights shining out from the house next to his, casting shadows across the browning grass and bare trees. His eyes flickered from window to window until he saw what he was looking for, and he stilled, looking through the window at Mica. She was standing with her back to the window seat, her hands raised shoulder height in front of her in
a warding motion, leaning slightly forward in an aggressive stance, at odds with her hand gestures.

His eyes narrowed as he looked past her into the room and saw Michael standing with his arms straight down at his sides, hands clenched into tight fists. His long, blonde hair was swinging into his eyes and laid across the back of his neck. Standing like this, his face was red and his mouth was wide as he yelled down at his sister.

Mason sighed; in the long months Michael had been living with Mica, this had come to be a common and uncomfortable sight. Mason hated it for her, because he knew she wanted things to be better between her and her brother. They might have the same deep, green eyes, but that was the only thing in common between them.

He shrugged and turned to head into his backyard, where his friends were already gathered for a grill party. He had been going to ask Mica if she wanted to come over, but he knew the futility of that request, since she and her brother were arguing again. That argument would go on for a while, and was probably about booze or money, or both. It was a common theme with Michael.

Mason had been inviting her over for years and wanted her to know she was always welcome at his house, no matter what. Not that she ever took him up on the invitations, she’d been trying off and on to keep him at arm’s length since the day he had seen her at what she felt was her vulnerable worst.

For a while, he thought he’d found an in with her by sitting with her in the evenings. She’d light a fire in her pit and he’d go sit, but she didn’t talk, and wouldn’t let him in emotionally. They’d sit and he’d tell her things about the bar or one of the other businesses, and she’d listen to him ramble on, her face going soft in the firelight.

He knew that soft look on her face didn’t survive reentering her house, but it was good to see her relaxing, even if it was for a short while. She’d close her eyes and he could drink in her features, watching the firelight play across her face. God, he loved those nights, but even more satisfying was watching her unselfconsciously stretch, letting her shirt ride up and expose a couple inches of skin on her belly and hips.

Michael had fucked that ritual though; he’d come out one night and ridiculed Mica’s friendship with Mason. He’d accused her of being Mason’s biker club fuckbuddy, and derided her as worthless. Mason had been on his way over and had heard it all from where he stood inside his garage. He bit his lip, thinking Mica would put Michael in his place, but she had stood without saying a word and threw the cover on the fire pit, retreating quickly into the house. That was the last night she’d made a fire, and when he saw her a couple days later, Mason knew right away what the problem was, because Mica had slammed a solid barrier back between them.

Because of that self-imposed distance, she wound up not knowing he believed she needed a friend a helluva lot more than a fuckbuddy. He wanted to be that friend for her, but she didn’t seem to want anything from him now. “I don’t know why the fuck I keep trying,” he muttered as he closed the gate behind him, shutting out the sight of her once happy home, and moving towards his friends, “but I do.” He remembered the day she moved in, the second time he had seen her.

6 -
   
Moving day

Mason looked up at the noises, shading his eyes with one hand, leaning his hips on the fender of the Chevy truck in his driveway. He’d been working on it for one of his brothers all day, and was elbow-deep in grease
, mysterious fluids, and dirt that collected on the engines of older vehicles. There was a moving truck backing up to the front door of the house across the alley, leaving deep wheel ruts on either side of the walkway.

Two guys got out of the truck and opened the back door, exposing a wall of boxes, and blanket-wrapped furniture before they went into the house. A few seconds later
, a car pulled up in front of the house nearby. Mason hadn’t even known the house was vacant; the last he knew, there was a teacher who lived there. Bitch hadn’t liked him much, but who the fuck cared?

The car door opened
, and a woman stepped out, her face shielded from the sun and his sight by the brim of a ball cap. Her heavy, dark hair swung out and down across her back as she leaned into the car for her bag. Dressed in jeans and hiking boots, she had on what looked like some band’s t-shirt over a long-sleeved thermal, with the sleeves pushed halfway up her forearms. He watched her walk over to the ruts in the yard and imagined she was frowning, but then he laughed at himself, because he couldn’t even see her face yet. She turned and stomped towards the house, and he grinned, thinking,
Oh, yeah, she is pissed, all right.

Turning to put his ass against the fender, he settled in for what he hoped would be a good show. Sure enough, she came back out with one of the guys from the truck, still stomping, swinging her arms and pointing to the ground. He heard voices on the wind and couldn’t make out the words, but he knew she was giving that guy the fucking shit. He grabbed a rag and started walking their way, wiping his hands ineffectually, focus
ing on the swinging hair and gesturing hands of the woman in the yard.

When he got close enough to see her face, his step nearly faltered
, because she was ‘oh, God’ pretty. She had a stubborn jaw that he figured meant she usually got what she wanted, and that was paired with the greenest eyes he had ever fucking seen. Those eyes were blazing at the man—nope, at the
boy
—in front of her. Her eyes flicked over to Mason, and then back to the boy, clearly not relishing the distraction as she tried to get her point across.

“No, see
, I realize that it’s done now, but you need to have someone from your company on the phone
now
so I can discuss how they are going to fix this damage to my yard!” She was not yelling, but it was a near-thing. He took her in, up and down, eyes skating across her rounded figure, so desirable and mouthwatering. With a soft noise in his throat, he let his eyes move to her breasts, round and waiting for his mouth, and then back up to her face. That face was reddening now as she stopped speaking when she caught him looking at her—and her ball cap.
What the shit? Dallas fucking Cowboys?

“Can I help you?” she asked Mason as the boy turned around and took fast steps backwards, escaping back
towards the house. Mason stepped behind him, herding him back to the woman. “I’m Davis Mason; I live over there.” He pointed. “It looked like you might need some help, so I thought I’d do the good neighbor thing.” Looking pointedly at the boy, he asked, “Don’t you need to make a call, son?”

“Thank you, Mr. Mason
, but I can manage.” She stepped between him and the boy, putting her back to him.

She turned her fucking back
on me? What the hell?

The boy looked at him over her shoulder, pulling his phone out
. “Ms. Scott, I’m calling right now. Give me two seconds and I’ll have my boss—” There was a brief pause. “Hey boss, I got a problem; the customer would like to talk to you.” He pushed the phone at the woman. Mason realized she hadn’t introduced herself back to him. He frowned down at her fucking Cowboys cap on top of her head.

He reached out his hands, remembering at the last moment he was covered in grease
, and pulled back. He stood listening as she explained to the moving company owner about the ruts in her yard, but he was clearly an unsympathetic audience, because she wound up repeating the same things again in a different tone of voice.
Like that will make a fucking difference,
he thought.

Mason looked up at the name on the side of the truck
—Mitchell’s Movers—and walked back across the alley. He dropped his grease rag onto the workbench, and then scrubbed his hands and forearms at the sink before he headed into his house. Looking across the way, he saw the front yard next door was now vacant of people.

Scooping up his phone, he dialed a number and waited
. “This Mitchell’s moving company?”