Shooting Dirty (2 page)

Chapter Two

Ace sat in his truck at the edge of the trailer park, smoking.

Janelle had warned him to stay away. She’d also promised to claw his eyes out, if he remembered correctly.

And yet, here he was.

He’d worked ten backbreaking hours on a demolition project. He was worn out, dirty, and not even horny. But instead of seeking the comfort of his own trailer in Coachella, he’d parked down the road from hers and settled in for some quality lurking. Her bedroom window had thin curtains he could almost see through. He planned to stay until sunset, chain-smoking and hoping for a glimpse of her.

While he waited, his attention was diverted by a group of boys. They were standing near a deserted playground on the other side of the trailer park. Four rowdy-looking teenagers had formed a wall to block another boy’s path. There was some shoving back and forth. It appeared to be a routine afterschool scuffle. None of his business.

Ace kept watching because he recognized the smaller boy. It was Janelle’s son, Jamie. Ace had learned his name a few months ago while hunting down the boy’s father. One of the teens, a redhead in a jacket with the sleeves torn off, stepped forward and sucker-punched Jamie. The boy dropped to the dirt. The other kids crowded around him and started kicking.

Shit.

Ace got out of his truck and strode toward the group, tossing his cigarette aside. They had their backs to the road, so they didn’t see him coming.

The redheaded boy gave Jamie another kick. “Your mother’s a whore,
Lamie.
”

Jamie made a sound of fury and tackled the bully around the ankles, bringing him to the ground. Then there were two boys rolling around in a cloud of dust while the three remaining cheered them on. One-on-one wasn’t quite as unfair as the kicking scenario, but Ace had already walked all the way over here, and the fight was still uneven. Jamie’s opponent had several years on him, and at least forty pounds.

“Break it up,” Ace growled, shoving the bystanders aside. He grabbed the bully by the back of his jacket and yanked him upright. His three friends gaped at Ace like he was some kind of mythical beast.

Jamie moaned, holding a hand over his bloody nose.

The teenagers reeked of clove cigarettes and hard alcohol. They looked familiar, like MC wannabes, but Ace couldn’t place them. There was an old Dodge Dart nearby with grimy windows and a bumper sticker advertising Slab City’s pirate radio station. These were Slab kids—like him. “You boys aren’t from around here.”

The bully struggled to break free from Ace’s grip. “So what?”

Ace released him with a disgusted shove. “So only pussies fight four against one. Get the fuck out of here before I even the score.”

The teenagers took off running. They piled into the junky car and drove away, spitting gravel across the parking lot.

Ace extended his hand to the boy on the ground. Jamie stared up at him warily, his nose crusted with a mixture of dust and blood. He had his father’s face, with Janelle’s stubborn chin and a shaggy mop of brown hair.

Instead of accepting Ace’s help, he rolled over and puked in the dirt. The liquid that came up smelled like tequila and oranges.

Ugh.
Gross.

Ace cringed, withdrawing his hand. Then he folded his arms across his chest and glanced around the deserted picnic area. He didn’t know what to do with a drunk, sick kid. Leaving him in a puddle of his own vomit might be the best option.

Janelle would freak out if she saw them together, and Ace wanted nothing to do with him. The kid was a walking reminder of his dead father, and Ace didn’t need another guilt trip. He also didn’t like kids, with the exception of his own.

Skye was his reason for living. His only reason, most days.

Other people’s children were no concern of his. They were weak and defenseless, and he couldn’t stand the sight of them in trouble. So he didn’t look.

Jamie dry-heaved a few more times and went quiet. Ace was about to make his excuses and walk away when he heard the faint growl of motorcycle engines. It sounded like a couple of custom-made choppers, the kind White Lightning favored.

The noise faded and he returned his attention to Jamie. “You okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Want me to call your mom?”

“No.” Jamie got up without Ace’s help. Then he stumbled toward the nearest building, clearly inebriated. There was a vending machine next to a bench in the shade. He sat down and almost fell over the side.

Ace frowned at the kid’s lack of coordination. He was really fucked up. That wasn’t Ace’s problem or his responsibility. He’d already done enough. Even so, Ace stepped into the shade and bought him a cold soda from the machine.

“Hold that against your nose,” he said, handing it to him.

Jamie complied with a mumbled thanks.

Ace felt awkward about getting involved. The situation reminded him of his own troubled childhood. He’d been nine or ten when he’d had his first drink. By age thirteen, he’d been getting hammered on the regular. Now, almost twenty years later, he was sober. He couldn’t say he was enjoying lucidity, but he hadn’t enjoyed oblivion either. “What was the fight about?”

“My mom.”

“They insulted her?”

“They said she was a stripper.”

Ace didn’t react to this news. He was surprised Janelle had been able to keep it a secret for so long.

“I told them she worked at a sports bar in Coachella, so we drove by and it was closed. Out of business.” He shifted the soda can to the other side of his face. “Patrick said she dances nude on stage and gives b-blowjobs in the back room.”

Vixen was a topless bar, not nude, and there was no touching allowed. Certainly no blowjobs. Ace had discovered all of these details firsthand, much to his disappointment. “Patrick is the one who punched you?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s his last name?”

“Kincaid.”

Ah. That was why he looked familiar. Ace knew his mother.

“He’s a fucking liar,” Jamie said, his eyes narrowed. “My mom’s not a whore. She never even brings guys over. The only person who comes by is Tiffany.”

Tiffany. Ace knew her, too. Not quite as well as he knew Patrick’s mother, but he’d seen her dance before. She was the most popular girl in the club, and rumor had it that she liked women as well as men. Sometimes Ace wondered if Tiffany and Janelle were more than friends. It was a bittersweet speculation. He wanted Janelle for himself.

He’d wanted her from the first moment he saw her. He’d bought a lap dance from her the night before he’d taken her captive. She wasn’t the youngest dancer at Vixen, but she was the best by far. Her body moved like a well-oiled machine, her steps smooth and graceful. She could do amazing things with a pole between her thighs. On stage, she was a sex kitten, faux-sultry, but also remote and unattainable.
You can’t touch this
. Behind the mask, she wasn’t the least bit playful. She was tough as nails.

He’d been mesmerized with her from the start. Shooting her ex hadn’t killed his fascination. Neither had capturing her and holding her against her will. He’d never tied up a woman before, and he still felt conflicted about it. He hadn’t expected to feel anything.

It was supposed to have been his last job, a simple pickup and delivery. But everything had gotten fucked up and the crew leader had gone missing. Ace had been ordered to find him by any means necessary. He’d taken Janelle as collateral.

She’d been a handful, to say the least.

He couldn’t stop thinking about her. Fantasizing about her gorgeous body...her tightly bound wrists. He kept driving by her work and guarding her trailer from a distance. Guarding her from who, or what, he didn’t know. The greatest threat to her was him. She had no other criminal connections. She was a loose end from a job gone wrong, and that made him nervous. He sensed trouble, as if someone else was tailing her. Someone who wanted to hurt her, not just fuck her.

Ace pushed his dark thoughts aside and focused on Jamie. “You go to school with those kids?”

Jamie nodded.

The local high school was a combination of grades seven through twelve. Ace remembered it well. Some of the older boys picked on the younger ones. “I’d steer clear of them if I were you. Patrick’s probably jealous.”

“Of what?”

“You. You’ve got a good-looking mom. Maybe kids insult his mother.”

“They do.”

“Well, there you go. He can’t fight his own friends. It’s easier to gang up on you.”

“So I’m supposed to jus’ ignore him?”

“If you react, he’ll keep doing it.”

Jamie took the soda can away from his nose. The bleeding had stopped. His T-shirt was torn and stained. “Why do you care?”

Ace was caught off-guard by the question. Did he care? It wasn’t like him to care. His heart—what was left of it—belonged to Skye. He didn’t have anyone else. She was the only person who mattered to him.

“How do you know my mom?” Jamie asked.

Ace just shrugged, as if they were casual acquaintances.

“Are you trying to get with her?”

“No. She wouldn’t have me.”

Jamie seemed pleased to hear this. He cracked open the soda and took a sip, his eyelids drooping with fatigue.

Ace smiled wryly. That was alcohol for you. Puking one minute, passing out the next. “You need to go home and sleep it off.”

“I can’t. My mom’ll kill me.”

Ace grunted in response, unsympathetic. The motorcycles he’d heard before fired up again and roared into the distance. He leaned his shoulder against the vending machines, relaxing a little. He hadn’t ridden a bike in ages. He missed his Dirty Eleven brothers and those wild, rowdy days. Too bad they’d come at such a high price.

He couldn’t move forward, but he’d never go back.

“Who are you?” Jamie asked.

“I’m Aaron,” he said, though no one ever used his given name anymore. He didn’t want Jamie telling his mother about “Ace.” Then again, he doubted the kid would remember this conversation. They shook hands.

Ace was about to say goodbye when Janelle strode around the corner, a laundry basket propped on one hip.

She looked frantic. And sexy. She always looked sexy. She was wearing a lacy white tank top with cut-off jean shorts and cowboy boots. Her brown hair was in between curly and straight. Flyaway tendrils framed her pretty face, and rumpled waves brushed her bare shoulders. Her lips were parted in surprise.

Janelle wasn’t happy to see him, of course. Her eyes flashed pure fire. He imagined the whistling showdown sound effect from an old Clint Eastwood movie.

If you ever come near my son
,
I’ll shoot you
.

The warning she’d issued six months ago echoed in Ace’s ears. He believed she’d do it. Before he’d killed her ex, Ace had left her tied up in a shed, where she couldn’t get hurt or do any more damage. But she hadn’t stayed there. She’d broken free, grabbed Ace’s gun and pointed it at his head.

Damn. That had been hot.

He wondered what she’d done with his gun. He’d loved that gun. The Colt 1911 pistol had been a vintage, army-issue .45 caliber single-action semi-automatic in jet black with a long hammer and a checkered walnut grip. It looked fierce, fired true and felt as natural as his dick in his hand.

Janelle had wrecked his truck that day, too. He’d lost his gun
and
his cage. He was lucky he’d walked away unharmed, though. Hell, he was lucky he hadn’t been arrested. He’d managed to stay one step ahead of the cops and deliver the money to Wild Bill. Investigators hadn’t even questioned him. Janelle must not have given them a full description, and neither had her brother-in-law, probably because they feared retribution. He’d counted on that, but he didn’t feel good about it. He didn’t feel good about any of it. He wasn’t a monster who enjoyed terrorizing innocent women. Even a lowlife like him had some standards.

Or so he’d thought.

His dick apparently hadn’t given a damn about right, wrong or willing. It had urged him to take advantage of her bound state. She’d offered him oral sex—out of fear and desperation. He’d declined for a number of reasons, but lack of desire wasn’t one of them. He’d had to work hard to appear disinterested.

He didn’t think his reaction to her had anything to do with the fact that she took off her clothes for a living. Seeing her topless had certainly turned his crank, and paying for a lap dance hadn’t helped. But what had really hooked him wasn’t her sexy fuck-me act. It was her cunning, her resourcefulness and her powerful love for her son.

The woman was a survivor. Tooth and claw.

He wasn’t sure how to reconcile his admiration of her strength with his perverse excitement over having her at his mercy. So he didn’t. He just imagined her in all sorts of depraved scenarios and jerked off.

Ace couldn’t help but admire her sleek figure and down-to-earth beauty now that she was right in front of him again. He held his breath in anticipation of her next move. Her nostrils flared with fury as she stared back at him.

She must not have kept his Colt. If she’d had it, she would’ve drawn and fired.

Chapter Three

Janelle couldn’t believe he was here.

The nerve of this motherfucker. He was just lounging in the shade next to Jamie, as if he hadn’t shot Shane in cold blood. As if he hadn’t grabbed her from the side of the road and held her hostage.

It had been the most terrifying experience of her life. He hadn’t hurt her, and that was almost worse. If he’d been rough and cruel, she could hate him. His detached manner and careful handling had confused her. He’d been polite, even gentle. She’d felt a riot of conflicting emotions in his company.

Fear, curiosity...arousal.

Shame coursed through her at the thought. She’d offered to blow him that night and he’d turned her down. She’d been trying to play him, to use her sexuality as a weapon. Instead, she’d played herself.

The man by the vending machine was as attractive as she remembered. He was wearing a faded gray T-shirt that had seen better days with sturdy jeans and steel-toe boots. He looked dirty. Not homeless-dirty, but hard-work dirty. His arms were banded with muscle and covered in tattoos. She forced her gaze to his face. It wasn’t a nice face. He had cold blue eyes and weathered skin. With his ink-black hair and hawkish nose, he reminded her of a crow. Or a desert raven, which was an even larger black bird. There was a grimness to him. He was the kind of man you’d cross the street to avoid.

Somehow his scavenger features and scary eyes failed to make him ugly. It wasn’t fair, but neither was life. He had a strong jaw. He was tall and well-built. The overall effect was dangerously handsome.

Ugh.

She’d had it with men, and this one was at the top of her shitlist. Men were nothing but trouble. All of them. The guy on the admissions panel who’d judged her earlier. That awful motorcycle club member who’d just visited her. The customers at the club. Her son’s father. Her father.

Her stepfather.

Pushing aside the bad memories, she turned her attention to Jamie, the only male she could tolerate. She’d crush anyone who hurt him. Clearly, someone had. His hair was dusty and his shirt had bloodstains.

She strode forward, shoving her laundry basket at Ace. Then she sat down next to Jamie on the bench and cupped his chin. His nose was a little swollen, but it didn’t look broken. “Who did this to you?”

Jamie shied away from her touch.

She glanced at Ace. “If you hurt my son...”

“It was jus’ some kids from school,” Jamie said, slurring his words. “Stop acting like a psycho.”

Janelle wondered if he’d stolen the tequila from her cabinet. He smelled like booze. “You’re drunk,” she said, appalled by the situation. “You’re twelve years old, and you’re drunk as a skunk.”

“At leassht I’m not a whore.”

She sucked in a sharp breath of dismay. She had no idea what to say. He’d never spoken to her this way before.

Ace winced at the harsh words. He started to lower the laundry basket. “I should go.”

“I need to talk to you in private,” Janelle said, shaking from tension. She had to give him the message from his criminal associate. She pointed a finger at Jamie. “You sit right here and think about what you’ve done.”

Jamie took a swig of soda, his lip curled in rebellion. She didn’t normally let him drink that crap, but she had to pick her battles. Obviously there were more pressing issues to worry about than his sugar intake.

What was she going to do with him? He wasn’t even a teenager yet. If his current behavior was a harbinger of things to come, she was doomed.

She rose from the bench and grabbed the basket from Ace. The laundry building was right next to the playground. Thankfully it was empty. Ace followed her inside. She could see Jamie through the window above the first set of machines, but he wouldn’t be able to hear them.

Heart racing, she set her basket down on top of the dryer and opened the washer lid. Ace watched as she sorted out the delicates, her movements jerky from tension. She always hand-washed her lingerie. When his eyes lingered on her lacy underwear, she remembered she was missing a pair.

“What did you do with my panties?” she asked.

His gaze flew up to her face. “Huh?”

“I had a pair in my purse that day.”

“Oh. I used them to wipe down my truck for fingerprints.”

“Before you torched it?”

He shrugged. “I like to be thorough.”

She added detergent to the wash and turned the knob to start the cycle. Then she put her delicates in the sink for a soak, thinking about what had happened after he’d kidnapped her. He’d driven to the Salton Sea in the morning to track down Shane. At one point she’d grabbed the wheel and wrecked his truck. Then he couldn’t use it as a getaway vehicle, so he’d set the thing on fire before he fled the scene.

She’d caused him a lot of trouble, but she refused to apologize. He’d messed with the wrong girl and paid the price. “I told you to stay away from my son.”

He leaned his hip against a dryer, his arms crossed over his chest. The defensive posture emphasized his biceps. “He was outnumbered four to one. They were kicking him on the ground. Should I have let them break his ribs?”

Tears of dismay flooded her eyes. “Who were they?”

“Some punks from the Slabs. I got rid of them.”

She blinked to clear her vision, taking a deep breath. His presence was unsettling. She felt nervous about being in an enclosed space with him. She didn’t think he’d harm her—but every man she’d ever known had, at some point. “There was a man looking for you just now. He came by my trailer.”

He straightened abruptly. “What man?”

“He didn’t leave a name.”

“Describe him.”

“Motorcycle jacket, shaved head, weird tattoos. He had some kind of clown on his neck. A creepy old-time clown.”

“Jester,” he said under his breath.

That’s what it was. A court jester, with a colorful hat.

“What did he say?”

“He said you have to meet him at the clubhouse, and if you don’t, he’ll keep coming here to bother me.”

His expression went flat. “He bothered you?”

“Not really,” she said, uneasy. “He just left a message and went away.”

“I’ll take care of him,” Ace said, his eyes cold as ice.

Janelle shivered at the sight, remembering how he’d taken care of Shane. With a bullet. She swished her lingerie around in the soapy water, unsure how to broach the next subject. “You put money in my mailbox.”

After a pause, he nodded.

“What do you want from me?”

His gaze drifted down her body and fell away. That was what he wanted—her body. She knew all the signs of male interest. He hadn’t acted on that desire yet, but he would. Men didn’t do favors for nothing.

“Are you trying to pay me off?”

“No,” he said, appearing disgruntled.

“You think you’re my protector now, is that it?”

“Maybe you need one.”

“Maybe I need to be left alone.”

He frowned at her for a moment. “The cash I gave you was part of your ex’s cut. It’s rightfully yours, and there’s plenty more.”

“Are you joking?”

“No.”

“I don’t want your money.”

“Save it for Jamie.”

She shook her head, adamant. “I don’t need your money or your protection, and I sure as hell don’t need you telling me what to do with my son.”

A muscle in his jaw flexed. “Fine.”

“Fine?”

“I’ll leave you alone.”

She lifted her chin. “Good.”

Instead of walking away, he just stood there. “Why didn’t you give the cops my description?”

She glanced out the window at Jamie. He was still sitting in the shade. She’d been vague with the police because she didn’t trust them to protect her. It was safer and easier to stay quiet. She’d also had bad experiences with law officers, namely her stepfather. “None of your business.”

“Did you keep my gun?”

“Your gun?”

“My Colt. The one you picked up and pointed at me.”

“Why would I have kept it?”

“What did you do with it?”

She tried to remember the sequence of events. He’d been angry about his wrecked truck. She’d kissed him in a futile attempt to distract him. He’d retaliated by dragging her into a shed, stripping her naked and leaving her there, tied up. After she broke free, she’d found him outside, brawling with Shane’s brother, Owen. She’d grabbed the gun and told Ace to start running. “I think I dropped it.”

“Where?”

“By the shed.”

He nodded, falling silent.

Owen hadn’t given the police much information, either. He’d suspected that Ace had ties to the Aryan Brotherhood, a prison gang that was notorious for eliminating witnesses. The crime scene investigators must not have been able to find Ace’s fingerprints or any other evidence. If they had, he wouldn’t be standing here with her. He’d be in jail.

“The money wasn’t...what you think,” he said. “I wasn’t trying to buy your silence, or anything else. I just wanted to make it right.”

Janelle wasn’t sure why he seemed so conflicted. He didn’t strike her as the kind of man who second-guessed his actions. He was a hardened criminal, brutal and decisive. “You can’t make it right.”

“Can I apologize?”

She bristled at his offer. The last thing she expected from him was an apology. “For what, chasing me down by the side of the road and overpowering me? Keeping me prisoner? Tying me up and scaring the hell out of me?”

“No,” he said with a wave of his hand, as if those violations were incidental. “I did what I had to do for the job. I didn’t like it.”

“You didn’t like it,” she repeated, incredulous. “Well, okay then. As long as you didn’t enjoy yourself, everything’s cool!”

He braced his hand against the washing machine, his head low.

It dawned on her that he
had
enjoyed her helplessness, on some level. And that was why he kept coming around. He thought he could pay her and assuage his guilt. Or maybe he just wanted to fuck her.

“I shouldn’t have stripped you in the shed,” he said finally. “I went too far.”

“And you liked it.”

“Yes.”

Janelle didn’t know how to react to this confession. She was used to being desired by men—and mishandled by them. They never said they were sorry afterward. Most had no compunctions about treating her like a sex object or groping her in the VIP room. Some were insulting and deliberately cruel.

Ace hadn’t even touched her. He’d just yanked off her clothes and looked at her. She’d goaded him into it, perhaps, by wrecking his truck and throwing herself at him. She’d pushed him to the limit.

But it wasn’t okay.
He
wasn’t okay. He was a big, rough-looking brute with tattooed knuckles and raven-black hair. His shirt was smudged with dirt and his eyes were bloodshot. He didn’t even have the basic decency to be rude or ugly. Instead, he was darkly appealing. His apology seemed sincere, and his frank admission that he’d enjoyed tearing off her clothes did something funny to her insides.

No. She couldn’t go there.

She was done with being attracted to the wrong kind of men, the ones who used and abused her. That part of her life was over. She’d rather be alone forever than get caught up in that dysfunctional cycle again.

She had her friends. She had her son. She had a job that paid well, even if she hated certain aspects of it. She had herself, and she had her vibrator. She didn’t need a man, no matter how sexy and hard-edged he was. Ace would bring her nothing but trouble.

Janelle couldn’t take any more trouble. She was full up.

She whirled away from him and focused on the sink. Squirting some liquid detergent into the basin, she started scrubbing with too much force. Then she rinsed the items, squeezed the excess moisture from the fabric, and tossed them into her basket.

Ace stayed right where he was, watching her.

She shot him an annoyed glance. When would he leave her alone?

“I thought you might want help,” he said. “Just this once.”

She followed his gaze out the window. Jamie was slumped over on the bench, passed out.

Shit.

She
did
need help. Jamie was already taller than her by half an inch, and he weighed over a hundred pounds. She hadn’t been able to carry him in years.

Ace headed through the door, well aware of her dilemma. He lifted Jamie easily and carried him toward her trailer. She followed with her basket. Jamie mumbled a weak protest but didn’t wake. He smelled like a distillery.

“I hope he doesn’t throw up,” she muttered.

“He already did,” Ace said.

That was good news, at least. She unlocked the front door and waved Ace inside. He set Jamie down on his faded Minecraft bedspread. Jamie rolled over onto his stomach, groaning. Janelle moved a pillow out of the way so he could breathe easily. She remembered all the times she’d checked in on him while he was sleeping as a baby. She studied the rise and fall of his chest, her throat tight.

He’d called her a whore. Did he know?

She hugged her arms around herself and left his room. What an awful day. It had started bad and gone downhill from there. Whenever she thought she’d hit rock bottom, there was a new low waiting around the corner.

Ace stood by the screen door, poised to exit. After a short hesitation, he took a battered leather wallet out of his front pocket. “I’m going to give you my number, just in case.”

“Just in case what?”

He shrugged, removing a square card from his billfold. A photograph fell out at the same time and fluttered to the floor, right between Janelle’s cowboy boots. She bent to pick it up. The picture showed an adorable little girl with honey-blond hair in a party hat, blowing out three candles on a big chocolate cake.

“My daughter,” Ace said.

Janelle handed it back to him, softening despite herself. “She’s cute.”

He tucked the photo away. “She lives with her grandparents.”

“Do you visit her?”

“Three times a week,” he said gruffly.

She felt a twist of pain on Jamie’s behalf. Because of this man, her son would never see his father again. Shane hadn’t been around much, anyway, and Jamie was better off without him, but it was still a sad situation.

A sad, sorry, fucked-up situation.