Barely Undercover (19 page)

Lana’s heart gave a hopeful squeeze. Maybe it wasn’t a one-night stand after all. Maybe Jackie had finally found
the one
she had always talked about finding.

Bones called the next heat, and Lana and Jackie ran over to the track to watch James race against Rex, Dawg and Punch. As they eased their motorcycles to the starting line, Jackie sighed.

“I’m not so keen on this lineup. I mean, Ice looks hot. But the others…meh. Maybe you should just tell me who wins and I’ll go get another beer.”

Lana laughed. “The race will be between Rex and Ice. Dawg and Punch are riding stock crotch rockets with a lot of fairing but no real staying power. Dawg’s Honda VFR is good for speed but not against James’s modded V-Rod or Rex’s brand-new Kawasaki Ninja. Punch’s weight will slow him down on that Ducati.”

Jackie shook her head. “You sure can talk the talk. All these years you’ve been holding out on me. Don’t tell me you can ride too, because I used to have a motorcycle, and the idea of the two of us blazing through the mountains in our leathers makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.”

She gave Jackie a half smile. “I can ride.”

“Damn girl,” Jackie shrieked and threw her arms around Lana. “We better get in some new cases. We’ve got some motorcycles to buy.”

“Maybe you’ll have a guy to ride with.” Lana grinned and nodded toward Ryder standing not more than twenty feet away and engaged in a heated conversation with Bones.

Jackie blushed and looked away. “Maybe you will too.”

Biting her lip to repress a smile, Lana ran onto the track. She handed James the green panties he had caught in her room. “For luck,” she whispered. James tucked them into his jacket, and then he pulled her against him for a long, deep kiss. The crowd cheered and Lana’s cheeks heated, but for the first time she didn’t mind the bikers’ attention. She was Ice’s old lady and she’d done what old ladies do.

After Lana returned to the safety of the field, Portia, clad head to toe in red leather, waved the checkered flag and the race began. Rex had the inner curve. Good for psychology but sometimes bad on the knees, depending on how far he was willing to angle. James matched his speed and after one lap they’d left Dawg and Punch behind.

Ryder joined Lana and Jackie as the racers started the second lap. “Four laps to go. Winner of this heat advances to the quarterfinals. Been a long time since anyone challenged Rex. He buys a new bike for each race, but Ice’s V-Rod is heavily modded. It’ll be close.”

Lana gave him a sideways glance. “Did he ask you to watch over me?”

Ryder laughed. “No, darlin’. He didn’t have to ask.”

They watched the racers round the oval a third time. Dawg and Punch were now almost a full lap behind Rex and James. The roar of motors drowned out the excited murmur of the crowd. Lana’s pulse raced and her mouth went dry. And to think she had almost missed this.

“I’m surprised there aren’t any dirty tricks,” Jackie said.

“We don’t mess around on the bikes. We run our races with gentleman’s rules.” Ryder absently tucked Jackie’s hair behind her ear and rested his hand on her shoulder. Jackie shot Lana a curious glance and her lips curled into a smile.

Lana caught a flash of red near the track and spotted Portia, looking furtively from side to side. Portia’s arm jerked up, and the beam from one of the vehicle headlights illuminated a cluster of sparkly objects flying through the air. They hit the ground in James’s lane just as Rex and James rounded the corner for the last lap.

“
Stop
!” Lana bolted across the field but even as her feet pounded across the grass, she knew she was too late.

James’s front tire hit the objects and blew with a loud bang. The motorcycle somersaulted, throwing James over the handlebars and into a stack of hay bales at the corner, and then slid to a stop at the side of the racetrack. Dawg and Punch pulled their motorcycles to the side and ran over to help him.

Heart thudding in her chest, Lana reached the hay bales just as they tugged the helmet off a motionless James.

Lana’s heart skipped a beat.
Nononononono.

“Ja…Ice.” She corrected herself quickly as she ran her hands down his body. “Talk to me.”

“Roxie,” he moaned. His hand waved through the air and she grabbed it and held it to her chest.

“I’m here.”

“I need…”

A crowd had gathered around them, and Ryder and Kickstand struggled to hold the concerned onlookers back.

“What? What do you need?” Her throat tightened. Where would they get an ambulance out here? If he was seriously injured, how would they transport him in a pickup truck? Did anyone know first aid?

“I need you to lie on top of me and give me a kiss.” He pulled her over his chest, cupped her face between his hands and kissed her. Hard.

The crowd cheered. Lana pushed herself up, straddling his hips and glared.

“Jerk.” Her hand sailed toward his cheek, but he caught it easily and pressed it to his lips.

“I thought you were seriously injured,” she shouted, as her adrenaline found an outlet. “You scared me half to death.”

James grinned. “I am seriously injured and there’s only one cure.”

Another attempt at a slap.

Another catch and kiss.

Lewd comments and catcalls echoed around them. Ryder and Kickstand dispersed the crowd. Rex joined them and helped James to his feet.

“What happened?”

“What happened?” Lana jumped up and rounded on Rex. “Portia threw something on the track. I saw her do it.” She let loose a string of swear words in biker slang that would have sent her mama to her grave if she hadn’t already died twenty years ago.

A hand clamped over her mouth and Jackie whispered in her ear, “If you are concerned he might have seen the tat, letting him know you can talk the talk might just jog his memory in the wrong direction.”

Jackie dragged Lana backward and away from the shocked bikers. “I’m just gonna take Roxie and wash her mouth out with soap.”

“How long were you with Levi?” Jackie asked when they were out of earshot. “You know more biker cuss words than most of the bikers here.”

“Four years.” She trembled as adrenaline continued to surge through her body.

“It took you four years to escape?” Jackie’s voice rose in disbelief.

Lana shook her head. “It took me three years to escape. The first year wasn’t so bad. Levi was the leader of a small motorcycle club in Kelowna. I was sixteen and had dropped out of school. He was charming and exciting, although very insecure about me. He had big dreams. He convinced me to go with him to Seattle so he could pledge himself to a US motorcycle club. They used me to test him, and he did nothing to protect me. I realized then he’d never really loved me. And then they wouldn’t let me go…”

She choked on her last words and Jackie wrapped her arms around Lana. “I’m so sorry, honey. I didn’t mean to bring it all up.”

“What’s going on?”

Lana startled at the sound of James’s voice directly behind her. She spun around and grimaced when she saw Rex beside him. Had they overheard?

“You need to come with us, babe. We’re going to church.”

“Church?” Jackie gave him a quizzical look. “You’re going to church? Now?”

“Full-patch meeting,” James said. “It’s a cross between a courtroom, where Rex is law, and a board meeting where everyone gets a vote. Prospects, mamas, old ladies and guests aren’t invited.”

Rex studied Lana for a long moment. “But you are. I’m sure you know why.” His cold, calculating smile sent a shiver down her spine.

Had she given herself away?

Rex held court beside the starting line and banished the nonpatch members to the far end of the racetrack. James gritted his teeth as Lana repeated her allegations. He knew damn well she wouldn’t have accused Portia if she hadn’t been 100 percent sure. But if Portia swayed the vote, Lana would have to pay the penalty for falsely accusing her. He couldn’t let that happen.

After Lana finished talking, she answered questions from the group. How far away was she when she saw the objects? Did she see Portia throw them? Did she have any reason to be angry with Portia? Could she have made a mistake?

In answer to the last question, Lana pointed to the tack-studded tire and a handful of tacks she had picked up off the track on the way to the meeting. Hard evidence.

Lana’s forthright answers and her willingness to admit to the occasional uncertainty garnered her many nods and smiles. Still, sweat trickled down James’s back despite the cool breeze, and his heart thumped in nervous anticipation of what Portia might say.

“Don’t worry.” Ryder came up beside James and clapped him on the back. “No one’s gonna back Portia over Lana. They know what Portia’s like. They know the truth.”

In the end, Ryder was right and Portia was banished from the club.

“You should be thanking me instead of condemning me,” Portia spat after Rex told her to leave. “I was helping you win the race. I was showing you how much I care. You didn’t have a chance against Ice.”

Wrong thing to say. Rex’s face turned multishades of purple.

“Get her out of here,” he bellowed.

Portia spun around, turning the full force of her fury on Lana. “You fucking bitch. You were angling to be mama from day one. Well, it isn’t all it’s cut out to be. You’re going to pay for this. You’re going to be damn sorry you messed with me.” She stalked over to Lana, hauled her elbow back and threw a punch at Lana’s jaw.

James was running before his conscious mind had even processed he’d moved, but by the time he reached them, Portia was on the grass with a furious Lana twisting her arm behind her.

“Never. Touch. Me. Again,” she growled.

James gently pulled her away and Ryder escorted Portia to her motorcycle. The crowd booed, disappointed they’d been denied what had promised to be an exciting fight.

“You okay?” James slid an arm around Lana’s waist and pulled her into his chest. More for his sake than hers. He was still riding high on the adrenaline rush from the accident and the overwhelming fear that she could have been hurt. He wanted nothing more than to take her away and hide out with her until he could be certain the world was safe again.

Damn protective instinct. He was in too deep and drowning fast.

Lana gave a noncommittal shrug. “Sure. I took a self-defense course and I’ve dealt with worse…in the bars with Jackie.”

James frowned. Her slight hesitation suggested she’d encountered worse somewhere else. Yet another secret he would have to tease out of her. Why had none of these things come out during the six months they were together?

James nodded to the crowd heading back to the racetrack for the quarterfinal heats. “You won yourself some fans.”

“I was a bit worried at first. I felt like I was Alice in Wonderland and any minute Rex was going to yell ‘off with her head’.”

He cupped her head and brushed a kiss over her hair. “I might have had something to say about that.”

Lana looked over at the V-Rod and sighed. “I guess we’ll have to catch a ride with one of the drivers. Your V-Rod doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere.”

“Unbelievably, it’s just cosmetic damage to the fairing, and Diesel has my spare tire in his truck. We might not look pretty going home, but we’ll make it there.”

No damn way was he waiting for a ride. His body burned with the need to hold her. He wanted to check every inch of her skin for bumps and bruises, assure himself she was okay. But more than that, he needed to be inside her to soothe the ache in his soul.

Mine.

While James and Kickstand fixed the tire and ran an engine check, Lana ran to find Jackie and make sure she had a ride home. No problem there. She had bikers falling all over themselves begging for the honor, Kickstand salivating at her feet and Ryder watching from the shadows.

Lana wove her way back through the crowd and into the parking area. A shadow crossed her path and she startled when someone caught her by the elbow.

“Hey, let go.” She tried to pull away and looked up, only to see Rex’s grim face.

“Wildcat. Been waiting a long time to get you alone.” He tightened his grip, spun her around and pushed her up against a pickup truck, caging her with his body. For a long moment he just stared at her, gnawing on his bottom lip as if trying to make a decision.

The cloying stench of stale beer and pot assailed Lana’s nostrils and she turned her head away and stared out over the empty field. Where was James? Or Ryder? Even Kickstand had abandoned her. What had happened to her League of Shadows?

“Can I do something for you?” Lana cringed the second the words left her mouth. Wrong thing to say.

Rex’s eyes gleamed and he smiled. “You can and you will. I’m just trying to decide what you’ll do first.”

Lana swallowed. “Um…Ice is over there. Waiting. If I don’t show, he’ll come looking for me.”

Rex trailed his finger up her throat, tilting her head back when he reached her chin. His eyes were black holes in the night sky. “We’ve played this game before, wildcat. We both know how it will end.”