Below the Line (10 page)

CHAPTER TWO

The
Goose
has a good crew. Yesterday Rose and Melina had looked through Tim’s address book and she had made the calls to tell everyone they were opening the next morning for business on schedule. When she arrives at 4:45, the lights are on and the sounds of a busy restaurant are in full swing.

As she enters, Jack, the head cook, greets her with a rib-cracking hug. Jack has been the chief cook for as long as Rose can remember—at least fifteen years. She also recognizes Gail, Tonya, and Dick, greeting each of them warmly, but the rest of the staff are new to her.

She gives everyone a quick pep talk and then unlocks the doors. By five-thirty the
Goose
is humming. The old-timers remember Rose and talk to her, many asking if she is taking the
Goose
back after the tragedy. She brushes off the innocent questions with noncommittal answers, not wanting to mention the intent to sell.

***

Though open and busy all day, the
Goose
has two rushes—breakfast and dinner—allowing Rose to take a breather after the breakfast crush slows. She had forgotten how much work running a well-liked, mid-level family restaurant is. After the dinner rush the
Goose
will probably have served more meals in a day than
Aguilar’s
will in four or five.

She is sitting in Tim’s chair, trying to stay awake while looking over the morning receipts, when she hears a voice that she had not heard in years. “Rose?”

“Holy shit,” she breathes as she rises from her chair. “What are you doing here? Did you come for Tim’s funeral tomorrow?”

Joseph Warner smiles—the same smile that she remembers so well. She and Joseph had been lovers a long time ago before he had left her to join a motorcycle club.

“No. I live here now.”

“I thought you were in Arizona, or New Mexico, or someplace like that.”

“Tucson,” he says. “But once I took over the Nine Devils we relocated back here, to Eagle Valley. To damn hot in Tucson.”

“Nice name… Nine Devils,” she mutters.

Joseph shrugs. “It’s just a name. It has meaning to us and reminds us of who we are.”

They stand in an awkward silence for a moment, neither sure of their position with the other. Rose and Joseph had become lovers right out of high school… not long after Tim caught them necking in her dad’s restaurant, actually. They had carried on a torrid affair for two years, Joseph making the ride from Eagle Valley to Las Vegas at least once a week while she attended school. Once there they would make wildly passionate love for a couple of days before he would return to Eagle Valley. During her junior year, after a night of sexual bliss under the stars in the middle of the desert surrounding Vegas, he announced he was leaving. At first she thought he meant he was going home to Eagle Valley, only to realize he meant leaving forever.

She had begged him to stay and he had asked her to go. But in the end, she wouldn’t leave school and he wouldn’t stay. That had been seven years ago. She had thought she was over him—she
is
over him—except now that he is standing in her door he reminds her of what they had. Something she hasn’t found since. The years have been kind to Mr. Joseph Warner. He has filled out and muscled up, his skin kissed by the sun so that he glows with a healthy, outdoorsy tan. He is still as neatly trimmed and dressed as he always was, but he fills out his shirt and pants much better now.

She clears her throat, pulling her thoughts back from the past. “Are you going to the funeral tomorrow?”

“Yes. We all are.”

“We? You’re married?” she asks, hoping she kept her voice level and neutral.

That panty-dropping grin appears again. “Hardly. No, I mean all the Nines are going.”

“Oh,” she says, trying to hide her nasty little satisfaction that he hasn’t found someone to replace her. “How many is that?”

“Twenty-seven men and women.”

“Twenty-seven? Is that a special number? Three times
nine
?”

Once again the grin appears. “No. No secret meanings. Two years ago there were twenty-six of us. Soon I hope there will be twenty-eight.”

“So what brings you in? And how did you know I was in here?”

“I didn’t. I just came to get my mail and check my messages. And what are
you
doing here?”

“I came up for the funeral, but I’m also watching the place for a few weeks until Melina can get her feet under her again. And what is that about the mail?”

“My mail,” Joseph says, stepping into the office and picking up a plastic box with about a dozen pieces of mail in it. He removes the mail and puts the box back on the shelf. “Tim would pick up my mail along with the restaurant’s. He would just throw it in the box and I stop by a couple days of week to pick it up. He also lets me have a phone line here as well.”

“You have your mail sent to the
Goose?”
she asks in confusion.

“No. I have my own P.O. Box. Tim was just kind enough to pick up the mail each day for me when he went to the post office.”

“And the phone?”

Joseph smiles. “May I sit down? Let me explain what is going on then I think this will make more sense.”

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**********

It seems that Blaine Lowe’s luck is finally turning around
.

Work was scarce for an ex-con with few marketable skills before he met Greg Pasquale, the leader of a local motorcycle gang who took a shining to Blaine and his plethora of not-so-marketable skills.
Namely, kicking ass.
 
Felicity Pasquale is the only person in town who doesn’t know how her father makes his living.
Felicity was the apple of her father’s eye and completely sheltered from his less than legal business pursuits. That was until a handsome stranger showed up in town and went to work for her father. Suddenly she was paying close attention and wasn’t very happy about what she noticed.
 
Blaine should have known not to flirt with the boss’s daughter.
Mr. Pasquale is enraged by his disintegrating relationship with his daughter and made murderous by Blaine’s blatant disrespect. There was only one option available to Blaine: take Felicity as collateral and run far, far away.
 
Blaine knew he’d have to let her go, and he intended to do just that, but the longer she spent by his side the harder it was to remember that this woman wasn’t his to keep. Could he convince Felicity to forget as he had done?

***

Jason Larson is back in town
.
After a decade of prison you would think that Jason would play it safe; he wastes no time reclaiming the keys to his prized Harley Davidson as well as his battered Sergeant-at-Arms Rowdy Riders MC jacket. A surprise inheritance means he can open his own gym, however, he has an old score to settle.
 
Sharon forgives but doesn’t forget.
After all of these years Sharon Steele still feels something for the biker that had left her in ruin. Gone are the dangerous days of drugs and violence. Sharon has learnt from her past and now earns a living as a successful personal trainer and remedial massage therapist.
 
Will the past repeat itself?
Jason cruises the streets of Melbourne on a courier job for the MC when he sees his old flame, Sharon, running a personal training session in the park. Excited and without thinking, Jason nearly runs Sharon and her clients over. As Jason goes to confess his undying love for Sharon she reveals that she is engaged to a rival MC President .
 
Jason and Sharon together could mean war
How far will Jason go to prove to Sharon that he is a changed man? Will he move on from the past or will his lust get in the way of business and threaten to spark a war between two MC clubs?