Black Dagger (Mad Jackals Brotherhood MC Book 1) (3 page)

“Ray.” She breathes the word as if it held a world. But he was dead. Eli had told her that he was dead; he’d been dead for five years. This couldn’t be from him. But everything about the note said differently. He had always called her Mimi; it was his little pet name for her and he’d known that it annoyed her, which just made him do it even more. She didn’t have to think twice about the place he was talking about; it had always been theirs. Her hands are shaking as she holds the notepaper in her hand, rereading the few words again and again, soaking up the information.

He was alive. Ray was alive.

Chapter Four

It didn’t make any sense at all. Ray had been gone for over eight years. Eli had told her that Ray wasn’t coming back, not ever. She’d known he was right. Ray had left her and it didn’t seem like he had any intention of coming back. No word, no signs of life for four years and then the news of his death had quashed any notions Mia had of him returning to her life. And now this, a cryptic note all these years later. It didn’t make any sense at all. He couldn’t be alive.

And yet here she is, sitting in the diner where they’d spent an inordinate amount of time in high school. They always had the best pie and pie was Mia’s Achilles Heel. It’s part of the reason she works out so much – so she can eat more of it without expanding like a balloon!

She runs her hands through her curly hair, looking up at the door for about the hundredth time. The anticipation inside of her kept ratcheting up a notch with every minute that passed without Ray making an appearance.

“Refill?” Mia’s head shoots up to see Liz looking down at her curiously.

“Thanks, but maybe make this one a decaf. If I have any more caffeine I might need an ambulance.” She smiles up at Liz who has worked in the diner for longer than she probably cares to remember.

“Sure thing, honey.” Liz pours from the orange pot, but doesn’t head over to any of the customers waiting patiently to order their early bird special. “Are you all right, Mia? You seem a little…off.”

Mia looks down at the coffee cup, noticing her hands are shaking and she clasps them together to stop the trembling. It had been damned hard to let Ray go, probably the hardest thing she’d ever had to do. But she had finally managed it – at least she thought she had. So why was she sitting here, trembling like a leaf? And why had she barely been able to concentrate on anything other than this meeting all day?

“Thanks, Liz. I’m fine. Just one of those days, you know?” After all, how many times does the love of your life come back from the dead? Mia smiles up at the waitress, ignoring the frown that tells her Liz isn’t buying her story in the least.

“All right, if you say so. But if you’re not feeling so good, you just let me know and I’ll give that young man of yours a call.” Liz looks pointedly at her before moving off to serve one of the other customers. No matter how many times Liz had met Eli, she still refused to learn his name; it was as much of a deliberate slight as Liz was capable of. She’d never said what rubbed her up the wrong way about Eli, and Mia had never asked.

Mia doesn’t tell Liz that under no circumstances should she call Eli. She’d lied to him and the taste of the lie was still like ash in her mouth. It was never something she’d been very good at. Cassie always said she had way too many tells to be a decent poker player.

She’d lied to Eli, telling him that she had to work late. He’d called her to apologize for picking a fight with her, for saying things he didn’t mean and he really did sound sorry. It made it all the harder to lie to him. Mia could have just told him about Ray; she knows that. But, for some reason, she hadn’t and she doesn’t want to admit to herself what that says about how mixed up her feelings are right now. Another repression point for the psychologist, she thinks ruefully.

Her eyes flick up to the door again, only to see an elderly couple walk through it, holding hands. They shuffle into a booth opposite hers, the same one that they’d probably sat at for thirty years and Mia has to swallow the knot in her throat as she watches the man reach over and cover his wife’s hand on the table. They smile at each other and it brings tears to Mia’s eyes. That was love, real love, the thing everyone was holding out for and few managed to find.

This is stupid, she tells herself. She is sitting around, waiting for a ghost to appear, while lying to the man she loves. It was totally insane. Mia grabs her bag, rifling through her purse to grab a few dollar bills to leave on the table. It’s time to stop living in the past and go. She’s out of the booth and waving to Liz, ready to leave. But, just like that, it’s as if the whole temperature of the room changes and all her nerve endings stand up on end.

She recognizes the feeling, one that she hasn’t experienced in years; to be more specific, one that she hasn’t felt in over eight years. She senses, rather than sees, him arrive, but it takes her a long while to lift her head to look at him. When she finally does, she takes in a breath of surprise – and it’s not until that moment she realizes she hadn’t really expected to see him. He was a ghost; he shouldn’t be here. It shouldn’t be possible and yet here he is.

Ray walks right up to her, catching the eye of every woman in the place, whether they’re old enough to be his mother or young enough to be his daughter. He reaches out to touch her cheek, just like he always did, his thumb skimming over the soft skin. Mia holds her breath, her eyes threatening to fill up with tears.

Ray lifts her chin to look up at him, to meet his ice blue eyes. “Hey, Mimi.” He smiles at her and his face changes from handsome to movie-star gorgeous in front of her. Unconsciously, she licks her lips, feeling an overwhelming desire to see if his are as soft as she remembers. “You going somewhere?” Ray’s voice is low and husky and he doesn’t take his eyes off of hers, boring into her very soul.

Mia doesn’t trust her voice not to tremble so she shakes her head, taking the opportunity to wrench her gaze from his and her face from his hand. Immediately she misses his touch when he lets his hand fall to his side, but she takes a step away from him just the same. Her body has gone into survival mode. Instinctively, she knows what she feels around Ray is dangerous.

She sits down at the booth again, not trusting her legs to keep her standing much longer. Ray shrugs out of his leather biker jacket and she swallows hard as he takes a seat, filling the opposite side of the booth. He looks at her openly appraising her and she can’t help but do the same. She drinks in the sight of him, not really realizing how much she missed him until this precise moment.

He’s the same Ray she’s always known – filling up whatever room he’s in, as if he’s too big for it. And it’s not just his height, although coming in at 6’4” doesn’t exactly hurt. The tattoos he’d had when she’d known him are now joined by a number of others, snaking up his muscular arms and disappearing beneath the sleeves of his t-shirt. She wants to reach out and trace the dragon design that winds around his right arm and hear the story of when he got it.

She has to stop from imagining what other ink he has hiding out of view and she feels herself warm at the thought of his bare skin. Get a grip, Mia, she tells herself, forcing her mind to concentrate on her study of the man in front of her, the man that had been her first love.

It doesn’t take more than a few seconds for Mia to see he’s changed in the intervening years – he’s not the same person. It’s not just that he’s bulked up, although the way his muscles fill out his t-shirt so deliciously hasn’t escaped her notice. It’s the look in his eyes – there’s darkness there that wasn’t before.

“Wow, Mia, you look great.” His gaze is openly appreciative and Mia feels a blush spreading over her cheeks.

“I thought you were dead.” It’s the first thing that she’s said to him in eight years and she’s pleased when her voice comes out more controlled than she had expected.

He cracks a smile, but it’s not sincere; it’s more like bitterness. “I’m pleased to say that reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”

He rubs his forehead as if he’s trying to dispel whatever memory has got to him. Mia has to clasp her hands together on top of the table to stop from reaching out to smooth the frown on his forehead herself. As if he can read her mind, he meets her eyes and the expression on his face completely changes. His eyes burn in their intensity and he looks like he wants to eat her alive. Her core is buzzing with need, as if her body has been asleep for all this time and has only just woken up now that Ray is back, within touching distance, within kissing distance.

“Well look what the cat dragged in!” Liz’s voice breaks the tension and Mia doesn’t know whether she’s relieved or annoyed at the interruption. “Ray Nolan as I live and breathe!”

Ray smiles, genuinely this time, as he envelops Liz in a bear hug. “Hey, Liz. It’s been a long time.” The master of understatement, as always, Mia thinks to herself.

“Where you been, boy? You must’ve been busy to wait so long to come back for some of Charlie’s pie!” Liz beams at him as if he’s the best thing she’s seen in years. Mia knows the feeling.

“A couple of slices of that pie sounds pretty good right around now, Lizzie.” Ray takes his seat again looking up at the waitress as if butter wouldn’t melt. “I’ll have the pecan; Mia here’ll take the key lime.”

As Liz hurries off, Mia bristles at Ray’s domineering. “I can order for myself, thanks, Ray. Besides, how do you know I even like key lime anymore? It’s been a long time.” She bites her lip, wondering if she’s still talking about pie or if she’s moved into unchartered territory.

Ray levels her with that burning stare of his. “Some things never change, Mimi.” She swallows hard, wondering how he’s managed to waltz back into her life after eight years and read her mind as if no time at all had passed. “Besides, you look like you haven’t eaten all day, or maybe even all week. You’re too skinny.”

Mia’s jaw drops at his words. Who the hell does he think he is – coming back after all this time just to criticize her? “A lot can happen in eight years, Ray. But I’m guessing you didn’t ask me here to discuss my eating habits. So what do you want?” She folds her arms, trying to summon the calm patience she draws on during her work when she’s waiting for one of the women at the shelter to open up to her. “I can see you got your wish – you joined the Jackals.” She nods towards the leather jacket on the seat next to him and the MJMC patch and snarling jackal face taking up most of the back of it.

Before he can reply, Liz appears with two generous slices of pie. She squeezes Ray’s shoulder in a motherly way before bustling off to deal with her other customers.

Wordlessly, Ray pushes his plate towards Mia, so the crust of his pecan pie is facing her. She can’t help but smile ruefully at the action and she catches her breath when Ray smiles back at her, reading her mind again. He had always known that the crust was her favorite part; this had been their little ritual and there was something so intimate about repeating it after all these years.

She reaches out and breaks part of the crust off with her fingers, realizing just how hungry she is as she tastes it. Mia hears what sounds like a low grown come from Ray’s throat as she bites into the sweet exterior and she watches, as his eyes flare wide. Her heart beats faster. She thinks about Eli and how he’d once told her she was being childish when she’d asked for his crust, that it was something only kids did. It had almost seemed to make him angry, like he was disappointed in her. After that first time, she’d stopped asking.

As if Ray could tell the direction her thoughts had taken, he drops his gaze from hers, studying his plate intensely. “So tell me, Mimi, how have you been?” His voice is relaxed despite the strain that’s evident on his face.

“Fine, and you?” She knows she’s being flippant but she doesn’t care; he’s using one of her techniques – getting the other person to talk about themselves to give him time to assess the lay of the land.

Ray raises an eyebrow at her looking so damn sexy Mia feels like she might crawl over the table and jump him right there. Eli, think about Eli, she tells herself. “Come on, Mia. You can do better than that.”

Mia blows out her cheeks, looking up at the grease-stained ceiling as if she might find some answer there. “It’s a big question, Ray – a lot of years to summarize. I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“How about with today? You still get the nightmares?” He leans back, watching her.

Mia’s mouth works wordlessly at first, shocked that he’d remembered the significance of the day or the fact that she used to dream about finding her mother in the bath, blood mixing with the water. It takes her a few moments to recover. “Sometimes.” She blinks a few times to get the thought out of her mind. She can’t deal with the strangeness of Ray’s reappearance along with the memory of her mother’s death. It’s a little too much. She can only cope with one thing at a time. “I don’t really want to talk about it.” She avoids his eyes, looking at the old couple again and finding some peace in their closeness.

“How’s your dad?”

Mia can feel him watching her intently, like she’s the only person in the room. She smiles, of course Ray would ask about her father. Ray had known how much her dad means to her, especially after the death of her mother. He never got to have a relationship like that with his own dad and Mia’s father had all but adopted him, giving Ray somewhere to go, somewhere to escape from the junkies and pimps his mom used to hang around with. He’d given Ray a family.