Hell on Wheels (18 page)

“She has?” Ozzie asked, appearing in the doorway dressed in his pajama bottoms. Did they…? Yes, they did. They had tiny Starship Enterprises all over them.

The kid absently scratched his smooth, bare chest while simultaneously trying to pat down his hair—which was wild on a good day. This morning it was out of control. Frank never knew hair could actually stand on end. He’d always thought that was just an idiom.

“Yes,” he replied, for once happy for Ozzie’s interruption. “She has, and we need to—”

“We need to what?” Ghost shouldered Ozzie aside and cast a wary glance over Ali.

The poor woman tried to disappear behind Peanut. That it was actually kind of working spoke to the salient fact that Becky needed to put the damned cat on a diet…yesterday.

“As I was saying,” Frank’s patience started to shred. “Ali received a zip drive from Grigg about a week before you gave them the news of his death. And she—”

“Jesus, woman! You’re just now tellin’ us this?” Ghost’s face was enough to give small children nightmares.

“You misunderst—” Frank tried and was immediately cut off by Ali.

“I didn’t remember until this morning, you big jerk!” she shouted and Peanut turned cold, warning eyes toward Ghost.

“How can you forget somethin’ like that?” Ghost shot back, taking a step toward Ali. Peanut hissed menacingly. “I swear I’m gonna have to kill that cat,” he spat, his fists clenched at his sides, his nostrils flaring.

“Ghost,” Frank tried again, “if you’d just shut the hell up and give me a chance to expla—”

“Don’t forget I know where you sleep, Ghost Man,” Becky threatened, pushing into the office.

Oh, good. The gang’s all here.
Now if everyone would just stop interrupting him, maybe, just
maybe
they could come up with a game plan to retrieve that zip drive.

He opened his mouth, then snapped it closed and decided to see just how this little scene would play out when Becky stomped over to stand toe to toe with Ghost.

Funny, considering toe-to-toe put Becky’s nose on level with Ghost’s chest.

What? Did the woman think she could shin-kick the guy to death?

“You harm one hair on Peanut’s head,” she stuck a stiff finger in Ghost’s flexing left pectoral muscle, “and I’ll change you from a rooster to a hen one night when you least expect it.”

Ho-kay. No shin-kicking for Rebel. When she plotted revenge, she knew to keep the timeline abstract
and
aim for a man’s most prized possessions.

Duly noted.

***

“Is this really necessary? It’s eighty degrees out there.”

“Uh.” Becky eyed Ali as the woman dubiously pinched at the butter soft leather chaps Becky’d loaned her. “Yeah, but only if you’d like to keep the top three layers of your skin should you guys get in a wreck.”

“You think we’ll get in a wreck?”

Lord, help me to not strangle this prissy little woman.
“No,” she sighed. “But in life there are no guarantees.”

“Don’t get philosophical with me while I’m wearing leather.” Ali complained as she slid her arms into the equally soft, summer-weight leather jacket.

“Ha! Like leather and philosophy are mutually exclusive? I bet Plato and Aristotle wore leather while pondering life’s elemental questions. Leather sandals, for sure.”

“Hmm.” Ali bent to pick up Peanut who was busy winding his substantial self around and between her legs. When she managed to struggle to a stand and pull him to her chest, the traitorous animal—come on, Becky was the one to scoop his massive cat turds out of the litter box and keep him nose deep in Fancy Feast; was a little loyalty too much to ask?—started purring loud enough to drown out the sound of Pat Benatar wailing “Heartbreaker.”

Thank God she’d remembered to charge her iPod last night. One more day of ’80s music and she’d have to schedule a lobotomy.

“Well, I hate thinking about the poor animals that lost their lives so I could fashionably sit on the back of a motorcycle.” Ali changed tactics.

“Excuse me, but are you the same woman who ate not one, but two all-
beef
hotdogs last night? So you’re saying you have no issue with animals on your plate, but can’t stand the idea of one strapped across your back?”

“Oh!” Ali dropped Peanut to the ground, and the stupid cat had enough nerve to start slithering around her legs again. Even mistreatment didn’t seem to negate his misplaced adoration. That was the last straw. He was going to be on dry food from now on. No more pampering the furry little Judas. “Stop starting arguments with me I can’t possibly win,” Ali demanded, looking kinda kickass in all that leather with her hands fisted on her hips.

Becky shook her head and laughed. The poor woman would do anything to take her mind off the fact that she was going to be snuggled up to the back of Ghost for the next fifteen hours. Whatever had happened between the two of them last night, whatever had caused them to circle each other like wary lions this morning, would no doubt only be exacerbated by the close confines of a shared motorcycle seat.

“Sorry,” Ali made a face. “I’m not usually so…so…” Her hand turned circles as she searched for the right word.

“Bitchy?” Becky offered helpfully.

“I was going to say irritable,” Ali harrumphed.

Yeah, bitchy. Becky chuckled. She liked Ali. She really did. Even if the woman was a bit naïve and a little too prissy…of course, that probably wasn’t really fair. Most women were a little too prissy when compared to herself. Maybe that’s why she irritated Frank so much. Maybe he thought she was too manly. Maybe if she—

Dang.

Why did every thought have to wind up back on Frank?
Maybe
what she should do is seriously consider that lobotomy.

“It’s going to be okay, you know,” she told Ali, laying a kind hand on the woman’s leather-clad shoulder.

“It is?” Ali asked hopefully. “How do you know?”

“Because you’ve got the Black Knights on your side, and they are the absolute best. Besides, Ghost would sooner die than let anything happen to you.”

“Yeah.” Ali took a deep breath and shuddered. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

Wow. Those two sure had it bad.

Ghost practically lifted a leg and pissed on Ali anytime she walked in the room, and Ali got all doe-eyed and flushed the minute Ghost looked at her.

Perhaps this trip would do them some good. Some forced togetherness might be just the thing they needed to finally compel them to break down and admit they were totally white-doves-and-orange-blossoms
in
love
with each other. Of course, it might do just the opposite. Fifteen hours was a long,
long
time to be sitting on a bike. Becky was usually wiped out after just four or five. Thinking of riding bitch on the back of Phantom for fifteen hours was…well, it was pretty crazy in her book.

Yepper, Ali certainly didn’t know what she’d signed herself up for when she’d insisted on accompanying Ghost on this little errand, but it wouldn’t take the woman long to figure it out. About three hours, Becky guessed. Then muscles Ali didn’t even know she had would start complaining—loudly.

Of course, thanks to her and Steady Soto, there really wasn’t another option. Nate didn’t trust commercial flights because, quote, “They let anyone and
everyone
on those.” There wasn’t a military transport leaving Great Lakes Naval Base for the east coast within the next twenty-four hours. Taking Ali’s little Prius was dismissed by everyone with a snort and a laugh because, really, the thing was basically a go-cart with power-steering and AC, and, unfortunately, the only two vehicles of the four-wheeled variety in the Knights’ employ were the Hummer and Christian’s souped-up silver Porsche—living in the city, with parking such a challenge, the Knights usually relied on public transportation or taxicabs when the weather was not conducive to riding the bikes.

And regrettably, the Hummer was currently sitting idle in the back of the shop without a transmission thanks to Steady’s rather unusual driving style—unusual in that the guy seemed to have a strange aversion to the clutch. And the Porsche was up on the lift with its engine in pieces, which was where Becky’s culpability came into the matter. She’d decided since the ex-SAS agent was away, it was the opportune time to get her “grubby little hands”—Christian’s words, not hers—on his baby and overhaul that gleaming eight cylinder. Because, come on, every engine could use a little tweaking. Unfortunately, the helo had arrived, and she’d gotten sidetracked.

Which reminded her, she better get going on reinstalling that turbo-charged sucker, or Christian was going to kill her very slowly and very painfully when he finally got home.

So…that left them with only one option for retrieving the thumb drive in a timely fashion. Namely, fifteen hours on the back of a rumbling, roaring piece of two-wheeled steel.

Oh, man, Ali was
so
in for it.

“Let me introduce you to Phantom,” she said, hoping to reassure the fidgeting woman a bit, because who wouldn’t be reassured with such a badass piece of machinery grumbling along between her legs? “Along with Ghost, this bad boy’s gonna take good care of you.”

She herded a reluctant Ali toward the bank of cycles parked against the east wall. They were as much her works of art as the murals on the walls or the paintings in the lofts upstairs. She was proud of each and every one of them. Not because they were über-sweet bikes, but because they represented each of the men she’d grown to love and respect over the years.

Each one was as different as the Black Knight who rode it. Each one was as tough as the man who’d helped her design it.

“Okay,” she motioned to the fourth bike in the row. “This beauty here is Phantom. He’s an El Diablo Sturgis Special with a six-inch stretch, a Baker six-speed transmission, S&S 124ci engine with LBC pipes that sound like hell on wheels. I replaced the single seat with a king and queen this morning, so you guys are good to go.”

Ali smoothed a reverent hand over the black leather king and queen seat. “Are you speaking English?”

“To put it simply, Phantom is one kickass bike,” Becky boasted, taking a shammy from her front pocket and polishing the already sparkling forks on the front end.

“It’s very pretty,” Ali enthused.

Pretty?
Pretty?

The sucker was a wicked mofo raised to the nth degree. It was a mean machine with enough…Okay, Becky had to admit. It was pretty.

“Do you do all the work yourself?” Ali queried, touching a tentative finger to the chrome gas cap.

“Nah, each Knight helped in the design and the building of his individual bike. It’s as much their creation as it is mine. They provide the inspiration; I provide the technical expertise, and together we supply the blood and sweat.”

Except for Frank’s bike. Building Boss Hog had been an exercise in blood, sweat,
and
tears. At least, Becky had cried herself silly a time or two during the process. Particularly those days when Frank worked side by side with her for eight long hours only to pat her on the head like a kid sister and make an evening trip to Lincoln Park.

The big, stupid dill-hole.

“Is the artwork yours? I noticed paint on your T-shirt yesterday.” Ali used her finger to follow a swirl of glittering ghostly gray paint on Phantom’s custom-made gas tank.

“Yeah. It’s my release.” Her escape from the fact that she was crazy about a man who—

No. She had to stop thinking of him. She had to get on with her life and stop clinging to childish dreams—like winning the love of a knight in shining armor who’d whisk her away on his glowing white steed.

Yepper, and it didn’t escape her attention that Frank’s last name was Knight or that Boss Hog just happened to be painted a shimmering pearly white.

Talk about life’s little ironies.

“You’re very talented,” Ali said, tracing the face of the phantom barely discernable in the middle of the gas tank. “It’s amazing how you made that ghostly face appear out of the mist like that.”

“Thanks, I—

“Everything ready?” Ghost suddenly materialized beside them.

Phantom appearing out of the mist? Ghost materializing out of nowhere? Wow, perfect timing.

Becky glanced down at the thick-soled biker boots on Ghost’s big feet and shook her head. His stealth never ceased to amaze her.

“You sure you don’t need some more firepower?” she inquired innocently while watching Ghost stow three gun cases in Phantom’s saddlebags.

One of those cases contained his M-40 A5 sniper rifle, nicknamed Sierra. Sierra came with a detachable PBS 27 night optic and 10-round detachable magazine that fired 7.62 X 51 NATO rounds. At a thousand yards, that beast still had more kinetic energy than a .357 fired at point-blank range. Two words: stopping power.

She hoped someday Ghost would teach her how to shoot it, but he’d told her she had to learn to crawl before she could learn to walk, so he’d been practicing with her on a Remington Model Seven.