Hell on Wheels (42 page)

She smiled that
Mona Lisa
smile and employed his favorite trick; she simply waited him out.

“What?” he demanded when he couldn’t stand it a second longer. “It depends on
what
?”

“On whether or not you think you can grow to love me.”

“Grow to—” He shook his head, dumbfounded. “Woman, I’ve loved you since the first moment I laid eyes on you.”

“Mmm,” she closed her eyes, “that sounds nice. I might just get used to hearing that.”

“I love you,” he breathed, holding her beautiful face between his palms so he could drop soft kisses on her eyebrows, cheeks, nose…

“I love you,” he whispered against her lips, bending to kiss her and then—

“How?” he asked her, his burgeoning heart freezing solid.

“How what?” she opened her eyes to watch him like a cat watches a thick bowl of cream. When she looked at him like that he wanted to—

No. He shook his head. Before they went any further, he had to know.

“How can you love me after what I did?”

Her cute little nose wrinkled as her eyebrows veed. “What you did? You did the most loyal, courageous, selfless thing I’ve ever heard of, Nate. How could I not love you?”

“But you…you threw up after you found out—”

“I throw up because I have the world’s weakest stomach and that’s what I do. It didn’t have anything to do with blame, Nate. It had to do with sympathy. When I realized what it must’ve cost you I…I lost it. Literally. My lunch was all over the Oval Office’s fancy rug. And then you ran out and you wouldn’t take my calls, so I figured you didn’t want me or my sympathy.”

And just like that, the sun came out. The weight of his long-held guilt lifted away on the wings of her love, and he could see nothing but magic and…
light
in all the days stretching far out into the future.

“Oh, Ali,” he brushed her soft lips with his. “I’ve always wanted you. I’ll always want you. I only acted that way because I couldn’t bear to hear you say…” He shook his head and swallowed convulsively. “I thought you’d never be able to forgive me if y’ever found out about—” she placed two fingers over his mouth.

“I know what you thought,” she pursed her lips, shaking her head. “You underestimated me again. We’ll have to work on that.”

“Ali,” he buried his nose in her sweet smelling hair, marveling that she was really his.
His
. Was it possible to burst with joy? “I love y’so much,” he murmured.

“That’s all I need to know,” she said, softly kissing his ear, “except…”

He pushed up, and, uh-oh, he knew that look.

Turning his head cautiously to the side, he watched her from the corner of his eyes. He was afraid to ask…“Except what?”

“Except, what did Delilah say to you that night in the bar?”

“Ugh!” he dropped his face to her slender neck, licking at her soft pulse, hoping beyond hope that she would—

“No, you don’t,” she pushed him back, her expression comically stern. “You’re not going to distract me with that. Come on, spill. It’s been driving me crazy.”

He blew out a defeated breath, then bent his head to whisper Delilah’s prophecy into the little shell of her ear. “She said she saw us married within six months.”

“And you thought that was funny?”

“It was so absurd I couldn’t even fathom it,” he admitted, still unable to believe his infinite good fortune.

When he looked at her, her smile was bright enough to light up the room. “Well,” she said, “I guess Delilah is smarter than the both of us.”

“Guess so.”

“Nate?”

“Hmm?” He started kissing her neck in earnest. Enough with the talk, already. He needed to
show
her his love again. Again and again and again.

“I want babies. Lots of babies.”

Oh, man, he was instantly filled with gripping fear and unfathomable happiness. Babies.

Ali wanted to have his babies. He leaned up one elbow, looking down at her and imagining little girls with golden curls and little boys with eyes the color of amber. “Define lots.”

“I love children, so…at least four.” She looped slim, feminine arms around his neck and nipped at his jaw. “How does that sound to you?”

How did it sound? It sounded crazy and wonderful and…and…damned scary. It sounded like his greatest dream come true.

He could barely speak around the hard lump lodged directly behind his Adam’s apple. “It sounds…perfect,” he whispered.

And that said it all.

His world, once so terribly dark and damaged, was filled with sweet perfection, because he had the only thing he ever wanted.

He had Ali.

Read on for a sneak peek at Julie Ann Walker’s

In Rides Trouble

Available September 2012 From Sourcebooks Casablanca

Prologue

“We’re definitely changing the name.” Frank “Boss” Knight pulled the Hummer up in front of the sad little pre-fab building and glanced at the hand-painted wooden sign screwed over the front door: Becky’s Badass Bike Builds.

“Too much alliteration for you?” Bill Reichert snickered from the passenger seat while unbuckling his seatbelt and throwing open the door. The frigid winter wind whipped into the interior of the vehicle, prompting Frank to grab his black stocking cap from the dashboard and tug it over his head and ears before zipping his parka up to his chin.

If this thing actually worked out, Chicago winters were definitely going to take some getting used to. Of course, freezing temps were a small price to pay for a good, solid cover for his new defense firm. And joining Bill’s kid sister in her custom Harley chopper business, posing as mechanics and motorcycle buffs, promised to be a freakin’ phenomenal cover for all the guys he’d recruited away from the various branches of the armed services. Especially considering most of them were bulky, tattooed, and—without regulation military haircuts—just scruffy enough to pass for their own chapter of Hell’s Angels.

He pushed out of the Hummer and had to lower his chin against the gust of wind that punched him in the face like an icy fist. Shoving his hands deep in his coat pockets, he trudged up to the front door through the path someone had shoveled in the thick blanket of snow.

Bill applied a gloved thumb to the buzzer, and five seconds later, a familiar noise sounded from the behind the metal door, making the hair on the back of Frank’s neck stand up.

How do you know you’ve been in the business too long? When you recognize the sound of a .45 caliber being chambered from three feet away, that’s how.

“Who is it?” a deep, wary voice inquired from within.

“I thought you said she knew we were coming,” Frank hissed over Bill’s shoulder.

“She does.” Bill grinned. “But she also knows she can never be too careful in this neighborhood.”

And that was no lie. The graffiti tagging every vertical surface for six blocks in each direction announced that they were smack dab in the middle of some very serious gang territory. The Vice Lords ruled the roost, and they wanted to make damned sure everyone knew it.

Raising his voice above the shrieking wind, Bill yelled, “Open the damned door, you big ape! We’re freezing our dicks off out here!”

And that was no lie either. Frank couldn’t even begin to explain to his family jewels why he hadn’t jumped into a pair of thermal underwear this morning and instead opted to go commando.

Big mistake.
Huge
.

One he sure as hell wouldn’t be making again.

The front door swung open with a resounding clang, and they were met by a giant, red-headed man who looked like he should be wearing a face mask and leotard while smashing a folding chair over some guy’s back.

Frank could almost hear Michael Buffer shouting,
Arrrrre you ready to ruuumbllle?

“Manus,” Bill said, stepping over the threshold and motioning Frank through, “this is Boss. Boss, meet Manus. He and his brothers work security for my sister.”

Frank waited until Manus tucked the .45 into the waistband of his jeans before cautiously stepping into the small, tiled vestibule. The walls were covered in rusted motorcycle license plates, and as soon as the door closed behind him, the aroma of motor oil and burning metal assaulted his nostrils.

“You the guy who wants to partner with Becky? Invest some money and learn to build bikes?” Manus asked while pumping the hand he offered, a smile splitting the big man’s ruddy face and making all his freckles meld together.

Yeah, that was the story they were tossing around until he could get a look at the set-up…

“I haven’t decided yet,” he answered noncommittally, and Manus’s smile only widened.

“That’s only because you haven’t seen Becky’s bikes,” he boasted. “Once you do, you’re gonna want to give her all your savings and have her teach you everything she knows.”

Frank lifted a shoulder as if to say
we’ll see
and watched as Bill opened the second set of glass doors.

His ears were instantly assailed by a wall of sound.

The pounding beats of hard-driving rock music competed with the hellacious screech and whine of grinding metal. He resisted the urge to reach up and plug his ears as he followed Bill into the custom motorcycle shop, skirting a few pieces of high-tech machinery.

And then he wasn’t thinking about his bleeding eardrums at all.

Because his eyes zeroed in on the most beautiful, outlandish motorcycle he’d ever seen.

It was secured on a bike lift. The paint on the gas tank and fenders was bright, neon blue that sparkled iridescently in the harsh overhead lights. It sported a complex-looking dual exhaust, an outrageous stretch, and intricate, nearly whimsical front forks. It also had so much chrome it almost hurt to look at it.

In a word:
art
.

It made the work he’d done restoring his vintage 1952 Harley-Davidson FL look like amateur hour.

And just when he thought he couldn’t be any more blown away, the sound of grinding metal slowly died down and a young woman emerged from behind the bike with a grinder in one hand and a metal clamp in the other.

He nearly swallowed his own tongue.

This couldn’t be…

But obviously it was. Because the instant the woman caught sight of them she squealed, clicked off the music pouring out of the speakers of an old-fashioned boom box, and dropped both tools on the bike lift before jumping into Bill’s arms, hugging him tight and kissing his cheek with a resounding smack that sounded particularly loud in the sudden silence of the shop.

This was Rebecca “Rebel” Reichert, Wild Bill’s little sister.

Little
being the operative word. If she stood two inches over five feet Frank would eat his biker boots for dinner.

He didn’t quite know what he’d expected of a woman who ran her own custom chopper shop, but it wasn’t long, blond hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, intense brown eyes surrounded by lush, dark lashes, and a pretty, girl-next-door face that just happened to be his own personal weakness when it came to women.

Something about that wholesome, all-American thing always managed to bring him to his knees.

Well, hell.

Bill finally lowered her to the ground, and she came to stand in front of Frank, small, grease-covered hands on slim, jean-clad hips. For some inexplicable reason, he felt the need to stand up straighter.

It was probably because she had the same unyielding look in her eye that his hard-ass drill sergeant always had back when he’d been in Basic.

“So.” She tilted her head until her ponytail hung down over her shoulder in a smooth, golden rope. “You must be the indomitable Frank Knight. Billy has told me so very
little
about you.”

And that voice…

It was soft and husky. The type that belonged solely in the bedroom.

“Everyone calls me Boss,” he managed to grumble.

“I think I’ll stick to Frank,” she said with a wink. And for some reason, his eyelid twitched. “After all, there can be only one boss around here, and I’m it. Now, I hear you want to get into the business of building bikes?”

“I’m considering it.” He couldn’t help but notice the way her nose tilted up at the end or the way her small breasts pressed against the soft fabric of the paint-stained, long-sleeved T-shirt she wore.

Kee-rist, man, get a grip.

“Well, then.” She nodded, pushing past him as she made her way toward the front door, “let’s go take a look at that bike you brought with you and see if you have any talent at all.”

For a split second, he let his eyes travel down to the gentle sway of her hips before forcing himself to focus on a point over her head as he followed her back through the various machinery. Bill was right behind him, which helped to keep his eyes away from the prize… so to speak. Because the last thing he wanted was to get caught ogling the guy’s kid sister.