Motorcycle Man (19 page)

Since he told us to be quiet, and he sounded like he knew what he was doing as well as a little scary, I was debating whether or not to answer with a “yeah” when Aunt Bette said, “Plastic restraints, wrists and ankles.”

I heard movement, more movement, some more then I felt strong fingers close on my wrist then they were free, movement at my side and then my ankles were free.

Hallelujah.

I rubbed my wrists and heard Aunt Bette ask, “Do you have an extra weapon?”

“This is gonna go quiet. No heroes. ‘Specially not ones who don’t know what the fuck they’re doin’.”

Aunt Bette replied with, “I know you. JTF Able Promise. I’m Lieutenant Colonel Bette Mansfield, retired.”

Silence for a beat then, “Right.”

There was more movement then I heard the sounds I heard on TV when people were fiddling with a gun.

Oh boy. I had a feeling the dude called Hawk spoke Air Force acronym but I didn’t know if this was good or bad.

“You good?” Hawk asked.

“Talk to me,” Aunt Bette ordered sounding curt, bossy and scarily like she knew exactly what she was doing.

Oh boy!

“Neutralized the boys outside. No guard on this door. Two boys on the first floor. Two with your girl who’s on the second floor.”

Oh God. What were they doing to Lanie?

“You have backup?” Aunt Bette asked.

“Called it, the boys we’re dealing with, couldn’t wait. Right now it’s just me. Plan is, I get you out safe, I go back for the girl. My backup should be here by then.”

“Works for me,” Aunt Bette stated.

“It doesn’t work for me,” I butted in. “We need to get Lanie.”

“Quiet,” Hawk ordered.

“No, seriously, this is the Russian mob. They might be –”

My mouth was covered with a big hand and how he hit the target with such accuracy in the dark was beyond me.

“Quiet,” he growled, took his hand away and ordered, “Everyone up. Let’s go.”

I pushed myself to my feet feeling achy and stiff from being tied up and lying on the floor for so long. But I didn’t take the time to stretch. The door opened and I felt Aunt Bette grab my hand. She pulled me out the door into a dark, unlit hall.

We walked about five feet then I heard Aunt Bette whisper, “Stairs,” right before I tripped up the first couple of them.

I righted my footing and moved up the stairs. Hawk opened a door and late evening sun showed through. It also showed on Hawk who was tall, built, dark-haired, wearing a skintight gray tee and black cargo pants and if I hadn’t seen all the gorgeousness that was Tack our rescuer would be far and away the most handsome man I’d laid eyes on in my life. One word:
hawt.

As hot as he was, he was also carrying a gun, surveying the area outside the door, giving us a nod and moving forward agilely and alertly. Aunt Bette had a gun too and Lanie was somewhere with two of the bad guys so I had no time to appreciate how hot he was.

Aunt Bette gave me a head gesture that told me to precede her, I did, following Hawk. We made it through the room, out the door and across a lawn with no incident. We stopped under a long, very tall, solid fence.

He looked down at me. “I’ll give you a lift up. You’re gonna have to pull yourself over. Drop down to the other side. Soft knees when you land. Fall to your side immediately and roll outta the way.”

He didn’t say, “Yeah?” to ask if I got it, he just linked his hands and bent so I was guessing time was of the essence.

Therefore, I didn’t hesitate. I put my hands to his shoulders and my foot in his hands. I had misgivings about this mostly because I had limited upper body strength so I had the feeling there was no way I was going to be able to pull myself over that tall fence.

I didn’t have to worry. Hawk didn’t give me a lift up. He gave me a
lift up
. Well past his waist, straight to his shoulders, boosting me with such strength and speed, he nearly hurled me over the wall. I was on my belly on the wall before I knew it. I swung my legs around and dropped down, soft knees, fell to my side and rolled.

Wow. Easy.

Not two seconds later, Aunt Bette followed me doing the same thing except hers was practiced, thus cooler like it wasn’t the first time she did it. Or the second.

I was thinking I now had proof Aunt Bette had secret ways when she grabbed my hand and pulled me aside as Hawk followed her. Then he moved and we moved with him. The fence ran along the side of a sleepy road, sleepy as in, no traffic. There was a black SUV some ways away from where we jumped over the fence. Hawk bleeped the locks. I went to the passenger side back, Aunt Bette to the front passenger seat.

“Down, no one sees you,” Hawk ordered.

“Copy that but do you have a secure phone? I need to call my husband,” Aunt Bette replied.

“Glove compartment,” Hawk answered, turned and through the gathering darkness another commando showed, Hispanic, shorter and leaner than Hawk. He didn’t speak. Hawk nodded to him, turned and nodded to Aunt Bette, his eyes sliced through me and then he and the other commando moved away.

I scrambled into the SUV. So did Aunt Bette. I got low. So did Aunt Bette. I heard her searching the glove box, I heard beeping noises then I heard her talking to Uncle Marsh.

But all I thought about was Lanie. I was safe now. I was breathing. I was unhurt. The same with Aunt Bette. I just hoped with all I had that when our rescuers returned with Lanie, they’d do it in one piece and she’d be in the same condition. Then I was going to hunt down Elliott my own damned self and wring his neck.

“Tyra?” Aunt Bette called when she beeped off the phone.

“Yeah,” I whispered.

“It’s gonna be okay,” she whispered back.

I bit my lip.

Then I said, “I’m sorry, Aunt Bette.”

“You didn’t kidnap me and tie me to a chair.”

This was true.

We fell silent. Several minutes later, the door opposite me opened and Hawk deposited Lanie in the seat. I twisted and looked up at her, automatically reaching out to grab her hand.

“You okay?” I asked.

“No,” her voice trembled.

Oh God.

“Did they hurt you?” I asked.

“No,” her voice trembled more.

“Honey –” I started but Hawk was folding in the driver’s seat and he interrupted me.

“Debrief later,” he ordered, started up the car and we took off.

I wanted to ask who he was, how he knew we were there and why he’d rescued us but he scared me a little bit seeing as he obviously wasn’t the police and entered an uncertain situation somewhat heavily armed. Not to mention, he could scale a twelve foot wall without anyone giving him a leg up.

Since I figured Aunt Bette knew what she was doing, and she also kept her silence, I followed suit and held Lanie’s hand squeezing tight. She didn’t squeeze tight back and I heard a hitch in her breath so I knew she was crying.

I bit my lip again.

That was when I heard it, the familiar roar of Harleys. I turned and looked out the back window as I heard Hawk mutter, “What the fuck?”

I was right, Harleys and a lot of them. I saw Tack up front and it took everything I had not to cry out with joy or burst into relieved tears.

He’d been coming for me. Maybe he
was
the perfect man.

“One of you belong to Chaos?” Hawk asked.

“Um… I think that would be me,” I answered.

Aunt Bette twisted her neck and looked at me through the two front seats.

From her look, I was seeing that during our Nordstrom’s talk I probably should have told her Tack was the president of a motorcycle club. However, I didn’t expect us all to be kidnapped and then have Tack, and what looked like the entire club, come to my rescue (after an unknown commando rescued us, that was).

I looked out the windows and saw the Harleys overtaking the SUV, three bikes closing in at the front, two positioning on each side of the SUV, more at the back. I saw brake lights on the Harleys that held Tack, Brick and Dog in front of us, all of them coming on simultaneously as if they had biker brainwave synchronicity.

“Fuck,” Hawk muttered on an annoyed growl, he slowed and moved to the narrow shoulder. He didn’t try to evade them. He just stopped, commanded, “Don’t move,” into the cab and knifed out.

I watched as he met Tack in front of the SUV. There was a boot to boot, nose to nose conversation that didn’t look happy. Then Tack’s head jerked to the SUV, Hawk’s head turned and he looked our way. Then he lifted his chin and Tack instantly moved away from him, prowling to my side.

I had my hand on the door handle but before I could open it, it was opened for me. Then I found myself yanked out to my feet, the door was slammed and I was shoved back against it.

I lifted my eyes to his face, about to throw my arms around his shoulders and maybe dissolve into tears or perhaps declare that I was falling in love with him again because he turned my world to color and he’d been coming for me when his hand weirdly lifted to wrap around the front of my throat like he was preparing to strangle me and all movement and declarations of love died at this aggressive gesture.

“They touch you?” he barked, his tone sharp with what I belatedly saw in his face.

Rage.

I shook my head fighting the urge to shrink back. “No, not really, they… they just… just, hooded me, made me go unconscious, bound me and put me in a room. They did something to Lanie though.”

With a quickness that stunned me, he let me go, jerked his head at Dog who was standing beside him and then I watched him round the back of the SUV. Dog had hold of me by my upper arm and was dragging me toward his bike but I had my head turned and I watched Tack open Lanie’s door and yank her out.

Uh… what?

Dog tugged me to a stop by his bike and threw a leg over it.

“Climb on,” he ordered.

I kept staring at Tack who was now dragging Lanie to his bike.

Why was he dragging Lanie to his bike? Brick or Dog could take care of Lanie. Tack was supposed to take care of me. Wasn’t he? I mean, just that morning he’d declared me his woman. Didn’t he?

“Cherry, climb on,” Dog repeated but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Tack who was already on his bike, and Lanie, who was climbing on behind him.

“Cherry…”

I looked back at the SUV in time to see Hawk driving away with Aunt Bette who was giving me a sharp look incongruously mixed with a finger wave.

“Hey,” I whispered, feeling the need to say something like “thanks” to Hawk or “where the hell are you taking my aunt” but not able to get anything more out and not knowing what the hell was happening.

“Cherry, get your ass on my bike,” Dog demanded, my head swung back just in time to see Tack, with Lanie on his bike, arms tight around his middle, cheek to his shoulder, take off on a roar.

Bile filled my throat.

“Cherry –”

My eyes sliced to Dog.

“Right,” I murmured then I climbed on the back of Dog’s bike.

Three Hours

I woke when I felt hands turning me and my first thought was panic. Not exactly panic, as such.
Extreme
panic.

Therefore, I pulled violently free from the hands and scooted swiftly across the bed. Too swiftly and too panicked. I landed on my ass on the floor, cracking my head against the nightstand.

I didn’t react to either of these things. I heard movement on the bed so I twisted and scuttled backwards on hands and feet like a crab except not sideways. I hit wall and pushed up as the dim light coming from street lamps filled the room and I saw a big, shadowed man heading my way.

I raised my hand to ward him off, his chest hit it, hands spanning my hips and I heard, “Baby, you’re safe. It’s me.”

Tack. It was Tack. Not a bad guy there to hood me and hurt me but Tack.

I relaxed and the panic slid out of me.

Earlier, Dog had taken me to the Chaos Compound, dragged me with a hand on my upper arm to Tack’s room and he’d locked me in. Not a word of explanation. Not a, “Have you eaten?” Not a, “Don’t worry about your beloved aunt and best friend, all is well.” He just walked out, locked me in and I heard his booted feet walk away.

Now it was the dead of night and Tack was back from whatever he did with Lanie. Not me. Lanie.

Reminded of this, my hand stopped going slack at the knowledge that nothing else terrifying was happening to me, it strengthened and tried to push.

Tack wasn’t in the mood to be pushed away. I knew this because he leaned into my hand and my elbow buckled at the pressure just as the pads of his fingers bit into my flesh.

“Tack –” I started to say, what, I did not know, but he cut me off.

“Three hours,” he growled.

These words were so strange, said in a growl so low it was almost guttural, and his tone had changed so significantly from his previous quiet words, I stopped putting pressure on my hand and blinked at him in the shadows.