Reckless Love (Satan's Prophets MC, Book 2) (Satan's Prophets MC Series) (7 page)

When Peter came by to pick up Renee later that afternoon, he was carrying a single, long-stemmed red rose. Her dad opened the door when he heard the doorbell.

“Come in, Peter.” He eyed Peter and was pleased to see him wearing nice khaki shorts and a yellow golf shirt with brown sandals.
Now, here is a decent guy! Not like those tattooed, jean-and-t-shirt-wearing bikers,
he thought as he smiled and shook Peter’s hand.
And so thoughtful, bringing her flowers.

“Where are you two off to today?” 

“I thought we would take a nice ride over to the lake and enjoy the scenery,” Peter answered. 

Charlie couldn’t have been happier. He clapped Peter on the back, still smiling. “Well, it’s a nice sunny day for it. I’ll be right back. I’m going to tell Renee you’re here.”

He walked into the kitchen and found Renee mixing up some formula into a little bowl of baby cereal. “Renee, honey, Peter’s here.”

“Tell him I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

Charlie’s whole face beamed with happiness when he said, “I’ll finish getting his lunch. Go and have some fun. I’ll take good care of this little guy ‘til the babysitter gets here.”

Renee yelled to Peter that she would be down soon, then ran upstairs to her bedroom. She returned wearing a pair of denim shorts with a Bon Jovi t-shirt under an oversized blue blouse.
She had put on some black mascara and a smoky blue eye shadow with a rose-colored blush and dabbed a little red lip gloss over her lips, wanting to look pretty for Peter. She walked downstairs expecting Peter to tell her how nice she looked.

Instead, he frowned at her. “Don’t you have a green blouse, Renee? It would go so much better with your bright red hair,” he pointed out, annoyed. “Blue is such a weird color, isn’t it?”

“I guess,” she murmured uncertainly. “I… don’t know. Never thought of it as weird, but I’ll go change. I’ll be right back down.”

Renee hurried upstairs and changed into a light green blouse. She stopped in front of the mirror to examine her hair.
Funny
, she thought.
Can’t Peter see it’s auburn, not bright red?
But then she wondered, did her hair really look that ugly in the sunlight?

Peter smiled when she came back down. Renee was happy she looked much better.

The sun was shining brightly and it was near eighty degrees. When they got to the lake, Peter spread out a heavy wool blanket under a tree so they would have some shade. He helped Renee to sit down, then joined her on the blanket.

“I love coming here,” she told him. “It’s so peaceful! I love the way the mountains form a boundary around the lake, and the water looks like a mirror. Isn’t it just beautiful, Peter?”

Renee turned her head to look at him and he was staring back at her with his lips pressed tightly together.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught something gliding down onto the water. “Oh, look! A duck just landed on the water! Here come some more,” she squealed with delight. “I think they’re Mallard ducks. Aren’t they gorgeous with their green heads and that stripe around their neck?”

When Peter didn’t answer, she looked at him once again and noticed a slight frown on his face. She wondered what happened to dampen his mood. On the ride over, he seemed to be okay, talking and joking with her. She tried lightening him up a little.

“When I was younger, I used to come here all the time fishing with my dad. One time when I cast my fishing line out, it hooked onto his hat and it went flying out into the lake.” She couldn’t help chuckling at that. When she noticed Peter didn’t crack a smile, she got annoyed. “Peter, is something wrong? You’re just staring at me.”

“Nothing that I can’t fix,” he said finally. “Stay here, Renee. I’ll be right back.” Peter went to get the picnic basket out of his car. He opened it up and took out a linen napkin and a bottle of water. He saturated the napkin with water. Renee sat there wondering what on earth he was doing. He walked back to Renee and she was shocked when he sat down beside her and grabbed her by her arm to hold her steady before he started wiping the blush and lipstick off her face.

“Peter! What are you doing?” Renee was pushing his hand away to no avail.

“Your blush is hiding your pretty freckles.” He kept rubbing the napkin over her lower face until the lip gloss was rubbed off, too. Then, he let himself smile. “There, darling, now you look beautiful.” He threw the napkin on the ground and bent over to lightly kiss her lips. “I don’t like you hiding all that natural beauty,” he whispered in her ear. “Why do you even wear it? You don’t need so much makeup. Just a little on your eyes is all you need to bring out the deep blue of them. I love your eyes.”

Renee always hated her freckles and tried to keep them covered with makeup. Her annoyance vanished with Peter’s praise. She was thrilled to hear that she was beautiful, freckles and all.

Peter dug into the picnic basket and handed Renee an egg salad sandwich. He smiled at her. “Your favorite sandwich, I remembered.”

The rest of the afternoon, Peter was very attentive to Renee. He listened to every little thing Renee said about her son, even smiling when she told him funny little stories about herself. Renee loved that Peter was so interested in Michael and wanted to know more about him. Peter would never say much about himself and Renee wondered what kind of home life he’d had growing up. She asked him once and he seemed perturbed about it, so she never asked again.

When Mick got back into town, he headed straight over to Jaz’s house. He was glad to see her door was locked.

“Mick, what a nice surprise!”

Jaz’s smile faded when she looked into his hard, flinty eyes. Mick brushed past her and got right down to business. “What do you know about this guy Renee is seeing?”

Jaz shrugged her shoulders and sat down next to Mick. “Not too much. Only that his name is Peter Dempsey and she knows him from high school. He left town and now he’s back. I heard he’s the new vet technician in town. Sorry, but Renee is kind of closemouthed these days. Truthfully, I’m a little worried about her. She just doesn’t seem to be thinking too straight lately.”

Mick leaned forward and looked into Jaz’s eyes. “What is it you’re not telling me?”

“Not sure, it’s just the vibes I pick up when I run into Renee and Peter. He doesn’t seem too happy when she talks with her friends.” Jaz raised her hands up in the air. “I don’t know. He just gives me the creeps. Hey, do you want to stay for lunch? JD will be home soon and it’s only burgers on the grill because I have to go over the books with Lori at the motel this afternoon.”

Mick had to smile at that. “Burgers? I see your cooking skills haven’t improved any. Thanks, but I gotta go.”

* * *

It was Saturday afternoon and Mick was hanging at the clubhouse playing pool and shooting the shit with his brothers. He was in a really rotten mood, thinking back on the lousy past week he’d had.

“You sunk the eight ball. Game’s mine again. You’re playing like shit today, bro.” Roach thought for a moment. “Let’s see, that makes twenty-five bucks you owe me now.”

Mick threw down his pool stick and pulled out his wallet. He counted out two tens and five ones. “Here, ya prick. And wipe that smirk off your face! You’re only beating me ‘cause I got a lot on my mind.”

Roach stuffed the money into his pocket and gloated at Mick. “Another game?”

Mick threw Roach the middle finger and walked away when what he really wanted to do was wipe that cocky, half smile off Roach’s face with his fist. Mick needed to get away for a little while and get his head on straight. Maybe a ride over to Vestal would be just the thing to take his mind off his problems.

He walked over to the bar, sat down near Striker and yelled for a beer.

“I think I’m gonna take a ride and see my buddy Tom. Maybe he has another bounty hunting job for me.” What he didn’t mention was that while he was talking to Tom, he was also going to ask him to dig for information on Peter Dempsey. What Jaz had told him about that guy was sitting heavy on his mind. “I wouldn’t go, but I am almost at my goal of saving up for a house.”

Striker spoke, interrupting his thoughts. “Hey, glad you mentioned it. I’ve been meanin’ to tell ya. There’s a house on my road for sale, if you’re interested. The owner is moving, says he wants to live in a warmer climate.” Striker snorted. “I think he’s full of shit. Prick’s afraid of me. You should see that lil’ fucker run in the house when he sees me coming down the road,” he bragged.

Striker stood up and stretched his tall, muscular frame. “Why don’t we go over now and take a look at it? There’s some good acreage that goes with it, too.”

That caught Mick’s interest quickly. He stood up and slugged down his beer. “Hell yeah, let’s ride. I’d really like to check it out.”

Mick, Striker, and Roach rode a little ways out of town and turned onto Shady Lane Road. The house was about a quarter mile down on the right. Mick took one look at the house and liked what he saw. It was a two-story white house with a well-maintained yard and it had a brown picket fence surrounding it.

“Well, what do ya think?” Striker asked Mick as he was getting off his bike.

“So far, I like it. Let’s go talk to the owner.”

* * *

When the owner looked out the window and saw the three bikers pulling into his gravel driveway, he panicked a little until he spotted Striker. He didn’t care for living by a biker in a motorcycle club. He figured it was only a matter of time before trouble followed Striker down that dirt road. Not wanting to make enemies, he lied and said he wanted to live in a warmer climate. Now that he took a good look at these other two bikers, he was doubly glad he was getting the hell out of there.

Opening the door at their knocking, David tried not to act nervous. “Striker, what can I do for you and your—uh, friends?”

“My brother here is lookin’ to buy a house. Thought we’d come over and take a look at this one.”

David opened the door wider and had to jump out of their way as they walked in like they owned the place. Mick liked what he saw. The rooms were nice and big and he already knew where he was going to put a pool table. He skipped going upstairs, as he was more interested in finding out about the land surrounding the house.

“I don’t need to see the bedrooms. Let’s go outside. How much land we talking about here?” he asked David.

“The house comes with five acres of land.”

Mick realized this house was perfect for his needs. He could picture where he would build his bike repair garage. “How much ya asking for it?” Mick lit up a smoke as he waited for the answer. When David said he wanted one hundred and fifty grand, he noticed Striker frowning at him. When Mick put his hand behind his back and rubbed the waistband of his jeans, Dave changed his price.

“But that was before I noticed the house could use a new roof,” Dave quickly added. “Make that one hundred and twenty grand, and it’s all yours.” Striker smiled and Mick relaxed his hand back to his side.

Mick started figuring in his head. He had a few different bank accounts in different towns, and when he added amounts up, he figured he had close to that much money saved. And if he didn’t have exactly the sum he needed, he would ask Jaz to lend it to him. She had offered him a cut of the money she gained from her deceased dad’s illegal activities, but Mick wouldn’t take a penny of it.

“Start getting the paperwork drawn up or whatever you need to do, and I’ll be back with the money in two days.” Mick stared at David. “I want this house, so it’d better not be sold before I get back. Hear me?”

David swallowed nervously. “Yes. I hear you.”

It only took one day to gather up all his money and he was surprised to see he had more money in his savings than he’d thought. So now all he had to do was sit tight and wait until the home-buying process was completed. Mick thought he was being generous when he gave David two weeks to move out. In the meantime, he still needed to head over to Vestal and see the bail bondsman, Tom.