Mountain Man Regret (Mountain Men Book 2) Page 5

  Of course, Mason and I had both fallen for Caroline’s schemes so what did that say about us? I’d always thought I was the type of person who wouldn’t take any shit from anyone, especially from a woman, but I’d taken plenty from Caroline and I’d kept on going back for more.

  Faith, on the other hand, was a straight shooter and didn’t strike me as the type of person who liked to play games. She was grounded and secure enough in herself that she didn’t have to resort to underhand tactics to get her own way.

  Plus, there was the issue of fidelity.

  If Faith and I got together, I wouldn’t have to worry about who she was with when she wasn’t with me. With Caroline, I’d worried practically every second. There was constantly a niggling doubt and a shred of fear at the back of my mind that one day she was going to leave me for Mason and never come back. That might have been preferable to what actually happened to her, of course, but a long time ago, I’d come to the conclusion that both me and Mason were better off without her.

  Faith wasn’t a cheater.

  I could never be a hundred percent sure about that of course, but I’d gotten to know her and her girls pretty well over the years and I thought I had the measure of them.

  Faith might be dating Jackson now, but we’d already established that their relationship wasn’t serious and she struck me as the type of woman who would be faithful to one man.

  The question was, did I want that man to be me?

  My instincts screamed at me that the answer to that question was a resounding yes.

  Try as I might, I couldn’t deny it any longer. I wanted Faith Anderson with every fiber of my being and if that was true then it was time to do something about it.

  Perhaps I should have been concerned about the fact that Faith might not want me, and it might have seemed cocky, but I didn’t believe that for a second. The chemistry between us was off the charts and if she didn’t feel anything for me, then she wouldn’t get so wound up by our conversations—she wouldn’t let me get inside her head so much.

  I was just about to go back inside when a motorcycle roared into the parking lot and the rider, Luke Chase, slowed his Honda then brought it to a stop next to my HD.

  “When are you going to get yourself a real bike?” I asked him as he took off his helmet and kicked his leg over to get off.

  He gave me the finger.

  “This baby is as real as it gets my friend.”

  I snorted. “You keep telling yourself that.”

  “Ethan here?” he asked.

  I nodded. “Been here a while. We’ve just been waiting on you.”

  He followed me inside and we made our way over to my usual table where Ethan was sat waiting for us. I signaled to Mario to bring us a round of beers then we got straight down to it.

  “We need you to do some digging in the club.”

  Luke glared at me. “That better be a fucking joke.”

  “No joke,” I said. “The club is involved in something.”

  “Involved in what? On second thoughts, don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.”

  “Dealing drugs,” I went on as if I hadn’t heard him. “Bad shit. Nearly put Arlene in the ground.”

  He bit out a curse. “You sure?”

  “No, we’re not sure. That’s what we need you for.”

  “They’re my brothers,” he said, his eyes pleading with me to understand.

  I did.

  There was a time that I would have done anything for that club.

  But that time had passed.

  “What are we, chopped liver?” Ethan said. “How long have you known us, Luke?”

  Mario deposited our beers on the table and Luke took a long pull from his bottle before he replied.

  “I don’t want to get into this with you, Ethan. You don’t understand what it means to be in a club.”

  “No, but I do,” I said. “And I’m still asking you to help us with this.”

  Luke sighed. “Okay, tell me what it is that you think you know?”

  “What we actually know,” I corrected, “Is that Owen Leigh sold Arlene the coke that put her in hospital.”

  “He could have been acting on his own,” Luke surmised.

  I raised my eyebrows. “Owen Leigh, acting on his own?”

  “Fuck.” Luke’s shoulders slumped in resignation.

  “Precisely. Owen doesn’t wipe his ass unless someone in the club tells him to. This goes higher up the food chain and we need you to figure out just how high it goes.”

  “And if it’s right at the very top?” he asked.

  I glanced at Ethan before saying, “Then we take them down.”

  “If Ryker finds out I’m nosing into club business I’m going to be out on my ass.”

  “So don’t make it obvious,” I said. “Don’t ask questions of the wrong people. There must be someone in the club you can trust.”

  “I trust most of my brothers,” Luke snapped. “If I didn’t, you think I would have stayed in the club for as long as I have?”

  I shrugged. “You might just be pussy whipped, like Owen.”

  The sound that came out of Luke’s mouth couldn’t have been described as anything other than a snarl.

  “Very funny asshole.”

  Ethan looked confused. “I thought there weren’t any women in the club.”

  “He’s referring to Ryker,” Luke explained.

  Ethan grinned. “Good one.”

  “What is it with you and Ryker, anyway?” Luke asked. “I mean, I know you don’t like him and to some small extent, I can understand why. He’s not a great president, especially when you compare him to your pop, but I always got the impression there was more to it than that.”

  “There is.”

  What would be the harm in telling them? I wasn’t in the club anymore and I didn’t owe Ryker anything, least of all my loyalty.

  He didn’t even have my respect.

  “Something happened between you two, didn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “Something happened. Something I couldn’t ignore.”

  “I’m not going to like it, am I?” Luke said.

  I met his gaze head-on. “No, you’re not going to like it.”

  “Shit.” Luke sighed then took a drink from his beer bottle. After he’d swallowed he said, “Okay, hit me with it.”

  I looked at Ethan. “Anything I say here goes no further, agreed?”

  Ethan groaned. “Jesus Christ, Coop. I’m a goddamn sheriff. If you’re gonna be talking about illegal shit then it’s probably best if I left.”

  “That’s up to you,” I said with a shrug. “Your call.”

  He groaned then lifted his beer bottle and pointed it at me. “I wasn’t here for this conversation.”

  I looked at Luke. “You remember that run we did down to Denver when we were fifteen?”

  “Sure, I remember it,” Luke said. “It was the first long ride we’d been on with the club.”

  “Luke and I were prospects back then,” I explained to Ethan. “Even though we’d grown up in the club, you have to be patched in to be a fully fledged member. That run meant that we were accepted as brothers and were close to getting our patches.

  “My pop was meeting the president of The Lions MC, a club based in Denver. Our club was getting bigger in numbers so the meeting was my dad’s way of extending an olive branch.

  “He wanted them to know that we didn’t have delusions of grandeur and were in no way getting too big for our motorcycle boots.

  “We had no designs on their territory or their business. Well, Ryker wasn’t on board with my dad’s plans for the club. He thought we needed to expand and even suggested that we amalgamate with one of the bigger clubs.

  “Trouble was, most of ‘em were one percent clubs whereas we’d always been on the right side of the law, though granted we stepped over the line a time or two, but it was never anything major.”

  “Did Ryker do something there?” Ethan asked. “Something that m
essed things up for your father’s peace talks?”

  “Not directly,” I explained. “Everything Ryker does is passive aggressive. He was too much of a coward to have an out and out confrontation.

  “But one night my dad had asked Ryker to run an errand for him and I went along for the ride. When we were out, we came across a couple of hogs in the parking lot of a bar frequented by the Lions.

  “Ryker pulled off the road into the parking lot, but told me to stay on the road and wait for him.”

  Luke leaned in closer. “What was he up to?”

  “I never saw anything with my own eyes,” I divulged. “But when he got back, he was folding his pocket knife and putting it back in his jacket.

  “I’d seen him bend down near one of the bikes so I asked him what he’d been doing. He told me he’d just been having some fun and to mind my own business.

  “When we got back to Creede the next day, my pop got word that one of the Lions had got killed on the road—his brakes had been cut.”

  “For Christ’s sake,” Ethan thundered. “That’s murder, Coop.”

  “I fucking know that, Ethan. But I never saw him do shit with my own eyes and I was fifteen. What could I have done with no proof?

  “I told my dad what I’d seen and he laid into me for ratting out one of my brothers, but I know he confronted Ryker because I heard them arguing about it.

  “Ryker denied everything and said I was mistaken and that I was a stirring piece of shit. I don’t know if my dad believed him, but he didn’t throw him out of the club.

  “Things were strained between them after that though. They were never as close. My pop always kept him outside the circle of trust and Ryker has always blamed me for things going to shit between him and my dad.”

  “Shit, Coop,” Luke said. “Do you think there’s any way you could have been mistaken?”

  “I’ve asked myself that a hundred times. There’s a chance, of course. But what the fuck else was he doing kneeling in front of a bike with his knife out? And for a brother to die that night with his brakes cut? He was up to something. I’m sure of it.”

  “Shit,” Ethan said around a sigh.

  “There were other things too, over the years. Nothing as bad as that, but a lot of little things that all amounted to something I couldn’t ignore.

  “You remember when all those bottles of booze kept going missing from the clubhouse a few years back?” I asked.

  Luke nodded. “Sure, I remember. Everyone thought it was Skunk because he used to have a drinking problem, but he said it wasn’t him.”

  “It wasn’t,” I said. “It was Ryker. I caught him stashing a couple of bottles behind that old fold out couch in my old man’s office.”

  Luke’s blue eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Why the hell would he hide them there?”

  I shrugged. “’Cause he’s a dick. It probably gave him a hard-on knowing they were all talking about those bottles in church when they were sitting right in front of them.”

  “Church?” Ethan questioned.

  “Club meeting,” Luke explained.

  Ethan rolled his eyes.

  “He told me that if you want to hide something then you should always hide it in plain sight because that’s the last place anyone would look.

  “I did some digging and found out that Ryker had been selling three to four bottles of booze a week. He had a nice little sideline going. God only knows what else he was into.

  “I told him that I’d keep my mouth shut, but if I heard that any more bottles went missing from the club, I wouldn’t hesitate to rat him out to my father.”

  “What happened?” Ethan asked.

  “No more bottles went missing,” I said. “But a couple of months later, my old man died and I left the club.”

  Ethan whistled.

  Luke scowled.

  “Remind me to be busy next time you invite me around here for a drink,” Luke said with a shake of his head. “I knew something was up when you called me and now this? I did not need to know all this.”

  “After this, I’ll hold off on asking you for any more favors,” I said, trying not to smile. “At least for another couple of months. Scouts honor.”

  He snorted. “Try not asking for another couple of years dickhead, or better yet, never.”

  “Thanks for doing this, Luke,” Ethan said with a serious tone, signaling the end of our banter. “It means a lot. Arlene was lucky to survive, but the next person might not fare as well.”

  “I get how much this means,” Luke said gruffly. “I just wish I didn’t have to be the one to do it.

  “I don’t like spying on my brothers and I don’t want to believe that this shit runs deep. I hope it’s just a couple of fucktards then we can kick them to the curb and be done with it.”

  “You believe that might be true?” I asked.

  Luke shrugged. “I’ve got to believe it. I grew up in that club, Coop, just like you did. I don’t wanna see it go to shit.”

  In my opinion, the club had gone to shit years ago, but I was probably biased because my old man had once been president so in my eyes anyone who took over that role wasn’t going to stack up. But I got where he was coming from. For the most part. And I sure as shit knew that sometimes it was easier to close your eyes and refuse to see what was going on around you than it was to have to deal with something that might be unpleasant.

  When Luke’s gaze flicked in the direction of the bar, I followed it. It was the third time I’d seen him glance that way and I wondered what, or who had captured his attention. Violet was sitting alone there waiting for Andrea to return from the restroom. I let out a low whistle.

  “Violet, eh? She’d have you for breakfast, my friend. And that’s not even taking into account the fact that she’s your sister’s best friend. Trust me. Don’t go there.”

  Luke shrugged. “Andrea would get over it. Eventually.”

  Ethan leaned in and looked me in the eye. “You’re giving him dating advice? In the last few years have you ever screwed the same woman twice?”

  My face broke out into a wide grin. “Does twice in the same night count?”

  Luke barked out a laugh.

  Ethan pointed his beer bottle at me. “And don’t think I missed you follow Faith out to the parking lot earlier. What gives, Coop? You only ever screw tourists. Don’t tell me you’ve decided to try your luck with the natives.”

  “Faith?” Luke spluttered. “Coop, you know she’s seeing Jackson Leigh, right? That boy has had a crush on her since he hit puberty.”

  And there went my good mood.

  Fucking small towns.

  I hated that everyone knew everyone else’s business.

  I lifted the beer bottle to my lips and took a sip, thinking about my reply. I hadn’t intentionally set out to hurt Jackson and I was sure Faith didn’t want that either, but what was that saying about all being fair in love and war?

  I shrugged.

  What the hell.

  “It isn’t serious,” I informed them.

  Ethan’s eyebrows practically disappeared into his hairline. “Does Jackson know that?”

  “No, but he will.”

  “What about Faith?” Luke asked. “Does she know?

  “She will too.”

  Luke shook his head. “Jesus, Coop, you’ve got balls the size of melons.”

  I slouched in my chair and stretched my arm across the back of it. “When you’ve got it, you’ve got.”

  “Got what?” Ethan asked. “A head too big to fit through the door?”

  Luke burst out laughing and I couldn’t help myself, I joined in. In my mind, however, I was already planning out my next move because I knew that eventually, I would have the last laugh.

  Faith Anderson belonged with me.

  Now all I had to do was convince her of that.

  Chapter Nine

  Faith

  The smells coming out of my kitchen were unbelievably mouthwatering, even if I did say so myself. The
girls and I all took it in turns to host dinner at our respective houses and that night, it was my turn.

  I couldn’t cook as well as Libby, but I was a damn sight better than Andrea, whose meals mostly consisted of noodles and spaghetti sauce out of a jar. Several months ago, I’d found a recipe book online which contained dishes from every corner of the globe so I had been steadily working my way through each of the recipes.

  The chili beef had been a hit, but that night, I’d decided to be a bit more adventurous so I’d made stuffed chicken breast, wrapped in Parma ham with a cheese and leek sauce, sauté potatoes and snow peas. The food was nearly ready and I was just waiting for the girls to arrive before I started plating up. In the meantime, I set about laying the table.

  I never went with anything overly fancy.

  I always used my everyday dinner service and cutlery set and placed a small vase of flowers in the center of the table. I put a bunch of candles around the room to create a nice, welcoming atmosphere and I’d just finished lighting them when there was a knock on the front door.

  “It’s open!” I called out as I moved the flowers to a different position then changed my mind and put them back again.

  I was just about to go check on the sauce when someone walked into the room.

  “Hey,” I said, lifting my head to greet my first visitor.

  My blood ran cold.

  It wasn’t any of the girls as I’d expected it to be.

  It was Owen Leigh.

  “Aww, you shouldn’t have gone to all this trouble for little old me,” he joked, nodding to the candles. “You don’t need all this romantic shit. I’m a sure thing.”

  I glared at him. “What are you doing here?”

  “I just came by for a little chat. Now that you’re dating Jackson, we’re practically family. What, I can’t call around my sister in law’s house for a visit?”

  “No, you can’t.” I eyed the door just as Owen started to walk around the table. “You shouldn’t be here. What do you think Jackson would say?”