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I get that.
“Any trouble?”
My breath stutters at the rumbled question from my right.Sneaky fucker.An orange ember builds in intensity, the resulting glow highlighting my older brother’s face.
“Right as rain.” I nod toward the clubhouse. “Everything okay?”
“Good as it can be.” He takes a step forward into the spill from the half-open roller door behind me. “Maddie fuckin’ threw us a curveball tonight.”
“That she did.” I sling my thumbs in the pockets of my jeans. “What’s the consensus?”
“So far? She stays.” He sighs. “But how that looks, we need to decide.” He jerks his chin toward me. “What did you find?”
“Fuck all.” I toe a stone on the ground. “Not much in her place. Sure as fuck ain’t any indication of who she is outside what we already know.” I shrug. “Could have dug a little deeper if she wasn’t there. Why not let her stay here while we deliberate? Let me go and look without her.” I indicate the clubhouse with a jerk of my head.
“Made it look less like trouble if she was with you.”
Never thought of that.“How?” I fold my arms across my chest.
“Figure a rough fucker like you showin’ up alone looks like breakin’ and entering. But if you turn up with her on the back of your bike, then that looks like a visit, don’t it?”
Smart prick.“Yeah. I guess.” There’s a reason why the gavel fell in Tyke’s lap first, and that right there was it. “Don’t think anybody saw much anyways.”
He chuckles. “Your goddamn exhaust rivals a fuckin’ jet engine. There would have been eyes on you.”
True that.
“Why you gotta keep it so damn loud anyway?”
“Don’t want anyone to forget I’m there.”
“As though that would happen.” He drops his spent cigarette to the ground and stares down at his boot as he twists the toe over the top.
Maybe Tyke can’t help but see me, but fuck knows, there were times in our life growing up that I wondered if I was nothing more than a goddamned figment of my mother’s imagination. Youngest of three boys, I was the afterthought. The fucking mistake, if you asked our old man.
“What you gonna do with her?” I jerk the roller door down and put the horses to bed. “If she stays.”
“Hadn’t decided.” Tyke sighs and runs both hands over his head; fingers knitted at his crown. “See what else the girl’s got to tell us, I guess.”
“You realize she ain’t a girl, right?” He lifts an eyebrow at my question. “She’s a woman.” Lord knows it’s all that’s been on my mind since I left Graves at her place.
“Yeah, I get that.”
Pretty things like her have a habit of finding trouble. Even if it ain’t ever much their fault. “How you plan to keep hands off her?”
“Same way I do my girl.” He studies me, letting his hands slide off his head. “Puttin’ the fear of God into these fuckers.”
I snort a laugh, falling into step behind him as he heads for the clubhouse. I’ll never forget the first time a brother tested the authenticity of Tyke’s word. Fucker couldn’t ride for six weeks waiting on his fingers to heal.
Tyke heaves the barn door open. “She’s gonna need somethin’ to do. Idle hands and all that. Get Maddie to talk to the property about sharin’ the load.”
“Nope.” I shake my head, standing aside while he shuts the door after us. “You do that, and the brothers will see her as nothin’ more than new property. Best you keep those sides of the business as far apart as possible.”
“What you suggestin’, then?”
“Let her go to work at her current job.”
“The diner?” He lifts both eyebrows. “How the fuck we supposed to keep her safe if she does that?”
