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After the day he’d had, all Preacher wanted was to grab a shower and go to dinner. Almost putting a bullet in a seventeen-year-old’s head didn’t give him warm and fuzzy feelings. And having more than one target on his damn body still had him twitchy. He didn’t know the shooter’s name, but he wouldn’t forget her face anytime soon. He could see her laid out on the second-floor landing, ballcap turned backward, sniper rifle pointed at him. She had been rock-steady with her finger on the trigger.Sexy as fuck.Shaking the thought from his head, he parked his Harley in the driveway and dismounted.
Walking through the house, he checked his watch. He had plenty of time to shower before picking Jack up for dinner. He’d made reservations at The Peppered Calf. The place had once been a small, white, slate-board church. Abandoned and sold at a sheriff’s auction, it was now the best steakhouse on the northern coast of California.
Tonight, he was taking Jack out to celebrate her store being open for six months. She had managed to put together a small boutique and was doing better with responsibility. She still had moments where she needed to go hang with Viper, but Preacher tried not thinking too much about it. It bugged him that she still would rather run to Reno and to Viper instead of talking things out with him. He was trying to understand, but it was a constant reminder she was still a flight risk.
Stripping out of his clothes, he hit the tap and stepped under the cold water. Any other time, he would have waited, but he didn’t want to be late. He was excited to hear about what she did today.
* * *
Preacher arrived fifteen minutes early, hoping Jack might be ready. Stepping out of the car, he walked across the street and stopped short. The door to Jack’s shop laid ajar, but no one was in sight. Finding it odd that she wouldn’t be in view when the door was open, he rushed inside. When he called out her name and didn’t get a response, Preacher pulled the gun holstered under his jacket, making his way through to the small storage room.
Shoving open the door, he expected to see a startled Jack. Instead, it was empty. Maybe she stepped next door to grab a bottle of wine from The Grind. Walking back up front, he checked for a note at the desk but didn’t find one. Pulling out his phone, he called Jack’s number. Maybe she’d forgotten he was picking her up there and had gone home.
He listened as it rang twice then disconnected. Redialing, he listened as it went straight to voicemail. The next call he made was to Fiddler.
“What can I do for you today, Preacher?” the brother asked.
“Can you pull up the surveillance video on Jack’s shop?” Preacher growled into the phone.
Laughing, Fiddler shook his head, listening to Preacher grumbling over the phone. “Dude, you have to learn to trust the girl.”
“Fiddler, something’s wrong.” With all the shit that had been going down surrounding the club, he wasn’t taking chances. Not with Jack.
Fiddler heard the stark panic in his brother’s voice. Without another word, he cued up the video feed from her store and froze. “Preacher” was all he said as the scene unfolded before his eyes.
“Fucking tell me,” Preacher snapped, already worried about Jack’s well-being.
“She got into a car with a guy and drove off,” Fiddler said.
His mind screamed, his chest constricted, and then Preacher went calm. Scary fucking calm. “Did she go willingly?” was his only question.
“Yeah. She went willingly,” Fiddler said, almost apologetically.
“Keep that feed pulled up. I’m on my way over there,” Preacher told him as he pulled the shop door closed.
“Sorry, brother.” Fiddler thought this might be a crisis situation. Weighing the odds that Preacher would beat his ass for calling Bones, he made the call anyway.
Twenty minutes later, Preacher stood behind Fiddler, watching Jack talk to a guy leaning against a damn car. She stood there laughing and flirting with the stranger, but he didn’t appear to be a stranger to her. The guy looked like he’d just graduated college. From his yuppie haircut to his pencil-tight jeans and loafers, the guy’s appearance screamed Ivy League. He heard Fiddler say he was sorry for the hundredth time and wanted to slap him for it. Clearing his throat as he watched her walk inside the shop then come back out with her purse, Preacher watched the video as it continued to play, showing Jack haphazardly closed the door.
He watched as she slid into the passenger seat, laughing as the car door closed. As the car pulled away, he knew Fiddler had captured the license plate number. “How long before you have a location?” Preacher asked.
“It might take some time to find where they are,” Fiddler said as his fingers clicked across the keyboard on the desk. Preacher knew Fiddler would hack every red light camera from Lampsing to Mexico if he had to.
Jack had become entangled with the Road Devils thanks to her friend and former sometime lover, Phoenix. To keep her from getting more entwined in the situation, Preacher had brought Jack back to Lampsing. That decision had cost him with the club. The fine was one he was still paying off. He’d given her everything she had asked for, including putting himself on a five-year fucking lease where she could open a damn boutique. And now, she was on a joyride with a damn frat boy.
Fiddler turned to face him as the video ended, and in his hand was a white piece of paper with black writing on it. “Here’s the guy’s home address, brother.” He held out the paper toward Preacher.
“Keep it.” He pointed to the paper. “That shit isn’t worth me going to jail over.” Preacher turned to walk out and came face-to-face with Wrench and Bones. “I’m cool,” he told the two men.
“You sure?” asked Bones.
What was he supposed to say, no? “I’m good. I should’ve seen the writing on the wall.” Shrugging, he wanted to say the shit didn’t hurt, but it did. It hurt because he had wanted desperately to have what some of the others had. He’d wanted what his brother had with Conlyn. Maybe it wasn’t in the cards for him. Maybe a monster like him had too many sins. “I swear,” he added.
Bones knew Preacher better than to just accept this as writing on the wall. He knew it because he wouldn’t let it go. “What do you need us to do?”
“Nothing.” Preacher went to walk past then stopped. Therewassomething they could do for him. “Take a ride down the coast with me.”
“Anywhere special?” Wrench asked as he turned to walk out of the clubhouse with Preacher.
