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She considered this. “What’s IA going to call it?”
He was quiet again, so quiet she thought maybe she’d pushed too far and he wasn’t going to answer. Finally he said, “If they dig deep enough, talk to enough people, they’ll say I purposely provoke suspects into violence. And then tack on extra charges for it.”
Now Izzy was quiet. She turned and looked out the Charger’s window, across the gravel lot. A man stood in the large, open bay of the garage. He was looking at them curiously, but he didn’t approach. She recognized him from Maria’s bar earlier that afternoon.
“Do your friends know?” she asked. “That you’re suspended?”
She turned back to see him shake his head. “No,” he said with a sigh. “I haven’t told them yet.”
She tugged at her bottom lip with her teeth and risked one last question. His answer turned out to be the most candid, honest reply she thought she’d ever been given, by anyone. “Will they be surprised?”
He flexed his fingers on the steering wheel and blew out a long breath. “No,” he told her. “Probably not.” He looked past her at the men working several feet away. “But they’re going to be damn disappointed.”
He took his hands off the wheel and reached for the handle of the door, but before he could turn it, Izzy grabbed his hand. She turned it over, examining the purplish, swollen knuckles that marred his tanned skin. Caleb didn’t pull it back but when she looked up to his face it was obvious that he was uncomfortable.
“He hit you,” he said quietly. “He hurt you.”
Izzy nodded and let go of his hand. “He did. Thanks.”
Caleb didn’t seem to know what to say to that, so he leaned away from her. “Stay here,” he told her. “I’ll be right back.”
She watched him walk across the lot. As the adrenaline from the last few hours finally ebbed, she found herself needing to relax. A drink and a hot shower, that’s what she needed. Or a drink and a hot shower—both with Caleb—would be even better. She leaned her head back against the seat, closed her eyes, and pictured the man naked… not for the first time.
Chapter 17
Caleb stalked to the garage, not looking back but fighting the urge. Why had he told her so much? he wondered, but looking at Shooter as he crossed the lot, it wasn’t that hard to understand. His brothers would judge him, maybe not too harshly, maybe not out loud, but they would. They couldn’t help it. Isabelle was probably judging him, too, but he didn’t know her and didn’t care as much about her opinion of him. As much as he’d wanted to avoid this conversation just a few hours ago, it seemed inevitable now. He’d rarely shown up at the garage during a shift, and certainly never with a woman in tow. He couldn’t blame them for being curious.
He sighed as he neared the building. He didn’t relish the thought of all his secrets being laid bare. Not that he was embarrassed by them, but he didn’t like being reminded that among the circle of his closest friends, he’d never quite measure up to their standards. Even Easy, the most badly wounded, having lost his leg in the roadside bomb that decimated their unit, had managed to slay his demons just a few years after they’d discharged. But Caleb’s demons were far older and could not be slain, only leashed, for the safety of everyone around him.
His boots hit the smooth concrete of the garage bay and he reached into his jeans pocket. He separated the key to his bike from his house key and handed it over. “I left my bike at Maria’s,” he said. “I need someone to get it and drop it off at my place.”
Shooter nodded and pocketed the key. “Busy afternoon?” he asked. Caleb wasn’t sure what to say to that. Shooter nodded, indicating his hands. “Doing some bare knuckle boxing?”
Hawk and the others put down their tools and edged closer to them. Caleb grimaced. “Nothing serious,” he told them. “Just a dust-up.”
“This… dust-up… have anything to do with the girl?” Shooter pressed.
“You fought?” Easy asked, squinting his eyes and looking at the car parked across the lot. “With who? Over her?”
“Who is this girl, Caleb?” Shooter asked. “Because her license plate doesn’t say South Dakota. It says Colorado.”
“Holy shit!” Easy declared. “You’re right! I thought she was Sioux Falls. I thought she was your woman.”
“She’s not Sioux Falls,” Caleb began carefully. “She’s a bounty hunter from Denver. She’s looking for a guy, a murderer, who’s got connections to the Buzzards.” He watched Shooter’s face darken.
“Caleb,” he said quietly.
“I know,” Caleb replied.
“Jack Prior does not like people sniffing around his club. If he finds out, she’s as good as dead.”
