Silent Heart (The Vlasov Bratva #5)

Chapter 2 – Harley

A lazy afternoon floating on the lakes with good sunshine was exactly what my soul needed. While we lived on the upper lake, we’d already been down to the lower one, cutting through the channels that connected the three. Laney kept the pontoon at a steady crawl, puttering back from the middle lake. I still had my change of clothes in a waterproof bag in the back in case it was too late, and I needed the cousins to drop me off at the Landing for my closing shift. But for right now, it was just me and the girls.

There wouldn’t be many afternoons to sun and float this summer. So far, they hadn’t spoilt the excursion with any passive aggressive comments at my expense.

“You’re going to fry out here,” Kayla chided.

Tipping my head back and closing my eyes to the sun, I hummed under my breath. “I’d rather burn than rub that toxic crap over my skin.”

That was a sure way to set her off. I was the oldest granddaughter and second oldest grandchild. But Kayla—who married last autumn and was expecting her first baby this autumn—thought she knew better than the rest of us. She’d been that way since we were young, but it didn’t help she was a licensed nurse practitioner and therefore God’s gift to humanity.

The others whispered, and I felt their looks shift between us. Before Kayla could go off about skin cancer, Grace jumped upright on the bench seat, knocking into my bent knees.

“Someone bought the McTavish place!” she gasped.

I cracked my eyelids to see her pointing wildly at one of the biggest houses on the lakes. A chorus of excitement rushed through the girls, but I pulled my lip between my teeth. I already knew about the sale, having met two of the new owners when they brought the injured, malnourished hound Old Dick Ford was abusing to the animal clinic the other weekend.

A shiver rattled down my spine. The fact that Old Dick was found dead shortly after the incident, having choked on his own vomit, seemed like justice to me. I couldn’t shake the feeling that the timing was too perfect for that animal abuser to finally keel over. I was just glad the new neighbors took the mutt with them. The wife had been sweet, and I could overlook the tattooed brute of a husband, if it hadn’t been the cold look in his eye when I explained how the old farmer notoriously abused his animals. He scared me just a little; he wasn’t the kind of man I wanted to be on the bad side of.

“Her name is Elle, and his is Kash,” I offered, instantly sparking the curiosity in my cousins.

“How do you know?” Sarah asked.

“When did you meet them?” Susanna poked me.

“You were holding out on us!” Laney protested. “Grandma never said you’d met them!”

I chuckled. “They brought in a stray,” I lied. “Dr. Hoffner couldn’t come into the office, so I helped them. I cleaned the poor mutt’s cuts, got it some liquids, and they took it home.”

My cousins peppered me with questions, but I waved them off. “I don’t know much about the new owners except their names and that they’re from Chicago.”

Kayla huffed. “Big city people coming to play on the lake. They’re just like all the others, going to be too loud, pollute the natural resources, and speed on the roads.”

And bring money to the local businesses that thrive off tourism. I kept my mouth shut, gazing instead at the sprawling mansion. There were so many windows, the sunrises had to be absolutely stunning. For a moment, I tried to picture what it would be like, padding around in designer PJs and cooking food for my family in there.

They probably brought a chef.

Laney let out a hushed whisper. “Look, they’re down at the dock!”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re staring. Quit that.”

But I was too. Because those two men, one in a white tee and the other in black, were awfully familiar. Last night, they hadn’t been displaying as much skin, which meant I hadn’t had the chance to drool over their ink. I had a few tattoos—much to my straight-laced granny’s dismay. The thigh piece I was most proud of. But I wasn’t covered like them.

“They’re having trouble with their speedboat,” Sarah observed, stating the obvious.

Grace snorted. “City people.”

Kayla had the damn pontoon puttering right next to the no wake zone, which meant our voices probably carried to their dock.

Debating whether to force my cousin from the wheel so we didn’t embarrass ourselves or let her creep on by so I could gaze my fill, the decision was made when the two men looked up.

I was instantly held captive by a pair of stormy blue eyes. The ferocity in Kole’s unguarded gaze had my stomach doing a little flip. Remnants of the electricity from last night blazed through my veins.

A slow breath filled my lungs.

I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why this stranger affected me so strongly. Maybe it was the lack of social convention, the fact that he simply stared at me, unwavering in his focus. Guys—hell, most humans— didn’t do that. Only some of the more wild animals I treated ever watched me like this.

Lucas must have recognized me, because he began waving wildly. “Hey! Harley! How’s it going?”

The silent one slid a death glare toward his brother. I shivered for Lucas’s sake.

“How do they know you?” Susanna hissed, thankfully keeping her voice quiet.

I shrugged. “They came for dinner at the Landing last night.”

“You know everybody,” Sarah said enviously.

Kayla snorted. “Not hard when you work at the local watering hole where the rich lake folk think they’re normal by eating burgers from a basket, even though they aren’t fooling anyone.”

“Shut up, Kayla,” I snapped. “Just because I make more than you in one night of tips doesn’t give you the right to be nasty.”

Kayla sniffed, but I ignored my cousin because Lucas was shouting at me again.

“Do you know anything about small engines?” he called out.

“I do, as a matter of fact.” Pushing to my feet, I braced myself on the pontoon’s canopy frame. “For starters, that isn’t a small engine. There’s enough power in there to go on the ocean if you wanted.”

Lucas looked between me and the monster on the back of the boat. He shrugged. “Come take a look?”

“I’m not stopping to help them ,” Kayla sneered.

“Smart,” Susanna agreed.

“I’d love to!” I called, arching a brow and daring the girls to fight me on it.

“They don’t deserve our help,” Laney protested.

“She’s right, you have no business associating with their kind,” Kayla huffed. “I’m not going over there.”

“Harley, don’t you dare,” Grace warned as I weighed my options. “We don’t know those men and they look like thugs with all that ink.”

I glanced at my own tattoos. “It would be unneighborly not to.”

“The cidiots aren’t our neighbors,” Kayla snapped.

But I hopped onto the top of the padded bench seat, and as my cousins yelled at me not to jump from a moving boat, I dove. My tank top and cut-offs weighed me down, but I wasn’t quite bold enough to make the dive in my bikini. Green water surged around me, filled with little flecks and bubbles of lake stuff. It was a magical kingdom under here, the weeds swaying in friendly greeting, hiding their secrets on the murky bottom of the lake.

Moving my body in one tight, long wave, I swam through the water until the algae-coated dock leg came into view. Water blew out my nostrils as I surfaced. Clambering out of the lake was awkward as self-consciousness flared inside me.

A strong, ring-free hand shot out just as I began to slip.

I clasped him, prepared to use the contact as a balance to help climb the ladder. Instead, the silent brother simply lifted me from the water in one strong pull. Launching across the composite wood surface, I stumbled to find my footing on the dock.

“Thanks,” I gasped.

The man said nothing. But he didn’t release his hold on me. Not until I was steady, and then he still held on for five more heartbeats. Five overpowering moments where a raw current of energy sizzled between us. When he walked away, his fingers curled into a fist, but I couldn’t read his face to know what he was thinking.

Lucas swooped in front of me, a blistering smile filling my field of vision. “That was an impressive dive! You a swimmer?”

I blinked, suddenly dizzy from his focused attention. “Uh, yeah. I was on the competitive team and had a scholarship.”

“Cool! My wife is a swimmer as well. She would love it up here—can’t wait to bring her,” he rambled. “Anyhow, so the engine does this weird thing when we try to turn it over.”

“Let me take a look,” I said, tossing a quick look at my family.

The girls were stuck out there.

Laughing inwardly at Kayla’s attempt to turn the pontoon out in open water to angle it back this way, I moved to the big block, every nerve keenly aware of the stony mass looming by the panel they’d removed. With a flick of my hand, I gestured for Lucas to move into the speedboat.

“Crank the engine,” I commanded.

The quiet one stayed on the dock radiating an almost otherworldly intensity. From the corner of my eye, I studied the scrawling lines of art that shifted with the muscles underneath, tendons and veins straining under the surface. The skin that was visible wasn’t very tan. For a moment, I couldn’t decide if this man was a vampire or a gargoyle.

Maybe a mixture of both.

“Did you put gas in it?” I arched a brow at Lucas, ignoring the rush of heat in my body when the monstrous beast behind me made a sound that could have been laughter.

Lucas stammered a protest, saying he filled it up early this morning. I was already moving to the next panel. I popped the plastic piece off, instantly confirming my suspicion.

“The battery was left plugged in. It’s drained.”

“Idiot,” Kole muttered.

I smirked hard.

“But the engine whined and the dash lit,” Lucas protested.

“That’s the smaller, secondary battery.” Popping the battery out, I braced it on the side of the boat. “Do you have a charger up at the house?”

The men looked at one another.

“Probably?” Lucas offered with a shrug. “They left a lot of things in the garage.”

As I was about to offer to go back to the farm for ours, my cousin finally attempted to dock the pontoon—poorly. The big rig knocked into the dock and shook the structure. I shot Kayla a glare, but she shrugged. There was no respect for other people’s property—for lake people’s property. I wasn’t about to get into it with her in front of our neighbors.

“Hariet, aren’t you going to introduce us?” Grace’s smile was part sneer, part diversion.

I should’ve pushed her into the water for using my birth name. But then I would have to rescue her because she was the worst swimmer of all the girls.

“I’m Lucas, and this is my brother Kole,” the smiling one quipped, sitting backward and leaning against the captain’s chair.

Grace listed the five cousins in the pontoon, making sure to point out the two who were married into the family—Susanna and Laney—as opposed to the four of us connected by blood.

Lucas listened with polite attention, and I blessed him for tolerating the squawking hens.

“How do you know so much about engines?” A gravelly voice broke my concentration.

I wet my suddenly dry lips.

Turning to Kole, I lifted a shoulder. “Farm kid.”

He tipped his chin in a silent assessment.

Warmth bloomed over my skin. I was pretty sure my nipples were visible through the bikini padding and tank top. It was time to get out of here.

“Yeah, so just, um, charge the battery and the boat should work good as new. If not, don’t go to Marvin’s for repairs. Go to Bruce Larkin, he’s in town, but he will give you a fair deal,” I rattled off, moving lithely from their boat across the dock and onto the pontoon via the gate that Laney couldn’t seem to unstick from its frame.

I’m going to need to straighten those hinges again. Someone likely bent them the last time they took out the pontoon. Anger sparked through my veins. The other grandkids couldn’t respect our grandparents’ pride and joy, taking care of the nice pontoon they’d saved for years to purchase. It made me irrationally mad every time yet another part of the pontoon broke.

“Hariet, you didn’t have to swim,” Kayla chided, making her voice unnaturally high and playful. “I would have dropped you off. You’ll be all wet for your…job.”

“But you’re a really good swimmer,” Lucas said, coming to brace the pontoon as it kept shifting off the dock because the idiot girls couldn’t throw a rope over one of the hooks. “Don’t you think so, Kole?”

Kole nodded once.

“She can swim the whole lake,” Sarah piped in.

“You hear that, Kole? The whole lake.” Lucas’s eyes twinkled.

Sensing the oncoming mischief like a bad storm, I cleared my throat. “Yep, okay, so see ya around, neighbors.”

“My brother needs swimming lessons,” Lucas said as if he’d not heard me. “He’s a rotten swimmer.”

I couldn’t help it. I slid a look down the tight, muscled frame of the stony gargoyle. That body was not only familiar with the gym, but it likely did something more fluid. Like swimming or running.

Or lethal combat.

I shut that little voice up and cleared my throat. “There’s a lady in town who comes to the lake. She does kid classes, but I’m sure she’s available for private lessons.”

“But you used to be a swim instructor, Harley,” Susanna inserted helpfully.

“That was ages ago.” I rounded on her, giving her a sharp look to shut up.

The cousin dropped her gaze, but the other hens began clucking. My praises were sung and talents exaggerated.

“Would you have any availability to teach my big brother?” Lucas jerked his chin toward where Kole looked like a thunderstorm brewing in the middle of the dock.

I gulped. “Is that something you’d like, Kole?”

His gaze clashed with mine. A beat passed, then another. My pulse fluttered in my veins, but I didn’t shrink from the intensity of his stare.

“Swimming lessons would be great,” he finally managed to grind out.

“It’ll cost you,” Kayla sniffed.

I was going to kill her. Drown her! Hold her under the lake I loved so much until her lungs filled with the tinted water.

“Price is no object,” Lucas said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

Graced snorted.

That was it. I was going to drown her too.

“What’s your time worth, sweetheart?” I could have sworn Lucas’s question brought out a hushed snarl from his brother. And I wasn’t imagining his eyes darkening dangerously. It was like watching a wild animal that was cornered. I could sense how close he was to snapping.

So focused and in tune with Kole’s reaction, I didn’t answer the question.

“Ask him for fifty bucks an hour,” Laney whispered, not quietly, behind me.

She was next for a watery grave.

But as I looked into Kole’s eyes, I read a challenge. I could be brave and stand up for myself. That was what I was doing by sticking to my guns about advancing my career and going back to school this fall. Might as well show value for my worth right now too.

“A hundred bucks an hour,” I said, squaring my shoulder. “And I’m available from six in the morning till seven.”

“Done,” Kole agreed quickly.

Lucas chuckled softly. “You could have asked ten times that, and he would have paid.”

The older brother shot a fierce, terrible glare in Lucas’s direction. One that made me wince.

“Tomorrow at six?” I confirmed, distracting the gargoyle from pouncing and shredding his sibling.

That stormy blue gaze turned to me. His chin dipped in assent. “Tomorrow.”

In a flurry of goodbyes and nice-to-meet-yous, we pushed from the dock, and after a graceless attempt to turn, Kayla managed to navigate the pontoon backward from the dock and onto the lake.

The rest of the boat ride was spoiled with the hens pecking at me, cackling about the outrageous tendencies of the wealthy, and cautioning me to be careful alone with a man.

But as I gazed over the water, skin drying in the brilliant sun, I couldn’t help but feel that I would be more than safe with the stony, silent one. It was something in his eyes. Like my grandfather, I had a knack for reading animals. Oddly enough, those principles applied to this man more than to any human I ever met.