Chapter 10
Bear
N o one was supposed to know I’d seen Roishin naked. Well , besides the people who needed to be told, and that didn’t include Kate and Zoe . Now that little tidbit would run through the telephone chain up to Jackson .
If Wolf hadn’t told him already.
Lay my ashes on the ground and put a stone marker down, I was screwed.
And Jackson’s plan to be “nice” to Roishin ?
That was backfiring on me something awful.
It took three hours of my morning to haggle with the shop keeper at the store.
I had no clue what Roishin needed, and that meant the clerk tried to sell me the damn store.
And was it worth it?
You ask me. That anemic hug she gave me wasn’t a thank you. Buying her affection hadn’t worked. And obviously we were not physically compatible because she skittered away from me like a frightened squirrel.
It didn’t matter that her hair smelled like macadamia nut cookies, and was softer than kitten fur, or that her eyes were pools of rich amber brown.
Now that everyone knew I’d seen her naked, I couldn’t get that image out of my head.
I’d look at her and it was easy to remember that luminous flesh.
A man had to be a saint not to want that.
Or give in to the maddening desire to wrap her hair in my fists and trap her close…
Don’t even get me started on her lips.
I wasn’t a fan of kissing. Most of the time I didn’t have to bother because the women who hung around the club were interested in one thing, your position.
And if they weren’t patch chasers, they were attracted by the motorcycle.
It didn’t matter if it was me or someone else, they just wanted to get that Milwaukee vibrator between their legs.
I was a means to an end, not a person to them.
But when Roishin stared up at me, I swore she saw me. Her lips parted, and I wanted to kiss that gasp. That desire must have risen to the surface.
Because I frightened her. I was a monster. First , by my act at Carl’s , and by assuming she’d be here long enough to need an altar. Then , letting my urge to devour her show on my face.
Gods , I was an idiot.
She’d seen right through me. How was I going to keep her?
It took everything I had not to grab her loose hair and pull it to my face again. I wanted to drink her down, eat her essence, and bathe in her softness.
And that was wrong. I’d pitched Jackson’s idea at her and didn’t get her full buy-in, then pushed her. What did that make me?
Worse than a monster. I was in danger of becoming the kind of man I hunted down.
And it was only day two. I had twenty-nine more to go. No matter what anyone thought of me, I wasn’t that strong. I wouldn’t last.
Kate and Zoe left after dinner. I don’t know how Roishin did it, but she managed to make the meager food in my refrigerator into a meal for four.
She wiped down the counter as I washed the last of the plates.
“ Thank you for dinner,” I said, trying to keep a wall of politeness between us. Maybe that would work?
“ You don’t have to thank me.”
No , I did. I told her as much. “ I should go grocery shopping.”
“ I noticed you have a lot of protein powders and shake ingredients.”
“ Yeah .” Hopefully , she hated that.
“ Are you… I mean, I can do the shopping and cook your meals if I know what you like, special dietary needs, and other preferences if you want?” She sucked in her lower lip and chewed on it nervously.
I frowned. She was being too accommodating. Was that out of fear? “ Did Carl make you do that?”
Her eyes widened. Then her expression flattened. “ It wasn’t that difficult.” Her glance away told me that there was a lot more to the story.
I put the towel in my hand down and curled onto one of my stools. It took an act of will to relax my fists. “ Let’s talk. Okay ?” Like adults. We were adults, cohabitating and learning how to get along. I didn’t have to capitulate to her. I just had to be polite and listen.
She mirrored my position, but was a lot less comfortable, so I started.
“ We’ll share household duties. I don’t expect you to do everything around here and I’m more than capable of cleaning up after myself.”
She glanced at my damp hands. “ Okay .”
“ And now that you’ve met Kate and Zoe , I guess I gotta tell you a bit to explain why they’re protected as much as they are.”
“ I gather Kate was in trouble with an ex,” Roishin said.
“ Yep . He was a fucking asshole. Now , Jackson ain’t much better as a human, but for his family? He’s … he loves Kate and Zoe with everything he’s got and will do anything to keep them safe. I think if something happened to one of them, he’d lose all touch with any good he’s got left inside.
“ So , I hope you understand why I’m asking that you stay away from them as much as possible unless I’m here.”
She studied me. “ Are you afraid I’ll screw up?”
Hell no. But maybe ? “ Don’t tell them anything about Carl . Not even if you’re all doing that girl sharing shit you do. He’s the one thing I’m going to demand you don’t mention.”
“ Why ?”
I took a deep breath. “ This is in confidence, okay? Kate would try to fight your battles. And that?” My head shook from side to side as I tried to find the words that would impress on Roishin how dangerous this was. But she cut me off.
“ Carl would use that against them and quite likely kill them, or use that information to get you or the club in trouble. I understand completely.”
She was a piece of work. Frail in stature, mighty in will.
Funny , but I hadn’t noticed how thin her wrists were or how delicately the little lines of her blood vessels peeked through her skin.
It all disappeared once she breathed or spoke, or simply stood.
Then she became a mighty goddess warrior.
A Valkyrie of sheer power. I was slowly becoming enthralled by her and wondered if she would be my doom or my salvation.
I quickly changed the subject back. “ Groceries . I usually spend about two hundred a week, but always seem to run out. Then I eat like shit. If you can figure out a way to make that work better, you’d be doing me a favor.”
We stuck to the safer topic of food for a while.
When that topic was exhausted, she stood up and stretched. “ May I get your help to move the table to the patio doors?”
“ Why ? It’ll block the exit.”
She hesitated. “ I want to let the items you bought bathe in the moonlight. Just for tonight.”
That’s all? She made her request seem like a Herculean task. I picked up the table, rocks and all, and put it in front of the sliding doors. Tonight’s moon was waxing toward full. In another week the light would be much brighter. But from what I knew, waxing was good for charging magic.
“ Roishin ? Don’t be afraid of me. Just ask when you need my help. I’ll do it.”
She swallowed.
Time to set her straight. “ We’re stuck with each other for a full month. You need to bend around my ways, sure, but I can do some bending, too. And I don’t have a problem with your practice.” Unlike fucking Carl .
“ You truly don’t?”
“ Do you perform blood sacrifices?”
“ No .”
“ Then I don’t have a problem with it.”
Her eyes searched mine for answers. As they did, I wondered if my favorite whiskey was darker or lighter than the center color in them. “ Are you really Irish ?”
“ Yes . With a little Scottish on my maternal grandmother’s side. And you?”
“ Norse .”
She laughed. “ You are about as Nordic as…”
“ Be nice. My father was as blond as you can get. My mother? Not so much. But I got my coloring and hair from her mother who was from Poland I guess. The whole family lives north of Pittsburgh .”
Since we were opening up, I asked, “ What about your parents? Where are they?”
Roishin clammed up.
“ Rose ?”
She glared at me.
“ Roishin ?”
The fire in her eyes dimmed slightly. “ They live in Franklin County .”
“ Do you see them often?” Sure , I was fishing. Aside from John and Beth , she hadn’t mentioned friends. And I needed to know who was going to be hammering on my door when Roishin didn’t surface for a month.
“ I haven’t talked to my parents in fourteen years.”
Holy shit. I did some quick math with what I knew about her and asked, “ What ? Were you twelve? The fuck?”
Her eyes fixed on me with unwavering strength. “ Yes . I was put in foster care with Beth’s family at twelve. Age fourteen, I was handed off to a different couple because, and I quote, ‘she’s a bad influence on Carl and Beth ’ end quote.”
“ So , you’re to blame for Carl ?”
“ No .”
Funny how one word can shut down a conversation.
I searched for something to fill the silence. “ Do you need a phone? Maybe check in with your friends again?” I could pick up a burner the next time I was out.
“ I’d appreciate that.”
I pulled out my personal phone and handed it to her. “ Go ahead.”
She stared at me as if I had two heads.
“ Seriously , call your friends. I want you checking in with them every day.”
The disbelief on her face disappeared. “ That way you won’t get blamed when I go missing, right?”
“ Something like that.” If that is what she wanted to believe about my motives, then it would be a good thing. I was the bad guy here. She’d never understand that I was trying to be nice.
I tried not to listen in as she spoke with John and ultimately Beth this time because he was at the hospital.
But I did catch that Carl had gone home, and wasn’t expected back today.
That information was good. In fact, if he made a habit of visiting, I’d have the skinny on his whereabouts.
There had to be a way to exploit that. Wolf would need to know.
Like before, she deleted the call log before handing my phone back. Now John had two phone numbers from me. And I still had none. But I had Hickey and Skinner . One request and I’d have the number in minutes.
Roishin didn’t need to know that. I planned to let her play those games for as long as she wanted.
“ Is your friend doing okay?”
“ As well as can be expected. We won’t know for a few weeks.”
“ What’s wrong with her?”
Roishin studied me. “ She has Non - Hodgkins’s lymphoma, and if your club brothers did their research, you’d know that already.”
“ Maybe .”
Roishin sighed at my non-answer. “ Listen , I’m tired. Do you mind if we save the inquisition until tomorrow?”
“ Is that what you think this is?”
“ Isn’t it? I mean, if I were in your shoes, I wouldn’t have been half as nice.”
“ I’m not nice.”
She stood up and fired over her shoulder, “ You are nice. All of this stuff you gave me is above and beyond nice. I don’t deserve it.”
“ Don’t .” She was being too hard on herself. And she was bossing me around. I didn’t like it.
“ What ? Don’t complain? Don’t caution you about spending money on me? I’ll be gone in a month.”
I shot back, “ That doesn’t mean you have to suffer like you did at Carl’s .”
She shut her mouth.
“ If I’m buying you shit, I’m buying it. And it will be the best shit I can afford. Got it?”
Her face ran through a bunch of expressions from anger to mutiny. Finally , she said, “ Fine . Buy what you want. Dress me, pamper me, I don’t care. It won’t work. Oh , and you forgot to buy me an athame.” After firing that parting shot, she beelined for her lair.
Once she disappeared into the basement, I did a quick search on my phone for what the hell she wanted.
A dagger .
Jackson’s words haunted me. She’d be the one who’d stick a knife in it. And I’d be the dumbass idiot who handed it to her. I stared at the table. There was an overhang that blocked the moonlight from one corner. I pushed the legs a few more inches to the right so the entire surface was illuminated.
She needed a knife. I’d seen those decorative letter openers at the store and dismissed them.
Why buy something cheap and store-bought that might hurt more than actually kill?
If I was gonna get stabbed in the back, I wanted it clean, sharp, and deadly.
I knew just the person to call for one of those.
“ Who is this and what the fuck you want?”
Fin was never friendly, but he’d gotten even more cantankerous over the years. “ It’s Bear . I need a knife.”
“ You know what to do, haul your ass down here and tell me what you want in person. I don’t take orders over the phone.”
Then he hung up on me.
Which was just fine. Fin might be the grumpy sort, but he made good steel.
And his wife, Betty Jo , was an expert judge of character.
She also worked magic with leather. If pretending Roishin was my woman was what it took to convince people that this wasn’t what Carl said it was, I’d do this the right way.
Poor Roishin didn’t know what she was in for.