3. The Fence Line
three
The Fence Line
Jax
I'm one fucking genius, if I do say so myself.
The thought comes as I circle the welding table slowly and lean down with my face a few inches from the metal. The weld has to look like a row of stacked silver dimes, or the whole goddamn piece is trash, and I'm glad it has all come together.
I lift the welding hood, the snap of plastic loud in the cavernous, grease-scented belly of the fabrication shop. Ozone, burnt argon, and the sharp, metallic tang of hot steel fill my nose as I lay the TIG torch down on the firebrick table.
The piece sits under the heavy shop lights, still radiating a faint, blue-orange heat. It's a custom-stretched hardtail frame kit and a hand-beaten steel oil tank I've been manipulating for three weeks, built specifically for Reed's twin-engine knucklehead project.
Reed is a previous member of the MC club and is now a brother. We've been through thick and thin together. The bastard has been riding a stock frame like a civilian, and his lower back has been paying the price since we turned thirty-five.
I run my left thumb along the underside of the main gusset, nodding in satisfaction with its smoothness and flawlessness. The penetration is deep enough to hold under three hundred pounds of vibrating iron, tearing down the state highway at ninety miles an hour.
Satisfied, I grab a greasy shop rag from the bench, wiping the grey industrial sludge from my forearms. I dig my phone out of my front pocket, the glass screen smeared with cutting oil, and hit the speed dial.
Reed answers on the second ring, the background noise loud with the high-pitched shriek of young kids screaming over breakfast.
"Tell me it's done, you grumpy bastard," Reed grunts, his voice low and gravelly.
"It's done," I say, tossing the rag back onto the bench.
I lean my hips against the heavy steel table, looking out through the open bay doors toward the salvage yard. "Stacked dimes, Reed. If you break this gusset, I'll personally throw you into the Gulf."
"Son of a bitch, I knew you'd finish it before the weekend," he lets out a low whistle, followed immediately by a sharp bark over his shoulder. "Hey! Put the syrup down! Don't look at your sister like that."
He sighs back into the line. "Listen, when are you bringing it over?
Bring it this morning. Lily's already got the skillet hot.
She's been up since six making biscuits and gravy, and she's been complaining for days that you're turning into a goddamn hermit out there by the water.
The kids keep asking why Uncle Jax is missing all the runs. "
"I'm busy, Reed. The salvage yard doesn't run itself, and I've got two freight containers of industrial scrap arriving from the docks by noon."
"Don't give me that corporate shithead routine, Jax. You're a biker who owns some dirt, not a suit-up motherfucker. Get your ass over here for breakfast."
"Yeah, yeah. Let me lock up the office, and I'll truck it over," I mutter, rubbing the back of my neck where the muscles are knotted tight. "Tell Lily to save me four biscuits, or I'm charging you extra for the chrome work."
"Get over here," he grunts and hangs up.
I shove the phone back into my pocket, a small smile tugging at the corner of my mouth before it vanishes. Family. It's a strange word for men like us, but Reed, Lily, and the rest of the men are the only anchors I've got left.
I turn toward the front gate, intending to walk over to the office to grab the keys to the flatbed, but the loud, metallic screech of the main chain-link gate cuts through the salt-heavy air.
The gate is supposed to be locked. The padlock is heavy, and nobody enters the Rowe Salvage yard without an invitation unless they're looking for a broken jaw.
I turn around, my jaw already clamping shut, my hand instinctively reaching for the heavy twelve-inch crescent wrench resting on the tool cart.
I'm already priming my throat to tell off whoever the hell thinks they can barge into my space without knocking, my boots striking the gravel with a heavy, aggressive rhythm.
However, the minute she steps through the opening, my entire world goes dead silent.
The wrench stays on the cart. My fingers open, my arms dropping to my sides as air forces out of my lungs in a whoosh. I go completely, utterly still, the gravel shifting beneath my boots one last time as I freeze in place.
Red hair. Blue eyes that don't flinch.
I know that hair. I know those eyes. God help me, I have spent every single second of the last weeks trying to get her out of my head, and I haven't been able to move an inch past it.
She's been living in the back of my eyelids since that motel room in Galveston, a slow, burning fever I couldn't sweat out no matter how many hours I spent behind a welding shield.
I don't do that. I don't carry people. I stopped doing that a long time ago. You lose enough things and you learn to travel light.
She didn't get the memo.
The first thing my brain processes is the sheer impossibility of her presence. What the hell is she doing standing in the middle of my gravel yard? She looks so completely out of place among the rusted engine blocks, the stacks of crushed industrial steel, and the oil-stained earth.
In the bright, unyielding Texas sun, her hair isn't just red, it's a goddamn wildfire.
It falls past her shoulders in loose, unruly waves that catch the coastal wind.
In the direct sunlight, it looks like it's literally burning; I know from the bar that in the low light, it turns dark and dangerous as red wine.
Her eyes are blue.
Not the soft kind. Not fragile. Not innocent.
The kind that notice things. The kind that makes you feel like they're reading past whatever story you're trying to tell before you've finished telling it.
For a second the salvage yard disappears.
I'm eight years old again, sitting behind the counter at the county clerk's office while my mother finishes paperwork after hours.
People trusted her immediately. Not because she was loud.
Not because she was charming. Because she looked at you like she already knew the truth and wasn't going to judge you for it.
Half the county thought it was intuition.
I always thought she simply paid attention better than the rest of us.
Standing in the middle of my salvage yard, Nora looks at me the same way.
Like she's already halfway through a conversation I haven't started yet.
I hate how much it unsettles me.
But her mouth is set in a hard, rigid line, those full lips pressed together until they're pale. And her eyes are doing it again. Same thing they did in that bar. Looking for the exit. Still carrying something heavy. Still not asking for help.
God, I recognize that.
High, sharp cheekbones frame a face that belongs in a painting.
She looks about five feet six, and she is shaped the way women are shaped when God is actually paying attention to the design.
She has a full chest, full hips, and a devastating curve from her waist to her thigh that makes me forget my name.
She's wearing a tailored white linen shirt and structured grey trousers today, and I wonder if she knows how the fabric clings to her frame.
She looks like she's analyzing the structural integrity of the ground beneath her feet, totally indifferent to the fact that she's the most stunning thing to ever cross the county line.
I look down at her hands as she stops ten feet away. They aren't soft. There's a dark smudge of pencil lead near her right knuckle that she must have missed when she washed up, and I can see the faint, hardened calluses at the base of her fingers that I wonder where they come from.
She comes to a dead stop when her eyes finally lock onto my face.
The transition is instantaneous. The analytical clarity in her blue eyes evaporates to be replaced by a sudden, violent jolt of pure shock.
Her mouth parts by a fraction of an inch, her chest heaving as she takes a sharp, ragged breath. Her face turns entirely pale before a dark, hot flush rises from the collar of her white shirt, spreading across her neck and into her cheeks.
She looks at my broad shoulders, tracks the heavy black ink stretching up my forearms, and stares at the thick, jagged ridge of silver scar tissue cutting through the skull tattoo on my left wrist.
The disbelief is written into every line of her posture, and I can tell she's caught completely off guard, and if I'm being honest, the exact same panic is ricocheting against my ribs like a loose piston.
"You," she whispers, the smoky rasp of her voice hitting my ears and sending a white-hot spark straight down my spine. It's the exact same voice from the bar, gravelly and low, but right now it's trembling.
I keep my hands flat against my thighs, my jaw tight enough to crack a tooth. "Me," I say, my voice a deep, rough growl that sounds like gravel scraping together under a boot. "What the hell are you doing on my land, sweetheart?"
She swallows hard, her chin lifting as she tries to force the shock out of her expression. She fails. She grips the heavy blue folder she's carrying against her chest like a shield, her knuckles turning white.
Like it's the only thing keeping her standing.
I know that grip. I've held tools the same way. When everything else is falling apart, you hold onto what's in your hands.
"I didn't… I didn't know you would be here," she says, her professional cadence fighting the tremor in her lungs. She takes two steps forward, her boots crunching into the gravel, forcing a cold, corporate mask over her features. "My name is Nora. Nora Beckett."
Beckett.
It sounds befitting, and I immediately surmised that she must be the neighbor's daughter behind the eastern fence.
I step forward, closing the distance between us until I can smell her. It's the same scent, wild clover crushed under heavy leather after a hard summer rain, sharp bitter orange, and clean skin. It fights the smell of motor oil in my shop and wins instantly.