Wade #2
“Because you're acting like Frank's the scariest motherfucker walking the planet,” he pointed out.
“He is to me.” Those four words stopped him cold. Wade crossed the kitchen slowly, and Harlow watched him approach. He stopped on the opposite side of the island.
“Not anymore,” he said.
She swallowed. “You can't know that.”
“Yeah, I can,” Frank said.
“How?” she asked.
“Because now he's got to go through us.” Harlow stared at him, and Wade saw tears gather in her eyes. “Don't,” he warned.
She blinked over at him. “Don't what?”
“Don’t cry,” he said.
“I wasn't going to,” she lied.
“Bullshit,” he said.
She wiped angrily beneath one eye. “Maybe I'm tired and overwhelmed.”
“Probably,” he agreed. He felt the exact same way.
“And you're being weirdly nice,” she insisted.
Wade frowned. “Take that back.” She laughed through the tears—there, that was better. Wade liked her laughing. Hell, he liked it way too fucking much.
He stepped away from the island. “Eat, shower, and then we'll head to the clubhouse.”
“I don't have clothes,” she reminded.
“We'll stop somewhere and get you some,” he offered.
“With what money?” she asked. Wade looked at her, and she lifted her chin. “My father will have frozen my cards by now.”
“Then I'll pay,” he offered.
“No,” she quickly said. “I don't need you buying me clothes.”
“Unless you plan on showing up to the clubhouse wearing my shirt and nothing else, yeah, you do,” he insisted.
Her cheeks turned bright red, and Wade smiled. “Stop looking at my legs.”
“I wasn’t looking at your legs,” he lied.
“Liar,” she countered.
“Didn't say I hadn't looked before now, though.” Her mouth fell open, and Wade laughed as he returned to the stove before she could throw something at him.
“You're an asshole,” she hissed.
“You mentioned that before,” he reminded.
“I'm paying you back for the clothes,” she insisted.
“Fine,” he said.
“I’m paying you back for everything—the food too,” she said.
“Now you're pissing me off.” She laughed again.
Wade plated their breakfast and set hers in front of her.
For a few minutes, everything almost felt normal—too normal.
A woman sitting at his kitchen island wearing his shirt while he cooked her breakfast. Wade had never wanted this—he had never pictured it.
His house was where he came when he wanted quiet.
Wade's Watering Hole belonged to everyone else.
The Savage Bastards were his family, but this place?
This was his. Nobody invaded it. Nobody left shit on his bathroom counter or drank sugar disguised as coffee from his mugs.
Nobody slept in his bed—until Harlow. And the fucked-up part was that he didn't mind her being there.
Wade looked at her. She was eating bacon with one hand and holding her ridiculous coffee with the other. She caught him staring at her. “What?”
“Nothing,” he said.
“You keep doing that,” she breathed.
“Doing what?” he asked.
“Looking at me like you're trying to figure something out,” she pointed out.
Maybe he was. “What would I be figuring out?”
“I don't know.” Neither did he, and that was the fucking problem. His phone rang again, and Wade checked the screen. It was Butcher.
“What?” he answered.
Butcher didn't bother with a greeting. “We found the sedan.”
Wade straightened. “Where?”
“Two miles from your place.” His eyes went immediately to Harlow.
She seemed to notice the change in him. “What happened?”
“The sedan was empty,” Butcher said. “Driver's gone.”
Wade walked toward the window. “Did Ripper see anybody?”
“No,” Butcher said.
“Fuck,” Wade spat.
“Get her to the clubhouse now,” Butcher ordered. Wade stared through the blinds. His quiet street looked exactly the way it always did, which suddenly didn't mean shit.
“Yeah, will do,” he agreed.
“And Wade?” Butcher said.
“What?” Wade asked.
“Don't take your usual route,” his Prez ordered. The line went dead.
Harlow had stopped eating. “What is it?”
Wade set his phone down. “Change of plans.”
Fear flashed across her face, and he hated that fucking look. “What's wrong?”
“They found the car that was watching the bar,” he said, giving her the truth.
“And?” she asked.
“It's two miles away from here,” he said.
Her face drained of color, and Wade crossed the kitchen. “Hey.”
“They found me,” she whispered.
“We don't know that,” he insisted.
She stood abruptly. “I brought them here.”
“You didn't bring shit here,” he growled.
“They followed me,” she insisted.
“Then that's their mistake,” he said.
“You don't understand,” she started.
He was getting real fucking tired of those words. Wade stepped closer. “Then make me understand.”
“They don't stop until they get what they want,” she said.
“Neither do I,” he admitted.
“This isn't a bar fight,” she said.
“Never said it was,” he agreed.
“They'll hurt you,” she insisted. He saw the worry in her eyes, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about it.
Wade stared down at her. “Harlow, I'm a Savage Bastard.” She blinked at him, and he leaned slightly closer. “You think the name came from our fucking manners?” For a second, she just stared at him, and then a laugh escaped her. Wade smiled. “Go shower.”
“Bossy,” she grumbled.
“Move,” he ordered. “You have ten minutes to be ready.”
She started toward the hallway before stopping. “Wade?”
“Yeah?” he asked.
“Be careful.” Two simple words that were nothing special, except nobody told Wade to be careful. People usually assumed he didn't need it.
His chest tightened, and he nodded. “Always am.” She disappeared down the hall, and Wade waited until he heard the bedroom door close.
Then his smile vanished. He grabbed his gun from the kitchen counter and checked the magazine.
Frank had sent somebody to find Harlow. Maybe he had just ordered his men to watch her, or maybe he sent them for something worse, but it didn't matter.
The bastard had come too close to Wade's home and was too close to Harlow, and that changed things.
Wade slid the gun into the holster at his back and looked toward the hallway.
Butcher thought they were bringing Harlow to the clubhouse so the club could figure out what to do next, but Wade already knew what came next.
They were going to find Frank Donnelly and find out exactly what was in those files, and if Frank really was buying and selling women, Wade would make damn sure Harlow never had to run from the son of a bitch again because Frank had made one catastrophic mistake.
He'd scared a woman straight into Wade's path, and Wade had never been very good at giving back something he'd decided that he wanted to keep.
Wade hated shopping, but he had promised Harlow some new clothes so she didn’t have to wear his T-shirts anymore—not that he minded.
He hated crowded stores, hated fluorescent lights, hated standing around while people debated between two shirts that looked exactly the fucking same.
But mostly, he hated the fact that Harlow had been inside the store for almost twenty minutes while he stood outside his truck watching every vehicle that entered the parking lot.
She wasn’t alone. Butcher had sent Ripper with them, and the brother was currently inside pretending to shop while keeping an eye on her. Wade still didn’t like it.
He checked his phone, and there were no new messages from Butcher. “Fuck this.” He locked the truck and headed toward the store. The automatic doors slid open and cold air blasted him in the face. Wade immediately spotted Ripper leaning against a display near the front. “Where is she?”
Ripper smirked. “Missed her?”
“Fuck off,” Wade growled.
Ripper sighed. “She’s in the dressing room.”
“Why aren't you closer to her?” Wade demanded.
Ripper barked out his laugh. “Because following a woman into the dressing room tends to get a man arrested,” he said.
“Smart ass,” Wade breathed under his breath.
Ripper still heard him and grinned like an idiot.
Wade scanned the store. He saw no threats and no familiar faces.
Nobody was paying them too much attention, but he still couldn’t relax.
The abandoned sedan two miles from his house had changed things.
Somebody had been watching them, and whether they’d found Harlow or were simply trying to locate her didn't matter—they were too fucking close.
A few minutes later, Harlow emerged from the dressing room wearing jeans, sneakers, and a pale blue T-shirt.
Wade forgot what he was thinking. The wedding dress had made her beautiful.
His oversized club shirt had made her tempting.
But this outfit made her look normal—like a woman he might have met under completely different circumstances at a bar.
She could have been a woman he noticed across the bar and bought a drink for.
Hell, Harlow could have been a woman he took home because they both wanted the same thing—not because she was terrified and had nowhere else to go.
Her eyes met his, and she stopped. “What are you doing in here?”
“Waiting on you,” he said.
“I can see that,” she mumbled, rolling her eyes at him.
“You done yet?” he asked. Shit, every time he talked to her today, he sounded grumpy as hell. His nerves were on edge, but taking it out on Harlow was a shitty thing to do.
“No,” she said. Wade sighed, and Harlow narrowed her eyes at him. “You said I needed clothes.”
“You do,” he agreed. Honestly, he preferred her in his T-shirt, but if he was taking her into the clubhouse, she’d need to put on some damn clothes because there was no way he’d let his brothers see her in his shirt.
“Then stop rushing me,” she insisted.
“I'm not rushing you,” he countered, even though it was a lie. He couldn’t get her out of that mall fast enough.
“You look like you'd rather have dental surgery than be here,” she said.