Ghost (Black Crowns MC #3)

Chapter 1

TAMSIN

The minutes were ticking down to the fireworks display, so there was no time to spare as I walked through the launch area to verify every detail was exactly as it should be.

This was normal for me. The displays my family’s company dealt with contained multiple pounds of highly explosive chemical compositions that were capable of causing fatal blast injuries, so one mistake could lose us a whole lot more than our federal license.

And this veterans’ fundraiser, hosted by the Black Crowns MC, was bigger than usual.

Past the caution tape, the field had already filled in. More bodies on the safe side of the line meant less room for anybody to get sloppy on mine.

I put my boot against the nearest rack base and leaned. When it didn’t shift, I moved on.

Unused cable was still in a firing lane that was supposed to be empty by now. One of our guys walked past like he didn’t see it.

“Cable out of the lane,” I ordered. “Now.”

He glanced at the coil, then his gaze drifted over my shoulder instead, hunting for Len the way half the older crew still did when I gave an order. “I was just—”

“Out.”

I waited until the lane was clean before I pointed at a crate sitting six inches inside the restricted mark.

“That too. Other side of the paint.”

He muttered something under his breath as he hauled the box back where it belonged.

One of the radios attached to my belt crackled, and I half listened to the conversation between two crew members as I checked the spectator marks next. The crowd had crept close in a couple of spots, but the barricades we’d erected held them back.

Flipping to the launch diagram on my clipboard, I moved toward the racks. Cutting across the packed dirt toward the launch line, I was already counting tubes against the diagram when Len fell into step beside me.

He’d been with the company as long as I’d been alive. My childhood had been filled with shows he’d been in charge of, and he was the one who had walked me through my first inventory count.

“No need to worry,” he assured me. “I completed the final check of the launch racks and firing equipment myself.”

“I still need to—”

“You’ve got a lot of ground to cover today, Tamsin.” His hand hovered near my shoulder and dropped again. “Let me handle this section.”

His tone was almost paternal, which irritated me since I was the safety coordinator for this event. At times like this, I realized he still saw me as a child playing at authority, rather than the competent woman who knew what she was doing, in part because he had a hand in teaching me.

Huffing out a breath, I reminded myself that we were at a public event, so I needed to stay professional. Otherwise, I’d prove him right.

“Thanks. Radio me if anything comes up.”

“Will do.”

I turned away from the launch line and glanced over at the nearest barrier.

My heart raced when I spotted the irritatingly sexy biker leaning against it as though he didn’t have anything better to do.

He’d been keeping a close eye on me ever since I arrived, and it was darn irritating.

Flattering too, although I didn’t want to admit to that part.

Even if I hadn’t caught him staring, he would’ve been impossible to miss at six-three with shoulders that strained the seams of his black leather vest and a chest broad enough that his shirt was stretched taut.

His hair was almost black, cut short on the sides but messy on top, and his neatly trimmed beard was the same dark color.

His warm brown eyes seemed to track my every step.

If all that wasn’t enough to capture my attention, he had a large black-and-gray demonic skull inked on his throat, with red eyes, nose, and mouth that most people paused to gawk at.

But I shouldn’t have been one of them because I needed to focus on my job, not some man who’d caught my eye.

Even if it was completely out of the ordinary for me because I’d been too busy to worry about dating.

The fact that he kept shifting my focus away from my job made me want to throw the clipboard at his head. But I somehow managed to resist the urge. Barely.

When I moved to the temporary control station to read through the launch plan one last time, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that his boot was on the wrong side of the painted safety marker. Without looking up, I muttered, “You’re inside my exclusion line.”

“By three inches.”

My lips pressed together in a flat line before I pointed out, “Still inside.”

“Prez put me on site safety.”

“Stryker doesn’t hold the pyrotechnics license.” I finally looked up to glare at him. “Behind the line.”

His mouth curved into a grin that made me even more aware of how attractive he was, which only irritated me more. “You always this friendly to people trying to keep you alive?”

“I’m friendlier to people who follow directions.”

He looked entirely too entertained by that, but he did as I asked without questioning me further. Just far enough that his boot cleared the paint, but I was inordinately pleased that he didn’t challenge my authority.

His gaze dropped to the radios on my belt. “How many people are you talking to at once?”

“As many as the job needs.”

“Multitasking.” The grin edged wider. “Dangerous habit. You might miss something important.”

They hadn’t distracted me from him, not even a little bit. “Don’t you have security work to do?”

His gaze slid over me, slow enough to send a shiver of awareness down my spine. “Doing it.”

Before I could retort, the opening notes of the recorded display soundtrack rolled across the field. That was my cue, so I dragged my attention away from him and pulled one of the radios from my belt. “T-minus five minutes until the opening shell. Clear the blast radius.”

I felt his stare between my shoulder blades as I focused on the firing board. I ran the last checks before speaking into my radio again, “Board live.”

Len replied, “Launch area clear.”

Everything was in order. “Display authorized.”

As the crowd turned their attention toward the launch area beyond the southern drainage cut, I pressed the button that sent an electric current down the circuit to ignite the black powder lift charge, launching the first shells into the air.

They went in the order they were supposed to with clean climbs before red, gold, and white broke open over the canyon.

I focused on the firing panel as the crowd cheered, only looking away for a moment to peek at the biker by the barricade.

I was a little disappointed that his attention wasn’t still on me, but I couldn’t afford to think about how ridiculous that was in the middle of a show.

Although I did wonder why he wasn’t looking at the sky when the second barrage launched into the air.

My hand stayed near the emergency stop as I watched the next volley streak through the sky. But then the fourth ignition went a half beat too soon, and one of the supports on the rack tore free, tilting the tubes sideways. The muzzles were now aimed toward the meadow where the audience was sitting.

My palm slammed the emergency control to stop the firing sequence, but when I turned toward the firing line, I saw flame spitting from the tube.

Then the biker who’d held my attention all evening somehow got there in time to drive his boot into the steel frame, knocking the assembly toward the empty drainage wash just as the round launched.

It tore low across the dark before bursting beyond the far ridge, away from the crowd. The boom was loud enough to rattle most people, but I barely noticed it while I ran through emergency protocols in my head.

Luckily, we’d dampened the ground in that area ahead of the show to prevent stray sparks from igniting a ground fire.

It also helped keep the launch area cleaner and improve visibility for the crew members monitoring the site because the powerful downward blast of a heavy black powder lift charge could kick up clouds of dirt.

Unfortunately, the wet ground wouldn’t do any good to stop the fuse that was hissing inside the damaged rack. I lunged toward it, but the biker who’d saved the day lifted me off my feet and carried me backward.

“Put me down,” I demanded. “There’s another live shell in that tube.”

“Exactly why you’re moving.”

I tried to twist in his hold, but he was too strong.

“I know that system better than you do.”

“I know explosives better than you know me.” His glare when he set me behind the concrete barrier dared me to argue, but I was too busy wondering what he meant by that. Then he pointed one finger at the ground near my boots and demanded, “Stay.”