Hatchet's Hunt (Route 66 Outlaws MC #5)

Chapter 1

The Remington's bolt slid home with the quiet snick of precision engineering, and Hatchet allowed himself a small nod of satisfaction.

His left hand trembled as he reached for the next rifle.

The nerve damage was worse today—something about the barometric pressure, maybe, or just his body reminding him that shrapnel didn't care about Bronze Stars or service records.

He couldn't hold a rifle steady anymore.

Couldn't be the shooter he'd been trained to be.

But he could keep every weapon in this armory running like a Swiss watch, and that was enough. It had to be enough.

The armory door banged open. Tornado filled the frame, all six-two of rancher's shoulders and calculating eyes.

"Got a call from a ranch outside Canyon. Farrier working the Hendricks spread says she's got trouble."

Hatchet set down his cleaning rod. "What kind of trouble?"

"The kind that drives a truck with Pryce's brand on the door."

That name landed like a stone in still water. Harlan Pryce—old Panhandle money with dirty hands and a corridor of ranchland he was building through intimidation and worse. The club had been watching his operation for months, waiting for him to step far enough over the line to justify a response.

"She call the law?"

Tornado's mouth curved without humor. "She called us. Said she shoes horses for three ranches under our protection and figured that made her adjacent."

"Smart woman."

"Or desperate one. Either way, she's ours to handle." Tornado jerked his chin toward the door. "Ride out. See what Pryce's boys want with a farrier."

Hatchet was already reaching for his cut.

The Hendricks ranch sat thirty miles east of Canyon, at the end of a dirt road that hadn't seen a grader since the Bush administration. Hatchet pushed his bike hard across the washboard surface, eating dust and watching the horizon for the telltale glint of chrome that meant company.

He found it a quarter mile from the ranch house.

A white pickup with the Pryce brand on the door sat parked at an angle across the drive, blocking a battered Ford with a portable forge mounted in the bed.

Three men stood in the red dirt between the vehicles.

Two of them had a woman pinned against the Ford's tailgate, each holding one of her arms while she thrashed and cursed.

The third man was methodically throwing her tools into the dirt.

Hatchet killed his engine fifty yards out and drew his pistol in one smooth motion.

His right hand—his firing hand, the one the Army had trained and the shrapnel had ruined—stayed on the handlebar.

His left came up steady, compensating for the tremor the way he'd taught himself through thousands of hours of practice.

The man scattering tools looked up at the sound of the bike. Hatchet put a round through the Pryce truck's radiator before the asshole could open his mouth.

The crack of the shot echoed across the open ground. Steam erupted from the truck's grille in a white plume, and all three men froze like deer in headlights.

"Let her go."

His voice carried flat across the distance. No shouting, no threats. Just a statement of fact from a man holding a pistol that had already proven it could hit what it aimed at.

The two men holding the woman exchanged a look. The one scattering tools—big, confident, with the rolling gait of someone used to handling livestock—took a step forward.

"This ain't your business, biker. We're having a conversation with the lady about her client list."

"Conversation's over."

The woman moved.

She wrenched her right arm free while her captors were still processing the change in circumstances, dropped low, and came up with a farrier's rasp from the scattered tools at her feet.

The rasp cracked across the nearest man's jaw with a sound like a baseball bat hitting a side of beef, and he went down spitting blood and teeth.

Hatchet felt something shift in his chest. Something like respect.

The big man—had to be Munn, Pryce's head enforcer, based on the club's intel—grabbed for the woman, but she was already moving, putting the Ford's tailgate between them.

The second captor stumbled back, hands raised, suddenly very aware that his partner was down and the biker hadn't lowered his pistol.

"Travis." Munn's voice was tight. "We're leaving."

"But—"

"Now."

They loaded their bleeding friend into the damaged truck, steam still hissing from the radiator. Munn held Hatchet's gaze as he climbed into the driver's seat—a long, measuring look that promised this wasn't over.

Hatchet held his aim until the truck disappeared over the ridge, trailing fluid and fury.

Then he holstered his weapon and walked toward the woman.

She was already on her knees in the dirt, gathering her tools.

Hatchet crouched beside her without speaking.

Up close, she was smaller than he'd expected—five-five, maybe, with callused hands and arms that showed the kind of lean muscle you got from holding twelve-hundred-pound animals still.

Brown hair pulled back in a practical ponytail, dirt smudged across one cheekbone, eyes the color of good whiskey.

Those eyes flicked up to meet his, and he saw fire in them. Not fear. Not gratitude. Just banked heat and the stubborn refusal to break.

"You the one Tornado sent?"

"Hatchet." He picked up a hoof knife from the dirt, examined it for damage, and handed it to her. "Route 66 Outlaws."

"Caroline Jessup." She took the knife, checked the edge with her thumb, and tucked it into the leather roll spread beside her. "I shoe horses."

"I figured, from the forge."

Her mouth twitched—not quite a smile, but close. "Most men would've led with 'are you okay.'"

"You cracked a man's jaw with a rasp. I figured you'd tell me if you weren't."

This time she did smile, quick and sharp. "Fair enough."

They worked in silence for a few minutes, collecting her scattered equipment.

Hatchet found himself cataloging the tools the way he cataloged weapons—hammer, nippers, rasp, hoof knife, clinch cutter, pritchel.

Each one hand-forged or hand-selected, worn smooth with use.

A farrier's kit was her arsenal, and Pryce's men had thrown it in the dirt like garbage.

"They wanted your client list," he said.

"They wanted me to stop working the ranches that won't sell to Pryce." Caroline's voice was steady, but her hands moved faster, almost angry. "I've lost six clients in three weeks. Ranchers who've used me for years suddenly won't return my calls."

"Pressure from Pryce?"

"Has to be. The ones who talk say they got visits. Suggestions about which contractors to use and which to drop." She sat back on her heels, surveying the recovered tools. "I'm not a contractor, though. I'm just a woman who shoes horses. I didn't think I was worth threatening."

"You're worth something to Pryce, or he wouldn't have sent three men."

Her eyes met his again. That whiskey-gold stare, measuring him the way he imagined she measured a horse's stance before she picked up its hoof.

"What are you worth to your club?"

"I'm the armorer. I keep the guns running."

"That's what you do." She rose to her feet, dusting off her jeans. "I asked what you're worth."

Nobody had ever asked him that before. Not like that—direct, unblinking, like the answer mattered.

"I'm the man who makes sure my brothers ride out armed and ride home alive." He stood, holding her gaze. "That's what I'm worth."

She nodded slowly. "I keep horses sound so they can work. Same principle."

"Same principle."

The wind gusted between them, carrying dust and the smell of sage. Caroline looked at her truck, at the forge in the bed, at the tools now safely gathered in her leather roll.

"My tires are slashed," she said. "Munn's crew did it this morning, before I even started working. They wanted me stranded when they came back."

Hatchet walked to the Ford and crouched beside the rear wheel. Two tires on each side, all four cut to the rim. Professional job—deep slashes that couldn't be patched.

"You have spares?"

"One. In the bed, under the forge equipment."

"Then you're still stranded."

"I know." She crossed her arms, chin lifting. "I'm not leaving my truck. My tools, my forge—they're everything I have."

"I'm not asking you to leave them." He pulled out his phone. "I'm calling for a tow. Club's got a garage that can handle your rig."

"And me?"

He looked at her—this woman who'd been held down by two men and come up swinging, who talked about her tools like they were sacred, who met his eyes like she had nothing to apologize for and nothing to hide.

"You're under club protection now. That means you come with the truck."

"I didn't ask for protection."

"You called Tornado."

"I called for help. There's a difference."

Hatchet felt that shift in his chest again. Respect, yeah. But something else too. Something that had been quiet for a long time, stirring awake.

"There isn't," he said. "Not with us. You called, we answered. That makes you ours to protect until this is finished."

Her eyes narrowed. "I don't belong to anyone."

"Didn't say you did." He held her gaze, steady as a rifle sight. "Said you were ours to protect. Different thing."

She stared at him for a long moment. He could see her weighing it—the pride that wanted to refuse, the practicality that knew she was outgunned and outnumbered, the fire that hadn't stopped burning even when Munn's men had her pinned.

"Fine," she said finally. "But I'm not some damsel. I work for my keep, wherever I am."

"Wouldn't expect anything else."

He made the call to Striker, arranged the tow, gave the coordinates. Caroline watched him with those whiskey eyes, arms still crossed, spine still straight.

When he hung up, she was kneeling again, picking up the last of her scattered tools. A set of horseshoe nails had spilled across the dirt, tiny and glinting in the afternoon sun.

Hatchet knelt beside her and started gathering them one by one.

She didn't tell him to stop. Didn't tell him she could handle it herself. Just worked beside him in silence, their fingers occasionally brushing as they reached for the same nail, until every last piece of her scattered life was back where it belonged.

The wind kept blowing. The dust kept swirling. And somewhere over the ridge, Travis Munn was reporting to Harlan Pryce that the farrier had friends with guns and no interest in backing down.

The war was just getting started.