Chapter 2
Magnum
The turtle was hanging out on the island in the middle of the lake on our favorite log when we heard a motorcycle in the distance.
We paid attention to the vibrations we could feel in the log, and determined it wasn’t one of our brothers’ bikes.
Or at least, not from the local chapter.
It was a Harley, which made it more meaningful, so we walked down the log, slid into the water, and began the swim across the lake.
The turtle lost some sensory input while swimming. We could hear when the bike turned off the road, but without the vibrations in our feet and belly, there was less information.
It took about a minute to make the two-hundred-yard swim, so the bike came into sight before we were across.
The turtle ducked underwater, changed into human form, and then I came up and swam the final fifteen yards to the dock.
The bike carried two people, and it looked like two men to me, but the turtle had pegged them as a man and a woman.
When the rider took her helmet off and freed her hair, I knew the turtle had been right, as it often is.
My human eyes could see more details at a distance than the turtle, and I analyzed what they’d done to make her look like a male. Heavy riding boots, men’s jeans, and a pro-riding shirt designed for summer, with hard-shelled elbows and shoulders.
But with the large leather gloves off, and the long blonde hair, it was clearly a woman.
And then she took the huge riding shirt off and handed it to Bud, who I recognized once his helmet was off — and my eyes went to the woman’s rack.
Built was an understatement. This woman had tits for days, not to mention a waist so slim the large jeans would’ve slid right off without a curvy fuckin’ ass to hold it up.
But then the clues added up in my head, and I stopped focusing on her ass and tits while she was leaned over unlacing the boots, because Bud had arrived without a heads-up, with a woman he’d brought here disguised as a man.
Didn’t take Sherlock-Holmes-level skills to deduce he’d brought her here in the hopes I could hide and protect her.
I gave a subtle, coded wave that asked if there was a problem, and he responded with one that said yes but it isn’t immediate. So, I could relax and not go into urgent defense mode, and I’d been right about his reasons for bringing her here.
Not the first time I’d been asked to hide someone, but I wasn’t looking forward to having to babysit a ditzy female who’d likely made a string of idiotic choices that’d put her in hot water with either LEO or a criminal organization.
Bud said something to the woman and then walked down the yard, meeting me halfway while the woman stayed put.
“I’m assuming you didn’t bring me a sexy little present out of the blue?” I asked, my voice soft enough the human wouldn’t hear but the wolf easily could.
Bud shook his head. “She’s Nickie’s friend.
The two have worked stories before, and they have each other’s backs.
Need you to casually get Mad Dog here, probably either Squatch or Dementor, but no more.
Nothing that makes it look terribly odd for them to come.
We’ll wait to tell her story until everyone’s here.
Meanwhile, we can hang out on the porch if you need to get some work done. ”
I frowned. “Stories? You brought an investigative reporter to my house?”
“Made her promise not to use anything she found out against the people helping keep her alive. My Nickie says she’s solid, and Storm’s scent was honest and sure when she made the promise. You’re welcome to make her vow to the same thing.”
Okay, so some trust had been set up. I’d wait until I heard the story to make any decisions. Meanwhile, it was already eighty-five and muggy, and the day hadn’t started yet. I wasn’t willing to invite her into my home yet, but I wasn’t going to ask them to sit outside, either.
“The boathouse has a/c. Ya’ll can hang out down there until I get Mad Dog here. I’ll walk ya’ll down and get you settled.”
She was already on the way to us when Bud turned to motion her to come, and I breathed in her scent to be certain she was human.
Turtles and wolves get different things from our sense of smell. We’re more susceptible to poisons and toxins, so we pick those up better, but wolves can sense other things better than us. A single sniff, however, left no doubt that this woman was human.
Had she fucked the wrong person and learned too much? It seemed the most likely, based on the tits fighting to escape a nearly soaked-through tiny shirt that ended long before the slim stomach began.
There had to be a reason why Bud wanted her to wait to tell her story, and I’d hold off on any decisions until I heard it, but I wasn’t inclined to want to jump on board just because she has a rack most men would worship.
- - - ? - - -
Storm
“Magnum, this is Storm. Storm, Magnum,” Bud said when I reached the men.
“Welcome,” Magnum told me, and I tried not to stare because up close, Magnum was beautiful in the most macho way possible. He also moved with a grace that reminded me more of the way a lion walks than a human. Heavy and light at the same time.
He wasn’t at all catlike, but he moved with the same kind of lethal fluidity one associates with feline apex predators.
But I’d come down to ask Bud a question, so I gave Magnum a friendly smile and asked Bud, “Can I get my toiletry duffel out of your bike? I don’t want my things to cook.
Plus, I’d really like to change out of these jeans into shorts.
” Because fuck, I might die of heat stroke if we didn’t go inside soon.
Bud handed me his keys, and I walked back to the bike to get my things.
I wasn’t sure who the jeans belonged to, but they weren’t mine, so I decided to shimmy out of them and step into a pair of loose shorts.
I kept the bike between me and the men, and no one could see me from the road.
It seemed safe enough, and it let me put the jeans into the compartment my toiletry duffel had come out of.
Less than five minutes later, we were in an air-conditioned boathouse party room, complete with seating areas, a bar, and a kitchen — and two bathrooms.
“I keep the a/c at seventy-five when no one’s down here, feel free to crank it down,” Magnum told us.
“Plenty of frozen party food in the freezer, but I don’t keep anything down here that’ll spoil.
You’re welcome to heat anything up you find.
Mad Dog’s on his way, and Squatch isn’t far behind.
I figure thirty minutes. I’ll just run up and get a shower and get dressed. ”
The southern accent was strong, but he was a good host. It upped my opinion of him a little, but mostly, my girly bits were still admiring the fuck out of this man who was sexier than anyone had a right to be, though the responsible parts of my brain were reminding me he was probably just as dangerous as the men who were after me.
He hadn’t earned the money for this place by being nice — of that, I was certain.
I wanted to get down to business, to tell Magnum the problem and see his reactions, but Bud had been clear on not talking about why we were here until he started the conversation.
- - - ? - - -
Magnum
The first thing I did once I made it to the house was watch the security cam feeds of their arrival, and listened to what they said to each other once the bike was shut off. I trust Bud, but I don’t know this woman, and all information is valuable.
Unfortunately, they didn’t talk once he killed the engine, which means Bud had probably said everything to her through the helmet mics before they arrived.
I fast-forwarded through the action and then froze the feed and rewound when she stripped out of the jeans, because she was wearing a crimson G-string that disappeared in the crack of her ass, and she had the most spankable ass I’ve ever seen.
Fuck me.
If this bitch was going to live here, we’d have to bring Giggles or another sweetbutt out twice a day for me to empty a load into — because I can’t be fucking someone I’m protecting.
Probably not the best to bring other people to the property for opsec, but damn, it was going to be hard to avoid that ass and those tits without another outlet. Also, I hadn’t agreed to house her and protect her. It wasn’t a given. At all.
And what kind of a name was Storm? Fuck.
My instincts were to protect her, but I’d learned the hard way not to trust those particular instincts. But the club sticks together, and Bud is the Prez in Atlanta. Plus, I didn’t think he’d bring trouble to my door without a damned good reason, so I’d hear them out.
I was tempted to look her up online, see what kind of reporter she is, but depending on what she’d stumbled onto, a search might draw unwanted attention, so I didn’t.
I showered, pulled my hair back, and dressed in a pair of loose black swim trunks. My brothers like to tell me bikers don’t wear shorts, but some of us motherfucking-well do when it’s damned hot outside.
When I made it back to the boathouse, Storm had found my binoculars and was sitting near the French doors, her knees bent with her feet in the chair, her arms propped on her legs, looking off in the direction of the eagles’ nest.
“So much wildlife,” she said without lowering the binoculars. “I’ve seen red-tailed hawks, an osprey, and I followed an eagle back to what I’m pretty sure is the nest — and fuck, it’s huge.”
“I tried to show her a fox,” Bud said, “but it was too fast. Gone before I could point it out.”
“The hawks mostly stay to the northeast,” I told them, “and the eagles to the southwest. They only occasionally have arguments over territory. The crows bug the shit out of both, and the ospreys ignore all of them so long as no one swoops in and grabs what they’re about to catch in the water.
There’s a heron who occasionally does that, and it pisses the ospreys off big time. ”
“Who needs TikTok when you have this in your backyard?” Storm asked, and my opinion of her rose a half degree.
I couldn’t help but argue with her, though. “I consider this the front yard, and the street-facing side the backyard.”
She glanced up at me with her brow furrowed, but then nodded and looked back into the binoculars.
“Yeah, okay. That makes sense. It’s all semantics anyway, so you get to define it however you want.
Man, what I wouldn’t give to have my super-duper telephoto lens with me.
One of the eagles just brought a fish back to the nest, and I think it’s possible he or she is feeding it to juveniles. ”
“Yes, second brood of the season. The fledglings aren’t usually this small, this late in the year, but they lost the first babies. I have a feeling it was the owls, but I didn’t see what happened to them.”
Bud looked toward the back wall, and then got up and left. When he opened the door, I heard Mad Dog’s bike in the distance. I’d have probably heard it before him if we were outside — I tend to hear low-pitched sounds over treble ones better than the wolves, but not from inside.
“I know Bud wants me to wait to talk about why we’re here,” she said, “but since this is your house, I’d like to thank you for… I dunno, considering helping me, I guess.”
“Haven’t done anything yet, other than let you hang out in my boathouse a little while,” I pointed out.
“Right. Well, thanks for the hospitality. If you help me, I’ll do what I can to thank you for it, whether that’s money, or helping out around the place, or a combination. I’m a decent cook and kind of an obsessive cleaner. There are worse people to have around.”
He didn’t say anything, and it was awkward, so I asked, “What kind of owls?”
“Great Horned in the middle of the lake, barred at the northernmost end. We don’t usually see the barred owls from here, but I often see the big guys.”
“Probably hear them, too. Super-noisy during mating season. The barred ones are too, come to think of it, but not quite as bad.”
“You seem to know an awful lot about birds,” I noted, hoping for an explanation.
“My grandmother was a birdwatcher, and I guess I picked up a lot from listening to her, but I enjoyed going out with her. It’s peaceful, just sitting in nature without talking or doing anything.”
And that gave her a few more points in her favor. Turtles like nothing more than to sit on a log and just be. Humans are rarely good at that in the modern day.