Chapter 6
STRYKER
By the time the last deputy cleared the front gate and Hawkeye confirmed the cameras and patrols were in place, it was nearly ten.
The ranch remained quiet beneath the surveillance net, but the silence no longer depended on luck, which meant I could finally get inside to the woman who had occupied too much of my attention even while I gave orders.
Hawkeye waited beside his motorcycle near the porch, his helmet beneath one arm and a pharmacy packet in the other, which he handed to me.
“Reaper sent something for Jacqueline’s side.
Prospect brought your bag. It’s in the spare room.
Judge also wanted me to remind you that moving into the heir’s house wasn’t part of the acquisition plan. ”
I glanced toward the kitchen window, where Jacqueline’s silhouette moved behind the thin curtain. “Tell Judge I’m still deciding where to bury him.”
“North ridge would interfere with the camera coverage.” He looked at the kitchen window, then at me. “You almost smiled twice tonight.”
“Must be the poor lighting.”
He grinned. “Sure. We’ll blame the moon.”
I sighed. “Go home, Hawkeye.”
He put on his helmet, still carrying that faint grin. “Call if there’s trouble.”
I nodded, then watched him ride out before climbing the porch steps. The growl of his engine faded into the hills while the men guarding the property disappeared so thoroughly into the dark that no one untrained would have known they were there.
Heading inside, I found Jacqueline at the stove with her braid pulled over one shoulder, stirring tomato soup while butter hissed around two grilled cheese sandwiches in an iron skillet. The sight hit with enough force to slow my steps.
She glanced over her shoulder, the strain of the day easing from her face as her gaze dropped to the packet in my hand. “What’s that?”
“Reaper sent something for your side.”
Her nose wrinkled. “It barely hurts.”
“It will tomorrow.”
“You sound annoyingly certain.”
I winked. “Usually am.”
Her smile grew before she turned back to the skillet, then she paused and twisted back around to look at me with a confused expression. “Reaper?”
“He’s a doctor,” I explained.
Her brows pulled together as she turned from the stove. “You call your doctor Reaper?”
“He earned it,” I assured her, struggling to remain deadpan.
“As in the Grim Reaper?” she asked, looking at the packet with enough suspicion that I couldn’t help the rough laugh that came out of me.
“We call him that because he fights the bastard off, baby. Not because he’s sending you to meet him.”
“Oh.” She turned back to the skillet, flipping the sandwiches with careful concentration. “Dinner isn’t impressive. I only bought enough groceries for a few days.”
I shrugged. “You made food. Good enough for me.”
“That’s your entire standard?” she asked, laughter warming her voice.
“For tonight, yeah.” I set the packet beside the sink and crossed toward her. “Anything you make is gonna be better than what I’d manage.”
Her eyes widened slightly. “You can run a company and a motorcycle club, but not make dinner?”
“I can make dinner.” I tugged gently on the end of her braid. “Didn’t say anyone should eat it.”
Her giggle was bright enough to pull at the corner of my mouth until a real smile appeared. She caught it, and pleasure lit her face before she looked back at the stove, pretending the sandwiches needed more attention than they did.
A glance around had that rare smile flattening.
I noticed the faucet dripping first, then the cabinet hanging loose, the dead smoke detector, the old outlets, and the stain near the ceiling.
But the repair list stayed in the back of my mind because the woman in front of me mattered more than another faulty hinge.
When she rose onto her toes to reach the bowls on the upper shelf, I stepped behind her before the stretch aggravated her ribs, closing one hand around her hip while I retrieved them with the other. She leaned against me for a moment, and my cock thickened with a hard, punishing throb.
“Thanks,” she whispered, turning her head enough that her cheek nearly brushed my chest.
“Anytime,” I promised, and meant it in more ways than she understood yet.
I plated the sandwiches and cut them diagonally while she ladled soup into bowls. Jacqueline stared at the neat triangles, then looked up at me with surprise softening those blue eyes. “My grandparents always cut them that way.”
“I remember.” The memory filled my voice with warmth. “Lottie knew they were one of my favorites, so they showed up a lot whenever I worked late.”
Her face gentled at her grandmother’s name. “That sounds like her.”
We sat at the scarred oak table while the house settled around us.
The meal was simple, but I’d eaten in places with expensive food and no warmth.
None of them had given me her bare affection for the people who raised her summers, the way she watched me for traces of the boy Otis had known, the sound of her laughter tucked into old walls.
“This is good,” I told her after the first bite.
She rolled her eyes. “The soup came from a can.”
“You didn’t burn it.”
“That is an insultingly low bar.”
I winked. “You cleared it.”
She laughed, and there was no point pretending I didn’t like the sound, especially when she lit up every time she pulled even a hint of humor from me.
The ranch had been the only place in my youth where the rules remained steady, and dinner appeared without being turned into a debt, but hearing Jacqueline’s laughter in the same kitchen shifted those memories toward something I hadn’t known I wanted.
The old refuge no longer felt like a place I’d lost with Otis.
It felt like the beginning of my future sat across the table from me.
While we ate, she told me about the land, and I was amazed how well she knew it. Things like which pasture flooded first, where the horses tested the fences, and how Otis hid cash in an empty bag of peas inside the shed freezer because burglars didn’t eat vegetables.
I nodded toward her half-finished dinner. “Tell me more about what you want to build here.”
Excitement pushed the grief from her face as she explained. When she mentioned a shed near the lower paddock that needed a new roof and reliable power, I told her the bones were strong.
Her spoon paused halfway to her mouth. “You’ve checked it?”
“I helped Otis reroof half of it when I was seventeen.”
“You worked here that long?”
“Yeah.”
“I knew Grandpa hired a local boy, and he mentioned a Rourke occasionally, but he never connected you to the Black Crowns or Black Castle.” Her brow puckered as she studied me. “He never called you Stryker.”
“Stubborn old man refused after I patched. Said my mother went through the trouble of naming me, and he wasn’t encouraging foolishness.”
Jacqueline giggled. “That also sounds like him.”
My eyes met hers across the table. “You call me Brogan.”
Her hand stilled on the spoon, and the moment stretched, quiet but not empty. “Brogan?”
“Yes.”
“Only here?” Her lashes lowered, then lifted again with shy courage.
“Anywhere.”
Her lips parted. “But everyone else calls you Stryker.”
“Everyone else isn’t you.” I held her gaze so she understood exactly what that meant.
She absorbed the distinction quietly, but her blush spread across her cheeks and down her throat.
Heat built low in my belly as I imagined that same mouth saying my name while she was beneath me, breathless and broken while her nails dug into my shoulders as my cock filled her slowly enough to make every thick inch count.
“How did you and Grandpa become so close?” she asked after a few bites.
“He hired me when I was fifteen and angry at most of the world.”
“That’s hard to imagine.”
I gave her a look, and she hid her smile behind her mug. The sass was soft, affectionate, and entirely aimed at me, which made me want to drag her across the table and kiss it off her mouth.
I kept the story brief because she didn’t need a dramatic life history. But I gave her the funny parts too—the blue roan stealing hats, the post-hole digger that criminal coyotes had apparently kidnaped, and the fence he insisted I rebuild three times when I kept trying to use a shortcut.
“Grandpa told me it was four,” Jacqueline quipped with a laugh.
I realized that each giggle she gave me eased another hard place I hadn’t realized the day had left behind.
Her smile faded around the edges. “I wish he’d told me more about you.”
“He probably figured we’d meet eventually.”
“He should be here for it.”
The last word cracked, and I was moving before she could turn toward the window and hide the tears.
I caught her wrist, brought her out of the chair, and lifted her sideways across my thighs.
One arm slid around my shoulders while the other gripped the front of my shirt, and I tucked her against my chest until her face pressed into the side of my neck.
She held herself rigid, fighting grief because she’d probably been doing too damn much of that alone. I stroked one palm down her back until the tension left her in a shuddering breath.
“I miss him,” she whispered.
“So do I.”
“You should’ve heard how he talked about you, Brogan,” she murmured, her fingers tightening in my shirt. “He was so proud.”
My hand stopped between her shoulder blades. Praise had never meant much to me, but hearing that from Otis’s granddaughter reached someplace medals, rank, money, and votes of confidence had never touched.
“Thanks.”
Her body softened completely after a while, but the comfort shifted when she moved, her ass dragging over the erection trapped behind my jeans.
She went still for half a heartbeat, then her fingers tightened instead of letting go, and I held her there long enough for both of us to understand what had changed before I set her back in her chair.
“Finish your dinner.”
Her mouth twitched through the remnants of grief. “You’re very bossy.”
“You’ll get used to it.”