Stubborn Lockjaw (North Star Savages MC #18)

Chapter One

The guide truck handled like shit with a cracked windshield.

Lockjaw kept both hands on the wheel as he navigated the forest road toward Ely, squinting through the spiderweb of damage that turned every patch of sunlight into a starburst. Coldstart had fixed everything else—the sugar in the gas tank would've killed the engine inside a week if he hadn't caught it—but glass replacement was a two-day order, and the client needed her vehicle back now.

The client being the woman standing in Coldstart's service lot with her arms crossed and murder in her eyes.

He pulled into the gravel lot and killed the engine, taking a moment to assess the situation before stepping out.

Tamsin Rowe was cataloguing damage on a clipboard, moving around a canoe trailer that looked like someone had taken a crowbar to it with enthusiasm.

Dark hair cropped short. Shoulders that said she carried her own weight.

Hands that paused on the clipboard when she heard his boots hit gravel.

She looked up.

Brown eyes assessed him the way they'd assess terrain—calculating distance, threat level, escape routes. Her gaze caught on his cut, lingered on the Savage patch, and something in her expression shifted from wary to evaluating.

"You're the delivery driver?"

Her voice was flat. Not hostile, exactly, but not welcoming either. The kind of tone that said she'd had enough bullshit today and wasn't interested in adding to the pile.

"Lockjaw." He held out the keys. "Coldstart says the engine's clean. Sugar didn't make it past the filter."

"Small miracle." She took the keys without touching his hand, a deliberate distance that told him plenty about how her week had been going. "What do I owe for the rush job?"

"Coldstart said it's handled."

Her eyes narrowed. "I didn't ask for charity."

"Didn't say it was charity. Said it's handled." Lockjaw let his gaze drift to the canoe trailer, the deep gouges in the aluminum where someone had worked it over with serious intent. "That happen at the same time as the windshield?"

"Different day." She went back to her clipboard, checking boxes with sharp, angry strokes. "The windshield was Tuesday. The trailer was yesterday. The seats—" She gestured at the truck without looking up. "That was this morning."

Three incidents in four days.

Lockjaw's jaw clenched—the old habit, the tension that had given him his road name, the response his body defaulted to when his brain started calculating threat patterns.

"Someone's making a point."

"Someone's wasting their time." She finished the clipboard and tucked it under her arm. "I've got a business to run. They want me scared, they picked the wrong target."

Blunt. Direct. No tremor in her voice, no hesitation in her movements.

But her shoulders were tight, and her eyes kept drifting to the road behind him.

"Two men cornered me at the boat launch last week," she said, apparently deciding he'd earned the context. "Told me to move my guide routes. Said the water I've been paddling for four years suddenly belongs to someone else, and I should find new lakes if I want to keep breathing."

"What'd you tell them?"

"Where to shove their demands." A ghost of a smile, sharp and humorless. "They didn't appreciate the specifics."

Lockjaw almost smiled. Almost.

"You know who sent them?"

"Gordon Pruitt. Runs the fishing lodge on Lake Vermillion—the fancy one with the floatplanes and the clients who don't look like they're here for walleye.

" She met his eyes. "I've been guiding the Boundary Waters for four years.

My routes cross access points his people use for something that isn't fishing. He wants me gone."

"And you're not going."

"It's public water." Her chin lifted. "My grandmother taught me those routes. My mother paddled them before me. Some resort asshole doesn't get to tell me where I can and can't take clients."

Movement caught Lockjaw's eye.

Across the street, a mud-caked truck idled in the parking lot of a shuttered bait shop. Two men in the cab, watching the service lot with the patient attention of predators waiting for their moment.

The same truck he'd spotted yesterday near the compound.

"Friends of yours?" he asked, keeping his voice casual.

Tamsin followed his gaze. Her jaw tightened.

"They've been following me for three days. Different trucks, same energy. I assume Pruitt's keeping tabs."

"More than tabs." Lockjaw turned back to her, reading the fatigue beneath her defiance. Three incidents in four days. Surveillance. Escalating damage. "They're building a pattern. Testing how you respond, how fast you report, whether you've got backup."

"I don't have backup." The words came out harder than she probably intended. "I run a solo operation. It's just me."

"It doesn't have to be."

She stared at him.

Lockjaw wasn't sure why he said it. Wasn't his business.

Wasn't club business—not yet, anyway. But something about the way she stood there, alone against a threat she couldn't fight with a canoe paddle and stubbornness, made his chest tight in a way he hadn't felt since he'd walked away from the repo life.

"I'm going to follow you home," he said. "Check your property. Make sure they haven't escalated while you were here."

"I don't need a babysitter."

"Didn't say you did." He met her eyes, let her see he meant it. "But those men across the street are reporting your location right now. And whatever Pruitt's got planned, it's going to get worse before it gets better. You want to face that alone, that's your choice. But I'm offering."

Silence stretched between them.

Tamsin Rowe was the kind of woman who'd built her life on not needing anyone.

He could see it in the set of her jaw, the independence in every line of her body.

She'd left something behind—a marriage, maybe, or a life that didn't fit—and she'd carved out a place in the wilderness that belonged to her alone.

Accepting help probably felt like admitting defeat.

But she wasn't stupid. And the men across the street weren't going anywhere.

"Fine." The word came out like it cost her something. "But if you're expecting gratitude, you're going to be disappointed."

"Wasn't expecting anything."

"Good." She walked toward her truck, pausing at the driver's door to look back at him. "Try to keep up. The roads get rough past mile marker twelve."

Lockjaw watched her climb into the cab, watched the truck's engine turn over on the first try—Coldstart's work, reliable as always—and felt his jaw unclench just slightly.

The mud-caked truck across the street pulled out, following at a distance that said they thought they were being subtle.

They weren't.

Lockjaw mounted his bike, kicked the engine to life, and followed Tamsin Rowe into the Minnesota afternoon.

Behind them, the surveillance truck fell into line.

And somewhere in the back of his mind, a voice that sounded like his old dispatcher whispered that this was the kind of situation that went sideways fast.

He told it to shut up.

Some situations were worth the risk.