Chapter 15 Skin in The Game
FIFTEEN
Skin in The Game
Hutch
Hutch spent his Sunday working his dogs, because the next week, he had the last of the owners coming into town to go through a week of training before the dogs went away.
He also spent it walking the entirety of his thirty acres to see if anyone had stolen any trees.
They had not.
He would have gone up to Stony bluff, but the camera he ordered yesterday morning to be overnighted from a camera shop in Spokane wouldn’t be there until tomorrow.
And he’d spent it in a short text conversation with Mabel.
Now, he had his guitar in his back cab and his eyes on the darkness of the south wood at Mabel’s place, scanning as he swung in at the front of her house.
The door opened before he could even put his hand on his own to get out and collect her, and he stilled completely as he watched her walk out.
She was wearing a dress.
A long black dress with little flowers on it and a full skirt that went down to her ankles.
It buttoned up the front, but those buttons didn’t start until mid-thigh, so as she walked, the skirt opened, showing she was wearing calf boots, along with exposing an eyeful of knee and the creamy skin of her thigh.
She had her ever-present scarf wrapped around her throat, her denim jacket on, the long strap of her tan leather bag crossed her torso, but although her hair was down—as usual—it was curled—not as usual.
And her makeup had been notched up from woman-on-the-go to woman-going-out.
His crotch got tight in his jeans.
Fucking hell.
She did that irresistible woman skip across the porch, down the steps and to the passenger side door, her skirt flowing out behind her, now giving him a show with both her legs.
She pulled herself in, plopped in the seat, her musky, flowery perfume filled his nostrils, she turned to him and breathed, “Hi,” through a smile.
This did not help the situation at his groin.
None of it did.
“Hey,” he replied, and fuck him, his voice was gruff.
“Good day?” she asked, thankfully seeming not to notice his tone.
“Yeah. You?”
She nodded even if her head was turned the other way so she could grab the seatbelt.
After he heard it click, he was about to put the truck into reverse, but he didn’t when her fingers curled around his forearm.
He felt her touch there like it was on his cock.
His plan was a good plan.
But it was a dangerous one.
He looked to her.
She took her hand from his arm. “Okay, I have something kinda awkward to tell you, so I want to get it out of the way before we take off.”
He felt his lats tighten, pulling his shoulders up.
“Those fucks mess with you again?” he demanded.
In her bright porch light, she appeared confused for a second, before she shook her head.
“No, nothing about that. I just…listen, you know I’m a girl.”
“Uh, yeah,” he grunted.
He knew that all too well.
Another of her bright smiles before it faded, and she said, “So, obviously, girls talk.”
Ah, hell.
She kept going.
“And I talked to Abigail today. And yeah, by talk, I mean gossiped. So you should know I know about Bree.”
His shoulders relaxed and he put the truck in reverse saying, “Everyone knows about Bree.”
“I just didn’t want to know with you, um…not knowing I know.”
She gave him that, put it out there right away, total honesty.
And he knew about her whole life from birth, and she didn’t know he knew.
He also wasn’t going to tell her.
Shit.
“Thanks, May,” he muttered after he hooked an arm around her seat to look behind them as he reversed, concentrating on what he was doing and unusually missing the shift of the feel of cab. “But Bree went all out not making it a secret.”
“I hate you went through that,” she said as he started them down her lane.
“It wasn’t much fun going through it.”
“Did she really text you a hundred times in a day?”
“Yup. And that didn’t happen on just one day.”
“Good God. Why didn’t you block her?”
“I did. But the messages still come in. You just don’t get them. If you unblock, you’ll see them all.”
“Oh,” she mumbled. “I didn’t know that.”
He swung a left on CR 10 and said nothing.
“Abigail says she comes into the store. Thus, I’ll now be wearing rubber bands on my wrists whenever I’m in the store, so I’ll snap them if she ever comes in when I’m there to remind me violence is not the answer.”
That almost made Hutch smile.
It didn’t, but he felt his lips quirk.
“She isn’t worth an assault charge,” he told her.
“I don’t know,” she replied, sounding half joking, half serious.
“Trust me, she isn’t,” he said to the half serious part.
“Did the restraining order work?”
“It was valid for six months. Saw the woman once, crossing Main when I was in my truck. Town that small, two years have passed, that’s all I’ve seen of her. Yeah, I think it worked.”
“Good,” she muttered. Then, “Listen, Abigail also said that Liam was all about the sanctuary this morning. I know you’re busy, but—”
“When and where and I’ll be there.”
“Saturday? Then everyone can come to mine and I’ll cook.
And by everyone, that invitation is extended to you.
Abigail thinks that if there’s a lot of activity at my place, comings and goings, my neighbors won’t see a single woman out in the boonies alone, but a single woman with a lot of friends who give a shit, and they won’t bother me anymore. ”
This was much the same plan as Hutch had, with some distinctions.
“It’s a good idea.” He added on to that so she’d feel safer in her home. “And she’s probably right.”
“If she is or isn’t, I love cooking. And it isn’t hard when you are to make the same thing, just healthier, so I can do something for you that you like, and it’ll be good, while I do something for them that they’ll like, but it might clog an artery.”
And that almost made him laugh.
The problem was, he had to concentrate on driving while his chest was squeezing with what she said, so he didn’t.
“I’m in for the tour and what comes after, Mabel. Just talk to Abigail and give me timings.”
“Okay.”
He swung them into The Link.
It was already crowded. Then again, when Lug got the word out that Hutch would be there, it usually was.
He found a parking space, and they both climbed out, he got his guitar, and they headed in.
Lug was at his spot behind the bar, and when he saw Hutch, he jerked up his chin, then his gaze turned curious and shifted to Mabel.
Hutch guided her directly to the bar.
“Yo, Hutch,” Lug greeted.
“Lug, this is Mabel.”
She offered a hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“Same,” Lug grunted when he shook it. “Like Hutch asked, got your seat reserved,” he told her. “Up front.”
She blinked at Lug then blinked at Hutch.
Hutch didn’t address it.
He asked her, “What do you want to drink?”
“Pale Ale,” she said.
Hutch turned to Lug. “Take it out of my tips.”
This was code, since Hutch didn’t get tips, nor did he get paid. He just played there on occasion because Hutch enjoyed playing and it brought people into his friend’s tiny bar.
What the code meant was, put it on my tab and catch you later.
Lug nodded.
“You don’t have to pay,” Mabel told him.
“If I did, then I wouldn’t,” he told her.
She studied him a while before she mumbled, “You might be the most interesting guy I know.”
That felt good.
“And the most annoying,” she finished.
Lug guffawed loudly as he handed her the beer.
Hutch shot him a look that didn’t wipe the smile off his face, then he took Mabel’s elbow and led her through what amounted to a crowd at The Link and deposited her in a chair to the left of the aisle that had a scrawled sign that said Reserved Scotch-taped to it.
He knew they all had eyes on him, on them.
He knew probably every person at that bar either knew him, and about Bree, or they’d heard about him (and Bree), and likely they knew Mabel was the first woman he’d been seen in public with outside Nadia, Lucinda, or Lillian.
Which was the plan.
Lars Enstrom had homed in on Mr. Flannery.
That meant he did his homework, decided his mark and went in for the kill.
Logically, that line could extend to Lars making it his business to know who was on his patch.
Hutch hadn’t had any trees felled. It was no secret what he did for a living, or what his career had been beforehand.
Whoever dropped that note saw him either come or go, but they might not have known who he was.
Enstrom would know.
If word got round that Hutch was hanging at the Art Center opening with Mabel and her friends, taking Mabel in her pretty dress and curled hair to The Link, and showing her and her friends around the sanctuary, she’d be claimed.
If Enstrom had it going on—and it would seem he did, building what he had on a possibly coerced inheritance, and keeping it for six years—knowing Hutch had claimed her, he wouldn’t get caught even looking at Mabel.
And if he was the leader, he’d make sure his men knew that too.
Make no mistake, Hutch knew this was a perilous game, because he knew he wanted her.
He knew he liked her. It was not lost on him that she was not like any woman he’d ever met, and he liked that too.
What he knew of her past, and what he’d lived in his own, she had no idea in some respect he’d trauma bonded with her. But he had.
And not least of all of this, he knew she was into him.
They’d connected through his music, and regardless of all the bickering and cross words (or maybe they were a result of it), that connection had never faded.
So he somehow had to juggle attaining his goal without wounding her, because he was playacting for the public, but he had to keep it friendly for just her since, in the end, it was going nowhere. And at the same time he was doing all of this, he was keeping her safe.
It was the most complicated, risky mission he’d ever been on.
But he’d survived others.
He’d best it.
Or he hoped like fuck he would.
He sat her in her seat then went to the stage.
By the time he took off his jacket, got his guitar out, strummed a few chords to be sure it was in tune, and he looked at her again, the bag, scarf and jacket were gone, and he saw her dress was sleeveless and had tiny little ruffles around the sleeve holes.
Shit, she was something.
And shit yeah, this was risky.
But he was going to go all out so she could live her life like she did yesterday, discussing caramel apples and ignoring her friend’s pointed looks and cheering a guy who was shooting hoops like she had skin in the game.
Yeah.
That was what he was gonna do.