Craving Rose (The Aces' Sons) Read online

  “Ew.” I wrinkled my nose. “That’s disgustingly descriptive.”

  “And he’s all mine, ladies and gentlemen,” she said, waving her arm toward the ceiling like a game show host.

  “I want that,” I said with a sigh.

  “Don’t worry, Rosie,” she said, pulling her blanket up around her shoulders. “I promise, you’ll have a disgusting man of your own someday.”

  “Copper was disgusting,” I muttered as I closed my eyes.

  “Wrong kind of disgusting,” she mumbled back.

  Chapter 2

  Mack

  “Kara Louise MacKenzie, if you don’t get your ass moving, I’m leaving without you,” I called up the stairs as I stuffed my feet into my boots.

  Swear to God, that girl couldn’t get ready in time no matter how early I woke her. When she was little, watching her move around like a zombie in the morning had been cute, but the older she got, the less cute it was. If she made me late for work again, her ass was grounded for a week.

  Okay, she’d probably be grounded for a day. I wasn’t real good with the follow through, even though I knew I needed to be. It was hard to punish a kid who got good grades, treated others with respect, and smiled at me like I was a freaking superhero. My baby girl was a good kid, no matter how nuts she drove me.

  “Kara!” I yelled again as I shoved my wallet in my back pocket. “Let’s go!”

  “I’m coming,” she yelled, hopping down the stairs as she tried to push her feet into her sneakers. “I’m ready.”

  “Tie ’em,” I reminded her as she stumbled to a stop beside me. “You know the rules.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” she said, leaning over to finish putting on her shoes. “No shorts, no short sleeves, laces tied, no flip flops—”

  “We’re ridin’ the bike,” I said, cutting her off as I grabbed our helmets off the couch. “You had all winter to wear whatever shoes you wanted.”

  “I can’t wear flip flops in the winter,” she pointed out as she followed me toward the door. “My feet would get wet.”

  “You got a change of clothes in that backpack?” I asked as I locked up behind us. The sun was already shining, and I inhaled the scent of cut grass, enjoying that first whiff of fresh air.

  “Yeah,” she said, clearing the front steps in one jump, the backpack thumping hard against her back as she landed.

  “Then you can wear shorts and flip flops all day until I pick you up.”

  “I don’t know why I have to go to Trix’s,” she grumbled as she expertly tucked her hair back and shoved her helmet on. “I’m twelve. I don’t need a babysitter.”

  “We’ve had this conversation,” I replied, checking her chin strap, even though she’d buckled it herself about a thousand times. “If I’m gone for a few hours, you can stay home. Not when I’m gonna be gone all day.”

  “Everyone in my class stays home while their parents work,” she pointed out for the millionth time as I climbed on my bike and waited for her to climb on behind me. She had to practically yell so that I could hear her through the helmet. “I’m old enough to take care of myself.”

  I chuckled as I fired up the bike and let the pipes drown out her complaining. I laughed harder as she pinched me lightly on the side in annoyance.

  Maybe I was overprotective. Hell, I knew I was overprotective. I just didn’t give a shit. When your wife kills herself in a bathtub full of water, leaving your five year old to fend for herself for God knows how long before you got home from work, it changes your perspective. I knew Kara could fend for herself. She was smart and capable and she didn’t get into trouble. That didn’t mean that I was comfortable with her being alone all damn day.

  As we rode toward the compound, I felt Kara relax behind me. She looked a lot like her mother, she had her eyes and her smile and her dimples, but damn if she didn’t get her love of the open road from me. My little girl had always loved riding on the back of my bike, and there had been more than a few rough days when we’d spent hours cruising down back roads with no destination in sight.

  As we pulled up to Cam and Trix’s house on the property next to the compound, Trix came onto the porch to greet us.

  “Be good,” I told Kara as she climbed off the bike and pulled her helmet off. “I’ll be here around five to get ya.”

  “Sounds good,” she said, kissing the side of my helmet like she’d done since she was a toddler. “Love you.”

  “Love you back.”

  “Hey, thanks for letting her hang out,” I called as Kara bounded up the front steps.

  “She’s always welcome,” Trix replied, smiling at Kara. Then she looked at me. “The boys are always on their best behavior when she’s here, ’cause they’re trying to impress her.”

  I felt nausea pool in my gut and instantly regretted that Kara had already gone inside the house.

  “Your face!” Trix laughed, pointing at me. “I’m just fucking with you. The boys treat Kara like she’s their triplet. Plus, Charlie’s coming to hang out later, so they can ditch the boys.”

  “That ain’t funny,” I said, letting out a long breath.

  “Yeah, it was,” Trix replied. “I wish I would’ve taken a picture.”

  I flipped her off as I started the bike again and ignored her laughter as I turned around. Less than five minutes later, I was parked at the clubhouse and walking into the garage. The bays were already wide open, and a few of the guys were working, but most of them wouldn’t be in for a few hours yet. I didn’t blame them. I’d never been a morning person myself, especially before Kara was born. I’d party all night and start working while I was still buzzed the next day. Things were different now, though.

  If it was up to me, I’d start at five and be done by one so I could have the rest of the day to do whatever. Especially in the summer when Kara didn’t have a million school things going on. Unfortunately, Kara considered waking up at five complete torture, and if she didn’t get enough sleep, she was a monster, so we usually made it out the door a couple hours later.

  “Mornin’,” Trix’s husband Cam called as I pulled on a pair of coveralls. “Kara at our place today?”

  “Yep.” I nodded as he strode toward me. “Trix said Charlie’s goin’ over later.”

  Cam chuckled. “Gonna be a full house.”

  “Pretty sure you’ve got the room,” I said drily. After a house fire had completely wrecked their place years before, Cam and Trix had rebuilt bigger and nicer than they’d had before. The house was huge and gorgeous.

  “They’ll probably spend most of the day outside, anyway,” he said, sipping his coffee as I checked to make sure all of my tools were where I’d left them the night before. We didn’t have a problem with theft, the brothers didn’t steal from each other, but we damn sure had a problem with borrowing.

  “Good,” I said. “Thanks for letting her hang at your place. I hate leaving her at home all day.”

  “No worries,” Cam said easily. “Trix likes having a full house. Says it keeps the boys out of her hair.”

  “Still.” I shrugged. “That’s one more kid to keep track of.”

  Cam waved me off and walked away.

  I hadn’t grown up the way he had, with honorary aunts and uncles pitching in to help with the kids, no questions asked. I was glad that’s how Kara was being raised, though. When I was a kid, I’d started looking out for myself by the time I was seven. My parents didn’t have the cash for a sitter, and we didn’t have any family or friends that would’ve kept an eye on me for free.

  I could still remember the cold metal of the key pressing against my chest under my shirt all day at school. I’d been so afraid that I’d lose it and be locked out of the house that my mom had put it on a string and I’d worn it as a necklace for years.

  I didn’t want that shit for Kara. I never wanted her to be worried when or if I’d come home. I didn’t want her to be afraid every time she heard a car pull up outside because she didn’t know if it was me or some stranger. She�
��d gone through so much already that I was determined to make her life as normal and secure as possible.

  It took me a few hours to finish up the minivan I’d been working on, and by the time I’d parked it outside, I was dying for a cup of coffee and something to eat.

  “Hey, prospect,” I yelled at the scrawny kid picking up cigarette butts along the wall of the building. “Drive the Camry into my bay, yeah? I’ll be out in a minute.”

  I peeled my coveralls to my waist as I went inside the clubhouse, the heat of the day already making me sweat. When I got inside, there were a few brothers peppered throughout the room, and I waved as I moved past them to the bar, where a couple carafes of coffee were lined up.

  “Where’s that pretty lass of yours?” Old Poet asked as I grabbed myself a mug. “She didn’t come with ya today?”

  I shook my head. “She’s at Cam and Trix’s, hanging out with the boys.”

  “She’ll have them trippin’ all over themselves,” he said, grinning.

  “Don’t remind me,” I grumbled, holding back a groan as I got my first taste of coffee. Poet’s wife Amy always made the coffee at the club. I didn’t know what she did to it, but it tasted ten times better than the shit I made at home.

  “Well, you tell her that I’m still waiting on my cribbage rematch,” he said, pointing at me. “I still believe she cheated.”

  “I think she’s just good at it,” I replied, my lips twitching.

  “She definitely cheated,” he argued. “Just not sure how she did it.”

  “You sure you want a rematch?” I asked.

  “Hell, yes. I want to catch her.”

  I laughed at the disgust in his voice. The old timer was one of the scariest men I’d ever met—and I’d met some scary ones—but he was the biggest softy when it came to women and kids.

  “I’ll let her know you’re waiting on that rematch,” I said, lifting my cup in salute.

  “Do that,” he said with a nod. “You’re doin’ a good job with that one. Sweet as sugar and wily as a fox.”

  I agreed and filled up my coffee before walking back outside. There was a door that went straight from the clubhouse to the garage, but unless it was raining, I preferred to walk out the front door and around to the open bays. It gave me a few minutes to get some air before I was stuck inside with the smell of oil and grease clogging up my sinuses. Don’t get me wrong, I loved what I did and I was damn good at it—I’d been working on engines since I was tall enough to see under the hood—but the smell was overpowering, especially when the weather was warm and there was no cross breeze.

  “Camry’s inside,” the prospect called as I passed him. “Keys are on the seat.”

  “Thanks, man,” I replied. Some of the guys treated the prospects like shit, but I didn’t. A little hazing went a long way, and they were already doing the shittiest jobs imaginable—sometimes literally. I remembered how it felt to be at the bottom of the pecking order all too well, and I wasn’t going to make it even more miserable for the poor fucks.

  I finished my coffee quickly and rolled under the Camry, and almost instantly, I was covered in black sludge.

  “Fuck,” I muttered, reaching up to try and find the leak. I was going to be pissed as hell if it got into my eyes, but I didn’t want to stop to find some safety glasses and lose my chance to find out where the shit was coming from. By the time I was finished a few hours later, I was covered in grease and oil. It was everywhere. My hair, beard, I could even feel it in my fucking ears.

  “Jesus, what happened to you?” Casper asked as I peeled off my coveralls and left them in a pile.

  “That fuckin’ piece of shit,” I mumbled, pointing at the Camry. “I don’t even know how they managed to drive it here.”

  “People are idiots,” he replied easily.

  “No kidding.” I made my way back into the clubhouse and went straight to my room, peeling off my white tank top and unbuckling my belt as I went. I needed a shower, pronto. Thankfully, I always kept a few spare sets of clothes for me and Kara at the club. They’d come in handy more than a few times over the years.

  My room didn’t have a bathroom connected, so I stripped down to my boxers and grabbed a towel, leaving all my shit on the floor as I left the room. There usually weren’t too many people around in the middle of the afternoon, and it wasn’t as if I had anything they hadn’t seen before.

  The hot water was fucking terrific, and I stayed in the shower longer than I usually would have. By the time I was done, my fingers were pruning up and I was pretty sure I was done for the day. I was still a couple hours short, but I didn’t mind making it up later.

  Walking back to my room in my towel, I could make out women’s voices in the main room of the club, but since my hearing was pretty much shot, I couldn’t decipher who it was. Hopefully, Kara had come over with Trix if the women were congregating. It would save me a trip over to their place. Maybe my girl would want to grab some suits and head to the swimming hole. It was still early enough to get a couple hours of swimming in before it started to cool off outside.

  I wasn’t paying attention as I got dressed, because I was too preoccupied with thoughts of the damn river, and I almost ate shit when I slid my foot into my boot and straight into a gooey, wet, mess.

  “What the fuck?” I pulled my boot back off and stared uncomprehendingly inside. It was filled with something thick and yellow. I glanced at the door that I’d left open while I’d showered, lifting the boot closer to my face.

  There was almost an inch-deep layer of tapioca pudding in my goddamn boot. Why was there tapioca pudding in my goddamn boot? Reaching for my other boot, I cursed. It was full of the shit, too.

  My blood was boiling as I grabbed both boots and stomped in my socks toward the main room of the club. I kept slipping every time my tapioca sock made contact with the cement floor, which just pissed me off more. I didn’t know who thought it would be funny to fuck with my perfectly-worn-in-and-comfortable-as-hell-boots, but there was going to be hell to pay when I figured it out.

  Poet barely even looked at me when I passed, him, but pointed toward the front door while he tried to hold back laughter. Yeah, I was pretty sure I looked hilarious walking around in my socks, one of them visibly slimy and gross and with a hole at the end where you could see my big toe.

  When I hit the forecourt, I came to an abrupt halt and my mouth dropped open in surprise as comprehension dawned. No fucking way.

  Rose.

  “Payback’s a bitch!” she called merrily, hanging out the driver’s side window of her SUV. “Now, we’re even.”

  She yelped in surprise and scrambled back in the window as I started jogging toward her. But before I could reach the car, she was already pulling away, spitting gravel as she fled.

  “Man,” Will said, watching the whole thing unfold from one of the garage bays. “I told you she’d get ya back. What’d she do?”

  “She put fucking pudding in my boots,” I growled back, dropping them onto the gravel.

  Will’s head jerked as his eyes widened. “Seriously? You musta really pissed her off.”

  “I put her ass in the kiddie pool during a fucking water fight,” I snapped back. “And that was after she’d sprayed me with water.”

  His lips twitched and he rubbed his hand over his mouth, trying to hide his smile. “My baby sister has never done anything halfway in her life.” He paused. “It’s good to see her back at it. She’s been moping around for a month.”

  “She coulda picked a better way to show everyone she’s done moonin’ over Copper’s idiot ass,” I bitched, peeling off my socks. “She took it too fuckin’ far.”

  “Pudding in your boots is nothin’,” he replied in surprise. “Have you even checked your bike yet?”

  “Sonofabitch,” I yelled, running as best I could toward the row of bikes parked along the building. I must have looked like a complete idiot as I jerked and swayed, the gravel biting into the soles of my feet.

  I ignor
ed Will’s laughter as I checked my bike over, making sure she hadn’t scratched anything or taken anything out of my saddlebags. I knew she wouldn’t have messed with the tires or anything else that could get someone hurt, but everything else was fair game. When I reached into my saddlebag, I found an envelope that I hadn’t put there and pulled it out.

  You needed new ones anyway was scrawled across the front. Inside was a gift certificate worth a grip to the shop where most of us bought our leathers and had them repaired.

  “Well, shit,” I murmured, my anger dissolving instantly.

  * * *

  “Seriously, Dad,” Kara asked me that night as I grabbed a box of rubber gloves off the shelf. “What the heck are we buying all of this for?”

  “Sometimes, baby, you have to fight fire with fire,” I replied distractedly.

  “Okay, now you really need to clarify,” she said, skipping to catch up with me as I headed to the front of the store.

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  She scoffed.

  I had no idea how to give Rose back the gift certificate she’d left on my bike. She and I had never been close, but even I knew that she was crazy stubborn. Problem was, I just couldn’t accept it. She was right—it was time for new boots, anyway. I just hadn’t gotten around to buying any because it took a long ass time to wear them in to the point that they were actually comfortable, so I’d been lazy about making the change.

  Right now, I was on a different mission. Her gift didn’t change the fact that she’d put pudding in my boots. Luckily, I’d had a pair of flip flops at the club for when I took Kara swimming, so I hadn’t had to ride home barefoot—but I may as well have. It wasn’t a big deal to me, but I’d had to listen to Kara bitch for the last thirty minutes about how I didn’t let her wear open toed shoes on the bike. That thirty minutes of whining had cemented the retribution that I was planning for Rose.

  Plain and simple, she shouldn’t have escalated shit. I wasn’t one of her brothers that tucked his tail between his legs when she got a little crazy for fear that the next prank would be far worse. Fuck that. I could take anything she threw at me and send it right back.