Who Do You Love (Rock Royalty Book 7) Page 18

  “I’m going to have a look around, okay? Just to make sure there aren’t any other unexpected guests on the premises.”

  What he needed to make sure was that he didn’t drop to his knees and enfold his arms around her small body. If he didn’t get a hold of himself he’d wrap a chain around the two of them to guarantee she was always safe and never scared—or scarred.

  Which showed how fucking upended his world remained. He knew too well that he had no such assurances to offer.

  With a final pat to her shoulder, he left to take a quick tour of the property.

  The solitary expedition gave his heartbeat an opportunity to slow. Breathing deep and easy, he made his way from the orchard around to the back side of the Colson house. Standing in the shade of a tree, foliage full and spring-green, he paused, looking through the rear windows.

  Was that movement inside the house?

  He supposed one of the women could be in there, but the shape seemed too tall, too…masculine.

  Creeping closer, he kept to shadows. Then, his back plastered to the stucco wall, he peered through a pane of a mullioned French door. A man, yet another stranger, stood beside an immense animal form—the Cape buffalo—his back to Eamon.

  Rage didn’t infuse his bloodstream this time, but ice. His skin chilled as he thought of the seven women nearby, innocent of the snake in their midst.

  Keeping his breath steady, Eamon tested the door. Not locked. Good.

  On the mental count of three, he turned, shoved open the door and leaped inside. “Hold it right there.”

  The stranger whirled. “What the fuck?”

  “What are you doing here?” Eamon demanded.

  “What are you doing here?”

  The other man stalked closer, a menacing expression on his face. His size was similar to Eamon’s but he looked thinner, more sinewy. In his tanned face, white lines fanned around the corners of his eyes.

  “You need to get outside,” he told the guy, and took his arm in a firm grip.

  At the touch, the stranger turned ballistic. With a flurry of movement he twisted from Eamon’s grasp and then drew back his fist.

  The first punch landed on his cheekbone.

  The second hit belonged to Eamon. It knocked the other guy back, and he landed on his ass, taking a small table with him. The crash shook the windows.

  Eamon moved to stand over the winded man who stared up at him, gaze burning.

  The sound of a door opening and a flurry of footsteps told him the party had been alerted to the intruder. The whole lot of Cami’s tribe entered the room, men included.

  He looked at the gathered crowd and their collective stunned expressions, then back at the stranger. “Who the hell are you?” he demanded.

  Instead of the stranger replying it was Cami who spoke up. “Um…” She cleared her throat. “It’s Beck.”

  Eamon turned to stare. Beck? The missing member of the Rock Royalty?

  “My brother,” Reed and Walsh said together, as if they couldn’t believe their eyes.

  Cilla offered up a half-smile and a limp, “Surprise.”

  Ten minutes later they were all around the outdoor table. Both Eamon and Beck had declined packs of ice for their incipient shiners, and some optimistic person had seated them side-by-side. Each of them had accepted cold beers.

  “Sorry,” Cilla said. “Beck let me in on his arrival, and I thought it would be great fun to make it a surprise.”

  “Great fun.” Ren shook his head. “This is what comes from keeping secrets from me.”

  “As if you would have anticipated the situation,” his fiancée scoffed. “Nobody’s to blame.”

  “And actually,” Cami said, “after his run-in with the real trespassers, it’s no surprise that Eamon leaped into action.”

  “About that,” Ren said, looking over at Eamon. “Heartfelt thanks.”

  He nodded in acknowledgment. “Not a problem.”

  “Let’s eat,” Cilla said, with a clap of her hands. “Our guest of honor and our hero of the day, please stay seated and somebody will bring you each a plate.”

  Before long food was piled in front of him and everyone had retaken their places. General talk rose around the table. It seemed like Cami’s tribe had decided not to pump the prodigal son over potato salad and cold cuts.

  Eamon wasn’t left alone, however, and he fielded questions about his motorcycle, his Malibu place, the vintage bike he was restoring that had brought him to Cami in the beginning. As his belly filled, he found himself relaxing.

  Payne made some wisecrack about his lousy taste in bikes—he had two vintage Indians in mid-restoration—and Eamon found himself smiling and delivering a ration of bullshit back. Something new settled over him.

  It was his place at the table, he thought. Maybe because they were new to building this tribe thing, but the Rock Royalty seemed expert at putting a person at his ease and making him feel like he was part of them. Because he did feel included, and even welcome now, as he sat shoulder-to-shoulder with Cleo on his left and Beck on his right.

  The man shoveled in food, but so far had little to say.

  Figuring he might be feeling a little fish-out-of-water at the moment—something Eamon was very familiar with, of course—he figured it was a good time for an apology.

  “About before, Beck,” he said. “I’m sorry, man.”

  “No need.”

  “Really.” He cleared his throat. “I had those other trespassers on my mind and was still feeling a tad protective.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Beck set down his fork and glanced over at Eamon, his one eye nearly swollen shut. “I’m just happy you didn’t turn out to be someone I pissed off before I left.”

  “What?” From across the table, Cami frowned. Apparently she’d tuned in to their conversation. “Someone you pissed off before you left? That doesn’t make any sense. You’ve never met Eamon, right?”

  The table quieted at this last question. Beck picked up his beer, took a short swallow as if his voice needed lubrication. “It’s no big deal, not really.”

  “What’s no big deal?” Walsh demanded.

  “A little case of amnesia,” his brother said, offhand. “On my…adventure…I sustained a head injury, and I lost a bit of time.”

  “How much time?” Ren asked.

  The other man lifted his hand to waist-height. “You were about yay-high.”

  At the gasp from Cilla, Beck dropped his arm. “I’m kidding.”

  “Damn it,” Reed muttered. “Be serious.”

  “Okay, okay.” Beck hesitated. “It’s hazy, all right? Best I can pinpoint, I don’t recall anything that happened from several months to a year before I left Los Angeles.”

  Chapter 11

  Cami handed Eamon one of the mugs she’d carried out to the balcony. He took it with a grunt.

  “You’re welcome,” she said in a chirpy voice as she stretched out on the lounger beside his.

  He grunted again.

  Lovely. While her mood lightened with every passing hour that Eamon’s cousin’s deadline approached—because once it passed, whatever Wick decided she’d be free—Cami’s housemate only became more tense. Living with him was like rooming with a time bomb and its ominous tick-tick-tick.

  “Oh, look,” she cried, jumping to her feet.

  A pod of dolphins gamboled in the water right in front of the balcony. One leaped high, and she clapped in appreciation. Another followed, and then they raced off across the bay, as if remembering a sudden appointment.

  Still smiling, she returned to her chair and basked in the morning sunshine. Her mind wandered to the day before at the Laurel Canyon compound and the surprise guest. She sighed.

  The sound seemed to get Eamon’s attention. He suddenly looked over, a frown drawing his brows together. “What’s wrong?”

  Stifling a second sigh, she took in his male beauty in battered jeans, bare feet, and an old T-shirt. He looked disheveled and bedeviled, and instinc
t urged her to kiss him and caress him, doing what she could to distract him from the pressure building inside him.

  But while he might still want her physically—he’d admitted as much—he didn’t want that emotional closeness she wanted to give as well.

  That emotional closeness she yearned to have with a man.

  Isn’t that what you want, a ghrá? To belong to a man?

  “Cam?” he prompted now. “What are you thinking about?”

  “Beck,” she answered, because he’d been the source of the first sigh. “What do you suppose he’s lost?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “In those months that he can’t remember.” She turned on her cushion, sitting cross-legged to face him. “If he was Walsh, he might have forgotten some awesome invention that would keep soldiers safe. If his brother Reed had been hit in the head, a great book might go unwritten. And me—”

  “Let’s not talk about you getting hurt.”

  “My greatest song might have slipped away.” She made a face. “It’s sad. I think it’s really sad.”

  Eamon’s next grunt sounded slightly different than the previous two.

  “You know, your monosyllabic responses are challenging my interpretive skills,” she complained. “Did that mean, ‘Cami, you’re a sentimental sap,’ or ‘Cami, I concur entirely with your thinking’?”

  He remained silent a long moment, his gaze trained on the horizon. Then he said, “It means maybe you have it wrong. Maybe it’s a boon. Maybe he’s forgotten something… unpleasant. Like that time he hurt someone or failed them in some way. Or he’s forgotten something that could hurt him like…”

  Falling in love.

  Cami opened her mouth to say Eamon was wrong, that a person should never want that particular memory to be missing, but the words stuck on her tongue. In that moment, a drifting cloud passed over the sun, chilling the morning warmth and chilling her mood.

  As if sensing it, Eamon reached over and gave an awkward pat to her knee. “Sweetheart,” he started.

  But whatever aggravating and patronizing remark she was sure he was about to say—You’ll find someone else, or You don’t know how you really feel—was interrupted by his phone ringing. He slipped it from his pocket and, putting the device to his ear, stepped inside the house.

  Not long after, he returned to the balcony, more tense than before.

  Wary, she looked up at him as he hovered near her chair. “What is it?”

  “That was Irish. He’s arranged a meet with the Sons.”

  “Okay. And that’s…”

  Eamon forked his hand through his hair. “Possibly dangerous. I advocated again for waiting out the time, my plan from the beginning, but he has other ideas.”

  “Um…” Cami searched for the correct response.

  “‘Trust me,’ he said,” Eamon muttered. “‘Let me take the lead,’ he said.”

  Standing, Cami reached for his hand and gave it a quick squeeze, then let him go.

  “Shit.” Turning to her, Eamon cupped her face in both palms and pressed his forehead to hers. “I don’t know…”

  “I’m with you,” she whispered, because her memory was fully intact, and she had dozens of reasons to have faith in him. “Whatever you decide, I’m with you.”

  And his decision, she found out, was to fall in with his father’s proposal.

  Step one was their journey to the Unruly Assassins clubhouse.

  “You’ll be safe there,” Eamon said as they drove through a dilapidated residential neighborhood. “The sitdown’s at a place we know up in the hills.”

  A cold fist closed over her heart “You’re going to it?”

  He glanced at her. “Of course. I’ll be fine.”

  They’d crossed into an even more dilapidated industrial neighborhood, with few signs of life besides seagulls poking at trash in deserted parking lots and empty soft drink cups rattling down the pockmarked street.

  They turned left at the next intersection when suddenly engines roared to life. Confused, Cami gasped as motorcycles converged on Eamon’s car, cutting him off. They were ahead, behind, on each side.

  Fury filled the car, overriding her instinctive fear. Eamon stood on the brakes, and the vehicle lurched to a halt. Then one of the bikers was off his ride and banging on Eamon’s side window, his huge, to-the-knuckle rings hitting the glass and sounding to Cami like bones breaking.

  The man wore a leather vest that proclaimed him one of the Savage Sons.

  “Get out,” he ordered.

  Instead, Eamon rolled the window down an inch.

  “Really?” he snarled. “A fucking trap? And with my girl in the car?”

  The biker’s answer was to point a gun at them. Swallowing her whimper, Cami tried not to move a muscle.

  “Get out,” the Son demanded again. “Both of you.”

  “Fuck,” Eamon muttered, then reached for his car door. “You come this way, honey. Climb over the console and exit on my side. It’s going to be okay.”

  A warm breeze buffeted them as they stood on the asphalt beside Eamon’s sleek, silver SUV, and he took her hand in a steady, firm grip. Cami didn’t move her head—she was pretty much scared motionless—but she took in what she could. There wasn’t much to see besides cyclone fencing around ramshackle structures. Property on its way to ruin before it was inevitably bought on the cheap for a new life.

  Clearly not a place law enforcement patrolled often.

  Even as she thought that, a huge black truck came prowling from the opposite direction. Her heart leaped. A Good Samaritan to call in their predicament to the police! But as it slowed she noted the man in the driver’s seat.

  Black leather. Bandana around his forehead. Short-sleeved T-shirt that showed off skin tatted up with black and red images.

  Some of that’s representing blood, she thought, her breath catching in her lungs.

  Eamon’s hand tightened on hers, as if he could sense her building disquiet. But he looked calm and cool, the expression on his handsome face remote, his narrowed gaze glued to the man stepping out of the truck.

  “Sorry for the drama,” he said, then flicked his eyes toward the guy with the gun. “Put that away.”

  The lethal-looking thing disappeared behind the man’s back. Eamon’s hold on Cami eased a little. Her lungs could finally move.

  The man who’d just exited the truck cleared his throat. “Name’s Deuce,” he began.

  “I know who you are,” Eamon said. “What I don’t get is why you’re pre-empting the meet we’ve arranged an hour from now, and why you’re again scaring my woman.”

  At the intense tone in his voice, Cami’s heart fell to the pit of her belly. She glanced over to see a muscle jumping in his jaw.

  “About that,” Deuce said. “It’s why I wanted to talk before our presidents got into it.”

  “I’m not a member,” Eamon said. “He’s not my president.”

  “Yeah, but Irish is your dad, just like Dobbin is mine.”

  Okay, so the sons of two rival MCs were now facing off on a deserted street corner. Except one had eight men at his back, and Eamon only had her.

  The odds sucked.

  “And the thing is,” Deuce continued, “the shit that’s gone down wasn’t sanctioned. We had a handful of young new guys thinking they were doing the club a favor.”

  “They shot up my girl’s home and bombed her place of business.” His voice lowered again to that chilling tone that tightened Cami’s nerves to the breaking point. “They damaged her guitar.”

  “That’s replaceable,” she heard herself interject. “It’s always been my favorite, but probably because Gwendolyn Moon gave it to me. She was like a mother, you see, growing up, so it had some sentimental value. But it’s been good to move on to another instrument. I’ve learned new things with it. Learned to make some new sounds and…”

  Her voice drifted off as she realized they were all staring at her.

  “Anyway,” she finished lamel
y. “I just thought I should say.”

  She just thought she should say? There’d been no thought involved. It was babble, pure and simple, because her anxiety had completely squashed her common sense. But the hits, they just kept on coming because her mouth opened again.

  “So. Um. Thank you. I think.”

  A flurry of movement behind Deuce caught Cami’s eye. A small figure emerged from the rear seat of the truck’s cab, to climb into the driver’s seat, then from there slide onto the asphalt.

  Deuce turned to look at the tiny girl rushing forward. “Sweet Pea! Damn it, get back in the truck.”

  Ignoring him, she ran to Cami.

  “Tammy! Tammy!” She held up the stuffed dog she’d had at the motorcycle show. Both she and the toy looked much cleaner than they had appeared that day. “Look, it’s me. It’s Sweet Pea and Spoon!”

  She hugged Cami’s legs then looked over her shoulder, arms still wrapped around Cami’s knees. “Daddy, it’s nice Tammy. Tammy what found Sweet Pea and Spoon!”

  Eamon lifted an eyebrow. “You brought your kid to this?”

  Deuce—who Cami remembered now had been called “Gene” by the woman he’d been with at the show—muttered something about childcare issues.

  I guess, Cami thought, bikers are like everyone else.

  Sweet Pea’s presence totally changed the tenor of the situation. A moment after her arrival, at a signal from their leader, the bikers roared off. Eamon and Deuce leaned against his car and talked while Cami listened to Sweet Pea’s chatter. When the men shook hands after a short discussion, the last of Cami’s stress abated, and she hugged the little girl before handing her into her father’s care.

  The man looked her in the eye.

  “That’s my greatest prize,” he said, indicating with his thumb his daughter who was scrambling into the cab. “You found her that day, and I owe you always for that.”

  “Just love her like it seems you do,” Cami said, thinking of Bean, who had rarely acknowledged her existence. “That’s payment enough for me.”

  “Still, I didn’t thank you then. So I do now. And know that you don’t have anything to worry about when it comes to the Sons.”

  “Good to hear,” she said, nodding, and felt Eamon come up behind her. He put a hand on her shoulder. “Okay?” she asked, glancing back at him.