Forbidden Crush Read online

  “How about I ask a question before answering any more of yours,” he said.

  “If you’re afraid of explaining why you like orchids, then sure. Ask away.”

  “Where were you going in such a hurry when the sheriff pulled you over?”

  “I wasn’t speeding,” I replied. “And I was heading home. My parents live in a little town south of Atlanta.”

  “Just going home to visit?”

  I hesitated before saying, “Uh huh.”

  He stabbed a styrofoam cup, then scraped it into his bag. “With three suitcases in your back seat?”

  I shot him a look. “How’d you know what was in my car?”

  “Small town. Word travels fast.” He pointed his stick at me again. “Plus, the folks around Eastland get mighty itchy when they see someone transporting a bunch of stuff through town.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nothin’,” he said absently. “So were you moving back home, or what?”

  “Sorta, kinda.”

  He frowned while stepping over a pothole. “How does one sorta kinda move back home?”

  “Well…” I hesitated, then found a spurt of courage. “I kind of broke up with my boyfriend.”

  The words hung in the crisp morning air. Saying it out loud made it real. It was the first time I’d said the actual words to someone else. It hurt a little, but it felt good, too. Like I was untying a knot in my soul.

  Hawk frowned at me again. “How does one kinda break up with their boyfriend?”

  “I’ve been wondering the same thing these past few days,” I grumbled. “It’s complicated.”

  “I doubt it.”

  I blinked. “You think you know more about my failed relationship than I do?”

  He shrugged, and picked up a few pieces of trash in silence. Ambling along the road without looking at me. “Everyone always says their break-ups are complicated. In my experience, that’s bullshit. Either you grow apart, or you were never really compatible to begin with, or someone cheats.” He stabbed a Pepsi can with certainty. “90% of all breakups are because of one of those reasons.”

  He scraped the can into his bag and then stopped walking so he could look at me. Waiting for a real answer.

  “He was seeing someone else,” I admitted.

  “Prick.”

  “Someone named Tammy.”

  “Every Tammy I’ve ever known was a skank,” he replied.

  “That’s what I said!” I stabbed my stick into the dirt and stretched my back. “I saw one of his texts. That’s how I found out. We were at a business dinner, and I just got up and left. Packed my stuff and started driving. Never even said goodbye.”

  “That answers my next question about the high heels and skirt you were wearing when you strutted into jail.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Peaches. That fucking sucks.”

  I gave him a weak smile. It felt good to have someone just listen. Not trying to offer advice, or tell me what I should have done, or going on about all the other fish in the sea. Just, that fucking sucks.

  Sometimes that’s all a girl wanted to hear.

  “And that,” Hawk said while wiping his brow, “is a good time to stop for lunch.”

  Lunch. “Crap. Crap! I knew I forgot to do something.”

  He stared at me like I was joking. “You had time to stop for coffee this morning, but not enough time to pack a lunch? Peaches, your priorities are all out of whack.”

  I groaned and leaned against the car. “Eastland doesn’t have UberEats, does it? Or a restaurant that delivers?”

  “Nope.” He fished around in his cooler, then tossed me a ziplock bag. “Here ya go, Peaches.”

  I held the sandwich in my hands. “I can’t take your lunch.”

  But he pulled a second bag out of his cooler. “I accidentally packed two today.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “How does one accidentally make two sandwiches?”

  He pulled down the truck’s tailgate and sat on the edge. “Good question. If you don’t want it, you’re welcome to go hungry.”

  I joined him on the tailgate. “Thank you.”

  “Thanks for the coffee this morning.”

  I bit into the sandwich. “Peanut butter and jelly?”

  “Just like mom used to make.” He looked sideways at me. “Got a problem with that?”

  “Nope. It’s good.”

  It was good, especially to a hungry girl who’d spent the morning picking up trash. I ate slowly, savoring the break in the work. When my sandwich was half empty Hawk pulled out a can of coke and handed it to me.

  “11 hours down,” I said after a long drink. “109 to go.”

  “120 hours,” he mused with a shake of his head. His sandy hair brushed back and forth across his face. “Three weeks worth. You gonna stick around town the whole time? Atlanta’s a long way off.”

  “We’ll see,” I replied. “I’m hoping today will be my last day.”

  He chuckled as if I was joking, then cut off when he realized I was serious. “If you think the judge is gonna come down here and reduce your sentence out of the kindness of his heart, then you’re a bigger fool than I thought, Peaches.”

  “My dad’s a former sheriff,” I said. “He knows some people. Might be able to pull some strings with the sheriff, or Judge Benjamin.”

  Hawk laughed and shook his head.

  “What? You don’t believe me?”

  “Naw, I believe you think that might happen.” He took the Coke can from me, drank a long sip, and handed it back. “Look. I’m gonna tell you somethin’ you need to hear. The sheriff has no power in this town. Neither does the judge. The only man who runs this town is named Sid, and he has an army of bikers at his back.”

  “That biker gang I’ve seen?” I asked. “Is everyone in this little town really scared of them?”

  “The Copperheads are a lot more than a biker gang,” he said. There was sadness in his voice, and experience. “The way they operate…”

  He paused with a bite of sandwich in his mouth, mid-chew.

  “What?” I asked. “How do they operate?”

  He swallowed his bite and tossed the rest of the sandwich on the bed of the truck. “Hear that rumbling? You’re about to find out, because that’s Sid coming this way.”

  11

  Hawk

  Fuck me sideways. And here I’d thought this day was going pretty good.

  I knew the motorcycle rumble in the distance was Sid, and not just some of his goons out for a ride. The extra noise told me so. Sid always traveled with at least two dozen Copperheads. He only felt safe when he had an army around him. He was never cocky when he was alone. A typical coward.

  I saw them in the distance, the sun reflecting off their shiny hogs like a swirling mass of mirrors. There was still time to jump in my truck and hot-tail it in the opposite direction. But that would give Sid what he wanted. He loved the chase more than the kill.

  And I wasn’t the kind of man who ran.

  “Are… Are they going to do something to you?” Charlotte asked.

  “Maybe.”

  “What should we do?”

  I grabbed the stick and bag from the truck and shoved them in her hands. “Go back to picking up trash. Say nothing.” I grabbed her arm. “I mean nothing. Be completely silent. You understand?”

  “Yeah, okay,” she said in a shaky voice.

  She wandered off to pick up trash. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to calm my thumping heart. Sid was a man who enjoyed slow escalation. Since his thugs had beaten the piss out of me the other night in jail, Sid was really going to hurt me today. He wouldn’t kill me since he hadn’t gotten what he wanted, but this was about to get ugly.

  I stood more calmly than I felt, and my pulse throbbed in my ears. The motorcycles rumbled like distant thunder. A storm rolling in from the horizon, leaving destruction in its wake.

  They rode two-by-two, taking up the entire two-lane road. Ten bikes in the front, and te
n in the back. Surrounding Sid in the middle. They slowed as they neared us, rolling their bikes to a stop on the edge of the road, parting like the Red Sea. Leaving the middle clear. Only Sid parked his bike and stood. Even though he was 100 feet out I would have known him just by the way he walked. Slow and dangerous. Like a panther stalking its prey.

  Sid had a pale complexion, but wore his dark hair in dreadlocks that ran down his back like greasy snakes. His boots glistened with fresh polish. Tattoos covered his left arm and the left side of his face, tribal bullshit that macho assholes used to think was cool decades ago. And above his shoulder poked his crowbar, strapped to his back like it always was. The sight of it made me wince. I’d seen that curved piece of iron break a lot of kneecaps.

  He paused 20 feet from me to light a cigarette. A puff of smoke went up from his face, carried away by the gentle breeze. “There’s our favorite boy,” he said in his smooth voice. The voice of a used car salesman, altogether too friendly and too hostile. He pointed with his cigarette. “Been looking for you, Hawk. You sneaky little ferret.”

  “Haven’t been lookin’ hard, then,” I said in an even tone. “I’ve been right here all day.”

  “Cleaning up our fair town. Public service looks good on you.” He craned his neck and the register of his voice shifted. “Who’s that little thing over there?”

  Don’t say anything, I willed Charlotte. Listen to what I said.

  “Some out-of-towner they stuck me with,” I said. “Doesn’t pull her weight. Texts on her phone all damn day.”

  I tensed as I waited for Charlotte to respond. Sid took a long look at her and then returned his bloodshot eyes to me.

  “Let’s take a walk, friend.”

  He turned and walked back toward his bike. I followed, because walking was better than the alternative.

  We passed between the rows of Copperheads seated on their bikes. Their sunglasses couldn’t conceal the glares they sent me. Each of them turned to spit at my feet as I passed. I stared straight ahead and suffered it. They wanted to provoke me into doing something dumb. I wasn’t going to give them the pleasure.

  “You stole something from me,” Sid said in an ominous tone. His sweeping gesture took in the other Copperheads. “You stole something from us. All of us. We’re a family, Hawk. You know that.”

  “I didn’t steal anything from you, Sid.”

  “As a family,” he continued as if I hadn’t spoken, “we’re supposed to trust one another. Have each other’s back. It’s what makes us strong. A closed fist and all that. Do you understand me?”

  I grunted. He took it as a yes.

  “When someone within my family steals, it wounds me to the core. It chips away at my trusting nature.” He narrowed his eyes. “It disappoints me.”

  I remained silent. One thing I knew about Sid was that it was best to let him lecture. He got off on it. Pain would soon come, and it might be less if I let him make his speech first.

  Stay away, I told Charlotte in my mind. Keep picking up trash. No matter what happens.

  “I’m a simple man,” Sid went on as we walked down the twin rows of bikers. He gestured with his cigarette. “All I want is one thing. What’s mine. Return it to me and all is forgiven. I’ll accept you back into the family with open arms. So we can heal.”

  We stopped at the end of the bikes, and he put his hand on my shoulder in an affectionate gesture. I clenched my jaw. This was what Sid did. He gaslighted people. Pretending like he was the one who kicked me out, when in reality I was the one who left. Sid twisted the truth until it was whatever he wanted, and then he repeated it so often even he believed the lie.

  He looked at me with a calm, dangerous gaze. Waiting for a response. He was standing awfully close. I was pretty sure that was intentional. Trying to bait me into attacking him. Even though I knew it, I couldn’t help but consider the option. I might be able to wrap my hands around his throat and crush his windpipe before his goons could stop me. Snap his neck with a twist of my arms. Drive my pocket knife deep within his gut, twisting and twisting until no doctor could put him back together.

  The urge to do it was raw, primal. I’d been dreaming about it these past few weeks. For what Sid had done to me, but more for what he’d done to Theresa. I deserved a chance at revenge. I had a window right now.

  But Sid was waiting for it. Expecting it, even. That’s the only thing that stopped me: the fact that I wouldn’t be successful. He would live, and I would die.

  I chose my words carefully. As if that would make any fucking difference.

  “I don’t have it,” I said. “That’s the truth, Sid. I don’t. And killing me won’t change that.”

  I could have ended it there. Maybe he would believe me if I told him enough times. But all this talk of family was igniting something within me I couldn’t ignore. I couldn’t just leave it at that, because it wasn’t who I was.

  The words poured out of me before I could stop them.

  “But even if I did have it,” I said bitterly, “I wouldn’t give it back to you. This ain’t a family. Families love one another. The Copperheads? You just use them to get what you want. They’re only family as long as they’re useful to you. And the moment they aren’t…”

  I snatched the cigarette from his mouth, dropped it to the ground, and grinded it with my boot.

  “…you extinguish them.”

  There was a quiet moment while Sid, and the other Copperheads, processed what had just happened. The wind rustled the trees. Leather creaked as more than one biker shifted to reach for a weapon. Preparing for what their leader would command.

  Rage, psychotic rage, flashed in Sid’s eyes. But only for a moment. It disappeared, and then he laughed.

  “That’s funny.” He pointed at my face. “You always were a clown, Hawk.”

  The other bikers laughed nervously. I stood, tense, waiting. I knew Sid. I knew what would come next.

  In one smooth motion Sid reached over his shoulder, pulled free the crowbar, and swung it across his body. It smashed into my upper arm, in the middle of the muscle. A flash of pain filled my arm, and then went numb. I stifled a cry and fell to my knees.

  Sid laughed some more, high-pitched and hysterical. The laugh of a madman. “He says he wouldn’t tell me even if he knew!” he announced, which drew more laughs from his henchmen. “What a stupid fucking thing to say!”

  On my knees, I had an opportunity to look back at Charlotte. She was still picking up trash, but was watching us. Hoping she stayed silent, I turned back to Sid’s boots.

  “Hurt me all you want,” I growled. “I don’t have anything to tell you. Killing me will just put more innocent blood on your hands.”

  Sid stopped laughing, then sighed. “I was afraid of that. You’re a stubborn fucker, you know that, Hawk? You don’t even care about your own miserable life. So I’m gonna have to take something you do care about.”

  He walked past me. I got up to follow him but one of the other Copperheads stood and grabbed my arms, holding them behind my back. Brick. He used to be one of my friends. He was one of the good ones.

  “What are you doing?” I called to the leader.

  Sid twirled his crowbar in his fingers while strutting down the road. There was a skip in his step. “Helping you understand what happens to people who lie to their family.”

  Family. The way he kept saying that word was a hammer to my skull. Taunting me with what he’d already taken.

  Take something you do care about.

  That’s when I realized he was walking toward Charlotte.

  She stood on the other side of my truck, still picking at trash while glancing up at the scene every few seconds. She’d done exactly what I had told her, remaining silent the entire time. And it wasn’t going to matter.

  “Sid…” I began.

  He raised his voice but he didn’t slow down, and didn’t look back. “You got something to tell me, Hawk? Speak up!” The skull on the back of his jacket had its mouth open. Laug
hing at me.

  “Sid, please…”

  Brick anticipated that I was about to resist, and shifted his arms to put me in a headlock. “Give him what he wants,” Brick said in a deep voice. “Come on, man. Make it easier on yourself. On all of us.”

  “You know I can’t do that.”

  Sid paused next to my truck. Charlotte had just returned a full bag of trash and was getting a new bag ready. Sid wasn’t looking at her, but she was within reach of his crowbar swing. Run, I wanted to scream at her, though it wouldn’t have changed anything. Run, Peaches, and don’t look back.

  Sid cocked his head at me from across the distance. “Sounds like I’m rubbing up against a nerve. Seems there’s still something in your life you’re afraid of losing. Last chance. Tell me. Where is my money?”

  I stared at Charlotte and hoped she was looking back. I’m sorry.

  Sid turned, and swung the crowbar.

  I winced. Waiting for the horrible cracking noise I knew would follow. For Charlotte to scream and fall to the ground. If it happened, if she uttered any noise at all, I knew I would cave and give Sid whatever he wanted.

  But he wasn’t swinging it at her.

  The crowbar smashed through the side window of my truck. Pieces of glass pelted the pavement, and he pulled back and swung three times into the windshield, sending spiderweb cracks across the surface. He swung the crowbar low into the rubber of my truck tire, then lifted his foot and kicked his boot into the curve of the iron. There was a bang and a whoosh of air as the tire burst. The front-left part of the truck sank low.

  Sid thought he was damaging something I cared about, but all I felt was relief. Immense, overwhelming relief. He was only hurting my truck. Not her.

  The leader of the Copperheads panted with effort, then rested the crowbar against his shoulder like a baseball bat. “Hope you got a spare.” He turned toward Charlotte, and for a brief instant all of my terror and grief in my chest came pouring back, but he was only grabbing my half-eaten sandwich off the truck bed. He took a bite, then tossed the rest into the ditch.