Page 3 of Bad Boy Biker's Bride
I hold my breath and above me, in a steady, deep voice, the barman says:
“Bar's closed.”
Chapter Three
STRIKER
The door swings open and two men walk into my bar.
I take them in the way I take in any opponent. The lead guy is shorter than me, but muscular, and has a bulge under his left armpit, holster carry, a professional. The other, bigger one is hanging back with the butt of a piece riding too high on his hip and his jacket sitting all wrong over it. Rotmere muscle dressed up as concerned citizens.
The lead has a sharky smile.
“Bar's closed.” I keep my hands moving, the towel polishing the glass in a slow circle. The cat watches the men with focused attention, tail twitching.
“Good afternoon. We won't keep you long.” He spreads his hands, palms out. “We're looking for a young lady. She's a guest at a private function up at the High Vale Lodge. Mental health issues… wandered off the grounds. We're authorized to bring her home.”
“Authorized by who?”
The smile gets tighter. “Her fiancé. Mr. Taylor.”
“Mr. Taylor? Don't believe I know him.”
“There's no reason you should. Mr Taylor’s a private man… discreet.”
“A man who’s so discreet that he can't keep track of his own fiancée?”
The second suit locks eyes with me, irritated. The lead guy doesn't break the smile, but there’s a small adjustment in his shoulders, a tenseness that’s a tell that he's about to escalate.
“We saw her come this way. The road through the forest comes out at your front door.”
I shrug. “There’s a lot of road around here.”
The smile is gone now. His voice is quiet, another tell. “We don't want to make this difficult.”
“Then go home.”
The lead guy glances past me toward the back of the bar and then at the door that leads to the restrooms. He's checking my face for whether the guess is right, but my expression is something I learned to keep flat in cages where a flinch could lose me a paycheck.
Then he makes a big mistake, stepping forward and reaching for me.
My right hook comes up from the floor the way it used to in the cages, short and tight. I put it on the hinge of his jaw with my whole body behind it. He drops like someone cut the strings. The towel is still in my left hand.
The other one is fumbling for his gun before the lead guy hits the floorboards.
Hawk steps clear of the wall as I throw the punch, putting his sights on the other suit's chest from twelve feet. The guy’s only got his piece halfway up before he freezes. Hawk is calm as a man waiting for his coffee. The cat has puffed out his fur, doubling his size, and is watching with what I can only describe as professional interest.
The big suit glances at his lead on the floor and works out whether his pension covers what's about to happen. He decides it doesn't.
“Easy,” he says. He lowers the piece.
“Put it back,” Hawk says. The big suit holsters it, fumbling. The guy on the floor is rubbing his jaw, still dazed.
I come around the bar.
“Pick him up.” I nod at the lead on the floor. “Take him home. Tell Mr. Taylor if he sends more of you back down here, I’ll send back what's left in pieces.”
The big one bends and gets an arm under his lead's shoulder, picking him up and hauling him to the door. He pauses on the threshold and looks at me.
