Mace, p.3
Mace, page 3
Fucking hell.
Mitzy slipped down the hallway, leaving me with the past bearing down on me.
I should have known the ol’ ladies would stick their noses where they didn’t belong, but I wouldn’t have thought Barracuda would have sided with them.
Shit.
Chapter Four
Imogen
“Riddle me this,” Dorothy drawled. “Do you think we could manage to order from Brew’s and Jackson Eatery and sync them to deliver at the same time?”
I looked up from my computer and tucked my hair behind my ear. “Can’t you just pick one place?”
Dorothy flopped down in her chair and spun around in a circle. “No, because I want loaded fries from Brew’s, and Jackson’s special today is the open-faced turkey sandwich.”
My mouth watered instantly. “Seriously?”
Dorothy nodded. “Totally. Now help me figure out how to get them here at the same time?”
“Just tell them you want it here in half an hour.”
“You and I both know that even if I tell Jackson’s half an hour, it could be an hour or five minutes.”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s not that bad.”
“Yes, it is. Maybe I should have Brew’s delivered, and while I’m waiting for that, I can run to Jackson’s to get my open-faced turkey.”
“Two open-faced turkeys,” I interrupted.
“Maybe, but you’re not helping me to figure this out.” Dorothy tapped her finger to her chin and sighed.
Only Dorothy would stress over getting food delivered. “Go with your plan. Order Brew’s and pickup from Jackson’s. It’s early enough that they shouldn’t be slammed with orders yet.”
“Do you think I should ask Merv and Bruce if they want anything?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think they are around today. Merv mentioned he and Bruce were heading to the shed over at the cemetery to organize it since we don’t have any upcoming services right now.”
Dorothy kicked back in her chair and held her arms out. “I love when we are dead.”
“Stop,” I laughed. “You’re not funny when you make those jokes.”
“I’m going to order Brew’s, and then I’m headed over to Jackson’s.”
I looked back at my computer. “Okay. Sounds like a good plan.” Only Dorothy and I would be so concerned about timing deliveries for food.
I wasn’t pleasantly thick by accident. I loved to eat, and I wasn’t afraid to admit it.
Ten minutes later, Dorothy was out the door, and I opened up the schedule for the next couple of weeks.
It was pretty empty.
The funeral business was very much last minute and fly by the seat of your pants. At least, that is what it seemed like to someone on the outside looking in.
Sure, Dorothy and I were always planning the services on the fly, but we did have basics that always went into every wake and service. It was all based on the vibes and feelings of the family.
Sometimes services were very sad and somber, while others were more of a celebration and a party saying goodbye to their loved ones.
Whatever the family wanted, that was what we gave them.
“Hello?” a low voice called. “Anyone around?”
I powered off my computer and grabbed a pad of paper. It looked like our next family was here. Most times, we first received a phone call, but there were times like now when the family just came to the funeral home to start the ball rolling.
“I’ll be right there,” I called.
Dorothy and I tended to keep the families out of our office and talk to the families in one of the sitting rooms.
I grabbed my favorite pen and headed out to the front door.
The man had his back to me and was staring at a painting of a spray of flowers by the front door. He looked to be wearing a leather vest and had dark blue jeans on. His shoulders were wide, and the vest was stretched across them. He didn’t look like the person we typically saw, but it was hard to tell exactly what he looked like from behind.
I smoothed my hand down the front of my shirt and took a deep breath. “How can I help you?”
The man slowly turned, and my stomach dropped to my feet.
He pushed his sunglasses on top of his head, and his eyes scanned me from head to toe.
“Imogen?”
Only one person had ever said my name with that low, sultry timber.
Mason Stonewall.
A feather could have knocked me over.
Mason was the last person I would have ever thought would walk through the doors of Brooks Mortuary.
“Eh, ah.” I licked my lips and tried to get my brain to function. What the heck was going on?
Had the show Punked been revived, and I was their latest victim?
Mason glanced back at the front door. “I was looking for a bell to ring or something, but I didn’t see anything.”
I could hear him speaking, but I couldn’t process anything other than the fact that he was standing in front of me.
It had been fifteen years since the last time I had seen Mason, and while he looked the same, he wasn’t. He was version 2.0 Mason.
He had always been handsome, but time had been very nice to him.
His forearms were covered in tattoos, and one even peeked out from the neck of his white shirt.
Those were all new, obviously.
“Babe,” Mason called.
“Mason,” I whispered.
Mace looked around and shook his head. “Mace, babe. I don’t go by Mason anymore.”
I tipped my head to the side and frowned. “What?”
He stepped toward me and put his hand in his pocket. “Joined up with an MC and found a name that suits me better.”
Mace was a name that suited him better than Mason? “I like Mason,” I blurted. It was what I knew him as. It had been Mason who had befriended me when I was in third grade and he was in fourth grade.
Two boys had been picking on me one day at recess, and Mason became my hero when he just reared back and punched both boys right in their faces.
For the next six years, Mason stayed my hero.
He still was.
The day came when I finally stood up for myself, and he had been there for me when I needed him the most.
“Yeah, well, Mason doesn’t exist anymore, Imogen. Hasn’t for a few years. I guess you would have known that if we still talked.”
“I, uh,” I stammered. “when I left....”
“When you left, I wasn’t part of your future, Imogen. I get it.”
I wished Mason, or I guess Mace, could have been part of my life after I left, but it took a whole lot for me to be able even to function, let alone be the Imogen he knew before. “No,” I insisted. “I just needed to....” I needed to what? Figure out how to feel again? To trust again? To not think everyone was going to hurt me? That was a lot to lay out in front of Mason after fifteen years of not talking.
Mace moved closer. “I get it, Imogen.”
How did he get it when I didn’t even get it?
“What are you doing here?” I blurted. Of course, the first sentence I could get out was straight to the point and rude.
The main door swung open, and Dorothy called, “Hey! There’re two motorcycles in the parking lot and a hot guy on one. Did Crew’s upgrade their delivery vehicle?”
Mace turned and glanced at Dorothy.
Dorothy balanced two styrofoam containers and kicked the door shut. “And also get a new delivery boy?”
Mace chuckled low and shook his head. “Not the delivery boy, darlin’.”
“Oh.” Dorothy straightened, and her cheeks turned pink. “Are you here for services?”
I closed my eyes and sighed. Dorothy would think Mace was the delivery boy.
“Just an old friend of Imogen’s. Mace,” Mace replied. “And that’s my brother out there. He took the ride with me.”
I opened my eyes, and Dorothy’s jaw dropped. “I didn’t know Imogen had friends. And ones with hot brothers to boot.”
“We met in grade school,” Mace explained. “We haven’t talked lately, though.”
“Why don’t you take our lunch to our office, Dorothy, and I’ll wait for Brew’s to deliver.” I was already having an out-of-body moment with Mace standing in front of me. I didn’t need to have Dorothy be a spectator.
Mace shook his head and held up his hand. “I don’t want to interrupt your lunch, and I can’t leave Jinx in the parking lot forever.”
“This is only half of it. The rest should be here any minute. Jackson’s was actually on the ball today, and I was out of there lickety-split.” She moved the containers up and down and tipped her head to the side. “I’m sure we have more than enough for the four of us. We could always order more, too.”
“Dorothy,” I scolded. I did not want to have lunch with Mace and his brother. Brother? Mace never had a brother when I knew him.
She shrugged and moved around Mace to the office. “I’m more than willing to share with the sexy bikers from your past you never told me about,” she called.
“Mace is from my past,” I corrected. “I’ve never met his brother before.”
“You’ve known the man for years, and you never met his brother?” Dorothy asked. “That seems odd.”
Mace shook his head. “Uh, not my actual blood brother. We’re in the same MC.”
“Oh,” Dorothy drawled. “That makes sense. Does your not blood-related brother want to come in for lunch?”
“No!” I shouted. I could not handle this happening right now.
“I can come back later if you’re busy,” Mace offered. “I honestly didn’t think I was going to find you here. I figured Mitzy and Rayna had gotten your address wrong.”
“Oh, uh, I do live here. And also work here. I live in the apartment upstairs,” I explained. I also wanted to know who Mitzy and Rayna were and why they had been the ones to give Mace my address. Maybe they were dating Yule and Mace.
“Never in a million years thought this is where I would find you,” Mace chuckled.
“You’ve been looking for me?” I shouldn’t have been hard to find. Yes, I had moved away from Sutter Creek when I was fifteen, but it wasn’t like I entered the witness protection program. Mama had told anyone who would listen that I had moved to San Diego to live with my grandma. Of course, she never told them why I had. She never knew the real reason. I had made up some story of hating Sutter Creek and demanded to move in with my grandma.
My mom loved me, but she wasn’t the motherliest toward me. Moving to San Diego gave my mom back the freedom she lost when I was born.
I got away from Sutter Creek, and mom got her life back.
She won, and well, I put space between myself and Sutter Creek.
“Delivery.”
“I’ll get it!” Dorothy hollered. “You two can just keep talking loud enough so I can hear you.” She flitted around Mace and grabbed the bag of food from the Brew’s delivery boy.
“Why don’t I come back when you’re done with work?” Mace suggested. He slid his sunglasses over his eyes and tipped his chin to me. “Five?”
“What?” I asked. That chin tip sent a chill up my spine and scrambled my brain.
“I’ll be back around five o’clock if that works for you,” he chuckled.
“It does,” Dorothy called. “That will give her enough time to spill the beans on you and finish the casket order. And you should bring your brother in with you next time.” Dorothy was shameless. I would be in the middle of a panic attack, and she would try to hook up with Mace’s friend.
“Another thing I never thought you would be doing when I found you.” Mace shook his head.
Dorothy could have kept the casket order to herself, too. I dealt enough with people judging me for being a mortician. She didn’t need to give Mace all the morbid details of what I did daily.
“Stick around, and you can hear about all the embalming things she’s running low on that she needs to order.” Dorothy wiggled her eyebrows, and I knew I needed to shut her up before she said anything more.
“Five is great,” I yelped. “Bye-bye.” I reached out and planted my hand on his chest. He stepped back and grabbed my hand to steady himself. I didn’t want to come him over, but if it shut up Dorothy, I was okay with doing it.
“Easy, babe,” he chuckled.
Dorothy sputtered and threw her head back, laughing. “Bye-bye,” she mimicked.
Mace shook his head, and a sexy smirk crossed his lips. The grip of his hand heated my skin, and a shiver ran up my arm. “See you later, babe.” He dropped my hand and sauntered out of the funeral home. I didn’t move until the door shut behind him.
Dorothy fanned her face with her hand and leaned against the wall. “Imogen, how in the world did you never tell me you had a sexy biker looking for you?”
I rolled my eyes and dropped my chin to my chest. “I don’t want to talk about it, Dorothy.” I didn’t know I had a sexy biker looking for me. Hell, I had remembered as a gangly seventeen-year-old for the past fifteen years. Never did I imagine that he would grow into a tall, handsome hunk of a man.
“Oh, honey,” Dorothy laughed. “That is exactly what we are going to do. Thank goodness we have amazing food to go with storytime.”
I rolled my eyes and moved into the office. “My life is not a storytime.”
Dorothy laughed and set the bag of food on her desk. “It is today. I saw the way you were looking at him. It was like you couldn’t decide if you wanted to run or devour that man whole.”
“I was not looking at him like that,” I protested. “He surprised me.” That was the damn truth.
“Spill the details,” Dorothy insisted.
No one knew all the details except for Mason and me. Well, and Kent Bing, he wasn’t alive to tell anyone.
We were the only ones alive who were going to know.
Everyone else knew the story I wanted them to know.
“We’ve known each other since I was in third grade, Dorothy. We lost touch when I moved to live with my grandmother.” I grabbed the container of food she had set on my desk and flipped back the lid. “You weren’t kidding when you said we had plenty of food.”
“Which is why you and your biker could have gotten reacquainted over lunch.” Dorothy pointed at me. “And I know there is more to the story than what you are telling me. You weren’t looking at Mace like he was no one from your past.”
“That was a shock, Dorothy, and I’m over it. Now, why don’t we eat lunch, and then I can finish working on the casket order.”
Dorothy popped a fry into her mouth and frowned. “Fine, but I just want you to know that I don’t believe you, and I am going to get to the bottom of whatever is going on with you and the biker boy.”
“He’s not a boy, Dorothy,” I sighed.
“Oh, honey,” Dorothy wiggled her eyebrows. “I could clearly see that. I’m just glad to know you saw it, too.”
Oh, I saw that Mason, now Mace, was all man. The boy I had known fifteen years ago was replaced with a wall of a man that drove a motorcycle and looked like he could lift me without even breaking a sweat.
My eyes dropped to my food, and my stomach rolled.
I just wished I knew what he was doing here after all these years.
Chapter Five
Mace
“Ready to head back?”
I shook my head and pushed my sunglasses over my eyes. “She was busy working. I’m coming back tonight.”
“I gotta get back to the clubhouse, man.”
I sat on my bike and looked up at the blue sky. “Then head back, and I’ll be back tonight.”
Jinx shook his head. “I’m not leaving you here alone.”
I spread my arms wide and laughed. “I’m pretty sure I’m not going to get into any trouble in sleepy Jackson, Jinx. This area is my old stomping grounds, and they haven’t changed much.”
“This isn’t where you grew up, though, right?”
I shook my head. “Sutter Creek. We drove through it to get here.”
“How did that feel?” Jinx asked.
“Felt like a place I don’t belong in anymore. I got out of there the second I graduated high school and haven’t thought about it since.”
“At least not until Mayor Bing decided to have you go down for his brother’s murder,” Jinx drawled.
“Yeah, well, I can tell you that really was a curve ball out of left field.” Kent Bing’s death was always in the back of my mind, but I didn’t think Darrin Bing would be the one to make me go down for it. It had been a cold case for years and should have stayed that way.
“So what the hell are you going to do for the next five hours?” Jinx asked.
I shrugged and threw my leg over my bike. “Kill time, brother. You can head back to the clubhouse. Ain’t nothing going to happen to me in Jackson. No one knows me here, and that is the way it is going to stay.”
Jinx shook his head and shrugged. “If you say so. One call, and you know the whole club will be here for you.”
I knew that without a doubt. It was the whole reason I joined the RBMC in the first place. They were my family, and family was always there. “I’ll be back tonight,” I promised. “I just need to talk to Imogen and get a better idea of what my next move is going to be.”
“Imogen telling the cops what happened is what your next move needs to be, brother. That woman is the key to your freedom.”
I shrugged and cranked up my bike. “I’ll see you later.” I roared out of the funeral home parking lot and headed toward the interstate. I needed a cold drink and some food in my stomach.
I hadn’t been able to eat this morning because I was nervous about seeing Imogen after fifteen years.
She looked damn good.
Her long, golden hair was gone and was now pitch black. I couldn’t tell how long it was because she had it piled on top of her head, but I assumed it was still long.
She always teetered on being thick, and she had blossomed into her curves. The black slacks she wore hugged her hips and flared at her knees. The maroon button-down shirt was fitted, and the buttons over her chest were puckered and tugging to keep the shirt closed.
