Julie Walker - Born Wild

“No, no, no, and who the fuck cares what Patrick Edens thinks?” Bill answered for Eve as his ulcer began spewing acid. He ignored the urge to reach for his travel-sized bottle of Pepto. “She’s simply here visiting friends. Friends who are sick and tired of watching her get hounded by the motherfucking press at every motherfucking turn!”

And, yes. He’d used the foul language intentionally. Let them try to put that on the evening news.

“Is that true, Eve?” Ms. Avery persisted, shooting Bill a look hot enough to fry his eyebrows.

“Of course it’s true,” he growled, having reached—um, no; that’d be more like surpassed—the limit of his patience. He shoved at the microphone while simultaneously hitting the power button for the window. Bernard was left with a choice: either remove his camera or risk having it crushed by the rising glass. Bernard chose the first option.

Good man.

“Now move your van!” Bill yelled through the window. When Kristin Avery hesitated, he threw the Hummer into gear and began inching forward. The hulking SUV wasn’t only bulletproof, it also came with a tempered-steel grill guard that could ram a hole into the side of a brick building. The flimsy sheet metal that made up the body of the news van didn’t stand a chance.

Ms. Avery must’ve realized this, because she squealed and began running toward the van with Bernard lumbering behind her. Bill was about five seconds away from giving the van a little kiss with the Hummer’s grill guard, when the reporter and cameraman jumped inside the open cargo door. A heartbeat later, the van’s driver shoved the vehicle into reverse, and Bill was left with a clear shot through BKI’s quickly opening iron gates. He gunned it, the Hummer growling delightedly at the sudden injection of fuel. But once he’d passed into the interior of the compound, he glanced into his rearview mirror and—sweet Mother Mary—he was forced to slam on the brakes. Errrttt! The SUV’s big tires left rubber on the blacktop.

“What the hell?” Mac asked, turning to him with a brow raised in question.

“That woman is either shithouse crazy or dumb as a box of rocks,” he grumbled, barely believing what his eyes were telling him. Samantha Tate was slipping into the compound through the closing gates.

“Huh?” Mac said, cocking his head.

In answer, Bill punched the Hummer into park and threw open his door. In ten steps he was nose-to-nose with Chicago’s own rising-star investigative reporter. “I suppose I have you to thank for the circus out there.” He pointed toward the news van that was once more parked in front of the gates.

“I know how you motorcycle guys dislike the limelight,” Samantha purred, throwing her heavy, dark tresses over her shoulder. “Probably has something to do with all the military training, huh?”

Bill’s eyes narrowed.

“Oh, yes,” Samantha chuckled. “I’ve done my research. And, believe me, I intend to do more.”

God, please keep me from strangling her.

“But that’s not why I’m here tonight” she continued, oblivious to the fact that Bill had curled his hands into fists lest she find them wrapped around her pale, slim throat. “I’m here tonight to pose a few questions to Eve Edens about her most recent mishap. And if you don’t help me make that happen, I’ll ask Kristin and her news crew to set up camp out here. She’s a good friend of mine. I’m sure she’ll agree.”

The light in the woman’s eyes was sharp and hungry, and Bill remembered one of the Knights comparing Samantha Tate to a barracuda. Only instead of smelling blood in the water, she smelled brewing news stories.

“You’ve got serious moxie, lady,” he growled, grabbing her elbow and hustling her toward the gate despite her protests. “I’ll give you that.”

“Let go of me, you big brute!” Ms. Tate thundered, slapping ineffectually at his restraining hand.

Lifting his chin at Toran, the two halves of the gate slid open again. Only this time, they stopped when there was just enough room for him to shove the nosy reporter through the opening. “Loiter around out here all you want. It’s no skin off my ass,” he told her, as the gate snapped shut with a loud clang. “All you’ll see is us protecting a good friend from having her life flayed open once again by the press…” He hoped he wasn’t struck down by a bolt of lightning for that lie, because Eve Edens? A good friend? Ha! “…and building motorcycles. Have a good night,” he finished before stomping back toward the Hummer.

Sliding into the driver’s seat, he glanced over to find Mac chuckling.

“What?” he demanded, reaching into his hip pocket and pulling out the bottle of pink salvation. He took a healthy swig.

“What was that last thing Ms. Tate hollered at you?” Mac asked, eyes glinting with humor.

Bill wiped a hand over his mouth, willing the Pepto to work its magic. “I didn’t catch it all, but there was something in there about an acid enema.”

Mac hooted with laughter, but when Bill looked into the rearview mirror and saw the humiliation and fear on Eve’s face, he couldn’t join in the hilarity.

I’m sorry, she mouthed, her perfectly shaped, china doll lips quivering.

Those silent words went all through him, touching a soft spot inside he’d thought callused over long ago by the horrors of battle and the pain of a broken heart.

“Forgive me.” This time, the soft words were spoken aloud. And for a moment he wasn’t sure if she was asking him to forgive her for bringing the press down on their heads or if she was asking him to forgive her for the way she’d treated him all those years ago.

And in that moment, as he looked at her, sitting back there, so beautiful and vulnerable, he found himself wanting to do just that. To forgive her for…for all of it. But then an image of her and that ass-hat, Blake Parish, smiling at each other as they recited their wedding vows, flashed through his head. And whatever internal softening he’d felt once more hardened to stone.

“It’s fine,” he said, his voice gruff, his expression very clearly stating exactly the opposite.

Her big, blue eyes dropped to her lap and, if he wasn’t mistaken, that was the glint of a teardrop trickling down her pale cheek.

Jesus, Bill, you’re a dickhead.

He waited for something inside himself, his pride, his conscience, one small inner voice to disagree with him. Unfortunately, all he heard was radio-silence.

Damn it all to hell…

Black Knights Inc. Headquarters, 2nd Floor

10:45 p.m.

Eve glanced around at the three men seated at the conference table, trying and failing to forget the look on Billy’s face when she asked him to forgive her.

She hadn’t known at the time that she’d posed a broader question than the one urging him to except her apology for the appearance of the press, but the expression in his eyes told her she had. And then she’d waited with bated breath for his response, hope and longing exploding inside her like a punctured scuba tank. Because for a moment there she’d thought…

But no. How could she possibly expect Billy’s forgiveness for the way things had happened when she couldn’t even forgive herself?

“So what now?” Ace asked, dragging her from her bleak thoughts. She watched him take a sip of coffee and wrinkled her nose. She’d learned long ago it was best to avoid the stuff they brewed at BKI, since it had the consistency of motor oil and tasted about the same…not to mention the smell. The smell was like a combination of burned rubber and hot dirt, and it seemed to hover over the whole place in a caustic cloud.

“Now, we explore other avenues,” Mac said, using a stir-stick on his own mug of caffeinated sludge.

“Which would be?” Billy asked, his handsome face determined.

Okay, and why did he have to be so darned good-looking? Why couldn’t he have gone bald, or grown fat, or rotted all his teeth from his head?

Would any of those things have changed the way you feel about him?

Grrr. She told the pesky little voice that posed the question to go suck a bowl of turds, because…what the heck? She was trying to distance herself from Billy and the feelings she still had for him, and that kind of questioning wasn’t helping matters in the least.

For Pete’s sake! It was a sad day when a girl couldn’t depend on her own conscience to have her back.

“We get copies of the employment files at the Shedd Aquarium to see if any of Eve’s coworkers have black marks on their records,” Mac said. “We do the same with the people at her yacht club and the charity for the preservation of the wetlands she co-chairs.”

Her heart plummeted to her toes. “You think it’s someone I know?” she asked, willing him to give her a different answer than the one she fully expected him to offer.

“It would make sense,” Mac said, and so much for the force of her will. “Someone knew where you lived. Someone knew where you worked. Someone knew what you drove. So, can you think of anyone who might want to hurt you or get revenge on you? Have you had any problems at work? Any run-ins at the club or the charity? Have you had a recent fallin’ out with any friends or…” Mac slid a sidelong glance at Billy. “Or any jilted lovers?”

“Don’t look at me,” Billy held up his hands. “I’m not one of her jilted lovers. Not for lack of trying, mind you. But back when I knew her, she was saving it for the one.” He made quote marks with his fingers. “Which, as everybody sitting here knows, wasn’t me.”