Three days earlier, the Black Knights had received a request to ensure the secretary of defense’s daughter didn’t get kidnapped or killed on her end-of-summer trip to Venezuela. But the job had only called for four of the six current BKI operators since there were only four extra seats on the political debutante’s private plane.
Hunter and Sam had drawn the short straws.
Or the long straws if one was to side with Sam that being stuck at home was better than playing bullet-catcher for a twenty-year-old kid who didn’t know the difference between danger and dessert.
“I’m so bored I could eat a tire iron,” Hunter lamented.
When he was on the job, his gray matter was occupied with how best to breach a position or take down a tango or rescue a hostage. And when he was inself-imposed exile, as Sam liked to call his trips north, he focused his mind on chopping wood or figuring out the best way to turn an old cattle trough into a raised garden.
But more and more often, and especially recently, when he found himself at loose ends, his brain filled up with thoughts about his future.
Or, more specifically, hislackthereof.
In the three and a half years since he’d come to work for BKI, he’d been watching the original crew, all the hardened operators who’d answered to the previous president and who’d left their mark behind on the world of international intrigue. To a man, the OG Black Knights had moved on with their lives. They’d gotten married and fathered children. They’d proved that even for guys like them, guys likeHunter, there was something to look forward to after service.
Except…it was different for Hunter, wasn’t it? Not only did he not have the first clue how to build a family since he’d never been part of one, but he also lacked the basic means to begin even if hehadknown where to start.
The thought of never marrying, never becoming a dad, hadn’t bothered him before. Mostly because he’d assumed it would be a miracle if he didn’t end up running into a bullet with his name on it;covert operatorwas just a prettied-up description of a guy who grubbed for tin as a means of employment. But also because he’d had no clue what he was missing.
The men who’d come before him had had the unwitting audacity to show him everything he’d never thought was possible. Show him that even guys who’d witnessed so much brutality and bloodshed could still have the capacity to embrace domesticity. Show him just how sweet the flip side could be.
Now he was left wanting.Wishing.
Which pissed him off.
He hadn’t wanted or wished since he’d been a kid and learned the hard way that life wasn’t fair and that not everybody got their happily-ever-after.
“Well, you’re better off twiddling your dick than messing withthat.” Sam hitched his chin toward the motorcycle frame secured to the bike lift. “What the hell are you doing anyway?”
“I sanded off the powder coat on the engine mount so I can install the V Twin and the transmission,” Hunter told him, happy to have his somber thoughts interrupted.
One of Sam’s dark eyebrows arched so high it was nearly lost in his hairline. “Did Becky say you could do that?”
Becky Knight, née Reichert, was the wunderkind mechanic and motorcycle designer who made it possible for them to keep their covers intact.
Her creations were the faces Black Knights Inc. showed the world. Works of rolling, roaring art sought after by collectors from Texas to Taiwan. The ultra-wealthy stood in line to drop a quarter mil on something that only had two wheels. And professional athletes couldn’t seem to pass up the flash and fury of a hand-designed and hand-built Harley.
Which was all to say, Becky wassuperpicky about who she let touch her babies.
“She had no problem letting me do the last install.” Hunter shrugged, figuring three and a half years of part-time apprenticeship meant he could mount an engine without Becky standing over his shoulder and supervising. “I thought it’d be a nice surprise when she comes into the shop in the morning. You know, one less thing.”
Not to mention, he’d needed a distraction from the dream that’d had him waking up covered in sweat and throbbing with need.
For shit’s sake, it’s been three years! When are you going to forget her? It was four measly days and one little kiss.
Except, ithadn’tbeen one little kiss, had it?
It was cliché, but he would swear the instant his lips touched hers, a piece of himself he hadn’t known was missing locked into place. Justclick.
It’d felt as if he’d…come home.
Which was ridiculous since he didn’thavea home. Hadneverhad one.
The dozens of crappy apartments his DNA suppliers had moved into and then been promptly kicked out of hadn’t counted—he never thought of Bert and Susan Jackson as hisparents; that title was reserved for people who actually protected and provided for their offspring. And the ten different foster families he’d been shuffled through after CPS intervened? None of those could carry the mantle ofhomeeither. At best they’d been temporary shelters where he’d gotten in out of the rain. At worst they’d been prisons manned by cruel adults whose sole incentive was to cash the government checks that’d come their way with each new kid they took in.
So what the hell was the matter with him?Whydid he continue to dream two…three times a week of Grace Beacham and that kiss? Why, after all this time, did he continue to hold out hope she’d call him?
“Be sure to wake me up before you come downstairs in the morning,” Sam said, and Hunter determinedly pushed all thoughts of Grace aside.
