Page 30 of Fire
He looks wildly around him. “Pull over.” His hand finds the door handle. “I’ll go get her myself, so you’re not putting yourself in danger.”
I look in the rearview mirror, and making sure I’m clear, I drive onto the highway's cemented median and twist the Chrysler’s wheel to execute a U-turn.
“What are you doing?”
“Going to go rescue your cat.”
Fifteen minutes later, we’re in front of Evan’s motel room, staking out the place to see if there is still any Patriots Now activity there. Sure enough, they left one of their clones to guard Evan’s motel room. He’s younger than most of the guys I’ve seen associated with those assholes and looks like he’d rather beanywhere else. I catch him unaware and stow him in the trunk of his car.
Evan’s room is trashed, and when Evan sees it, he freaks out. He calls for Delilah, frantically walking through the room. I’m worried they did something to the cat when we both hear a small, terrified meow as the fluffy white cat crawls out from behind the bed. Evan scoops her up in his arms, and she nuzzles into his neck. The look he gives me is so full of gratefulness that I’d rescue a thousand cats for him just to see that look again.
The drive to Wisconsin is brutal. It’s not the driving but the rollercoaster of good and bad news we get seemingly at every mile marker.
The ambulance that was taking Cash to the hospital was ambushed by the Reivers, and they have Cash and Johnny in lockdown at the clubhouse.
It doesn’t look good. Lockdown usually happens when the Reivers are at war against another MC. It’s going to take some serious firepower to get Cash and Johnny out of there, and if Cash has already been shot?—
Evan has been quiet since we got the news. Staring ahead, he mechanically pets Delilah, who is cuddled on his lap. “I spent a lot of time hating Cash,” Evan announces.
“That so,” I say neutrally.
He nods and turns toward me. “Did you know about our past?”
“Past?” I growl, feeling my blood pressure skyrocketing. Maybe there had been a reason to be jealous.
He barks out a short laugh. “Not that kind of past. Cash threatened me and burned down my parents’ lake house, which they ended up blaming me for.”
“Sounds like a pretty good reason to hate a guy.”
“That’s what I thought, but he did it to save my life.”
My irrational jealousy aside, I’d always liked Cash Mcree, even when we were both shit-deep in the Reaver lifestyle, and more so after I found out he and Johnny were trying to destroy their fathers’ evil legacy. Now though, after finding this out, he feels like my fucking best friend.
“I’m surprised nobody mentioned this to me since I was your bodyguard.”
“It’s a long story.”
I gesture to the highway in front of us. “We have plenty of time.”
“I had an almost-boyfriend my freshman year of college.”
“Almost-boyfriend?”
“Yeah, he let me give him blowjobs—which he never returned—but he’d kiss me and tell me he loved me if we were nowhere around any of his friends.”
“What happened to him?” I ask, really hoping it’s something bad.
Evan looks like he doesn’t quite understand my question, but he answers it anyway. “I hear he’s a stockbroker, but that’s not important. I used to take him to my parent’s cabin on the weekends to be with him and not worry about him hiding us from his friends.”
“Loser,” I growl.
Evan shrugs. “There was a small cabin next door that this old biker dude had just inherited. He didn’t like seeing Hayden and me making out a couple of times.”
If he was a biker, there’s a good chance I knew him. “What did he look like?”
“He had red, frizzy hair and the stupidest tattoo on his chest of a hand flipping somebody off.”
“Did it say, ‘I love to Shoot Birds’ underneath it?”
