Table Of ContentContents
DEDICATION
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- EPILOGUE
- AUTHOR'S NOTE
- DON'T FORGET
- ALSO BY JESSICA GADZIALA
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- STALK HER!
REEVE
A Henchmen MC novel
-
Jessica Gadziala
Copyright © 2018 Jessica Gadziala
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning,
uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without permission of the publisher is
unlawful piracy and theft of the author's intellectual property. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission
of the author except for brief quotations used in a book review.
"This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products
of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any
resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely
coincidental."
Cover image credit: Shutterstock.com/ Volodymyr Tverdokhlib
DEDICATION
For Sanjana Rao -
who has the biggest heart,
and loved Reeve from the beginning.
#AwesomeMamaInTheMaking
ONE
Reeve
The place was a deathtrap.
If I were Reign, I would sue the shirts off the contractors he hired to rebuild Repo's place
after it got destroyed. It wasn't that he needed the money. It was just the point. They shouldn't
have been able to get away with this level of incompetence and still work in the industry. People
could die if they didn't know what kinda shit to look out for.
In the past year alone, there had been two windows that had fallen out, the air system had
leaked and ruined the ceiling - and had we not reacted soon enough, would have created a
clusterfuck of toxic black mold -, the hardwired fire alarms started triggering themselves several
times a day, and now the wiring created a mini fire in the fucking wall behind the office.
I had been called out three hours before during a pretty epic early snowstorm to handle it.
I had three burned fingertips. It was nearly two in the morning. And to say I wasn't a
happy camper would be an understatement.
I was half ready to drive my ass across town and have it out with the assholes who had the
nerve to run a business in this town.
You could say I was a little overly sensitive about the issue. But before joining up with
gun-running bikers and leaving it all behind, this had been my life. Fixing shit. Safely. Doing
work people could trust in, that no one would ever have to worry about waking up to their homes
being on fire because I cut corners or rushed a job.
Finished with the wiring and deciding the new Sheetrock would have to wait until the next
day, I tossed my tools back into my toolbox, picking up the trusty weighted metal handle like I
had done thousands of times before, and moving across the cement floor, wondering what kind
of mess I was about to walk out into as I shrugged into my jacket.
When I had come in, there was about an inch on the ground, but from what I could see in
the almost ceiling-height garage door windows, it hadn't let up in the least.
Luckily, it was a short ride back to the compound. And I had my truck with me. That beast
could handle any weather.
With a last look of good riddance to the shop that was eating more money than making it
lately thanks to all the repairs, I moved outside, locking up behind me.
The cold air hit with impact, making my chest feel tight, my air puffing up in the air
around me.
There were a good five inches of fresh snow on the ground, crunching under my work
boots, blanketing the town in freshness.
My sister loved snow. She used to sleep with her pajamas inside out all winter, willing the
universe to hear her pleas and let her wake up to a winter wonderland. She was in, last I heard,
Florida, and likely pissed off that she was missing out, having just left a week before after
hanging out at the compound for Christmas.
Me, I had no strong feelings either way.
Back when I had to work daily for a living, the shit got in the way, made other drivers
stupid, had small cars fishtailing and crashing into shit, making everyone else's commute longer,
and having everyone cursing the white stuff.
Now, it was just one of those things. Like wind. Like rain. Nothing special.
I turned the corner to where I had parked my truck, most of the guys having been at the
garage after hearing about the fire, taking all the close parking spaces for themselves before I
could show up.
Nothing seemed odd until I placed my toolbox down in the open bed, doing so silently
thanks to the wet buffer of snow.
But then I moved out to go toward the driver's side door.
And I saw them.
Legs.
Hanging out from underneath my truck.
What the fuck?
I moved closer, seeing somewhat thin female legs clad only in leggings, the hem of a
lightweight dress bunched up right below the hips, purples and blues and yellows, a dress
seemingly out of place in the dead center of winter. Her feet were clad in simple bright pink
ballet flats that didn't, well, match the damn dress.
What the hell was she doing under my car? Lying on the snow in thin clothing?
"Ah, babe, what the fuck are you doing under my truck?" I asked, trying to keep my voice
low, not wanting her to startle, shoot up, and whack her head off the underside of my car.
She didn't, as I had worried, jolt. In fact, she seemed to show no reaction at all to my
presence.
I would have worried that she was passed out under there or some shit except I could hear
this odd tisk-tisk-tisking sound from under the truck, and then one of her feet planted so she
could push herself further under.
"Alright. I'm going to need you to get out from under there. Or at least explain what you
are doing."
"It's okay," a sweet, milk and honey voice called, low and soothing, making my brows
crease. "Come on, honey."
Again, what the fuck?
"Babe..." I tried again, voice a little more firm.
"I know! I know. It is so chilly out here, right? Ow, no need to do that, pretty baby."
Okay.
Either she was off her fucking meds, or there was some creature under my truck that she
was trying to console and catch.
"Need some help?" I asked, sticking my hands into the pockets of my jacket, the cold
making them redden and sting as the steadily falling snow wet my hair.
"With that big, scary, manly voice?" she called, still using the 'soothe the scared animal'
tone, "I think not. Right? We don't need help from the big, scary man, right? You are going to
stop ripping up my arm, and let me catch you, right honey? So we can get out of this snow. Oh,
nope! No, don't do that!" she begged, her legs pressing under the car and disappearing as she
seemed to go horizontal, trying to chase what I could only assume was a cat toward the back of
the truck.
Figuring I was going nowhere until she got her cat, I moved toward the end of the truck as
well, figuring that I could grab it if it slipped away from her and tried to bolt.
The sooner I could get her out from under my truck, the sooner I could go back to the
compound and take a shower to get the chill out of my bones.
"Oh, hi. That's it. This is much better, right?"
My head tilted down, seeing one of her legs cock up onto my back tire, using it to propel
her body out from the back of the truck.
Then there she was.
I wasn't sure what I had been expecting.
But I think it was safe to say I could never have expected the prettiest fucking woman I
had ever seen before.
She had one of those faces. The delicate ones. The one that would likely mean she would
get carded well into her forties. With peaches and cream skin with barely noticeable small
freckles over the tops of her cheeks and her nose, a somewhat pouty mouth with a larger lower
lip that was just begging to be kissed, and honey brown sleepy-looking eyes with tiny whiskey-
colored flecks in the center. Her wheat-colored hair was free around her shoulders, her bangs
swept a bit to the side, all of it wet from the snow.
I hadn't been wrong about the dress either.
She was wearing a patchwork colorful spaghetti strapped dress over her black leggings
and pink long-sleeve shirt.
It was hardly more than twenty-five degrees out, and all she had on over that thin getup
was a giant maroon sweater that looked like it had maybe belonged to a great great grandmother.
But still super, ridiculously pretty.
"Little help here," she said in that sweet voice of hers as she struggled to push herself out
further without using her hands which seemed to have a bit of a deathgrip on a tiny little kitten,
soaked to the bone, underfed, but still throwing an epic fit at being held.
I felt myself pause for a moment before leaning down, grabbing her under the arms, and
dragging her out and up onto her feet, finding in doing so that she was a slip of a thing. She
couldn't have tipped the scales over a hundred pounds, her body as delicate as her face.
"Can you turn it over and warm it up?" she asked, stroking the kitten's head as it mewled
loudly.
"What?" I asked, sure I misheard her.
"Your truck. Can you turn it over and crank up the heat?"
"Why would I do that?"
"He needs to get warm. He's trembling."
Was she serious?
She didn't know me from Adam.
This was fucking Navesink Bank, criminal empire central.
And she was going to willingly climb into my truck?
I mean, true, I wasn't in my cut since I had been dragged out of bed to come out here and
fix the electrical. And I didn't have my bike because it was snowing, so, first, that was
impossible, and second, I needed a place to store my tools.
But even if she didn't know I was an outlaw biker, I was still some random guy on the
street at two in the morning.
Then again, better me than some other rando coming out of Chaz's or some shit, all too
happy to let her in, and then prove to her why being so blindly trusting is a terrible idea.
"Alright," I agreed, reaching for the tailgate and flipping it closed.
"Oh," she declared looking at it. "Ford. Well, that's a good a name as any, right buddy?"
she asked, trying to pet the squirming kitten's head as I moved toward my door to open it up, turn
it over, and blast the heat. I moved back out, finding her still standing at the back of my truck,
small body trembling just as bad as the cat's. "Here," I said, shrugging out of my old warm,
worn, tan work coat, and wrapping it around her shoulders, seeing how it fell nearly halfway
down her thighs, her body swallowed up in the fabric that was warm from my body. "Come on,"
I called, moving toward the passenger side to open the door for her, watching as she fumbled up
without her hands free to grab the rail, falling backward, making me reach up to half-push her
into the cab.
Closing her in, I moved around the back of the truck, shaking my head at the turn of
events.
"Fordy, buddy, settle down," she crooned as I climbed in, holding my fingers up to the
heating vent, trying to get some feeling back in them.
"Why is he away from his mom?" I asked, getting a good look at the kitten that couldn't
have been more than four or five weeks old.
"He's not mine," she told me, using the edge of my coat to scrub at the pathetic thing's
soaked fur. "I was walking home and heard the meowing."
"Home from where at two a.m.?"
Her head tilted up a bit, watching me from under her lashes with those intense eyes of
hers. "I was watering someone's plants while they were on vacation."
"At two a.m.?" I asked, unconvinced, and completely unsure why I was engaging her
about it.
"Well, I had just brought Iggy and Bowie home after their walk."
"Iggy and Bowie?" Was it just me, or was this woman talking in circles?
"A very overweight Rottweiler and a very lithe Borzoi."
"You're a dog walker? At two a.m.?"
"Their humans are out of town as well. They are used to being let out at one in the
morning before they settle in for the night, and the owners didn't want their schedule upset."
"Why didn't you bring your car in a snowstorm?"
"I don't have a car," she said casually, as though that made the least bit of sense. This was
Jersey, not the city. Everyone had a car. "Carbon emissions and all that. I walk. Or bike. Or if I
have to, take the bus to go out of town. Keeping my footprint light."
Alright.
She was a bit of a flower child.
It was starting to make more sense why she was a bit naive and trusting. And did shit like
watered plants at two in the morning. And saved kittens. And climbed in cars with strange men.
"Well, you're soaked through. You can't walk now. How about I drive you home so you
can get him - and yourself - warmed up? I'll try not to step on the gas too much," I offered with a
small lip twitch.
"Okay," she agreed, trying to scoot the kitten closer to the heat vent.
"I am going to need an address, babe," I told her when she said nothing further.
"Oh, right," she said, glancing over. "Over past the place that used to be a hole-in-the-wall
deli next to the farm that used to have cows, but now only seems to grow blueberries soaked in
pesticides. But not into the subdivision. Over down where the old bridge is with the wild
blackberry bush that is bigger than I am over by the creek."
Normally, that would be a batshit crazy way to direct someone to your house.
It was clear she was a lifer in Navesink Bank.
And, luckily, I was as well.
And I actually knew exactly what she was talking about even though that deli closed when
I was nine years old. And the farm hadn't had cows since years before that. But I remembered
cutting through that subdivision on my walk home from high school. Not to pick wild
blackberries, but because that secluded little patch of woods by the bridge and creek was where
you went to hang out, catch a smoke, sneak a drink, normal rebellious kid shit we all did here or
there.
"Alright," I agreed, buckling up, and turning the truck in that direction, wipers on blast to
keep the ever-falling snow off the windshield. "And where to after that?"
"A left at the house with the dalmatian mailbox, then a right at the house with the beautiful
snowball bush."
It was December. There wouldn't be a blossoming snowball bush until summer.
"Then?"
"Then a left into the dead-end street."
"The Victorian?" I asked, chancing a glance over at her as I drove, seeing her nuzzling her
cheek into the kitten's head fur, and for some reason, the sight made a warm feeling spread
through my chest, something I didn't even have a name for.
"Mhmm."
That house was one everyone in the area told stories about, kids and parents alike. The
house and the batshit crazy old woman who had lived there since as long as anyone could
remember.
There was no way she was still alive, but judging by the oddness of the woman in the seat
beside me, her legacy was alive and well.
"Do you have a name, babe?" I asked as the silence droned on.
"Everyone has a name," she countered softly.
Jesus.
"Can you tell me it?" I pressed, shaking my head.
"Rey," she supplied.
"Reeve," I told her even though she didn't ask.
With nothing else to say, no knowledge on how to engage a woman as flighty as this one
appeared to be, I let the silence hang as I followed her directions and drove down the quiet dead-
end street toward the old Victorian.
It was a giant house on a huge piece of land - at least for this area - somewhere near three
acres. In today's market, this place would likely go for something close to eight-hundred
thousand for just the hugeness of it. I figured that Rey had likely inherited it because she did not
strike me as some high-paid CEO type.
It was a three-story building with a porch that wrapped the entire first floor, complete with
old-timey rocking chairs and several large picture windows. The entire thing was still painted the
same as it had been when I was a kid - a muted yellow with mint green accents.
