Wind Therapy - A.J. Downey Page 0,41
what you mean,” Dray said nodding. “We weren’t even considering him if it makes you feel better.”
“You have no idea,” I said dryly.
We were talking about a guy out of Boston, Southie. Dude was seriously rough, and he’d caused a bit of a dustup down in California a while back. I didn’t want him anywhere near our operation.
“Any other hard ‘nos’?” he asked. I listed off a couple more names and he nodded. “Now tell Santa what you want for Christmas,” he said, and I chuckled.
“You get Lone Wolf to agree and you’ve already given me all I want for Christmas, my man.”
“One man does not make a chapter,” he said, and I nodded.
“No, he does not, but there’s only one head that wears the crown and Lone Wolf is the right kind of man if you know what I’m sayin’.”
“I do, and Dragon’ll get him, don’t you worry about that.”
“Ryder would make a good second,” I said.
“Ryder? Really?” Dray looked surprised by that and then thoughtful. He nodded along slowly the more he thought about it and shot off a text with his burner.
“Where Ryder goes, Dane follows,” I said.
“I know, that’s right,” Dray mumbled, dark dragon-glass eyes skirting over the screen as something came back. “What about Riot?” he asked and looked up and over at me.
I grunted. “Never heard of him.”
Dray grinned and we carried on negotiating and talking over who might be a good fit for the territory. I was keenly aware that even though Idaho and Eastern Oregon had reps from their respective clubs, including higher leadership – I was the only one he spoke to. Either that, or the others were being spoken to on their own, outside my presence. Why I couldn’t fathom but Dragon had his methods, same as I had mine.
It took longer than I would have liked. My little zaychik had come out of the water at one point, had stalked toward me with that sexy sway of her hips she was wholly unaware of and I swear, it killed a part of me to subtly put up a hand and wave her off with the look that meant club business. She lifted her chin half defiantly, half in acknowledgement before changing her trajectory up the path through the garden beds back here leading up to the lodge’s back side and the coolers under the deck.
“Zaychik!” I called after her and she looked back over her shoulder, her long dark hair swept over the opposite giving me a perfect view of her sexy back. I had the sudden urge to pull that bikini top off her with my teeth. Instead, I held up my beer with one hand and two fingers on my opposite hand to indicate what I wanted.
She nodded once, and it took some real effort to tear my eyes away from her. Dray chuckled beside me.
“I thought you were too white to like it spicy,” he said.
“She’s not what she seems,” I said and sighed.
“By the looks of her, she’s a little Habanero.” He finished off his beer.
“She’s sweeter than that,” I said. “More like my little cinnamon girl.”
“Canela girl, nice. What did you call her just now?”
“Zaychik.”
“What the fuck is that?”
“Loosely translated to English it means little rabbit or bunny.”
“Nah.” Dray grinned and shook his head. “Canela for sure.”
“To be fair, you don’t know her like I do.” I polished off the last dregs of my beer and Dray nodded.
“This is true, this is true. Where’d you pick her up?”
“Yakima. Fruit grower’s family.”
“Yeah?” He arched an eyebrow.
“Not sure what’s up, but she wanted out of there so bad. I worked out a deal with them, and her, but I couldn’t tell you what’s going on there. It’s been a little low on my list of priorities.”
Dray grunted as we watched her come toward us with three glass bottles. Two beers and a Coke.
“Time to get that off the back burner, my friend. She’s a little hottie.”
“She’s a keeper, alright,” I agreed just before she got back into earshot. The only problem I was having was the ‘how’ of it. Keeping her, I mean.
“Hey,” she said softly as she came up to us. She held out the beers to us. Dray and I each took one.
He took my empty from me and said, “Just a sec,” before walking up through one of the flower beds to one of the big recycling cans set out around the property to collect the dead soldiers.
“You doin’ alright?” I asked Marisol.
She