Give It All (A Desert Dogs Novel) - Softcover

McKenna, Cara

Softcover

ISBN 10: 045147127X ISBN 13: 9780451471277

Publisher: Berkley, 2015

Synopsis

A hot new Desert Dogs novel from the author of Lay It Down

Keep your friends close—and your enemies closer....

Bar owner Raina Harper can’t say for sure what Duncan Welch is to her. With her small Nevada town under siege by a ruthless casino development and still reeling from a spate of murders, she knows that trusting the public face of the corporate invaders is risky to say the least. Though, damn, it’s one fine-looking face....

Duncan may be a mercenary when it comes to getting the job done, but he’s no villain. In fact, the calculating fixer soon finds himself in the bad guys’ crosshairs, framed and facing professional ruin. To clear his name, he’ll need help from Raina and her roughneck motorcycle club, the Desert Dogs. Gaining their trust won’t be easy, and the molten sexual tension between Raina and Duncan only makes things more complicated—especially since Miah Church, Raina’s friend and ex-lover, would sooner strangle Duncan than shake his hand.

One thing’s certain, though: If they don’t deal with their incendiary attraction soon, the whole damn town might go up in flames....

About this title

About the Author:

Since she began writing in 2008, Cara McKenna has published more than thirty romances and erotic novels with a variety of publishers, sometimes under the pen name Meg Maguire. Her stories have been acclaimed for their smart, modern voice and defiance of convention. She was a 2010 Golden Heart Award finalist and a three-time Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice Award nominee. She lives with her husband in the Pacific Northwest, though she'll always be a Boston girl at heart. Give it All is the second Desert Dogs Novel, following Lay it Down.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

PRAISE FOR CARA MCKENNA

ALSO BY CARA MCKENNA

SIGNET ECLIPSE

 

Chapter 1

Agent Ramon Flores eyed his suspect through the glass.

An average sort of man. Average height, a touch heavy, mouse-brown hair in need of a cut. His clothes were filthy, but that came as no surprise. He was sunburned to boot, scalp flaking where his hair was thinning, and the past weeks he’d spent as a fugitive had aged him—he looked sixty, not the forty-seven Flores knew him to be.

And Flores knew a lot about David Peter Levins. He’d memorized the man’s file in the month since he was assigned to finding the guy. Levins had a wife and two grown sons in Mesquite, and twenty-four years’ experience in construction. He’d been a foreman for a big commercial operation—Virgin River Contracting. And it seemed he’d thrown it all away in a fit of greed.

“He’s ready to spill,” said Dan Jaskowski, Flores’s colleague. “Some of these guys just aren’t built for the fugitive lifestyle.”

“He cracked enough to turn himself in,” Flores said. “No doubt he’s got some interesting shit knocking on the backs of his teeth, just dying to get let out.”

“Like whether he and Tremblay acted alone.”

Flores nodded. “And whether he had anything to do with Tremblay getting offed in the county jail.”

“Whole town’s gonna be curious to hear some answers, once his surrender makes the news,” Jaskowski said.

“I’m curious myself.” Flores grabbed his recorder and his fat file labeled LEVINS, DAVID P. and headed for the door. Let him fold. Let him break, and let Flores get back home to Spring Valley in time for his daughter’s sixth birthday party in two weeks. Combination pony and mermaid theme. Highly anticipated.

Levins was stooped in his hard plastic seat before the metal table, wilted by exhaustion, but he sat up straight at the click of the lock. Flores closed them in together, in this little cube of cinder block intimacy.

“David,” he said, and sat. He switched the recorder on. “I’m Agent Flores. Everybody’s been looking for you, son.” He tacked the diminutive on just to keep the guy on edge. No matter that Levins was eight years his senior. “Me especially. Can’t figure out if I’m disappointed I didn’t catch you myself, or relieved you finally decided to give us all some closure. You ready to talk?”

“Do I get my sentence lessened? Because I turned myself in?”

“That all depends on what comes next,” Flores said. “On how cooperative you decide to be. Because three people are dead. A fine deputy—Alex Dunn—and your accomplice, Chuck Tremblay. And this mysterious body we’ve heard about but not actually been able to get our hands on.”

“Tremblay handled the bones. I got no idea what he did with ’em.”

“How convenient for you. And how about Tremblay’s bones? You got anything to do with his unfortunate end?”

Levins shook his head violently. “No, no way. I was in Texas when I heard. But I know who did it—his creditors.”

“Creditors?”

“He had gambling debts. Huge ones—a hundred grand, at least. I dunno who with, but some real rough characters. Mob types down in Vegas, if I had to guess.”

Flores hid his surprise. He’d heard nothing about that, though it had a ring of truth to it. Tremblay had been an alcoholic—fifteen years sober, but one self-destructive compulsion often got swapped for another. He made a casual note, one that would prompt an intense investigation and probably ruin somebody’s weekend.

“That’s why he needed my bribes,” Levins continued.

“Bribes in exchange for what?”

“For overlooking some corners I had to cut, with the work.”

“Now, why would you be cutting corners, David?”

“’Cause all the foremen get big bonuses for hitting these crazy deadlines that the Virgin River bosses laid out for us. Shit they promised the casino developers to score the contract in the first place. Only way I could’ve hit those was to cut corners. And I couldn’t cut corners unless I had somebody in the department willing to rush and fudge my permits.”

“Why’d you approach Tremblay? Seems awful ambitious, going straight to the sheriff of Brush County.”

“I didn’t—Tremblay approached me. I was sweating over this blasting permit I needed, like, yesterday. They sent Dunn over, but no way was he signing anything without going through every goddamn check box. So I went straight to Tremblay. I was desperate, and I kind of knew him from other issues with the construction. I knew he was really pro-casino, and thought maybe he’d respect my worries about the deadlines. He told me, if he helped me out, would I maybe help him out? Slip him a percentage of my bonus? As a ‘show of appreciation,’ I think he called it.”

“And you said yes.”

Levins nodded, looking . . . sad. “I did. I had to.”

“Had to?”

The man shrugged. “Looking back, it sounds so trivial . . . But I got two kids, one in college and one about to start. My wife’s out of work. I needed the money. It was harmless shortcuts I was trying to take, just red-tape, bureaucratic shit. Nothing that would hurt anybody.”

“But now it has—Dunn, for one. Your old partner in crime, the sheriff. And who else, David? Whose bones did that migrant worker find on your site?”

“I dunno. I really don’t. Just a heap of charred shit, in a shallow grave. Some drug runner, Tremblay figured.”

“So you covered it up?”

“Yeah. We did. The way we saw it, if we obeyed the law, then construction gets halted. We lose our slice of the bonuses, hundred men lose a few weeks’ pay while guys like you investigate it. We find out in the end it was just some shit-bag narcotics mule, probably some illegal—”

Flores raised his eyebrows at that, and Levins blanched.

“Some undocumented migrant,” he said, backtracking. “Some criminal, not worth risking all that money, and all those workers’ paydays, to do right by.”

“That’s an awful lot to assume about some pile of bones, David. And there’s some folks who don’t believe you actually found bones. They think maybe those bones were still inside that man or woman or child’s body, and that you maybe burned them up yourself. Forensics thinks that’s real likely, matter of fact.”

Levins went pale beneath his sunburn. “No, it was bones. Just bones. Animals had started digging them up. I’ve never killed nobody in my life. Not Dunn—that was all Tremblay’s plan. Not Tremblay, neither. I was in Texas, like I said, too scared to risk coming back here. And not those bones. I never killed no one in my entire life. I wanted the money, that’s all. Wanted the best for my family.”

“Maybe you did. But that doesn’t change the fact that now there’s three human beings—with families of their own, I’d wager—dead. And what I need, and what you have to bargain with, is answers.” He consulted his notes. “These creditors of the sheriff. Now, why would they do that? Have the man murdered? Surely that’s no way to collect on his tab.”

“So he wouldn’t disclose who they were, I guess. When he went to trial. Their outfit didn’t sound too legal.”

Flores made another note, faking boredom, so Levins would stay eager to be of use. “These answers are all very convenient, David. You sure nobody else from Virgin River was in on your little arrangement with Tremblay?”

“Nobody I know of.”

“So there’s nobody else? Nobody with blood on their hands, aside from you and the late former sheriff?”

Levins swallowed, eye contact wavering.

“Tell me.”

“There is one other guy who knew about it all. Who got his slice, just like Tremblay.”

“Tell me who.”

Levins licked his sunburned lips. “Not from VRC, or the sheriff’s department.”

Flores leaned in, leveled the diminished man with his stare. “Tell me, son.”

Chapter 2

I’ve got to stop sleeping with Miah.

Raina shifted under the covers, feeling him all around her. His arm locked to her waist, the warm length of his sleeping body pressed along her back and legs. His bed beneath her, his scent in the pillow under her cheek.

She was surrounded by old smells. Familiar ones. Though strangely, until a few weeks ago, she’d never actually been in Miah’s bed. They’d been lovers for a few short, blazing months, two summers back, but the man was claustrophobic. They’d come to know each other’s bodies on blankets under the wide-open northeastern Nevada sky, on the grass, and in the bed of his truck . . . Closest she’d ever come to laying him indoors had been the cab of that F-150. She still remembered every moment. The radio had been playing. “Life in a Northern Town” had come on, and goose bumps had broken out all over her skin, Miah’s fingers on her clit and his mouth on her neck as she’d come.

This is different, she reminded herself.

Jeremiah Church’s long, strong body was dressed in a tee and shorts, and Raina still wore her jeans and tank and bra.

This sleeping together was strictly literal.

But it really had to stop.

They’d lost a childhood friend six weeks ago—Alex Dunn, a sheriff’s deputy. Raina hadn’t slept properly since the day she accepted that Alex’s death hadn’t been the drunk-driving accident everyone had believed it was. The same day, Sheriff Tremblay had been called out and incriminated himself. She’d shut Benji’s late that night—three a.m., probably—and even after that, she and Miah had sat together on the bar’s front stoop, nursing a whiskey between them. Miah had been too drunk to drive home, and too upset besides.

They’d fallen silent. It should have felt cold. It got down to the forties at night in Fortuity, even now at the close of summer. But Raina hadn’t registered the temperature, couldn’t even remember the minutes or hours passing, with the two of them just sitting there.

After a long time she’d said, “Well.” No other thoughts had come, no lament about the state of their town or the tragedy surrounding their friend.

Miah had said even less. Not a single word. Instead he’d gotten to his feet and taken her hand. He’d led her through the bar to the back stairs, up to the second floor to her apartment. Through the kitchen and den and into her room, where the dawn light was just beginning to slip through the front windows and swallow the aura of the neon sign flickering outside.

He’d thrown the covers wide and she’d taken his lead when he pushed off his boots. Whatever he’d needed, she’d have given. Any persuasion of sex that might have offered an escape for the both of them. But all he’d done was draw her onto the mattress and held her. Spooned her. Fully dressed. No words, no sex or kissing, just the jerky sound of his uneven breathing against her neck, and his strong arms clinging as though she were the only thing keeping him from drowning.

The same thing, the night after. And the night after that. Then they’d switched to meeting at Three C, Miah’s family’s cattle ranch, as his work demanded that he get back to his usual routines. And her new routine became driving over there once the bar was closed. She’d find him waiting on the front porch, and he’d lead her inside. Sometimes he held her, sometimes the other way around. Sometimes they lay on their backs, fingers laced on the sheets between them.

It was weird, and probably not especially healthy, and no doubt confusing. But so was everything about their lives just now. She was thirty-two and he was a couple of years older, but all the recent uncertainty had them feeling lost as teenagers.

She took a deep breath, ribs expanding and pressing her into Miah’s warmth. Everything was so fucked right now, fucked and shapeless, the mysteries far from solved. But their two bodies were solid, amid the chaos—something to hold on to.

This fraught spooning was what Miah needed, and Raina had gotten herself accustomed to offering far less to men, the past few years. It felt nice, being what a man needed beyond the mechanical release of sex, for a change. And this particular man deserved good. Which was more than she could say for most of the ones she’d known. Or fucked.

But she really had to stop sleeping with him. Last night, he’d whispered to her as they were drifting off, about how she was the only thing that let him sleep. His lips had moved against her neck as he’d said it, and heat had trickled through her. Something in those words or the caress of his mouth had her thinking, Sooner or later, this need is going to turn carnal. He was going to want more from her—the things she’d taken away when she broke his heart, two summers ago. The things she was promising now, frankly, by coming back every night. Things she wanted, too, in her body . . . but not any place deep enough to make it okay. Because he wanted far more than Raina had in her to give.

As another dawn rose, staining the sky dark aqua through the skylight above them, Raina’s thoughts turned to another man. The near stranger who’d helped her friends find some truth in the shadows obscuring Alex’s murder. A man who presented like an entitled prick, but whose reckless actions had been those of a reluctant hero.

The stranger was tall, also. But where Miah smelled of the ranch—of leather and sweat and earth—the other man smelled of civility. Linen and soap, and a hint of cologne that didn’t cloy, merely flirted. A man whose jaw was as smooth as Miah’s neglected one was now bearded. Whose eyes were clear gray to Miah’s near-black ones; his hair light brown and styled, versus Miah’s overgrown black waves. His voice cultured and British and velvet-dark to Miah’s down-home, plain-speaking one. Their accents, their hands, their shoes, their jobs—everything opposed. The Churches were well off—they came from old railroad money on Miah’s father’s side, and were rarities in that they still managed their ranch; most owners were rich absentees. Though you’d never guess Miah was wealthy, to look at him. He dressed like the ranch hands he oversaw, whereas that other man oozed privilege from every pore. Everything about the two of them was mismatched, but for the way they roused Raina. In that, they were perfect equals.

As the sky grew lighter, her instincts urged her, Go. Miah would be waking soon to start his long workday. She always slipped out before he rose, worried he’d try to kiss her good-bye. Worried one kiss would be all it took for them to tear aside this flimsy barrier and find themselves clawing at each other’s clothes, hungry hands moving over familiar skin. And tempting as the sex was, it wasn’t fair. Because he was a good man, and it meant far more to him than it did to her. He was rare, that way. Sex was an expression of his feelings for a woman.

For Raina, sex was merely the scratching of an itch. And that itch was all she felt, for men. All she wanted to feel for them. It made her think of that other man, one too cold to ever get truly close to. A beautiful shell, too glossy-smooth for the creeping vines of attachment to take hold. Safe. The man at her back? Dangerous.

For long minutes she willed herself to wake Miah, to get her balls together and rip off this Band-Ai...

About this edition

• Publisher: Berkley
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 045147127X
• ISBN 13: 9780451471277
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 352