Burn It Up (A Desert Dogs Novel) - Softcover

McKenna, Cara

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0451476603 ISBN 13: 9780451476609

Publisher: Berkley, 2015

Synopsis

In the latest from the acclaimed author of Give It All, mount up and ride a roaring motorcycle to Fortuity, Nevada, where the heat is rising...

After a decade spent chasing shadier pursuits, Casey Grossier has come home to the badlands to settle down in Fortuity. Vowing to put his days of dirty money behind him, he’s cleaned up his act and become co-owner of Benji’s Saloon. But despite his efforts to be a better man, he can’t shake his crush on his sweet-faced bartender, even though the woman screams trouble.

Abilene Price hopes she can outrun her mistakes and build a safe, respectable life for herself and her baby. So she’d be wise to keep her distance from her boss, Casey, and the rest of his roughneck motorcycle club, the Desert Dogs. But she just might need their help. The return of a violent figure from Abilene’s past ignites a powder keg—and it’s only the beginning...

About this title

About the Author

Cara McKenna is the author of Hard Time, Unbound, and After Hours, as well as the Desert Dogs series, including the novels Give it All and Lay it Down, and the novella “Drive It Deep.”  She 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 is a 2015 RITA Award finalist, a 2014 Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice Award winner, a 2013 and 2011 Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice Award nominee, and a 2010 Golden Heart finalist. She lives with her husband in the Pacific Northwest, though she’ll always be a Boston girl at heart.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Praise

Also by Cara McKenna

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Excerpt from Lay It Down

Chapter 1

James Ware strolled into the prison yard alongside a couple hundred fellow inmates, welcoming the weak February sunshine on his shoulders and scalp. Normally the sensation would amount to a tease, a mere hour’s escape from the cinder block and noise of the inside, but this afternoon it felt different. Felt manageable.

“Two days,” came a voice from behind him. It was the young guy everybody called Tugs, for reasons James didn’t care to know. He was skinny, hyper, a little too wide-eyed and loudmouthed for this place where bluster required muscle to command any respect. James didn’t mind him, though. They worked in the kitchen together, and the kid was all right.

“Two fucking days,” James agreed, slowing until Tugs was at his side, the both of them heading to the far corner of the yard.

“Lookit that wall, man.” Tugs pointed to the fourteen feet of concertina-capped brick that penned them. “Two days from right now, you’ll be on the other side. That’s gotta feel good.”

“No doubt.” They reached the corner known as the gym—though a couple weight benches and a rusty collection of barbells weren’t exactly worth a membership. James snagged a bench and Tugs stood by, always eager to spot. Kid was like one of those little fish that stuck close by a shark, grateful for scraps and a taste of protection.

“What’ll you do, first thing after they let you out?” he asked James.

“Pray to God my sister remembers to pick my ass up.” James hefted a thirty-pound dumbbell and began to curl. “Then eat a hot meal off an actual plate and get a decent cup of coffee.” No more plastic trays, no more brown sludge-water.

“Bet you’re gonna get so shitfaced on Tuesday,” Tugs said wistfully.

“Sure.” James didn’t drink, but neither did he go into details about his personal life. He didn’t need to drink, he thought, feeling the chemicals moving through his blood as his muscles woke up. His temper was a thrashing, snapping dog while he was stone-cold sober, and he kept it on a short leash. Get him drunk and that tether got real slippery, real quick. He hadn’t had so much as a beer in two years or more. And he hadn’t been as pissed as he was now in almost too long to remember.

“Bet you got a girl waiting for you,” Tugs said. “Get wasted, get laid—that’s what I’m gonna do the second I get out of here.”

James didn’t reply.

Yeah, he had a girl waiting for him. Two of them. An ex and a daughter. A four-month-old daughter he’d never met, and hadn’t even known about until recently. He aimed to see her, as soon as he could track her down. And his ex . . . well, time would tell how difficult she might decide to make that for him. If the girl knew one thing, it was how to run.

The last time he’d seen her . . .

The last time, things had gotten out of control.

The two of them had always been out of control, but that afternoon it had all boiled over. Their relationship had only ever been a messy, staggered succession of fucking and fighting. Normally James prided himself on resisting other people’s bait, but that girl could tempt his anger like nobody he’d ever known. She could rouse his softer side, too, and they’d had some good times. But that last blowout had rasped all the shine right off what they’d briefly had together in a roof-rattler of a fight that must’ve left them sounding like a pair of feral rednecks to the neighbors.

She’d wanted that fight, too. She’d goaded him until he’d lost control enough to clasp her shoulders and shake her. She had poison inside her. Other people had put it there, but she knew just how to strike out and weaponize that shit. She’d also had their baby inside her, during that fight. Neither of them had known it then, but it had already been growing. Just a tiny little speck, invisible to the eye, yet since James had found out about it, it had grown big enough to eclipse the whole of his world.

He’d never known a woman like Abilene. A seeming kitten, except catch her on a bad day, pet her wrong—she’d scratch and bite you like a fucking wolverine. She’d been all claws when they’d met, all claws when they’d parted less than three months later. In between there’d been good times, but stress had never brought out the best in her, and if a baby was one thing, it was stressful. If there were claws drawn now, he needed to know. Needed to see for himself that his kid was in safe hands.

As his muscles worked and his blood thundered in his temples, anger flared with every pulse. He wasn’t a good man—there was no doubting that—but she was no saint herself. And if she decided he needed to be blocked out of his own daughter’s life, that he was the one that child needed protecting from . . .

You’ve got a fucking nerve, you little bitch.

And in two days’ time, he’d find her. In two days’ time he’d see his kid, come hell or high water, and he’d decide precisely what needed to be done about it all.

Chapter 2

“Motherfuck—”

Casey froze, eyeing the baby asleep in his lap.

“You didn’t hear that. Just keep sleeping. Sleeee-pinnng,” he pleaded, rising gingerly from the couch to reach for his ringing phone. He shifted Mercy’s weight to one arm and checked his screen.

Unlisted—no shock there. He hit TALK. “Hello?”

“Grossier?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s Emily. Why are you whispering?”

“It’s three a.m., man.”

“And this has been a problematic hour for talking business since when, exactly? Oh, wait.” He could hear a smile in her voice now. “You got a girl next to you?”

Casey glanced down. “Sort of.”

“I’ll keep it quick, but you’ll want to hear this—I’ve got the perfect job for you.”

“I’m not taking any more contracts, Em. I told you that in October.”

“There’s some policy bullshit on this one,” she went on, ignoring him. “Has to go down by March fifteenth.”

“Em—”

“Which is soon, I know, but it’s so fucking easy. Commercial, super remote, no neighbors for half a mile. You’re in and out and it’s all over before the good guys even get the call. You could do this in your sleep.”

“No, I can’t—”

“Your slice would be twenty, minimum.”

Twenty thousand bucks? Casey wasn’t broke, but a payday like that would certainly make his life a hell of a lot easier . . . He felt sweat break out under his arms and at the small of his back. He eyed the mounted antelope head on the wall above the fireplace, feeling as frozen as that poor bastard.

“Mi-ni-mum,” Emily repeated.

Casey took a deep breath, glanced at Mercy, and screwed his head on straight. “I can’t. I’m in Nevada, for one.”

“Vegas? That’s not far.”

“No, fu—frigging way up near Idaho.”

“Okay, so what? Get in your car and drive. You’re the best, but four weeks is tight, even for a cake job like this.”

“Shit’s changed.” He eyed the baby again. Not shit—crap. Crap’s changed. “I have responsibilities now.”

A pause. “You? Have responsibilities? What kind of responsibilities?”

“I own a bar, for one.”

“A bar? Do tell.”

“Don’t even think about it. I’m not laundering a penny for you.”

“Spoilsport.”

The baby began to fuss. “No, no, no . . .”

“Are you talking to someone else?”

“No, I— Listen, I can’t. We had a great run, but I’m out. I can’t be doing that shit anymore. I’ve got a business partner to think about. I go down and it’s not just my ass on the line now.”

“This doesn’t sound like the Casey Grossier I know. Plus you won’t go down—you’re too good.”

“You’ve got other guys.”

“None like you. Bunch of dumb-ass punks. But you—you’re a fucking artist, Case. Just this one job. Come on, please? For old times’ sake?”

“I’m telling you,” he said, gently bouncing the now-pissed-off-looking baby, “I can’t.” Even as he said it, he pictured that money. Pictured the scene—smelled it, felt it . . .

No. No fucking way.

A sigh came through the line. “You’re breaking my heart, mister.”

“I have to get out of that line of work sometime, Em. So do you, for that matter.”

“Twenty grand says I can put off retirement for a few more weeks. And you—the Casey I know would have taken a job ten times trickier than this and for half the payout, just for the fun of it.”

“Well, I guess I’m just not the—”

Mercy woke, squawking and angry.

“Is that a baby?”

“It’s not mine. It’s complicated. Anyhow, I have to go. Nice working with you, Em.”

“I’m keeping you in my Rolodex. I know you—you can’t quit that easy.”

“Watch me.” Casey hit END and tossed his phone on the couch.

“Shush,” he told the baby. “Shush your beautiful face, please. Your mom hasn’t slept in, like, three days . . .”

At four months, the infant book had said, both Abilene and her daughter might soon be getting eight hours a night, but this baby clearly had no designs on higher achievement. Casey had spent a lot of time in Vegas, and he’d known alcoholic insomniac gamblers who were more lovable at three a.m. than this baby was.

Above him, footsteps.

“Shit. Please be Christine, please be Christine.”

There was a chance it was—he was in Christine Church’s home, after all, and she often rose at ungodly hours. Christine and her husband, Don, and their son, Casey’s good friend Miah, lived in this big old farmhouse at the western edge of their cattle ranch. Casey was here about every other night, checking in on Abilene, helping with the baby as best he could, when he really ought to be home, in bed, asleep.

Hell, I shouldn’t be in Fortuity at all.

Or anyplace in Nevada, for that matter—not when he could be back in Texas, saying yes to that contract, looking forward to meeting Emily for a drink to go over the logistics, salivating to get the project going. He shouldn’t be co-owner of a bar. In the light of day, he was glad he was, but just now, when he was sleep deprived and missing his old paydays, his old freedom . . .

Above, on the landing to the second-floor rooms, a door opened, spilling soft light. Shit, Abilene.

“What’s the matter?”

“We’re fine.”

She padded down the steps and into the den in her sleep clothes—pajama pants with a pattern of stars and moons, an oversized and faded Dolly Parton concert tee. Her long, dark ponytail was all cockeyed, her normally wide eyes squinty and bleary. Cute as fuck, really.

“Sorry,” Casey said, bouncing the angry baby. “I’ve got her. My phone rang. She’ll be back to sleep in no time,” he lied. He didn’t know much about babies, but he was steadily coming to understand this one, and when Mercy was pissed, she stayed pissed.

“Give her here.”

“No, go back upstairs.”

“Try giving birth to a baby and then ignoring the sound of her crying,” Abilene countered. “Sit.”

He dropped back on the couch and Abilene sat beside him. He passed the squirming bundle into her arms.

Casey stretched his neck from side to side, feeling the hour. Feeling, as he often did these days, half-incompetent at most everything he was attempting to do—run a bar, help out with his family’s issues, care for an infant. The one thing he was truly exceptional at was off the table. He’d grown used to feeling capable, used to knowing without a doubt that he was the only man for the job. But with that job shelved, and maybe for good, he couldn’t say he much enjoyed the alternative. It roused an old, familiar restlessness in him, the same one that had driven him out of this town to begin with. His self-serving side wanted to run straight back to Texas, except he was all in now. For the first time in his life, he was neck-deep in responsibilities, with others seriously depending on him. Running wasn’t an option . . .

Not unless he felt like turning into his old man, that was, which was about the only thing that scared him worse than commitment.

Warmth broke through his worries—the warmth of Abilene’s thigh through his jeans, and her upper arm against his bare elbow. She was short, maybe five-two, small framed but . . . plump? Casey didn’t know what the acceptable term was to use in front of a girl, but you could say she was a little chubby, and had been even before her pregnancy had begun to show. It didn’t bother him one bit. Her skin looked crazy-soft. Soft like her heavy Texas accent. When his dick got the better of him, he’d imagine how his hands would look on that skin, how she’d feel like heaven under his palms. Casey didn’t discriminate when it came to women’s bodies, and Abilene’s was everything essentially feminine to him. Petite and . . . and lush.

It did things to him, even now. Always had. Probably always would.

Though it really shouldn’t. She was too young, for one, and she was his employee to boot—she tended bar at Benji’s three afternoons a week. And on top of all that, she’d gone into labor nearly two weeks early, while they’d been closing up together, and had given birth in the back of Casey’s car, halfway to the nearest decent hospital in Elko, in the dead of night.

He’d had a crush from the second he’d laid eyes on her and hit on her and asked her out a hundred times—fruitlessly—before he’d found out she was pregnant, but he’d never so much as kissed her. Never really even touched her in any meaningful way before he’d found himself kneeling between her legs, getting screamed at, trying not to hyperventilate as a squalling baby had been born into his shaking hands.

Still, that had been four months ago, give or take, and since then his old desire had crept back in—and worse than ever, if he wasn’t mistaken. No matter that he knew Abilene was over whatever she’d once felt for him. Motherhood ate up all her energy, and it really ought to have desexualized her in Casey’s eyes as well . . . but in truth, he was straight up in awe of her now. And protective, as well, a sensation that always wired straight between a man’s legs, it seemed.

So for a half dozen excellent reasons, Casey pretended he felt for Abilene what she now did for him—a brother-sister-type affection, nothing more.

He’d always been a goddamned good liar.

“Sorry,” he said again. “I was really hoping to give you a decent night’s sleep for a change.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Abilene murmured, soothing Mercy. “Phones ring. Babies cry. I got four whole hours in. That’s more than I would have if I was on my own tonight.”

“You’re not on your own—you’ve got Chris...

About this edition

• Publisher: Berkley
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0451476603
• ISBN 13: 9780451476609
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 352