Biker B*tch Page 6

  And watch him like a hawk.

  “He’d probably like to see you. It would do him good.”

  “I have no intention of making a trip to Chino.” She’d caught up with Roy down the row, and she waited to move until he sped up. “Besides, without that temporary staff you promised, I don’t have the time.”

  He couldn’t argue with that. Pinot noir was only as good as the terroir. It wasn’t just the soil; it was the way the vines were planted, the way the sun hit the plants. It was the cool, foggy summer mornings that kept the fruit from getting too sweet. It was how close together the plants were; when the vines had to work hard to grow deep into the soil and make sap, you could taste everything in the wine.

  The Travis family had made sure that all that stuff was taken care of, and Roy hadn’t managed to fuck it up with his laziness. The climate was so good she just had to make sure each vine could benefit from the perfect location.

  The irrigation water was part of that; leaving another cane on the vines was one more; making sure the baggage of her father stayed out of the way and didn’t cause her to make any mistakes was the only thing she didn’t control.

  “It’s not a bad thing, you being like him.”

  “I’d say that being anything like a drug trafficker and murderer is a bad thing. I already have his DNA; I don’t need his character traits.”

  Roy didn’t have to tell her that her stubborn refusal to talk to him after the day he got locked up made her like her father more than anything.

  “I think the three canes will be okay,” he said. And then, thankfully, he stopped talking for a while.

  But Skyler’s stomach wouldn’t settle, not now that she knew he had eyes on her in the one place that she felt like she could have some peace.

  Skyler was sacked out, reading in bed after a long day of trying to convince her vineyard manager to move into the twenty-first century, when she heard the rumble of a motor coming up the drive.

  Even though her bones ached and her head hurt, she jumped up when the engine stopped and looked in the mirror. She was a hot mess; her hair needed washing, but she’d been too tired to do anything but rinse off after a full day of pruning, getting some geese to go after the weeds between the vines, and trying to find more staff. Maybe it was a sign she looked terrible. It might be enough to scare Travis away for good.

  He knocked on the door, and she took several deep breaths before moving to answer it. To her shock, he wasn’t waiting on the steps. He sat on his bike, pointed to a package on her doorstep, and gave her a little salute before riding off, casual as he liked. The crisp evening air-dried the inside of her gaping mouth, and she just stood there until she started to get cold.

  She was kind of hoping he would come in the trailer and ravish her. Damn it. Her head was all mixed-up about him, same as it had always been. And she couldn’t trust her own judgment anymore now than she could before.

  Whatever was in the bag, it smelled good. There was a note, which read, “Wouldn’t want you to starve to death out here. –T” That was about as sappy as it got for a biker. Memories of her dad came back. He’d never written sweet notes for her lunch box the way her friends’ moms did. She’d been lucky if he left her lunch money.

  The note he’d left with the wine was a mockery; Travis’s sincere concern made it that much worse. But she wasn’t going to let her father ruin this kind gesture.

  She shook her head and looked in the bag. It was a nice thing that he brought her food. Thoughtful. Too tired to get groceries, she’d eaten a little smoked salmon dipped in mayo before she collapsed.

  The bag of wonders contained a barbeque tri-tip sandwich and sweet potato fries from—if she wasn’t mistaken—D’s Diner. She sank her teeth into the sandwich she’d dreamed about during all the years away, her absolute favorite thing to eat. He’d remembered.

  If he was going to do sweet things for her, it would be hard to stay away from him. But thinking about how her life could fall to shit if she got involved with bikers almost ruined her sandwich. Almost.

  Travis rode away from Skyler’s trailer with a casual wave, but he’d wanted to climb up the stairs and kiss the hell out of her. Kick the trailer door closed and fuck her all night long. Backlit by the pink glow and mussed from what had probably been a long day, she looked like heaven.

  He remembered everything about her, from the way her rare laugh had always made his day to her favorite sandwich.

  He didn’t want to spend too much time wondering why she was just about the only thing he could think about these days. His business and the club had consumed him for too long. Seeing her again made him realize that he needed more.

  The wind rushed past his ears and penetrated his leathers. February was harsh down in the valley. It didn’t snow, but the cool, damp air got into everything. Skyler was like a warm summer day. He wanted just a bit of her freshness.

  So, since she’d fouled his taste for other women, he’d do what he had to do to woo her. She might deserve better than him, but he couldn’t let it go. Something inside his chest—not his pants—wouldn’t let him. He hadn’t wooed a woman in a long time. Maybe not ever. There was a first time for everything.

  He pulled into his driveway, turned off his bike, and walked into his house. The old farmhouse was a place to lay his head, but it didn’t feel like a home. He’d bought this place because it came on the market and, after a while, he needed to sleep somewhere other than a couch his mom had dragged into a corner in his shop.

  The time he’d put into making this place something, just like the shop and the club, was a distraction. Too much responsibility fell on his head. Watch out for Chevy and his friends. Make sure his mom had what she needed. Keep meth cookers and smack dealers out of town.

  Now Skyler and her baggage. Did he really want to deal with that shit? Not really, but he couldn’t help wanting her. That her hellfire gaze and insults kicked him in the nads.

  His mother had told him time and time again that Travis men took no time when it came time to choose a woman. His parents met at a county fair and were married and pregnant with Isaac six weeks later. And they’d been happy for a long time.

  And after Isaac had died, everything fell apart at the seams. His dad had lost interest in the winery, so Travis had to pick up the slack to keep them afloat. And then his dad had keeled over from a heart attack. His father may have died of a heart attack, but Travis believed that Isaac broke his father’s heart. Even more than he’d broken Travis’s. Travis had seen his brother pulling off the straight and narrow road long before he ended up shot to shit at a drug deal gone bad. He’d lost his brother day-by-day as he got deeper and deeper into the lifestyle. Travis hadn’t been able to pull him out. He’d just been the little brother.

  Even now, thinking about Isaac made guilt gather inside his head and make his limbs heavy. There was nothing he could do except make sure the same thing didn’t happen to any more local kids.

  He’d started the club because he needed an excuse to ride away whenever he was moved to, and he needed a brotherhood. His mom was great, but she always wanted to talk the shit out of everything.

  It had turned into a club for other reasons. Travis needed the other Sinners; when he wanted to fight, they’d strap some gloves on and tussle. When he wanted to drink, they’d hit up Ed’s or bring a keg out to the Foundry. When he wanted to ride, at least a few of them would head out on Highway 1 and burn rubber down the coast. And before Carrots came back, when he’d wanted a woman, wearing a cut and riding his bike always got him laid.

  Keeping the Diablos from blowing up his hometown had become their mission gradually, over time. And it was just as important to his brothers as it was to him.

  But now, he didn’t only want this life. Everything became clear the first time she lobbed an insult at him. Sort of like when he saw the finished product in a stack of metal.

  He grabbed a beer and flopped onto the leather couch. He’d watch TV for a bit and then turn in. He had a
new client coming in the next day, so he had to be up and out early. The designs he’d made, now spread out on his coffee table, were going to blow this guy away. He should be more excited about that. But all he could think of was Skyler, standing in that door all disheveled and wishing he was with her. He was turning into a sap.

  8

  “What’s in the old barn, Roy?” Skyler hadn’t taken a close look when she put the case of wine in there. That barn held so much history that she’d focused on the wine, the note, and the bench. And she didn’t want to go back in there to check the rest of it out.

  “Just some old equipment Mr. Travis couldn’t bear to part with,” her foreman said. He mumbled and wouldn’t meet her eyes, which piqued her curiosity.

  “You’re sure that’s all?” She had a mind to burn it down and make the land forget all about how Travis’s rejection had been the thing that had nearly broken her.

  “You know what an old tightwad he was. Never could get rid of shit.”

  “I should go through it and make sure I don’t need anything.” She was thinking out loud. Roy wouldn’t volunteer to do anything that wasn’t strictly within the bounds of his contract. And he seemed to think the vineyard manager position involved very little actual work.

  “I’ll go through it. This weekend.”

  She raised her eyebrows at him. Manual labor? On a weekend? Maybe he had a stash of porn he didn’t want her to find?

  He shrugged. “You’re real busy getting all the vineyard equipment ready for bud break. Probably just field stuff anyway.”

  More than he had done for her since she arrived. And then, wonder of wonders, he tipped his hat and almost ran out to the fields. He’d never moved that fast.

  She put his odd behavior out of her mind, but she couldn’t stop thinking about Travis as she checked the barrels of wine aging in the caves. Some of it was good enough to bottle and sell as table wine. Anything carrying the Blue Sky Cellars label would have to be a lot better, though. Empty barrels with the remnant of past vintages—the devil’s cut—scented the air.

  She’d have to order a lot of new barrels, which meant Michael would have to put more money into the winery. She hoped, for the sake of their friendship, that he wasn’t throwing good money after bad just to make sure she still got to do what she loved.

  She’d always thought she would follow in her father’s footsteps in becoming a doctor, but being here made her realize that her Plan B—winemaking—should have been her Plan A all along.

  When she was younger, she’d spent hours and days following Travis and his brother around the caverns filled with barrels. They probably only put up with her because their mom made them—and no one crossed Debbie. Still, they were the only happy memories after her mother died. She’d spent months with dirt from the vineyards under her fingernails. Back then, she’d been too young to appreciate the wine the Travis family started making when the valley turned from orchards to vineyards. They’d been among the first to make the switch, and the wine was profitable for a long time.

  From the looks of the caves, Mr. Travis had lost interest in making wine about a decade ago, around the time Isaac died. Some of the wine fermenting in the barrels would be amateurish stuff from weekend hobbyists who had bought grapes and rented equipment and space from the Travis family.

  Every surface in the caves had a dust blanket. Good thing she wore coveralls and had a scarf to cover her hair. She spent the morning dusting all the barrels and tasting their contents with the wine thief, which allowed her to taste the barreled wine without disturbing the fermentation. Some of it would be ready for bottling soon. She reminded herself to place an order for bottles and synthetic corks when she left the caves.

  Her stomach kept time in the darkness better than her brain did. She emerged from the caves at lunchtime with a growling tummy and not nearly enough done. As they did whenever she stopped moving, her thoughts tracked back to Travis.

  She went into her trailer, put together a sandwich, and took it out to the front step to eat. She’d thought her crush would have died as she got older. But with a raised eyebrow and a smirk, Travis could turn her right back into a pining sixteen-year-old. She almost choked on her sandwich thinking about him giving her that look at the diner.

  Pathetic.

  She ate the rest of her sandwich and did the only thing that would reliably take up more brain cells than Abner Travis and that road she wouldn’t go down: more work. When she checked on the condition of the destemmer, the machine that separated the grapes from their stems and leaves and partially crushed them, she realized thoughts of Travis weren’t about to give up so easily. The auger was stuck, and the machine was useless without it. This wouldn’t be a problem until they had grapes to harvest. But it had to work. She certainly didn’t have the manpower to de-stem an entire vineyard’s worth of grapes by hand.

  She didn’t want to ask Roy. He’d laugh if his girl boss couldn’t get the equipment up-and-running. Reluctantly, she dialed Travis’s number. She was almost disappointed when he answered.

  “Foundry.” He sounded like he’d just woken up—or rolled out of bed at least. He could probably make an organic chemistry lab report sound sexy.

  “Travis. Um. I’ve got…”

  “Spit it out, Carrots.” She could hear the smile in his voice, and it made her even more irked to ask for his help. He’d lord it over her for months, years even.

  “The destemmer. The auger is stuck.” When he didn’t answer her, she continued. “Is there some sort of trick to the machine? It’s a lot fancier than the machines I used in Europe.”

  “So, we do have something fancier here than you did in France?”

  She blew air through her lips. He wasn’t going to make this easy. “Can you come take a look at it?”

  He laughed out loud then. “You need something from me? The ‘dumbass, provincial, biker thug?’ Isn’t that something?”

  “It was ‘dipshit.’”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Travis, I’m sorry. I was just trying to—”

  “Oh, I know what you were doing, Carrots. But maybe I don’t want to come running when you need help now that I know what you really think.”

  She rolled her eyes. Travis wasn’t going to be a baby and refuse to help; she knew that. But it seemed he was going to make her pay for his help. “I don’t really think…um, I don’t think that you’re a thug. But I can’t get involved with someone like you.”

  “You know very well I’m nothing like him.” His voice was deadly serious then. She’d hit him where he was already bruised.

  “I don’t think you’re my father.” Her voice was soft, even to her own ears.

  “I’ll get out there to look at it when I have time. Don’t hold your breath.” He hung up the phone without waiting to hear her response.

  Jerk.

  It shocked the shit out of her when he showed up in the caves less than an hour later. She thought she’d hit a bad batch out of the barrels and was hallucinating for a moment. She’d spit out most of the samples she’d taken, but a light buzz and mild hallucinations were a job hazard. She really shouldn’t see him after she’d been drinking. She was liable to forget all the reasons why tripping and falling on top of him was a bad idea. Who was she kidding? He’d definitely be on top. He’d demand it. She could almost feel his hard body digging into her inner thighs.

  Travis ran his hand through his hair. It looked like he hadn’t washed it in a couple of days, but it hung just right. Just so, over his forehead, accentuating his eyes. Damn. With that hair, his leather jacket, and low-riding jeans, she was surprised she wasn’t standing in a puddle of her own drool.

  She scowled at him so he wouldn’t notice her panting.

  “I thought you wanted me to come out.”

  “I did.” She’d lost the power of speech, or at least the power of insults. Hopefully, this would be a quick fix.

  She squared her shoulders and pointed toward the door. “C’mon. I’ll s
how you the problem.”

  She squeezed past him and smelled sweat and burnt metal; his body heat seared her skin. That’s when she looked down and remembered she was still wearing dusty coveralls. She might be a quivering mess of hormones around him, but he would definitely be able to resist her. If he’d been able to walk away at twenty-three with her sitting at cock-level, it would be a breeze now.

  By the time they’d reached the other outbuilding, she had her feet back under her. At well over six feet, he could see into the machine. Tall as she was, she needed a step stool.

  “I turn the crank, but the auger seems stuck,” she said.

  Travis furrowed his brow and grunted in understanding. He fiddled with a couple of the moving pieces–all the stuff she’d tried before calling him.

  Then he took off his leather jacket and it got hot in the building despite the sophisticated temperature control system. He should really have a modeling deal with a T-shirt company with the way it stretched across his back. How many pull-ups did it take to look like that?

  He handed her the jacket and smiled. She clutched it and fought not to bring it up to her nose like she would have as a teenager.

  He crouched beneath the machine, and tinkered with one of the mechanisms that appeared to control the auger. She could see the bottom bits of a tattoo on his back. She’d always thought she hated tattoos, but she wanted to trace his with her fingers. Then, she’d do the same thing along his abs, which—if the way he wore a T-shirt was any indication—were just as cut as the rest of him. Working with giant pieces of metal and heavy machinery all day did the body good.

  She needed to start spitting out all the wine she tasted.

  When he grunted again and took off his shirt, she almost choked. He had two wings spanning the whole of his back, just like the one on his cut. Except this one was alive. Every time he moved, it looked like the wings twitched. The feathers on the left side looked singed, like Icarus’s wings. Being with Travis would be like flying too close to the sun. The tattoo was everything—scary intricate, beautiful, and she wanted to taste it.