9. Riley

nine

Riley

Turns out we spent the day looking through Archer's stuff, like we did every day for the next week. I learned I enjoyed Merc and Dylan. She was easy to be around, and he had a gruff charm that was growing on me.

Cam was in and out. Mostly, he stayed away from me. It's like he'd sent the Merrick siblings to keep an eye out so he didn't have to. I was okay with that. The space made it possible for me to breathe, to process the lies my mom had constructed about Archer, and compare them to what I was learning each day. About the Desert Kings. About him. About this life.

By Saturday, Merc and Cam had moved to the garage, meticulously going through every toolbox, like they were searching for some sign of how to move on with the Kings without him.

The lawyer had put off reading the will, per the request of investigators. I found that odd, but I'd have to wait until we were alone and ask Cam. Which didn't seem likely to happen anytime soon.

Dylan and I went through closets, finding countless pictures, boxes of mementos, and a literal arsenal.

"What are we looking for?" I asked her from Archer's bedroom.

On the bed, we'd laid out at least a dozen guns. Ammunition piled up on the floor. Nervously, I'd made sure all of them were pointed away from me—just in case.

Dylan seemed to ignore the question, standing and surveying the weapons. "What in the actual fuck?"

"Jester said your brother prepares for zombies." I laughed to myself as I thought about how earnest his face had been when he'd tried to sell me that line. "Maybe Archer was too."

"I mean, you could mow down dozens of them with this thing." She picked up an automatic rifle I doubted was even legal, then put it back with a weird look on her face. "I'd rather hit someone. Seems more satisfying."

I could see it. Dylan was curvy and feminine, but I had little doubt she could kick some ass if need be.

"It's fucking Christmas." Merc whistled low and walked into the room, Cam on his heel with two large duffle bags.

Merc went right for the rifle his sister had just held, pointed it at the ground, and unloaded it with several quick, well-practiced hand motions. "Cam, brother—"

"There are more." Cam tossed the bags on the bed and picked up several boxes of ammo and shoved them in.

He glanced up at me with a sexy half grin. "The other night, I thought I was a dead man when I heard you in here. Figured someone had found Archer's stash. Scared the shit out of me."

"I'm betting I was more afraid than you." I stepped toward the door, making room for the boys and their toys. There were four long guns, a shorter barreled shotgun, and almost a dozen pistols. I had a hard time imagining the need for that many.

Merc took apart and unloaded the rifles before stashing them in the other bag.

"Nobody in this room is going to hurt you, darlin." Cam watched me across the bed, a box of bullets in his hand. "But it goes without saying, for all of us—nobody ever hears about this."

"I got you." Merc nodded and went back to work.

"Leave the thirty-eight, that chrome forty-five, and a rifle." He spoke first to Merc, but his eyes never left mine. "We good?"

Asking me to keep his secrets required a massive amount of trust. I was proud he put that much in me. But the resounding drum beat in my head reminded me that this was a world I didn't belong in. My mouth opened and a single word came out. "Absolutely."

"You think it's that bad?" Dylan whispered.

Merc sent her a glance that told her to mind her own business, but she didn't back down. "I have a right to know."

This was obviously a familiar argument, because Merc sighed heavily.

"But you don't." His voice was calm, but underneath there was an edge.

I backed fully into the hallway, just outside the door. Family squabbles were not something I wanted to be in the middle of.

"He's right." Cam zipped up the bag filled with guns and set it on the floor. "Club business isn't yours."

"This is more than that and you know it." She held her ground, arms crossed, and her chin thrust out in defiance.

Cam's loaded gaze flicked from me to her, and he didn't need to say more. Dylan stalked out of the room and down the hallway, forcing me back in when all I wanted to do was be somewhere else.

"Grab the bags and put them in the truck. We can come back for the rest of the shit later."

Merc snorted. "Another felony won't fucking matter."

But he took off with both duffels, leaving Cam and me alone in Archer's bedroom, surrounded by what was left of a life I couldn't understand.

He seemed to struggle with a lot of things in the quiet that stretched out between us. I went into the closet and pulled boxes from the top shelf—something I'd been doing before Dylan and I'd started finding rifles.

The space was a walk-in, but small and cramped. When Cam filled the doorway, I should have felt trapped. I didn't. Instead, I turned back to him, a flush heating my chest. "You don't owe me an explanation. Hopefully, I won't be here long enough to get in your way."

"It's not that." His face held a somber expression, his tone serious, leaving the entire closet chilled. "I need you to be careful. You went to the store the other day, and that's cool, but don't go anywhere without letting me know."

His words cooled whatever warmth being close to him had given me. He certainly didn't have to tell me things. I had no right to question him, but the longer I stayed, the more I wanted to. The chill grew until I half expected to see my breath when I spoke. "What happened to Archer?" My father. Why would any man need an entire freaking arsenal in his bedroom?

Without answering, Cam walked away. "I'll be back later. Dylan will stick around most of the day. Text if you find anything else," he called over his shoulder.

I didn't relax until I was alone. It wasn't Cam that was scary. He was strong, sexy, and a slew of things I shouldn't even think about. But whatever was happening beneath the surface here was something much bigger.

The closet smelled of him even after he left the room. I inhaled the scent. Leather from his vest, and a clean masculine smell that made me lick my lips.

There were three top shelves I'd cleared of boxes by the time Dylan came back.

"Who knew Archer would have a thing for reading westerns?" She rifled through a box of books.

"And political thrillers." I dropped another box with a thud beside her.

"That does not surprise me." She chuckled.

As she knelt by the boxes, she looked up at me and pursed her lips in contemplation. "Desert Kings' business stays with the MC, even if half my family wears the patch. Wives, daughters, sisters, old ladies… we get stonewalled until they need something. Like I told you, we can't ask questions."

The frustration was evident as she turned back to the box and pushed books around. "It pisses me off, because I could help if they'd let me."

"Cam tell you anything?" She didn't look up, just drug a finger down the broken spine of a well-worn volume.

"No." I sat on the edge of the bed and pulled my knees to my chin. "But he's only known me a week. Why would he?"

She shrugged. "Who knows? You're Archer's kid—"

"He hasn't even told me how he died."

This time, Dylan's eyes were stormy as she sat back on the floor and leaned against the wall in front of me. "They found him in a motel room in town, a single gunshot wound to his head. Gun in his hand."

Whatever I'd thought, it hadn't been that he'd killed himself. I gripped myself tight and rested my chin on my knees.

"Cam doesn't believe he killed himself. I don't think my dad does either."

Which explained the secrecy. We both sat together as the sun set and turned the blinds from a blinding white to a glowing orange. When I couldn't take it any longer, when more questions than I had a right to ask tumbled around in my head, I went back to the closet and fished out old ball caps and motorcycle magazines.

"Find anything?" she asked me later.

"Maybe." My fingers brushed across a well-cared for, glossy wooden box and pulled it from the back of the top shelf.

When I opened it, all the air in the room got sucked away. There were hundreds of pictures of me, the one on top was from my high-school graduation. At the bottom, a large manilla envelope. I placed the box on the dresser and shook out the letters.

My heart ached. The careful, flowing cursive was as familiar to me as my own handwriting.

Mom.

He'd known. Every milestone, every part of my life, she'd written to him. I lowered myself to the ground and started reading.

"I think you found it."

"Huh?" I flicked a glance up at her.

"Whatever you were looking for." She hugged me before disappearing out of the room to leave me alone with the letters.

Maybe it wasn't Archer I'd needed, but Mom. I moved the box to the spare room and sat on the bed, reading through her letters, looking at the pictures. I'd always felt her love, but she had never been an emotional person. Closed off, guarded, sometimes cold. But reading her words, I could feel the love she'd never been able to express.

I lay on the bed at one point, clutching a letter to my chest.

It was dark by the time I heard the truck come back and both bikes leave. Dylan called her goodbyes not long after.

Archer had kept up with every aspect of my life the whole time. There were printed emails too, from teachers and coaches, people who'd been in my life through the years. And yet, I'd never known a thing about him. She'd told me he was a dangerous, horrible man. Made it such a big deal I never tried to seek him out myself.

There was even a copy of my graduation invitation Mom had mailed to him. He hadn't come, but from the looks of an email, she had thanked him for sending money. How hypocritical to say such awful things but then take from him.

The box did little to heal me. Instead, I fell asleep thinking of all the things I'd missed out on.

It was after three a.m. when the sound of Cam's bike roared up the driveway and woke me. How it must hurt to know that someone you cared so much for, looked up to, had taken their own life.

Could his disbelief be denial? I didn't know, but my heart still ached for Mom. Even if she'd lied to me my entire life. Losing someone you loved changed who you were. Not knowing why, the surprise of it coming so fast, then having that death thrown up in your face when his estranged daughter comes to town?

The more he softened around me, the more that guard dropped, the more I realized I liked him. Yeah, he was sexier than any guy I'd ever met, and dangerous too. But he was funny, kind and loyal. He hadn't done anything to me, not really.

But the way his lips curved up under the blond goatee when he grinned at me, or the way his voice got lower when we were alone…

I twitched uncomfortably on the bed, jerking the Harley Davidson throw blanket up to my chin. Thinking about Cam definitely wouldn't lull me back to sleep.

Stretching as I stood, I packed up the wooden box and stowed it beneath my suitcase. When I left here, these things were coming with me. Everything else could stay.

If I was awake, I might as well get to work. I started a pot of coffee. Outside, the lights were on in Cam's over the garage apartment. He was awake too. I snarled at my reflection in the dark glass when the thought tightened my belly.

I moved my clothes around in the laundry and deposited clean ones in the guest room. The mundane chore, surrounded by the familiar and comforting scent of detergent and fabric softener, made me feel momentarily at home.

That feeling clawed its way from my chest and up my throat. I didn't have a home. In a few weeks, when this was over, I'd have money but nowhere to belong.

I steadied myself when I reached to pick up an errant sock off the kitchen floor. Archer's vest still hung on the back of the chair. They'd given it to me, but it wasn't mine. Even if I'd known him, I wasn't part of that world.

But Cam was. The surrogate son. It belonged to him.

Clad only in a pair of shorts that flirted with the hem of my faded t-shirt, I snatched it off the chair and took off out the back door. Cam was up. I could give it to him now. Maybe offer him some sort of closure, peace, something…

At the top of the steps, I faltered. Low music hummed through the walls, followed by laughter, and a woman's voice purring.

Nope. Nope. Nope.

This was a horrible idea. I don't know what made me think a guy like Cam Savage would be up this late alone. I turned and jogged down the wooden stairs, thankful my bare feet made little noise.

The music grew louder as his door swung open.

I froze halfway down the steps. There were cameras. I forgot about the cameras. Shit.

"Riley?" His voice was sultry, sleepy.

I died on the spot, my legs weak and my stomach heavy.

"Um, yeah, it's nothing." I clung to the vest and jogged down a few more.

"Wait a damn minute." The wood of the deck groaned a little as he walked out.

But I wasn't stopping. "No, it's cool. No big deal. I'll talk to you about it tomorrow."

"Darlin, stop ." His exasperated demand rolled through me like a thunderclap.

I stopped and turned, clutching Archer's vest to my chest.

Cam was already coming down the stairs, shirtless, in a pair of jeans, his hair tousled. It was unfair that he looked that good, even right now. Or maybe what he'd been up to had been the reason he looked so soft and sexy.

Damn . My cheeks heated and my tongue got thick. I was an idiot. I thrust the leather at him when he was only a few steps above me.

With a confused look, he examined Archer's cut.

"It's yours, not mine. I was thinking about it and… yeah. This should have never been given to me. Anyway, have a good night." I spun and tried not to speed walk like the elderly at the mall.

"For fucks' sake." He wrapped his long fingers around my elbow and jerked me to a stop on the concrete.

When I turned, his face was set in an almost painfully earnest expression, which somehow made the entire situation more embarrassing. Especially when a bleached blond with more fake lashes than good sense leaned over the rail.

"You coming back, Cam baby? I wasn't done yet." She giggled and gave me a mean snarl behind his back.

"Nah, we're done, Krystal. You can go." He watched me, studying me with such intensity I wiggled free from his grasp and tugged on the hem of my shirt. The childhood nervous habit coming back with such ferocity, I wanted to puke.

I couldn't figure out if he was waiting for her to leave before he said anything to me or if he wanted my reaction to her. Which embarrassed me more.

I gave him nothing. Mostly because I felt like a fish washed up on the beach. Every part of me was itchy, and I was floundering internally.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" She rounded the corner of the railing, looking like she was about to explode. She'd turned red, even the cleavage her push-up bra was tossing over the neckline of her shirt.

"No." He glanced back at her and jerked his chin toward the driveway. "Kick rocks."

My gasp of shock was quickly swallowed by a laugh I covered with my hand. She glared down at me before stomping back inside.

"I'm going inside." I tried to pull away, but he held fast to my arm.

"Please don't." He loosened his grip until it wasn't tight, but warm. If I'd really tried to pull free, he would have released me. I wasn't sure I wanted to, so I didn't. And the please had probably cost him more than he would admit.

Krystal wasn't the only woman to exit his apartment. Another one, looking far more sheepish with her arms full of clothes and her bag, followed with her head down. Krystal, though, was fuming and practically hissed at me as she stormed by us.

"Two of them?" I coughed out before I could stop myself. "Wow."

As they disappeared around the house, one side of his upper lip curled up and he gave a mischievous lift of his brow.

I was absolutely out of my league with this guy.

"Hot, right?" He was still grinning.

"Excessive," I responded, deadpan.

The momentary apprehension on his face was new, and I relished it with a disinterested shrug. Waiting on Krystal and her friend to leave had given me time to find stable ground and steady myself.

He frowned, glanced down at the vest in his hand, and opened his mouth, but no sound came out. When he looked back at me, I was reminded of what made walking up those steps so nerve-wracking. He wasn't just attractive. Every part of him appealed to me on a level I'd never experienced. There wasn't a man anywhere that had heated me right down to the soles of my feet like one look from Cam Savage could.

"Wanna go for a ride?"

And just like that, he sent me topsy-turvy all over again.