Free Guns & Dusty Roads: The Iron Brotherhood Series by Samantha Westlake Page B

night, at least,” she said, in between pulls.
    Another man might have argued against that comment.  Cross, however, just grinned, as if he was proud of the implication!  “Oh, and Gimli says hello,” he replied instead, smirking.
    Gimli?  Oh yes, the short and stocky biker.  Why did he-
    The memory of coming back from the bathroom after puking rose up and replayed itself.  “Oh, no,” Kara muttered, closing her eyes.
    “He’s got the nickname for you all picked out,” Cross continued, mixing sips of his own coffee in with this comment.  From the man’s grin, he was definitely enjoying every moment of this, savoring the schadenfreude.
    He waited until Kara looked up.  “What is it?” she asked, bracing herself for the worst.
    “Legs.”
    “Legs?” she repeated.
    Cross nodded.  “First, you do have a hell of a pair,” he said, his eyes dipping down to where the limbs in question were hidden beneath the blankets.  “But more importantly, they’re a lot more fun when open than shut - a bit like you, before and after you’ve had a few drinks!”
    Kara dropped her head back down with a groan.  “That’s terrible!” she complained, her voice muffled.
    “I dunno, it seems to fit pretty well.”
    For a few more seconds, Kara just kept her head buried.  She let herself wallow in misery a little longer, just feeling sorry for herself, letting herself believe that this whole unfortunate situation of events was not her fault.  It was just part of going undercover, of selling the ruse, she repeated to herself.  She tried not to think about how hollow those words sounded, even to her.
    And then, after a minute had passed, she lifted her head back up, finished off the coffee in her mug in one last, long pull, and then rolled her legs out of bed.  “Let’s go,” she announced, striding over to her bag.  “Time to get up, get dressed, put some pants on.  We’re going out, tackling this case.”
    Once again, Kara expected an argument from the man, but he just nodded, as though he had expected this reaction.  “As you heard last night, the Hellraisers consider the gun running to be at the heart of their other operations, so they keep the details locked down, even to us,” he said as Kara went through her clothes.
    “You guys aren’t all buddies, getting drunk together?” she shot back at him as she pulled a clean pair of jeans and a new bra out of her supply bag.
    Cross shook his head.  “Not likely.  More like lifelong enemies who have agreed to an uneasy truce,” he countered.  “So we hear bits and pieces of what they’re up to, but nothing concrete, no details.”
    “So what are we going to do?  It sounds like we’re at a dead end.”
    “It’s not a dead end, not yet,” he replied.  “For an operation as big as what the Hellraisers are running, they have to have other contacts - and a secret like theirs can’t be kept for long.  ‘Three men can keep a secret if two of them are dead,’ you know.”
    The expression made Kara’s eyebrows rise.  “Benjamin Franklin?” she asked in astonishment.  “Not what I’d expect a man like you to quote.”
    “Oh, I’m a man of hidden depths,” Cross told her, his grin firmly back in place.  “You would have seen another last night, if you’d had a stronger stomach.”
    Now fully dressed, Kara felt much better, much more able to tackle the day ahead.  “Never going to happen,” she told the man as she pulled on her biker’s boots.
    Cross didn’t say anything; he merely rose up, grabbing both of the mugs, so that he could follow Kara out of the bedroom.  But, unspoken, one last thought hung in the air, dominating the silence.
    Both of them knew that Kara’s statement was untrue.  Even now, when they were both sober, the pull was still there.  They didn’t acknowledge it, but Kara knew better than to assume it would just go away.
    Get through the case, she told herself as they left the bedroom.  Make it to the end,