The Bolton Brothers

He did his best thinking on his bikes. Usually, that meant solving the latest design problem or figuring out how to work around his dad or brothers. But today, riding up and down the same mile of territory that hardly qualified as a road, the problem he found himself thinking about was Jenny.

She’d smelled of baby powder, a soft scent that matched the woman he’d met at the wedding but seemed out of place on the woman who’d threatened him. Not a hint of coffee, and he knew Josey preferred tea when she was on the rez. The guess hadn’t been a huge leap, but the way Jenny’s eyes had widened when he’d been right? Worth it.

He still couldn’t get over how she’d promised it wasn’t over. Maybe he was getting soft in his thirties, but he found himself hoping she was right.

Finally, after an hour of rolling up and down the same mile, Bobby decided they had the footage he wanted. By that time, the school was overflowing. All the kids were there, and a fair number of their parents had come to watch, too.

Back when he’d earned his reputation the hard way, people had been in awe of him. Some had wanted to be on his good side, some had tried to prove they were bigger or badder. People’s reactions had only gotten worse since this whole webisode thing started. People were watching him, expecting him to be funny or crude or what, he didn’t know. All he knew was they were here for Wild Bill Bolton. And he hated it.

His brother Ben’s wife, Josey, came up to him as he parked his bike next to the shop where they were going to be building the bike. “Morning, Billy,” she said. “Everything go okay so far?”

Right. No doubt Jenny had had a little powwow with her cousin. “Bobby’s still an ass—”

“Language! There are children present!”

It was going to be such a long day. “Twit. Bobby’s still a twit.”

Josey sighed. “Billy, remember the rules.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know—language, attitude, no throwing things.”

Josey patted him on the arm. “It’s just three weeks.”

Sure, it was only three weeks at the school, but he was stuck with Bobby running his life for the foreseeable future. He’d only agreed to do this show because Ben said this was a good way to justify the cost of new equipment for the shop, and Billy loved new equipment. Hell, testing out a new tool was half the fun of building a bike. Plus, he’d thought it was a good way to keep the peace in the family. Now he wasn’t so sure.

Sure, Billy guessed it was nice that people recognized him now, and yeah, it was probably good for his ego that someone had started a Facebook page called The Wild Bill Bolton Fan Club. But most of him wanted “Real American Bikers,” which was what Bobby called the webisodes, to fail and fail big. That way, he could go back to doing what he did best—building custom motorcycles. No more cameras, no more groupies, no more being famous.

Back to building his bikes in peace and quiet.

Although that didn’t look like it was going to happen anytime soon. “Real American Bikers” was getting a healthy number of hits on YouTube, where Bobby was hosting a channel for it—whatever the hell that meant. Billy hadn’t actually watched more than about two minutes of the show. It was too painful. Too much of a reminder that he could never really leave his Wild Bill reputation behind him.

“Oh, here comes Don Two Eagles,” Josey was saying as she waved an older guy over. “Don, this is—”

“Billy Bolton. You look like your old man,” Don said. Didn’t sound like a compliment, and Billy sure as hell didn’t take it as one.

Ben had told Billy all about Don. “You’re the guy who broke Dad’s jaw back at Sturgis in the eighties, right?”

“Damn straight,” Don said.

“Language!” Josey snipped as she checked to see if any kids had been listening.

“I put your old man down, and I ain’t afraid to do the same to you, so you best behave, hear?”

“Don,” Josey said under her breath. Billy got the feeling that this was a conversation they’d had before. Then she turned on the charm. “Now, the kids are going to come out and line up. Bobby thinks it’ll be a nice shot if we introduce some of the older students to you personally and you shake their hands, so we’ll start filing them past you. Can you handle that?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be watching you,” Don said before being called away by the production crew.

“Heavens, can you believe Bobby actually wants to bring your father out here and let him and Don go at it?” Josey’s voice dropped down to a whisper. “Sometimes I don’t know about that brother of yours.”

“Makes two of us.”

This was why he liked Josey. She understood how the Bolton family worked and was committed to keeping it from imploding. Ben had picked well.

Then he heard himself ask, “Will Jenny be bringing her class out?”

Josey gave him an odd look. “No, the first and second graders aren’t allowed in the shop.”

“I wasn’t trying to break her car,” he added.

“I know. Just solving a problem. That’s what you do best, Billy.” She patted him on the arm again—she had that whole mothering thing down.

Billy was about to rub the dust off his tires when Vicky, the production assistant, came up to him. “We need to get you miked, Billy.”

Vicky definitely fell into the category of women who were afraid of him. Her production company, Villainy Productions, sounded far tougher than she was. Miking Billy usually involved taping a mike to Billy’s chest, and she didn’t seem to think his tattoos were impressive.

“Well,” she said, surveying the fitted T-shirt Billy wore. “I guess...you’re going to have to take the shirt off?”

Billy grabbed the hem of his T-shirt, but before he could peel it off, the doors to the school burst open and about fifty kids came pouring out. Almost immediately, Josey was next to him, a hand on his arm. “Can we do this somewhere else?”

Vicky swallowed. She worked real hard on not being alone with him. Which was funny—Bobby was the much bigger threat to the female race. Billy hadn’t even been with a woman in...

Damn. That turned into a depressing train of thought. The fact was, it’d been a long time since he’d gotten tired of going home with the kind of woman who looked like she was auditioning for a heavy-metal music video and waking up alone. Years.

Since then, he’d thrown himself into building bikes. Which wasn’t such a bad thing—it kept him out of trouble. He was good at it, which had made him a boatload of money—also not a bad thing. However, with the money had come a different kind of woman—older, richer, more mercenary, if that were possible. Billy had no interest in those women. None. The one time he’d dated a woman out of his league, he’d gotten his heart run over like roadkill. It was easier just to build more bikes.

But now building bikes was making him famous. Hell, half the time he was afraid to leave his house in the morning. A few groupies had showed up at the Crazy Horse shop and tried to treat him like a rock star, screaming and even throwing a pair of panties. Which Bobby had filmed—if he hadn’t set the whole thing up in the first place. No way, no how was Billy falling into that trap. He’d rather be alone than be with a woman who was only interested in using him.

Which meant he was alone.

“Go around the side of the school. We can’t have him stripping out here in front of the students,” Josey said before hurrying over to help explain the rules to the kids.

Not that it was stripping, but yeah, even he saw the wrong in taking off his shirt in front of kids. He had tattoos—lots of them. The kind that scared small children and little old ladies.

So he trudged around to the side of the building with Vicky following at a safe distance and whipped off his shirt. Vicky clipped the battery pack to his jeans, ducked under his upraised arm, and handed him the mike while she ripped off a piece of medical tape. They’d learned after the first show that clipping the mike to the collar of Billy’s shirt didn’t work—too much static from the machines ruined the audio feed. Now they taped the mike to his chest and let the shirt filter out the extra noise.

Vicky handed him the tape, and he put the mike on above the rose and thorns—above where Jenny had touched him.

As the thought of the sassy little teacher crossed his mind again, his ears developed a weird burning sensation, as if someone were talking about him. He glanced around and saw that—much to his chagrin—an entire class of undersized tykes was crowded around the windows, staring at him.

And behind them stood a shocked Jenny Wawasuck.

Her eyes were as wide as hubcaps and her mouth had dropped open as she looked at his exposed torso. Billy froze—he was pretty sure this violated someone’s rule.

If he were Ben, he would probably figure out some calm, cool way to exit the situation and mitigate the damage. If he were Bobby, he would flex and pose for the pretty little teacher. He wasn’t either of them. And as such, he had no idea what to do besides brazen it out. So he stood there and stared back at her, almost daring her to come out and turn him into coyote food.

She said something sharply to the kids, who all scrambled back from the windows as if she’d poked them with a cattle prod. Then she shot him the meanest look he’d ever seen a woman give him—which was saying something—then pulled the blinds.

The whole thing took less than a minute.

Damn. He was screwed. The only question was, how badly? Would she kick him off this rez? Would Don Two Eagles do the kicking?

He sighed. This was how things went. He wasn’t trying to stir up trouble, but it always found him anyway. All he could do now—since he’d promised to watch his language and not throw things—was wait for Jenny to storm out of the building and tear him a new one.

It’d be easier if it were Don. Billy knew men like Don, knew how they thought, knew what to expect. But a woman like Jenny was something else, someone he didn’t know and couldn’t anticipate. A sweet little first-grade teacher—with one hell of an edge to her.

Given the way his thoughts kept turning back to when she’d touched him this morning, he was going to be spending a lot more time trying to anticipate her.

Resigned to his fate, Billy slid his shirt back on and went out to his assigned position. He’d never understood why he had to be the one on camera—other than the fact that he was the one who built the bikes. Ben didn’t have to be on camera at all. Bobby was the one who had the Hollywood thing going on, from the way he wore a tie every day to the way he talked circles around everyone. Times like this, Billy wished he could be as smooth as Bobby. The man was good with people—well, people who weren’t Jenny Wawasuck.

Billy stood there, keeping an eye on the door as the smaller kids were introduced to him in a group. Where was Jenny? Surely she wouldn’t let such an offensive act as taking off his shirt in front of a bunch of first and second graders pass. Flashing a lifetime of ink at a bunch of little kids didn’t seem like something Jenny Wawasuck would let stand.

As he started shaking the hands of the bigger kids, the ones who’d be “helping” him build the bike for charity, Billy realized two things. One, Jenny wasn’t going to come out and pick another fight with him, and two—he was disappointed.

One of the kids shook his hand and said, “Hi again, Mr. Bolton.” Billy’s attention snapped back to the present.

The kid looked familiar. Billy didn’t have a head for names and faces, but he knew he’d met him before. “I know you, right?”

“We met at Josey’s wedding,” the boy said with a stammer. “I was an usher.”

“Yeah.” Billy shook his hand again. Probably some sort of nephew or cousin or something. “See you in the shop.”

The kid’s face brightened up. He couldn’t be much more than thirteen. Billy remembered being that age once—although he tried not to think about it too much.

He got to the end of the line and mercifully, Bobby didn’t make them do the whole meet-and-greet thing all over again. Don and Josey began herding the kids into the shop to set up the next shot—Billy explaining how the kids were going to help him—when it happened.

The back door of the school swung open and out stepped Jenny. Billy’s temperature spiked, which didn’t make a damn bit of sense. Now that he could see her in the full light of the morning, he noticed she had her long hair pulled back into a boring bun-thing at the base of her neck. She wore a white-collared shirt under a pale blue cardigan, all of which was over an exceptionally plain khaki skirt. The whole effect was of someone trying not to be noticed.

Billy noticed her anyway, his heart rate picking up an extra few RPMs. She shouldn’t look sexy to him—but she did. Underneath that schoolmarm appearance was a hot-blooded woman with a smart mouth who wasn’t afraid of him. The combination was heady.

She stood on the steps, hands on hips that couldn’t be hidden by her boring skirt, and glared at him. Normally, Billy would either stare her down—he did that all the time—or turn away and pretend he hadn’t seen the disapproval in her eyes.

Instead—and this was insane—he gave her a mock salute, just to make her mad all over again. He couldn’t help himself. What had she thought of all the tattoos? Did they scare her, or had she liked them for the art they were?

“We need you inside,” Bobby said, once again stepping between Billy and Jenny. Over Bobby’s shoulder, Billy saw Jenny make a motion with her hands that perfectly conveyed both her disgust and also her fury before she turned and went back inside.

No, this wasn’t over. Not by a long shot.

Three

Billy needed a drink.

Not that he drank much anymore, but still. A day of having to watch his temper around kids who kept picking up his tools and putting them down in the wrong places. A whole day of Bobby making him say the same thing over and over in different positions. A long day of not building a bike.

Better be a stiff drink.

It was almost over. The kids had, by and large, gone home. Only that one kid, the one he’d met at Josey’s wedding, was still in the shop. Billy had been allowed to take his mike off, and while Bobby and his production crew were still doing things, none of them required Billy to smile for a camera.

What was that kid’s name? Billy thought hard, but he drew a blank. “You’re still here.”

“Yeah, my mom stays late to talk with the pregnant girls.”

Suddenly, the feeling that Billy should remember this kid’s name got a lot stronger. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” The boy looked at his feet and scuffed his toe on the floor. “I’m sorry about the way she blew up at you this morning. She gets like that sometimes.”

Wait—wait a damn minute. Was this kid saying that Jenny was his mom?

No way—not possible. This kid was a teenager. Jenny couldn’t be that old.

Unless...unless she’d been young. The familiar guilt tried to kick open the heavy steel door Billy kept it trapped behind. This kid could only be Jenny’s son if she’d been a teenager. And she’d kept him.

Damn. Fate had a freakin’ funny sense of humor sometimes.

The next question had to be whether or not she was married, because there was no way in hell that Billy was going to keep entertaining thoughts of a married woman. Bolton men were loyal for life. Whatever problems they might have as a family—and Lord knew there were a lot of them—they respected the family, which meant they respected other families, too.

“So where’s your dad?” That probably wasn’t the best way to ask the question, but Billy had never been known for his tact.

The kid shrugged. “Dunno. Gone before I was born, I guess. Mom says we’re better off without him, anyway.”

Two thoughts crossed his mind quick. First, Jenny was available, so he could keep right on thinking about how she looked at him with that passion—okay, passionate fury—in her eyes. Second, though, was that a boy needed a man in his life. Especially a boy on the verge of becoming a man.

“You kids aren’t really going to help me build the bike, you know.”

As if to illustrate this point, Vicky called over, “Okay, wave at the camera, Billy.”

Feeling stupid, Billy waved to the camera that had been installed overhead. He was going to work nights and weekends to build the bike himself, hours of which would be compressed into two-to four-minute segments on the show. The rest would be staged shots with kids.

The rest of the crew went out to the truck, probably to review the footage. Bobby liked to check the tapes. Although Billy would never admit this to the little twit, he thought Bobby was impressively focused on making the show as good as it could be.

“Yeah, I know.” The boy sounded positively depressed. Then he perked up. “I can still help. Mom always stays late for her after-school program, so I’m here a lot.”

Billy worked alone. Even in his shop, he did his own thing while his guys did the assembly stuff. But something about this boy—and his mother—kept his mouth shut.

Billy wasn’t looking to be a father. That ship had sailed seventeen years ago, and it wasn’t going to make a return voyage. But a shop teacher could still make a big difference. Billy’s shop teacher in high school, Cal Horton, had saved Billy’s life on at least three occasions and kept him out of prison twice, which was more than his own father, Bruce Bolton, had ever done.

Yeah, he didn’t have to be this kid’s father. But Cal would expect him to pay it forward.

“You want to help?” The kid nodded eagerly, his eyes bright. “I could use an assistant. Find a broom and sweep up this place. It’s a wreck, and a good shop is a clean shop. Keeps dust and junk from getting into the parts.”

He thought the kid was going to balk at manual labor. Billy didn’t nag. He went back to organizing his tools and waited for the kid to make up his mind.

Less than forty seconds later, the boy was sweeping.

Billy smiled to himself. “You do a good job and keep at it, maybe we’ll get you on a bike.”

“Really?” The kid grinned. Then it faded. “My mom won’t like that.”

Yeah, he knew that, too. His own mother had never been a fan of some of the things Billy did. Most of them, actually.

“Aw, hell. What your mom doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”

“You don’t know my mom very well.” The boy kept sweeping. A moment later, he added, “I got a friend who’s got a bike, but she won’t let me near it. Says she doesn’t want me to get hurt.” He made a noise that sounded like teenager-speak for “can you believe that?” “It’s not as cool a bike as yours, though.”

Maybe half of Billy’s childhood had been spent on the back of a bike, often directly against his mother’s stated wishes. His father had loved his mother dearly, but they rarely saw eye to eye on basic parenting questions, such as which activities were fun versus life-threatening. And Billy had survived just fine.

Well, mostly fine.

“I’ll make a deal with you. You keep your grades up and help me out in the shop, I’ll get you on a bike.” He leveled a finger at the huge smile on the kid’s face. “But you do what I say, when I say it, no questions asked. I don’t need some pissant kid jerking around my shop. I’ll throw your ass out of here the moment you screw up. Got it?”

The sudden gasp that came from the doorway told him that someone had screwed up, all right.

Him.

* * *

Jenny waved goodbye to the last of the girls from her Teen and Parents—TAPS—meeting and checked the multipurpose room for Seth. Seth hated the TAPS meetings and put as much distance as possible between him and the pregnant girls—most of whom he’d grown up playing with. Jenny supposed she should be thrilled that Seth hadn’t hit the age where he thought of girls in a sexual way, but would it have killed the boy to have a bit of compassion? After all, Jenny had been one of those girls once.

Seth wasn’t in the multipurpose room. The guitar was still in its case. Where was that boy?

Oh, no. The shop. Billy Bolton.

That man, Jenny thought as she ran down the hall. Yup, his bike was still parked in her spot. The door to the shop was open, and she heard voices inside. There was no missing Billy’s deep rumble—she wasn’t sure she could forget the way that voice hummed through her body. Even now, she got goose bumps. She also heard the softer voice of her son.

Oh, Lord, Seth was talking with Billy—and, from the tone of it, Billy was yelling at her boy. Running faster, the first words she caught were “...need some pissant kid jerking around my shop. I’ll throw your ass out of here the moment you screw up. Got it?”

She gasped as she flew into the shop. “What did you say to my son?”

Seth jumped six inches off the floor, but Billy—sitting behind a table with a massive tool-thing in his hands—didn’t even move. At least this time he wasn’t wearing glasses. Jenny wasn’t sure that helped, though, because now she could see the way his light brown eyes bore into her, like heat-seeking missiles.

No one else was in the building. She’d gotten here just in time. Billy stared at her, something that looked like contempt on his face. Seth looked six kinds of miserable all at once. God only knew what Billy had been saying to her baby boy to make him look like he was on the verge of crying.

She intended to find out, by God. She stalked over to the table and slammed her hands down on the top. The tools rattled and Seth warned, “Mom,” behind her, but she had had it with this man.

“I asked you a question, and don’t you dare pull that silent crud on me. I heard you—I know you can talk. What do you think you’re doing, speaking to my son using that kind of language?” When she didn’t get an immediate response, she shouted back over her shoulder, “Seth, get your things.”

“But, Mom,” he whined again.

Then Billy stood up—all God-only-knew how many inches and pounds of him rose to his feet, slow and steady and not the least bit intimidated by her.

Jenny swallowed, refusing to allow herself to be intimidated by him, either. Even though he could pick her up and throw her over his shoulder like some big, gorgeous caveman, if he wanted to.

“Calm down.”

Of all the nerve—was he actually going to try to talk his way out of this? “I will do no such thing. If I have my way, you won’t be back on this reservation tomorrow. What is wrong with you? Stripping in front of a bunch of school children? Picking up my car? Threatening Seth? Are you insane?”

As she spoke, Billy walked around the table. He wasn’t moving at tackling speeds, but his destination was unmistakable. She took one step backward, then another as Billy advanced on her.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

Another step toward her. When he saw the effect he was having on her, one of his eyebrows notched up, which made him look almost amused. “Talking. To you.” Another step. “You still sweeping?”

“What?”

It was only when Seth said, “Yes, sir,” that she realized he hadn’t been talking to her.

One more step.

“This is talking? You’re trying to frighten me, but it won’t work,” she said as he boxed her into a corner, an intense look on his face. She should be terrified—maybe she was—but that didn’t explain the goose bumps that were all over her. Everything about her was tuned in to him—the way his muscles coiled and uncoiled with each step, the way he was...smiling? Was that possible?

Then, unexpectedly, Billy stopped while still a good four feet from her and looked over his shoulder. She was almost in a corner, but if she broke to the left fast enough, she could probably make it out the door. But if she did that, she’d leave Seth in here with this man, and she didn’t want to do that.

This was a clear example of the devil you know versus the devil you don’t. Except that in both cases, Billy Bolton was the devil.

When he faced her again, one corner of his mouth was unmistakably curved into a smile. “No, this is talking.”

The sight of Billy Bolton grinning—at her—threw whatever Jenny had been planning to say right out the window.