Straddling the Line
Sarah M. Anderson
All her life, Josey White Plume has sought one thing: to fit in with her Lakota family.She has no time for some sexy rich guy and his pursuit. But she can’t stop thinking about businessman Ben Bolton – can’t stop wanting him…Yet falling for a wealthy outsider will destroy everything she’s worked for – unless she can find a way to straddle the line between his world and hers.
“I don’t know how I can thank you.”
He could think of a couple of ideas—and that was just for starters. The stupid part of his brain tried to argue that he just needed a woman. That was all. But he was starting to think he didn’t need just any woman. He was starting to think he needed this woman.
“Let me take you to dinner—tonight.”
Oh, yeah, he wanted her. But he wanted her to want him back. Just him. Not his money, not his band, not his financial skills and most certainly not his ability to keep the family together.
Her mouth parted, and she lifted her chin toward him. One kiss—what could it hurt? Idiot, he thought to himself as he moved closer. Like there was a shot in hell he could stop at just one.
About the Author
Award-winning author SARAH M. ANDERSON may live east of the Mississippi River, but her heart lies out West on the Great Plains. With a lifelong love of horses and two history teachers for parents, she had plenty of encouragement to learn everything she could about the Wild West.
When she started writing, it wasn’t long before her characters found themselves out West. She loves to put people from two different worlds into new situations and see how their backgrounds and cultures take them someplace they never thought they’d go.
When not helping out at her son’s elementary school or walking her rescue dogs, Sarah spends her days having conversations with imaginary cowboys and American Indians, all of which is surprisingly well tolerated by her wonderful husband. Readers can find out more about Sarah’s love of cowboys and Indians at www.sarahmanderson.com.
Straddling the Line
Sarah M. Anderson
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Hannah,
the best middle sister I could have hoped for.
One
Josey took a deep breath, squared her shoulders and opened the door to Crazy Horse Choppers. She did this all while managing to completely ignore the impending sense of doom in her stomach—a sense of doom that told her soliciting educational donations from a motorcycle shop, no matter how upscale, was a hysterically bad idea.
The waiting room smelled of expensive leather and motor oil. Two black leather chairs with chrome accents sat on either side of a coffee table that was a sheet of round glass precariously perched on a collection of motorcycle handlebars twisted to form a base. Josey knew money when she saw it, and that furniture said custom-made. One wall was covered with autographed photos of her prey, Robert Bolton, with every kind of celebrity and pseudo-celebrity. A wall of glass separated the room from the actual shop. Several large, scary-looking men were working—with the kinds of tools she needed—on the other side of the wall. Bad idea or no, she was desperate. A shop class wasn’t a class without shop tools.
That thought was cut short by a hard-looking woman—stringy hair that was supposed to be blond, tattoos practically coming out of her ears and more piercings than Josey could count—shouting, “Help you?” over thrashing music. Metallica, Josey thought.
The receptionist sat at a glossy black desk that looked to be granite. On the wall behind her hung a tasteful arrangement of black leather motorcycle jackets emblazoned with the Crazy Horse logo. The woman looked horribly out of place.
A second later, the music quieted—replaced with the high whine of shop tools cutting through metal. The receptionist winced. Josey immediately revised her opinion of the woman. If she had to listen to that whine all day, she’d resort to heavy metal to drown it out, too.
“Hello,” Josey said, sticking out her hand. The woman looked at Josey’s manicure and bangle bracelets and curled a lip. It was not a friendly gesture. Undaunted, Josey just smiled that much sweeter. “I’m Josette White Plume. I have a nine-thirty appointment with Robert Bolton.” After another beat, Josey pulled her hand back. She kept her chin up, though.
So what if the receptionist looked like she’d come to work directly from an all-nighter? Bikers were people, too. At least that’s what Josey was going to keep telling herself. A happy secretary was the difference between getting a purchase order pushed through in a week versus six months.
The receptionist—the name tag on her shirt said Cass—leaned over and flipped a switch on an intercom. “Your nine-thirty is here.”
“My what?” The voice that came over the other end was tinny, but deep—and distracted.
Didn’t Robert remember she was coming? She’d sent an email confirmation last night. The impending sense of doom grew. Josey swallowed, but managed to do so quietly.
Cass shot her a look that might be apologetic. “Your nine-thirty. More specifically, Bobby’s nine-thirty. But he’s in L.A.—or did you miss that?”
Wait—what? Who was in L.A.? Who was Cass talking to?
The doom in her stomach turned violent, hitting her with a wave of nausea. Dang, but she hated it when those stupid senses were on target.
She thought she’d been prepared. She’d spent weeks e-stalking Robert. She’d spent hours scrolling through his social networks, taking detailed notes on with whom he was meeting and why. She knew his favorite food (cheeseburgers from some dive in L.A.), where he bought his shirts (Diesel) and which actresses he’d been spotted kissing (too many to count). Her entire pitch—down to the close-cut, cap-sleeved, black wool banquette dress she was wearing—was built around the fact that Robert Bolton was a slick, ego-driven salesman who was making his family’s choppers a national name. Heck, she knew more about Robert Bolton than she knew about her own father.
But none of that mattered right now. She was completely, totally unprepared. More than anything in this world, Josey hated being unprepared. Failure to plan was planning to fail. Being unprepared was about the same thing.
She’d been unprepared for Matt’s rejection of her two years ago. She’d already been making plans, but in the end—because there was always an end—he’d chosen his family over her. She didn’t “fit,” Matt had claimed. And what he’d really meant was that, because she was a Lakota Indian, she didn’t fit in his world. And, as a white man, he had no interest in fitting in hers. Not permanently.
The voice on the other end of the intercom grumbled, “I’m aware Bobby’s in California. Is it a client or a supplier?”
“Neither.”
“Then why the hell are you bothering me?” The intercom snapped off with an audible huff.
“Sorry,” Cass said, clearly not. “Can’t help you.”
The dismissal—blunt and heartless—took all of her nerves and grated on them. Josey would not be ignored. If there was one thing she’d learned from her mother, it was that a silent Lakota Indian woman was a forgotten Lakota Indian woman. Because that’s what she was—a Lakota woman.
She’d tried not being one, and that had just gotten her heart trampled on. After the affair with Matt had ended so spectacularly, she’d quit her job as a corporate fundraiser in New York and come home to her mother and her tribe. She’d somewhat foolishly thought they’d welcome her with open arms, but that hadn’t happened, either.
So here she was, doing her best to prove that she was a full member of the tribe by building a school in the middle of the rez. But schools were expensive to build, more expensive to equip. So what if Crazy Horse Choppers had a reputation for being less than warm and fuzzy toward charitable causes? So what if Robert Bolton wasn’t here? Someone was up there, and whoever it was would have to do. Screw being unprepared. Winging it had its advantages.
“Sure you can. You probably run this whole place, don’t you?”
Cass smiled—without making eye contact, but it was still a smile. “Damn straight I do. Those boys would be lost without me.”
Josey considered her line of attack. “You aren’t old enough to have school-aged children—” Cass’s head popped up, a pleased smirk on her face. She might be thirty-five or fifty-five—there was no telling with all those tattoos. But flattery could get a girl everywhere—if well done. And Josey could do it well. “I’m raising money for the vo-tech program at a new school, and I thought a chopper shop would be the perfect place to start.”
So that was a lie. This was a last-ditch attempt to get some equipment. She’d started out approaching big manufacturers and had slowly worked her way down the food chain to local auto repair shops, remodeling contractors and even shop teachers at wealthier schools. Nothing. Not a damn thing.
Josey had gotten a twenty-two-year-old internet billionaire to give a few computers, a television chef who was on a healthy food kick to pay for some kitchen equipment and a furniture place to give her last year’s model dining room tables and chairs to use for desks. She couldn’t pry a band saw out of anyone’s cold, dead hands. Against the vocal protests of a small group of school board members, led by Don Two Eagles, who wanted nothing to do with bikers in general and Boltons in particular, she’d decided to try Crazy Horse.
What did she have to lose? The school opened in five weeks.
“A school?” Doubt crept across Cass’s face. “I dunno …”
“If I could just talk to someone …”
Cass shot her a mean look. Right. She was someone, so Josey pulled out a brochure and launched into her pitch.
“I represent the Pine Ridge Charter School. We’re dedicated to the educational and emotional well-being of the underserved children of the Pine Ridge reservation—”
Cass held up her hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. I give.” She flipped on the intercom again.
“Damn it, what?” On the bright side, the man on the other end was no longer distracted. However, he sounded mad. That sense of doom came rushing back in.
“She won’t go.”
“Who the hell are you talking about?” Excellent, Josey thought. Shouting.
Cass looked Josey up and down. There was something sneaky in her eyes as she said, “The nine-thirty. Says she’s not going anywhere until she talks to someone.”
He cursed. Rudely.
Whoa. F-bombs at nine-thirty in the morning. What on earth was she getting herself into?
“What is your problem, Cassie? You suddenly incapable of throwing someone out the door?” The shout was so loud that it briefly drowned out the sounds of the shop.
Cassie grinned like she was up for a round or two. She winked at Josey and said, “Why don’t you come down here and throw her out yourself?”
“I do not have time for this. Get Billy to scare her off.”
“Out on a test drive. With your father. It’s all you today.” She gave Josey a thumbs-up, as if this were a positive development.
The intercom made a God-awful screeching noise before it went dead. “Ben’ll be right down,” Cass said, enjoying being a pain in the backside. She pointed to a door in the wall of glass.
Maybe Josey should bail. Don Two Eagles had been right—Crazy Horse Choppers was a crazy idea. Josey put on her best smile as she thanked Cassie for helping out, hoping the smile would hide the panic hammering at her stomach.
Ben—Benjamin Bolton? Robert was the only member of the Bolton family who had joined the twenty-first century and had an online presence. Aside from a fuzzy group photo of the entire Crazy Horse staff and a generic-sounding history that traced how Bruce Bolton had founded the company forty years ago, she hadn’t found anything usable about any other Bolton. She knew next to nothing about Ben. She thought he was the chief financial officer, and Robert’s older brother. That was all she had to go on.
Before she’d made up her mind to stand her ground or take off, the glass door flew open. Ben Bolton filled the door frame, anger rolling off him in waves so palpable Josey fought to keep her balance. Should have run, she thought as Mr. Bolton roared, “What the hell—”
Then he caught sight of Josey. For a split second, he froze as he stared at her. Then everything about him changed. His jaw—solid enough to have been carved from granite—set as his eyes flashed with something that might have been anger, but Josey chose to interpret as desire.
Maybe that was just wishful thinking—in all likelihood, he was still angry—but without a doubt, Ben Bolton was the most handsome man she’d seen in a long time. Maybe ever. Heat flooded her cheeks, and she couldn’t tell if that was attraction or just nerves.
He straightened up and puffed out his chest. Okay. This situation was salvageable. Brothers often liked the same things—music, games—why should women be any different? She didn’t have enough time left to start over. She batted her eyelashes at him—a move she’d learned a long time ago worked despite being clichéd.
“Mr. Bolton? Josette White Plume,” she said, advancing on him with a hand outstretched. His palm swallowed hers. He could have crushed her hand, but he didn’t. His grip was firm without being dominating. She felt her cheeks get even warmer. “Thank you for taking the time to meet with me today.” They both knew that he’d taken no such time, but a gentleman wouldn’t contradict a lady. His reaction would tell her exactly what kind of man she was dealing with here. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.”
Bolton’s nostrils flared as the muscles along his jaw tensed. “How can I help you, Ms. White … Plume?” He said her name like he was afraid of it.
Lovely. Hopefully he wouldn’t start spouting all that PC nonsense about how she was an indigenous American of Native descent. As long as no one called her an Injun, the world could keep turning. She tightened her grip on his hand enough that one of his eyebrows notched up. She couldn’t tell if his hair was black or brown in the dim light of the waiting room, but he’d look plenty good either way. “Perhaps we could discuss the particulars elsewhere?”
Suddenly, Bolton dropped her hand so fast that it bordered on pushing her away. “Why don’t you come up to my office?” he asked, that flash of anger growing a little stronger.
Behind her, Cass snorted. Bolton shot her a look of pure warning, a look so hot Josey might have melted if it had been aimed square at her. But the dangerous look went right over her shoulder. By the time Ben Bolton turned those baby blues back to her, he was back to that no-man’s-land between danger and desire. He stared down at her with an intensity she didn’t normally encounter. He was waiting for her answer, she realized after a silent moment had passed. That was unusual. Most men just expected her to follow.
“That would be fine. I wouldn’t want to keep Cass from her work.”
Bolton narrowed those blue eyes in challenge, then turned on his heel and stalked out of the room. Josey barely had time to grab her briefcase before he’d disappeared out of sight.
“Good luck with that,” Cass called out behind her in a cackling laugh.
In these shoes, Josey had to hurry to keep up with Bolton’s long strides. He took the metal stairs two at a time, putting his bottom somewhere between hand and eye level. She shouldn’t be openly gaping—not in public, anyway—but she couldn’t help it. The whole back end was a sight to behold. Ben Bolton had wide shoulders packing the kind of muscle that a gray button-down shirt couldn’t hide. His torso was long and lean, narrowing into a V-waist that was wrapped in a leather tool belt, which was way more cowboy than biker. His ankles were the safest place to look, Josey decided. Black denim jeans flowed over black cowboy boots with extra thick soles.
One thing was abundantly clear. Ben Bolton wasn’t a normal CFO.
Below her, someone wolf-whistled. Before she could react—cringe, stick out her chin in defiance, anything—Bolton whipped his body to the railing and shouted, “That’s enough!” in a voice powerful enough that Josey swore she could feel the vibrations through the metal stairs.
The sounds of the workshop—the clanging of hammers hitting metal, the whine of air compressors, a stream of words she could only vaguely discern as cursing—instantly died down to a low hum as Bolton bristled. For a moment, Josey thought she saw the railing bend in his grasp.
Josey’s insides went a little gooey. This wasn’t a show of power, this was actual power, so potent that she could nearly taste it. Ben Bolton commanded absolute respect, and he got it. She was an outsider here—she couldn’t think of a time when she’d been more out of her league—but he still defended her without a second thought.
Bolton’s glare swung down to where she stood precariously perched on a step, as if he thought she’d challenge the authority that had silently reined in twelve men armed with power tools. And then he was moving away from her, taking each step slowly and methodically this time.
Josey’s pulse began to flutter at her wrists. She was used to men trying to impress her with their money, their things—all symbols of their power. This was a man who didn’t appear to give a darn about impressing her. Heck, given the way he now stood at the top of the stairs, arms crossed and boot tapping with obvious impatience at her careful pace—Josey was pretty sure he detested her. Somehow, that made him that much more impressive.
When she neared the top, Bolton flung open a steel door and waited for her to get her butt in the office with poorly disguised contempt on his face. The doom ricocheting around her belly grew harder to ignore. She’d missed her chance to bolt, though. She had no choice but to tough this out.
The moment the door shut, the sounds of the shop died away. Blissful silence filled her ears, but her eyes were now taking the brunt of things. Bolton’s office had so much metal in it that Josey was immediately thankful the sun wasn’t shining in through the floor-to-wall windows. A stainless-steel desk was underneath sprawling piles of papers. Filing cabinets that matched the desk perfectly made up a whole wall.
Everything in this gray office—down to the leather executive chair and the walls—said money. The leather-and-chrome seats downstairs had said money, too. But this was different. Downstairs screamed of someone dressing the place to impress. Up here? Mr. Bolton didn’t give a flying rat’s behind about impressing anyone. This was all about control. Or Ben Bolton was color-blind. Either way, the whole place looked depressingly industrial. In a wire mesh trash can, she saw the remains of what had to be the recently departed intercom. Had he ripped it out of the wall? Because of her?
No wonder Bolton was in a bad mood. If Josey had to work in this office, she’d probably curl up into a lump of iron ore and die.
Bolton motioned for her to sit in a shop chair—also metal. He sat down and fixed her with another one of those dangerous/desirous glares. He picked up a pen and began bouncing the tip on the metal desk, which filled the air with a perfectly timed pinging. “What do you want?”
Oh, yeah, he was mad. Being as she had no plan B, Josey decided to stick with plan A. It was still a plan, after all. “Mr. Bolton—”
“Ben.”
That was more like it. Familiarity bred success. “Ben,” she started over. “Where did you go to school?”
Robert had graduated from a suburban high school in a wealthy area of Rapid City about twenty miles from where they sat. Odds were decent Ben had gone there, too.
“What?” Confusion. Also not bad. An opponent off-balance was easier to push in the right direction.
“I’d be willing to bet that you graduated near the top of your class, maybe played on the football team? You look like a former quarterback.” Josey followed this up with one of her award-winning smiles—warm, full, with just a hint of flirting while she checked out those shoulders again. Wow. If Ben Bolton wasn’t so intimidating, he’d be all kinds of hot. What did he look like without all the gray? Boy, she’d love to see what he looked like on a bike. He had to ride. He ran a motorcycle company.
Flattery usually got her everywhere—but not with this man. Ben’s glare moved further away from desire and a heck of a lot closer to dangerous. “Valedictorian. And running back, All-State. So what?”
Josey managed to swallow without breaking her smile. The “All-State” was a good sign—bragging, if only just. But the pinging of the pen on metal got louder—and faster. Besides, she shouldn’t be entertaining any sexual thoughts about another white man, not after the last debacle. She needed to stick to her goals here. Getting the school ready would earn her a place within the tribe—permanently.
“Your school had computers in every classroom, didn’t it?” Before he could demand “So what?” again, she kept going. “New textbooks every few years, top-of-the-line football helmets and teachers who actually understood what they taught, right?”
With a final, resounding clang, the pen stopped bouncing. Ben didn’t stop glaring, though. Josey sat through the silence. She would not let this man know he intimidated her. So, chin up and shoulders back, she met his gaze and waited.
His hair was a deep brown, she realized. She could see the warm tones underneath—much browner than her own chestnut hair. A few streaks of salty white were trying to get a foothold at his temple, but his hair was cropped close in a no-nonsense buzz cut. The scowl he wore looked permanent.
Does he have any fun?
The question popped into her mind out of the blue, but it had nothing to do with game-planning her strategy. She found herself hoping he had some kind of fun, but she doubted it occurred within the walls of this steel box.
Finally, he broke the silence. “What do you want.”
It wasn’t a question—oh, no. A question would be getting off easy. This was an order, plain and simple.
That meant the answer to all of her previous questions was yes. She couldn’t afford to waste any more time on setting up the pitch. If she didn’t get on with it, he might take it upon himself to throw her out personally.
“Are you aware that the state of South Dakota has recently been forced to cut all funding to schools across the board?”
A look of disbelief stole over his face. “What?”
Right. He hadn’t known she was coming; obviously, his brother hadn’t told him about her. She pressed on. “As I told your brother Robert—”
“You mean Bobby.”
She forced a smile at the interruption. Hot and intimidating sounded like a good combo, but the hotness just made the intimidating more intense. She prayed she wasn’t about to start blushing. “Of course. As I told him, I’m seeking donations for the Pine Ridge Charter School.” The look of disbelief got closer to incredulous, but Josey didn’t give him a chance to interrupt her again. “Fewer than twenty percent of Lakota Sioux students graduate from high school—less than thirty percent go past the eighth grade.” No, he didn’t believe that, either, but then, few people did. The numbers were too unbelievable.
“Currently,” she went on like a warrior out to count coup, “there is no school located within a two-hour drive from some parts of the reservation. Many students must be bussed two hours each way. If they’re lucky, they get one of the good schools. If they’re not, though, they get textbooks that are twenty years old, no computers, teachers who don’t give a darn if their students live or die.” The near-curse word got her something that might have been a quarter of a grin.
Maybe Ben liked things a little gritty. Well, Josey could do gritty. “Between the butt-numbing trip on buses that break down all the time, the crappy education and the unrelenting bullying for being American Indians, most choose to drop out. People expect them to fail. Unemployment on the reservation is also near eighty percent. Any idiot can see that figure mirrors the dropout rate almost precisely.” She batted her eyes again. “You don’t look like an idiot to me.”
The pinging started back up. The only thing he was missing was a cymbal. “What do you want?” His words were more cautious this time.
He was listening. Suddenly, Josey had a good feeling about this. Ben Bolton was a numbers guy—he liked his facts hard and fast. But he was a biker, too—so he could appreciate things that were rougher, tougher and just a little bit dirty.
Her face—and other parts—flushed hot. So much for not blushing.
His eyes widened, the blue getting bluer as he noticed her unprofessional redness. The corner of his mouth crooked up again as he leaned a few inches toward her. A small movement, to be sure—but she felt the heat arc between them. Desire kicked the temperature up several notches.
Wow. One slightly unprofessional thought, and she was on the verge of melting in the middle of a pitch. This wasn’t like her. She prided herself on keeping business and pleasure separate. Some people thought they could buy her with the right donations, but Josey never even allowed that kind of quid pro quo to enter the conversation.
With everything she had, Josey pushed on. She had a job to do. Pleasure came later—if it came at all. She needed to get the school ready more than she needed what would no doubt be a short-lived fling. She didn’t have time for flings, especially with a white man.
She handed Ben the three-color brochure she’d designed herself. “The Pine Ridge Charter School is designed to give our Lakota children a solid foundation, not only for their education, but for their lives. Studies have shown that graduating from high school raises a person’s total lifetime earnings over a million dollars more than a dropout. All it takes is a fraction of that cost up-front.”
He flipped her brochure over. She could see him processing the photos she’d taken of the happy kids crowded around her mother for a story at a family gathering, and the architectural drawings for the six-room schoolhouse that was only half built out on the flat grassland of the rez. “Your children?” His eyes cut down to her bare left hand.
“I am a registered member of the Pine Ridge tribe of the Lakota Sioux.” She hated having to add the “registered” part, but there it was. The red in her hair made people look at her like she was just a wannabe. She had her grandfather to thank for her hair, but that was the only part of him that showed up. “My mother will be the principal and chief educator at the new school. She has a doctorate in education and has spent a lifetime teaching our children how important a good education is to them—and to the tribe.”
“Which explains why you sound like you graduated from high school.”
Now it was her turn to glare. “My MBA is from Columbia. Yours?”
“Berkley.” He flipped the brochure onto his desk. “How much?”
“We aren’t begging for money.” Mostly because she knew she wouldn’t get it, but it was also a point of pride. The Lakota didn’t beg. They asked nicely. “We’re offering a unique sponsorship opportunity for businesses around the state. In return for supplies, we will provide free publicity in several forms. Our website will have a detailed list of contributors on our site, as well as links and feedback to your own internet presence.” She leaned forward and tapped her finger on the web address at the bottom of the brochure. When she looked up at Ben again, his eyes were fastened on her face—not her cleavage. But the intensity of his gaze made her feel like he was looking down her dress.
Slowly, she sat back in her seat. His eyes never budged, but the inherent danger that had lurked in them since word one was almost gone. Nothing but desire was left. “Everything donated to the school will be labeled with the sponsors’ information, helping your business build brand-loyal customers while equipping them with the tools they need to be able to afford your products—”
“You’re going to put ads in the school?”
No, Ben Bolton was nobody’s idiot. “I prefer not to think of them as ads—sponsorship. More along the lines of a pizza parlor sponsoring a T-ball team.”
His shoulders moved, a small motion that might have been a sign of laughter. “So, ads.”
“For your business,” she added, undeterred. “Crazy Horse Choppers has been around for forty years, and given how you built this state-of-the-art production facility a few years ago, I have every reason to believe you’ll be around for another forty.”
He tilted his head in her direction, a sign of respect from a man who commanded it. So she wasn’t completely unprepared—a comforting thought. His appreciation was short-lived. “I’m only going to ask this one more time. What do you want?”
“The Pine Ridge Charter School is designed to provide children with not only a world-class education—” he began to ping the pen on the desktop again “—but job training. To that end, we are asking for the equipment necessary to launch an in-depth vocational technology program.”
A smile—a real one, the kind of smile that made a woman melt in her business dress—graced his face. Whoa. All kinds of hot. “Finally. The point. You want me to give you shop tools for free.”
The way he said it hit her funny. A note of panic started growing again in her belly. “In so many words, yes.”
He picked up the brochure again. He looked like he was really weighing her proposal, but then he said, “No.” He set the brochure carefully to one side and put both hands on the desk, palms-down. For all the world, he looked like he was about to vault the darn thing. “Look. You’re obviously intelligent and obviously beautiful. But this business operates on razor-thin margins. I’m not about to give away a bunch of tools for nothing.”
A small, girly part of her went all gooey. He thought she was beautiful. Obviously beautiful. “Not even for the free advertising?” Her voice came out pinched. She couldn’t manage to keep the defeat out of it.
His shoulders flexed. “Not even for the free advertising.”
He was staring at her again, waiting to see if she’d challenge him. She swallowed and bit her lower lip. The barest glimmer of desire crossed his face.
“Isn’t there … anything I can do to change your mind?” The moment the words left her mouth, she wished she could take them back. She didn’t make offers like that, ever. So why the heck had she just said that?
Not that it worked. She thought she saw his pupils dilate, but it was hard to be sure because his eyes narrowed to angry slits. “Does that work?”
No, she wanted to tell him, because she’d never made the offer before. Yes, he was hot. He was also arrogant, domineering and quite possibly heartless—a real Scrooge in leather. All reasons her mouth should have stayed firmly closed. It didn’t matter whether or not Ben Bolton was good in bed. Or on his desk. Or even on one of his choppers, for that matter. It didn’t matter if she wanted to find out—or it shouldn’t matter. But with one mistaken sentence, suddenly it did.
And he wouldn’t even say yes to that.
The rejection stung her pride, and she wanted to tell him to go to hell, but she never got the chance. At that moment, a huge crash reverberated up through the floor of his office, loud enough that every piece of metal in the joint shook with enough force that she had to grab on to her chair to keep from falling off it.
Ben slumped forward, weariness on his face. He held up one hand and did a silent countdown—three, two, one—before his phone buzzed.
“What?” He didn’t sound surprised.
The voice on the other end was loud enough that even Josey winced. Ben had to hold the receiver a half a foot away from his head.
“I’m busy” was all he said, slamming the phone down. “Miss White Plume …” He paused, as if he was waiting for her to reciprocate his “Ben” with her “Josey.” When she didn’t, he went on with an apologetic shrug. “I’d recommend coming over here,” he said, motioning to his side of the desk. Another huge crash shook the floor. “Right now.”
Closer to him—mere seconds after that rejection? The next crash seemed closer—like a herd of buffalo were stampeding up the stairs. Josey was in no mood to be trampled. She gathered her things and scurried over to Ben’s side of the desk. He took a protective step in front of her just as the door was thrown open with enough force that she was sure she saw the hinges come loose.
A man—no, more like a monster—burst into the room. He was huge—easily six-five, with a long handlebar mustache that was jet-black. His muscles were barely contained by a straining blue T-shirt, which matched the do-rag he had tied over his head. His eyes were hidden by wraparound shades, making it impossible to know how old he was. “Goddamn it,” he roared, the noise echoing off all the metal, “you tell that bastard you call a brother that I told him to—”
Josey’s presence registered, and the man bit off his curse at the same time an even bigger man, covered with enough facial hair to render him indistinguishable from a black bear, shoved into the room. “I told you, there’s no way you can pull off that asinine idea, and—”
The man with the handlebar mustache punched the bear in the shoulder and jerked a thumb toward Josey. She couldn’t help it. Even though she was mad as all get-out at Ben for turning her down—both times—she found herself cowering behind him. Compared to the wall of bikers hollering on the other side of the desk, Ben was the safest thing in the room. He leaned in front of her a little more and put one hand behind him, keeping her contained. She was furious with him, more furious with herself—but that simple act of protection left her feeling grateful.
“Aw, hell,” the bear muttered.
“What you got there, son?”
Ah. So the man with the handlebar mustache was Bruce Bolton, chief executive officer of Crazy Horse Choppers—and father of the Bolton men. Which meant that the bear behind him was probably Billy, the creative force behind Crazy Horse. Looked like that test drive they’d been on hadn’t gone well.
Josey didn’t particularly like the way the senior Bolton was eyeing her—and she especially didn’t like being a “what.” Not that she could be sure—he still had on his sunglasses—but she got the distinct feeling he was undressing her with his eyes.
Ben’s shoulders flexed. “I told you, I’m busy.” He reached over and picked up his phone. His motions seemed calm, but she could sense the coiled tension just below the surface.
The worst place in the world had to be the middle of a Bolton brawl, because it sure looked like all three of them were ready to throw down, here and now. Maybe that’s why the whole office was done in metal. Easier to wash off the blood.
“Cassie, please escort our guest to her car,” he said, icy daggers coming off his words. He set the phone back down, positioning his body just a fraction more between Josey and his father.
No one moved; no one said a thing. She’d been scared before, sure. She’d talked her way out of being felt up by associates of her grandfather; she’d beaten the living crap out of a boy who’d thought she was an easy target back in high school. But this? Hands down, the scariest situation she’d ever gotten herself into.
Cass appeared, shoving her way into the room. “Damn, Bruce, you’re scaring her,” she said, hip-checking the older man out of the way. “Come on,” she said to Josey. “Let them fight it out in private.”
Ben nodded, a small movement that she took to mean she was safe with the only other woman in the place. Moving slowly, she stepped around the desk, careful to avoid the older man. The younger one gave her plenty of room before he favored her with a familiar-looking nod that bordered on a polite bow.
“Miss White Plume,” Ben called to her as soon as she was clear of his office’s threshold. “Good luck.”
Cass shut the door, which wasn’t enough to block the sound of a battle royal erupting behind it. Josey didn’t get the chance to wish him the same.
She had the feeling she’d just about used up all of her luck for the day.
Two
Stick’s chord from “Dirty Deed Done Dirt Cheap” still hung in the air as Ben attacked his drums with a wild energy for the next song. Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher” was his best song, one he could literally beat the hell out of.
The groupies crowded around the front of the stage at The Horny Toad Bar screamed as Ben tore through his big solo. Stick, his oldest friend in the world, came in hard on the guitar riff, and—in that brief moment before Rex started singing—Ben could pretend that the Rapid City Rollers were a real rock band, not a weekend cover band.
Try his best, though, Rex couldn’t come close to David Lee Roth—or Sammy Hagar, for that matter—so the illusion that Ben was a professional drummer never lasted. Sure, they were popular here, but South Dakota didn’t have a lot of people in it. Still, this was Ben’s song, and he gave it his all. The crowd was on its feet, somewhere between dancing and moshing in drunken delight.
Saturday nights were the best. For one long night once a week, Ben wasn’t a CFO. He didn’t have to worry about Billy’s slow production pace costing the company too much money. He didn’t care if the banks floated him the stop-gap loans he needed. He could forget about whatever Bobby was screwing around with. And most of all, he didn’t even have to think about his father, who was determined to grind the family business into the ground just to prove that his way was not only better than Ben’s way, but that his way was the only way. For one night a week, Ben didn’t have to care about how Dad looked at him with nothing but disappointment in his eyes. None of that mattered. On Saturday nights, Ben was a drummer. That was all.
He loved having something he could beat the hell out of, over and over, but instead of leaving destruction in his wake like Dad did, he made something that he loved—something beautiful, in its own brutal way. Something that other people loved, too. It wasn’t the same as Billy’s bikes, but it was Ben’s and Ben’s alone. A week’s worth of frustration went into each beat.
Something was different tonight. Rex was hitting most of the high notes, and the crowd was eating it up. The Horny Toad was one of their best gigs—they played here once a month. Ben should be enjoying himself. But no matter how hard he hit his drums, he couldn’t get the sound of one Josette White Plume saying, “Isn’t there … anything I can do to change your mind?” out of his head.
That voice had been floating around in his dreams for eight freaking days now, and he was damn tired of it. It had gotten to the point where he’d begun to think he should have taken her up on her offer—get her out of his system before she’d gotten into it.
The hell of it was that he couldn’t quite nail down why he was stuck on her. Sure, she’d been beautiful—but the Horny Toad was loaded with hot chicks tonight. Yeah, she was probably the smartest woman he’d talked to in weeks—months, even. And, okay, he’d have to admit that her fiery, take-no-prisoners business pitch combined with that note of vulnerability at the end, right before his family had crashed the joint, had made his body throb.
But she was just a woman. Maybe that was it, he thought as he wailed away on his drums. Maybe it had just been too long since he’d had a woman. Hell.
Stick held the high note at the end for an extra beat while Ben let the cymbals have it at the end. Their eyes met and they nodded in time, cutting off at the same moment. The crowd howled for more, which was a nice feeling. Someone threw a bra onto the stage, which Toadie, the bassist, snatched up and waved in victory. “We’ll be back after a little meet ‘n’ greet break,” Rex announced, tossing his guitar pick to an unnaturally busty blonde.
“You coming?” Stick asked as the house music filled the bar. Rex and Toadie had already been enveloped by the groupies, and Ben knew Stick was itching to get out there and join them.
Ben didn’t go anymore, but Stick always asked. He was a good friend. “No,” he started to say, but then a woman caught his eye.
She was tall and lean and wearing a white sequined tank top over a nice chest that caught some of the stage lights and made her glow, even though he was wearing sunglasses in a dimly lit bar. But that wasn’t what drew his attention. No, something about the way she was looking at him …
No. It couldn’t be. Could it?
The woman turned to talk to someone else, but then glanced back over her shoulder at him. Cascades of dark hair spilled down her back, coming to an end just above the kind of ass that would haunt a man. He’d caught just a glimpse of her walking out of his office before Dad and Billy had erupted into World War III, but he wasn’t likely to forget it anytime soon.
No doubt about it. Josette White Plume was in the house.
“Yeah,” he told Stick, “I think I will.” Together, they hopped off the side of the stage and ducked around the chicken wire.
Someone grabbed his butt, and a few chicks tried to throw themselves in front of him, but Ben ignored them all. He was focused on the woman in the sequined top.
Maybe he was wrong, he thought as he got closer. Her back was still to him, and all that hair was throwing him off. The woman who’d come to his office had had a twist pinned up in a classy, elegant style that matched her classy, sleek dress. The woman a few feet away from him wore skintight jeans and had long hair that hung in loose curls. He couldn’t tell about the color in this light, but he was sure he’d recognize that reddish black anywhere.
He closed the remaining distance, grabbed the woman’s bare arm and spun her around. She tried to jerk away with such force that it pulled him into her. His sunglasses came off in the resulting jostling.
“Hey!” A smaller woman—clearly Native American—pushed her way between Ben and his prey. “Get your hands off her, you creep!”
Now that he had her face-to-face, without his sunglasses, he could see the red in her hair—and the fire in her eyes. “What the— Oh!” Recognition set in, and the anger became shock. “Ben?”
Ben glanced down at his hand and was surprised to see that he was still holding her. Her skin was creamy smooth against his. In her other hand, she held a bottle. “What are you doing here?”
“Who’s asking?” the smaller woman demanded. She sounded comfortable being the boss.
“No, Jenny—let me explain.”
“What’s to explain?” The woman named Jenny shoved Ben’s chest. “He can’t just grab you, Josey.”
Josey. God, what a pretty name. Would he ever get this woman out of his head?
Josette—Josey—blushed. “Jenny, this is Ben Bolton, CFO of Crazy Horse Choppers.”
“Wait—you’re the guy who didn’t give us anything?” She sniffed in distaste. Ben decided he kind of liked Jenny. She had spunk.
But Josey—Josey had fire. The heat coming off that woman was making him sweat with need. “Jenny! Ben,” she went on, hell-bent on formal introductions in the middle of one of the grimier bars in the state, “this is Jenny Wahwasuck. She’s one of the teachers at our new school.”
“And her cousin, so you just watch yourself, buddy.” Jenny crossed her arms and glared at him.
Someone bumped him from behind, shoving him into Josey. Jenny made loud noises of protest.
Screw this. He couldn’t find out what she was doing here in the middle of the bar with her cousin watching him like a hawk. He leaned in close to whisper, “I need to talk to you—alone,” in Josey’s ear—which was a mistake. Up close, he could smell her scent, something light and clean, with a hint of citrus. She smelled delicious.
It took all of his willpower to lean back, but he didn’t get far. Instead, he found himself staring into her big brown eyes. The slick, overconfident ballbuster who’d talked her way into his office was gone, and in her place was someone who looked surprisingly sweet and vulnerable—considering the bar they were in.
She nodded and turned to her cousin. “I’ll be right back, okay?”
“Wait—what? No way!” Jenny tried to shove Ben back, but he didn’t give her any leeway this time.
“It’s about the school,” Josey said.
Except it wasn’t. But if that was the lie that worked, he was willing to nod and play along. Jenny rolled her eyes in frustration, but turned to Ben and said, “If she’s not back here in one piece in ten minutes …”
“I just want to talk to her.”
The hell he did. He wanted to do everything but talk, a fact made all the more clear when Josey slipped her hand into his and waited for him to lead her away.
Ben plowed through the crowd like a bulldozer. There was only one place quiet enough to not have a conversation in this joint—the small closet that served as the band’s dressing room.
As he worked his way back there, two conflicting emotions ran headlong into each other. First off, he was pissed. Saturday night was his night off. He didn’t have to think about people taking and taking and taking from him until he had nothing left to give, about how he never got anything back. He didn’t want to think about some school in the middle of nowhere, and he sure as hell didn’t want to have to think about the bottom line.
The other thing barreling through his thoughts was the way Josey had laced her fingers with his, the way his thumb was stroking small circles around her palm and the way he wanted to bury his face in her hair and find out if she tasted of oranges or limes.
He pulled her into the dressing room with more force than he needed—she came willingly—and slammed the door shut. Don’t touch her, he told himself, because touching her again would be a mistake, and Ben wasn’t the kind of guy who made mistakes. He was the kind of guy who fixed other people’s mistakes.
Still, that didn’t explain why she was backed against the wall, trapped between his arms. Hey, at least he wasn’t touching her.
“Why are you here?” he demanded, keeping his voice low. No need to shout, not when he was less than a foot from her face.
She licked her lips. They were a deep plum color, like a fine wine begging to be savored.
Not. Touching. Her.
“Jenny’s son is at her mother’s house. It’s a girl’s night out….” Her voice trailed off as she looked at him through thick lashes.
He was not going to fall for that old trick—no matter how well it was working. “You told her we were going to talk about the school. I already said no. How did you track me down?”
“I came to hear the band.” Her voice had dropped to a feather whisper. He couldn’t help it if he had to lean in closer to hear it. “I came for the music.”
“Bull.” No way did he believe that—not even if he really wanted to.
She swallowed, then one hand reached up and traced his cheek. He wasn’t touching her, but the mistake was huge nonetheless. Heat poured into him, all coming from that one, single touch.
Just a woman, he told himself. He just needed a woman, and she fit the bill. That didn’t explain why he couldn’t look at her and feel her at the same time without doing something he knew he’d regret, so he shut his eyes. It didn’t block out the sound of her voice, though.
“I’ve seen you play before.”
“Prove it.”
“Fat Louie’s—late last March, although I forget the day. The singer was different that night.” Her other hand palmed his other cheek. So soft. So sweet. “Not quite as good as this guy, but not bad.”
Bobby had taken the mic that night—Rex had the flu. She wouldn’t know that unless she was telling the truth … but Bobby had left with a smokin’ hot woman that night, and raved about the sex for weeks after that. “Are you some kind of groupie? Did you go home with him?”
“I’m a corporate fundraiser.” Her voice packed more heat this time, taking his challenge head-on. “I don’t do one-night stands, and I don’t screw men I don’t know.”
His body throbbed. Two tense meetings—did this qualify as knowing each other? Was screwing on the table? Damn. It had been too long since he’d had a woman.
“Before that, it was at Bob’s Roadhouse,” she went on. “I think that one was right before Thanksgiving. You did a metal version of ‘Over the River.’” Her thumbs traced his cheeks. Yeah, he remembered doing that. Rex hadn’t stopped with the stupid “stuffing the turkey” jokes all night long.
He felt his head dip, although he had no idea if she was pulling him or if he was doing it himself.
“And before that—”
He kissed her before he could stop himself. His tongue hit her lips, and she opened for him. Lemons. She tasted like lemonade, sweet and tart and just right. She made a small mewing sound in his mouth, a sound of surrender.
Somehow, he managed to break away from her. He had to, before he did something vulgar like have sex with a woman he barely knew in a closet in a bar.
“I didn’t know.” Her voice shook this time. “I should have guessed—the way you drummed the desk with that pen—but I didn’t recognize you. You always wear the sunglasses and the bandanna…. I didn’t know it was you.”
He kissed her again, rougher this time. His teeth nipped at her lower lip before his tongue tangled with hers. He shouldn’t believe her, but he wanted to, more than he’d wanted anything else. He wanted to believe that this beautiful, intelligent woman liked his music without wanting anything else from him. That she might like him without wanting shop equipment or school supplies or anything.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him to her. He felt her stiff nipples press against his chest, felt the heat when she tilted her hips up into his. God, she really wanted him, as much as he wanted her.
He wanted to believe her.
But he couldn’t.
He shoved himself away with everything he had. He sucked in air—which didn’t help, because her scent hung around him. Her chest—in all its glory—was heaving, a sight he’d love to behold any other day. He swiped his hand across his mouth in a desperate attempt to erase her sweetness. Mistake. He’d made a mistake, but he couldn’t tell who he was madder with—her, or himself. “Does that work?” he demanded.
“Does what work?” She had the damn nerve to look innocent and confused.
“That—using sex to trap me.” And he’d fallen right into it. Damn it, skin-to-skin contact was a major mistake. “Does that get you what you want?”
He braced himself for the crack across the face—he expected nothing less than outright condemnation and denial from her—but she didn’t smack him. Instead, a look of pain crossed her face for a second before it disappeared underneath something else. Something sad, which made him feel like the world’s biggest jerk. “You already said no—I wasn’t—”
Her eyes skimmed over his arms—and found his tats. Damn sleeveless T-shirts, he cursed silently. She could see the one that had Mom’s birth—and death—date. He thought about turning the other way, but that would be worse, because then she’d see the one for Moose, his dog. He crossed his arms and gave her his meanest stare. She didn’t even blink.
For a blinding second, he hated her—the way she seemed to look right into him, the way she made him feel like hell for being a jerk, the way she had the nerve to feel bad for him—he hated all of it.
When the hell would this break end? If he didn’t start beating his drums again right now, he was going to have to punch a wall or something.
Then she did something even weirder. She came to him, touched his tats and whispered, “I’m sorry.” And then she kissed him. After he’d all but called her a slut to her face, she kissed him—again.
This was different—softer, easier. Against his will, his arms uncrossed and then folded again, with her inside them. Her weight was warm and comfortable against his chest. She fit well there.
Something strange happened. The solitary quiet he usually felt when he thought about Mom seemed less solitary. It almost seemed like Josey White Plume understood how alone he felt surrounded by his brothers, how hard it was to always have to be the responsible one, how exhausting the daily battle with his father was, how damn tired he was of not being good enough. She understood it all and was happy to take some of the burden off his shoulders.
She broke the kiss and rested her forehead against him. Oddly, that was almost as good as the kiss. Forget the last time he’d gotten laid. When was the last time he’d held a woman—without feeling like she wanted something from him?
Josey’s chest rose and fell against his, strong and steady. Her arms were around his neck, holding their bodies together. For some stupid reason that should have everything to do with his groin but didn’t, Ben would have been happy to stand here and hold her all night long.
He didn’t get the chance. Right then, someone began to pound on the door.
“Benny! Zip it up, kick the chick out and let’s rock!”
Josey jolted, and Ben was forced to let her go. She straightened her top, shook her hair out and licked her lips. Could she still taste him, like he could taste her?
“I came for the music,” she said, her voice reaching his ears over the pounding on the door. “No strings attached.”
“No strings attached,” he agreed. So why did it feel like she’d just bound part of her to part of him?
The band continued banging on the door like it was a secondhand drum set. He didn’t need his spine rearranged, so he got out of the way.
Toadie, Stick and Rex fell into the room. Rex was giggling—a sure sign that he was happily on his way to roaring drunk. When they caught sight of Josey, the merry band of idiots came to a screeching halt. Toadie was the first to make his move. “Holding out on us, Benny? Or were you planning on sharing?”
Ben’s thoughts went in two directions. One part of him wondered how many shots they had done and if they would be able to get through the next set before Rex passed out on the floor.
The other part of him got real pissed, real fast. He wasn’t about to let these jerk-offs call her character into question—never mind that he’d just done the very same thing. Whether she was conniving or innocent, Josey White Plume was no floozy, happy to let any slimeball do shots off her boobs. He’d be damned if he let these morons drool all over her. She deserved better than that.
Rex punched Toadie in the arm and stepped up. “Ma’am, ignore the cretin,” he said, doffing an imaginary hat and mispronouncing cretin. “And, if I may be so bold, may I suggest joining me after the show’s over? You are clearly way, way out of Benny’s league. Stick with me, and I’ll show you what a real man can do.”
The next thing Ben knew, he was shoving Rex, and Rex was shoving back. Stick tried to grab Ben, and Toadie made a halfhearted effort to hold Rex, but Ben didn’t care. Rex wanted a fight? Fine. Ben would enjoy beating the living hell out of him.
He didn’t have to. Instead of ducking for cover, Josey stepped between him and Rex. She looked the singer up and down, shaking her head with distaste. She turned back to him and smiled—whoa. How could a woman look so fiery and so innocent at the same time?
“Thanks for the offer, but I prefer drummers.”
So hot, he thought as she stood on her tiptoes and brushed her lips over his. The guys began catcalling behind them, but Ben didn’t give a damn. He just wanted to remember this moment, this feeling of no strings attached.
She started to pull away, but he grabbed her around the waist. “I’ll find you after the show.”
“Are you guys going on or what?” The bar’s manager stuck his peevish head through the door. “It’s getting ugly out here.”
With the door open, Ben could hear the riot about to break out in the bar. Josey slipped from his arms and finally he got to appreciate the sight of Josey White Plume walking away.
Rex looked like he was going to pop an O-ring laughing. “Not a word,” Ben said, cracking the knuckles on each hand with his thumb—a trick he’d learned from Dad, one that was pretty effective when a guy was trying to look menacing. “Not one stinking word.”
Toadie made the motion to lock his mouth and throw away the key, but Rex still looked like he wanted to go a round or two.
“Get on the damn stage!” the manager shouted over the shattering sound of glass.
Right. That’s what they were here for—the music. The only thing that had never let Ben down and never demanded something he couldn’t give.
Through the rest of the next set, he kept searching the crowd for Josey. The feeling of her lips against his stayed with him, song after song. He caught sight of her a few times—the sequins on her shirt gave her a glow that stood out in the smoky bar—but then the crowd would shift and he’d lose her again.
Rex split as soon as the gig was up; Toadie took his amp and bailed, too. Normally, Ben was in charge of getting their equipment out of the bar in one piece. Not tonight. He shot Stick a look and headed out to find Josey. No-strings-attached sex could be amazing sex, and maybe if he had some amazing sex, he’d be able to get her out of his head.
She wasn’t in the bar; no sign of her in the parking lot. He even had a waitress check the bathroom—nothing.
Gone.
Where the hell did she go?
Josey rested her head on the steering wheel, waiting for her mind to clear. The intersection was empty at this ungodly hour of the morning, so she was able to think without being honked at. Thankfully, Jenny had cut out early—something about midnight being past her bedtime—so Josey could think without being judged.
Which way should she go?
If she went right, she’d be within the city limits of Rapid City inside of ten minutes. Another fifteen until she got to the gentrifying, hip downtown neighborhood where her apartment was above an upscale children’s boutique. It was a nice place—a small studio, but one where the heat and plumbing always worked and she could watch TV while surfing the internet. All the conveniences of modern life—conveniences she’d become accustomed to while going to school out East and living as a mostly white woman—were at her fingertips when she was at her apartment.
If she turned right, she’d sleep late, grab a cappuccino and a croissant from the Apollo Coffee Co. down the street and do some work. She’d send a few follow-up emails to sponsors, do a little research into other possible donors.
If she turned right, things would be quiet. Calm.
Lonely.
If she went left, though, she’d get onto Highway 90. In five minutes, Rapid City would be nothing but a glow in her rearview mirror. In twenty minutes, she’d hit the edge of the rez, and in forty-five minutes, she’d be at her mom’s double-wide trailer. She’d try to be quiet when she got in, but Mom would wake up anyway. She’d say, “Oh, Josey, I’m glad you’re home,” the same thing she said every single time Josey came over. It didn’t matter if she was visiting for lunch, staying for the weekend or just showing up, Mom was always glad she was home. Then Mom would touch the picture of Dad she kept on top of the TV and shuffle back to bed.
If Josey turned left, she’d make her own tea in the morning and eat a knockoff brand of cereal for breakfast. She’d spend the next several days working on the school. Her back would try to kill her, her manicure would be shot to heck and she’d be face-to-face with the unavoidable fact that the school—the legacy her grandfather left her to complete—would not be ready for the grand opening and some members of the tribe would hold that against her. Things would be crazy. Messy. Unfinished.
Just like things with Ben were unfinished. If she turned around, she’d be back at the bar in less than five minutes. She could find Ben, pick up where she’d left off—God help her, she had no idea a man could kiss like that—and then …
No. She couldn’t go back. She’d done the correct thing, leaving the bar before the last set had ended. Correct, because Ben Bolton wasn’t arrogant, domineering and heartless like she’d first thought. Well, maybe he was all of those things, but underneath that, there was more to him—something lost, something lonely. Something that didn’t fit, no matter how hard he tried. That was the something Josey recognized.
Ben Bolton was a dangerous man because he was someone she could care for.
She couldn’t let herself get involved with him. It didn’t matter how good the kiss had been. The last time she’d followed her heart instead of her head, she’d gotten it trampled into small, unrecognizable bits. Plus, a lot of people on the rez didn’t look kindly upon interracial dating. She’d worked so hard for so long, trying to prove her bona fides to the tribe. No white man, not even Ben Bolton, was worth risking that kind of pain.
A horn honked behind her, startling her out of her thoughts.
Left or right?
The horn blared, the driver’s impatience obvious.
Josey turned left.
Three
Ben took a deep breath. He hated this quarterly meeting with his father. Actually, it was the quarterly report from the chief financial officer to the chief executive officer, but Ben could never shake the feeling that he was in sixth grade, marching to his doom to explain the two Cs he’d gotten. Despite the fact that Ben had graduated as the valedictorian, Dad had always held those two Cs against him. Hell, he wouldn’t be surprised if the old man threw them back in his face today.
Ben was getting ahead of himself. Maybe this would go well.
And pigs might sprout wings, he thought as he knocked. The sooner he got this over with, the sooner he could go back to running the business.
“Dad?”
“Come in.”
Ben swung the door open and, just like he did every time he went into Dad’s office, he grimaced at the piles of paper that covered every available surface. Although it hadn’t been an official reason for moving to the new building, Ben had hoped that relocating would help Dad pare down the pit of paperwork.
It hadn’t. Bruce Bolton was the kind of old school that believed “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” was a battle cry in the war against technology. Bobby had gotten Dad on a computer and set up email, but the old man still insisted on printing out every single piece of electronic communication and then “filing” it according to a system that no one but he understood. Hell, the last time Ben had ordered a new printer, Dad had ranted about how that old dot-matrix printer that fed the green-and-white-striped paper on reels was the best piece of technology he’d ever owned. That printer had been a dinosaur twenty years ago—just like Dad.
But facts were facts, and the facts were, Crazy Horse Choppers was still Bruce Bolton’s business. Sure, Billy made the bikes, Ben balanced the books, and Bobby … well, he did something. Bruce was still the sole owner, and he still insisted on approving every single expenditure. Hence the quarterly meeting, where Ben tried to beat some sense into Dad’s head and Dad’s head only got harder.
“Quarterly report,” Ben said, trying to find a place on Dad’s desk where he could set the file. He’d given up on emailing the report a long time ago.
“Still in the black?” That was all Dad cared about. His world was black and white—or, more specifically, black and red. He didn’t care about what it took to keep those numbers in the black, and he didn’t even care how much black there was. He only cared that the bottom-line number was black. It seemed to Ben that Dad set a pretty low bar for success.
“Yes, still in the black. We shipped thirty-seven units, took in orders for forty-five bikes and have our delays down to twenty-eight days.” Of course, Ben had had to get several loans to bridge the gap between delivery and payment, but those facts bored Dad.
This was no way to run a business in today’s world. If Ben could get Dad to sign off on some modern investment strategies—the same strategies Ben had used to build his own financial portfolio—then they’d have the capital to float their own loans. That was what Ben needed to move the company forward—capital to invest in newer technologies, to hire new workers, to build the company. Ben had a good head for numbers, and he had the well-balanced portfolio to prove it. He’d made millions by being careful.
Not that any of that mattered to his father.
Unfortunately, Dad would have none of it. Financial instruments weren’t things Dad could touch. They were not to be trusted. Ben understood those financial instruments. Therefore, Ben was not to be trusted.
Still, it was part of the ritual to try. “Dad, we need to invest some of the—”
“Damn it, Ben, you still think I’m going to let a bunch of corrupt bankers take my money on a rigged crapshoot?” He slammed his fist into the desk, sending papers flying in all directions. “Hell, no. That’s no respectable way to run a business. We do things the right way around here, or we don’t do them at all, so stop asking me!”
“I know how to keep our money safe,” Ben protested, trying to keep his tone professional. “Look at how well my investments have done. Bobby and Billy let me manage their investments, too—and we’re all doing really well.” Which was sort of an understatement—Ben knew not to get sucked into the next big thing, and he avoided the panic that had sunk the economy a few years back.
“We’re in the black. The business is doing fine.” Dad didn’t so much say it as growl it. “We don’t need any of that—” he waved his hands around “—money hocus pocus, or whatever you call it.”
Ben refused to let his father’s derogatory attitude get to him today. “It’s called investing.” He bit back the smart-ass “Everyone’s doing it.” Smart-ass never worked on Bruce Bolton. “The business is fine only because Billy, Bobby and I floated the company money to pay for this building.”
“Your money? Ha! You wouldn’t have any money if it weren’t for your brothers. They do things. What do you do? Add, subtract. Mess around with numbers. I could get a fifth-grader to do your job. Your money …” Dad’s voice trailed off in a chuckle. “My money is real. I can go to a bank and get cold, hard cash. Where is your money, huh? You can’t even say it’s on paper—it’s all zeros and ones floating out there.” He waved his had toward his computer.
Ben sat there, his face burning. He was so tired of this fight. No matter what he did—including paying for this fancy building—he couldn’t get the old man to look at him with the same respect he gave Ben’s brothers. “Look, if we at least investigated the possibility of bringing on some investors, besides us three boys, then we’d be able to—”
“That’s enough! This is my business, boy, a fact you don’t seem to remember. I’m not gonna tell you again. I make the decisions around here.” Dad eyed him. “And if you have too much trouble remembering that, well …”
The threat was implicit. If Ben didn’t toe the family line, he’d be replaced by a fifth-grader. Except, of course, that Dad would immediately discover how wrong he was. The temptation to quit and let the old man flounder was strong. Today, it was stronger than most days.
However, the moment he considered such a move, he heard his mother’s voice in his ear as she lay on her deathbed. “Keep the family together, Ben. You’re the only one who can.”
His mother’s voice had been weak, but he’d still felt the steel behind the order. His mother had been the only one who could keep the four Bolton men from killing each other, and Ben had promised that he wouldn’t let her down.
So this was him not letting Mom down.
“I know who’s in charge around here,” he grumbled to Dad. He’d keep the company in the black—barely, but still black—the hard way. It was the only way to keep the family together. It was the only way to honor his mother.
He went back to his office and closed the door, shutting out the shop noise. This was the one room in the building where it was quiet enough to think. Ben sat with his head in his hands, wondering how much longer he could keep the business afloat and the family in one piece. Every quarter it got that much harder.
Then the corner of the brochure for the Pine Ridge Charter School caught his eye, and Ben’s thoughts turned from stemming the hopeless Bolton tide to one Josette White Plume.
In the four days since Josey White Plume had kissed him and then disappeared, he’d found himself staring at the brochure on more than one occasion. He’d even checked out the website. Josey’s name had been listed, but it hadn’t seemed right to email whiteplume@prcharterschool.net about no-strings-attached sex.
But if he had some tools to give her, well, that would be a different story. A perfectly aboveboard reason to make contact, to see if that heat was still there, if strings were still unattached. To see if she’d been level with him about coming for the music.
The problem with that plan was that Dad would never let the company donate tools. Hell, some of those machines down there were as old as Ben was.
Just when things didn’t seem like they could get any bleaker, Ben’s office door swung open.
“Ben! My man!” Bobby barged into Ben’s office.
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