Reapers and Bastards: A Reapers MC Anthology Read online

  Reapers and

  Bastards

  A Reapers MC Anthology

  By Joanna Wylde

  Copyright (c) 2015 by Joanna Wylde Cover design © Hang Le Cover Photography © Predrag Vuckovic This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  Dedication

  For Kandace, because fuck cancer.

  Table of Contents

  Charming Bastard

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Becca’s Huckleberry Pie Recipe

  Sticky Sweet

  Marie’s Bread Recipe

  Skunked

  Marie’s Emergency Skunk Solution

  Sugar and Spice

  AUTHOR’S NOTE: Darcy and Boonie are characters in their late thirties during the Reapers and Silver Valley novels. Their love story started twenty years before the beginning of Silver Bastard.

  Charming Bastard

  Chapter One

  CALLUP, IDAHO

  TWENTY YEARS AGO

  DARCY

  “There’s no room for you in here!” Erin hissed, glaring up at me from a narrow hollow between two boulders. I clenched my fist, wishing I could punch her right in the face.

  This was my spot—she only knew about it because I’d shown it to her. In the distance I could hear the boys shouting at each other, followed by a girl’s shriek. We’d been playing a weird game of hide and seek on the way home from the bus stop all week, although it seemed a little unfair that the girls always had to hide. Unfortunately there were five guys and only four of us, so they called the shots.

  “You suck,’’ I told Erin, then started up the hill again. Bitch. See if I ever saved her ass in math again.

  Pushing through the trees was hard work and after a couple minutes I was panting. Not only that, between the steep hillside and the brush everywhere, I was making too much noise. Crap. I’d bet Boonie five bucks that he wouldn’t be able to catch me before five p.m. I didn’t actually have the money to pay up. It’d been stupid, but he’d been flipping me so much shit lately. For a couple weeks, actually.

  God only knew what he’d make me do if I couldn’t pay. Knowing my luck he’d make me eat another damned worm.

  ________

  I’d first met Riley Boone when I was four years old. We moved to Callup, Idaho, after my dad blew out his back and had to go on disability. Boonie’s family lived next to ours. Every afternoon he’d swagger off the school bus after kindergarten like a conquering king. For the first week he ignored me, until I’d impressed him by climbing nearly thirty feet up in the tree behind his trailer. They had to call the fire department to get me down, but it’d been worth it to see the respect in his five-year-old eyes.

  He gave me a worm in honor of my accomplishment. I’d fallen in love. The next day he made me eat the worm and our relationship has been complicated ever since.

  Eight years later I was still getting myself in trouble trying to impress him.

  ________

  I was almost halfway to the ridge now, my backpack tugging me downward as I climbed. I’d been up this high before—hell, I’d explored most of the gulch over the years—but this was farther than I’d usually go this late in the afternoon. It was a bit of a risk. If I went too far I wouldn’t make it home before it was time to fix dinner for my dad.

  Not a good scene.

  On the other hand, Boonie probably wouldn’t look for me up here. He liked to think he was so sneaky and tough, but I was pretty sneaky, too.

  The distant shouting faded as I clambered higher. The hillside was really steep now. The soft trickle of a stream sang to me in the distance, the light hardly filtering through the thick evergreen branches overhead. Ferns and moss and pretty little flowers grew on everything.

  Unfortunately, ferns and moss and flowers aren’t big enough to hide behind.

  Then I saw a fallen tree and smiled. The trunk itself wasn’t that big, but it’d come down sideways, lodging against several other tree trunks to form a natural shelf on the slope.

  It was perfect.

  Climbing up and over it, I followed the length to where it’d crashed through a little thicket. If I crawled in there I’d be completely invisible. Seconds later I was flat on my stomach, peering down the hillside from my perch and feeling smug as hell. It was four thirty already. Another half hour and I’d be the winner. About time, too, because it seemed like Boonie was always ahead me.

  Not this time. Ha.

  Something rattled on the slope below and I froze, eyes darting. More rattling, and I saw some branches swaying about a hundred feet off to my right. Someone was down there, but if I stayed still they wouldn’t be able to see me.

  Don’t move. Don’t breathe. Don’t let him win.

  Then a boot landed on the middle of my back and I screamed.

  “Hey, Darce,” Boonie said. “Looks like I win again.”

  “Shit,” I groaned, dropping my forehead into the pine needles. “How did you do that?”

  “I’ve been right behind you the whole time,’’ he said. “When will you learn? You can’t beat me.”

  That wasn’t worth an answer so I didn’t bother giving one. Instead I pushed with my hands, trying to get up but his booted foot held me down firmly.

  “Jesus, Boonie. What’s your problem?”

  “Five bucks. Pay up.”

  I sighed, wondering why the hell I’d let him goad me into this. Time to ’fess up.

  “I don’t have the money,” I admitted. Boonie didn’t say anything at first, then he lifted his boot slowly, setting me free. Shit. Was he going to be a dick about this?

  “Roll over,’’ he said. I rolled over and looked at him, wishing to hell I’d never opened my stupid mouth. Boonie wasn’t a guy to mess with. He got in more trouble than any of the other freshmen. Even worse, he’d started running around with some of the older kids in the trailer park ever since he’d shot up last summer. Now he was six feet tall. It occurred to me that I didn’t really know him that well anymore.

  We were only six months apart in age, but I was just a lowly eighth grader.

  Crap.

  “Can I get up?”

  “Do you have five bucks?”

  “No,” I admitted, feeling a little sick.

  Boonie dropped to his knees next to me, a knowing smirk on his face. “I knew you didn’t when I made the bet.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You had to borrow a dollar from Erin to get a drink and there’s no way you’d leave any cash at home. Your dad would take it.”

  Well. Looked like Boonie knew me a little too well.

  I sat up and we faced each other, our faces a little closer than felt comfortable. A strange tension had come into the air. I’d known him most of my life, but these last few months he’d been more distant. Now I didn’t know how to act around him or what to say.

  Erin had a crush on him, said he was hot. Studying his face I could see it—he had strong features, and his short, dark hair was just shaggy enough that I wanted to touch it. Push it back, away from his face so I could see him better.

  This was totally messed up—I shouldn’t be thinking shit like this about Boonie. We’d always alternated between being friends and enemies.

  This was different. Scary.

  Boonie lifted a hand toward my
hair and I flinched, feeling my cheeks heat.

  “What do you want?” I whispered.

  “What do you think?”

  I licked my lips and his eyes followed the movement. My breath caught as he leaned forward just a little.

  “You guys up there?’’ Erin called, her voice shrill. “Darcy! Where are you? Is Boonie with you?”

  I eyed him warily. “Erin likes you.”

  He shrugged.

  “So?”

  “She’s my friend.”

  “Come here.”

  “We should get going,” I said, scooting back across the pine needles. My jeans caught on a branch, stopping me. Boonie leaned forward, crawling up and over my body. He wasn’t touching me, but his knees straddled mine. Then his hands came down on either side of my head.

  “Give me a kiss and we’ll call it even.”

  I didn’t know what to say. His eyes were dark, intense. I knew he’d kissed girls before, maybe even more than kissed. I’d even seen him coming out of Shanda Reed’s trailer a few times. She was sixteen and everyone knew she slept around. Not that I judged her for it—she’d baby-sat me a couple of times when I was little and used to build tent forts for me. I liked her.

  But I had a feeling she wasn’t building forts with Boonie.

  I licked my lips again, knowing I should kick him in the balls. Instead I watched as his head came closer. Then his lips brushed mine, ever so softly. Something strange and new started to uncurl deep inside. Something restless and needy. When his teeth nipped I opened my mouth with a soft sigh.

  Then his tongue slipped inside.

  Holy. Shit.

  Erin said open-mouthed kissing was slutty. No wonder Shanda was slutty, because this was amazing. Boonie’s body lowered over mine and I felt his weight press me back down into the pine needles.

  The kiss was harder now, his tongue plunging deep into me and his fingers tangled into my hair. I couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything but feel as he thrust one of his strong thighs between my legs.

  That’s when I felt it.

  Something hard, pushing against my stomach.

  Was that . . . ?

  Ohmygod!

  “Darcy!” Erin yelled again. She was almost on top of us and we both froze. Boonie lifted his head, staring down at me in heated silence. Whole worlds burned in his eyes and I knew things would never be the same between us again. His hips shifted once, restlessly.

  “Darcy, where the hell are you?” she shouted again. I opened my mouth to reply, but before any sound could come out Boonie put a finger across my lips.

  “Stay quiet. She can’t see us,” he whispered. His pelvis pressed down into mine and suddenly I knew exactly where this was going. Boonie might only be six months older than me, but he was years ahead of me when it came to this kind of game.

  I wasn’t ready. Not at all.

  “I’m coming, Erin!’’ I shouted abruptly. Boonie’s eyes narrowed, but he pushed away, letting me sit up. Then he was pulling me to my feet. Watching him warily, I reached for my backpack and slung it over my shoulder.

  “I’ll be right down!” I yelled, backing away.

  “Stop,” Boonie said.

  I shook my head.

  “Your hair is full of pine needles,” he added quietly. “Let me fix it. Otherwise you’ll catch shit.”

  Crap. He caught my shoulders and turned me around, fingers combing through my hair. The touch sent shivers running down my spine. I wanted to lean back into him, to feel him wrap his arms around me.

  Instead I waited for him to finish then started down the hill.

  “Erin, I’m headed down,’’ I called, glancing back at him. “Wait for me and I’ll be right there.”

  Boonie watched as I left, making no move to follow. That was different, too. We’d fought with each other as much as we’d played through the years, but more often than not it’d been us against the world—I was used to having him at my back. That boy was gone now. He’d turned into someone else. Someone hard and fierce and maybe even a little scary.

  I wanted him to kiss me again. Desperately.

  Erin started babbling about the eighth-grade graduation dance when I reached her, oblivious to the world-shaking events that’d taken place farther up the slope. I followed her down the hill to the road and we started walking along the gravel toward the trailer park.

  “Everyone else already went home,” she declared. “It took me forever to find you. What were you doing?”

  I shrugged. “I didn’t have five bucks. I couldn’t let Boonie find me.”

  “Whatever,” she replied, and I wondered if she’d even been listening. Probably not. She never did. That usually pissed me off but today it was exactly what I needed.

  It was just after five when we slid through the ancient wooden fence surrounding Six Mile Gulch trailer park, which was missing at least half its boards. My dad would be zoned out in front of the TV with his beer and Mom was working swing shift at the grocery store. That gave me plenty of time to get dinner started on a normal night.

  But as soon as we reached the central dirt driveway I realized this wasn’t a normal night.

  My steps faltered as I took in the clumps of anxious, upset adults. Some of them were crying. Children sat on steps, watching with wide eyes. Over at the Blackthorne place, Granny Aurora stood on the porch looking lost. I’d never seen her like that—usually she was the rock holding all of us together, always ready with a hot cookie and a cold glass of milk. My stomach sank. This was bad. Really bad. Fear and something worse hung in the air.

  “What’s going on?” Erin asked, her voice wavering. Shanda ran over to us, her face smeared with streaks of black mascara.

  “Have you seen Boonie?” she asked breathlessly.

  “He’s probably right behind us,” I told her, ignoring Erin’s sharp look. “What happened?”

  “There’s a fire at the silver mine—it’s bad. Real bad.”

  “That’s impossible,’’ I said, confused. “It’s solid rock down there. What could be burning?”

  “Nobody knows, but it’s definitely on fire. Boonie’s stepdad was underground today. So were Jim Heller, Pete Glisson, and Buck Blackthorne. We need to find Boonie and get him up there because his mom’s lost her shit. Nobody knows if they got out or not.”

  Oh crap. Boonie’s mom had gone downhill over the years. Not that his stepdad was that hot, but Candy Gilpin was a basket case on a good day. In a genuine crisis she’d be uncontrollable. Like, shooting at people uncontrollable.

  “Fuck,” I whispered, running across the dusty ground to my place. Tossing my backpack on the porch, I grabbed my bike and pedaled down the driveway and out onto the road. Boonie couldn’t be that far behind, could he?

  Two minutes later I saw him, looking more like a man than a boy as he walked toward me. My bike skidded to a stop so hard I nearly crashed.

  “What the fuck?”

  “The mine,” I gasped. “There’s a fire at the Laughing Tess. Your stepdad’s underground and your mom needs you.”

  Boonie’s face paled and I started to climb off my bike, planning to give it to him. He was already off and running. That’s when I happened to glance up at the sky and I saw it.

  A pillar of thick, black, oily-looking smoke was rising slowly, over the ridge.

  Holy shit. What the hell had happened down there, half a mile underground in the darkness?

  ________

  Funny how we turn disasters into dry, sterile numbers.

  Three. That’s how many days it took for the fire to burn out. Sixty-six. That’s how many self-rescuing breathing devices failed because they hadn’t been repaired or replaced on schedule. Eighty-nine men died, most within the first hour. Some were found sitting in front of open lunch boxes—that’s how fast the smoke took them out.

  And then there was the worst number of all. Two hundred fourteen. Two hundred and fourteen children lost their fathers that day. One of them wasn’t born until
months after the last funeral.

  Seven days after the fire started, they pulled out two men alive. They’d sheltered under an air vent nearly a full mile below the surface, breathing shallowly and praying as tendrils of dark, poisonous smoke ebbed and flowed less than twenty feet away.

  Boonie’s stepdad was one of them.

  The New York Times plastered a picture of the survivors across the front page, showing them as they stumbled out into the light for the first time. Afterward there were congressional hearings on mine safety, although according to the local union it didn’t change anything. The Laughing Tess shut down for six months. Then she was up and running again, business as usual because the price of silver was rising.

  None of this mattered to Boonie and me. His stepdad announced on live TV that he’d never go underground again. Then he packed up the family and they left Callup for eastern Montana.

  I didn’t see Riley Boone again until my junior year of high school. By then I’d been dating Farell Evans for nearly eighteen months

  Chapter Two

  SIXTEEN YEARS AGO

  DARCY

  “Get your ass up here!” Erin yelled, laughing so hard I could barely understand her words. She’d already scrambled to the top of the embankment ahead of me. My boyfriend, Farell, boosted me up behind her, and I didn’t miss how his fingers slipped under my jean skirt to grope my ass. Someone was horny. He’d started drinking before the graduation ceremony, although I hadn’t realized how much until we were driving up the gulch toward Six Mile Cemetery for the after party. He’d nearly gone off the road twice, scaring the hell out of me.

  I hated it when he got like this.

  Fortunately, we made it okay and I was definitely ready to party. There were only forty-two students in the class of 1992, so they were more than happy to have us juniors along for the ride. I’d probably be here even if my boyfriend wasn’t a senior. Half the high school was.

  I’ll never forget the first time he’d asked me out—it was one of those Cinderella moments. He was tall and strong and smart. Not only that, he played quarterback on our football team. His family had lived in the valley for a hundred years and they owned the White Baker mine. Practically royalty by Silver Valley standards.