Tory heard the roar of engines growing louder as they approached. In the distance, a group of bikers rolled down the dirt road toward the house, their headlights drilling shafts of white through the darkness.
Her pulse kicked into gear, began to race as fast as the engines. There were eight of them, guys in black leather on low-slung, customized motorcycles with extended front wheels.
“What the hell?” Josh and Noah walked up next to Cole, the three men forming a protective wall against the uninvited visitors.
Tory hurried up on the porch out of the way and Britt and Natalie joined her. Instead of stopping, the bikers revved their engines and began circling the yard, doing wheelies in the dirt, knocking over stacks of chairs, jerking down strings of lights, destroying everything in their path.
One of the bikers deliberately rammed a cold box, smashing it to pieces. Several headed for the supplies left from building the barn. One leaned down to grab a bucket of nails, then tossed the contents all over the ground. Another grabbed a power saw and slammed it against the barn wall, sending pieces of metal flying.
Josh suddenly moved. One of the bikers shouted a curse as Josh grabbed him by the back of his black leather vest and yanked him off the motorcycle, which raced off and slipped over into the dirt. Josh spun him around, drew back and slammed a fist in his face, then swept his legs out from under him as he went down. The biker hit the ground hard, shouting a string of obscenities.
Josh dragged a guy with a handlebar mustache off a metallic red Harley and knocked him down, while Noah hooked his good arm around the neck of a guy with greasy black hair and tattoos, jerking him backward off the bike into the dirt.
Cole took over, grabbing the guy by the front of his black T-shirt, hauling him up, and punching him in the face. When the man swung back, Cole ducked and drove a fist into the guy’s stomach, doubling him over. He followed with a blow that sent the biker sprawling in the dirt.
The rest of the bikers slid to a halt, jammed down their kickstands, and rushed to join the fray. Josh and his friends were outnumbered more than two to one, but they were marines trained to fight.
Josh threw solid punches, drove an elbow into a biker’s stomach, brought a knee up hard beneath his chin. Whirling, he lashed out with a boot, kicking one of the men squarely in the groin. The biker grabbed his privates, doubled over, and rolled on the ground in pain.
Tory stood frozen but Josh kept moving. Hitting, kicking, throwing left jabs and right punches. When he pitched a red-bearded biker over his shoulder, sending him flying up on the porch, Tory’s trance was broken. She grabbed an empty lemonade pitcher and crashed it over the biker’s head.
Glass went flying and the man went down. He groaned, but managed to crawl away. She didn’t miss Josh’s quick grin before he turned and swung at a gigantic biker with a gray goatee and a sleeve of tattoos on each arm. The big biker’s nose exploded in a geyser of blood.
The tide seemed to be turning. Along with the others, the big guy ran for his motorcycle, silver with a red skull on the tank. The men cranked their engines and roared out of the yard, throwing dirt up behind their back wheels.
One of the riders pulled a gun and shot out two of the new barn windows as the group blasted back down the dirt road.
Tory’s heart was still pounding as the sound of their engines faded, their taillights turned onto the highway and shrank to red dots in the distance.
Josh strode toward her, moving like a big-screen superhero. Tough and strong, he was all smooth motion and no wasted energy. He pulled her into his arms and just hung on. Tory was trembling. She could feel his heart beating hard inside the wall of muscle across his chest, feel her own heart thundering.
“You okay?” he asked.
She nodded. “How about you?”
He reached up and touched a cut that slashed across his cheek. Then he grinned.
Tory huffed out a breath. Men. “So I guess that means you’re fine.”
“I can’t believe that just happened,” Natalie said.
“Weren’t the guys amazing?” said Britt, her eyes riveted on Cole. A cut ran diagonally through one blond eyebrow and one of his pant legs was torn above the top of his prosthesis.
“You were wonderful,” Britt said to him as he walked up on the porch.
Cole caught her face between his hands, leaned over and kissed her, hot and deep. “It’s been a long night,” he said gruffly. “Let’s go home.” There was no mistaking the husky note in his voice or what it meant.
Britt just nodded, a look of adoration on her face. Tory had a hunch Cole was no longer worried about proving his masculinity, though the way the two were staring at each other, odds were he’d be proving it again a little later that night.
Noah grabbed a dirty dish towel from the pile on the porch and handed it to Natalie, who wiped the blood off his knuckles and dabbed at his split lip. He wrapped his arm around her.
“You gonna call the cops?” he asked Josh.
“Not tonight. I’ll call the sheriff’s office in the morning.”
“We can give descriptions of some of them. They weren’t wearing MC jackets or helmets so we don’t know if they belong to a club.”
“We can tell the sheriff what happened, but don’t be surprised if it doesn’t do any good. Howler wouldn’t walk across the street to help a Cain.”
Noah and Cole knew about the animosity between Emmett Howler and the two Cain brothers.
“Asphalt Demons are local,” Noah said. “You think it was them?”
“No way. The Demons are friends of my brother’s. They might even be able to help us. What I can’t figure out is why anyone would come here just to cause trouble.”
Noah snorted a laugh. “Guys like that . . . they don’t always need a reason.”
Josh didn’t disagree. “Why don’t you and Natalie go on home? I’ll finish cleaning up in the morning.”
“You gonna need some help?”
“It’s your day off. Enjoy it. I’ll see you Monday.”
With a weary nod, Noah took his wife’s hand and led her off to his shiny Dodge pickup.
Josh turned to Tory. “I’ll walk you home.”
He stayed close beside her as they crossed the yard and climbed the steps to the front door of the trailer, examining his bloody knuckles along the way.
“I need to get cleaned up before I come over. I’ll see you in a little while.” Those amazing blue eyes slid down her body, as hot as the tip of a flame. He grinned. “We won’t have to be quiet tonight.”
Her stomach contracted and she smiled. “No . . .” she whispered softly.
Josh bent and kissed her, lingered and deepened the kiss before he turned and strode back toward his house.
He was still jacked up from the fight. In a different way, so was she. Seeing him in action was an amazing turn-on, the way he handled himself, the confidence, the beauty of his movements, the way his muscles flexed and tightened.
Josh would come over and she would be waiting. Knowing what would happen when he got there shot a curl of heat low into her belly.
It wasn’t until she started undressing that her thoughts returned to the bikers and what they had done. Why had the ranch been singled out? What was the cause of the men’s animosity?
But as Tory lay in the darkness waiting for Josh, no answer came.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Standing on the front porch of her little white-shuttered gray house, Brittany unlocked the front door and led Cole inside. They hadn’t talked much on the ride over, but Britt could feel his eyes on her, sense his hungry need.
She knew he wanted her. She wondered if he understood how much she wanted him. She’d been attracted to Cole Wyman since the day she had first seen him at City College, a blond god the girls all fantasized about. He’d had a serious girlfriend back then, gotten engaged before he’d joined the marines and gone off to war.