Lay It Down

Book 1: A Desert Dogs Novel

by Cara McKenna

Genres: Contemporary Romance; Romantic Suspense; Western Romance

Synopsis

First in the exciting new Desert Dogs series, starring hot and sexy bikers in the Southwest

“Backbreaking days, wild nights, and the hard hum of steel between your thighs...”

That’s a life well lived, according to the Desert Dogs—four friends who call Fortuity, Nevada, their badlands home.

Vince Grossier is the self-crowned outlaw king around here. But when Fortuity’s slick new mayor invites a shady casino development to town, the invaders’ cutthroat takeover tactics quickly turn deadly. With police turning a suspiciously blind eye, it’s up to the locals to fight back, and Vince is on the front line. The pretty photographer hired by the developers might be the key to infiltrating the enemy—and a temptation too good to pass up.

Finally free of a controlling ex, Kim Paget is not looking to be taken for a ride—not on the back of some tattooed roughneck’s bike and definitely not in his bed. But when she finds evidence that her bosses are rattlesnake dangerous, Kim must entrust her safety to the man who threatens danger of a whole different kind.

Release date: August 5, 2014

Publisher: Berkley

Print pages: 336

Sample

PRAISE FOR CARA MCKENNA

ALSO BY CARA MCKENNA

SIGNET ECLIPSE

Chapter 1

Alex Dunn studied the bottle before him. Hunkered down, chin on crossed arms, he had his eyes level with the label, too close to bring into focus. The whole world was out of focus, frankly.

You’re drunk.

Shocker.

Drunk . . . yet the weird thing was, his head felt like the only place left in this town that made sense.

He couldn’t get the memory of what he’d seen that afternoon out of his head. Vivid, as if he were there now, so much more clear than reality. The brutal August sun baking his neck above the collar of his khaki deputy’s uniform, and that smell—acrid and animal. Smoke and clay. The ground a jumble of displaced red dirt, coyote prints . . . and black, charred bones.

He’d been sent over to the construction site on another matter—a routine permit in need of a department signature—when one of the Mexican workers had run up to him and the foreman, looking shaky and rambling about huesos. The guy said he’d seen something like a shallow grave—sounded like a casualty of the drug trade. After taking a look, Alex had called it in to headquarters, so the matter could be turned over to a detective. He’d tried hard to keep his voice even, not wanting to betray his unease . . . or to undermine his competence any more than he had already, lately. Some people in the department looked at him sideways these days, his off-duty issues with the bottle no secret. In a town as small as Fortuity, Nevada, nobody’s demons stayed private for long.

The foreman had been rip-shit. The construction outfit for the Eclipse resort casino was under the gun with the developers who’d won the bid to design the thing, constantly racing the clock to meet some new deadline, score some juicy early-completion bonus. Alex knew all this well—some deputy or other was forever rushing out to the sites to deal with the latest zoning dispute or sign off on some form, sometimes even the sheriff of Brush County himself. Last thing the foreman wanted was to get shit from his bosses about a criminal investigation that could throw the project into jeopardy and bench a hundred or more workers for who could guess how long. But the law was the law, and bones were bones.

“But money,” Alex told the bottle, tapping it with his knuckle, “is money.” Tap. “Is money.”

Shit. He was so drunk.

But given it was after eight o’clock, and he was through driving anyplace for the evening . . . well, that went without saying. He took another slug.

Jesus, he had to cut back. Before this year, he’d never come to work hungover. He’d known how much he could handle, exactly what time to call it quits, how much water to drink to hit the ground running the next morning. Then his grandfather had passed in January, and he’d begun to make excuses for himself. And he wasn’t dumb. He knew coming to work hungover was just one point on the same slope that ended with drinking on duty, then losing the job entirely. And he loved his job. It was his only reason for staying sober at all now. It was, without hyperbole, his life.

He pushed a button on his phone, lighting up the screen to check the clock. Shit, eleven thirty. God knew sleep wouldn’t be happening tonight, not with the images from this afternoon pacing around and around in his mind. He needed to talk to a friend, not a colleague. Someone discreet, and tough to unsettle. Someone with demons of his own, who’d never made Alex feel judged for his.

On impulse, he opened up his contacts list. Strange, but he couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually phoned Vince. Probably Alex’s best friend, even if they’d drifted off on such different tracks—namely, Vince routinely wound up on the wrong side of the bars in the county jail, and Alex was often the one standing on the other, keys in hand. He cracked a smile at that. The man wasn’t harmless, no, but he wasn’t a real worry, either. He picked a lot of fights and never turned any down. He also got up to some unlicensed bookmaking, but if Vince’s crimes had so-called victims, they sure as shit weren’t innocent ones. As consenting as dance partners, in fact. In light of this creepy business with the bones, Vince’s misdemeanors struck Alex as damn near quaint.

He hit CALL, listened to the tone. Had to be at least a year since he’d last phoned Vince. Didn’t need to, normally. Their paths crossed at least twice a week at the bar, as regular as the sun meeting the horizon.

“Yeah?” came a groggy voice.

Shit, it was Monday. Even Vince Grossier had a job to get to, come dawn. “It’s Alex, man. I wake you up?”

“Nah, just beat to shit from work. What’s up?” Alex could hear him moving, hear the creak of a couch or mattress.

“You heading to Benji’s tonight?” Alex asked.

“Sounds like something I’d do. Just gotta take care of a couple things at home first. You?”

“Already been, but . . . This is gonna sound fucking stupid, but I really need to talk to somebody.”

“You drunk?”

“Yeah. You?”

“Not yet,” Vince said, a smile warming his deep voice. “But I could be in an hour, if you wanna meet me. Buy me a beer and a shot, and I’ll listen to whatever you got to say.”

An hour, no problem. The walk into town only took twenty minutes—Alex’s nightly commute. “I’ll be there. I had a weird fucking day, Vince. Saw something I don’t know what to make of, down by one of the development sites this afternoon. These bones . . . Fuck, I’m just rattled, man.”

“Color me intrigued. But do me one favor first, and drink a load of water.” He sounded distracted, like he was looking for something. “I got no plans to drive, and I’m not chauffeuring you home in a wheelbarrow.”

“Yeah. Yeah, good idea.”

“Later.” And Vince was gone.

Alex’s heart felt lighter by a degree, and he swallowed another gulp without meaning to. Damn. He’d slow down, now. Maybe stick to water at the bar—there was a first time for everything, right? He needed to stay coherent. He needed to vent about the gruesome shit he’d seen more than he needed to get numb tonight. Vince Grossier surely had one of the more questionably calibrated moral compasses in Fortuity, but at least an hour from now, Alex would have told somebody. Keeping it to himself felt like having hands hugging his windpipe.

A knock rattled through the room. If he’d been sober, he’d have jumped. Instead, he got unsteadily to his feet, muscles clumsy as he aimed himself toward the door off the kitchen. Maybe it was Vince? No, of course not. They’d hung up two minutes ago. But he couldn’t imagine who else it might be—all the respectable folks would be in bed by this hour. Just so long as it wasn’t an emergency. He wasn’t fit to wear his badge right now.

The knock sounded again. “Coming, coming. Hang on . . .”

The knob was cool in his hand, unyielding. He fumbled with the lock, jerked the thing open. And almost like magic, there on his stoop stood just the man he needed to see.

Chapter 2

Four days later

Vince killed the bike’s throttle and knocked the kickstand down, swung his leg to the ground. The parking lot’s gravel was glowing deep red and shadows fell long, a sure sign sunset was drawing near. With it would come a respite from the summer’s broiling heat.

With a sore back and a dogging thirst, he strolled into the big front room of the old, wood-frame Western bar. Stepping inside Benji’s always felt like tugging on a soft old tee shirt and toeing off your boots, a place where workday stress got shed and forgotten, worries left to drift up among the thick rafters crisscrossing the high ceiling. There was worn honey-colored wood everywhere, and plenty of windows to let in the sun, or act as mirrors after dark. It was quiet for now, just the old-timers off in their corner by the jukebox.

That machine might as well play vinyl, for all the modernity the afternoon crowd craved. As long as the sun was shining, the patrons favored Hank Sr., Waylon Jennings, Johnny, Merle. Maybe the odd Chesney track, but always country between four and eight, for the early-rising cattlemen and the retirees. Once they got their fill of the muted news showing on the bar’s lone TV, they’d shuffle off into the night, and then the hard stuff would reign—bass and drums and screamy cock-rock lyrics arriving with the quarry rats who favored that noise. Quarry rats like Vince, and all the other guys who worked up at Petroch Gravel. It was only dinnertime, though. The acoustic guitar and yodeling laments would hold court for at least another hour.

Whole damn town feels like a tragic country ballad just now, he thought.

It was Friday, and Alex Dunn had been lowered into the ground scarcely twenty-four hours ago—killed in a drunk driving accident, the story went. He’d had his demons, no doubt, but Fortuity was down one of its finer souls with him gone. Angels were in short supply here in purgatory. A sinner like Vince ought to know.

Raina was behind the bar, as always. Too goddamn hot, with her wild, dark hair, wicked smile, and those shirts she wore, trading a peek of lacy bra cup for stellar tips. She offered a nod. “Vince.”

“Raina.” He unsnapped the straps at his wrists and peeled away his gloves, shoving them into his pockets.

“Usual?”

He nodded and gave the place another pan. “Quiet night.”

“Quiet town,” she countered, twisting the cap off his bottle. “Enjoy it while it lasts. Who knows what this place’ll look like in a couple years, once the tourists arrive.”

He made a sour face as he paid for the beer, always a touch bitter on the topic of the casino. The town referendum had been the first thing he’d ever registered to vote on, and he’d cast his ballot against the development. He liked his town the way it was, didn’t want it turned into an amusement park for outsiders, no matter what the new mayor had to say about the economic benefits. Fat lot of good his vote had done, in the end. Kind of wrecked a man’s enthusiasm for the process.

Raina made a face of her own, a thoughtful one, and poured him a shot of whiskey, sliding it over the pockmarked wood.

“What’s this for?”

“I know you’re not pissed just on account of my mentioning the casino. We lost a friend this week, a damn good man.”

Vince bowed his head in a stiff acknowledgment of grief. He didn’t like grief. As a man who made as few attachments as possible, he found the pain of it unpracticed. Cumbersome. Disturbing.

Even more disturbing was that creepy-ass phone call from Alex the night he’d died. It had woken Vince from a nap and had not really registered fully. When Alex hadn’t shown up that night at Benji’s, he just thought he must have passed out and forgotten about the whole thing. Then he’d gotten the news of Alex’s crash first thing Tuesday morning, standing around the coffeemaker in the Petroch Gravel break room . . . Hit him like a truck. It knocked the details of the call right out of his head for a couple days. It wasn’t until the priest had said the bit about ashes to ashes and dust to dust that Vince had remembered. Remembered, and started turning the conversation around in this head.

Bones.

Something about bones had freaked Alex out, the afternoon before he died. Something he’d seen. Something maybe he wasn’t supposed to have seen. It didn’t sit right, not one bit. And Vince had a nasty feeling that explaining his worries to anybody else was going to prove an exercise in frustration.

He downed the shot, feeling beat. Feeling older than he ever had. And he’d never quite noticed until now how old Raina had gotten. Not that she was old—she’d been a couple years behind Vince in school, which made her about thirty-two. But he could still picture her at fourteen, could remember teasing her from the back of the school bus as it bumped thirty long miles up and down the rural routes. Jeremiah had always been beside him even then, telling him to knock it off. Alex, too. Though Alex had stayed on the straight and narrow even after Vince had begun making a sport of misdemeanors. They’d stayed friendly, if not near as tight as Vince and Miah—the two of them were brothers, practically. Though that didn’t make losing Alex any easier.

Raina took away the shot glass. “Where’s your shadow tonight?” She meant Miah.

“On his way.”

“’Course he is.” What was her look saying? Bit cagey, Vince thought, and with good reason—she and Miah were over. Way over, whether Miah was happy about that or not. She still wanted him, though. Vince might be shit at remembering a woman’s birthday or even her last name, but he could read those sexual signals like a second language.

“Got matches?” he asked.

She knew what he was after, and she poked around under the counter until she found a box of the wooden kind.

Vince stole two, sticking one in his breast pocket and the other between his lips. Christ, he missed cigarettes. Three months since he’d broken up with the fuckers, and they still dogged him.

He moved the matchstick to the corner of his lips and took a pull off his bottle. Setting it back down, he met Raina’s eyes. “So. Guess who’s coming back to town.”

“Who?”

He grinned. “Case.”

Raina’s look said it all—Oh Lord, Casey Grossier. “Good God, how long’s he been away? Ten years?”

“Nearly.” If Vince was a junkyard mutt, tethered to his ratty little kingdom, then his brother, Casey, was a stray—restless, a wanderer, perpetually up to no good. A true prodigal son of Fortuity. A true son of their old man, come to that.

“He missed the funeral,” she said.

“Not coming home for that—not exactly. He and Alex were never that close.”

“What do you mean, not exactly? What’s he coming home for?”

Vince stared at the bar, his stomach going sour.

“What? Is it your mom?” Vince didn’t talk about his mother much, but Raina knew the woman wasn’t well—not in the head. That was common knowledge. “Is she ill?”

“Not exactly.”

“Again with the not-exactlys.”

He held Raina’s gaze and got right down to the meat of what really had him torn up. “Do you believe Alex got himself killed, driving drunk?”

She blinked. “’Course I do. He was found dead behind the wheel. His blood alcohol was like, ethanol. I read the report in the paper, same as everybody else.”

Sheriff Tremblay served as the county coroner. Though the blowhard didn’t have a fan in Vince, he had to feel bad for the man, charged with toe-tagging his best deputy.

“Alex never drove drunk a day in his life,” Vince said.

“Maybe not,” Raina allowed. “Not until Monday night. But Vince, I’ve also not seen him sober after ten p.m. since his grandfather passed. Not if he’s off duty. It was only a matter of ti—”

“Watch yourself.” He’d gone cold, and so had his tone. Raina looked spooked, like she was staring down a double barrel, and he softened up quick. “Just . . . watch what you say about the man.”

“It’s fresh, I know. And I’m not being disrespectful—he was my friend, too. I’m just being realistic. Anyhow, what’s that got to do with Casey coming home?”

“Something’s up,” Vince said, narrowed gaze moving around the bar. “Something shady. Maybe to do with the casino.”

Raina’s posture slumped and she sighed, clearly not in the mood for this. He knew she got fed up with spending her workdays listening to the old-timers and their grouchy gossip about the corporate developers who’d been ripping holes all through the foothills in the name of progress. But this shit was dead serious to Vince.

“You think the project has something to do with Alex’s accident?” she asked. “How would that even factor?”

“He called me that night, asked me to meet him down here. Wanted to talk to me about something he’d seen, I think was how he said it. Something around one of the construction sites—bones.”

“Bones? What kind of bones? Not human ones?”

Vince shrugged. “Never had a chance to find out. Next thing I know, I’m watching news footage of Alex’s cruiser getting winched out of a gulley.”

She frowned, thinking it over. “That’s a little creepy, sure. But—but what are you saying, Vince? Are you implying somebody killed him? Faked the accident?”

He hated how crazy the whole thing sounded when she worded it like that. He hadn’t even articulated those thoughts in his own mind. Hearing her say it out loud made him wonder what he was thinking himself. “I’m not saying anything except I don’t think we know the whole story.”

“What, like, somebody cut his brake lines or something, so—”

“I said I don’t know. But I can’t unhear what he told me.” Bones. Goddamn, he couldn’t get that word out of his head. “And it’s funny what the news said, about the recorder in his cruiser being switched off when it happened.”

Raina shot him a leveling look. “Of course he’d turn it off—he knew he was going to drive drunk. The man wasn’t about to document himself breaking the law.”

“He wanted to meet me at the bar. He should’ve walked,” Vince said. “He always walked.”

“Tell me this—did he sound drunk when he called?”

Vince felt a headache brewing, everything about this conversation going badly—and Raina was only the first friend he’d attempted to confide in about it. “Yeah. Pretty drunk.”

She leaned in, looking sad. “Matter of time, him finally making that awful decision.”

“Doesn’t add up. He never would’ve done that. Never. That this happens the same goddamn day he sees something? Something he needs to tell somebody about, bad enough to call close to midnight, and lay something about bones on me?”

“Vince, take a deep breath and listen to what you’re saying. It doesn’t make sense.”

“No, it doesn’t. That’s what got me worried.”

“Look, I get it—you think this is your fault, for agreeing to meet him.”

He sat up straight. “Now wait—”

“But it’s not. Alex was a time bomb. And every last person in Fortuity’s asking themselves those same questions, about what we could’ve done different, if we could’ve prevented this. I mean, look at me—his fucking bartender. But it was self-destruction, plain and simple. Not your fault. And definitely not something to do with the casino or the construction, or any mysterious bones he told you about when he was shitfaced.”

Vince felt his usual above-it-all, smug veneer fall away, features hardening. “You of all people should be worried about that casino.”

Clearly annoyed by his tone, Raina drew herself up tall and crossed her arms. “Should I, then?”

“You should. You think anybody’s gonna bother with Benji’s, once all those fancy joints open?”

“Oh, are we changing the subject again? God, you men—scared shitless of any feelings that don’t come from your pants.”

He rolled his eyes.

“But fine, we can talk about that. This casino’s bringing people, period,” she said. “People drink. I serve alcohol. All that adds up to good news, in my book.”

That was how she’d been playing it, but Vince wasn’t sold. She had to be nervous about what the Eclipse was going to do to their town. The very name sounded ominous, and he knew she’d voted against it, too. Raina and most everybody he’d talked to. The ranchers were worried about the water supply and what the construction might do to the few decent routes they relied on to get stock in and out of town. The religious folks thought it’d turn Fortuity into Sodom—or worse, Reno. Mayor Dooley said the casino would bust open a dam and flood this town with money, but all that sounded like to many of the locals was an invitation to drown. But it had passed, somehow or other.

“Rich tourists won’t be climbing down off their cushy thrones to drink with the likes of us,” Vince countered. “Most of the construction guys don’t even come in here.” The majority were immigrant workers, content to keep to themselves in their little trailer city at the edge of town.

“Maybe not, but the tourists will,” Raina said. “For a chance to tell their buddies they’re in with the local riffraff. Plus all the hospitality and casino workers—they’ll need a place to drink, and they sure as shit won’t feel like sticking around their place of business, paying hotel prices.”

“Once, maybe. Twice, tops. Then your novelty’ll wear off, sweetheart. They’ll get bored, same as you did with Miah.” A mean jab, sure, but she’d broken his best friend’s heart. That was fair game.

“Prick.”

Vince drank to that.

“It’s high time this happened, really,” Raina said lightly. “I voted against it, but hey, beauty of democracy. Maybe we could stand to class ourselves up. Fortuity—what are they calling it? ‘The new desert Aspen,’” she said dreamily. That was the dumbass slogan gracing billboards splashed with slick renderings of the yet-to-be-built Eclipse.

“You’re cute when you’re naïve.” Vince was going for patronizing with the smile he cracked, but Raina didn’t take his bait.

She knew him too well, anyhow. Vince and Raina were two of a handful of Fortuity natives of their generation who’d stuck with the town after the local industries had hit hard times, and it wasn’t from a lack of motivation. He’d stayed out of a sense of family duty, same as her, even as so many of their peers—including Vince’s little brother—had run off in search of greener pastures . . .

Duty, or something else?

“You’ve got that red dust in your lungs,” her late father had always said to them. “The dust’ll call you back.” Raina had tried to fight it—tried to leave Fortuity behind as Casey had, but yeah, she’d been called back. She never talked about what had happened in Vegas to send her running home in her midtwenties. Had to be something nasty, though—the girl was tough as nails.

“So when’s Casey back, then?” she asked.

“Any day now.”

“Where from?”

“Fresno, I think. Maybe. He moves around so much, who the fuck can keep track? I was shocked his number still worked. Vegas area code, and he cleared out of there at least two years ago.”

“What’s he been doing?”

“Counting cards, last I knew, but that was a long while back.”

She shook her head. “Now there’s a perfect waste.”

“Tell me about it.” Vince’s little brother was a world-class dumbass when it came to a lot of things—women, chiefly—but he’d always had a head for math and science. Particularly the areas that involved blowing things up or burning things down.

“Well, well,” Raina said, gathering empties from around the counter. “The original Desert Dogs, back together, all grown up.” Minus one. God rest Alex Dunn. “How ’bout that?”

“You know it,” he said. “We still got your position open, girl. Head bitch.”

“Fuck you, Vince.” Though he knew she’d loved that title, once upon a time. She’d been the only girl in Fortuity deemed tough enough to hang with the Grossiers and Miah and Alex . . . Actually, she’d been more persistent than tough, basically bossing her way into their silly grade-school war games out around the brush and creek and foothills. Then in high school, all those hours lost loitering in the garage, Raina sitting on the workbench, reading sex-advice articles aloud from her stupid chick magazines while the guys dicked around with their two-wheeled toys.

Beyond the front windows, the desert had gone from pink to orange. It did that every evening, a few minutes before the sun sank behind the peak of Lights Out to dunk Fortuity in premature twilight. Hence the Eclipse.

Raina caught somebody’s signal for another round and filled a pitcher, delivering it before shutting the windows and unpropping the front door on her way back. The sun dropped; the temperature dropped. From a hundred-plus in the sun to the midforties under the moon. Summer to winter every damn dusk. Vince watched as she reached up on tiptoe to switch off the AC for the night.

Back behind the bar, she cracked her neck, looking beat. Vince had his arms folded on the wood, and she mirrored him for a second, then stood up perfectly straight, her expression telling Vince precisely who’d just strolled through the front door.

Vince swiveled to raise a hand at his best friend.

Miah must have taken the truck—no helmet tonight. The second that old wool felt Stetson came off, Lights Out swallowed the last of the day’s sun. Vince felt the predictable, angst-filled current that ran between the ex-lovers prickle through the air.

Miah crossed the floor and offered Raina a stiff nod. “Evening.”

“Miah. Usual?”

“Please.”

As she twisted the cap off, she asked, “Did Vince here tell you Casey’s coming back to town?”

“He did. I’ll believe it when I see it.”

She cracked a smile at that. “Two fifty.”

Miah gave her a five, then turned his dark eyes on Vince. They clasped hands in a half-assed ritual of macho acknowledgment. Where Vince’s job dusted him gray with gravel, Miah’s left him red around the seams from the desert, from long hours on horseback, patrolling the scrubby acres of prairie that made up Three C, his family’s cattle ranch.

Raina handed Miah his change and Vince got to his feet.

“Enjoy your beers, boys. Holler when you need a refill.”

Vince grabbed a seat on a bench before a trestle table in the front corner while Miah disappeared to take a leak.

Vince eyed Raina idly. His matchstick had softened and he tongued the pulp.

Funny how Miah had beat him to her, and how many summers ago, now? Two? Yet his best friend still bore the wounds. They’d loved like a bad trip—a writhing, wailing possession of a doomed romance, the kind that left scorch marks. So not Miah’s style, but if she’d managed to drive that steady motherfucker to moonlight yowling, God knew she and Vince would’ve straight-up torn each other to shreds.

What a waste.

Waste or not, once you wet your collar with a buddy’s sloppy tears over a girl, it was nighty-night on that dream.

Miah returned, taking his predictable spot and hauling the window open behind him. Cold night air drifted in—some odd comfort to the man, some psychological promise of an escape route. Keep him outside and he was unflappable as a lead flag. Inside, twitchy as hell. Cattleman thing, maybe. The guy’s old man was just the same.

They tapped bottles and Vince said, “Thanks for coming in.”

“Can’t stay late.”

“It’s Friday.”

Miah took a long drink. “Like that means anything to me. Plus, Dad called just as I parked. Gotta check a length of fence before I turn in.”

Best get down to business, then. “We