Justice Mine: a Base Branch Novel by Megan Mitcham Page B

he’d thrown into the house changing direction and coming for him. With exercised caution, he extricated the guy’s phone and wallet from his pockets, but found no keys.
    When he returned to collect Magdalena, she walked toward the front door on her socked feet, shuffling from side to side in a slow but steady pace. The black slacks she wore scraped the floor and the tattered blouse billowed around her middle. A book-bag strap hung over her right shoulder, further impairing her stability.
    “Why didn’t you wait for me?”
    “Because I couldn’t sit and think. I needed to move.” She swatted a wayward group of strands from her brow.
    “I get it.” He closed the gap between them and lifted the bag from her shoulder. “Do you need your green bag?”
    “No, I consolidated. The phones and other things are in the small outside zipper, and here’s your phone.”
    “Perfect,” he breathed. She laid the phone in his hand and her fingertips grazed his callused hand. A lump knotted his throat. She was perfect, for him. And she was everything he’d given a wide berth over the last seven, or was it eight, years now.
    Law slung the satchel onto his back and bent to scoop Magdalena into his arms.
    “I was making it on my own, you know?”
    “A damn fine effort, but the rocks are sharp and we’ve gotta go.”
    “What’s the big hurry? What did you find that changed your mind so suddenly?”
    He ignored the question and walked to the garage entrance, punched in the code, maneuvered them through the door, and locked it. He elbowed the lights and hurried through the open bay to his one and only lady, a black and chrome Harley Davidson Springer Classic.
    “I’m not riding that thing,” Magdalena said with a vehement shake of her head, her mussed strands wagging at him for emphasis.
    “Yes. You are,” Law countered. He sharpened his point by setting her lush ass sidesaddle on the small rear seat.
    Her hands sank into the leather of his jacket, holding him close. “I’ve never ridden one of these things.”
    Prying her fingers from his collar and sleeve he liberated the riding jacket from her grip. “She’s not a thing. She’s a Hog, and,” he added before turning away, “I’m happy to be your first.”
    That shut her up and rosed her cheeks to a high blush. While she stewed he hurried across to the safe tucked behind an old sheet of plywood and confiscated his holstered Sig Sauers. The cherry wood grips peeked from beneath the leather and blew him a kiss. He stripped the jacket and struggled on the guns. His cuts ran the lines of superficial wounds, but they sure stung like a bitch.
    Magdalena’s gasp echoed in the hollow concrete and brick interior, but he ignored her for the moment. An achievement deserving of a medal. He slipped into the coat, zipped, pulled out four loaded magazines, and secured the safe.
    She studied him with her green gaze as he walked toward the bike. She’d kicked a leg over the side of the bike, and, aside from her missing footwear and shell-shocked expression, she hugged it between her thighs like a natural. He couldn’t help but appreciate how the rounds of her bottom kissed the black leather. Good Lord, the things he could do with an ass like that.
    “Who are you?”
    While he loaded the saddlebags with her belongings and two of the magazines, he tried to ease her mind, as much as he could. “Lawrence Pierce, tart. I know you have a million questions rattling around that head of yours and I’ll do my best to answer the ones I can, but not here, not now. Okay?”
    Magdalena sucked in a ragged breath and exhaled it slowly on a nod. “Okay, for now.” He handed her an extra helmet and she balked like he’d handed her a rat. “I’m not wearing that thing. It’ll suffocate me. Look, it doesn’t even have breathing holes.” She gestured to the blacked-out full face shield.
    “There’s plenty of ventilation. Plus, it will hide your face from whoever’s looking and protect