Shit. He wasn’t very good at this. He supposed if they were going to put on an act, he’d better start acting.
He stalked over to them and grabbed Jessie’s arm. “We need to talk.”
She tilted her head back, her eyes unreadable behind her sunglasses. “I’m busy.”
She turned away, but he jerked her back around. “Now, Jessie.”
Ignoring Crush, who simply grinned and nodded, he dragged Jessie away from the vendor tent. She wasn’t exactly coming along willingly, either. As soon as he pulled her far enough away from anyone who could hear, he stopped.
“What the hell are you doing?”
She pulled her shades on top of her head. “I was shopping. What did it look like I was doing?”
“Flirting with Crush.”
She arched one brow. “Hardly. I was gathering information. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to be doing here?”
“Looked more to me like you were flirting.”
“Flirting.”
“Yes. With Crush.”
“I was not.”
“We’re supposed to be a couple.”
She snorted. “Yeah, you do that couple thing so well, don’t you Diaz?” She moved to push past him, but he stopped her.
“Jessie, we’re on a mission here,” he whispered, casting his gaze around to be sure no one else could hear. “Don’t forget that. And we set it up so the two of us are supposed to be a couple. You hanging all over Crush isn’t making us look like a twosome.”
“Crush and I have a friendship started. He’s comfortable with me. We were talking. That’s it. Now if you don’t mind, I’ll go back to doing what I was doing and see if I can get him to open up to me. Unless you think I need to hold your hand, talk only to you, be only with you, which will get us absolutely nowhere in this assignment.”
She crossed her arms and stared up at him, as if daring him to argue her point.
Fuck it. Let her go hump Crush’s leg if she wanted to. It wasn’t like he cared, and if the end result was information, it was great, right? “Go for it.”
She nodded and walked away, finding Crush and greeting him with a giant smile. They whispered, and Crush looked over at Diaz. Jessie said something and Crush tilted his head back and laughed. Diaz could only imagine what joke was being told at his expense.
He could feel his blood pressure rising, the pounding in his temples, the headache beginning to form.
Diaz searched out the beer tent, determined to let Jessie do her information gathering. He’d watch the other Skulls, see if anyone looked to be doing anything suspicious.
Which was a complete bust, but at least Crush ended up finding him and sharing a beer and bratwurst with him. And that meant Jessie had no choice but to follow, which didn’t seem to make her happy.
“Having fun?” Crush asked while Jessie excused herself to go off to find one of the Porta-Johns.
Diaz mumbled something noncommittal.
“Your lady seems to be irritated with you today.”
“So it seems.”
“Hey, I read the hands-off signals loud and clear, man. She and I are just talking.”
Diaz shrugged, but his blood was boiling.
“I respect a man’s property. You have nothing to worry about.”
Yeah, right. A woman like Jessie throwing herself at Crush, letting him know she was available and interested? As soon as Diaz’s back was turned, Crush would be in her pants.
“She’s spent the entire time with me talking about you,” Crush added.
Diaz tilted his sunglasses down his nose. “I’ll bet she has.”
“No bullshit. She told me about how you build bikes, how good you are at riding and working on them, how much she admires your ability, both mentally and physically, to look at a bike and know exactly how to put it together. She really loves those Harleys. And the lady’s crazy about you, man. She can’t stop talking about you. It’s kind of annoying,” Crush finished with a smirk.
Diaz had nothing to say about that.
“I admire a woman who’s that loyal to her man, even when she’s mad as hell at him.”
He really had no comeback for that statement, especially since Jessie returned just then, sitting down next to Crush, of course. She smiled at Crush and took a long swallow of beer.
“It’s hot today,” she said. “I hadn’t expected the weather to be so warm.”
“It’ll cool off at night,” Crush said. “It usually does.”
“You do this every year?” Diaz asked.
Crush nodded. “We do a lot of bike events, but this one every year since it’s in our backyard, so to speak. We do several weekend rallies in different states, but this is our big event of the year. After this weekend, we’ll head east into the Ozarks, ride the mountain roads, hang out at the lake, soak in the fall color.”
“Oh, that should be fun,” Jessie said. “I looked at the roads on the map. Awesome riding.”
“It is. Some of the curves get pretty intense.”
“Sounds like my kind of adventure. I love those wild and crazy rides,” Jessie said with a grin.
Crush nodded. “You may have found the right gang to ride with, then. That’s our kind of road.”
“If we survive initiation, can we ride with you after the rally?” Jessie asked.
“Yeah. If we invite you to initiation.”
“Then we’ll all have to be on our best behavior, won’t we?” Jessie said with a pointed look at Diaz.
Crush snorted. “I’m tired of sitting. Let’s ride.”
They cruised the rally area for a while, Crush picking up his gang here and there, then they rode north into the hills, taking some winding roads where they could really turn their bikes on edge. Diaz was content to ride behind Jessie, since most of the roads were two lane and they had to ride single file. This way he could keep an eye on her as well as where they were and where they were going.
This was Devil’s Skulls territory, and he’d already rode up next to Spence and told him to keep watch for anything that looked suspicious. So far, it was only asphalt in front of them and forest on either side. A few houses here and there, but they’d ridden pretty remote and deep into a dense forested area, so not much housing to be seen. Mainly resort cabins, the kind people bought and used for vacations. It was too isolated an area for general living purposes, unless you retired and enjoyed roughing it.