Heart of a Tattooist: Dark Romance MC Club Alpha Bad Boy Obsession (Tattooist Series Book 3) (9 page)

Cara stood in the shop, looking around. Getting a job had become something she had done far too often lately. The man who owned the shop was an older guy with a bald head and shifty eyes. He came toward her and said, “Can I help you?”

She stuck out one hand. “I’m Cara Van Tear.”

“I know.” His grin was wide and sunny. “I saw you at the Expo up in Chicago a while back. You looking for a room?”

“I am.” She relaxed slightly. “You got one open?”

“I do.” His eyes shifted around the shop. “Got terms too.”

“Everyone does,” she said blandly.

“Thomas.”

“Cara.” They shook hands and he said, “Well, come on in the back and we’ll talk it out.”

They did and she left the shop half an hour later with a grin on her face. She started the next day. She had money in her pocket in the form of the check she had gotten the day before and she had some errands to run.

Mitch had dropped her off at the condo and asked if she had a driver’s license. She did, and he gave her the keys to a car he kept there but she had opted to walk, and as she made her way through downtown, past the bustling little restaurants and bars, she found herself smiling.

She liked the place.

Really liked it.

Memphis—she had liked it but it had not felt right.

Somehow, Nashville did.

That floored her. She felt at home there, and she had no idea why.

The place was cosmopolitan, with a country flair, and she found she liked that. She liked the streets and the people and the way the sun felt on her shoulders. She liked everything about it.

She found a bank and went in and opened an account. Cheered by the balance, she went to a little diner- style place and had a massive lunch then began to explore the city again. She found herself wandering past busking musicians and neat little stores, and wondering what had happened to Bobby.

And what was happening in Memphis.

Her mood quickly soured.

The last thing she wanted to think about was that. She wanted to put that as far out of her mind as possible but she knew she couldn’t. She hadn’t been lying when she told Mitch bikers never forgot. Her own father had once waited five years to get revenge on a man who had slighted him in a bar.

She sighed and pushed those thoughts away. She didn’t want to think about her parents either. They were the last things she wanted to think about but they proved hard to shake.

The people who had raised her had been so involved with each other. She knew that thing that had been between her parents was toxic and dependent. It was unhealthy and twisted. But that was the first example she had ever had of what love was supposed to look like.

She had wanted Cliff to love her with the same ferocity with which her parents had loved each other, and she had wanted to love him the same way.

Their relationship had always felt like it lacked something, at least to her, and no matter how many times she told herself that was between her parents was not really love, she still found herself wanting that same depth of emotion and devotion that they had for each other.

The same old guilt flooded in. She had wounded him so badly, and for what? So she could feel better? So she could leave him before he left her?

That was what it all amounted to whether she wanted to admit it or not, and she knew it, but that made new fears surface. What if she got scared and ran again?

Where would she go?

How many times could she run away from a man who loved her and that she loved?

Eventually it would all end with her alone and miserable and lost and she didn’t want that. She wanted a home and life. She wanted everything.

She wanted Mitch.

And that was terrifying.

She forced herself to concentrate on that. She had guts, she knew it. She just had to find them.

Mitch was worth it.

He was the man who made her want to stay. That was the tricky part, though, because any time anyone got that close to her she ran like hell.

He knew that about her. He knew it and maybe that was what was so different about the thing between them. Mitch got her in ways she didn’t even understand herself.

That too seemed terrifying.

It would be easy to lose herself in him.

She headed back to the condo, smiling at the doorman as she headed up toward the floor the apartment was on. Mitch had said he would be busy until later that day and that he would call before he came by.

The place hung like a jewel above the city. She walked over the windows and looked out then stepped out onto the balcony. The wind hit her in the face and she looked out at the clean, clear sky and the hulk of the mountains just beyond.

Yes. It felt right there in Nashville.

It felt like home.

* *

Mitch swore angrily and set his guitar down. Not even strumming out chords and speaking nonsense until something caught was working for him today.

Luke, his producer, called out from the studio, “Let’s call it and regroup. You hungry?”

He glared at him. “No. I’m pissed off.”

Luke nodded sympathetically. “’Course you are, man. I think if you just relax a little it’ll come to you. I tell you what, I got a song—and don’t even tell me you don’t want to do someone else’s song because I already know. I’m just saying if we get you in the booth and singing it might shake something loose.”

He was right, as much as Mitch hated to admit it. He sighed. “Yeah, okay. What key’s it in?”

“Yours,” Luke grinned. “Here’s the melody.” He played it and Mitch listened with a frown. “Man, those words need some editing. That bridge is whacked. Let’s try putting that first line at the bottom and then change up the first verse.”

They did and Mitch sang the song, changing it up here and there after the first take. By the fifth he was in a groove, but it wasn’t his own groove. When it was done he said, “That’s going to make a great cut for someone.”

Luke sat back and said, “But not you.”

Mitch shook his head. “Just not feeling it.”

“If you aren’t feeling it you aren’t feeling it. So fuck it. Let’s talk. What’s going on with you and the hot tattoo chick?”

Irritation prickled along his spine. “She’s not the tattoo chick. Her name’s Cara.”

Luke said, “I see. I hear she walked in on Cay getting a blowjob and freaked out.”

“Yeah, I guess she would have freaked out more if she’d caught Cay blowing the model.”

Luke burst into laughter. “I wonder how long it’s going to be before someone tells him about that.”

“It won’t be me,” Mitch said, “That boy has a temper.”

Luke shook his head. “What he doesn’t have is staying power. I give him two more years—tops. He’s too damn difficult to work with, and he’s got an ego the size of three houses out there in Belle Meade. Guys like that burn out real fast.”

Mitch felt like Cay at the moment. It was a depressing thought. “If I don’t get this album out and done, I might be over too.”

Luke stared at him like he was crazy. “You worry too much, Mitch. You built your base slow but steady. Hey, you remember when we first worked together? How long ago was that? Twelve years?”

Mitch chuckled. “I was pretty cocky back then myself.”

Luke said, “You were never cocky. You knew what you had and you were willing to put it all on the line. That’s the difference.”

Mitch said, “Maybe I just don’t have anything left.” It wasn’t something he could have or would have said to anyone else.

Luke shook his head. “Man, you got plenty. You just got all messed up out there in Hollywood. You let all that smog get in your brain. You just got to shake it out is all. It’ll happen. Relax a little. You’re putting too much into this and you’re trying too hard. You’re getting in your own way.”

“I can see that. I just don’t know how to fix it.” He rolled his head on his shoulders and said, “Okay, so I got a chorus but that’s it. Let’s try doing that again and see what shakes out.”

He put his guitar over his knee. Luke sat back, listening to the chorus. When it ended he said, “It’s not great.”

Mitch said, “I know. I just don’t know how to make it great.”

“Toss it,” Luke advised, “Start over.”

“Man, it took me weeks just to come up with that. I think what scares me is thinking maybe the well has finally run dry.”

Luke laughed. “Your brain’s like your dick, Mitch. Just when you think it’s done someone comes along and gets it moving again.”

“I think that might be all I can take today.” He stood and carefully racked the guitar. “Give me a call, and maybe I’ll have something.”

Luke nodded and Mitch walked out. The sun hung overhead, bright and shining. He took out his phone and called Cara.

She answered on the first ring and said, “Hey there. I got a job.”

“Hey there.” The sound of her voice made him smile. “You got any plans?”

“Not one.”

“Do you like fishing?”

“Fishing? I’m sorry, did you say fishing?”

He laughed. “I did.”

“Never done it.”

“Then that would be a yes. I’ll be there in a jiffy.”

A jiffy. Had he just said that? He had. Damn! He really had lost his ability to talk.

“I can’t believe I got that dirty,” Cara said later.

They were sitting on the balcony of the condo and he laughed as he said, “You got all the mud off.”

“You don’t even want to know how much mud was stuck in my butt crack.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Probably as much as was stuck in mine. And we didn’t even catch a fish.”

She howled laughter as the breeze ruffled her hair. “I guess it’s pizza then. I’ll call someone if you want.”

“I have a better idea; let’s go out.” They headed down in the elevator and started walking along the warm payment. “How do you like it so far?”

‘I like it,” she kept her words carefully neutral.

They stopped at the closest restaurant and headed into the bustling place. The maître’d recognized Mitch and they were seated quickly. She saw a few people look at him and one young man’s face lit up, but he didn’t say anything. Mitch hadn’t been kidding when he said Nashville respected its celebrities.

They were halfway through with their meal when a drop-dead gorgeous woman stopped at their table. She wore a plain and very simple white sheath that hugged her enviable figure, and her black hair was in a low ponytail that accented the strong and tight bones of her shoulders. She smiled with perfect, white teeth. “Hello, Mitch.”

He looked up. “Hello, Joan.”

Cara’s belly went hot. They knew each other. That was obvious, and it wasn’t hard to tell they knew each other intimately. She tried to ignore the jealousy coursing through her veins suddenly.

Joan’s eyes swept over Cara in a dismissive way and then she said, “Glad to see you made it back and without April. I was hoping we could talk if you have time.”

“I don’t.” His tone was pleasant and low, but very firm.

Her eyes, a wintry pale blue, went back to Cara. That time there was a question in them but again they assessed her, took in the tattoos and the t-shirt and then dismissed her. “I see, well, when you’re not meeting with one of your team then.”

Cara seethed. His team? Did Joan think she worked for Mitch?

Insecurity and doubt went to war. How could she compete with someone who looked like that? She didn’t regret her tats, she never would. Without them she was just like everyone else, but for a single moment she found herself considering that sometimes being different wasn’t so awesome.

Cara leaned forward and smiled not so sweetly. “Oh, we don’t work in teams… Although Mitch could use a team, given his libido. No, we just take turns. It’s Tuesday so—my turn. I think my sister wives are all voting for a girls’ day at the spa next Thursday, though. Try then.”

Mitch choked. Joan recoiled. Mitch bowed his head and started laughing silently, but so hard that his shoulders heaved up and down. He managed to stop long enough to wheeze out, “Um, yeah. Can’t piss off the sister wives. One likes scissors.” Then he started laughing again, burying his face in his napkin as he did so.

Joan looked befuddled.

Cara smiled at her and added, “By the way, love that sheath. I saw one similar to it in New York at Fashion Week. Of course, that was last year.”
Take that, you cow,
she thought gleefully then another thought hit,
Oh shit. I’m turning into that kind of woman
.

Joan beat a hasty retreat.

Cara watched her go and sighed. “I’m sorry. It was just the way she…she looked at me like I was a bug.”

Mitch wiped his streaming eyes. “To be fair, she looks at everyone like that.”

“Were you two…” she let it dangle.

Mitch kept his face neutral but honest. “About five years ago. It ended well and we stayed friendly. Not that kind of friendly. She’s a damn good songwriter and she just got a divorce, so…maybe she didn’t know we were here together, but I guess she won’t make that mistake again.’

She asked, bluntly, “How many of your exes am I going to run into?”

“Well, April went bust after she spent all the settlement money, so I imagine she’s going to either leave L.A. or find a rich man out there. But the competition out there is pretty stiff I would say, so knowing her she’ll come back this way. That was Joan, then there’s Margaeux. She was the one before April. That’s it. I didn’t date nearly as much as I guess it sounds like I did. Also, other than April I managed to stay on pretty good terms with my exes. I think that’s a good thing.”

“So do I.” She picked at the label on her beer bottle. “I always figured if someone had a whole lot of exes who hated them, they had to have a good reason.”

Mitch nodded. “I know about Cliff but, besides him, did you date a lot?”

“Define date. I went out to dinner or a show with a few guys in New York but nothing ever clicked. I dated one guy for about a year but…but it just was…it was flat. Like a tattoo you see from a bad artist. No color and all wavering lines and bad form.”

“That’s an interesting analogy.”

She nodded. “Thanks. I can’t say all my exes and I are on good terms, especially not Cliff.”

“Cliff’s a good guy.”

“He is.”

He leaned closer. “I have to ask…”

She held up one hand. “No, you don’t. I was over it long ago. I went back to L.A. because New York just didn’t feel like home. But the minute those wheels touched down I knew I had screwed up. L.A. didn’t feel quite right either. I wanted to make amends with Cliff. Part of me did. Maybe part of me was hoping there might be something left. Maybe I was thinking being with him again would be simple, like putting on a pair of comfortable old shoes or something. But the minute I saw him all I wanted to do was explain, apologize, and get the hell out of his way so he could have what he had with Pixie.” She stared down at the tattoo in on the inside of her arm. “I went about it all wrong and I caused them some issues. I’m really sorry about that too, but there’s no way to go back, so what can I do?”

Mitch took a long swallow of his beer. “Not much. They’re solid, from what I can see.”

She nodded. “They are and that’s good. She’s good for him and I think he’s good for her too.”

“So tell me about the new job.”

She told him about the shop and they spent the next few minutes discussing their day.

As they left the restaurant, Mitch asked, “Do you want me to go home?”

“No.” She smiled at him. “I want you to come up to the condo.”

“The lady will always get your wish,” he said with a deep bow that made her laugh.