Bringing Home the Bachelor

That absolutely, totally did it. It was bad enough she had to take a constant stream of attitude from her son. She’d tried being nice and polite—like the good girl she was—but what had that gotten her? Nothing but grief.

“You listen to me, you—you—you.” Before she knew what she was doing, she’d reached out and shoved—actually shoved—Billy Bolton.

Not that he moved or anything. Pushing his chest was like pushing against a solid wall of stone. And all those stupid goose bumps set off again. She ignored them.

“I am not here for you or your brother or his film crew to treat like garbage. I am a teacher. This is my school. Got that?”

She thought she saw Billy’s mouth curve up into something that might have been a grin. Was he laughing at her?

She reached up to shove him again—not that it would hurt him, but she had this irrational thought that something physical might be the only thing a man like him understood.

This time, Billy captured her hand with his massive fingers and held it. In an instant, all those goose bumps were erased by a licking flame of heat that ran roughshod over her body.

With effort, she held on to her anger and wrenched her hand away from his. “You listen to me—I don’t care how big or scary or rich or famous you are—you’re at my school, on my rez, mister. You make one mistake—touch one student, say something inappropriate—I’ll personally grind you up into hamburger and feed you to the coyotes. Do I make myself clear?”

Billy didn’t say a thing. He looked at her from behind his dark shades. The only reaction she could see was the possible curve of his lips behind his beard, but she couldn’t even be sure about that.

“Mom,” Seth said from behind her.

“We need to get filming, Jenny,” Bobby added. He stepped between her and Billy and tried to herd her away.

She leaned around Bobby and leveled her meanest glare at Billy. “We aren’t done here.” Then she turned around and stomped off.

As she went, she swore she heard Billy say behind her, “No, I don’t think we are.”

Two

Billy stood there, thinking that his day had taken a turn for the better.

Had that pretty little cousin of Josey’s really threatened to feed him to the coyotes? Man, no one threatened him anymore—except for his brothers. Everyone else either knew about his Wild Bill reputation—even though all that stuff had happened more than ten years ago—or they knew he had enough money to sue them back into the Dark Ages.

Hell, the pretty little woman named Jenny probably knew both of those facts—and she had threatened him anyway. He ran his fingers over the spot on his chest where she’d amusingly tried to shove him—right where he had a rose wrapped in thorns tattooed. He could still feel the warmth from her touch. How long had it been since a woman had touched him?

He’d always had terrible taste in women. He had the scars to prove it. He’d had other offers since the biker babes who used to hit on him—high-class women who were more interested in his newly made money than him. But Billy wasn’t interested in having his heart ripped out again. And he usually threw off enough stay-away vibes to scare most women away.

In fact, if memory served, he had been sure that Jenny Wawasuck had been afraid of him when they’d met at Ben and Josey’s wedding. He supposed he hadn’t helped put her at ease.

Josey had asked him to wear a tux to her wedding in such a sweet way that he’d dug deep into his closet to find the one he’d had custom-made a few years ago when Bobby had insisted on dragging him to some sort of posh party in Hollywood. Even though it was his own suit, and fit well, the bow tie hadn’t done anything to improve his mood. Seeing how happy his brother had looked getting married had been just another reminder of what Billy didn’t have.

Jenny had been this cute little thing—nothing like the kind of woman he’d taken home back when he’d hit the bars as Wild Bill. And nothing like the vacuous, high-maintenance women he’d run into when Bobby forced him into those high-society parties. Her long hair had been curled but not teased, and her bare shoulders had been free of any kind of ink. She’d looked beautiful that day. She’d obviously been the kind of sweet, good-natured woman who avoided the likes of him. And the fact that he hadn’t come up with a single decent thing to say to her?

Damn. The memory still made him burn.

Of course, she wasn’t his type—and her type never went for guys like him. Easier to let it go at that.

Now, he turned to Bobby and let his brother shoo him onto his bike and instruct him to drive up and down the gravel road to school until the film crew told him to stop. Bobby had this irritating habit of wanting twenty takes for every ten seconds of footage. Normally, it drove Billy nuts, but today he was glad to have the chance to think.

He did his best thinking on his bikes. Usually, that meant solving the latest design problem or figuring out how to work around his dad or brothers. But today, riding up and down the same mile of territory that hardly qualified as a road, the problem he found himself thinking about was Jenny.

She’d smelled of baby powder, a soft scent that matched the woman he’d met at the wedding but seemed out of place on the woman who’d threatened him. Not a hint of coffee, and he knew Josey preferred tea when she was on the rez. The guess hadn’t been a huge leap, but the way Jenny’s eyes had widened when he’d been right? Worth it.

He still couldn’t get over how she’d promised it wasn’t over. Maybe he was getting soft in his thirties, but he found himself hoping she was right.

Finally, after an hour of rolling up and down the same mile, Bobby decided they had the footage he wanted. By that time, the school was overflowing. All the kids were there, and a fair number of their parents had come to watch, too.

Back when he’d earned his reputation the hard way, people had been in awe of him. Some had wanted to be on his good side, some had tried to prove they were bigger or badder. People’s reactions had only gotten worse since this whole webisode thing started. People were watching him, expecting him to be funny or crude or what, he didn’t know. All he knew was they were here for Wild Bill Bolton. And he hated it.

His brother Ben’s wife, Josey, came up to him as he parked his bike next to the shop where they were going to be building the bike. “Morning, Billy,” she said. “Everything go okay so far?”

Right. No doubt Jenny had had a little powwow with her cousin. “Bobby’s still an ass—”

“Language! There are children present!”

It was going to be such a long day. “Twit. Bobby’s still a twit.”

Josey sighed. “Billy, remember the rules.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know—language, attitude, no throwing things.”

Josey patted him on the arm. “It’s just three weeks.”

Sure, it was only three weeks at the school, but he was stuck with Bobby running his life for the foreseeable future. He’d only agreed to do this show because Ben said this was a good way to justify the cost of new equipment for the shop, and Billy loved new equipment. Hell, testing out a new tool was half the fun of building a bike. Plus, he’d thought it was a good way to keep the peace in the family. Now he wasn’t so sure.

Sure, Billy guessed it was nice that people recognized him now, and yeah, it was probably good for his ego that someone had started a Facebook page called The Wild Bill Bolton Fan Club. But most of him wanted “Real American Bikers,” which was what Bobby called the webisodes, to fail and fail big. That way, he could go back to doing what he did best—building custom motorcycles. No more cameras, no more groupies, no more being famous.

Back to building his bikes in peace and quiet.

Although that didn’t look like it was going to happen anytime soon. “Real American Bikers” was getting a healthy number of hits on YouTube, where Bobby was hosting a channel for it—whatever the hell that meant. Billy hadn’t actually watched more than about two minutes of the show. It was too painful. Too much of a reminder that he could never really leave his Wild Bill reputation behind him.

“Oh, here comes Don Two Eagles,” Josey was saying as she waved an older guy over. “Don, this is—”

“Billy Bolton. You look like your old man,” Don said. Didn’t sound like a compliment, and Billy sure as hell didn’t take it as one.

Ben had told Billy all about Don. “You’re the guy who broke Dad’s jaw back at Sturgis in the eighties, right?”

“Damn straight,” Don said.

“Language!” Josey snipped as she checked to see if any kids had been listening.

“I put your old man down, and I ain’t afraid to do the same to you, so you best behave, hear?”

“Don,” Josey said under her breath. Billy got the feeling that this was a conversation they’d had before. Then she turned on the charm. “Now, the kids are going to come out and line up. Bobby thinks it’ll be a nice shot if we introduce some of the older students to you personally and you shake their hands, so we’ll start filing them past you. Can you handle that?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be watching you,” Don said before being called away by the production crew.

“Heavens, can you believe Bobby actually wants to bring your father out here and let him and Don go at it?” Josey’s voice dropped down to a whisper. “Sometimes I don’t know about that brother of yours.”