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  Pucker Factor

  Mayhan Bucklers MC Book Three

  MariaLisa deMora

  Edited by Hot Tree Editing

  Copyright © 2019 MariaLisa deMora

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination, or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is entirely coincidental.

  First Published 2019

  ISBN 13: 978-1-946738-33-2

  DEDICATION

  The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him. ~ G.K. Chesterton

  To those who understand not all scars are visible.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The act of writing isn’t courageous. Not in my eyes. Some might argue that the process of publishing is, where authors bare our souls for public entertainment. It doesn’t feel courageous to me, mostly because I’ve gained so much from this surprising career. Being given the chance to shed light on a topic, and make it conversation-worthy—that’s everything.

  If you’ve read my other stories, you know from the very beginning veterans have often played a part. I don’t always scheme to focus on them, not intentionally, not as it is within these books, where they form the true foundation for the tale. But I do love how they’ll wind themselves in and amongst the heros and heroines, at times stepping forwards to take center stage, but most often providing a supporting role.

  My tendency to include our military is in part because of my family. My grandfather, uncle, and of course my father all served, as did countless nephews. I remember each had a different way of dealing with difficult memories—but when the stories were told, around the bonfire, fishing on the pier, or while fixing a broken tractor axel—I was often there, listening.

  My hope is they know they were heard. They were, and are, my heros.

  Woofully yours,

  ~ML

  Pucker Factor

  Oscar Mayhan lived his life in measured fashion after exiting the military. Methodically working through his obligations day by day, he balanced the love of his brothers and family against what his country had asked of him. Back home in Mayhan, Texas, he was surrounded by everything that mattered, still something was missing.

  Lindsay Ashworth wasn’t running, exactly, but she’d left a failed lie of a relationship swirling in the dust in her rearview. A strong, independent woman, she licked her wounds and picked herself up, determined to only look ahead. Putting her trust in a man again was hard, but Oscar made a convincing argument, and in doing so she found amazing blessings along her way.

  Together, Oscar and Lindy make up two halves of an unexpected pairing, creating the just-right kind of family we’ve come to expect from our friends in the MBMC.

  Chapter One

  Mayhan Bucklers Clubhouse

  Eyes closed, Oscar Mayhan shoved his head deeper into the pillow, willing sleep to come.

  It didn’t. It never did on nights like this.

  And it didn’t matter where he was.

  He could be at his home here in town, listening to the surrounding silence in his self-imposed isolation, or in this building, the clubhouse for the Mayhan Bucklers MC. A place where he was surrounded by men he was proud to call brother. Men who had walked through fire to earn the lives they lived every day. Heroes in every sense of the word, with the medals, and scars, to prove it.

  At his new home, purchased only weeks ago and still unfamiliar, the sense of loneliness could become overwhelming, coloring every moment with darkness until he felt driven to be around his brothers. But while in the clubhouse, he felt small, an imposter, because his time overseas hadn’t equaled what his brothers had endured.

  For Oscar, there was no win.

  His tours had been spent behind the wire, outwardly safe and protected by the real heroes. Of course, there had always been the threat of their enemy bringing the fight back to the bases, which did happen sometimes. When it had, Oscar had executed the drill that had been impressed on every one of them: get to the bunker, get his head down, and wait, listening to the explosions outside, way too close to where he hid along with the other men and women, assholes puckered in fear that the next whistling rocket’s destination would be where they sheltered.

  Assigned to the base instead of a patrol unit, he’d quickly and happily resigned himself to being a FOBBIT, someone who supported the efforts from a relatively safe location. In his case, a forward operating base, or FOB. He had every expectation he’d do his tours, earn his papers, and go home. FOBBITS weren’t heroes. They were necessary cogs in the wheel that drove the military engine. FOBBITS didn’t get the medals, accolades, or the girl—something he had a visceral understanding of—but of course, they also didn’t often get mangled, or dead.

  His VA counselor had tried to convince him that not every wound was physical, but he hadn’t given the man the whole story. No one had it all. The shrink had held up Oscar’s medals as proof, but in the dank office the gleam was gone, colors faded, and he’d stared at them until it all felt as unreal as ever.

  Frustrated at his thoughts, he rolled to his side, determinedly keeping his eyes closed. Maybe, unlike other nights, if he kept forcing himself to stillness, he’d sleep.

  A thud down the hallway caused his eyes to fly open, and he stared into the muted darkness, listening. Moonlight leaked in around the curtains of his narrow window, and more light seeped in from underneath the single door. The thud was not repeated. There were no noises other than the normal ones that hovered over a building with more than a dozen men sleeping underneath the same roof, but the damage was done, and Oscar knew it.

  “Fuck.” He pushed up on that mutter, swung his legs over the edge of the bed, and sat slumped for a moment, trying to talk himself out of what he was about to do. With another muttered, “Fuck it,” he reached for his phone.

  Sleep was elusive on the best of nights, and when he gave in to the urges to tear his slowly healing wounds wide, it would be a stranger.

  Using the app on his phone, Oscar navigated to his online storage, then through a maze of folders until he found the one he wanted. Generically named, so if someone did stumble on it, they’d never know how important it was. He clicked on the icon and waited with held breath, as he always did. There was an absurd fear that somehow, someway, the pictures would be gone.

  They never were.

  Oscar slid his fingertip over the image on the screen, moving to the next, and the next. Pictures of him, and her. Smiling faces that gradually lost their glow, expressions darkening until in the final few both were almost scowling. The very last image was different; the woman was back to happy but with a different actor in frame. Professionally shot, the picture focused on a bride all in white, her groom in dress uniform, her bent backwards over his arm—and even through the kiss, Oscar could see her smile.

  She’d wanted a hero, and she got one.

  It just wasn’t him.

  Chapter Two

  Lindsay

  Fingers white-knuckling the unpadded plastic arms of the wheelchair she’d been made to sit in, Lindsay Ashworth tried to breathe through the tightening around her belly, a pain that morphed and darted straight to her back, blooming into an overwhelming agony. She end
ured this quietly, eyes closed, consciously relaxing her arms and shoulders until her hands rested easily on her lap. She let the rest of the contraction roll over and through her, and once it had eased, she blinked and looked again to the man filling out her registration paperwork.

  “Sorry,” she told him, hating how there were quiet fractures through that single word.

  “Don’t be, Ms. Ashworth. You do what you need to do, and we’ll get through this and get you up to the OB folks fast as we can.” She glanced at the nameplate on the desk, frowning when it didn’t give her his name, declaring instead that this area belonged to a feminine-sounding Leticia Moses. He noticed the direction of her gaze and grinned, then chuckled as he said, “Nope, not me. I’m Oscar, Oscar Mayhan, and I’m filling in for Ticia for a little bit.”

  “Pleased to meet you…” Lindsay’s voice trailed off as her fingers tightened around each other, hidden from his view by the edge of the desk. She blinked slowly, taking in a deep breath to try and stave off the unexpected beginnings of the next contraction, and finished, “Mr. Mayhan.”

  “Are you havin’ another one? Already?”

  She nodded. His reference to the rapid onset of yet another exhausting contraction ratcheted up the anxiety already causing her heart to trip along in double-time. After hours spent on her own, battling through the fear that it was happening, really happening—her pregnancy was coming to its inevitable conclusion, and here she was, alone—she’d hoped the staff at the small, country hospital would give her more confidence. Oscar Mayhan was nice, seemed compassionate, and could clearly read a situation, but she wanted someone who would take charge.

  “I’m thinkin’ we need to go on and hustle you upstairs now, Ms. Ashworth, before your water breaks.”

  Forcing a smile, she shook her head and began to count, hitting ninety before she’d finished breathing through the pain. She pulled in a quick breath once it eased, the forced tension leaving her muscles aching. “Too late, that was about three blocks before I got here.”

  He stared at her. Then his gaze swung to look out the windows of the tiny office they were in, door closed for her privacy. She didn’t know what he’d see but knew what he wouldn’t find in the waiting area, because she hadn’t brought anyone with her. Hard to do that when I don’t know anyone in town. “Who’s out there for you?”

  Lindsay stared at him silently, willing him to drop a topic he couldn’t know still hurt so much.

  “Ma’am, you need an emergency contact, at least.”

  Clearing her throat of the painful knot that developed instantly, she shook her head again. “No contacts.” The expression on his face was confused, a puzzlement that didn’t clear at her words.

  “Nobody with you?”

  She stared at him, hating the way his face softened. God, he’s persistent. She’d bet he got his way on a lot of things just in this fashion, wearing someone down with repeated restatements of the original question. In this case, there would be no other answer.

  He tried a final time. “Nobody?”

  Lindsay kept her eyes on him and saw when his steady gaze focused on the trembling of her lips. She watched him wrestle with something for a moment, saw the instant he made a decision, and stared as he rolled his chair back and stood up. He opened a door at the back of the room and yelled out, “Molly, I’m takin’ off.”

  What?

  “What?” A woman’s voice responded immediately, echoing Lindsay’s internal reaction, but instead of terror the woman’s irritation was clear. “You said you’d work while I at least ate lunch, Oscar. Ticia left me in the lurch, man. Help a sister out.”

  “One, you’re not my sister, and you aren’t the ole lady of any of my brothers.” He grabbed a jacket from the coat tree beside the door Lindsay had come through. “So you’re not a sister, honey. You’re a lifelong friend, and I love you like a sister, but that’s not something you can claim on your own. I’m takin’ off, but there’s nobody waiting. You’re good.”

  Lindsay stared at him, that knot back in residence deep in her throat, tears threatening to spill over as the clamping pain around her middle struck true and hard, banded again through the hot coal it woke in the middle of her back. Nobody waiting. He was right; she was nobody to him. Less than nobody, she was an irritation, with no good answers to his questions. She bowed her head and waited for him to leave, breathing in and out through her nose slowly. Hands cradling her stomach, she stroked the hardened uterine walls covered by soft skin, jolting when the baby inside her stretched and pushed, clearly not enjoying the cramped quarters.

  She startled again when the chair she was in moved, backing out through the now-open door. She looked up in time to see a pretty girl stick her head into the office, her mouth an O of surprise.

  “What?” That was all Lindsay could get out around the pain as the chair turned and took off at an alarming speed past the entry doors and towards what looked like a bank of elevators.

  Craning her neck, she looked up and found Oscar Mayhan striding along behind the chair, hands on the grips to steer it. He slapped the call button for the elevators and, when one opened immediately, backed the chair in like he’d done it a thousand times before.

  “Oh.” Lindsay dipped her head as her eyes closed when the wave of pain hit full force. Focusing on her breathing, she scarcely noticed the bump as the wheelchair left the elevator and only vaguely was aware of Mr. Mayhan speaking to someone. Then they were moving up another hallway. Heat enveloped her hands, and without thinking, she twisted in the grip and clutched back tightly, breathing faster than she wanted, panting as the pain spiraled up and out of control.

  “You’re doin’ great, Ms. Ashworth.” A woman’s comforting voice came from just behind her, then asked, “Oscar, how frequent are they?”

  “Had her in the office for only a handful of minutes, between that and the elevator, and this one, probably half a dozen in twenty minutes, max.” Something touched her face and she leaned away, stopping her attempted evasion when it chased her, settling on her cheek and jaw. “She’s hot, Debby. Burnin’ up. Said her water broke ‘three blocks ago,’ and those are her exact words to me. I’m guessing she walked in like this.”

  “Where’s her family, the baby’s father?” The woman’s voice was sharper, something Lindsay noted because the contraction was easing, waning as rapidly as it had come on. She thought for a moment that sharp tone was directed at her, but the fear bubbling inside her was put to rest as the woman, Debby, said, “Something as precious as a baby comin’ to air, and there’s no one to celebrate with her. Their loss, Oscar. We’ll get her through.”

  Lindsay lifted her head and had to blink, because Mr. Mayhan was crouched in front of her, one hand wrapped around hers, one reached up to her face. “You doin’ okay, Ms. Ashworth?” His low, gravel-filled voice was rough but gentle at the same time, and that beauty went hand in hand with the handsome that was all of him. Dark hair, mostly dark beard, small strands of silver worked in high on his sideburns, and the most gorgeous green eyes currently turned to her with grave intensity. “It’s backed off?” She nodded. “Then up you get. We’ll settle you in a bed.”

  Debby, someone Lindsay suspected was an OB nurse, said, “I’ll get an orderly.”

  “I got it.” Mr. Mayhan flipped the brake levers on the chair. Then his hand wrapped around Lindsay’s ankle and gently lifted her foot off the rest and onto the floor, then repeated the process with her other foot.

  “Oscar, I need to get her into a gown.”

  He froze in place, half raised from his crouch, and looked over Lindsay’s head for a long minute, then clipped out one word, “Right.” Gaze back to Lindsay’s face, he stared at her for a moment before he said in that low, rumbling voice, “You can trust me.” Lindsay licked her lips, not understanding the darkness that moved over his expression as his gaze dropped, then lifted again. “Lindsay, right?” She found herself unexpectedly shy, tucking her chin to her throat in a truncated nod. “I’m Oscar.�
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  Forcing out the words, she acknowledged his reintroduction. “Yeah. Mr. Mayhan. You said.”

  He shook his head firmly. “I’m Oscar.”

  “Oscar,” she parroted, and he smiled, lips curling up as his eyes narrowed, sun lines trailing off from the corners, tattling about the amount of time he spent outside. The easy way his mouth curved into the expression told her smiling was something else he did a lot, too. He was good at taking charge, too, and she had a moment to appreciate whatever had helped make him this way.

  “Debby’s gonna need some help getting you into a hospital gown.” Lindsay sucked in a breath, suddenly understanding. Undressed, she’d be vulnerable, naked in more ways than he knew, because for months now she’d been the only witness to the changes in her body. “I can go get that help, or I can be that help. Way things are going, movin’ along at a pretty quick pace here, I’m thinking we need to get you into that bed sooner rather than later.”

  A woman stepped into view, and from her thinned lips and tilted head, Lindsay read she wasn’t as on-board with this idea as Oscar was. “I need to get vitals, and a history.”

  “And she needs to be where she can get comfortable, so you can take care of her like she needs,” Oscar shot back, never taking his gaze off Lindsay’s face. “Lindsay Ashworth, twenty-nine, new resident of Mayhan. Full-term pregnancy, active labor. There, that’s your history.” It seemed Oscar had been listening to her disjointed responses to his earlier questions. “Lindsay, we’ll do this fast and private. Then you’ll be comfortable. Get the door, Deb.”

  Debby disappeared for a moment, then was back in front of Lindsay with a bundle of fabric in her hands, the door clunking into the frame behind her.

  “Let’s get ready, Lindsay.” Oscar took the material and shook it out, and Lindsay saw it was a gown printed with tiny pacifiers and bottles, diaper pins and strollers.