The Long Game Part 2

Reese stared at him. “You almost died.”

“Because – as we’ve already established – I’m stupid. Had I been treating it like a proper op I never would have put myself, or the op itself, into that kind of jeopardy. There. Are you happy that I’ve admitted it?”

“Yes.”

Tenny showed a moment’s surprise, like he hadn’t thought Reese might agree. “Careful,” he said, and Reese realized that he’d smiled, and when had that started happening? “Had I treated it like a proper op,” Ten continued, “we’d have landed the shooter, freed the doctor, all of it over and done with in a flash.

“My point is this: Fox is testing us as human beings.” His lip curled on the word, making a face as if he’d tasted something foul. “As potential brothers in this club.”

“I like the club.”

“Of course you do, you simpleton.”

“The club is a family,” Reese insisted.

“Yes, I’m painfully aware.”

“Don’t you want a family?”

More surprise. A blanking of the face and a rounding of the eyes. A beat of silence. A shift in tone. “Do you?”

“I’ve always had a sister.”

“To whom you are related by blood, and with whom your former employers controlled your allegiance. I was briefed on you,” he said. “But these men will never be your brothers. Do you think they care for you? That they love you?”

He thought about his phone call with Mercy earlier, the now-familiar softness and affection in the big man’s voice. Mercy was many things, but never duplicitous. Never subtle.

“What?” Tenny asked, brows lowering, because he must have had another facial malfunction.

“The club is a place for people who don’t fit in anywhere else,” Reese said, repeating what Mercy had once told him. “It’s a family for people like us.”

Ten studied him a moment longer, and then let his head fall back, let his eyes fall shut. Just talking like this had exhausted him. He yawned, and it didn’t seem fake. “Christ,” he murmured.

“You can sleep,” Reese said. “I’ll keep watch.”

“Oh, wonderful. I feel safer already.” But a few moments later, his breathing had evened, and the cruel line of his mouth softened.

Reese settled back in his chair to wait, and watch, an inexplicable kernel of warmth blooming in his chest. 

From Lone Star, Dartmoor Book 7 

 Continuing where yesterday’s post left off, we’re back talking about Dartmoor’s long game today. The above scene is one of my absolute favorites from Lone Star, which, among other things, introduced Reese and Tenny to one another…and then introduced them to the idea of perhaps not hating one another so much. The way their dynamic begins, grows, and ends in this installment of the series is worth the price of admission, in my opinion, and is something that needed to unfold in an earlier book before we finally got to their joint story. 

But Tenny and Reese are most definitely side characters in this book. As are Fox and Eden, and Albie and Axelle. Theirs are slow-percolating stories that need multiple books across which to play out. At its heart, Lone Star belongs to Michelle and Candy. 

If we go back to the early, conceptualization days of the novel, I’ll admit I wasn’t sure I wanted to write this book – or to even continue the Dartmoor series at all. Rediscovering my love for it, and, most importantly, the fictional people who populate it, is a post for another day – one I’m already drafting in my mind. But Lone Star specifically began with a scene I’d wanted to write for years. One I very nearly used to begin an ultimately-abandoned fanfiction story back in 2009. The buzzards circling. The bodies laid out in the desert, staked hand and foot. Never underestimate the power of an image that refuses to leave you; sometimes, it’s waiting for the right moment, and the right story. Lone Star offered me a chance to explore a new kind of enemy – one more mysterious and less straightforward. And one who would lead our main characters to an even more mysterious, and more dangerous, ultimate enemy. I wanted to build a big boss, and a big boss needed a big, multi-book buildup, which begins here, with Luis. 

While I’ve always included the ongoing trials and tribulations of all my couples here and there as the series progresses, I’d never before centered a book on a couple who’d already gotten their HEA. I was hesitant. A book needs tension, and I really don’t ever want that tension to be an affair, or a divorce, or anything like that. Realistic, sure, but reading my books is about escapism, and I don’t want any of those HEAs to be undone. In this instance, the tension comes about – organically, I think – from Michelle’s changing circumstances as a mom, now pregnant for the second time. She’s having to balance the secret-ops whiz she was with motherhood, and of course Candy’s worried about her; I wanted to explore the inevitable tension that arises when he tries to protect her, and winds up smothering her instead. Wanted to show them finding that balance between being outlaws and being parents – ones who effectively communicate their wants and needs with one another. The honeymoon phase is over, and now it’s time to function as married business partners, as well as club king and queen. 

Something else touched on in the book – and which I hope to some day have time to really dig into, because I think it’s an important point to make amidst the club’s rapid physical and financial expansion – is some members’ dissatisfaction with the club’s new direction. It’s a brotherhood, and a pseudo-democracy, sure, but the president still rules, and the mother chapter president rules over all. It’s natural that not all the guys would be onboard with the shift. In this book, that guy is Jinx. I’m pleased with the pacing of the book, and didn’t want to clutter its narrative with too great a diversion into Jinx’s issues – and the way his represent the issues of all the members unhappy with the expansion – but it’s a topic I’d like to explore further in some capacity. Perhaps in a novella that isn’t as high stakes. The optimistic part of me thinks it’d be a great central plot for a book focused on a love story for Jinx, a way for him to be real with Candy about his distrust, while he grapples with guilt, but the realistic part of me is eyeing my stack of WIPs and biting my nails. 

Lone Star is a mystery/thriller shift for the Lean Dogs, full of car chases (more than one!), twisted villains, and a healthy dose of Girl Boss action. It’s not to be missed, and it also lays all the groundwork for Reese and Tenny’s romantic relationship. I really enjoyed flipping through it today to find the quote I pulled, and it’s another stepping stone toward the newest installment, Nothing More, which is out now!