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  He stretched his legs. “What the fuck are you so paranoid about?”

  “I’m not paranoid. I like to be aware and prepared. Maybe, one day, you’ll learn that lesson.”

  Creeper snorted. “I just want to get there already, man.”

  For some of these assholes, it was the partying that drove them, not their bikes. But being a member of a motorcycle club was about your bike—riding it, taking care of that metallic extension of your soul, and being one with whatever road you chose. Not just getting your ass to the next party to get drunk and nail some tail. Partying was a good thing, but it wasn’t what was at the core of the life for me or for those closest to me.

  Not Creeper though.

  I let out a breath and shook my head. “You’re an idiot.” I stuck a toothpick between my teeth.

  “Fuck you. Let’s get outta here already.”

  Fall and winter had quickly come and finally gone, leaving trails of wetness and mud in its wake. It was terrific to be back on the road, my chopper cutting through the wind. It was just a real pity that my first spring run had to be with this asshole. I didn’t know what Judge ever saw in him, recruiting his ass. Creeper was a good worker bee when called upon, but otherwise he was a whiny bitch in my book. I couldn’t wait to drop him off at our North Dakota chapter on my way home from a spot of business in Montana.

  “I’m gonna hit the john,” he muttered.

  “Hey, your turn to pay, asshole.” I tapped on the check.

  He grimaced as he took out his wallet. He flicked a twenty on the table, and I signaled the waitress.

  She grabbed the money along with the check. “Be back in a minute, hon.” She took off.

  I heard an unusual tinkly laugh as I stretched my back in my chair. Turning to my left, I saw him.

  Ray Hastings, Grace’s father.

  I had seen them come in earlier, but he’d been wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap, and the two of them had settled quietly in a corner. His arm was thrown around a woman, who was maybe a few years older than Ruby. She fed him a piece of steak as she whispered in his ear. They both laughed, and she dabbed at the side of his face with a napkin.

  My entire body heated like a furnace that had suddenly been switched on to full power.

  Years ago, when he had shown up at the clubhouse, thanking me and the boys for saving Ruby from those football players, it had impressed me. Grace had shown me a photo of him and her mom at her house. And now, here was Mr. Abandon My Family Without a Word, canoodling with some giggly young woman at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant in Sidney, Montana. Not too close, and certainly not too far away after all.

  I pushed my chair back—loudly. He noticed. His eyes flicked over my colors, and an eyebrow jumped.

  Hidey-ho, old man.

  I couldn’t resist confrontations.

  I crossed over to their table. “Ray Hastings. Remember me?”

  “Should I?” His forehead creased, his shoulders stiffened. “You’re from the club in Meager?”

  I smirked. “One-Eyed Jacks.”

  His eyes darted over my colors once more. “Dig, is it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m sorry, but…I can’t recall…” His arm tightened over his girlfriend.

  She sat up straighter and eyed me up and down as she swallowed her food.

  I let out a dry laugh. “Do you remember your two daughters?”

  He frowned and raised his chin. “I remember you now.”

  I nodded. “You living up here? Working?” My gaze lingered over the woman in his arm. Her lips parted. “Enjoyin’ yourself?”

  Why is it that I slip into bad English every time I talk to one of these upstanding-citizen motherfuckers?

  “Do you need something? You’re interrupting our dinner.”

  I planted my hands on their table and leaned over. “I’m just curious, is all. You been up here all this time?”

  “How is that any of your business?”

  “I say it is.”

  “Really?” He put down his fork. “How so?”

  “Your daughters have been my business for quite some time.” I turned to his girlfriend. “He’s got two gorgeous daughters right around your age, sweetheart.”

  She bit her lip as she sank back into her seat. “Ray?” she mumbled.

  I leveled my gaze on him. “I wasn’t looking for you, man. I would never have looked for you anyhow. I’m just passing through, heading back home. Home to Meager. South Dakota? You know where that is? You get on Route 200 into North Dakota, and then you—”

  “Are the girls okay?”

  “Dandy. Ruby was working for me as a stripper for a good long time. Got herself into jail on a drug bust. Now, she’s out and in rehab in Colorado. She’s got a tiny little cocaine, speed, and maybe heroine issue.”

  The girlfriend gasped.

  Ray’s eyes flared, his jaw tightened. “Grace?”

  “In my bed.”

  His eyes widened, his lips stiffening into a long white line. The silence between us thick, thrumming, wired.

  I leaned in closer. “She’s all mine now, old man. Mine to protect. Mine to take care of. Mine to keep happy. And I know how to keep my woman happy.”

  His free hand tightened into a fist on the table. “N-no, she…she…”

  “Hmm…she finished college, hung on tooth and nail while she had a job and kept up your house. All on my watch. Real special. Pity you don’t know that—what makes both your daughters so special. I don’t think they even know. I figure you were the one who put that mental block in there for them. It’s embedded in them like a slab of fucking concrete. I’ve been workin’ on loosening it for a good long while now. Almost got it.”

  “I’ll just bet you have,” Ray replied, sliding his arm off the girlfriend.

  She shot him a worried look.

  I tapped on the table with my knuckles. “Grace is my woman now, Ray. She don’t need you no more. You’re a sorry-ass excuse for a father anyway. Other parents sacrifice for their families, die for ’em. You just fuckin’ walked away.”

  Ray’s multicolored eyes hardened. He had Grace’s eyes. “You’ve said quite enough. I think you should go now.”

  “Oh, I’m going. I’m on my way home to her right now. She’s waiting for me. I wanted you to know—here, now, while you’re having your good life—if you ever do see her again, know that you had nothing to do with the beauty, that goodness that is Grace. That smile on her and that generous, wise soul of hers are all her own making, and now they belong to me.” I rose up and crossed my arms over my chest. “I’m not gonna tell her I saw you, ’cause if I tell her, she’s gonna want to come find you herself, and I ain’t gonna let that happen. You know why? You don’t deserve that, and I’m positive Ruby would agree with me.”

  Ray’s chest expanded, his face tightening.

  “If it ever happens that you two run into each other by some chance, you’re gonna be the one to grovel at her feet. You. I’m not gonna let one tear fall down my woman’s face over you. No way in this hell or the next.” I plucked the toothpick from my mouth and tossed it onto his steak. “You two have yourselves a good din-din now. Don’t forget dessert, darlin’.”

  I winked at the bitch, who was now staring at me, open-mouthed. I strode out of the restaurant and headed for my bike.

  I got home, and that night, I held Grace in our new bed in our new little house. Boxes and garbage bags full of our crap were piled everywhere—some half-emptied, some still full—but not in our bedroom. Grace had put all her energy into making it clean and ready for us. She’d surprised me when I got home with soft new sheets, big pillows, and a matching comforter as well as thick new towels in the john, all of it washed and ready for us to use.

  Her eyes had sparkled when I first entered the room earlier, but I hadn’t known what to say. Our very own little nest. I had taken her in my arms and held her without saying a word. Could she possibly know how important this one simple thing that she had done was?
Maybe if I’d told her, but my brain couldn’t form the words. I was one big whirring mess inside.

  Now, she slept against me—her head on my chest, the weight of her lax naked body pressed into mine. I couldn’t sleep, which was nothing new, but here with my woman in my arms—in our own home, a home we would fill with our own way of life—something lightened inside me. My fingers traced patterns over her bare skin as I listened to her even deep breaths filling the quiet of the room. I knew there was so much more to lose now, but for the first time in a long, long time, there was so much for me to hold on to.

  For years, I’d been daring Death to come for me, laughing in his face. It was a desolate dance of arrogance since I’d left Colorado behind. I was sure he would come for me sooner rather than later, but I really liked this—this quiet stillness right now. No sirens, no engines gunning, no shouting, not even a dog barking. Simply skin on skin, heat against heat, the soft fragrance of fabric softener laced with the odor of fresh paint and satisfied flesh. I inhaled it. I wanted this—us, our normal. For me this normal, mundane crap was totally sublime, my fucking sacred. I kissed the side of her face, and her head shifted over my chest, the minty scent of her shampoo drifting over me.

  “I love you, Wildflower,” I whispered in the dark against her damp forehead, my fingers brushing through silky pieces of her hair.

  If anything could combat my deeply embedded hatred and dread of the come-what-may-and-it-will, I was very sure my love for her and our life together would be the thing. A tiny part of me hoped it would redeem me somehow in this life, and maybe even the next.

  I let out a gust of air and stared at the ceiling while her heart beat against mine. “Always loved you, always will. That’s a promise.”

  “DON’T ASK QUESTIONS. JUST DO IT, DAMN IT.”

  Grace pressed her lips together. Her eyes narrowed as she pierced my torn skin with the threaded needle in her hand.

  “That’s it, hon,” said Wreck. “Don’t look at him. Ignore him. You focus and keep breathing. Now, nab the—right, good. You got it.”

  Grace stitched my skin together, sweat beading on her forehead. Her puffs of warm breath settled over my upper chest where she worked. Wreck stood close at her side, his eyes following her handiwork.

  “You gotta learn this shit sometime,” Wreck said. “You never know what trouble you’ll get in, riding with this asshole.”

  “Ain’t that the truth?” Butler handed me a fresh bottle of whiskey.

  I glared at him through my blurry vision, gnashing my teeth. “Shut the fuck up.”

  “He’s right¸ man,” said Wreck. “That’s why I’m getting her on a bike. She’s got to be able to ride and take care of basic shit if something happens to you. Sister just starting your engine up for you like a good old lady ain’t good enough. Not to mention knowing how to use a weapon.”

  I stared at Grace and Wreck, their faces tight in concentration over my wound. Two unlikely peas in a pod. The girl next door and the sage elder. Grace shot a quick glance at Wreck and then at me. She went back to her work on my chest, her needle tugging on my flesh, her lips pressed together.

  “Fine. Teach her to ride. I’ll take her shooting.”

  Butler grinned, shaking his blond hair off his face.

  He had patched in the same night I’d made Grace my old lady several months after being together. Another excuse for a party. Each one of us had taken turns thrashing the leather—riding our bikes over Butler’s colors, peeing on ’em, even. We’d done anything to make the leather look worn and lived in, experienced—not that eager smooth shine of a newbie. Afterward, I’d taken my old lady—yeah, I liked the way that sounded—on a run to Spearfish, all on our own, for a couple of days of hiking, camping, and fucking in the great outdoors.

  Wreck continued to coach Grace on stitching me up, and an odd sense of contentment eased my aching body, along with the warmth from the cheap whiskey sliding down my throat. What he’d said to me the day I made her officially mine drifted through me once again.

  “You sure about this?” Wreck asked me.

  I folded a new leather jacket and a denim vest with the club property patch on it. I would be giving them to Grace in a few hours.

  “Are you shitting me, man?”

  “She’s a good kid. She’s young. That’s all.”

  “Not that young,” I replied.

  “Young enough.”

  I laughed. “You think I’m robbing the cradle or something?”

  Wreck frowned. “Don’t be an idiot. What I’m saying is, do you think she’s ready to be your old lady? Be a part of this club? Maybe this is just hormones and enthusiasm for both of you, huh? This life ain’t for everybody.”

  I pushed the jacket down into the bag. “What’s this now? I thought you liked her, man.”

  “No, Dig. I love her like she’s my own little sister. That’s why I’m asking you this. Hear me out. Are you sure of her? Are you sure of your own self with her? It’s one thing to have a regular woman in your bed. It’s another to make this kind of commitment because that’s what this is. Heartbreak and disappointment will rip you, is all I’m saying. And it will especially rip a girl like her. The way she looks at you…you’re her world, brother. At the end of the day, that’s a responsibility you have to bear.”

  “I’ve never been more sure of anything. It’s the same feeling I had when I prospected under you here. That sure.”

  “All right then.” Wreck grinned, dragging a hand through his beard. “Go claim your woman.”

  Now my old lady was sewing a gash a couple of inches long on my upper chest that I had gotten in a standoff at a bike rally up north.

  Wreck scowled at the wound. “Why didn’t you have this taken care of earlier? It’s deep.”

  “Didn’t think it was that bad. Wanted to get home.” I stared at Grace’s concentrating face.

  “You rode for five hours like that?” Butler asked. “Jesus!”

  Grace smashed her lips together again until they were pale under the strain.

  “Don’t even say it,” I said to her, my voice low.

  Her eyes didn’t leave my wound. “Oh, I won’t—not now at least.” She hissed in air.

  There had been four of us—me, Jump, Clip, and Judge—and ten of them. The surprise on their faces that there had been men who simply refused to live their lives in fear had made me grin. The four of us had stood together in a way that we covered each other’s backs, and we’d invited them to come and get it. They had gotten their courage from their beer and each other and the false belief that there was strength in numbers. There wasn’t. In a true brotherhood, strength came from unity. And that, we had.

  “You got it, hon.” Wreck held scissors in his hands and snipped the thread off. “Here. Give it to me now.”

  Grace let out a heavy exhale as she took the whiskey bottle from me and took a long glug.

  She popped the bottle back from her lips, winced with her final swallow, and sank a hand into my hair, lowering her face to mine. Our lips touched. Shit, I’d missed her. Her tongue stroked mine, and the woodsy warmth of her whiskey surged in my mouth. I savored her taste, but she pulled away suddenly, taking in a shaky breath.

  “Baby, the thing is, I don’t look for trouble. I don’t need to. It always finds me. Comes with the territory,” I whispered.

  My old lady snaked her arms around my middle. I inhaled the orange blossom scent rising from her neck.

  I was home.

  Wreck finished with me, and she led me into the back hallway and opened the door to my room. Grace had gotten my room organized and cleaned up with a fresh coat of white paint on the walls, a framed photo of us on my Harley, and extra pairs of our boots all in a row against one wall. She’d even sanded down and varnished the old dresser. Next to it was a new fucking laundry basket that she’d finally trained me to use—when I was in the mood, of course.

  “Lie down,” she said.

  I lay down on the blue-striped comforter and sig
hed. Shit, my back was unhappy with me. Grace pulled off my boots and socks. I swallowed some more whiskey from the bottle.

  “Fuck, it’s good to be home.”

  Grace unbuckled my belt and tugged down my jeans. My cock bobbed at her, and she smirked as she continued pulling the jeans off my legs.

  “You ever gonna get used to me going commando?”

  “You always go commando. I like it. A lot.” She threw the jeans in the basket and fell into the bed at my side.

  My fingers tangled with hers. “Sucks when boxers ride up my ass while riding. Hate that.”

  “Now you know how I feel, wearing those stupid thongs, baby.”

  I chuckled. “Ah, but I like those.”

  She only grinned at me, her lips brushing the side of my face. “Dig, what happened?” she whispered, her fingers stroking my scalp.

  “Bullshit happened. On the way home from the rally, we stopped at a truck stop. Boy toys were checking out our bikes. One touched Jump’s chopper, didn’t apologize for his transgression, and the rest was history. Messed up the wound from the rally throw down some more.” I squeezed her hand. “Much better now.”

  Grace let out a huff, but she didn’t push it. She knew better than to ask details about business and especially business at a brothers-only run.

  “Glad you’re home.” She snuggled into my side.

  “Me, too.” My eyelids drooped.

  “Baby?”

  “Sorry, hon. I’m wiped.”

  “It’s okay. Get some sleep. You never get enough sleep.” She turned on her side, and her hand smoothed over my chest in slow circles.

  Sleep would be nice. In fact, I didn’t think I had gotten a good night’s sleep in years unless it was drug or alcohol-induced. But then again, I wouldn’t call that sleep. I’d call it a mindfuck coma. Sleep was better with Grace next to me, but it would still elude me.

  “Don’t go,” I murmured.

  “I’m right here.”

  Her lips nuzzled my cheek, and my fingers uncurled in her hand. The weed and the whiskey took over, and I let them.

  And I drifted.