UNTAMED HEART

A SECOND CHANCE SMALL TOWN BIKER ROMANCE

AN ASHLAND NOVEL

JESSICA PRINCE

Copyright © 2026 by Jessica Prince

www.authorjessicaprince.com

Published by Jessica Prince Books LLC

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

To all of us who love a protective hero who’s a little morally gray.

Some of the best book boyfriends linger between the black and white, and that’s where Roe makes his home.

TRIGGER WARNING

I want to make sure that you guys have the best reading experience possible, and that means warning you to some of the subject matter in this story. Dakota has suffered domestic violence both on and off the page. I totally understand if that may be too much, and your mental health comes first.

Please take care of you!

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DISCOVER OTHER BOOKS BY JESSICA

SECOND HOPE SERIES

The Little Things

Tangled Up With You

Twice in a Lifetime

Chasing Forever

Only Ever You

Beautifully Broken Pieces

ASHLAND SERIES

Dead to Rights

Untamed Heart

WHITECAP SERIES

Crossing the Line

My Perfect Enemy

Turn of the Tides

THE PEMBROOKE SERIES:

Sweet Sunshine

Coming Full Circle

A Broken Soul

Should Have Been Me

WHISKEY DOLLS SERIES

Bombshell

Knockout

Stunner

Seductress

Temptress

Vamp

HOPE VALLEY SERIES:

Out of My League

Come Back Home Again

The Best of Me

Wrong Side of the Tracks

Stay With Me

Out of the Darkness

The Second Time Around

Waiting for Forever

Love to Hate You

Playing for Keeps

When You Least Expect It

Never for Him

REDEMPTION SERIES

Bad Alibi

Crazy Beautiful

Bittersweet

Guilty Pleasure

Wallflower

Blurred Line

Slow Burn

Favorite Mistake

Sweet Spot

THE CLOVERLEAF SERIES

Picking up the Pieces

Rising from the Ashes

Pushing the Boundaries

Worth the Wait

THE COLORS NOVELS

Scattered Colors

Shrinking Violet

Love Hate Relationship

Wildflower

THE LOCKLAINE BOYS

Fire & Ice

Opposites Attract

Almost Perfect

CIVIL CORRUPTION SERIES

Corrupt

Defile

Consume

Ravage

GIRL TALK SERIES:

Seducing Lola

Tempting Sophia

Enticing Daphne

Charming Fiona

STANDALONE TITLES:

One Knight Stand

Chance Encounters

Nightmares from Within

DEADLY LOVE SERIES:

Destructive

Addictive

PROLOGUE

DAKOTA

Nineteen Years Old

As I sat in the driver’s seat of the little car I’d scrimped and saved for years to buy the moment I turned eighteen, I stared out the windshield at the clubhouse in front of me, trying to find the courage to go inside. My heart was racing and I was gripping the steering wheel so tight the aged, cracked leather creaked beneath my clammy palms.

This was it. The moment I’d been waiting for all these years had finally come. I always thought I would be more excited to finally be getting out. Instead, I was scared. Scared and sad. Because as miserable as things had been, I guess I still held on to the hope that things would change for the better. However, the events that led me to sitting outside my father’s clubhouse made it clear that was never going to happen.

I felt like I’d been preparing for this most of my life. It was why I drove around in a shitty used hatchback I bought for a song instead of the fancy, brand new car with all the bells and whistles my father tried to give me for my birthday the year prior. That car would have technically belonged to him, and I needed something that was just mine. Especially if I planned to take off in it.

Which was exactly what I was about to do.

I wouldn’t have put it past my mother to call the cops and report the car stolen. That was the sort of petty, vindictive move she wouldn’t hesitate to make if it meant causing me more pain. And it wasn’t like I could depend on my father to swoop in and save the day. He was too busy burying his head in the sand—too busy with his stupid fucking club—to stop what had been happening right under his own roof.

He couldn’t be bothered.

That realization had been more painful than when I thought he was just too clueless to step in and help. That had been the day the last little kernel of hope I’d been clinging to that at least one of my parents loved me shriveled up and turned to dust.

His desire not to rock the boat and pretend everything was fine had meant my sister and I were stuck in a living nightmare we had no protection against while he lived it up with his so-called brothers.

They weren’t even his blood, yet they got more of him than my sister, Remy, or I ever had. They had all his loyalty and devotion, leaving nothing for his own daughters. That was just one of the reasons I despised the Iron Wraiths.

It was hard not to blame them when the man I’d once hero worshipped chose them over Remy and me time and time again.

Flipping the visor down, I looked at my reflection in the small mirror to make sure the concealer around my left eye and cheekbone was still doing its job. There wasn’t anything I could do about the swelling, but at least the deep purple bruising wasn’t visible. It wasn’t my first time hiding my mother’s treatment behind makeup, but it was damn sure going to be the last.

I turned the key to kill the ignition, and as soon as I did, the throbbing, pulsing sounds of the party coming from inside the clubhouse poured out.

I’d been here enough times in my life to be familiar with the layout. My father used to bring Remy and me around all the time when we were little for family barbecues and cookouts, that sort of thing. For the longest time I felt like I was a little biker princess because of how my dad and the other men in his club treated me and my sister. Unfortunately that didn’t last. It wasn’t long before my mom put a stop to it, claiming kids had no place hanging around a bunch of rough bikers, half of whom had arrest records. But I knew that was a lie. The truth was she’d seen how much we enjoyed it so she’d ripped it away. Just like everything else good in our lives.

She hated competing with anyone for my dad’s attention, thinking she deserved every single bit of it for herself. That was why she hated all the Iron Wraiths with a vengeance. She’d always been bitter about his loyalty to them, and I lost count of the number of times I’d woken up in the middle of the night to the two of them shouting the house down, fighting about how much time Dad spent at the clubhouse instead of at home with her. Not her family. Just her.

It was also why she hated me and Remy. It didn’t matter that neither my sister nor I had gotten any real affection from our father in longer than I could remember. As far as I could tell, he didn’t give a damn whether we were there or not. That didn’t matter to her, though. In her mind, there had been a point in our lives where she felt like he’d given us more love than he’d given her. And for that, our punishment was a lifetime of misery.

And tonight I’d finally reached the limit on what I could take. I was done.

As I pulled the door open and stepped inside, I realized those family parties we’d attended as kids were downright wholesome in comparison to the rager happening at that very moment.

Uncertainty had my stomach tangled up in knots like a thousand strands of Christmas lights that had been haphazardly tossed into a box in the garage. The large, open space was full of people. Some of the faces were familiar. I recognized the guys who’d been in the club with my father. But at least half of them were strangers, and most of those were women.

I wormed my way through the mass of people, my nose scrunching at the unpleasant scent of sweat, beer, and cigarette smoke that filled the room. Hard, heavy music blasted from the jukebox at a decibel that should have made my ears bleed, and the soles of my sneakers squeaked and slurped with each step I took across the sticky floor.

“Yo. If it isn’t Little Riley.”

I turned at the sound of the nickname my father’s club members had been using since I was a little girl. Cortland Pope Jr, son of the current club president and my dad’s best friend.

I tilted my chin in his direction. “Pope,” I greeted, using the only name he went by.

His smile was polite, if not a bit bemused. I hardly ever came around anymore, and I was sure my father hadn’t bothered explaining to any of them why that was.

His brows tugged together in at the middle, his head canting to the side. “Pops know you’re here, darlin’?”

Pops was what they all called my father instead of using his real name, Ezra.

“No.” I doubted he knew anything about me, least of all, that I was in the same building he was in. “It’s not really his business anyway, since I’m an adult and all,” I bit out, arching a brow at him in challenge. Most people were intimidated by Pope. Understandably so. I mean, the guy was huge and could look scary as hell when he wanted to. But despite the several years between us, I’d spent enough time with him when I was little to know he had a much softer center than people gave him credit for.

He held up his hands in surrender. “Hey, not tryin’ to stick my nose where it doesn’t belong. Just thought I’d warn you. This is a patch party for our prospects. Might be a little too rough for you.”

Oh, if this guy only knew what I was capable of handling. I didn’t bother saying so. “I’m not staying. I just need to talk to Roe.” My attention slid from Pope as I scanned the room for the one and only person I wanted to see, but I couldn’t find him. “Do you know where he is?”

If anyone knew where he would be, it was Pope. The two of them were so damn close, it was a wonder they weren’t fused at the hip. They’d prospected together, become full-blown Wraiths together, and I’d heard plenty of talk of where they planned to take the club in the future once Pope wore the president’s patch.

The humor that had been in his expression a moment ago slowly melted away, and I could have sworn his eyes bounced down to my injured cheek before returning to my own. “Last I saw, he went to take a piss.” He paused, his gaze scrutinizing. “Everything okay, Dakota? If something’s wrong⁠—”

I forced my mouth into a phony smile and shook my head. “I’m fine. I just need to find Roe.” I raised both my brows in silent question. The faster I found him, the faster I could get the hell out of this clubhouse and this town and never look back.

Pope’s eyes drifted to something over my shoulder, and a moment later he pointed in that direction. I turned just in time to see Roe stagger into the room, buttoning his fly like he’d just gotten done doing exactly what Pope said. His head lifted, his penetrating dark blue gaze locking with mine instantly, like he sensed me as soon as he walked into the room.

Confusion marred his brow for just a second before it washed away, replaced with that same wide, panty-melting smile that never failed to make my knees feel wobbly. That very smile was why I’d fallen in love with him the instant he walked into my life. It was why I’d carried a torch for Roe for years before I finally turned eighteen and found the courage to make my move.

The only time I’d been able to breathe fully in the past nineteen years was when he smiled at me like that, and at that very second, I felt my ribs expanding and my lungs filling with air. “Roe.” I said his name on an exhale of relief. That was what it felt like every time I saw him. Pure relief. Like things were finally good.

He was the only source of happiness in my life, and other than Remy, the one person I loved above anyone else. If it wasn’t for him, I wasn’t sure I would have survived this long.

“Honeybee?”

My heart flipped at the endearment. The rest of the guys might have called me Little Riley, but Roe had always called me Honeybee. Only him.

His smiled widened, the excitement in his gaze growing as he took me in while swaying a little to the left. That was when I noticed the glassiness to his eyes and the tinge of pink on his cheeks that only happened when he drank. “Hey, baby. What are you doin’ here?” He didn’t give me a chance to answer before hooking his arm around my waist and pulling me into him. I loved that about him, how he always seemed to want to touch me. If I was within reach, it never failed that he had a hand on me somewhere. It warmed my heart and make me feel cherished every single time. That was Roe. He sensed that I craved physical affection more than anything, and he gave it to me.

My father hadn’t exactly been happy when Roe and I got together, and it wasn’t just the five-year age difference between us. But even though I’d been crushing on him from the beginning, Roe had never been anything but a perfect gentleman. I hadn’t even known he was interested in me until after I turned eighteen and finally confessed my feeling for him.

Dad’s biggest issue with our relationship was that Roe was an Iron Wraith. A brother. He’d prospected while I was still young and was a fully patched member by the time we got together, and my dad hadn’t exactly been thrilled to have the two aspects of his life merge. He didn’t have a leg to stand on, though, and he knew it. So when I informed him I wasn’t giving Roe up, no matter what, he let it drop. He knew pushing meant possibly blowing up both parts of his life, and that wasn’t a risk he was willing to take. Because it might mean having to yank his head out of his ass and admit to everything that had been going on. Everything he’d ignored for so long.

As I stared up at Roe, my heart felt like it was slowly bleeding. “Can we go somewhere to talk?” I took a shaky breath as I cast a side-long glance at the room around us. “Somewhere private? Please?”

His expression sobered. I wasn’t sure if it was the way the words broke as they came out or the look on my face, but he didn’t hesitate to take my hand and lead me out of the main area to the hall that led to his bedroom.

Seeing as the whole clubhouse was little more than a bachelor pad, Roe’s room wasn’t much of anything, but he’d done a little work to make it his own since moving into it as soon as he became a full-fledged Iron Wraith.

There were a few framed pictures around the room. A couple of him with the other club members, one of him and Pope with their arms slung around each other’s shoulders, and the rest were of the two of us together.

The seconds and minutes and hours I spent with Roe were the only times in my life when I felt happy. The smiles I wore in those pictures were all because of him.

Where the rest of the clubhouse might have stunk like a frat house after a massive kegger, his room was thankfully free of all of that. Instead, the scent was distinctly Roe. His room smelled like leather and pine and something a bit spicy with a hint of motor oil from his work at the garage the Wraiths owned.

I gave myself a moment to take in the space, letting Roe’s presence comfort me as I tried to find the courage to say what I came to say.

“Hey.” Roe’s voice was soft as he stepped in front of me, gently clasping my chin between his thumb and index finger and tilting my face up to his. His brows were pulled together, two pitch black slashes over a set of stunning dark blue eyes.

God, I loved those eyes. They reminded me of the deepest parts of the ocean or the sky after the sun started to set. I always felt like I knew everything he was thinking and feeling whenever I looked into his eyes. At that very moment, he was worried.

“What’s wrong Honeybee?” His hand slid my hair away from my face to cup my cheek.

I squeezed my eyes closed, willing the burn of tears to go away. “I can’t . . .” I gave my head a small shake as the weight I’d been carrying on my shoulders pressed down harder, threatening to buckle my knees. “I can’t . . .” I didn’t understand why the words were struggling to come up. It was as if they were being physically blocked by the lump of fear lodged in my throat.

“Talk to me, baby.”

His thumb glided right over the spot where my cheekbone throbbed the worst, and I couldn’t silence the sharp gasp at the stab of pain.

He jerked his hand back like he was afraid he’d just burned me. “Wha—” The worry in his eyes slowly melted away as realization dawned, and his expression turned thunderous.

“That bitch hit you again, didn’t she?” I sniffled, nodding my head instead of answering vocally. My tongue suddenly felt too thick for my mouth. “Christ, baby. I’m so sorry.” He pulled me into his arms, wrapping them around me and squeezing, like if he could just hold me tight enough, he could protect me from anything.

If only it were that simple.

After a full minute—I’d counted every second as they passed—he took me by the shoulders and shifted me back so he could see my face again. The rage I saw when I looked at him gave me hope that maybe this would work. Until he spoke next.

“Baby, you have to tell your dad. I don’t understand why you insist dealing with this shit by yourself.”

I jerked back like I’d just been struck, my jaw hinging open in dismay. “You know why.”

It was an argument we’d had more times than I could count. One that tore away a tiny piece of my heart each time we fought about it. Roe took issue with the fact I stopped telling my father about my mom’s abuse years ago. Not that it was necessary. He saw the proof after the fact often enough to know it was still happening. But that didn’t matter to my boyfriend. He refused to see the man as anything but wonderful, a surrogate father who’d helped him most when he ran away from his own shitty, abusive situation. He believed in my father, no matter how many times he’d failed to stop his own wife from taking her misery out on his daughters. Or just didn’t care to.

“There’s no point, Roe. You know that. He won’t stop her.” I finally lost the struggle with the tears I’d been holding back since I got here. They slid down my cheeks, leaving hot, salty streaks behind and most likely taking off the makeup I applied to hide the proof of my latest run-in with my mother. “He stopped caring about us a long time ago.”

Pain washed over Roe’s face as his fingers tightened around my biceps. “That’s not true.”

I wrenched out of his hold and took a step back. “I know you think of him as some kind of saint⁠—”

“He saved me, baby. I owe the man my life.”

Indignation coursed through me with every pump of my racing heart. “You know who he didn’t save? Me.” My voice rose on each word until the last one came out as a shout.

I wanted him to finally understand. To take my side. As much as I loved Roe—and I loved him so much I sometimes ached with it—I couldn’t shake the growing resentment I felt at being picked second by yet another man in my life. To the Iron Wraiths, Ezra Riley could do no wrong. He’d helped found this club that had given them all a family. He was their moral compass. Which was laughable, because to Remy and me, he was just a man who’d let us down over and over again.

“Christ, Dakota. You’re killing me. I hate seeing you hurting.” Roe reached for me, and as mad as I sometimes got at him, it was impossible not to melt into his embrace. He was my only safe place, no matter how upset I was. The steady beat of his heart against my ear was as soothing as a lullaby. Being wrapped in his arms was more comforting than climbing between freshly laundered sheets that were still warm from the dryer.

Wrapped in the only safety I’d ever had, I finally felt brave enough to say the words that terrified me. “I can’t do this anymore,” I whispered as fresh tears welled up in my eyes. “I-I can’t stay here another day. I have to leave.”

“Wait. What?” Roe’s arms fell away, and he took a large step back. “What are you sayin’?”

I closed the space between us, desperation causing the blood to rush through my veins so fast so fast I felt like I was vibrating, as though a colony of bees lived beneath my skin. “I’m leaving. And I want you to come with me.” The words came out in such a rush they were all jumbled together. “Let’s get out of here.” I gripped his shirt in my fists as I smiled up at him with a smile that probably looked as manic as it felt. “We can go anywhere. We could live on the beach or in a secluded cabin in the mountains. Or we could do both. Just keep moving around until we find somewhere we want to stay forever.”

“Dakota—”

“I don’t care where we go. As long as I’m with you nothing else matters.”

Roe’s hand came up, his thumb tracing the upward curve of my lips. “Dakota . . .” My heart sank as the rest of his words faded away. It felt like it had been ripped right out of my chest and dropped onto my floor at my feet. His eyes gave him away before he could speak, but that didn’t mean what he said next didn’t leave me gutted.

“I’m sorry. I can’t.”

A painful lump formed in my throat. “But . . . why?”

“Please, baby, don’t cry.” He tried reaching for me again, but I took a step back. I wrapped my arms tightly around my belly, worried that if I didn’t hold myself together I’d crumble to dust.

Roe’s large figure blurred before my eyes as the tears began running unchecked. I couldn’t have stopped them if I tried, but in that moment all my energy was spent keeping the pain from crippling me. “I-I don’t understand. I thought . . . I thought you’d come with me. I thought you loved me.”

God, I was such a fool.

“I do! I do love you. Christ, Honeybee. I love you more than anything on this fucking planet. But we don’t have to leave. Baby, we can make this work.” His tone was pleading, but I could see it in his eyes. He thought the same thing I was starting to. That this was it for us. The same pleading I could see in his gaze filled his voice as he asked, “Why can’t you just stay here?”

I hated him a little bit just then. Because he already knew the answer to that question. I swatted the tears away, willing the anger to grow. Anger was so much easier than the soul-destroying pain I was feeling. “Why can’t you go?” I shot back, bitterness dripping from my tongue.

“I just can’t, Dakota.”

“Why?” I demanded to know, the word coming out harsh enough to make him flinch.

“Because this is my family.” The words spilled out fast, and his eyes widened in shock. He hadn’t meant to say that out loud. I could see the instant he wished he could take them back, but it was too late.

All the air whooshed from my lungs. The blow he just delivered with his words hurt worse than anything my mother had ever inflicted with her fists. He knew what my life was like. He knew. He said he understood my animosity toward my father and the club and why I kept my distance. But with that one sentence, he proved himself a liar.

That lump grew even bigger, making it almost impossible to talk. “I—” I cleared my throat. “I thought I was your family.”

“You are!” he declared quickly, but it didn’t matter, the damage had been done. Those words were out and they could never be taken back. “You are my family, Dakota. You know that. But these guys are too.”

“And you’re choosing them.”

It wasn’t a question. I already knew.

His hands shot out, his fingers wrapping around my arms and pulling me into him before I had a chance to evade. “There doesn’t have to be a choice. You don’t have to leave, Honeybee. You can stay here and we can get a house together or something. I’ve been working a lot of hours at the garage and saving up. I have enough for a down payment.” His words were a silent plea, which only made everything hurt worse. “I can take care of you. You’ll never have to see that vile bitch again if you don’t want to.”

Being a Wraith meant the garage wasn’t Roe’s only source of income, and there wasn’t a chance in hell I would use a single cent of the money he made doing whatever illegal shit the club demanded of him.

The sadness and anger faded into nothing as a cold numbness wrapped around me like a shroud. “Do you remember what I said to you the first time you saw the bruises?” My gaze was pointed at the center of his chest but I wasn’t actually seeing anything as my mind spun back to that night. “That night was one of the worst. Mom was mad because Dad was with the club again. She got drunk on cheap vodka. Do you remember?” I didn’t wait for him to confirm. “She found out you and I were dating, and she lost it. Said one of her daughters would be a whore for the Iron Wraiths over her dead body.”

“You are not a whore.”

I carried on like he hadn’t said a word. “She beat me senseless. Said it was for my own good. Once I was able, I got up and ran to you. What did I say when I finally found you? What did I tell you, Roe?”

His throat worked on a swallow. “You said you’d rather die than stay in Ashland forever. That you were getting out no matter what.”

“And what did you say when I told you that?”

The glassiness returned to Roe’s eyes but it wasn’t from the alcohol this time. It was from his own tears. “I told you that where you go, I go. Because you’re my home.”

“I guess those were just words, huh?”

Roe dropped his gaze to his boots, unable to meet my eyes for another second, but not before I caught the flash of shame in them as he looked away. “I’m sorry,” he said so quietly I almost didn’t hear.

“My mom was right,” I whispered, the razor edge of those words slicing my throat to shreds on their way up. “I was a fucking idiot for falling in love with a Wraith.” I felt along my wrist for the bracelet he’d given me for my fifteenth birthday. To anyone else, it probably wouldn’t have been that special, just a cheap piece of jewelry with chips of glass meant to mimic diamonds. But to me it meant everything. Roe hadn’t had a lot of money back then, and what he did have, he used to get me a present.

I’d worn that bracelet like a badge of honor every day since, never once taking it off. Until that moment.

I ripped it off my wrist, busting the cheap clasp, and dropped it onto the carpet. “This is over,” I croaked, the sharp, jagged edges of those words slicing my throat to ribbons on their way up. Without a backward glance I ripped his door open and stumbled out into the hall, clutching at my chest right over where the organ inside was bleeding out.

“Baby girl?”

The voice down the hall came from the very last person I wanted to see. Batting the tears from my cheeks, I lifted my head and turned to look at my father. The memory of the man I had once adored and loved with everything I had flashed in front of my eyes before it was replaced with the man of today. A man who might have looked so familiar but was little more than a stranger. A thousand emotions played across his face at warp speed, starting with concern and ending with understanding. Then, finally, resignation.

“I’m not your baby girl,” I gritted out. “I’m not your anything. Not anymore.”

Desolation filled my father’s eyes, but instead of fighting for me like I’d always prayed, he simply nodded, not saying another word as he let me go for good.

As I walked out of the Iron Wraiths clubhouse and away from the only two men I’d ever loved—the same two men who’d destroyed me—I vowed to myself that I would never come back.

ONE

DAKOTA

Now

You would have thought that sixteen years away would have made GPS necessary, but as my car hugged the road’s curves and the scenery outside my window whizzed by, my brain recalled the way with perfect accuracy. It wasn’t rational, but the fact that my mind hadn’t erased everything from my time in Ashland pissed me off way more than it should.

“I can’t believe you’re going back.” My sister’s voice carried through my car’s speakers. Her tone was a mixture of disbelief and just the smallest hint of disappointment.

That disappointment killed.

Truth was, I couldn’t believe I was going back either. I pulled in a deep breath as the town sign came into view. The twinge in my ribs was still there, but it no longer took my breath away any time I inhaled or moved, and I could finally manage to get by without having to wrap them tightly. Thank god, or this drive would have been even worse than it already was.

As it was, the drive had gone by faster than I’d anticipated. I wasn’t ready. I hadn’t adequately prepared myself for what I was about to do but there was nothing else stopping me. I’d already stopped in Redemption, one town over from Ashland, for gas and coffee, so there was nothing delaying the inevitable.

After leaving when I was nineteen, I’d bounced around for a few years, trying to figure out where I belonged. I’d tried a few larger cities first, thinking it would be easy to reinvent myself in a place packed with people. It didn’t take long for me to realize I hated the crowded spaces and cluttered cityscapes, though. I missed the mountains, so I traded in the Smoky mountains for the Rockies. I put down stakes in Colorado and tried to grow roots there, but no matter how hard I tried tending to them, they simply refused to grow. I realized then that nowhere was going to feel like home. I was just going to have to accept that and settle anyway.

So that was what I’d done, hoping the happily ever after I’d always wanted for myself would finally find me since chasing after it hadn’t done me a damn bit of good.

But it hadn’t.

I wasn’t sure what I’d done in a past life that karma had a personal vendetta against me, but whatever it was, it must have been pretty terrible.

“I can’t believe it either.” I blew a gust of air past my lips. “It wasn’t an easy decision. You understand that better than anyone.”

I counted myself lucky that Remy never resented me leaving when I did. She’d been younger, and leaving her behind was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. I waited as long as I could, hoping to hold out until she was old enough so I could take her with me. I just couldn’t. It was a choice that ate at me every single day. I still carried around crippling guilt from that decision, even though she’d assured me a long time ago she never blamed me. That she always understood. As the oldest, I had it the worst. There had even been times when I stepped in to take the hits and kicks meant for my sister.

When she finally turned eighteen she’d done exactly what I did and took off. But where mountains were in my blood, the open sky and ocean was in hers. She’d settled in the Pacific Northwest. A small town called Whitecap. I’d visited several times over the years. It was breathtakingly beautiful but what I enjoyed most was seeing how my baby sister was thriving up there.

“I do understand.” My sister’s tone was awash with sympathy. “But I also understand that you don’t owe that man shit, not at the expense of your own mental health. And we both know going back there puts that at risk.”

That was the exact thing I’d told myself no less than a hundred times since the hospital in Tennessee called to inform me our father had suffered a massive heart attack and required surgery. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t make the words stick.

“I know.” My hand dove into the to-go container of French fries sitting in my cup holder. They’d always been my favorite comfort food, and I’d needed them more than usual the past several days. “But he’s got no one else,” I garbled around a mouthful of fried potatoes.

My sister’s sigh carried through the line and filled the cab of my car. “How many fast food places have you stopped at for fries?”

“Uh . . .” I paused, another handful of fries on their way to my mouth. My eyes swept to the floorboard of the passenger seat to all the empty fry containers littering the space. “A few.” I shoved more fries into my mouth.

“You realize you’re going there because the old man had a heart attack, right? Do you really think all that sodium and grease is what you need right now?”

I swallowed as I gave that question some thought. “Point taken.” I dropped the fries I just picked up and dusted my salty fingers off on my jeans.

“You know I love you,” Remy continued, “but you take too much on your shoulders. He isn’t alone, Kota. He never has been. He’s got all those brothers.” She spit out that last word like it left an unpleasant taste in her mouth. “We were the ones who were alone.”

I knew all of that too. Even though my brain was behaving rationally, I was being ruled solely by emotion.

“I can’t explain why I’m doing this, Rem. I don’t know why. All I can tell you is when I got the call from the hospital, something inside told me I had to go see him. I haven’t spoken to the man in sixteen years, but he still listed me as his emergency contact. That has to mean something, right?”

“I don’t know.” Remy sighed. “I just don’t want to see you get hurt again.” Oh, if only she knew how ironic that statement was. “What does Adam think of all this?”

I was glad my sister wasn’t able to see my face pull into a wince at the sound of my ex’s name.

“Adam and I are done,” I said, my voice flat and emotionless. “We broke up.”

A phantom pain shot through my ribs, a reminder of the last time I saw him. I’d been lying on the floor of our bedroom, curled into a tight ball and holding my cracked ribs as he wiped my blood off his knuckles. He’d tossed the rag on the floor by my head, ordering: “Put that in the hamper where it belongs.” Those were the last words he said to me before turning and walking away like he didn’t have a care in the world.

I’d been in the process of cleaning myself up and wrapping my ribs—I’d gotten really good at it, having more than two decades of experience and all—when the call came in from the hospital. Something inside me said the timing wasn’t a coincidence. It almost felt like something was pulling me from Colorado, forcing me to realize it was time to get the hell out.

While he’d been out at the bar with his buddies “blowing off some steam” as he liked to say, blaming me for the mood he was in that caused him to raise his hands to me, I’d packed everything I had into two suitcases and gotten the hell out of there, bouncing from one roadside motel to the next as I tried to figure out what to do about my father.

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

I let out a snort and rolled my eyes. “Oh please. No you aren’t. You sound like you’re about to choke on your excitement.” My sister never hid the fact that she didn’t care for my live-in boyfriend. The few times she’d come to visit, Adam hadn’t exactly been the most hospitable. He used the excuse that our place was too small for her to stay, so she had to put up the money for a hotel room. The situation could have easily been fixed by putting an air mattress or something temporary in the spare room he’d insisted on making his home office, but he wouldn’t hear it. Why a construction worker needed a home office was beyond me, and when I asked that very question he’d back handed me into silence.

He tried laying on the charm when she met us for dinner one night, but Remy saw through it. And the last time I visited her, he’d spent the entire trip blowing up my phone. He wasn’t a fan of me spending time with anyone other than him.

Her snicker carried through the line. “Can you blame me? The guy was crazy controlling.”

If she only knew how spot on that observation really was.

I never told her about the abuse. Not because I was afraid of how she’d react, but because I was ashamed. I left the only home I’d ever known—left her—when I was still basically a kid. All for a shot at a better life. My sister always said she respected me for breaking the cycle and getting out when I did. I couldn’t stand the thought of her losing faith in me because I’d been weak enough to stumble right back into a situation like the very one I’d run from.

I was humiliated. I didn’t want to risk seeing the pity in her eyes when she discovered my life hadn’t actually gotten any better.

The burn of tears formed behind my eyes, and I did what I’d been doing for the past sixteen years to keep them at bay. I pulled my bottom lip between my teeth and bit down until the pain was nearly unbearable. After I walked away from everything and everyone I’d ever loved that night all those years ago, I swore I was done crying. I would never shed another tear for people who didn’t deserve it, people who’d broken not only my heart, but me. And I hadn’t shed a single tear in sixteen years. Not even after Adam had done his worst. I managed to train them away, only feeling that foreign burn once in a blue moon.

“Yeah, well, it doesn’t really matter anymore. Because we’re over.”

Silence crept through the line and crawled up my spine like spider legs, causing me to shiver. “Are you sure you’re okay, Kota?” My sister was too damn insightful, even from hundreds of miles away. “You know, you can talk to me about anything.”

I released my bottom lip just shy of tasting blood and pasted a smile to my face so the false happiness I spoke with would sound more genuine. “Yeah,” I chirped. “I’m totally fine. Or at least I will be once I stop somewhere to pee. Just a word to the wise, a forty-four ounce soda isn’t advised during a road trip.”

When all else failed, deflect, deflect, deflect. It was yet another thing I’d gotten really good at over the years in order to mask the ugly truth.

As I hoped, my sister’s laughter rang through the cab of my car.

“I’ll keep that in mind. But I’m just a phone call away if you need anything. If it gets to be too much.”

“I’ll be fine, I swear,” I lied. It was amazing how easy it was to lie once you’d been doing it long enough. “You don’t need to worry about me. Just keep living your life, okay? Be happy.”

Remy huffed out a frustrated sigh. “See, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. You take too much on by yourself. You’ve always done that, even when we were kids. You know you don’t have to do this alone.”

She was talking about every hit or slap or kick from our mother that had been meant for her. What she couldn’t understand was that I didn’t regret a single one. If it meant keeping her safe, I wouldn’t hesitate to do the same thing over and over. But I also understood her need to try and repay me for protecting her all those years.

“I promise, Remy, if it gets to be too much I’ll call you.”

“Thank you,” she said quietly, relief at the sincerity in my tone bleeding into her own. “Love you more than all the sour Skittles in the world.” My sister had her own comfort food addiction.

“Love you more than all the fries in existence,” I returned as I rounded a bend that brought the hospital into view. The large building loomed in the distance like a giant red flag waving in a stiff breeze.

“I should go. I’m almost there,” I said, trying to sound light and breezy despite the fact my heart was suddenly beating like it was trying to escape my chest.

“Remember what you promised,” Remy reminded. “You need me, you call and I’m there. I love you.”

“And I love you right back.”

I disconnected the call as I pulled into the hospital parking lot. As I stared up at the three-story structure, I felt like I was preparing for my doom.

TWO

DAKOTA

The automatic glass doors slid open with a whoosh and the first thing that hit me was the antiseptic smell that all hospitals had. Unfortunately, it was also mixed with the cloying scent of the massive arrangement of stargazer lilies that sat on a round table right inside the hospital entrance. Like adding a huge arrangement of flowers might somehow make the cold, sterile lobby more comfortable.

That failed, and the sickly-sweet scent they created only made the headache that had been pulsing in my temples the entire drive from Colorado to Tennessee worse. The dull throb turned into an icepick being stabbed into my eyeballs.

“Can I help you?” The woman behind the information desk appeared to be in her mid-to-late seventies, her tightly permed curls tinted the palest blue and a pair of old school half-rimmed glasses perched on her button nose. She reminded me of a sweet grandma sitting in a rocking chair next to a fireplace with her knitting in her lap, like you’d find in a children’s storybook.

I was instantly jealous of whoever got to call this woman Grandma. She looked like she was in constant supply of hot chocolate and freshly baked cookies.

“Yeah, hi.” I moved closer and braced my hands on the counter to try and ground myself. If I didn’t I was afraid I’d take off running. “I’m looking for Ezra Riley’s room.”

“Are you family?”

“I’m his daughter.” It was a word I hadn’t used in sixteen years, and it felt as foreign on my tongue as it probably sounded.

The kind granny gave me his room number and pointed me in the direction of the elevators. With every step in that direction my heart beat faster. A film of cold sweat coated the back of my neck as I stepped into the metal enclosure and jabbed the button for the second floor.

The ride up felt like an eternity and the blink of an eye all at once. As the doors slid open with a ding, I clenched my hands together to try and mask the way they trembled and stepped into the hallway where my past immediately slammed into me with all the destruction of a wrecking ball.

Pope must have spotted me before I saw him, because he was already frozen in place by the time our eyes connected. Resentment slithered along my skin like oily fingers, causing my stomach to pitch. I hated how it felt, which only made the resentment worse. It was a vicious cycle I hadn’t been able to break back when I was nineteen, and apparently I hadn’t gotten any better at it at thirty-five.

He leaned down to whisper something to the stunning woman on his arm, but his focus never moved from me. It took more strength than I realized I had to continue in that direction, toward the sea of men in Iron Wraith cuts gathered all along the hall around my father’s hospital room, but I would be damned if I let them see anything but disdain.

I kept my gaze pinned to Pope and narrowed my eyes, hoping to block out all the men at his back. I was shaky enough as it was. If I caught sight of Roe before I was ready I knew I’d lose all my nerve.

Instead of stepping aside like I hoped, he stayed put in the middle of the hall, determined to have some sort of interaction. I pulled on a mask of bitchy indifference as I stopped in front of him. “Pope.” The patch on his chest that read President glared at me like a blinking neon sign, and it could only mean one thing. If Pope was the president of the Iron Wraiths now, Roe was his second-in-command.

“Dakota,” he returned, and the soft, almost warm way he said my name damn near broke me. “It’s good to have you back.”

“Can’t say I agree.” The words came out so cold it was a wonder icicles didn’t form in the air between us. But I couldn’t help it. “And I’m not back. I’m only here until my dad gets back on his feet, then I’m gone.”

I didn’t know where the hell I would go after this, but it wouldn’t be the first time I left this town without a plan in place. Maybe I would pay Remy another visit while I tried to figure out what came next for me.

I made good money as a cooking influencer, and I’d made sure to sock huge chunks of it away after the first time Adam hit me.

The one and only silver lining I could look back on that relationship with was that Adam had enjoyed the perks of my job well enough that he hadn’t tried to come between me and it, the way he had every friend I managed to make during my time in Colorado. He’d successfully cut me off from everyone but Remy, who refused to go away no matter what he did. If I’d been without a way to make money, I would have well and truly been screwed.

As it was, I had no doubt he was pissed as hell to come home from the bar that night and realize his cash cow had packed up and disappeared. I blocked his number and the number of every friend whose phones he tried calling from, and I had no intention of ever seeing his face again.

“Well, I know he’ll be real happy to see you.”

I knew he meant the words to be a kindness, but they lodged themselves behind my ribs like a knife.

“Let’s get one thing straight.” I didn’t recognize the voice coming out of my own mouth. “While I’m here, I don’t want to have a damn thing to do with your club, got it? I’ve got nothing to say to any of you, so you’d do best to stay the hell out of my way.”

I wasn’t sure where the hell that had come from. It was like a pressure release gage had been turned at the sight of him, and I had no control. I had to get out at least some of the animosity I’d been carrying around most of my life or I would explode.

As I stomped down the hall toward Ezra’s room, I kept my shoulders back, my chin held high, and my gaze rooted forward. I refused to look at any of Pope’s men, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t feel their eyes on me, drilling into me from all sides.

I almost stumbled on my own two feet as the scent of leather and pine mixed with something spicy invaded my senses. That long forgotten sensation of feeling Roe before I even saw him washed over me, and I knew the instant I passed him in the hall. But I refused to turn my head in that direction.

I wasn’t sure how I managed to stay on my feet, but once I reached my father’s room I sent up a silent thank you to whatever goddess looked down on me and kept me from falling flat on my face.

All the nerves and anxiety I tried to hide came rushing back at me like a tidal wave as I read and re-read the numbers posted on the wall right beside the door. When I reached for the knob, my hand started to tremble so badly I had to shake it out to get my fingers wrapped around the cold metal.

I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting when I finally opened the door, but it certainly wasn’t the man lying beneath stark white sheets.

My father had always been larger than life. A huge man I’d always thought was criminally handsome. He stood nearly six and a half feet tall and was stocky with wide shoulders and a thick chest. He’d always been strong, but looking at him just then, I could see that he’d gotten a little softer around the middle, and I could only assume that was due to age, beer, and a shitty diet that had all led to his heart attack. There was such a stark contrast between the man who used to intimidate all by boyfriends—aside from Roe—and send them running for the hills, and the man I was currently staring at.

I was struggling to put the memory of who I remembered with the picture of the one lying in the bed. He looked . . . frail, something I hadn’t thought possible for Ezra Riley. So much older than his sixty-eight years. His skin was sunken in and almost the same color as the sheets tucked tightly around his large frame.

But the one thing that hadn’t changed was his eyes. The same pale, sky blue as my own. As Remy’s. The squeak of the door hinge caught his attention, and as soon as his eyes opened, they locked on me.

They widened in shock before a small, tentative smile curled the corners of his mouth. “Dakota.” My name didn’t come out like a question, but almost as if it was the answer to a prayer.

“Hi, Dad.” Those two words felt rusty from disuse as they climbed their way up my throat.

His mouth dropped open as he took me in from top to toe like he thought I might be a hallucination. “I-I can’t believe you’re here.” He braced his hands in the mattress at his sides and tried to push up but the numbers on the machines by his head started rising to dangerous levels. I rushed toward him as the alarms began screaming.

“What are you doing? Are you crazy?” I flapped my hands in a panic, willing him back down. “Just . . . be still, okay? Lay back and relax.”

His chest rose and fell as he settled. The numbers slowly started lowering again and the blaring alarms quieted as the door swung open and a woman in blue scrubs walked in with determined strides.

“Ah ah ah, Mr. Riley. You know better than that.” Her tone was scolding but also playful, telling me this wasn’t the first time she had to come in and warn him about doing something he shouldn’t. “You trying to pop out those fancy new stints your heart just got? The doctor won’t be happy about that.”

The pout that pulled at Ezra’s face was so childish I nearly laughed. “I’m a grown-ass man. I can sit myself up if I want to.”

The nurse wasn’t fazed by his surly demeanor in the slightest. She turned from the monitor she was reading and propped a hand on her hip. “You keep being a grump, I’m going to pass you off to the mean nurse.”

His scowl grew in intensity but he didn’t say another word. I guess the mean nurse was pretty bad. She pushed a few buttons, then input the info on the iPad she was carrying. “Everything’s okay, Mr. Riley, but you need to remember you’ve recently undergone major surgery. The only way you’ll bounce back is if you take it easy and don’t put more stress on yourself. The sooner you start behaving, the sooner you’ll be out of here.”

She arched a scolding brow and stared him down until he acknowledged her order. Then she turned to me. “I’ll be back to check on him and administer his meds in an hour. Keep him in line for me. His bark is worse than his bite,” she said, then shot me a playful wink before leaving.

The click of the closing door bounced off the walls like a cannon blast. Once again, I was alone with my father, and I didn’t have the first clue what to say to him.

“How did you know I was in here. Did Roe call you?”

“What? No. No, um . . .” I reached up and massaged at the stiffness in my neck and shoulders. “You had me as your emergency contact.”

“Oh, right.” Red suffused his cheeks, finally giving him a hint of the color he needed. Even if it came from discomfort. It appeared the old man and I were in the same boat.

“Are you . . . are you okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m good. It’s not as big a deal as Nurse Ratched made it seem.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Oh, okay. So you didn’t just have your chest cracked open days ago so they could perform surgery on your heart?”

He hemmed and hawed for a few seconds. “Well, when you put it like that . . .”

“Uh-huh.”

I clutched my purse tightly, holding it in front of my chest like a protective shield as I moved to the chair beside the bed. My lungs pushed out a weary sigh as I sat, the material of the chair creaking beneath my weight. “Look, I don’t know what to say to you.” I dragged a hand through my hair as I searched for my calm. “I don’t know what I want to hear from you either. But I knew I couldn’t act like it was nothing when the hospital called me. So I came.”

“Baby girl⁠—”

God, that killed.

I squeezed my eyes closed and held my hand up to stop him. “I’m here. Okay? That’s all I have at the moment. Let’s just . . . let that be enough. For now, at least. Deal?”

Ezra’s mouth spread into a smile I remembered from childhood. One that’s beauty managed to slice off another piece of my heart just then. “Yeah. Deal.”

The silence that surrounded us was anything but comfortable, but at least it was no longer stifling.

Small victories I guess.

THREE

DAKOTA

I didn’t know complete silence could be so exhausting.

Any kind of conversation would have been forced, and if he had asked me about my life, it would have come off fake and insincere, so Ezra and I spent the next half hour without saying a word. Eventually, he fell sleep, and I took another ten minutes to simply watch him, my eyes scanning over his features.

Of course he’d aged over the last sixteen years. My father had always lived large; it made his already rough-around-the-edges character downright jagged. His once salt-and-pepper hair had gone completely gray in the years I’d been gone. The wrinkles on his skin from years of being battered by the wind and sun as he rode his motorcycle were even more pronounced. But time alone couldn’t have aged him the way he was just then. The heart attack had managed to bring him down in a way I thought no one and nothing could.

For some reason I couldn’t begin to understand, seeing him like that scared me. It caught behind my ribs like a hook catching in a fish’s mouth. It tugged with each breath I took as I watched my sleeping father’s chest rise and fall, pulling painfully at the heart I thought had been deadened to him the moment I climbed into my car and walked away.

I hadn’t realized I’d been standing there, counting each of his breaths to make sure they were evenly spaced, until the door creaked open behind me, giving me a jolt. The nurse from earlier came in, pulling her med cart behind her. She shot me a kind smile before her eyes shifted to her patient. “Ah, I see he’s out.”

“Cold,” I verified. “He’s been sleeping for about thirty minutes.” My brows pulled together as I tugged my bottom lip between my teeth and bit down. “Is that normal? He’s okay, right?”

I didn’t want to care. In fact, part of me hated that I did. I couldn’t make myself stop, though.

She reached for my arm, her touch a comfort, her sympathetic smile full of warmth. Her fingers gave a reassuring squeeze. “I know it might not look it, but he’s getting better and better every day. Just give him some time.”

I forced my mouth into a smile, but it felt brittle and fake. My emotions were all over the place, swirling so fast I was weary in a way that I felt all the way down to my bones.

“Yeah, I’ll do that. Thanks.”

“You know, he’s probably out for the rest of the night if you want to go and get some rest. Come back tomorrow fresh and rested.”

That sounded perfect. I needed some air, and I needed some time to get my head together.

I left a few minutes later. The breath I’d been holding escaped my lungs in a whoosh when I stepped into the hall and found it empty. Not a single Wraith cut in sight.

The steel band that had wrapped around my chest, steadily squeezing since I pulled into the hospital parking lot, slowly loosened as I rode the elevator down to the ground floor and headed for the exit, past that hideous flower arrangement. As I stepped through the frosted glass doors, I saw that the sun had set, and after the whirlwind that had stirred up inside me, all I could think about was finding a place to crash for the night.

I filled my lungs with the fresh, pine-scented air to cleanse away the smells of the hospital and closed my eyes as a soft breeze skated across my skin. Just a few more yards, I thought as I glanced in the direction of my car. Just a few more yards and I was home free. At least for a little while.

My relief came a few moments too soon. A second later, the scent in the air mingled with something new. Leather and spice with a hint of motor oil. I felt him a single heartbeat later. Sixteen years and my body’s awareness of Monroe Clifton hadn’t diminished one damn bit. That magnetic field that had always surrounded us, forcing us to crash together time and again, was still as strong as it ever was.

“Dakota.”

His voice was pure grit and gravel. It raked across my skin, leaving goosebumps in its wake. I screwed my eyes closed against the wave of pain that crashed over me at the sound of it.

I forced myself to turn and face the man who’d destroyed me all those years ago. There was no way I could have prepared to see the man who stepped out of the shadows and closed the distance between us.

What was it with men aging so much better than women? It wasn’t fair. If karma cared for me at all, she would have given him a receding hairline and a beer gut that hung over his belt. Looking at him was yet another reminder of how much that bitch hated me.

I should have known better. Roe never experienced that awkward, gawky teenage phase the rest of us had to suffer through. He never struggled with acne or a weird, squeaky voice. But that beautiful teenager and that gorgeous young man had nothing on the guy standing in front of me.

He’d packed on muscle, but not the kind a guy got from spending all his time at the gym. I wasn’t sure if it was my imagination but he also seemed taller. A shiver worked through me when our eyes connected as he closed the distance between us. The dark sky and the fluorescent bulbs inside the hospital backlighting Roe made his eye look like midnight. His features were more mature now, sharper and more deeply carved, like the past several years had taken a chisel and hammer to his nose, jawline, and cheekbones.

More of his skin was covered in tattoos than it had been sixteen years ago, and his black brows rested heavier over his eyes than they used to. His dark hair was shorter than he wore it when he was younger, but he was still the same Roe beneath all the physical changes. That soul-deep connection we used to have was gone but there were still a few lingering pieces that tethered us, allowing me to see the boy who came into my life, thanks to my father. The teenager who never made me feel like I was an unwanted third wheel. The young man I’d developed my very first crush on that eventually turned to love. And finally, the man who crushed my heart and destroyed me in a way that could never be fixed.

Just like that, the heartbreak I felt the day we ended came rushing back like no time had passed at all. God, it was a miracle I was able to stay standing.

“Dakota,” he repeated, like he was testing my name on his tongue, tasting it.

My arms came up and wrapped protectively around my middle as I reached deep inside to pull up the anger that had gotten me through the first few years after I left. There were times when the agony was so great I worried I wouldn’t survive it. Remembering how the bad had fanned the flame of anger inside me was the only thing that kept me from lying down in the fetal position and never getting up again.

“Do you have something else to say or are you just going to keep saying my name?”

I sounded good and pissed. That was good. Much better than letting him know how hurt I still was all this time later.

“It’s good you’re here.” I didn’t know what the hell I’d been expecting to hear, or how I might feel about whatever he said, but it wasn’t the disappointment twisting my stomach into knots at such a rote cop-out of a sentence.

My mouth twisted into a sardonic grin. “It’s good I’m here? Wow, okay.” A bitter laugh bubbled up my throat. “For who, huh? Because it sure as hell isn’t good for me.”

“For Pops then.” He took a step closer and it took everything in me to stay in place and not retreat. To stand my ground. Pops. If my thoughts could sneer, my mental lips would have been curled up at that single word. Pops. Because he was a surrogate father for so many of them, giving so much of himself to everyone but his own flesh and blood.

“You might hate him, but I know it means a lot to him that you’re here. He’s missed you more than you can imagine.”

The fight drained out of me just like that, and I went from angry and confused to exhausted. Heaving out a bone-tired sigh, I raked my fingers through my hair and looked out into the dark parking lot, staring out at nothing in particular.

“I don’t hate him,” I admitted wearily. “I tried to for a really long time. I just . . . I couldn’t do it.”

“That’s good.”

I turned back to him at those two words, the soft smile on his full lips setting off an irrational rage deep in my belly. “I think it’s because I didn’t choose who my parents were. It’s so much easier to hate someone you choose over someone you didn’t, you know? Especially when they don’t choose you back.”

Roe froze solid. I waited, my heart lodged in my throat, for him to say something. But he didn’t speak. Or blink. Hell, I wasn’t even sure he was breathing.

Pushing a gust of air out of my lungs, I forced my feet to move. “Goodbye, Roe.”

I didn’t allow myself to look back as I headed for my car.

Roe

“Ow, Daddy. You’re pullin’ again.”

I blinked out of the memory of the other night and back into the present, pulling my lips into a wince as the brush caught on another snarl in my daughter’s hair.

“Sorry, baby girl. But how do you get so many tangles in your sleep?”

My little girl met my gaze in the reflection of the mirror, the same deep blue as my own. Her face was more serious than I thought a seven-year-old capable of as she declared, “I was fightin’ off bad guys in my dreams.”

I bugged my eyes out in the mirror, making her giggle. That was the best fucking sound in the entire world. It never failed to make me feel better, no matter how shitty a mood I was in. And I’d been in a really shitty mood the past two days.

Ever since Dakota Riley came back into my life with the force of a goddamn hurricane.

Christ, she’d taken my breath away. There hadn’t been a day in the past sixteen years where I hadn’t thought about her at least a thousand times, yet I still managed to forget just how beautiful she was. When she stepped off that elevator I thought I was hallucinating. My jaw practically hit the floor as she moved down the hall like an apparition, and as she passed me, it felt like she’d reached right inside my chest and ripped my goddamn heart out, taking it with her.

The girl I’d loved with every single piece of me was all woman now. Her hips were rounder, her tits and ass fuller than they had been. What hadn’t changed were those mile-long legs I used to spend hours tasting every inch of. And all that thick, long, golden hair that always reminded me of a wheatfield swaying in the breeze beneath a cloudless blue sky.

I recognized the freckles that dotted across her nose and cheekbones. There were so many nights we’d lie in the bed of my old truck where I would trace those freckles with my finger and eyes while she mapped the stars above us. Dakota might have loved to stargaze, but those freckles were my own personal constellations.

Aside from her beauty hitting me in the gut like a sledgehammer, it was the look on her face when she basically told me she hated me that had burned itself into the backs of my eyelids. She thought she hid it, but I saw the pain in her eyes. The sky blue swam with so much it left me gutted, bleeding out on concrete as she walked away. Again.

She could think I didn’t still know her well enough to see behind that mask she’d been wearing, but she was dead wrong. Sixteen years didn’t change the fact that the woman’s entire being was etched into my bones. She was a part of me. Time and space hadn’t changed that.

Although, those were thoughts for another time. When I had a moment to myself to get lost in the past for a bit. When Cassi came into this world, everything changed. She healed the broken pieces of me left behind. They might not have fit together perfectly, but it was the imperfections that made it even better. Creating a beautiful mosaic that was somehow even stronger than before.

Dakota might have been in my bones, but my baby girl had my soul in her tiny hand and always would as long as I was drawing breath. I made a promise the very first time I held her in my arms that when she was with me my whole life would be about her.

I arched a brow, making exaggerated faces at her in the mirror, hoping to distract her from the pain as the hairbrush caught another knot. For Christ’s sake, my girl had the thickest head of hair in existence. “You were fighting bad guys in your dreams, huh? That’s supposed to be my job. You tryin’ to get me fired as your protector?”

Her giggle lit me up. “Silly Daddy.” She rolled her eyes at me like I was an idiot. “Princesses save themselves. That’s why they’re so strong.”

My eyes went wide. “Who taught you that, baby girl?”

“Auntie Lennon and Marigold.”

One corner of my mouth hooked up as I chuckled. “Of course.” It couldn’t have been anyone else. My best friend Pope’s woman might love it when he treated her like a queen, but she would also shove every single person she loved out of the way of a bullet if it meant taking it in their place. When his niece, Marigold, was taken, it was because of Lennon that we’d been able to get her back before anything seriously bad could happen to her.

She didn’t believe in sitting back and waiting for someone else to do the protecting, and now that Marigold was living with them full time, Lennon was teaching her the same lessons. I couldn’t think of a better example for my girl.

“Auntie Lennon’s right. Princesses don’t need anyone else to save them, but how about you let your old man do the job for a little while longer, yeah?”

She turned on the stool she was standing on to face me. Her eyes were squinted as she tapped her chin in thought. My heart still jumped in my chest every time she looked into my eyes. “Would it keep you from bein’ sad?”

Christ, my daughter had a way of cutting me off at the knees without even trying. I never knew something so little could have a heart so big. Truth was, I didn’t have much faith in the world before she came into it. I’d seen some nasty shit and lived through worse. But then she’d say something like that and remind me that there had to be more good than I thought if she existed.

“Yeah, baby. Being your protector for a few more years would keep me from being sad.”

“Okay then.” She lifted her shoulder and spun back around, simple as that. Conversation over. “Can you do sparkly braids, Daddy? It always makes Poppy happy when my hair’s sparkly.”

She was speaking about Pops. When she was about a year old she’d dubbed him Poppy, and that was what he’d been to her and only her ever since.

The irony wasn’t lost on me that my daughter’s hair was sifting through fingers that were covered in tattoos, most of the ink a tie to the club I’d given and taken blood for. If someone told me seven years ago that these hands would be winding his daughter’s hair into her favorite braids, then spraying them down with fucking aerosol glitter, I would have laughed in their face.

But the bachelor/biker esthetic I’d lived with most my life had been overrun by pink unicorns and glitter rainbows, stuffed animals, and every color of hair tie and clip in existence. And I didn’t give a single fuck.

“Yeah, baby girl. We’ll do sparkles for Poppy.” Because she wasn’t wrong, they’d definitely make him happy.

FOUR

DAKOTA

Leaning closer to the mirror, I blended out the dab of concealer beneath my bottom lip to hide the bruise that had formed there. I thought I’d trained the tears away, but apparently they’d only gone dormant, springing back to life the instant I drove over the Ashland town limits. I’d practically gnawed on my poor lip to keep them at bay. If I didn’t find a healthier way to deal with my emotions, I was going to cause permanent damage. The dark circles under my eyes weren’t so easy to hide.

I spent most of the past two days at the hospital, sitting in a statically charged room with a practical stranger because of some inexplicable need to make sure he was okay no matter how badly he’d hurt me in the past.

Everything I felt for years, the resentment and animosity, was closer to the surface than it had been in a very long time, and having to force it down was draining. I could feel it stirring within me. It all needed to come out, but I couldn’t bring myself to start the conversation we needed to have while Ezra was laid up in the hospital.

I caught a few sporadic hours of sleep in the sorry excuse for a recliner the hospital provided, dozing off and on while Ezra slept, because if he caught me he’d try to kick me out, insisting I needed to take care of myself more than him. The hospital had been blessedly free of bikers, but I had a feeling that was only because, after my run-in with Pope, he’d ordered them to give me a few days. I was sure the reprieve would be ending soon.

If I wasn’t at the hospital, I was catching a bit of restless sleep in the room I was renting in Redemption. Redbud Inn was a great little B&B one town over—close enough that it was still familiar to me while being far enough from the past to keep it from swallowing me whole.

Despite the bed being so soft it felt like I was lying in a cloud, I spent both nights tossing and turning, dreams from the life I left behind invading my sleep.

I woke up before the sun this morning and sat by the window with a cup of coffee from the pod brewer provided in the room, watching it slowly rise over the Smokies. My brain was telling me to get up and get ready to head back to the hospital. Wash, rinse, repeat. However, my body refused to listen. That weariness in my bones was dragging me down. I left the inn an hour later than the day before, and even though I had every intention of heading straight to the hospital, my hands turned the wheel in the opposite direction.

I drove aimlessly, the scenery becoming more and more familiar as I reached Ashland. Al’s Diner was still where it had been since before I was born, the sign announcing they carried the best pies still tucked in the front window. I let out a smile as I remembered all the times I’d come in for a slice of pecan or apple with cheddar. They really did have the best pie.

There was no shortage of bars in and around Ashland, which made sense considering most of the area catered heavily to bikers, and I was glad to see Toni’s Tavern was still standing. That had been a favorite among most of the Wraiths back when I still lived there.

I hadn’t been old enough to go inside back then, of course, but there had been a couple times when Roe snuck me in. He drew the line at letting me drink, being the kind of boyfriend who took protective to the next level, but that didn’t mean we hadn’t had a blast necking in a back booth until we were both so turned on we didn’t stand a chance of making it to a bed.

Sure, there was a lot of new, but so much of what I remembered remained that there were memories everywhere. Good and bad. What surprised me the most was that the good memories no longer hurt as badly as the terrible ones. For the longest time after I left I had to cling to all the ugly. I thought that was still the case. Until that very moment.

That realization lifted at least part of the massive weight that had taken up permanent residence on my chest so long ago.

The need for caffeine had become a steady beat in my temples, so when a cute coffee shop called Daily Grind came into sight, I immediately turned into the parking lot.

I stepped up to the end of the short line and scanned the chalkboard menu hanging above the front counter. I gave the barista a smile as I ordered a maple latte and an almond croissant. I was just thinking about trying an almond croissant recipe of my own for social media when I heard an unfamiliar voice call my name.

I turned and saw a beautiful woman with hair only a couple shades lighter than Roe’s pitch-black waving in my direction, a friendly smile on her face.

She looked familiar for some reason but I couldn’t figure out where from. “Uh, hi . . .”

“Sorry, this probably seems weird, huh? Some random woman calling your name. I’m not a weirdo, I swear. I’m Pope’s girlfriend.”

Recognition dawned.

“That’s right. You were at the hospital with him. I remember now.” Pope had obviously told her who I was, I just didn’t know how much of that story he shared. I wouldn’t have been surprised if I was hated by that entire club. They probably thought that I was the bad guy for leaving Roe and my father behind without a word for sixteen years.

But the way she was smiling at me told me otherwise.

“Yeah. That’s me. I’m Lennon.” She held her hand out, and I paused for a single beat before reaching up to take it. The whole interaction felt surreal.

“It’s nice to meet you. Officially.”

“You too.” She hiked her thumb over her shoulder. “I’m actually here with a couple friends. Would you like to join us?”

“Oh, uh . . .” I glanced over at the other two women sitting at her table. They both waved as soon as we locked eyes, their smiles so warm and welcoming that, despite Lennon’s direct link to the Wraiths, I couldn’t bring myself to say no.

“I know you’ve basically been sleeping at the hospital every free moment you have,” she said as if sensing my momentary hesitation. “It would do you some good to take a little break.”

The urge to return her grin was surprising, but I leaned into it. “You’re right. A little break won’t hurt anything, right?”

“Exactly. Come on, I’ll introduce you.”

I grabbed my drink and croissant and followed after her, taking the empty seat beside her. “Guys, this is Dakota Riley. Dakota, these are my friends Phoebe and Iris.”

“Hi. It’s nice to meet you both.”

“You too.” Sympathy creased the skin between Iris’s crimson brows. “We heard about your father. We’re really sorry.”

“Thanks. He’s improving, so that’s a big relief.”

Lennon arched a single brow, and I noticed then that her dark hair and green eyes made her look like Snow White. “Yeah, but what about you?”

“I’m okay,” I said, giving the only answer I was willing to give complete strangers. The truth was, I felt stalled. Unsettled. “I think I just need to get a bit of my old routine back. Get back to work.”

“What do you do?”

“I post cooking videos online,” I shared. “It sounds lame to call myself a cooking influencer, but that’s basically what it is.”

Penelope pulled in a gasp, her mouth dropping open. “Oh my god. You’re the Foodie Bee.”

When I was trying to come up with a name for my online presence, that was the one my brain kept going back to over and over. It was the tiniest part of my old life that I wanted to keep hold of. A subtle nod to Honeybee.

My smile returned. “Yeah. Have you seen some of my videos?”

“Some of them? Are you kidding me? Try all of them. I follow you on all the socials as well as your Substack and YouTube channel. I think one of the only reasons my husband doesn’t drive me crazy is because he’s worried I’ll stop cooking for him. I have your recipes to thank for that.”

I let out a laugh, and just like that, the pressure in my chest started to loosen. It was always fun running into people who enjoyed my recipes and content. Through my whole broken relationship with Adam, the one good thing I had was cooking. It kept me sane and grounded until I was able to get out.

“I love to hear that. I’m happy to have contributed to a happy marriage.” Lord knew it was the closest I’d ever gotten to one of my own. “I’ve missed it.” I hadn’t been in a kitchen since I packed up and left Adam’s house. It felt unnatural not cooking every single day.

“Where are you staying?” Iris asked. “Is there a kitchen setup you could work in?”

“I’m at the Redbud Inn over in Redemption. The rooms are incredible, but they weren’t set up with anything other than a hotplate and a microwave.”

Lennon twisted toward me. “I don’t know how long you’re planning on staying, but I’ve recently moved in with Pope and my old place is sitting empty.”

Iris waved an excited finger at Lennon. “Oh, that’s such a good idea! I’m a realtor. I actually sold Lennon’s place to her. The cutest little bungalow on a beautiful street.”

“And the neighbors are the best,” Lennon added, trying to seal the deal. “That alone made me sad to leave, but Pope’s place is bigger, and it’s closer to the middle school, so it just made sense.”

“You’re a middle school teacher?” I asked, swallowing down my bewilderment. I’d grown up around bikers, so I was familiar with the type of woman most of them attracted. My mother was one of those women. The ones who were a little rougher around the edges and a lot wilder. Women who loved riding as much as their men did.

Hell, for a time, I’d been one of those women. I’d become addicted to the feel of the wind on my face as I gripped Roe like a lifeline on the back of his motorcycle. Most of the women married to the members back when I was a kid got off on the club life almost more than the men. But that didn’t seem like Lennon, at least not from the very little I’d come to know her in the past five minutes. But I guess if there was anyone who could handle a rowdy crew of hardened bikers it would be a middle school teacher. Teenagers were nearly as bad.

“I’d be happy to rent it out to you. I’ll even give you the friends and family discount.”

Iris leaned in, lowering her voice conspiratorially, “Which is basically free.”

It would have been a lie if I said I didn’t give it a moment of thought, if for no other reason than the kitchen. I didn’t know what my plans were once my father got out of the hospital. I’d already broken the promise I made to never come back, and it wasn’t like I had anywhere else to go. But I wasn’t sure I could handle it. I didn’t know if I could do something so permanent.

“That’s really sweet. Could I maybe have some time to think about it?”

“Of course. There’s no rush at all.”

The bell over the door jangled just then as someone pushed it open, and who I saw walk in when I looked up made the blood freeze solid in my veins. My eyes narrowed as they connected with Satan’s offspring. If there was a family on this planet more evil than the Brady family I sure as hell didn’t want to know about them. Generational wealth and arrogance rotted that entire family to the core. Unfortunately, just like everywhere else in the world, money ruled over morals, so I wasn’t surprised in the slightest to see Tolliver Brady wearing a uniform and a badge that read Chief.

When I was nineteen, his father, Randy, had been Chief of Police and the entire department had been crooked as hell, each of them with a vendetta against ever member with an Iron Wraith cut and anyone involved with them. If his spoiled-ass son was in charge now, it couldn’t have gotten any better.

Tolliver had been a few years younger than me in school, but I was still unfortunate enough to have landed on his radar, thanks to our fathers’ mutual abhorrence for each other.

Where the Wraiths had a code that declared family off limits, the Brady’s didn’t have the same hangups. If you were affiliated with my father’s club in any way, you were targeted. As a kid, it made me even more bitter toward my dad and his friends, but as an adult I could see it through the lens of maturity and realized that anyone could have been a target, because that family was just plain evil.

As though drawn by my hatred, Tolliver’s eyes caught on mine, and it took a few seconds, but I saw the instant he recognized me. My stomach dropped to my feet as he bypassed the line in order to head our way. There was no missing the way the air chilled as Lennon’s body went stiff beside me.

“Well look at that. The prodigal daughter returns.” His slick, oily smirk was like spider legs against my skin. “Little Dakota Riley.” He licked his lips and dragged his eyes over me in a way that felt like a gross violation. “You sure did grow up nice, didn’t you?”

There was no shortage of women who liked words like that coming from a man who looked like he did, but I saw past the pretty wrapping to the ugly beneath. Some people believed that evil wore the mask of handsome or beautiful to trick people, and Tolliver Brady was the shining example of that.

“Tolliver,” I said, my voice almost a growl. “I see someone in this town was stupid enough to give you a gun.”

When I was younger Roe used to say my wild streak would get me in trouble. What he really meant but was too nice to say was that my mouth was going to get me in trouble. Back then, I had no problem speaking my mind, and that usually meant insulting people I didn’t like.

I thought that what my mother hadn’t managed to beat out of me Adam had. But apparently it only took coming back to this place to bring out my bitchy side.

It felt like everyone in the coffee shop was holding their collective breaths. A steady pulse of discomfort was radiating off of Lennon, but any self-preservation system I might have had glitched when it came to the Bradys. It always had. It had only gotten worse when a girl I used to know, a friend of mine, got involved with him.

My heart ached any time I thought of Layne, so I tried not to.

That mask slipped a bit, his cheeks flushing pink with anger as he leaned in, bracing one hand on the table and gripping the back of my chair with the other, caging me in. “Heard your old man made it through. It would be a shame if there was some sort of setback.”

Air puffed from my nostrils like a dragon breathing fire. I wanted to cuss him out . . . or jab him in the eyeball, but I let reason dictate instead of going off half-cocked like I used to, and kept my mouth shut.

One corner of his mouth hooked up when I remained silent. “You really have grown up well,” he repeated as he stood tall. “If you don’t feel like slumming it with those grease monkeys while you’re in town, I’d be happy to let you warm my bed.”

My lips curled up, baring my teeth in a vicious smile. “I’d rather douche with diesel fuel.”

He let out an icy chuckle as he started moving backward toward the line. “We’ll see about that.”

Three days back in Ashland and I was already stirring shit up. If I wasn’t careful I was going to get myself in huge trouble, just like Roe used to accuse. Only this time, I didn’t have anyone looking out for me.

FIVE

ROE

I lifted my eyes from my sketch pad as the door to the garage’s office swung open and Pope walked in.

Usually this was where Pops holed up, working on the administrative side of the business that Pope hated taking care of, but with him out of commission for a while, I was using his desk as a place to work on some of the artwork for a few of the custom motorcycles the garage had been hired to build.

I’d always been good at drawing, but I never thought I’d have much of a chance to use that skill when I got older. I always figured I’d be a mechanic. Just like Pops and Pope’s old man, Court, before he passed.

That was until Pope came to me with his plans for the future of the club. The garage would no longer be the legitimate front for some of the criminal bullshit the Wraiths used to be tied up in. Once he took us straight, he homed in on each guy’s personal talents, and just like that, we became the number one garage in Tennessee and the surrounding states for custom-built bikes and vintage muscle cars.

We lost a lot of members—those who didn’t like change, those who preferred the danger of our less-than-legal endeavors, and those who couldn’t stand the idea of losing out on the money we were making. He told me the plan before he ever wore the president’s patch, and I was with him every step of the way. Because I believed in him and the club. I couldn’t lose it, not after I gave up the only woman I ever loved for it.

What no one but Pope and those of us who believed in him knew, we’d eventually be richer than we’d ever been before, and we’d do it legitimately.

Well . . . mostly.

We still raked in serious cash thanks to our underground fighting ring. But we kept that venture mainly for the guys who enjoyed beating the hell out of other people. The club’s Sergeant at Arms, Bane, padded the shit out of our pockets. But then, he was a crazy bastard, so that wasn’t saying much.

Pope’s eyes passed through me like I wasn’t even there as he gave his head a shake. “Christ. Still not used to walkin’ in here and not seeing the old man sitting there.”

I knew the feeling. I fucking hated coming to work and not seeing the man who’d been a fixture in more than half my life.

“Or smell that burned tar he called coffee. I still don’t know how he drank that shit his whole life.”

“I guarantee that coffee is most of the reason he had a heart attack in the first goddamn place.”

Tossing my pencil aside, I scrubbed at my face and leaned back in the chair. “I don’t know how the hell we’re gonna keep him from eating and drinking the way that nearly killed him once he gets out.” Odds were really high he would be more of a pain in my ass than my seven-year-old daughter.

Pope moved around the chair in front of the desk and took a seat across from me. “I think the only thing that’ll keep the old man in line is Dakota.”

Hearing her name still hurt, even all these years later. It was like having a white-hot fire poker shoved into my chest.

“You’re probably right.” I busied myself with the drawing so I wouldn’t have to meet his eyes. There weren’t many people who could read me like Pope could. I tried to sound casual as I said, “I hope for his sake she plans on sticking around for a while.”

I could practically feel his eyes drilling into the top of my head. “Just for his sake, huh?”

I looked up with a sigh, the chair letting out a painful squeak as I rocked back. “What are you getting at?”

His brows climbed up toward his hairline. “I think you know exactly what I’m getting at, brother. You doing okay with her back in town?”

It had been a week since Dakota’s return, and even though I hadn’t seen her since that first night, the woman still managed to consume most of my thoughts. Knowing she was back in Ashland was fucking with my head in a major way. There was a constant buzz beneath my skin, a growing anticipation at the thought of running into her.

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen her.” I had to loosen my grip on the pencil in my hand or I was going to snap it in half. “I’ve been trying to give her some space.” Other than the one night I hadn’t been able to help myself. Cassi had been home with a sitter the other night while I attended a club meeting, and instead of heading straight home once it finished, I found myself pointing my bike in the direction of the hospital.

I’d intended to go up and see Pops, but as I pulled in a flash of gold caught my attention, and I glanced over just as Dakota stepped off of the sidewalk and onto the blacktop of the parking lot. Even in the harsh lights of the parking lot her hair danced like spun gold. My body acted without any input from my brain, and instead of parking and going inside, I ended up trailing after her. The only thought in my head as I followed was maintaining enough distance that she wouldn’t catch on, because once I saw her I needed more.

Dakota Riley had always been my biggest addiction. I thought I’d kicked the habit but as soon as she popped back up, the craving came back stronger than ever. I drove my bike on autopilot all the way to the inn where she was staying one town over. Like that amount of distance might keep her safe from the past.

From me.

I’d let her go once already, and it was the hardest fucking thing I’d ever done. Now that she was back—even if back meant one town over—I didn’t think I could do it again. We’d barely said more than a handful of words to each other for the first time in sixteen years, but it was enough to know I wouldn’t survive another detox. There would be no working her out of my system this time around. I knew that as I sat on my motorcycle across the street from the inn, watching her move back and forth past the window.

I lost track of time as I sat out there in the dark like a fucking creeper. It wasn’t until the lights in her room went out, casting everything in black, that I snapped back into reality and drove my ass home where I belonged.

Pope’s eyes widened. “Space, huh? How’s that working out for you?”

There was no point lying about it. He would have seen right through me. “Like pulling my own fuckin’ teeth out.”

His face pulled into a wince of understanding. That was new.

Pope had been content with his single life before Lennon came into it. He never intended to settle down, but all that changed the instant he laid eyes on her. He finally understood what it felt like to look at another person and see your forever. Giving another person that kind of power was the best and worst thing I’d ever done.

“Well, you’re stronger than I am. I thought for sure you’d lose your shit when you found out what went down with Brady the other day.”

Every muscle in my body locked tight. My body seemed to move in slow motion as I slowly lifted my head to glare in my best friend’s direction. “What?”

“Oh shit.” Pope’s jaw hinged open. “Wait. You don’t know?”

“Don’t know what?” I demanded, my voice coming out as a growl.

Pope let out a curse as he reached up to scrub a hand over his jaw. “It’s nothing, man. Maybe just forget I said anything.”

“You used Dakota’s name and Brady in the same sentence. You better start talking. Now.” I loved the man like my brother and always would, but I also wouldn’t hesitate to break his fucking jaw if he pissed me off.

“Lennon and her girls ran into Dakota at the coffee shop the other morning. Len said Tolliver came in and recognized your girl almost immediately.”

“Fuck,” I hissed between my teeth. “Don’t tell me . . .”

Pope started nodding before I could finish my sentence. Back in the day, Dakota had always taken it personally when any member of the Brady family came after me. And when she got pissed about something that wild, untamed streak of hers came out. The woman had a skill for cutting a person down and making grown men cry with just her words.

That was the problem.

She never held back, even when she needed to. Even when the Bradys were involved.

“What happened?”

Pope’s top lip curled up in a grimace. “She may have been pointed out that whoever decided it was okay for him to have a gun was stupider than most.” Fuck me. “You have to admit though, she’s not wrong,” he continued, like that made the situation any better. “However, apparently that was the least offensive of her insults. Raven said she thought Brady’s head was gonna explode, he turned so red.”

“Fucking hell,” I gritted out as I shoved to my feet so hard the chair went sailing backward into the file cabinet.

“Ah, shit.” His muttered words followed after me as I stormed out of the office. “Don’t suppose I could talk you out of whatever you’re about to do?” he called as I threw my leg over my bike.

“Nope.”

“Fuckin’ hell. Just . . . don’t get arrested,” he warned as I clipped my helmet into place and started the engine.

I couldn’t make any promises, so I didn’t bother. Without another word, I raced out of the forecourt between the clubhouse and the garage. I was going to track Dakota Riley down, then I was going to spank her perfect peach ass red.

SIX

DAKOTA

Halsey’s song, “Bells in Santa Fe” was playing quietly from my phone on the nightstand as I wrote out a few new recipes I wanted to try in the food journal I always had with me. A person never knew when inspiration might strike, and I always wanted to be prepared. The atmosphere around me was calm for the first time in days, and I was just starting to relax when someone suddenly started pounding on the door to my room so hard I jumped, accidentally dragging the pen across the page and creating a crooked black squiggle.

“What the hell?” I muttered as I snapped the notebook closed and tossed it aside before climbing off the bed.

“Dakota!” My hand froze on its way to the knob at that loud, furious, familiar voice booming from the other side of the door.

My heart started thundering in my chest in time with Roe’s fist beating against the wood so violently the thing rattled on its hinges. “Dakota! Open this goddamn door or I’m gonna kick the fucking thing down.”

A heat I hadn’t felt in a really long time—one I thought had been snuffed out permanently—started to burn in my belly, beginning as a low simmer and growing into a rolling boil between one heartbeat and the next.

I leaned into that fire, letting it take over and wrap around me like armor. Twisting the knob, I yanked the door open and glared fire at all six feet, three inches of pissed-off biker. “What the ever-loving fuck?”

Roe’s nostrils flared like an angry bull as he lifted his hand and placed it in the center of my chest, pushing me backward as he barged into my room like he had every right. “Excuse you! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

He slammed the door closed with the sole of his boot and kept advancing, forcing me to retreat until I backed right into the wall and had nowhere else to go.

His lips curled away from his teeth, his back molars grinding together as he growled like a wild animal. “Have you lost your goddamn mind?”

That burn in my gut went from a boil to a blazing inferno. “You need to step back.”

“Not until I know you’re listening.”

Red coated my vision as I placed my hands on his chest and shoved with all my might. He was so much bigger that I knew the only reason he moved was because he chose to. Taking a massive step back, he huffed out an audible breath like he was trying to calm himself down. His biceps flexed as he raised his arms and interlaced his fingers behind his head, straining the seams of his old, faded T-shirt sleeves to the max. It was what he used to do when he felt the anger coming on in a big way and was trying to keep it in check.

He used to say he got his anger from his old man. It was something that had weighed heavily on him, like he was worried he’d turn out to be just like his father if he wasn’t careful. It had been one of his greatest fears back when I knew him, and from the way he was pacing around my room like a caged tiger it still was.

The thing was, that was never something he needed to be concerned about. Even at his worst, I never feared him. Not even close. He never gave me a reason. He was the one person on the planet I knew to my very marrow I was safe with. That feeling hadn’t changed, even all these years later.

Looking at him, it hit me that I had never seen him look so angry before. Oh, I’d seen him pissed-off plenty of times. Usually because of me. I had a way of running off my mouth that often led to trouble. A lot of the time my attitude turned him on, and what came after had been pretty damn spectacular. Other times he just got mad. The night I ended us, he’d looked desolate, but this was something else. Something I’d never seen before.

He looked like the top of his head was about to pop right off. And still, as furious as he was, I wasn’t scared. I’d known fear in my life. I’d lived it day after day with my mom and my ex. I used to spend most of my days walking on eggshells. Even when Adam wasn’t home, I was stressing about every move I made. What I wore, how clean the house was, or if I made the right meal for dinner. Every decision I made was with thought to how he might react and how I could best avoid his wrath. Not that it mattered. Nothing I did was ever good enough. It had been the same with my mother.

But I never worried about any of that with Roe. Even as that vein in his forehead throbbed in time with his racing pulse. That vein had always been an indicator of how badly I pissed him off. The more pronounced it bulged beneath his skin, the angrier he was. I used to challenge myself to see how far I could make it pop out, and judging from the way it was throbbing that very moment, I was pretty sure that whatever I’d done this time was a personal best.

“What are you even talking about?”

He stopped pacing and narrowed his eyes at me, their dark blue swirling with thunder clouds. It was a look that would shrivel the balls of men twice my size, but all it did was toss gasoline on that fire inside me. He finally answered, each word coming out in a clipped growl. “Tolliver. Brady.”

Uh-oh.

I shouldn’t have been surprised that word of my showdown with Chief Fuckface had gotten back to Roe. That was how small towns worked. Especially this one. And especially with the history between the Iron Wraiths and the Brady family. That rift was town lore.

As much as I loved to paint my father’s club as the bad guys, there was no denying all the good they had done for this town. With the Brady corruption running so deep, corrupting almost every branch of law enforcement and government in our small town, the people in Ashland didn’t know where the hell to go when they needed help. The Wraiths gave them another option. It wasn’t justice by the legal system’s definition but it was something. And sometimes the kind of justice the Wraiths provided was necessary.

Sometimes it was better.

The smile that curled the corner of Roe’s lips was downright vicious. “Yeah, I see you’re finally catchin’ up.” His sharp curse echoed around the room, ricochetting off the walls. “What the fuck were you thinking?” he barked. “You don’t fuck with a Brady, Kota. Or have you forgotten that in the time you were gone?” I didn’t care for the snide way he delivered that last sentence, but he kept going before I could get a word in. “You need to stay the hell away from him before you get yourself hurt. Or worse.”

The red haze covering my vision started to pulse in time with my heartbeat. Folding my arms over my chest, I cocked my hip and lifted my chin, embracing the stubborn side of me that, until very recently, had been shackled. “You have no right telling me what to do,” I snapped, my voice growing louder with every word until I was yelling. “Whatever did or didn’t happen isn’t any of your business.”

I knew the instant that last word passed my lips that it was the wrong thing to say. The thunderstorm in his eyes became a living, breathing thing filling the room and making the air thick with so many emotions I couldn’t bring myself to identify. The electricity in the air made the tiny hairs on my arms stand on end.

“That’s where you’re wrong.” He slinked closer, closing the distance between us like a panther that spotted its prey. “Everything about you is my business. Every. Fucking. Thing.” He kept coming at me as each word out of his mouth landed like a blow to the stomach, stealing my breath. “It’s been my business since the first time I kissed you. Since the moment you chose me to be your first and let me inside your body. Everything about you is my business because you are my business. Always have been and always will be.”

Any hope I had of maintaining control flew out the window. If we had been in a cartoon my face would have been tomato-red and steam would be shooting out of my ears. “You unbelievable prick!” I shouted back at him. “You lost the right to have any say in my life sixteen years ago.”

He met every scalding ember and licking flame of my rage with his own. I felt like a cornered rabbit as he leaned closer, bracing his hands on the wall on either side of my head, caging me in. “Just because you decided to leave doesn’t mean I stopped caring about you or your wellbeing.”

My jaw dropped open in shock at his audacity. “Are you kidding me?” My voice came out in a hiss.

“Oh, I’m dead-fucking-serious.” Roe leaned in and his scent wrapped around me, invading my senses. He smelled like the wind whipping through pine branches on a sunny day. Like the spicy warmth that brought to mind images of sitting by a fire as the snow fell outside. “And if I have to spank your ass raw to make you listen, that’s exactly what I’ll do. If you won’t protect yourself I will, goddamn it.”

I don’t know what happened after that. Something in me snapped and I just . . . reacted.

I screamed out my fury in two words. “Fuck you!” I didn’t know what the hell came over me when I placed both hands against his chest and shoved with every bit of strength I had in me. He rocked back two steps, his eyes widening in surprise at my aggression. And he wasn’t the only one. Given my life so far, it was easy to understand why I abhorred violence. At that very moment, though, it was as if I was floating outside of my body, watching like a distant observer. I didn’t feel like myself. I didn’t have any control over my actions as I continued shouting and shoving at the man who had once been my whole world.

I kept shoving, moving us across the room, praying the action would burn away the anger that was consuming me. But it didn’t work.

That rage was eating at me. Eating and eating so fast I was terrified there would be nothing left. Tears burned behind my eyes as a torrent of emotions rushed over me like a tidal wave, threatening to drag me below the surface.

Desperation gripped me in its icy claws, so overwhelming I would have done anything to make all these feelings just stop. At least that was what I told myself when I shot up on the balls of my feet and slammed my lips against Roe’s, pouring every single ounce of anger and frustration and pain into the kiss.

SEVEN

DAKOTA

If the sudden shift in my behavior surprised Roe, he didn’t let it show. He kissed me back without hesitation, turning the temperature to high the instant his tongue swept inside my mouth.

Lack of passion had never been an issue between Roe and me, and apparently sixteen years apart—and a ton of hatred and animosity, at least on my part—hadn’t changed that one damn bit. There had always been a hunger between us that we could never seem to satisfy, but it was nothing compared to what I felt in that moment.

We weren’t just kissing. We were battling.

My lips felt swollen and bruised in a matter of seconds. Not that I minded. I barely registered the pain before it morphed into something so delicious it made tingles burst to life between my thighs. It felt too good to stop. The heat building in my core had nothing to do with the anger that had been coursing through me only seconds ago.

The tiny voice in the back of my head telling me this was an epically stupid idea could hardly be heard over the whomping beat of my heart in my ears. Not that I would have bothered to listen. Tension coiled deep in my belly, creating a sensation I hadn’t felt in . . . God, I couldn’t remember how long. There had been times—several of them—when I thought maybe my sex drive was dead and gone, never to return. I hadn’t expected a single kiss to prove me wrong, and I would have been lying if I said I wasn’t relieved to have it back. Even if it only went to prove that Monroe Clifton was the only man capable of shocking it back to life.

I’d had a short—embarrassingly short—string of boyfriends over the past sixteen years. I struggled to trust in general, but my trust of men was basically in the dirt. And out of those guys I’d dated, the ones I’d felt comfortable enough to sleep with were even fewer, and sure as hell hadn’t been anything to write home about.

I’d let my abysmal love life cloud my judgement when it came to Adam. One of the many poor decisions I’d made in my lifetime, but it was near the top of that list. I’d convinced myself that, just because he’d been able to give me an orgasm—even one that was only meh—he was the solution to my problem. That being the fact I hadn’t orgasmed with another man since Roe. I could get off by myself, sure, but there was a hollowness to those. Something lacking that you could only get with another person. I’d blamed my poor decision-making on a climax deficiency then, just as I would do later when I looked back on this moment with clarity.

It might have been momentary insanity driving me, but more likely it was the knowledge that the last set of hands I’d had on my body were Adam’s, and he hadn’t been using them to give pleasure.

As Roe and I clawed and pulled at each other desperately, I tried to think back on the last time I’d been touched with anything besides cruelty, and for the life of me, I couldn’t remember. I swallowed down the knot that had suddenly formed in my throat with that knowledge and pressed deeper into Roe, using him to drive away all the ugly memories and drown out that voice of reason in my head currently screaming what a bad idea this was. That bitch could kick rocks. I was taking something for myself. For once.

It was only fair.

This was the most alive I’d felt in too long. With each passing year, I became more numb than the one before. Like I was fading away. But then . . . right now, I felt like the world was in technicolor.

I was sure using Roe for sex made me an asshole, but I couldn’t find it in me to care. I wanted one night, a few fleeting hours, to forget the dumpster fire that was my life. And, damn it, I was going to take that.

With one of Roe’s hands kneading the cheek of my ass as the other tangled in my hair, using its grip to force my head back so he could take the kiss even deeper, nothing else existed for me. Thoughts of Adam couldn’t penetrate the cloud of lust thickening the air around us and driving up the temperature in the room.

I yanked desperately at his shirt, trying to get beneath to all that warm skin. Just like he had back when we were together, he read me so perfectly and knew what I wanted—even before I did at times. His arm reached behind his head and he yanked the soft cotton tee over his head and tossed it away.

That was when I realized I’d made a huge mistake.

My name still sat, in beautifully stylized letters, across his chest. Directly over his heart. He’d gotten it not long after we started dating. I remember telling him he was crazy for doing that. For marking himself with my name in such a distinctive area. We were still new and there was no guarantee we would last, I told him.

He’d simply laughed that off and told me he was sure enough for the both of us. That I was his just as much as he was mine, and that his feelings for me were never going away. Seeing it there, a wave of emotion I certainly didn’t want to feel washed over me.

I clamped my bottom lip between my teeth and bit down with all I had to battle against the burn happening behind my eyes. I refused to cry. Especially in front of him.

“Dakota?” Roe’s low, gentle voice pulled me out of my head and back into reality. I fought against the tears trying to push through and ramped up the pressure on my lip. I blinked up at him, the concern swimming in those dark blue depths sending a bolt of agony through my chest. I slammed my eyes closed, unable to look at him for another second.

“Where’d you go, baby? I had you a second ago, then I lost you.” His thumb stroked across my jawline, the touch so feather-soft and affectionate I struggled to breathe. “Where are you, Honeybee? Come back to me.”

Those whispered words pushed me over the edge. Releasing my lip, I threw myself at him again. Pushing all the emotions as far back in my brain as I possibly could, I focused only on the way my body was reacting. “I’m right here,” I breathed out against his lips, even though I knew that wasn’t how he meant it. But if I told him the truth, if I told him he didn’t have me in the way he really meant, that he never would ever again, he’d put a stop to this. I knew him well enough to know that as fact, and I couldn’t let him stop, not when I felt alive for the first time in years. “Fuck me, Roe.”

It wasn’t a request. It was a demand. One I only felt safe making because it was him. My heart might not be safe with him, but I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that my body was. My heart would forever stay locked away behind the impenetrable wall of steel and razor wire I’d built around it. But he was welcome to my body. At least this one time.

Everything that came after was a blur. Clothes disappeared in a matter of seconds, and before I knew it, I was flying through the air before landing in the middle of the inn’s cozy bed. Roe didn’t hesitate to slide over me, pressing me deeper into the mattress with his weight as he dragged his tongue up my sternum and eventually fused his mouth with mine.

Pressure built deep in my core as I writhed beneath him. Roe’s chest had been smooth the last time I saw it, but at some point in the past sixteen years he’d developed the right amount of chest hair to scrape across my sensitive nipples as they hardened into tight peaks.

“God, you’re still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” Roe breathed into my ear before tugging the lobe between his teeth and giving it a gentle nip.

My body stiffened involuntarily at his honeyed words I didn’t want to hear. I wanted his cock, sure. His body. But I didn’t want sweetness. It pulled me back into my head, back to the past, when all I wanted was to forget it all for a while. I wanted rough and dirty. So hard I couldn’t possibly think about anything else other than the pleasure he was wrenching from me.

Wriggling out from beneath him, I managed to turn him onto his back and I kissed my way down his thickly-muscled body. I kept my eyes screwed closed so I didn’t have to see the tattoo of my name or the tattoo I knew from memory he’d inked into his ribs. The same tattoo I’d once had. I tried desperately not to think about those three short sentences that had once meant everything to me. Six words that had once been a balm to my soul, so important we’d both chosen to etch them into our skin permanently.

It’s you.

It’s me.

It’s us.

We used to chant those words to each other so often they felt as natural as breathing. I could still recall the conversation that started it all with perfect clarity.

“I love you,” I whispered to him through the darkness of the room, snuggling deeper into his chest as he held my naked body tightly against his. We’d just made love for the first time. I’d given him my virginity, knowing he was the only man I’d ever want to have it, and the words just poured out without thought.

My body stiffened at his silence, panic clenching like a tight fist inside my chest. I was about to take the words back when Roe finally spoke.

“Love doesn’t feel like a strong enough word for how I feel about you.”

I hadn’t thought it was possible to love him more than I already did, but in that moment, I felt myself fall even deeper. “Then what word does?”

His chest rose and fell on a deep breath as he thought that over. “I don’t know. A single word doesn’t seem like enough. I feel like you’re a part of me now. And I’m a part of you.”

That’s when it came to me.

“It’s you. It’s me. It’s us.”

He shifted then, rolling quickly and taking me to my back so those deep blue eyes could stare down into my soul. “That’s it, Honeybee. That’s exactly it.”

From that moment on, whenever we felt that heaviness that was even more intense than love, that was what we would say to each other.

It’s you.

It’s me

It’s us.

I shoved that memory into the box in the very back of my mind and shut off my brain from everything but what was happening in that moment.

As soon as I got to his cock, I fisted it at the base and swallowed it down as deep as I could go, ripping a string of curses from deep within Roe’s chest.

If my mouth hadn’t been so full, I would have smiled in victory. Monroe Clifton would never have that part of me. But this? Well, this I could handle just fine.

EIGHT

ROE

She was pushing me away. Creating a goddamn gulf between me and her.

Even as she sucked my cock down her throat like a pro, I felt the chasm she’d put between us spreading wider and wider, growing like a living, breathing thing. And fuck, but it killed me.

I had to clamp my molars together against the sensation rushing through my body at her ministrations. My words came out as a hiss as I ordered, “Look at me, baby.”

Dakota kept right on going, ignoring my command before picking up the pace and increasing suction around my shaft on an upward draw. She kept her pale blue gaze down, refusing to give me what I wanted.

A growl wrenched from my throat as she reached the crown of my cock and flicked the underside with the tip of her tongue. Fuck, she was good at that. In the past, Dakota had been shy and uncertain about giving head. I’d been her first in more ways than one, after all. That very first time was branded into my brain. It had been sloppy and uncoordinated, but it was still the best fucking blowjob I’d gotten in my life. Because it was her.

The woman between my legs just then was anything but nervous. She was determined.

To maintain control. And to bring me to my knees. She was making that clear as she continued to work my cock like it was her sole reason for existing. And as badly as my instincts were screaming at me to take control, I held myself as still as possible. My dominant streak in the bedroom ran strong so relinquishing control felt about as natural as plucking out my own nose hairs one at a time, but I knew if I did something to spook her and put her back in her head, this would be over. And having this little taste after missing her for so fucking long, only to lose it again, well, that might kill me.

But I needed some kind of connection, goddamn it.

“Eyes, Honeybee.”

That did it. Her blue eyes flicked to me, flaring with anger as my dick fell from her mouth with a pop. “Don’t call me that,” she barked.

There it was.

That flash of wild, untamed fury I’d once been so familiar with. It was that wild that made me fall for her in the single beat of my heart and imprinted on my soul. The relief I felt at seeing it again would have overwhelmed me if I hadn’t gotten a peek at the heartbreak that fire was masking.

Christ, the pain in her beautiful eyes gutted me. “Kota—” I started, reaching to drag my thumb across her cheek, but she wasn’t having any of that.

Jerking her face away from my touch, she rose on her knees and moved to straddle my hips between her lush, curvy thighs. Her hands slapped down on my chest as she leaned in, nearly nose to nose, when a warning shot through those angry blues like bolts of lightning.

“Let me tell you how this is going to go. You have two choices; you can either fuck me right now until I can’t walk straight, or you get the hell out of my hotel room. What’s it going to be?”

If her very existence hadn’t been stitched into my being so fucking long ago, I might not have recognized the woman hovering over me. But there wasn’t a centimeter of Dakota Riley, inside or out, that I wouldn’t recognize—not even in a room that had been plunged into darkness. I would have known it was her only from the heat and wet of her pussy hugging the underside of my cock as she hovered over me.

I’d been her first everything, and those gifts that were only mine had imprinted on me for eternity.

I answered without words, locking my arm around her waist and rolling, keeping her body pinned against mine as I whipped her onto her back so fast all that hair flew around her face like rays of golden sunlight.

I gazed down at her, allowing myself a few seconds to trace over every angle and soft slope of her face. Still the most beautiful fucking woman I’ve ever laid eyes on, I thought to myself as she glared up at me with menacing challenge. Her eyes might be screaming how much she hated me, but the way she melted beneath the weight of my body, how her chest rose and fell like she’d run a sprint as her back arched unconsciously in an effort to drag her rock-hard nipples against my chest, said something altogether different. She needed this as badly as I did. Maybe even more.

One corner of my mouth curved up in a smirk. Not at the way her body belied her words and that murderous expression on her gorgeous face, but at how well I could still read her. Even after all this time. That told me everything I needed to know. She was still mine, whether she liked it or not.

She saw that smirk and glared even deeper, knowing exactly what it meant.

“You need be fucked rough and dirty, don’t you, baby?”

“I’m not your baby,” she argued, hissing the words past clenched teeth, even as her hips began to circle, undulating against me in an effort to drag my dick closer to the entrance of her cunt. Christ, I could feel her heat and the arousal dripping between her thighs, soaking both our skins. “Either fuck me or get the hell off me; I’ll find someone else to take care of what I need.”

Challenge accepted, I thought with wicked delight.

To prove to her how badly her body still craved mine, I trailed my fingertips across her silken skin, between her plump, round tits and down her stomach to the apex of her thighs. I kept my touch featherlight, teasing and playing with her in a way I knew would only make that fire burn hotter.

“Christ,” I grunted as my index finger circled her bellybutton. “How do you get your skin so fuckin’ soft, baby?” It was like touching velvet.

Dakota let out a broken breath as her body began to tremble with need. That was exactly what I’d been looking for as I toyed with her. I still recalled every single time we’d been together with perfect clarity, and the way she quaked beneath my touch, like pure adrenaline was pumping through her heart and veins, was the headiest fucking thing I’d ever experienced in my life. I used to play with her beautiful body just to see how intensely I could make her tremble for me.

“Roe . . .” My name on her tongue, even said as a curse, set my blood on fire.

“Yeah, Kota?”

Her fingers that had been clutching my biceps curled inward, digging her nails into my skin. I would have been lying if I said that sharp bite of pain didn’t make my dick twitch and leak with the need to be buried deep inside her.

She gnashed her teeth at me. “Stop teasing and get me off.”

On a chuckle, I reached down and cupped her between her thighs, the perfect heat of her pussy warming the skin of my palm.

“Fuck me,” I hissed. “You’re fuckin’ soaked for me, baby.”

“Stop . . . calling me . . . that,” she insisted breathlessly, but the way she shivered, rocking her body, proved her words a lie.

“Goddamn. This is all mine,” I stated as I dragged two fingers through her wet slit before focusing on her distended clit. That bundle of nerves was begging for my touch.

“It’s not because of you. I’m just horny,” she argued. I wasn’t buying it for a second, and based on the whirlwind of emotions that slid across her face, I could tell she wasn’t so sure herself.

To prove her wrong, I buried two fingers deep inside her. She let out a surprised cry at the intrusion and the walls of her pussy clamped down around the digits like they never wanted to let go.

“Bullshit,” I hissed in her ear before sucking the lobe between my lips and flicking it with my tongue. As I moved down her neck to that sensitive spot right below her ear, I felt another gush of arousal flood from her. I pumped my fingers at a slow yet brutal pace, dragging the pads across that spot deep inside her that made her whole body shake like a leaf. “This is all mine and you fucking know it,” I said on a low growl as I continued to work her up, her pussy fluttering around my fingers with every stroke.

“Roe.”

The pleading tone that filled her voice made me even harder, and I was seconds away from rutting against the mattress just to feel some sort of relief. If I didn’t get inside Dakota in the next few minutes, I was afraid the back of my skull was going to blow clean off.

“Admit it,” I demanded, that dominant streak in me coming to the surface. “No one else can make you shake like this.” Christ, it was torture even thinking of Dakota with another man, but saying so would have made me a goddamn hypocrite. Problem was, the beast inside me that I was barely able to keep leashed, didn’t care about hypocrisy. It wanted Dakota to belong to only us and it wouldn’t be happy with anything less. “This is all for me.” I stroked her G-spot in that way I knew she loved and the tremors grew so strong her teeth chattered with it. “No one else can make you shake like this.” Fuck, please let that be true. I needed that to be truer than anything else.

She clenched her teeth as I wound her higher and higher, all that sunshine hair sliding across the pillows as she shook her head frantically, desperate to deny me even though I felt the truth of it in the way her pussy clamped around my fingers like a vise. Her back arched off the bed as her nails dug in deeper, like she was afraid she’d float away if she let go of me.

“Yes, baby. You know it’s true.” Her tits bounced as she began riding my hand, chasing the release I was determined to keep out of reach. If she wanted to keep lying, I’d edge the fuck out of her until I got what I wanted. I leaned in and tasted her mouth again, addicted all over again.

No. That wasn’t right. That would have meant I’d gotten over her at some point, and that never happened. I never moved on from Dakota. It was why I’d never gotten serious with another woman after she walked away from me.

After I let her go . . . let her down.

“Tell me,” I insisted, the need to hear her words riding my goddamn shoulders and driving me closer to madness. “Tell me I’m the only one who can make you drip like this. Who can make your body tremble. Do as I say, and I’ll let you come.”

I pulled back, slowing down and decreasing the pressure when her pussy closed around my fingers like a vise, forcing an unhappy mewl from her chest.

I dragged my tongue across her bottom lip before taking her mouth in a hard, hungry kiss as I continued to pet her too lightly to get her off. “Be a good girl and I’ll give you what you want.”

“Roe,” she said, her tone turning pleading.

“Say it, baby.” I gnashed my teeth together and demanded, “Say it.”

“Only you,” she panted like she’d just run a marathon. “It’s only ever been you.”

With those words, I gave her what she needed so badly. I pressed hard to her clit with my thumb and fucked her relentlessly with my fingers. Barely a second later, she went over the edge and I sealed my mouth on hers, swallowing down her cries as she came, soaking my hand.

NINE

DAKOTA

Shit. Fuck. Shit!

As I came down from the best orgasm I’d had in sixteen years, I realized the colossal mistake I’d just made. All because I let my mask slip and allowed Roe to see he still had a hold on me.

There would be time to kick my ass over it later, but first I needed to take the power back. If I’d been in my right mind, I would have put a stop to this whole thing all together, but every muscle in my body revolted at the thought. Instead, I brushed Roe’s hand from between my thighs and moved quickly enough that he wasn’t expecting it, therefore, didn’t stop me.

Rolling onto my stomach, I climbed on my hands and knees, wiggling my ass enticingly as I looked back at him over my shoulder. Just as I’d hoped, his gaze was pinned on my butt, and the man looked half starved. “Roe,” I called, a tiny thrill shooting through me at the power I still had over him. Back when we were together—in another life—he’d been a hardcore ass man, to the point of distraction. It was insane the shit I used to get away with only by giving him a little wiggle and a teasing smile. The way his pupils nearly swallowed all that deep blue whole, leaving behind the thinnest ring around the outer edge, was safe to say that hadn’t changed. “Fuck me,” I demanded, my voice coming out low and husky, the screams from my earlier climax having grated along my vocal cords like sandpaper.

In my current position, open and ready to take him, Roe’s primal side finally won over. On a growl, he rose to his knees, behind me, his rough fingers and calloused palms gripping my hips almost to the point of pain . . . surprisingly only turning me on more.

The blunt tip of Roe’s cock slotted into place, nudging at my center before he drove in deep on a single thrust and curling himself over my back, causing both of us to cry out loudly. I was so lost in the feel of him and how my body had come to life under his hands that it took me a second to realize why it felt different.

“Shit,” I hissed, briefly coming back to myself long enough to pant. “Condom. Roe, condom.”

His weight surrounded me, his heavy chest pressing against my back and threatening to buckle my elbows as he froze for a solid ten seconds. Long enough for me to start to worry. “Roe?”

His voice was strained, the words a whisper seeing as his lips were right next to my ear. “Never used one with you.”

It was my turn to freeze as his words slammed into me like an eighteen-wheeler with no brakes. Before giving Roe my virginity, it was something we’d talked about at length. He’d gone and gotten tested long before we did anything. I told him he didn’t need to do that for me, that I knew he would never put me at risk like that, but he’d been determined to prove I could trust him completely. I’d already been on the pill for a few years by then, to regulate my period, so when we started having sex, there had never been anything between us.

“That was a long time ago. Things have changed.”

I pushed down the ache that formed in my chest from those words and did my best not to flinch at the flash of hurt I saw in his eyes when I looked back at him. He moved then, pulling out of me and leaning to the side to snatch his pants off the floor. His movements were jerky and agitated, but he didn’t hesitate to rip the wrapper open with his teeth and slide the latex into place before slamming back inside me. Everything from the way his thick cock stretched me, to his relentless pace, to the brutal snap of his hips almost felt like he was trying to punish me for denying him something he wanted.

Fortunately—or unfortunately, depending on how you looked at it for the sake of my mental health—each punishing slam of his hips against my ass, each time his cock bottomed out, filling me to absolute perfection, only drove me higher and pushed me closer to a release I could already tell was going to ruin me for a good, long while.

“Oh god,” I keened, arching my back and driving myself back into Roe to take him deeper and harder. “Oh, fuck. I’m so close. Roe!”

“Fuck yes,” he grunted behind me, one hand squeezing my waist in a bruising grip as he slid the other one up my spine, one vertebra at a time, before tangling my hair into a fist.

That was when I realized my second mistake. “Don’t—” I started, but I didn’t get the words out fast enough.

Roe’s entire body locked tight, his cock mid-way inside me, but I could feel the ice suddenly coming off of him, and I knew why without having to turn around.

Given its placement, it was easy to forget the rose I had inked on the nape of my neck a few years ago . . . or more specifically, the older ink that it covered up.

Any hopes I might have had that Roe had forgotten the six words that had been tattooed underneath went up in a puff of smoke at the velvet-wrapped gravel in his voice as he growled, “The fuck?”

I chanced a look back over my shoulder and the pain slashed across his face stabbed into my chest like a white-hot blade through butter. “Roe, I⁠—”

I wasn’t sure what I planned to say, not that any excuse I had would have made the situation any better. But then he his expression changed, and the betrayal that hardened his features even further filled me with an irrational anger. What right did he have to feel betrayed by me?

Before I could throw that in his face, however, he moved. Roe’s fingers released my hair and wrapped around the nape of my neck, using the hold to jerk me onto my knees so fast a startled yelp burst past my lips before morphing into a moan as he sank impossibly deeper inside me.

If I thought what he’d been doing before was hard, it was nothing compared to how he fucked me after finding that I’d covered the matching tattoo we’d gotten together years ago.

It’s you.

It’s me.

It’s us.

Those words no longer existed on my skin, and it felt as though Roe was trying to re-brand himself into me, but with his cock this time instead of a needle.

“Oh, fuck. Roe! It’s too much,” I whimpered, feeling him so deep, so hard, my teeth clacked together with each slam of his hips.

“Think you can get rid of me that easy? Just erase me after everything we had?” he hissed in my ear as his hand came around to take hold of my throat, keeping me pinned against him, his chest pressed hard into my back as he continued to fuck me with the kind of stamina that no real man should be capable of.

A thin sheen of sweat broke out across my skin as the pressure in my core grew so intense it actually scared me. “Roe, please. I can’t take it.”

“Oh, you can,” he gritted angrily. “You can and you fuckin’ will. You’re gonna come all over my cock whenever I say, and when you do, it’s gonna be so goddamn hard you’ll never be able to work me out of your system. You understand me?”

Starbursts formed behind my eyelids as I slammed them closed, every muscle and tendon in my body locking up tight in preparation for what was about to happen. The pressure in my core reached a level I’d never experienced before. I was already teetering on the edge of a steep cliff, and when Roe’s hand moved from my hip down between my legs where we were connected, his index and middle finger pressing hard and circling my clit, what happened next was out of this fucking world. It felt like every atom in my body shrank in on themselves before exploding outward. My mouth dropped open on a silent scream as all of my nerve endings sizzled and sparked as if I’d touched a live wire.

The tremors that wracked my body as my release continued, stretching longer as Roe continued moving inside me, were so strong even the muscle in my jaw froze up, clamping my molars together. The walls of my pussy continued to flutter as Roe buried himself to the hilt and shoved his face into my neck, coming on a primal sound that sent me over the edge again, this time straight into the abyss.

We collapsed onto the bed, neither of us able to hold our bodies up for another second. As the high of the world’s greatest orgasm started to wane, a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature washed over me. A quiet voice in the back of my mind told me not to move. The damn thing practically begged me to stay right where I was, wrapped in one of Roe’s strong arms as he spooned me from behind, his heaving breaths wisping across my shoulder and stirring my hair. But I knew what waited for me at the end of that road, and it was the kind of heartbreak I barely survived the first time around. There was no way I would make it through that a second time.

Sliding out from under his arm, I scooted to the edge of the bed and threw my legs over, giving myself a second for my knees to steady before I dared to attempt to stand. Once I knew it was safe, I shot up, snatching my panties and T-shirt off the floor and making quick work of throwing them on and covering the most vulnerable parts of me before going for the rest.

I felt Roe moving around the room as I did, and from the corner of my eye I caught sight of him pulling off the spent condom, knotting it, and tossing it into the small wastebasket next to the bedside table. The silence that filled the room as we quietly dressed was downright suffocating, but I couldn’t bring myself to break it first. Or look him in the eye as regret washed over me. I’d been such an idiot. What was I thinking, letting my guard down enough to allow . . . that to happen.

“Dakota—”

I had a gut feeling I wasn’t going to be able to handle what he said next, so I cut him off, spinning his direction and focusing on a spot on his shoulder because I was too much of a coward to meet his eyes. “It’s getting late. You should probably go.”

As far as brush-offs went, that one was as pathetic as it was cliched. But it was all I had at the moment. I was no longer naked, but that didn’t mean I didn’t feel raw and exposed after what happened. And I wasn’t in the headspace to handle any of it.

I scurried past him as he yanked his shirt into place and pulled the door open, sucking in a deep breath of warm, fresh air that I hoped would help clear the hazy mess that Roe had created. “Thanks for all . . . that.” I waved my hand toward the mess that was my bed—the comforter had slid onto the floor at some point, and we’d been so vigorous that the fitted sheet had popped right off one corner of the mattress. “But I’m tired, and I’d like to get some sleep.”

That was bullshit, of course. I already knew I wasn’t going to find sleep for a good long while. Not with the mess my head was currently in.

My gaze was pinned to the floor as Roe’s boots came into view. I was so focused on avoiding his face that he startled a jump out of me when his hand came up to cup my throat a lot like he had when he was fucking me only minutes earlier. Pressing his thumb beneath my chin, he forced my face upward until I had no choice but to meet him eye to eye.

Heat and anger and something that looked a hell of a lot like determination swirled in the deep blue of his eyes as he scowled down at me. “You think that fucking rose on your back means I’m gone, you’re dead wrong, baby. You might have tried to erase me, but I’m still there, underneath. All you managed to do was hide me, but mark my words, I’ll get back to where I belong no matter how much you fight me.”

I sneered, sliding my mask into place so he could no longer see how badly he still affected me. “Oh yeah, and where is it you think you belong?”

He didn’t hesitate to bring his hand up and rest it against my sternum. Right over my rapidly-beating heart. “I belong right here, baby.”

“Bullshit,” I spat, reaching for bravado as I felt that wall around my heart take a direct hit. “That hasn’t been yours in a very long time.” I could tell from the way one corner of his mouth started to curl upward that he didn’t believe me, so I grabbed hold of the first thing that popped into my head to burst his bubble. “You’ve been out of my life longer than you were in it, Roe. You’ve made what we had back then into something bigger than it was.”

I didn’t expect the lance of fire that shot through my chest as soon as the last word passed my lips. Saying that lie out loud actually caused me physical pain, and from the way Roe jerked back like I hit him, it had the same effect on him. But he didn’t let go. Instead, he stepped in, closing the last few inches of space between us, leaned in so close he was the only thing I could see.

“You want to feed yourself that shit, you go ahead, but I know the truth. And I’ll spend every waking hour reminding you if that’s what it takes. See, when you kissed me, you made yourself mine, and I’ll be damned if I let you walk away from me a second time.”

My top lip curled up in disgust that I unfortunately didn’t feel. But as they say, fake it ’til you make it, right? “Why? You had no problem with it the last time.”

I knew my blow landed as planned when he winced. Then I watched as he shook it off and pinned that look of determination back into place. “You want to hurt me because I hurt you, go for it. I’ll take it because I earned it. But let me make one thing perfectly clear.” His thumb tipped my head back even farther. I wasn’t short by any means, but Roe always managed to make me feel small. And he’d only managed to get bigger as the years passed. “You need to get off while you’re in town, I’m the one who’ll do it. The only one.” His cinnamon scented breath whispered past my heated cheeks as he warned, “You try giving what belongs to me to another man, whatever I end up doing to him will be on your hands.”

My lips parted on a gasp, a shiver working down my spine as the earnestness staring back at me. He wasn’t joking. Not one little bit. “You can’t be serious,” I yelped. “You’re threatening me?”

“Not a threat, Honeybee. A promise. You try playing games with a man like me, you suffer the consequences.”

Ignoring the rush of heat that flooded through me, forcing my nipples into hard peaks and dampening my panties, I jerked my chin from his hold and took a single step backward, bumping into the open door and making it bounce off the wall. “Stop calling me that,” I gritted out, clenching my hands into fists down at my sides. “And get the hell out of my room. I’ll be perfectly content to never see your face again.” I was so furious I nearly stomped my foot like a freaking child.

He smiled, and I swore my palm started to itch with the desire to slap it right off his stupidly sexy face.

“We’ll see about that.”

“There’ll be nothing to see!” I shouted after him as he moseyed toward a motorcycle parked right near my room. For the first time since he showed up, I wondered how he knew where to find me.

I slammed the door to my room on his rich chuckle right before he started the bike up and stomped toward the bathroom. First order of business was to wash Monroe Clifton off my skin. Then I’d take care of the bedsheets.

TEN

DAKOTA

The shower didn’t work. I hadn’t expected it to, but I’d secretly hoped that by washing Roe’s scent off my skin and scrubbing his taste from my mouth that I could easily forget my massive lapse in sound judgement. That wasn’t the case, however, and as soon as I opened the bathroom door, the smell of sex still lingered heavy in the air, bringing everything back in technicolor.

Wrapped in nothing but a towel, my hair still dripping water down my back, I moved through the room, opening the windows to air the space out, before returning to the bathroom. I ran the brush through my hair with more force than necessary, but the agitation that had been riding my shoulders since Roe left had only grown stronger.

I twisted my damp locks into a bun on the top of my head and secured it with a clip, then I took the little handheld mirror from my makeup kit and lifted it as I turned to put my back to the bathroom mirror. Then I did something I hadn’t done in years. I looked at the ugly rose that marred my skin. The very one I’d been able to forget existed. At least until Roe reminded me.

I hated that stupid rose.

Not because it was done poorly. The artist that did it might not have had the same skill as the men in my father’s club who tattooed, but he’d still done a decent job. I hated it because of what it represented.

I’d still been in the midst of the honeymoon phase of my relationship with Adam when I confessed to him late one night what the words on the back of my neck meant. I should have known by his reaction that he was all sorts of wrong for me, but I’d stupidly let myself think that the jealousy and possessiveness that followed was a good thing. I convinced myself that it meant he was passionate about it. That he really did love me as much as he always insisted when he said he couldn’t live without me. Instead of seeing all of those for the red flags they really represented.

After months of him pushing and pushing, I added to the giant, steaming pile of stupid decisions by letting him convince me to cover the tattoo that had once represented everything to me. I just couldn’t take hearing, “you’d get rid of it if you really loved me as much as I love you,” once more time. And I was just desperate enough to make Adam happy that I allowed him to choose the tattoo that would cover it.

“I think you should get this one,” Adam said as he pointed at the red rose in full bloom, thorns protruding from the clipped stem still attached. “You love roses, Koty, baby.”

I didn’t, actually. I wasn’t a fan of cut flowers in general—it never failed that they’d die too quickly, leaving me a little melancholy as I thew them out. I much preferred living plants. But roses, especially red ones, were my least favorite. And I was even less of a fan of ‘Koty’, the nickname he’d christened me with.

Hindsight was twenty-twenty, as people loved to say, and it was hard not to hate myself for not seeing all the signs in the beginning, for falling for Adam’s shit. I just hadn’t seen it while I was in the thick of it.

I let out a weary sigh, dropping the arm that was holding the mirror, as Roe’s words from earlier came back to me.

“You think that fucking rose on your back means I’m gone, you’re dead wrong, baby. You might have tried to erase me, but I’m still there, underneath. All you managed to do was hide me.”

God, I hated how right he was. Those six words still tingled beneath the rose like phantom limb pain. Especially now.

Self-hatred surged through me, heating my insides like a match being held to a flame. Tossing the hand mirror back into my open toiletry bag, I stomped back into the room and started jerked drawers open, angrily yanking on a pair of cotton shorts and a t-shirt. Then I went about stripping the sheets off the bed like the Egyptian cotton had personally offended me.

With a grunt, I bundled up all the linens and slid my feet into the flipflops beside the door before storming off toward the laundry room. I was determined to wipe every single trace of Roe from my room at the Inn, and that required fresh sheets. After stuffing everything into one of the washing machines, I added soap, hit the correct buttons, and slammed the lid closed with finality.

Please let that work. I sent my plea out into the universe as I stepped back out into the fresh air and sucked in a much-needed breath. For the first time since Roe showed up at my door, I realized the sun had fully set at some point, and a wave of calm washed over me as I dropped my head back to take in the sky full of stars. Each one like a paint speck on a midnight canvass.

How long had it been since I lost myself looking up at the stars?

That was another thing that Adam had taken from me, calling my love of stargazing childish. He didn’t understand how I could find enjoyment in laying outside and staring up at the dark sky for hours. Then again, Adam had never been able to be still for very long, always anxious or agitated about something, his mind constantly spinning so fast that silence and stillness made his skin crawl.

He hid it all behind the guise of “looking out for me” claiming that it wasn’t safe for me to spend hours on end out in the dark. And just like everything else good in my life I managed to find for myself after leaving Ashland, I let him take it away.

Truth was, I made the mistake once of mentioning that Roe used to lay at my side and stargaze with me until the sun finally started to rise and made the blinking white specks impossible to see.

That was why he didn’t like it and why he was so determined to take it away from me. Anything and everything that had to do with Roe was a sensitive subject for Adam. He couldn’t stand that I’d been in love before meeting him. One night, after yet another fight about my past relationships, I finally had enough and snapped back that we’d both had lives before each other and that he wasn’t being fair trying to get me to erase every trace of my past. That was the first time he hit me, and sadly, it was far from the last.

But I was done letting that bastard control my life, and I was taking back something that had once brought me joy.

Instead of heading back to my room, I veered off to the open field behind the inn. It was more like a meadow, filled with pops of wildflowers in all colors that bloomed beautifully during the daytime. The blades of grass tickled the sides of my feet not protected by my flipflops as I moved a few yards further from the inn’s blacktop parking lot, and lay down in the middle of the meadow. Redbud Inn was on the outskirts of Redemption, just far enough from the town lights that the stars were easy to see.

I felt my breath leave me on a relieved whoosh as I rested back in the thick green grass. Lifting my hand and closing one eye, I did what I used to do as a kid and traced the different constellations I could see with the naked eye. I’d always wanted a telescope so I could explore further than the eye could see, but by the time I’d saved enough for a good one, I’d started dating Adam, and he convinced me it was a useless expense.

I traced Ursa Major and Minor, then Draco before moving on to my favorite, Cassiopia who hovered opposite the Big Dipper. Something about the Greek myth of Cassiopia and her daughter Andromeda had always tugged at me. The story went that, Cassiopea, the vain queen of Aethiopia, bragged that she and her daughter were more beautiful than the sea nymphs who served Poseidon. As punishment for her boastfulness, Poseidon sent a sea flood, along with a monster named Cetus to destroy Aethiopia. According to the oracle the king and queen consulted, the only wat to save their kingdom was to sacrifice Andromeda to Cetus. In the end, Perseus swooped in and saved Andromeda, but Poseidon never got over Cassiopeia’s slight.

Something about the so called lesson of that fable never sat right with me, and as I got older I studied up more on the old myths. I discovered that Greek mythology loved to make the females into the villains, and made the men into the big, strong heroes that saved the poor ladyfolk from their own self-destruction.

I called bullshit, personally, and it only made me love Cassiopea that much more, because there wasn’t a damn thing wrong with a woman knowing her worth and raising her daughter to do the same. Though history was filled to the brim with cautionary tales just like that that. I was convinced were created with no other purpose than to keep women down. I chose to think of Cassiopea and Andromeda as confident, strong, self-assured women who were sick of taking shit from men. I could relate.

The crunch of footsteps on the grass and leaves pulled me back into the present just as a shadowed figure leaned over me, blotting out the stars in the shape of a person’s silhouette.

“You aren’t out here having a stroke, are you?”

Recognizing the voice I smiled, letting out a little giggle as I lowered my arm back down to my side. “No stroke. I’m just tracing constellations.”

“Oh, that sounds fun. I’ve never done that before,” Poppy Hyland, the owner of the inn, stated as she moved to my side. “Mind if I join you? Maybe you can point them out to me. I’ve never been able to spot them on my own. Then again, I’ve never been sure what I was looking for.”

I gave a little scootch, making room for the stunning redhead to plop down beside me. I’d gotten to know the sweet, personably innkeeper over the past several days, even taking some time one evening to join her for tea on the back porch of her large yet charming home. It was hard to put a finger on her exact age, because whatever skincare regimen she used was fantastic, but I put her somewhere near my age, maybe a couple years younger. She’d been so easy to talk to that I found myself opening up and telling her some about my past and what had brought me back.

She was so gorgeous you might have expected her to be conceited or vain, when truthfully, she was anything but. I enjoyed time in her company, and, dare I say, she was starting to feel like a friend.

Silence enveloped us for a few peaceful minutes before she finally broke it. “Saw you stomping out to the laundry room earlier like you were pissed at the world. If I didn’t mention it already, that’s a complimentary service we offer. Unless you’re unsatisfied with our sheet-washing skills.”

I let out a snort and gave my head a playful shake at the mischievous smile she was wearing. “Your sheet-washing skills are up to the task, I promise. These were just…extenuating circumstances.”

A beat passed, then another before Poppy let out a knowing hum. “Those extenuating circumstances have anything to do with a particular biker that I’ve seen cruising around my inn the past few days?”

My head whipped around to face her, my eyes widening so much it was a wonder they didn’t pop right out of my skull. “What?”

“Roe,” she answered my squeaked question, clearly already familiar with the man. “Saw him leaving here a little while ago, and I’ve seen him on that bike of his, riding past the inn at a crawl like he’s desperately looking for something.” The humor melted from her features, leaving something more serious in its place. “Or someone.”

I pushed the fact that Roe had been spying on me to the back of my mind, determined to forget all about the flash of heat that knowledge created low in my belly. Nope. Nu-uh. I did not care that he’d been around. I really didn’t.

Instead, I focused all my energy on something else. I had to admit I found it a little surprising that a woman like Poppy would know a guy like Roe. They were from two totally different worlds. And from how she spoke about him, I got the impression it was more than just in passing. It was funny, because I’d met Poppy’s husband, Jase, and he was the very definition of buttoned-up and moneyed. I wasn’t sure I’d seen the man in anything but a suit in passing, his hair always in perfect place. “You know Roe?”

She nodded, expression innocent like it was nothing. “We’re friendly. I know a good few of those guys, actually. They’ve helped a few of my friends out when they got into a bind a few years back. Can’t say we’re besties or anything like that, but what I know of them I like. Same with my other friends.”

I turned back to the sky, letting out a groan as I scrubbed my hands over my face. Of course the new friendship I felt budding would somehow be tied to my past, because I’d obviously done something epically stupid in a past like that set karma out to get me.

“It’s complicated,” I said, heaving out a sigh as an invisible weight pressed down on my chest.

“Most love stories are.”

I scoffed, rolling my eyes dramatically. “It’s not a love story, believe me,” I said dryly. “If anything, it’s a melodrama with a shitty ending.”

It was her turn to scoff. “Hate to break it to you, babe, but most love stories are rife with melodrama. But something tells me yours is far from over.”

I shook my head, trying to steel my words as I insisted, “Oh no. My story is long over.”

“I thought that too, after my first real heartbreak. I thought for sure I was done.”

I followed suit as she sat up, turning to face her before wrapping my arms around my bent knees and hugging them to my chest. “This was before Jase?”

She nodded again, a dreamy quality stealing over her features as she thoughts of her husband crossed her mind. I’d seen that look on her face many times. Just as I’d witnessed Jase’s complete inability to be in the same room as his wife and not touch her. The two of them were so sweet, so in love, that more than once, I’d experienced a pang of longing for what they had. You only had to be near them for a short time to see how much they loved each other. It was written in the way they looked at each other, especially when the other wasn’t watching.

“Yeah, but you obviously moved past it. I mean, you married the guy.”

“Not for love,” she stated, shocking the hell out of me. “Not at first, anyway.”

My curiosity was well and truly piqued. “What do you mean.”

“I mean, we didn’t marry for love. That came later. It’s a long story, but the short version is that Jase needed a wife to prove to his board of directors that he was more than just a playboy so he could take the company over from his father, who was a giant trash heap of a human being, by the way.”

My jaw nearly hit the ground. “So you married him to make him seem more serious?”

She nodded, smiling unabashedly. In fact, if the light had been better, I would have sworn her smile was tinged with triumph. “Sure did. And it was the best decision I ever made. Jase changed my life, and it was all for the better. Even during the hard times, even when we’re fighting more than usual, or when the stress has pushed us close to the breaking point. All of that is still better with him than if I was going it alone. I married him because he needed help. The love might have come later, but it came.” That dreamy expression returned to her pretty face. “And it came strong.”

That sounded like something out of a romance novel, and I loved that she found that. But… “That doesn’t mean it’s meant for me,” I said in a hushed voice. “My heart’s been broken so many times it’s being held together by glue and tape.”

Poppy pushed to her feet, dusting her behind off before reaching out and offering me a hand up. “Look, I’m not going to pretend to know what’s best for you, but I’ve caught the look on his face more than once as he’s cruised by, and that’s a face of a man who’s still very much in the thick of his feelings for you.”

She gave my arm and affectionate squeeze, and with that parting shot, left me standing in the middle of a peaceful meadow with a scrambled brain.

ELEVEN

DAKOTA

“This is getting ri-goddamn-diculous. I’m not an invalid.” My father’s booming voice carried from his room and halfway down the hall as I walked in that direction. “I don’t need a babysitter, for Christ’s sake. I can take care of myself.”

I reached the threshold to his room and had to curl my lips between my teeth to keep from laughing at the scene before me. As Ezra continued to bluster, the nurse checking his vitals couldn’t have looked more at ease. Which only seemed to agitate Ezra more.

Crossing my arms over my chest, I quirked a brow and spoke. “Yeah, you’re really proving how mature you can be by throwing a temper tantrum that would embarrass a toddler.”

The nurse’s gaze swung to me and she shot me a quick wink before returning to the business at hand.

Ezra’s pinched features automatically softened at the sight of me, the corners of his mouth hooking up into a grin that reminded me of just how handsome my father really was. For the first time since I returned to Ashland, he looked more like the man I remembered than the drawn-faced, pale man who’d been lying in his hospital bed. His color had returned, and those blue eyes he’d handed down to me were glimmering today, the dull haze of pain and medicine finally having cleared. He was, once again, his larger than life self, and if it wasn’t for the steel gray that had completely wiped out all the dark hair he once had and the reading glasses perched on his nose, I would have thought he hadn’t aged a day in the past sixteen years.

He tried to cover his happiness at seeing me with a fake scowl. “I’m a grown ass man. I don’t thrown temper tantrums.”

I snorted, moving into the room and dropping down into the chair beside his bed. “I’m sure everyone down the hallway would beg to differ.” I pointed my finger at his face. “See? You’re pouting right now.”

Ezra crossed his long arms over his chest, his biceps straining impressively, especially for a man in his mid-sixties “I don’t pout, either,” he grumbled, causing his pout to deepen.

“He’s just a getting a little stir-crazy, is all,” the polite nurse offered, turning to give his shoulder a pat despite his surliness. Anyone else would have most definitely been intimidated by a man Ezra Riley’s size, but I had a feeling this woman had seen her fair share of stuff as a nurse, and one cranky, cantankerous old man wasn’t going to faze her. The woman had my respect, that was for damn sure. Clearly, she was one of the people who’d found her calling if she could keep her cool in the face of a grumpy biker throwing his attitude around.

“That’s ’cause they’re tryin’ to kill me here. All this so-called healthy food”—he used air quotes around the last two words, saying them like they left a vulgar taste in his mouth—“would starve a goddamn rabbit. I need real food. But Nurse Ratched here kicks out everyone who tries bringing me some decent grub.”

I shot my father an admonishing look, but the one coming from the nurse was much more threatening. “Mr. Riley, you just underwent serious surgery to repair your heart. A double bacon cheeseburger”—she curled her top lip much like Ezra did while mentioning health food—“and a large chili cheese fry will do nothing but clog up those arteries the doctor just cleared.”

I pulled in an affronted gasp and cut my eyes at my father. “Seriously? You tried to get someone to bring you in all that fried, greasy slop?”

He hiked his chin up. “Didn’t try, darlin’. I was damn successful, or would have been if it weren’t for this ball buster here.” He hiked his thumb in the nurse’s direction.

I harrumphed and narrowed my eyelids. “Apologize to the kind nurse for being a pain in her ass. She deserves a raise for having to put up with you.”

“From your lips to the goddess’ ears,” she said with a chuckle before heading out of the room to check on her other patients.

“You know, you really should be nicer,” I said in a scolding tone. “This is a thankless enough job as it is. She doesn’t need you making it harder.”

He waved me off, pursing his lips and blowing out a raspberry. “Please. She likes it. Keeps things from getting stale and boring.”

I tried to hold my glare, but the affection swirling in my father’s bright blue eyes was such a relief to witness after how bad he looked when I first got to town, that I couldn’t help but smile in return.

“You look better,” I stated, letting my eyes track his face for the millionth time in the last several days. The worry that had been sitting like a boulder on my chest for nearly two weeks finally lightened, and it felt like I was taking my first real, full breath in a very long time. I hadn’t realized just how worried I’d been about Ezra until just then. I blew out a breath, the tension that had been knotting my shoulders since the hospital called loosening its grip. “A lot better. It’s good to see.”

My father’s big hand lifted off the mattress and wrapped around one of my own, giving it a gentle squeeze to match his tender expression. “I feel a lot better. And they’re finally letting me out of this hell hole tomorrow.”

“Good,” I said on a sigh. “That’s really good.” The tension might have escaped the room, but there was a new discomfort clogging the air now that I knew Ezra was officially on the mend. Now that the fear he’d be gone forever was no longer sitting like a weight between the two of us. It was the glaring reminder of what was still being left unsaid. The reason our relationship, up to this point, was non-existent.

I could have sworn he felt it too, and when he spoke my name, pulling my attention back to him, I thought for a moment that he was going to be the one to finally address it. But instead, we were interrupted by a ball of glittery energy that came rushing into the room in the shape of the cutest little girl I’d ever seen.

I wasn’t great with guessing ages, but I would have put the little girl somewhere between seven and nine-years-old. Her long, almost black hair hung down to the middle of her back in a mixed twist of glittery braids and the kind of tangles that only came from being active. The only word I could think of to describe her outfit was…eclectic. The sparkly purple tutu and the glitter spray making her braids glint in the overhead lights gave you the mistaken impression that she was a girly girl. But the Harley tee that I didn’t even know they made in such small sizes, the well-used, muddy little girl biker boots, and the extra small riding goggles tangled in her hair said otherwise.

And somehow, the juxtaposition of the two sides of this tiny person worked. In a really big way.

“Poppy, I’m here!” the little girl declared like it was the greatest news anyone could possibly hear. “I’ve missed you so much,” she exclaimed, genuine sincerity shining behind her eyes. “Have you missed me too, Poppy?”

Ezra smiled in way I had never witnessed before Two rows of perfect white teeth gleaming as the little girl hopped up onto the bed and bounced closer to him.

“Of course I missed you, baby doll. Life’s just plain borin’ without my little sparkle running around. Where’s your daddy at, huh? Or are you big enough to drive a motorcycle all by yourself already?”

The girl giggled like that was the funniest thing she’d ever heard. “I think so, but Daddy said ‘over my cold, dead body,’ she mimicked, lowering her voice to sound like a man.

Ezra chuckled. “Sounds like something he’d say.”

“He got stopped by the nurse for bringin’ you no-no food. She got all mad at him like my teacher gets when we aren’t followin’ the class rules.” She leaned in and whispered conspiratorially. “He might have to sit in the time out spot for a while.”

Watching them together, something shot through my chest, an unpleasant pain ricocheting like a bolt of lightning that bounced off of my ribs. The sheer adoration carved into my father’s face as he scooped the little girl into his arms and tucked her close to his side like it was the most natural thing in the world, like he hadn’t just had major open heart surgery days earlier. like he hadn’t just used the endearment he’d given me all those years ago on a different girl, ripped through my insides like a bullet, leaving destruction in its wake.

I hated what I was feeling in that moment, the ugly, nasty jealousy I felt toward an adorable little girl who certainly hadn’t done anything to deserve my ire. But I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen that look on my father’s face before. Not even when I was little and Remy and I still held his heart in our hands. But whoever this little girl was, there was no doubt in my mind just how important she was to the man who had a hand in creating me.

I didn’t realize I’ve been staring so hard, my bottom lip clamped tightly between my teeth as I fought back the burn in my eyes, but then the shade of dark blue I’d only ever seen on one other person locked on me, and the little girl smiled in the way I felt in my chest for a whole other reason.

“Hi,” she chirped brightly. “Who are you? Are you a friend of my Poppy’s?”

“Your poppy?” I asked uncertainty making my voice waver and my tone huskier than normal. I didn’t miss the way Ezra’s face shot up to mine, wariness creating shadows that dance across his features. His brows pinched together, creating two deep divots between his eyes.

“It means, like, grandpa. But I don’t call him grandpa. I call him Poppy.”

Oh god.

“Dakota?” I could hear the pleading tone in my father’s voice at that one word, but my head was too busy spinning to focus on him.

Remy and me aside, there was only one other person on the face of this planet that Ezra was so close with his child would be considered a grandchild.

“I’m Cassi,” the beautiful little girl stated, oblivious to the fact there suddenly wasn’t enough air in the room.

I gave her the best smile I could muster, hoping it didn’t come off as a grimace and scare the poor girl. “That’s a very pretty name,” I croaked, my throat growing uncomfortably tight.

“Thanks!” she grinned big, showing off a couple missing teeth. “I’m named after my daddy’s favorite con-see-lation.”

“Uh, it’s constellation, sweetheart,” Ezra corrected, but I barely heard him over the blood suddenly whooshing through my ears. It had been a long time since I had a panic attack, and I could one brewing just beneath the surface, threatening to pull me under.

“Uh, e-excuse me. I just need⁠—”

“Hate to break it to you Pops, but the burger nazi out there caught me,” a familiar voice spoke a second before the man I’d tried my hardest to forget all about over the past two days stepped into the room. “Told you I wouldn’t get it past her. She’s like a bomb sniffing dog or some—” Roe’s sentence trailed off as he lifted his head and locked eyes on me. The flash of those navy eyes was my breaking point. I had to get the hell out of there before I completely crumbled in front of the two men on the face of the Earth that didn’t deserve to see it.

I lowered my head, dropping my gaze to my feet as I skuttled to the door, refusing to look at anyone. “I’m sorry. Excuse me, I’m sorry” I mumbled, as I moved quickly, nearly running into Roe, then the wall in my haste to get the hell out of there without making eye contact with anyone.

I hadn’t cried in years, but the damn was about to burst, and I was terrified that, once I started, I wouldn’t be able to stop.

TWELVE

DAKOTA

“Dakota,” Roe called as he trailed behind me, his long legs eating up the distance I was racing to keep between us.

The burn behind my eyes grew worse, my lip clamped between my teeth so hard I tasted blood. I was losing hold, and fast.

Oh god.

Oh shit.

Oh damn.

Where was the damn bathroom and why was it always impossible to find one when you needed it most?

“Kota, goddamn it! Will you just stop for a second?”

I whipped my head around to scowl at him over my shoulder. Son of a bitch. He was closer than I expected. Those stupid long legs!

“Leave me alone!” I snapped loudly, not giving a single shit if I was making a scene. I picked up the pace, race-walking down the hall, only a few paces away from a jog.

His hand clamped around my upper arm in a vise grip. “Not until you fuckin’ talk to me,” he growled, and before I knew it, I was being propelled through a door that read Supplies on the front. The fluorescent lights flickered overhead before cutting on completely and flooding the tiny space with light. I blinked against the glare for a second before my vision cleared only to find Roe standing way too close for my own sanity.

“Let me go.” I glared daggers as I snatched my arm out of his grip. I was fighting with everything I had to keep hold of my anger. Because if I didn’t, I’d crumble.

Whatever he saw on my face in that moment caused his frustration to melt into concern, and I hated that I hadn’t been strong enough to keep my mask in place. That I let him see how the hurt was dangerously close to swallowing me whole.

“Christ, baby. Please stop.” His hand cupped the side of my face, his thumb tugging at my poor, abused lower lip. “Fuck. You’re bleeding. Please stop hurting yourself.”

The pain slicing through my heart at that moment was so acute it had numbed me to anything else. I hadn’t realized how badly I’d bitten my lip until he pointed it out. Releasing it, I dragged my tongue across the damaged flesh and hissed at the sting.

“Are you okay?” he asked, the question bringing me back to myself and causing me to jerk my face from his hold.

“No, I’m not fucking okay,” I threw back bitterly, then forced myself to ask the question that made me feel sick to my stomach. “A daughter? Are you—?” I couldn’t get the actual words to pass my lips, so I tried a different route. “Where’s her mother?”

Roe had the nerve to step back, his features twisting into a look of betrayal and disappointment. “You’re really fuckin’ asking me that?”

There was a brief moment of uncertainty where I started to second guess my own emotions, but I quickly shoved it back and lifted my chin. “I think it’s a reasonable question.”

His top lip curled in disgust. “Fuck me, you’re really standing there, asking me if I’m a fuckin’ cheater?”

That uncertainty continued to grow, not that I let it show. “I am,” I uttered, squaring my shoulders against the rage pulsing off him and turning the air in the small space to static. “You know goddamn good and well I’d never cheat.”

“Like I pointed out the other night, you’ve been out of my life now longer than you were in it. And by the time I left, you’d more than proven I never really knew you.”

“Don’t say that.” His voice might have come out hushed, but the desperation in those three words blared like a siren. “Don’t fuckin’ say that.” He took a hurried step in my direction, so close he was all I could see, all I could smell. He overwhelmed every one of my senses as he braced his hands on the wall on either side of my head. “You knew me. You know me. Better than anyone ever has.”

I shook my head frantically. I couldn’t listen to this. “Stop it,” I begged on a whisper.

“I won’t, because it’s true, and you know it. You can feel it.”

“Stop,” I clipped, anger and devastation causing my voice to crack on that single word. “You’re a liar! You can’t say something like that when you had a child with someone else!” Damn it. Now he knew exactly how much of a hold he still had on me. I had to get the hell out of there.

“Move. I want out.”

“You have to listen to me.”

“I don’t have to do a goddamn thing!” I practically yelled. “Now back up, and let me out!”

“It’s not what you think. Please⁠—”

“No! No, no, no! You don’t get to force me to listen to your bullshit explanations! Not when you’ve all clearly moved on!”

Roe’s head reared back in confusion. “What?”

“You all moved on! I left, and you all just moved on like I never meant anything.” I felt all the fight drain out of me by the end of that sentence. To my horror, a single tear broke free and trailed down my cheek, but I didn’t have the strength to stop it. Or the one after that. Or the one after that. “I left because I had nothing here. No one to care enough to pick me. I tried to go somewhere else and find that, and I still ended up all alone with nothing.” A bitter laugh rolled out of me. “Meanwhile you’re here with this perfect, beautiful, funny little girl who looks at my father like he hung the moon. And what makes it hurt even worse is that he looks back at her the exact same way!” Tears were pouring down my cheeks by that point, but I was beyond caring. “What was so wrong with me that he couldn’t give me that, huh? What was so awful about me that he couldn’t love me like that?”

I didn’t realize that I’d been sobbing and shouting until Roe moved, wrapping his arms around me and crushing me against the solid wall of his chest. His voice was low and gentle as he held me tight, soothing sounds and words vibrated through his chest and into me. I lost myself in the warmth and safety of being in his arms for a few seconds, briefly forgetting he was no longer a safe place for me to land. Fortunately, I remembered before I did something stupid—again.

I stepped back, putting pressure on the arms banded around me and rested my hands on his chest, pushing back to drive my point home. The deepening furrow between his strong brow told me the last thing he wanted was to let me go, but he did it anyway, giving me the space I so desperately needed in order to breathe. Unfortunately, he didn’t remain silent, and what he said next only made my mind spin faster.

“She didn’t mean anything.” At the confused pinch to my features, he continued. “Cassi’s mom. She didn’t mean anything, just a random, careless drunken hookup. Only reason I even saw Caroline a second time was because she had to tell me she was knocked up. She wasn’t exactly thrilled when that stick turned pink. I went to the doctor with her to get it confirmed, and as soon as I heard her tiny, fluttering heartbeat, I knew that was it for me. Only time I’d ever been so certain in my love for another human being was you.”

My face fell. “That’s not fair.”

“Maybe not, but that doesn’t make it any less true.” He shook his head, reaching up to drag a hand through his hair. “Caroline never imagined herself as a mom, said she didn’t have that maternal gene, but I was already gone for that little baby. Ultimately, the decision was up to her, and I respected that. I offered to cover all the medical costs, anything that came with being pregnant, and I lucked out that she saw how much I wanted my little girl, so she agreed to keep the baby. She signed over her rights after she gave birth and I paid for her to relocate somewhere else. She wasn’t a big fan of small town livin’ either.”

I blinked, shaking my head trying to make sense of everything he said. “I-I don’t understand. She just . . . signed her baby over? How could she . . .?”

Something changed on Roe’s face, he gave me a look that was almost a warning. “You might not understand it, but that doesn’t make Caroline’s decision wrong. She knew she wasn’t up to the job of being a parent and trying to force it wouldn’t have been healthy for either of them. You ask me, what she did was courageous. She made sure her baby went to a safe, loving home before bringing her into the world. It wasn’t easy, but she did it.”

I felt more than a little chastened at his tone, and rightfully so, because everything he said made perfect sense. Not all women wanted to be mothers, and it was their right to choose. But carrying a pregnancy to term simply because the other partner in the baby’s creation wanted the child actually showed a level of compassion not many people had.

Lowering my face to the ground, I whispered, “You’re right. I’m sorry.” Realizing there wasn’t a woman waiting in the wings for Roe lessened the pain of seeing that little girl and made me feel like an asshole for my accusation, but what I felt after witnessing Ezra showing her so much love and adoration still felt like the rug had been ripped out from under me.

It still hurt.

“Nothing to apologize for. And you’re sorely mistaken if you think anyone moved the fuck on after you left,” Roe carried on. His words were like barbed wire wrapped in velvet. They might have felt soft and soothing at first, but still managed to draw blood. “I won’t lie and say I’ve been a monk, but every woman I’ve buried myself in since you left has had your face. They were only placeholders for the one I no longer had. Every one of them was stacked up to you, and not a single fucking one lived up to the memory of you.”

That desperate panic returned, tearing at my chest with it razor-sharp claws. “Roe, stop it.”

He didn’t bother listening to my warning and moved to block the door when I attempted to get past him. He wrapped his fingers around my left wrist and jerked my hand upward, pressing my palm against his chest right over where my name rested. “Every one of them knew the score. They weren’t permanent.” He pushed my hand harder into his chest. “And every one of them knew exactly why.”

“Stop.”

But he didn’t stop, and with each word spoken, that protective wall around my heart took hit after hit until I worried it wouldn’t be up to the task much longer. “You’re still such a part of me I named my daughter for you. Just so I could keep a piece of you with me anyway I could.”

“Roe, please⁠—”

“Even told her the story about Cassiopeia. But your version. The story of a strong, self-possessed woman. Told her she was named after the favorite constellation of my favorite person, after her.”

He was killing me. Each sentence a million tiny cuts to my skin that would inevitably cause me to bleed out. At least that was how I felt. Like I was slowly bleeding.

“You don’t get to say that to me,” I hissed, reaching for my anger. “Not when I begged you. I begged,” I threw at him accusingly. “I begged you to pick me. To choose me. To be different from my father who’d already broken my heart more times than I could count. But you didn’t, did you? You let me go. You threw me away like I was garbage. Just like him.”

He looked as devastated as I felt, but I couldn’t let that penetrate. I had to figure out a way to harden myself or this trip back was going to kill me. “Honeybee⁠—”

That was all it took for me to reach my limit. “I can’t do this. I need to go.” I was so anxious to get out of there I didn’t have a single moment to feel relief when he didn’t block the door that time. I was too busy running down the hall like the hounds of hell were nipping at my heels.

THIRTEEN

ROE

I knew it had only been a handful of minutes since I ran out of Pops’s hospital room to chase after Dakota, but by the time I got back I felt like I’d run a goddamn marathon at a full sprint. I hadn’t felt so exhausted since Cassi’s cholic phase as an infant. Only this time it wasn’t from lack of sleep. It was the bone-deep kind of exhaustion that only came with total emotional chaos.

Seeing the tears in Dakota’s eyes, the dark shadows beneath them she’d attempted to hide behind makeup . . . the agony on her face. It would have hurt less to be dragged naked over hot coals. I stopped in the doorway, before either of them saw me, needing a minute to put myself back together.

My little girl was currently snuggled up against Pops, the closest thing to a grandfather she would ever have, reading to him from one of the books she’d stashed in the plush, unicorn-shaped backpack she insisted on always carrying around. That little backpack was like her security blanket. She didn’t go anywhere without it, to the point the thing was ratty and nasty as hell. The only time I ever got to wash it was when I managed to sneak it away from her clutches as she slept. But to keep her from freaking out, I had to make sure I’d replaced all of her ‘treasures’—all the little trinkets she assigned importance to—and slid it back into her bed without waking her. So far she hadn’t caught me.

To anyone who didn’t know him as well as I did, it looked like Pops was entrenched in the story Cassi was reading out loud, occasionally helping her out when she tripped over the bigger words, but I could see the tension bracketing his mouth and tightening the skin around his eyes. He was putting on a good show, but he was worried, and it didn’t take a genius to guess who he was worried about.

“Daddy!” I blinked, yanked out of my head at the sound of my baby girl’s excited voice saying the one word that always managed to make everything better, no matter how bad it got.

I pasted a smile on my face. “What’s goin’ on in here? You reading to Poppy, little star?”

She lifted her chin proudly. “Yep. There’s a prince in this one that rides a horse, but I changed it to a motorcycle because they’re so much cooler than horses. Right, Daddy? That’s why you and Uncle Pope and all the guys ride them.”

I moved into the room, leaning over the bed and pressing a kiss to the top of her head, mindful to avoid the pieces with glitter spray. Learned the hard way that stuff tasted like shit. “Totally right, sweetheart. Motorcycles are always the best choice.”

“Duh.” She rolled her eyes like I was an idiot for stating the obvious. “When I’m old enough, I’m gonna get my own motorcycle, and I’m gonna get a purple helmet with a unicorn horn and sparkles all over it.”

I felt that same twinge in my chest that happened any time I remembered my girl was getting older, and one day she was going to grow up and leave me. “How about we discuss you getting a motorcycle when you’re a lot older. Like, when you’re sixty?”

Cassi let out a scoff that should have belonged to someone a hell of a lot older than she was. Christ, I was going to have a heart attack before she even reached her teenage years.

“Dad, that’s so old!”

Pops snorted with fake affront. “Hey now, sparkles. If sixty is old, what does that make me?”

She lifted her little face to him, her smile all kinds of mischievous. “You’re like, super old.” Her expression grew stern then. “That’s why you gotta take really good care of yourself, Poppy. ’Cause you gotta get better so you can come to my birthday party.”

“No chance I’d miss your birthday, honey pot.” Pops smiled down at her and tickled her side, smiling for a moment as she laughed hysterically. While she did, he took the opportunity to shoot his eyes to me before bouncing them toward the door and back. I shook my head, understanding what he was asking without words. He wanted to see Dakota.

His smile fell and the shadows that had taken up residence sixteen years ago returned to his eyes. They’d been gone the past several days, and I knew it was because he held out hope that Dakota still being in town meant something. But I ran her off. And fuck if that didn’t kill me.

“Daddy, where’d the pretty lady go?”

Leave it to my daughter to get right to the point without screwing around. “The, uh, pretty lady—Dakota,” I corrected, “had to run an errand she forgot about.”

The sight of Pops’s face falling hurt almost as much as the pain I’d seen Dakota wearing. Almost. Truth was, the two of us had avoided talking about that night as much as possible. The night sixteen years ago when we lost our girl for sure. The only time Pops had ever really opened up about it was after a particularly bad night about five years earlier. He’d gotten shit-faced and spent hours talking about what a shit dad he’d been and how his little girls had deserved better.

I couldn’t disagree. We’d both let the Riley girls down. I’d broken Dakota’s heart, but there had also been a time when Remy looked at me as the older brother she never had. We were as tight as two siblings born in blood could have been. But when I hurt Dakota, I’d hurt Remy by default. If she wasn’t actively avoiding me, she was giving me the kind of hateful looks that would have made paint peel. Then, as soon as she was old enough, she got the hell out too, and never looked back.

“She looked like she was sad,” my girl stated, her expression growing concerned, but that was what happened when you had a daughter with a heart bigger than the whole of Tennessee. “Is that why you went after her? To try and make her smile so she wouldn’t be so sad?”

My chest felt like it was being crushed under a heavy weight. “Yeah, little star.” I attempted a smile but knew it didn’t reach my eyes. “That’s what I was trying to do. Don’t think it worked though.”

Cassi looked back down at the book still resting in her lap and started flipping through the pages. “Don’t worry, Daddy. You can do it,” she said, completely unruffled as she studied the pictures in her book. “You just have to give her a hug. You give the best hugs. I know for sure. I bet she’d believe me if I told her. I’m real believable.”

Oh, of that I had no doubt. It was why I’d been getting regular calls from Cassi’s teachers since she started school. My daughter was a bit of an evil genius. She had this quality that made the other kids want to follow along with any idea she came up with. And my baby girl did not lack imagination.

At first the independent streak in her freaked me out. Now I respected the hell out of it. My girl was going to either run the country one day, or her own cult.

Only time would tell.

The smile I offered then was much more genuine. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, sweetheart,” I said on a soft chuckle.

“No problem,” she chirped, slapping the book closed and tossing it aside before sliding off the side of the bed, the soles of her mini-motorcycle boots thumping against the floor.

“Where you goin’, little star?”

“Gotta potty,” she announced as she skipped toward the door.

I started rising from the chair at the side of Pops’s bed. “Need me to go with you?”

My daughter shot me a quelling look over her shoulder. “I’m nearly eight, Dad,” she said with all the disgust her little body could muster. “I’m not a baby. I can go by myself.”

I didn’t need her to remind me of that. It was something I was reminded of every single time I looked at her. Time was moving too fast.

“Fine, but there and right back. And what’s the rule?” I called louder so she could hear me in the hallway.

She replied at a noise level that was about thirty decibels too loud. “No stops along the way and no talkin’ to strangers! Duh, Daddy!”

I collapsed back into the hard plastic chair, bracing my elbows on my knees and scrubbing at my face. “Eight going on thirty-eight, I swear to Christ.”

“Little girl’s a walkin’ neon sign everywhere she goes,” Pops chuckled. “Lights up even the darkest spaces.”

Hell, didn’t I know it.

We passed a few seconds in silence before Pops finally broached the topic I knew was coming. “How bad was it?”

It wasn’t hard to recall. The devastation I’d seen on her face was tattooed into my brain. “Bad,” I answered honestly. “Take what you’re thinking, and expand on it.”

Pops sank back into the hospital pillows that were tucked behind him. “Shit,” he said on a huff of breath. “Not surprised. Saw it written all over her face. Seeing me with Cass hurt her.”

Dropping my head, I rubbed at the back of my neck, trying to ease the tension building there. “Yeah, well, I sure as hell didn’t make the situation any better.”

“Have to make this work.” I lifted my head to find Pops staring off into space, shaking his head and talking to himself as opposed to me. “I have to find a way to fix this. Can’t unbreak her heart, but it’s long past time I start trying to heal it.”

If I had the first fucking clue how to do that, I would have started already. The truth was, there wasn’t a chance in hell I could lose her again. It just wasn’t an option. I let her walk away from me once before. That wasn’t a mistake I planned to make a second time.

Even if that meant taking Cassi and going with her.

FOURTEEN

DAKOTA

“Dakota?” My name sounded like it was coming from the opposite end of a long, dark tunnel, barely penetrating my consciousness as I stood, staring unseeing at the items on the shelves in front of me.

“Hey. Dakota?” The touch on my arm gave me a start, jerking me back into the present. I blinked, the boxes of different types of dried pasta coming into focus. “So sorry.” I turned my head to find Iris standing beside me, a hesitant smile tilting her lips up. She lifted her hands in surrender. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. I thought you heard me.”

I let out a low chuckle and shook my head. “No, no. Please. Don’t apologize. You didn’t do anything wrong. I just spaced out, I guess.”

We both turned to look back at the pasta for a few beats before Iris sucked in an excited breath, clapping her hands and doing a little hop on the balls of her very sexy, very cool high heels. “Are you making more recipes for Foodie Bee?”

I looked at her and smiled. “You’ve been watching?”

She nodded enthusiastically. “Oh yeah. Ever since Pheebs mentioned it. I think I’ve managed to watch every piece of content you’ve put out. I really want to try that one recipe.” She snapped her fingers as she tried to recall the name. “Ah! The Beef Wellington. That’s what it was.”

My stomach rumbled at the thought of that tender, succulent dish. It been too long since I was in a kitchen without being able to cook for myself, and I’d been eating whatever was quick and easy. I really missed cooking. It was why I found myself absently parking my car, going into the local market on autopilot, and walking through the aisles without my brain communicating with my body.

When I was stressed, I cooked. When I was angry or sad, I cooked. Hell, when I was happy, I cooked. The kitchen was my safe place. The only one I’d ever had, and not being able to do what I loved for weeks was slowly sucking the life out of me.

It might have sounded ridiculous to some people, but the grocery store was like therapy for me.

“That’s a really good one. I know it can seem intimidating, but I made sure my recipe was beginner friendly. Plus, you can always call me if you need help.”

She shot me a wink, and I couldn’t help but think that the women I’d met so far—Lennon, Iris, and Phoebe—were sweet as hell. “I’ll probably have to take you up on that. I have this bad habit of thinking I can do something because the internet said I can. Just ask the drywall I tried to patch by myself, or the mechanic who had to fix my car when I tried to change my own oil.”

Her smile and good-natured personality were infectious. It was impossible not to return the pretty, petite redhead’s smile when she gave it. “You have my number. Don’t be afraid to use it. And who knows. Maybe with enough practice, you’ll be who I call if my car ever craps out.”

We shared a laugh before she glanced back to the pasta boxes. “So, do you have something in mind or just looking for inspiration?”

I heaved out an unhappy sigh as I pulled down a box of pasta and studied it, a feeling of longing washing over me. “No,” I answered sadly. “I wish, honestly, but I’m still at the inn, and there isn’t anywhere for me to cook.”

If this had been the city, I could have rented a kitchen space to film, but this was a small mountain town. They didn’t have anything like that, and I was slowly going out of my mind.

Replacing the box, I turned to Iris. “This is like window shopping for me. I came here for a fix.”

Understanding washed over her pretty features. “What are you up to right now? You busy or do you plan on standing here, staring at food like a starving person on the fifth day of a juice cleanse?”

I let out a bubble of laughter. “No. I’m not busy. What do you have in mind?”

I came to a stop behind Iris’s car, throwing my own into park and looking through the driver side window at the adorable little bungalow on a shady, tree-lined street. Stepping out of the car, I closed the door and smiled up at the house cozily tucked back from the street on a nice-sized lot with deep green grass.

“What is this place?” Iris joined me at the curb, pointing in the direction of the For Rent sign I’d missed while appreciating the house. My heart stuttered in my chest. As cute as this whole street was, I couldn’t bring myself to imagine staying here, permanently or not. I felt like I’d been spinning out of control since I got back, and I was struggling to find solid ground. Since my run-in with Roe at the hospital a few days ago, I’d been in such emotional upheaval that, by the end of each day, I collapsed into bed, so emotionally exhausted that I was out as soon as my head hit the pillow. The one silver lining to it was that I slept so hard my overactive brain wasn’t able to have nightmares about the past.

“Iris, I don’t think⁠—”

She lifted both her hands, palms out, before I could finish my objection. “I know, you don’t want to put down roots here, at least not yet. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t hope you’d change your mind. And not just because I’d get a commission if you moved here and hired me as your realtor.” She shot me a teasing wink that made me laugh again. “But because I think you’re super cool and I’d love to get to know you better.”

Gah, she was so freaking sweet it was almost impossible to deny her.

“This is Lennon’s old place. Remember? The one we told you about that day at coffee. Well, I called her on the way over here and together, we came up with the perfect solution to your little problem.”

Her giddiness as she spoke was just as infectious as her smile. “Oh? And what’s that?”

“She’s going to rent out the kitchen to you on a week-to-week basis!” She did that little hop again. “Isn’t that great?”

My mouth dropped open as I looked back at the house. “Oh, Iris, I couldn’t⁠—”

“Of course you can! Look, it’s only fifty bucks a week⁠—”

“Iris, that’s a ridiculous price!”

Her smile dropped a bit. “Is it too much? I’m sure we can work something out⁠—”

I shook my head. “No, honey. It’s too little. I feel like I’d be taking advantage.”

“You wouldn’t though. I swear.”

I tugged the corner of my bottom lip between my teeth as I looked back at the house. “I don’t know, Iris. I mean, this is a deal that’s too good to be true. Doesn’t Lennon need to offload this place?”

Iris snorted. “Please. Like Pope would let her feel that kind of strain. He paid the mortgage off as soon as she agreed to move in with him.”

My eyes widened, my brows flying up toward my hairline. “And she doesn’t care? That he used, you know . . .” I leaned in and finished on a whisper. “Blood money?”

“Bood money?” she asked in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“You grew up here, right? You know the kind of shit the club’s about. How they make their money.”

She stared at me like I just switched into a foreign language mid-sentence. “Uh, honey. A lot of things have changed while you’ve been gone. I think there’s a lot you don’t know.”

My brow furrowed, a strange sensation swimming through my belly as I tried to make sense of what she said. “What do you mean?”

Empathy washed over her face. “Maybe that’s a talk you should have with your father.”

I blew out a weary breath as I pushed a hand through my hair, forgetting for a second that I’d tied it up in a messy topknot until my fingers caught. Iris couldn’t have possibly realized what a blow to the gut that suggestion was, especially these last few days. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to go back to the hospital after making a fool of myself and running out the last time. Any courage I’d built up over the past few weeks had drained out of me completely, and I couldn’t bring myself to have the conversation I knew we desperately needed to have. Particularly after how I reacted to seeing him with another child. I knew he hadn’t missed my reaction, so I’d been avoiding him ever since, afraid he’d bring it up if I wasn’t brave enough to do it.

“There’s a lot we need to talk about,” I muttered more to myself than to her. “I guess that just got added to the list. But I don’t understand. If it’s been paid off, why wouldn’t she sell it?”

The ease returned to her face as she explained, “Spend enough time here and you’ll learn why. Lennon got really close with all her neighbors, and she doesn’t want to risk sticking them with someone who doesn’t match the vibe.”

I quirked a brow and shot her a cheeky grin. “And you think I match the vibe? You hardly know me?”

She shrugged that off and started up the walkway, her heels clicking against the concrete. “I have a gift for reading people,” she stated simply. “And my gut tells me you’re a good fit.”

She unlocked the door and pushed it open, stepping aside to allow me to enter ahead of her. The house had been emptied of any furniture or personal belongings, but I could see from all the natural sunlight pouring through the big bay windows why she liked the place so much.

“There are no utensils or anything, so you’d have to bring your own. I hope that isn’t a problem.”

I shook my head as I entered the kitchen, dragging my fingertips across the cold stone on the island. The countertops and upper cabinets were a clean, gleaming white that brought light into the space. The lower ones a deep navy to offset and make the space even more inviting. The appliances were a few years old, but all stainless, and, according to Iris, they still worked perfectly.

Standing in the middle of the open, airy kitchen, I felt like I finally found the piece of myself that had been missing since I returned to Ashland.

No, that wasn’t right. I felt like I found the piece that had been missing even before I left Adam. I felt like I belonged in here, like it was meant to be. That wasn’t a feeling I’d experienced in so long. If I really let myself think about it, I hadn’t felt that kind of connection since the first day Roe came into my life.

The lack of pots and pans wasn’t a problem for me at all. Poppy had been kind enough to let me store all my kitchen stuff in a storage room off the laundry facility. It had been a relief that I didn’t have to leave all that expensive equipment in my car or have the boxes crammed into my room, taking up all the available space. Looking around at the counters and cabinets, even the pantry, I could see that there was more than enough space for all my stuff.

“So? What do you think?”

I turned to face Iris, a slow, beaming smile taking over my face. “If Lennon’s really cool with it, I think we have a deal.”

She let out a sharp squeal of excitement and shimmied her hips in an adorable little dance. “Oh, she’s totally cool with it.”

Looked like I needed to get my ass moving, because I owed these ladies some serious tasty treats as a thank-you for helping me get my sanity back.

FIFTEEN

DAKOTA

“Dakota?” My name sounded like it was coming from the opposite end of a long, dark tunnel, barely penetrating my consciousness as I stood, staring unseeing at the items on the shelves in front of me.

“Hey. Dakota?” The touch on my arm gave me a start, jerking me back into the present. I blinked, the boxes of different types of dried pasta coming into focus. “So sorry.” I turned my head to find Iris standing beside me, a hesitant smile tilting her lips up. She lifted her hands in surrender. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. I thought you heard me.”

I let out a low chuckle and shook my head. “No, no. Please. Don’t apologize. You didn’t do anything wrong. I just spaced out, I guess.”

We both turned to look back at the pasta for a few beats before Iris sucked in an excited breath, clapping her hands and doing a little hop on the balls of her very sexy, very cool high heels. “Are you making more recipes for Foodie Bee?”

I looked at her and smiled. “You’ve been watching?”

She nodded enthusiastically. “Oh yeah. Ever since Pheebs mentioned it. I think I’ve managed to watch every piece of content you’ve put out. I really want to try that one recipe.” She snapped her fingers as she tried to recall the name. “Ah! The Beef Wellington. That’s what it was.”

My stomach rumbled at the thought of that tender, succulent dish. It been too long since I was in a kitchen without being able to cook for myself, and I’d been eating whatever was quick and easy. I really missed cooking. It was why I found myself absently parking my car, going into the local market on autopilot, and walking through the aisles without my brain communicating with my body.

When I was stressed, I cooked. When I was angry or sad, I cooked. Hell, when I was happy, I cooked. The kitchen was my safe place. The only one I’d ever had, and not being able to do what I loved for weeks was slowly sucking the life out of me.

It might have sounded ridiculous to some people, but the grocery store was like therapy for me.

“That’s a really good one. I know it can seem intimidating, but I made sure my recipe was beginner friendly. Plus, you can always call me if you need help.”

She shot me a wink, and I couldn’t help but think that the women I’d met so far—Lennon, Iris, and Phoebe—were sweet as hell. “I’ll probably have to take you up on that. I have this bad habit of thinking I can do something because the internet said I can. Just ask the drywall I tried to patch by myself, or the mechanic who had to fix my car when I tried to change my own oil.”

Her smile and good-natured personality were infectious. It was impossible not to return the pretty, petite redhead’s smile when she gave it. “You have my number. Don’t be afraid to use it. And who knows. Maybe with enough practice, you’ll be who I call if my car ever craps out.”

We shared a laugh before she glanced back to the pasta boxes. “So, do you have something in mind or just looking for inspiration?”

I heaved out an unhappy sigh as I pulled down a box of pasta and studied it, a feeling of longing washing over me. “No,” I answered sadly. “I wish, honestly, but I’m still at the inn, and there isn’t anywhere for me to cook.”

If this had been the city, I could have rented a kitchen space to film, but this was a small mountain town. They didn’t have anything like that, and I was slowly going out of my mind.

Replacing the box, I turned to Iris. “This is like window shopping for me. I came here for a fix.”

Understanding washed over her pretty features. “What are you up to right now? You busy or do you plan on standing here, staring at food like a starving person on the fifth day of a juice cleanse?”

I let out a bubble of laughter. “No. I’m not busy. What do you have in mind?”

I came to a stop behind Iris’s car, throwing my own into park and looking through the driver side window at the adorable little bungalow on a shady, tree-lined street. Stepping out of the car, I closed the door and smiled up at the house cozily tucked back from the street on a nice-sized lot with deep green grass.

“What is this place?” Iris joined me at the curb, pointing in the direction of the For Rent sign I’d missed while appreciating the house. My heart stuttered in my chest. As cute as this whole street was, I couldn’t bring myself to imagine staying here, permanently or not. I felt like I’d been spinning out of control since I got back, and I was struggling to find solid ground. Since my run-in with Roe at the hospital a few days ago, I’d been in such emotional upheaval that, by the end of each day, I collapsed into bed, so emotionally exhausted that I was out as soon as my head hit the pillow. The one silver lining to it was that I slept so hard my overactive brain wasn’t able to have nightmares about the past.

“Iris, I don’t think⁠—”

She lifted both her hands, palms out, before I could finish my objection. “I know, you don’t want to put down roots here, at least not yet. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t hope you’d change your mind. And not just because I’d get a commission if you moved here and hired me as your realtor.” She shot me a teasing wink that made me laugh again. “But because I think you’re super cool and I’d love to get to know you better.”

Gah, she was so freaking sweet it was almost impossible to deny her.

“This is Lennon’s old place. Remember? The one we told you about that day at coffee. Well, I called her on the way over here and together, we came up with the perfect solution to your little problem.”

Her giddiness as she spoke was just as infectious as her smile. “Oh? And what’s that?”

“She’s going to rent out the kitchen to you on a week-to-week basis!” She did that little hop again. “Isn’t that great?”

My mouth dropped open as I looked back at the house. “Oh, Iris, I couldn’t⁠—”

“Of course you can! Look, it’s only fifty bucks a week⁠—”

“Iris, that’s a ridiculous price!”

Her smile dropped a bit. “Is it too much? I’m sure we can work something out⁠—”

I shook my head. “No, honey. It’s too little. I feel like I’d be taking advantage.”

“You wouldn’t though. I swear.”

I tugged the corner of my bottom lip between my teeth as I looked back at the house. “I don’t know, Iris. I mean, this is a deal that’s too good to be true. Doesn’t Lennon need to offload this place?”

Iris snorted. “Please. Like Pope would let her feel that kind of strain. He paid the mortgage off as soon as she agreed to move in with him.”

My eyes widened, my brows flying up toward my hairline. “And she doesn’t care? That he used, you know . . .” I leaned in and finished on a whisper. “Blood money?”

“Bood money?” she asked in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“You grew up here, right? You know the kind of shit the club’s about. How they make their money.”

She stared at me like I just switched into a foreign language mid-sentence. “Uh, honey. A lot of things have changed while you’ve been gone. I think there’s a lot you don’t know.”

My brow furrowed, a strange sensation swimming through my belly as I tried to make sense of what she said. “What do you mean?”

Empathy washed over her face. “Maybe that’s a talk you should have with your father.”

I blew out a weary breath as I pushed a hand through my hair, forgetting for a second that I’d tied it up in a messy topknot until my fingers caught. Iris couldn’t have possibly realized what a blow to the gut that suggestion was, especially these last few days. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to go back to the hospital after making a fool of myself and running out the last time. Any courage I’d built up over the past few weeks had drained out of me completely, and I couldn’t bring myself to have the conversation I knew we desperately needed to have. Particularly after how I reacted to seeing him with another child. I knew he hadn’t missed my reaction, so I’d been avoiding him ever since, afraid he’d bring it up if I wasn’t brave enough to do it.

“There’s a lot we need to talk about,” I muttered more to myself than to her. “I guess that just got added to the list. But I don’t understand. If it’s been paid off, why wouldn’t she sell it?”

The ease returned to her face as she explained, “Spend enough time here and you’ll learn why. Lennon got really close with all her neighbors, and she doesn’t want to risk sticking them with someone who doesn’t match the vibe.”

I quirked a brow and shot her a cheeky grin. “And you think I match the vibe? You hardly know me?”

She shrugged that off and started up the walkway, her heels clicking against the concrete. “I have a gift for reading people,” she stated simply. “And my gut tells me you’re a good fit.”

She unlocked the door and pushed it open, stepping aside to allow me to enter ahead of her. The house had been emptied of any furniture or personal belongings, but I could see from all the natural sunlight pouring through the big bay windows why she liked the place so much.

“There are no utensils or anything, so you’d have to bring your own. I hope that isn’t a problem.”

I shook my head as I entered the kitchen, dragging my fingertips across the cold stone on the island. The countertops and upper cabinets were a clean, gleaming white that brought light into the space. The lower ones a deep navy to offset and make the space even more inviting. The appliances were a few years old, but all stainless, and, according to Iris, they still worked perfectly.

Standing in the middle of the open, airy kitchen, I felt like I finally found the piece of myself that had been missing since I returned to Ashland.

No, that wasn’t right. I felt like I found the piece that had been missing even before I left Adam. I felt like I belonged in here, like it was meant to be. That wasn’t a feeling I’d experienced in so long. If I really let myself think about it, I hadn’t felt that kind of connection since the first day Roe came into my life.

The lack of pots and pans wasn’t a problem for me at all. Poppy had been kind enough to let me store all my kitchen stuff in a storage room off the laundry facility. It had been a relief that I didn’t have to leave all that expensive equipment in my car or have the boxes crammed into my room, taking up all the available space. Looking around at the counters and cabinets, even the pantry, I could see that there was more than enough space for all my stuff.

“So? What do you think?”

I turned to face Iris, a slow, beaming smile taking over my face. “If Lennon’s really cool with it, I think we have a deal.”

She let out a sharp squeal of excitement and shimmied her hips in an adorable little dance. “Oh, she’s totally cool with it.”

Looked like I needed to get my ass moving, because I owed these ladies some serious tasty treats as a thank-you for helping me get my sanity back.

SIXTEEN

DAKOTA

“Oh my god,” I groaned through a full mouth, collapsing back against the vinyl booth and placing a hand on my stomach. “I’m so full it’s actually painful.” I hadn’t been eating much since I got to town. Emotional upheaval was a hell of an appetite suppressant. Turned out, two slices of pie and a plate of fries might have been going a little overboard.

Lennon groaned, taking much the same position as me. “Who are you telling? I’m two seconds away from unbuttoning my jeans. I feel like one of those tubes of cinnamon rolls about to pop open.”

I let out a giggle. Despite eating way too much, I felt lighter in that moment than I had in days. In the hour I sat in the booth in the back of Al’s with Lennon and Iris, the two of them had firmly cemented themselves as friends. It was impossible not to like them. They were genuinely good people. As much as I didn’t like him—or told myself I didn’t like him—I was happy that Pope found a woman as great as Lennon. She seemed happy, and she sure loved him like crazy, so who was I to judge.

Then I remembered what Iris said earlier, and I couldn’t shake the sense that I was missing something. Something major.

“I can’t believe I’m talking about food, given how full I am, but I’m so excited to see the first video you release in my own kitchen. I bet the rest of your followers are as well.”

She wasn’t wrong. I’d gotten countless messages from people asking when I was going to start posting content again, and now that I had a place worked out, I planned on getting started as soon as possible.

“I usually practice a recipe at least once before I film it, to make sure I get it right. I’m always looking for guinea pigs to test my meals before I make them for the public. If you want⁠—”

“We want!” they both shouted out at the same time.

I threw my head back on a laugh as the bell over the door jingled. It took a second for me to get a hold of myself and realize the air around our booth had changed, and when I looked over at Iris, I saw her rapt attention on the door, a look of longing on her pretty face.

I followed her gaze and felt my stomach bottom out at the sight of the man who’d just walked in. I didn’t recognize him from my time here, but the fact he was wearing an Ashland PD uniform didn’t exactly give me the warm fuzzies.

“Iris?” She didn’t hear me the first time, so I tried again. “Iris, you good?”

She blinked, giving a little jerk before her gaze focused on me. “Huh? Oh, yeah. I’m good.” The way her eyes traveled back to the cop, that longing coming right back, made me question the truthfulness of that statement.

I felt eyes on the side of my face and turned to find Lennon watching me. “That’s North Hastings,” she said, like she read the uncertainty on my face. “He moved here a couple years before me.” She leaned in and lowered her voice in case someone was listening. “He’s a good guy.”

I didn’t know if I believed that. Apparently I didn’t hide my doubt very well, because Iris saw it and explained further, “He’s a good man,” she said in a soft tone full of adoration. “An honorable man.”

The determination in her voice as she said that last sentence had me thinking maybe I shouldn’t jump to judgment.

“He really is,” Lennon assured me with a gentle smile. “I know the department has a reputation.” I couldn’t help but snort at that. “And I’ve heard all about the Bradys. But North isn’t one of them. He’s one of the only good ones in the whole place.”

“People are even talking that he might run against Tolliver in the next election.”

My head whipped around to her, my eyes wide. “Holy shit,” I breathed. I didn’t know the man one bit, but to run against a Brady . . . well, he was either incredibly brave, or he had a death wish.

“That’s just a rumor,” Lennon added quickly. “But we’re all secretly hoping there’s truth to it. This town deserves better.”

She wasn’t wrong about that. I wasn’t sure “better” was a possibility as long as there was a single Brady still living there, but it would have been a lie to say I wasn’t curious to know how this whole thing would play out.

I looked back to the man in question, really taking him in for the first time since he stepped into the diner. I could see why Iris was so enamored. The man was handsome as hell, and the smile he was shooting at Bea as she handed over a bag of take-out containers only made him even better looking.

Sure enough, when I turned to Iris, her attention was still locked on him as he bid Bea goodbye and headed out. A huge smile stretch across my face and a giggle burst past my lips. “Oh my god, woman. You’ve got it bad.”

“Shh!” she hissed, waving her hands in my face.

“He can’t hear me, sweetie. He’s already gone.”

“Still,” she grumped, her face pulling into a pout as she sank back in the booth and crossed her arms over her chest. “And I don’t have it bad,” she mocked.

Lennon snorted. “Oh, honey. You so do.”

“That’s impossible.” She glanced back at the door where he’d disappeared a few seconds earlier. “He doesn’t even know I’m alive.”

My heart gave a painful squeeze at the sadness on my gorgeous new friend’s face. “I highly doubt that. You’re impossible to miss.”

Her smile didn’t come anywhere near her eyes. “I wish. Such is the curse of being a nerdy wallflower in school.”

I couldn’t imagine the vibrant woman beside me being anything but what she was right that second. Then again, I didn’t know her when I was younger. But I had so much shit going on back then that I didn’t really have time for friends. Even if I did, I was too embarrassed about my home life to ever invite friends over. When you made excuse after excuse why you couldn’t do something, eventually people stop asking. All I had was Remy and Roe. Back then they were enough. That was all I needed. At least that was how it felt at the time.

Shaking off the melancholy that suddenly wanted to pull me under, I focused on the here and now, where I was having one of the best days I’d had in longer than I could remember. I was determined to enjoy it.

“If he really doesn’t know you exist, that’s his loss,” Lennon said passionately.

Iris chuckled self-deprecatingly. “You’re only saying that because you love me.”

“She’s saying it because it’s true,” I said vehemently. “If you doubt her, believe me. I’ve only known you for a few weeks, and I can say, beyond a shadow of a doubt, you’re officially one of my favorite people.” I turned to Lennon to include her as well. “Both of you.” I reached over and placed my hand on Iris’s, giving it a squeeze. “I’ve never had many friends, but I already consider both of you my friends. No matter what happens, that isn’t going to change.

Iris sniffled a bit, and I could have sworn I heard Lennon clear her throat.

“Same goes for you,” Iris said in a watery voice. “And if you think I’m going to let you leave Ashland without putting up a fight, you’re sorely mistaken, sister.”

Our conversation turned lighter after that, and by the time I left and headed back to Redbud Inn, I felt like I was floating a foot off the ground.

I should have known, given my track record, that the good wasn’t meant to last. Luck really didn’t like me.

I pulled into a parking spot right in front of my room at the inn, feeling content and tired in a way that felt nice, as opposed to the bone-weary exhaustion I’d been experiencing the past few days. I used the key to enter my room, ready to hurry through my nighttime skin-care routine so I could fall into bed for a nice, restful sleep, but as I stepped across the threshold, the crinkle of paper beneath my shoe drew my attention to the floor.

On the floor right inside the door was a large manilla envelope with my name written on it in big, black letters. I bent with a furrowed brow, lifting the envelope and flipping it over to undo the metal tab keeping it closed. The sheets of paper inside were thick and smooth, and when I pulled them out, I discovered they were printed pictures, and what was on them made me drop them on the floor and stumble back on my heel.

They were picture after picture of me. Coming to and from the inn. Walking into the market. Standing in front of the pasta with a dazed expression on my face. There were pictures of me coming in and out of the hospital on different days, but the one running theme in all of them was that they were taken after my return to Ashland. Someone had been following me around, as recently as earlier that day, and I hadn’t noticed. And I had a feeling I knew who it was.

In the same black marker that was used to write my name, the words I see you were scrawled threateningly across each picture.

Fear chilled my insides, threatening to take hold, but before it could, I reached deep inside for my anger and yanked it to the surface. I stomped over to the fallen pictures and snatched them up, crumpling them in my hands as I turned to the wastebasket. I ripped each one to pieces before throwing them away.

If Tolliver fucking Brady thought he could scare me into running away, he was sadly mistaken. I’d spent too much of my life letting other people control me and dictate my actions. I was done. I was fucking done. I might have been thirty-five years late, but as the saying went, better late than never.

“Stupid, egotistical bully,” I grunted as I violently shredded the last picture and squeezed the pieces into little balls before throwing them away with the rest. “If he thinks he can get rid of me that easily, he’s sadly mistaken.”

Tolliver Brady could kiss my ass, because I wasn’t going anywhere, damn it!

SEVENTEEN

ROE

When my phone chimed with a familiar notification, a pathetic amount of excitement coursed through me as I snatched it out of my back pocket.

Foodie Bee has made a new post it stated.

As far as I knew, Dakota hadn’t uploaded any new videos or reels since she showed up unexpectedly weeks ago, and like an addict, I pulled up the video, just like every other one she’d posted since I discovered her on social media a few years earlier. I’d watched everything she’d posted over and over, so many times I nearly had every word memorized. My Dakota had always loved to cook. It was such a simple thing but I loved how happy it made her. She had so few bright spots in her life back then. It was a small consolation to know she’d managed to make a career out of that passion, and a damn successful one at that with millions of followers across multiple platforms.

It was strictly by chance that I asked Bane, a good friend and the Wraith’s resident hacker, to find what he could on Dakota. I’d managed to hold off for so long, but my strength eventually gave out. There hadn’t been a day in the past sixteen years that I didn’t think of her, that I didn’t still feel the acute pain of losing her. I kept waiting and waiting for time to dull it, but that never happened, and I needed to know what she was up to. That was how I found Foodie Bee. And fuck if seeing what she’d named herself didn’t light my blood on fire.

Just like I’d done everything in my power to keep a little piece of her with me, she’d done the same. And realizing that she’d chosen a name that held a little piece of me gave me enough hope to sustain me for years. That hope only grew stronger after my night with her in her hotel room a couple weeks back. I wanted to push, hell, I wanted to steamroll my way into her life, but I knew that would only push her away, especially after that scene in the hospital supply closet. So as hard as it was, I was giving her space. At least for the time being. Though, I was quickly running out of patience.

I tapped the screen until I got to the page I wanted and hit play, the tightness that seemed to live in my chest lately loosening, my lungs expanding on a full breath at the sound of her melodic voice introducing, “Hey, guys. Foodie Bee here! I know I’ve been MIA for a while, but I’m back, and I’ve got a recipe you guys are going to love.”

God, it was impossible not to fall for her over and over again when I saw that smile and heard the happiness in her voice. I knew why she hadn’t been posting for a while, but I was thrilled that she was back. I listened, enraptured by the excitement in her voice as she detailed the latest recipe she was working on. It took watching it twice to realize she’d filmed her most recent YouTube video from Lennon’s old kitchen. 

I was distracted from my third re-watch of her video on how to make something called brick chicken when the clomp of my daughter’s boots came rushing down the stairs. “Whatcha watching, Daddy?”

I lifted one arm so she could climb onto my lap and held my phone out for her to watch with me. A few seconds in, Cassi sucked in a breath. “That’s the pretty lady from the hospital!”

“Her name’s Dakota.”

She scrunched her nose up and leaned closer to the phone screen like she was studying it. “She doesn’t look sad anymore, so that’s good.”

I banded an arm around my little girl’s waist and squeezed her tight. I knew the world could be a cruel place at times, I’d seen enough of it firsthand. All I could do was hope that it didn’t squash the empathy that made her so special.

“You’re right. That’s because she’s cooking. Cooking has always made her really happy.”

Cassi’s head turned in my direction, curiosity covering her little face. “How do you know that?”

I’d never told Cassi about Dakota. Not because I was trying to keep my past a secret, but because talking about her hurt too goddamn much, but now that my baby girl had met her, it was time for her to know the truth. “Well, honey, I know because Dakota used to be my girlfriend a long time ago.”

Cassi’s eyes grew wide with surprise. She wasn’t used to hearing me talk about past relationships. When she was old enough to ask about her mom, I explained that, even though her mother loved her very much, she knew she wasn’t able to take care of her, so she gave her to me because she knew that I could, and there wasn’t anything in the world I wouldn’t do for my baby. Other than that conversation, though, I’d never mentioned another woman. Mainly because there hadn’t been one to mention. Every one that came before and after Dakota had been a way to lose myself for a few hours. I could close my eyes and imagine I was buried inside the one and only woman I’d ever wanted a future with.

“She was?” Cassi asked brightly. “So, did you, like, love her and stuff?”

A chuckle worked its way up my throat as I leaned in and pressed a kiss to my girl’s temple. “Yeah, honey. I loved her very, very much.”

Her expression fell into one of sadness. “Then how come you guys broke up?”

That wasn’t a question she was old enough to understand, so I gave a vague excuse that would hopefully appease her curiosity, at least for the time being. “We were really young at the time, little star. And even though people love each other very much, life can still get in the way.”

“But . . . do you still love her? You looked sad too when you came back into Poppy’s room that day. Were you sad because you miss her?”

One thing I swore to myself when Cassi was born was that I would never lie to my baby girl. There were some truths she was too young to know. In those cases I gave her a vague non-answer, but in a case like this, only the truth would do.

“Yeah, honey, I still love her very much. And I was sad when I came back to you and Poppy because seeing her sad hurt my heart.”

A flash of determination moved over her features as she sat up taller in my lap. “Then you have to win her back, Daddy. She’s super pretty, and if you love her, that means she has to be nice, because you’d only pick a lady who’s nice. You’re too smart for that, Daddy,” she stated seriously, like that was the one thing on the planet she knew as a fact.

I couldn’t help but smile. That was just the effect my little star had on me. No matter my mood, I couldn’t not smile when she was with me.

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her it wasn’t as simple as that, but before the words could come out, a thought hit me. I wasn’t above fighting dirty to get her back, even if that meant recruiting my evil genius of a daughter.

“What did you have in mind?”

Cassi looked off into space, tapping her chin in thought like a woman at least two decades older than her seven years. “You should cook for her! You said she loves to cook, right? That means she’s always cookin’ for herself. You should cook for her. You cook really good, Daddy.”

It wasn’t a coincidence she thought that, seeing as most of the meals I cooked for her I got from Foodie Bee. I hadn’t been much of a cook back when Dakota and I were together, but that had definitely changed. Her recipes were another piece of her I was able to have with me.

“And you should take me with you when you deliver it to her. I can tell her all the great things about you! Like, how you give the best night-night hugs, and how you’re the best at tuckin’ me in, and how you draw me pretty pictures to hang up on my walls. Plus, like, everyone loves me. She will too, so she’ll totally believe me when I tell her all the awesome stuff about you.”

I pressed a kiss to the crown of her head. The love I felt for this girl was so strong it sometimes felt like it was going to consume me. “You’d really do that for your old man, little star?”

Cassi turned to face me, reaching her tiny hands up to cup both my cheeks. “Of course I would. You’re the best daddy in the whole wide world.”

I hugged her tight, my heart swelling so big in my chest there wasn’t room for anything else. “If I’m the best daddy in the world, it’s only because I was lucky enough to have the best daughter ever born.”

My girl rolled her eyes and turned back around to hit play on Dakota’s video. “Duh, Dad. I’m the bestest.”

The following night, my need to see Dakota grew so strong I couldn’t ignore it any longer. After another club meeting, instead of heading home to relieve my babysitter, I turned my bike toward Redemption and parked across the street from the inn. The curtains on Dakota’s windows were closed, but I could still make out her silhouette as she moved about the room. I was obsessed and that brief glimpse of shadow was enough to sustain me for the time being.

“You going to keep skulking around here in the dark, or you think you’ll work up the nerve to actually knock on that door one of these days?”

I glanced over my shoulder and found Poppy standing behind me, a shit-eating grin on her face. “I’m building up to it.”

She moved closer, her shoes scuffing across the asphalt as she closed the distance between us. “I haven’t known you to need to build up to anything.”

I’d met Poppy and her crew a few years ago. The local watering hole, Bad Alibi, was a place we liked to hit up when we wanted a change of scenery and didn’t mind driving a half hour to another town for it. We all loved Toni’s Tavern, but Bad Alibi had a badass old western saloon vibe going. Some of her crew knew some of the Wraiths, so it wasn’t unheard of for us to catch up with each other whenever we hit their town for a few drinks. Then, not long after, some of our club shit spilled over into Redemption while Pope and I were in the midst of cleaning things up and taking us legit. We had to ride into town to handle that, and it kind of tied the two groups together.

“She’s the exception.”

Poppy gave me a knowing look. “Ah, I see.”

I arched a brow and cut my eyes in her direction. “See what?”

“That you’re totally sprung,” she teased. “You know, I always thought you were a playboy because you couldn’t be bothered to settle down. But that’s not it at all, is it? You’re in love with her.”

Denying it would have been a bold-faced lie, so I didn’t bother. “It’s complicated.”

“You know, she said the same thing to me not long ago.”

My head whipped around in her direction. “She told you about me?”

Poppy lifted her shoulder in a shrug. “Not in depth, but enough for me to get the sense something really serious used to be between you guys.”

I wondered if the pain of the decision I made all those years ago would ever stop hurting, but I seriously doubted it. “I hurt her, Pop. I hurt her so bad. There hasn’t been a day of my adult life where I haven’t loved that woman with everything in me. But I don’t know if I can ever make what I did right.”

She gave me a sympathetic smile, and even that was enough for me to understand exactly why her man, Jase, was so obsessed with her. The woman was beautiful. Not on Dakota’s level, of course. Then again, no woman was. But it would have been a lie to say she hadn’t turned my head a time or two in the past.

“Oh, honey.” Her hand came down on my bicep, her fingers squeezing gently. “You won’t find out sitting out here on your bike, staring at a window. Only way you’ll know if you can fix things is to go over there and try.”

It was basically the same advice my daughter had given me the day before. And hearing another version of it bolstered my confidence.

They were both right. It was time to quit fucking around and start acting. Because I wouldn’t know if she’d ever find it in her to give me a second chance if I didn’t ask for one.

EIGHTEEN

ROE

Operation Win Dakota Back started bright and early the next day. I knew Pops was being released, and Dakota was planning on coming to pick him up, so I made sure me and my girl were there first so we could put our plan into action.

Like I said, I wasn’t above fighting dirty.

So let the games begin.

Dakota

The elevator dinged, the doors sliding open on my father’s floor. I smiled, waving at the nurses sitting at the nursing station who had become familiar over the past weeks. “Hi, ladies. Good day so far?”

“Hey, Dakota,” one of them returned.

“Nothing to complain about so far,” another replied.

“I know he’ll be happy to see you. Even more so since he is getting to go home,” the third said, returning my smile. It was a lot easier to smile these past few days, thanks to the fact I’d spent the past two days practically locked in Lennon’s old kitchen, cooking up a storm. I’d already filmed a ton of content and had other recipes I was looking to perfect before filming. I felt more like myself the past couple days than I had in a very long time. That was why, instead of feeling panicked and anxious that my father was being released today, I was downright chipper.

At least as I made my way down the hall to his room.

“Morning, Ezra. Ready to be sprung—?” I stopped dead in the threshold as I took in the additional two people in the room I certainly hadn’t been expecting.

Roe inclined his head at me and greeted, “Honeybee.”

I barely had time to brace for that blow when another one came in the form of his little girl rushing over to me and stopping a few inches away. Her head tipped back, her mouth stretched in a huge grin. “Hi,” she chirped happily. I felt a little better prepared for another run-in, and she was so damn cute I couldn’t help but return her smile. Her outlandish outfit only made her that much cuter. Today she wore a glittery pink plastic tiara with a pair of leggings that had tiny motorcycles on them, a gold princess dress that stopped just below her knees, and those same biker boots as last time. She was a wonderful mix of biker and princess. She had her own style, and I couldn’t help but swoon a little that Roe obviously let her do her own thing.

“Hi right back at you, sweetie.”

“You’re really pretty,” she stated without a hint of shame, causing my smile to stretch even wider. “So are you, little cutie.” It was the easiest truth I’d ever told. With those giant deep-blue doe eyes and all her long, dark hair, it didn’t take any effort to see she was going to be one hell of a heartbreaker when she got older.

I snickered at the thought of the living nightmare Roe would be dealing with when she was old enough to date.

I could have sworn I saw her chest puff out under my praise. “Thanks. You know, you look like Sleeping Beauty. Do you like that movie?”

“It’s been a while since I watched it, but yeah, I liked it a lot.”

Her nose crinkled as her smile grew impossibly wider. “Me too.”

“Why don’t you move out of the doorway so she can get into the room, little star?”

Damn it! I swooned again at Roe’s nickname for his daughter. Ignoring the way my knees wobbled just slightly as Roe watched me move closer into the room. He watched every step I took with rapt attention, like I was the most interesting thing he saw, and in the end, I didn’t have a choice but to meet his gaze, or things would have been beyond awkward. “Hi,” I offered, my smile plastic and brittle as I greeted him. The same could be said for Roe. The man practically preened at my acknowledgment.

“Hey. How have you been?”

It took a second for my tongue to unfreeze and answer, “Um, good. Thanks. You?” I wanted to smack myself in the forehead for being so damn awkward.

His expression gentled, and I told myself that it absolutely did not make my belly flip to see him look at me like that. “I’m good.”

I’d gotten that same tender look, packed full of emotion, that night in my room at Redbud Inn, and the damn expression didn’t pack any less of a punch now that he was dressed, as opposed to completely naked.

“Well, that’s just great,” Ezra broke in, forcing our attention to him. He was sitting on the side of his bed, fully dressed, looking none-too-pleased to still be stuck in his hospital room. “Now that we’ve discovered everyone is great, maybe you can stop making googly eyes at each other and get me the hell out of here.”

“Christ, old man,” Roe grunted unhappily at the same time I spat out, “We aren’t making googly eyes at each other.”

A single steel-gray brow rose on Ezra’s forehead, his expression saying silently that he thought I was full of shit.

“I thought I was . . .” I trailed off as my gaze bounced back to Roe. “I mean, I planned on taking you home. Did I get my wires crossed?”

“No, this one’s on me,” Roe explained quickly.

“Look, I don’t care who’s doin’ it, but if one of you doesn’t get me out of here, I’m gonna start walking.”

“Poppy.” At Cassi’s scolding tone, I whipped my head in her direction and had to bite the inside of my cheek to stop from laughing. I didn’t think a girl her age could scowl so perfectly, but she was currently glaring up at the old man with her hands planted on her tiny hips like she was about to give him a detention or something. “You’re bein’ rude. And what have you always told me about bein’ rude to people who don’t deserve it.”

My jaw practically hit the floor at the repentant look on his face. “You’re right, sparkle.”

I tried my hardest to hold it back, but my snort broke through, and when Ezra shot me a scowl, I lost control and threw my head back on a laugh. “She told you, Dad. Something tells me you better not mess with her.”

I didn’t realize what I said until my hilarity died down and I noticed the annoyance on my father’s face had melted away and left behind a softness that tugged sharply at something behind my ribs. The way he was watching me, he looked at least ten years younger, and I was reminded, in that moment, of the man who I once thought had hung the moon and every single star in the sky. It was like falling back in time when I was a girl, not much younger than Cassi, and was so sure my father could do no wrong; he would always protect me from anything bad.

Time had proved me wrong, repeatedly, but it was hard not to feel like that little girl when I kept getting flashes of the man who’d once been my hero.

My smile fell and I cleared my throat awkwardly as the air in the room thickened. “So, um . . . you ready to go?” I looked around the room. “Don’t you need a wheelchair or something?”

Ezra’s scowl returned in full force. “Over my cold, dead body am I leavin’ here in a wheelchair. I’m more than capable of walking.”

Something in me snapped as he tried pushing to his feet, and all traces of my good humor fled. “It almost was over your dead body,” I shot back, using a tone I imagined Lennon might use on her middle schoolers. The timbre of it said without a doubt I was not to be fucked with. “Or did you forget that the way you’ve been living nearly killed you?” It was my turn to slam my hands on my hips.

I hadn’t expected the panic that came with my scolding, but ever since I got back, I hadn’t been able to shake the realization that I’d almost lost my father. I used to tell myself I wouldn’t care if anything happened to him, but this whole situation had made a liar out of my past self. A part of me didn’t want to care, terrified that doing so would only give him the ammunition to hurt me all over again. I couldn’t help it.

I did a shitty job of hiding that panic, because Ezra moved faster than any man who was weeks out from open heart surgery had the right to do. “Okay, baby girl,” he said quickly, moving to me and taking my face in his hands, and to my utter horror, I felt the burn behind my eyes return with a vengeance. I got the light blue of my eyes from my father, and as I stared up at him, clasping his wrists in my hands, I was reminded how close I came to never seeing those eyes on him ever again. “It’s okay,” he said so gently that tug in my chest yanked harder. “I’ll use the wheelchair. I promise. No more arguing.”

I pulled my bottom lip between my teeth and clamped down against the onslaught of tears that wanted to break free. When I finally got a hold of myself, I sniffled and took a small step back, breaking his hold. “Good. Glad we got that settled.”

I turned around, prepared to go in search of a wheelchair, when the nurse from my very first visit appeared out of thin air, wheeling one into his room.

“Perfect timing.” Roe gave the woman a kind smile, but I didn’t miss the way her cheeks flushed bright pink at the sight of it. It took serious effort to suppress my eyeroll. It wasn’t unusual for Roe to get all kinds of female attention everywhere we went when we were younger, and it appeared that time hadn’t dulled his shine one damn bit. He took the handles from her and wheeled it closer to Ezra. “Cass and I just finished getting the spare room set up for you.”

“Yeah, Poppy!” Cassi bounced on the balls of her motorcycle boots. “And I drew you a bunch of pictures and hung them on the wall so you can see them and be happy.”

I blinked, giving my head a shake as confusion set in. “Wait. Your house?” I asked Roe. “Why can’t he just go home?”

The two men shared a look that I didn’t understand, but, from the way their faces had tightened, had serious meaning. “What’s that look about? What’s going on?”

Ezra wetted his lips before explaining, “Well, sweetheart, I sold the house a long time ago.”

I wasn’t sure why the thought of him selling my and Remy’s childhood home hurt so badly. It wasn’t as though we had many good memories behind those four walls, but, nevertheless, a pressure suddenly pressed down on my chest at that news.

“You did? When?”

My father, a force of nature, a huge man who’d always seemed so sure of himself, cleared his throat tensely and tugged at the collar of his shirt. “A little over thirteen years ago. After . . . after I divorced your mother.”

A record scratched in my head as every muscle in my body went solid, freezing me to the spot. “A-after . . . you . . . I-I don’t understand.”

It wasn’t as though I hadn’t thought about my mother since my return to Ashland. It would have been a lie if I said I wasn’t more than a little curious why I hadn’t seen her a single time I’d visited Ezra in the hospital. Mostly I was thankful we hadn’t crossed paths but had been preparing myself for that inevitability. Now to find out he’d divorced the evil woman shortly after Remy had gotten the hell out of there, it felt like a blow to the stomach.

“Baby girl?” At my father’s tender tone, I blinked back into the present, trying to sniff down the hurt that it hadn’t been until after we were gone that he finally got rid of her poisonous ass. “Oh, honey.” His face fell at the pain he so clearly saw in my eyes. “We have so much we need to talk about.”

I knew that logically, but I suddenly wasn’t sure I was game for that conversation.

Shaking off my hurt feelings, I focused on what was happening right then, telling myself that everything else was for another day. Maybe it made me a coward to bury my head in the sand, but it was all I had the strength to do at the moment. “Okay, fine. Just tell me where I’m taking you.”

“My house,” Roe answered automatically, even as my father talked over him.

“To the clubhouse.”

My chin jerked back into my neck. “Have you lost your mind?” I squeaked loudly, my eyes bugging wide. “You just had heart surgery! You can’t stay at the clubhouse.” I didn’t bother to hide the curl of disgust in my upper lip. “That’s the last place someone who’s still healing the way you are should be staying. Hell, five seconds in that building and you’re likely to go into septic shock.”

Roe let out a snort of laughter. “A lot’s changed in the past sixteen years, Honeybee.”

I shot Roe a killing look. “That may be the case, but it’s still a glorified bachelor pad, not some place a person goes to heal.”

He held his hands up in surrender. “Hey, you won’t get any argument from me. That’s why he’s stayin’ with us.”

“Can you two stop talkin’ like I’m not sitting right here?” my father grumped. “Son, I already told you, I’m not imposin’ on you and Sparkle. I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself, and the clubhouse isn’t that bad.”

I crossed my arms over my chest and shot daggers from my eyes. “You are not staying in that clubhouse,” I argued back.

“She’s right, Pops. We might have cleaned sh—” He paused, casting his eyes to his little girl who was watching everything like it was the most interesting TV show come to life and she couldn’t get enough. “Uh, stuff. We might have cleaned stuff up, but not to the level you’d need it to be to get better.”

He crossed his arms and pouted like he was a toddler and not a grown-ass man. “Well, I’m still not stayin’ with you.”

“You can stay with me.” The words fell out of my mouth without a single, solitary thought from my brain, but there was no way of pulling them back now that they were out in the universe.

My father smiled in my direction. “Honey, as much as I’d love that, have you forgotten you’re currently living out of a hotel room?”

I had. Shit.

Call it temporary insanity, but I found myself saying, “Not anymore. I’m renting Lennon’s old place. You can stay there with me.”

Why the hell did I just say that? I thought to myself, ignoring the way Ezra’s and Roe’s eyes lit up at the invitation. Before I could take it back, however, the nurse I’d totally forgotten was still in the room, watching the whole ridiculous scene go down, spoke up. “That’s great! All settled then. What do you say we get you home?”

“Uh . . .” My eyes darted around the room, not that I was looking at anything in particular as I tried to work out how the hell I was going to care for my father in a house where every room except the kitchen was completely empty. “Great. I’ll just pull the car around, and, um, make a few phone calls.”

I darted out of the room before anyone could say anything else, pulling my cell from my back pocket.

I hit the number I’d saved on speed-dial and brought the phone to my ear as I power-walked to the elevators.

“Iris?” I asked as soon as the call connected.

“Hey, girly. How’s it going? You sound out of breath.”

“I need a favor,” I blurted, jabbing the button to call the elevator. “A big one. Incidentally, do you think Lennon would be willing to rent me her house? And also, how fast do you think you can furnish an empty house?”

I could have sworn I heard the smile in her voice as she answered, “Leave it to me. I’ll get everything taken care of.”

NINETEEN

DAKOTA

I held the phone to my ear as I stood in the front yard, watching the controlled chaos taking place before my very eyes. My girl Iris hadn’t been lying when she said she had it handled, and now my new driveway was filled to the brim with Iron Wraiths hauling furniture off the back of a moving truck and carrying it into the house I was now sharing with my estranged father for the foreseeable future.

For signing a six-month lease, Lennon gave me all her old furniture she’d put into storage when she moved in with Pope and decided it didn’t fit. Which was most of it. The guys moved everything into the guest room first so that Ezra had a place to rest and were now working diligently to fill the rest of the house.

After taking off for sixteen years, and my icy demeanor when I first showed up at the hospital, I’d expected the cold shoulder, but was surprised when I got nothing but friendly smiles and familiar greetings from the guys I’d known before. They treated me like I hadn’t been gone all this time and hadn’t spent most of my life secretly hating them for taking my father from me.

“So you’ve gone full-on looney toons then,” my sister said through the line after I finished relaying the events of the past couple hours.

“Apparently so,” I deadpanned. “Honestly, I don’t know how the hell this happened. It was as if my brain short-circuited in the middle of that hospital room.”

“Or,” my sister chimed in, her voice softening slightly, “you met a group of women you really like, and they made you realize maybe that town isn’t so bad after all.”

My mouth dropped open as I turned around to face the street, my free hand falling to Hank’s head where he sat by my side without a care in the world. “How can you say that?” I squeaked, shock settling over me at my sister’s words. “You’ve always hated this place as much as I have.”

“Don’t lie to me, Kota. You already do too much of that to yourself.”

I reared back like I’d been slapped. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It wasn’t the town, not really,” she continued. “I knew from an early age that wasn’t the place for me. That doesn’t mean I didn’t see the good in it, or the way you loved it before everything went bad. Dad’s club doesn’t make up the whole of Ashland. Our shitty mother doesn’t make up the whole of Ashland. There’s good everywhere and you’ve always seen that. There isn’t anything wrong with being happy to be back and making a new group of friends, the kind you really deserve.”

I sniffled against the now damn-near constant burn behind my eyes and in my sinuses. “When the hell did you get all mushy?”

Remy’s laughter carried down the line, forcing my own smile to peek through. “Oh shut up. I’m not mushy, I’m wise.”

I sniffled again, my vision of the street ahead of me growing glassy. “I miss you,” I whispered.

“I miss you too,” she returned just as softly. “I’ve been thinking about it, and I think I’m going to make a trip down there.”

My hand froze on Hank’s head, and the dog let out a disgruntled woof when I stopped petting him. “You’d really do that?” I asked, reaching into my pocket and pulling out a treat that I now always kept on me and in the house—just in case—and passing it to him to buy his affections back. What could I say? I was a sucker who had a soft spot for the street’s mascot. Spending time with Hank reminded me how badly I’d wanted a dog of my own growing up. Not that my mother ever let me have one. Then, after I left, I bounced from place to place for a while, and that kind of life wouldn’t have been fair to a dog.

When I finally met Adam and moved in with him, I broached the subject, only for him to tell me he had horrible allergies. Something I found out later was a lie. He just didn’t want to deal with any kind of mess that came with having a pet.

Was it ridiculous that I was wondering if this was a good time for me to consider getting a dog?

I didn’t bother asking that question out loud because I feared what the answer would be.

“He really divorced the she-devil?” Remy asked, pulling my focus out of my head and back on the present. “I can’t believe it.”

“Neither can I.” I turned back to the house to see that the biker moving company had made some serious progress, and the moving truck was nearly empty. That meant all that was left to do was for me to get my stuff from the inn and bring it here.

“And you haven’t seen her at all? Not even in passing?”

I shook my head, then remembered my sister couldn’t see me and answered, “Not once. No one’s even brought her up.”

“How are things with . . . you know,” she said, lowering her voice ominously like she was speaking of Lord Voldemort himself.  

“Things are . . .” I heaved out a sigh to try and alleviate some of the weight sitting on my chest, but it was no use. “Messy as hell. I really screwed up, Rem.”

She sucked in a sharp gasp across the line. “Oh my god! You had sex with him, didn’t you?”

“How could you possibly know that?” I yelped in return.

“I didn’t,” she replied cheekily. “That was just me trying to get a rise out of you. But . . . are you serious, Kota?” she finished on a shout. “What were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t, clearly,” I grumbled sullenly. “And my head’s been a fucked-up mess ever since. Rem, he has a daughter.”

She sucked in more air, to the point I was worried about her lung capacity. “No. Seriously?”

I glanced to the girl in question, who was currently skipping around the yard with what looked like a sparkly fairy wand, only the top had been broken off, and in its place was a paper cutout of a motorcycle.

“She’s beautiful, Remy. And just this giant ball of light. It’s impossible not to adore her. She’s the spitting image of Roe.”

“And her mom? Is she in the picture?” I explained what Roe had told me about his relationship with Cassi’s birth mother and was met with several seconds of silence after I finished. Then, “Wow. That’s . . . surprisingly progressive.”

“Tell me about it. And you’ll never guess what he named her.” It was meant with disbelief and bewilderment when I told my sister all about Cassi’s name and exactly what Roe had told be about his reason for picking it.

“Holy shit,” she practically shouted so loud I had to pull the phone from my ear. “Holy shit! That’s it, I’m definitely flying down there now.”

God, I loved my little sister. “You don’t have to do that, sis. I’m okay.”

“You’re not,” she insisted. “I can hear it in your voice. You’re stressed and panicked and probably feel like the ground beneath your feet in unstable.”

I let out a snort. “It’s like you’re a mind reader.”

“No, I just love you and know you better than most people. You’re struggling, Kota. I want to help. And . . . and I-I want to see for myself that he’s okay.” I certainly hadn’t been expecting that. “I didn’t think him being sick would bother me the way it has.”

“I get it,” I assured her. “It’s the same for me.”

“I’ve got a couple projects for work that I need to wrap up first, but I have a ton of vacation days stored up. As soon as I’m finished, I’m putting in for a couple weeks and flying there.”

I hated that she was throwing her life into upheaval for me, but the truth was, I’d be a lot more stable with her there. I hadn’t even told her about the pictures I was still getting with that creepy I see you messages on them. I found a second envelope stuffed under my door the other day. All it succeeded in doing was making me want to knock Tolliver Brady’s head off his fucking shoulders.

“I’m not going to lie; it’ll be nice to have you here.”

“Then it’s settled. I’ll text you the details when I get everything planned. I love you, sissy. Don’t ever forget that.”

“I love you too, and I’ll see you soon.”

I hung up the phone and shoved it into my pocket just as one of the bikers, a huge guy packed with muscle, scruffy dark hair, and tattoos that covered every visible inch of his skin headed in my direction.

“Just wanted to let you know we’re about done in there, Little Riley.”

The sound of my old club nickname made me jolt, and I narrowed my eyes as I studied the man closer. The thick, overlong hair and beard made it difficult, but after a few seconds, recognition dawned. “Holy shit! Bane?”

That wasn’t his real name, of course. His real name was Justin Ryan, but it was a teasing nickname that his father, one of the founding club members, along with my dad and Courtland Pope Sr., gave him as a kid. He used to bring him around the clubhouse all the time, and there was no limit on the shit that boy would try and get up to. The name fit perfectly as a kid and apparently had stuck as an adult.

He smiled at me then, straight white teeth flashing through his beard, and suddenly, I wasn’t so intimidated by his size and ruggedness. Because that was one hell of a smile. “Hey, Kota. It’s been a while.”

I didn’t think before launching myself at him and wrapping the giant of a man in a hug. He’d been a teenager when I left with a bent toward nerdiness. I barely saw a hint of that kid in the beast of a man standing before me. It was only when I looked closely at his eyes that I saw the boy I used to know.

“Jesus, look at you. You’re a freaking mountain. How did that happen?”

He shrugged, and I could have sworn I saw two spots of pink pop up on his cheeks beneath that beard. Then I remembered that Kid Bane and Teenage Bane used to have a harmless little crush on me. “No one can really explain it.”

I looked down at the leather cut he wore proudly over his faded black T-shirt. “And you’re a Wraith now.”

“It’s in the blood,” he replied. “You should know that better than anyone.”

My smile started to slip, but I made a valiant effort to keep it in place. “Yeah,” I said quietly. “I guess so.”

Bane’s hand came up to rest on my shoulder as the skin around his eyes grew soft. “They missed you, Little Riley.” I really wasn’t sure how many more bombshells I could tolerate being dropped on me at this point. “We all did. Don’t doubt that for a second. But Pops and Roe haven’t been the same since.”

I didn’t know what to make of that or how I was supposed to feel, so I mustered up another grin and reached up to pat the hand still on my shoulder. “Thanks. I appreciate hearing that.”

Just then, like a little Tasmanian Devil with the best timing in the world, Cassi came running up to me and grabbed my hand. “Come on, Kota! It’s all done so we gotta go see!”

She’d taken to calling me Kota since we left the hospital, and I could have sworn she tended to gravitate more toward me than anyone else as we worked to furnish the house.

And as I let her drag me inside, I found that I didn’t mind it much at all.

In fact, I really, really liked it.

TWENTY

DAKOTA

Everyone had left, the house was settled, and for the first time since my return, I was alone with my father in a place where no one could barge in and interrupt the conversation we so desperately needed to have.

And I was terrified.

I was basically stuck here for the next six months. Sure, Lennon was sweet enough that, if I asked, she would let me out of my lease without complaint; that was the kind of person she was. But I couldn’t bring myself to do that to her. Not when she’d gone above and beyond to help me, a person she’d only just met.

I knew Ezra and I needed to talk, but every time I thought I found the courage to broach the subject, it disappeared in a puff of smoke, and I chickened out all over again.

Now was no different.

When I closed the door on Lennon and Iris, after a round of exuberant hugs and a ton of excitement on their part that I was staying, I threw the lock and wiped my clammy hands on the thighs of my jeans.

This was ridiculous! The man inside wasn’t a stranger, not really. He was my dad. So why was I so freaking nervous?

As I moved into the living room, I spotted Ezra stretched out on the sofa, the television in front of him tuned onto one of the procedural cop dramas he’d always liked. “You comfortable?” I asked, my blood feeling like it was buzzing through my veins. “Do you want a pillow? A blanket? Glass of water?”

He pushed up to sitting, throwing his legs over the side of the couch and resting his feet on the floor.

“I’m good, baby girl. Why don’t you come sit?” He patted the cushion next to his. “You’ve been runnin’ yourself ragged all day.”

That was true. I was exhausted. But I couldn’t bring myself to sit just yet.

“I really shouldn’t.” I tossed my thumb over my shoulder toward the kitchen. “I should get started on dinner. You need to take your meds soon, but you must eat first.”

I started toward the kitchen when my father said my name in a tone that made me jerk to a halt. I remembered that tone clear as day, even though I hadn’t heard it in more than two decades.

It was a tone that said, “I’m the parent, you’re the kid, and you’re going to do what I say.”

As much as it chafed that he thought he still had the right to use that tone on me, I switched directions and moved to take a seat on the couch against the opposite arm.

“We need to talk, honey.”

“I know,” I said on an exhale. “But you really should eat. It’s important.”

“I will, baby girl.” He reached for my hand only to stop when he caught my slight flinch. His eyes filled with devastation, and while I wasn’t happy being the one to cause that look, I also didn’t fault myself for my reaction. “But this is more important.”

“It isn’t⁠—”

“It is,” he said sharply, giving me a jolt. He closed his eyes and pulled in a breath as though he was trying to calm himself. “I’m sorry, but it is. Because it’s you, honey. And you will always be more important.”

That both healed parts of my heart that had been broken and hurt them at the same time. Because I’d wanted so long for that statement to be true. But actions were so much more important than words. I needed to see it before I could believe him.

“I know you don’t believe me, and I don’t blame you one damn bit. I also know I’ll have to prove myself, but I want you to know, baby girl, you and your sister are the most important people in my life. You always have been, and you will be until the day I leave this earth. I’ve loved you since the moment you came squalling into this world, and that’s something that will never, ever change.”

Anger and sadness mixed, making my chin tremble as I blinked rapidly against the wetness building in my eyes. “Then why?” I asked on a croak, unable to keep the pain out of my voice. “Why, if you loved us so much, did you abandon us? You might have still lived in that house, but you were never there.” I was too overcome to worry about the fact that I was crying over this man again for what felt like the millionth time in my life. My voice kept rising as I continued. “You weren’t there! You didn’t stop her when she hurt us. Over and over again. You knew. You saw the bruises, saw the pain we suffered, and you didn’t do anything to stop it! So why?”

I was full on sobbing by the end, and to my shock, my father’s eyes were glassy with a level of emotion I’d never witnessed in him before.

“Oh, baby girl.” He sounded as shattered as he looked. “I’m so sorry. I failed you so badly. There hasn’t been a day that’s passed that I haven’t hated myself for letting you girls down.” A single tear broke free and tracked down his cheek.

“Then why,” I repeated on a tremulous whisper. “Please, Dad, I need to know. Make it make sense for me so I can finally stop hurting.”

A sob tore from Ezra’s throat as he reached out again, this time clasping my hand in a tight grip that he poured all his emotions into.

“There is never a good reason for a parent to abandon their child. I’m not going to make excuses, because there aren’t any. I kept the truth from you girls for so long because I thought it was the right thing to do. I thought it would spare you the pain. But I see now I was so fucking wrong.”

He closed his eyes again and inhaled a steady breath before he finally gave me what I’d been needing for most of my life.

Answers.

“Your mother and I were never a love match. Though I’m pretty sure that was obvious.”

I let out a derisive harrumph and rolled my eyes dramatically as I batted at the tears staining my cheeks. “Believe me, that wasn’t lost on anyone.”

“Well, what you might not know is the disconnect was on my end. I never felt for her the way she felt for me. Truth was, I never even planned on goin’ there with her. Then she showed up at the clubhouse one night while we were havin’ a party. I was young, single, careless, and three sheets to the wind. To this day I still don’t know what happened that night, but I woke up the next morning, and there was your mom, in bed with me. I figured it was only a one-time thing. We hooked up, it was done, and we’d both move on. But your mother showed up at the clubhouse a few months later to tell me she was pregnant with you.”

The similarities between his story and Roe’s were impossible to miss.

“I didn’t want to marry her, but I wanted you. If there’s one thing you take from this, please let it be that. I wanted you more than I wanted my next breath. The moment I found out I was gonna be a dad was the best moment in my life. Times two.”

“So what happened? I mean, you obviously married her, what I don’t understand is why.”

“Because she threatened to take you from me,” he said in a choked voice. “Said she’d get an abortion if I didn’t step up and do the right thing. Even though I made it clear I had no feelings for her whatsoever, she got it in her head that she could change my mind if I only gave her a chance. So she used you against me.” He shook his head sadly. “And that was only the beginning.”

A fresh wave of tears spilled over my lashes and onto my cheeks. I’d cried more the past few weeks than I had in the last few years combined. “Daddy,” I whispered brokenly as I turned my hands over so I could wrap my fingers with his, which only made his hold that much tighter. It felt like he’d been waiting for this moment for years. Decades. And now that it was here, he wasn’t letting go.

“I had a criminal record, baby girl. She knew that going in, and she used it against me. Any time I brought up bein’ unhappy or mentioned the word divorce, she threw that in my face. I was a convicted criminal. If I left her, she’d file for sole custody and win. Because what judge in their right mind would give two innocent little girls to a man with a record and an affiliation with a club that was suspected to be into some illegal shit?”

I pulled one hand free to slap it over my mouth in shock. “Oh my god.”

“I knew she was right. I also knew that the more I fought her on it, the worse she would make it for you girls, so I just . . . stopped. I stopped fighting all together. The only time I was happy was when I was with you girls or my club, but as time passed and I didn’t change my tune, your mom worked harder to take that time with you from me until I eventually stopped trying.”

He shifted on the sofa, turning to face me more fully. “I need you to hear this, baby girl. The loss of my relationship with you and Remy isn’t her fault, it’s mine. I should have fought harder, done more to protect you girls. But I let her win. I let her beat me down until the only thing I had to give me the smallest bit of joy was the club. I should have been stronger. At first I stayed away because I thought if I wasn’t around to make her mad, she wouldn’t take it out on you or your sister. I didn’t realize until it was too late how wrong I was.”

It was so much information. Too much. I struggled to process all these new truths I never knew anything about and how they turned everything I’d believed for so long upside down. Everything I’d believed most of my life, that Ezra simply didn’t care enough, was all wrong, and trying to reconcile that with what I thought was the truth made me feel like I was coming out of my skin.

Pulling my hand free, I rose from the couch and began pacing the living room, restless energy spurring my legs on with no communication from my brain. “I can’t . . . I can’t believe her!” I finally shouted, my fingers curling into fists at my sides. “I knew she was an evil bitch, but this . . . this is next level.” I whipped around to face my father and he looked like he’d aged a year in a single day.

I rushed back to him, my concern for his health snuffing out my anger. “Dad, we can stop. If this is too much, we can stop now and pick this up another time.”

He shook his head, giving me a sad smile. “No, baby. This has been a long time comin’. Roe’s been on my ass for the past sixteen years, tellin’ me I needed to give you the truth, that I had to try and fix my relationship with you. I hate that it took a goddamn heart attack and your courage to come back for me to finally pull my head out of my ass and do that.”

I couldn’t think about the fact that Roe had never stopped advocating for my father to fix our relationship. Not while I had so much else to absorb first. So I pushed that down and focused on calming myself so I didn’t cause Ezra any additional stress. I sucked in a deep breath and slowly counted to three. “Okay. We keep going.”

He nodded determinedly. “We keep going.”

I sniffled, brushing my cheeks dry with my shirt sleeves. “Okay, so Remy and I eventually left. And that’s when you divorced her?”

“Yeah. Once Remy was out of the house and she couldn’t hold you girls over me any longer, I ended the marriage. What your mother didn’t know was that I’d been saving every penny I could. When Pope and Roe turned the club away from all the illegal shit, they focused more on the garage and the other legal businesses we had goin’. You might not believe this, but those two together”—he shook his head, his expression reverent—“geniuses. On their own, but especially when they put their heads together.”

I didn’t realize my jaw had been hanging open until my father reached out to push it closed. “They . . . they took the club legit?”

I remembered hearing them talk about things like that back when Roe and I were together, but I’d let my animosity for the club drown out everything else and refused to listen.

“Not just that, we’ve been rakin’ in more money than we ever did before. The garage took off. We use the prospects to run the day-to-day oils changes and tire rotations, shit like that, but the rest of the guys moved toward custom builds. Their designs—Roe’s in particular—are so good, we’re booked out two years already. It was a dark few years, trying to make that move, but they held stronger than any of us old timers ever could. Eventually, they got us out of the dark and it’s been nothin’ but light ever since.”

Those goddamn bombs just kept on dropping.

“Got myself a shark of an attorney and cleaned her the fuck out. Took everything. The house, the cars, all the money in the bank accounts, since the bitch had no work history whatsoever. Then I sold the house. It was either sell it or burn it to the fuckin’ ground and salt the earth in its wake.”

I didn’t feel a single ounce of pity for the woman who’d made the first nineteen years of my life a goddamn nightmare. She deserved every shitty, horrible thing she got, and I hope that, wherever she was, she was rotting away in her misery.

I cleared my throat, knowing there wasn’t a chance I was going to be able to sleep tonight, not with all this swimming around inside my head. “So, if she was out of the picture for good, how come you never reached out? How come you never tried to find us?”

“Oh, baby. I’ve known where you were the entire time.”

That tremble in my chin returned. “Y-you have?”

He nodded, throwing me for yet another loop. “I’ve known about every place you and Remy have been before you settled down. You in the mountains, her by the ocean, because that’s what calls to my girls’ souls. I know you’ve been working as a cooking influencer for years because I’ve been following you from the very beginning. There isn’t a single thing you’ve posted that I haven’t seen, baby girl, and I’m so fuckin’ proud of you.”

“I—” I had to stop to swallow down the lump that had suddenly formed in my throat. “Thank you. That means . . . that means everything.” And it did. But there was still something I had to know. “Why didn’t you ever come find either of us? You stayed in the know the best you could, but you never reached out. Why?”

“Because by then I’d already fucked up so badly, I convinced myself you girls were better off without me. Trying to come back into your lives would only cast a shadow over the happiness you’d found.”

I lost it then, breaking into gut wrenching sobs that felt like they were being pulled from the deepest, darkest recesses of my soul.

“Oh, sweetheart.” Dad stood, scooping me up and wrapping me in a bear hug like he used to do whenever I had a nightmare. And just like back then, the instant his arms closed around me, I felt a sense of safety and peace. “You’re killin’ me, baby girl. Talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong.”

I clung to him, burying my face in his chest and soaking his shirt with my tears. Each inhale pulled his familiar, comforting scent into my lungs and wrapped around me like a blanket.

“I wasn’t happy,” I admitted through more tears. “I haven’t been happy in so long, I don’t think I know what it feels like.”

He took my face in his hands, lowering his head so we were eye to eye. “Then I think it’s high time you went lookin’ for it, honey. Don’t you?”

I nodded. I didn’t feel like I had an ounce of energy left in my body, yet, at the same time, the weight that had been sitting on my chest disappeared completely. “I think you’re right. And I think this is a good start.”

“I do too, sweetheart. I do too. And I won’t stop trying to show you how much I mean that. I’ll never stop, not again.”

I pulled back, scrubbing a hand over my face. “I want to try and rebuild a relationship with you, Dad. It won’t be easy; I’m still so damn mad at you. But I also understand now in a way I never did before. So I want to try.”

He gave me a watery grin. “That’s all I can ask.” He pressed a kiss against my forehead. “And it’s the best gift I’ve ever gotten.”

TWENTY-ONE

ROE

My bike growled down the tree-lined street as I guided it to the curb in front of Dakota’s house and killed the engine, kicking the stand down and throwing my leg over.

A shrill scream that turned into hysterical laughter had me twisting to look across the street, and just like that, I felt my heart start beating against my ribs like it was trying to break through.

Dakota’s long, golden hair flew behind her, catching the sunlight as she ran circles in the yard across the street from her place. Her laughter filled the air as four little boys chased after her with water guns, shouting battle cries at the tops of their lungs as they pelted Dakota with water. She didn’t seem to care one bit that she was practically soaked to the bone; she was too busy having the time of her life with those little boys.

“You’ll never defeat me!” she shouted, dropping her gun that had emptied at some point and snatching up the kid nearest her to use like a human shield. “I will destroy you all!”

The boy in her arms flailed as water splattered him in the chest, doing a stellar impression of some very believable death throes. The kid either had a future in acting, or he was going to destroy the world. Only time would tell.

“Jesus, son. You gonna stand there droolin’ or you gonna get your behind up here and keep me company while my girl defeats the evil Dementors?”

I opened the saddle bag on my bike and pulled out the plastic bag I’d stowed inside. I took the path up to Dakota’s front porch and lowered myself into the chair beside Pops. Kicking my feet out in front of me, I crossed one booted ankle over the other and made myself comfortable.

“The hell is a Dementor?”

The old man lifted his shoulder in a shrug. It had only been two days since he got out of the hospital, but he already looked a million times better. His cheeks had color in them again and his eyes were bright instead of that dull haze he’d been sporting for a while. I had a feeling the improvement had nothing to do with his actual health and everything to do with the woman who was currently laughing and smiling as the kids took her to the ground and dog-piled on top of her.

I tipped my chin in Dakota’s direction. “How long have they been at it?”

Pops chuckled. “Couldn’t tell you. Been so long I lost track of time. One minute we were having lunch, and the next the doorbell rings and those kids are askin’ my girl if she wants to play.”

A smile tugged at my lips as I continued to enjoy the show. The door across the street opened and a tall Black man and a much shorter Black woman came out, smiling at the scene unfolding in front of them.

“Don’t go breakin’ her just yet,” the woman called. “Or she won’t be able to play water guns with you guys for a while.”

The kid who’d died so brilliantly stood from the mass of limbs on the front yard and shot his mom a peeved look. “We aren’t playin’ waterguns, Mom. We’re playin’ Dementors.”

“Ah, so it isn’t only my kid who talks to me like I’m an idiot,” I muttered, choking on a laugh.

“Hate to break it to you, son, but that’s all of them, and it only gets worse.” He bumped his fist into my shoulder. “Welcome to the club.”

Just then, Dakota let out a monster roar as she shoved her way up to sit, picking up the youngest kid, who looked to be a toddler, and pretending to body slam him into the ground. “I will destroy you all!” she growled, sending them into a fit of hysterics before they all took off running again.

I spotted a pair of binoculars resting on the arm of his chair. “Your vision getting that bad, old man? You need those just to see?”

He shot me a smirk. “They aren’t for that, asshole. They’re for Mrs. Hofstetter at the end of the cul-de-sac.” He held then out to me and pointed at a house down at the end of the road. I lifted the binoculars and as soon as they were in focus, I spotted the elderly woman sitting by her front window, her own pair of binoculars pointed toward all the action across the street.

I squinted my eyes and leaned in that direction. “What’s she drinking? Is that a pitcher of margaritas?”

“Mai Tai’s,” Pops answered. “And they’re damn good too. She’s the self-declared neighborhood watch. Sits there all day, every day, makin’ sure the street is safe.”

Just then the old woman noticed me spying on her and lowered her binocs and smiled brightly, waving hello.

Pops and I both returned the gesture, then I put the binoculars down and focused on the people I’d come to see. I noticed Pops didn’t just look healthier. He looked happy. Happy in a way I wasn’t sure I’d seen on him before. Even before his daughters left, all because that bitch of an ex-wife was determined to make his life a rotten hellscape.

“She’s always been great with kids, huh?” he asked me, his tone wistful and a little sad.

“She has.” There had never been a doubt in my mind that Dakota Riley was going to make an incredible mother one day. She had so much love to give that any child she had would never feel lacking. “You look good, old man. Real good.”

He blew out a slow breath. “It’s been a really good couple of days.”

“Yeah?” I was thrilled to hear him say that. The man had one hell of a shitty life up until this point, losing his girls, stuck with a wife he despised, afraid to make any move for fear his whole world would implode. To see him genuinely happy loosened something in my chest. This man was the closest thing I’d ever had to a father, and I wanted him to be happy. “Fuck, man. I’m thrilled to hear it.”

“Thrilled to be living it.” His smile grew even bigger. “We talked and I told her everything you’ve been pushin’ me to say. We got all that shit out in the open, and she said she wants to rebuild our relationship.”

My brows furrowed because despite the incredible news, he looked downright nervous as he finished that sentence. “Then why do you look like someone took a piss in your Wheaties?”

He heaved a sigh and scrubbed at the steel gray scruff that covered his jaw and cheeks. “I can’t fuck this up again, Roe. I just got her back, and I’m terrified I’ll do something to ruin it.”

If there was one man on the planet who could understand exactly where he was coming from, it was me. As it was, it would have been a lie to say I wasn’t a bit jealous that he was making progress with our girl, and I was still stuck on the benches. Hell, even Cassie was getting annoyed with how slow I was moving. It hadn’t taken long at all for Honeybee to win over my little girl, and she was ready for her newly minted best friend to become a much bigger part of her life. That was why I was here today.

“Whatcha got in the bag?” Pops asked, tapping the bag with the toe of his boot. “Whatever it is, smells fuckin’ delicious.”

I snatched the bag out of his reach and shot him an angry look. “It’s butter chicken, and you can’t have any. I made it for Dakota.” I reached up to drag a hand over my hair, suddenly feeling like an idiot for thinking this would work. “It was Cassi’s idea that I cook for her, and I’m starting to think I might have been wrong to trust my seven-year-old’s advice on something like this.”

“Well, first, I don’t think it’s a bad idea. After all, if the chef is always cooking for everyone, who’s cooking for the chef?”

“Christ,” I grunted, “That was practically what Cass said, word for word.”

“Which leads me to my second point. You can never go wrong trustin’ that little girl. Evil might be in front, but genius is still in the title.”

He might have a point with that.

“Speaking of evil geniuses, where’s my little sparkle?”

“Today was her first day of wilderness camp.” Leave it to my little girl to want to spend her summer learning survival skills in the wilderness instead of doing something like arts or theater. Then I remembered the call I’d gotten right before heading over here. “Speaking of evil geniuses,” I started, using his same words, “I already got a call from the camp director. It’s day one and my baby girl’s already on her third strike.”

Pops didn’t bother to cover his snort. “What did she do this time?”

“Apparently one of the kids was being an asshole to a smaller kid, so she punched him in the throat.”

Pops guffawed, throwing his head back on a roar of laughter. “That’s my sparkle! Sticking up for the little people. Let ’em kick her out, that’s their loss. Bet that kid learned his lesson.”

He sure the hell had, and I didn’t think that, after he pissed his pants in front of everyone because he got his ass handed to him by a girl, he’d try bullying someone smaller than him again. I knew that, as the responsible adult, I should discourage her from using violence. But how was I supposed to do that when she was using said violence to protect others? I hated the thought of doing or saying anything that might snuff out a little bit of her fire. It was that fire that made me love her so damn much.

“I suppose you’re right.” Things across the street seemed to be winding down. The boys were waving frantically at Dakota as their dad led them into the house. Dakota and the mother were exchanging hugs, then a second later, the woman who had my heart in a chokehold was heading our way. “Do me a favor, old man. Think you can make yourself scarce for a while? Now that you guys got your talk out of the way, I think it’s time for mine.”

He didn’t hesitate to push to his feet, patting me on the shoulder as he said in a low voice she couldn’t hear, “She hasn’t had happy, Roe. Not a single day since she left. Admitted that to me as I held her while she broke down in tears.” Fuck me, but it killed me to hear that. “If there’s one person on this earth who can give her happy, it’s you. So do it, son. Give my girl happy, ’cause I can’t stand those fuckin’ shadows in her eyes for one more goddamn second.”

My heart felt like it lodged itself in my throat as I rasped, “That’s what I’m trying to do.”

“The food’s a good start.” With one more pat on my shoulder, he started down the front walk, stopping to pull Dakota in for a side-hug and a kiss to her temple.

“Where are you going?” she asked, her brow furrowed with a mixture of curiosity and worry.

“Got a standin’ neighborhood watch date with Mrs. Hofstetter down the way,” he answered, patting the binoculars he’d hung from his neck by their strap.

“No Mai Tais,” she shouted as he headed down the street.

“Don’t worry, baby doll. She made a special virgin batch just for me.”

Then he was gone, ready to sit beside an elderly woman who was probably lonely, and spy on their neighbors through binoculars while drinking fruity drinks. Sometimes life was surreal.

TWENTY-TWO

DAKOTA

When my father disappeared inside Mrs. Hofstetter’s house, there was no other choice but for me to acknowledge the man standing on my front porch. It had been a couple days since my father and I had moved into Lennon’s old house, and I hadn’t seen Roe since he and the rest of the Wraiths had moved us in. I’d tried telling myself repeatedly I didn’t care, but it would have been a lie. With each passing hour, I grew more disappointed that I hadn’t seen him.

Now that he was here, it felt like a riot of butterflies had sprung to life in my belly.

I closed the distance between us, suddenly remembering I closely resembled a drowned rat, thanks to my Dementor fight with Darnell and Aretha’s kids. They’d been too damn cute to deny after they came knocking on my door.

Oddly enough, playing with them had been the most fun I’d had in a long time.

Lifting my arms, I did my best to pull my hair into some semblance of a normal ponytail before tying it off. There wasn’t anything I could do about my soaked clothes.

As I came to a stop in front of him, he rose to his feet, his full height causing me to have to tip my head back.

“Uh, hi.”

His smile hit me like a static shock. “Hi back.”

I spotted the bag resting beside the chair he’d been sitting in and pointed at it. “What do you have there?”

He lifted it up, and I noticed a Tupperware container in the bag. “Uh, well . . . I made you dinner.”

My lips parted, my eyes widening in surprise. “You cooked for me?”

He looked downright bashful as he ducked his head and scratched at his scruffy cheek. “Yeah, well. It’s probably not as good as anything you can make.”

I didn’t care if it tasted like cardboard. He’d cooked for me. I’d never had a man cook for me. The blow of that one shattered the protective wall around my heart to smithereens. There was nothing left standing. He’d managed to decimate it and claw his way right back in.

“Do you, um, want to come in? Maybe share whatever you made with me? I don’t think Dad’s going to be back for some time. Apparently Mrs. Hoffstetter is a fan of tying one on and is funny as hell when she’s toasted.”

Roe chuckled and nodded. “Yeah. I’d really like that.”

I opened the door and he followed me inside. “Give me a second. I need to change into something that . . . isn’t dripping all over the floor.”

He gave me a tender look, his lips curving up into a grin. “I’ll be here.”

I hurried to the primary bedroom that my father insisted I take over and made quick work of changing into a dry pair of yoga shorts and a T-shirt. I let out a muted shriek when I glanced into the mirror and saw mascara streaked beneath my eyes, making me look like an extra in a zombie movie. I rubbed beneath my eyes to clean it away, and once I was satisfied, headed back out to the kitchen. I stuttered to a stop at the sight of Roe moving confidently around the kitchen, heating the food in the microwave and plating it up for us.

The familiar smells filled the kitchen, making my mouth water. “Oh my god. Is that butter chicken? I love butter chicken. How did you know?” Indian food wasn’t exactly something my unrefined nineteen-year-old pallet had been able to appreciate, my preference for it developed in adulthood.

“I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t know it was a favorite. I just saw the recipe and thought it sounded really good.”

Speaking of recipes, I suddenly discovered why it smelled so familiar. “Wait a second. Is this my recipe?”

Roe watched me closely, hope and uncertainty swimming in those deep blue eyes. “It is.”

“So, you know about Foodie Bee?”

“I do.” His back was to me as he said that, pulling the plates from the microwave and placing them on the island in front of the barstools. “I couldn’t stand not knowing anything about your life, so a few years ago, I had Bane do some digging. He found your YouTube channel, and I’ve been watching ever since. That’s how I actually learned to cook.” He jerked his chin toward one of the stools. “Sit down and eat. You must be hungry after fighting off all those Dementors.”

I smiled, a giggle working past my lips as I slid into the stool and picked up my fork. I still couldn’t believe this man cooked me dinner. And he taught himself by watching my videos. He was making it damn near impossible not to fall for him all over again.

“Ah, that’s where you’re mistaken.” I speared a piece of chicken with my fork and used it to point at him. “I was the Dementor.” I put the bite in my mouth and let out a moan as the flavors exploded on my tongue.

“Oh, wow. Holy shit, Roe. You nailed it. This is delicious.” I stuffed another bite in my mouth before tearing into a piece of garlic naan. Everything tasted divine.

After a few seconds of savoring all the warm spices and rich sauce, I realized the kitchen had gone completely silent. I opened my eyes and found his gaze riveted on my mouth, the black of his pupils swallowing up all but a thin ring of blue around the very edge. His throat worked on a thick swallow as he clenched his hand around the fork into a tight fist.

“Roe?” I asked through a full mouth, and he jerked his gaze back to mine before shoving a bite into his mouth.

“Glad you approve,” he said gruffly a few seconds later before changing the subject. And damn if that twinge of disappointment didn’t reappear. “So . . . it looked like you were having a lot of fun over there.”

“I was,” I replied on a small chuckle, using a piece of naan to scoop up some of the sauce. It might have been rude to talk with my mouth full, but this food was too damn good to stop. “They’re cool kids. I think Cassi would get along great with them.” Because from what I’d seen, Cassi, as well as the Klein boys, had more than a little wild and untamed in them. “Speaking of, I’m surprised to see you without her today.”

“Today was the first day of wilderness camp, so she’s learning to make a fire, recognize trees, survive off the land, and punch little shithead bullies in the throat.”

A bewildered laugh bubbled out of me, and I had to slap a hand over my mouth to keep from spitting butter chicken everywhere. “What?” I mumbled around my food.

His smile was totally unrepentant as he explained how Cassi had taken down a bully and made him pee his pants, and I didn’t blame him one damn bit.

“Man, you might have the coolest kid on the planet,” I informed him sincerely.

He chuckled, reaching back to massage at the nape of his neck. “I tend to think so, then again, I’m a little biased.”

I gave in to the urge that was making my palms reach out and touch him, placing a hand on his forearm. “Rightfully so. She’s cool as hell, knows her own mind, has incredible fashion sense, and stands up to bullies? You’ve got one hell of a little lady on your hands, sir.”

The way his cheeks pinkened at my praise of his daughter made my belly swoop and my chest ache. “I appreciate you sayin’ that. Truth is, I worry a lot of the time that I’m fuckin’ everything up and I’m going to do something to hurt her or destroy her confidence.”

Hearing him so vulnerable about such an important aspect of his life only managed to endear the man to me that much more. “I think that’s a parent’s job. You know, to constantly lose sleep over the fact they’re afraid of ruining their kids. If you aren’t scared, you’re probably doing something wrong. Being scared means you care. And it’s obvious you care, Roe. It’s written all over you. You aren’t hurting her. I’ve never met a more self-assured kid in my life, and that’s because of you. You made it safe for her to be herself. That means everything to a kid.”

I hadn’t expected it, so I didn’t have time to brace when Roe lunged at me, grabbing me around the nape of my neck, and jerked me closer so he could slam his lips down on mine. I could taste all the delicious flavors of dinner, but also something that was very distinctly Roe.

I lost myself in the kiss easily. Too easily. Leaning in to him and moaning into his mouth as his tongue swiped against mine. It took an embarrassingly long time, but my brain finally reengaged and I became aware enough to pull back from the kiss and jump off the stool.

I tripped over my own two feet and would have gone down if Roe hadn’t moved faster than a man his size should and caught me before I landed flat on my ass.

“Roe, we can’t,” I objected pathetically, my voice sounding weak even to my own ears.

“We can,” he said on a growl. “Dakota, you’re the only goddamn thing I’ve been able to think about for weeks. It was bad enough, pining for you for sixteen fucking years, but having you back here and not being able to touch you is torture.”

God, he was killing me. I wasn’t sure how much more of this I could withstand before I caved. A-freaking-gain. “This will never work,” I insisted, stepping around and forcing him to let me go. He dropped his hands down at his sides, opening and closing them into white-knuckled fists. “We won’t work.” I waved a hand between us, my tone pleading. “Or have you forgotten that we already tried this and it failed. Epically.”

“It didn’t fucking fail,” he barked, the muscle in his jaw pulsing as he clenched his teeth, searching for his calm. “We ended, yes, but not because we didn’t work. We were fucking perfect together, Kota. You can deny that all you want, but you know it’s true. We were perfect, and I fucked it all up.” He took a step closer and I had to hold my hands out to stop him from taking another. Heat and hunger filled his eyes, and I felt like I was drowning in them. “But we didn’t fail. To this day, you are the only woman I’ve ever loved, and how I feel about you has never changed, not even a little.”

“Don’t,” I whispered brokenly. “Roe, don’t say that. Please. I can’t—I can’t do this. I can’t go there again. You crushed me the first time. I wouldn’t survive a second.”

“You think I survived losing you the first time?” He let out a bark of sardonic laughter that raked across my skin. “Not a fuckin’ chance. Hell, the only reason I didn’t lie down and give up was because of Cassi. She’s the only reason I didn’t fade into nothing.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and lifted my hands like a shield against his words. “Stop it!” I snapped, treading dangerously close to losing complete control.

“Fine. Here.”

Something warm and solid slammed into my palm and Roe physically wrapped my fingers around it. When I opened my eyes, I saw that he’d pulled a switch blade from his pocket and shoved the hilt into my hand.

“What—”

“You can’t do this with me, at least do me the courtesy of carving your name into my skin so I can carry that with me when you leave again.”

“Roe, that doesn’t⁠—”

He took the hand holding the knife and stepped into me, pressing the tip of the blade against his chest. “You might as well. You’re already carved into my bones and my goddamn soul. You own every single part of me, Dakota. Always have and always will, so do me the kindness of giving me one more thing to remember you by before you leave me again.”

My heart started to race and my breathing picked up as I whispered, “You know, most men would just say I love you.” I was attempting to be flippant but failed miserably.

“Those three words have never been strong enough for us.”

Snatching the knife back, he closed it and shoved it back into the pocket of his jeans before pressing my palm against his chest and doing the same to mine. “It’s you, baby. It’s you. It’s me. It’s us.” Closing his eyes, he brought his forehead down to mine and squeezed his eyes closed like he was in agony. “Please, Honeybee. Please, just put me out of my misery and tell me you still feel it too.

That was the last straw. I couldn’t possibly fight this man for another second. “I feel it too,” I admitted softly. “I never stopped feeling it. That’s why I haven’t been happy a single day since I left here. Because no one else was you.”

He lunged then, hooking me behind my knees and jerking me up so I had no choice but to wrap my legs around his waist and my arms around his shoulders as we devoured each other’s mouths like it was our last meal.

He moved with predatory grace out of the kitchen and down the hall to my bedroom, kicking the door shut loudly behind us. He took no time at all stripping both of us out of our clothes, and before I knew it, I was being shoved onto the bed, letting out a startled giggle as I bounced before propping up on my elbows and taking in all the beauty that was a naked Roe.

“Please,” I panted. I could already feel the wetness slicking my thighs, and if he didn’t come inside me in the next five seconds, I was going to explode. “Please, Roe. I need you.”

The wave of emotion that washed over his face stole my breath as he bent to grab his discarded jeans, pulling out the condom packet he had stashed in his wallet.

“No,” I said quickly as he brought the foil to his teeth, ready to tear it open. “Not now. I want to feel you. Just you. Nothing between us.” Ever again I thought as he braced a knee on the mattress and climbed over me. I opened my legs instantly to create a cradle for his hips.

“Say it,” he grunted as the head of his cock nudged against my soaked entrance. “You know what I want to hear, baby. Give it to me and I’ll give you anything you want.”

Lifting my hand to cup his cheeks, I said the three sentences that I’d never stopped feeling in my soul. Not for a single moment over the past sixteen years.

“It’s you. It’s me. It’s us. Now come inside me, baby. Please.”

That was all it took. Roe thrust in deep, stretching me so perfectly I couldn’t remember anything ever feeling better. Despite our avowals to each other, what was happening between us wasn’t making love. It was too hungry. Too desperate. Too consuming for that. Roe fucked me so beautifully that my climax was building in no time at all.

“Tell me you’re mine,” he ordered, driving into me at a relentless pace that caused sweat to break out on both our bodies.

“I’m yours, baby. And you’re mine.”

“Forever,” he grunted, the exertion causing his muscles to strain. “It needs to be forever. I can’t take losing you again. It’ll kill me.”

Lifting my head, I pressed my lips against his as I spoke, “Forever, Roe. I’m not going anywhere ever again.”

We came together a minute later, both of us shouting our releases into the air. Roe collapsed on top of me, and I squeezed my arms and legs around him tightly as we caught our breath. A few seconds later, he rolled to his side, taking me with him so we were still connected.

“You have my word, right here and now, Honeybee, that I will spend the rest of my life striving to deserve you, that I will never break your heart again, and I will love you with everything in me until I leave this earth.”

As far as promises went, that was a damn good one. I opened my mouth to give it back to him, but instead of words, a jaw-cracking yawn escaped. Roe chuckled before peppering my face with kisses.

“Take a little nap, baby. I’ll be right here when you wake up.”

“Mmm, promise?” I asked sleepily.

“I promise forever, Honeybee.”

TWENTY-THREE

DAKOTA

I had been two weeks since Roe and I officially got back together, and I’d spent the entirety of that time feeling like I was floating on air.

This was what it meant to be happy. I had a job I loved, working for myself. I had Roe, and with him came Cassi. I was steadily rebuilding my relationship with my father. I lived on the greatest street in the entire freaking country. And I was making some incredible friends.

If you’d have told me a few months ago that this was the path my life would end up taking, I would have laughed bitterly in your face, but now I couldn’t imagine ever wanting anything else.

There was one tiny thing that might have been able to put a dull on the shine that was my life lately, but that was only because what I saw could have potentially rendered me blind.

I mean, no daughter wanted to walk into her home and catch her father making out with a woman. I might have had a teensy, minor freak-out in which I screamed about needing bleach for my eyes, but then I saw who he was kissing, and my whole tune changed. I’d fully planned on playing matchmaker to set Ezra up with Bea, only, it turned out I didn’t need to. Because my old man was already making moves.

Needless to say, I was beyond thrilled by that development, and I made sure they both knew I was totally okay with them getting together. On the stipulation that I never, ever had to see them necking and rutting around on each other for as long as I lived.

Everything was perfect, a word that I never thought I would use to describe my life, so it only made sense that there would be something waiting in the wings to try and ruin all the good I’d managed to grab onto. Or more accurately, someone.

I was on my way to Roe’s after meeting up with Lennon, Iris, and Phoebe at Toni’s Tavern for a couple drinks. I was riding a high of a great night out with friends when it was ruined by the flash of blue and red lights in my rearview mirror.

The siren on the cop car behind me bleeped, warning me to pull over. I slowed down, using my blinker to pull over on the side of the rode. My heart rate increased as I waited for whoever was in the cruiser behind me to make their way to my window.

“Ah shit,” I hissed under my breath as soon as I made out Tolliver Brady heading for my driver’s side window.

The asshole had a lot of nerve pulling me over after all the shit he’d been pulling with those photos.

I hadn’t received another envelope since I moved my father into Lennon’s with me, and I could only assume that was because the man was a giant coward.

Like some kind of bad, cliched cop show, he tapped on my window with the end of one of those ridiculous flashlights that cops carried. “License and registration,” he ordered as soon as I put the window down.

I knew it wasn’t smart, especially given the fact that I was alone, at night, with a man who’d been trying to scare me away, but I felt my attitude coming out, claws sharpened, and there was no way of pulling it back in. Not with this bastard.

I cut my eyes at him, narrowing them into vicious slits as I gripped my steering wheel. “Can you tell me why you pulled me over first?”

Brady’s face went hard. “License and registration. You make me tell you again, we’ll be taking a trip down to the station.”

He had no reason to pull me over. I hadn’t been speeding or breaking any other rules of the road. I knew better in this town. But the crooked assholes who were supposed to be in charge of keeping the peace and protecting their citizens didn’t give a shit about following the law.

Leaning over, I pulled my wallet from my purse for my license, then flipped open the center console for my proof of insurance.

He snatched them out of my hands as soon as I extended them his way and headed back to his cruiser.

While I waited for him to finish up and give me whatever bullshit excuse he had for pulling me over, my phone chimed in the cupholder with a text from Roe.

Roe:

You on your way, Honeybee?

Before I could type out a response, Brady returned to my window. With one arm braced on the roof of the car and the other resting on the ledge of the open window, he leaned in, his face coming way too close to mine. He passed my insurance and license back to me, a smarmy grin on his face.

“I heard you’ve started spreading your legs for that piece of white trash again. If I knew you wanted to slum it, I could have given it to you down and dirty just how you like it.”

“Is this your new tactic?” I spat at him. “You figured those stupid photos didn’t work, so you’d try to run me out of town by, what? Scaring me?”

For a moment, I thought I saw confusion move across his features, but before he could get another word out, a second cruiser pulled up beside Brady’s.

“That motherfucker,” Tolliver hissed under his breath just as North Hastings came up beside him.

“Everything okay here?”

“Nothing for you to worry about, Hastings,” Tolliver growled back. “You’d do well to stay in your lane. Wouldn’t want something bad to happen to you.”

I couldn’t tell by North’s blank expression whether or not he took Brady’s threat seriously, but I had to hand it to him, the man had serious guts, because instead of backing down from his boss, he looked at me and said, “Everything okay, here, ma’am?”

“She’s fine,” Brady spit.

North slowly turned his head. “I was asking her.”

“I’m fine,” I answered, breaking through the tension between the two men that was dangerously close to boiling over. I didn’t want to get caught in the middle of their pissing match. I just wanted to go home to Roe and Cassi. As it was, Tolliver looked like the back of his head was about to blow clean off.

“Glad to hear it.” He shot a glare back at his boss. “Pretty sure traffic stops are below you, Chief. I’m happy to take over here.”

Tolliver let a few choice curse words out low under his breath before puffing out his chest as he turned and started heading for his cruiser. “Better learn to remember your place, Hastings, or you won’t make it in this department.

North stood there quietly, and I got the impression he was putting himself in the role of my protector. As soon as the cruiser went flying by, spitting up dust and debris, North turned his attention to me  and inclined his chin to me. “You have a good evening, ma’am.”

He started to walk away when I leaned out my window and called out after him. “You didn’t have to do that, you know. The Brady’s aren’t a family you want to cross. They’ll go out of their way to make your life hell.”

Something moved across his expression then that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. “They can do their worst, ma’am. But I can’t abide bullies. It’s just not in me.”

It was in that moment that I realized Iris had been right about him being a good man. It was nearly on the tip of my tongue to ask him if he knew my gorgeous, sweet, redheaded realtor friend, but something told me he wasn’t in the mood for a fix up.

Another time, then, I thought to myself as I put my car in gear and headed for my man and his precious girl. Another time for sure, because a man like that needed a good woman to have his back. And I couldn’t think of anyone better.

TWENTY-FOUR

DAKOTA

As I drove my car through the tree-lined back road, Cassi chattered animatedly from her booster in the back seat of my car.

“And then we learned to make a fire using two sticks and these rocks called flints. I was the best at it and that mean jerk, Bobby Handell, couldn’t even make his spark. Ha!”

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her it wasn’t nice to call other kids jerks, but Bobby Handell was a jerk. Apparently he hadn’t learned his lesson the first time my girl kicked his ass, and Cassi was gearing up to make him pay for being such a buttwad.

“I’m glad you’re having so much fun, honey, but remember what we talked about?”

The past month with Roe and Cassi had been heaven, and in that time, I’d gone from adoring his little girl to completely and totally falling in love with her.

“I remember Kota. Only hit him if he really deserves it.”

That wasn’t exactly the lesson I tried teaching her, but it was close enough. I was struggling to suppress my laughter. “Just . . . try really hard not to get kicked out, okay?”

I watched in the rearview mirror as she lifted her shoulder in a cavalier shrug. “I gotta do what I gotta do. I can’t help it if Bobby’s parents didn’t teach him manners.”

Valid point. But I wasn’t going to say that out loud.

I pulled up to the drop-off for Cassi’s wildlife camp and watched with a smile as she hopped out of the car and raced to her friends. Her riding goggles and tiara tangled in her glitter braids were an interesting choice, but like everything else, she made it work.

“Have a good day, sweetie,” I called out through my rolled-down window.

She spun around and waved her hand high in the air, beaming at me. I didn’t know how Roe had handled drop-offs like this all these years, especially by himself, because each time she hopped out of my car it became harder to drive off without her.

A horn honked behind me, and I lifted my hand in an apologetic wave to the car that was trying to drop off their kid as well. While my girl enjoyed her day in the wilderness—something she was growing to love more every day—I headed to the grocery store in town. Cassi’s party was coming up in a couple weeks. She’d requested a stars and galaxy theme, and I was determined to make her the prettiest, tastiest star-shaped cake no matter what.

She settled on that theme after I explained my love of stargazing to her, and how I passed that passion down to her dad. Since then, she’d joined me in Roe’s backyard countless times, lying right by my side on a blanket in the cool grass as I helped her discover constellations in the sky. Knowing that I’d managed to pass down my love to her made my heart swell so big it sometimes ached.

Roe was working at the garage on some custom art pieces that were going to be painted on a couple motorcycles they were working on, and Dad was hanging at the diner with Bea—something he’d been doing with great frequency over the past month—so I headed to my house to start working on the design for Cassi’s cake, knowing I’d get at least a few hours of uninterrupted work before the girls came over later to help me film some content. Lennon, and especially Iris, had really gotten into helping me out, so now my filming days were like little parties.

They’d come over, work the camera for me, then partake in the food I cooked. Usually over a glass of wine or a mimosa.

I’d fallen into a routine I absolutely loved. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had so many people I cared about in my life. I wasn’t sure I’d ever get used to it. Not that I wanted to. It made appreciating what I had that much easier.

My phone rang on the counter as I stirred edible silver glitter into the icing to give it that shiny galactic look. Licking a dollop of butter cream off my thumb, I grinned at the name flashing across the screen and swiped to answer.

“Aren’t you supposed to be working?”

Roe’s laughter carried through the line and warmed my insides. “Work is being done, I swear. I had to stop and give you a call because I was missin’ you something crazy.”

Oh, did I know the feeling. Since getting back together, it was hard to shake the need to spend every waking minute with the man who carried my heart in his hands. I wanted to be with him as often as possible. Fortunately, he felt exactly the same.

“Well, I miss you too, honey. But we just saw each other this morning, and we’ll see each other again this evening.”

“Yeah, but it’s not enough. It’s never enough,” he tacked on, sounding almost grumpy about the fact we couldn’t be attached at the hip twenty-four/seven.

“I get that, and any other time I’d be happy to stay on the phone with you, but I’m working on a very special, super important project right now, and I need to give it all my attention.”

“Cassi’s birthday cake?” he asked.

“Like I said, super important.”

“All right then, Honeybee. I’ll let you go.”

“Just for a little while. I love you, Roe.”

He let out a groan every time I said those words, like hearing them was the biggest turn-on for him. If we were together and Cassi wasn’t around, it never failed that telling him I loved him led to earth-shaking sex.

“I love you too baby. More than you’ll ever know.”

We ended the call and I went back to work, adding the silvery frosting to a piping bag only to be disrupted again.

On a laugh, I snatched the phone and answered the call without looking at the screen. “You know, if you keep calling like this, neither of us will ever get anything done.”

“Hello, Koty. It’s been a while.”

All the blood in my body turned to ice as I pulled the phone from my ear and looked at the screen that read Unknown Caller. “Adam? How did you get this number?” I’d made certain to have my number changed after I left him. Not wanting him to be able to get ahold of me. “You know what? It doesn’t even matter. I’m hanging up.”

“You hang up on me, you stupid bitch, and you’ll never see that biker trash’s daughter again.”

My whole body froze at that threat. “W-what are you talking about?” I asked in a hushed voice, terror clutching my throat and making it difficult to breathe.

“I have that little brat. If you want to see her alive, you’ll do exactly as I say.”

“I-I don’t believe you.”

A handful of seconds later my phone pinged with an incoming message from the same unknown number, and when I opened it, I nearly dropped the phone. It was a picture of Cassi. She had a gag tied around her head and had been taped to a chair. And the look on her face was one of horror.

I was going to kill him. That asshole took my girl. He tied her up and scared her, and for that alone, he was going to pay.

“What the hell do you want? Why are you doing this?” I demanded. “I left. I’ve been gone for months, and this is the first I’m hearing from you.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Koty.” God, I hated that fucking nickname. “I’ve been following you for months. I knew as soon as you started spreading your legs for that biker trash. I knew when you and your dear old dad mended fences. I’ve been there every step of the way. Didn’t you get my pictures?”

His voice suddenly sounded like it was coming from underwater as my vision started to close in around the edges.

Those creepy photographs. Those messages. I see you. They had been him this whole time.

God, how had I been so wrong?

“What do you want?” I asked, hardening my voice so he wouldn’t hear the terror that was squeezing my heart like a vise.

“What do you think I want? I want what belongs to me.” That was all I’d ever been to him. An object he thought he owned. “I’m about to text directions to somewhere. You want to keep this feral little animal safe, you’ll be there in half an hour. Oh, and Koty? Don’t even think about doing anything stupid, like calling that white-trash boyfriend of yours or any of his criminal friends to rush to save the day. You do that and I’ll kill her, I swear.”

I heard Cassi’s muffled cry of fear, and it nearly killed me.

“I’m coming,” I assured him quickly. “I’ll be there, and I’ll be alone. Just . . . just don’t hurt her. Please, Adam.”

“You always were so fucking weak. Half an hour, Dakota. Don’t make me wait.”

The directions Adam had texted led to an old, abandoned watch tower in the middle of the woods. I didn’t know how he managed to find this place or get his hands on Cassi, but I didn’t have time to think about any of that. I needed to make sure my girl was safe.

Shutting off the engine, I shoved the door open and climbed out, gently patting my back pocket to make sure the switchblade I’d taken from Roe was still tucked away. I wasn’t going to put Cassi at risk, but there wasn’t a chance in hell I was coming unarmed. The Dakota Adam used to know was scared all the time. She didn’t stick up for herself or fight back, so I knew without a doubt he wouldn’t expect me to have a weapon. That was the one advantage I had going for me. Adam underestimated me.

“Twenty-seven minutes. You’re really cutting it close.”

I looked up to the wrap-around balcony of the watch tower where Adam was standing, leaning against the railing like he didn’t kidnap an innocent girl earlier that day.

“I almost started to think you didn’t care about her.”

I gritted my teeth together to keep the words I wanted to scream at him at bay. I already knew he was capable of beating a much smaller woman, and he’d threatened to kill a child. I had to keep my anger in check or he was liable to do something stupid. “Where is she?”

“She’s up here.” He jerked his chin to the ladder that would take me up to where my girl was. “I hope you aren’t afraid of heights. That would be rather inconvenient at a time like this.”

I sent up a thank you to the universe that that wasn’t a fear I suffered from, then I started climbing. As soon as I got within reach, Adam reached down and wrapped his hand around my arm so tightly I cried out in pain. He jerked me up the last few rungs and shoved me through a glass door into the watch tower. The place was covered in dust, and from the debris littered around the place, it looked like this one had been decommissioned at least a decade earlier.

Cassi’s muffled shouts met my ears as soon as I entered, and I didn’t hesitate to run right for her. I wrapped my fingers around her gag and pulled it out of her mouth. “Oh baby. I’m sorry,” I said as I brushed at her tears before working at the tape on one of her wrists. “I’m so sorry. Did he hurt you?”

Cassi sniffled and shook her head, and I noticed her goggles and tiara were missing. I swore to myself that if I got us out of this mess, I’d buy her a dozen more. At least. “N-no. He didn’t hurt me, but he scared me a lot.”

Yep. He was so fucking dead. He didn’t know it yet. “I’m here now, baby. And I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“Well isn’t this the most touching scene ever,” Adam said snidely as he moved closer to us. At his movement, I stopped pulling at Cassi’s tape, hoping I loosened it enough that she could get that one hand free and start working on other while I did my best to distract the psychopath I used to be in a relationship with.

Everything in me screamed to protect Cassi with my life, and that was exactly what I intended to do. Standing tall, I put myself between her and Adam, making sure to keep his focus on me. My little star was resourceful as hell. She’d figure out what I did with the tape and get herself out of that chair.

“Why are you doing this, Adam? If you wanted me, why not come for me, huh? Why involve an innocent child?”

Adam’s laughter sounded downright evil. “An innocent child? Please! That girl is a feral beast. She should be put down. And as far as why? It’s simple really. You thought you could just walk away from me and you wouldn’t suffer the consequences?”

His hand moved so fast it was a blur, leaving me no time to duck or brace for the brutal backhand across my cheek that took me to the ground. Before I had a chance to recover, the toe of his boot slammed into my ribs, knocking the wind right out of my lungs.

As I struggled for breath, I could hear Cassi screaming for him to stop. I knew he wouldn’t. Not on his own, so the only choice I had was to stop him myself.

TWENTY-FIVE

DAKOTA

“You think you can just leave me?” Adam continued ranting as I lay on the floor, trying to pull air back into my lungs. “No one leaves me, you bitch!”

“No!” Cassi continued shouting through her tears. “Stop it! Leave my Kota alone!”

I had to fight. Not only for myself, but for that little girl. I had to fight for the life I finally had. I had to fight to keep all the good I’d found recently, all the love that had filled my life with so much happiness. I wasn’t going to give it up, damn it! I’d deserved this life for so long, and no one was going to take it from me. Especially not this monster, who had spent so many years beating me down I was almost convinced happiness didn’t exist.

I now knew that it did. Blissful happiness. And I wouldn’t let lesser men take that from me.

I let out a cry when Adam reached down and grabbed my hair, jerking me up. I knew what was coming next. It was Adam’s signature move. He balled his fist and reared back, preparing to punch me in the stomach. I couldn’t let him land that blow.

Before he could swing, I reached back and grabbed the switchblade from my pocket. Pressing the button on the side, the blade popped out, and I didn’t hesitate. I plunged it straight into Adam’s thigh, gritting my teeth and driving it in as deep as I could go before giving it a little twist.

Adam’s screams filled the small room. I wanted to smile, but there wasn’t time. With my hair out of his grip and him incapacitated, I made a run for Cassi. My girl had done exactly as I’d hoped and had already managed to get the hand I loosened free. I rushed to her, digging my nails into the tape and ripping at it, trying to find the end.

“It’s okay,” I panted, the pain in my ribs so bad each breath felt like fire. I knew from experience he’d broken my ribs, but with how hard it was becoming to breathe, I was afraid he might have punctured a lung, which meant I had to work fast to get Cassi out of here.

“It’s okay, baby. I got you. I’m here. I won’t let him hurt you.”

“Kota, watch out!”

Just as I got the last of the tape off, Adam moved, lunging at me from behind and taking me to the ground. I kicked and punched, fighting with every bit of strength I had left, which was quickly starting to fade.

A sharp pain in my side threatened to pull me under, causing stars to dance before my eyes, but I held on, refusing to let unconsciousness take hold as Adam climbed over me and wrapped his hands around my throat.

As I fought and clawed at his face, I vaguely recalled that Cassi’s tears had morphed into sounds of anger.

“Get off my Kota!” I heard as Cassi’s little face came into view. A new fear I’d never experienced took hold when I realized she had thrown herself onto Adam’s back and was holding on to his hair with a death grip.

Her little face was screwed with determination as she yanked and pulled and ripped, causing him to loosen his grip on my throat enough to pull in a much needed breath.

“Cassi, run!” I wheezed as I drove my thumb into one of Adam’s eyes as hard as I could. His weight left me as he screamed, cupping his injured eye as he rolled to his back.

Cassi had moved like a ninja, letting go and jumping out of the way in time to not get squished. Then she balled her fist and threw a punch aimed at his throat, just like she had with that little shithead, Bobby Handell. Unfortunately, she was a little off the mark.

Adam twisted, his sights set on her as he climbed to his feet with a growl.

The fear returned to Cassi’s eyes as she scuttled backward at his pursuit of her. Despite all the pain, despite the sharp stab in my ribs and the throbbing in my side, I shoved myself up. There was no way I was letting that bastard get to her.

“Cassi, move!” I shouted, barely having a chance to let out a sigh of relief that she listened before I shifted. I drew all the anger and rage this man ever made me feel, I pulled up the memory of every punch, every kick, and let it fuel me as I hunched over, keeping Adam in my sight.

On a yell, I charged him, catching a brief glimpse of the shock in his eyes when my shoulder collided with his gut. He let out a satisfying oof when I hit him, but I didn’t give myself time to let up. I kept moving, digging my feet into the ground and driving forward like a goddamn linebacker.

I didn’t stop as we crashed through the door that led to the catwalk around the tower. I didn’t stop as his hands clawed at my shirt in a desperate attempt to grab hold. I didn’t stop until his weight suddenly disappeared from my shoulder and his shouts of fear filled the air. And when I finally, finally, stood up to see what happened, I discovered I’d managed to shove him right through the railing. The screams ended on a dull thud, and when I looked over the railing, I saw that he’d hit the ground below in such a way that I knew, without a shadow of doubt, he hadn’t survived that fall.

“Kota!” Cassi slammed into me, jostling my ribs and battered body painfully as she latched on, crying and hugging me for all she was worth.

The pain in my side was agonizing, but I didn’t care. I wrapped her in my arms and ushered us back from the ledge and into the safety of the watchtower.

“Shh, shh,” I soothed as she sobbed into my stomach. She was safe, and Adam would never hurt either of us again. That was all that mattered. “It’s okay, baby. It’s over. You’re safe.”

She pulled back, looking up at me through watery eyes. “You’re hurt.”

“I’m okay,” I attempted to reassure her, but it was like she could see right through my lie. When she unwrapped her arms from around me we both realized she had blood on her hands. A fresh wave of panic washed over me, making my head swim as I dropped to my knees and began inspecting her for any injuries.

“Where are you hurt, little star?”

“I-it’s n-not mine,” she sniffled.

At those three words, the fog of adrenaline finally wore off, and I was able to feel everything. I reached up and touched my side, pulling my fingers back to find them red with blood.

Shit. That pain in my side wasn’t from my ribs. I’d been stabbed. At some point during our struggle, Adam had managed to pull the knife from his thigh and used it to stab me.

Black spots danced in front of my vision as my knees gave out, sinking to the ground.

“K-Kota?” Cassi cried, the fear in her voice tearing my heart to pieces.

“I’m here,” I promised her through labored breathing. “I’m right here. It’s going to be okay. But what do you say we call for help, yeah?”

She nodded her head frantically as I managed to get the cellphone out of my pocket. I didn’t know how it managed to stay in place through all that, but I’d think more on that some other time. I needed to call for help now, before I lost consciousness.

I had to get us both out of here. That was all that mattered.

I was officially over hospitals. If I never had to step foot in one again, it would be too soon.

“She can’t have coffee, you dummy, she was stabbed two days ago.”

At my sister’s terse voice, I pulled myself back to the present and watched as she and Roe stood toe-to-toe, amid a glare-off.

As soon as Remy found out what had happened, she jumped on the first flight from Oregon. The instant she saw me in the hospital bed, she immediately collapsed into tears and clung to me like I was her lifeline.

I was okay, really. The stab had been mostly superficial. Sure, it hurt like a motherfucker, but it hadn’t hit anything major and had only required minor surgery to repair the wound and fix the lung that had, in fact, deflated.

I was already on the mend, and despite feeling like I’d been run over by a freight train, I was going to be okay.

“It was one stab wound, Rem,” Roe argued back. “He didn’t poke her full of holes. The coffee isn’t going to pour out of her like a strainer, for Christ’s sake. My woman said she needs caffeine, and she’s going to get caffeine.”

Remy reared back, “A strainer?” She huffed in affront, and I went back to tuning them out as they continued to fight. My gaze drifted through the room to my dad, who was sitting in a chair in the corner, a pair of reading glasses on his nose as he held a drowsy Cassi on his lap, letting her flip through one of her books with him.

She’d been a trooper through the whole ordeal. As it turned out, Adam had lied to get a job as a volunteer at the wilderness camp to get close enough to take Cassi when he discovered his threatening photos hadn’t worked. The fact that he’d been stalking me practically the whole time I’d been back in Ashland was more than a little terrifying. Fortunately, I didn’t have anything to worry about. As I’d suspected, he hadn’t survived that fall. I wasn’t sure what it said about me as a person, but I couldn’t find it in me to be bothered that I’d taken his life. It was his or Cassi’s, and there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do to protect that little girl.

I was set to be released from the hospital tomorrow, and Roe and I both knew that was when the real healing would begin. Especially for Cassi. She’d been struggling since the incident, nightmares of that day waking her up every night since. And on top of that, she refused to leave my side unless being physically forced by her father once she could no longer keep her eyes opened.

I was worried sick about her, but Roe assured me that everything would be fine, given time. He was such an amazing father; he’d already been in touch with a child therapist to get his little star the help she needed. Sometimes it hurt, how much I loved the two of them.

Feeling my eyes on him, those familiar sea blues came up to meet mine, and he shot me a wink.

Remy and Roe might have been driving me crazy, but Dad was in heaven, having both his girls in one place. Well, not counting the hospital room, of course. I didn’t know what was said between them, but from how they interacted, I could only assume they’d had a talk much like the one I had with Dad weeks ago, because any iciness my sister might have had toward our father when she first got here melted, and yesterday I’d seen her walk right into him for a soothing embrace.

She and Roe might have been fighting like cats and dogs over my welfare, but it wasn’t because they didn’t like each other. They fought like siblings. Like they used to when Roe and I had first gotten together. It might have sounded ridiculous, but they fought with love, and I could see the affection Remy had for him swimming in her eyes.

“For the love of God,” I finally spoke up, putting an end to their bickering. “Will someone please just give me the damn cup of coffee already? Before I lose my mind?”

Remy snatched the cup from Roe’s hand like a little brat and rushed over to hand it to me before whipping around to stick her tongue out at him.

Cassi giggled at that, the sound lighting up the entire room. Even Remy wasn’t immune to the perfection that was my girl, and in return, she smiled brightly at the little ball of light our father was holding.

“Aunt Remy, are you gonna be here for my birthday party?” she asked, having adopted Remy as family almost as soon as they met. The first time she heard it, Remy practically melted into a puddle on the floor.

“Are you kidding, string bean? I wouldn’t miss it for all the world.”

I felt the side of my hospital bed sink and turned to look at Roe as Cassi, Dad, and Remy fell into conversation.

“You doin’ okay, Honeybee?” he whispered into my ear, his lips fluttering against the lobe before he pressed a kiss to my temple.

“I’m good, baby,” I assured him. “And as soon as I get out of here tomorrow, I’ll be perfect.”

He gave me that smile that never failed to make me weak in the knees. “I can’t wait to get you home.”

Home being the house he shared with Cassi. After everything went down, Roe had been beside himself. It had taken twenty minutes and the promise that I would move in with them for good to calm him down, but I couldn’t find it in me to regret that decision. In fact, I was excited.

Sure, I loved the time I spent with my father, but we each needed our own space. And it helped matters tremendously that, as soon as Roe insisted I move in with him and Cass, my father had asked Bea to move in with him.

I was over the freaking moon about that relationship. And so was Remy. For the first time in memory, our father was blissfully happy.

“Have I told you how much I love you?” Roe asked me, making me swoon for the millionth time.

“You have. And I love you back just as much.”

“It’s you.”

“It’s me,” I added with a smile.

“It’s us,” he finished.

No, that wasn’t true. Nothing was finished. This was just the beginning.

EPILOGUE

DAKOTA

As I lay on the cold leather table, Roe hovered in front of me, taking my hands in his as he wheeled his stool closer.

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

Pushing up onto my elbows, I cupped my man’s cheek with my left hand, admiring the stunning ring he’d put on my finger weeks ago, not long after Cassi’s epic star-studded—literally—birthday party.

In the weeks since Adam’s final attack, the three of us had managed to heal tremendously. But I was beginning to discover that was what happened when you were surrounded by love.

“I’m positive. I can’t wait to have your art on my skin.”

As an engagement present, Roe had shown me a piece he’d been working on since shortly after I got to town. It was a beautiful mosaic heart, broken pieces that had been put back together to make something even more beautiful.

Upon closer inspection, I discovered that he’d worked the names of every person I loved onto the pieces, making that heart even stronger.

The instant I saw it, I knew it was meant to cover that hideous rose on my back, and I couldn’t wait!

Some of the club members worked at a studio owned by the Wraiths, and the guy Roe had chosen to tattoo me was apparently one of the best in the business. A guy by the name of Rake.

He was going to tattoo the heart, but also, down my spine I was replacing Roe’s and my words.

It’s you.

It’s me.

It’s us.

I was putting my man back on my skin where he belonged, and he was never ever coming off. No matter what. Those words would be branded into my body like they were branded onto my soul.

“You know this is it for us, right? You, me, and Cassi. It’s us forever.” I curled one corner of my lips into a cheeky smirk. “You’re never getting rid of me.”

He leaned in, pressing a kiss to my lips as he smiled. “Baby, you could try running again, but there isn’t a corner of this earth I wouldn’t search to find you.”

“Good,” I whispered, feeling a little misty-eyed. Unlike in the past, I didn’t bother trying to stop my tears from forming.

Because lately, every tear I shed was a happy tear.

I cried happy tears when Roe proposed.

I cried happy tears as we watched Lennon and Pope pledge their love to each other for eternity.

I cried happy tears when my father finally pulled his head out of his ass and asked Bea to be his wife.

And I bawled happy tears all over the damn place the first time Cassi called me Mommy.

It might have taken me thirty-five years, but I finally discovered what perfect was, and each day I woke up beside Roe was better than the day before.

I couldn’t wait for us to discover together what our future held. Because something told me it was going to be so much damn fun.

The End.

Thank you so much for reading!

DISCOVER OTHER BOOKS BY JESSICA

SECOND HOPE SERIES

The Little Things

Tangled Up With You

Twice in a Lifetime

Chasing Forever

Only Ever You

Beautifully Broken Pieces

ASHLAND SERIES

Dead to Rights

Untamed Heart

WHITECAP SERIES

Crossing the Line

My Perfect Enemy

Turn of the Tides

THE PEMBROOKE SERIES:

Sweet Sunshine

Coming Full Circle

A Broken Soul

Should Have Been Me

WHISKEY DOLLS SERIES

Bombshell

Knockout

Stunner

Seductress

Temptress

Vamp

HOPE VALLEY SERIES:

Out of My League

Come Back Home Again

The Best of Me

Wrong Side of the Tracks

Stay With Me

Out of the Darkness

The Second Time Around

Waiting for Forever

Love to Hate You

Playing for Keeps

When You Least Expect It

Never for Him

REDEMPTION SERIES

Bad Alibi

Crazy Beautiful

Bittersweet

Guilty Pleasure

Wallflower

Blurred Line

Slow Burn

Favorite Mistake

Sweet Spot

THE CLOVERLEAF SERIES

Picking up the Pieces

Rising from the Ashes

Pushing the Boundaries

Worth the Wait

THE COLORS NOVELS

Scattered Colors

Shrinking Violet

Love Hate Relationship

Wildflower

THE LOCKLAINE BOYS

Fire & Ice

Opposites Attract

Almost Perfect

CIVIL CORRUPTION SERIES

Corrupt

Defile

Consume

Ravage

GIRL TALK SERIES:

Seducing Lola

Tempting Sophia

Enticing Daphne

Charming Fiona

STANDALONE TITLES:

One Knight Stand

Chance Encounters

Nightmares from Within

DEADLY LOVE SERIES:

Destructive

Addictive

JESSICA’S PRINCESSES

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ABOUT JESSICA

Born and raised around Houston, Jessica is a self proclaimed caffeine addict, connoisseur of inexpensive wine, and the worst driver in the state of Texas. In addition to being all of these things, she’s first and foremost a wife and mom.

Growing up, she shared her mom and grandmother’s love of reading. But where they leaned toward murder mysteries, Jessica was obsessed with all things romance.

When she’s not nose deep in her next manuscript, you can usually find her with her kindle in hand.