Gunner reached across the table to grab his phone, wanting to check his messages again hoping that Margo had sent him a response. He’d only checked it a dozen times since they’d arrived at the clubhouse. Buck’s hand slammed down on his, stopping him.

“Fuck, leave that damned thing alone. It’s only been two minutes since you checked it last, it didn’t beep,” Buck grunted looking annoyed.

Gunner couldn’t blame him for looking that way since he was supposed to be working and he’d been checking his phone every few minutes waiting on Margo to text him back instead. He knew she’d gone to get her hair cut, but that didn’t take two flipping hours, did it? She should have texted him by now.

“I just wanted to check the time,” Gunner lied.

“It’s twelve twenty, now get your head in the game because we have to leave in ten minutes to carry the weed to our buyer. I’m not going to have you distracted, so if you can’t stop acting like a twelve-year-old girl for five mother fucking minutes I will kick your ass back to prospect, you feel me?” Buck asked looking grim.

“Yeah, I understand,” he muttered, letting his phone go, watching Buck shove it into his front pocket. Fuck, well that was great. He didn’t need to keep checking if Margo had texted him, and how much trouble could she really get into while getting her hair done anyway?

 

 

Margo cursed as she kicked the tire on the car. She’d just left Zoey about twenty minutes ago at her mom’s. She was headed home when her tire went flat, almost jerking her into the ditch before she managed to get control and steer it to the side of the road. She’d tried to change it, but the jack wasn’t in the car for some reason and she couldn’t remember why. Her first thought had been to call Zoey and have her come and pick her up, but Zoey had forgotten her cell at home this morning and she didn’t know Zoey’s mother’s number.

She pulled her phone out texting Gunner. She asked him if he could come get her before she went to sit inside the car, watching as people drove by her unconcerned about her problems. Not that she’d want someone to stop. You never knew who might pull over to help, could be an axe murder or a rapist. She lay down on the front seat trying to give Gunner a little bit of time to respond. He always sent her a message back within a few minutes even when he was on his mysterious business trips. She picked up her sketch pad and started a sketch for the last in her series of paintings for the art show. At least she could use her time wisely.

Twenty-five minutes later when she hadn’t heard from Gunner, she gave up and called the last person she wanted to call—her mother.

 

 

Gunner took the phone Buck handed him as they climbed off their bikes after the drop. Things had gone smoothly at the meet and Gunner was glad they’d only been gone about five hours. He was about to check his messages when Buck spoke.

“You might want to send whoever blew your phone up a text because it’s been vibrating in my pants for the last few hours,” Buck muttered wearily.

“Fuck, why didn’t you give it back at the meet?” Gunner demanded, glaring at him as he pulled up his texts seeing that he’d missed seven of them from Margo. The first one had come in a little while after they’d left the club at two this afternoon. It was a text that sent his heart into a panicked pounding. She’d gotten a flat tire and didn’t have a way to change it.

He felt his veins go cold at the thought of her sitting beside the road in the heat waiting on him. Anyone could have come across her, and it sent chills down his spine as he went over the millions of bad things that could have happened to her as she waited for help. He read the next three texts realizing that the second one was a plea for him to at least answer her and the third was a text that her mother was coming to get her.

Thank fuck.

The last text had been sent an hour ago and it said that she’d made it home okay and would talk to him later. It was short and he could read between the lines that his ass was in trouble, fuck. He ran his hand through his hair, feeling like a damned asshole for letting Buck take his phone. He should have told the man to give it back, but fuck, Gunner was making himself crazy checking for a text from her and he’d thought she’d be fine. He would have never let Buck keep his phone if he’d known Margo might need him. He took off his cut, folding it and storing it in his saddle bags earning a raised brow from Buck. 

“Why are you stowing that?” He asked, his head tilting slightly.

“Because my girlfriend doesn’t know I’m with the club and I don’t think the way to tell her is to show up at her place wearing it,” Gunner answered climbing on his bike.

“You’ve been dating this chick for over four months and you haven’t told her yet that you’re with the club?” Buck asked, looking shocked.

“Nope, she’s not ready.”

“Seems to me that if she isn’t ready, you should cut your losses man. ‘cause you know this is a lifetime gig and you’re not getting out anytime soon unless it’s in a body bag. So, just break it down for her and see if she can handle it. If she can’t, then it’s better to know now, rather than later,” Buck advised as he watched him lift the stand on his bike as he grunted out a reply.

“It’s not any of your business what I tell her and as long as I don’t talk about club business, you nor anyone else in this club gets a say,” Gunner retorted, starting his bike.

“True, but I’m thinking you not telling her is a mistake you’re going to come to regret,” Buck yelled as Gunner flipped him off. He climbed on his bike readying himself to face the music because he was damned sure that his ass was in serious trouble, and telling Margo tonight that he was a biker in one of the biggest clubs in Arizona, was a bad idea.

 

 

Margo heard the knock on her door and sighed. If she didn’t already know Gunner well enough to know that he wouldn’t go away, she would’ve ignore him. After three hours with her mother, she wasn’t in the mood for company. She wasn’t feeling very happy at the moment and after five hours and no response to any of her texts, she was honestly a little hurt. He hadn’t even bothered to text her back to say he was busy. She understood that she wasn’t married to him and had no real claim on his time, but she’d at least expected a little concern for her safety. She wasn’t asking for the world, just a message that he couldn’t come to get her, but hoped she stayed safe.

For all she knew, to him, she was just convenient sex and he didn’t really care about her at all. Now that she thought about it, he hadn’t introduced her to any of his friends, nor had he spoken about introducing her to them. One of the first things she’d done was introduce him to Zoey. Maybe she was just a hook-up that worked for him because she didn’t make too many demands on his time. On top of the really crappy day she’d spent listening to her many flaws according to Helen Dexter, that was a depressing thought. Letting out a loud groan, she headed to the door to let Gunner in. He looked worried when she didn’t speak. She ignored the look and turned away, walking back into the kitchen to get her cup of noodles from the microwave. Margo was starving because all her mother had offered her was salad—which she hated and hadn’t eaten.

“You okay, babe?” Gunner asked sounding concerned.

Ha, now he was concerned, not when she was sitting on the side of the road by herself for two hours. Margo closed her eyes as she opened the lid on the soup feeling the heat of the steam as it burned her finger a little, making her hiss and put it in her mouth to soothe the slight pain.

“Damn, I’ve told you not to open those for a minute because you’ll burn yourself,” Gunner growled, moving up behind her and grabbing her hand from her mouth looking at her red finger before dragging her over to the sink to run cold water over the burn. Margo allowed him to hold her hand under the flow of cold water because she was a little confused. He seemed to be so concerned that she’d burned her finger and yet he’d left her waiting for a response for half an hour before she’d finally given up and called her mother. Granted, he didn’t know she was waiting, but would it have killed him to at least send a response?

“Now you care?” She snapped, unable to hold back the snarky comeback.

“I always care, babe.” Gunner said, his voice hard as his eyes went glacial and his body stiffened.

“I’m thinking maybe you should have cared when I was stranded on the side of the road for an hour, I needed some help. At the very least, would it have killed you to send me a message? I waited for almost an hour on you to at least text me. Do you even realize how dangerous that is for a woman these days? I mean, hell, we live in a state with two biker gangs. You hear about those Tricky Dicks guys doing all kinds of awful things to women,” Margo demanded. Her anger plus the time with her mother had her anger boiling over. Even as she realized she was taking it out on Gunner, but couldn’t seem to stop the flow of words from her mouth.

“I’m well aware of what the Dicks can do to people, trust me on that one. I didn’t have my phone or I would have texted you back, Margo. And you better not ever wait that long on the side of the road alone again or I will paddle your ass,” Gunner gritted out from between clenched teeth.

“That’s your response? No, I’m sorry to leave you stranded, or at the very least an explanation as to what you were so damned busy doing that you couldn’t be bothered with your phone?” Margo knew she was being a shrew, but after the day she’d had she wasn’t in the mood to talk rationally about this. She knew she shouldn’t have let him in, but she’d known he wouldn’t go away.

“I can’t talk about what I was doing today, babe. You should know without me telling you, that I would have come to get you if I’d known you were in trouble. I would never purposely leave you stranded Margo.” Gunner stepped back, his glare hard as he stared down at her. His whole body was filled with a tension she couldn’t name. It wasn’t anger, so much as it was rage maybe. It scared her a bit to see his clenched fists.

“I couldn’t tell that from today's behavior. Even if you didn’t get my first text, it’s been five hours. You don’t ever take that long to respond to my texts. Is it another woman? Is that what you were too busy doing? Is that what you’ve been disappearing to ‘take care of’, huh? What’s her name, Gunner?” Margo knew she’d just taken her anger a step too far by adding in her slight insecurities that were raised by her mother today while spending hours trapped with her. She closed her eyes, trying to stop the flow of words. Her mother always found a way into Margo’s head somehow, and now she was spewing it out like verbal diarrhea. She should have just gone to bed with her headphones in blaring music and let him bang on the door till he got bored.

“Is that what you think is going on here?” Gunner demanded, looking grim as he took another step back, his anger burning her it was so potent. Margo twisted away turning off the water, her mind calming some and she realized that she wasn’t going to be rational tonight.

“Look it’s not a discussion we should have right now, just leave. I’ve had a really crappy day and this conversation shouldn’t have happened.” Margo turned back to look at him leaning her back against the counter as most of the fight left in her escaped.

“Answer the question… Is that what you think is happening? That I’m fucking around on you?” Gunner asked, sounding angrier than he had a moment ago.

“I don’t know what to think, Gunner. You say you have to leave and then disappear for days and give me no explanations. I can’t live like that anymore. If I need you to be there like I did today and you’re off doing something I have no knowledge of, how am I supposed to know you will be there for me?” Margo asked, realizing that what she’d just said was closer to what she felt than the idea of him screwing around on her.

“You should know I’ll always be there if I can. That’s what you should know, Margo.”

“Maybe that’s the issue, Gunner. I don’t know that you will be.” Margo ran a hand over her face feeling a heavy weight fall on her shoulders her mind finally reaching its breaking point. She just needed to be done with this conversation tonight. She didn’t want to break up with him, but she also didn’t want a man who couldn’t be there for her when she needed him.

“You can’t mean that, Margo. Not after only one time of me not having my phone because a friend was holding it for me. I can’t talk about business with you, but I can promise you this, it won’t happen again.” Gunner took a step toward her, his hands reaching for her, but she took a step away from him.

“I do mean it, Gunner. Either you tell me where you disappear to or this,” she wagged her finger between them, feeling weary all of a sudden. “is over between us. I can’t live this way, I won’t. I deserve better and we both know it.”

“I—Fuck. This is just—damn. I can’t tell you what you want to know.”

“Then you should leave. And don’t bother coming back until you can tell me, because I won’t change my mind.” Margo muttered. She felt like her heart was being ripped out as the words flowed from her lips, but she knew they needed to be said.

“Right, so this is all the past few mother-fucking-months have meant to you then? Because throwing away our relationship over this bullshit is just stupid,” Gunner snarled, his face contorting into a dark scowl. He took a step forward making her retreat a little.

“Then it’s stupid, I’m not willing to have a relationship with a man who can’t even tell me where he disappears to for days on end. I need honesty and if you can’t offer me that then this isn’t going to work.” Margo felt those words settle inside herself and she realized they were words she should have said sooner. She was worth more than lies and mysteries. He needed to ‘fess up or get out. She might have been blinded by their easy relationship and the awesome sex but she wouldn’t allow it to continue. It would hurt a lot less to end it now than in a few months when he still wouldn’t open up to her.

“Alright then, have a nice life, babe,” Gunner said before walking away, making sure to slam the door hard enough to rattle the whole building. Dang, her neighbors were going to be pissed about that. Margo left her cup of soup on the counter as she headed into her bathroom, she wasn’t hungry anymore. She climbed in the shower and proceeded to cry her eyes out. Her head knew she’d made the right call, but her heart hated her for it.