I saw her through a kind of tunnel vision. She was there, right in front of me. And yet, she felt so far away. It all happened within the span of a few seconds, but in my mind, an eternity played out. No. Not an eternity. Ten years.

I still couldn’t believe it. All this time, E.Z. and Bear had only sent Beth a hundred and fifty miles away. Crystal Falls, Texas, just outside of San Antonio. It was a quick ride up U.S.10 and one I’d made hundreds of times in the last decade. Hell, I’d even stopped here once or twice. There was a greasy spoon just off the highway. We used it as a meeting place every once in a while.

I wanted to rail and rage that she was too close. The enemies I’d tried to protect her from could have easily tracked her this close to Port Azrael. But they hadn’t. She was here. Alive. Safe, from what I could tell.

“Everything all right, Beth?” My neck snapped around. A crumpled, middle-aged guy stumbled out of the truck Beth had been driving. He wore a tan suit with patches on the elbows. His pot belly hung over his belt and his dark brown tie flapped in the wind. A sign swung on a wooden post in the front of the building. It read “Law Offices of Edward Albright.”

“It’s ... it’s okay, Eddie,” Beth said. My heart flipped over. Her voice. I heard it in my dreams sometimes. But she was real, standing twenty feet in front of me. Her brown eyes locked with mine.

“Come on, Ed, let’s get some food into you.” I’d barely noticed the other woman standing at the end of an access ramp in front of the old farmhouse. She was wide and short. She walked with a pronounced limp, but her grip was strong when she grabbed Edward Albright by the arm and led him into the building. She cast a worried glance back at Beth, but whisked her charge away with swift purpose.

A beat passed. Then another. Beth stood in front of her truck, gripping her keys between her fingers. She looked exactly the same and yet completely different. She wore a black business suit that showed off her shapely legs in high black heels. Her hair was the same, brown with honey highlights in the sun. She still wore it long past her shoulders with bangs swept to the side. Her eyes still cut through me beneath the thick arch of her brow. Those lips, full and soft in a permanent pout. If I closed my eyes, I could still feel the lingering taste of her.

I snapped my eyes open and shook off the memory. My body still remembered her. I felt the echoes of her touch. Even now, it made my dick tighten to be this close to her. Her face was different, more mature and beautiful. The youthful blush on her cheeks had vanished, replaced by something even more sensual. Her cheekbones seemed higher. Tiny laugh lines near her eyes made them sparkle even more than I remembered. Jealousy gripped my heart. I wanted to be the one to make her laugh.

“Danny.” My name quivered on her lips. It was all she’d ever called me. It didn’t fit anymore. I cut my engine and swung off the bike. Her eyes darted over me and her breath hitched as I came toward her.

“It’s Deacon now,” I said. “Nobody ever calls me Danny.”

Her eyes went up and up, staying locked with mine. Beth. Sweet Beth. My greatest temptation. My brother’s wife.

“What are you doing here?” She put a hand to her cheek. “How did you even find me?”

I watched the tiniest flicker in her eyes as she realized the answer before I gave it. “Is there somewhere we can talk?” I asked.

She took a faltering step back. We were pretty much out in the middle of nowhere. Crystal Falls itself was a podunk town with maybe one streetlight and an old-fashioned downtown that looked like it had been ripped right out of the fifties and frozen in time. Of all the places Bear and E.Z. could have sent her, I still couldn’t believe they picked this one. Or that she’d agreed to stay.

No sooner had I thought it, I knew why. She’d stayed here because once upon a time she trusted me. She believed me when I told her this was the only way to keep her safe. I knew now that was only half true.

She turned and opened the cab of her truck. Gesturing to the passenger side, she climbed in. I did a quick scan of the road. The law offices of Edward Albright were located this side of nowhere. Though I’d have rather parked my bike somewhere less conspicuous, I didn’t figure many people came down this way unless they were looking for the place. But Beth didn’t start the truck.

Shrugging, I took her meaning. She was right. Her truck was probably as good a place as any to have this conversation. I climbed in next to her and turned in the seat to face her.

I watched her trying to process everything before I’d even really spoken a word. While she looked so much like the last time I saw her, I knew I looked anything but. Her eyes traveled down, taking in the leather cut, the patch I wore.

“Club chaplain,” she said, her voice breaking. She reached for me, but it was as if we were separated by glass. In a way, we were. We looked at each other as if we were both museum pieces. Look. Don’t touch.

“I told you I could never go back,” I said.

Hurt flashed in her eyes, then was quickly replaced with anger. “Do you blame me for that?”

Her words reached me with the force of a physical slap. “No!” I said, almost shouting it. “No.” Quieter this time. “Beth …” I stopped. The club had given her a new identity. A place to start her life over. It only now just occurred to me the woman on the access ramp had also called her Beth.

“I didn’t know you were here until two days ago,” I started again. “I made Bear and E.Z. swear never to tell me. Only that they promised to keep you safe. And you are, aren’t you?”

There were tears threatening to fall from her eyes. I wanted to reach for her and wipe them away.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m safe. And I do have a life here.”

“But your name.”

“Beth,” she answered before I could say it. “I’m Beth Kennedy now. Your people said it would be easier, safer if we kept some things the same. It still doesn’t feel right though. I still catch myself when people call me Ms. Kennedy. I have to force myself to answer. Isn’t that funny? I’ve lived as Beth Kennedy three times longer than I lived as Beth Wade. But my married name fit me so quickly. I’ve never been able to figure out why that is. I mean, it’s just a name, right?”

She was babbling. She did that when she was nervous. My heart warmed that there was at least one thing about her that hadn’t changed. This was Beth. My Beth. That old desire flared through me as I formed the words in my head. My Beth. Except that kind of thinking is what led us both down the path to destruction all those years ago.

“It’s not so strange,” I said.

“What are you doing here, Danny?”

“Deacon,” I corrected her. Her old name may still be more comfortable, but mine wasn’t.

“I just can’t believe it,” she said. For a moment, it didn’t feel like she was talking to me. It seemed more like she was talking to herself, trying to come to grips with the fact I was here.

“Which part?” I asked.

She reached for me again. This time, she ran her fingers over the outline of my patch. “I guess I thought after we ... after I was out of your life, you’d change your mind. That you’d go back. Oh, Danny ... why didn’t you? Father Sanchez would have taken you back. He would have understood. What happened was ... God. They weren’t normal circumstances. You could have continued on. Taken your Holy Orders …”

When she reached up to touch my face, I closed my fingers around her wrist. “Don’t.” Her eyes widened, then she pulled her hand away from me and folded it in her lap. It took everything in me not to touch her again.

“I’m not here to rehash any of that,” I said. “I’ve chosen my path. It’s long past time for looking back.” The words came out of my mouth, but I wasn’t sure if I was saying them for her benefit or mine.

“Fine,” she said, turning cold on me. I deserved that and a lot worse.

“I came to tell you,” I started again. I’d rehearsed this little speech a thousand times on the ride out here; now that it came time to utter it, a knife twisted in my heart. I’m not sure what I was more afraid of. That my words would hurt Beth, or that she’d moved on to a point they couldn’t.

“No,” she said. “I’m not going through this again. I’ve already given everything up once. I started over. There was a time I didn’t think I could. It was hard ... Deacon. Harder than you can possibly imagine. I guess you did too, but you got to do it from the comfort of your own home. Surrounded by people who knew you. I was alone. So whatever Sean’s done this time, whatever he’s gotten mixed up in, I’m not going to run from it anymore. I’m through paying for his mistakes. And I’m through paying for yours.”

The speech I’d planned crumbled into dust as Beth stared at me with those wide, brown eyes. She was right. She’d always been right. She alone had been the innocent in all of this. But she’d been the one to lose the most.

“So?” she said, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel. “Why don’t you just get it over with? Tell me what you came here for. What’s Sean done?”

I took a breath, squared my shoulders and delivered the news I knew would shatter her hard-won peace all over again.

“Beth, Sean’s dead. Last week. Someone shot him in the head. I came to tell you that you’re free.”