Edward Albright, Esquire had a run of a few good days. But only a few. He managed to talk his way out of any sanctions by Judge Dupree over missing his motion hearing earlier in the month, but everyone knew he’d likely used the absolute last drop of goodwill he had in this town. But I also knew he hadn’t yet hit rock bottom. It seemed I had a knack for attracting lost causes. Even now.

I tried to put it out of my mind, but I felt Danny everywhere. For ten years I’d tried to tell myself that what we had was just the product of pain and desperate circumstances. It was. But seeing him again ... feeling him had my heart spinning. If I could have just buried myself in my work, that would have been okay. But with Eddie firmly off the wagon, the work was starting to dry up.

“It’ll get better,” Darlene said. “It always does.”

She more than anyone knew Ed’s cycle. I wasn’t so sure she was right and didn’t know how to say it. The trouble was, Ed wasn’t acting like he cared. In the past, he’d go off on benders, but his passion for his clients and courtroom work was always there. Now he seemed content to just sit on a barstool or never leave his house at all.

“I’m sure you’re right,” I said. I hated the worried look Darlene had on her face constantly now. I also knew some of it was directed at me. She still hadn’t asked me too many questions about Danny’s appearance at the office.

“You sure you don’t want to talk, honey?” Darlene asked.

My back went instantly up. “About Ed? What’s there to talk about? You’ve talked to him. I’ve talked to him. The judge talked to him. We both know only Ed can turn himself around at this point. He’s done it before. We just have to hope he does it again. He will. I have faith.”

Darlene sat behind her desk, absently picking at her cuticles. It was a habit of hers. Outwardly, she’d appear casual, disinterested even. That was usually when she went in for the kill.

“And your talent for evasion is just about as good as his is,” she said. “I’m talking about your man.”

My heart skipped. “My man? You’ve been watching too many soap operas, Darlene.”

She folded her hands in her lap and leveled a stare at me. “Oh, you can cut the crap right about now, Beth. Whoever that rugged hunk of bad boy was the other day, he’s got you rattled. And do not tell me this is all about Ed. That’s not what you’re worried about. You keep your cards close to the vest and I respect that. But I’ve been around you long enough to know when you’re upset by something. So come on. Spill. Let me live vicariously through you.”

“He was just an old ... friend,” I said. I’d gotten so used to lying about personal things, I barely skipped a beat on this one. Friends. Danny and I were a lot of things to each other. I suppose at one time we were at least that. But now?

“Well, if you say so. But I suppose you’d better figure out if that’s what you are pretty quick.”

I reared back a little. “Darlene, I wish I could spin some juicy story for you, but there isn’t one …”

She put a hand up. “Save it. I’m saying you better get your story straight because your ... uh ... friend ... is about to walk through the front door.”

All the blood rushed from my head straight down to my shoes. I leaned over the counter where Darlene sat. She had a full view of the front door plus a small monitor on her desk hooked to the security camera feed. She’d likely known Danny was out there before she even asked me her first question of the day about him.

I straightened my back and plastered on a smile. It was no good. Darlene had been watching me with that intent, analytical stare of hers. There was nothing to do but keep that smile in place as I turned and watched the front door open.

Danny was so tall, the top of his head nearly brushed the doorframe. He wore his leather cut again with those weathered jeans and motorcycle boots. For the first time since he’d sauntered back into my life, I realized it suited him. Or at least, he wore it more comfortably than the cassock I’d been so used to seeing him in a hundred years ago.

“Back conference room’s open,” Darlene said, smiling. I’m not sure if she meant that for my benefit or Danny’s. Every other room in the office was open. Ed hadn’t actually come in for three days.

Danny stood frozen, those piercing blue eyes cutting straight through me. “I’m sorry to just drop in on you like this. Ma’am?” He dipped his chin toward Darlene, smiling; she let out a swooning little sigh and rested her chin on her palm. She had been watching too many soap operas.

There was no way I would take Danny to the conference room or anywhere else in the building. The walls were too thin and Darlene was like a dog with a bone.

“Do you have a minute?” Danny asked, clearing his throat. I reached over Darlene’s desk and grabbed my small purse. I slung it over my shoulder and shot her a quick smile.

“Seeing as Ed’s probably not going to grace us with his presence today, I’m going to take an early lunch. I’ll be back within the hour.”

I put on a brave face for Darlene. She’d read enough into everything. Danny made another polite apology then followed me out the front door. I knew damn well Darlene would watch everything from her monitor. At least there was no sound.

“My truck’s in the shop,” I said. “I took a cab to work. We can’t talk here though.”

I couldn’t believe I was actually suggesting this, but it seemed I had no choice. Danny gave me a slow nod and walked down the porch steps with me. There was nothing left to do but climb on the back of his Harley.

My hands trembled as I slid them around Deacon’s waist. Deacon. In that moment as he revved his engine and slid into the seat, that’s who he became. The bike felt like an extension of his body. Power. Sleek control. Total freedom. I understood instantly why he took to it.

My hair whipped behind me as we picked up speed, heading toward the highway. Deacon took the curves with expert ease. He knew exactly where he was going. I envied that about him. In a lot of ways, I’d been so unsure of things over the last ten years. I’d left everything I knew behind to start a new life. I’d done it so I could feel safe and free. I realized Danny had done the very same thing and this bike and the patch he wore were part of it. A part of me resented him a little bit for it.

He rode out to the desert just past Crystal Falls, finding the turn-off to Devil’s Hole. It was an ominous location. In the middle of nowhere under the shade of a few tall red cedar trees, three flat stones formed a semi-circle around a hole in the ground. Legend had it the hole was so deep, no one had ever been able to accurately measure it. The locals said the place was haunted by the ghosts of union sympathizers from the Civil War and Reconstruction. Those men allegedly met their fate somewhere in that bottomless pit.

Danny cut his engine and climbed off first. Then he held his hand out to me and we walked to the stone benches together.

This place. This man. Everything came flooding back to me. I’d met my fate with Danny “Deacon” Wade ten years ago on a stone bench not that different from this one. Before, we found each other before a reflecting pool behind the San Mateo church rectory. A towering statue of the Virgin Mary witnessed our sins. This time, we met before the ghosts of long-forgotten soldiers.

“What is it?” I finally said.

Danny rubbed his palm with the thumb of the opposite hand. Everything had changed, and yet nothing had. He used to do the same thing so many years ago when there was something troubling him. And I did the same thing I used to do. I reached for him, bringing his hands into my lap. My touch jolted him. We fell into old patterns so quickly.

“I have reason to think Sean’s murder had more to do with my club than it did his ... associations.”

I peered into his face. “What are you talking about?”

Danny looked up at me. The urge to touch his face burned through me. I wanted to take the pain from his eyes. “My club,” he said. “Things are unsettled between us and the Devils Hawks. You remember who they are?”

Nodding, I slowly closed my eyes. You couldn’t grow up in Port Azrael without knowing full well who the Dark Saints and Devils Hawks M.C. were. As rough a reputation as the Saints had, I also knew they kept even worse elements out of Port Az. The Hawks were about as bad an element as there was.

“You think Sean was mixed up with a rival M.C.?”

Danny shrugged. “Probably not directly. And I can’t get too specific, but we have reason to believe what happened to Sean was a message.”

“What kind of message?”

Danny turned to me. He kept his cool, but a tiny flickering vein near his temple clued me in how worried he really was. “Enough people knew Sean was my brother. It’s possible killing him was a way to let the rest of us know the Hawks are changing the rules.”

“What rules?” My throat ran dry. I couldn’t sit still. I stood up and started to pace. No. No. No. It was the same. We’d had the exact same conversation ten years ago when Danny told me Sean was messed up with the cartel. No one around Sean had been safe after that.

“We don’t touch families,” Danny said. He was talking into space, his expression hard. I knew him. After all these years, I still knew him. And after all these years I still felt his pain as my own. I sank back to the stone beside him.

“You think somebody killed Sean to get to you?” I didn’t know how to even feel about it. Grief? In all the ways that mattered, I’d buried Sean Wade and the life I had with him years ago.

The wind kicked up, rustling Danny’s hair. I acted without thinking, raising my hand to smooth it back. Danny flinched. It was an old, familiar gesture. It was who we were before on that bench not so different from this one. Only then, the rain had started. If I closed my eyes, I could see him; I could put myself right back there. I heard the words he spoke, raw and hard.

He’s dead. Oh, God. Beth. He’s dead.

I saw Danny as he was that night, pale, tortured. All the prayers we’d shared together came to nothing. We couldn’t save Sean. We couldn’t save each other. And Danny’s worst fear had come true. Sean’s demons had reached out and stolen their father from them. The cartel had come to our house one night. I’d been gone. I’d come to the garden to be with Danny.

“No,” I whispered. “Sean’s dead because his life finally caught up with him. We always knew it would end like this for him.”

“I wished they’d killed him that night,” Danny whispered. He was right back there just like I was. We’d both spent a lifetime thinking about the what-ifs.

“He was too valuable to them,” I said. “They weren’t done using him.”

I watched the color drain from Danny’s face. If I closed my eyes, I could see the blood on his hands. His father’s blood. They’d shot him in the chest in my living room. If I’d been there that night instead of with Danny, they would have shot me too.

“Don’t,” I said. “Don’t do this. Don’t blame yourself for living. Isn’t that what you told me? We both think if we’d have done something different, maybe Sean would have listened. That more words spoken better could have saved him. Well, they couldn’t. Sean made his choices. Maybe he loved us both once, but then it changed. It’s taken me so long to come to grips with that. But I’m not to blame for what happened. Neither are you.”

Danny went as rigid as the stone we sat on. God help me, more old patterns rose to the surface. I slid my arm around his shoulder and pressed my fingers to his chin, turning him toward me.

I was here. I was there, ten years ago. My head swam. If I closed my eyes, I could see Danny as he was standing over his father’s casket. He became something different that day. A piece of his heart turned black. I remember Father Sanchez trying to reach him and knowing I was the only one who could. I alone knew his heart. Because he’d given it to me.

“Why did you leave, Danny?” I whispered, hating the pain in my voice. I knew he might hear it as “Why did you leave me?”; I meant that too, but not really.

“I had to keep you safe,” he said and for a moment, I don’t think he was talking to me.

“But I was safe,” I said. “I don’t regret coming to Crystal Falls. I built a life for myself here. I have friends. I have a job that I like.”

“Do you?” he asked. “Come on, Beth. I’ve seen enough to know this isn’t what you really want. You were going to go to law school. You had to give that up because of Sean’s mess.”

“I don’t have any regrets. There’s no point to it. You shouldn’t either.”

“Shouldn’t I?” Danny’s voice took a hard edge that sounded just like Sean’s. It set me off. I reacted out of disproportionate anger. Our emotions were both running so high.

“Don’t tell me you left the church for me,” I said, dropping his chin. “Don’t you dare tell me that.”

Silence thick as a wall rose between us. I knew I was picking at a wound that hadn’t fully healed. It’s the one thing that didn’t make sense. Danny had a path. A calling. Even with Sean’s drama, it made no sense for him to just leave it all behind. I couldn’t bear it. I would not wear the shame of Danny’s misplaced guilt.

“That’s what you told them, isn’t it?” I said, my voice full of accusation. “Father Sanchez? Did you think sleeping with me made you irredeemable?”

“Sleeping with you?”

“So that’s it,” I said, rising slowly. “You look at me and you see your greatest weakness. Your worst sin.” Even as I tried to hurt him with my words, desire swelled within me. If I was Danny’s greatest sin, then he was mine. We took comfort from each other in that garden in the pelting rain under the statue of the Virgin Mary. It was the single most erotic moment of my life. I had plenty of regrets, but God help me, not that.

“No,” Danny said, rising to meet me. He caught my wrists when I would have turned away from him. “I told you before. You weren’t my greatest sin, Beth. You don’t even make the top ten.”

I wrenched my hand away and slapped him. Fire roared within me. Danny didn’t so much as flinch. He took a steadying breath and caught my wrist again.

“That’s not what I mean,” he said.

I wanted to pull away. I wanted him to draw me closer. Pain, desire, rage, lust. It all swirled in my heart and took my breath from me.

“We should go,” he said. “Let me take you back home.”

“No!” I shouted. “Say what you came to say. You’ve been dancing around it.”

“Beth …”

“Tell me! What is it?”

He dropped his shoulders and then my wrists. I staggered backward, afraid to get any closer to him.

“I didn’t leave the church because of you,” he said, with a deep, flat tone that scared me a little. “And I didn’t leave for you. And no, when I go to hell, fucking my brother’s wife will be the least of the sins tallied against me.”

“What was it? What happened to you, Danny? Tell me!”

A tremor went through him. He slowly lifted his eyes to mine and my heart stopped. I wanted to know but I didn’t want to hear it.

“The cartel was going to kill you. They would have killed me too. And they killed my father. Sean was never going to make it right so I had to find a way to protect you. To protect my mother. I had to give them a reason to think twice about coming after any of us. So I had to find what I thought was an even bigger monster.”

I took a staggering step backward. “The Dark Saints. You went to them for protection?”

Danny slowly nodded. My mouth dropped. “They made you join them? They made you give up your calling in exchange for what?”

“No,” he whispered. “It wasn’t like that. They never made me do anything. Everything that happened ... I asked for it, Beth. These men, my brothers ... they’re my family now. But the cartel understands only one thing. Force for force. You didn’t see him. You don’t know.”

I shook my head. Again, if I closed my eyes I could see the blood on his hands. “Danny?”

His eyes snapped open. “Deacon. My name is Deacon. And the Dark Saints gave me the one thing I couldn’t get anywhere else. They filled something in me I never knew was missing. They allowed me vengeance. The men that came to your house that night? They’ll never hurt you. They can’t because they’re dead. I killed them. With the fire and fury of the club behind me, I made them pay.”

His greatest sin. My mouth dropped. Oh God. Oh Danny. He hadn’t just become a dark saint. He had become an avenging angel.