Kat was working on the books for the bar when Dillon finally showed up the next day. She looked up at him and then went back to what she was doing. She hoped he would keep walking and just go upstairs and go to bed, but she should have known she wasn’t going to get that lucky. He sat down in the booth across from her. “Hi, Kitty-Kat. You mad?”

She put so much pressure on the pen in her hand that she crushed it. Ink poured out all over her fingers and the paper she was writing on. When she finally looked up at Dillon, the idiot smiled. “What the hell are you smiling at? First, you took off last night and left me here to handle shit on my own. Second, I’m sitting here trying to figure out how to keep this fucking bar open and keep paying your medical bills. It’s not adding up, Dillon. All my savings are gone. You never had any savings, and this bar isn’t making any fucking money. If it wasn’t for the money the Skulls paid me for that party last week, we wouldn’t even be able to keep the lights on. You’re going to have to go apply for government aid, that’s all there is to it.”

He chuckled. If she hadn’t just crushed the pen, she might have stabbed him with it. “I’m not accepting charity from the government. You know how this town is. The minute I walk into that office, everyone would know.”

“So fucking what? Who cares what they know?”

Dillon’s eyes flitted around the bar at the photos of him in his football uniform and the trophies up on the shelves. Looking back at her with sad eyes he said, “My reputation is the only thing I have left. I was big in this town. You should have seen me, Kat! I owned any room I walked into…”

Kat growled. “I’ve heard all the stories, Dillon. That was a quarter of a century ago. You don’t own shit anymore other than this shack we’re still calling a bar for some reason. You’re nobody. You may as well be nobody with some extra cash. Go apply for fucking aid!”

Dillon slammed his hands down on the table between them and stood up. “I’m nobody? I could have been…”

“Jesus, Dillon! Could have, should have…stop trying to live in the past before you ruin both of our futures!”

“Why did you come home?” he said, suddenly lowering his tone.

“What? You know why I came. You couldn’t handle this place and your illness….”

“And you hate me. You’ve hated me since you were seven years old. You still blame me for her death. That’s why you left and went to California in the first place. So why, Kat? Why not just stay out there and let me fail on my own? Did you just come back to watch that happen, to finally watch me die?”

Kat was the one to pound the table and stand up then. “Are you fucking insane? Have you not seen me busting my ass to keep this place running and using all my fucking money to pay your bills every time you need to go to the hospital? You think I’m doing all that with the hopes of watching you die? I think the alcohol has leached any good sense you may have had left from your brain.”

Dillon stared at her for a long time and Kat thought he was going to leave it at that. She was hoping…but of course, he didn’t. “I didn’t kill her, Kat.”

It all washed over her again. That night, the next day, the next few weeks. Damn him for bringing it up! “This isn’t about Mom!”

“Everything between us is about her. You got it in your head all those years ago, from listening to those cops, that I killed her. I loved your mother more than my own life. I could have never put my hands around her throat and…”

“Stop it!” Kat’s stomach clenched as she pictured what he was saying. Sometimes her visual imagination was too much. “I never said I thought you killed her. I told the cops you were there with me all night, didn’t I? Without me giving you that alibi, they would have convicted you with their circumstantial evidence. You might think you’d be more grateful.”

Dillon had tears in his eyes, and Kat thought about just turning around and walking out. She could stand fighting with him about everything else, but not this. Even eighteen years later, the emotions were still too raw. “I am grateful, Kitty-Kat. I’m grateful as hell to have you. But I’d rather be in prison than have you hate me and think I’d do a thing like that. I pray every day, still, that they’ll find him, the man who really took her away from us.”

“It’s been eighteen years, Dillon. If they couldn’t find him back then, they’re not going to find him now. Stop living in a fucking fantasy world. That’s your problem.”

“I still miss her,” he whispered as he dropped back down into the booth. He put his face in his hands and his elbows on the table and Kat could see his shoulders shaking. He was crying. Shit.

She tried to talk softer, but it was hard when she was so pissed off at him. “Dillon, she’s not coming back no matter what we do. We have to move on. You have to stop living in the past where you were the football player and she was the pretty cheerleader. For the past eighteen years, you’ve done that, and where has it gotten you? You have to accept that she’s gone and nothing…not even finding out who took her…is going to change that.”

He looked up at her with red eyes and tears on his face. “No, it won’t bring her back…but it would make my beautiful daughter stop looking at me like I’m a vicious murderer.”

Kat sighed and dropped back down in her own seat. “I don’t think you killed her,” she said, trying to sound convincing. Most of the time that was true. It was only late at night, on the nights she still had nightmares, that she dreamed about him wrapping his hands around her mother’s throat. Those nights she woke up screaming, and it took her days, and sometimes weeks, to be able to look him in the eye again. Dillon pretended to be oblivious to that, but obviously, he noticed. “I’m not mad at you about Mom. I’m mad at you for letting your whole life fall apart because you can’t stay out of the bottle. Maybe we should look for a rehab facility…”

“I’m not going to rehab. Imagine the talk!”

“So you’d rather be a pathetic old drunk until you die, than worry about people knowing you asked for help? That’s fucked up, Dillon. Who cares what people think?”

“I told you, Katrina. My reputation is all I have left.”

She laughed. She wasn’t amused, but she had to laugh to keep from crying. “Your reputation is already in the toilet, Dillon. Everyone in town knows you’re a pathetic drunk and when you drink yourself to death, they’ll all be at your funeral shaking their heads at what you could have been.”

“You spit venom as easily as you breathe. Where did I go wrong?” Kat opened her mouth and then closed it. She couldn’t take another minute of arguing with him. It was like talking to a brick wall, only one with emotions, and that was the part she hated the most. She went over behind the bar and picked up the box she had put there the night before. Without looking back at Dillon, she grabbed her helmet off the hook by the door and left.

* * *

“Kat, I can’t let you in with the box unless you let me look inside.” Kat was standing next to her bike at the guard shack outside the ranch. Mercer looked like he hadn’t slept in days.

“Don’t you ever get any time off to sleep?” she said, trying to distract him.

“I just took a two-hour nap while Hawk covered me. You’re lucky that old asshole took off before you got here. He won’t let anyone on the grounds unless they’ve been specifically invited, even someone like you who is always welcome. But…you can’t manipulate me with your pretty face, Kat. I have to look in the box, or you have to go.”

She groaned. “Fine.” She handed him the box, and he set it on the ground and used his pocketknife to slit open the tape she’d sealed it with. He drew his brows together when he saw the clothes at first. He pulled out the white t-shirt and held it up. It was filthy now, but most notably there were several bullet holes in the center of it. He looked at Kat as he set that aside and pulled out the jeans and then the boots and shorts. Bullet holes had ripped through them all. Mercer cocked an eyebrow as he looked back at her face. He stared at her for a few seconds and as he did, she could almost see when the truth dawned on him.

“Jesus fuck. You took Buzz’s clothes last night?”

“I didn’t do anything he didn’t have coming,” she said.

“And what now? You’re going to tell Dax?”

“I’m sure he didn’t tell on himself.”

Mercer chuckled. “No, he didn’t.” A serious look crossed his face then and he said, “Shit. Dax is up there in the clubhouse right now having a meeting about what to do to Chaos in retaliation for this…Damn.” He shook his head. “Dax will fry Buzz’s ass for lying about this.”

“You think I should keep it to myself?”

Instead of answering her, Mercer bent down and boxed the clothes back up. He handed the box back to her, and she strapped it behind her seat once again. At last he said, “No. I wish I could say I wouldn’t tell Dax either, but Buzz has gone too far this time. People will bleed and die over this.”

Kat was no snitch. She’d driven out to the ranch because she was pissed and she wanted to get away from Dillon. She might have changed her mind about giving Buzz up to Dax if Mercer hadn’t told her Buzz had blamed this on Chaos. That gang was seriously dangerous and so far, since the bar incident, things had been quiet. It would be a shame if anyone lost their life because Buzz was a fucking idiot who couldn’t tell the truth to save his own life. She looked at Mercer and said, “Thanks, Mercer.” He nodded, and she got on her bike and drove up to the clubhouse. The guys at the door greeted her warmly, and she entered the great room. It was practically empty, with just a few of the older guys at the bar. She looked at one of them and said, “Where does Dax hold church?”

The old guy looked her up and down and his eyes fell on the box in her hands. “You have lunch for him?”

Kat smiled. “Yes, this box is for him.”

“They’re out back. It got too crowded in here.”

“Thanks.” Kat took her box and pushed through the back doors. The picnic tables where they’d had the party the week before were packed with brothers, and Dax, Handsome, Hawk, Jimmy, Cody, and Gunner sat at the front table, facing the others. Kat was surprised to see Angel, Tammy, and a redhead that she thought was Cody’s old lady sitting there as well. Most clubs, and even what she knew about the Skulls by their history, didn’t allow the women to be any part of club business. Dax was talking, but when the door slammed behind her, he stopped and an eerie hush fell over them all as they looked at her. Summoning all her willpower, Kat marched up front with Angel’s eyes boring into her.

“Kat, what are you doing here?” Dax asked.

“I have a delivery for you,” she said. She turned toward the crowd of men and searched until she found Buzz. He was staring at her with wide eyes and when she made eye contact with him, he slowly moved his head back and forth. He looked pitifully afraid, but Kat didn’t care. She was tired of full-grown men that refused to take responsibility for their own actions. Actions had consequences. Kat found that out years before.

“I don’t remember us talking about you delivering anything today,” Dax said.

“Oh, we didn’t. I have been waiting by my phone all week for that call you said you’d give me about meeting up to talk about advertising.” Her eyes fell on Angel’s face. Angel’s eyes were narrowed and her nostrils were flaring. “But it never came. That’s okay, though, that’s not why I’m here.” She set the box down in front of Dax and said, “You’re going to want to open that before you continue your meeting.”

Dax was a pro at not showing his emotions. Even when they were younger, Kat could never tell what he was thinking. She could almost feel the daggers his old lady was shooting at her back, but Dax’s face remained impassive as he reached to open the box. She heard a gasp in the crowd behind her when Dax pulled out the t-shirt, and she knew it came from Buzz. Dax furrowed his brow and said, “What is this?”

“Keep looking.” Dax did look annoyed then, but he continued to pull things out of the box. Kat turned to look at Buzz, who had slumped down on the bench he was sitting on.

“Okay, Kat, what is all this?” Dax said again.

“They belong to Buzz. Your brother Buzz tried to force himself on me last night after he lured me into the woods.” Dax’s face did show a brief flash of emotion then…it was anger. But it was gone as quickly as it appeared. He looked at Buzz, whose red face looked guilty as hell. Dax took a deep breath before standing up and saying:

“I think we’re going to have to put the rest of this meeting on hold. You can all go back to work…except you, Buzz.” Dax looked at his executives and said, “Let’s move this meeting into the meeting room inside.” As people started shuffling around and murmuring about what was happening, Dax looked back at Kat and said, “Can you stay for a bit and tell us exactly what happened?”

“Sure.”

Angel was suddenly at Dax’s elbow. “I’m not so sure I’d just take her word for someone’s trying to force themselves on her. You do know she has a history of manipulating the truth to fit her own agenda. She almost ruined my brother with her lies.”

“Get over it, Angel,” Kat said with a glare in the other woman’s direction. “And what agenda do you think I have here?” Angel didn’t answer her, but her eyes cut over to Dax. Kat smiled. “You think I want your man? Trust me, if I didn’t know how devoted he was to you, I’d be all over him. You better appreciate that, because the second he gets tired of you hovering…” Kat licked her lips and said, “I’ll show him what a real woman looks like.”

Later, when Kat tried to remember exactly what happened next, it would all be a blur. She saw a flash of a pink t-shirt and a lot of blonde hair and the next thing she knew, she was on the ground and Angel was pummeling her. Dax was above them and as he wrapped his arms around his old lady’s waist to pull her off, Angel got her hands in Kat’s hair and Kat came up off the ground with them. It felt like she was being scalped by the roots. She screamed and grabbed a handful of Angel’s, pulling her face toward her own and slamming their heads together. She heard Dax yelling at her to stop and she felt strong arms go around her own waist and try to pull her back. Each woman had a firm hold on the other and neither wanted to be the first to let go.

Kat might not have let go until all that pretty, silky hair was in a pile on the ground if she hadn’t realized who had grabbed her from behind. She felt a mouth close to her ear and then she heard his voice. No matter how long it had been, she’d never forget the sound of it. He had a deep, masculine voice, but at the same time, it was soft and sweet and sexy. Just the sound of it sent shock waves through her body after all these years. “Take a breath, Kat. Calm down,” he whispered. Her muscles went slack as if they had a mind of their own and she let go. He was holding her against his chest and her feet were up off the ground. He took a few steps back once she let go of Angel, and set her down on her feet. When she turned around and saw his face the five years between them disappeared. She forgot that he hated her. She reached up to touch him, to make sure he was real, and she whispered his name:

“David…” He took a step backwards so that her touch didn’t reach him, and the pain that she’d felt that day five years earlier hit her in the gut like a ton of bricks. “I…I have to go.” She turned to flee toward the door and Cody stepped in front of her. Dax, who had Angel’s face buried in his shoulder, said:

“Let her go.” Cody moved, and she grabbed for the door. “Kat.” She stopped, but still didn’t turn around. She couldn’t bear to see that look in David’s eyes again. “I’ll be out to talk to you about this today. Make sure you’re there.” She nodded, still not turning around, and then she practically ran through the clubhouse and out to her bike on the other side. Her breaths were coming in ragged gulps and she was getting lightheaded, but she didn’t stop until she was outside the gates and a mile down the road. She pulled over then and got off the bike and emptied her stomach into the grass that lined the road.