While Angel comforted Harley, Kat went back out the door and found one of the enforcers who guarded the front of the clubhouse. “Who should I give this gun too? It’s Levi’s.”

The guy looked at it and said, “Tell the prospect at the bar that you need to see Handsome. He’s in the office, I think. Prospect will get him for you.”

Kat nodded and went back inside. Angel was watching her as she went to the bar and told the prospect what the enforcer told her. She sat down and set the guns on top of the bar while he went to get the V.P., and suddenly Angel was at her side. “Whose guns are those?”

Kat sighed. She really didn’t want to have a conversation with Angel. It always turned into a fight no matter how hard she tried. “Mine, and Levi’s.”

She heard Angel let out a breath. “So Wes’s gun is the only one at the restaurant?”

“Yeah. Harley and Tammy have theirs.” Kat wasn’t looking up at Angel so she jumped a little when she saw the gun in her hand. Angel laid it down on the bar next to Kat’s.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to shoot you.”

Kat grinned and looked up at her. “You never know.”

Angel shocked her by smiling back. “True. This is Harley’s. I’ll get Tammy’s.” Kat nodded and Angel turned to walk away. She had only gotten a few steps before she turned back around and said, “Katrina?”

Kat spun her stool around to face her and Angel said, “Thank you for helping them today.”

Kat suddenly needed a stiff drink. Emotions were bouncing all over the place. She had to clear her throat before she could say, “Yeah…sure, no problem.”

Angel got Tammy’s gun and not long after, Handsome came out of the office. Kat didn’t think he was handsome. He had harsh features, she thought, and his eyes were a spooky gray color. But he was a nice guy and Kat liked him. He sat with her for a while and asked her what happened. She told him and described the car and the only shooter she actually got a good look at as best she could. When Handsome finally took the guns and left her, she asked the prospect for a shot of whiskey. She’d just wrapped her hand around it when she heard David’s voice. “Are you okay?”

She looked up at him, hating the way everything inside of her still melted when she looked at his face. Trying to keep her expression neutral she said, “I’m fine. I hope Wes is okay.”

David sat down on the stool next to her. Their thighs were almost touching and Kat could feel hers shaking. “Me too,” he said. “I thought all this war and killing shit was over. It seems like it’s starting back up. I fucking hate it.” She raised an eyebrow at his use of the word “fucking.” David smiled, knowing what she was thinking. “I’ve been spending a lot of time around bikers lately.” Kat smiled and downed her shot before saying:

“You do seem to be here a lot. What’s that about?”

“Angel is working on a case and I’m helping her with some research. Bobby, can I get a beer?” he asked the prospect behind the bar. “Have you ever heard anything else from the police in New Orleans?” About a year after they started dating, Kat finally told David everything, even her suspicions that maybe Dillon accidentally killed her mother and panicked. David had grown close to Dillon by that time and didn’t want to believe it. He started researching serial killers in Louisiana. By the time they’d split up, he hadn’t found anything solid that they could take to the police.

“No,” she said, tapping the bar for another shot. “They forgot about her, I think.”

David looked sad. “I didn’t forget.”

Kat was reaching for the new glass the prospect had just poured. She stopped and looked at David again. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve still been looking for things that fit the MO of your mother’s murder. I found three other women who were murdered around the same time. None of them were in New Orleans, but they were all in Louisiana. If you look at the pattern, it looks like maybe the guy was working his way across the state. I spoke to a detective back there and he said he’d look into it. None of those cases have been solved, but there are a lot of blanks in between…miles and years. When I have time, I’m going to start trying to cross-reference missing women during that time period…”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why are you still doing all that? It’s been five years since we…I just don’t get it.”

“I made a promise to you a long time ago that I’d help you find out what happened to your mother. I wish I would have made more progress by now, but I won’t stop working on it until you have some answers.”

Kat couldn’t wrap her head around that kind of loyalty. No one, not even Dillon, had ever cared enough about her to take so much time out of their own life to do something for her. “Thank you,” she said. “I can’t even tell you how much that means to me.”

“You don’t have to,” he said, picking up his beer.

“David, I’m so sorry…about everything. If I could do things differently…”

“You can’t, and I know you’re sorry,” he said. “But we can’t live in the past. We just have to keep moving forward.”

Kat nodded. Every time she was on the verge of telling him the truth, he stopped her. She’d given up on it a long time ago, but lately, being back home and seeing him had refueled her desire for him to know what really happened five years earlier.

“There’s a lot more to it than what you know. I wish you’d let me tell you.”

He sighed. “I’ve just always been afraid to hear it, I guess.”

Kat was about to suggest they go somewhere and talk, when the sound of Harley engines out front distracted them all. Zoe was the first to run to the door and everyone else in the bar followed suit, except Kat and David. Kat could hear loud, excited voices and seconds after the engines were cut, Skulls started to flow into the room. Kat breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Levi, with Zoe wrapped around him. Their eyes met over his old lady’s head and he smiled at her. Gunner and Tammy were hugging and Cody was holding Harley so tightly that Kat wondered how she could breathe. “Where’s Dax?” she heard Angel ask.

“He went to the hospital with Wes. He lost a lot of blood, but he was still breathing,” Cody said. “Dax says no one on or off the ranch tonight,” he announced to the room. That was when Kat slid off her stool.

“I need to get home,” she said.

Cody shook his head. “You’ll have to talk to Dax about it when he gets back.”

Kat looked at the time and cursed under her breath. “Is Dillon too sick to handle the bar on his own?” David asked her.

“No, but he’s too stupid,” she said.

David chuckled. “He’s been doing it for a while; one more night probably won’t hurt anything.”

“You haven’t been there when he’s drunk and in a betting mood,” she told him. Suddenly she felt the warmth of David’s hand on her arm. She looked down at it and he took that to mean she didn’t want him to touch her…the truth was just the opposite.

“I’m sorry. I’m glad Dax is making you stay here.”

“You are?”

“Yeah. I want you to be safe, Kat.”

She wasn’t sure what she was hoping for. Her feelings were out of control and they were affecting her thoughts…or fantasies, for that matter. “Yeah, I guess one night won’t hurt. I should call him.” David nodded and she stepped away and took out her phone. She cursed her shaking hands and shaking insides. Her voice was even shaking as Dillon answered the phone and she started talking. Dillon sounded sober, so that was a plus. He said the same thing David did when she told him what was going on: he wanted her to stay put and be safe. Kat ended the call and looked around the room. The old ladies were all hugged up to their men, except Angel, whose man was still out taking care of business. She had her head together with David, and Kat’s imagination started running wild again about what she was saying to him. It was going to be a long fucking night.

* * *

Dax finally returned as the sun was going down. Kat had spent the few hours in between talking to Tank and helping him prepare food for everyone…and avoiding David. He had made it easy for her, leaving after about an hour and going up to Angel’s house to check in on Susie, who was hanging out with one of the club girls. That made Kat’s mind jump to how many club girls David had been with in the five years that she was gone. She chastised herself over that thought. Of course he wasn’t celibate. It wasn’t like he was waiting for her to come home. She just despised the thought of him with anyone but her, no matter how stupid it was for her to still feel things so deeply.

When Dax got back, he gave everyone an update on Wes. He’d had his spleen and part of his liver and stomach removed and he was stable at the moment. That was a relief. “What about the police?” Angel asked him. “Did they arrest him?”

Dax shook his head. “No. There were plenty of witnesses in the restaurant that said Levi only ran out after the shooting started.”

“What about us?” Harley asked. “Do they want to talk to us?”

“So far, they don’t even know you girls were there. The hostess told the cops that Levi was alone at the bar. I’m sure when they start finding all the spent shells they’ll have more questions. Handsome, you have Levi’s gun too, right?” Handsome nodded.

“Yeah, Kat gave it to me.” Dax looked at her then and smiled.

“Thanks for that, it was quick thinking.” Kat was uncomfortable with everyone looking at her. She felt her face go hot and she nodded at him. Angel was looking at her, but for the first time without that look of hate she usually carried around in her green eyes.

“No problem,” she said. “Can I go home?”

Dax made a face. “The men and I are headed back out tonight. I’d rather that no one else went anywhere right now, Kat. Is Dillon okay to handle things just for tonight?” Kat just nodded. There was no reason to argue. Dax was always nice about it, but she was in his house and he was the boss. “You can take your pick of one of the empty rooms upstairs,” he said.

“Okay,” Kat gave in. She was tired and a night away from the bar might be just what she needed anyways.

Dax wrapped up his meeting with everyone and moved into the meeting room with his executive board. The mood in the great room was depressing, but it was too early for Kat to make her escape upstairs. She went back over to her chair in the corner and watched people interacting for a while until her eyes began to burn from fatigue. She didn’t drink often, and the three shots and a beer she’d had were adding to her exhaustion. She was about to get up and go find herself a room when she saw that David had come back from Angel’s house. He wasn’t alone and when Kat saw him with the little redhead, her heart felt like it might explode in her chest. She was torn between how sweet he looked, sitting on the floor cross-legged, playing Legos with Susie, and the sadness as she wondered if David realized their child would be almost that age had he or she lived. She sat quietly and watched them, alternating between the joy the smile on his face brought her and the guilt she felt that he didn’t have his own child to play with like that. She should have known that if anyone was having similar thoughts, it was his sister. Angel snuck up on her, taking the seat across from her and blocking her view of David and the little girl.

“He looks happy,” Kat heard herself say. Why she said that to Angel, she wasn’t sure.

“He is…or he was, before you came back.” Angel’s voice wasn’t filled with the same kind of venom it usually was, but her words wounded all the same.

“What do you want me to do, Angel? I didn’t come here to make David’s life miserable. My father needs me right now. I need to be here for him. I didn’t know David would be spending so much time here at the ranch. Now that I do, I’ll stay away more, okay?”

Angel was watching her face as she spoke. She let her finish and then she said, “I just don’t want to see him hurt again.”

“I have no desire to hurt him. You have no idea how long it took me to even begin to forgive myself.”

“David forgave you, right away,” she said. “I never understood how he could, but Dad used to say it was a good thing. It was healthier for him not to hang onto that bitterness. He asked me to forgive you too, and I’m trying. Mostly, Kat…I just don’t understand. I thought you loved him. If you weren’t ready for a baby…”

“That wasn’t it, Angel,” Kat snapped, realizing as soon as she did that she’d said too much.

“What was it then?”

Kat shook her head. “It doesn’t matter now.”

David appeared as he walked up behind his sister, and Kat’s eyes went to his face. Her body began to buzz again and despite how hard she tried, her mind danced with possibilities of things she rationally knew would never happen. “Are you being nice?” he asked his sister, placing his hands on her shoulders. David was talking to Angel, but his eyes were on Kat’s face. The raw emotion she saw there every time he looked at her was what fueled those fantasies in her head that just wouldn’t go away.

“I’m being nice,” Angel told him. “We were just talking.”

David cocked an eyebrow at Kat. Angel couldn’t see him and he seemed to be asking Kat if his sister was telling the truth. “Yeah,” Kat said, “We were just talking.” She stood up then and said, “If no one minds, I think I’ll go find a room.”

David squeezed his sister’s shoulders and said, “I’ll go with you, I need to pick out one of my own.” Kat turned away quickly so Angel couldn’t misinterpret the look on her face. Or maybe she was just afraid she’d read it for what it was…hope. Fucking elusive hope.