Jo wrinkled her nose under the covers. Poking her head out, she sniffed. Her stomach growled at the aroma.

It took her several seconds before she could get her wobbly legs under control as she got out of bed. Finding her robe, she put it on, knotting it around her waist. It was when she was slipping her house shoes on that she realized the floorboards were warm, not giving her the cold rush of reality she usually dealt with most mornings.

She took the time to brush her hair before leaving her bedroom.

Her eyes went around the living room, finding it empty and Rider in the kitchen doing the dishes. The smell coming from the stove had her moving forward, seeing Rider watching her in amusement as she stood over the steaming pot.

“It’s chicken soup. Rachel dropped it off with the cough syrup Greer sent over.”

Jo spotted the bottle sitting on the kitchen counter. Picking it up, she saw it was blacker and thicker than the one she had found in the medicine cabinet.

“Rachel said to only take a small sip every four hours.”

“Uh … no. I’d rather die.”

Rider laughed. “I can’t say I blame you. Rachel told me how Greer makes it. You’re better off with the prescription Dr. Price gave you.” Rider moved her to the side when she sniffed the soup again. “Sit down. I’ll fix you a bowl.”

Jo eagerly went to sit at the small table to the side of the kitchen. Pushing the curtain aside, she looked outside, telling Rider, “I need three bottles of it. That stuff was the bomb. I don’t remember anything after I took it.”

“That was the codeine in it,” he said, setting a steaming bowl of soup down in front of her.

“You’re not having any?” Jo swirled the homemade noodles in the broth with her spoon, then took an appreciative taste, savoring the flavors.

Glancing up, she caught a strange expression on Rider’s face.

“I’m hungry,” she excused, self-consciously taking a smaller bite.

“You’re very expressive when you eat.”

“I am? I like it.” She shrugged. “We have something in common. I like to eat, too.”

“Most people do.”

She was about to take another bite of her food when she realized her truck was gone. “Where’s—”

“Train and Moon went on a call. The brothers are fighting to see who can go with him next.”

“No one. I’m going to shower, and then I can take over again—”

“No, you can’t. You’re still running a high temperature. You’re not going anywhere for at least a week, and that’s only if Dr. Price gives you a clean bill of health.”

“It’s not up to you.”

“We’ll talk after you finish your soup.”

“There isn’t anything to talk about … at least where my work is concerned. What I want to talk about now is how my furnace is working.”

“You were too sick to be left alone, and I couldn’t take my balls freezing off, so Train fixed it.”

“Is there anything Train can’t do?”

“I may have been exaggerating about him flying in a sandstorm.”

Jo had to hide her smile by taking another spoonful of soup.

“I don’t know how he managed it. I’ve been saving up for another furnace.”

“Save yourself the money. It would be cheaper to bulldoze your house down and start over.”

“That’s not nice.”

“The truth hurts. You’re a big girl. I think you’ll be all right.” Taking her empty bowl, he refilled it before sitting down at the table across from her.

She knew he was waiting for her to finish eating before he said anything else. Contrarily, she took her time, savoring each bite until his eyes narrowed on her suspiciously.

“Even if you eat the whole pot of soup, you’re not going to get out of what I want to talk to you about.”

“There’s nothing to discuss, other than how much I owe Train for working for me and fixing my furnace and stove.”

“I fixed the stove. Your wiring is shit. You blew a fuse. And save yourself the trouble from adding to the list of bills to be paid.” Rider stood, going to the living room, then returning with her yellow pad and the letter saying she had to appear in court. Rider then fixed himself a cup of coffee and her a glass of juice before sitting back down.

Her appetite deserted her when he set the pad down on the table.

“I’d rather have the juice.”

“You’ll be lucky if you keep the juice down.”

“You fixed my fridge, too?”

“It was on the same circuit breaker.”

Jo wanted to bury her face in her hands, embarrassed that she hadn’t been able to fix something so simple. “I didn’t think to look. My dad usually took care of things like that.”

“You would have figured it out if you hadn’t been driving yourself to the point of exhaustion to pay bills you don’t have a chance in hell of paying.”

“I’m making progress.”

“You were until …” Rider pointed to the large sum of money that was what her father had owed Aly’s father. “I take it this is the money Aly is taking you to court for.”

“This isn’t any of your business.”

“It actually is. The money Shade lent you for the tow truck was company money, and I’m one of the owners of the company. The Last Riders wouldn’t have lent you that money if they had known the extent of your debts.”

The soup she had just eaten threatened to come back up. Taking a drink of her juice, she forced it back down.

“Let’s see if you can be more honest with me than you were with Shade.” Rider trailed his finger over to the name of the month she had written down with the figure. “Is this when you found out about your father’s debt? Or did you know before?”

“I didn’t know about it before,” she croaked out.

He trailed his finger down the columns of numbers. “I don’t see you paying any of Aly’s debt off but here.” Rider pointed to where she had crossed out several bills that she was going to ignore in order to make a payment to Aly. “Why were you trying to come up with the money the day before Clint was born when you knew about the loan your father owed since Aly came to town?”

“Rider, I’m not feeling well. I need to go back to bed.” She shakily started to get up.

“Sit.”

Jo’s butt hit the chair, although she wanted to go back to her bedroom and bury herself under the covers until he left.

“We couldn’t come to an agreement on how to pay the money back. That’s why she’s taking me to court.”

“How did you originally think you could pay her back? You only started to find the money last week.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me. Depending on your answer, I’m going to help you out of this mess.”

“I don’t need your help.”

“You’d rather lose your home and business than accept help from me?”

She stared out the window. To anyone who came into the yard, they would just see old cars stacked on top of each other, but it meant a lot to her. Some of those cars had been put there by her grandfather. She could even remember when the old blue Ford was stacked on the red L.T.D. with the white vinyl roof that was placed on top of it by her father.

“What do you want to know?”

“Explain.” Rider pointed to the large sum she owed Aly.

“Aly wanted me to pay the loan back other than by using money. I agreed at first, because I didn’t have the money to pay it back.”

“How did she want you to pay it back?”

“By getting me to convince you to go after Curt Dawkins.” She felt so ashamed of her actions. She didn’t expect Rider to speak to her ever again. When he told The Last Riders, they would all hate her, too.

“How did Aly think you would accomplish that?”

Jo flushed, keeping her eyes on the window. “Not by using sex—I wouldn’t have agreed to that—but by trying to get you to like me. I mean, in a romantic sense.”

“I know what you meant.”

Her flush deepened at his sardonic jibe. She felt foolish for ever having agreed to Aly’s plan.

“Yes, well, I went along because I thought it would give me time to come up with the money. I thought I would win the bid to garage the state’s vehicles. It’s the perfect location, only three miles away from the State Police headquarters and the government offices.”

“Except, you didn’t win the bid.”

“No, they decided it was cheaper to build their own, and they awarded the money to one of Curt’s cousins to build a new garage.”

“Tough luck. You shouldn’t have counted on it anyway.”

“I know that now.”

“Why did Aly want you to attract my attention?”

“She thinks Curt’s responsible for her parents’ deaths. When Knox couldn’t find any proof of wrongdoing, she wanted to get The Last Riders involved. They have a bad reputation around town, in case you didn’t know.”

“We know.”

“They do?” She shook her head. “Anyway, Aly said some of the people who had hurt women belonging to The Last Riders had disappeared or ended up dead. Aly wants Curt dead, and she wants you to do it.”

The stark truth coming out of her lips had the color leaving her face. She was so cold that she shivered underneath her robe.

She tearfully stared out the window, hearing Rider scoot his chair back as he got up. She couldn’t blame him for leaving. She hated herself for agreeing to go along with Aly’s plan for so long.

She was startled into tearing her gaze away from the window to look up at Rider when he placed a blanket around her shoulders.

“Why did Aly choose you? She could have tried to get my attention herself.”

“She did. She said that’s why she started hanging out at the club. But when she heard some of the women members joking that the men were trying to fix you up with me, she decided she would have more luck with them becoming involved if I were the one in a relationship with you.”

“Aly has a devious mind.” Rider’s face didn’t reveal what he was thinking.

“Yes, she does,” Jo agreed. “I tried to talk her out of it, but I felt bad for her, too. Both her parents are dead, and I can understand why she feels that Curt is responsible. Curt has a worse reputation than The Last Riders.”

“And how was Aly going to get me onboard with her plan?”

“Actually, she came up with the idea when Shade asked her to pretend to use her discount to pay for a nice dress, and he would pay the rest.”

“Really? I’ll have to thank him for that.”

Not missing the small tick of a muscle on the side of his forehead, she pulled the blanket tighter around her.

“Whose idea was it to use the perfume? Aly or Shade?”

“Perfume? I don’t …” The muscle ticked harder. “Aly.” Jo raised her blanket to cover her scarlet cheeks, mumbling through the thick material, “The women in the club told Aly that you … uh … uh … like it when they buy new perfumes.”

If she had been offered a million dollars, she wouldn’t have been able to look at Rider. It had been embarrassing enough when Aly had told her many of Rider’s secrets, much less confessing to his face what she had been told.

“Why are you so embarrassed?”

Despite herself, she looked toward Rider, curling her fingers into the thick blanket. Slumberous eyes watched her reaction with the intensity of a panther stalking its prey.

“I admit I have a thing for sexy perfume. Just like I think a woman wearing pink is sexy.”

Jo tucked her pink socks under the hem of her robe and surreptitiously tightened the knot at her waist, forgetting he had seen her in her pink Henley last night.

“Sex involves all the senses: touch, sight, smell, taste … even the way a woman says my name can be a turn-on.”

“I think we’re getting off track.” Jo cleared her throat before taking a sip of her juice.

“I think we’re just getting to the best part. Who picked the perfume?”

“I did. Aly said your favorite is Chanel. I googled the closest matches and came up with the one I chose.”

“Which woman told Aly my favorite perfume?”

“I don’t remember. Aly must not have told me.”

Rider’s lips quirked. “I’ll leave that alone for now. So, why did you scratch out the bills you were paying and move that amount under the amount you owe Aly?”

“After you won the auction, I tried to back out, but she wouldn’t let me. I met her about a month ago and told her I wouldn’t do it, that she would have to come up with another plan or get your help herself.”

“What did she say?”

Jo picked up the court letter and tossed it toward him. “That’s what happened. She’s suing me.”

“Why did you back out?”

This was the hardest to explain. Jo tried to come up with a different explanation, other than the truth, deciding at last to be completely honest and let the coin fall where it would land.

“I was afraid of you. I told Aly that I thought you were more dangerous than you pretend to be.”

“That was smart of you.”

“Not too smart or she wouldn’t have sued me. I should have played along with her until she realized you had no interest that way.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“You wouldn’t stop riding along with me. Then I worried you might actually hurt Curt after the night at the bar. It was easier to just tell Aly no and stop letting you ride with me.”

“Why did you tell me about the night you were raped?”

“I didn’t know what Aly would do. I already told her I wouldn’t help her, and I didn’t want her using Curt’s attack on me to ever factor in you hurting Curt. It happened to me, and I had finally let go of the fact that Curt got away with it, that it was left for God to deal with him.”

“I see. And you really feel that way?”

“Yes, I do. I never wanted Curt killed. I wanted him behind bars. It would kill his pride if everyone in town knew where he was, and his family wouldn’t be able to cover for him anymore.”

“What about Justin and Tanner?”

“I feel the same way toward them.” She gave a bitter laugh. “I imagined them sent to different prisons so they would be alone and couldn’t depend on each other. That would have been worse than hell to them. Justin and Tanner can’t tie their own shoes without Curt.”

Rider picked up the letter that had fallen onto his lap and set it on the pad of paper. “Are these the bills you owe?”

Jo shrugged out of the blanket, going to the coffee table and pulling out a thin drawer. Grasping the mound of bills that she had hidden from sight because she couldn’t pay them, she walked back to the table and set them on top of the stack Rider had created.

Sitting down in her chair, she waited expectantly for him to tell her that he couldn’t help her, when he arched a brow at her.

Confusion turned to understanding when he reached forward and lifted the blanket over her shoulders, folding it closed in the front.

“Are you ready to hear how we’re going to solve your problems?” He stared at her the way he had the night of the auction.

The last time she had listened to an offer of help, she had regretted it and ended up deeper in debt.

“Do I have to?”

“Yes. I think it will be better to get it over with now.”

“Then, can I have my cough medicine? I think I’m going to need it.”