“Did you move there for him?” Logan asked.
I clenched my phone tighter. “No, I didn’t move here for him. I just told you, I didn’t even know he lived here. If you need the private investigator’s reports to prove I didn’t know, I’ll send them over tonight.”
“I don’t know if I can believe you.”
Tears dripped down my cheeks. Wow, that hurt. “How can you say that, Logan? I have never lied to you.”
“Really? You don’t think that not telling me you were still married was a lie?”
“No, I mean, yes. I just . . . I don’t know why I didn’t tell you. But it wasn’t to hurt you.”
“Did you call Fred Andrews?” he asked.
“Yes. I talked to him right after I found Nick. He’s working on the divorce papers.” I waited on the phone, listening to Logan breathe.
“I don’t know what to do here, sweetheart.” His soft voice caused a fresh wave of tears.
“Believe me when I tell you I didn’t expect him to be here. And that I regret not getting a divorce nine years ago.”
“I need some time.”
“Okay.” I sniffled, trying to pull myself together.
“I hate that we are having this conversation over the phone.”
“Me too. I love you, Logan,” I added before he could hang up.
“I love you too. I’ve got to go.”
Today had been a wreck and the worst was yet to come.
Date five.
After Nick had left yesterday, our conversation had replayed in my mind over and over again. Sleep had eluded me and I’d finally gotten up at three thirty and cleaned. Even though I had gone to school utterly exhausted this morning, at least my house was spotless.
The only break I’d caught today was with my students. They’d been angels, like they could sense I’d been on the edge of a meltdown and instead of pushing me over, they’d clung to my feet and kept me anchored.
When I’d gotten home, I had reluctantly called Logan. Not letting him brush me off again, I had forced the inevitable conversation. Now that was over and I had to mentally prepare for another evening with Nick.
It was only five thirty. I was guessing Nick wouldn’t get here until after six, which gave me at least thirty minutes to sit on my couch and cry.
And that’s just what I did.
“What’s wrong?” Nick asked when I answered the door.
“Nothing,” I lied. “What are we doing tonight?”
Nick crossed his arms over his chest. I mirrored his stance and we went into a stare-down.
I didn’t owe him any explanations. If I was upset, that was my problem. Not his. And there was no way in hell I was going to tell him that I’d been crying over my phone call with Logan. My relationship, my business.
“Fuck, you are a stubborn woman,” he muttered.
I raised my eyebrows and stuck out my chin, silently reminding him that he had yet to answer my question.
“We’re going to my place.”
“Fine. Let’s go,” I said and pushed past him, slamming the door behind me.
We rode to Nick’s house in silence. The sun was starting to set behind the mountains, the orange and yellow sky slowly fading into bright pinks and purples.
I had assumed that Nick lived in town but he actually lived quite close to me. After turning off the highway, we started winding up a narrow gravel road lined with tall trees.
The end of the lane opened into a small, round clearing in the forest. In the center was a two-story log cabin. A covered porch ran the length of the house, and two large dormer windows jutted out of the roof on the second story. Behind the cabin was a large brown metal shop.
This was the quaint Montana cabin I had wanted. Seeing this place made me regret buying my house. It was too big and ostentatious. But a place like this would have been just right.
The front door opened to a large, open space. The glow from the soft white lights created a warm and cozy atmosphere. The floors were made from a rough-cut tan wood, and when I looked closely, I saw the circular grooves made from the saw blades.
One corner of the main room was a square kitchen filled with dark cabinets. A tall counter separated it from the rest of the living room. A stone fireplace was surrounded by brown leather furniture aimed at a large television in the corner.
Opposite the living room was a dining room table surrounded by six chairs. Both the table and chairs were made in the same log style as the living room’s coffee table.
As I inspected the inside of the house, I regretted my extravagant home purchase even more.
“You want something to drink?” Nick asked.
“What do you have?”
“Beer. Whiskey. Water.”
“Whiskey, please.” There was no way I was going to make it through tonight’s conversation without alcohol, and since I wasn’t a huge beer drinker, whiskey would have to do.
As Nick moved to the kitchen, I walked toward a set of bookshelves at the back of the room, next to the wooden staircase that led to the second floor.
Nick’s book collection surprised me. I hadn’t figured him for a reader but the shelves proved me wrong. He had quite a few classics as well as some more recent thrillers. I also noticed a couple of thick automotive texts on the bottom shelf.
A long shelf in the middle was completely dedicated to framed photos. All of the pictures were small, but there were so many packed onto the shelves, I couldn’t see the ones in the back.
A few of the pictures showed a younger Nick. In one, he was with a group of men all wearing leather vests and standing next to a line of big motorcycles. In another, he was on a bench with a beautiful brunette woman, another boy at her other side.
The remaining pictures were of the Nick I knew, with his messy hair and full beard. In one, he and three other men were wearing green jumpsuits. Behind him were the remains of a completely burned forest with black trees sticking out of the scorched earth.
Sliding some of the pictures to the side, I started examining the ones hidden toward the back. My eyes caught on a small, unframed picture tucked into the corner joint of the shelf. I grabbed its edge and pulled it free from the wood.
I gasped when the light hit the photo. It was a picture of me from Las Vegas.
I was sleeping on a white pillow. My hair was a wreck, sticking out all over the place. I was still in makeup from the previous night and it was smudged on my eyelids. My lips were red and puffy from a night of kissing Nick. I looked like a mess. But even in sleep, I’d looked happy.
Tears filled my eyes and the picture blurred.
Nick had taken a picture of me the morning before he’d left me alone at the Bellagio. And he’d kept it all this time. The edges of the photo were worn and wrinkled, like he had held it in his hands and studied it countless times. It showed the same wear and age as our wedding photo that I’d kept tucked away.
“Why?” I whispered to the picture.
“Because you’re my wife,” Nick said behind me.
“What does that mean?”
“It means we belong to each other.”
He had said those exact same words right after we had been married, right before his most blatant lie. When he had promised that we’d make our relationship work. The fact that he would throw them out there again made me instantly angry.
I spun around. “You said that to me once before. I liked it the first time. Now, not so much. Word of advice? Don’t reuse your Vegas material.”
His jaw clenched and he took a deep breath through his nose. “Drink this,” he clipped, shoving a glass of whiskey in my face. “And calm the fuck down.”
I huffed and rolled my eyes. This was going to be a long night.
“Come sit down,” he said, walking to the living room couch.
I sank into an oversized leather chair opposite the couch and took a long sip of my whiskey, grimacing as the amber liquor burned a path down my throat.
“Would you like me to cut that with some water?” Nick asked, resting his elbows on his thighs.
“No,” I coughed. “It’s fine. Explanation, please. Let’s get this over with.”
“Fine. Did you see that picture with the woman and two kids on the shelf?”
I nodded.
“That was my mom with me and my younger brother,” he said. “She died when I was sixteen.”
I closed my eyes. “I’m sorry.”
I couldn’t imagine how painful it would be to lose your mother at such a young age. My mom wasn’t the most outstanding role model, but she was still my mom. She was always there for me.
“She was murdered because of my father,” Nick added.
The muscles in my frame locked. “Your father killed your mother?”
“He didn’t pull the trigger but it was because of his fucking selfish choices that she’s dead.”
“What happened?” I asked.
Nick leaned forward and took a drink of his own whiskey before sitting back. “My dad is the president of a motorcycle gang. And it is a gang. Everyone calls it a club, they pretend like it’s just a group of guys taking weekend rides on their Harleys, but it’s a gang. They use violence to intimidate people who don’t do as they want. They have little respect for the law. And they charge their clients a fucking fortune so they can rake in a wad of cash every month.”
“What kind of clients?”
“Mostly they provide protection services for whoever will pay. Some local businesses in Clifton Forge. That’s where I’m from. They run an underground fight circuit around the state and take a rake from every fight. But their biggest clients are drug smugglers. The club provides protection for shipments coming down from Canada. They make sure the drugs don’t get hijacked or caught by the cops.”
“Canada?” I asked. “I thought most imported drugs came across our southern borders.”
“Drugs made from plant extracts do. Marijuana. Cocaine. Heroin. But a lot of meth is brought down from Canada. It gets made way up north and then driven down. Border security is tight at the official crossings but Montana’s a big state. There’s a lot of border that doesn’t get watched.”
“So I’m guessing that somehow all of this illegal activity led to your mother’s murder?” I asked.
“Yeah. Dad’s operation was expanding and they pissed off a rival gang. They retaliated by going to our house in the middle of the fucking day and executing my mother while she was gardening. My brother and I found her when we got home from school.”
A sharp pain traveled from my heart and settled in my stomach. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Nothing to say, Emmy. Just need you to understand what my life has been like.”
“Okay.” I nodded.
“When I was little, I couldn’t wait to be in the club. Then after Mom died, I couldn’t wait to break free. Dad got his revenge, brought an end to that other club and then acted like everything was okay. He kept expanding and digging deeper into the underground. He never once admitted that his need to be the most powerful club in the Northwest is the reason why I don’t have a mother.”
I shook my head but remained silent.
“It caused a lot of tension between Dad and me. He had always planned for me to take over the club but I made it clear I wasn’t going to prospect. I turned eighteen the week before graduation, got my diploma and left for Colorado. I started going to school down there to be a diesel mechanic. I got my certification a couple of years later and started working in a garage.”
“That’s when you met me?”
“Yeah,” he said, “that’s when I met you. Me and those guys I was with all worked at a garage in Colorado together. We decided on a whim to take a road trip to Vegas for the weekend.”
I sipped my whiskey. “Why did you leave Colorado?”
“My younger brother was just graduating high school. I thought if I lived in Montana, maybe I could convince him to live with me and not join the club. The job at the fire station was open and I decided to give it a try. Gave up being a mechanic and came to Prescott.”
“Did he join the club?”
“Yeah.” He frowned before swallowing the rest of his drink in a huge gulp.
We sat in silence but my heart beat louder and louder. I took a few jagged breaths and ignored the nervous energy pooling in my belly.
Because this was the end.
I had held onto Nick, or the idea of Nick, for almost ten years. After tonight, it would all be over. I could move on with my life. I would have no reason to think of him again. To look at our wedding picture. To secretly wear my ring.
“Why did you leave me?” Just asking the question hurt.
“I got a call from Dad after you fell asleep. He was in a fight with another club. Again. One of the younger guys in Dad’s club got shot and killed. He was my age and we’d grown up together. Anyway, Dad said they were getting threats against family members. That both my brother and I were at risk. Told me to watch my back.”
My nose started to burn and I felt tears.
This was his excuse? That his leaving had been for my own good?
Men had been making decisions on my behalf my whole life. Decisions without communication. Always saying afterward that it was for the best and never once bothering to ask how I felt.
“I never meant to hurt you, Emmy,” he said. “But you weren’t safe with me. Not back then. They would have come after you and your money. And I couldn’t risk your life. I wouldn’t risk having you killed like my mother. So I left.”
I closed my eyes and let the tears fall down my cheeks.
I didn’t want this explanation. I wanted a different one.
One where he had been forced out of the hotel room at gunpoint and held prisoner for nine years. An explanation like that would have made the ache in my heart go away. Instead, his choice to leave without talking to me made it hurt even worse.
He knelt next to my feet before setting aside my whiskey and taking my hands in his. “I’m sorry. I am so fucking sorry, Emmy,” he whispered, peppering my hands with kisses.
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this?” I asked. “You could have told me back then. We could have worked something out.”
“Because I knew that if I looked into your eyes again, I would never let you go. And you were too good for that life. You needed someone who could give you so much more than I ever could.”
He had me completely confused. If I was too good for his life, then why had he been pressing so hard this week? Why did he say that my heart still belonged to him? Just minutes ago, he had declared I was his and he was mine.
“Then what was this past week about? Your chance?” I asked. “I don’t understand how I was too good for you back then—which I wasn’t, by the way—but now everything is different.”
His hazel eyes stared deeply into mine. “You’ve always had my heart, Emmy. I know I fucked up by leaving but I thought it was my only choice. It took me a long time to realize I had other options. And by then, I was afraid it was too late. That you’d moved on with your life. But the moment I saw you, I knew I had a chance to make it right. No man can ever make you happy because no other woman will ever make me whole. We’re it for each other.”
As good as those words sounded, and felt, he was wrong. It was too late.
“Take me home,” I ordered and stood from the chair, forcing him out of my space.
He stood with me but before I could turn away, his hands framed my face and turned up my chin so I was forced to look at him. His eyebrows were pulled together. Clearly he had, expected a much different reaction to his speech.
“Take me home,” I said.
“No.” His lips crashed into mine before I could protest. They were firm and determined. His tongue stroked my lower lip until I finally opened for him. Then it was inside, sliding against my own as he took control.
My hands latched onto his flannel shirt so I wouldn’t fall down on my shaking knees.
The past came flooding back as I remembered how amazing it was to kiss Nick. How he was the only man that could make me ignite in seconds.
Our lips moved frantically back and forth as we erased nine years of history and went back in time. Right now, it was just us.
His hands traveled down my face, down my body, rubbing and squeezing down my sides. When they reached my hips, his fingers gripped my flesh tightly and he lifted me off my feet. My legs automatically wrapped around his waist as he crushed me to his chiseled body. One of his arms banded around my lower back while the other kneaded my ass.
He carried me backward but I didn’t open my eyes. All I could focus on was my mouth fused to his. The feel of his tongue sliding against mine. My throbbing core pressed firmly against the hardness in his jeans.
My back hit a wall, and as Nick’s mouth traveled down my neck, I opened my eyes. He had carried me to a wall directly across from one of the cabin’s large front windows. I could see his back in our reflection and my legs around his waist.
On my feet were a pair of Sperry duck boots. The tan leather contrasted brightly against the dark blue of Nick’s jeans.
Logan had given me these boots before I’d moved. He had told me to wear them so my feet wouldn’t get cold. He knew my feet were always cold.
Ice coursed through my veins. Here I was, making out with another man, when just hours ago I had told Logan that I loved him. Which I did.
“Stop,” I said and unwrapped my arms and legs from Nick. “I’m sorry. I can’t do this. I won’t do this. I’m not this person.”
“What? What’s wrong, Emmy?” Nick asked.
“What’s wrong? I have a boyfriend! That is what’s wrong! I need to go.” Pushing my way around him, I ran to the door and jerked on my coat.
“Emmy,” Nick started but I closed my eyes and furiously shook my head.
“No. Please, Nick. Please take me home,” I begged, my voice cracking as I fought back tears.
What kind of a person had I become? I didn’t cheat. I had vowed never to become like my parents. How could I do this to Logan? My sweet, wonderful boyfriend, who was having trouble adjusting to the fact that his girlfriend was now living in Montana while he stayed at home in New York.
“I am a terrible person. How could I do this to Logan?” I asked myself. Hearing my own words caused a new wave of tears.
“You’re not, Emmy,” Nick whispered to the top of my head as he wrapped his arms around me.
“Let me go, Nick. Please,” I sobbed into his chest.
“Never again,” he said, pulling me tighter into his warmth.
For a moment, I let him hold me while I cried. I let his soothing smell and his strong arms comfort me until I found the strength I needed to push him away and ask one last time.
“Take me home.”