We were well and truly fucked. I’d sworn a blood vow to my club ten years ago, the day I earned my patch. Today, I swore a different vow to Maya, sealed with sex and my heart. Both places felt like home. The club was my family. A part of me could step back, look at the risk we faced. If it were anyone else, it’s not something I would have questioned. Junior DiSalvo could bring the whole operation down. He knew enough about our businesses to connect the dots for the Feds. The gun running, the protection along the docks. We’d done enough of his family’s dirty work over the years to make shit even more complicated.

But now, Maya felt like home too. I could lose myself in her. Hell, I had lost myself in her. She gave me back a little piece of my soul that I thought I’d never get back. I’d never known I wanted it back or how good it could feel. She gave me something to look forward to. I’d never done that before. I’d never looked beyond the day because I never assumed I’d get a tomorrow. Sometimes that’s the price you pay for running like I did.

Two days ago, I’d lied to the club for Maya. Yesterday, I’d lied to her for the club. I just prayed I could find a way to save them both without losing either one.

“You gonna tell me what’s going on?” Gran took me off guard by asking. She had Maya busy in the garden now. It was just the two of us in the kitchen.

I put an arm around Gran and kissed her forehead. “Ain’t nothing going on, Gran.”

“Bullshit. I know you. You’ve been hiding out here. Or more to the point, you’ve got that girl hiding out here. She doesn’t even know it, does she?”

Crossing one foot against the other, I leaned against the kitchen counter. She knew better than to ask me these kind of questions. I had to assume her growing fondness for Maya was the root of it. For that, I couldn’t fault her.

“There’s some heat back home. Yes. But I’m going to take care of it and that’s all you need to know.”

Gran wiped her hands on a kitchen towel and flung it over her shoulder. “You sure about that?”

“Yeah. I’m sure. How many times I gotta tell you, the day comes it’s hotter than I can handle, you’ve got your bug-out bag packed.”

“Well, shit, Axle. I wasn’t worried until just now. You’re a terrible liar when it comes to me. You always have been. She’s scared of something but I get the distinct feeling it’s the wrong thing.”

Dammit, she was good. I never could put anything over on Gran. It was one of the reasons I didn’t come around as much as I used to. The less exposure she had to the shit clinging to me on a weekly basis, the better.

“She doesn’t need to be scared of anything. Neither do you.”

Gran set her jaw to the side and rolled her eyes. No way she was satisfied with that answer, but she didn’t press. Shaking her head, she stepped around me and went to the sink. She had a colander full of strawberries she’d rinsed. She set about slicing them, keeping her back to me.

I kissed her again and she swatted at my head. Laughing, I left her to her slicing and headed out to the garden. That was one tough conversation. Now it was time to have another.

Maya squatted in the garden. She wore a faded yellow t-shirt that was a little bit too big on her. It had a deep vee at the neck and I could see the swell of her tits. They were tanned from our time at the beach the other day. My dick tightened again thinking about her sweet, cherry-colored nipples. She wore faded, cut-off jean shorts and tennis shoes with no socks. Her hair was piled high on her head; a few loose strands framed her face making her look like she had a halo. My angel. Only my darkness had touched her once and might threaten to touch her again.

Maya wiped her forehead; her work glove left a streak of dirt across her nose. She shielded her face from the sun as I approached.

“Everything looks good out here,” I said. Gran wanted her to prune the tomato plants and check for worms. Maya had finished that and set about planting some marigolds for her in the spare patch of earth on the other side of the fence.

“Thanks. Who knew I had a green thumb? Back home I can barely keep a cactus alive in a pot.”

I squatted next to her and picked up a trowel. While Maya worked a plant out of the flat Gran brought home, I dug a hole for it.

“I think you belong out here,” I said. “You’ve taken to it.”

Maya looked pensive. She stared out at the expanse of wheat growing on the south side of the barn. A shadow came into her eyes and I’d been around her enough to know that happened when she thought about home. She should go back there. I knew it in my heart. Maybe she never should have left. Telling her she belonged here with me in Port Azrael or even in Perfect on my grandmother’s farm wasn’t fair to her. God, everything about this wasn’t fair to her. Only I wasn’t strong enough to tell her the truth. Not yet. Not until I could figure out a path around it.

“It got bad,” she said. “When I left.”

I stabbed the trowel into the dirt. She hadn’t told me very much about her life back home. Just that her father made a hobby out of thumping her mother now and again. She’d sworn he’d never laid a hand on her personally. Even thinking he or anyone else might have made the blood roar in my ears. I would kill him. I knew that with absolute certainty. If any man ever tried to lay a hand on this woman, I would kill and die to protect her. I blinked hard, not quite able to finish the thought about what that might ultimately mean.

She must have seen something pass through my face because she leaned forward and put a gentle hand on my knee. “Not me,” she said. “I told you that before. My father never hit me. It’s just the two of them. My whole childhood was a war zone with them. It was like they always found the path of most resistance, whatever the conflict was.”

“You said he hit her.”

She nodded. “Yes. And my two oldest brothers. He stopped when they got old enough to hit back. It was better for a while. Then it wasn’t. He hasn’t been physically abusive with her for years. But they find other ways to torture each other. It’s when I told her I was thinking about going away to school she turned on me. She said I didn’t love her enough and that I’d always favored my father. I don’t even remember what I said back. I don’t think it was anything bad. I’ve replayed that in my head a thousand times. I don’t think I said anything bad. I just didn’t change my mind.”

The color left Maya’s face as she remembered that last day. As she sat there, the truth washed over me. Of all the things that might have happened, I didn’t expect that.

“She’s the one who hit you,” I said. “Your mother.”

Maya didn’t blink. She pursed her lips then flicked her eyes to me. Slowly, she nodded. “Just once. Straight across the face. It’s not even that it hurt. I mean, it did. But I just couldn’t anymore after that. You know? My whole life I’ve taken care of them. Tried to run interference. Tried to deflect. I’ve been the good girl so long. I was supposed to stay and take care of them forever. My brothers, the older ones used to get in all sorts of trouble. I never did. I always did what everyone else told me was the right thing. Even this thing with Junior, I’m trying to do the right thing. Cory was Cory, but he didn’t deserve to die. No one deserves what happened to him. He has a family. A mother. Brothers and sisters, probably. I always do the right thing. Except for …”

I smoothed the hair away from her face as she looked at me. “Except for what, baby?”

Maya’s smile brightened my heart. “Except for you.” She shifted so she was kneeling. Maya slid her hands over my chest and brought her lips to mine. “Axle, you’re the one thing I’ve ever done that everyone else would have told me was the wrong thing. And you’re the only thing that’s turned out right. So what does that tell you?”

I pulled her close. My heart ached with the lie I held within it. I wasn’t the right thing for her. I was everything she should run away from. Her shit with her family was bad, but even that would be a better life for her than what I could offer. But as I knelt in my grandmother’s garden with her, I wasn’t brave enough to push her away. After all of it, I was a fucking coward. I couldn’t tell her the truth. I couldn’t let her go. I could only hold her in my arms and take what didn’t belong to me. I didn’t deserve Maya’s heart but there she was, handing it to me wide-eyed and breathless. She pulled me in and wouldn’t let me go.

Two truths sat in my heart. I loved her. I’d been sent to claim the price on her head. I couldn’t tell her either. Those truths died on my lips, sealed by a kiss that felt like one more lie.

Maya pulled away. “Teach me to ride,” she said.

I reared back. “Are you kidding?”

She stood and offered me her hand. Pulling off her gardening gloves, she tucked them in her back pocket. “Not the Harley. Though, maybe someday I’ll be brave enough even for that. No, I mean one of the horses.”

I laughed. “You mean to tell me you never have?”

“Nope. Too much drama in the Ballard household. No way I was gonna ask my parents to buy me riding lessons. A bunch of my other friends used to go to horse camps in the summer but I never could.”

“What the hell is horse camp?”

Maya shrugged. “I don’t actually know.”

“Well,” I said. “I’ve got something to confess. I’m a hell of a lot better on a Harley than in the saddle.”

“Mmm.” Maya leaned against me. “I beg to differ on that one.”

The wicked lilt in her voice made my jeans tighten. God, she was insatiable. Fuck, so was I where she was concerned. “What, just cuz I’m a Texan, you think we all know how to ride?”

She looked up at me and touched my cheek. “Don’t you?” She winked, trying to tease me. I had a few ideas of my own about how to tease her back.

“I’ll make a deal with you. I’ve got to go handle a few things in town tonight. I’m planning on spending the night here with you, but I can’t promise that. I will promise to take you out riding first thing in the morning. Trouble is, Gran’s mares aren’t all that exciting. They’re fat and slow and not too used to riders anymore. But I’m pretty sure I can still make ’em do what they’re told.”

Maya let out a little gasp that damn near did me in. The thought of leaving her side, even for a second, tore at me. She turned in my arms and pressed her tits against my chest. Her nipples were rock hard with arousal. I had to leave her though. I felt chained to two rocks with the tide rolling in. I couldn’t be what she needed from me and I couldn’t be what the club needed from me if shit went on like this any longer. I didn’t know how I’d do it, but I’d have to make the club listen to me. They had to know about Maya and me. Swallowing hard, I kept my arms firm.

“Baby, you’re killing me.”

“That’s the idea. You’re doing the same thing to me. I told you, the only really bad thing I’ve ever done is you. Best decision I ever made.”

“I wish that were true.”

“It is. And it’s just the beginning. Coming here was such a good idea, Axle. It’s cleared my head. I don’t know what my next move is, but I’ll figure it out. I’ll find another job. A better one. I’m not going back to Monroe. I’m going to stay right here and fight for the life I want. Fuck Junior DiSalvo.”

I kissed her hard and deep. It was a mistake because it made it that much harder to tear myself away from her. I had no choice. I owed it to her and the club to set things right. I had no fucking clue how I was going to do that, but I had to try for both of our sakes.

“Tomorrow morning,” I said. “Then I’m all yours. I’ll help you figure out your next move if you want me too.”

“Sounds perfect. In the meantime, I expect your grandmother’s going to come out here raising hell soon. She’s making dumplings or stew or something and wants to show me how.”

“Sheeit,” I said, throwing my arm around her shoulders. We started to walk up to the house together. “She’s going to domesticate your ass yet. Turn you into a regular farm girl. Mmm, I like the sound of that.”

“I don’t know if I’d go that far, cowboy.”

I swatted her ass. She gave that little squealing laugh I loved so much and quickened her step. Just as she predicted, I could hear Gran hollering from the porch step. The next hurdle I had was telling Gran I had to leave again. She wouldn’t let me put her off for too much longer and she’d already hit me square between the eyes with her suspicions about Maya. God save me from the women in my life.

“He’s out back,” I heard her yell. Her words didn’t register until it was too late. We’d been on the other side of the barn. I should have heard the rumble of engines and the crunch of dirt and gravel when they pulled up. But I’d been too distracted by Maya in the garden.

I yanked her arm as she kept walking but I froze. Gran stood on the porch waving her arm high above her head. Walking down the porch steps straight for me were Zig and Benz.

Maya smiled back at me. “It’s about time you introduced me to some of your crew, Axle. You can’t hide me forever.”

God. If only I could. As they got closer, Zig’s face fell as he recognized Maya from her picture.