I couldn't tell if Christian was mad or amused. His face didn't betray his emotions as he turned his back to me and headed for the front door.

"I could've kept driving," I said as I tried to catch up with him.

"I would've come after you," he called over his shoulder.

"Stop! Stop right now and look at me," I demanded.

He turned to face me and didn't say a word, just stared at me like I was annoying him.

"I'm just trying to level the playing field, Christian. I don't like being bullied," I explained.

“I’m not trying to bully you, Mimi,” he conceded as he scrubbed his hand down his face.

“Then what is this, Christian?” I shook my head slightly. “I’ve already agreed to move past your trickery and the handcuffs. Why do you still feel the need to be in control?”

His face softened. “I don’t know how to be any other way, Mimi. I’m trying. But it’s who I am.” A moment passed. When he spoke again, he said, “I’m gonna put a shirt on and make a pot of coffee. You want some breakfast?”

I gave him a small smile and nodded. “I’m going to sit out here for a few minutes.” I saw the hesitation on his face. “I’m not going anywhere, Christian. My word is good regardless of what you think I’ve done to you.”

Without saying anything else, he went inside, shutting the door behind him. I walked up the front porch steps and took a seat on one of the rockers.

Before leaving for college and almost every other weekend for the past four years, I lived with the man Christian believed to be my stepfather, James. In reality, James was my biological father, also known as Grizz. He was a man who never asked permission and never apologized. I'd only seen him behave, if that's what you could even call it, in my mother's presence. I might've even envied the hold my mother had on him. He loved her beyond anything I’d ever witnessed and in the deep recesses of my heart I wanted that kind of love. But I knew the cost.

My mother once told me that you could take a man off the street, but you couldn’t take the street out of the man when that was all he’d ever known. I knew Grizz tried—he tried for her, but he wasn’t always successful. Even though he knew my mother was well past wanting him to change, it still bothered him that he couldn’t. It didn’t have to bother him though. My mother found her place of acceptance with him and the lifestyle he’d not been able to give up entirely. No. He was no longer the leader of a motorcycle club. But he was still a leader who took charge of situations nobody else wanted to address.

Lucas was the complete opposite of my father and Christian. A criminal justice major, Lucas did everything by the book. He had a strict certainty in what he believed to be right and wrong. My world wasn't so black and white. I wouldn’t even call my world gray. It could best be described as murky. Was I drawn to Lucas because he was the total opposite of my world? Or was I drawn to Lucas because he was the only man who’d respected my wishes to abstain from premarital sex?

Even during the most heated of my almost moments with Lucas, I wasn’t as excited as I’d been with Christian in the last twenty-four hours. How many times had Christian said something or given me a look that caused my heart to dance in my chest? The reality of this felt like a shockwave. Especially since I’d never even kissed Christian. It was obvious that Christian had been through some dark times and done some not-so-savory things. I was used to living with a bad guy. Could this be my future? Did I want it to be?

It was the summer before I started college. I’d been unloading the dishwasher and watching Grizz effortlessly change Dillon's dirty diaper. I couldn't peel my eyes away from his hands. They were huge, and I knew they were capable of unspeakable acts. Acts I'd heard about and understood to be true. I shivered when I realized that his knuckles were red and raw. I inwardly cringed when I realized I knew the reason why and that when I had a moment alone with him, I was going to confront him.

"I hate changing his diaper," Grizz offered, bringing me out of my thoughts.

I hadn't been aware that he'd been watching me as I watched him. "I don't think anybody likes changing a crappy diaper," I said nonchalantly.

"I don't give a shit about the, uh, shit," he answered. "I hate having to wipe it off his balls. I'm afraid I'm going to hurt him."

"You haven't hurt him yet, so I highly doubt you will," I replied without looking at him as I went back to emptying the dishwasher. I stifled a groan. I’d been recovering from an accident, and something as simple as bending over proved challenging.

I stole a sideways glance and watched Grizz lift Dillon up off the couch and press his mouth to the baby's fuzzy head.

Just then my mother came in from the laundry room carrying a basket of folded clothes with my thirteen-year-old brother, Jason, following her.

"Mom, it's not yours. I didn't go through your things," Jason whined as he padded along behind her. "I've had it since before we moved here. I found it bunched up in my sock and underwear drawer. You're the one who told me to start going through my clothes to see what I could give away." He turned red and added, "Not that I think anybody would want used socks and underwear, just that it's time to throw a lot of it out."

Grizz and I looked at them at the same time, and watched as my mother started down the stairs toward the basement bedrooms.

"What's going on?" Grizz asked as he stood up, holding the baby away from him. Dillon seemed to be fascinated by Grizz’s earring and kept reaching for it.

Jason stopped and looked at Grizz. Pointing at the bandana on his head, he replied, "Mom thinks I took her blue bandana without asking. I told her I didn't. I've had it since we lived in Florida."

My mother stopped on the stairs and turned around to face Jason. She walked back up the stairs to the basement, standing in front of Jason. "I've bought all of your clothes since you were a baby, Jason. I don't ever remember buying you that bandana when we lived in Florida. I'm putting these clothes away," she said, nodding to the basket resting against her hip. "And when I come back upstairs I will look in my dresser and see if my bandana is missing."

"Mom, you're going to find your bandana. This isn't yours." Jason was defensive and a little angry.

"Then where did you get it, Jason?" As was her habit she started walking around the room and absentmindedly tossed items that were usually stored downstairs in the basket with her laundry. "How come I never saw you wearing it in Florida?"

"I never wore it because after I found it, I stuffed it in one of my drawers and forgot it was there. It even made the move up here with us and still got buried. Shit, Mom. I don't know what the big freaking deal is about a stupid bandana anyway!" he screamed.

"Jason!" my mother yelled.

"What?" Jason nodded toward Grizz. "He says worse than shit all the time."

Mom couldn't argue that, so she didn't say anything. Walking toward Jason with her laundry basket, she set it down and calmly asked him, "Then where did you find it, Jason?"

"I found it in the garbage, Mom. Right on top of the trash in the compactor. I still remember the day. You took Mimi to the shooting range, and Dad told me to take out the trash before we left for my game. It didn't have any garbage or anything stuck to it, and I thought it was kind of neat, so I grabbed it. Again, what’s the big deal?"

My mother and Grizz exchanged a glance. I understood what the look meant. My mother had shared with me the significance of the bandana Jason was wearing around his head. I knew she thought it was lost forever. It was the bandana that Grizz had been wearing the day he took her for her first ride on the back of his motorcycle in 1975. The same bandana Mom had found years later hanging on his motorcycle as a way for her to signal him if she ever needed him. The bandana she told me she'd thrown away in anger.

"I'm sorry, Son. I'm sorry for not believing you." She reached for Jason and gave him a hug.

"It was my bandana, and I'd thrown it away. I guess since it was in the trash meant first dibs, so it's rightfully yours." She looked over at Grizz and without tearing her eyes away from his, asked my brother, "Will you give it back to me, Jason?"

Jason’s head swiveled from Mom to Grizz and back to Mom.

Almost too quiet to hear, my mom pushed, "I'll buy you ten more if you let me have yours."

He pulled it off his head, holding it out for her to take. "Do you wanna just swap? You can give me the one you wear."

She cleared her throat and said, " I want to keep that one, too. Your father bought it for me. They both have a special meaning."

Jason and I shared the same mother, but we had different fathers. Our mother had been married to Grizz and was pregnant with me when he’d been arrested. Before he went on trial and was eventually sentenced to death row, Grizz insisted that she marry Tommy Dillon. Tommy was the man who’d raised me. And he and my mother had Jason when I was five years old.

"Sure, Mom, you can keep it. And I'm sorry for cussing in front of you."

"It's okay, Jason. And thank you. For the apology and the bandana," Mom told him as she wrapped it around her hand and then bent down to retrieve her laundry basket.

An hour later, Mom had taken Jason to soccer practice, the twins were napping, and I was alone in the great room exercising. Thanks to the car accident I'd been in months earlier, physical therapy had become a way of life.

Grizz had come inside from chopping wood and was reaching in the refrigerator for a beer when I stopped what I was doing and asked him, “Who did you kill?”

I watched him hesitate before closing the refrigerator. He turned to me and didn’t break from my inquisitive stare as he twisted the top off his beer and leaned back against the counter. He took a long, slow swallow and asked, “What do you think you know?”

I walked to the kitchen and leaned up against the counter opposite him. He wasn’t going to lie to me. I wasn’t sure if knowing this came as a relief or scared me to death.

“I heard you and Micah,” was all I said. Micah was Grizz’s father, my biological grandfather. We’d been living in Micah’s mountain home since we moved to North Carolina. He was also a beloved preacher in the tiny community of Pine Creek where we'd permanently settled. Grizz didn’t ask how or when I overheard them. He just slowly nodded, and answered matter-of-factly, “I killed a distant cousin’s abusive husband. I made it look like an accident. He won’t be missed. I’ve done the family and his community a favor.”

I’d heard about Tom Deems even before I'd eavesdropped on Grizz and Micah's conversation. It was thought that he fell in his woodshop and split his face and head wide open. Bled out before anyone found him.

“Micah wasn’t happy that you killed him,” I countered, breaking our standoff.

I was surprised when Grizz decided to give me a full explanation of Micah’s original request and how the whole situation escalated. Apparently, Tom Deems was the grandson-in-law of one of Micah’s cousins, Myrtle Blye, who lived two towns west of us. She’d been concerned about her granddaughter’s abusive husband for years, but Tom was so mean-spirited and out of control, people avoided him instead of confronting him. Even the local law kept him at arm's length. He was a live wire that nobody wanted to deal with, including his family. Micah asked Grizz to scare Tom Deems into leaving town and never coming back. It almost worked. My father showed up on a day he was told Tom would be alone in his woodshed. Tom never saw him coming as Grizz approached him from behind and put him in a choke hold that was intended to disable him.

“I told him one of three things would happen,” Grizz explained after taking another sip of his beer and giving me a level look. “I told him he’d never wake up and would remain in a coma for the rest of his life. Or he would wake up but have brain damage. Lastly, he would wake up and remember everything. And if that happened and he didn’t pack up and leave, I would be back for him. He wouldn’t know when or how or who. Just that he would always need to look over his shoulder.” Seconds ticked by before Grizz added, “I promised Micah I wouldn’t kill the man and I intended to make good on that promise.”

I nodded, but gave him a hesitant look and added, “But they found him with his head bashed in.”

Grizz took another long swallow of his beer before answering me. “I let up on the choke hold just long enough for him to tell me he understood what I expected. But that’s not what he told me."

I listened, transfixed as I waited for him to continue.

The muscle in Grizz’s jaw strained, his teeth gritting together. "Instead, he offered me an hour with his eight-year-old daughter.”

I gasped out loud and pressed my hand to my chest.

“Or his ten-year-old son,” Grizz continued. “So I made an executive decision.”

“Does Mom know?” Saliva was pooling in my mouth and I thought I’d be sick. I almost didn’t want to hear that he’d kept it from her.

“She knows,” he told me as he pushed off the counter. “Any more questions?”

“Why would you risk being found out? Going back to prison?” I asked incredulously.

“I’m a careful guy,” was all he said.

And there it was. No remorse. No apology. He did what he believed needed to be done.

I was brought back to the present when Christian came outside carrying two mugs of coffee.

“Wasn’t sure how you liked it,” he confessed as he handed me a steaming cup and took the rocker next to me.

"What? It wasn't in the report from your P.I.?" I teased. “I used to douse it with sugar and creamer, but learned to take it black when cramming for exams. I can’t go back now,” I admitted.

“Ah,” he said after taking a sip. “A girl after my own heart.”

I felt a spiral of heat coursing through my insides at the innocent endearment. Taking a sip of my coffee, I balanced the mug on the arm of the rocker and blurted out before I could stop myself, “Have you ever killed anyone?”

I peered over at him as he lifted the mug to his mouth, but instead of taking another sip he looked over at me.

“Not yet,” he told me with a mischievous smile. “But never say never.”