Alejandro had been in town less than twenty-four hours. He’d arrived with some of his brothers from the club, the speed limit signs urging them slower and slower until they were practically crawling when they rumbled past the faded sign welcoming them to Arroyo Flats. The flags declaring it an All-America City were new, as Alejandro imagined a lot was since he’d been here last. Ten years was a long time in a small town but not long enough when you’d sworn never to return. Yet here he was, back in the place he vowed would never hold him like it had held every generation of Rojas’ for as long as anyone could imagine.

 

Now, standing in line at the Valero with a case of beer in his arms, he decided the scenery could hold him a few more minutes, or at least as long as the blonde headed for the front door was in his sights. He gazed appreciatively at the young woman as she walked through the front door, all tanned long legs and attitude. Experience told him she was the type of girl who would turn up her nose at the attention of an outlaw biker unless she was in the mood for slumming, but it didn’t stop him from enjoying her particular brand of well-bred southern beauty. His groin tightened pleasantly as he appraised her. He imagined stripping away the clothing that barely concealed her feminine curves, parting those taut thighs…

 

But when she shoved her sunglasses back into her tousled golden hair and squinted toward the back of the store, the recognition splashed over him like an icy shower. There she was, his first love, the woman who still haunted his dreams. Ali.

 

He’d known it was going to happen. A day hadn’t passed in God knows how long when he hadn’t mentally rehearsed the conversation he needed to have with her. But all hopes of hunting her down for a civilized, private explanation were dashed as she appeared in front of him in the Valero.

 

Alejandro’s breath caught as Ali reached for a bottle of wine on the top shelf, exposing a sliver of bare flesh as her shirt rode up in the stretch. He was aware of the cashier, a high school boy no older than he’d been when he last saw her, ogling her from his side of the counter. For a second he fought back the urge to grab the kid by the throat. She’s mine, you little punk.

 

But that was ridiculous, of course. She hadn’t been his for a decade and never would be again. Alejandro had always known she’d marry one day—girls like her didn’t stay on the market long—but it had still crushed him to read the engagement announcement. His cousin Cristina had e-mailed him the smiling publicity photo of Ali with her golden-boy politician fiancé and single-handedly dashed any ridiculous secret fantasy he’d ever indulged about a reunion. That night he’d worked diligently to drink the image right out of his mind. It had taken him two days to recover from that particular bender, his mouth like straw and his head hammering relentlessly, only to have the image come back in spades. He’d stayed in bed, curtains drawn, as a maddening montage of the happy blond couple in both public and very private poses danced through his brain.

 

And now here she was. Ali Owens, in the flesh.

 

She headed for the line at the counter but stopped in her tracks when she saw him staring at her. He watched her eyes widen and her fingers clutch the neck of the bottle so hard they turned white. For one second he saw in her eyes what he’d seen the night he first kissed her, a brightening, an awareness. Half a plea and half a promise.

 

Then just as quickly it was gone. She pursed her lips as her eyes traveled slowly over his face, taking in the shadowed jaw and scarred forehead, then moving lower to his club vest and his heavily tattooed arms. Her gaze stopped at the huge silver buckle on his belt and then flickered back to his own steady stare. Then she marched to the counter and stepped in front of him, plunking her bottle of wine ahead of his six-pack.

 

“Excuse me sir,” she drawled coyly up at him. “I’m in a bit of a hurry.” She leaned close as if confiding a great secret and he saw the flecks of gold in her gray eyes, the ones he’d always tried and failed to count. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t want this purchase to take a decade.”

 

To anyone else, she might have looked like a girl with too much sass and an urge to get her drink on using her feminine wiles to cut in line. But Alejandro noticed that her smile wobbled a bit and didn’t quite reach her eyes, which now bored into his with abject fury.

 

Ali, lo siento… But the words died in his throat as she turned her back to him and thrust her credit card at the cashier. She had the bottle tucked into the crook of her arm and all but bolted out the door before he’d even opened his mouth. Lucky for him, she’d been too much of a lady to say out loud what her eyes conveyed: You son of a bitch.

 

He fumbled for his wallet in stunned silence, his apology crawling back to its coward’s cave in his belly. Forget that as the VP of a 1% motorcycle club, he routinely faced down criminals at gunpoint and had business dealings with thugs so hardened they’d shoot their own mother for fifty bucks. Right now he was reduced to jelly by the fiery stare of a Texas rose. Her anger unsettled him, left him speechless and afraid to make the next move, and Alejandro Rojas was not a man who often found himself unsettled or speechless or afraid.

 

He sighed and lifted his beer from the counter, craning his neck to see where she’d gone. He strode out, determined to track her down. He’d try to make things right between them once and for all, so that when his assignment in Arroyo Flats was complete he could be done with this hellhole once and for all. Outside the store, though, there was no trace of her. She’d disappeared from sight.

 

Alejandro popped the case into his saddlebag and swung his leg over the bike. He still had a month in this godforsaken town, and it wouldn’t be the last chance he had to make amends. He just wished he hadn’t bumped into her like that, completely by accident, as if he’d never intended on going to see her. As if he hadn’t agonized over what he would say since the moment he received his assignment to go to Arroyo Flats.

 

It was ridiculous how unsettled he felt. He’d been balls-deep in a drug-and alien-smuggling trade that meant a lifetime in prison if he was ever caught, and he barely broke a sweat when federal agents paid his shop surprise visits. The club hadn’t been in Arroyo Flats ten minutes before the local boys in blue had shown up with their version of a welcome wagon, and he and his brothers had rolled their eyes the entire time at the cops’ threats. He wasn’t easily fazed.

 

But the thought of facing Ali for a long-overdue apology twisted him in knots. No big deal. You just need to go say a few words to a girl you used to know, that’s all. But Ali wasn’t just some girl he used to know, no matter how hard he tried to convince himself. The look in her eyes had echoed the cramping in his gut that told him exactly what a big deal it was. Now it was time to face what he’d avoided all this time and explain why he broke his promise ten summers ago.