Chapter 1

A woman can only run as fast as her boobs will allow her.

-Fact of Life

Raven

“Oh, my God. What the fuck is it going to take to get that through your fat, thick head?” Jensen screamed on the tape that was playing in front of the courtroom.

I swallowed, looking over at my lawyer who was giving me a ‘you’re okay’ nod.

I wasn’t okay. In fact, I was so far from okay that I couldn’t even factor this into a number, but I was going to make it.

There was a difference.

I had an end in sight.

I would testify to make sure that this man, this monster, never saw the light of day without having a razor-wire topped fence in his peripheral vision again.

This man would pay for what he did. To me. To the friend who’d been through hell with me, July. For the ladies before me that hadn’t been saved.

Jensen would pay, and I was going to be the one to make sure he did.

I had the information that the court and jurors needed to make the correct decision. I had the strength to fight him.

I had rage fueling my determination, and I knew that if I could just get through this last day, then everything would be alright. I’d be able to leave this place and start anew.

“Alright,” the judge said. “We’ve heard all this before. There’s no reason to rehash things we’ve already gone over. If nobody has anything to add, we’ll go ahead and dismiss the jurors to deliberate.”

When nobody objected, the judge slapped his gavel on the wood circle on his desk, stood, and left before the bailiff could even tell anyone to rise.

The jurors were sent into the room behind them, and I took that moment to get the hell out of there.

There was no way I wanted to be anywhere close to the courthouse when the final verdict was read.

No sir-ree-Bob.

***

I knew he was there.

Before I even saw him, I felt his presence. It was like I had some sort of sixth sense when it came to this particular man.

“Leaving won’t solve anything,” Wolf, the brother of the woman who’d traveled through hell and came out on the other side with me, murmured.

I shrugged and loaded up yet another box into the back of my car.

It wouldn’t fit. I knew it wouldn’t. Yet, I had to try.

I was having to try quite a bit lately.

Try to get out of bed. Try to eat lunch. Try to leave my house.

I was afraid to do all those things.

A: I didn’t want to get out of bed. When I got out of bed, reality pushed in. B: Eating lunch was what had gotten me there in the first place. I’d met Jensen while eating at my favorite restaurant. I’d thought we’d hit it off. I’d thought I finally found someone who I could be happy with. I was wrong. C: Leaving my house meant getting in the car. Getting in the car meant getting out of bed. Getting out of bed was hard on the best of days.

Therefore, I was tired of trying.

Tired of just about everything.

Except this man. This man standing in front of me wasn’t a bad guy. He was a good guy.

He was a biker. A man who had principles. A man who was taken.

Taken by the beautiful blonde who was waving at me from the car.

I waved back, then turned to Wolf.

“Leaving is my only recourse at this juncture,” I murmured. “If I don’t leave, I just might get to a place that’ll be a lot harder to get out of than this small town.”

His eyes sharpened.

“What makes you think that leaving will fix that?” he asked. “It won’t. I would know.”

I laughed softly at him.

“I don’t know if it’ll solve anything but, at this point, it’s not going to hurt to try,” I replied. “It was very nice meeting you. I appreciate all the help you’ve given me over the last couple of months.”

It wasn’t just a couple of months. It was eleven months, three days and two hours since I’d been rescued.

My final good deed had been done. And, with only Jensen’s sentencing remaining from this whole nightmare, I was free to leave.

Closing arguments had been given this morning, and I’d left before I could hear the verdict, because I couldn’t handle knowing what he got. Nothing would ever be long enough as far as I was concerned.

“You know it wasn’t a hardship,” he murmured. “Nathan’s going to miss you.”

I smiled at the mention of Wolf’s little boy.

He was a cutie, and someone from this small town who I’d definitely miss.

He’s not mine.

That was another reason I was leaving.

These people who’d insinuated themselves into my life wouldn’t be there forever. Eventually, they’d decide that what I had to offer wasn’t worth the work it took to uphold a relationship with me.

I was beyond broken.

I was crushed.

There was nothing that could put me back together again.

“Hey!” Hannah, Wolf’s pretty girlfriend, called from the cab of the SUV they were in. “Nathan has to pee! Let’s go!”

Wolf lifted his hand up in acknowledgement that he’d heard, and then turned back to me.

“If you ever need anything, I’m here.”

I smiled sadly at him.

My God, this man was beyond beautiful.

“I know, but I won’t be calling. Thanks.”

With that, I dropped down into the car I’d rented to get me to my new home.

New Orleans was my intended destination, but if somewhere else struck my fancy before I got there, I’d be stopping. Maybe to stay there for a few days. Maybe to make it my permanent home.

Who knew?

My eyes returned to the rearview mirror where I saw Wolf pull himself into the driver’s side of Hannah’s Jeep.

Hannah laughed at something he said as he got in, and my heart, what little of it there was left, broke.

***

Wolf

“What’s with the long face?” Hannah asked.

I looked over at the woman I was seeing. The one who’d been able to pull me through some of the hardest and darkest days of my life.

I’d tell her today.

Today, I’d tell her that this wasn’t going to work.

“She’s leaving,” I said as I drove Hannah’s Jeep to her house, which was about thirty minutes from mine.

I’d thought that nothing could get better than the night I’d realized that Hannah had moved from Kilgore to Uncertain.

It hadn’t been because of me. She hadn’t even realized that I’d been living in the area at the time.

What had turned out to be a surprise on both of our parts had turned into instant awesome.

Except, over the last six months of us being together as a couple, things had just…fizzled out.

The spark that was once there was now just friendship on my part.

I wasn’t sure what Hannah felt, but she deserved the truth, and now that I knew the fucker Jensen was going down for life with no option of parole, it was time to turn my attention to other matters.

Mainly to the fact that Hannah and I were together…but not really together.

In the six months that I’d been dating her, we’d yet to do much more than sleep in the same bed and spend time with each other.

We’d kissed just a handful of times and, truthfully, what we had resembled more of a friendship than a romantic relationship.

With my mind on other matters, I pulled into her driveway and immediately pulled Nathan out of the truck to set him free.

He walked to the closest tree and proceeded to pee on it.

“That’s not fair,” Hannah said with a laugh in her voice. “We can’t do that.”

I looked at Hannah and her daughter, and I smiled.

“No, you sure can’t, can you?” I asked, tweaking Reggie’s nose, causing her to giggle in the sweetest little voice I’d ever heard.

“Don’t do that, Wolf!” Reggie growled. “Or I’ll sic my Uncle Michael on you!”

I snorted and ruffled her hair. “We wouldn’t want that, now would we?”

Reggie shook her head, face serious. “Of course you wouldn’t.”

Grinning at Hannah, I turned to survey Nathan’s whereabouts before gesturing to Hannah to let them play.

Hannah placed Reggie on her feet, and she immediately ran to her swing set.

“Push!”

Nathan, of course, did all he could to push her, but all he did was manage to get her forward momentum going enough for her to come back and knock him off his feet.

Laughing my ass off, I walked to him and dusted him off, dropping down on my haunches to stare into his tear-filled blue eyes.

“You’re okay,” I told him.

He nodded. “I’m okay.”

My heart clenched.

His father, my best friend since I was in grade school, was shining out of his eyes in that moment.

“I love you, boy,” I told him.

He beamed at me.

At four years old, he was small for his age.

But his father had been small his entire life.

His kid was just like him.

“I love you too, Wolf,” he told me somberly, tears still staining the tips of his lashes.

I grinned at him, my heart clutching slightly in my chest just like it always did when I saw him.

Nathan knew I wasn’t his biological father.

I’d made it a point since he was small to tell him who his real father was. To tell him what a good man Garrett Cox had been, and what he’d done to change my life.

Nathan knew almost all there was to know about his father. The rest of the stuff, the good stuff, I’d wait to tell him until he was a lot older and could handle the stories—both good and bad.

“Go play, buddy. We’re gonna leave soon, so you better get it all in now.”

He nodded his head at me, then disappeared around the side of the play gym. A monster three story affair that Michael, Hannah’s brother, and I had put up two months ago.

It was just about as good as it got for a kid, and I knew he wanted his own.

Something I planned on giving him soon—if I ever found the spare time.

“I need to tell you something,” Hannah said softly from my side.

I gave Reggie a push and backed up until we were under the shade of a tree just to the right of the play gym.

“What?” I asked, keeping my eye on Nathan, who was now climbing arm over arm to the top of the rope that was dangling the length of the play house.

“I’m…we’re…,” she hesitated.

I looked over at her with a raised brow.

She blew out a breath.

“I’m not feeling you and me anymore,” she blurted.

I grinned.

“You’re not feeling us?” I knew where she was going.

Relief poured through me knowing I wasn’t the only one who felt that way.

“Yes,” she blew out a breath. “I…I’ve met someone…and I’d like to pursue something with, um, him.”

“Oh, Jesus,” I said, a smile on my face. “You’re dropping me like a hot potato, aren’t you?”

I’d stolen one of Reggie’s lines, and Hannah’s relieved smile let me know she understood me.

“I am,” she confirmed. “This thing we have between us, it’s good. But Wolf, I think we both know it’s just a friendship. I needed that friendship, and I still do, so I really hope that it will continue. It’s just…I want to find someone who’ll give me tingles.”

My brows rose. “I don’t give you tingles?”

Starting toward her, she held up her hand in worry. “You give me tingles. Just not the kind of tingles that lead to good things. Your tingles are more of an itch.”

I snorted.

“Are we still going to go to the zoo next week?” I asked.

She nodded.

“Yes.”

“Nobody’s going to understand that we’re just friends if we keep hanging out with each other,” I noted.

She shrugged. “If they don’t understand now, then they eventually will when we start seeing other people.”

I sighed.

“So, who is this man that you have the hots for?” I questioned my friend.

She grinned. “You wouldn’t know him.”

“Try me.”

“Okay.” She backed up. “I don’t know who he is. I’ve only seen him around town.”

My brows rose.

“Now you really have me curious.”

She blew out a breath.

“I know the feeling, I’m curious, too.”