Rosie

Age Twenty-One

When you’re young and stupid—and old and stupid, for that matter—you ruin your life when you’re drunk.

Which was precisely what I did on the night of my twenty-first birthday. I’d partied a heck of a lot before that, so it wasn’t as wild as you would’ve thought. There was a big party, of course, but I mainly just sat with Bull and Laurie and watched their happiness. Not with jealously exactly, but seeing how different they were, how much they shouldn’t fit and how perfect that made them, it made me drunkenly decide that if they could do it, we could.

So after I’d been dropped home by the designated sober prospect, I got into the car and drove to the station. Yes, drinking and driving was supremely stupid, but what happened afterward was arguably more dangerous.

I parked crookedly outside the station. It was the middle of the night and everyone else was gone.

Luke wasn’t.

I’d known that because we’d driven past on the way home and seen the light shimmering from the shadowy building. No one but Luke was that dedicated to their job as a small-town police officer.

The front door was locked, of course. I picked it with a rogue bobby pin.

“The only Templar who would break into a police station,” I muttered to myself as I walked down the dark hall.

My heels clicked loudly in the eerie quiet; it would’ve been creepy, if creepy and scary weren’t what passed for normal in my world. The only creepy thing, even through my drunken haze, was what I was about to do. There was a small, sober voice prattling in the depths of my brain, commanding me to snatch up my self-respect and hightail it the fuck out of there.

Drunk Rosie never listened to Sober Rosie.

Shit, Sober Rosie never listened to Sober Rosie.

So I kept walking, glancing around at the cookie-cutter desks, some scattered with files, other freakishly clean. Posters here and there. I was surprised to see Gage on one.

Wanted.

“Hmm, interesting,” I muttered.

I wasn’t surprised that he was running from something, but I was surprised that the police were in possession of this and he was yet to be arrested. Then again, as long as Bill was sheriff, we were unlikely to be arrested for anything. As long as Cade kept delivering him fat envelopes every month.

It was when Luke took the reins that we had the trouble.

And there I was, running right into trouble.

What’s new?

The light in his corner office was brighter now, offending my eyes that had become accustomed to darkness.

My soul had too.

And there was I seeking out the light when I wasn’t designed for it, nor used to it.

I didn’t hesitate at the door because if I hesitated, it would’ve been over. Hesitation was for cowards and sober people. I was neither.

Luke was bent over a black folder, concentrating so hard that he obviously hadn’t heard the not-so-stealthy break-in. He did hear the creak of his door opening. He wasn’t one to hesitate either, his gun up and pointed at my forehead in a matter of seconds.

Most people’s immediate reaction to having a gun pointed in the region of their brain might be to scream, cry, plead and definitely hold up their hands in the universal “don’t shoot me” gesture.

I did no such thing.

The only thing I did was reach into my purse and slip out a cigarette, put it between my lips and light it up. I took a leisurely inhale.

Not that I even liked to smoke. It made my clothes smell like shit, fucked with my teeth and may or may not give me cancer. It was something I was trying out. Plus, it went with my look. I was wearing tight leather pants with some third-hand Manolos, towering me high above my regular 5’7, and a see-through blouse that showed off my lacy red bra. My hair was straight—it took about two hours to do that—and tumbling down my back. My red lipstick left an imprint on the white filter as I took the smoke from my mouth.

“Jesus, Rosie,” Luke yelled, letting his gun clatter onto his desk.

I took another inhale, mainly to hide my nerves. “Nope, it’s just me. Don’t think the other guy’s been seen in a few thousand years, and even if he was in this neck of the woods, he wouldn’t be hanging out with me.” I watched him glance down at the file he’d been so focused on, snap it closed and shove it in a drawer. I wondered idly about that, for about a second. “He’d most likely be in here with you, Luke. The saint.”

I wandered into the room, glancing around with interest. It was clean. Neat. Obsessively so. Framed photos spaced evenly, diploma on the wall.

“You know I’m not a saint, Rosie,” he gritted out.

I focused on him, raising my brow. “Oh really? Because you’re pretty sure who the sinners are in this ’burb, and I thought only saints had the authority on sinners. The rest of us can’t see the grass for the trees, being sinners and all.”

He glared at me, then at the plume of smoke. He was out of his seat and in my face in seconds, my cigarette out of my mouth in the same time.

“You can’t fucking smoke in here,” he growled.

He didn’t leave my atmosphere immediately, holding my lit cigarette with the red lipstick kiss on the end, watching me.

“You’re not a sinner,” he murmured. “And I’m not a saint.”

“What makes you so sure?” I whispered.

The moment lasted longer than it should have, giving me butterflies of hope.

“Because saints don’t want things that they can’t have,” he said finally.

And before I could grasp onto that moment of hope, hold it in my hands and use it as proof that coming here—drunk or not—was a good idea, he was gone.

Luke rounded his desk, stabbing my smoke out on a scrap piece of paper before throwing it in the trash. He stayed on that side, keeping the piece of furniture between us like a shield. From my feelings or his, I wasn’t sure. I just knew it wasn’t working for me. There was no shield thick enough for that.

“What are you doing here, Rosie?” he sighed, crossing his arms. He looked me up and down, and that time really looked. He couldn’t really look in public. Or that’s what I told myself. Not that he wouldn’t. Or didn’t want to. That truth would make me all the more pathetic.

I entertained the idea that now that it was just us, with no one to hide from, real hunger danced in his gaze.

But then it was gone.

Maybe with just us, there was so much more to hide from.

“How’d you get in?”

I smirked, a good ploy to distract from my hurt. “The front door was open.”

Luke frowned. “It was not.”

I shrugged. “It is now.”

“Jesus, Rosie, you broke in?”

I looked around. “You keep mentioning this guy. Can I just not see him or something?”

“This isn’t a joke, Rosie,” he clipped. “You broke into a police station.” He looked at me again, but it wasn’t the Luke look. This was the Deputy Luke look. “You’re drunk.”

I eyed him. “It’s the middle of the night and I broke into a police station. You think I’d do that sober?”

He looked at me for a long time. “How did you get here?”

That was not the question I expected him to ask. I expected a lecture about the laws I’d broken, not to do it again, yada yada yada.

Knowing that telling him I drove would not be a good idea, I shrugged. “Flew in on my broomstick.”

Luke’s glare deepened to the point that one could possibly call it pure fury. “You fucking drove?” he roared, not buying the broomstick thing.

That time he forgot the shield between us and rounded the desk.

His hands were biting into my shoulders and he shook me a little.

“Are you fucking out of your mind?” he shouted. Right in my face. No more Mister Nice Deputy. No more Mister Deputy at all.

This was Luke, pure and simple.

But not simple.

Because this was the rage of that night he’d wrenched the guy out of my car. The rage that didn’t make sense. Because rage like that was only roused when you cared about someone. A lot.

“Most of the time!” I yelled back, deciding that I was a little raging too.

Luke didn’t let go of my shoulders with my returning shout. Instead he shook me again, just on the edge of violently. “Driving fucking drunk is stupid and dangerous, Rosie. Fuck. Don’t you have people to drive you home? The one thing your brother does that I agree with is that he doesn’t let you drive drunk, and he even failed at that,” he seethed.

I narrowed my eyes. “Let’s get one thing clear, buddy. No one lets me do anything, I do what I want.”

“Including wrapping your car around a fucking pole and then making me come and find your dead fucking body?” he hissed.

“My car is in the parking lot, unharmed. And I’m very much alive, as you can tell,” I snapped.

My gaze was pointed at his hands which were bordering on painful. His eyes followed but his grip didn’t loosen.

“Yeah, you’re alive,” he said. “For now. You keep pushing it, Rosie. The boundaries. The rules. One day, they’re gonna push back. And I don’t want to ever fucking see that day.”

I blinked at him. “And why is that, Luke?” I whispered. “Why is it that you’re so passionate about my well-being when I’m just another dirty outlaw?”

He flinched at my words, the quiet tone that screamed loud, too loud, with my emotions. Alcohol made me honest. Too honest.

He stayed silent and still for a moment until he stepped back, erected the shield between us once more. “You’re not dirty,” he murmured. “I never have and never will think that.”

I eyed him. “You sure about that?”

He eyed me right back. “Never been more sure about anything in my life.”

I swallowed whatever that sentence did to my emotions. “Apart from your determination to ruin my family, right? You’re pretty sure about that.”

Luke’s face darkened. “Rosie,” he warned. “We can’t get into this. You shouldn’t be here.”

I stepped forward, backing him into his desk. “But I am here,” I said, confidence or stupidity fueling me. “I’m here, and no one else is, and I’m not going anywhere until—”

“Until what, Rosie?” His voice was ice.

I stuttered on his response, on his demand of an explanation, an uttering of what had been, for years, unmentioned.

On my side, at least.

Maybe it was all on my side.

I lost all my bravado, my confidence, sobering in the worst way, shrinking down into a vulnerable girl who didn’t want anything more than him, the guy, to love her.

“You know what,” I whispered, unable to say anything else. Anything else would be too risky, to real to reveal, even without my few inhibitions.

Luke looked at me for a long while, as if reading the unsaid words, like I’d written them in the air. “You want me because I’m the one thing you can’t have, Rosie. It’s not real,” he said, not unkindly.

The tone may not have been unkind, but what did that matter when every word was a blade?

“Real?” I whispered, choking out the word. “I’ve had a brutal and continuous education on real, Luke. I’m not a child. I don’t live in fantasies, don’t entertain myself with them. I’m all about real. So trust me, I didn’t want to feel this for you. I didn’t trick myself that forbidden romance would be exciting or passionate or magnificent. That’s the fantasy. But the real? The real is fucking ugly. Because it’s not what I can’t have. It’s what was never mine in the first place.” The words tumbled out though I had no intention of saying them.

Not even in the most perfect of circumstances would I have done it. And this definitely wasn’t the most perfect of circumstances. But I said them anyway, like a drowning person scrambling for that life raft that they knew had a hole in it but hoped beyond hope might somehow save them anyway.

“Rosie,” he whispered, barely audible. “It’s not. We’re not. I’m not right.” His own words tumbled out, much fewer than mine, trickling almost incoherently, painfully.

I was proud for the way I tilted my chin up and for the fact that my eyes stayed dry.

“No, you mean I’m not right,” I corrected. “I’m not right for your image. For your lifestyle. For the good guy.”

“Fuck, Rosie, no,” he pleaded, stepping forward as if to touch me.

Self-preservation kicked in at this point and I stepped back before his fingers could grasp mine.

“Yes, Luke,” I snapped. “You’re clinging to your mold, and admitting anything about me, acknowledging me, will ruin it all, I’m sure.” My voice turned cold. “It’s what people don’t realize. In life, you don’t actually have to act a certain way, dress a certain way, live a certain way. It’s a big and brilliant fucking con by the Man that has us thinking so. The only reason I see them, the strings that are attached to 99 percent of people on this planet, is because of where I live. Where I grew up. In the 1 percent. And I know what you think of that. Murderers, rapists, criminals. Whatever. Scum of the earth, right?”

I laughed. “Well, that’s okay, because that 99 percent? That’s exactly what they are. They just hide it when they put on their fucking suits every day. Everyone’s pretending, for each other. It’s comical when you think about it. Yeah, there’s laws you don’t break. I kind of get that one. But then there’s the invisible ones about how to dress, where to live, what age to pop out a spawn, what shit to spout at cocktail parties. That’s the shit I don’t get. Most people act like it’s the gallows if they step out of it. This great big lie called life. People live it and don’t even realize they’ve wasted it. Never made it theirs. I’m not going to do that. I’m going to make it mine. And I’ll fuck up. I’m good at that. But I’d rather fuck up a life I’ve designed than perfect something someone else controls.”

I took in a strangled breath after yet another word vomit. I didn’t even know if I could blame alcohol for this. It was years of pent-up emotions, of unsaid words, unshed tears, all packaged into one rambling speech.

He stared at me, at my words, as if they were floating around in the air.

“Different time, different life, we woulda been perfect.” His raspy voice was full. Of regret, of hope, and of resignation.

“We only have now. We only have this life,” I whispered, my heart breaking. “Imperfect is all there is. It’s all I need. I know it’s not the same for you. You need perfect. Not me.”

Luke was just staring at me, still—shocked, maybe.

But he didn’t say anything.

I didn’t wait to see what new and careful way he’d structure his words to break my heart.

“Don’t worry. In regard to you, I think I’ve made enough Fuck-Ups to last us both a lifetime.” I turned on my heel and intended on stomping out, hopefully waiting until I was at home to shed the tears that were prickling the backs of my eyes.

“Rosie.”

One word gave me pause. Hope.

This is it. What happens in the movies. When you thought all was lost, it was really just the climax needed to show you that the guy, the good guy, would never let the girl he really loved walk away.

I turned.

He held his hand out. “I need your keys. I can’t let you drive. I’ll give you a ride.”

I was impressed that I stayed upright.

“They’re in the ignition,” I shot back, voice ice. “Do what you like with the car. And no way on this earth would I accept a ride from a cop. I’ll call one of the boys. You know, the big bad outlaws whose lives you’re making it your mission to ruin?” I paused. “Yeah, my family has my back. And you ruin their lives, mine goes with them. But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

Then I left.

And it hurt.

A fucking lot.

But I walked, head held high, face dry, heart broken.

Not enough women got medals for doing that. And I knew they did it. Every day, women did it.

And they all deserved fucking medals.

Because no way a man would be strong enough to make that walk—and in heels, no less.

* * *

Luke

Age Twenty-Eight

He stood there for a long time after she left. A long fucking time.

He wasn’t sure if it was by choice or not.

But he did. Like a fucking coward. Didn’t do anything. Didn’t say anything. Just fucking stood there. Going over every single thing she’d said. Every single thing he should’ve said.

Fuck, her face when she turned and he asked for her keys. That would be something he’d have to answer for when he met his maker. Turning that beautiful hope into beautiful heartbreak. The most painful kind of beauty. The kind you appreciated, marveled at, but would kill the fucker who made such a creature have to deal with that pain.

It was him.

He was the fucker.

He wasn’t going to say shit about the keys. He’d intended on telling her that they weren’t a fantasy, that he was hers, that somehow, in this fucked-up world, she’d managed to make everything else less important.

But he didn’t.

Because he was a coward.

Not just because he was a cop.

And not for the reasons she believed. No, it had nothing to do with him and his opinion of where she came from. Where she came from made her who she was. He didn’t want to respect the club for turning her into that, but fuck if he did.

No, he’d closed his mouth for her. Because he knew that if he gave her what she wanted in that moment, he’d take away everything she’d need in the rest of them.

Her family.

The ones who would do anything for her.

Except accept him into that family.

That would be the price. The choice for her. He’d never put her in that position. Never hurt her like that.

His aim was to prevent hurt.

But he’d created it.

And he’d have to live with that.

Somehow.

* * *

Rosie

Present Day

Luckily, I always carried my passport—one of them, at least—on me at all times in case of emergency or boredom. That meant I could hop in my battered and almost falling apart Jeep and speed straight through the chaotic streets of Caracas, toward the airport.

Road rules were nonexistent here, apart from the singular one of don’t die. I didn’t have to worry about something as asinine as getting pulled over while I dialed my phone and put it to my ear.

I’d already tried Lucy.

Four times.

It barely rang before an immediately familiar fury greeted me. “Rosie, where the fuck—”

I swerved around a stationary taxi, the driver shouting at someone across the road, then shouting at me as I took out a side mirror. A honk from the car I was about to plow into on the other side had me swerving back into my lane.

“Save your swearing, shouting or synchronous series of caveman grunts for another time, bro,” I shouted above the traffic noise. “I need to know about Lucy. Tell me she’s okay.” It was more of a plead than anything else.

There was a pause. One that told me everything I needed to know and made sure I left my heart on the bottom of the road as I sped away toward the airport. I was so focused on making it through the streets that I forgot to guard against the memories, anxious to get their place in the spotlight once I’d opened the floodgates.

So, navigating through wild and dangerous streets, my mind wandered.

Not to my friend who could very well be dead. I couldn’t think of that. Self-preservation.

And there would be nothing of me left to preserve if my girl was dead.

Not that there was much right now.

* * *

“We’ve just landed in sunny Los Angeles. If this is your final destination, welcome home.” The pleasant voice on the intercom possessed none of the irritation it had when she’d been telling me that she would no longer serve me alcohol.

“I think you’ve had enough, ma’am.”

I scowled at her and her superior glance to my disheveled hair and dusty white tank. “I’m still sober,” I protested, without an inch of a slur. “That means I haven’t had near enough.”

She raised one perfectly manicured brow. “You’ve had twelve tequilas, ma’am. We are lawfully obliged to cut you off.”

I rolled my eyes. “One mustn’t break the twelve-tequila law,” I snapped. “They’ll most likely put you in jail where the only person to do your eyebrows would be a dyke who benched more than The Rock.”

Suffice to say I did not get my thirteenth tequila.

Because of the law.

The law. The big fat barrier, reinforced with steel, electrified and topped with barbed wire. The thing that sat between everything I wanted.

Well, the two things I wanted.

Luke and tequila number thirteen.

Right now, though, I wanted more than anything for my best friend to be okay.

The two flights had been the longest ten hours of my life. I wanted to scream for how helpless I was, thousands of feet in the air, unable to do anything.

And that was on me.

“Excuse me, coming through,” I shouted, almost bowling over an elderly lady with a hatbox. I didn’t have the time to feel bad. “Sir, if you’d kindly get the fuck out of my way,” I requested pleasantly to the man who’d decided to turn getting his bag from the overhead locker into a process as complicated as splitting the atom.

Both he and my friend the flight attendant scowled at me. Most of the passengers smiled at me. I was just saying what everyone else stuck behind this idiot was thinking.

As I pushed past him, I smiled at Mrs. Perfect Brows. “You have a fulfilling life enforcing the law 30,000 feet up,” I said to her.

I didn’t get her response because I was out of the plane and sprinting to get to whoever was waiting for me on the other side.

In my worry about Lucy, I forgot that I had a wrath-filled brother waiting for me. I was reminded of that once I entered the arrivals section and saw him, standing wide-legged with his arms crossed, two feet of space all the way around him, despite the fact that LAX was packed. His fury, not to mention his leather cut, created a force field that people purposefully avoided.

His furious gaze landed on me and I ignored it, running up to him.

“How is she?” I demanded, expecting him to start walking toward the exit so we could get to Lucy.

Instead, he stayed rooted to the spot, not moving, face a mask of masculine alpha fury. I was used to it. It was almost a default with me.

Something inside me softened at seeing that again. My badass, cranky, and loyal-to-the-bone brother. In the flesh. It was the longest I’d been away from him. From everyone.

“She’s still unconscious but through the worst,” he finally grunted, saying every word through clenched teeth.

My entire body, which had been wound up tighter than Mrs. Eyebrows’ chignon, sagged at the news. “So she’s going to be okay?” It was more a prayer than a question.

He nodded once, curtly and stiffly.

I sagged some more, exhaling the breath I’d been holding for hours. Then I snatched the tree trunk he had for an arm in an attempt to pull him toward the exit. The action was the exact same thing as yanking at a tree trunk. It didn’t move.

“Cade!” I whined. “Forget about being mad at me for like two-point-five seconds and let’s go. You can yell at me in the car.”

He didn’t move. Nor did he speak. He just stared at me in that way that had all his enemies quivering in their boots, before they pissed their pants.

It didn’t work on four people: his wife Gwen, his two infant children, who literally laughed in the face of his wrath, and me.

“Cade, you—”

I was going to protest some more when he moved. He didn’t shout or curse or tell me what an irresponsible idiot I was. Instead he hugged me. Hard. I was pretty sure I heard some bones in my back crack with the force of it.

I relaxed into it, wrapping my arms against his iron body, clutching at the leather that was the backdrop of my childhood. I took a deep inhale, motor oil, smoke and nostalgia creeping into my nostrils.

Home.

It wasn’t a place to me.

It was people. A lot of them. One of my favorites, clutching me to him as if he sensed I needed a vacation from all the horrors chasing me and all those I carried with me. I was safe from all of them for the duration of that hug.

Cade pulled back and looked down at me with a stare that, to the outside observer, would look empty and full of menace. Though the outside observer would take into account all of his tattoos, his sheer height and size, and the rough stubble on his sharp chin, plus his motorcycle cut, and add all that into the equation. But I knew better than all that. I knew that was the mask he wore when he was feeling a little too much and didn’t want to let the world see it.

“I was so fuckin’ worried about you,” he growled, kissing my forehead.

“No need. I’m always okay,” I said with false cheer designed to calm his worries.

He stared at me, the way only someone who shared your blood could. “No, kid, you always make sure you act okay. It’s not the same thing.” His eyes searched me some more. “Fuck,” he whispered under his breath. “You’ve added more.”

“More what?” I whispered back.

“More fuckin’ darkness to eyes I wanted to make sure never had a shred of shadow in them,” he replied.

I was surprised, at what he said and the tone of anger in regret in his voice. “I’m not designed to exist without shadows. It’s in my blood,” I said, cupping his cheek.

He furrowed his brow. “Fuckin’ trouble’s in your blood,” he muttered.

I was relieved. I didn’t need heavy when I was already carting the world around on my shoulders.

“Now can we please go see my soul sister?” I whined.

He looked me up and down, face blank once more. “Yeah, once we get you showered.” He paused. “On second thought, maybe if you don’t, she’ll smell you and wake right up,” he said dryly.

I smacked his arm, bruising my knuckles in the process. “Personal grooming wasn’t really on the agenda when I got the call, buttface.”

We started walking toward the entrance, his brow raised at me in warning.

I rolled my eyes. “The super-badass routine doesn’t work on me, remember? I don’t care if your patch says ‘President,’ you’ll always be my buttface brother,” I teased.

He shook his head. “And you’ll always be my Roe,” he replied. “Which means I’ll always be the one to put the bullet in the temple of the people who put the shadows in your eyes. Sooner or later.”

His words weren’t teasing like mine.

They were a promise.

I hoped to God that he didn’t find out it wasn’t rapists or murderers or general scum of the earth who put those shadows there.

It was Luke.

Because if he found that out, he would follow through on the promise.

Law be damned.

Then again, there were a lot of things that Cade would never find out about Luke.

What he’d done for the club.

What I’d done that Luke had turned a blind eye to.