Chapter 17

AUGUST 14

Two days later, I still hadn’t decided what to do about my relationship with Reb.

Only thing that had changed was now I was dodging Reb and my friends. The exception being that I replied to my friends’ texts.

Nicole had invited me out for drinks and boy-watching at a local bar. I definitely wasn’t ready for that. Then Jessica had texted me an invitation for a girls’ night in with the baby and some Netflix. But no, I’d rather wallow at home alone with a tub of cake batter ice cream and a squeeze bottle of chocolate syrup. I wasn’t fit for company.

I definitely wasn’t in the mood to be at work, either. I snapped at coworkers, ignored blatant looks for help from customers, and counted every second until I was free. As the clock reached quitting time, it was a miracle I hadn’t been fired or called on the carpet by my boss. But I was in the clear and out the door before anyone could find me. I had a half gallon of ice cream waiting for me at home.

But my dark mood grew blacker when I reached the parking lot and saw my car.

All four tires were slashed.

My heart plunged into my stomach. Michael. Oh God.

My first instinct was to race to my car, but my skin crawled in fear. Was he still here? Was he watching me now? My eyes darted around the parking lot, but nothing looked out of the ordinary. Well, nothing except my car.

Oh God. Tears burned the back of my eyes. I didn’t know what to do. Should I call someone? I didn’t have roadside assistance. Could I even get new tires on a Sunday?

My shoulders hunched, I walked back inside the bookstore and headed for my boss’s office. His door was open so I went right in.

“Daniel, I need to report vandalism. I think we need to call the police.”

Ten minutes later I was still sitting at a table in the small café in the bookstore, waiting for the police and a tow truck. Daniel had offered to buy me a coffee, but I couldn’t stomach anything at the moment. Instead I sat near the window waiting for help to arrive.

My skin crawled. I still felt like I was being watched.

But the roar of a nearby motorcycle engine tore me out of my introspection.

The motorcycle stopped a few feet from the entrance, and I didn’t need the rider to take off his helmet to let me know who it was. I already knew.

Why was he here? My chair made a huge screech as I pushed it away from the table. I raced outside.

Reb ripped his helmet off and slammed it down on the front tank. “Son of a bitch.”

I’d never been happier to see someone so pissed off. It felt like a weight had been taken off my shoulders.

“All four fucking tires? It wasn’t enough to do one or two? I’m gonna kill that son of a bitch.” Reb swung off his bike, closed the distance between us, and took me into his arms like I’d never left him. “Are you okay, sunshine?”

“I’m fine,” I whispered into his leather jacket. He still smelled the same. Tobacco, leather, and man. His familiar scent relaxed me, but tears still burned at the back of my eyes. Oddly, I felt closer to the edge of breaking down now that I had his arms around me than I had when I’d first seen my slashed tires. So being the independent woman I was, I pushed him away. “I’m fine. Really. What are you doing here?”

“I’m here because of that—” Reb pointed angrily toward my cratered car.

“Wait, I didn’t call you. So how did you know?” My skin prickled as my suspicion grew. Reb wouldn’t do this, would he?

His eyes grew steely as he stared down at me. “That’s not how we roll, Emily. I, uh, shit…I was hoping I wouldn’t have to tell you.”

If I didn’t know better I would’ve sworn Reb was blushing. But big, bad bikers didn’t blush, right?

“I had one of my guys keeping an eye on you. For your safety.”

“Seriously? That’s so creepy. No wonder I felt like someone was watching me.”

Reb’s brows lowered as he crossed his arms. “When?”

“Today. After I found my car…like that.”

“Then it wasn’t my guys. They’ve been watching you since I found the dead flowers on your doorstep.”

“That long?” I asked weakly. Because I’d had no idea, hadn’t even felt like anything was out of the ordinary. The knowledge that I’d had someone following me, reporting whatever I did back to Reb, made me uncomfortable. That wasn’t love. That felt dangerously close to something that Michael would’ve done if he’d had willing friends. “How could you?”

“When it means I can rest easy knowing you’re taken care of, that someone has your back when I’m not there? Easily. And I’m not fucking apologizing for it.”

“You should. You’ve practically been stalking me, Reb, and that’s not okay.” I stared at him but he just stared mulishly back at me. He wasn’t going to apologize. Then another thought occurred to me. “That’s why you didn’t mind me not replying to your texts or answering your phone calls this week. You’ve had guys watching me and reporting back to you!”

“What the fuck do you mean? I minded. Fuck yeah, I minded. But I wasn’t gonna come chasing after you like some whipped pussy. You needed some space, so I gave it to you.”

“While you had guys spying on me, you mean. That’s twisted, Reb.”

“No, that’s called safety! You have a stalker, Em. And I deserve to know that you’re okay.”

The squawk of a police squad car had us springing apart. I’d been toe-to-toe with Reb and yelling at him like a shrew. At work.

“You called the fucking pigs?” Reb asked in disgust.

I gritted my teeth, looking away from the two police officers getting out of their car, and saw we’d gathered a crowd of at least fifteen people—coworkers and customers alike—several feet away. And one suspicious-looking biker at the back of the pack. My shadow, most likely.

One officer approached me while the other stayed a few feet back. “What seems to be the problem here, folks?”

“Fuck that.” Reb turned to walk toward to gathered crowd—and my shadow, no doubt—which the second officer seemed to take offense to.

“Sir, you cannot leave until we have your statement. Stop. Freeze!”

My heart sank as I watched Reb tussle with one officer, and then two when the other joined in the fray. “Reb! Stop! What are you doing? Oh God! Reb!”

A minute later he was handcuffed and sat on the curb, a trickle of blood trailing from the corner of his lip.

“Ma’am, can you tell us what happened here?”

I looked from Reb, handcuffed, to the officer in front of me, to the gathered crowd—easily twice what it’d been only seconds ago—to my boss standing in front of the bookstore. When did this become my life?

I wasn’t sure, but I knew one thing—there was no way I’d keep my job after this.

Two hours later my car had been towed away on a flatbed truck and Reb had been released by the police. After, of course, they’d run him for warrants, and he’d come up clean. That was good news, I guess.

I was still angry. At Reb for having me followed for weeks without telling me. At Michael for slashing my tires. At the cops for not doing anything about it. Oh, they’d promised to “look into it,” but nothing would come of their investigation. Nothing ever happened when Michael pulled crap like this. Except for me getting seriously pissed off.

Reb chose that unfortunate moment to walk up to me. “Come on, baby. I think you should stay at my house for a while ’til this all cools down.”

“I don’t think so, Reb. I’m so pissed. At you. At Michael. I don’t want Tucker to see me like this.”

“Tuck’s at Rhonda’s. And I want you safe at my house.”

“I still don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“I’m not doing this here. Get on my fucking bike. We’ll talk back at my place.”

“Do I get a say in this?”

Reb paced over to his bike to dig through his saddlebag. He pulled out a helmet and thrust it out to me. “Yes.”

I eyed the offered helmet warily. His “yes” sounded a hell of a lot like “no.” I wasn’t a hundred percent sure I wanted to go home with him. But I also didn’t have any way to get home. Plus I really didn’t want to wait for a cab and go back to my apartment alone. I could call Jessica, but she had the baby, and I certainly didn’t want to face Nicole and her derisive comments about Reb, Michael, and my crappy car. I’d heard it all before. Really I had no one else to turn to.

And wasn’t that a sad reflection on what my life had become?

I took the helmet from him and strapped it on my head. “Make no mistake, we are talking when we get to your place. No funny business.”

“Scout’s honor.” Reb held his palm up.

That wasn’t the right salute, and I really doubted Reb had ever been a Boy Scout. I shook my head in resignation and climbed onto the bike after him.

The whole ride over to his house I tried to get my thoughts straight and plan what I wanted to say to him. But I was distracted by the powerful engine vibrating beneath me and the strong man between my thighs. It would’ve been so easy to let it go and just accept what Reb was offering me. But I’d gone down that path before with Michael and I wasn’t doing it again.

Not that I was comparing Reb with Michael. Reb was an awesome, caring man. Michael was the biggest piece of shit ever, and I couldn’t wait until he was finally out of my life for good. But what Reb was doing—the little bit of himself that he offered me while wanting to dictate every aspect of my life—was not okay. He had to know that. It had to change if there was ever a chance for the two of us to make a life together.

When we pulled up to Reb’s home, I sat silently on the back of his bike and held tight to his waist. I was almost afraid to let go. If this didn’t go right, it would mean the end of my relationship with him.

I was scared.

It hadn’t sunk in until this moment how much I felt for this man. I didn’t want it to end. But it also couldn’t keep going on like it had been.

Reb turned his head and spoke to me through his helmet. “You okay, sunshine?”

I squeezed his hips before swinging off his bike and taking the helmet off. “I hope so. Depends on how this conversation goes.”

Reb climbed off his bike, hung his helmet on the handlebar, then grabbed my hand. He didn’t say a word as he tugged me up the steps and inside his house.

I stood in the center of the living room and didn’t know what to say—how to start this epic conversation with him. Instead I crossed my arms and surveyed the room.

Reb shoved his hands in his front pockets and rocked back on his heels. When still I didn’t say anything, he raised his eyebrows in a silent cue for me to begin.

I nodded and looked down at my feet. “I, uh, don’t know where to start.”

“You had a shit ton to say in the parking lot. How about you start there?”

“Fine. Let’s start with you having guys follow me. How is that okay?”

Reb scowled at me. “I said it before and I’ll say it again: I’m not apologizing for that. You have a fucking stalker, Em. And he’s escalating. It started with dead flowers, which is sick as fuck, but now he’s slashing your tires. That’s dangerous. And until I can get my hands on that fucker, you’re gonna have a shadow. Learn to live with it, ’cause it’s not changing.”

“It’s overkill, Reb. He’s never done anything to me. He leaves things and screws up my property. He hasn’t touched me since…”

“Since when, Emily? This is the punk-ass little shit who used to smack you around. That wasn’t okay then, and it’s not okay now. And as soon as I can get my hands on that little prick I’m gonna make him regret every mark he put on you and every tear he made you cry. I’m not gonna apologize, and I’m not changing my mind.”

“That. That right there.”

“What?”

“I don’t get a say. You go out there and do dangerous shit and I don’t get a say. What if you get hurt, or arrested, or killed? Where does that leave me? Where does that leave Tucker?”

Reb scowled. “Don’t you fucking bring him into this.”

“Someone has to think of him. Rhonda’s too fucking selfish to take care of him and you’re too myopic to see straight. What happens to Tucker when you die or get arrested on one of your little missions? I’ll tell you what! Rhonda will neglect him and he’ll have to grow up too fucking fast and take care of himself. Or worse, he’ll get put into the system. And who will take care of him then?”

“You’re exaggerating.”

“No, it’s the fucking truth, and you know how I know? Because that’s what happened to me!”

The walls practically vibrated with my words. And I was sobbing. Each word felt like claws tearing at my throat, but he had to know. He had to see how what he was doing was impacting everyone.

I wiped at my tears with the back of my hand. “That’s the reality he’s facing. And I know because that was me. I’ve been there. I’ve lived that life, and Tucker deserves better.”

“Baby.” Reb took a step toward me but I waved him off.

“No, you need to understand.”

“I do, baby. I’m so fucking sorry for what you went through. But it won’t happen to Tucker. I won’t let it.”

I let out a weak laugh that sounded suspiciously like a sob. “You can’t control everything, Reb.”

“No. I can’t. But I have planned for the future. I set up a trust for Tucker if anything should happen to me. Rhonda can’t touch it. I named a few of my friends as trustees, and they’ll take care of Tucker.”

I took a few steps back and collapsed on the sofa. My chest felt hollow. Reb had thought of Tucker’s future. He’d taken steps to make sure that Tucker would be taken care of.

Why had no one done the same for me?

The tears came full force then. My shoulders hunched, and I sobbed into my hands. It felt like I cried tears that’d been stored inside me for years. It all came out. My mother sobbing night after night before she left. The cheap treats from my father when he won at the casino. His rage when he didn’t win. The frightening night when he didn’t come home at all. Living in foster care. The humiliation and gratitude when Jessica’s family took me in. The fear of being alone that’d made me cling to Michael for way too long. It all tumbled out.

And somehow between my sobs, Reb got the picture. He sat on the couch next to me and somewhere between my horrible childhood and dating Michael, he pulled me onto his lap. And I let him. I huddled into his chest as years of loneliness and fear poured out of me.

When I was spent, I sat quietly in his lap. The occasional hiccup shook my frame.

“I’m sorry, baby,” Reb whispered as he placed a soft kiss on the top of my head.

I sighed. “Me, too.”

We cuddled on the couch for a while. He petted my hair while I gripped his leather vest and hoped he wouldn’t ever let me go.

Finally I relaxed my grip and looked up at him. “So you see, I kinda have an issue with control and abandonment.”

“You think?” Reb laughed softly and kissed my lips gently. “I get where you’re coming from. I’ll talk to you about what’s going on—if I can. There are some things like club business where I won’t. And that won’t change, but I hope eventually you can trust that I’ll take care of you—now and if anything happens to me in the future. I look out for those who are important to me.”

It wasn’t quite an “I love you,” but it was damn close, and I knew for Reb it was a monumental concession.

But something bugged me.

“I still know hardly anything about you, Reb. It feels like you pick and poke until you uncover every single one of my secrets, but what do I know about you?”

Reb didn’t say anything at first. His hand continued to rub up and down my back. The rhythm was soothing, and the combination of the motion and my exhausted emotional state almost had me asleep, when he finally spoke.

“I’m not sure that Tucker is my son.” He said it so softly I wasn’t sure I’d heard him correctly. And then he continued. “Last year at a party, when Rhonda and I broke up for the final time, she threw that at me. ‘You can have the little brat. Let me know when you figure out who his father is, because it sure as fuck isn’t you.’ ”

My breath left me in a hiss as I felt his pain. I didn’t know what to say, so I tried to comfort him without words. Burrowing into his chest as if I could heal his suffering with my touch, I held on, but I could hear his pain as he spoke.

“So now I wonder. Every time I look at him I question if that’s my chin or if it’s someone else’s.”

“Reb, you can’t do that to yourself. You—”

“You want to know the really fucked-up part of it all?”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, but I nodded anyway.

“Tucker was there. He heard every awful thing that bitch said, and she knew it.”

“Oh my God.”

“Yeah.”

“How could she do that to her own child?”

“I ask myself that every fucking day.”

“Are you…Did you think about getting tested?”

“For STDs? Hell yeah. I’m clean, by the way. But for paternity with Tucker?” He sighed heavily. “I don’t think I want to know. It doesn’t matter anyway. I’ve been his father his entire life. I held him when he was so tiny he could fit in my palms. I am his father. Nothing else matters.”

I echoed his words from only moments ago. “But still you wonder.”

“Yeah. It eats me up inside.”

I snuggled closer like it would make a difference. And when Reb’s hands tightened on me, I think it did. We held each other on the couch as all the emotion in the room settled.

Finally, I cleared my throat and spoke. “Well, I don’t care what the bitch said. I think he’s yours. He looks like you. He’s got your tough-guy stance down pat. And you both have that same widow’s peak in your hairline. Rhonda doesn’t have one. Maybe he got that from you.”

“Maybe.” Reb’s hand rubbed my back in a calming rhythm, but I couldn’t tell who he was trying to soothe. “So there. You know another fucked-up piece that makes me who I am. Does that help?”

I smiled sadly. “Oddly enough, it does.”

“Good. Now about your shadow detail—”

“Oh God, Reb, really?” I pushed away from his chest and frowned at him.

“Yeah, really. I need to know you’re okay. I swear they don’t bring me tales of whatever you get up to when I’m not there. Their sole job is to watch your back. Like today.”

“If I had a shadow, why did my tires get slashed? Shouldn’t he have stopped it?”

“He was watching you, not your car. Because it can be replaced. You cannot.”

I heaved a heavy sigh. “Fine. But only until this crap with Michael settles down.”

“Not happening. You’re the old lady for the prez of a motorcycle club. Your security detail is twenty-four/seven. I have enemies, sunshine. We both have baggage.”

“That’s one way to put it.” I looked into his serious eyes and knew he wasn’t budging. “Fine.”

“Fan-fucking-tastic, baby. And one more thing. If anything like today happens to you, I want you to call me. Not the cops. Not your friends. Me.”

“But the cops can—”

“They can do jack shit. I get business done.”

I nodded quickly. The furor in Reb’s voice had my heart pounding. And oddly enough, my nipples tightening. When Reb got all take-charge and scary-biker, it turned me on. Especially when it was in defense of me. Wow, was that hot.

“Uh-uh, baby. I don’t have time for that right now. I’ve got to go see about your car.”

“Wha— How’d you know what I was thinking?” My face heated with my blush. Was I really that easy to read?

“It was written all over your face.” Reb pressed a quick peck on my lips, then set me aside on the couch. “And no matter how much I’d love to throw you over the coffee table and fuck you three ways to Sunday, I gotta go.”

“You’re just gonna leave me here? Horny and alone?”

“Christ, baby. Don’t tease me. You’re not alone; Tank is watching the house—you’ve got his number programmed on your phone—and I’ll be back before you’re asleep, to take care of the horny part.”

Before I could open my mouth and say something to tempt him to stay, he was across the room and holding the door open. “Lock this behind me.”

And then he was gone.

I slumped back into the couch, still amazed that he’d left me. I couldn’t have been more obvious if I’d had a big, blinking sign over my head saying “Fuck Me.” But instead he’d left. It was a little bit insulting.

And his excuse that he was going to see about my car was so flimsy. It was four flat tires, and he owned a shop, for crying out loud. A few phone calls and it’d be taken care of. No, he wasn’t going to see about my car, he was going to see the jerk who’d cratered it. But where earlier I might’ve been pissed that he was going to confront Michael, now all I felt was…dang, I didn’t even know. Ambivalence? I wasn’t worried. But maybe that had more to do with the fact that I knew Michael wasn’t a threat; it wasn’t exactly the same as Reb confronting his rival motorcycle club.

I tried to process all that’d happened between us, but exhaustion from my earlier emotional outpouring dragged me down. So instead I staggered to the front door and locked it before making my way down the hall. When I reached Reb’s bedroom I stripped off most of my clothes, leaving only my panties. Then I tugged on the T-shirt he’d left on the bed. The familiar scent of Reb enveloped me as I climbed under the sheets. My last thought before sleep took me was that I really hoped Reb would wake me when he got home.

Make-up sex was the best.