by Evelyn Glass
I worked from the start and every time I rewrote something I left it for a while before rereading it. It felt like everything was different in my life, and because of that, everything was different in my story.
Kylee Strickland was a good wife in a cut and paste life with a husband that took his job seriously. The rules were there but she saw them as something to abide by than fight against it. She saw it as a way to teach herself how she ought to be.
Stan was the overseer at a morgue during daylight hours, making sure the bodies coming in were labeled and put on ice. Sometimes it felt like he put her on ice, as well, like she was just another body he’d made sure was in the right place.
He came home at six on the dot every evening and they ate supper at seven. Kylee made sure the house was clean for her husband. She decorated it with plants and flowers and all things colorful that made life just a little less dull when he was away from the office. She tried to tell herself this was the way to go, this was how everyone else did it, too. She tried to make peace with the fact that everyone who gave themselves over to a way of life had to die a little in some ways to truly be happy.
***
The doorbell rang, shocking through her, ripping her back to reality. She felt like she’d been caught in the act. She shoved all the papers and letters back into the file and returned it to the drawer under the book.
In her room, she stepped into kitten heels and looked in the mirror. Perfectly put together besides the haunted look in her eyes. She practiced a smile before walking to the door.
She kept that smile plastered on her face and opened the door. A man stood on the other side. He was rugged and wild with an air to him that suggested he was the alpha and he challenged everyone that dared question it. Black hair, eyes like ice, leather clothes that screamed danger. Kylee swallowed hard. Had he come for her?
“Mrs. Strickland?”
Kylee nodded.
“I’m Duke Cox. I’m someone hired to come to you when your husband files for a lawyer.”
“You don’t look like a lawyer.”
She’d never heard of this man in my life. She wasn’t aware Stan would file for one.
“I’m not.” He didn’t offer anymore, like Kylee was on a need to know basis. She wanted to know. She wanted to know who he was and what he wanted. She wanted to know what he wanted with her. For safety, or course, she told herself. Even when his muscles bulged against his shirt and his leather pants looked so tight around the hips they looked painted on.
“How can I help you?” She sounded more in control than she thought.
“There are some documents I need to collect from you when Stan Strickland disappeared.”
Who the hell was this guy?
“Disappeared?” He was too calm about this. Kylee was torn. Half of her was attracted to this bearer of bad news, to this sin eater. The other half was dizzy with questions. Disappeared. Documents. Too much information bounced around her mind.
“You do have the documents, don’t you?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t play games, sweetheart.” His voice was rough.
A shiver ran down Kylee’s spine. He cocked and eyebrow and his look made her feel unbalanced. There was something about this man. She needed to avoid him. She was a married woman.
“You’re Annie Strickland, I know you are.”
Blood drained from Kylee’s face and for a moment the world went black.
I wasn’t a good writer by a long shot, no matter how sweet Logan was about it. But I felt like here, in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by nature and a man who was starting to fall in love with me, I could do more than before. How did I know that his affections for me were sincere?
Every day someone drove up from the city. Every time it was another member of his gang, and every time without fail they would bring me a gift Logan had asked them to bring along.
A book, a bunch of flowers, a necklace, a box of chocolates. Normal, cliché gifts, but the way he did it made it seem like every gift was unique.
After he delivered the gift he would take a walk with the man who arrived. They would disappear into the woods to talk business and sometimes they would stay away for hours. Every time he came back he seemed anxious and nervous but I noticed how hard he tried to keep it all away from me. He was never removed, he was never distant and he always made sure I was taken care of first and foremost. Even when he had to spend a lot of time on the phone.
I was starting to learn that Logan, as badass and arrogant as he seemed, was the kind of person who put everyone else before himself. It was a good quality. It was completely unexpected from a biker.
Chapter 20
Logan
It was a good thing I kept Selena away. Since May had slashed my tires Saul had set men on watch around Selena’s place, too, just to be sure she wasn’t in any kind of danger once we returned. There was movement around Selena’s apartment every now and then and it was never any of her friends. When approached the person would say they were feeding the cat or watering the plants. Selena had neither.
There was movement around the clubhouse, too. I was glad the men had moved their meetings, but this much movement worried me. Something was going to happen soon. I could feel it building in the air, in the tension the men brought alone when they came out to speak to me, in the undercurrents over the phone. I didn’t like war. I didn’t like it when there was a chance we could lose someone. I’d been through a lot in my life and I knew how to handle it but that didn’t mean I wanted to go through it again.
The men thought it best for me to stay away. I felt like I had to be there but I was torn between them and Selena. I didn’t want her back there but I didn’t want to leave her here alone. The men were a little unsure about how Elijah died and they didn’t want me going the same way. I wasn’t sure it would go down like that, either way I wanted to be there for them.
When Saul came through I was relieved to see him. He was the one person who could tell me to stay put and I would do it.
“I want to be there and help out. I feel like I’m neglecting the boys.”
Saul shook his head. “I know where you’re at, but they’re right. You need to be here to watch her.” He gestured toward the cabin where Selena was writing. “They can’t find May at all. The last she was seen was almost three days ago.”
I frowned. “That’s not good.”
“We’ve been asking around but no one knows anything. There are a few of the members at the other clubs that are hiding something - I got some of them to speak a bit - but they’re acting dumb. Someone knows where she is but I don’t know who and I don’t know how to get that information.”
I looked over the lake. It was so peaceful out here; it seemed wrong to pollute it with talk of gang wars. But sometimes these were things that couldn’t be helped and May was asking for trouble. If I wanted things to go anywhere with Selena, which I really did, I needed this to end once and for all. I wasn’t interested in her interfering with the first real relationship in my life.
“Are you serious about her?” Saul asked, turning the conversation to Selena.
We both looked at the cabin in silence for a while. I pictured her at the desk, typing on her laptop, her fingers floating over the keys. She was in a different world when she typed and I could watch her concentration, her distant thoughts, her expression, forever.
“I am. She’s different, Saul. She makes me think that there’s a future to be had.”
“It’s been a long time since you felt that way.”
I nodded. I kept fighting after I lost Elijah because there were people to take care of and a club to fight for, but I had given up on anything real for myself ever again. I’d started living solely for others, and for the first time since then, I was living for myself again.
“What do you think of her?” Saul had driven her back to her home and he was a good judge of character.
“I think she’s
a lot stronger and more stable than she thinks. She’s deceptively naïve but she knows what’s going on. She knows what she’s doing. She’s the complete opposite of you.”
I nodded. This was true. “Maybe that’s why I like her so much.”
Chapter 21
Logan
When Saul left it was almost sunset and I’d left Selena alone for most of the day. Selena understood I had business to tend to and she knew something wasn’t right. She never made me feel like I was neglecting her. I still did.
I wanted to spend as much time as possible with her, and the times my men weren’t here and I wasn’t making phone calls or texting them, I tried to escape it all with Selena. She was the one thing - the only thing - that could distract me from the life I’d built for myself and the drama that came with it. That was something special. I didn’t often find something, in this case someone, that could take me away from everything that had happened and stop me from being terrified it would all happen again.
“Is everything okay?” she asked when I stepped into the cabin. She was in the little kitchen making food - pasta of some kind - and it smelled great. My stomach rumbled.
“Is there anything you can’t do?” I asked her, watching her cook for a moment.
She grinned. “You’re being overly sweet right now. Stick around long enough and you’ll get to know all my shortcomings.”
I walked to her, put my arms around her waist, kissed her neck. “Everything’s okay for now,” I answered her earlier question. “A bit of drama but nothing serious has happened yet.”
“You still think it will.” A statement, not a question.
I nodded on her shoulder. “If I know May, which unfortunately I do all too well, things won’t end here. She’s not the type to leave something half done. She will push it past the point of completion but she will never leave something before at least seeing it through to the end.”
Selena was silent for a moment before she spoke again. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
She turned in my arms so she was facing me and our bodies were pressed against each other. It wasn’t always about sex between us. Right now, her body this close, made me feel safe and warm and oddly removed from all the responsibility on my shoulders, all the lives in my care. “I’m sorry you’re going through this and there’s so little I can do to help.”
I kissed her. “Don’t be. You’re doing more than you know.”
She smiled and turned back to the pasta she was making. I let go of her and poured us each a glass of wine. I was starting to think that this - the quiet life with the woman I was with - was the way to go. I was getting really serious about her. I didn’t want this just to be a fling. We were way past the one-night stand point, but I didn’t want this to end here. Hell, if I thought about it properly I didn’t want it to end, period. It was something that got me thinking.
My life had been about survival since my parents died, but Elijah had taken the brunt. When Elijah died everything changed for me and the only person who was going to care for me was me. I’d managed for over ten years now, but the truth was this: slowing down and having time to breathe again was the kind of peace I’d never thought I would know. Selena made that happen for me. She didn’t judge me, she didn’t expect me to be someone else, and she gave me a purpose that was positive. I was building something with her, not just repairing damage as I went along. It felt like, for the first time, I was creating something new instead of fighting over and over again for a life that already broken.
Maybe it was time to settle down, to stop all this nonsense and do something with my life that was worth living. Worth living with her. I could let someone else take over and use the money that came in to start a family with her. I could be a dad who wasn’t caught up in dangerous crimes so I would always be there for my children.
The thought of wanting to create a future with someone shocked through my system. I had never thought about settling down with a woman, let alone having children. I’d always thought this world was too disgusting to subject another human life. Selena was starting to show me there was a lot of beauty in it, too.
She dished up for us and we each walked to the couch with a plate of pasta with sauce that smelled fantastic, and a glass of wine. We sat down. The sun had started to set and it cast an orange glow into the room. Her hair looked like it was on fire where the sun touched it. We ate together. Dusk fell and we sipped our wine, not making a move to switch on the lights. We were huddled together in the dim light, shrouded in darkness and companionship, and I knew I wanted this forever.
“Selena,” I said and she looked up, “I think I need to head back in the morning and see what I can do to end this.”
She frowned but nodded and in that moment it was impossible to tell how grateful I was for her. She didn’t fight me on what my men needed. Ever. “Just be careful, okay?”
I nodded. “I want to come home to you after it’s all over,” I said. “I’ve fallen for you and you’ve made me realize life is worth so much more than just surviving one day to the next.”
When I looked at Selena she smiled. “You know I’ll wait for you.”
“I know, but I don’t just want to date you. I want to marry you.”
She froze and her eyes searched my face like any moment I was going to tell her I was joking. I was dead serious, though, and after a moment she realized it, too. “What?”
“I’m asking you to marry me.”
She shook her head. “Logan…”
Chapter 22
Selena
He’d asked me to marry him. Marriage. This wasn’t the same as asking someone out for a date. This was the rest of our lives we were talking about. I was really serious about him already, despite the short amount of time we’d known each other, but marriage was so much more serious. Was he willing to spend the rest of his life with one woman - a woman whose life was about as interesting as the library itself? Was I willing to live with someone who was constantly in danger and had a past that kept coming back to haunt him, literally?
His face was full of expectancy when he said it. He hadn’t actually asked me to marry him; they were both statements, but this was the Logan I knew and the Logan I’d come to love. He did nothing the conventional way.
“We hardly know each other,” I said.
He nodded. “I know. But I know enough about you that I know I want to do this for the rest of my life. You’re different than anyone else I’ve ever been with and I don’t want this to end.”
I shook my head. It was too fast. This was all moving so quickly. It had only been just over two weeks. Who got engaged just after two weeks? What if something was wrong? What if there was a side to him I was yet to find out about, a side I didn’t like?
“I need some time to think about it,” I said. He looked disappointed when I said so, but he nodded. I didn’t want him to feel like I was rejecting him but, the truth was, I needed to know this was the right thing for me. This was one thing I couldn’t do for him. I needed to do it for myself. I needed to make sure I was doing the right thing for me and my future happiness.
We sat in silence in the increasing darkness and it felt like home, even though we were far away from anything I knew. I was sure with Logan, everything would feel that way. We were really good together. That was when I realized it. That was when I understood that if it felt like home with him now, what were the chances it would stop feeling like this down the line? He was already doing everything people did for each other in important, long-term relationships. He was caring, gentile, he made space for me in his life without sacrificing the other things that were important to him, and he respected me and my life and my future goals. He respected who I was as a person without trying to change me.
Wasn’t that what everyone wanted in a relationship? Wasn’t that what marriage counselors advised and people pointed out when it was lacking? Sure, it had only been two weeks, but it felt like the foundations were already in place. We ha
d what it took to make it last.
“Okay,” I said. It was so dark now I could only make out his form on the other end of the couch.
“Okay, what?”
“Okay, I’ll marry you.”
Stunned silence hung between us for a moment and then he laughed. “When you said you needed time to think I thought you meant like a week or two or something like that. I didn’t think we were talking about fifteen minutes.”
I smiled and shrugged even though he couldn’t see me at all. “There wasn’t too much to think about. I covered everything I needed to. I’d be happy to marry you.”
He crawled over the couch toward me and kissed me. The kiss was long and tender and sensual and every other quality that had come to define our relationship.
“I do have a few conditions, though.”
“What?” He sounded suspicious. Was I going to ask him to give up something he loved?
“I want all this business with May and the club over with before we get married. I don’t want her to interfere with our marriage. Once it’s me and you, it’s just me and you and no one else.”
“Done. I’ll sort it out and we’ll be May-free forever.”
I nodded. “I also want you to be safe. I don’t want to have to sit and wonder if you’re coming home to me at the end of every night.” I was thinking about his parents dying, his brother, everyone in his life being ripped away. I loved him and I was strong but I wasn’t strong enough for that. I wouldn’t make it if I had to sit on the edge of my seat waiting for him to walk through the door and one day he just never did.
“I understand. I’ve been thinking about it, too.”
I kissed him again. “Good. Thank you.”
“What else?”
I shook my head. “No, that’s it.”
“You don’t want me to stop riding my bike or something like that?”
