by Anne Malcom
“The kids?” I asked Kace, ignoring his question. I felt like shit. But like a human, at least. Not a giant ball of pressure, scared to move an inch.
I’d probably be feeling the effects of this migraine for a few days at the very least, though, more likely a full week due to the severity.
“Fine,” he replied, sitting on the bed and pushing the hair from my face. His brow was knitted in worry. I didn’t like it. There was a tenderness to it.
“They’re worried about their mother, of course, but seem to trust me to take care of them. Though Jack has been watching me like a hawk,” he continued. “I think he was waiting for me to slip up in any kind of way.” He chuckled. “So I did my best to make sure I didn’t. Even cooked them enchiladas. They’re famous. With everyone I’ve ever made them for, at least. And I stuffed a bunch of veggies in them.”
I tried to imagine Kace in my kitchen, cooking for my kids. Him driving in the car with them, asking them about their day. A part of me was angry that I’d missed it. I was curious about what Kace looked like in that setting. In my setting.
Then I worried about what they might’ve thought, having a strange man suddenly taking up duties only their father had done previously.
“Now you didn’t answer my question,” Kace probed gently.
Instead of replying, I sat up in bed, hiding my slight wince as I did so, reaching for the coffee that would give me the wits I needed to navigate this conversation.
It was hot, perfect, just the way I liked it. Black. Two sugars. I couldn’t remember making coffee with Kace, so it made no sense that he knew how I took it, yet he did.
“You need to eat something,” he suggested. “Could only get water into you yesterday.”
More worry in his voice.
I forced my walls up, the ones that came down with the vision of him eating dinner with my children.
“I know what I need,” I said, voice cold. “Thank you, for taking care of me yesterday, for taking care of the kids. I appreciate it. But I can take it from here.”
Kace wanted to argue. I could see that, clear as day, even though it was only early morning. He wanted to take care of me. Didn’t like to see me in pain and wanted to shoulder responsibilities that weren’t his.
But he didn’t do any of those things. Instead, he brushed the back of his fingers against my jaw and stood up. “Okay, baby. You win,” he said. “But soon, you’re gonna get tired of holding that hand up, the one you’re usin’ to push me away. You’re gonna use it to hold on, to pull me in. I’ll wait.”
Then he left.
The job search wasn’t going well.
To be fair, I wasn’t exactly putting my whole self into it. I wasn’t applying for the positions at the local bank or working as an admin for an accounting firm one town over. Mostly because I feared they’d laugh at my resume and not give me an interview. And on the off chance they did, I’d be terrible, working in positions like those.
Although I hadn’t put on a cut, patched into the Sons, I had the same views as they did. I’d always had a little rebel in me, a little outlaw, a desire to stretch outside of the norm. Ranger and the Sons had nurtured that. The thought of having to cram myself into society after living this way for so long made me feel ill. Tempted me to either get creative on how to earn or swallow my pride and talk to Cade about working at one of the Son’s more legitimate businesses.
The problem was, my pride was the side of the state of Texas, and it would take me far too long to cut it into small enough pieces. I didn’t want to disappoint Ranger, to show that I wasn’t strong enough to look after myself and our children on my own.
Even though I knew he would’ve hated the thought of me working in some office, answering to someone else. That would’ve made him furious.
But he wasn’t here, so it didn’t really matter what he thought, did it?
I needed to escape the house. The feelings that came with it. The stress when I thought of how we needed a new fridge or that Jack would need a computer for school soon.
The kids were at Olive’s place again; they went almost every week. She made them dinner, they ate ice cream on the beach and sometimes painted the sunset. Other times, they’d make pottery with her in her garage turned studio. They’d come back with stains on their shirts and smiles in their hearts, which gave me hope for them. That they had this ability to utterly enjoy life even without their father. And Olive needed it. Time with her grandchildren so she could see her son wasn’t truly gone.
I also needed time with her. Usually, I needed time with Olive to remind me that I still had different parts of Ranger too. That I still had her.
But today I’d needed a break. Mostly because I couldn’t look her in the eye while I was screwing someone else and not grieving over her son.
She had been more than understanding and supportive of me going to Gwen’s for the evening. Had even offered to have the kids for the night.
“You need this,” she’d urged, reaching out to squeeze my hand.
I almost broke down right there, because of her kindness, love and support. But I’d managed. I was getting good at lying now.
Ryan and Alex had just left Gwen’s place. They’d been her for the past week, and we’d already had a large and lively dinner with everyone. They had announced that they were in the process of adopting a child, which meant celebrations all around.
It was hard for me to do that. Celebrate people having good in their lives. Despite the fact they were kind people who deserved all of that kind of stuff. I didn’t want to take anything away from them, I just didn’t want to be part of it. I didn’t need to see it. But that wasn’t really going to work unless I shut myself away from the world. People I loved and cared about were going to have milestones, parties, celebrations. I needed to learn how to be okay with that.
Alcohol helped.
Which was what Gwen greeted me with at the door with. Cosmos. Apparently, Cade had made them. I gave him a raised brow while walking past him in the kitchen.
“Not a fuckin’ word,” he scowled.
I only grinned. Though I didn’t really feel like doing it. It was all part of the act.
“Cade is playing bartender and babysitter tonight,” Gwen explained, ushering me outside onto her patio. “Though babysitting your own kids is literally just called parenting. Which is what I’ve told him about one thousand times. He’ll still call it babysitting one thousand and one just to piss me off.”
“Of course he will,” I agreed, sitting down and taking a sip of my drink. It was fabulous, and I made a mental note to somehow leak the information that Cade made a better Cosmo than any of the women in our group.
“Because he loves you. Men who love you, especially these kind of men, take great delight in pissing you off since they like fire in their women,” I continued. “And also because such a concept is laughable. He loves those kids more than life.”
Gwen’s eyes flickered inside with a loving look of contentment I used to have. “He really does.” Something darker crossed over her beautiful features, probably the memory of how close she’d come to losing him.
She straightened, refocusing on me. “How are you?” she asked.
She didn’t ask it in the way people did when all they wanted was a generic answer that would make them seem nice for asking, not wanting to do any emotional legwork.
No, Gwen asked liked she really wanted to know. Like she needed me to answer honestly. Like I was safe to do that.
I don’t know why I answered with the truth. Lying had become so easy. Maybe that was why; maybe I was scared of what would happen if I kept lying to my closest friends. My family.
“I’ve been sleeping with Kace.”
Gwen blinked, her face perfectly blank, cocktail pausing halfway to her mouth. “What?”
It was too late now. I took a huge gulp of my own drink before pressing on. “For a couple of months now. It’s just sex.”
Just sex that invaded my every waking mome
nt. That stained my body like a sunburn that wouldn’t go away. Sex that had made me come to want him in my bed every damn night. That made me let him stay longer and longer those nights.
“Good sex, by that dreamy look on your face,” Gwen pointed out. “I knew there was something different about you. I thought you were just trying a new moisturizer that was really working for you.”
I raised my brow at her. “Come on.”
“No, it’s true. You’re like glowing or something.”
I stared at her. “I’m not fucking pregnant if that’s what you’re trying to imply.
She laughed. “No, I’m not trying to imply that at all. Plus, for me, pregnancy didn’t give me any kind of glow apart from the thin sheen of sweet on my face from all the energy I expended throwing up the first three months.”
I winced at the memory. Like Gwen, my early days of pregnancy were miserable. Morning sickness that lasted all day. Heartburn. Headaches. It was only toward the end of the second trimester that I resembled a human again.
“Apparently, good sex can create a whole other glow that even the most expensive of skincare products cannot replicate,” Gwen said, sipping her drink.
I didn’t respond to her because I couldn’t exactly dispute it. She was right. Everyone had noticed something different about me. Lily’s teacher. Olive. Lacey at the coffee shop.
It didn’t make sense, and it certainly didn’t make me feel better about what I was doing. I was lying to everything, screwing another man while my children slept, and hating myself for it. Yet it was somehow making my hair shinier and my skin brighter.
“I haven’t spent much time with Kace, but Cade seems to like him. Likes that he’s got a really good, new, legit income stream. Plus, he’s hot as balls.”
“Who’s hot as balls?” Cade asked, walking onto the patio with a jug of cosmos. I had to bite my lip in order not to giggle at the big, bad, menacing biker carrying a pitcher of cocktails he’d made for his wife.
Gwen smiled sweetly at the man in question as he set the pitcher down. “No one important. You’re the hottest one out of the entire lot. No competition.”
Cade’s stare was hard and the littlest bit scary, even though I knew how much he adored Gwen and the fact that he’d cut his own hands off before harm came to her or any woman.
The corner of Cade’s mouth twitched in what was widely known as his version of a smile. “Uh huh,” he murmured, leaning his head down to kiss his wife’s lips. The kiss was quick, casual but intimate. Showing the heat that had never fizzled between them.
“Okay, go now, hubby. We’ve got girl stuff to talk about,” Gwen ordered, a slight blush to her cheeks.
I drained my drink if only to salve some of the burn that I felt watching my friend and her husband like that. The jealousy I felt that I didn’t have that. That my version of that was gone. My chest reopened up into one gaping, festering wound as it did every now and then.
“Now he’s gone you need to tell me more,” Gwen demanded, smiling, unaware of what I was feeling. Which was exactly what I wanted. There was nothing I needed less than for my friends to know I was a massive, fucked up mess.
“I just told you,” I said as she poured me another drink, one that was sorely needed.
“How did it happen?” Gwen asked.
“How does anything happen?” I shrugged. “You’re right, he’s hot as balls. He doesn’t know me. It’s nice, you know? Having someone who doesn’t know to pity me too much.”
Gwen’s face fell, and she reached across the table to grasp my hand. “Honey, we do not pity you.”
I smiled sadly at her. Of course they did. They hadn’t know they were doing it. And if they had known how to stop it, they would.
“I know that,” I lied. “But it’s just... nice with Kace.” I swallowed. “Not that nice is exactly the word I’d use,” I muttered. It’s easy.
“This is perfect!” Gwen exclaimed, clapping her hands.
I blinked at her. There were many ways I’d expected Gwen to possibly describe my situation, but I’d never thought perfect might be one.
“I was thinking it’s more irresponsible, selfish, reckless and vaguely skanky,” I replied, draining my drink.
Gwen’s expression softened as she poured me more to drink before reaching over to grasp my hand. “I don’t think you or what you’re doing are any of those things. In fact, if anyone that has ever met you was asked to come up with ten words to describe you, none of those would even factor in. I know as women, especially as mothers, our first instinct when we’re doing something purely for ourselves is to feel guilt. Men don’t feel it because they’re hardwired to be selfish. To see what they want, go out and get it without letting anything get in their way. My husband is an example of that. Though I will say, he definitely isn’t selfish inside or outside of the bedroom.” She grinned wickedly. “And, based on that glow you have going, I bet Kace is the same way.”
Heat crept up my neck at the mere mention of Kace’s bedroom skills. I shifted in my chair ever so slightly, the motion slightly uncomfortable in the best way.
“You seriously think this is a good thing?” I asked.
“It’s a great thing. You need to do more things for yourself. Just don’t put any pressure on yourself to make it into something. Or to make it into nothing. It’s going to be what it’s going to be. If we’ve learned anything from all of these years, it’s that we don’t have much control over what will happen when it comes to relationships.”
“Relationships?” I repeated. “No, I’m not going to have any kind of relationship. This is just sex. I’m not going to have any kind of relationship in the near future.”
“You’re still so young, sweetheart. You can still have another life. Another chapter. It wouldn’t take anything away from what you had with Ranger.”
I knew all of this. In theory. I knew that it was not logical or healthy to suspend myself in perpetual mourning or self-pity. To turn myself into the ever-enduring widow, permanently shutting out all forms of happiness. Though it was so very tempting to do just that. I would’ve done it already had it not been for the kids. If there weren’t two humans relying on me to help them navigate the world. Little humans who took their cues from me, who would be, at least in part, molded from my decisions. From the way I handled this. And if I did it in the way that my heart and soul desired, it would ruin their future relationships. Their views on the world. It would alter them in ways I couldn’t repair.
So I wouldn’t give in to my darker impulses. My ugly desires.
I would continue on.
Or do my very best at pretending that’s what I was doing.
Chapter 13
I had decided to take Gwen’s advice to heart.
Kind of.
I wasn’t going to push myself to make whatever Kace and I had into something. We had sex. Amazing sex. Sex that dark parts of me craved. Something I needed after the sun set on all my other identities and responsibilities. But he still needed to be gone when the sun rose. I was definitely not ready to turn this into anything more.
But I was going to explore my future. Maybe I wanted to rebel against what Evie had told me, about not having a choice in my future.
I was going on a date.
One with someone who didn’t wear a cut, didn’t carry a gun, didn’t drive a Harley. No, Edmond owned the one and only law firm in town. They did not represent the Sons of Templar; the Sons kept a very expensive LA law firm on retainer because if they were being accused of anything, they were already in deep shit. They were obviously good since no one had been prosecuted or even arrested in years.
Edmond had purchased the firm a few years ago, so he was reasonably new to town. Despite that, I was sure he was acquainted with the Sons of Templar, or at least their reputation.
We’d bumped into each other a few times over the past few months, after he’d read me Ranger’s will. Yeah, I hadn’t thought my husband was sensible enough to have written a will, but th
en again, it made sense. He’d always been was well aware that his lifestyle could steal him away from us.
It could be construed as totally fucking weird that I was going on a date with the man who my husband had employed to write his will. And it was. But this was my life.
And every time I’d bumped into Edmond, he’d been friendly, respectful. Normal. Attractive in that Brooks Brothers kind of way.
Before last week, our interactions had been entirely platonic. Although I hadn’t missed the way his eyes had quickly flickered over my body. He was interested.
And he made that clear when I was buying coffee—the best in the continental United States—after school drop-off last week.
“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” he joked as I almost ran into him and almost spilled scalding hot coffee over my chest.
“Yes, I would rather not have to visit the ER with third degree burns,” I replied, using a napkin to mop up the coffee that had escaped the lid.
“Well, how about we abandon the idea of scolding hot coffee and go for an ice-cold beer. Or wine, if you’re into that,” he offered with a smile.
It took me a moment to catch his meaning, and when I did, I prolonged my mopping up so I could have some more time to think. And so I didn’t have to look him in the eye.
He was asking me on a date. Me. The lawyer in the suit asking out the biker widow wearing leather and lace. That definitely sounded like the plot of a good romance novel. Our ‘meet cutes’ certainly fit the bill for that.
But my life sure as shit was not a romance novel, and these kinds of things didn’t work out that way. This lawyer in a suit would likely be getting visits from men in cuts if they caught wind of this interaction.
A certain biker in particular. One who had left my bed in the middle of the night last night. The reason I needed the extra-large, triple shot coffee I was drinking.
“Or not,” Edmond continued when I’d been silent a long time, making a ceremony of wiping coffee from the top of my cup. “I’m not going to be offended if you’re not interested or—”