by Lane Hart
“I don’t believe that,” I tell him. “And it wasn’t just innocent women he killed. They were women he knew and was supposed to love, right, your mother and then his girlfriend?”
“Yeah.”
“You couldn’t kill someone you love, could you?”
“I guess not. But that night, I didn’t love you yet…” he trails off before his mouth snaps closed, as if he didn’t mean to tell me all of that.
If he said he didn’t love me yet, does that mean that he loves me now? I shouldn’t want him to.
Before I know it, Silas is pulling up to the curb at the marina, not even bothering to put the car in park or wait with me for the next ferry.
“Take care of yourself,” he says stiffly without even turning his face toward me, hands still on the steering wheel.
“That’s it? Take care of yourself. That’s all you’re going to say?”
“There’s nothing else for me say!” he exclaims. “You’re not going to ever forgive me, and you have to go. I have to stay here. End of story.”
“That’s one way to end the story,” I huff as I open the door and climb out of the car. “The other way would be for you to grow a fucking pair!” I slam the door in his face and then walk up to the ticket counter without letting myself look back.
I can’t believe I was starting to fall for the outlaw biker almost as quickly as I fell for the fake FBI agent.
Chapter Thirty
Silas
* * *
“Well?” Malcolm asks me when I walk into the chapel for the last-minute meeting he called, exactly twelve hours from when we talked last night. Everyone else is already seated, making me think they were meeting early to talk about me.
“Problem fucking solved,” I grit out as I jerk my chair from the table and sink down into it.
“Could you please elabo-fucking-rate a little bit for the sake of my anxiety?” Malcolm grumbles.
“She’s gone, okay? As soon as she checked out of the hospital, I put her ass back on the ferry.”
“Hospital?” Nash repeats. “She was in the hospital? What the hell did you do to her?”
I glare at Malcolm, who shrugs, telling me silently that he didn’t blather all my personal shit to the group. “I told them the witness was back in town and that you promised to handle it,” he explains.
Taking a deep breath, I blurt out, “She was pregnant with my kid, but she’s not anymore, okay?”
“You knocked up the witness?” Wirth exclaims at the same time Devlin shouts, “You hurt a pregnant woman?”
“Yes and no. Well, yes, I hurt her, like, emotionally or whatever, but I didn’t mean to. And I overheard the doctor say that fucking me while she was pregnant didn’t cause the miscarriage.”
“Guess she hadn’t met you, huh?” Fiasco snorts. “I’ve heard rumors that you like it rough.”
“I never hurt her!” I shout at him indignantly.
“Holy shit, man,” Devlin says with his mouth gaping. “You fell for her! That’s why it took you so damned long to come back…”
Everyone turns to Malcolm, who shrugs again. “He said he was just fucking her, but he did buy her a house and a restaurant…”
“Jesus, man! Talk about pussy whipped!” Devlin chuckles.
“You ain’t got any room to talk,” I say, pointing my index finger at him. “This is all your fault in the first place!”
“My fault?” he exclaims.
“We went to Cox’s house to get your girl because you were pussy whipped. Then Fiasco blurted out Nash’s name in front of Cora…”
“I did?” the blond fool asks.
“Then Nash went and turned himself in because he was pussy-whipped and didn’t want Lucy pining for him…” I continue.
“What other choice did I have?” Nash huffs.
“And let’s not forget that Malcolm is the one who got us involved with Cox in the first place because his old lady was his daughter.”
“Wait a fucking minute!” our president exclaims as he jumps up to his feet. “You can’t put that shit on me!”
“Well, I just did, prez,” I tell him. “In fact, the only innocent person in all the shit the MC has been dragged into the last two years is Wirth; probably because he hasn’t been able to get laid in a decade!”
“Hey, now! It’s not my fault I’m hung like an ox,” Wirth grumbles.
Everyone starts talking over each other, pointing fingers and yelling. But none of it makes me feel any better because nothing has changed with my and Cora’s circumstances. She’s so close and yet so far away. The ninety minutes between us may as well be a million hours.
“Enough!” Malcolm eventually yells as he slams the gavel on the table. “What’s done is done! All that shit is in the past. It’s time for us to move on now that we know Nash isn’t going to prison, and neither are the rest of us as long as the detectives don’t track down the chef.”
“Even if they do, she won’t talk,” I assure them.
“Where is she?” Fiasco asks.
“None of your business.”
“She’s on Bald Head Island,” Malcolm speaks up and tells them.
“That’s not very far away,” Wirth points out like I’m an idiot. “What if the detectives find her?”
“It’s fucking sufficient, okay? Drop it!” I shout at him.
Malcolm sighs and scrubs his palms over his face, then strokes his beard in thought. “The woman just left the hospital and is probably going through hell,” he starts, as if he’s trying to make me feel even worse. “Even if she’s pissed at you, why aren’t you there with her?”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I ask him.
“It’s a one-hour drive and thirty-minute ferry ride. You could be there before dinner, so what’s the problem?”
“Huh?”
“I think what Malcolm is asking is, do you want to make shit right with her or not?” Devlin explains.
“Do you all have temporary amnesia?” I ask, looking around the table at each of them. “I put Cora through hell. She found out I lied about who I was for weeks, then I got her pregnant, before crushing her when she lost it.”
“Is there a chance she’ll eventually forgive you or not?” Malcolm asks.
I start to say there’s not, but hadn’t she forgiven me for the lying and all when we were together in the hospital?
In fact, when she got out of the car, I think she was pissed because I wasn’t going with her. That had to be why she told me to grow a pair.
“I guess there’s a small chance,” I admit.
“Then go! What the fuck are you waiting for?” Nash yells at me.
“How the hell would that work, though? She has to live there, and I have to be here for the MC.”
“It’s ninety minutes, man,” Malcolm says. “Anyone opposed to Silas being ninety or so minutes away if we need him?”
“If it’s life or death in two hours’ time, then we’re all fucked anyway,” Wirth mutters.
“Agreed,” Devlin says.
“We hardly ever have any last-minute meetings,” Nash replies. “Long as we give you a day’s notice, you can be here; right?”
“I guess, but…”
“Not like you have a job with the MC,” Malcolm adds. “I always wondered how you made ends meet. Had no clue you were some sort of trust-fund baby.”
“Hey, man, can I maybe borrow some money?” Fiasco asks straight-faced and serious.
“Yeah, Fiasco. Let me know what you need, and I’ll write you a check,” I say with a shake of my head.
Cora
* * *
“Hey, boss,” Tiffany says to me when she finds me sulking in the kitchen, eating icing out of a container with a spoon during the slow mid-morning shift.
“What’s up?” I ask with as much enthusiasm as I can muster.
“There’s this guy out front who insists he needs to talk to you.”
“I’m not here,” I say.
“I told hi
m that, but then he sat down at a table and refused to leave. He pulled out a knife and…”
“A knife?” I exclaim as I sit down my can of icing to stand up. “Did you call the police?”
“I wasn’t sure if I should or not.” She peeks out the door to the dining room. “I think he’s carving something into the table now…”
“What? On my brand-new tables?” I exclaim. “I’ll kick his ass!” I say, happy for the distraction and ability to yell at someone to get it out of my system. Anything is better than the soul-sucking depressing.
I storm out into the dining room, eyes searching the few tables for the asshole. When I spot him, I almost turn around and run the other way. I hate how my heart lurches at the sight of him in his leather vest, wanting him even after the hell he’s put me through.
Marching up to the table he’s vandalizing, so focused he hasn’t even looked up to see me, I yell at him, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
The knife scrapes across the wood before he lifts his dark eyes and then grins at me.
“Hey, baby.”
“Don’t you dare hey baby me!”
“You prefer when I call you Red?” he asks. “That term of endearment doesn’t really work with your hair brown.”
“Why are you here, and why are you destroying my property?”
“I told you I’m going to keep showing up, even when you tell me to leave,” he says, folding his enormous knife and slipping it back into his pocket and getting to his feet. “I packed up my things and dropped them off at the house before I came here. I’m moving in with you.”
“You’re what?” I gasp.
“Moving in with you. The house is technically in my name,” he reminds me.
“Then I’ll move out!” I declare.
“No, baby. Don’t say that,” he says when he grips my arms. My body is such a traitor for responding to even that innocent of a touch from him. “I’m here because I want to be with you. All my truths, good and bad, are laid out on the table now. There’s no more lies, I promise.”
Speaking of tables, I glance down to see what filth he carved in mine. Well, the table he paid for and put together for me. The last thing I expected to find were the four words written in all capital letters.
I LOVE YOU, BABY
I reach out and run my fingertips over the indentions. “Why did you do that?” I ask him softly.
“Because it’s true, and because I didn’t think saying the words were enough. I wanted you to have something tangible, something you have to look at and can’t ignore. I love you, Cora, and deep down I think you loved me too. You said the words when you thought I was someone else. And that’s fine. I won’t give up until you love the real me too.”
“Ugh, I hate it when you do that,” I say, slapping my palms against his hard chest.
“Do what?” he asks.
Looking up at his face, I tell him the truth, “Make me forgive you, even when I don’t want to.”
Flashing me a rare grin, he says, “So you do forgive me?”
“I’m not sure why – ” I start to say before his mouth swoops down on mine.
After our tongues get reacquainted, Silas pulls back and says, “I love you, baby.”
“I know,” I reply with a small smile. “For some reason, I think I love you too.”
Epilogue
Silas
* * *
A few weeks later…
* * *
Malcolm was right. It turns out I can have the best of both worlds – paradise with my woman and the MC with my boys.
Today, for the first time, I’ve got both at the same time. The whole crew is packed into the Southern Comfort Café with their significant others — well, except for Wirth and Fiasco, who are still, and will probably always be, bachelors.
Speaking of the devils…
“Oh fuck me!” Fiasco groans like he’s busting a nut rather than eating apple pie. Shoveling another bite into his mouth, he adds, “This shit is so fucking good!”
“I’m glad you like it,” Cora says, practically beaming at everyone’s praise. She’s been stressing out all week, worried the guys and their ole ladies wouldn’t like her or her cooking. Which is crazy since she’s fucking amazing and everything she makes is heaven on Earth.
“Ah, Cora, sweetheart,” Jetta says from the table where she and Devlin are sharing a slice. Wincing, she digs her fork around and says, “There’s something…hard and metal in our pie.”
“What?” my girl exclaims before rushing over in a panic.
Devlin leans closer before Cora gets there and picks the metal object out of the center. “Yep. Found it.” He holds it up between his finger and thumb, covered in apple chunks and pie filling.
“Oh my god!” Cora exclaims as she takes the discovery from him and wipes it on her apron. “It’s a ring,” she says with a frown right before the others speak up.
“There’s something in mine too, Cora,” Malcolm says.
“Ours too,” Nash says, trying to take it from a shocked, wide-eyed Lucy who is reluctant to let go.
“Something over here too. Might need to toss the whole pie, doll,” Wirth announces.
“But…but I don’t understand,” Cora whines as she goes from table to table examining everyone’s pie and collecting a total of four rings before I finally put her out of her misery.
“They’re engagement rings, baby,” I say. “I wasn’t sure which one you would like, so I bought you five to choose from.”
“What?” she exclaims at the same time Fiasco says, “Uh-oh,” his eyes bugging as his hand goes to his stomach.
“Four. Make that four rings for you to choose from,” I grumble, getting up from my seat while glaring at the idiot. I told them all before they got here that it was a set-up, but Fiasco didn’t listen.
“Engagement rings,” Cora says when I take the four rings from her hand and put each one in my mouth to clean them, one at a time while she watches with a slack jaw. When the pie is mostly off of them, I put them back in my palm to show her.
“I think we should get married, don’t you?” I ask.
“What?” she gasps.
“Marry me?” I say simply. “I love the fuck out of you, and I want you to be mine forever.”
When she opens her mouth but closes it before saying anything, I’m disappointed but not surprised. “I know this a big decision to make and you may want to think about it for a while, especially after all the shit I put you through. That’s fine.” Taking her delicate hand, I drop the four rings into her palm and close her fingers. “I can wait however long it takes for you to say yes.”
“You’re…insane,” she finally says with a shake of her head, which is not the reaction I was hoping for. “And I am too because I really want to say yes.”
“You do?” I ask with a grin.
“I don’t need even one ring, much less four,” she tells me. Opening her palm, she glances up at me and then, holding my gaze, picks one without looking to slide onto her left ring finger. “Let’s get married!”
Cheers and applauds go up around the room as I lunge for her, attacking her mouth as I hoist her up my body so that she can wrap her legs around my waist.
I’m so damn lucky to have this woman in my life, loving me even after she’s seen me at my worst.
I still don’t believe there was ever a shred of decency in me before I met Cora. But I can admit that nowadays I think some of her goodness is starting to rub off on me.
* * *
The End
Thank you so much for reading Silas!
Wirth’s book is up next!
Order your copy now!
* * *
Trouble is coming for the Dirty Aces MC when they least expect it.
* * *
After a patch-over party turns into a fatal shootout that injures several members, the Dirty Aces MC is left reeling.
* * *
Wirth feels especially guilty since he wasn’t at
the bar when his brothers needed him the most. Instead, he had left with a beautiful, mysterious woman, making some of the new members question his loyalty to the club.
* * *
Needing to clear his own name, Wirth intends to find out who the rat is within the MC. Suspicious of the new girl, Mauve, he decides to try and get closer to her to determine where her true loyalties lie.
* * *
Once he finds out Mauve’s secret, Wirth’s own loyalties may be shaken to the core.
Order Wirth now!
About The Authors
New York Times bestselling author Lane Hart and husband D.B. West were both born and raised in North Carolina. They still live in the south with their two daughters and enjoy spending the summers on the beach and watching football in the fall.
* * *
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Email: [email protected]
* * *
Connect with Lane:
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