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Rose let her friend’s words sink in. She had been blissfully unaware and wholeheartedly in love with her husband.
“Does Tank do weird shit for normal everyday things?”
“He lets you call him Bunny,” Franny pointed out. “You’re going to have to be more specific.”
“Warren put my name on the company he owns as some kind of weird life insurance in case he didn’t come home.”
“Yeah. The club guys do that, too. Most of them have a stash of some kind. Tank has a garage full of one-of-a-kind stuff worth more than half the state of New Mexico. I don’t ask where it came from. I keep the inventory on a list. It is available just in case there is an emergency, the club needs extra cash, or something happens to him. Call it life insurance or a safety net, but it serves the same purpose. Could you imagine the look on the poor insurance agent’s face if the MC rolled into their parking lot to get a policy?”
“Their only hope is that it’s a woman.”
“I know that what our men do is dangerous. I worry constantly when Tank is out on a run.”
“How do you do it?”
“The good outweighs the bad. He is it for me. There is no one else I want. That man will be my other half until we are both cold in the ground. The question you have to ask yourself is, what can you live with to have him in your life? I have to have Tank, so I put up with club business and the great unknown.”
Rose thought about it. Minus the past year, there was nothing in their history she would change. Warren was her other half. When you weighed the good and the bad, without hesitation the good years outweighed the bad.
Looking back, she should have picked up on the clues that something was wrong. He kept things from her. There was no denying it. When she imagined life without Warren, it was nothing like the life she wanted. It physically hurt her to think about not having him. No more fajita date nights. No little surprises, he left around the house for her. No more lazy Sunday mornings in bed. The way he loved her couldn’t be faked. It was just him. He was it. Flawed, over-protective, tight-lipped, challenging, and fully devoted to her.
“There she is,” Franny grinned. “You decided to forgive him. I would make him sweat a little longer because sixteen years is a long time to keep a secret.”
“It broke my heart to leave him. It was like a huge piece of me was missing when I came here.”
“The heart wants what the heart wants.”
“Awe, Franny. Don’t go all soft on me now. We can’t get all emotional around these men. Lord, the prospect at the door has probably already sent an emergency text if he heard you sniffle. In two seconds, we will have a kitchen full of men ready to destroy whatever made you cry.”
“Heaven forbid,” she drawled.
“We need chocolate. A pan of fudgy brownies. Then I’m going to seduce my husband. I have been too long without. I don’t want to know if that saying about hoes and sandwiches is true.”
“You’re safe. Our free P’s couldn’t make a sandwich if someone drew them a picture. If they could, we would not eat whatever I burn every night for dinner.”
Major dilemma solved: Rose got out the chocolate. Nothing soothed the soul like chocolate. It kept her from running back to the clubhouse just to be near him. It was hard not to after so long apart. They weren’t allowed to go anywhere without texting first to get an escort. Warren wanted to escort her himself. With everything going on, he was on edge. A member with loose lips was still running free.
Rose had to admit he had a valid reason for his paranoia. There was an entire list of rules Warren and Tank insisted they agree to before Franny and her were let out of their sight. One very prominent rule was only use the front door. The back was to stay locked. It was the first rule and the one they repeated over and over again. Rose paid attention as they rattled them off. She could defend herself, but there was no way she wanted to be shoved back into a wall. Once was enough, thank you very much.
Rose stopped when something rattled the back door. The back door opened before she had the chocolate melted. Rose shot a questioning look at Franny. Franny shrugged and slid off her stool, hunkering below the countertop. Rose grabbed the knife block off the counter and hurried to where Franny was hiding. She handed the other woman a knife before choosing one for herself. Hidden by the cabinets, they waited to see who came in the back door.
“Rosey.”
Rose sagged against the cabinet as relief washed over her. It wasn’t a criminal mastermind coming to take them out. Rage quickly followed her relief. Popping up from her hiding spot, she pointed her knife at him, making a show of twirling the blade on the counter before sliding it back into the block.
“Lucas, what the hell are you doing here? I thought you were at a safe house,” she ranted at him. “Franny, you can come out. It is just my idiotic brother.”
Franny stood cautiously with the knife in her hand.
“It’s okay. He isn’t going to hurt us. He just has the brain of a squirrel on crack.”
“Rosey, I need-”
“Please don’t tell me you are here to ask me a favor,” Rose begged.
She ignored the bruises on his face that looked fresh. His hair hadn’t been washed in too long to be considered a grunge look. His clothes were torn. Red dirt clung to them, dropping onto the floor as he moved. He looked like he needed a power washer and a pot of coffee. Rose’s anger grew the longer she looked at him. Lucas brought trouble to her door once again.
“You don’t understand.”
