Page 25 of Ex-Military Biker’s Bride

Doc's mouth twitches, which for Doc counts as smiling. “State police have it down as a robbery. Two men in masks came through the fuel island, took the safe out of the back office, and the propane cage went up in the middle of it. Nobody's very sure whose fault that was.”

“And me?”

“You panicked and you drove off.” He looks at me over the top of his sunglasses. “Which is what a frightened woman does when masked men come through the door of the room she's sitting in. Peters had you in an office for an hour and then a robbery happened around him. And you’ve been compliant about everything they’ve asked you to do. They think you’re an asset.”

Doc puts the truck in gear. Then he stops, and looks at me. “Peters is going to ask you to write some egregious shit, Olivia. Can you do it?”

“Yes, if it means we can bring them down.”

He taps the wheel. “Oh, we will. We’re almost there. We’ll get those women out and start to name and shame. Those bastards won’t know what hit them.”

Three weeks ago, I drove five hundred miles and told my aunt the truth. All of it, at her kitchen table, while she listened carefully. She's staying with my cousin in Marysville now, just in case Rotmere rumbles my cover. That was her decision, framed as helping with the new baby. She squeezed my hand a couple of times and told me to stop looking so guilty.

Doc's got somebody in my cousin’s town who’s keeping an eye on things. I'm not supposed to know that, but Lucky let it slip.

Nancy took early retirement; that's what the magazine's website says.

She put her house up for rental and disappeared. Six days ago, I got an email from an address I don't recognize.

Don't look for me. I’m fine. I’m sorry.

My source is still up there, but she’s talking to Doc now instead of me. And Bethany had a girl, with Striker crying so hard when he came to deliver the news at the Saloon that Wrench had to hug him and give him some brandy.

“Savage,” Lucky says. “Give us a minute.”

Savage looks between us with an expression of dawning delight.

“Absolutely.” He backs away with both hands up, still holding a donut. “You won't know I'm here.”

“Outside, Savage.”

His face falls and he walks out the hangar door.

Lucky wipes his hands on a rag and takes a long time about it.

“I want to say something.”

“Go on, then.”

He puts the rag down.

“It's fast. I know it’s too fast.”

“That's a very romantic opening.”

“There's protections that come with being married to a patched member that don't come with being the woman he's seeing. The legal kind. Doc was talking about keeping you safe once we’ve started exposing Rotmere, and he was right.”

The hangar is very quiet.

“Married?”

“I bought the ring a week before he opened his mouth.”

He takes a box out of his pocket and kneels.

“I'm not asking because it's safer,” he says. “It is safer… I’ve seen what those people do. I'd marry you in a parking lot tonight if it put one more wall between them and you. But that's not why.”

“Then why?”