Page 26 of Diesel’s Desire

“Wasn’t aware I owed anybody an explanation.”

“Nobody said you did.” Ace shrugs, but there’s a weight behind it. “Just didn’t expect it, is all. Woman arrests guys like us for a living.”

“She’s never arrested anybody in this room.”

“Yet,” Gunner says, and cackles at his own joke like it’s the funniest thing he’s said all week.

I grab a beer off the bar, more for something to do with my hands than because I want it, and I’m still riding high enough off last night that none of this actually lands. Not yet. I take a pull, lean my hip against the bar, let them have their fun, because I figure it’ll blow over in a day like everything else does around here.

Then Bone walks in from the back office, readers pushed up on his head, ledger tucked under one arm, and the second his eyes find me, something in his face goes tight in a way that Gunner’s teasing never managed.

“Heard you had company at The Depot,” he says. Not a question.

“That a problem?”

“Might be.” He sets the ledger down, slow and deliberate, the way he does everything. “Might not be. Depends how far you’re planning on taking it.”

I feel my jaw tighten. “Taking what, exactly?”

“Whatever this is with the Carpenter girl.” He says her name like it leaves a sour taste in his mouth. “She’s a cop, Diesel. Not a rookie one, either. Good at her job, from what I hear. That’s not nothing.”

“I know what she is.”

“Do you?” Bone’s got those sharp eyes on me now, the ones that see straight through a bad set of numbers or a lie dressed up as an excuse. “Because a woman like that, sworn to uphold the law, sitting across a table from a vice president of an MC that runs guns across state lines… That’s not a fling, son. That’s a liability with a badge and a gun.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “She’s not gonna turn on the club.”

“You don’t know that.” Tank’s voice, coming from the couch where he’s been sitting quiet enough that I forgot he was there, big arms crossed over his chest, watching me with that steady, ancient patience he’s had since before I was even patched. “Nobody knows that. That’s the whole problem.”

I set my beer down harder than I mean to. “You two got something to say, say it plain.”

Tank doesn’t flinch. Man’s seen worse than my temper, lived through wars that make our recent mess with the Kings look like a schoolyard scuffle. “You can’t sleep with a cop, Diesel. Not really sleep with one. Not the way you’re talking about, all soft in the face over a woman you had breakfast tacos with in high school.”

“Nobody said anything about breakfast tacos.”

“You know what I mean.”

I do. That’s the problem. I know exactly what he means, and some ugly, cold part of my gut’s been circling the same thought since I left Penny’s driveway, grinning like a fool, telling myself all the years of wanting her were reason enough to make it work.

“She’s not like other cops,” I say, and even as it leaves my mouth, I hear how thin it sounds.

“They’re never like other cops,” Bone says, not unkindly, which somehow makes it worse. “Right up until they are. Right up until she’s got a subpoena in one hand and a badge in the other, and she’s gotta choose between you and everything she built her whole life on.”

“She wouldn’t⁠—”

“She might not have a choice.” Bone pulls his readers down off his head, sets them on his nose like he’s about to go back to the numbers, like this conversation’s already over as far as he’s concerned. “That’s the thing about badges, son. They don’t bend for love. Not the good ones, anyway. And from what Havoc’s told me about that crime scene the night Erik died, she’s one of the good ones.”

That lands somewhere low in my chest, sharper than I want to admit.

“She stood up to Havoc,” Tank adds, like he’s helping Bone make the point instead of just piling on. “Told him straight to his face this was an active crime scene, patch or no patch. That’s not a woman who’s gonna look the other way forever just ’cause she likes the way you kiss.”

I drag a hand down my face, and the good mood I walked in with is bleeding out fast, drop by drop, replaced by something heavier settling into my gut. Across the room, Gunner and Ryder have gone quiet, watching this play out now that nobody’s laughing.

“So what,” I say, “I’m supposed to just—what? Walk away? Pretend last night didn’t happen?”

“Didn’t say that.” Bone’s voice softens, just slightly, the closest thing to sympathy the man’s capable of showing before nine in the morning. “I’m saying go into it with your eyes open. Man in your position, VP of this club, can’t afford to be stupid about a woman. Not even a woman like her.”

“I’ve been stupid about her for twenty years.”