Page 27 of Diesel’s Desire

“Then you already know how this story ends if you don’t think it through.” Bone picks the ledger back up, tucks it under his arm. “Numbers don’t care about love, Diesel. Neither does a courtroom.”

He walks off toward the office, leaving me standing there with my beer going warm on the bar and Tank still watching me from the couch, steady, patient, not unkind but not backing down either.

“He’s not wrong,” Tank says. “You know he’s not.”

“Doesn’t mean I like hearing it,” I mutter.

“Nobody said you had to like it.” Tank shifts his weight, the couch groaning under him. “Just means you better figure out how this actually works before you go falling any further. ’Cause sooner or later she’s gonna have to choose between protecting you and doing her job.”

I don’t have an answer for that. Don’t have an answer for any of it, actually, standing here with the taste of Penny still on my mouth and Bone’s voice rattling around in my skull long after he’s gone.

Gunner tries to lighten it, tosses out some joke about conjugal visits that nobody laughs at, and even Ryder’s gone quiet at the pool table, chalk forgotten in his hand.

I pick up the beer and drop the half-full bottle in the trash, because suddenly I don’t want it anymore.

Last night I had her again for the first time in seventeen years. Had her under me, around me, saying my name like it still meant something to her. And for about twelve hours I let myself believe that was enough, that wanting something bad enough for that long earns you the right to just have it, simple as that, no complications, no cost.

Bone just handed me the bill.

A biker doesn’t get to keep a cop. Not really. Not the way I’m wanting to keep her—not just some nights and stolen hours, but all of it, a whole life stitched together out of two things that were never built to fit. She’s got a badge that answers to laws I break for a living. I’ve got a cut that answers to a brotherhood that doesn’t forgive loose lips or bad judgment, especially not when it comes wrapped in gold hair and a service weapon.

I stand there by the trash a long time, listening to the pool balls start clacking again behind me, Gunner and Ryder picking their game back up like nothing happened, as if I’m supposed to shrug this off and join them.

Maybe they didn’t watch anything happen at all.

I came in ready to tell anyone who asked that Penny was worth the trouble. I still think she is. What I can’t answer is whether I’m worth what this could cost her.

16

PENNY

The call comes through at 2:47 in the afternoon, and for three full seconds after dispatch says the words, I don’t move.

Possible child abduction. Six-year-old female. Last seen in the front yard. Family requesting immediate response.

Briar Fork doesn’t get calls like this. We get domestic disputes and DUIs and the occasional break-in at the feed store. In twelve months on this job, I’ve filed exactly zero missing-kid reports that turned into anything worse than a toddler who wandered two houses down to pet somebody’s dog.

I’m in the cruiser as dispatch finishes reading the address, lights on, gravel spitting behind my tires as I pull out of the lot.

The drive takes me past the edge of town where the pavement gives up, and the road turns to washboard gravel, trees crowding in tight on both sides. I grip the wheel and force my brain to focus on the turns instead of the fact that I haven’t slept right in two days, that every time I close my eyes I feel a mouth on my throat and hear my own name whispered against my collarbone.

Not now. Not today.

I kicked him out of my bed. That should count for something. It doesn’t feel like it counts for anything, not with the memory of his hands still distracting me, but I shove all of it down into the same place I keep everything else I don’t have time to feel, and I turn onto Miller Ridge Road with my jaw set.

The house sits at the end of a long dirt drive, single-story, vinyl siding gone the color of old teeth, a swing set rusting in the side yard. Johnson’s cruiser is already parked at an angle near the mailbox, lights still flashing though there’s nobody out here to warn off traffic. Two other units pull in behind me as I cut my engine, and somewhere past the tree line I hear a dog barking itself hoarse.

The mother meets me at the sidewalk before I’ve got my door shut. Thirty-something, hair scraped back same as mine but nowhere near as neat, mascara tracked halfway down her face in two dark lines.

“She was right there.” Her voice comes out ragged, climbing toward a register that isn’t quite words anymore. “She was right there in the yard, I just went inside to get her juice, I was gone two minutes, maybe three⁠—”

“Ma’am.” I get both hands up, palms out, and slow my own voice down until it’s steady enough to work as an anchor. “I need you to breathe for me. Can you do that?”

She doesn’t. Not really. But she stops talking long enough to suck in air, and that’s enough for now.

“What’s her name?”

“Addison.” The word cracks in half. “Addie. She’s six.”