Page 27

“Nothing normal about who we are, Elena. Think you know that well enough,” I said low as I let my attention sweep the perimeter one more time as we headed to where her truck was parked in her reserved spot to the left of the stairs.

My bike parked at an angle next to it promised that fact, and the cut on my back with the Crimson Crows’ logo proclaimed it.

“A girl can pretend, can’t she?”

Without responding, I stepped up to her truck and produced the second set of keys and clicked the fob.

The door creaked as I pulled it open.

She rolled her pretty eyes, though there was something sweet about it, and she mumbled like I wasn’t going to hear, “That’s if normal is hot bikers escorting you to your car in the morning and opening doors like you’re some kind of princess.”

I stepped aside as she climbed into the driver’s seat, trying to ignore her toned legs that were exposed beneath the dress’s swishy skirt that hit just below mid-thigh.

The sleeves were long and flowy, and the V’d neckline dipped to kiss between her small breasts.

Elena dressed in this cross of modest and illogically sexy.

Utter temptation.

The perfect tease that made me wonder if I was hallucinating and making the whole fucking thing up. The way she made me feel when she’d let those eyes go caressing over me like they had this morning.

Way she’d looked dazed and needy when I’d come out of the bathroom since I’d forgotten my bag in the other room.

Exposed in a way that I should never let her see.

Unable to resist, I angled in and took her seatbelt, my nose nearly brushing hers as I reached around and clicked it into place.

Then I pushed it one step farther, a smirk hitching one side of my mouth as I murmured, “You think I’m hot, Lena?”

And there I went, blundering again.

I followed Elena out of the apartment complex lot and onto the road.

My bike rumbled low, the powerful engine vibrating with strength and pulsing like the blood in my veins—my own kind of oxygen—as I tailed her truck.

On my bike was where I was free. Where life made sense, and the oath I’d taken stood at the forefront of my mind, even though few knew what that oath really meant.

Elena lived on the less congested side of Crimson Creek, and the woods here were heavy and dense. We passed by cabins that were tucked beneath the cover of leaves.

It was only about two miles from Elena’s complex before the road broke open to a quaint commercial area where her store was located, though it was different from the main drag that ran through town where a bunch of trendy galleries, stores, and restaurants ran along the sidewalk.

Here, it was just a wide space hedged under the trees.

Cozy and welcoming and screaming small town.

Her store was set in an old cabin and was fronted by a large gravel lot.

About three hundred yards to the left of it was a café, and there was a small convenience store next to that.

Directly across the street was Keg & Creek Tavern, an old dive bar that Silas had a whole ton of bad history with that he’d recently purchased to use as another front for what Crimson Crows really did.

Buying it had felt like a victory for him. Like he’d taken that past and overcame it as he stomped it into the ground. Molding its history into something different.

Now, Elena would be directly across from it. Finding her own victory.

Slowing, Elena flipped on the blinker and made the right, her tires crunching on the gravel as she pulled up to one of the driftwood trunks that were used for parking curbs. The old cabin had been here long before the resort had been built along the river, after which this town had become a tourist destination.

Now, a cute new sign hung proudly from the porch, claiming, The Crimson Apple Boutique.