Page 15 of Biker's Dark Revenge

"It’s fine," he replied, cutting me off before I could go any further. "If I didn’t have time for this, I wouldn’t be here."

"Right," I murmured back, stealing a glance at him out of the corner of my eye. There was something about having him in my house like this, casually, while he was taking care of the shit I knew I would never have been able in a million years to handle myself, that I liked. Maybe more than I should have.

"Okay," he muttered, as he squinted down at the instructions. "Damn, why do they always make these so small?"

"It’s not that small, you’re just old," I teased him, and I reached over to take the pamphlet from his hands. Our fingers touched for a brief moment, and he turned to face me, eyebrows raised.

"You think I’m old?"

"Ancient," I replied, flashing him a grin to let him know I was only kidding around. He might have been a decent amount older than me, but the way he carried himself, the way he handled himself, made him seem young by comparison.

"And you’re still setting me to work on this bed," he grumbled, fooling around. "When I should be at home collecting my pension."

"My dad was in a club," I reminded him. "I know you don’t get a pension. Now, I think we’re meant to start with that piece there..."

The two of us set to work, me reading the instructions, and him taking care of them with ease. I found myself stealing glances at him every chance I got, watching the way his hands moved across the tools and the nails and the pieces of wood – he had nice hands, and long fingers, not as beat-up as I would have expected for someone in his line of work.

"Your dad was in a club, huh?" he remarked to me, as he paused to take a sip of the beer I had fetched for him. Hey, I was a bartender through and through, when I saw someone working, I figured they needed a drink in their hand to do it.

"Yeah, he was," I replied with a nod. "I grew up in it, pretty much. All the guys in the club were like my extended family. Well, until he died, I guess."

"I’m sorry," he murmured, and I shook my head.

"It was a long time ago," I replied. "And it gave me a chance to get out on my own, you know? I wouldn’t have ever started work at the Kennels if I stayed there.”

"Well, we’re glad to have you," he remarked.

"You are?" I replied. He shot me a look.

"What’s that mean?"

"You just..." I trailed off, not quite sure how to put this into words. I didn’t want to sound pushy or needy, but I had to admit, he hadn’t exactly been the most open and welcoming of the Dogs.

"I could never really get a feel for whether you wanted me around or not," I muttered. God, that sounded ridiculous. The two of us had barely spoken that much in all the time I had been working there. I doubted I would ever have thought he was anything other than ambivalent towards me, had it not been for the fact that he’d stepped up to help me when I had been taken.

"Really?" he replied, frowning. I nodded, picking at a spot on the carpet, feeling stupid.

"Forget it," I added swiftly. "It doesn’t matter. I was just – just overthinking, that’s all."

"I care about you, Liana," he replied, and the fervency in his voice caught me off-guard. As though he wanted me to know, without a shadow of a doubt, just how much he meant it. I chewed my lip, glancing up at him once more.

"Really?

He nodded.

"You know, Chuck didn’t believe me when I said I was sure Lombardi had taken you," he remarked quietly. "I was the one who wanted to go out there and find you. I just knew...I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if something had happened, and I hadn’t been there to stop it."

I drew in a sharp breath. I had been wondering why Lee, of all people, would have come looking for me the way he did, but hearing those words out of his mouth, I hadn’t expected it to go like that. He had come looking for me? He had searched me out? If it hadn’t been for him, I would have been God knows where doing God knows what by now...

Before I could stop myself or think better of it, I reached across and planted my hand across his on the floor between us. He stared down at the spot where our fingers were touching, as though not quite sure how to make sense of it.

"Thank you," I whispered to him. It didn’t seem like nearly enough to express how grateful I was, but it was the best I could come up with right now. He shook his head.

"You don’t have to thank me-"

"Yes, I do," I replied, cutting him off in his tracks. He always seemed to do this thing, where he downplayed it when I tried to convince him what a decent guy he was. As though he didn’t want to hear it – as though, maybe, there was some part of him that just couldn’t take it in, couldn’t believe that he was worth it.

"If it hadn’t been for you, I would still be locked up somewhere," I continued. "And so – and so would Kara. You saved us both."

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