Page 41 of Wife Number One

Alice shook her head. “No. But she never stopped writing to you. The last of her letters arrived just last week.”

My heart squeezed as Kyle stopped the truck.

“We’re here,” I told Hayley Jade quietly. “You can get out and stretch your legs. We can’t stay too long, but it’s nice here. You’ll like it.”

She refused to move.

Flinched away when I touched her.

I sighed. Any silent truce we’d called when I’d been bribing her with food was clearly over.

The front door of Rebel’s house opened, and a huge man appeared on the porch, flinching against the cold night air in just a thin sweatshirt. He squinted through the darkness, clearly trying to place the unfamiliar car.

“Holy shit, who is that?” Alice asked with a slight hitch in her voice.

The corner of my mouth flickered just a tiny bit. “That’s Fang. Your brother-in-law.”

Taking in her expression of pure lust, Kyle shot Alice a dirty look. “Your brother-in-law, Alice. So maybe roll your tongue up and put it back in your mouth?”

“Can’t,” she practically panted. “He’s so big. Bet he could crack my head between his thighs like it was a walnut.”

“Alice!” Kyle reprimanded before I could. “That guy has to be at least fifteen years older than you.”

“Fifteen years more experienced then,” Alice mused. “I bet he could teach me a thing or two.”

I wrung my hands, shocked by the change in my sister now she didn’t have the constraints of commune rules to abide by. “You wouldn’t have a clue what to do with a man like that. Now get out of the car before he gets suspicious and pulls his gun.”

“He has a gun?” Kyle practically squeaked.

“Fang is the one in the motorcycle club, right?” Alice asked.

“Motorcycle club? Like, the kind who go on nice Sunday drives together? Or…” Kyle’s unspoken question hung in the air.

Or the illegal kind who were just as likely to be making a gun or drug trade on a Sunday as taking a leisurely cruise. That was what Kyle had wanted to ask.

“Or,” I confirmed. “So get out and keep your hands where he can see them.”

Alice grinned.

Kyle looked like he was about to wet his pants.

All I cared about was how Hayley Jade was taking it, but she was still completely checked out.

I pushed open the car door and climbed out slowly, Alice and Kyle following my lead.

“Who’s there?” Fang called.

“It’s me,” I called back, and then realized it had been five years since I’d seen the man and he probably didn’t recognize me anymore, sister-in-law or not. “Me, Kara, I mean.” I straightened and raised my hand tentatively.

Fang took a few steps forward so he could see better then swore low under his breath. He pivoted abruptly and took two quick steps back inside the house, the door closing behind him.

I froze.

“Er,” Alice mumbled. “Was it something we said?”

“More like someone you’re with.” My chest felt tight. “This is my fault. We shouldn’t have come here. Rebel isn’t going to want to see me after all this time.”

For the first time since we’d made it out, Alice’s happy-go-lucky expression morphed into one of worry. “We don’t have a backup plan. Where the hell are we going to go? I have no money. Neither do you. Kyle drained the last of his bank account paying for the gas to get us here.”

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