Page 15 of Edge

“Are you asking me or her?” she asked and pointed to me with her icing covered fork.

“Both, I suppose.”

“Same old, same old. The diner keeps me busy.”

“And you?” he asked.

“Good,” I said. “Same as Irene. Busy with work.”

“That’s why I brought her here,” Irene added. “She needs to meet some people and make some friends.”

I was going to die of embarrassment before the night was over. I just knew it.

“You came to the right place. We’re a friendly bunch, and there are plenty of people here,” Edge said.

I didn’t know what to say, so I focused on my cake, or tried to. Edge seemed determined to get me to talk to him.

“I remember Irene saying you were new in town. Where did you move here from?”

Well, damn. He was the first person to ask me that question since I moved to Cedar Valley. It hadn’t even occurred to me to think of a cover story to tell people. I swallowed the bite in my mouth and lied the best I could. “I’m from Florida.” It wasn’t entirely a lie. I was born in Florida while my mother was visiting her parents and moved there to live with my grandmother when I turned eighteen, but I grew up in Georgia and moved back there after my grandmother died.

“How did you end up in Tennessee?”

I couldn’t tell him the truth—I stopped in Cedar Valley because I was almost out of money and gas. “I had distant relatives who used to live in the area. I loved visiting them and moved here once I had the chance.” To stop his casual interrogation, I turned the questions back to him. “What about you? How did you end up in a motorcycle club in Croftridge?”

“I grew up here. The Blackwings have been around for a long time and are well known in the area. I started prospecting for the club as soon as I graduated from high school. In fact, I went to high school with Ember and Reese,” he said and pointed to two women at a table nearby. “Actually, Reese and I went to prom together.”

“I heard my name. Are you talking about me?” Reese asked as she approached our table.

“I was telling Evie that I went to prom with you.”

The other woman, presumably Ember, came over to join us. “Did you tell her about the time I broke your nose?”

Edge sighed. “You’re never going to let me forget that, are you?”

She shrugged. “It was your own fault. You offered to spar with me when you knew I was worked up.”

“I was trying to be nice,” he said. It was obvious they’d had this friendly argument many times before.

“So, I’m going to skip the how and why, but I was trained in hand-to-hand combat from an early age. I was in the middle of a rather intense situation, and Edge was tasked with protecting me while my man went to slay my dragons. Anyway, I was a nervous wreck, and Edge here offered to spar with me to help me work off some of my nervous energy. Long story short, I accidentally broke his nose.”

“What happened to you?” I asked.

Her brows narrowed in confusion. “What do you mean?”

Suddenly, I realized what I asked and wanted to cover my face with my hands. “What happened with your situation? Were you okay?”

“Oh. Yes, I was fine. We went to the hospital, and they fixed him right up,” she said and reached out to tweak Edge’s nose. He dodged and gently swatted her hand away.

“Don’t you have children to tend to?”

“My children are grown,” she returned. “Well, one is. The other’s not far behind. Why? Are you trying to get rid of me?”

“Possibly,” Edge said.

“I’ll come back to hassle you later,” she said and got up to leave.

“She has grown children. How old is she?” I asked. She looked like she was in her late twenties.

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