Page 20 of Rogue

Maybe that’s why I’m falling for him so fast—the wind. I’ve heard crazier things.

“So, what’s the craziest thing it’s made you do?” I ask, only partially kidding.

He shrugs. “The Devil winds were blowing hard on the day I buried my girlfriend, Angel. They made me promise that I would hunt down the man who killed her and then join her in death.”

He sounds both like he didn’t want to tell me all that, and like he really needed to.

“She meant a lot to you?” I ask automatically.

“She was my world,” he says quietly. “But I won’t be keeping my promise.”

Being the other woman for so long, the one not fit for marrying, someone men could come to without fear of being judged as they bare their souls, has made me an expert at making it easy for them to do it. I heard a lot of secrets, knew a lot weaknesses of men who’d never admit them to anyone else. For a while I liked it. Until I realized no one ever wanted to hear my secrets and no one knew my weaknesses. Because I was just the club girl.

“The air was perfectly still on the day I buried my family,” I hear myself say. “The hottest day of the year, they said on the radio. Not even a hint of a breeze. I thought I was gonna pass out and fall right in the hole with them. I wanted to.”

His eyes aren’t dark any more. But they’re not sparkling either. They’re brimming with understanding and compassion, but thankfully no pity. At least not the kind I can’t stand.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” he says and I feel in my chest that he means it. “Was it recent?”

“Ten years ago, give or take,” I say. “They died in a car crash visiting me at university.”

“Like that family today at the ER?” he asks, his eyes very understanding and still only full of compassion. No pity.

“Almost exactly like that, yeah,” I say. “When did Angel die?”

“Also ten years ago.”

And the innocent school girl in me thinks that’s extremely significant. Both of us had our lives shattered at almost the same time. We couldn’t be there for each other then, but we’re here now. Together.

But the sensible woman I am, the one who’s been around, knows I’m here with a man who is still hung up on a lover he lost ten years ago. So hung up that he brings her up just minutes into a date with me. There’s no future in a thing like that.

I raise my beer and smile widely, “Here’s to life going on.”

He grins too, some sparkle returning to his eyes and he clinks his bottle against mine. “I’ll drink to that.”

And he does, but I don’t for a second believe his life actually went on.

Our food comes, the smell vividly reminding me I haven’t eaten in at least twelve hours.

I wolf down a third of my meal before I remember I’m not alone, stuffing my face in front of the TV.

“You weren’t kidding,” I say. “This is the best chimichanga I ever had. It might actually be the bestanythingI ever had.”

“Good,” he says, something very caring in his eyes. “But this is just the beginning of the places I’ll show you.”

“I can’t wait,” I say and hope I sound sincere. Because there’s no future here. I should just bow out while the getting’s good. Before the little voice inside my head, the one that belongs to the girl I was before I was a club girl, convinces me that I can compete with a dead woman.

I can’t even compete with living women of the biker world.

“So, what does your MC do, Rogue?” I ask, deciding I better steer this conversation to mundane topics. “If it’s not a secret, that is?”

“Not a secret,” he says and wipes his lips on a thin paper napkin. “We’re something between bounty hunters and private investigators these days.”

“Sounds interesting,” I say. “And dangerous. But I already knew that.”

He chuckles. “Helping your friends was the most action we’ve seen in years. Probably why I ended up getting shot. I’m not proud of that. Wouldn’t have happened back in the day.”

His eyes glaze over and he sounds like he really misses those days.

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