Page 24 of Rock

The one night he’d spent with her had been heaven and not nearly enough. The memories lingered. They’d lasted four decades. He still held a place in his heart for her.

As he was leaving his apartment in the compound, he ran into Remi in the hallway. His daughter cornered him with herhands on her hips. Kade, her husband and Daddy, stood behind her, smirking. This was becoming a regular occurrence.

Fending off the questions he knew would fly out of Remi’s mouth, he got a jump on her. “Yes, Remi, I ate dinner. No, I didn’t have dessert. Yes, I ate the gross green things on my plate. Yes, I’ve taken my heart medicine. Yes, I walked today. No, I’m not in pain.”

She gave him a slow smile and then wrapped her arms around him. “Okay, then. Are you going home for the night?”

“Yes.” He kissed the top of her head before spinning her around and nudging her back to her Daddy. Kade would take care of her. He was a good man. “See you tomorrow.”

It was a nice night outside. Great weather for a long evening ride. But Rock wasn’t in the mood. He climbed on his bike, started it up, and pulled out of the compound.

He had no idea why he drove in the wrong direction and ended up on the street Lyla and Jackson had grown up on, but he slowed down as he went by the old house.

A light was on in the basement. He could see the illumination through the two small windows right at ground level. Was she in there? Surely not. It was getting late. She wouldn’t be sitting in the empty basement. There were no other lights on in the house. There wouldn’t be any furniture in there. She was probably at the motel on the edge of town. Maybe she forgot to turn the lights off.

There was a car in the driveway, but it was possible the neighbors used the spot since the house was vacant. That’s what he would do instead of parking on the street.

For a minute, he considered driving toward the motel next, but that would be absurd. It wasn’t as if he would know what car she drove or what room she would be staying in.

Granted, he did know the night manager for the motel, Sheila. He could go inside and ask her if Lyla was staying there.He had no idea what Lyla’s last name might be. Surely it wasn’t still Sealock. But that didn’t matter. A description would be all Sheila would need to confirm if Lyla had secured a room.

Rock shook the idea from his head.Don’t be a fucking stalker, asshole. It would be rude to ask Sheila to do something unethical. Besides, it was probably best that he not approach Lyla at all. She’d made a choice not to contact him after their one night together. He would respect her decision.

He drew in a deep breath as he aimed his bike toward his house on the outskirts of town. Anger bubbled up inside him, the same anger he’d felt that summer when she hadn’t contacted him.

Rock has been hurt and confused. He’d given her a note with the number of the place he would be staying, the number of the office he’d be working for, and a number for the Shadowridge Guardians’ clubhouse. She hadn’t contacted him at any location, and once she’d gone off to college, he’d had no way to reach her.

He could have asked her brother, but he’d never let on to Jackson that he’d had any sort of relationship with Lyla at all, plus Jackson had vanished after that summer, too.

Rock pulled into his garage, shut off the engine, and climbed off his bike. His heart was heavy as he entered his dark house. He didn’t even turn on any lights. He wasn’t in the mood to see. After aiming straight for his bedroom, Rock removed his boots, brushed his teeth, and dropped onto the bed without pulling the covers back.

He stared at the ceiling, willing the memories to stop bombarding him. Lyla had never contacted him or returned to Shadowridge for a reason. Maybe she’d met someone that summer. Maybe she’d decided he wasn’t good enough for her. Maybe her family had found out about the night she’d spent with Rock and demanded she sever contact.

He would never know why she’d vanished.

Unless he confronted her.

And that was a terrible idea.

Better to let sleeping dogs lie.

CHAPTER

THREE

Lyla was imagining things. There was no other explanation for it. She’d been sitting in the basement of her childhood home for hours. The men who’d come to take a look at what needed to be done had left a long time ago. Why was she still here?

She’d gone to her car, grabbed her satchel, and had been sitting in the basement on the floor, leaning against the wall, sketching for hours. She could have sworn she’d heard a bike engine at some point, but she hadn’t moved an inch. She’d paused, listened, and shuddered.

Surely she’d imagined it. Probably because she’d done nothing but think of Rock since she’d arrived here that morning. Was he still in town? Was he married? Did he still belong to the local MC? Had he ever thought of her again after that night they’d spent together?

Most likely, he didn’t remember that night at all. It would be ridiculous to think he even remembered her name. Why would he? They’d had one night together, rolling in the sheets. That was it. He’d had countless other women. How many of them had been young and naïve? How many of them had been a virgin like she’d been?

She glanced down at her sketchpad, surprised to see that she’d been sketching images of Rock the way she remembered him. Five pages of him as a matter of fact.

Groaning at her idiocy, she shut the book and pushed to her feet. She looked around. This basement held so many memories. She couldn’t believe the blue carpeting was still stapled to the wall. It was a dingy shade now, almost gray, but it was still there.

She turned around and stared where she’d been sitting the first time Rock had entered her line of sight. She’d been sketching a basket of fruit, and Jackson had ruined it by eating one of the apples.

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