Page 42 of Jacob

Her steps were quick, not quite running, but a brisk walk for sure. Considering his much longer legs, he had no difficulty keeping up, but that didn’t make him any less curious about her change in mood. “What’s going on?”

She whirled. “I just—” She paused and looked around. When her focus stopped, he turned his own to where she looked.

The Roughneck Riders logo on the outside wall of the bar captured her attention.

“I just need some space. Can you just not follow right behind me? Have a smoke or something,” she suggested before she spun around and trotted back toward the bar.

Deflated, Jacob watched Sparrow return to the bar. Though it felt like more than that. She wasn’t just going back to work, going back to the Roughneck Riders, or even going back to her boyfriend. She ran from him—ran from what they had.

Their bubble had popped.

What the fuck was he supposed to do with that?

Chapter 24

Sparrow

What had she just done?The reality of it slammed into Sparrow the moment she heard the sound of the bike coming toward the Broken Spoke. The sound of a Harley Davidson motor was unmistakable. A biker headed to the biker bar, the biker bar where she worked, owned and filled with the Roughneck Riders bikers. All of it slapped her in the face. Real-life—the present day just clocked her and knocked her right out of her fantasy.

What the fuck was she thinking? What was she going to do?

She wasn’t a kid anymore with a crush on the cute guy from out of town. She was a grown-ass woman witha boyfriend. Yes, aboyfriend. And thatboyfriendwas prospecting into the club her father had been a part of.

Looking up into Jacob’s beautiful, puzzled gaze had her heart fluttering and made her stomach sink. The stunning man who she’d crushed on since she was thirteen just took his fill of her like any other biker whore.

Jesus Christ. If she could, she’d crawl into a hole.What the hell was wrong with her?

Her relationship with Pipes wasn’t perfect, but it was the kind of relationship women had with bikers. It was the type of relationship her mother had with her father. If she wanted to be a part of the club, she had to settle for reality. Her life wasn’t a chick flick. Her happily-ever-after would include a lot less happy or a different kind of happy.

However, if word got out, if someone saw her in the parking lot—she could kiss any semblance of the happily-ever-after she wanted goodbye. If it got out that she’d fucked around with a patch from another club, they’d question her loyalty. A woman without loyalty had no place in the Roughneck Riders.

This was bad. It was even worse than being a club slut. At least a club slut only fucked guys in one club. Not Sparrow though. No, she didn’t half-ass anything, including fucking up her life. She was worse than her mother. At least her mother stuck to patches ofoneclub. Her mother was more loyal than she was.

Fuck!

What had she been thinking? She’d lost her goddamn head the moment she’d seen him. It was like he walked out of her fantasy or a Harley magazine, maybe both. They were kind of one and the same.

Her fuck on the trunk of her car could cost her more than just her boyfriend. Now she really needed to drink, and probably a ride home.

With a fake smile and a polite nod toward the prospect chatting up some woman, she yanked open the door to the bar. Hopefully, she’d been there the whole time and kept him occupied so he hadn’t watched her fuck Jacob.

How stupid could Sparrow be? The prospect would have seen everything!

Bracing herself for another horrible karaoke rendition of an awful pop song, she walked into the bar, buzzing with life. Just as packed as when she left—what felt like a lifetime ago—but in reality couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes. She slid behind the bar.

She might as well keep her mind and hands busy earning some tips, helping out a friend, and drinking free booze while she fucked up her life some more. Who knows what would happen after tonight. Word could leak out and everything she knew could be gone in an instant.

“You all right?” Kimber asked as she breezed past her carrying four bottles of beer by their necks and placing them on the bar.

No. No, she wasn’t all right. She’d just cheated on her boyfriend with her childhood crush.

Faking a smile, she reached for a lollipop from the cup behind the bar. “I’m fine.” No use unloading her bullshit on her friend.No one liked a club slut who did that. Best to just take your load and move on to the next guy.

She hated that thought. She hated thinking of herself that way. But—actions spoke louder than words. Peeling the wrapper off, she popped the root beer flavored candy in her mouth and offered a wink.Fake it until you make it.Right now, she’d fake being fine.

Besides, Jacob didn’t know. He didn’tneedto know. This was a one-time thing. He lived in Montana, for Christ’s sake. Hopefully, no one saw her. If, by some miracle they had actually not been caught in the act, once the night was over this would fade away into a distant memory of one of the wild things she’d done in her life.

She’d tell stories about it when she was in the nursing home before she got old and senile. She’d tell all the other old, blue-haired ladies about that one time she got nailed in the parking lot by the hot out of town biker before she settled down with her Ol’ Man. She sowed her oats or some bullshit. Isn’t that what they called it?

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