Page 89 of Sunshine
“Bullshit, Tess. I can see it in your face, not even you believe that.”
“Don’t interrupt. As I was saying, it was just physical, and if I didn’t believe he wasn’t a two-timing asshole cheating on his pregnant wife, how can I expect him to believe me?”
“Love will conquer all.”
I throw my hands up. “Paige, quit drinking the Kool-Aid. Romantic love doesn’t exist. You’re buying into what the romance genre wants you to believe. Love is an archaic idea—way back it was a necessity, now it’s something people tell themselves because of their biological urges.”
“So then why would it even bother you that he had a family? If it was just sex?”
I pause mid eyeroll and swallow hard. I’d been crushed. Totally crushed. And the thought of him thinking I started that fire crushes me too. Sniffing, I turn to my best friend. “I can’t let myself feel right now. Please.”
Paige awkwardly leans across the car to pull my head against her shoulder, and I cry.
“You need to, Tess. It’s time you let yourself be vulnerable.”
“Call him again. Mack said the arson case was closed, which means he knows it wasn’t you. Mack apologizes by the way.” She shoots me a glance, but I don’t bother scolding her for forgiving him on my behalf. Instead, I wring my hands, anxiety thrumming through me. With Page’s help I managed to get ahold of the judge and set up a meeting, but I’m nervous. If I fuck this up, he won’t get his daughter and it’ll be all my fault.
“He’s not answering. Ten unanswered calls are telling enough, Paige. He doesn’t want to talk to me. And I can’t blame him.” I throw my bag onto the scale and watch the red numbers display the weight of it. “He wasn’t even at his place. No one was. And his clothes are gone.”
“What about personal items?”
“He didn’t have any personal items. Just clothes and toiletries and all that is gone.” I feel panic edging inside me. “What else did Mack say?”
She’d gone to the house across the field despite the caution tape while I was in the shower.
My bag moves down the conveyer belt and Paige puts hers on the scale. “He yelled and threatened me for coming onto an unstable property, which was uh…” She doesn’t finish her thought. “He apologized for?—”
“Skip that,” I demand, interrupting her. She gives me a look that says she’d smack me if it weren’t for the fact that I’m in a love crisis. “You already told me he apologized.”
She nods. “He seems to mean it. Even though he also said he still thinks you’re a brat for all the other shit you did.”
I roll my eyes. “I figured. Tell me something useful.”
“Case had an affair with a woman named Lisa, while working undercover for the RCMP. She was an old lady of one of the higher-ranking members. That’s like marriage in the club.”
“I read Harley and Hearts too, Paige.”
She smirks, wiggling her brow. “Yeah, you did.”
I look skyward. “Paige!”
“Okay. Sheesh. Anyway, her old man, a guy named Preacher, was abusive and I guess Case protected her often and one thing led to another, and she got pregnant. Case had no idea she was pregnant when he helped her escape the Club after a particularly brutal beating. His only condition to getting her out was that she stay away and never contact him again because if she was foundafter running she was as good as dead, and if the Ransom found out he helped, he’d be buried right beside her.”
The woman behind the counter interrupts us, first to gush at me and tell me how much she loves my books and then to tell us we need to hurry.
“These are last-minutes seats, ladies. The flight will be boarding any minute.” Nodding in the direction of our gate, she hands us our boarding passes. “I’ll tell them to hold the plane for a few minutes, but you need to hurry or the pilot will rip me a new one.”
“Thank you!” I say, snatching the tickets and then Paige’s wrist as she hands the woman one of my books out of her carry-on bag. We rush for our gate.
“When this is all over, I need a drink. A strong one. And do you always keep signed books in your bag?”
“I do,” Paige says. “And no drinking until you’ve had really awesome make-up sex with your biker. After that I’ll buy you as many as you want.”
Her words are painful because the chances of that happening seem slim. After all, I’ve done nothing but cause him trouble and when he needed me, I wasn’t there. And now, he may lose his daughter and although I didn’t start the fire, it feels like the final straw that’ll show him I’m not worth the effort.
When we reach our gate the line is already moving, and Paige doesn’t finish her story until we’re buckled into our seats.
“So, you were saying Lisa was hidden from the MC and Case had forbidden her from contacting him…”
