Page 65 of Never Trust the Living (Battle Crows MC 7)

But after that first day we’d arrived, when he’d told Mimi that he was raising a baby with me out of state and couldn’t help her with whatever was wrong… that had sealed the deal.

Whatever precipice I’d been teetering on when it came to deciding whether I’d give Bram a true chance or not completely disintegrated with that one phone call.

I held his hand as he guided me out of the office, both Marsha and Dutch watching with a smile on their faces.

Right outside the door, he collected his own food and offered me a wink.

They may not have met Bram, but I’d talked a lot about him over the last week as we’d gotten to know each other. Today might’ve been my first official day at the office, but that didn’t mean that I didn’t have a lot to say yesterday as I’d moved my stuff in, or two days before at the job interview with Dutch.

“Why were they both looking at me like that?” He grinned as he looked down at me.

I gestured to the park bench with our joined hands, then waited to explain until after I’d taken my seat.

“Dutch was talking about how she’d never dated a ‘blue collar’ guy before yesterday as I was getting my stuff inside the office after you dropped me off. She was impressed by your attire or something. The jeans you were wearing were really dirty, I guess because you were working on the grill before we left. She was also super impressed with your motorcycle, and she thought that you were an example of what her next ‘go to’ type of man should be. Apparently, she’s only dated business types,” I explained.

He grunted as he took a seat.

“She’s pretty,” he said. “But I could tell as soon as I saw her that she was high maintenance.”

“She’s probably the most down-to-Earth person I’ve ever met, high maintenance or not.” I smiled.

He snorted and gestured toward me to eat. “Eat, honey. You have a thirty-minute gap until your next patient.”

I wasn’t surprised he knew my schedule.

He’d been quite open and honest about snooping all day.

“I’m okay,” I told him.

The bruises that I’d gotten from that night were all gone. The lacerations from the gravel were also disappearing. The only thing that was left was a little ache in my right knee.

Hell, even the boot was gone. Had been since a few days after I’d put it on.

I was as good as new, mostly.

“I know.” He paused. “It just makes me jumpy, being here without having a clue what’s going on. Not having backup is weird, too.”

“There’s always Wake,” I teased.

Wake was an ex-con that’d just recently gotten out of prison.

As in, the week before I’d met him, recent.

He was a good guy, and from what I could tell, was just a victim of unfortunate circumstances.

At least, that’s what he came off as to me.

There were others in the town, like the sheriff, who didn’t think about him like I did.

Then again, I was a killer. I’d killed my own brother. Maybe Wake and I were kindred spirits.

Because that’s what he’d done. He’d gone on a killing spree and had killed every pedophile in a certain radius after his daughter had been harmed. Including the guy that’d harmed her.

Honestly, killing fourteen child predators seemed like a perfectly rational and explainable thing to do.

“Yeah, Wake’s been really good,” Bram agreed. “I like him.”

“You like him because he’s exactly like you,” I teased. “All badass, doesn’t give a fuck about anything, and would literally rip the balls off of anyone that hurt me.”

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