Page 1 of Judge’s Redemption

CHAPTER 1

SHAY

The first time I see Judge in five years, I'm carrying my daughter's glittery pink backpack and trying to convince her that a dead worm doesn't need a funeral.

“It was alive this morning,” Evie says, crouched at the edge of the sidewalk with both hands planted on her knees. “Maybe it got tired.”

“Maybe.” I check the time on my phone. Four twelve. My last client is due at four thirty, Dottie's already covering longer than she agreed to. “But we can't stay here until it wakes up.”

Evie considers that with the solemn frown she gives everything from broccoli to bedtime. “We should move it so nobody squishes it more.”

I'm bending to help her find a leaf when a motorcycle turns onto Main Street. The sound reaches inside me before I look up. Ransom has plenty of bikes. More now than when I left, or maybe I only notice them because I've spent six weeks expecting one particular man every time an engine growls nearby. I know better than to react to every black Harley and leather cut in town.

My body reacts anyway.

The bike rolls toward us, black paint shining beneath a sky gone gray with rain. The rider slows outside the pharmacy, one boot dropping to the pavement while a truck pulls away from the curb.

Short dark hair. Black leather stretched across broad shoulders. One steady hand resting on the bars.

Judge.

The years between us collapse so fast my stomach drops.

He turns his head. His gaze finds me across the street, and everything inside him seems to stop.

The truck moves. A horn sounds behind him. Judge doesn't react until the driver leans on it a second time. Then he pulls forward, crosses the empty lane, and brings the bike to the curb ten feet from where Evie is still worrying over the worm.

I should move. I've had six weeks to plan what I'll do when this happens, and every version involves keeping my head high, my voice cool, and my daughter away from the man who once told me exactly how little I meant to him. Instead, I stand there gripping a backpack covered in silver stars while my heart tries to bruise its way out.

Judge kills the engine and somehow the sudden quiet is worse.

He swings off the bike and removes his sunglasses. Time has made him harder. He was powerful before, but the man walking toward me has grown broader, his body packed with heavy muscle beneath his black T-shirt and cut. Dark stubble shadows his jaw. Ink covers both arms, disappearing beneath the leather at his shoulders and running down over his hands.

Judge was dangerous at thirty-one. At thirty-six, he looks like danger learned patience.

My body remembers him with humiliating precision. The roughness of those tattooed fingers against my skin. His mouth at the place where my neck meets my shoulder. The low sound he used to make when I climbed into his lap and tested how long his control would hold.

Want moves through me, hot and vicious.

Then I remember the last time I saw him and the things he said to me.

Temporary. That's all you ever were. The club comes first. It always will.

The heat curdles into anger, but it doesn't disappear. That would be too easy.

“Shay.”

My name sounds the same in his voice. Low. Careful. Like it still belongs to him.

“It's been a while,” I say.

His eyes move over my face, taking in every difference time left behind. Then his attention drops.

Evie has finally abandoned the worm and come to stand against my leg. Her small fingers curl into the hem of my shirt.

Judge looks at her.

I see the moment recognition strikes him.