Page 6 of Rough Return

Good question. Even better question after Hamilton filled her in on Max’s plans for her future. Plans she had to pretend not to know and not to be the mastermind behind.

The door behind her opened and closed. And thank God because Hamilton asked a question she’d rather die than answer.

She didn’t bother turning around. It could only have been Grier. “Because she missed me. Obviously.”

She rolled her eyes at Hamilton. “I like your face better now that Ham started rearranging it. It’s a good look. We’ll call it punch of the day.”

“I don’t know, babe. Think of the wedding pictures.”

The word babe didn’t affect her. Absolutely not. And her hands shaking had nothing to do with him sitting beside her either.

He took her beer and pressed the bottle to his bruised cheek. “Is this the craziest thing you’ve ever heard?” He’d asked Hamilton who stood and walked away. “I’m not really feeling the love.” He chuckled and the sound settled in her belly. Low in her belly. “Max is losing it, right? And we’re humoring him?”

Fiona didn’t look at Grier. Couldn’t. “He’s serious. Ham said he told him to tell the guys you’re back and your absence will be explained when they need to know. So, he can pull this plug anytime he wants.” All true. All too ridiculous to fall into place this easily, but Grier, sitting beside her said it was working.

“And you’re willing to go along? Not wait to marry someone you love?”

Oh, shit. Someone you love. Did he have that someone waiting for him in Belize, some island babe he’d rather spend his life with? She’d never considered he might have someone waiting for him to get his Pine Hill shit worked out.

“I don’t have a choice.” Neither did he, island honey or not.

“You could have given me a heads up.” He finished her beer then rolled the bottle between his palms.

“Ham just gave you all the heads-up you’re getting.”

He sighed. “Fiona, we don’t really know each other. And even if we tie the knot, the club is never going to accept me.”

His excuses not to marry her were really starting to piss her off. She hardened her voice and squelched the little one in her head that begged her to try to see his point. Consider his feelings. Gibberish.

“They’ll do what I tell them to do.” Which meant they would do what she told Hamilton to tell them to do.

“So, just curious, but is this your way of getting me into bed? Because all you had to do was ask.” What she wouldn’t have done to wipe that smug smile off his face once and for all. “Go on. Ask me.”

Not again. Not ever. He would do the asking. The begging. One way or the other.

“Seeing me married, even if it’s to you, is my father’s dying wish.”

“How dutiful of you.”

Oh, for hell’s sake. She’d had enough. “Listen, I don’t give two shits what you do. Marry me or don’t. It’s not me they’re all going to come after. And all of those other guys would be happy to hop into my bed with their ring on my finger.”

She was almost to the car when she heard his soft, “Okay.” And if her heart beat a little faster and her knees went a little bit weak, she’d blame low blood sugar any day of the week over giving Grier that kind of credit.

* * *

Grier sat beside Fiona as she drove him to the clubhouse. She’d hidden her eyes behind a pair of Ray-Bans, and he couldn’t read her expression from just the hard line of her jaw. He watched her anyway, memorized every move and detail—the careless dangle of her wrist over the steering wheel, the glints of black and white blonde woven through her luscious red hair, the way her shirt stretched tight over her chest.

So much about her had changed, but nothing more so than the loss of innocence and the hero worship he’d always seen in her eyes when he pulled up on his bike.

On the island, he hadn’t missed his bike. The sun, sand, and surf had been enough to keep him content. But being back in Pine Hill, smelling the exhaust fumes bouncing off the pavement, he ached to ride, to feel the roar of the engine, to command it and feel it respond to every flick of his wrist or flex of his thigh. No bike would ever replace his ’71 Super Glide, the bike he’d spent months restoring with Max and Kye. That she’d been destroyed made his guts clench.

He went back to watching Fiona. Thinking about the bike hurt too much. She turned onto Hell Hollow Road. It narrowed in that old familiar way, and she maneuvered around the curves like she’d taken her driving lessons from NASCAR.

She crossed the tracks that used to carry steel in and out when this had been a warehouse for the long-ago closed steel mill. The club had converted the warehouse to its center of business and pleasure.

“Did you bring me here so they can kill me?” He was only half-kidding.

“No one’s going to touch you, you big baby.” He didn’t move. He honestly hadn’t thought he’d ever see this place again, but the building loomed in front of him like a memory he couldn’t decide was good or bad. “Never knew you to be such a chickenshit, Grier.”