Jase froze, quiet. Of course, rational Jase would never ask Henry to do anything like that. He trusted Henry with his life. But rational Jase was currently losing the fight to emotional Jase, and he couldn't get his pounding heart to slow down at the thought of having to spend entire days around the knife of a woman that had gutted him. He wanted to give Henry the right answer, the answer he deserved, but it wouldn't come out. He stared at the floor in shame and shook his head. It was all he could do.

"Trust that if I had another option that worked this well, I would take it," said Henry as he put a big hand on Jase's shoulder. Jase couldn't return it, couldn't look up to meet Henry's eyes. He was in too much pain, and he didn't want Henry to see it.

"I need you to be with Maggie and keep an eye on her wherever she goes. Drake is with her right now, setting her up with a temporary place to stay. I'll give you the address and have you go relieve him when you're ready. I'll check in with you periodically to get updates, and let you know how the intel search is going," said Henry.

Jase swallowed against a tight throat. "I can be ready in a half-hour."

"Thank you, son. I have every ounce of trust in you. I know you will protect my little girl better than anyone else in this MC could."

For whatever reason, that pierced Jase's heart as hard as the favor itself had. There was a whirlwind of emotions flying around Jase's mind as he contemplated why. Shouldn't he have every reason in the world to gladly see Maggie get some comeuppance? Where was that hungry bear-heart that had made him the most trusted young soldier the MC had in five counties? She was just a woman, and he had had dozens of them. She was just another woman.

But that was a lie, and Jase knew it.

~ Four ~

Maggie took one more wandering tour around the small house Drake had "acquired" from his realtor friend. It had the same kind of Nuclear Age charm that the entire town of LeBeau held. It wasn't the prettiest property, but it had character. It was clean, not far from the clubhouse, and the small bedrooms felt more cozy than confining. The sliding backdoor opened into a modest yard ringed by giant, leafy trees and a six-foot privacy fence. Had she actually been house-hunting, Maggie probably would have put this place in her top five.

As far as Maggie could tell, Drake's connections with the realtor gave him and the MC access to rent a place for straight cash as long as they needed it. Nothing was written down or signed, of course. After their chat, Drake and the realtor in the fine black suit had gone outside, and the realtor threw the "For Sale" sign from the yard into the back of his big shiny Escalade. Drake came back inside with the keys for her and the promise that it was hers and paid for until she decided to move. He carried in the single box of possessions she had managed to get out of Eagleton before she fled and put it on the white Formica counter.

"The old lady who used to live here died about four months ago," said Drake, even though she hadn't asked. "But her kids took their sweet-a.s.s time getting her s.h.i.t out of here, so it's only been on the market a few weeks."

"She took care of the place, at least," said Maggie. She distantly wiped her hand across the sill of the kitchen window. "Did they leave a bed?"

"A what?" said Drake. He plucked away at the keypad on his phone screen.

"A bed..." said Maggie. "You know, where people sleep and stuff."

Drake looked up at her with a scrunched face. He wandered back to the bedroom without saying a word, then immediately came back muttering curses under his breath-mostly to himself, it sounded like. He walked right past the kitchen and into the front yard, his phone already up against his ear and calling someone to solve this new problem.

Maggie let out a low chuckle at him and shook her head. He was a weird guy, but at least he'd been mostly behaving himself since they left the clubhouse. That was not to say he hadn't made her uncomfortable, though. On the car ride over, Drake didn't hesitate to ask her why Jase had thrown her beer at the wall when he walked in.

"Jase and I... go back," she had said. The anger in his eyes still simmered in her memory, rooted, refusing to budge. "We have history."

"What, did you break his heart or something?"

"Why do you say that?" she asked, surprised.

Drake shrugged without moving his eyesight from the road. "I can't really think of any other thing that Jase would still be p.i.s.sed about after all these years. He's a fighter, not a grudge-holder. He fixes his problems fast. You musta done something deep. I've never seen him like that-well, not outside of a legitimate fist-fight, anyway."

Maggie let the conversation fall into silence. When they pulled up to the house, the realtor was already waiting in his shiny black SUV, and Maggie was thankful to give the subject a chance to be forgotten entirely. The rest of the time had been spent nailing down the details of her rental, and now she waited while Drake tried to find her an actual place to sleep. The house was adorable, but there was no way the carpet was soft enough for 40 winks.

"Alright, alright! I'll owe you, Joey, just get this done for me, p.r.o.nto!" Drake ended whatever call he was on as he walked back through the open front door. "Sorry about that, darlin'. I've got a guy on the way with a few pieces. They may not be choice.... f.u.c.k, they might not even match...."

"It's last minute," said Maggie for him with a wave of her hand. "I understand. As long as I have a bed to sleep on that preferably hasn't been died in, I'll be settled."

"We'll get you set up. It's gonna take about an hour or so, though."

f.u.c.k, thought Maggie. She was over this day, through and through. She had faced her father, and practically bent at the knee to him; she had faced Jase and his anger, even if just for a moment. Maggie was exhausted, but it wasn't necessarily just sleep that would fix her. She really needed some time to step outside of the darkness for a little while. Since sleep was off the table for the time being, she decided on a new course of action.

"I really need a drink," said Maggie.

Drake leaned on the counter and lit up a cigarette. "There's a Sev just up the street, we could head over and grab something."

"No, I need to get out. I just feel... cooped," said Maggie. She wanted to say trapped, but she didn't want to give this new guy the wrong impression. She was going to need allies in the MC to survive this. Drake offered his box of smokes to her and she pulled one out slowly. "Is the roadhouse still open? The one with the neon-pink cowgirl sign?"

Drake's silver lighter flipped open in front of her face. "Hot Tamales? Yeah, of course they're open."

"I think I'm gonna head over and grab a drink there."

Maggie took a long first exhale of smoke. She expected him to be more resistant to her plan, but he was already half on his phone again, texting someone. "Okay girl. Well, look, if I head out to Tamales with you, I will almost certainly lose track of time, and I don't trust Joey as far as I can throw him. He won't wait for us if he gets here and we ain't here."

"I don't mind going on my own." In fact, I prefer it.

"That's fine," said Drake. "I can wait here for Joey. I've been relieved of duty anyhow." He looked up with a grin.

Before she could ask him what that was supposed to mean, Drake's phone erupted in the light and sound of an incoming call. He accepted it and immediately began berating whoever was on the other end as he walked off out the front door and into the yard.

Maggie figured this was as good a chance as any. Leaving Drake in a corner of the yard hollering into his phone, she climbed in her car and configured her phone GPS to find Hot Tamales. She was tired, it was dark, and she wasn't sure she could find her way even through familiar territory.

Construction on Spruce Avenue sent Maggie on a GPS-guided detour through a relatively quiet neighborhood of the town. Houses sat dark and soft, nestled in the early night. It was almost peaceful until she heard the sound of a motorcycle a few cars behind her coming up loud as a lion's roar through her open windows. It was moving fast by the sounds of it, almost as if she were a gazelle it was chasing.

Relieved of duty, she thought to herself, and rolled her eyes. That's what Drake had meant. My next "escort" has arrived. She was so overcome with the anxiety of the day that she hadn't realized how fully her father would react to her request for help. She was in danger, so of course he wasn't going to let her out of sight of the MC.

She pulled up to a stoplight and seethed to herself. Knowing she had no choice but to accept this provision didn't do very much to lessen the weight of it on her shoulders; that feeling of being treated like a child; of being powerless against the whims of powerful men. She couldn't get it to sit right in her stomach.

When Maggie finally got back on-route to the roadhouse, she made a promise to herself that she would not take out her aggression on whoever was unlucky enough to have been given "first watch" by her father. She had likely never met him and none of this was his fault. She would swallow the fact that she had a babysitter for the time being.

Hot Tamales was right where Maggie had left it, so to speak. The roadhouse had been built as one of the first structures connecting LeBeau with the nearby town of Howlett, and had for decades been a popular destination for bikers, truckers, and other professional nomads and adventurers. The long flat building sprawled across what had once been a verdant meadow tucked up against the foothills. While most of the meadow was now under the building or the huge gravel parking lot, tufts of wildflowers still bloomed in the s.p.a.ces surrounding the dive. The hot pink outline of a s.e.xy cowgirl riding a bull had been the roadhouse's calling card since Maggie could remember, and the sign buzzed in the dark night as she pulled up and parked her car. A few other cars were pulling in from the opposite side of the lot, coming from the direction of Howlett. She heard some of the cars behind her pa.s.s by with a whoosh, continuing down the highway without pausing. The motorcycle driver was clearly breaking, however, and pulling into the Tamales lot behind her. She sighed to herself. Part of her had still been hoping it was a coincidence.

Maggie waited and saw the biker pa.s.s by in the dark and park out of view. She gave herself a quick check in the visor mirror. She was not terribly pleased with the tired, vaguely dusty reflection that stared back at her but a bit of lipstick she found in the console seemed to brighten her up enough. By the time she opened her door and hopped out of the SUV, a huge dark figure was already leaning against the end of her car, waiting.

She jumped a little. "Oh, hi," she said as soon as she saw the MC cut. Backlit from the bright pink glow of the sign, she couldn't make him out. "I'm Maggie. I guess you're my bodyguard."

"Yeah, no s.h.i.t." It was a familiar voice from the dark. The man put a cigarette to his lips and lit it, his familiar silhouette framed behind the flame of the lighter.

Maggie's heart stopped. She felt a jolt run up her spine and down her legs, so strong she thought she might take a tumble right there in the lot of Hot Tamales. Her left hand instinctively shot out and grasped the SUV. There was no recovering composure after that.

"Jumpy?" said Jase. There was nothing playful in his voice, though. It was all brutish and bitter.

"Well, I am on the run, so that typically comes with the territory, yeah," said Maggie, drudging up a bit of acid from her tired soul.

"I wouldn't know. I've never run from anything."

Before, at the clubhouse, Maggie had felt scared. Her empathy for Jase overflowed in that moment their eyes met in the den. Ridden with guilt for having to come back and interrupt his life again after what she did, she couldn't find room to be angry with him for being so cold in front of the other Black Dogs. But the mental pressure of the past few hours had worn her down. Drowning in emotions she neither understood nor controlled, she felt like little more than a tired, cornered animal.

Jase had every right to be hurt by her presence, and she would never argue that. But right there, at that moment, in the dark of night outside Hot Tamales, she wasn't going to take anything she didn't deserve. She had never asked him to follow her. She hadn't begged Henry for Jase as her detail. And she wasn't about to take the s.h.i.t for its consequences.

"Paragon of virtue, Mister Jase Campbell, everyone," said Maggie to the imaginary audience around them. She even mustered up a sarcastic little curtsey to top it off with.

Jase blew out his cigarette smoke in a mean scoff. "You're still a f.u.c.king piece of work, I see. You come crawling back here asking for help and you're gonna give me this att.i.tude?"

"I came back to ask for Henry's help," said Maggie, her voice an angry hiss. "It's not my fault he put you on b.i.t.c.h duty."

"You can say that again," said Jase.

Maggie rolled her eyes. Already she felt that tiny hope for a restful evening spinning out of control. "Look, I just came here to get a f.u.c.king drink. So why don't you and your brooding just stay the h.e.l.l out of my way and let me get one in peace. I'm sure you can do your job from across the room."

"What would you know about my 'job'?" said Jase. He threw the cigarette b.u.t.t to the ground near her feet and used it as an excuse to come a few steps closer as he snuffed it out with his boot. Now he was a mere foot away from her, and she had to crane her neck to look up at him. He smelled like musk and gasoline. "What would you know about a f.u.c.king thing around here, Maggie?"

Maggie's heart pounded, and it wasn't just from her anger. It was the sudden shock of having Jase so close to her, of smelling his distinctive musk once again. It flooded her emotions in slow, fat waves, until she felt nearly consumed by a distant longing. Her feet wouldn't move, rooted in place. She tried to draw strength from that knowledge, because she neither wanted to move away from him, nor did she want to move closer. She wanted both. She wanted neither.

She must have been lost in her thoughts for longer than a moment, because through the m.u.f.fled sound of blood crashing in her ears, she heard him ask if she was ignoring him.

"No," she responded, coming back to herself. She centered the moment by holding on to her anger. "Just stay the h.e.l.l away from me, Jase."

Before he could respond, Maggie stormed around his big frame and headed for the roadhouse. The silence in the gravel behind her betrayed that Jase didn't follow right away. Maggie was glad for it.

By the time she got the bartender to serve her, Maggie's anger had died a bit. The roadhouse jumped with line dancers, dart-throwers, mechanical bull-riders, and a crowd of frat boys celebrating something or other with endless pitchers of cheap draft beer. They co-mingled with bikers from at least three MCs that Maggie could recognize, including a few Black Dogs from a chapter north of Howlett. The room was a smoky, noisy mess, and perfect for the restless part of Maggie's soul that needed care now more than ever. She loved the way she could melt anonymously into a place like this. She downed her first shot of whiskey and pint of beer in a rush, and then ordered another pair immediately.

Maggie tried her d.a.m.nedest to get lost in the moment and mood of the bar, but as hard as she tried, she couldn't sink into it. She hoped Jase had decided to stay outside to attend to his guard duties, even though she could feel his eyes on her back as she sat at the bar. This was such a f.u.c.ked-up development. She laughed coldly to herself when she wondered how Henry would feel after her bodyguard killed her before her hunters got the chance.

Jase would never hurt me. The thought came out of nowhere from the quiet part of her mind, but it made Maggie roll her eyes at her own naivety and order another shot. Drake wasn't the only one who had never seen Jase as angry as he had been that moment at the den. Maggie would never admit to anyone how truly scared she had been when he stepped up to her.

Still, his anger felt so unfair. Was she the first woman to break a man's heart? Or the first restless teenage girl, torn between two different longings? Didn't he know that she had broken her own heart, too? She was barely 19 when she left, practically still a kid. Jase wasn't much older. Kids make mistakes. G.o.d knows I've made more than my fair share.

He wasn't there to see the long and torturous nights those first few months in Eagleton. He didn't hear the neighbors knocking on her apartment door to check on her because her heartbroken sobbing was loud enough to penetrate the walls. He never had to feel the deep loneliness of being in a new place, without so much as a friend to call on the phone for familiar comfort.

Maggie felt all that pain rushing back, but it was mixed with a strange sensation, a pull to turn and see the man she had been missing for so many years, who was finally in the same room with her again. She missed Jase. She had always missed Jase.

This can't keep up, she realized. Jase as her bodyguard was only going to end in pure agony. She had to find a way to get rid of him. His loyalty to the MC was obviously strong enough to override his hatred of Maggie, but if his anger reached a tipping point, maybe he would demand a different duty from Henry himself.

Maggie looked down both sides of the huge oak bar. The few faces she could see were not ideal for her needs. She picked up her beer and took a walkabout into the dark edges of the roadhouse, sliding around tables and pushing through groups of drunk, happy people. On the dance floor, people were lit up like little dis...o...b..a.l.l.s from the pulsing lights above. She couldn't see Jase, but she knew he was watching her, stalking her like a hawk. She was counting on it.

Maggie headed over to the corner filled with drunk frat boys. She ignored the drinking games and bad karaoke and chugging contests and walked over to one who was leaning against a wall, eyeballing the girls on the dance floor. He was blonde and tan and had probably never touched an engine or a gun in his short, dull life. He was Jase's opposite.

"Hey," said Maggie as she walked up within a foot of him. At first, he seemed surprised, but that melted quickly into a seductive warmness when he saw the look in her eyes.

"Hi there," he said.

"Looking for something?" she nodded her head back towards the dance floor, then put one hand on his chest as the other tipped the rest of her beer into her mouth.

"I think I just found it," he said with a grin. His hands snaked around her waist and one wasted no time getting a good handful of her ample a.s.s and thighs. She tipped her head up to him and he obliged her with a deep but sloppy French kiss. Already she could feel his growing hardness as he pressed her against his body.

She had obviously found the h.o.r.n.i.e.s.t frat boy in the group; within seconds he was practically groping her right out in the middle of the bar. She stopped him just before he tried to sneak a peek down her shirt, slowed him down a bit with some sensual kisses that ended with his lip between her teeth. Once she was certain her point had been made to anyone who may have been watching them, she took the frat boy's hand and led him through the maze of the roadhouse, heading for the bathrooms at the back. She could've just stopped the charade there and sent him on his way, but Maggie figured she deserved a good f.u.c.k after a day like today.

Maggie and the frat boy stumbled into the handicapped stall at the end of the row, making out along the way. She managed to lock the stall door before he tugged her shirt over her head and began greedily cupping her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, sticking a hand into her bra. The feel of his mouth and tongue on her neck was too much pleasure, and Maggie moaned out loud, eliciting giggles from someone in another stall. She reached down and wrapped her hand around a hard, thick erection begging to be released from the board shorts it was trapped in.

When his hand appeared between her legs, rubbing, Maggie felt like she might come right then and there. It had been so long since she was touched that way-with actual longing and desire. She closed her eyes and got lost in the moment until she heard the front door of the bathroom pushed open hard enough to hit the wall. A woman's protests went ignored. The hand between her legs was rubbing, making her wet. It was all she wanted to think about. But what was wrong? What- "Maggie!" Jase's voice echoed through the bathroom. Before she could react, the stall door exploded inward with enough force to bend the latch beyond repair. She and the frat boy both let out a surprised cry, and he did his best to shield her from the shrapnel that came flying in.

Jase stood in the doorway, a hulking figure of rage and jealousy. He was twice the size of the college kid who didn't put up an ounce of resistance when Jase reached in and grabbed him by his polo collar. He growled in his face to get the f.u.c.k out, and then pushed him hard towards the bathroom door. The frat boy hesitated just a minute as he looked at Maggie before he fled. A woman with golden hair watched the whole thing as she huddled in a corner near the sink, then boldly told Jase she was going to get the manager before she fled.

They stood there staring at each other for what felt like an eternity. Maggie didn't even remember that she was shirtless, standing in front of her ex in just a bra and jeans, trying to slow down her heart and her breathing.

She had figured Jase would seethe quietly to himself all night at the bar and demand a transfer from Henry in the morning. She looked at the dangling, broken latch, realizing she had misjudged the h.e.l.l out of the situation.

"What the f.u.c.k do you think you're doing?" she said with deep anger.

"I could ask you the same thing! Some a.s.sholes are hunting you and your bright idea is to f.u.c.k some rando at the roadhouse? Do you care about your own life or not?"

"Oh please!" said Maggie, finally noticing her shirt on the floor and trying to act casual as she bent to gather it up. "Don't act like this is some concern for my safety, Saint Jase. You could have waited at the f.u.c.king door. We both know you tossed that kid out of here because you don't want anyone else down my pants."

Jase's face turned red and he stepped towards her a few feet. Maggie was far too angry to back down. She stood in front of him, shirtless and vulnerable, her pale skin probably still bearing the red marks from the frat boy's eager hands and lips. In a bitter internal monologue, she hoped Jase saw them, too.

"I don't give a f.u.c.k about your pants and who might be in them. I have a job to do, and I'm going to do it whether you like it or not," he retorted.

"Keeping me from getting d.i.c.k is not your job," said Maggie, throwing her shirt over her head.

The muscles in his jaw clenched. "Well it sure as s.h.i.t isn't my job to help you get d.i.c.k, either," said Jase.

Maggie rolled her eyes and pushed past him just as the golden-haired woman and a round man in a dress shirt entered the ladies room. The man gave Jase a shocked look.

"Since you're on the clock, you can deal with this," said Maggie as she thumbed at who she a.s.sumed was the manager. "I'll be waiting at the bar."

"The h.e.l.l you will," said Jase. As she left the restroom, she heard him speak to the manager. "I don't have time for this. Put it on the MC's tab."

"Look, you fellas are great customers but you can't just be busting up my equipment!" said the manager.

"Did you hear me?" said Jase, his voice getting louder. "Charge it to the f.u.c.king MC."

Maggie was halfway down the hall before he caught up with her bee-lining for the bar. Jase grabbed her arm and began to pull her towards the front door. "We're f.u.c.king done with playtime, Maggie."

"Hey, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d! Let me go!" Maggie tried to squirm her way free, but Jase's hand was big enough to wrap nearly the whole way around her arm, and he was so much stronger than her that it was laughable. She resisted as much as she could, yet both of them knew he was going to get his way.

Jase dragged her outside and back to the driver's side of her SUV in the parking lot before he finally released her arm. She instinctively rubbed the sore spot it had left. "Get in, drive home, or I will take you home myself." He pointed at her, then at the car.

"What the f.u.c.k is your problem, Jase?" said Maggie.

"You're my problem!" Jase yelled loud enough that some curious bystanders had begun to watch from the porch of the roadhouse. "You always have to make things so f.u.c.king difficult, Maggie. You don't give a s.h.i.t about anyone else or how they feel."

"I make things difficult?" she screamed back. "No one made you bust into that bathroom stall, Jase! You did that on your own!"