"And here I thought men were the braver of the species," she muttered. Jase laughed at her as she sarcastically turned her back to him and waited. "I don't like this, this is creepy."

"It should be creepy," said Jase. "Someone coming at you from behind is dangerous as h.e.l.l. Trust creepy instincts because they'll probably give you a few extra seconds."

Jase approached. He hesitated a moment before he wrapped an arm around the top of Maggie's chest. She tensed up against him, and he could feel her heart beating a little faster. He put his other hand loosely on the top of her brown curls.

"If someone comes at you from behind like this, you want to try and upset their balance. Don't think about fighting them. They're probably bigger than you, or armed. Just think about escaping," said Jase next to her ear. He thought he felt her shiver. He took her left elbow in his hand and directed it slowly back to his solar plexus. "Feel that? You need to elbow that spot as hard as you can. That'll put anyone's d.i.c.k in the dirt."

Maggie giggled underneath him. She grasped his arm around her neck with her right and mimicked the elbow move a few times for him.

"Then, put your leg outside mine, like this." He put his left hand on her left thigh and gently pushed until Maggie lifted it into position, on the outside of his stance. The arm around her neck that had been grasping was now little more than a draped nuisance.

"Now," said Jase. "Grab my pants right by my crotch."

Maggie's reaction didn't disappoint. Her face twisted in disbelief. "What the h.e.l.l, man? What kind of self-defense is this?"

Jase couldn't help laughing while he said, "I'm serious! This is completely legit, one-hundred-percent. I swear."

"Is this how you're picking up women now?" said Maggie, shaking her head and muttering sarcastically to herself. She couldn't look at him, but her face lit up with a huge grin and flushed red as she followed his instructions. She took a nice handful of denim on his inner thigh dangerously close to trouble, and then looked up at him with smirk as if to say your move.

Jase cleared his throat, the timing of which made Maggie start to laugh. He said in his best authoritative voice, "C'mon, Oliver, sack up here, this is serious business."

"Sir, yes sir," she said without even a breath to break up her laughter.

Jase shook his head, but he couldn't fight his own smile as he decided to press forward. "Alright. So you've delivered the elbow of doom. You're outside his stance. Take a hold of his pants like that, and then twist, and shift your whole body weight towards him."

Maggie hesitated at first, skeptical. Then Jase felt the grip on his jeans tighten as she moved into him. As planned, the shift of balance coupled with her grip on his pants sent his center of gravity off-kilter. Half of him lifted over her leg as he tumbled to the gravel with a thunk.

"What!" said Maggie in an excited voice. Both her hands shot into the air. "I can't believe that worked!"

"I told you," said Jase as he dusted off his thigh where he'd landed. He reached out a hand and Maggie didn't hesitate to help pull him up. "It's not going to kill the guy, but it gives you time to get loose and get help."

"I can't believe I know how to throw you around now," said Maggie with a laugh as she cracked them both another beer.

"Only if I attack you from behind," said Jase, and immediately regretted the way it sounded. But Maggie only laughed. He cleared his throat. "Put that d.a.m.n beer down, you need to practice this move."

"Jesus, okay Bruce Lee!" she carefully nudged the open beer bottles next to a large rock and jumped around to loosen her body up. "Never seen someone who wants to get thrown in the dirt so badly."

"Want has nothing to do with it," said Jase with a low chuckle-though his heart wasn't quite in agreement with that as he wrapped himself around Maggie in the attacker's stance once again.

Jase made Maggie practice the rear attack a few more times before they moved on to a few other scenarios. They practiced until she started to get muscle pains, some of which were from her laughing her a.s.s off at being able to toss him around. And he knew both of them needed the sweet release of something funny and physical like this after the horror of the day. Maggie seemed all too happy to lean into it, and having her relaxed, playful, acting like herself at her best, made Jase happy in a way he hadn't felt in a long time.

When they finally quit, Maggie handed him one of the open beers and drank some of her own in between ragged breaths. "I basically feel like Rambo tonight."

"I don't think you're remembering those movies correctly," said Jase.

Maggie glared at him from behind the beer bottle mid-drink. Jase just laughed at her and shook his head. He leaned over the bike and flipped off the headlight, letting the night air and the moon's light sink into the s.p.a.ce between them.

"You always acted like Rambo, anyway," said Jase as he moved towards the edge of the ridge to take in the view. He heard Maggie's footsteps following in the gravel behind. "Now you've just got some moves to go with it."

"Yeah, well, the way we act sometimes isn't the way we feel," said Maggie.

"Still, I was... surprised... to hear about your ex," said Jase. The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them.

Maggie nodded very lightly but said nothing. She stared into the distance.

Jase said, "Honestly, though. Why'd you let that happen to you?"

She took a drink and frowned. "Let what?"

"Let some guy beat you. I never thought you'd put up with that," he said.

A bit of anger flashed through her eyes and he thought he'd lost the moment, but she just clenched her jaw and took another drink. She looked out at the night sky. "It's trickier than it seems, Jase. I mean, look at where we are. I'm learning how to shoot and take down giant men with my bare hands just to get away from a guy. Does that sound like a simple situation to you?"

Jase felt regret immediately stab at his heart. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that. I shouldn't have..." He looked down at the bottle in his hands. "People used to ask my mom the same d.a.m.n thing. Even then I knew it was a s.h.i.tty question. They didn't see how hard she fought, all the maneuvering just to keep ahead of him."

The anger fell from Maggie's face. She nodded, but was clearly struggling to look at him. "Thanks. And trust me, I've asked myself that same d.a.m.n question for a while now. I'll give you the answer if I ever figure it out."

Jase went quiet for a minute, drank a bit of his beer down. He was trying to collect some courage. "You're stronger than you think. You always have been. Even after all of this, don't go around thinking you're weak, because you're not." He went straight for the beer after he was finished, and only got the gumption to turn and look at her when he realized that she was staring at him openly.

In the low moonlight, he saw on her face an expression he didn't have a name for. She was hurt. She was grateful. She was curious. He looked at her eyes and she held his gaze for a moment. It was painful in some deep part of his heart. She said, "Thank you, Jase. Really. Thank you." She turned away, her eyes getting wet. She drank her beer.

They didn't say much else as they pa.s.sed an hour on the ridge. They wiped off the six pack and shared cigarettes between them until Maggie finally said she was ready to leave. The mood had changed-the playfulness had certainly died-- but it wasn't all bad. Jase only felt something big building as Maggie climbed behind him on the bike and wrapped around him. Her touch was softer, and somehow more encompa.s.sing. He could feel her cheek, and the edge of her helmet, lying gently against his back along with the rest of her. He almost didn't want to start up the bike, knowing it led to the inevitable end of this moment.

But he did. He just took the slowest route back to the clubhouse as possible.

Only a couple bikes were present when they arrived back at the clubhouse. Jase parked and waited for Maggie to dismount before he joined her. "We should clean that Bersa before we hit the hay." Really, the gun cleaning could wait. He just wasn't ready to say goodnight to her.

"Yeah, sure," she said. She pulled the 9mm from her waistband and handed it to him. "We should also do some shots."

Jase laughed at her absently. That feeling of something building was beginning to bubble in earnest as he unlocked the clubhouse and followed Maggie in. The place was dark and quiet; from one of the bedrooms came a TV's m.u.f.fled din. The den was empty, but the lights had been left on. As he put the 9mm on a hallway table, Jase tried to remember the last time he'd heard the clubhouse so silent.

"See, here we go!" said Maggie as she walked up to the pool table. Someone had left an open half-bottle of Jack on the table's surface. She took a swig and turned to face him.

Jase stopped in the door way and found himself struck again by the view of seeing Maggie Oliver, back in the clubhouse as if nothing had ever gone wrong. She was right there, smiling up at him, offering him a pull of whiskey. He could still feel the warmth of her arms around his chest, and he only wanted to feel it again. All those years of darkness and heartbreak collapsed in on themselves in that moment, and evaporated.

Jase couldn't take it anymore. He walked towards her with determination. He saw her expression change to one of curiosity as he approached. He wrapped one hand around the side of her face and held her there while he brought his lips to hers in a bold kiss. His other arm locked around her waist and pulled her into him tightly. He felt the small surprised intake of breath before their lips met, but almost instantly Maggie kissed him back with hunger. He heard the sharp thump of gla.s.s as she released the bottle of whiskey carelessly on the pool table so that she could tangle her hands in his hair and caress his face as she kissed him.

Explosions fired in Jase's mind and body as he kissed Maggie, the long-burning desires of a thousand night hours, the salve to all his heartbreak. She threw her arms around his neck and he responded by moving his arms beneath her and lifting her to sit on the pool table. As he leaned down over her, keeping her pressed close, he felt her hands roaming his body in ways he had only dreamed of in the past years. One grasped desperately underneath his cut, roaming around his chest and back, digging nails into his skin. The other pulled at the leather itself, trying to get him undressed. Jase couldn't whip it and his thin white shirt off fast enough. He had to pull away from the kiss to get the shirt off, and when he looked back Maggie lay on the table, her eyes devouring every inch of the body he was so grateful to have whipped into shape. She couldn't reach but her fingers grasped, begging for his body to return to her touch. Seeing how badly she wanted him made him harder than he'd ever felt in his life.

But then there was her body to consider, this sweet, short, curvy body that reminded him of history books and pictures of G.o.ddesses carved out of marble. He practically groaned as he ran his big hands up from her hips to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, mapping the feel of every curve. He kneaded her b.r.e.a.s.t.s firmly through her shirt and bra, and the moan that floated from Maggie's lips made Jase even hungrier for her. He leaned all the way over and smashed his lips onto hers. She welcomed him back with arms draped over his neck, fingers caressing his hair.

Jase didn't want to leave her mouth again. He fumbled between them to unhook her jeans and his; the latter fell to the floor with ease. Jase enjoyed the feeling of the denim on Maggie's legs slowly revealing her soft, most secret skin as he peeled her jeans off. Impatient, he let them bunch up around her ankles as they dangled from the pool table.

Maggie moaned into his mouth, her kissing a ferocious aphrodisiac. The feel of her tongue sliding over his was almost too much to bear. He climbed up on the table and lay over Maggie, pressing his hardened d.i.c.k against her panties. Her moans only grew louder and more desperate, and the hands roaming his shoulders stopped to dig their nails into his skin.

"Please..." she whispered against his lips, her voice shaking with l.u.s.t.

Jase reached down between them and put anxious fingers on her s.e.x, rubbing her c.l.i.t. She squirmed and cried out with such pleasure that Jase had to smile before he covered her mouth with his again. He could only take it a few more moments before he felt like he was going to burst himself. Fingers already soaked with her wetness, Jase simply moved her silk panties aside and pushed his full, hard length into her. Both of them seized up at the sudden and overwhelming ecstasy. Beneath him, Maggie shoved her own fist in her mouth to keep from screaming loud enough to wake whoever was still in the clubhouse.

As Jase pumped into her with forceful pa.s.sion, he leaned over her and kept her body close. He felt her nails and teeth dig into his shoulder, tiny m.u.f.fled moans coming with every thrust of his body against hers. Over the pounding of his own heart and the sound of his own baritone growling, he could hear Maggie saying his name with each desperate breath.

He wasn't going to last long and he didn't care enough to be worried about it. Every second he spent inside her was a second he would never regret. He put one hand under her a.s.s and the other under her shoulders and lifted them both up at an angle where he could kiss her easily. He held onto her beautiful a.s.s tightly as he f.u.c.ked her, his rhythm quickening as he came close to the edge. The way Maggie's cries had become high-pitched and breathless, the feel of her wetness tightening around him as he thrust, he knew he had found her spot. He didn't slow until he was finally coming. When it happened, he pulled Maggie tight against him, pressing their foreheads together so he could watch the o.r.g.a.s.m ripple across her gorgeous, sweat-sheened face.

Slowly, they both began to descend from s.e.xual bliss. The den echoed with the sounds of their heavy breathing, the escaping trail of leftover moans falling from Maggie's lips. Jase looked at her face, pressed against his, eyes still closed. He hadn't seen her face look so calm and peaceful in years.

He lifted up a hand and put it to her face, rubbing his thumb softly across her cheek as he moved in to kiss her. Maggie opened her eyes and returned the kiss for only a split-second before she pulled away.

Words failed him as he looked at her apprehensive expression with confused eyes. Maggie started to say something, but whatever it was got stuck behind her teeth. Jase felt her hands on his chest, pushing him back from the table. He felt his half-hard manhood leave her warmth as he watched her jump off the table, immediately pulling her jeans back up. There wasn't a part of Jase coherent enough in that moment to consider his own naked vulnerability. He stared at her, waiting for an explanation.

Maggie could barely look at him as she fastened up her jeans and adjusted her shirt. "This can't..." She said nothing else before she hurriedly left the den and headed down towards the bedrooms. Jase heard a door open and shut in the dark hallway, and then he felt his heart screaming as if someone had dropped it down a mine shaft.

~ Eleven ~

Maggie couldn't sleep. She finished off one of the joints Tommy had given her, and which Jase had rescued from the debris of the gun-riddled bedroom. She took a long, hot shower. She tried to dive into a twenty-year-old John Grisham novel that someone had left in the bedside drawer. None of it seemed to make her anything but more anxious.

She would have tried booze, but every time she peeked out the bedroom door to see if Jase had finally gone to his own room, she could see the lights still blazing in the den, and the tiny view of the back of his cut, hunched over the bar. She didn't have the guts to face him.

Maggie spent several of the night's hours crying, overwhelmed. Feeling Jase's body again, his want and ache for her, his warm kiss on her lips... she had spent so long evicting such thoughts from even her most intimate daydreams. They always felt like false hope, like she was setting herself up to be knocked down into unimaginable pain. She hadn't let herself dream about Jase. But now... h.e.l.l, ever since she had seen him that first day in the den... he was all she could think about.

Their coupling played over and over in her mind like a movie without her consent or control. Every time she lay down and tried to and sleep, she could feel Jase's touch on her skin; his hips bucking against hers; the sweet, aching pressure of him buried inside of her. She could smell his scent in her hair. She could hear herself begging him in a whispered word.

But along with the ecstasy of this came shame, riding in like the inevitable tsunami after an earthquake. All she had ever done-all she was doing-was turn Jase's life upside-down as soon as she got back into town. She could see in his eyes, and hear in his voice, all the work he had done since she left to pull himself back together. He was twice the man he had been when she loved him before. In just a few days, he had already done more to help her take care of herself than any other man had. He wasn't like Evan, who fed on her weakness; Jase wanted her strong. And she realized this only made her own love return all the stronger.

It was a love she had no right to claim, not anymore. After everything she had done, how could she even think about asking Jase to forgive her?

She missed him. She missed every inch of him. She had hoped the pa.s.sing of time would flood out the fire of young love which had burned in both their hearts, but that flood had never come. Instead it waited for her, this whirlwind of a woman, to return and reignite it with a fury.

Already Maggie missed Julie, too. If ever she needed a lady friend to help her make sense of her feelings, it was here and now. Having her around had lifted Maggie's spirits, and she was horrified that it had ended with Julie running for safety back to Eagleton.

The stark memories from earlier in the evening returned. As she had said her goodbyes to Julie before she left, she had wrapped her in a hug and cried in Julie's hair, despite her best efforts. "I am so sorry, Julie. I'm so sorry you had to be a part of this. I promise I will fix it."

Julie nodded, trying to be brave, but the drive-by was unlike anything she had ever experienced in her relatively normal life. Maggie could see the change in her eyes. Still, she wrapped her thin hands on Maggie's face and made their eyes meet. "I'll be fine. You-you take care of yourself, Maggie. Please don't make our next visit be at a funeral home." She flicked eyes to something behind Maggie. "And don't make the same mistake with Jase twice."

Maggie shook her head, in tears. She couldn't find any words to respond. She had fallen into a tight hug with Julie which lasted several minutes.

Maggie had given indiscriminate threats to Julie's two escorts, Bones and Martin, that she would murder them herself if Julie didn't get home safely, and both men had saluted her. The sight of the taillights fading down the driveway was still burned into Maggie's mind.

Maggie itched to call and check on them, but it was too soon for Julie to have gotten all the way back to Eagleton yet, and she didn't want to be a distraction. Instead, she pulled the big box of stuff Julie had brought her and began to inspect it. When she moved to Eagleton, Maggie had adopted a bit of a Spartan att.i.tude towards her belongings in some kind of overcompensation to her new adventure. She wanted to be lean and mean and ready for anything, and so she didn't buy more than she needed. After the first year and a half, and a bit of comfort, Maggie changed her tune on that and her apartment started to look like a real domestic s.p.a.ce-the kind she had daydreamed about when she was a little girl with no mother to influence the household. No more yellowed posters of Johnny Cash on the dining room wall; there was a cupboard full of actual matching plates and cups; and a more thoughtful and varied decor than a few dusty models of motorcycles and armored tanks. Maggie had loved her little s.p.a.ce. For the first time in a long time, she enjoyed coming home. She looked forward to it.

Of course, that peace had been shattered by her downward spiral with Evan. Any of her bigger, pricier possessions were heartlessly p.a.w.ned while she was at work. Piles of laundry and dirty dishes became common features of the kitchen. Beer, blood, and heroin stained the carpets. Evan broke a great deal of her smaller treasures as punishments, or in one of his untargeted fits of rage. By the time her escape approached, Maggie didn't actually have much left that hadn't been sold, broken, or defiled in some way. It made her feel sick and violated when she thought about just how much she had lost. Suddenly everything in the box Julie had brought felt worth its weight in gold.

Inside Maggie found a few pieces of clothing that hadn't gotten ruined or sold, including an ugly flowered scarf that Maggie remembered Julie pressuring her to buy one Sat.u.r.day out. Maggie laughed at the irony that it had survived, and lovingly wrapped it around the lampshade by her bed. There were a few scattered book t.i.tles, and a small black photo alb.u.m from her first years in Eagleton. Some random paperwork covered the bottom of the box, and squished in the corner, a stuffed penguin Maggie used to keep on a shelf in her bedroom.

Digging deeper, she found two small black squares hiding in the shadows. One was a plain black cell phone she only sort of recognized. The battery had died long ago, so she couldn't investigate the texts or contacts. But Maggie felt the hairs stand on the back of her neck as she realized this phone had probably belonged to Evan, or one of his friends. It looked like the burners they frequently used.

Even though the point of the burner was to be untraceable, Maggie figured it was worth handing over to the investigation efforts. She put the phone on her bedside table, reminding herself to take it to Henry in the morning.

The other black square felt soft under her fingertips: a velvet jewelry box. She opened it up and gasped to find her mother's rosary safely tucked within. Carved from rosewood and interspersed with actual tiny clay rose blooms, it had been a gift from Henry to Sara during their honeymoon in Rome. Henry almost buried his wife with the beads, but at the last moment had decided against it. He gave it to Maggie on her 8th birthday, telling her how her mother had carried it with her everywhere after that trip. It was the first time Maggie could remember seeing tears in her father's eyes, even if only just for a moment.

As a kid, Maggie had been torn between wanting to carry the rosary everywhere as Sara had, or wanting to protect it, locked up in her room. The latter urge had won; she simply peeked in on the beads in the jewelry box every so often when she was alone in her room. And apparently, it had survived Evan, too. Maggie felt tears in her own eyes as she lifted it out and enjoyed the smooth feel of the rosewood beads on her fingertips. She didn't know any of the prayers, had never been to church, but it comforted her just the same. She replaced all the other items to the box and lay in bed, rubbing the rosary beads by lamplight, until she finally dozed off.

Maggie slept fitfully. The sounds of the MC gathering for their morning briefing in the den began in earnest around 8am, and she knew that was the end of her sleep for the time being. As she took another shower to wake herself up, she tried to steel herself to face Jase after last night. Her stomach clenched at the thought. She had no idea where to even begin with him.

She waited until she knew at least several of the men were out there to act as a buffer zone, so she wouldn't find herself alone with Jase. She knew that time would come soon enough. Then Maggie got dressed and stuffed her phone in one pocket, and her mother's rosary into the other. She frowned for a minute at the other strange phone on the nightstand, then remembered it from the box, and decided she would bring it to Henry now.

A couple of rookies were serving coffee to the gathered men in the den. More than a few were pouring their own "creamer" from flasks secreted into inner jacket pockets. Forgetting that most of them hadn't seen her since the drive-by, Maggie froze in the doorway when they gave her more cheerful greetings and pats on the back than usual, asking if they could get her anything. Their attention destroyed any attempts at flying under the radar.

She tried not to look around for Jase, but found him anyway, standing next to the jukebox talking to Will. He was already looking at her with a stony expression that she couldn't read. Everything about him was aching sadness. She couldn't look at him long; now wasn't the time to deal with it.

Maggie pushed through the group until she stood next to her father. When he saw her, he put down his coffee cup and gave her a strong hug. It surprised her. "How are you feeling?" He asked. "Get enough sleep?"

Like an idiot with no instincts, Maggie's eyes immediately flicked over to look at Jase. He was listening to Will, quite obviously trying to keep his eyes off her, too. The tension between them, even in a room full of people, was suffocating. "I slept some."

"Good. We'll get you set up in a new house when this is all finished, a better one," said Henry.

"Any word from Julie?" asked Maggie.

Henry nodded. "Bones and Martin didn't run into any trouble, and they decided to tail her all the way to Eagleton. They got her home to her fiance without a problem. They're on the way back. She's safe."

Maggie took a deep breath and let that worry slip off the very full plate in her mind. "Thank you, Henry. Can we talk in private for a minute?"

Henry put out an arm to lead Maggie through the group and upstairs to the conference room. Maggie could feel eyes on her as she walked up the stairs, but she didn't dare look down.

Doors closed, Maggie handed Henry the black burner phone. "I found this in that box of things Julie brought down. I don't know exactly who it belongs to, but it has to be one of them. They must have left it in my apartment." He took it from her and she shrugged. "Might be useless, but..."

"Better safe than sorry," said Henry as he gave it a short inspection. He put it into his cut pocket. "I'll get someone on it."

There was a small, awkward silence.

Maggie swallowed against a tight throat. She said, "I'm sorry about all this, Henry. I never meant for any of this to happen. I just tried to do the best I could."

Henry coughed and looked away. He became suddenly interested in the conference table, sweeping a hand over its glossy surface. Maggie scratched her neck in discomfort. "I feel... I feel like I'm cursed," she said. "Like I destroy anyone who gets too close to me." The laugh that came from her throat was harsh and bitter. "Julie couldn't even bring down a box of stuff without getting in a gunfight, for Christ's sake."

Henry perked up when she said the word 'cursed', and in a dark way. Something flashed in his eyes she had never seen before. "You're not cursed, Maggie. Don't you ever say that."

"Then what am I?" said Maggie. Part of her truly wanted an answer. "If I had stayed here, and stayed on the path I was... the path with Jase.... I would have hurt you. You didn't want me in this world. So I left, which apparently hurt everyone, anyway. I f.u.c.k up my life in Eagleton and leave, and I come back here with a whole new round of pain for everyone. I drag Julie down here into it with me. I just...." Overwhelmed, she stopped and shook her head. "I don't know where I belong, Henry. I set everything around me on fire." She realized she had a hand in her pocket, palming her mother's rosary for comfort.

Henry let out a big sigh. "You sound like your mother."

Maggie scoffed. Henry didn't talk about Sara much, and Maggie had grown bitter about his selfishness with the memories. "Do I? Is this a family curse, then?"