She’d even had a few letters from him over the years. Each one was carefully treasured, tucked in a box under the bed. Now that she was twenty-eight and had yet to find another man who interested her, she supposed those were the only tastes of romance she would ever have.
Until Cage had kissed her tonight. Why had he done that? Had it been some kind of dare from the motorcycle club? They’d harassed her enough as it was. But she was never selling the bar. No matter how many times that gross officer named Harvey came to talk to her about it.#p#分页标题#e#
She had things to protect. She needed money to do it. But Cage wouldn’t know that. He didn’t know anything about her because he’d been gone.
She supposed in her wildest fantasies, she’d imagined him coming back, looking just like he had tonight. Tall, with those striking, dark-blue eyes, muscles, and a few lines on his face from the years apart.
He still smelled like a pine forest on a cold night. His chest was broader. All of these things she’d noticed during one short, searing kiss.
Would she be seeing him around town now? Having to face him, wearing the uniform of the men they’d both hated, was too much to ask.
For once, she considered just moving and selling the bar, as the Aces wanted her to.
But she couldn’t. She’d never been one to run away in her life, and she wouldn’t now.
She had roots in this town. Willow needed her. As the only mother Carrie had ever known, she could never let Willow down. Even if she had often told Carrie she should move on. Go on and make something of herself.
Well, Carrie had in a way. She’d completed an online course in business, gotten a loan from the bank, and bought the bar from the owner, who had also hated the Aces and was being coerced to sell to them for a fraction of the value.
Carrie had still gotten it for way less than it was worth, but it was more than the club had offered, and the owner had just been glad to get the cash and skip town.
And now Carrie was squarely in the Ace’s sights. But she wouldn’t cower before them.
Even if Cage was on their side now.
She felt her whole body tense at the thought of it and looked up to see him watching her with those hot midnight eyes.
She glanced at the clock and counted the hours until she could escape this place. Go home and process what had happened and maybe wait for Cage to come over and explain himself.
He owed her at least that.
* * *
Cage saw Carrie wince as she looked over at him. He tightened one gloved hand into a fist under the table, frustration lancing through him.
He’d claimed her and tried to communicate against her lips that he would protect her. Just as he had when they were younger. Before he’d had to leave.
Her lips had been just as soft, the feeling of her breath against his just as surprising.
He exhaled and brought his frosty mug to his lips, downing it and keeping his eyes on the men around him, pretending to be interested, while in all actuality, his attention was completely focused on the petite, curvy woman on the other side of the bar.
She’d grown even more beautiful than he’d imagined.
And she’d stayed in the little town that had caused them so much trouble.
He could tell she was trying not to look over at him as she busied herself behind the bar, making orders for all the rowdy bikers at his table.
The Aces had taken to coming here several times a week as a means of trying to convince her to sell the place. He’d learned that much in the short time he’d been with them.
He’d also learned that more than one of them had been hoping to pick her up as their “old lady,” their woman, their property. And since she was going to be Cage’s mate, he just couldn’t allow that.
It’d been easy coming back to the MC culture. As someone who’d grown up in it as a kid, they’d accepted him easily as one of their own. His father had been one of their leaders after all.
But Cage wasn’t anything like the boy he’d been. A tour in the Army Special Forces and being a partner in a private security firm after had ensured that.
She brushed dark-blond, wavy hair back behind her ears and kept her soft-blue eyes down—as if she couldn’t even stand to look at him at all, when he couldn’t stop looking at her.#p#分页标题#e#
But it didn’t matter. He’d protected her, for now.
“That your old lady?” one of the men next to him asked.
Cage shrugged as if it didn’t matter. “Thinking about it.”
“Better think about it soon,” Brick, the dark, stocky man next to him, said. He nodded to Harv, one of their officers. “I think Harv had plans, too.”
“Maybe the lady should choose,” Cage said.