TARA DROVE OFF the ferry in Harborside late Sunday afternoon and headed to the other side of town with her heart in her throat to meet Levi and Joey. She’d never been so nervous. It didn’t help that she’d barely slept since the dance or that Bellamy had dragged her out last night. Tara had hoped it might take the edge off and give her something to focus on besides the fact that Levi had opened a door she wanted to sprint through and wasn’t sure how. But she hadn’t been able to hold in her thoughts, and she’d confided in Bellamy about what Levi had said. They’d talked almost all night. Last night it had seemed like everything she wanted was within her grasp, and all she had to do was reach out and take it. But while Bellamy’s excitement and support had bolstered her confidence when they were together, now that she was alone and here to stay with Levi and Joey for two weeks, she felt like she was holding herself together with Scotch tape.
She had no idea what to say to Levi, or what to expect when she saw him. Should she bring it up? Just throw it out there, like, Hey, you know that thing you said Friday night? I’m here for it! Or should she wait until he brought it up? What if he didn’t bring it up? What if he regretted saying it? What if that was why he’d called last night?
Her stomach knotted, and she felt a little woozy.
She gripped the steering wheel tighter, her hands sweating despite the cool temperature as she drove through the quirky beach town, remembering the first time she’d come to see Levi and Joey there a few weeks after they’d moved. She’d gone with Jules, Sutton, and Leni and had instantly fallen in love with the laid-back vibe of the small surfing town, so different from touristy Silver Island. She hadn’t been able to picture Levi living so far away from his family after relying on them for the first year of Joey’s life, but later that afternoon they’d met Jesse and Brent for lunch, and his cousins had been with a number of other Dark Knights. Tara had been wary at first of the rough-looking men wearing black leather vests with scary skull patches on the backs. She’d never been exposed to bikers before, and some of them looked like they could crush a man’s skull with one hand. When Levi had said he’d begun prospecting the club to become a member, she’d worried for his and Joey’s safety. But the guys had treated Levi like he was already one of them, like a brother, and they’d fawned over Joey with so much love and tenderness, it had endeared them toward her. They’d wrapped Levi’s sisters and Tara in warm embraces as if they’d known them their whole lives and had said things like, You ever have trouble, you call us and we’ll take care of whoever’s bothering you.
She’d wondered what kind of place they thought Silver Island was and exactly what take care of had meant. Leni, being the aggressive, afraid-of-nothing young woman she’d always been, had asked just that, and Jesse, Brent, and two of the most intimidating guys Tara had ever seen—Ozzy, a massive man with a thick beard and coal-black eyes who looked like he ate small children for breakfast, and Forge, another mountain of a man, who was half Samoan and half Italian with pitch-black hair and a mile-wide chest—had sat them down and patiently explained what the Dark Knights stood for. Love, loyalty, and respect for all. They’d explained the differences between a motorcycle club like the Dark Knights and biker gangs. Tara had been relieved to learn that their club did good things for the community, like spearheading literacy and anti-bullying campaigns.
It hadn’t taken long for Tara to understand how Levi had made his life work without his family around or to realize she’d broken her own rule and had wrongfully judged the men who had already become Levi’s brotherhood and family by their appearances alone.
She’d been careful not to make that mistake again.
Tara pulled into the parking lot by the long pier that jutted out into the ocean, at the end of which was the Taproom. Motorcycles lined the edge of the lot. It was easy to spot Levi’s shiny black Harley. It had several of the colorful braided necklaces and bracelets Joey had made for him over the years wound around the handlebar. Tara had been helping Joey make gifts for Levi since Joey was a toddler, and he’d kept almost every one of them, which just added to the long list of reasons she was crazy about him.
She parked and wiped her sweaty hands on her jeans as she gazed up at the weather-beaten wooden building at the end of the pier. A light shined down on the large driftwood TAPROOM sign on the side of the building. Even from that distance she could see people milling about by the outdoor seating, many wearing black leather vests. She didn’t need to see the Dark Knights patches on the backs to recognize them.
Stepping from her car, she inhaled the crisp sea air in a futile attempt to calm her nerves. She pocketed her phone and grabbed her small purse, putting the strap across her body, hanging her camera around her neck. The camera was her safety net. A ready excuse to extricate herself from conversations. She wished she was more like Leni, able to face anything that came her way without so much as a hesitation, but everything she wanted was up on that deck, and there were so many things that could go wrong, she was afraid to face the music.
But she had no choice, and she forced herself to move.
A few minutes later she was on the pier, following the din of deep voices, laughter, and guitar music as she walked past the entrance to the Taproom, toward the crowd. She scanned the deck for Levi, catching sight of Brandon Owens playing the guitar. Brandon wasn’t a Dark Knight. He was a graphic designer and musician, and he was sitting a few feet away from where Levi stood talking with Joker, another Dark Knight. Joker was a shameless flirt who looked like Charlie Hunnam and worked for Levi’s company.
“Aunt Tara!” Joey burst through the crowd, running toward her in her black leather jacket, pink leggings, and black boots.
Levi looked over, their gazes colliding for one heart-stopping moment before Joey launched herself into Tara’s arms. Tara hoisted her onto her hip, hugging her. She smelled like strawberry shampoo and French fries.
Tara marveled at how one little girl could help soothe hours of anxiety. “Are you having fun?”
“Yes. Guess what!” Joey exclaimed.
“Hm. Let’s see. You and Caleb are getting married?” she teased. Caleb was the nine-year-old son of Cannon and Debra Wheaton. Cannon was a Dark Knight.
Joey giggled. “No, silly. Daddy said we could watch a movie on the wall tonight.” Levi had a projector he hooked up to his laptop to show movies on the living room wall, and Joey loved making forts and watching from within them.
“Did he?” She saw Levi and Joker headed her way. Joker was grinning and rubbing his hands together like he was up to something. Levi’s jaw was tight, his eyes too serious. Tara swallowed hard, worried he’d changed his mind.
“Uh-huh. Can I sleep in your room tonight?” Joey pleaded.
“Sure. We’ll have a slumber party after the movie.”
“We’re gonna have so much fun!” Joey wriggled out of Tara’s arms and ran to Levi.
“There’s my favorite blond bombshell,” Joker said as he swept his arm around Tara and kissed her cheek.
“Hi, Joker. Your stubble tickles.”
“It’ll feel even better on your thighs.”
“You’re too much.” She laughed him off, but Levi looked like he was chewing on glass.
Levi lifted his chin. “How’s it going?”
Apparently not very well, since you usually hug me, and your hands are fisted. “Good.”
Joker put his arm around her shoulder. “Her week is about to get a whole lot better. How about you let me take you out one night?”
He flashed a panty-melting smile that probably earned him all sorts of sexual favors, but Tara’s panties didn’t melt for anyone but the suddenly brooding biker who had one hand on his daughter’s shoulder. She thought Levi would shut Joker down like he usually did when he hit on her, but he didn’t, and the realization hit her like a bullet train. You changed your mind. Gutted but acutely aware of Joey watching her, she refused to fall apart.
“Thanks, Joker, but I think I’m going to be pretty busy with Joey,” she finally said.
“Not twenty-four-seven. Levi might have to be in bed before he turns into a pumpkin, but he’ll let you out to play with me.” Joker looked at Levi. “Right, old man?”
“You heard the woman,” Levi said sternly. “She’s gonna be busy.”
She glanced appreciatively at Levi, and he gave a single curt nod, twisting the knots in her stomach tighter.
“A’right.” Joker raised his brows at Tara. “Babe, if you change your mind, I’m your guy.”
Ozzy walked up to them, towering over Tara as he dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “Hey, sweetheart. Good to see you. Let me get the riffraff out of your hair.” He grabbed Joker by the back of the neck, dragging him away.
“Is that my girl Tara?” Brent said as he and Jesse came out the back door of the restaurant.
“Yes!” Joey yelled, running to Brent.
Jesse waved, then stopped to talk with someone. Although he and Brent were twins and shared similar collar-length dark hair and athletic physiques, they were as different as Levi and Leni. Jesse’s face was harder, his disposition more serious than jovial Brent, and even in the dead of summer, Jesse wore jeans, his leather vest, and boots, while Brent wore board shorts and flip-flops and more often than not was shirtless. Although since they’d just returned from a ride with the club, like Jesse and the rest of the guys, Brent sported jeans, a T-shirt, boots, and his leather vest.
Brent scooped Joey up in one arm, giving Tara a hug with the other. “I hear I’ll be seeing a lot of you at skateboard practice with my little skater queen.”
“She’ll be at them for two whole weeks,” Joey exclaimed as he set her on her feet.
“That’s right, and I can’t wait to see her new tricks,” she said as Jesse hugged her. She saw Levi talking with Forge and a few of the other guys. Tara wanted to go talk to him, but Brent was filling her in on skateboard practices, and Joey was tugging them both toward a table with her friends and some of the other members and their significant others, who were getting up to greet Tara.
Tara sucked up her heartache and put her best face forward, spending the next few hours chatting with Joey and catching up with Tonya, Forge’s beautiful dark-skinned, hazel-eyed girlfriend of two years, and Leilani, his four-year-old daughter, as well as the rest of Levi’s friends. She caught a few cursory glances from Levi and the snarls he directed at the guys when they flirted with her, but she was used to that. What she wasn’t used to was every time their eyes connected, either his jaw clenched or his lips twitched, like he wanted to smile but he was holding back. By the time they were ready to sit down to eat dinner, Tara’s nerves were on fire.
Joey sat next to Levi, and he patted the chair on his other side for Tara to join them. She thought they’d finally have a second to talk, or at least to acknowledge what he’d said after the dance, but other than making a few minutes of the type of small talk a person made with someone they’d just met, asking about her ferry ride and commenting on the beautiful day, he went over his and Joey’s schedule for the week, and then remained close-lipped. Joey having a sleepover at her friend’s house Wednesday night was important, but it was not what she wanted to talk about.
His shoulder brushed against hers, and sparks skated down her arm. She looked over and smiled, but the muscles in his jaw bunched, making the fissure between them even more painful.
She wasn’t a needy person, but she felt awkwardly disconnected from him, and she hated it. She missed his smile and their easy friendship and wondered what it was about her that had turned him off before they’d even had a chance to talk.
How was she going to survive two weeks of this?
LEVI COULD COUNT on one hand the number of times in his life he’d wanted to strangle someone. He wasn’t a violent guy, but by the time they left the Taproom, he wanted to kick the asses of most of the guys he trusted to always have his back. If he’d had to watch one more of them flirt with Tara, he didn’t know what he would have done, but it wouldn’t have been good, and that was totally messed up since he’d decided to back off from Tara. She was better off with a guy who wasn’t tied down and could go out on the town and have a good time whenever she wanted to.
He carried Tara’s bags, following her and Joey into the first-floor guest bedroom. Joey was rattling on about making a fort so she could lie in it to watch the movie, and sweet, beautiful Tara, who had managed to burrow beneath his skin without even trying, was talking with his little girl with a strained expression that was no doubt caused by his assholish behavior. As if he could help it. He’d never felt like this about a woman before, and he didn’t know how to turn those feelings off. Even now the thought of Joker’s hands on her made him want to rip Joker’s head off, and he liked and trusted the guy.
“Thanks,” Tara said softly as he set her bags down.
Her eyes flicked up to his, the light in them dimmer, hesitant. He hated that he’d done that to her. He wanted to pull her into his arms and kiss her until her legs gave out, obliterating her memory of tonight, and he didn’t trust himself not to do just that, so he ground his back teeth together and headed out of the bedroom. “I’ll get the projector ready.”
“I’ll get my pj’s on,” Joey said.
“Wait one sec. I picked up something for you.” Tara opened a suitcase and withdrew a gift-wrapped box.
“Thank you! What’s this for?” she asked as she tore it open.
“Do I have to have a reason to buy my favorite niece a present?”
Joey gasped and held up a pair of pink flannel pajama shorts and a long-sleeved black cotton top with a sleeping unicorn on it, above which SLEEP SQUAD was written in pink. “Daddy, look!”
His chest constricted. “That’s really special, sweets.” Like the woman who gave it to you. Tara was looking at Joey, at her suitcase, the bed, the floor, anywhere but at him, while he couldn’t take his eyes off her. How could he have messed things up so badly that she couldn’t even look at him? Thank God her discomfort didn’t carry over to her relationship with Joey. Yet, stomped through his mind, bringing a sinking feeling to his gut.
“Thank you.” Joey threw her arms around her. “I wish you had one, too.”
“Oh,” Tara said sadly. “If only I knew you liked to match.”
“You do know,” Joey insisted. “We have matching sweatshirts and Valentine’s Day socks and Dark Knights T-shirts.”
“You’re right.” Tara’s brows knitted. “Maybe…” She dug through her suitcase and whipped out a matching outfit.
“I knew it.” Joey hugged her again.
“That was really nice of you, T.”
She finally looked at him, that strained expression returning as she reached into her suitcase again. “The pajama fairy might have brought you something, too.”
She tossed something at him, and he caught it with one hand, self-loathing eating away at him. “You didn’t have to get me anything.”
She shrugged, but she didn’t look away, and in those few seconds before Joey exclaimed, “What is it, Daddy?” discomfort wafted off Tara like the wind. She looked away, but he kept looking at her, a dozen apologies flying through his mind, followed by just as many reasons he needed to keep his distance.
“Dad,” Joey urged.
He tore his gaze away and held up the incredibly soft black T-shirt that had a badass-looking muscular unicorn on the front. It was standing on its hind legs, wearing a leather vest and black boots, and its front legs were crossed over its broad chest. Its horn was gold and black, the colors of the Dark Knights. SLEEP SQUAD BODYGUARD was written above it in bold gold letters. He planted his feet more firmly on the floor, fighting against the magnetic pull drawing him toward Tara. “I love it, T. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” she said without looking up as she picked through her suitcase.
“You’re our bodyguard,” Joey said excitedly, but it was followed by a yawn. “Let’s go put them on.” She grabbed his hand, dragging him out of the guest room and down the hall toward the stairs.
“I’ll get the projector ready while you change,” he said as they went upstairs.
“Okay,” Joey said. “I’m glad Tara’s here.”
“Me too.” That tightening sensation filled his chest again. He needed to clear the air and make things right with Tara.
While Joey changed, he retrieved the projector from the hall closet and headed downstairs. He set the projector on the coffee table and started down the hall toward the guest room, trying to figure out what to say. He had no idea where to start. I’m sorry I said what I did the other night? But he couldn’t say that, because he wasn’t sorry. He didn’t want to take it back even if he knew he should. I meant what I said, but you deserve someone who isn’t tied down? His jaw clenched. He didn’t want to cut her loose, either. But he had to.
Tara’s door was closed, and he heard her talking. Was she telling Jules or Bellamy that he’d been a prick? Or was she talking to some guy she’d met when she was out last night?
“Fuck.”
“Dad?”
He spun around, finding Joey in her new pajamas with her comforter wrapped around her and her arms full of stuffed animals. “Hey, peanut. I was just going to tell Tara that you’d be right down. But now that you’re here, let’s get the projector ready.” He put his hand on her shoulder, guiding her back toward the living room.
“Why’d you say the F word?”
Because I suck. “I just remembered something I forgot to do.”
She crawled onto the couch and began setting out her stuffed animals as he hooked up the projector. “Do you need to do it before the movie?”
He wanted to, but with little ears around, he wouldn’t have a chance. “Nah. It can wait. But I would like to shower before the movie.”
“I know.” She rested her head on the father-daughter pillow and lay down, snuggling beneath her blanket.
“How do you know?” He finished hooking up the projector and kissed her forehead on the way across the room to move the oversize chairs away from the wall so they could see the movie.
“Because you always shower after you go riding with the club,” Tara said as she walked into the living room wearing the pink flannel sleeping shorts that showed off her long, sexy legs, and the unicorn shirt that clung to her small, perfect breasts.
Levi forced himself not to stare and moved the chairs as she crouched beside Joey and said, “Do you want to make a fort in our nook?”
Our nook. She and Joey had names for all of the hidden spaces in their house. Our nook, our reading hideout, our leave-me-alone spot…For the first time ever, Levi wished their use of our included him. What the hell was that about? He didn’t need hideouts or special spots, but he was beginning to think he needed Tara.
“Yeah,” Joey said sleepily. “But can I lie here and watch you make it?”
“Sure, cutie.” Tara went to the wall behind the couch and slid open the hanging wooden barn doors Levi had stained dark to stand out from the buttercream living room walls, revealing their queen-size nook.
He had built a platform for a queen-sized mattress, with pullout steps for Joey to climb up, and built-in drawers for her toys. When she was younger, those drawers were full of diapers, extra clothes, and anything else a little one might need while they were downstairs. The platform was buttercream to match the living room, and the walls of the nook were dark blue. When Joey was little, she liked to nap in the nook. Back then he’d had railings to keep her in. The first time Tara had seen the nook, she’d cut out cardboard stars, covered them with tinfoil, and asked if she could hang them from the ceiling. He’d been afraid thumbtacks might come loose, so he’d fastened iron rods close to the ceiling, and they’d tied silver ribbons through tiny holes in the stars and hung them from the rods.
Those sparkling stars were still there, along with pictures of gorgeous sunsets over the water that Tara had taken from his back patio, pictures of Levi reading to Joey, and various other photos that Joey and Tara had added over the years of the two of them doing what Joey called sleepy-time things. Levi had taken pictures of her and Tara lying on the grass out back beneath the real stars while Tara told Joey stories and one of them cuddled on the couch watching a movie, and a favorite, which he’d taken last year when Tara was there during winter break: Joey had come down with a stomach virus, and Tara had refused to keep her distance from his little girl and had caught the virus. The two of them were sleeping in the nook, foreheads touching, Tara’s arm wrapped protectively around Joey. He’d never known why it was his favorite until this very second. It took a lot of love to willingly step into the ring with a cranky, puking child, and Tara had done it more than once without concern for her own health.
His heart squeezed as he watched her setting up the fort, those feelings he’d been trying to tamp down clawing their way to the surface. He had to get the hell out of there. “I’m going up to shower.”
“Okay,” Tara said without turning around.
This officially sucked.