“My job has a lot of danger,” he said, looking down at the floor. “I was trying to protect you from that by keeping you out of it.”
Bethany had sunk down in the chair opposite him, and now she leaned toward him. “Thank you. I’m sorry I put you in the position of telling me.”
He kept his gaze fixed on the floor as he answered. “No, it’s my fault for not telling you ahead of time that my business would keep me away at odd times. It’s not exactly…standard.”
Bethany stood and walked over toward the window. Out in the distance, headlights twinkled, spaced far apart in the lateness of the night.
An undercover cop. No wonder he looked and dressed the way he did. She’d never have expected that of him, but now it seemed so obvious.
A sudden thought struck her, and she turned. “Is the wedding planner gig part of your cover?”
He shook his head. “No. That was a story I made up on the spur of the moment. I couldn’t tell Mrs. Yelverton the truth, and she’d just told me she’d basically started a shelter because of me. I wanted her to think I was something wholesome and upright.” His fingers were laced together, knuckles almost white as they rested atop his bouncing knees. He looked at the floor as if he couldn’t believe he was actually saying these things out loud. “If that wedding magazine hadn’t been there, I might have come up with something believable.”
Bethany sank onto the couch beside him. “No, Mama Yelverton believes it. She was completely overjoyed at the sight of those invitations. Couldn’t stop talking about how artistic her son was.”
Trey shifted as if uncomfortable with the praise.
“Hey.” Bethany laid her hand on his arm, but he didn’t look at her. “I’m right here.”
He shot her a glance, but it fell quickly back to the floor. Tenderness filled her, and she combed his hair back behind his ear.
“It’s okay. I’ll keep your secret. And I’ll help with the wedding stuff. But how long are you going to keep this up?”
Trey leaned back on the couch, propping his hands atop his head. “Just until after Sarah’s wedding. I can’t ask my men—my friends—to keep pretending longer than that.”
Bethany’s eyebrows rose slightly. “Your friends… Are they cops too?”
“Cops?” Trey moved to stand, but Bethany stopped him with a hand on his arm. She wanted him to know that she was there with him, that she wasn’t blaming him for hiding the truth. After all, he was telling her now.
“It’s okay,” she said. “You can trust me.”
“You’ve got… I mean, we’re…” He raked a hand through his hair as if it would help him search for the right words.
“It makes sense that you’d be undercover cops,” Bethany said encouragingly. “But don’t worry. I promise I will keep your secret.”
His mouth worked for a moment, and then the fight seeped out of him. He collapsed back against the couch. His eyes slid closed, and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Okay. I… Look, I really can’t get into it. It’s really complicated, and—”
She shook her head. “I get it. You probably weren’t supposed to tell me any of that.”
He didn’t reply.
For a long moment, she just watched him. His chest rose and fell slowly, rhythmically. His tattoos highlighted the definition in his muscles, the position of his arms causing ripples and bulges that her fingertips itched to follow the contours of.
He didn’t open his eyes. It was as if the weight of the truth was weighing him down, the act of confessing not lessening his burden.
She tucked her feet up onto the couch and laid her head against his chest. Her arms snaked around him, and she sighed happily as his arm fell around her shoulder.
Closer to him than she’d ever been, at least emotionally. The fact that he’d trusted her with the truth comforted her immensely, easing the sting of the way he’d pushed her away in the upstairs bathroom of Mama Yelverton’s house.
“So when did you know you wanted to be a cop?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
Stung by his quick rebuff, she started to pull away, but he wrapped his arm around her.
“It’s just not…not easy for me. To talk about the past.”
“Right,” Bethany said softly. “You’d mentioned. The foster homes.”
“There are a lot of great foster families out there. But most of the ones that I landed in…” Trey shook his head. “There are a handful of people who are just in it for the so-called free government handout. They don’t seem to care that the money’s supposed to help them care for the kids they’ve been given.”
“That’s terrible.”
Trey nodded. “There was one I liked. It’s the first one I remember. The Kellys. They were the ones who got to name me, actually.”
“I was wondering how you got your name.”
A rueful smile escaped him. “I was the third foster kid they got. So, Trey. I’m not sure where the Harding came from. I always just guessed it was because my life had started out so difficult. Hard life for a Harding. The Kellys were great, but they moved out of state when I turned six, so I had to go to another home. The Greens. God, that one was rough. The next one wasn’t much better, but I was only there six months. But—” He blew out a breath then, as if the memories were weighing him down. “Just suffice it to say I was relieved when I aged out of the system.”
Bethany snuggled closer to him, relishing the steady thump of his heartbeat against her cheek. He’d been through so much…
“What did you do? When you got out, I mean.”
“I was young, stupid, and really angry. I did a lot of things I’m not proud of.”
“Like what?”
Trey was quiet for a long while, and Bethany began to wonder if she had pried too much. But before she could tell him she was sorry for asking too many questions, he spoke.
“Mostly fighting. Getting drunk, driving fast, searching for thrills in all the wrong places. Bouncing from town to town. When you’re a dumb teenager, you can find plenty of trouble if you’re looking. And I never stopped looking.”
She placed her hand on his forearm, gently stroking the smooth skin, the outlines of his tattoos. “Is that how you ended up in North Carolina?”
“Yeah. I did a lot of driving. Worked a few shitty jobs, got enough money for a beat-up Yamaha bike, and then drove until I ran out of fuel. I walked to the nearest gas station, got jumped. When they figured out I only had seven bucks, they got pissed off and tried to beat me to death. That’s how I met Wolf.”
“He saved you?”
“In a way.”
Trey went quiet again, and Bethany wondered how much of the story he was holding back. He was clearly putting himself on the line, sharing more than he ever had before, but there was so much she wanted to know about him. She stayed quiet, hoping the silence would be enough to draw him from his shell.
She just hoped he truly believed, deep down, that she was worthy of his truth. Of him.
* * *
Trey searched for the words, but they wouldn’t come.
He’d been trying to figure out how to tell her that he wasn’t a cop, but the moment had slid by, and right then it had been easier to let her believe the lie.
How he’d gotten onto the subject of meeting the guys and forming the Shadows, he wasn’t sure. And finding a way to tell the story so that it fit the lie he’d unwittingly told her?
That was a whole new barrel of monkeys.
He decided the Reader’s Digest version would have to do.
“Wolf ran a construction crew, and I asked for a job. He took one look at me, face still busted up from the beatdown I’d gotten, and hired me. He trusted me when I didn’t look trustworthy at all. So I was determined to prove him right.” Trey cleared his throat as his memory kicked into overdrive. Those early days seemed so far away now, eight years having flown by like mere minutes. “And when Wolf had some trouble of his own come up, I stepped in and defended him. A couple other guys eventually joined us.”
Bethany’s warm hand curled around his. “Wow. That’s such a cool story. How did you guys leave construction and join the police force?”
Trey shifted in his seat. “Mind if we talk about that later? I’m kind of beat.”
“Of course,” she said, a slight frown on her face. “I’m sorry. Want to put on a movie or something?”
He nodded. As she reached for the remote and cued up an action flick he’d seen half a dozen times, Trey let his mind wander. Back to Wolf’s run-ins with a rival biker gang, back to the time they’d met Lars and Rocco, the way the rest of them had eventually joined up.
As the sound of high-speed chases and witty quips emanated from the TV, Trey gave a wry smile. The rest had been history. His natural leadership qualities had emerged, together they’d formed the Shadows, and the family that Trey had always craved had come together like so much magic.
Yeah. His brothers. And now… He looked down at Bethany, whose breaths had become even and whose eyelids had fluttered closed. The movie wasn’t even half over. He snagged the remote from her nerveless fingers and shut it off.
“Come on, Strong Girl,” he said, scooping her into his arms as he stood. “You need to get to sleep.”
He carried her down the hall as she wrapped her arms around his neck, her cheek snuggled on his shoulder. Gently depositing her in her bed, he looked down at the spill of golden hair on her pillow, the dusky lashes on her cheeks, the way her knees were drawn up, the curve of her hip.
She was so beautiful. So innocent. So damn good.
And he was…not.
He had to walk away. The bathroom offered a quick escape. Once the door had been shut behind him, he braced his hands on the countertop and hung his head.
He’d lied to her. Again. But this time it wasn’t just a lie of omission. It wasn’t just avoiding telling her anything. It was a bald-faced untruth, meant to deceive her.
But he couldn’t tell her the truth, especially with what was about to go down. Bethany was the type of person who’d never so much as lifted a candy bar from a convenience store. What would she say if she knew that he routinely committed assault, theft, and assorted other jailable offenses? Especially since Rat had revealed that a nest of meth-dealing vipers was in their midst. They were just starting to uncover how deep this nightmare went.
Trey shook his head.
No. As bad as he felt about it, he’d done the right thing. Bethany needed to be kept as far from the Iron Shadows’ business as possible. Their business was dangerous. The guys would understand the need to keep her away.
That didn’t stop him from feeling like an asshole about it though.
He took off his watch, set it aside, and splashed some cold water on his face, hoping the chilly feeling would shock the cobwebs from his brain. He took his time about it. Once he was done, he left the bathroom. The soft sound of even breathing, with a little snore, made him smile. He made his way back to the bedroom.
Bethany had rolled onto her stomach and was holding the pillow in a near death grip of a hug. A strangely tender feeling spread through his chest. He reached to the bottom of the bed and pulled a blanket over her.
“Sleep well, my Beth,” he said, turning out the light. He turned and left the bedroom, shutting the door with a soft click behind him.
He moved through her apartment, shutting lights off and checking windows to make sure they were locked. Yeah, she was on the second floor, but his woman needed to be safe. At the front door, he paused and looked back.
What he wouldn’t give to stay here and snuggle into the bed next to her. What would it be like if his lie was the truth? If he could give himself completely to a woman like Bethany, to someone who would be there for him always?
He shook his head sadly and shut the door behind him, testing the lock.
That wasn’t his lot. His die had been cast a long time ago, when his kidnapper had dumped him in that bathroom. He wasn’t the kind of guy who could have that kind of life.
The need for survival had chewed him up and spat him out. The fact that Bethany was with him now was a delicious aberration.
It made him a bad guy, but he couldn’t give up that now with her. It was the best thing that had ever happened to him, and he was greedy enough to make it last as long as it could.
Even if that meant lying to her to protect her from his reality. Even then. He’d be damned for his lies eventually, and hell was without her.
But the stolen taste of heaven with Bethany was worth it.
He mounted his bike and rode into the night, headed straight back to the airstrip.
He wasn’t done with Rat yet.