It’s adorable to see how excited the girls are to see each other. Even though Zoey and Mia have only known each other for a few days, they are hugging, squealing, and they start taking everything out of Zoey’s backpack just inside the front door. I stop right in the doorway and am looking down at enough colored pencils and crayons to fill an entire preschool when Bridget greets me.

  She reaches out her hand. “This house was full of trip hazards before. Now…”

  I take her hand and step over the backpack. “Whoa,” I say.

  She’s looking at me as I release her hand. “Good morning. Crow.” She says my nickname like she’s trying it on.

  “Good morning, Birdie.” I don’t mean for that to come out the way it does. It’s optimistic. Flirtatious, maybe. I’m so out of practice, I don’t even know what my intention here is. Bridget smiles, but Alice’s grin is even bigger. They start talking about logistics for the girls, and I hear Mia begging her mom to let Zoey have a sleepover.

  Morris clears his throat loudly. “Ladies, I got a hot date waiting for me.”

  Alice rolls her eyes. “He’s going for a ride with Tiny today, but not until I drop him back at the compound.” She looks at Zoey. “I’ll pick you up around three, okay? Listen to Bridget, and remember to mind your manners.”

  I’m glad to hear Alice is planning to come back later to get Zoey. As much as the kids want to hang out, I don’t know if a sleepover is the best thing for Bridget right now. She’s not even a week out from her fall, and with all the noise I’m going to be making today, she’s going to need quiet tonight to rest.

  While Morris and Alice say their goodbyes to Zoey, I make a quick list of the supplies I’ll need from the hardware store. I won’t need much, but I don’t want to use scrap lumber to fix the stairs. I let Bridget know I’m heading out too and will be back with supplies in just a bit.

  She hands me two twenty-dollar bills. “Will this cover the supplies?” she asks. Her gray eyes are stormy, the welcoming, almost flirtatious Bridget of a few minutes ago gone.

  I wave off her money.

  “I got this, Birdie. And don’t argue.”

  She shakes her head, a reluctant smile on her pretty face. “Well, thank you. I appreciate that.”

  I follow Morris out, wish him and Alice goodbye, then run to the hardware store to get what I’ll need for the day, plus a fresh pair of earplugs for Bridget. When I get back, the kids are at the kitchen table having a snack. Bridget’s sipping something from a mug.

  “Coffee?” I ask, setting the lumber I need on a drop cloth.

  She shoos the girls upstairs to play. “Yeah, want some?” she asks.

  “I was thinking about your head. You’re all good with the caffeine now?”

  She pours me a cup and nods. “I am, but I’m taking it easy. Just a half cup, plenty of milk.” She pours me a cup. “Do you only have a motorcycle?” she asks.

  “Only a motorcycle?” I echo, not sure what she’s getting at.

  “You always get rides from your friends. I wasn’t sure if you own a car or if it’s because you bring tools and stuff here that you can’t carry on a motorcycle.”

  “Yeah. Only my bike for now.” I look into her rain-cloud eyes and search for what she’s really after. Is she interested in me or just making conversation with the man who’s going to be in her house all day? If you can still call me a stranger after I’ve watched her kid, driven her around.

  The room lights up when she’s in it, and I feel myself both speed up and slow down when she’s around. My heart, my body—everything seems to fall into place around her, and yet… It shouldn’t. Back in the day, I would have bought her a drink, taken her to bed, and put any feelings in my rearview, but now… Now, I don’t even know how to talk to this woman because I’m damned sure, no matter what I feel, no matter what seems real, there are some walls that are too high to climb.

  She sips her coffee, and the smile she gives me makes me want to open up. Makes me want to share myself with her—what I’ve been through. What I’m feeling. But I know too well that telling her anything—forget about telling her everything—might get me kicked out of this house.

  “I’ve been through a rough patch. My friends have rallied around me, though.” Shame and uncertainty make me duck my head as I grunt, “I’m going to get started.” I drop the earplugs on the kitchen table. “I’ll do my best to keep the noise down.”

  She looks surprised, like she was expecting to talk more, but she nods and takes the earplugs. I start prepping the tools for the job, and she walks up to me, the earplugs in one hand and her coffee mug in the other.

  “Mind if I go upstairs?”

  I move aside to let her pass. When she reaches halfway up the stairs, she stops and looks back at me. “You must be incredibly special to have friends who rally around you like that,” she says. “Good people tend to stick together. And your friends seem like good people.”

  I don’t respond. Don’t know what to say. I’m not sure if she’s thinking about her own situation and the lack of friends rallying around her right now, or if she really means to pay me a compliment.

  I grunt again and get to work, but the longer I let her words sink in, the more they mean to me. She’s right. Morris and I go way back.

  Although, the more time passes, the more I realize the true things in my life haven’t changed all that much. Not Morris. Not my place in the MC. Not how they treat me. It’s as if not even a day has passed. And that same vibe extends to me from Alice. She has no reason to be kind to me. No reason to nudge me into asking Bridget out. They are good people. Good friends. But I suspect the way they treat me is more about them than it is about me.

  I shove aside all the thinking and feeling and get to work. I’m halfway through repairing the stairs when I realize I have enough time and cash to make a handrail for the wall. I’ll need the right length of wood, though, which means heading back to the store. I stalk up the stairs and knock lightly on Bridget’s open bedroom door.

  I can hear the girls in Mia’s room, laughing and talking. It makes me smile. They sound so happy and free. I can’t remember that feeling anymore, what it feels like to have no weight on my shoulders, no pressure on my chest. It’s as if I’ve been carrying my pain so long, I wouldn’t know how to put it down if I could.

  “Hey,” I call out.

  Bridget’s lying on her bed, her phone in hand. She’s got the earplugs in, which means she doesn’t hear me. I step into her room, waving my hand in front of me so I don’t scare the shit out of her.

  “Oh. Crow.”

  Hearing that word on her lips does something to me. It feels foreign and old, but so, so good. As if she’s connecting to a part of me that I didn’t think she’d ever see. She pulls out the earplugs and pats the edge of her bed. “How’s it going?”

  I washed my hands downstairs, but I might have sawdust on my pants and shirt, so I don’t want to sit. But she’s watching me, waiting, so I carefully ease down on the corner of the bed.

  “S’going good,” I say. “Not the comedy show that’s going on in there.” I motion toward Mia’s room. “But good. I have enough time to put up a handrail on that wall if you’d like. I need to hit the hardware store for the right length of wood and the brackets, but if you’re okay with it, I can put that up today too.”

  She looks surprised but nods. “That’d be great, if you have the time.”

  I nod and start to get up, but she stops me.

  “I’ve been texting your friend Alice. She’s invited me and Mia to a baby shower next weekend. One of your motorcycle buddies.”

  I chuckle at that, and she flushes, a generous pink that creeps from her pretty throat to her cheeks.

  “Is that the wrong word?”

  “Nah, you’re fine,” I say.

  “Well, Alice said Mia can sleep over with Zoey after the baby shower. Lia and Leo are having a baby, and Alice and Morris are hosting the party, so she said it would be great to have someone Zoey can play with. She seems excited that the girls are getting along.”

  I nod. “Yeah. I’m sure it’ll be a great time.”

  “Will you be there?” she asks almost shyly.

  The question throws me, and I scrub a hand over my chin. “I mean… I hadn’t decided, to be honest. But I could go. It’s usually a chick thing.”

  “Well, no, I mean…not if you weren’t planning on it. I just thought maybe we could go together. Or, if you’re going to be there, I’d at least see you. You know, under better circumstances. When you’re not working and when I’m not hospitalized.” Her lips twist into a sweet, sly smile.

  “You want to do that?” I ask. “Hang out?”

  “Mmm-hmm.” She smiles. “I’d like that.”

  As much as I should want this, as much as I should be over the fucking moon that a gorgeous woman like her would want to spend time with me, the whole thing is just too complicated.

  I don’t say anything for a second, just staring at her like a dumbfuck, when she looks away. “Crow, I…I Googled you.”

  My mouth immediately goes dry, and something in my stomach tightens as if I’ve been punched in the gut.

  She moves, kicking her legs over the side of the bed so we’re sitting side by side. “I know that might seem invasive, like I violated your privacy, but…”

  “What does that mean?” I demand.

  Everything she says after that is a blur. I can’t hear her through the buzzing in my head. I might not have known what Googling someone meant six months ago, but now, I know exactly what she’s getting at. I’ve Googled myself plenty of times to see what prospective employers might find when they run background checks on me.

  There are only two very small write-ups about what happened at the bar that night. One in the local county paper’s police blotter and a slightly bigger write-up after the trial. But my name, my picture, and the whole goddamn story is out there. And she found it.

  “It’s okay,” she says, putting a hand on my shoulder. “I read the—”

  I can’t listen to this. My mind is spinning, and the coffee I drank earlier turns sour in my stomach. I get up from the bed and nod at her. “Right. Yeah. I need to go.”

  I head down the stairs, but Bridget follows after me. “Crow?” she calls, but I keep walking. “Logan, please, can we just talk?”

  I look over the tools and materials, all the shit I need to clean up before I can leave. But Bridget’s right behind me, coming down the stairs, her gray eyes dark and her hair loose and flowing over her shoulders. “Logan, please?”

  I turn to face her. I want to stay. I want to talk to her. I want to open up to someone, but I’m not sure I know how to do that anymore. I’m not even sure I know who I am anymore. I’m trapped between the old me and the way I would have behaved and the new me. The man who has to anticipate people’s reactions to him. The old Crow didn’t give a fuck. And that was the attitude that got me into this mess. I threw a punch and put some cocksucking meth head in his place, and in the blink of an eye, my future was gone. Dead and buried, right in front of my eyes.

  My phone buzzes in my pocket, so I pull it out, Birdie watching my every move with a sincere, pained look on her face. I swipe to read the text from Madge.

  Hey sexy, your brother called. Just fyi. I gave him your number so he’d know how to reach you.

  Fuckin’ Madge.

  She gave this number to my brother, which means my father will have it too. I was pretty sure that New York number from this morning had to be my dad, but I still haven’t listened to the voice mail. I’m not ready for the calls to start. The questions.

  I jam the phone into my pocket and head for the door. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I have to run.”

  Before Bridget has a chance to say another word, I’m in Morris’s truck, driving away.

  10

  BRIDGET

  I’m a complete and total asshole. I realize that as I watch Crow drive away in Morris’s truck. I close the front door and sink down on the couch.

  Why the hell did I tell him I’d Googled him?

  I suppose, on some level, I thought it would make things easier for him. I know about his past, and I don’t judge him. In fact, quite the opposite. It never occurred to me that he’d be upset that I knew or that I didn’t give him a chance to tell me if he was ever going to, in his way, in his time. I wish I could chalk it up to my recent injuries, but honestly, I’m just so out of practice with matters of the heart. Although I don’t know if it’s my heart that’s reacting every time I think of Logan—or something else.

  This thing I feel around him, whether it’s chemistry or interest or whatever it is… I thought if he was feeling anything like what I am…

  Fuck.

  I don’t know what I was thinking. He knows my shit—he’s had a front-row seat for it. My money problems and broken-down house. I figured I’d save us some unnecessary drama if he knew that I’d read about his incarceration and that I am okay with it.

  But that was clearly a misstep on my part.

  I grab my phone and think about texting him. I mean, he has to come back, right? He didn’t grab his tools or his materials. Alice is coming later to get Zoey, so I suppose she could pack everything up and take it to him. He might be gone for good.

  The reality that I might never see him again makes something tighten in my chest. I shouldn’t have any feelings about this, about this man, but they’re there or, at least, something is. Disappointment. Uncertainty. Regret. All the things I feel just about every day, but now I have something to focus them on. Just a few days of knowing Crow, and I felt like I was getting to know him. The late-night texts all week sure as hell felt like the prelude to something.

  The man who makes giraffe jokes with my kid. The man who showed up to fix my stairs without the promise of anything but a kind word about his work. The man whose corded arms and bearded jaw make me feel alive, awake for the first time in forever.

  A lot of things about Logan make sense now that I know his story. But it’s not enough for me to piece it all together on my own. I want to hear it from him. I want to listen, understand, and give him the support I’ll bet he’s used to only getting from people like Morris and Alice. People who loved the man he was and stood by him. Who know the man he is now, no matter how long he was away.

  I can hear Mia and Zoey upstairs laughing, and I wonder for a minute if I’ve completely misjudged the situation.

  God, I’m an ass.

  I’m a broke single mom with a headache condition. Maybe he isn’t interested in me. Maybe the reason he hauled ass out of here is because he doesn’t want to be saddled with someone else and their problems when he’s got more than enough on his own plate.

  And I just violated his privacy but digging into his past and throwing it in his face. No wonder he stormed out of here. I wouldn’t blame him if he left his tools and blocked my number.

  Feeling miserable, I look out the peephole and hope against hope that I see him walking up the walkway, but there’s nothing. My car’s on the street where Crow parked it last. His tools, materials, drop cloth, and everything are still spread out in my foyer.

  I walk up the stairs, admiring his work as I go. The stairs are clean and the workspace dust-free. He must have finished the stairs and was going to add on the handrail. Gone are the spongy parts and the squeaks. My stairs are like new. Safe and strong. Just like I wish I could be.

  I’m at the top of the stairs when there’s a knock at the door. I head back down, my heart throbbing in my chest. He’s back… Maybe he’ll let me explain…

  But when I open the door, it’s Alice.

  “Hi.” She’s so cheerful and sunny. “How was your day?”

  I’m stunned to see her standing there. “I’m surprised to see you,” I say, blurting out the truth.

  “Oh no, really? It’s three o’clock. The time must have really flown by.” She’s standing on the stoop, and I open the door and motion her in.

  “I can’t believe it’s three. Come in, please.” She follows me inside and eyes the stairs.

  “That looks fantastic. Did he get it all done?” She’s looking around and noticing Logan’s not here. She cocks her head. “Is Crow here? Did he leave? Morris’s truck is parked out front, I just assumed he’d still be here.”

  The truck is out front? I look through the front curtains, and sure enough, parked on the opposite side of the street is the distinctive pickup that belongs to Alice’s husband.

  I look at Alice, this woman I hardly know, and sink down onto my couch. I rest my face in my hands. “I screwed up, big-time.”

  “I know a thing or two about screwing up. It used to be my specialty.” Alice sits beside me. “Want to share?”

  “The kids,” I start. “Do you want to check on Zoey?”

  Alice grins. “I can hear they’re doing just fine. I’ve got time.”

  I start to tell her that I Googled Logan, but she interrupts me with a hand on my arm.

  “Are you into him? Like into him, into him?” She’s grinning so big I’m sure that my being attracted to him can’t be a bad thing. I mean, I don’t even know if he has a wife or girlfriend… That wasn’t information I was able to find by cybersnooping.

  “It’s been so long since I dated anyone, and I just…” I rub my face with my hands and wince at the slight sting of pain over my still-healing eyebrow.

  “He’s hot,” Alice fills in. “I mean, come on. Any woman with eyes can see that.”

  I chuckle, feeling better since she’s the one who said it. “God, isn’t he, though? I mean, he’s got the tall, dark, and handsome thing, but then he’s also so serious and yet playful at the same time.”

  Alice nodded. “I know. I’ve got one of those myself. Morris looks like he’d tear the face off anyone who looked at me funny, but then two minutes later, he’s braiding Zoey’s hair.”

  I sigh deeply, relieved that she gets it.

  “So, what did you find?” she presses. “When you Googled him. You found some news articles, I’m guessing?”