“I’m going to practice.” Dani hadn’t had an interview for a job like this in a long time. Grand Central didn’t have posh office buildings like this, with huge firms and businesses who rented out entire floors.

  She wanted to be ready, because she felt like she had a great opportunity here, not only for the job, but for a great place to live. A secure place, with a park right across the street.

  “Hit me with the first question,” she said.

  “Okay,” he said, taking her hand in his as they went outside. “A horse walks into a bar and orders a—”

  “Tyson,” she said, giggling.

  “What?” he asked, not a smile in sight. He looked to where Jonas still played on the lawn. “Come on, buddy. It’s time for ice cream.”

  The next morning, Dani had driven another hour back to Forbidden Lake. If she got this job, she’d need to move quickly, because that wasn’t a commute she wanted to do very often. Her foot wouldn’t stop tapping as nine-thirty approached and then passed.

  Finally, fifteen minutes late, Andy appeared next to the woman’s desk where Dani had checked in. “Oh, Dani, come on back.” He didn’t apologize for being late, and she smoothed down her blouse as she went toward him. He shook her hand, all smiles, and led her down an impeccable hallway to a conference room.

  Two stacks of folders sat on the table, one considerably taller than the other. “Have a seat,” he said, closing the door behind them.

  She did, glad when he handed her a bottle of water that was cold to the touch.

  “I’m glad you decided to apply,” he said. “Your dental office experience could be useful here.” He didn’t have a folder in his hand, or even a single sheet of paper.

  “Could it?” she asked.

  “I’m assuming you deal with a lot of files there.”

  “Tons,” she said. “We had a part-time girl whose only job was to file. She came in twice a week.” Dani had never envied Veronica, who literally filed for seven hours straight. She organized, tabbed, color-coded. Dani liked organization as much as the next control freak, but filing fourteen hours a week? She’d pass.

  “Is this job all filing?” she asked.

  “No,” he said. “There’s a lot of phone calls as well. And you’d manage my senior account manager’s email and schedule too. Take minutes during his meetings. Type those up. But then, yes, there’s quite a bit of filing on top of that. He handles all of the accounts payable. It’s a big job, and we moved his secretary into an assistant role. So they need someone new.”

  And he thought she could do that? Her last “filing job” had been looking through scraps of paper that had handwriting on them.

  “I handled calls at the dental office,” she said. “Usually just refills or questions for the dentist or reminder calls. We had a receptionist who booked and cancelled appointments.”

  “And you liked it?”

  ‘Talking on the phone?” Dani nodded. “Oh, yeah. I can talk on the phone.” She smiled at him, glad when he returned the gesture.

  The interview continued, and Dani relaxed with every moment that passed. Talking to Andy was easy, and while she thought he should probably intimidate her, he didn’t.

  Fifteen minutes later, he stood and said, “Phone calls will be done by Thursday at five.”

  “Right,” she said. “I read that on the website.” She shook his hand and left the building. Outside in her car, she took a deep breath and pushed it out of her lungs. “Okay. You did it. Nothing else to do now but wait.”

  She drove back to Grand Central, picked up Jonas, and fired up her laptop at home. She didn’t have a job yet, and she couldn’t afford to lose another day. She hadn’t looked yesterday at all, but she had all day in front of her still today.

  Forbidden Lake had a ton of jobs, including an assistant librarian and multiple positions for a teacher’s aide at one of the six elementary schools in town. Dani applied for everything she saw that she could possibly do before getting up to make lunch.

  She wished she’d have thought of applying in Forbidden Lake a few weeks ago, before she’d gone to the bar and grille to inquire after a job where she delivered drinks to tattooed bikers for a hundred bucks a night.

  No, she told herself. Because if she hadn’t done that one job, she wouldn’t have met Tyson. And she really liked Tyson. But he had even less than her, and she really needed a job too.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Thursday morning, Tyson had just arrived at Ruby’s and opened the front door for customers when his phone rang. The storefront was generally pretty slow in the mornings, as most motorcyclists had jobs or didn’t wake up until later in the day.

  So he swiped on the call from Dani without any guilt. “What’s up, sweetheart?”

  “Guess who you’re talking to?”

  “Uh, let’s see…the new PTA President?”

  She trilled out a laugh that made his heart happy. She was indeed the exact thing he needed to fill the emptiness in his life, and he’d never been happier in his life.

  “I got the job at Tanner Global!”

  Pure joy filled Tyson, and he started laughing. “You did? That’s so great, Dani.” So great, as she’d now move to Forbidden Lake, and he could see her after work. Kiss her after he spent the evening with her and Jonas, after the little boy had fallen asleep. “Congratulations.”

  “Thanks,” she said, sighing. “I was so nervous. I’m still nervous. I’m not sure I can do this job.”

  “You can,” he said.

  “Andy said I can move into the apartment any time I want. He says it’s vacant.”

  “What’s your plan for that?”

  “I was thinking next weekend,” she said. “That gives me just over a week to sort and pack. Call a realtor. Measure the apartment and see what I have that will fit. All of that.”

  “I can help anytime,” he said. “I do have a job now, that usually keeps me until five or six.” He knew Mav would let him leave the shop whenever he needed to, but Tyson didn’t want to take advantage of his friend.

  His friend.

  He couldn’t believe he and Maverick Malone were friends. In fact, Tyson couldn’t really believe he had friends at all. Two weeks ago, he’d been wondering who he could trust, and if he’d ever get out of the Hawks Motorcycle Club alive.

  “Tonight?” she asked. “I’ll get us something special to celebrate.”

  “Oh, I can’t wait for that.” Tyson wasn’t sure what that even looked like for Dani, and he couldn’t wait to find out. His fantasies ran wild while he went over the stock in the front of the store and took phone calls for the service department.

  Tyson liked working at Ruby’s, and he liked talking to normal people. He’d been so removed from a regular society for so long that it was nice to see that the world hadn’t ended while he’d been secreted away inside that warehouse by the lake.

  Before he left that evening, he got a text from Dani. Meet me at Andy’s high-rise instead of my house.

  He called her instead of tapping out his questions. “You’re in town?”

  “He said I could pick my apartment. When can you come?”

  “Right now,” Tyson said. “What floor do I come to?”

  “Eighteen.”

  “Okay, see you in a minute.”

  Fifteen minutes later, actually, Tyson pushed the eighteen in the elevator and met Dani and Jonas in the hall. “Hey, guys.” He smiled down at the little boy, who grinned back up at him.

  “He has a three-bedroom and a two-bedroom,” Dani said, and she looked nervous. “I don’t know what to do.” She led him down the hall to the very end. “This is the two-bedroom, and I like it because it’s in the corner. It has a ton of windows.” She opened the door, and as the sun was on its way down in the west, the entire apartment seemed like it had been dipped in gold.

  “I mean, look at that.”

  “I can’t,” Tyson said, shielding his eyes. “That’s bright.”

  She laughed, and Tyson liked how joyful the sound was. When he’d met her, she was full of fear and desperation, and she hardly seemed like the same woman. But she’d worn the right clothes, and she’d handled herself with dignity and grace in a place that hardly saw either.

  “This is nice,” he said, once he did take a look around. “Bigger than my place.”

  “The three bedroom is on the other side,” she said. “So it overlooks the parking lot, not the park. And it doesn’t have any side windows, obviously.” She led him over to it, and he knew the moment they stepped inside which one was for her.

  He wasn’t going to tell her though. This apartment had three bedrooms and one and a half bathrooms, and it was definitely bigger.

  But the layout wasn’t as good, as it clearly looked like the apartment had been cobbled together from a former office space.

  “So?” she asked.

  “You want my opinion?”

  She wrapped her arms around him. “Yes,” she said. “This is one of those times I can’t make a decision.”

  “The two-bedroom place is what you want,” he said. He liked the feel of her against his chest, in his arms.

  “I knew you were going to say that.”

  “Because you know I’m right.” He kissed her, aware that her son was in the apartment with them. He pulled away quickly and added, “What were you planning to do to celebrate?”

  She glanced at Jonas. “Do you want to tell him, bud?”

  The little boy grinned, and Tyson’s imagination hadn’t involved him at all. “Mac and cheese!”

  He burst out laughing, and he stepped away from Dani to scoop her boy into his arms. “Mac and cheese it is,” he said. A rush of affection for Jonas filled him, and he looked at Dani with the same feelings running through him.

  Still holding Jonas, he leaned over and kissed Dani. “Thanks for including me in your celebration.”

  “Oh, you’ll be sorry,” she said, giggling. “So let’s go. Do you know how to use the stove at your house?”

  “The stove?”

  Dani laughed again. “You say it like you don’t even know what the word means.”

  “I know what it means,” he said.

  “Well, come on then. We’ll stop at the grocery store and get the mac and cheese and make it at your place.”

  It sounded so…domestic. So normal. And joy spiraled through Tyson for both of those things.

  The following weekend, Tyson showed up at Dani’s house with doughnuts and chocolate milk, which felt downright suburban for him. She’d been hard at work, if the dozens of taped and labeled boxes just inside the front door said anything.

  His back already hurt, and he hadn’t even started moving anything yet.

  Thankfully, Dani had family and neighbors, and everything got loaded up quickly. They all laughed and ate doughnuts, and while Tyson didn’t quite fit in with the crowd, he didn’t stand as far out as he usually did.

  Dani was maneuvering the moving truck to Forbidden Lake, and Tyson was following on his bike. At the building across the street from the park, he’d asked some of his biker friends to help her move in.

  Only a couple of hours later, after countless trips up and down the elevator, all of her belongings sat in the two-bedroom, filled-with-light apartment.

  “We did it,” she said, stepping into his arms and leaning her head against his chest. “Thanks for all your help.”

  “Mm hm.”

  “I want the beds set up,” she said. “Everything else can wait. I’m exhausted.” She’d started work on Monday, and Tyson knew the feeling. It was hard starting a new job, and Dani wasn’t used to working nine hours a day, and driving an hour to and from work on top of that.

  And now the commute was literally minutes—as long as it took for the elevator to come, really.

  Tyson kissed the top of her head and went into the first bedroom. Jonas’s twin bed was there, and he got to work putting the frame back together and getting the mattress on it. Dani entered the room with sheets, and they made up the bed in a matter of minutes.

  Tyson stole a kiss from her before they left to get her bed set up, and they didn’t speak as he assembled the headboard he’d de-assembled that morning. Twenty minutes later, with her bed ready for that night, they collapsed on the couch in the living room.

  Boxes had been piled everywhere. Furniture set in the near vicinity of where Dani would want it. Jonas had a tablet on his lap, and Tyson lifted his arm so Dani could cuddle into his side.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “Hey, you helped me move.”

  “Your move was considerably easier.”

  Tyson couldn’t argue with that. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, fierce emotions moving through her. “Dani,” he whispered.

  “Mm?”

  “I’m falling in love with you.”

  She tensed, and he opened his eyes. They looked at one another, and her surprise and anxiety bled away in moments. She smiled and received his kiss, and where Tyson had once wondered if he could ever truly love a woman, he now knew he could. He knew the fond feelings were borne from love, and he knew he could continue to build on them.

  “I’ve already fallen for you,” she whispered, and Tyson kissed her again, ready to start his life with this woman. Ready to be her son’s father. Ready for whatever life brought him—as long as Dani was in it.

  Read on for a sneak peek of VICE, Book 2 in the Sentinels MC Rebels Romance series.

  I’m glad Bulldog figured things out - and got the girl and the family! If you are too, please leave a review now.

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  Sneak Peek! VICE Chapter One

  Jordan Waterhouse didn’t like the way the trailer connected to the back of his motorcycle sounded as he navigated to Market Fresh. He’d struggled to get it hooked up this time, and he needed to tell Maverick that they needed a new hitching system.

  He’d mentioned it before, but mentioning things to Mav rarely got things done. So Jordan would come right out and say it once he finishing delivering the dents and dings. As Vice of the Sentinels, he could’ve farmed this job out to someone else in the in motorcycle club. There were plenty of new recruits lately, both old and young.

  The Sentinels had picked up eight guys from the Hawks after their Vice had called and won a contest vote over his president. Then he’d burned the building to the ground.

  Jordan liked Tyson a whole lot, but he hadn’t joined the Sentinels. He worked at Ruby’s, the motorcycle shop and retail store on the southeast side of Forbidden Lake, and he was awesome with older-model bikes that needed repairs.

  He’d never gone by Vice, but Bulldog. Jordan reminded himself that he went by Vice around the club because it was more than a title. He’d overcome several vices in his life, but one still lingered like an annoying cough that hung on for weeks after he’d started feeling better.

  “Felicia is not annoying,” he muttered to himself, glad he’d worn full leather tonight. The autumn wind whipped into his face, and he’d have to start wearing goggles too—unless he liked freezing his eyeballs. Which he did not.

  Felicia Cheswick had been running the dents and dings program at Market Fresh for the past couple of years. Jordan had been smitten by her shoulder-length auburn hair that fell in gentle waves, her big, brown eyes, and her purely female laugh the moment he’d met her. They’d started dating only a few months after that, and then one day—done.

  “That’s not true either.” He really needed to stop talking to himself, but riding a motorcycle was a solitary event, and Vice was used to being alone with his thoughts.

  Most of the time, his audibles to himself were more true than his thoughts, so he didn’t actually want to stop talking to himself. Because he knew why Felicia had broken up with him. She hadn’t ghosted him or refused to say.

  She’d had one rule for him when they began their relationship, and he’d broken it.

  But he was a member of a motorcycle club—“Not just a member,” he said as he made a wide, right turn. “The Vice-President of the club.”—and sometimes, when the club called, he had to answer.

  They weren’t an outlaw club, but Felicia hadn’t seemed to be able to make that distinction. She didn’t want Vice involved in any club business, and he’d ridden up to Grand Central with Maverick and several others as part of club business. He’d been taken captive and beaten too, though not nearly as bad as Maverick.

  The man had endured several surgeries and was just starting to come out on top physically. But Vice had suffered through a set of five fractured ribs, a broken nose, and a sprained knee.

  The ribs had taken eons to heal, and his heart was still barely beating after Felicia had stuck to her rules and broken up with him. She simply didn’t want to be involved with someone who could bring any danger into her life.

  Vice couldn’t blame her; Felicia had endured a rough and unsafe childhood because of her father, and she wasn’t willing to perpetuate a relationship with any danger whatsoever.

  Market Fresh sat at the end of this block, and Vice slowed his motorcycle as he approached. There weren’t many cars in the lot tonight, and Vice was a bit later than normal. He’d learned that if he went to Rosco’s first, he arrived at Market Fresh after Felicia had left the back room. He could then load up the cans for the dents and dings program without talking to her or seeing her.

  It wasn’t a perfect system, but it had been working for them for a long time now. Vice wouldn’t mind seeing Felicia, but awkwardness exuded from her every time Vice even got within sight.

  He didn’t want to make her life more difficult or make her feel uncomfortable, so he’d been sticking to their little game of cat and mouse.

  The thought of a cherry-pastry filled doughnut made his mouth water, and he considered parking out front and going inside to get the treat first. Market Fresh put their doughnuts on a half-price sale after nine p.m. every night, and it wouldn’t be the first discount doughnut Vice had enjoyed.