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I’ve had a lot of years to grow up. I know even more than you think I do exactly why my heart is going to stay safe. Don’t worry. Love isn’t a part of it. ”
And he didn’t look any happier than he had when she first saw him at the bar. And Alex must have overheard, because damned if he didn’t look unhappy, too.
And that was okay. Tonight, she had made a decision herself. She had been fascinated with Alex for far too many years, and the need she had for him wasn’t going to go away.
For his sake, he was right; it was better no one knew he was staying with her. His reputation wouldn’t suffer for having slept with the daughter of a traitor, and when this was over, maybe she would leave.
Being alone in another city beat the hell out of being miserable here, knowing no one trusted her, that no one even considered the fact that she was as much a victim in Dayle and Nadine’s conspiracies as anyone else had been.
But because she had played the dutiful daughter when he demanded it, now she would pay for that as well. No one wanted to see beneath the surface. No one except a bar full of bikers wanted to know the woman she was, rather than the woman they wanted to perceive her as.
Rogue had said once that this county had created her and she’d stuck around to rub their noses in it.
Janey didn’t think she had that much strength. Once Alex walked back out of her bed, she would have no choice but to leave. Because a part of her knew she had stayed to be with him.
“Are you ready to go?” He opened the driver’s-side door of the pickup and helped her in, ignoring Natches and the others as he climbed in beside her.
A second later they were pulling out. Janey could feel her family’s gazes on her as they left, and it left a heaviness inside her to know how worried they were.
Not about a potential stalker. They were more worried about the fact that it was Alex she was leaving with. Rather than gaining their trust to follow her heart as they had followed theirs, Janey instead felt their combined worry and concern weighing her down, pulling at her heart.
She wasn’t used to that concern; at least she wasn’t used to feeling it. She had been alone for so long that sometimes she didn’t stop to wonder if it was natural not to let someone know she would be gone.
Or what her plans were, or if she was happy or sad. No one had ever been in a position to support her, or to ease her through the hell her life had been for so long. Now Janey didn’t depend on anyone but herself.
It was better that way. As Alex pulled from the bar and headed toward the lake, she told herself it was better knowing the terms and conditions of any relationship before one stepped into it.
Alex needed to protect his reputation. She had heard a few of the conversations at the restaurant. She knew the city council was hoping to get him in as the next chief of police. He couldn’t risk a relationship, at least not a public one, with her. The daughter of a traitor. A supposedly once loving daughter.
Yeah, she had played that role well.
And now she was going to pay for it.
EIGHT
Alex pulled the pickup into a secluded clearing next to the lake, the same area he had first noticed the woman Janey was turning into, six years before.
The narrow dirt road that led to the tree-sheltered clearing and rocky beach was a favorite summer gathering place. During those warmer months, the lake level would be higher, the water warm and relatively safe to swim in.
Now the bare trees swayed in a cold winter wind, the lake was low, deserted, and the clearing intimate and empty of anyone except the two of them. He cut the lights and stared at the water spreading out before them.
“Natches has a right to be pissed,” he finally told her softly. “You need someone who’s going to fall in love with you. Someone who can give you a future. ”
And he couldn’t. He couldn’t give her the dreams he knew she had inside her. That happily-ever-after every woman deserved, especially this woman.
“I don’t expect you to fall in love with me, Alex,” she answered him, her voice somber. “I never asked you to. ”
He turned and stared at her.
She was watching the lake, her expression quiet, calm. That damned mask she wore had the power to piss him off more than Natches’s barbed comments or the hard, warning fist he’d felt in his back earlier.
“Then why are you here with me, Janey?” he asked her gently, when the need, the hunger, powering through him was anything but gentle. “In six months you’ve not had a single date. You haven’t made friends. ”
“Rogue . . . ”
“Doesn’t count. ” He sighed. “Rogue is a good person; don’t get me wrong. But she’s one person, Janey.
One friend, and a wild one at that. The woman in that bar isn’t you. ”
