Page 24 of Rough Road

Maybe he could help her convince Grier not to go. “No, please.” She gestured to a chair and smiled when he sat, coffee in hand, hair tousled as if he’d just come from bed. They’d talked, overcome the past, for Grier’s sake and because Kye was genuinely good, concerned for her family enough to offer his home to protect them.

She waited and watched Grier. “He’s going back.”

Kye nodded. “I know. He told me.” He drank his cup of juice like his friend wasn’t heading off to start a war with a heavily armed asshole and the asshole’s entire crew.

“Can you talk to him? Tell him there’s no reason to leave here and going back is gonna get him killed?” Fiona had tried everything else—tears, begging, sex, begging during sex—and still, she couldn’t persuade him.

All her life, until Grier anyway, she’d managed to avoid bikers, especially ones who belonged to a club. She’d seen what their loyalty did to relationships. Plus, Max wanted her out of the business, only left it to her as a last resort, and she knew it, despite everything he’d said to her and everyone else. Back then she’d picked her dates from the other side of the tracks, the side where there weren’t drive-by shootings and a death a day. All the while making Grier follow her around because he’d been the one she’d always wanted. She’d broken all the rules she’d set for herself and now she was paying for it.

Kye shook his head. “It would be crazy for me to talk him out of it.” He grinned. “I hate traveling alone.”

There was some consolation that Kye was going with him, but not enough to calm the anxious energy that kept her foot tapping and her hands shaking every minute since Grier had decided he was leaving.

“Is there anything I can say that will make him stay?”

Kye shook his head. “Tyler Sedotal took something from Grier that Grier has to go get back. It isn’t pride or money or the usual. He took Grier’s security and his piece of mind. That’s not something we can give him. He has to end this thing because more than he wants to, he needs to.”

Fiona shook her head. “Isn’t it enough that me and the baby are alive and with him?” More than anything she wanted to know why it wasn’t enough, but she couldn’t ask. Instead, she closed her eyes, cursed Grier for being the man she’d always known he was, a good man who wouldn’t let anyone hurt his family and get away with it. Damn it.

Kye stared at her. “I’m guessing right about now you’re realizing why you married him, why he’s the guy. And he’s out there—” he pointed to Grier still sitting in the sand, “—thinking he has to give you up to be the man we both know he needs to be.”

Fiona shook her head, stood and walked to the edge of the concrete before she turned back to him. “I never liked you, you big know it all.”

He grinned and Fiona understood the attraction Eli had to him. “Yeah, I know. That’s okay. We both love him and that’s enough.” He chuckled. “Go out there and be who he needs right now.” He held up the baby monitor. “I’ll listen for London.”

She thought about telling him how to mix the formula and where she kept the diapers, but he had a kid. He could figure that out himself. Instead, she walked out onto the beach toward Grier and didn’t stop until she was close enough to see the streaks of blond in his hair, the slump of his shoulders, the curl of his fingers in the sand.

She knelt beside him and put her hand on his shoulder. “Working on your tan?”

He turned and sighed. “I love you so much, but I have to do this.”

Oh, God. Why did he have to be so… everything to her? “I know.”

“It doesn’t mean…” She cut him off with a kiss, and when he pulled back, he smiled.

“Come with me.” She stood and held out her hand. There was a place she’d found, a cove with crystal water and high rocks, a place where she could at least make a memory with him that she could cherish. Just in case.

“What about London?” But he stood and threaded his fingers through hers.

“Kye’s taking care of her.” She led him down the beach, away from the house. She didn’t have words to let him know that she understood his need to go. Showing him was all she could do.

“You know, growing up, I had a huge crush on you.”

He chuckled and brought her hand to his mouth and kissed her knuckles. “I seem to recall Brad Pitt’s picture hanging on your bedroom wall.”

“Can you imagine what Max would’ve done if he had walked in my room and found a life-sized picture of you hanging on my wall?” She clicked her tongue. Max would have had Grier taken and castrated. “Back then… if you would’ve just smiled at me just once…” She sighed.

“I’m smiling at you now.”

Oh yeah, he was. And her heart fluttered in that same old way it always had. “Better than all those fantasies I used to have.”

He turned to face her and pulled her in close. “You must tell me about these fantasies you speak of. I’m intrigued.” He kissed the curve where her shoulder met her throat. She shivered and ran her hand over his chest, his warm, broad chest.

“The reality of you is so much better than the fantasy.” And wasn’t that just the damned truth of it? On one hand, she hated herself for loving him, for loving a man at all when it could destroy her now to lose him. On the other hand, she finally understood what loving him meant. “I know you have to go, but can we just have today to pretend you don’t?” No. She wouldn’t cry, not today. She would save it for later, when he couldn’t see. “Maybe you could teach me to surf?”

He smiled. “Can’t surf here. The reef…”

He didn’t finish because she couldn’t let him. She needed to kiss him, to feel him inside her. And damned if she wanted to wait another minute.