“Really?”
“Yep. You don’t need that burden, baby, believe me.”
“If I really wanted to know, would you tell me?”
“No.” He took my hand and gave it a squeeze. “And I think you understand why.”
“Plausible deniability.”
“Yeah.”
“Did they deserve it?” I whispered.
“They killed my wife, Wyatt, what do you think?”
I squeezed his hand back and we focused on our food for a few minutes as I formulated more questions.
“How long have you been part of your club?”
“Since I was eighteen.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Did they recruit you?” I asked, then took a bite of food.
He grinned. “Clubs don’t typically recruit members.”
“Oh.”
“Morgan’s dad used to be prez. I met her in high school and the rest is history.”
“What did your parents think?”
“I was a foster kid,” he said. “And my foster mom wasn’t big on carin’ what I did.”
I frowned. “Was she horrible?”
“No, baby, she was realistic. I was twice the size of my foster dad, who left her my sophomore year of high school, and she needed the money. She kept me warm and fed, and I will forever be in her debt for that, but when I met Morgan, my priorities changed.”
“How long did you live with her.”
“From twelve to eighteen,” he said. “She said I could stay longer, but only if I went to school. I wasn’t about that life… at least not yet, so I moved into the cabin.”
“Do you talk to her?”
“Yeah. We try and have dinner once a month.”
“Really?”
“No,” he said with a chuckle. “There’s no bad blood, we just went our separate ways. She still sends me a card at Christmas and on my birthday, but she moved to Montana shortly after I married Morgan, so it was a natural separation. She’s good people.”
“You mentioned school. Did you ever go?”
“Yep. Got a degree in business, but only after Orion was born and I realized if I didn’t want to lose my shirt with the pot shit, I was gonna need to know how to run it.”
“Wow,” I whispered. “You’re kind of a badass.”
