The Marine Corp had given him people to fight beside. Black Knights Incorporated had given him people to fightfor.
Turning his attention away from Fisher and Eliza, he avoided reaching for his phone by forcing himself to focus on his environment. On theclinkof beer bottles and the smooth, driving beats of Chris Stapleton crooning from the jukebox. On the leather and denim covering the clientele packed into the place because it was 10PM on a Saturday night and everyone who was anyone in Chicago’s biker scene considered Red Delilah’stheplace to be. On the aromas of hops and barley mixed with the saltier, earthier smell of the crushed peanut shells strewn across the floor.
Red Delilah’s Biker Bar was a home away from home for the Black Knights. Owned by the wife of one of the original BKI operators, it was just about the only place where a group of big, bearded, leather-wearing men could gather without drawing attention to themselves. In fact, at Red Delilah’s the Knights were just another band of tattooed, motorcycle-riding guys in a room full of tattooed, motorcycle-riding guys.
Okay, that’s not exactly true.
It wasstilltough to blend in when every woman within thirty feet couldn’t stop sneaking peeks their way. Blame it on Fisher, who looked like he should be on billboards hocking designer jockey shorts. Or Britt Rollins, who had the kind of boy-next-door face that made women want to ruffle his hair before taking him home to bounce up and down on his lap. Or Hewitt Burch, who’d been told he looked like Sam Heughan’s beefier, handsomer brother. Or Graham Colburn, whose six-feet-five-inches of hardpacked muscle and dark, fulminating stares drew women in like moths to the flame. Or Hunter Jackson, who was…
Currently lip-locked with his fiancée.
Sam rolled his eyes at the couple snugged into the corner of the large booth the crew appropriated anytime they came to the bar. It afforded them unimpeded views of both the frontandthe back doors. Instinct, intuition, and too many missions to places where dangerous men toting deadly weapons might burst in meant the Knights couldn’t turn off their training.
Even when they had a night off.
“You two remind me of teenagers in the back row of a dark movie theater,” he told the canoodling pair, thinking it a wonder either of them had any skin left on their lips as often as they tried to eat each other’s faces off.
Hunter came up for air, his hair mussed from Grace’s busy fingers. “Jealous?” His grin was more than a little self-satisfied.
“If I’m being honest?” Sam nodded. “Yeah.”
Ever since coming to live and work at the old factory building on Goose Island, he’d realized missions and mayhem, and the monotony of one-night stands, weren’t enough to satisfy him.
He wanted more.
The kind of life he’d only ever seen on TV. The kind of life he hadn’t thought he could have until he’d given up the career that had shaped him into the man he was—because if his ex-wife had taught him anything, it was that covert operations and matrimony didn’t mix.
Then he’d seen Boss and Becky, Ozzie and Samantha, Christian and Emily, and all the rest of the OG Knights, and he’d come to realize that with therightwoman, itwaspossible to make things work. And when Hunter—a man who epitomized the phraselone wolf—told the group he was ready to settle down with Grace, that realization had been cemented.
Something Britt had recently said drifted through Sam’s head.“Whoever builds souls, built Hunter’s and Grace’s the same.”
Even though Sam wasn’t much for religion—hell, he wasn’t sure he even believed in the concept of a soul—he knew Britt was right. Hunter and Grace…fit.
Andthat’swhat he wanted.
To find the person who saw him for all he was, from his smallest weakness to his greatest strength. The person who would cry and laugh with him through all of life’s sorrows and joys. The person who was as happy sitting beside him at a Sox game as she was sitting beside him on some romantic getaway.
The woman whose soul matched his own.
But where would I even begin?
The dating apps weren’t helpful. A man in his line of work couldn’t exactly be up-front in the wholegetting-to-know-yougame. And it wasn’t as if he’d have any luck finding love at the office. The only women working at Black Knights Inc. were either already married or…Eliza. And as beautiful and smart as Eliza Meadows was, he couldn’t think of her as anything other than a sister from another mister and—
“Not to be cliché or anything.” Grace dragged him from his thoughts. “But it’ll happen for you when you least expect it.” She squeezed his hand and he couldn’t help but smirk at the proprietary spark that ignited in Hunter’s eyes. “Take it from me,” she continued. “One minute I was investigating the Michigan Militia. The next minutethis one”—she jerked her chin toward Hunter—“moseyed into my life.”
“I never mosey. And that’s enough of that.” Hunter snagged Grace’s hand from Sam’s and placed it inside his own.
Until Grace, Sam would’ve sworn Hunter didn’t have a possessive bone in his body. Now? The former Green Beret seemed to bemadeof possessive bones. Or, at the very least, greedy ones.
Hunter was happiest having Grace all to himself.
“Grace is right,” Eliza chimed in from beside Sam. “With those ocean eyes and that John Hamm jaw, the minute you’re ready you’ll have no trouble finding someone to fall into your lap.”
Tell that to the woman who refuses to text me back, he thought grumpily.
Although, if there was anyone on the planet he wouldneverconsider for the role of Mrs. Harwood, it was Hannah Blue. Hannah, whom he’d watched trade in her undershirts for training bras. Hannah, whom he’d consoled when the “cool girls” in middle school mercilessly teased her about her new braces. Hannah, who’d been the closest thing he’d had to family before BKI had come into the picture.
That’s it. One little peek.
