“Boundaries,” I whispered to myself.
Mam smiled, “Exactly.” She shook her head, her eyes skating over my face, and murmured, “I should be telling you to walk away for good, but I know you won’t. He’s so much like your daddy, it’s uncanny. The trouble I had with that man when I first met him almost did me in, but I stood my ground and stuck with it, and he made me happy. I’m not saying it was always easy, but he took me on an adventure, and I never looked back. I wish that for you, love, but there’s a line, and Aiden’s already sticking his motorcycle boot right over it. He’ll get my frying pan across his thick skull.”
For the first time that day, I laughed.
Mam smiled along with me, but after a few seconds, it faded. “Promise me you’ll stand strong, Aislynn. You hold your head high, and when things get too much, don’t be scared to walk away. Sometimes, leaving is the best show of strength there is.”
She was right, and anyway, I’d already made my mind up.
Pagan and I were at a fork in the road, and although I felt as if all my control had been ripped away, I knew if I dug deep, I’d find the strength I needed.
It wasn’t up to me to convince him to love me, but it was up to me to decide what happened if he didn’t, and tomorrow, I’d make that decision, one way or the other.
CHAPTER 16
PAGAN
Our town, Coal Creek, was small and contained. We were a suburb situated to the north of Rock Springs, and still relatively untouched by big businesses. The industrial area the club owned was on the outskirts of town, but Coal Creek was so small that the ride to the stores on Market Street took ten minutes, door to door.
We had a diner, a pizza restaurant, a bakery, and a hardware store. The only supermarket was a privately owned version of Whole Foods, along with a butchery and a grocer who sold vegetables and fruit. The rest of the stores mainly consisted of boutiques and gift shops that made a killing during tourist season from the overflow of visitors from Rock Springs.
I’d gone from living in Southern California to a quintessential small town, and I kinda loved it. There were two things I missed about Cali. The weather, which was good for year-long riding. Here in Wyoming, we got all four seasons, but I was a seasoned rider, so navigating snow and ice wasn’t an issue for me.
More importantly, I missed my boys, but now that they’d made the move here, I was definitely more settled. We’d flown out of San Diego the morning after the showdown with Bree.Three days later, I’d flown back because the house was hit in a drive-by shooting, during which Bree had caught a bullet to her hip.
Her boyfriend, Kev, and two of his buddies hadn’t been so lucky.
They were all pronounced dead at the scene.
It took a few days for Bree to be released from the hospital. The problem was, it was the day she moved into the throwing-up stage of drug withdrawal, so I couldn’t get her straight on a plane. As usual, Gabe’s mom, Paola, came through for me, and I holed up there with her for a few days, during which time I’d arranged for her to get counseling with a shrink over in Hambleton who had come highly recommended. He spent an hour with her and gave me some recommendations for rehab centers, which I had to spend time checking out because I needed to opt for one with decent medical facilities that could deal with Breanna’s gunshot wound, as well as wean her off the smack. It was hard to find a facility that would give her pain meds while weaning her off drugs, but I eventually found a place in Nebraska that could help.
That took up a week of my time, then I got back and saw to the boys, and before I knew it, ten whole fucking days had passed, and I hadn’t spoken to Aislynn. Yeah, I got her messages, but it was always when I was either riding, in a meeting with a doctor, or trying to deal with Rex and Rome.
Every time, I promised myself I’d call her later, but it never seemed to be the right moment.
In the midst of everything, I’d even lost track of Ash’s last day at work; it was Cruise who’d told me that Tristan had flown down to Denver with Maeve and Maureen O’Shea to take her out to dinner. As soon as it hit me what day it was, I knew I’d have to pick up the phone, but a part of me didn’t want to face it because I knew what I’d done wasn’t right.
But what was I supposed to do? Abandon my boys’ mother?
Rock, meet goddamned hard place.
Honestly, a part of me resented having to help Bree. If my own mother was any indication, Bree would relapse as soon as she got out of rehab. It seemed like a complete waste of time to pay out thousands of dollars to have her seen to, only for her to throw it back in my face as soon as she got out, but when my boys came to me and asked for a loan so they could pay for their mom to get help, it tugged at something inside me that I thought had died years before.
My goddamned conscience.
That was when the guilt about Aislynn kicked in, too.
I just didn’t know how I was meant to put time into a relationship when time was something I didn’t have. My sleep was still sporadic, and my health was in the toilet. Even finding an hour to spend in the gym was proving impossible. My kids were living on diner food, pizza, and takeout, and I hadn’t even had time to look for a house for us.
Something was becoming clear.
Right girl, wrong time.
But the thought of her not being around made my gut ache.
Still, I knew it wasn’t fair to keep her dangling on a string because, it was like she said, I was hurting her. Usually, I wouldn’t have a fuck to give. I’d take what I wanted and say to hell with her feelings, but Aislynn was proving to be very different from any other woman I’d known.
And maybe that was part of the problem, too.
