I could wait that long.
And when Bandit showed up? I’d be ready with the tuna, the cage, and whatever the hell apology a man like me could scrape together.
Because Regan was right.
I’d already fucked up once. I wasn’t about to lose her twice.
The week after the wedding turned into full-on Operation Win Her Back, and I was running it like a goddamn military campaign. I saved the cat for the grand finale—Regan’s tip about Bandit showing up at the old apartment was solid, but I wasn’t banking everything on a half-feral furball who might decide to ghost me too. First strike had to be classic.
I showed up at her door with two dozen red roses, the good ones from the florist on the square, stems wrapped in thatfancy paper. Heart hammering like a bad piston, I knocked. She opened it in yoga pants and a tank top, hair up in a messy knot, looking like she hadn’t slept much either. For half a second her eyes went soft. Then they hardened.
Slam.
Door right in my face. I stood there like an idiot, roses still in my hand, until I heard the deadbolt click. Left them on her welcome mat anyway. Next morning I drove by on my way to the shop and there they were—stuffed in the complex dumpster, petals already turning brown. Message received. Loud and clear.
Round two: I called in a favor at the coffee place she liked, the little hole-in-the-wall with the good pour-over. Ordered her usual—oat milk latte, extra shot, and those stupidly expensive chocolate-chip cookies she’d mentioned once. Had it delivered straight to her office with a note that just saidSorryin my shit handwriting. Three hours later I got a text from the prospect I had tailing the building: she’d walked the whole thing across the street to the senior center. Donated it. Every last crumb.
I was starting to feel like a stray dog she kept kicking back into the street.
Round three was where I went all in. I’d been eyeing that beat-to-hell Ford she called Dolores since the night I first saw it parked outside her complex. Found the old guy who owned the shop where she’d bought it used. Slid him five hundred cash under the table and told him to say some college kid had paid full price if she ever asked. Towed that sad sack of rust and regret straight back to the clubhouse.
Then I went to work.
New engine. New carburetor. Fresh fuel lines. Catalytic converter that actually passed emissions for once. Full paint job—deep emerald green, same shade as the dress she’d worn to the wedding. New rims that didn’t look like they belonged on a tractor. I lived in the garage for a week, grease up to myelbows, tools scattered everywhere. The brothers walked by and snickered at first.
“Romeo’s building his Juliet a chariot,” River drawled one afternoon, leaning in the doorway with a beer.
“Shut the fuck up and hand me that impact,” I growled.
But then Tank got back from his honeymoon—tanned, smug, and bored—and wandered in. “I got the tinting. Windows and windshield. Dark enough she won’t cook in the desert but she can still see.”
River jumped on the electrical. Tarak handled the suspension rebuild. Even Tank showed up one night after Regan kicked him out of the house for “hovering,” and he did the brake job like it was therapy. Before I knew it a week and a half had burned off and Dolores looked mean. Sleek. Hot as hell. I stood back with a beer in my hand and almost didn’t want to give her up. Almost.
I still texted Sienna every couple days. Calls went straight to voicemail. The prospect I had keeping an eye on her kept sneaking off at weird hours, but I figured the kid was just chasing tail or dodging chores. Prospects do that shit.
I debated taking Dolores straight over to her old apartment to scoop up Bandit the second he showed, but something told me to hold the cat card. I parked her in the back garage instead, threw a cover over her, and told every brother who walked past, “Hands off my new lady. I mean it.”
Then I tried one more time.
It was a Thursday night, desert wind kicking up dust, when I showed up at her door again. No roses this time. Just a fistful of wild native flowers I’d picked myself out on the forty acres—purple sage, desert marigold, a couple yucca blooms that didn’t look half bad. I knocked and waited.
She opened the door in sweats and a hoodie, hair damp like she’d just showered. Smelled like fresh soap, a little heartache,and that coconut moisturizer she used. The sight of her hit me square in the chest.
“Sienna, please, I just?—”
“I’m literally not carrying a grudge, Mace,” she said, voice flat and tired. No fire. No fight. Just… done. “I just think it’s best if I focus on work and starting my new life. And I don’t even know how long I’m gonna stay in this town for. So starting a bad romance just doesn’t seem like a good idea right now. And that’s that.”
No slap. No yelling. No slammed door. She just looked at me with those eyes that used to spark when she was pissed, and there was nothing left in them but quiet worry. Like she was hiding something heavy and didn’t trust me enough to share the load anymore.
I stood there on her doorstep with my handful of wildflowers like a fucking idiot. Deflated. The fight had gone out of her, and that scared me more than any slap ever could.
I nodded once, set the flowers on the railing, and walked away before I said something stupid that would make it worse.
But that look on her face—the worried one, the one that said trouble was sitting on her shoulders and she wasn’t letting me near it—didn’t sit right. Not even a little.
Something was off.
And I was going to find out what.
