Page 4 of Cash’s Trouble

His mouth tightens. “Fine, Lilly. Will you stay here?”

She glances at me. The look lasts only a second, but the sheriff catches it. “Okay, for tonight. Until we know more.”

Kane answers before her father can add conditions. “She gets a guest room and freedom inside the gates. Cash stays close.”

“I’ll stay near her,” I confirm.

The sheriff’s attention settles fully on me. He has known my name for years, knows the collections, the negotiations and enough of my history to understand I’m not the safe brother to assign to his daughter. There isn’t a safe one, and that’s the conflict he’s dealing with right now.

“Keep her alive,” he says to me. “And keep your fucking hands off my daughter.”

My gaze moves to Lilly-Rose before I can be bothered pretending otherwise. Color rises beneath her skin, starting at the open collar of her blouse and climbing toward her cheeks. “I can promise the first.”

“Cash,” Kane says, a warning in my name, but I look back at the sheriff.

“I’m not lying to the sheriff.”

Judge coughs into his fist, badly disguising what might be a laugh. The sheriff doesn’t find me amusing. He steps close enough that the badge on his chest nearly touches my cut. “She is not one of the women who hang around this clubhouse.”

“I know exactly who she is.”

“Good. That should make the second instruction easier.”

Lilly-Rose closes her eyes briefly. “Can both of you stop discussing my sex life in a yard full of armed men?”

The sheriff turns to her. “You don’t have a sex life with him.” He points to me as he says it.

“Then this conversation is even more unnecessary.” She looks at Kane. “Where am I sleeping?”

Kane points toward the side hall inside the clubhouse. “Cash will show you.”

I take her bag before the sheriff can object. Lilly-Rose follows me across the common room while Kane leads her father toward the back meeting room where we hold church. Low conversation resumes around us, quieter than before, every brother in the place aware there’s a sheriff under our roof and his daughter walking through the clubhouse with me. The room looks the way it always does: scarred bar, old leather couches, pool table, the club emblem covering one wall and photographs of dead brothers watching everything. Nobody has polished the place or hidden what we are for Lilly-Rose’s benefit.

She glances back toward church. “How long will they be?”

“Your father enjoys arguing with Kane, so it could be a while.”

Her mouth twitches despite the evening, and the small movement goes straight through me. I lead her down the side hall past the rooms used by brothers who live on the compound. Mine is near the end. The guest room sits two doors away, plain but clean, with a bed, dresser and attached bathroom.

I put her purse on the dresser. “There are clean towels in the bathroom. I’ll find you something to eat.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You should eat anyway.”

Her eyes narrow. “Was that a suggestion?”

“Mostly.”

That earns another faint twitch at the corner of her mouth. She leans against the dresser and studies me with the same careful attention she thinks I’ve never noticed. Her blouse is still pulled slightly crooked from the struggle, exposing the fine line of one bra strap. I could fix it with two fingers, but I fight the temptation to touch her.

“Why have you barely spoken to me before today?” she asks.

I let the silence sit while a bike starts outside. Lilly-Rose waits, chin lifted, as though she hasn’t asked the question I’ve spent months avoiding.

“You were trouble.”

Her eyebrows rise. “I’m a bank loan officer who owns matching storage containers. I don’t see how.”