“Isn’t that a contradiction in terms?” She was glad Connie wasn’t around to hear Evie steal her phrase.
“Aren’t you?” He gestured around the shop. “This is the last place I ever would have expected to see my sweet, innocent sheriff’s daughter who played video games, painted landscapes, and thought the world was really a beautiful place.”
“It was a beautiful place,” she said. “Now it’s just real.”
FOUR
Don’t mess around unless you know what you’re doing.
—SINNER’S TRIBE MOTORCYCLE REPAIR MANUAL
Zane watched Big Bill’s Custom Motorcycle shop all afternoon.
From his vantage point on the picnic table outside the diner across the street, he could see everyone who went into or came out of the building. And what he couldn’t see—Evie and her shop out back—he imagined. And then he would picture Mark and their son, and his stomach would twist in a knot. But this time there was nowhere to run. Conundrum was his town; the Sinners’ town.
The shop closed at 6 P.M. and the mechanics and salesclerk left together. He hated them simply because they knew Evie and because they made her smile when she locked the door behind them.
How long had it been since he’d seen that smile?
When she didn’t follow them out, he crossed the road, and walked around the building to the back of the shop. Jagger had spent the morning with her, and whatever she’d told him made his best friend unusually distant and frustratingly uncommunicative. But he had grunted his approval when Zane offered to take first watch on the shop in case Axle returned.
Although tempted to look in the window, he didn’t want to scare her, so he leaned against a storage shed across from the back door. Should he wait or should he go in? What would he say? Did he really want to see her?
What the hell was he doing here?
He pushed away from the wall, intending to return to his bike when the shop door opened.
Evie.
Although he was prepared this time, he couldn’t stop the rush of blood pounding through his veins when she stepped onto the gravel, a piece of fairing in her hand. She wore tight jeans that clung to the swell of her hips, and a T-shirt, cut low enough to expose the crescents of her breasts. Her ponytail swayed gently as she held the fairing up to catch the light. More beautiful now than she had been as a girl. His words died in his throat. All but one.
“Evie.”
She froze, her head snapping to the side. And then her eyes widened. Recognition dawned. With a gasp, she dropped the fairing and staggered back. “Zane.”
He had imagined this moment every night for the last nine years: the words he wanted to say; the emotions he’d kept bottled up inside—anger, despair, loneliness, and a pathetic longing that just wouldn’t go away. In the fantasy, he lambasted her for not waiting for him, accused her of betraying him, let loose a stream of shouts and curses about her inconstancy, and after unburdening his heart, he walked away.
But he did none of those things. Instead, he concentrated on fighting back the desire to take Evie into his arms and hold her, the way he’d held her the last time they were together. Although his need for redress was strong, stronger still were the feelings he’d had for her since he was ten years old.
“I thought it was you,” she said softly. “Last night, when you spoke … your voice, and the way you were standing … but when you didn’t say anything—”
“You look good. Older.” Fuck. Not the right thing to say to a woman, but his tongue wasn’t working the way it should. She was beautiful and sexy, with a confidence she hadn’t had as a girl. But he hadn’t expected any less. She had always taken his breath away.
“Well, it has been nine years. People change,” she said bitterly. “Although it seems you haven’t, except for the whole biker thing. Still the silent, brooding type skulking in the shadows. I mean, who doesn’t say hello when you’re standing in front of someone you haven’t seen for nine years?”
“Had a job to do.”
“So did Jagger and yet he managed to say hello.”
Damn. This wasn’t going well. He cocked his head to the side and forced a smile, as if her anger hadn’t touched him where it hurt the most. “Hello, Evie.”
A smile ghosted her lips, and her voice lost its edge. “Hello, Zane. I go by Evangeline now.”
Encouraged by her gentle tone, he took one step, then another, until he stood only a foot away, close enough to see her eyes glisten. “Why? You hated that name.”
Desperate to touch her, connect, assure himself she was real, he cupped her jaw and stroked his thumb over her cheek. So soft. So utterly perfect. Did her hair still feel like silk? Did she still wear jasmine perfume? Without thinking, he leaned down, his lips brushing over the curve of her ear as he inhaled her scent and then …
She slapped him.
His head snapped to the side under the force of her blow and the pain shook him out of the haze that had brought him to her side. He grabbed her hand and slammed it up over her head against the metal door, an instinctive reaction and one born of years of hard living. Evie’s eyes widened, and then she scowled.
“You have no right to touch me. After you left, after I lost everyone I cared about, I had to start over.” Her jaw tightened and she lifted her chin, her eyes both defiant and challenging. “I married Mark Dubois after I gave up hoping you would ever come back. He always knew me as Evangeline.”
He threw down his own gauntlet, one that he had carried for years. “I saw you together,” he spat out. “And your boy.” He drew in a ragged breath. “Because I did come back, Evie. Just like I promised. You didn’t wait.” He leaned in toward her, resting his forearm against the door beside her head, her wrist still in his grip. Intimidating? Yes, given his size relative to hers and the fierce emotion that made his body shake. But she wasn’t scared. Fear made Evie tremble and she wasn’t trembling now.
“I waited three long years for you.” Her eyes blazed with fury despite the fact he was holding her against the wall, caging her with his body, more than capable of breaking the fine bones of her wrist with only the slightest squeeze of his hand. But his Evie had never been a coward.
“Everyone said you killed my dad, but I didn’t believe them,” she continued. “I said you weren’t a killer. I said the Zane I knew would never do anything like that. You would never hurt me that way. So I waited for you. I thought you’d come back for me. Explain. But you never did.” Her voice tightened with emotion. “How hard would it have been to call or text? How long did you expect me to wait? But that’s not what it was about, was it? You got what you wanted from me and moved on. You hurt me, Zane. You made me realize I didn’t know you at all.”
He would have waited for her forever, but he wasn’t about to tell her that. Not when she was clearly lying to him. “You already had a kid when I came back,” he growled. “So don’t pretend you waited. He was walking for fuck sake. How long was it? One month? Two? Were you seeing him before I left?”
Bile rose in his throat at the thought of her and Mark together. A rising star on the football team, Mark had been sidelined after he was arrested for drunk driving. Zane had warned him away from Evie shortly after he was released on bail. She’d suffered enough with an alcoholic parent. She didn’t need to be dumped back in the cycle again. His Evie deserved better.
Better than Zane.
“No.” All the anger and passion drained out of her and she sagged against the wall, his hand on her wrist seeming to be the only thing that held her up. Evie? Backing down from a fight? Emotion welled up in his chest, an unfamiliar, uncomfortable sensation. He didn’t do emotion. He didn’t do feelings. He’d locked up that side of himself long ago when he became a Sinner and channeled all his energy into the club.