And Damian made her smile, made her giggle when she talked about him and made her feel good about herself again, and that was pretty darned good.

So I reached out, grabbed her hand and squeezed it.

I let her go, took another sip of coffee and sent a wish silently to the universe that rootless Damian would want to grow roots with my Tia.

Hopefully in Phoenix.

“Now you,” she stated. “We’re alone, so you can tell me all about this Buck guy.”

I shook my head and it was my turn to look out the window.

“Clara, honey—”

I looked back at her and interrupted, “I can’t.” I shook my head again. “I will, but I can’t now. What happened, happened right before you and Damian found me. It’s too new. It hurt too much. The wound is too raw.”

I watched her face get soft. “Oh, babe.”

“Yeah,” I whispered.

“That bad?”

I couldn’t speak, my heart had slid into my throat, so I nodded.

“Babe,” she whispered.

I bit my lip and looked out the window.

“Well!” she said suddenly, and I turned back at her. “The good news is, the boys talked this morning. Rayne knows where your stuff is, so he and Damian went to get it.”

Oh.

My.

God!

“Pardon?” I breathed.

She smiled at me, for once not reading me.

“Rayne knows where this Buck lives. They went up to—”

She stopped talking because I bolted from my chair, spilling coffee on the table and the floor.

“No!” I shouted, panicked. “Call them! Call them now! Tell them to come back.”

She was staring up at me, her face pale.

“I can’t, honey. I mean, I can. But they left well over an hour ago—”

Oh God, no.

Over an hour.

Plenty of time to get to Buck’s house and make him furious, furious when he sees Rayne Scott and thinks I’ve moved on to my next mark not even a day after I walked away from my last one.

That last one being him.

I put my coffee cup down, muttering, “This can’t be happening.”

“Clara, babe, what on earth are you so upset about?” she asked, rising slowly from her seat.

“I told you I was leaving my stuff!” I yelled.

“You can’t leave your stuff!” she yelled back.

I shook my head. “He’s going to be mad.”

“So what? It’s your stuff.”

“You don’t get it!” I shouted, throwing up my hands. “He’ll see Rayne and think—”

“Good,” Tia snapped. “I see you. I see he hurt you. He sees good-looking Rayne and he deserves to think whatever he thinks!”

I stared at her and I knew Damian was Superman. She was again Tia pre-Enrique with a hint of attitude and the protective instinct of a lioness.

I was in trouble.

The front door opened, and I looked into the living room to see Rayne and Damian coming through.

I also heard the pipes.

I knew those pipes.

People who weren’t around motorcycles for weeks on end wouldn’t hear the difference. But all the pipes on Harleys were different, distinctive, and those were Buck’s pipes.

Oh God.

Rayne prowled directly to me, stopped toe to toe and bent his neck so his face was in mine.

“You know he’s here,” he stated.

“I know,” I whispered.

“He was not real thrilled to open his door to me,” he went on.

Oh God.

“I know,” I repeated on a whisper.

“You can stay in here and I can have him removed.”

My body jolted involuntarily.

“Removed?”

There came a pounding at the door.

Oh God!

“I’ll call the cops, Clara,” Rayne explained.

More pounding at the door.

Oh God!

“No,” I shook my head. “No cops.”

“Clara,” both his hands came up and curled around either side of my neck, “make a smart choice here.”

“No cops.”

“Sweetheart, you wanted me to protect you when that shit went down with Kirk. I’m tellin’ you now, you ask, you got my protection. I’ll see that you’re safe and I’ll see that you’re taken care of. That’s a promise.”

I had a feeling he meant more than just calling his buddies in, and I couldn’t go there.

I needed to do this with Buck, whatever it was going to be, get my stuff and go to Seattle.

And then back to my vow of no more men…

Ever.

“I need to finish it with him,” I whispered.

I whispered that, barely able to get it out, even in a whisper.

Because it had to be said, I didn’t want to finish things with Buck.

However, with what he said to me, what he thought of me, I needed to.

And now that this was happening, I also realized that Tia was right.

I needed my things.

Like that little girl I was with her crappy stuff in her crappy little suitcase, I needed to hold on to everything I had because I had no idea what was around the corner, so I had to keep what I’d earned close.

You never knew when you’d get more.

All you knew was that you couldn’t afford to lose what you had.

“Sweetheart—”

“I need to do this.”

He stared into my eyes and I stared into his.

It hit me that his eyes were ones I could stare into a long time and never, never get bored.

But that was for a different woman.

Not the woman that was me.

Nope, it would seem the good stuff was never for the woman that was me.

I just hoped, whoever that woman turned out to be, she knew she was lucky.

“Then do it,” he said gently.

I nodded, inhaled through my nose, he let me go, and I walked to the door.

I opened it to see the snake coiled out there, ready to strike.

Now, if you asked me to tell you the top five things I thought West Hardy would do when I opened the door to a police detective’s apartment, what he did was not one of those five things.

It wouldn’t have been in the top ten.

Or even twenty.

Maybe even thirty.

And this was because what he did was immediately dip a shoulder, plant it in my stomach, wrap his arm around the backs of my thighs, heft me up and stalk away.

“Oh my God!” I heard Tia scream.

“Buck!” I shouted.

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” I heard Rayne clip.

“Buck!” I repeated on a shout.

“Shut it, Toots,” Buck growled and stalked down the stairs that led up to Rayne Scott’s apartment.

“Put me down!” I yelled.

“Shut it,” he clipped.

“Put her down!” Tia yelled, and I knew she was chasing after us.

Buck planted me on my feet by his bike.

I took a step away, and he hooked an arm around my waist and hauled me to his body.

With that done, he turned his head to Tia.

“Shit, babe,” he said. “I got everyone I know in fifty states lookin’ for your girl, you’re out one night, and there she fuckin’ is.”

Was he for real?

I pushed against his arm. “Let me go.”