I froze. “Any of what?”
My heart soared and sank at the same time.
He turned fully to face me, yanked my entire hand into his strong and dry palm. His gaze didn’t waver.
“You know what,” he murmured, so quietly the waves almost stole his words away.
But they didn’t. I snatched them out of the air and held them tight.
Inside was the only place I would let myself hold on to them, to the feelings of Luke’s hand entwined in mine. That gaze directed at me. I steeled myself, garnered my strength, then snatched my hand back and pushed myself up.
Luke did the same, frowning.
I ignored this. “And how do you think it would work?”
“What do you mean?”
I rolled my eyes. “Come on, Luke. Don’t pretend to be dense. You went to college, got that degree in criminology. I’m sure that means you can decode what a criminal says,” I spat at him, hating the words as they came out of my mouth and the ugly tone that structured them.
“Jesus, Rosie,” he snapped, rubbing his palm over his clean-shaven jaw in frustration. “Stop fuckin’ fighting it. Me.”
I put my hand on my hip. “Clue in, Luke, fighting you, fighting this, it’s the only option.”
His eyes darkened and he stepped forward. I stepped back, to the edge of the dock. If he came closer, my only retreat would be the ocean. At that moment, I’d take my chances in the water.
He didn’t move forward.
“There’s another option,” he gritted out.
I stared at him. “No there isn’t,” I said firmly.
“There is.”
“You enforce the law, I break it. That’s it, if we want to make it simple,” I snapped.
“We’re not simple, babe.”
I blinked at him. Blinked away the tears that threatened to shatter my tough-girl façade. “We have to be, Luke. There’s no other way for us.”
His face was etched into determination, like he’d decided in that moment that there was going to be an us. That despite the previous decades, nothing was going to stop him.
“I’ll make a way,” he promised.
I did it again, grasped onto those words, bathed in the moment for a heartbeat and then continued fighting. Despite what Luke said, despite his decision about the way things were going to be, the truth was it wasn’t his decision.
I stared at him, forcing myself to school my features, to clench my fists at my sides.
“You know what my worst fear is?” I asked. “It’s not spiders, being burned alive, clowns or anything else painful or horrifying that can happen to me. My worst fear is what happens to the people who make up me. My family. My worst fear is losing them. And it’s ironic then, you see, that I fall in love with the man who wants to do that. To take everything from me. The man who somehow both embodies my worst fears and my unuttered dreams at the same time. So I can’t live it out. Whatever we have. Because in that moment of selfishness that I would take, it would be the end of everything.”
“Rosie—” he choked out.
I held my hand up, disgusted to see it was shaking. “No,” I whispered. “You can’t decide that everything else doesn’t matter. It does. Including the one pivotal truth,” I said. “You have so much hate for the club, Luke.”
His brow furrowed. “My feelings about the club have nothing to do with you.”
I laughed. It was ugly and cold, and I hated the sound coming out of me. “No, that’s the thing. They have everything to do with me. Everything I am or ever will be is because of my family. They are the world to me. And they’re what I’ve built my world around. So by hating the very thing that put me together, that keeps me together, you hate me. There is no one without the other. And as long as that hate exists, there is no you and me.” I paused. “Not that there ever was.”
Then I turned on my heel and left.
He didn’t follow me.
The anchor of truth was fastened around his ankle, so I doubted it was even physically possible for him to follow me.
That didn’t mean I didn’t pray for it.
“What are you doing here, Luke?” I asked, trying my best to block his path. It only kind of worked—he stopped his purposeful stride toward the clubhouse, sunglasses directing themselves at me. His hand still rested on his gun, and he held his jaw hard.
It was just shy of a month after that day on the dock, after the explosion that blew everything between us right open.
We hadn’t spoken. Until now.
“Rosie, get out of my way,” he clipped.
I cocked my hip and narrowed my eyes. “No. Not until you tell me why you’re waltzing onto private property. You don’t have a warrant.”
He pushed his shades onto the top of his blond head, the mussed strands catching, though he didn’t notice.
I tried my best not to let the focus of those blue eyes affect me, but like always, the only thing I accomplished was to hide the way they affected me outwardly. Inwardly, I was knots.
Whichever asshole painted love as this amazing and wonderful thing must’ve be on acid.
A lot of it.
Love was not amazing. Or wonderful. It was painful, horrible and did its best to kill everything independent inside you so all of your feelings were dependent on one person.
One man.
The one in the uniform who was trying to destroy your family.
And the one who was so intent on destroying your family that he barely even acknowledged your existence.
At least Romeo and Juliet had the whole mutual love thing going on before they killed themselves.
“I don’t need a warrant,” he said. “Got a tip.”
I raised my brow. “A tip?” Disbelief saturated my tone.
He nodded once. “From a concerned citizen.”
I put my hand on my hip. “A concerned citizen? Give me a fucking break, Luke.” I paused, anger seeping out of me as quickly as it had inflated me. “When are you going to stop this? Can’t you just let them be? Can’t you just….” I caught myself before saying what I had been going to say. Which would’ve not only labeled me weak and pathetic, but a traitor to my family.
Can’t you just notice me? Like really notice? Take a second to realize that I’m more than Rosie, the little sister of the man you hate, and remember that I’m the Rosie you’ve shared those stolen moments with. The ones you do your best to forget as soon as they’ve happened.
Something changed in his expression, a softening at the edges, a shimmering depth in those eyes that had been so full of ice before. Giving me a glimpse of it, what my mind had asked for but what I was sure I hadn’t said out loud.
“Can’t I just what?” he said, little more than a whisper, stepping toward me so I inhaled clean linen and peppermint.
Luke scent.
He even smelled different.
But then, as moments that shouldn’t be usually are, it was broken. Exactly the way moments were broken in my life.
With a dead body.
Okay, maybe not most moments in a normal person’s life, but it had been established just how far from normal I was.
“Can’t you just—” My words were cut off when my eyes wandered, too cowardly to meet Luke’s eyes. “Oh my God,” I choked out, my voice half–broken, half of it trying to remember to keep my shit together.