Born Wild

it, face-first.

He might be ready to try to forgive her for the past. But from the look of things, he wasn’t ready, he’d never be ready, to start something new. There was just too much history there. Too many grievances and too much distrust…

She wanted to sit down and scream. Scream at herself for having been so disloyal and cowardly. Scream at her father for pushing her away from a good man and into the arms of a manipulative one. Just scream, scream, scream! But, the time for self-pity and blame was gone. Now she needed to do the right thing, the brave thing and offer Bill the apology that’d been a long time coming. Too long…

“Since we’re…uh…since we’re baring our souls here,” she began hesitantly, “I-I want to tell you I’m sorry for the way I behaved all those years ago.”

“You were young,” he said. And considering all the times she’d hoped to see a little compassion shining out at her from the depths of his warm, brown eyes, the fact that she was seeing it now should’ve brought her more comfort. Instead, it only made her grief and regret burn brighter, hotter. Tears scorched at the back of her throat.

“That’s no excuse,” she admitted, staring down at her Asics.

“We were both young. And it takes two to make an accident,” he quoted quietly, and her gaze shot up to his face.

“The Great Gatsby?” she asked, lower lip trembling—dang the thing! “That’s…that’s one of my favorites.”

“I remember.” His voice was gruff. And it was then, because of the unspoken look in his eyes, that she wondered if maybe he’d taken to reading books, the classics in particular, to please her. Because when they’d dated that summer, reading the classics had been her thing.

Oh, God! Why had she agreed to go out with Blake Parish? Why hadn’t she told her father to go jump in a lake when he kept harping on her to forget about Billy and give Blake a chance? And why hadn’t she been brave enough to hop on a plane to go see Billy after the misleading photos and articles had been printed in the papers? Why had she relied on those stupid, impersonal letters that probably hadn’t accurately portrayed her regret or remorse? Why hadn’t she been courageous enough to explain everything to him face-to-face? Perhaps if she had, he would’ve forgiven her then and everything would be different now…

But hindsight, as they say, is 20/20. And there was no going back. Now all she could do was move forward, no matter how painful it might prove to be.

“I am sorry,” she said again, her heart a clenched fist in her chest.

“I know you are.” He nodded, his smile gentle.

God, that smile killed her. “I’d like to explain what happened. I think you deserve…I don’t know…more than what I gave you. I think you deserve to hear—”

“And I would like to hear what you’ve got to say,” he said, cutting her off. “But not now.” She couldn’t help it, the muscles in her shoulders loosened, and she dragged in a tired sigh. “First, let’s figure out who’s behind these attacks on you. Let’s get you safe and secure before we sit down for a heart-to- heart, okay? That way there’ll be no distractions.”

She held his gaze for long seconds, feeling as if, regardless of the words coming out of his mouth, the book on that part of her life had inexplicably slammed shut. Just as she’d suspected, last night’s kiss had been an ending.

“Do you think it’s possible for us to maybe…to maybe be friends someday?” She didn’t care that there was an obvious note of hope in her voice.

A muscled ticked in his jaw, and she rolled in her lips, waiting. Finally, he gave her a shrug, “Maybe… Someday…”

“Good.” She blew out a shaky breath, having no choice but to accept what he was offering. “Thank you, Billy.”

“You’re welcome, Eve,” he said in that deep voice of his that’d always reminded her of thunder rolling in over Lake Michigan. She took that as her cue.

Turning on her heel, she exited the outbuilding, carefully closing the door behind her, and stepping onto the slate flagstones of BKI’s back courtyard. She lifted her face to the warm sun peeking over the eastern perimeter wall and closed her eyes, bathing in its warmth.

“It’s enough,” she murmured to herself. “If I can have his friendship, it’ll be enough.”

But the words fell flat on her ears, because what she wanted from him, what she’d always wanted from him, was so, so much more…

* * *

Belmont Avenue

4:15 p.m.

Mac was beat. We’re talking dead-dog-roadkill tired. Or as he father used to say, too pooped to pop—whatever that was supposed to mean. Because not only had he spent the entire day with Bill and Eve and the shit-storm of angst that seemed to swirl around those two in a dizzying funnel cloud—something had happened between them last night that’d turned all their overt animosity and ill-disguised insults into covert glances and tense silences—but he’d also just blown the last hour trying to wheedle a yacht club members list from a guy with salon-quality hair and handmade Italian loafers.

The dude had had silver spoon stamped on his forehead and giant, unremitting asshole scrawled on top of that. And Mac had suffered so much of the guy’s sneering, condescending looks that he’d been two seconds away from strangling the cocksucker, when Eve stepped in, cool and unflappable, finally getting the information they needed.

He had to give the woman some serious props. She was the picture of poise and grace, of geniality and charm…well, except when she was around Wild Bill. And now he was back to the first of his day’s headaches. He glanced over at Bill only to find the man surreptitiously watching Eve in the rearview mirror. Eve, for her part, was staring out the rear passenger side window and gnawing her lower lip like the thing was tastier than apple pie.

What happened between those two last night to wind them tighter than fiddle strings? he wondered for the zillionth time. Then, quickly following that, he thought, ah to hell with it. Because he was done trying to figure them out. It was making his headache worse. Plus, he’d learned long ago it was best to leave all that ooey-gooey stuff to Ace.

Tilting his head from side to side, he was in the middle of working out the kinks in his neck when his iPhone blared the opening bars of “Amarillo Sky.”

Damn. Sometimes he missed Texas.

“What’s up, Ace?” he asked, holding the phone to his ear.

“Bad news.” Ace sounded annoyed. “The motor on the door to the Bat Cave on this end has broken. Again. And I can’t get the sorry sucker open.”

“Shit,” Mac muttered, rubbing a thumb against his pounding temple.

“That about sums it up,” Ace concurred.

To avoid the reporters hanging out in front of BKI—Samantha Tate had been true to her word, it seemed— they’d exited the Knights’ compound that morning via the top-secret underground tunnel that originated behind a heavy, twelve-foot-wide, brick and iron door in the motorcycle shop and terminated in a parking garage across the Chicago River. So, unfortunately, with their only other way back into BKI officially closed for business, they were left with the options of either driving in through the front gate—which couldn’t happen because then the reporters would know that Black Knights Inc. came equipped with a very fancy, very illicit backdoor, and wouldn’t that be just enough to pique their interest?—or he and Bill could stash Eve somewhere safe before frog-manning their way across the Chicago River, scaling the ten-foot-high, razor-wire topped fence commando-style, and helping Ace repair the motor. Fixing that rusting, old behemoth was always a two-, sometimes three-man job.

“Shit,” he said again, realizing that instead of a couple of ibuprofen and a quick nap in his future, he was doomed to engage in full-on Mission Impossible-style maneuvers. “Hold tight, Ace,” he muttered. “I’ll call you back in a sec.”