Chapter Five

“I stopped to say goodbye to a friend of mine before I left, but I was a fucking hungover wreck. He saw how upset I was, and he pushed and prodded until I finally broke, and told him everything. He told me to stay if I wanted to, that he’d take care of The Fallen Angels.”

Mac’s eyebrows shot up. “How’d he do that?”

“I still don’t know.” Mirrie opened her hands, palms-up. “Spider sat me down with a pot of black coffee, told me not to move a muscle. He left, and when he came back about two hours later, he told me that it had all been sorted out.”

“All what?”

“All of everything to do with me.” Mirrie shook her head, and Mac saw her confusion. “He said that he’d arranged everything with The Fallen Angels, and that I could stay and live under my new name, no problem. Hell, he even offered me a job in his café.”

Mac stared at her. “A – a café owner negotiated with an MC? And got everything that he wanted?”

“Yeah.” She smiled at the look on his face. “Believe me, I begged him to tell me what he had on The Fallen Angels, but he said it was better that I didn’t know. Together, we changed my appearance pretty dramatically, and I lived with Spider for a while, just until I got my shit together. It took me almost a year, and I stumbled and relapsed a few times, but eventually I got totally sober.”

“Good for you, Mirrie.”

“But the thing is that Spider’s never told me what he said or did or threatened the Angels with, and I’ve stopped asking.” She shrugged. “I mean, it’s been four years, and even though I’d bet that they keep an eye on me, they haven’t come near me that whole time that I know of.”

“Right.” Mac puzzled over all of that for a minute, dropped it. “So that’s what you do now? Work for Spider?”

“Yeah. In his café.”

“Which one?”

“Why?” She was defensive now, he saw, and his heart sank. “What does it matter?”

“How can you ask me that?” he said. “It matters because now I know that you didn’t leave me because you wanted to… you didn’t just fuck off on me. It matters because it changes everything, Mirrie.”

“How?”

“How?” Mac echoed.

“Yeah. How. I agreed to one conversation with you, and then we’d go our separate ways. I said I’d tell you the truth because you deserved to know what happened. That’s it.”

“Not for me, it’s not.”

“What?”

“Now that I know what really happened, I want to try again,” Mac said doggedly. “I want to try to make us work.”

“You – for God’s sake, why?”

“Fuck, babe, I never stopped loving you, no matter how hard I hated you. I want you back in my life… I want you back.”

Mirrie was literally unable to speak for a few seconds. She stared at Shane, incredulous and bewildered. Finally, she managed to get her throat to work.

“Have you not been listening to a single goddamn thing I’ve been saying?” she demanded.

“Yeah, I have.” He shifted in his seat, and despite her shock, she couldn’t help but run her eyes over his body with appreciation.

Shane was muscled and rugged, with a build better-suited to a boxer than a neurologist. Throw in the tattooed arms and the broad chest and the killer eyes, and you had a drop-dead sexy man with an intimidating brain and a smart mouth. She’d never known him to be serious about a single goddamn thing – except her. When it came to her, Shane had always been serious, and right now, that scared her to death.