Chapter One

Present day. Denver, Colorado.

Miranda Campbell, née Kane, hesitated outside Cassie’s Café. She caught a glimpse of her own face in the window, and she sighed at her haggard appearance, at the deep purple bags under her violet eyes. She’d barely slept the night before, and no goddamn wonder.

The previous afternoon one of her biggest fears had finally come to pass: she’d run into Shane MacIntyre in public. Turns out, he was good friends with Mirrie’s friend’s boyfriend. As she stood in front of the café, thinking about maybe touching up her lipstick, and wondering just why the hell she was thinking about touching up her lipstick, longing for a cigarette, and cursing the fact that she’d given them up six months earlier, Mirrie pondered what a small world it was. Unfortunately.

When Shane had seen her at Naomi’s art centre opening the day before, he’d played it cool. At least for a while. But the private confrontation in the kitchen had been bad. Well, worse than bad, actually. Awful. God, the hurt and rage in his eyes and in his voice… Mirrie had longed to throw herself at him, to have him hold her again. She wanted to be forgiven for what she’d done to him – even if she’d done it for him.

He’d forced the issue, of course. Demanded to know why she’d disappeared four years before, without anything more than a three-line e-mail saying that she was leaving Denver. Demanded to know why she hadn’t come up to his cabin that weekend. He’d informed her that he’d waited up there for three days, and she’d flinched at the thought of how worried he must have been when the hours had passed, and she hadn’t shown up. Forget that the cabin had been surrounded by people intent on killing him if she hadn’t gone along with what they’d wanted; all she’d seen the day before had been the deep wound that she’d inflicted on Shane.

Better that he be emotionally wounded than physically dead.

Mirrie shook herself now, braced herself for what was waiting for her in the café. Shane had insisted on meeting today, and she’d promised to tell him the truth. About everything.

She was terrified.

Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to open the door and walk in. She glanced around, hoping against hope that maybe he’d changed his mind, but no such luck. There he was, in a booth in the far corner, glaring at her. He’d probably been sitting there since the café had opened three hours before, downing coffee and trying to stay calm. She could only imagine his fury, and although she knew that he’d never lay a finger on her, she feared his anger more than a punch.

She bit her lip, crossed the room. Those hard blue eyes watched her as she walked over, slid into the seat opposite his. They silently regarded each other, saw the lack of sleep and strain on the other person’s pale face.

Mirrie cleared her throat. “Hi.”

Mac scowled. “Talk.”

She looked down, wishing that he’d at least said hello. But there was going to be no fucking around, no wasting time. No reprieve for her, not anymore. Well, he had been waiting four years for answers, so she supposed he was done being patient.

“Shane, I…”

The waitress approached, and Mirrie paused, gratefully accepting fresh coffee. She twisted her fingers, and waited until the woman had walked away, relishing these final few seconds of avoiding the inevitable.

Mac stared at her now as she added three scoops of sugar to her coffee, still completely unable to believe that she was sitting here with him. Fuck, when he’d seen her standing there the afternoon before, he'd thought he’d lost his goddamn mind. At first, he’d been confused by how different she looked – the Miranda that he’d known had been a soft honey-blonde, she’d barely worn any makeup at all, she’d worn loose, almost hippy-like clothing.

But the woman sitting here at this moment looked like some kind of rock-chick crossed with a biker babe. Hair dyed bright pink, a neck tattoo, piercings in her eyebrow, lip, cheek and nose, heavy makeup. The only thing that Mac recognized were those stunning eyes: they were as pure and perfect as ever. They were the eyes that had gazed up at him from his bed, sated and warm, the eyes that had sparkled at him with both lust and affection. Those eyes had haunted his dreams. They still did.

“Mirrie,” he said, his voice coming out harsh and hard as he remembered how madly in love with her he’d been. “Fucking talk.”

She nodded, looked away again. “I know, Shane. I’m just – I don’t know where to start.”

“Start with telling me who beat the hell out of you,” he said. “Who tried to kill you.”

“Yeah.” She took a sip of sweet black coffee for courage. “That was The Fallen Angels.”

Of all the hundreds of scenarios that Mac had imagined, that hadn’t been on the list.

“Why would a motorcycle club want you dead?” he asked, perplexed.

“Because,” she said quietly. “I’m Miranda Kane.”

Frozen with shock, he gaped at her. “Kane?”

“Yeah.” She gave him a twisted little smile. “Donovan Kane’s younger sister.”

Mac shook his head, trying to wrap his sleep-deprived mind around what she was telling him. Donovan ‘Joker’ Kane was well-known in Denver, and he wasn’t known for anything remotely resembling human decency. His father Sandy ‘Sands’ Kane was almost as bad.

“How – how can you be Joker Kane’s sister?” he said.