Chapter 17 #2
“See, there was a guy,” I said, my voice going flat the way it always seemed to when I talked about the darker parts of club life. “Forty-something. Had been following you around for weeks. Showed up outside your house, outside school, at the fucking mall where you worked. Remember?”
She nodded slowly. “He said he was a security guard or something, but he always gave me the creeps.”
“I remember,” I ground out through clenched teeth.
“My old man had some guys from the club do a little digging; found out the guy had a record. Assault, kidnapping, rape—victims refused to cooperate with police, so the charges were all eventually dropped. Asshole had a whole system worked out. He’d watch his victims, learn their routines, wait for the perfect moment to grab them. ”
Kelsey’s face had gone pale, but she didn’t pull away.
“Pops and I did a little recon and found drawings in his trailer,” I continued, each word tasting like metal on my tongue.
“Detailed plans for what he wanted to do to you. Where he’d take you.
How long he’d keep you before—” I stopped myself, my throat closing around shit too sick to ever say aloud. Not to her.
“I volunteered for the job. Told the club I wanted to handle it myself—my first kill. Should have been nervous about taking a life, but I thought about what he wanted to do to you. About how I’d feel if I let someone else handle it and he somehow got away, came back for you—” I shook my head.
“Didn’t feel a damn thing except relief when I sent that motherfucker to the Reaper. Need you to understand. Everything I’ve ever done, every choice I’ve ever made, it all comes back to you.”
I pulled her up against my chest, her jaw slack and eyes wide with shock.
“I’d do it again, Kels. In a heartbeat. I’d do it a thousand times over if it meant keeping you safe.
The club, the chapter, all of it—it only matters because it gave me a way to protect you, to provide for you and our kids.
And I know none of it turned out how we planned.
Know there’s been more pain than I ever wanted you to feel.
But if someone came to me right now, told me I could go back and choose a different path—one where I never met you, never fell in love with you, never had to go through any of this—I’d tell them to go fuck themselves. ”
She swayed against me, a choking sob slipping past her lips.
“Because even with all the heartbreak, even with all the ways we broke each other, I’d still choose you,” I managed, nostrils flaring with each measured exhale as I tried and failed to rein in my emotions.
“Every single time. I’d go through it all again—the pain, the loss, the two years without you—if it meant having you in my life at all.
You’re it for me, Kelsey Dawn Riggs. Always have been. ”
Her response came out so quiet I almost missed it, even with mere inches between us. “You’re it for me, too,” she whispered. “And no matter what came after. No matter how much it hurt. I’d still choose you.”
Something in my chest cracked wide open, flooding me with a relief so intense it made my knees weak. I hadn’t realized how much I’d needed to hear those words until they were hanging in the air between us, real and solid and impossible to take back.
“Then let me make this easy,” I said, already making the decision before my brain could catch up with my mouth. “I’ll step down as president. Irish can take the chapter back, or one of the others.”
“What?” she gasped, jerking her head up in surprise.
I’ll move back,” I continued, the words coming faster now that I’d started. “To Lubbock. To the house. To wherever you need me to be. You wanna stay in Texas? Fine. I’ll figure out the rest. But you come first, Kels. You’ve always come first, even when I was too stupid to show it.”
She shook her head, looking dazed. “I’d never ask you to do that, Teddy. The club is your life—”
“You’re my life, goddammit,” I growled, my heart hammering against my ribs like a jackhammer.
“The club’s in my blood. It’s a part of me, but it ain’t everything.
You think this is new, baby? Been willing to give up everything for you since the day we met.
So, if your future’s in Texas, then that’s where I’ll be. Simple as that.”
“I don’t want to go back to the way things were,” Kelsey confessed, chewing the corner of her lip.
My stomach dropped. Here it was—the gentle letdown, the ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ speech I’d been dreading.
I started to pull away, needing a minute to shove my feelings down deep before I did something truly pathetic like beg. “Okay. Okay, I understand—”
She grabbed at my arm. “No, wait. I mean, I-I don’t want to go back to our old lives. I hate that house!”
I frowned, trying to make sense of what she was saying.
“I’ve been pretending I’m fine there, but I’m not.
It’s like living in a haunted house. I only stayed because I didn’t know where else to go.
” She angrily swiped at the tears on her cheeks, hiccupping as she tried to get her breathing under control.
“Because leaving felt like I was abandoning our memories, even the painful ones. But if I’m being honest, I—” She stopped, biting her lip again like she was afraid to finish the thought.
“You what?” I prompted gently. I needed her to say it. Needed to hear what she really wanted, not what she thought I wanted to hear.
“I wouldn’t mind getting away from the desert heat,” Kelsey said, her voice so quiet I almost missed it. “Living somewhere with four seasons. Somewhere I could—” Her eyes widened with alarm, like she hadn’t meant to say the last bit out loud.
“Not that I’m—I mean, I know you’re not asking me to move in or anything,” she backtracked quickly, her cheeks flushing. “I’m not trying to invite myself or assume you want me here permanently. I just meant that theoretically, I wouldn’t be opposed to the idea of possibly considering—”
“Move in with me,” I interrupted, unable to listen to her stumble over herself for another second.
Her mouth opened, closed, then opened again. “What?”
“Move in with me,” I repeated with a low chuckle. “Here. This cabin or the other one. We’ll bring whatever you want from Texas and leave the rest.”
“Teddy, we can’t just—”
“Why not?” I challenged. “You just said you hate that house. Said you want out of Texas. And I just told you I’d give up the presidency and move back if that’s what you needed. So why can’t I ask you to come here instead?”
“Because it’s—” She fumbled for words, her breath coming faster. “It’s too fast. Too soon. We’ve only been around each other for, like, five days—”
I ran my tongue over my teeth, fighting the urge to laugh again.
“Been together for thirty years, baby. Five days, five decades—ain’t gonna change how I feel about you.
But if you need time to think about it, I get that.
Just don’t say no because you think I’m not sure.
I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life. ”
“But what would I even do here?” she asked, voice small.
“Whatever you want. Take a pottery class like you always talked about. Teach yoga. Run your business. Hell, I’m sure there are hundreds of old people around here just waiting for you to adopt them,” I teased.
“I’m a senior transition specialist, Teddy,” she corrected sternly, but there was a little twitch at the corner of her mouth that meant she was trying not to smile.
“Point is,” I continued, “you could do anything. Or nothing. Just be here. With me.”
She searched my face, and I could see the war playing out behind her eyes. The practical Kelsey, who made lists and planned everything, versus the woman who’d been brave enough to ask a seventeen-year-old biker’s son to a high school dance because she wanted him.
“This is crazy,” she whispered.
The corner of my mouth lifted in a grin. “Riggs’ men ain’t exactly known for being rational when it comes to their women, baby. Ask Dane and my old man about that. Besides, we did the sane, reasonable thing for decades, and look where it got us. Maybe it’s time to try crazy.”
“Oh my God. My therapist would have a field day with this,” she muttered.
“Killing me here, Kels,” I said, my voice dropping low. “Yes or no.”
She stared up at me, those green eyes searching mine like she was looking for the catch, the fine print, the reason this couldn’t possibly be real.
But then something shifted in her expression—a letting go, a surrender to whatever this was between us.
“Yes.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes, Teddy,” she breathed, and the smile that broke across her face damn near brought me to my knees. “I’ll move in with you.”