Chapter 19 #2
The run up north had been long and dusty, the kind that clears your head and reminds you why you ride.
I’d needed it after three weeks of feds breathing down our necks and Sienna still jumping at every shadow.
I killed the engine outside the little coffee shack on the edge of town, the one with the good pour-over and the iced longnecks she liked.
Figured I’d grab her a latte and something sweet before I headed back to the yurt.
The bell over the door jingled when I stepped inside. The place was mostly empty. I was already pulling cash from my wallet when I felt it—eyes on me, the kind that used to make my chest tight in all the wrong ways.
Rylee.
She was sitting at the corner table by the window, legs crossed, that same polished smile on her face like the last six years and the way she’d walked out on me had never happened.
Her husband’s face had been all over the news the last few days—Oakley family, chemical dumping, federal indictments.
The dentist smile was gone. She looked… desperate.
“Mason.” She stood up fast, heels clicking across the tile. Before I could even order, she was in my space, blood-red nails sliding up my chest and pressing right over the Royal Bastards patch like she still had any claim to it. “God, you look good. All that desert sun on you…”
Her other hand drifted lower, fingertips brushing the buckle of my belt, trying to slide under the hem of my shirt like the past had been erased. She rose up on her toes, aiming those glossy lips at my jaw like she could just pick up where we left off.
I caught her wrist before she could touch skin that didn’t belong to her anymore.
“Back off, Rylee.”
She blinked, surprised, but didn’t pull away. “Come on, baby. I know what you heard about Derek. It’s all bullshit. He got mixed up with the wrong people. But you and me… we were real. I made a mistake. I see that now. I never stopped loving you.”
Her nails dug into my pec like she could claw her way back in. The smell of her perfume—too sweet, too expensive—hit me and did nothing but turn my stomach.
I stepped back, forcing her hand off me.
“You stopped loving me the day you walked out for a six-figure car and country-club life. Don’t rewrite history just because your husband’s about to go down for poisoning half the county.
I had the ring in my closet for six months, Rylee.
Six months of overtime and extra runs so I could ask you to marry me. You didn’t even wait for the question.”
Her eyes flicked down to my left hand. The thick platinum band Sienna now matched on her own finger caught the light. Rylee’s face went pale, then flushed an ugly red.
“You’re… wearing a wedding ring,” she whispered, voice cracking. “It’s true. You really married her. That scientist girl you barely know. Mason, you don’t love her. How could you? You just met her. What, a few weeks? A couple months at most?”
I let the silence stretch just long enough for her to feel it.
Then I smiled—slow, calm, the kind of smile that used to make prospects piss themselves.
“I didn’t need two years with her, Rylee.
I didn’t need fancy dinners or country clubs or any of the shit you thought you wanted.
All it took was one ride in the desert, one night watching her fight like hell for something bigger than herself, and I knew.
Two hours in that stash house and I already knew she was the one.
The only one. She didn’t have to sell me out to get a better life. She just stood in the fire with me.”
I leaned in a fraction, voice dropping low so only she could hear.
“She’s my wife. My old lady. My whole fucking world. And you… you’re just the mistake I stopped making the day she looked at me like I was worth something real.”
Rylee’s red lips parted, but nothing came out. Her eyes darted around the coffee shop like she was waiting for someone to laugh and tell her it was a joke. No one did. The barista behind the counter was suddenly very interested in wiping the same spot on the counter over and over.
She took a shaky step back. The blood-red nails curled into fists at her sides.
“You’ll regret this,” she hissed, but her voice cracked.
I just shrugged. “Already got everything I need waiting for me at home. Have fun explaining to your husband why the club’s lawyer is about to bury him.”
She turned on her heel and stalked out, heels clicking fast across the tile. The bell jingled behind her like a period at the end of a sentence I’d been waiting years to finish.
I paid for Sienna’s coffee and the chocolate-chip cookie she liked, then climbed back on the bike. The ring on my finger felt solid. Right.
By the time I pulled up to the yurt the sun was low, painting the desert in that deep canyon gold Sienna loved.
Bandit was sprawled on the platform railing like he owned the place, tail flicking.
The string lights were already on, warm and soft against the coming dark. Smoke curled from the fire pit.
Sienna stepped out onto the deck in one of my old henleys and nothing else, barefoot, hair loose. She smiled when she saw me, the real one that still hit me square in the chest every damn time.
I killed the engine, swung off the bike, and crossed the distance in three strides. I handed her the coffee and the cookie, then pulled her in by the hips and kissed her slow and deep, tasting the desert air and the future we were building one day at a time.
She pulled back just enough to look at me, eyes soft. “Long run?”
“Long enough.” I rested my forehead against hers. “Saw Rylee in town.”
Her eyebrows rose. “And?”
“And she’s gone. For good this time.” I brushed my thumb over her bottom lip. “Told her the truth. I didn’t need years to know you’re the one. Two hours was enough. Hell, two minutes might’ve been enough if I’d been paying attention.”
Sienna’s smile turned wicked. She hooked her fingers in my belt and tugged me toward the open door of the yurt.
“Good answer, husband. Now get inside. Bandit’s already claimed the bed and I want my husband to remind me exactly why I stopped running.”
I laughed low, let her pull me inside, and kicked the door shut behind us.
The desert could keep its ghosts.
I had everything I needed right here.