Diesel's Outlaw Desire

1. Penny

PENNY

The Halvorsen file has a permanent home on my desk, wedged between a stack of parking citations and a coffee mug that says WORLD’S OKAYEST COP. The mug was a gift from Officer Johnson. I keep meaning to throw it away and never do.

Twelve pages. That’s all Erik Halvorsen’s murder amounts to after three months—twelve pages, a grainy crime scene photo, and a cover story about a punk in a fake patch that doesn’t survive five minutes of scrutiny.

I flip to the coroner’s report again, my finger resting beside the caliber notation. I’ve practically memorized it. Whoever did this knew what they were doing. That’s my read, anyway, though I need more than a hunch to prove it wasn’t some strung-out kid trying to rob a house.

I rub my eyes. When I open them, I notice a padded envelope in my inbox basket. Johnson must’ve dropped it off without saying anything. Unusual for him—he likes to narrate his actions. I set the file down and open the envelope.

Cream cardstock. Gold foil lettering. My full name and title in careful calligraphy—Officer Penelope Carpenter—with WSMC scrawled in the margin.

Sasha Halvorsen and Jenson Slade request the honor of your presence.

I set the invitation down and stare at it.

Should’ve seen this coming. The whole town watched it happen—the president taking in his dead friend’s daughter, the girl showing up on the back of his bike a month later with stars in her eyes, the property patch, the ring.

Jenson’s handsome in that dangerous, silver-haired way that makes women stupid, and he’s protective as hell.

I’ll give him that. He’s also twenty-five years older than her and runs guns through half of East Tennessee.

I know his type. I dated his VP.

Seventeen years ago, I was the girl sitting on the back of a bike, thinking I’d found the man I was going to marry. Everyone thought Evan Cole was the one for me. My mother already had opinions about china patterns.

Then he turned eighteen and started prospecting for the Wicked Sinners.

Erik “Viking” Halvorsen was still president, and Jenson “Havoc” Slade stood at his right hand.

I remember Jenson mostly hanging back—tall, quiet, watching everything.

Evan stopped coming to family dinners and started turning up with split knuckles.

That was when everyone started calling him Diesel.

I left for good reasons. I’ve been back a year, and somehow the Wicked Sinners still manage to turn up in my caseload.

By some miracle, I haven’t run into Evan yet. Not up close. I caught a glimpse of him on Main Street once, all leather and ink, and recognized the way he moved before I saw his face. He was gone before I could decide whether to duck into the hardware store.

Avoiding him at a wedding would be harder.

If I go.

I close Erik’s file just as Chief Morris ambles past with his coffee, but I’m not fast enough with the invitation.

“That what I think it is?” he asks, one bushy eyebrow raised.

“Depends what you think it is.”

“Wedding invitation.” He says it like he’s identifying a bird species. “You going?”

“Haven’t decided.”

Morris leans against the corner of my desk, the way he does when he’s about to offer some folksy wisdom I didn’t ask for. The man’s been doing this job since before I could tie my shoes. He means well, which makes it harder to tell him to leave me alone.

“That girl doesn’t have anybody outside that club,” he says. “Might do her good, having a friend who isn’t wearing a cut.”

“I’m not exactly neutral, Chief.”

“Didn’t say neutral. Said friend.” He taps the desk twice before walking off. “Think about it.”

I watch him go, remembering myself at seventeen, sitting in the clubhouse parking lot in Evan’s letterman jacket.

I told myself the late nights meant nothing, that the club was a phase he’d grow out of.

Nobody told me otherwise. I had to find out for myself what being with him meant, and how much of it I could live with.

Maybe Sasha could use somebody willing to tell her how it is.

I put the file in my bottom drawer and lock it. The wedding invitation stays on my desk until it’s time to leave. Then I take it with me.

The drive home takes me past my parents’ place. All those years away, and I’ve settled within two miles of the house I grew up in. Some kind of homing pigeon with a badge.

Mom’s out front working in the flower beds in her sun hat, and Dad’s on the porch with his sweet tea, watching her like she’s the only interesting thing in Graves County. I honk twice. Mom waves without looking up, and Dad raises his glass.

That’s what I wanted. I love my bungalow and my dog, Thunder. I’m proud of the badge. But I wanted somebody who’d still look at me the way Dad looks at Mom after four decades together.

Sometimes I think I could’ve had that with Evan if he’d stayed out of the club. As if we had everything else figured out at seventeen. I know better, but with the wedding invitation tucked in my glove box, it’s hard not to wonder.

I thought I’d found it in Texas. Three years with a man who seemed steady, who liked routine, who I let myself believe in. Then one night he sat across from me at dinner and asked how I’d feel about opening things up.

Like we were discussing a home renovation.

I left the next week. Packed what mattered and drove home with the radio too loud so I wouldn’t have to think.

Bet Evan would say I’m good at leaving.

I’d spent enough time around the club to know there were other things I couldn’t live with, either.

I used to watch the women there—Ruth, sharp and sturdy; Carol with her four cups of coffee and her mouth like a razor; Savannah before the bomb took her, golden and adored, and somehow able to look past whatever crimes her husband committed on runs.

I never understood how they did it. How they wore that property patch with pride when I couldn’t bear the thought of putting one on.

I wanted a life where I didn’t have to look the other way. Becoming a cop ought to have settled that.

Thunder’s whining behind the door when I reach the porch, his claws scrabbling against the wood.

I let myself in, and he barrels past my legs into the yard, running the fence line twice before stopping to bury his nose in a patch of grass.

I didn’t know Rottweilers were supposed to be this dramatic about going outside.

Inside, I drop my keys in the bowl by the door and stop at the hallway mirror.

Tan uniform. Hair scraped back into a bun so tight my head aches. I reach up and loosen it, studying my reflection.

I look like a woman who ought to be able to spend a few hours in the same room as her ex. Seventeen years, a career, a life of my own. Surely I can manage a wedding.

I let my hand fall and try to remember if I own anything that doesn’t look like I could wear it to work.

Apparently, I’m going to need a dress.