Peak #3
“You do,” he said. The corner of her mouth twitched, and Peak continued. “I know you pretend you aren’t afraid because you think fear makes you weak.” Her smile disappeared. “I know you feel responsible for every person who gets hurt near you, even when none of it is your fault.”
“Peak—”
“And I know you haven’t quit.” His voice softened. “Not once.” Maeve looked at him, and he could see the effort it took for her not to look away. “That’s enough for now,” he said.
Her eyes glistened. “For now?”
“Means I plan on learning the rest.”
She released a shaky breath. “You make everything sound simple.”
“It is simple,” he said with a shrug.
She gave him a disbelieving look. “Nothing about this is simple. Finding Wren isn’t simple, and taking down the Director isn’t simple. Figuring out who betrayed the club isn’t simple.”
He squeezed her hand. “This is, though.”
“What is this?” she asked.
“Whatever’s happening between us.” Maeve went still.
Peak had always been direct. He fixed motorcycles by finding the broken part and dealing with it.
He wrote code by identifying the problem and building the cleanest solution.
He didn’t understand why relationships were supposed to require games and half-truths.
He wanted her, he cared about her, and pretending otherwise would not make either fact disappear.
“I don’t know what happens after we find Wren,” Maeve admitted.
“Neither do I,” he said.
“What if she needs me?” she asked.
“She will,” he breathed.
“What if helping her takes everything I have?”
“Then we give her everything.”
Maeve stared at him. “We?”
“Yes,” he said.
“You barely know Wren.”
“I know she matters to you, and that’s enough for me,” he said. A tear slipped from the corner of her eye, and Peak brushed it away with his thumb. “I don’t need promises from you right now,” he said. “I don’t need you to know what happens tomorrow.”
“What do you need?” she asked.
“The truth.”
Maeve’s gaze searched his. “About what?”
“Last night.”
Her cheeks flushed slightly, but she didn’t look away. “What about it?”
“Tell me it wasn’t something you did because you were scared or lonely,” he begged.
She took her time before answering. “I was scared.” Peak waited. “And I was lonely.” His chest tightened. “But that isn’t why.”
The pressure eased. “Why, then?”
Maeve’s thumb moved across the back of his hand.
“Because I wanted you.” The honesty in her voice stripped away the last of his uncertainty.
“I still do,” she added quietly. Peak wanted to kiss her.
He wanted to drag her closer, roll her beneath him, and forget every danger waiting outside the room.
Instead, he touched his forehead to hers; there would be time for everything else, or he would damn well make time.
“I wanted you too,” he said.
“You made that fairly obvious.”
He laughed. “There’s that smart mouth.”
“You like my smart mouth,” she teased.
“More than I should.” Maeve relaxed against him again and for several minutes, neither spoke.
Peak listened to the rain and felt her breathing gradually settle.
The motel room was cold without power, but the blanket and the warmth of her body made it bearable.
He should have been checking the parking lot, examining the coded message Captain had brought, or figuring out whether his bike was still transmitting a location signal.
Instead, he allowed himself to stay where he was—just for a few minutes.
Maeve broke the silence. “Tell me about your house.”
Peak frowned. “My house?”
“You said you inherited it.”
“I did,” he said.
“What’s it like?”
“Too big.”
“That isn’t a description,” she insisted.
He sighed. “It’s an old estate house near the water.”
“How old?”
“Mid-eighteen-hundreds.”
Maeve lifted her head. “You live in a mansion?”
“I wouldn’t call it that,” he said.
“How many bedrooms does it have?” she asked.
Peak hesitated. “Eight.”
She stared at him. “Eight bedrooms”
“Most of them are closed off because I don’t use them,” he defended.
“How many bathrooms?” she asked.
“Six.”
“You live alone in an eight-bedroom house with six bathrooms?” She sounded as though she was accusing him of some kind of wrongdoing.
“It sounds worse than it is when you say it like that.”
“It sounds exactly the same,” she defended.
He smiled. “My grandfather refused to sell it. I guess I inherited the family stubbornness.”
“Why didn’t you sell it?” she asked.
Peak looked toward the ceiling. “I almost did after my grandfather died.”
“What stopped you?”
“My grandmother,” he admitted.
“What did she say?” Maeve asked.
“That a house isn’t empty just because some of the people who lived there are gone.”
Maeve’s expression softened. “She really was smart.”
“Don’t let her wisdom fool you. She was mean as hell,” he said.
“I would have liked her,” Maeve said.
“She would have loved you.” The words slipped out before he considered them.
Maeve grew still. Peak could have taken them back, but he didn’t.
His grandmother had appreciated strong women, especially ones who refused to bend for men who assumed they should.
She would have taken one look at Maeve and recognized exactly what she was—a fighter.
“You don’t know that,” Maeve said.
“I do,” he insisted.
“What would she have liked about me?” she asked.
“The fact that you argued with me within ten seconds of meeting me.”
“That’s a strange qualification,” Maeve breathed.
“She worried nobody would ever challenge me,” Peak said.
“Your grandmother thought very highly of you.”
“She thought I was an arrogant pain in the ass,” he grumbled.
Maeve smiled. “See, she was a smart woman.”
Peak pulled the blanket higher over her shoulder. “What about you?”
“What about me?” she asked.
“Where did you live before all this happened with Wren?”
The smile faded from her face. “A little house outside Annapolis.”
“You owned it?” he asked.
“For six years,” she said.
“What was it like?”
“Small,” she breathed. “I didn’t have eight bedrooms.”
“That isn’t a description.”
She gave him a look. “It had two bedrooms, one bathroom, and a kitchen that desperately needed updating, along with a porch that tilted slightly to the left.”
“Sounds fixable,” he said.
“You would say that.”
“I could fix it,” he insisted.
She shook her head. “It’s too late now. I sold it so that I could keep looking for Wren.”
The loss in her voice made him regret the casual remark. “I know.”
“Wren practically lived there.”
“She had her own room?” he asked.
Maeve nodded. “The second bedroom was supposed to be an office, but she kept leaving things there. Clothes, books, and computer parts.” She laughed at the memory.
“So it became hers.”
“Eventually.” Maeve smiled faintly. “She painted one wall bright yellow without asking.”
Peak laughed. “How bright?”
“Painfully bright,” she said.
“You leave it that color?” he asked.
“I threatened to paint over it.”
“But you didn’t,” he guessed.
“No.” Her expression turned distant. “After she disappeared, I couldn’t go into that room. I kept the door closed for months.”
Peak squeezed her hand. “Selling the house must have been hard.”
“It was worse staying there.” Every room would have held a memory.
Every silence would have reminded her Wren was gone.
That was something Peak understood. He had remained in his family home after his grandfather died, surrounded by the man’s books, furniture, and half-finished arguments.
For months, he’d expected to hear his grandfather’s footsteps in the hall.
Maybe Maeve had been braver than he was because she had left. He had stayed and called it loyalty.
“Where will you go after this?” he asked.