Chapter Thirteen
Amelia
I wake up with my mouth remembering Derby.
That is the first problem.
Not Jeremy.
Not the fact that I’m sleeping in a biker’s bed with my son sprawled beside me and a new dinosaur night-light glowing on the dresser. Damn, the women went all out.
Derby.
His mouth. His hands. The rough sound he made when I bit his lower lip and he told me to do it again.
The way he touched me like every inch was a question and waited for me to answer.
The way he stopped when August made one small sound from the hall, like my motherhood did not ruin the moment, only mattered more than it.
I lie still under the dinosaur sheets and stare at the ceiling while heat crawls up my neck.
I should feel ashamed.
I do.
A little.
Not enough.
That is the second problem.
I kissed a man who isn’t my husband. A dangerous man. A biker. A man I barely know, if knowing can be counted in motorcycle rides, terrible sandwiches, locked doors, and one brutal story about a boy with a baseball bat sleeping outside his mother’s room.
But I also kissed a man who asked.
Who stopped.
Who told me wanting wasn’t the same as taking.
Who let me climb off the kitchen counter and go to my son without making me feel like I owed him the rest of the night.
That is the part that makes me close my eyes.
Because I had touched a match, and the house had not burned down.
Maybe that is why I want to touch it again.
August shifts beside me, one little foot kicking out from under the blanket. His hair sticks to his forehead. His mouth hangs open in deep sleep, and Blue Rex is trapped under one arm like a hostage with job security. The night-light paints his cheek silver.
Safe.
For one second, I let myself believe the word.
It doesn’t last long.
Safe is too big for one room. Too big for one night.
Too big for a lock, a biker on the couch, and men posted somewhere in the trees.
Jeremy is still out there. Women like Ruthanne Peck are still out there.
Pearly Gates is still out there with smiles and hymns and whatever secrets made Cider go pale over an old photograph.
Sophie is at Paradise Falls now. Or on her way.
I don’t know what happened after we left the old jail clubhouse because Derby brought me home before the rest of that pain could swallow me whole.
Legend postponed the wedding. Becki confessed something that made the entire room bleed.
Sophie walked out with her face white and her spine made of glass about to shatter.
Secrets turn into cages too.
I said that to Sophie.
Now the words sit beside me in the bed like they are waiting for me to apply them to myself.
What is Derby hiding?
Everyone hides something. He admitted that. But there are secrets that protect old wounds, and there are secrets that turn into weapons. I don’t know which kind Derby carries.
I know he carries them.
A man doesn’t tell a story about broken ribs, a baseball bat and a dead mother unless there are ten darker stories standing behind it, waiting their turn.
The couch creaks in the living room.
My body goes still.
Then another sound.
Cabinet door. Soft curse. Something metallic clattering.
Derby is awake.
Of course he is awake.
For a man built like sleep should fear him, he doesn’t seem to do much of it.
I slide carefully out of bed, trying not to wake August. The floor is cool under my bare feet.
I changed sometime in the night after staring at the cracked door until my eyes burned.
I’m wearing one of my own shirts now, an oversized gray one with a faded Paducah river festival logo across the front, and cotton shorts I dug from my bag.
Nothing sexy. Nothing deliberate. Still, my skin feels too aware.
The bedroom door is cracked the same as I left it.
Not locked.
That still feels like a confession.
I open it a little wider and step into the hall.
The house smells like coffee, rain, and something burning.
“Damn it,” Derby mutters from the kitchen.
A beat.
“Darn it.”
I smile before I can stop myself.
The kitchen light is on. The morning outside is gray and wet, rain dripping from the edge of the porch roof.
Derby stands at the stove in a black T-shirt and jeans, hair damp like he has already been outside.
His feet are bare. His tattoos crawl down both arms, dark against tan skin.
There is a pan in front of him, a bowl on the counter, flour dust on one forearm, and a plate stacked with things that might have once wanted to be pancakes.
They are failing.
Badly.
He flips one, and half of it folds over like a wounded animal.
“Son of a biscuit,” he says.
I lean against the doorway. “Is that censorship?”
He turns.
For one second, the kitchen goes quiet.
His eyes move over me before he catches himself.
Not slowly. Not disrespectfully.
Still enough to make my blood warm.
The memory of last night stands between us in broad daylight, wearing no shame at all.
“Morning,” he says.
His voice is rough.
Mine decides to be worse. “Morning.”
His gaze drops to my mouth.
Only for a second.
I feel it everywhere.
Then he looks back at the pan like breakfast has committed crimes that need investigation.
“You’re up early.”
“Something smelled like it was dying.”
“Pancakes.”
“Those are pancakes?”
“They’re trying.”
I step closer, stopping at the other side of the counter. “Are they winning?”
“No.”
I glance at the plate. “That one looks like Kentucky.”
He looks. “That was an accident.”
“That one looks like Kentucky after a flood.”
“Still edible.”
“You keep saying that like a threat.”
His mouth curves, but it doesn’t last.
There is something wrong.
I see it now that I’m looking at more than his mouth and hands.
His shoulders are tight. His eyes are tired in a way that has nothing to do with the couch.
He hasn’t shaved his head and there’s stubble growing there.
There is a damp line across the neck of his T-shirt from rain, and his beard is wet at the ends.
“You went outside,” I say.
He focuses on the pan. “Yeah.”
“In the rain?”
“Wasn’t going to go outside in the house.”
That is Derby. Deflect with a smart mouth and hope nobody sees the locked door behind it.
I’m not in the mood.
“Why?”
He slides the half-folded pancake onto the plate. “Checking things.”
“Did something happen?”
“No.”
The word comes too fast.
Too flat.
My stomach tightens.
After last night, after Sophie’s face, after Legend’s lie, after my own mouth saying secrets turn into cages, that one little no lands wrong.
“Derby.”
He sets the spatula down.
Slowly.
Like he knows.
Like he already hates this.
“What?” he asks.
“What happened?”
“Nothing you need to worry about before coffee.”
Anger flares so fast it shocks me.
Not huge. Not screaming. Just a clean, hot blade.
“Don’t do that.”
His eyes lift.
I step fully into the kitchen. “Don’t decide what I need to worry about.”
His jaw flexes. “Amelia.”
“No. Not after last night. Not after Sophie. Not after you sat there and told me everyone has secrets.” My voice shakes, but I keep going. “Don’t nothing me because you think keeping me calm is the same as keeping me safe.”
The kitchen goes still.
Rain ticks against the window over the sink.
Derby’s face changes.
Not guilty exactly.
Caught.
“I was going to tell you,” he says.
“When?”
He doesn’t answer.
That is answer enough.
Pain moves through me, sharper than I expect.
Which is ridiculous.
He doesn’t owe me every thought. I kissed him once. I slept in his bedroom because the clubhouse wasn’t safe for my child. We are pretending for the town and maybe not pretending in the kitchen. That doesn’t give me the right to every dark thing in his pocket.
But I’m so tired of being the last woman in the room to know danger has a name.
I fold my arms tight. “What happened?”
Derby studies me for one second longer.
Then he reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a folded paper.
It’s wrinkled and damp, the edges warped from rain. He doesn’t hand it over right away. He looks at it like he would rather burn it, then gives it to me.
My fingers touch his when I take it.
Neither of us reacts.
Both of us react.
I unfold the paper.
A church bulletin.
Pearly Gates Community.
My stomach turns before I even read the words.
A preacher’s smiling face sits near the bottom, printed in black and white, promising salvation through a grin that makes my skin crawl.
Inside, written in black marker, the ink bled at the edges, are seven words.
Families belong to God, not outlaws.
For a moment, I can’t breathe.
The kitchen tilts.
My hand tightens around the bulletin so hard the damp paper bends.
“They mean August,” I whisper.
Derby’s voice is low. “They mean all of us.”
All of us.
The words strike deep.
Not you and the kid.
Not Amelia and August.
Us.
He hears himself at the same time I do. I see it in his face. A flicker of surprise. Then a wall slamming down because feeling walked out in the open without permission.
“Where was this?” I ask.
“On Widowmaker.”
“When?”
“Last night. After you went to bed.”
“And you didn’t wake me.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because August was asleep. You were asleep. And whoever left it was gone.”
“Derby.”
“I know.”
“You know?”
His jaw tightens. “Yeah, I know. I watched Legend and Sophie tear each other open over secrets, then shoved one in my pocket like an idiot.”
The anger in me falters.
Not gone.
But changed by the fact that he names it himself.
He drags a hand over his head. “My first instinct is handle it. Always. See threat, step between, deal with it. Tell people later if they need to know.”
“I need to know.”
“I know that too.”
The paper shakes in my hand.
I hate that.
I press it flat against the counter. “They know where we are.”
“Yes.”
“They came close enough to touch your bike.”
“Yes.”
“They could have come to the house.”