Epilogue
WOLF- THREE MONTHS LATER
Buck's on a Thursday night had become our tradition. Pool, beer, and my brothers giving me shit about being domesticated—though they'd mostly given up on that since Quinn had beaten Phoenix at pool so badly last month he'd sulked for a week.
I was lining up a corner pocket shot when Tank straightened from the bar, grin spreading across his face. "Uh oh, boys. Trouble just walked in. Deputy's here."
The theatrical worry in his voice made Phoenix snort. Blade didn't even look up from his phone. We all knew who it was—the only deputy who'd walk into Buck's after shift looking for us instead of trouble.
I turned, and there she was. Quinn stood in the doorway still in uniform, duty belt and all, but her hair was down from its tight bun and she'd lost the professional mask she wore on duty.
The small silver pendant at her throat caught the bar lights—a subtle pike fish, marking her as mine to anyone who knew what to look for.
"Yeah, it's trouble alright," she said, moving toward us with that confident stride that had destroyed me from day one. "Which one of you boys am I going to beat at pool tonight?"
"Not me," Phoenix said immediately, hands up in surrender. "I'm still recovering from last time."
"That was a month ago," Quinn laughed, accepting the beer Buck had already started pulling for her—he knew our Thursday routine by now.
"Some wounds don't heal, Deputy," Phoenix said dramatically, hand over his heart.
Tank stepped up to the table. "I'll take you on. Can't be as bad as Phoenix made it look."
"Famous last words," Blade muttered, finally looking up from his phone.
Quinn selected a cue stick with the careful consideration of someone choosing a weapon.
Which, knowing her pool skills, was pretty accurate.
She'd grown up in bars like this, watching her dad and his deputies unwind after shifts.
Sheriff Bill Jenkins had inadvertently trained his daughter to be a pool shark.
"I want no part of this," I said, moving to lean against the bar. "I've learned my lesson about challenging Quinn Jenkins."
"Smart man." She chalked her cue, then proceeded to run the table on the break. Tank's face went from confident to concerned to resigned in the span of three minutes.
"How?" Tank asked as she sank the eight ball with a bank shot that shouldn't have been possible. "You’re a cop, not a pool hustler."
"Can't I be both?" She grinned, collecting the twenty Tank had put down. "Another round on me, boys."
This was us now. Thursday nights at Buck's, Sunday dinners at Viper and Tara's place, and all the days in between figuring out how a deputy and an MC VP made it work.
Three months in, and we'd found our rhythm.
The town had mostly stopped staring. Her father had progressed from hostile to coldly civil.
My brothers had gone from suspicious to protective, especially after Quinn had shut down some state boys sniffing around the garage with nothing but her badge and attitude.
"Your girl's expensive," Phoenix complained, accepting the beer Quinn had bought with Tank's money.
"Worth every penny," I said, catching Quinn around the waist as she passed, pulling her against me. She melted into me for a moment, all that professional tension from her shift finally easing.
"Long day?" I asked quietly.
"The Hendrick brothers again. Third time this month."
"Those idiots need a new hobby."
"Or separate towns," she agreed, then pulled back slightly. "Want to head home soon? I've got the early shift tomorrow."
Home. Our place, where her uniforms hung next to my leathers, where her law enforcement textbooks shared shelves with my bike manuals. Three months of learning each other's rhythms, each other's lives, and somehow making it all fit.
"One more game," Tank insisted. "Double or nothing."
"Tank, man, just stop," Blade advised. "She's gonna clean you out."
"I've been watching. I've got her tells figured out."
Quinn and I exchanged a look. She didn't have tells—she was just that good.
"Alright," she said, setting up the rack again. "But when I win, you're on bathroom cleaning duty at the clubhouse for a month."
"Deal. And when I win—"
"You won't," Quinn said simply.
She broke again, and I watched my brothers watch her systematically destroy Tank's dreams of redemption. Phoenix was already laughing. Blade had started recording on his phone. Even Wraith, who'd shown up midway through, was shaking his head at Tank's optimism.
This was what I'd never known I wanted. Not just Quinn, though she was everything. But this—her fitting seamlessly into my world while keeping her own. The deputy who could arrest them during the day and hustle them at pool at night. The woman who wore a badge and my mark with equal pride.
"Eight ball, corner pocket," Quinn called, then sank it with casual precision.
Tank groaned. "I'm never gonna hear the end of this."
"Nope," Phoenix confirmed cheerfully. "Beaten twice by the sheriff's daughter. That's gonna follow you forever, brother."
"Ready to go?" she asked me, already knowing the answer.
"Yeah, sweetheart. Let's go home."
We said our goodbyes, Quinn fist-bumping Phoenix and threatening Tank with worse if he didn't pay up on the bathroom duty. Outside, she automatically headed for my bike instead of her cruiser.
"Leave the car here?" I asked.
"I'll get it in the morning. Right now, I just want to ride home with you."
She climbed on behind me, arms wrapping around my waist, and I remembered our first ride—her terrified but trying to be brave, holding on like I might disappear. Now she molded against me like she belonged there, which she did.
The ride home was quiet, just us and the engine and the stars. No more sneaking around. No more pretending we weren't everything to each other. Just a deputy and her biker, making it work against all odds.
As we pulled into our place, Quinn squeezed me extra tight, and I heard her say something against my back.
"What was that?"
She waited until we were off the bike, then pulled me down for a kiss that still made my brain short-circuit, even after three months.
"I said," she murmured against my lips, "best speeding ticket I ever wrote."
"Damn right it was."
We headed inside, Quinn's hand in mine, ready for another night of domestic bliss that neither of us had seen coming but both of us had needed.
I fell for her the moment she got her ticket book out and never looked back.