The Biker and the Loner (Oil and Water #3)- S. Ann Cole Page 0,7

difference is the long, prominent scar that runs jaggedly from just above his left eyebrow straight down to his chin. It’s as if a quarter of his face was sliced off and had to be stitched back together. Completely healed, but utterly conspicuous.

Gone is his full head of long, black hair, replaced with what looks like it used to be a military haircut but is now overgrown. His once thick, full beard has also been replaced with a thin shadow of facial hair.

His features are sharper, harsher, his eyes darker. A black t-shirt stretches across his chest and clings to his muscles. And there, around his neck, is my father’s necklace.

He still has it.

Still wears it.

“If this protection charm is as good as you say it is, then I’ll see you when I get back.”

Now he’s here. Standing in front of me.

Not that I didn’t already know he was back. As in back from the war.

Nine months ago, he Skyped me and I didn’t answer. Nine months ago, Grunt and Kendra were over the moon that he was coming back. Not unscathed, but alive.

A helicopter he was in got shot down. It spiraled and plummeted. He was the only survivor, suffering a split-open face, a broken leg, and a chopped-off finger.

He was shipped out to Germany first to undergo multiple surgeries, then to Seattle for months of recovery and rehab, then to Boulder for continued rehab.

All this I know through Kendra. Her and Grunt have done a lot of back and forth traveling to see him and be there for him over the past couple of months.

I knew at some point he would be here. In Denver. I just didn’t know when, seeing as I never answer when he calls. Not anymore.

“Quit making that face at me,” he rumbles. “I’m not a ghost.”

Right. God knows what my face must look like right now. “Are...Are you sure?”

He reaches up and flicks the chain around his neck. The pendants clink against each other with a tinny jingle. “Positive.”

“H-How are you?”

“Nuh-uh.” He shakes his head once. “If you wanted to know that, you’d pick up the goddamn phone when I call.” He sets his cup of wine-cream on the counter. “Ring me up.”

“Scratch—”

“Ring me up,” he cuts me off.

And because two new customers get in line behind him, I do my job and ring him up.

As I’m handing over his change and receipt, he spots the ring on my finger and glares down at it. “The fuck’s that?”

“Oh, um…” I nervously twist the ring around my finger as I scan the customers in line, verifying that none are male before I say, “It’s fake. I—”

“Damn well better be,” he cuts me off again, then picks up his cup and stalks right out of the shop.

Through the plexiglass windows, I can see the loitering members of his biker club surrounding him, clapping him on the back. They’re happy to see him. Happy he’s made it home alive.

I’m not.

He’s supposed to be dead. Buried. But stupid, stupid me gave him my father’s protection chain, and now he’s back. He survived a freaking helicopter plummeting out of the sky.

And now he's back.

With my secret.

~

At the end of my shift, I change out of my Tipsy Scoop uniform, check for missed calls from her, then speed home.

I’m worried. For myself, and for her. Because Scratch is back, and he knows.

On his dying breath, my father asked me to be there for her, and that’s what I’ve been doing, even at the cost of my sanity.

Beating the traffic to Cherry Hills Village, I drum my fingers to the house music pouring from the radio as I wait for the monstrous, electric, wrought-iron gates to open, slowly giving way to the sprawling mansion that sits on 3.5 acres.

Katherine de Glücksbeigch-Oliveros isn’t rich. She’s wealthy. She’s from a royal family in a European country with a name I can’t pronounce, and thus can never remember. After her “betrothal pairing,” a custom for her royal family, her groom, the duke of Whereeverland died in a freakish horse-riding accident one week before they were to be wed. She believed it to be a sign, a divine intervention, and consequently abandoned her royal duties in favor of moving here to find love that was real, not arranged.

And that she did. With my father, Juan Oliveros.

I don’t remember my mother—she died when I was two. A midnight burglary break-in gone bad. Papà was working the night shift when it happened. He came home to