Cassidy: A Motorcycle Club Romance

I left him because he was married to the club. Thirteen years later, the club's enemies came for me anyway.

I'm a fourth-grade teacher. My whole life is spelling tests, carpool, and a church-camp bus full of kids who think I'm boring. That's the plan. That's been the plan since the day I packed a duffel and walked out on a man who loved his brothers more than he loved me.

Then I'm riding chaperone on that bus, singing along to something terrible, and the Sangre block the county road.

I don't remember deciding to get between them and my kids. I remember the heat, the gun, a ten-year-old named Ruby with her fingers locked in mine. I remember waking up in a hospital with a hole in my shoulder and a reporter outside my door.

And then I remember him. Standing in that doorway like he's been standing there for thirteen years.

Cassidy. Older. Harder. Same eyes. He doesn't say sorry. He doesn't say why. He says the cartel has my name now, and he's not leaving. Not the hospital. Not my house. Not Ruby, who hasn't let go of me since the bus and won't let go of him either.

Not me.

I know what he is. I've seen the gun under the couch cushion and the way he checks the windows before he'll close his eyes. I also know he walked off his post to get to me, and the club doesn't forgive that.

He's going to have to choose again. Them or me. And this time there's a little girl who needs the answer to be different.

I told him once he couldn't have both.

I'm starting to think I never gave him the chance to prove me wrong.