Her pager. And it was, of course, just after two in the morning. Years of practice making perfect, she was dressed, feet slipped into clogs, hair back, face washed, and out the door before she was even fully awake. She backed the Cutlass out of the driveway and knew the moment the back tire hit the pavement that she had a flat.

"No, no, no," she groaned, forehead against the steering wheel. She hadn't fixed the spare after the last flat she'd gotten. She'd meant to. "Damn." She slapped the dash. "Damn!"

She fished her phone out of her bag and googled a cab company, but as she sat in the street-light lit cabin of the car reading through the hits, she considered. Then she scrolled back through her contacts, and bit her lip looking at Chibs' name on the very short list. She had added it to her contacts after he left the hospital two weeks before, kidding herself that it was a normal thing to be doing. Keying in an outlaw biker's super secret cell, the ex-boyfriend's MC brother, the boyfriend whose baby she had watched be kidnapped while she shook so hard she bruised her body from the inside out. Yeah, a normal day for Tara Knowles in Charming. She tapped it.

On the second ring, he answered. "Howya?" He sounded awake.

"Filip, it's me, Tara."

"Tara." His voice changed to serious. "You alright? What do you need?"

"Yes, no, I'm alright. I know it's a crazy time to call."

"S'okay. I told you it'd be fine. Are you okay?"

"I am. Really." She hesitated, surprised at how comfortable she was with his voice, his presence on the other end of the line.

"Doll?"

"Sorry. I, uh, I have a flat tire. And I need to get to work like five minutes ago."

"You at home?"

She nodded. "I'm sorry. I don't know why I called you. I can call a cab."

"Naw, don't do that. I said it's okay. Enough with the apologies. Tell me where you are."

She rattled off her address.

"Sit tight."

And he signed off. She looked at the dimming light of the phone screen. Wondered why she had called him. A cab would have worked but that wouldn't fix the car. She had grown weary of taking care of herself. She climbed out, leaning against the cold metal. She breathed in deeply the summer night air, holding it in her lungs. Thinking of what she wanted, who she wanted. And for the first time in a long time, it wasn't Jax Teller.

She wanted Chibs to take care of her. And that realization washed over her in a combination of longing and recrimination.

She heard the bike in the dark, entering the subdivision, slowing for stop signs, banking into and out of intersections, and then roaring down her street. All black rider and blacked out bike. She shook her head, aware of the fact that she knew he was riding a stripped down Harley Davidson Dyna. That sort of information was something left over from her teen years with Jax, memorizing body shapes, cubic engine sizes, the crazy variety of seats, fenders, handlebars. He pulled up hard, over the curb edge and into her driveway, parking in front of the sideways car. She knew the physical routine of the bike quieting between her legs, the lean of the machine, the kickstand, the helmet strap, the shaking out of the tingling thighs. He turned towards her and she was smiling, giddy.

He gave her a strange look but pulled his gloves off, one finger at a time as he moved around her, seeking out the flat and nodding to himself when he found it.

"Tha's a puncture a'right."

"Hi Filip."

"Hi yerself." He smiled and ducked his head. Unexpectedly, her heart hammered at this. "You got a spare and a jack?"

She shook her head. "I don't, I mean, I do. I didn't want you to change my tire. The spare is flat in the trunk."

"Not much good then, is it." He was still smiling, watching her. He looked slightly confused, spreading his hands out wide, questioning. "I got the bike."

She nodded. "I see that." She laughed now, it was ridiculous. "Can you give me a lift?"

"A ride?"

"Yes."

He watched her from under lowered brows, a moment stretching out between him, and she made a silent wish. It was a thin tentative thing, wordless, muted, a flash of an image, a flush of warmth.

Then he shrugged, accommodating her. "Sure. We can't leave this like that, though." He opened the car door and slung himself into the front seat. "Watch out, luv." He threw it into neutral, one foot dangling outside, and expertly swung the heavy car into the street and up against the curb.

He put the keys into his front jeans pocket, walked back up to the bike and held his helmet out to her. She pulled it onto her head, still warm, and the intimacy of it sent a spark of fire down her spine. He fastened it for her, pulling the strap tighter without pinching her. Then he straddled the bike, and she knew to wait while he rolled it down into the street. He held out his hand, she placed hers inside to steady herself, the strength in his arm balancing her, and she swung her right leg over and behind him. He had no extra seat, she was sitting on the fender, and the curve of it had her sliding up against him. He was between her legs, her thighs fast against his and before she could overthink the physicality, he kicked it to life and her hands went to his hips. He reached down and pulled each of her hands around his body and she clasped them together. His soft belly contrasting with the hard muscles of his legs, flexing as he rode.

She laughed, delighted to be on the bike, behind him, in the night air, screaming out of her sober neighborhood at two in the morning. She pressed the side of her head against his back, closed her eyes tight at the glaring reaper, then leaned slightly backwards, the wind whipping over her eyelids, a caress. Inside her chest, she felt her tiny wish begin to grow.

In the hospital parking lot she handed him back the helmet, feeling suddenly quiet. Without the helmet, she felt exposed in some way. Revealed. Wind-chafed and slightly out of breath. The reality of his presence, the bike, the steady gaze he gave her was overwhelming. A strange guilt licked at her, as though she was cheating on someone.

"Tara," he said her name simply, no question no statement.

She nodded at this, smiling shyly. She wanted to turn and bolt through the glass doors, she wanted to step into his space and touch the side of his neck with her fingers. She wondered if he was feeling the same odd sensation of comfort and the pull of a small longing.

"What time you off?"

She furrowed her brows. "Oh, I don't know. I'm not sure. Why?"

He smiled, squinting at her. "Don't you want to get home?"

"Yes, oh, yeah, sure. I'll call a cab. I could walk."

"Backwards even. What about the Cutlass? I'll pick you up. Tell me what time to be here or call me when you're ready."

"I could text you," she said impulsively, wanting to keep teasing with him.

He looked at her, nonplussed. "We ain't adolescents, darling."

She laughed slightly, feeling awkward, pulling at the ends of her hair. "I should be okay to leave around mid-morning. I will call you. Thanks. Thank you."

He shook his head at her, dismissing the gratitude, settled the helmet on his head, straps swinging, straddling the bike. "Good." She turned away and he called out to her. She turned back. "Or you could sext me, too. That'd work."

Before she could answer him, he was banking out of the lot.


Hours on her feet in the operating theater. Assisting. The newborn child breathing through the surgery, surviving the violence of medicine. The heart smaller than her thumb, the strain of her eyes through the loupes. During a long stretch of minutes, watching the pediatric cardiologist work precisely, something in the shape of the newborn's feet beneath the drape opened a tiny hole inside her mind and she became trapped in memories of another baby, another lifetime ago.

She gasped herself out of the images, physical and emotional, and the surgeon and a nurse looked up at her sharply. She squinted herself back to awareness, to the surgery, the room, the patient, the machines.

Later, in the break room, she swallowed a hot cup of black coffee in three gulps. Then filled it again, this time with equal amounts of creamer and nursed it like an alcoholic with a bottle. She was frustrated and unhappy with what happened during surgery. In her methodical way, she listed all the things that could have pulled her so entirely into another place. Exhaustion, intent focus, Abel Teller's similar heart surgeries, and Chibs. It all had to have begun with riding pillion, the reaper in her peripheral. But she had not considered Jax during the ride over to St. Thomas, or had she? She remembered the small prick of guilt.

She finished the coffee and stood beside the garbage can, turning the Styrofoam cup in her hands. She turned a narrowed gaze internally, studying a surfacing dark truth. Thinking of Jax was to betray Chibs.

But more than that, thinking of Chibs was a betrayal of her own fatalistic determination that her life was destined to be short, brutal, and filled with the complicated struggle of love and hate.