“Hey, bud. How was summer camp?” Evie squeezed Ty in a hug as soon as he stepped off the bus. He had grown over the last two weeks. She didn’t remember his head coming up to her shoulder, or his dark hair brushing his collar, but he was thinner, and deeply tanned. Had they not given him enough to eat?
“Great.” He returned the hug and then just stood in the circle of her arms, still young enough not to be embarrassed by her affection like some of the older kids were. Her Ty was quietly affectionate, grounding himself in stillness. Just like his dad. She suspected he would never be one of the kids who pushed their parents away. After what they had been through in Stanton, they were very close.
“Hi, Tiger.” Connie ruffled his hair. “Check out my streaks. Who does that remind you of?”
Ty pulled out of Evie’s embrace and frowned. “Superman?”
“No.”
“Fourth of July?”
“No again.” Connie gave an indignant sniff. “One more wrong answer and you’re back on the bus for another two weeks of starvation.”
“Is Connie joking?” Ty looked to Evie for confirmation and she laughed. He was always so serious and intense, and Connie, with her sharp wit, took full advantage.
“Connie’s always joking,” she said, taking his bag. “That’s why I don’t pay attention to anything she says.”
“I heard that, and now I’m only talking to Ty. Not you.” Connie put an arm around Ty’s shoulders and led him to her car. Evie followed behind, warm in the knowledge her son was home.
He was like Zane in so many ways, and now that she knew Zane lived in Conundrum, how could she not tell Ty he was here? Over the years, she’d shared as much of the truth as she thought Ty could handle: his father left before he was born, and although she tried to find him, she’d been unsuccessful. She had been careful to make sure he understood Zane’s absence wasn’t a rejection. There was no point in sharing her bitterness or turning him against a father he didn’t know. Maybe because she’d always hoped one day she would find Zane again.
Well, now she had found him, but things hadn’t gone as she imagined they would. Her anger at his abrupt departure had paled beneath her outrage when he told he had come back and left again when he’d seen her with Mark. All those years missed with his son, and he had the audacity to be angry with her. With so much hurt and so many secrets between them, she couldn’t imagine they would ever find their way back together, but she didn’t want to stand in the way of a relationship between Ty and his father.
If that’s what Zane wanted.
“Should we go out to lunch to celebrate?” She gave Ty’s hair a tug from behind. He had been fair until he turned four, then his hair had darkened and he’d taken to wearing it long—too long for a mother’s taste. But now, having seen Zane, the resemblance was unmistakable. No one could doubt he was Zane’s son.
“Can we get pizza? Camp food was crap, except for campfire nights.”
“Don’t swear, Ty. You know I don’t like that language.” At least not from him. But at Bill’s shop, swearing was a way of life, and she’d long since stopped trying to get the mechanics to curb their language.
“You swear,” he said. “All the time. You say ‘damn’ when things don’t go well.”
“And I put a quarter in the swear jar every time.” Good thing he had never heard her when she hung out with Zane and Jagger. They’d given her an entirely new vocabulary of swearwords that had taken a long time to shake after she became a mother and adopted a more conservative outlook—one that apparently made Connie think she was wedding material.
And yet sometimes the rebel in her broke free—the rebel Zane had fed with his own kind of wild.
What would Zane think about her dating Viper? Or would he even care?
FIVE
Before you start, get comfortable with your tools. You never know what you will need, and when.
—SINNER’S TRIBE MOTORCYCLE REPAIR MANUAL
Zane knew Jagger would find him.
No way would his best friend let this one slide. But he was grateful Jagger had, at least, given him a few days to get himself together after seeing Evie. Too bad he’d used that time to fall apart instead.
“I heard this has become your new home.” Jagger pulled out a chair at Zane’s table and waved his hand vaguely at the room in front of him, encompassing the full expanse of Rider’s Bar. The Sinners owned several legitimate businesses in Conundrum, including bars, strip clubs, nightclubs, trucking companies, and shops, all convenient for laundering money, hiding shipments of stolen goods, and turning over a profit for the club. Some members worked on the legitimate side. Others, like Zane, Jagger, and most of the Sinner executive board, handled the sale and supply of illegal arms.