Trusting Blade

She flinched when I reached for a flashlight. That's the second I decided her husband was going to stop existing.

I found her on a Montana mountain road at midnight. Flat tire, dead heater, and a six-year-old coughing in the back seat.

I'm the Canyon Vipers' cleaner. Eleven years of making problems disappear, and I have never once brought anything home.

I brought her home.

She counts the exits every eleven seconds. She sleeps in her jeans with her boots pointed at the door. Every reflex that woman has was put there by a decorated detective with two valor citations and a handshake photo with the mayor, and the law has already looked at what he did to her. Twice. It shrugged both times.

So the law is out. Which leaves me, a hundred acres of Montana timber, and a shovel.

I'll never lay a hand on her. I'll sit in the dark hallway outside her door all night, every night, and she'll never know what I am.

Then she opens the door.

Madonna: Everyone warned me about the monster in the leather cut. Nobody warned me he'd put a bolt on the inside of my door before he ever brought me through his gate. Or that the safest I have ever been in my life would be standing behind the most dangerous man in Montana.

Curvy single mom. Morally grey protector. He falls first and he falls all the way. Slow burn, scorching payoff, and a guaranteed HEA with no cliffhanger. Standalone in the Canyon Vipers MC series.