Seven years ago, Marlowe Hayes gave one reckless night to a man she was never supposed to want — and woke up to an empty bed and a note that said nothing at all. She rebuilt her life without him: a business she fought for, a son she'd walk through fire for, a quiet town that finally feels like hers.

Then the Ferrymen roll back into Emberidge, and the man at the front of the pack is the one she buried.

Cole Bishara isn't the reckless prospect who left her. He's Vice President now — colder, harder, and carrying enough blood on his hands to know exactly why he had no right to stay. He came back to end a war before it reaches Emberidge's front doors. He didn't expect the war to already be standing behind the counter of the diner he's using as cover, raising a boy with his own stubborn jaw.

He tells himself he's here to protect the town. The truth is simpler and far more dangerous: he never stopped belonging to her.

Marlowe knows better than to let him back in. She knows what loving a man like Cole costs — she paid it once already. But when the rival club circling Emberidge makes it clear they'll go through her to get to him, Cole doesn't ask permission to stay close. He plants himself in her life like he never left, daring her to keep hating him while he keeps her and her son alive.

Every guarded door she puts between them, he takes apart with his hands, his patience, and a tenderness she was sure a man like him didn't have left. But the closer he gets, the more she has to decide whether to trust the man who broke her once with the only things she has left to lose.

He came back to settle a debt with his club. He's about to find out the only reckoning that matters is with her.

Tropes: Motorcycle Club Romance • Second Chance • Forced Proximity • Protective/Possessive Hero • Single Mother Heroine • Small-Town Setting