3. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Tripp - Eight years and nine months later

"Tripp Martin, is that you?" A woman called out to me from across the parking lot. I'd pulled in to check on my Harley Breakout. The damn thing kept choking out when I put it in fifth gear. I pulled my attention off my bike problems and glanced around until I noticed her. Recognition was immediate.

"June?"

She grinned widely as she walked toward me with a very deliberate sway of her hips. "I thought that was you. I noticed from my office window."

I glanced at the building, only just then noticing that I was sitting right in front of the bank her father owned. Since she worked there, I assumed he still owned the thing. It figured that she ended up working for him.

"How have you been?" I took her in from top to toe for the first time and realized that she had done a fantastic job maintaining her figure after all these years. Time wore on her face a little, but it was barely noticeable under the makeup she had on. She didn't seem to have any grays in her hair, unlike me, though that could have been down to a good hair stylist on her part. In fact, since it was still blonde, it must have been down to the stylist she used. I'd nearly forgotten that she'd once been a brunette.

Truth be told, I hadn't thought about June at all in years. Once Kip came along, and things changed to seal the bond between Kim and me, anyone else faded out of existence for a while. When we came up to breathe from our brand-new little family, my focus remained on Kim, Kip, and the club.

"I've been doing well. Obviously, I ended up working at my dad's bank after college."

"Where did you end up going to college?"

June looked hurt before she was able to school her features. "You really don't know?"

I shook my head. "By the time you graduated, I had a son to take care of. Didn't really keep up with much of anything except when to change diapers and feed him."

Her eyes narrowed on me for a minute in what almost looked like a menacing glare before once again smoothing out. "Isn't that what his mother was supposed to do?"

I chuckled and kicked back against my Harley. "Shit, June. She had to sleep sometime. We took turns taking care of our kids."

I wanted to feel bad, considering the hurt in her eyes at the mention of me having more than one child with Kim, but I didn't. I loved my wife and the life we made together, that included both our children. There would never be a day where I apologized for it.

"I heard you had a girl, too."

"We did. Kip and Star. They're well, Kip is in the club with me, and Star is off living her adventure, but she's doing great."

"Your son still lives with you?"

"Nah. We're in the club together. He lives at the clubhouse now."

"Wow!" Her eyes turned down to the asphalt beneath our feet. "That has to be weird sharing space with your adult son, considering the things all the men in the club get up to together."

"Nah. No different than living in a house together. We stay out of one another's way unless we don't want to."

I knew what she was insinuating – that maybe we had seen one another have sex with the club women. That was never my style and Kip wasn't one for public displays either. Besides, he was secretly dating Scout. I almost chuckled thinking about how they thought no one was the wiser. She was a club girl who no other man dared to touch because they all saw what was going on between them. If my son didn't claim her soon, we'd have to have a talk about her position in the club. It wasn't fair to the other girls that Scout was living at the clubhouse and earning the same as them and only had to be available to one brother.

"Kip is a good man. I'm thinking he'll be settling down with a woman of his own soon. As for Star, she's living out an adventure. I hope she comes home and claims the man she wanted before, since he's someone I wouldn't mind her settling with now that he grew up, but we'll see." I shrugged and continued to smile because one of the greatest joys in my life was talking about my kids.

"I know this is going to be hard for you to grasp, but it still hurts to hear you talk about a child you had with another woman. That was supposed to be us."

I pointed to the gold band on her finger. "Looks like you weren't waiting around all this time."

She glared down at the thing. "This is business," she stated as she held the hand with the ring on her finger up and showed it off with disdain clear on her face. "My father wouldn't allow me to inherit the bank unless I married a man he approved of. I have a marriage of convenience only. The truth is that I did wait for you." She laughed darkly, as if it hurt her to make the sound. "I always thought you'd get tired of doing the right thing and get rid of her."

"I loved my wife," I growled the words at June, ready to walk away from her juvenile, jealous bullshit again.

"Stop. That was ‘younger me' and her hopes I was speaking of. As I grew up, I knew that you must have grown fond of her, otherwise you wouldn't have had another child. That was when I started dating again. After hearing about your daughter being born, there was no hope left that you would come back to me."

We stood there in silence for a bit with June lost to her own memories and me to mine.

I missed Kim every damn day – even now. I'd been with other women since she passed away, but none ever compared to seeing her wake up with that beautiful smile on her face, ready for another adventure with our family. Fuck! I needed to get my mind off her before I started bawling like a baby in the bank's fucking parking lot.

"I'm guessing you're the boss, so you won't get fired for being out here so long. Still, it looks like someone is trying to track you down." I tipped my head toward the bank and watched as June's face blanched then turned grim before she spun to face me again.

"Maybe we can get together and have lunch or dinner sometime and catch up."

"You're married," I reminded her.

"Your marriage meant something to you, but mine is just a way to keep the family business in the family. Besides, I just want to catch up with an old friend. We spent nearly four years together and you were my first everything, surely that warrants at least a little time to catch up as adults?"

"Sure," I agreed somewhat reluctantly. Curiosity about her marriage arrangement was getting the better of me because I never thought June would stoop to following her father's orders down the aisle. When she handed her cell over to me, I plugged my number in and then texted myself as a reminder that it was June's number.

"I need to get this hunk of junk back to the garage. It's been problematic."

"It's sexy," June said as she walked slowly back toward the bank. "Like its owner."

The last little added bit had my ego flexing after being dormant for quite some time. Shit, the last woman I'd been interested in was Davina, one of our club girls. I chuckled to myself as I thought about what I'd almost done. It was just a week or so ago that I thought about asking her out on a damn date. A club girl who was more than a decade younger than me. I shook my head at the thought. It was bad enough my son had taken one of the girls off the market without making it official. There was no way that I could do the same. And there sure as fuck was no way I could date her while she came back to the club and gave it up to my brothers.

The fact remained that Davina seemed too sweet to be a club whore and there was something about her that reminded me of my deceased wife. Not in looks. Kim had been all dark hair and curves for days. Davina was tall, naturally blonde, and her blue eyes sucked me into them every time I looked her way. Davina was quiet where Kim had been bold and boisterous. There was something underneath it all though. Maybe it was her struggles when she was younger, the same ones that led her to a life with our club, that made me see her differently.

I could feel the strength that brewed underneath the quiet surface. Because of that, I'd almost asked her to be mine alone. That lasted all of a minute until I remembered how fucking young she was. If Star came home and found me with a chick who was only slightly older than her and her brother, she'd skin me alive before taking off again.

Davina was a dream I had to give up on before it ever started. It was the reason I'd never fucked her. My dumbass reasons didn't stop me from wishing I had though. I glanced back to watch June as she swayed those hips all the way back to the man who had come out of the bank to look for her. As soon as she got close, she threw up a hand as if to tell him to stay out of her business. The man glared back at me before following June into the bank.

We couldn't start anything while she was married, but catching up with June, having my ego stroked by someone else, might just be enough to take my mind off the woman I decided I couldn't have.

There was the little obstacle of June being married, but it felt like my kids might accept her before they'd accept me being with a younger woman who worked for the club. I was going to accept June's invitation to catch up and see where it led us.

I wouldn't have given up my time with Kim for anything, but maybe June and I were meant to be together after all. We had nearly four good years when we were younger, before everything happened that fateful summer to change it all. Maybe, now that we were older, the same obstacles that were in our way before wouldn't be there.

Then again, she was married this time, and that felt like a huge obstacle. Whether it was a marriage of convenience or not, it didn't bode well to start things off on the wrong foot. Instead, I'd just go to that dinner with her to catch up and see where things went from there. If we reconnected in a romantic way, I'd make sure her marriage was over first before we went there.

A sick feeling settled in my stomach for a minute at the thought of reconnecting, possibly romantically, with June. My thoughts turned to Kim and what she would think about it. My wife would have wanted me to move on, probably long before now, but there was that niggling sensation in my gut that told me she would not approve if that woman I moved on with was June. There was just too much history there, and not all of it was pretty.

What would the kids think if they knew the full history? Would they welcome June, so long as she didn't make disparaging remarks about their mother? Would June be okay around them, or would it hurt her too much to see the proof of the life I led without her? She had a loveless marriage. Mine had been something to cherish, and one I missed with all my heart. I couldn't help but feel like she would be resentful of the life I'd led.