WAYLON (Ruthless MC 1)

But all fears and misgivings disappear from my head when I see the sight at the end of the tree-lined road.

There’s a gorgeous pond sparkling under the setting sun—I’m assuming this is the one the town was named after. It’s a clearwater marvel with ducks swimming around in it in those plants that kind of look like burnt corndogs, lining the edges. I think they’re called cattails?

Again, city girl, who’s never even been camping. I wouldn’t know for sure.

But the gorgeous pond isn’t what stops me in my tracks.

No, that would be the structure sitting right next to it.

A house.

But not just any house. It's two stories and painted a bright buttery yellow.

And it looks exactly like the one in the painting I bought of my dream house.

CHAPTER 34

It's the house.

The perfect two-story yellow house.

The dream house in my painting.

I stand there. Frozen and unable to believe what I’m looking at—not until the very real biker beside me squeezes my hand and says, “Come on.”

We walk through the gorgeous blue door of the house that used to only exist in my painting into a very real interior. It has all the things. Rustic gray and brown barnyard floors. Linen white walls that still smell faintly of paint. And just enough furniture to make it livable.

I spot a couch in the front room with a flatscreen TV hanging on its opposite wall as Waylon guides me through the space and into a large kitchen dotted with stainless steel appliances and a six-burner range stove. Only a single table graces the vast space, but there’s an oversized refrigerator tucked in one corner. Its freezer drawer alone is bigger than the entire fridge that came with my apartment.

“I picked out a few things so you can live here comfortably,” Waylon says as he leads me across the room. “But I figured you'd want to choose the rest of it yourself.”

I don't answer. I can't answer. I can only goggle as I look around at detail after detail that I couldn’t have imagined better myself.

Instead of taking me up the stairs at the back of the kitchen, Waylon guides me out its door to a covered back porch with steps leading down to a huge expanse of green backyard lined by the woods and pond.

He points to a small brick building with a shingled roof. “That’s where I figured you could see patients when everybody moves into town properly. It's got three rooms and a bathroom. You just gotta give me a list of what you want in there, and if the plumbing’s not right for what you need, I got a few guys who can direct lines wherever you want.”

He tugs me toward the back steps, his voice more excited than I’ve ever heard it. “I have some ideas about how you can lay it out for patients, but of course, that's up to you. You’re the nurse practitioner. Come on, let’s go take a look.”

“No,” I say, tugging back on his hand.

My brain…my heart…they can’t catch up to this unexpected fantasy. Everything inside of me is failing and crashing.

“I want you to explain,” I tell him, rooting to the spot at the top of the stairs. “I need you to explain why you did all of this!”

He looks up at me from the steps he was ready to lead me down. Squints his eyes. “You know why.”

“No. No, I don't know why at all,” I say, a swell of panic rising inside of me. “We were only together for a few days. Only had sex for two of them. And you started an entire town. Built me….”

I pull my hand out of his to indicate the house. I don’t even know what to call it. A dream come true with extra fantasies I didn’t even know I had layered on top? I settle for “This.”

Then I asked him again, “Why? Why would you do this? Why would you do any of this for me?”

Waylon drops his hand to his side, his face clouding over with the same disappointment he displayed when I didn’t kiss him at the roadhouse. “You belong to me.”

“I don’t,” I remind him. “I don’t belong to you. This is some weird obsession on your part, and I don’t understand why you’re directing it at me, of all people. I met that woman at your trailer. All you have to do is snap your fingers to get anyone here you want. Doing this for me. Obsessing over me. It doesn't make any sense.”

He turns to regard me with a serious look. “You don't understand. You're right. I've been with plenty of girls. When I'm at the compound, all I have to do is snap my fingers, and they come right to me. Even if they already belong to somebody else.”