Page 20 of Viper's Single Mom
"You want to move in? Really?"
"Want more than that." I pulled the small leather patch from my pocket. Property of Viper, Pike Creek Riders MC. "Want you wearing this. Want everyone knowing you're mine."
Her fingers traced the lettering. In the MC world, a property patch meant everything. Protection. Belonging. Family.
"I was married before. It didn't exactly?—"
"This is different." I cupped her face, making sure she heard every word. "This isn't papers and legal bullshit. This is me choosing you every day. This is the club having your back always. This is Izzy growing up with twenty uncles who'd die before letting anyone hurt her."
"That's a lot of uncles."
"She'll be the most protected kid in Montana."
Tara's fingers curled around the patch. "How does this work? Do I sew it on something?"
"Leather jacket. I'll get you one. But you can wear it however you want. Some old ladies wear them on vests, some on bags. Point is everyone knows."
"Old lady?"
"MC term for—" I stopped, realizing how it sounded. "Means you're mine. Means you matter. Means you're family."
She stretched up on her toes, pressing her mouth to mine. The kiss was soft, sweet, nothing like yesterday's desperate heat but somehow more intense.
"Okay."
"Okay?"
"I'll wear your patch. Be your old lady." Her smile turned wicked. "But you're fixing that bathroom door today."
The next two weeks passed in a blur of ordinary perfection. I moved my stuff in gradually—clothes, tools, bike parts that drove Tara crazy but she tolerated because they came with me. The brothers helped repair everything broken in the rental—porch rail, back door, leaky roof. Made it a real home instead of a waystation.
Word spread through Pike Creek like wildfire. Viper Brennan, eternal bachelor, shacked up with the single mom from the diner. Playing daddy to a six-year-old. Domestic as a golden retriever.
Let them talk. They didn't understand what it was like to find your whole world in a terrified woman asking for protection. To discover that everything you thought you wanted was nothing compared to breakfast chaos and bedtime stories and the weight of someone who trusted you completely sleeping in your arms.
"You've gone soft," Wolf said one afternoon at the clubhouse.
"Fuck off."
"Seriously. Yesterday you stopped a church run to help the kid with her bike chain."
"So?"
"So you're whipped. Completely fucking whipped." He grinned. "Looks good on you, brother."
He was right. I was completely gone for both of them. Izzy had me wrapped around her tiny finger, and Tara owned me body and soul. For the first time in my life, I had something to lose.
Made me dangerous in a whole new way.
Three weeks after Harrison left town, I took my girls to the park. Normal Saturday afternoon stuff—pushing Izzy on the swings, catching her at the bottom of the slide, pretending to be a monster while she shrieked with laughter.
Tara sat on a bench, wearing her new leather jacket despite the warm afternoon. My patch prominent on the back. Property of Viper. Some people stared. Let them. The whole town would know soon enough—Tara Clarke was taken, protected, mine.
"Higher!" Izzy demanded from the swing.
"Any higher and you'll launch into orbit, princess."
"That would be cool!"
