I called the girl Phil had insisted I give a shot. It was a weird conversation. She was undeniably sharp and quick-witted. When I asked her if she had any experience working in a tattoo shop, she had laughed heartily and told me there was nothing she couldn't do. She actually didn't sound that interested in the opportunity to come out and interview with us until I mentioned the shop was in Denver. I told her what Phil said about looking the shop up online and letting me know. She hung up laughing and I thought I was going to end up writing her off as nothing more than a flighty model.

I was headed across town; I wanted to make a stop before going into work for the day. I needed some advice about getting around the ties and bonds that held a person to the past, and the only person I could think of that might be able to help me get some real answers, some real clarity, was Asa. He was a man who had lived a terrible life-a user and abuser-until almost losing not only his life but his sister as well. He had been forced to reevaluate what he was doing, who he was. Now he was making strides, trying to make amends, and while his relationship with Ayden was still rocky and often strained, there wasn't a day that went by that they didn't try and move on in their new relationship together. Asa was a man trying not to be defined by his past.

I was pulling the Charger into the parking lot when my cell went off and showed the Vegas number I had just dialed. Curious, I answered the call.

"Yeah?"

"Is all your shop info up-to-date on your website?"

Where she had sounded bored and slightly amused earlier, she sounded intrigued and almost breathless now. Antic.i.p.ation crawled like a living thing across the phone line.

"It is."

"Like all the same artists are at the shop?" Man, she was insistent.

I made a face at my phone.

"Yep. We're all still here and getting ready to add a whole new crew in the next few months."

"Phil is maniacal. That guy just loves to mess with people's lives." She laughed a little and I wondered what Phil had been thinking with this chick. She seemed a little off-kilter to me, but the old man was a softy for a killer face-always had been.

"Listen, Salem, I have to get someone in and on top of s.h.i.t fast. The new shop is opening at the end of May, the old shop is swamped. Either you're interested or you're not, but I don't have time to screw around if you're not into it. This was Phil's great idea, not mine." And I wouldn't tell her I would do anything to make him happy and make him smile while he was still here to see it.

"Oh, I'm way more into it now. Look, I have some stuff lined up until the end of April. I have to do Viva Las Vegas over Easter weekend, I have a photo shoot for a tattoo magazine in New York the weekend after that, and I have to give the shop here notice that I'm bailing. It snows in Colorado, right?"

I was having a hard time following her rapid change in conversation. I was still stuck on Viva. Being a car guy, I knew all about the weekend hot-rod show that drew bands and old-car lovers from all over the world. I was starting to think Phil had sold this girl's qualifications short.

"Yeah, it gets cold here when the seasons change."

"Well then, I need to add shopping to the list as well. Let's plan for the first week in May. I'll be there with bells on."

She was talking like the job was already hers.

"You have to do an interview. I have a business partner and a business manager that you need to talk to before this is a done deal."

She laughed and it sounded husky and rich. Even over the phone, I could tell this lady was something else.

"I'm perfect for the job and I've never been to Colorado. It'll be an adventure."

"Why the sudden interest? You sounded bored earlier when I called you." I was curious and had to ask.

"Tattoo shops are a dime a dozen, but you guys are doing amazing work, and I like the idea of getting in on the ground floor of a place with a solid reputation that's looking into expansion. And my interest"-her voice changed to something I didn't understand-"is anything but sudden. I'll see you in May, Nash Donovan."

She hung up on me and I was left looking down at my phone trying to figure out what in the h.e.l.l had just happened. I wasn't kidding about her having to interview, and I could see her and Cora going rounds. It would be entertaining, to say the least.

I put my phone in my back pocket and pushed through the nondescript doors of the Bar and let my eyes adjust to the dimly lit interior. Since it was before eleven in the morning, the bar was quiet and the only customers lined up at the actual bar top were the grizzled old veterans that had called the Bar home long before Rome and Asa had taken over. No one looked up at me but Asa caught sight of me as he rounded the outside corner of the bar, arms loaded full of cases of beer.

He lifted a sandy-blond brow at me as I walked over and took some of his burden from him. Asa didn't really jibe with the rest of the group. His motivations were suspect, his personality was a little too smooth, a tad too polished for the rest of us to really dig into, but Ayden loved him and Rome had developed an odd fondness for the southern charmer, so even though he was slippery and slick, he was integrating his way firmly into our merry band of misfits. Jet watched him like a hawk and I was more of the mind that until he proved otherwise, he was an okay guy to be around.

Plus he pulled hot tail like I had never seen before. I didn't know if it was the southern tw.a.n.g, the golden eyes, or that "aw shucks" att.i.tude he artfully played with, but he was a certified babe snake charmer and before Saint had become my sole focus his talents with the opposite s.e.x had been much admired.

"What are you doing here so early?"

I helped him shove the beer on the end of the bar and he walked around the long wooden surface that Rome had just recently refinished, and faced me from the other side. Rome might be the technical owner of the bar, but with the new baby and the bar being open practically all day and night, Asa was the one often making the day-to-day operation run. He was also a million and one times more personable than the gruff ex-soldier, so they made a pretty good team.

"I wanted to ask you some stuff before I have to be at the shop. Do you have a minute?"

He c.o.c.ked his head to the side and regarded me silently. It was no secret Asa's choices in the recent past had almost gotten him killed-and nearly had his sister disowning him-so it wasn't like anyone was rushing to him for words of wisdom.

"Yeah, I got some time; this is the last of the liquor order and I'm just waiting on Brite. He called and told me he would be in later and he had a huge favor he needed to ask me. Want me to have Darcey feed you lunch?"

I shook my head. "Maybe on my way out. I'll take something back to the shop for everyone."

He nodded and tilted his head to the back of the bar, where the pool tables were located.

"Let me stick my head in the kitchen and tell Darcey to keep an eye on the front."

I wandered to the back room and hopped up so I could perch on the edge of one of the pool tables. I folded my hands together and watched as Asa came toward me rubbing his hands on a bar towel.

"She's gonna throw a bunch of sandwiches together for you." I nodded. Darcey was Brite's ex-wife-well, one of them-and she ran the bar kitchen. She was a nice, older lady and her BLT was close to heaven as far as I was concerned. "So what's up, Nash?"

I sighed and winced a little. "This is sort of awkward, but you were the only one I could think of to ask."

Both of his eyebrows shot up and he crossed his beefy arms over his chest. Asa looked like the kind of guy that wrangled horses or threw bales of hay around all day. He didn't do either of those things, but there was no missing his country upbringing in the way he looked and carried himself.

"About what?"

"About changing and perception." I rubbed the back of my neck. "I have history with this girl I'm seeing, not exactly pretty and shiny history, and I don't really know how to get us past it." One of his gold eyebrows danced up on his forehead and I felt like a total chick trying to get into all of this with him. Dudes were not supposed to have heartfelt conversations about feelings, but I was at a loss.

"Saint had a rough go of it in high school. She was awkward and shy, got picked on and made fun of. I guess she had a little bit of a thing for me and I sort of blew her off without really meaning to. It was forever ago, but it stuck with her, and to make matters worse, I was running my mouth like an idiot and she thought I was talking about her. That topped with her dad being a cheating a.s.shole and a college boyfriend throwing her over because she wouldn't do what he wanted in bed and I'm having a h.e.l.l of a time getting to the heart of this girl. I know the self-esteem s.h.i.t wasn't helped by my big mouth and general stupidity, but I can't figure out how to get her to trust that I'm not like that. That really I'm a decent dude that was just a dumb kid p.r.o.ne to making mistakes. How did you do it? How did you convince Ayden that you're a different guy after everything that went down between the two of you? How did you get her to let the past go and prove to her you're not going to let her down again?"

He just stared at me for a minute, and I thought maybe I had offended him. He snorted and gave his golden head a sad little shake while he hooked his thumbs in the belt loops of his jeans.

"I didn't. Ayden loves me, wants to believe the best in me, which makes her the best person in the world because I used her, flat-out abused our relationship up until a few years ago. I wasn't just a mean guy, Nash. I was a criminal, a con artist, and I didn't stop to think how what I was doing would affect Ayden. She was really just a means to an end, and I never saw it until it was almost too late. Frankly, Ayd has every right to hate me, and I wouldn't have blamed her for leaving me in that hospital alone. Now ..." He grimaced and I saw him swallow hard. "I'll never be able to fully convince her or Jet that I'm living a different life. When the bar got robbed a few months ago she thought it was me, even though I like Rome, like my job here. She automatically a.s.sumed I had something to do with it and she always will, and I can't blame her for it. I wasn't trustworthy or considerate in the past. The only person I cared about was myself and that's not a memory I can erase-ever."

I hadn't ever been privy to the inner workings of their sibling relationship, but it made more sense why Jet was so leery around the guy, and why there was still so much tension between him and Ayden. There was no bridge in the world tall enough to let all that water run under it.

I threw my hands up in the air and let them fall. "So there isn't anything I can do? She's just always going to equate me with that memory and never be able to fully trust me. That blows."

"Nash ..." His drawl seemed a little more p.r.o.nounced when he said my name. "You're a good guy, they seem to grow them by the bushel here in the Rockies. You don't have to do anything but be who you are. Eventually she'll see that it isn't an act, it's just who you are, and what happened in the past was a one-off moment. You're human. You have to be allowed to make mistakes back then and now. I wouldn't be alive if there wasn't the gift of second chances."

"I like her, more than I've ever been into another chick. I just feel like she's never going to get past it and that means no going forward."

"I won't give you all the gory details, won't drag my own sordid history into it, but trust me: if my sister can still look at me and find a way to care about me, then you can work yourself into the heart of this girl."

Man, maybe I shouldn't have been so quick to think Asa was an okay guy. The more he divulged, the more I kind of wanted to knock his perfect teeth out on Ayden's behalf.

"So what about you? You weren't a nice guy and now you are?" I asked it questioningly. "How do you convince everyone you've really changed?"

When he smiled at me it was full of mischievousness and secrets I didn't think I wanted to know.

"I haven't changed. I'm not a new person. Every day I still have to talk myself out of taking the easy way out, out of sliding into old patterns. I am who I am, and it isn't always an enjoyable person to be. The difference now is I have a life I want to live. I want a relationship with my sister. I want Jet to eventually look at me and not wonder what my next move is. I want to help Rome make this bar a success so he can support his family. I like it here, there is value in this life I never had in Kentucky, and I will fight with myself until I take my last breath to maintain it. I might not deserve it, but it's mine and I'm keeping it."

Wow. I hadn't planned on Asa being so up front about his own history, but his words struck something inside of me. I had been trying to convince Saint I was a different guy from the one she remembered from back in the day. That wasn't really true. I was less angry, less in need of validation from my mother, but I had never been a bad dude. I was so busy trying to show her the value in the person I was, I forgot that I had always had value, even if I did get busted running my mouth and acting like a typical teenage idiot. Maybe I needed to start asking why she couldn't see the value and worth in herself.

She was amazing. Smart and funny. She was gentle and completely lovely inside and out. She tore me up in bed, and if I could just get her to let go, quit holding on with both hands to things that would never change, I had a pretty good idea I would tumble head over heels in love with her. I was pretty close to the edge of that precipice as it was. Maybe I needed to stop trying to make her see how great I was and start making her see, reinforcing with her, how great she was.

I jumped off the table and thudded heavily on the wooden floor.

"Thanks, Asa."

He laughed a little and I followed him back to the bar. "I've made enough mistakes for the lot of you to learn from. Something good should come from all my f.u.c.kups."

"I really hope you don't go back to your old ways. It would suck for more than just Ayden."

That grin was back, and this time it was tinged with sadness.

"Got a good thing going here, and I know it. It's not on my agenda to screw it up, though my agendas never really have a way of working out the way I think they will."

I gathered all the to-go containers Darcey put together and let her kiss me on the cheek. I was walking out when I heard her ask Asa if he had seen her daughter yet. I had a feeling Brite's favor he was about to lay on the southern playboy was going to involve family. Yikes, that could end up bad because I had heard from Rome that Brite and Darcey's daughter was a handful, a real wild child.

I didn't see Saint for the rest of the week. The shop was slammed with early-spring business, Rowdy got a cold and was out for a few days, and Phil's condition was rapidly deteriorating. It got so bad at the end of the week I wanted to move him back to the hospital, but he refused to go. He couldn't keep anything down, and his hospice nurse was talking about a feeding tube. It was stressful, I felt like I was walking across a lake that was frozen and I was just waiting for everything to give under my weight. I stayed the night with him for the entire end of the week, which meant I didn't see anyone else. At some point during the week, as I watched him get sicker and sicker right before my eyes, my brain automatically started switching him from Phil to Dad in my head. It was my dad that was dying, my dad that was trying to put on a brave front for me, my dad that looked at me with sad, periwinkle eyes because he knew our time together was getting shorter and shorter.

I didn't want anyone to see him like this. The entire group tried to come by, but Phil just wasn't up to it. I had to bail on the plans I had with Saint on Sat.u.r.day night, which b.u.mmed me out, but I was where I needed to be. When there was a knock on the door a few hours later, I almost fell over when I opened it and saw that it was her. She didn't ask to come in, just handed me some kind of protein drink and told me to see if Phil could maybe keep it down. She told me she had asked the oncology staff for a solution that might hold off the feeding tube for a while longer.

All I could do was stare at her. Grat.i.tude and something stronger coursed through me. She reached up and wrapped me in a hug that for just a split second made me feel better. She pressed a quick kiss on my mouth and told me that while I was taking care of Phil not to forget to take care of myself. I was exhausted and emotionally drained, but just that little five-minute visit from her, that easy way she had about being in tune with what other people were going through, reached deep down inside of me and didn't let go.

Maybe it was because my mom had always been so cold and dissatisfied, maybe it was because I had searched for approval that was never coming that when I looked at Saint's beautiful eyes and saw her empathy and compa.s.sion, I knew she was going to be it for me. She was everything I had ever wanted, ever needed. When she looked at me like that, any question I might have had about loving her went out the window. It was more like how could I not love her? She was impossible not to fall in love with.

I kissed her back a hundred times harder than I intended, but I wanted her to feel all the things I knew she would freak out about if I tried to tell her. She told me to call her over the weekend if I got a free minute, and left taking my heart with her.

When I went back inside and offered Phil up the concoction she had brought over, he just looked at me with a knowing gleam in his eyes over the top of the oxygen mask that obscured most of his face. I flipped him off and slumped back in the recliner that I had moved next to his bed. I wasn't ready to talk about it. Especially when I knew that Saint would run the other way if I tried to tell her how I felt. Not being loved back was something that had hounded me my entire childhood. I didn't know that I would be able to handle it coming from her.

I stayed with Phil all through the weekend. Saint's shake was magical, so she sent me the ingredient list and I stocked up on supplies so I would be able to whip it up for him whenever he needed. Phil slept pretty much all day Sat.u.r.day and I was contemplating going into work and trying to play catch-up while he was out, when Cora showed up at the condo.

I didn't want her to have to see him like that, to feel sorry for him, but she just used her little body to push past me and told me to get lost. Phil was just as important to her as he was to me, and Rome was home with the baby until later that night. She told me in no uncertain terms I still had a life to live and unceremoniously kicked me out of my dad's condo. I wanted to be irritated at her. Someone so small shouldn't be that bossy and immovable, but I had to admit I needed the s.p.a.ce to get a breather.

I went to the shop and plowed through a week's worth of paperwork that had piled up. I rearranged all the appointments I had canceled on throughout the last few weeks. When it was time to close the shop down, Rule wanted me to go to the bar where Shaw and Ayden worked and grab dinner. The two of us hadn't really spent much time together that didn't involve working lately, so I was tempted to say yes. But as much as I enjoyed hanging out with Rule, I missed Saint and spending time with her more, so I asked for a rain check and called her.

"h.e.l.lo!" She was screaming into the phone to be heard over the screeching and childish giggling in the background.

"Hey. Cora is with Phil, so I have the night free. I was hoping you didn't have to work and we could hang out."

"Hold on a sec." She muttered something and I heard more screaming while she found someplace quieter to talk to me. "Sorry, Faith had to go to the hospital and asked me to watch the kids. She was having Braxton-Hicks contractions and freaked out. I don't know how long she's going to be."

That was kind of a b.u.mmer since I really wanted to spend time with her, and I didn't know when the next chance I was going to get was going to be.

"I hope she's all right."

"She'll be fine. Do you want to come over here? I'm making them grilled cheese for dinner and then I'm going to put Finding Nemo on and hope that settles them down."

I had never really been around kids. I mean now that Rome and Cora had a baby I was getting more used to it. Really, though, I would walk barefoot through lava if that's what it took to spend time with her, so why the h.e.l.l not?

"Sure. Give me the address."

She rattled off an address that was down in Littleton and I took off. I didn't stop and worry that her sister had made it clear she didn't like me, that I didn't have the first idea what one did with a bunch of kids running around. All that mattered was that she was there and that's where I wanted to be.

When I knocked on the front door, Saint pulled it open looking disheveled and rumpled in a really delightful way. She had a tiny toddler on her hip and a slightly older little girl peeking at me from behind her knees. She smiled at me and blew a loose red curl out of her face.

"I'm happy to see you." Well, hot d.a.m.n, that was the best news I had heard recently. "This is Zoe." She kissed the toddler on the cheek. "Brea is hiding behind me and the boys, Owen and Kyle, are in the living room playing video games."

I followed her into the house and winked at the little girl who was looking up at me with huge eyes.

"Your sister doesn't look old enough to have all these kids."

She snorted and guided me into the kitchen, where the scent of tomato soup on the stove made my mouth water.

"She started young and doesn't have any plans to stop. She and her husband, Justin, always wanted a big family."

She looked at the stove, then at me, and unceremoniously plopped the wide-eyed toddler in my arms. We stared at each other for a long moment, the baby deciding if she wanted to scream at me and me trying to decide how to best hold her without squishing her. I guess the little girl decided I was okay, and she proceeded to try and get her chubby little fingers around my nose ring, which resulted in a ridiculous game of don't touch. Saint just laughed at me while she stood at the stove and made sandwiches.

The other little girl, who was probably only four or five, wandered over and stood by my knee looking up at me. Saint grinned down at her.

"That's Auntie's friend Nash. Tell him hi."

The little girl didn't say anything to me, so I smiled down at her and bit back a swearword when the baby got her hand on the piercing and gave it a yank. It made my eyes water up, but it had her laughing so hard I couldn't be mad about it.

"Hot."

The other little girl was shy, I could tell. She must take after Saint. I lifted an eyebrow down at her and she pointed a tiny finger up at my head and said again, "Hot."

She was talking about the flames inked on my head and the fire that flowed out of the collar of my T-shirt where the baby was yanking on it.

Saint turned around and looked at me with bright silver sparks in her gray eyes. She walked over and crouched down in front of the little girl and poked her lightly on the nose.

"You have good taste, Brea. He is very, very hot."

All three of the girls burst into hysterical laugher while I just sat there and watched Saint. She stood and kissed the baby on the cheek and me on the mouth and called the boys in for their simple dinner. The boys, since they were older, had all kinds of interesting questions about my ink, about the gauges in my ears, about what I did and how I knew Saint. They were scary energetic but funny and overall nice kids.

We all ate dinner, and when everyone was done, I told Saint to go get them all settled while I cleaned up her sister's kitchen. Her eyes had something in them when she smiled at me that I couldn't identify, but it was warm, kind of melty, and I liked everything about it even if this was the most G-rated date I had ever been on.

The older kids crashed on the floor and Saint and I took spots on the couch with both the little girls between us. I had no intention of staying, I wanted to be gone before Saint's sister came home, but after the first five minutes of the movie, Brea was asleep with her head on my arm. The toddler, Zoe, had crawled into my lap, curled up like a little cat, and was out like a light. I didn't want to disturb either of them, so I just settled in and watched the fish try and find his way home. The way Nemo's dad never gave up, never lost hope, had me running parallels with my own life through my mind and it had me thinking about Phil.

When I looked over at Saint she was watching me with big eyes and there was a bright pink flush in her cheeks.

"What?"

She just gave her head a little shake and turned back to the movie.