"Yeah. Will you marry me, and make a baby with me when that thing wears off?"

"Oh, yes. And then I'll have everything, too."

Grinning, his throat feeling tight and his heart pounding, but with happiness instead of stress, he put his hands around her face and kissed her. He put everything he'd every felt for her in that kiss. She still smelled of the day-the pool, sunscreen. Sunshine. Somebody should bottle that scent.

His c.o.c.k throbbed and kicked against her, and he needed more. When he moved to lay her down, though, she resisted and leaned back. "We don't have to wait a year if you don't want to, Michael. I can have it removed at any time, and then it just takes a few days to be out of my system. We can start whenever you want."

"You'd be okay with starting so soon?"

"It seems like we're starting late, really. Doesn't it?"

He nodded. "I love you so much." Then he kissed her again. As he pushed her back on the bed, he remembered the night Hoosier had told him he could come home.

Now he finally was.

memory He felt his entry into Los Angeles almost as if he'd gone through a literal barrier. The atmosphere felt different to him. As he'd crossed into California, every mile had weighed a little heavier, but actually being in L.A., for the first time since Muse had picked him up and led him out-it was hard. It had been his home almost all his life, but it had only briefly felt like one.

Still, that brief time had been the only time he'd had one.

He was riding in alone; Muse was doing a three-year bid for aggravated a.s.sault. He'd been in for eight months and was doing his d.a.m.nedest to stay out of trouble and maybe get out at half-time. That still meant nearly a year left.

It wasn't the first time Demon had ridden alone during his years as a Nomad, but he never liked it. There came a point when he was on his own where he'd gone days without talking to anyone, except to order food or take a cheap motel room. After a day or so, his head would start to get bored and snack on itself, rooting around in the dark corners for a midnight treat. Not long after that, he'd start to get twitchy. Usually somebody ended up b.l.o.o.d.y and broken when he got twitchy.

He'd spend his nights in the roughest bar he could find, knowing that he could get a good fight and bleed his line some. And he went looking for the sloppiest work he could find. All the charters knew what they were getting when they called Demon in riding solo.

But this was different. He wasn't riding to a job. He was riding to a funeral. Blue had been killed in the chaos that was swirling around the whole club's work with the Perros. Hoosier had called and asked him to come to the funeral. Demon had asked if Faith would be there. After a long pause, Hoosier had said he didn't know.

Demon didn't know if he wanted her to be there or not. He figured the odds were good that she would be; Blue was her father, and they had been close until Demon had ruined everything. Maybe they'd made up in the six years since.

He wanted to see her. He knew it would hurt. But the image of her in his mind was, despite his best efforts, fading, and at least he wanted to refresh it.

She wasn't there. Margot and Faith's sister were there, and hundreds of brothers and friends were there. Blue had been a member for decades. He was known and loved.

Margot paid him no mind at all, almost as if she didn't recognize him. Maybe she didn't; he was bigger, and he wore his hair much shorter, but that still seemed farfetched. He was glad, though. He kept back as far as was polite and let the funeral happen around him.

By intention, he'd arrived later than most, and he planned to leave earlier, as soon as the wake became a party. Walking into the L.A. clubhouse for the first time since he'd walked out of it in shame had hurt. Everything was the same. It looked exactly as it always had. It smelled exactly as it always had. It was as familiar as home, and it hurt Demon's insides. For the first time in his life, he understood what people meant when they talked about what it was like to go home after a long time away, the way everything was exactly as it should be and yet it all had a shimmer of newness, as if one's senses had to be reminded about the way things should be.

But this was no longer his home. He wasn't coming home. He couldn't.

His brothers were happy to see him. And Bibi hugged him for a long, long time. When she pulled back, he saw she was crying, but he didn't know if it was for him or for Blue.

There were new members, too, people he didn't recognize. Their new Intelligence Officer was a patch-in from an allied club that was getting all kinds of media attention. Demon didn't trust him. He knew Bart Elstad had been foisted on Hoosier by Sam Carpenter in some kind of trade or something, and he'd jumped over Sherlock, who'd been a Prospect when Demon had left, to take the I.O. position. It had been the main gossip in every clubhouse he'd been in for months. Demon didn't pay attention to strategy or politics, club or otherwise, but he thought it was weird to bring an expert tech guy in from outside, allied club or not.

Not his problem, however. He was a weapon. Unless he was pointed at Bart, he'd let other people worry about the man's loyalty. In the meantime, they wore the same patch, and that meant something.

The clubhouse ritual and the graveside service were quiet, somber affairs, to the extent that bikers could be quiet. A funeral like Blue's could not be discreet. The deafening blare of hundreds of Harleys filled the neighborhood air for long minutes as a near mile-long processional rode in formation to the cemetery. But once the engines were silenced, the men were nearly as quiet. In times like these, standing in the middle of a vast field of black leather, Demon could still feel the traces of family.

Even burying Blue, Demon could feel it. He held no animosity toward the man. Demon had broken their brotherhood. He had taken Blue's daughter's virginity, knowing full well that Blue would object. What he'd done in retaliation had been within his rights.

He felt differently about Faith's mother. Margot had called her own daughter a wh.o.r.e. Moreover, Demon had seen what was behind her anger and outrage. There had been satisfaction in the woman's eyes as she'd stood there, pointing a gun at him, at them. At her own daughter. Satisfaction and victory. Like she'd been jealous of Faith and had been pleased to be able to offer her her comeuppance. Her own daughter.

Yeah, he hated that b.i.t.c.h.

Feeling full of memory and lonelier than he'd felt in a long while, Demon had to go. He was trying to head out without being noticed. He'd gotten all the way out of the clubhouse and was heading to his bike when he heard Hoosier's voice behind him.

"Deme."

He turned and saw his former President leaning against the side of the building, smoking a Marlboro. "Hey, Prez." He walked over.

"You headin' out?"

"Yeah. Why're you smoking out here?"

Hoosier gave him a rueful smirk. "Beebs's on me to quit. It's hard. I'm hidin'."

Demon laughed. "I'm no rat. I got your back."

"Thanks." Hoosier took a long drag, then dropped the half of a smoke and toed it out. "You like the Nomad life?"

Demon didn't know how to answer. So he shrugged. "Ups and downs."

"I been keeping track. You and Muse are close. You have trouble on your own?"

Not understanding where the f.u.c.k this conversation could be going or how Hoosier thought it could be anything but painful, Demon shrugged again. "Ups and downs."

"Come home, brother."

"What?" He swallowed hard, his heart skittering, even as he doubted what he'd heard.

Hoosier stepped forward so that they were face to face. "No reason for you to stay away now. And we need you. Things are s.h.i.t for the club all over the country, but we're the flashpoint right here. We need you. Come home."

"Home?" He knew he sounded like an idiot. He felt like one.

Hoosier put his hand on Demon's arm. "Home, Deme. Come home. This is home."

Before he had any idea something so weak and humiliating was going to happen, Demon broke into tears. He tried to stop, but then Hoosier put his arm across his shoulders, and there was no way he could stop.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

The director of the park board asked Faith to say a few words, but she was completely unprepared for that, so she had to force herself to take the portable mic thing he held out to her. It whined painfully until she pulled the mic away from the amp. Then she turned and smiled at the crowd.

Well, 'crowd' was a bit generous. 'Gathering,' maybe. There were about fifty people standing around, a lot of them families with children. But it was Memorial Day weekend, and there were lots of other people in the park who might make their way over eventually. They'd made a little event of it, with a couple of clowns doing face-painting and making balloon animals, a busker with a banjo, and a snack truck serving hot dogs and ice cream.

Faith cleared her throat and made herself speak into the mic. "I don't really have much to say. I'd rather just open the playground and let the kids in. But I am grateful that Mr. Wilson and the rest of the park board invited me to create the piece that will welcome kids to play." She looked over at Michael, who was holding Tucker and beaming at her. "Since I started working on this commission, I got a family of my own, and I'm really happy that a little boy I love so much is going to get to play here on the very first day. So thank you." There was a smattering of applause as, feeling awkward, she handed off the mic to Mr. Wilson.

Then the child who'd won the grand-opening poster contest got to cut the ribbon, and everybody went into the playground.

Faith watched as children immediately went to the twenty-foot-long snake created out of old parts and began climbing on it. Oh, please n.o.body get hurt, she muttered to herself. She'd done her research, her due diligence, taken every precaution. But as Tucker climbed up, hooking his hand into the snake's eye, Faith's heart went pitty-pat. This was what it felt like to be a mother, she realized. Fear and pride and love, all at once, blended into a single, inexpressible emotion.

She wondered if her mother had ever felt this way for her.

Bibi took Faith's hand, lacing their fingers together, and they went through the lobby, Bibi's ubiquitous high-heeled boots clacking on the terrazzo tile.

Sera had been right-this facility really was nice. It was arranged more like a hotel than a hospital, with high-end tile and carpet on the floors, nice wallpaper, sleek brushed-nickel fixtures. The rooms of Margot's wing were furnished like elegant hotel rooms, all the medical equipment discreetly tucked away in armoires and cupboards.

The staff was friendly and attentive, and the doctors seemed conscientious and, as far as Faith could tell, well qualified.

The residents who were strong and stable enough, mentally and physically, were taken on regular outings. It was mainly what Faith thought of as old-people stuff: gardens, museums, the b.u.t.terfly House, things like that. But they occasionally went to matinees at the little local repertory theater, too.

The facility itself offered cla.s.ses and programs and had a stunning native plant garden as well as little plots that the residents could cultivate themselves. Margot, an avid, lifelong gardener, spent a lot of time working on her little private garden.

Faith's image of her mother doddering around in a circle on a bare patch of yard had proven unfounded. She felt better knowing that Margot wouldn't be spending her life in some bleak box, dwindling into nothingness. Michael didn't share her concern, or even understand it, and she wasn't sure how to explain it to him.

Yes, in all of Faith's memory, her mother had been uninterested in her at best and hostile to her at worst. But she hadn't really minded or even noticed until Sera had moved away. So there were years of her childhood in which Faith's feelings about her mother were mainly affectionate. Birthdays hadn't been forgotten, school events had always been attended, Faith had never really wanted for anything. Margot hadn't hugged her or talked to her much, but Faith had had her daddy, and that had been plenty.

But when Sera had gone off to college, Margot had had only Faith to notice, and, Faith had finally come to understand, what Margot had noticed was that her husband loved their youngest daughter a whole lot. She'd been jealous of that bond, and in her jealousy she'd tried to drive Faith down. Faith and Michael had finally given her the wedge she'd needed-hence the satisfaction in her eyes that day. Michael called the glint he'd also seen 'victory,' and Faith couldn't disagree.

But while that understanding of Margot made Michael hate her more, it made Faith pity her more. And that, her man simply did not understand.

That was okay, though. He didn't need to understand. They were good and whole, and Margot was here, in a decent place. Faith would visit her regularly until and unless doing so caused her mother too much stress. That didn't seem likely; Margot hadn't recognized her daughter in all the weeks she'd been here. Her degeneration seemed to have slowed a little, but she most often seemed to think it was about thirty-five or forty years earlier-when she and Blue had been just a new thing, and she had still been working. In p.o.r.n.

Her primary nurse, Shirley, had told her and Bibi that Margot's most frequent sense of who she was made for some interesting scenes, in her room and elsewhere. Faith herself had come upon her in the garden one day, naked and draped over a bench, thinking she was doing a photo shoot. But no one seemed especially scandalized, not here in the dementia wing.

Today, she and Bibi found her in the commons, wearing a heavy sweater and leggings, despite the one-hundred degree day. She was curled prettily on a comfortable sofa, reading an old issue of Cosmopolitan. The center kept magazines, in library-style binders, from a wide range of eras available because, Shirley had explained, patients often found current periodicals confusing and upsetting. Dementia, specifically Alzheimer's, was the kind of disease one could fight only so much. After that, the best care dictated that patients should be allowed the world they needed, to every extent that was possible. Issues of Cosmo with Cindy Crawford on the cover were definitely possible.

Margot's decline had been fast-or maybe it had only seemed fast because she had been so careful, for as long as she was able, to hide what had been happening to her. Faith remembered the first time she'd gone into her mother's house. All those Post-Its, reminding her to do things that most people did almost as readily and mindlessly as breathing.

It must have been terrifying for her to know she was losing her mind, to sit alone in her house and feel it happen a little more every day.

Yes. She had sympathy for her mother. Karma or not, Faith didn't wish an end like this on her.

"Margot, baby, how you doin' today?" Bibi sat on the sofa at her side and patted her leg.

Margot closed her magazine with a sigh. "Oh, Beebs. Wow, you look tired, honey. Everything okay?"

This was a common question; Bibi, while gorgeous and youthful for sixty-one, looked a lot older than Margot thought she was.

"I'm a little tired, is all. But I asked about you."

"I'm good. Bored. I've been waiting for f.u.c.king ever for them to get set up in there." She looked up at Faith. "Hi, honey. You working this one, too?" She scanned Faith with an appraising eye, taking in her jeans and camisole. "Chaz is gonna give you no end of s.h.i.t for wearing a bra, girl. You should take it off now, and hope the marks fade before your call. You're new, huh?"

"Um." Faith wasn't sure how to respond. Margot had never mistaken her for a starlet before. Usually, she just smiled and introduced herself. Once, she'd tried to send her off to score some c.o.ke for her.

Bibi jumped in. "She's not workin', Margot. This is Faith. She's a real good friend of mine."

Margot smiled. "Faith. That's a beautiful name. I love names like that-that are a thing you want your baby to have. Like Serenity. If I ever have a little girl, that's what I'm gonna name her. I bet your mama wanted you to grow up having faith in the world. That's a nice thing."

Bibi met Faith's eyes and gave her a sad smile. Faith's throat had constricted so tightly it ached. Pinching her arms, she blinked and swallowed, trying to make enough room for words to come through. "I don't know. Maybe. It's a nice thought."

"It's so...brown. Everywhere."

"It's June, babe. And it's the desert. There isn't any other color."

"Which is my point, I think. This far out? Are you sure?"

"It's fifteen miles from the clubhouse. That's nothing. There's eight acres here. We could fix up the fences and get Tucker a cow. Or a goat. Maybe some chickens. I could build a coop. And I'll tear down that old barn and put a new one up. And I could build you a shop first thing-right there." He pointed to a bare stretch of rocky dirt. It was all a bare stretch of rocky dirt, but he pointed in a particular spot and hooked his arm over her shoulders. "View of the mountains." He took a coaxing tone with that last sentence.

Faith looked around. Nothing but scrub and dust as far as she could see-until the horizon, where the San Bernardino Mountains rose up, still with just the barest cap of snow at their highest peaks. The sky was a vast, unbroken expanse of cerulean blue. She had to admit there was something beautiful in the near-perfect emptiness.

"Studio," she grumbled, unwilling to admit that there was a remote chance she'd consider this.

He grinned, seeing that remote chance anyway. "Studio, right. Not a shop. Sorry."

Faith stepped out of his hold and turned back to the house. Very remote chance. "G.o.d, Michael."

"But it could be great. Look at that porch. I can build the garage exactly the way I want it. I know it's rough inside, but..."

"Rough? Holes in the walls. Exposed subfloor. Only one bathroom, and somebody stole all the fixtures. They probably carried all the copper out in the bathtub."

His grin faded away. "Faith. I can't afford much. But I can work hard, and I can do almost everything that needs doing. What I can't do, somebody in the club can do. You know they'll all help. I know you see what things could be, not what they are. It's like you're trying not to see what this could be."

She was, and she didn't know why.

They'd had no luck finding anything in town. Part of it was their finances, which weren't dazzling. Michael had some savings, but Faith really didn't. What she'd earned from the playground commission would cover a down payment, but otherwise, she'd been living like most artists lived-feast or famine, and more famine than feast.

Madrone was a pretty expensive place to live, and Michael didn't want to raise Tucker in the kind of neighborhood there that they could afford to buy in. She agreed, of course. She was still living in her mother's house, taking care of Sly and the kittens, but that was ready to go on the market. Michael hadn't wanted to move Tucker more than once, so they had stayed with Hoosier and Bibi. They'd thought it would be just a couple of weeks. But Michael had gotten custody of Tucker six weeks earlier, and they were nowhere nearer to a real home solution.

Until Michael had come over and picked her up, wanting to show her what he'd found. Now they were way out near Joshua Tree, looking at a foreclosed property that had been on the market so long that the 'For Sale' sign was hanging by a single hook, and the agent hadn't even bothered to come out with them. He'd actually given Michael the code to the key box over the phone-which had seemed insanely reckless until they'd gotten out here and realized that there was nothing left to f.u.c.king steal. No copper wiring or pipes, no appliances, nothing.

Even taking into account the theft and vandalism, it was a house that looked like it had never been loved. No one had ever been happy to live here.

The exterior of the ranch-style house seemed intact, if uninspired. Putty-colored stucco, an indifferent asphalt-shingle roof, a long, Western-style porch across the full front. Somebody had built out the garage to be two more bedrooms. That expansion, according to Michael, had been done well, with solid HVAC and good insulation.

She sighed. "You're right. I can't get over the lack. But okay, let's go through again, and show me what you see." She held out her hand, and he took it. First he kissed it, and then he led her back into the house.

"Living room. Flagstone fireplace. Tuckpointing is solid, flue is clean. I can build some shelves on either side of it, like Hoosier has. We can put down hardwood-or probably laminate, but something nice." He led her through, walking over the exposed subfloor. "Dining room." He pointed out the wide picture window-which, at least, had gla.s.s in it. About the only thing the place had going for it was intact windows. And a low asking price. "Nice view. I can rebuild the fences, paint them. In the winter and spring, all that dead gra.s.s will be green, with a white fence and blue sky. And the mountains."