She opened her mouth to respond, and he cut her off. “Do you really want to make up another excuse? Because your eyes tell me that you feel the incredible, inescapable energy between us just as strongly as I do.”

“Mm-hm.” She pressed her lips together, holding his gaze for a beat before whispering, “I feel it, too.”

“That’s all I need to know.”

Kennedy ran over and grabbed Quincy’s hand. “Can we go now?”

“Of course, sweetheart.” Quincy winked at Roni and said, “Ticktock, beautiful. See you soon.”

Chapter Two

SOMETIMES QUINCY FELT like he was living the lives of two different people. The hardworking, easygoing guy who was pursuing Roni and the recovering substance abuser currently running the Wednesday-night Narcotics Anonymous meeting in the basement of the Peaceful Harbor Lutheran Church. But there was no escaping the fact that they were one and the same man and one could not exist without the other.

The hum of the overhead lights might be annoying to some, but for him it was the sound of stability and consistency, things he’d gone years without and now craved as badly as he’d once needed drugs. It was almost as strong as his urge to get closer to Roni.

The sound of the lights filled the silent moment of introspection for Simone Davidson, sitting across from him sharing her story with the group. Simone was painfully thin, though she’d put on a few pounds since getting out of rehab last month. Her curly auburn hair billowed around her face. A scar ran down the left side of her face from her ear to her chin, ending just below her lower lip. A battle scar, from one of the many times she’d tried to escape the hands of her ex-boyfriend. Her jeans and sweater were clean, and her brown eyes were clear, though shadowed with ghosts of her past. She picked nervously at her fingernails, which were also free of dirt. Quincy had never noticed the cleanliness of people or their clothing until he’d gotten the drugs out of his system. Now it was one of the first things he noticed, searching for signs of trouble even outside of the meetings. Most of the time he wasn’t even aware he was doing it.

He’d known Simone back in his dark days, when his every move had been driven by the next high, before she’d become the girlfriend of Patrick “Puck” Fulton, the drug dealer whose posse had once beaten Quincy senseless. When Simone had come to Quincy for help, he’d known he was taking a chance of being harassed by Puck, but he’d flirted with death before, and he wasn’t afraid of it—or of Puck. Not only was Quincy’s head clearer and smarter than any dealer’s, but his body was stronger, and his will to overpower anything that tried to drag him down was unstoppable. Knowing Truman, the Whiskeys, and an entire club of fearless bikers had his back sure helped, and it also made him the ideal person to take on the dangerous role of being Simone’s sponsor.