The club comes first.

I’ve lived by those words my whole life—assumed I’d die by them, too, and I never had a problem with that. My Reaper brothers took my back and I took theirs and it was enough. Then I met her. Tinker Garrett. She’s beautiful, she’s loyal, and she works so damned hard it scares me sometimes . . . She deserves a good man—one better than me. I can’t take her yet because the club still needs me. There’s another woman, another job, another fight just ahead.

Now she’ll learn I’ve been lying to her all along. None of it’s real. Not my name, not my job, not even the clothes I wear. She thinks I’m nice. She pretends we’re just friends, that I’ve still got a soul . . . Mine’s been dead for years. Now I’m on fire for this woman, and a man can only burn for so long before he destroys everything around him.

I’m coming for you, Tinker.

Soon.

Gage is in Washington undercover for his club.  He’s checking out a support club that hasn’t been paying the “taxes” to the Reaper’s and recruiting members like crazy – ones that shouldn’t be in an MC.  Gage gets into town and starts dating the MC president’s sister, Talia, who is a psycho bitch from hell.  She’s skanky and nasty and the last thing that Gage wants to do is sleep with her but he has to act like he’s into her so that she can get him in to meet her brother Marsh.  He manages to get in acting like a hang-around so that he can see what’s going on.  He doesn’t like what he sees – especially when it looks like the club is running drugs and Marsh is constantly using his own product which makes him incredibly jittery and paranoid.

Gage is getting in good with the club when he meets Tinker.  He answers an ad for a part-time handyman job that comes with an apartment.  He likes her looks on sight and when he gets to know her better he realizes he likes her personality a ton as well.  He wants nothing more than to be with Tinker but he can’t act on the attraction to Tinker when he’s supposedly into Talia.

As time goes on Gage and Tinker get closer but when the truth about Gage and his identity comes to light Tinker is beyond pissed.  Gage realizes that he may have done the right thing for his club but it may have ruined any hope of a relationship with Tinker.

Gage and Tinker’s story was good.  It was hard seeing Gage with Talia when I knew he wanted to be with Tinker.  Tinker was such a good person and Talia was such a she-devil there was no comparison.  Tinker wasn’t a pushover by any means but she didn’t have the hate in her that Talia had for just about everyone.  I realize that Gage dating Talia was part of the story but it just bothered me for some reason.  Maybe if it hadn’t lasted as long as it did in the book I would have dealt with it better.  Once Gage was free he immediately went to Tinker and told her she was his right after he admitted that he wasn’t who he said he was.  Yeah, Tinker was livid, as any smart woman would have been.  He was domineering and possessive and I frankly wanted to smack him.  Luckily he saw the error of his ways and the two managed to work out their differences.

My issues with this book were personal, I think.  Not things that everyone would have issues with.  The first was constantly reading about Gage and Talia – in a romance that was supposed to be with Gage and Tinker.  Like I said, my own issue.  The other is that it got pretty slow in the middle and I kept putting it down which is never a wonderful thing.

The story did also deal with fires in the Washington area and how this affected the town, Tinker and those she loved.  It was a very sad part of the story as it dealt with so much loss but I thought it was a great addition to the story.

Overall I liked the book but it was probably my least favorite of the series.  That doesn’t mean it was bad – just definitely not as engaging as the other stories in this series.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5