by Brook Wilder
“So if I hadn’t stumbled in on you throwing up this morning, when would I have found out?”
“I don’t know, Dax. I had to find the right time to tell you. I mean, you know as well as I do that this wasn’t supposed to happen. We already agreed to let what happened between us go at that one night. Now this.” She took a deep breath and added, “I’m not trying to sound mean; it’s just coming out that way.”
“Is it . . . I mean, are you sure I’m the father?” I had to ask the question carefully. I didn’t want her flying off the handle in the passenger seat of her own car.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure. It’s either that or some weird non-virginal immaculate conception. Maybe delayed conception? How long do you think those little bastards can lay dormant before they fertilize an egg?”
“At least you haven’t lost your sense of humor.”
“I’m pregnant, not dead,” she snapped.
I took a deep breath and sighed. I had so many questions, but I didn’t know where to start. My main concern was what it meant for us. We couldn’t be together. We’d already had that talk, like she’d reminded me already in the car. I didn’t know if I could even allow myself to be with her. I couldn’t let myself get attached again; I knew that for sure.
I could still remember the night I got the call about Lilian – the call. It hadn’t even come from one of my brothers. I never found out who it was who’d called me, but I had always suspected it was a member of the Wild Kids, calling to let me know as a cruel joke, rubbing in what had happened.
“Hey, is this Dax?” he’d said nervously on the other end of the line. It sounded like a young kid, couldn’t have been more than seventeen or eighteen, some punk trying to get into their MC.
“Yeah. Who’s this, and how’d you get my number?”
I had been kicked back on the couch, watching Netflix and waiting on my girl to get home. It was late, and she should have been home a little earlier, but I hadn’t really thought anything of it. Maybe she’d been held up, or there’d been traffic; no big deal.
“You don’t know me, man, but there’s been an accident and I thought someone needed to tell you as soon as possible what happened.”
“What kind of accident? Who is this? What are you talking about?” It was one of those moments – I knew exactly what he was saying, but I kept asking questions to get him to tell me more than what he’d obviously called to tell me.
“Look, man, I don’t feel comfortable telling you who I am, but you need to get down here and check on your girl. I don’t think she’s going to make it.” Then, he hung up.
I later found out she already hadn’t made it by the time I received the call. She’d been killed on impact. He’d obviously chosen to tell me she was still hanging on to get a good rub in, to give me a false sense of hope. Even knowing that he’d purposely misled me, his last statement ate at me.
That was what got me. It found its way into my dreams, where I would show up to find her alive in time to save her, only to wake up alone in bed. I wrestled with the guilt I felt over those words every single time I thought about it.
I had promised myself I would never be in that precarious position again. I would never allow myself to be that vulnerable. I certainly wouldn’t want to put someone else in a dangerous position either. Being close to me put a target on other people’s heads.
So I’d fought it. Instead of allowing myself to get close to anyone, I’d resorting to simply hooking up with girls from bars and clubs. I’d nabbed a few girls who’d been hanging around the clubhouse, trying to get a glimpse of what the biker life was all about. I’d managed to keep everyone at a distance, not opening myself to the threat of loss while also not exposing them to the danger of being too close to me.
Then, there was Fawn. Dammit. Now there was going to be a kid – two targets for the price of one! I now had two people to worry about losing. What the hell was I supposed to do?
“So what’s next?” I asked Fawn as I came out of my head.
“What do you mean, what’s next?”
“I mean, for us. What’s next for us?”
I didn’t even look over at her while I drove. I kept my eyes on the road ahead, focused on getting her to work. I was afraid to look at her, afraid of what I would feel, what I would see.
“No, you mean, what’s next for you?”
She was right. That was exactly what I was thinking. I wasn’t ready to be a dad. I wasn’t ready for the responsibility, but mainly, I wasn’t ready to be a father to a child I didn’t know if I would even get to see. It was pretty obvious we weren’t going to try to make things work between us, or else she would have said something about it. Not that I would have even entertained the idea of being together.
“I’ll take your silence to mean I’m right. Look, I don’t know what it means for you, or for us right now. It’s too early in the game. I know there’s a lot to consider. I don’t want to raise a kid in the MC. I don’t want to be a part of the MC.”
“Yeah, you’ve made that pretty obvious.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
I sighed. “I’m not trying to start a fight here, Fawn.”
“Good, because there’s nothing to fight about.”
Then what were we fighting about? It felt like we were already at each other’s throats, but there wasn’t anything on the table. There was a world of possibilities hanging in the air between us, and it felt like we were both trying to ignore it instead of trying to figure out the best options we had.
“Look, we’re obviously both pretty tense right now. You’re not feeling well this morning, and you’re late to work. I’m overwhelmed. This is a lot to take in. Look, let’s relax. I’ll drop you off. You have a good day at work, and I will go into the clubhouse today, act like nothing has happened. We’ll reconvene this evening when I pick you up, and maybe we’ll both be in better moods.” I was trying my best to smooth things over. I had no clue what I was doing. I was still reeling from being blindsided by the news.
“I’ve felt like shit every day for a while now, Dax, but you go on with your day like nothing’s happened.”
“Hey, wait a minute. Why are you being so hostile? I’m not trying to fight. I know you need some space right now, and I’m trying to give you that the best way I can.”
“I know, I know. I’m sorry, Dax. I guess I’m upset because this happened on its own this morning. I didn’t want you to find out this way. I wanted to be able to break it to you the right way. It’s not your fault.”
“Well, you know, it didn’t happen on its own.” I cut my eyes over to her, and I caught a glimpse of a smile on her face. My joke worked; she was cracking.
“True. Look, don’t say anything to anyone at the MC. I don’t want the news getting back to my dad yet. At least we can control how he finds out, right?”
“Yeah, he doesn’t need to know until you’re ready to tell him.”
“Right.”
We’d arrived at the hospital. I had pulled into the parking garage so we could sit a little longer and talk if she needed to, but it looked like we’d said everything there was to say. Still, she lingered in the car as if she had something else to tell me. She looked down at her hands in her lap.
My god, she looked good in her scrubs. It wouldn’t have taken much to get her out of her clothes and go again. Knowing that she was sitting there carrying my child made her that much sexier. I had to fight the thoughts out of my head. There couldn’t have been a worse time to be sitting there fantasizing about nailing her ass again.
“What’s up?” I finally asked.
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since I found out, and I want you to know that regardless of what happens between us, I’m keeping the baby.”
“Yeah, of course.” I put a hand on her shoulder. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, the implication being, of course, that there had been another option rattling around in her head. I wouldn’t have expected anything else from her. As
strong and independent as she was, there was no way I could imagine her doing any differently.
“Look, I’ve got to go in, but I’ll see you this evening, okay?”
“Yeah, I’ll be here.”
I wanted to hug her before she got out of the car. I wanted to tell her it was all going to work out, but I didn’t know that. I didn’t know how things were going to go. Okay, she was going to keep the baby, but what did that mean for me? What did any of it mean for me?
She’d also raised the question of what was going to happen once her dad found out. That still remained to be seen. If he knew I was the father, he would be arranging the marriage right away, shotgun and all.
I watched her get out of the car and walk toward the entrance from the garage. Once she was outside, she acted like nothing was wrong. She carried herself with the same confidence and determination she normally had. Her back was straight, her head was high. And her ass looked amazing in her scrubs.
Hell, Fawn looked amazing. Now that we was over her morning sickness, she was downright radiant. How the hell had I missed that? I had seen her every single day, twice a day, but I hadn’t noticed the glow that she had, the energized aura around her. Like I’d been reminding myself all morning, I’d gotten lazy over the last few months.
“Well, this is a fine mess, isn’t it?” I asked myself aloud in the car as I put it in gear and backed out of the parking space. I was going to have plenty of time to think about it on the way back to her condo to get my bike.
Hopefully, the noise of my baby’s engine was going to be enough to drown out the thoughts before I got to the clubhouse, though. The last thing I needed was to have the guys asking me a bunch of questions. Surely, they were going to notice I was a little later getting back. Telling them she’d been sick that morning would have been a dead giveaway, too.
A dad – I was going to be a dad. But was I? Was she going to run away from this like she’d run away from the city where her last relationship had failed? Was her pregnancy going to make her an even bigger target once the news got out? And the news was going to get out; eventually, it would be obvious to everyone how pregnant she was.
By the time I made it back to the condo, I needed to get on the back of my motorcycle. I needed that morning ride to clear my head. I wasn’t the person to answer any of my questions; I was going to need to talk all of that over with Fawn at some point. The only question I could answer was whether or not I was prepared to do whatever she needed me to do as the father of her child.
I couldn’t even answer that one, because that meant being okay with having my own personal wishes neglected. That meant having to say yes to being excluded from my child’s life if she decided that was what was best for the both of them. Of course, I knew it would never come to that. To exclude me completely, she’d have to exclude the MC completely, and like it or not, she wasn’t going to be able to do that. She would have done it already if it had been a possibility.
The engine of my Harley roared to life, and my thoughts on the matter were drowned out. My nerves were not soothed, but that nagging voice in my head – my voice – was no longer running down the list of questions I had. I hit the road. I was already running behind because she’d been sick that morning, so I decided to get a morning ride in before heading to the clubhouse. I needed to reconnect with the road for a while. Maybe she had some answers for me. She did always seem to give the best advice.
The only thing I knew for certain was that this was who I was. I was a biker. I was the VP of the Carolina Devils. I’d been riding since I’d been big enough to reach the handlebars and pedals on my dad’s old bike. None of that would change, regardless of what she decided.
She was also a child of the MC. No matter what she decided, the Devils would be a part of her kid’s life. It was up to her how big a part we were allowed to play, though. Dammit. Even the road couldn’t get me out of my head.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Fawn
“Hey, wait a minute. They’re letting you go home while we have to sit here and wait?”
At first, I thought the old man was joking. It was the kind of thing a regular visitor to the ER might have said to relieve some of the tension of having been waiting for a while. But he wasn’t joking. He grabbed my arm with one of his large hands, his skin rough and scarred from years of hard labor.
“You can’t be leaving. You got people waiting here,” he repeated his complaint.
“Yes, sir. I know it’s frustrating, and the doctors are getting to everyone as quickly as they can.” One of the things that pushed patients back was the admission of severe cases. They always took priority over less severe, non-life-threatening cases. Unfortunately, that information wasn’t comforting to patients who’d been waiting for extended periods of time.
“Look, kid, how much longer am I supposed to wait here while they let everyone else in?”
“I’m sorry, sir. I don’t know how much longer the wait will be, but you can ask one of the nurses at the desk. They might be able to give you an estimate.”
“I didn’t ask them, did I? I asked you.” His grip tightened on my arm. It was starting to hurt. What the hell had gotten into this guy? “Or are you too worried about getting home to your little boyfriend to care about the rest of us?”
The look in his eyes actually worried me. He looked like he was angry enough to get violent. I’d dealt with some pretty rough characters before, but there was something different about the people back home.
“Sir, this isn’t helping.” I risked putting a hand on his arm, just above his wrist, as a way to let him know he was hurting me without whining about it.
“No, but it’s gonna help.” He jerked my arm, like he was going to try to drag me to the nurses’ station.
“Sir, let go of my arm.” I pulled back against his grip and stood my ground.
The grumpy old man looked at me with a scowl on his face, as if to say “How dare you?” I didn’t budge, though. Those years growing up around a bunch of tough-as-nails bikers paid off from time to time. I had to monitor my patience, though, because once I let it run out . . . well, I’d been in trouble for that before.
“Sir, if you have a question, address it with the nurses at the desk. I work in the back, so I take care of whoever they send through those doors. They can let you know what the wait looks like.”
“I don’t care what it looks like, darling. I care what it is. Do you know how long I been waiting here? I ain’t got time to be sitting in here all day. I need to be out working.”
I wanted to tell him that if he felt well enough to be out working, he didn’t need to be clogging up the ER, but that was one of those last day kind of rebuttals. People who wanted to keep their jobs didn’t say things like that. So I bit my tongue.
His grip and he voice didn’t let on that anything was wrong with the man, but for all I knew, he could have been in there with symptoms of lung cancer. Guys like him didn’t show weakness until it had them flat on their asses. Only the nurse and doctor who treated him would know what was going on with him. At the same time, he could have listed chronic pain as the reason for his visit, and his anger could have stemmed from how long he’d gone without any pills.
“Again, sir, I’m sorry. I understand the frustration, but causing this kind of a commotion won’t get you seen any faster.”
“Excuse me. Is there a problem here?”
The new voice boomed, and both our heads snapped around to see Dax standing there in his cut, his well-fitting blue jeans, and his black boots. The full sleeve on his right arm extended past the short sleeve of his shirt. The ink on his left arm reached down to his elbow. He alternated pressing one fist into the other palm, like he was trying to crack his knuckles.
I’d seen this man naked, but I didn’t realize how intimidating he was until she stood before me in all his MC regalia, his dark blonde hair pushed back, his shades on over his hazel eyes. They all had the look he was giving the man in front of me, though – tha
t look where even behind their shades, it was obvious where they were looking and what their expression was.
“I, uh, um . . . no, sir. There’s not a problem here.” The gruff old bastard let go of my arm and backed away with his tail tucked between his legs.
“Well, before there is a problem, I suggest you find someone else to harass or sit yourself back down in one of those chairs.”
Dax watched as the man ducked away without another word and walked over to the desk to ask the other nurses about his wait. I was impressed. I smirked at my old friend while he watched to make sure we were in the clear. Of course, that didn’t mean I was going to let my guard down.
“Thanks, but I had it under control.” I totally didn’t.
“Yeah, I saw that. You were doing a great job, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to speed things up a little bit.” He winked. The sarcasm in his voice was palpable.
