by Carly White
The job wasn’t too bad and only minimal pain and suffering had to be caused. Sometimes I felt bad about the poor schmuck that had borrowed from the wrong person, but today I felt distracted. My heart wasn’t in it and not even I believed the threat when said in such a way. Freddy had to take over and it was late in the afternoon before we had gone to all four collections that the boss asked for.
With the money delivered, we went back to the bar and I found myself annoyed with Jesse trying to hang on me. There was talk of going out, but my mind was on the blonde vixen I had had the night before. She was the perfect mix of freak and sweet. I wish I had gotten a chance to have her one last time in the morning, but I told myself, it was only a one night stand anyways. I didn’t understand why she was still on my mind.
I went to bed early, ignoring the woman downstairs that I couldn’t seem to shake. It was Laney I thought of that night, tossing and turning with the remembered feel of her skin and the sound of her bliss ringing in my ears.
***
More work and less sleep awaited me the next week. I wanted to see Laney, but I didn’t know much about her beyond her first name. After going down to that club several times, I was no closer to finding her. I couldn’t make it to the city every night, but when I could, I did.
It was a weird place to be in. I never thought of the woman after I was done with them, hardly ever. Usually I was more worried about going to the next one or Dark Angel business. Now I couldn’t be bothered with anything but finding her. My own efforts weren’t doing me any good, so I found the gang’s man that got things done. If anyone could find her, it would be Renald.
I gave him the information that I had, but I knew more about the way her insides felt, than anything helpful. I gave him a name and a picture of her that was on my phone. It was my only saving grace and I had done it while she was lying next to me. It had been a fluke, something I never did, but I remembered thinking I would always want to see her in that moment.
“You don’t have any other pictures?”
He was looking at me a little strangely and it made me want to laugh out loud. It probably did look strange and sound weird to him. The only thing I knew was her name and where she had said her family was from. The only picture I had was one of her sleeping. It was obviously not someone that I knew well and I was impressed that he didn’t ask any more questions.
“Yeah, that’s the only one I got. I met her once and I can’t stop thinking about her.”
Renald nodded and smiled a little. “I knew it was something like that. You don’t usually want any information and I don’t think I have ever seen you with a woman more than once.”
The older, scarred man was right. I looked from the wide scar that covered the left side of his face and moved to his eyes. “Then you meet that one that makes you want to forget all of the rest.”
Renald ran the picture through the scanner, uploading it so he could try to run it through face recognition software, but he told me that I was going to take time. “A picture like this may take a couple of weeks. I will see what I can find out for you. If she is around, I will find her. Next time though, you may want to get a last name.”
I couldn’t agree more, but the time that it had mattered I hadn’t. I didn’t know if I could wait days or weeks. I wanted to find her then, but I would have to wait.
And wait I did. It wasn’t a few days, or even a few weeks, it was a couple of months until I got the information that I so desperately needed. A lot of things started to make sense when I learned who it was that had been occupying my mind for so long.
“Are you sure Renald?”
“If that is the face, than yes, I am sure. I am sorry Grady. I don’t know what to say. There is no telling if it was coincidence or something else. But all the information is there. Do with it what you will.”
“Thanks Renald. We can keep this between us, right?”
He nodded, but I wasn’t so sure that he wasn’t going to tell the Loch about this. It was a danger to the gang and I knew he was going to see it that way. I was going to have to be more careful, but I had never thought I would find out that kind of information.
Chapter 5: Laney
I had lingering thoughts of the man I had taken all of my frustrations out on. That wasn’t a quite accurate portrayal, Grady far more dominate than I was. All I had was a name and memories that kept me sidetracked through the day and up at night. After a short time I thought of contacting him. I wasn’t sure what I wanted more than his touch, but when I ran his name through the database, it came back clear that I couldn’t.
Grady Berlow was not only a criminal, but he was known top figurehead in the Black Angels motorcycle gang. There were no warrants for his arrest thank goodness, but there were several offices that wanted him locked away or wanted for questioning. He was the man I had suspected him to be and seeing it in black and white made it no easier to digest.
At first I had felt silly for wanting someone like him, but I did. Even knowing who he was, I wondered if he thought of me as well. It had been over a month since I saw him, but I still could close my eyes and feel the way he had felt on top of me. The words he had whispered in my ear as he took my body were clear in my head. I still wanted him.
Then I started to get sick in the mornings and it didn’t take much for me to realize what was going on. The night had been a moment of not thinking. I had not thought about protection or the fact that I was not on birth control. All I had thought about was the way he had felt against me. Now I was going to pay for that mistake.
I was pregnant. I knew it when it suddenly hit me the second day in a row I had been sick. I was never sick and I went to the store to make sure of my suspicions. I was right and then a trip to the doctor told me what I already knew. I had gotten pregnant with a member of a motorcycle gang that I had only met once. All of the self-loathing could not change that fact.
Never one for thinking about children, I had always known in the back of my mind that I would want them someday. But the idea had always been with a husband that I loved after a couple of years of marriage. It was never supposed to be like this. I remember sitting down and just staring off into space for a while. I couldn’t believe what was happening and I didn’t know what to do.
It was a couple of days before I told anyone. Cass couldn’t believe it and she was about as shocked as I was. I was going to have to tell my boss at work soon enough, but then questions about the father would be asked and I wasn’t ready to answer them. What was I supposed to say when someone asked who the father was? All I had was a name and a rap sheet that was even longer. I was a cop and I couldn’t be with a criminal.
When I found out at first I was in shock, but then I started to make plans without Grady. There was no way that I wanted my child around such a thug. It was my bad decision, but I wasn’t going to let my child suffer. It then became good that I didn’t really know him. He would never know and we could keep our lives separate. I won’t say that I wouldn’t miss him. There was something in the way that he had handled me that I would always remember, but now I had to worry about being a single mom.
Things had to change. I was not living a life conducive to having a child, so things had to change. I had to change where I lived and where I worked. After living in the city for so long, I started to think it was normal, but when I heard the gun shots late at night, I knew it wasn’t the place I wanted to bring my baby home to. Everything became about the baby until I found out that, my baby was going to be my son. It made me think of Grady as the doctor told me the news. I silently wished that he would look like his father.
The biggest change was moving back to my small hometown that I had left several years before. I had left thinking that I would find my way in the big city, but in the end I wanted to go back home when I found out I was going to be a mother. Doing it alone, I knew I was going to want to have all the family and help I could get.
It was strange to be back in Riley, after being in the big city fo
r so long, but I was doing my best to adjust. I couldn’t get a job on the force while I was pregnant, so I worked in the courthouse doing paperwork until the baby was born. I thought about my old life from time to time and called Cass a few times, but I was trying to leave that part of my past, in the past. It was the same place that I had to leave Grady.
***
I got a phone call a few months after moving away. It was Cassandra and since I hadn’t heard from her in a couple of weeks, I was glad for the distraction from the mountain of paperwork on my desk. Working in an office wasn’t my thing, but as I got larger, I could imagine less and less doing anything physical like chasing down a suspect.
“Hey girl. How are you?”
“I’m good. I have some news Laney and I am not sure if I should tell you.”
“Well you did call, so…”
My heart pounded in my chest for some reason. I didn’t know why I was getting so worked up, but it felt like I was supposed to be. “Guess who I seen?”
There were many people that she could have been talking about, but it was Grady. I knew it before she said his name and that meant she knew what he was as well.
“Who?”
“Grady Berlow. You remember him, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Well he was there on some charge and he saw me as his lawyer was walking him out. I can’t believe he recognized me from months ago at the club. He sure remembered you Laney. He asked about you and everything, said he had been looking for you.”
I was quiet for a time. She didn’t know about him or the pregnancy, though she seemed to know that he had a record by the way she said his name in the beginning. It was hard not telling her, but it was because of the very conversation we were having that I hadn’t. I didn’t want to talk about Grady, but I felt something when I heard that he was looking for me. I liked the idea of it and the idea that I wasn’t the only one doing a little pining.
“You’re not going to say anything?”
“What am I supposed to say?”
“Your mom told me Laney when I called earlier. She didn’t mean to, but she told me about the baby. I have to ask, is it his?”
I breathed out deeply. There was a reason for it, more than anything it was nice to have one person that knew everything.
“Yes.”
There was a silence for some time and both of us were trying to figure out something to say. Cassandra had fought me moving back home. She didn’t understand it, but now I knew that she would. It was a relief that I didn’t have to hide it all in now.
“So what are you going to do?”
I shrugged into the empty room. “I already have done what I needed to. I moved out of the city, took a desk job and I have been working on putting a crib together for a couple of days. I should have it figured out in three months when he gets here.”
“How could you not tell me you were pregnant? We have been best friends for years.”
I knew that she felt betrayed in a way or that I didn’t trust her with the information. It was just too hard to talk about, I felt too stupid about what had happened and what I had allowed to happen. I knew it was my fault for having a fling. To be a cop and for him to be a criminal just made it that much worse.
“So I didn’t have to talk about Grady. I messed up bad with him. I take it you ran his name?”
“Didn’t have to, it was in the report. You really went all out bad boy with him. It is one way or the other with you, always the extremes.”
“Yeah, you could say that. But that’s why. Because it is embarrassing, but I can’t tell you how nice it is just to have someone to talk to about this. I have wanted to tell someone. Mom and dad don’t even know who the father is. I know they want to know, but they never were ones to push.”
“I just don’t get it. If he doesn’t know about it, why is he looking for you?”
That was something that I didn’t know as well. I would like to think that it was because he couldn’t stop thinking about me, much in the same way that I couldn’t stop thinking about him. But I knew that it was just wishful thinking on my part. He was the type of man that took what he wanted and then walked away when he was done. I was sure that he was done with me, but when I heard that he had been asking about me, I hated that I had a moment of hope. What was I going to be hopeful for?
“I don’t know why he is looking for me. You have seen what he is capable of, so it doesn’t matter the why. I got out of the city to get away from people like him. Here it is quiet, no crime, well you know. I wish you were here and it would be perfect.”
“I can’t live there Laney, you know that. You were bored to tears right along with me, or did you forget?”
I couldn’t forget the suffocating need to get out of there, but now I was back and it didn’t feel the same way. It was a nice, quiet place to raise my son. Away from gangs and violence that always came in a big city. To keep my son away from men like Grady Berlow, his father, Riley was the perfect place.
Chapter 6: Grady
I knew that she was gone from the city. Her friend had let it slip when I was leaving the police station. It wasn’t much of a surprise to find out that Cassandra was a police officer. I already knew from Renald that Laney was a cop as well. After all of the sleepless night, to find out she was a cop was disheartening. I couldn’t let anyone know about it because then they would worry about what she knew about them. What she knew about us, the Black Angels.
So when Cass told me that she was gone, I wanted to ask where, but my lawyer was pushing for me to leave. He worked for everyone in the gang and it wasn’t the first time I had seen him, but it was the first time that he was worried he wouldn’t be able to get me off. I had been stupid and gotten caught roughing someone up because I was frustrated all the time anymore. I was in a bad mood and it had just happened. But if it meant that I could find out about Laney, it was somehow worth the several hours it had took to get booked.
But Cassandra had not told me much, just that she had went back home. I knew where she was from, so at least I knew where I was supposed to be searching. It had been a couple of times a week for several months that I had been looking for her. Every time I had gotten a chance I had went to the city and to the club where we had met, but she had just vanished. Now at least I had a direction to go.
Loch was not happy. It was a bad time to be taking off, but after he saw the way I wasn’t backing down, and chose not to turn the battle into a war. I hadn’t been the same since I had woken up alone that morning after and he told me to go get my head right. I was embarrassed that a woman had done such a number on me, but there was no way to deny what I felt for her. Fool or not, I needed to see the blonde-haired beauty again. It had become something of an obsession with her and I knew that I had to find her.
With a destination in mind and a few addresses of what I hoped and assumed were her family, I made my way west to the small town of Riley where Laney was from. It had been months since I had seen her and after trying unsuccessfully to forget about her, I knew that it was time for me to find her and bring her back with me. She was mine and I had decided that I wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
***
“No sorry. I haven’t seen her today.”
“Today, so you have seen her recently?”
“She was over for dinner last night. Her mom makes some of the best meatloaf and Laney is always over when she makes that. With her in her condition, she can’t get enough of it.”
I was confused, not sure what her condition was, but it didn’t matter. Everything after she was there the night before was kind of murky. I had missed her by a day and this was her parent’s house. Almost sure that she would be staying with them, I was surprised to hear that she had her own place on the other side of town. After giving me the address, her father offered to call her and have her come by, but I told him not to. I didn’t want the first time we met again to be with her father.
There were many questions the mor
e he told me, but all I needed to know was that she was supposed to be home and she was only a couple of miles away from me. Driving over to her townhouse, I was nervous for the first time in my life. It was the first time I cared what happened with a woman and the very idea of her telling me that she didn’t want to be with me, scared me to death. I would make her, I told myself. She had to be mine.
I got out and rechecked the address on the paper. This was the place. Taking a deep breath I locked the rental and walked down the cobbled walkway up to her front door. I could hear music blaring on the other side of the door, a slow Blues song that I had never heard before. It sounded mournful and it made the hand poised to knock stop for a minute. It was strange to think of how much she was on my mind, yet how little I actually knew about her. Laney liked the Blues it appeared.
My hand was still inches from the wooden door. Why was I so damn nervous? I needed to get a hold of my damn self if I was going to win her back. Finally I knocked, louder than I had expected. The area was just so quiet that the sound seemed to echo outside. The music was still blaring and I heard her yell for me to come in. It wasn’t what I had expected, but I pushed the heavy door in and peered inside.
The door opened to a small foyer and then a large set of stairs, as well as a living room that went to the rest of the downstairs. I didn’t see her and for some reason, I didn’t call out. I just walked towards the music. There was a small room to the side that I looked into and I saw rainbows and clouds on the walls. There wasn’t any furniture but the feel of the room stopped me in my tracks. I opened up the door a little more and new that it was a child’s room, maybe even a baby. Did she have a kid and I didn’t even know it? Since we had not done much talking at all, it was possible, but it wasn’t in Renald’s report.
“Casper, is that you?”
I stopped and remembered she didn’t know it was me. I wondered who Casper was as I walked towards the sound of her voice. Now that part I remembered well. The way she moaned and whimpered underneath me was not something I could just forget so easily.
