by Joanna Wylde
“So tell me,” I said slowly. “How come you never mentioned that you had a baby?”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Tinker’s face twisted as I asked the question, a mixture of pain and anger running bone deep.
“That’s none of your business,” she snapped. “Get off me and get out of here. Nothing’s changed.”
“Except that I fucked you hard all night and it barely took off the edge,” I replied, taking the opportunity to push my morning wood against her stomach. “I’d love to give you another round this morning, but we need to talk first. This is why you lost your shit when I lied about having kids, isn’t it?”
She blinked rapidly, water pooling in her eyes as she tried to look away. I didn’t let her, though, because we needed to work through it. I wasn’t sure what’d happened to her, but whatever it was had been bad. Really bad. Every instinct I had told me that if I walked out that door without us resolving this, I’d never see her again.
Not an option.
“Tell me,” I whispered, dropping my forehead to hers. “I want to know. I care about you, Tinker. You can trust me.”
“I don’t even know your fucking name,” she said, closing her eyes. “Why the hell would I ever trust you?”
“It’s Gagi Alfonso Leon,” I said bluntly. “My birthday is October fifteenth and my social security number is 625-54—”
“Shut up,” she said, shaking her head, a motion I followed with my own head, refusing to back off. “You’re crazy.”
“And you’re sexy as hell,” I replied, taking advantage of the moment to catch her mouth for another quick kiss. “But we’re talking. I lied to you about a ton of things, but all you focused on was the children. Now I find your stomach covered in stretch marks. I’m missing something here, and I got a feeling it’s something pretty fucking big. Talk to me, Tinker.”
“Okay,” she said. “But you need to back off. Let me get dressed first. We’ll get some coffee and talk about it downstairs.”
“You can get dressed, but we’ll talk about it up here,” I countered. “We head downstairs, next thing I know you’ll kick me out. I’m serious—we need to figure this out.”
“Why?” she asked, sounding tormented. “We had sex. It was fun, but you told me yourself you’ve slept around plenty. Do you interrogate everyone you sleep with?”
“Nope, just the ones I’m serious about.”
“Right,” she said sourly. “And how many girls have you fed that line to?”
“Not a single damned one,” I replied, which was the absolute truth. “Despite what went down here, I’m not usually the kind of man to play games. I like sex. I’ve had sex with a lot of women. Never been too interested in anything serious, and that’s worked for me. Then I met you and it felt different, so I’m gonna check that out. I’m smart enough to see we’re not gonna get anywhere until we sort this out. Get dressed and we’ll talk.”
With that, I rolled off her, biting back any comment as she leaned over and grabbed her crumpled shirt for cover. Too little, too late—I’d already seen everything she had to offer.
She disappeared into an attached bathroom that looked like a newer addition to the house. I suspected her dad had put it in for her. Tinker had always been his angel, something I’d learned from talking to the long-term tenants. They all thought she was the shit, and I tended to agree.
None of them had mentioned a baby, though.
Frowning at the thought, I studied her room. It wasn’t one of those shrines to the teenage years, thank fuck. She had a queen-size bed—king would be better, but we could deal with that later—and a nice-enough little bedroom set. The walls were covered in paper and while it was girly, it wasn’t so bad that it gave me hives. Reminded me of the shop more than anything, and I wondered how she’d decorated her place in Seattle.
Fuck me. Seattle. Her ex lived there. The prosecutor. Cocksucker. Had to hate him on two fronts—not only had he hurt Tinker, hypocritical fucker was dirty as hell. Sooner or later we’d figure out all his secrets. Then I’d hold them over his head, make him give Tinker whatever she needed.
Pity.
I’d rather beat the shit out of him, but blackmail was probably cleaner in the long run. I heard the toilet flush, followed by the sink. A minute later Tinker stepped out wearing that long, silky robe of hers. The fabric was so thin that it covered a hell of a lot less than she probably realized, something I wouldn’t be pointing out to her anytime soon.
“So,” she said, staring at me as I lounged across her bed, arms tucked behind my head. “I thought about it and I don’t think we need to talk. My business is my own.”
“Your business is mine,” I correctly gently.
“How do you figure?”
“I’m pushy like that,” I said, sitting up to pat the spot next to me on the bed. “Come have a seat and tell me what happened. I don’t know the details, but I know damned well where stretch marks come from. From the way you reacted to my lie—and yeah, I’m an asshole, et cetera, we can talk about that later—the story doesn’t end happy. Tell me what happened. I need to know.”
She came toward the bed, sitting down at the foot of it, well out of my reach. Then she stared at me, sighing.
“I’ll tell you once,” she said. “Then we’re never talking about it again. Agreed?”
“No,” I said, and she frowned.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I promised that I’d never lie to you again,” I said bluntly. “Seeing as I don’t know what you’re about to say, I don’t see how I can agree to never talk about it again. Maybe we’ll need to talk about it.”
She sighed, then stared at the wall for a minute.
“We could always fuck if you’re not ready to talk,” I suggested. Tinker flipped me off, then crossed her arms, taking a deep, shuddering breath to steel herself.
“Okay, here goes,” she said. “I always wanted a baby. Lots of babies. Brandon wasn’t so excited by the thought, but I figured he’d change his mind. He was always about looking good in public, and his mom sure as hell wanted grandchildren. But it never seemed like the right time to start a family. It didn’t help that he worked crazy long hours, but I was starting my own business and . . . Well, for a long time I just figured we still had plenty of time. Then I hit thirty and we had a come-to-Jesus talk that ended with me throwing out my birth control. But I didn’t get pregnant.”
She stopped talking, pulling the robe more tightly around her shoulders, as if it could protect her from whatever came next.
“I’d almost given up when it finally happened,” she said, eyes dimming. “I’d been tracking my fertility for years, had gotten all kinds of tests. Brandon would never get tested, though, and my doctor said there could be a thousand reasons . . . Then I got pregnant. It felt like a miracle, and I was so excited. I’d almost given up by then, you know? Anyway, I expected Brandon to be happy, but he really didn’t seem to care. He was working really hard on a bunch of cases, and one of them was kind of high profile. He was going after a motorcycle club, actually.”
She shot me another look. “Not yours, I don’t think.”
“No, wasn’t the Reapers,” I told her, thinking back to what I’d heard. “Smaller club. Seattle. They’re under us, but their own group. Kind of like the Nighthawks.”
“So getting that case was a big deal,” she said. “Huge deal. He was excited to be working on something so big, and he was busy. I was excited for the baby, and while he wasn’t really with me, I didn’t care. Looking back, I realize we’d been living separate lives for a long time anyway. We shared a house and had sex sometimes, but not that often. Other than that, I think I spent more time talking to his paralegal than to my own husband.”
“Sounds like a real prince.”
She snorted. “You have no idea. It’s worth mentioning that he cheated on me at least once, with another attorney who worked in his office. May have happened more than that, now that I look back. I’d stopped c
aring at that point.”
“Why the hell didn’t you leave him?” I asked, confused. “Life’s short—why waste it on someone like that?”
She shrugged. “Habit? I don’t know. In retrospect, it’s crazy, but when you’re in the moment . . . I think a part of me hoped that having a baby together would fix things. I don’t know. None of it matters, because when I was eight months along I started having trouble. Spotting. Cramps. A lot of that happens late in pregnancy anyway, but one morning the bleeding started and it wouldn’t stop. I lost the baby.”
I’d half expected something like this. I mean, either she’d lost the kid or had given it up for adoption. I’d known that from the minute I saw the stretch marks. Still, hearing the words made it real.
“I’m really sorry, Tinker.”
She blinked rapidly, and I watched as a tear ran down her face. She ignored it, staring straight ahead.
“She was a little girl. I hadn’t found out ahead of time. I wanted it to be a surprise. I named her Tricia, after my mom. Brandon was in court that day and he didn’t ask for a continuance or anything. He could’ve, you know. There’s no judge on earth who wouldn’t have let him go to the hospital, but Brandon didn’t care enough about our daughter to be there.”
“Fucking asshole.”
“Yeah, you could say that,” she replied. “But good riddance, you know? He finally showed up at the hospital late that night. After they’d taken her. I got to hold her, and a photographer shot some pictures, but her own father couldn’t be bothered. That’s when I decided I couldn’t be bothered with him any more, either. Threw his rings right at him in the hospital room.”
Tears ran down her face openly now. I reached for her, pulling her into my arms. She resisted at first, stiffening against me, but fuck that.
“He’s a piece of shit,” I told her, rubbing her back as she relaxed into my hold. “Tricia deserved better and so do you. I’m so sorry, baby. So incredibly sorry.”
“I wanted her so much,” Tinker whispered, starting to sob. Usually crying women freak me out, but this was different. This wasn’t some bitch whining about her boyfriend. I’d never had a kid—never even considered it—but I’d seen my brothers with their children. Losing one would destroy them.
“I kicked him out,” Tinker continued. “He moved in with his folks or rented something. I don’t know. Didn’t care. Then I hired a lawyer to take care of the divorce, but things were complicated because we owned a house and a business, and the finances were always impossible to follow. His family has money, but I didn’t know how much and never understood how it works. Anyway, he still wants me to give him another chance.”
No fucking way.
“You tell him to fuck off?” I asked, bristling.
She pulled back, giving me a small, hard smile. “I’ve made sure the situation is clear.”
“I’ll bet you did,” I replied, reaching over to catch a piece of hair glued to her cheek with her tears, tucking it back behind her ear. “You want me to kill him for you?”
She gave a short burst of laughter, shaking her head, obviously under the impression that I was joking.
I wasn’t. Not even a little.
“No, Carrie and Margarita have claimed that honor,” she said. “I really miss her. Tricia, I mean. You wouldn’t think you’d miss a child you only got to hold once, but I loved her from the minute I got pregnant. You have no idea how much I loved that girl . . . And now she’s gone. I’d give anything to have her back. Then you came along, and made up having a family like it was a joke.”
Reaching out, I caught the back of her head, sliding my fingers into her hair as I held her eyes.
“I will never lie to you again,” I said slowly. “I was trying to look normal. To fit in. I needed to learn what was happening in town, and that seemed like the best way to do it. If I’d had any clue . . . Well, I wish to hell I could go back in time and change how I did things, but I can’t.”
She blinked rapidly. “I’m not sure I can live with that. You should probably leave, Gage. I’m . . . I’m not ready for anything real. I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready again.”
Fuck, I was in over my head here.
Usually I took what I wanted.
Demanded it.
I lived in a hard world, a world where the only way to win was refusing to back down, but Tinker was fragile. More fragile than I could’ve imagined. She was also stronger, though, too. No wonder the sex tape hadn’t destroyed her life. Who gives a damn about a sex tape when your baby is dead?
“I want to kill your ex-husband,” I told her, dead serious. She blinked.
“Me, too,” she whispered slowly. “But she’d still be gone. That part of my life is over, even if he doesn’t realize it. I’m never going back because there’s nothing left for me there.”
“You don’t need to,” I replied, rubbing a thumb down along her cheek, wiping away one of her tears. “You have a life here.”
“Right,” she said bitterly. “Because Hallies Falls is so fucking great. My dad’s losing his mind, I’m stuck with an apartment building I can’t even take care of, and everyone thinks I’m a slut.”
“Jesus, listen to yourself,” I said, frustrated that she couldn’t see the reality of the situation. “Tinker, a couple of small-minded cunts think you’re a slut. Fine. Small-minded cunts are always looking for someone to judge. You’re doing a public service by giving them something to talk about. Everyone else in town thinks you’re the shit—you should’ve seen how impressed they were when you took down that bitch in the grocery store. Open your eyes and you’ll see it. And yeah, maybe your dad is losing it. He still loves you and you love him, and you have each other. And for fuck’s sake, I’m taking care of the apartment building for you so stop worrying already, okay? Why don’t you try living in the moment, instead of focusing on everything that’s wrong?”
Her eyes narrowed.
“Living in the moment won’t bring back my daughter.”
“Neither will hating everything on principle.”
“I think you should leave.”
“I’m not leaving,” I said, surprised at how strong the words came out. Hearing her tear herself down like that actively pissed me off. “And I’m not Brandon. I didn’t lie to you as a joke. I don’t have any kids because I take that shit very seriously. If I brought a child into this world, I’d damned well take care of it. You grew up in a great place, Tinker. Your parents loved you, you have friends, the works. I didn’t. Foster care. Dad died in prison and Mom OD’d when I was sixteen. If it wasn’t for the Reapers I’d have fallen apart, but they took me in like a lost puppy. I understand what it means not to have parents. I’d never do that to a child. Hate me all you want, but don’t give me your hate for your ex, too. That’s all his and he deserves it.”
I closed my mouth, startled by how much I’d said. She cocked her head at me.
“You’re right,” she said slowly. “You aren’t him. But that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten what you did.”
It was a big concession.
“We’ll work on it,” I said, reaching out to touch her cheek. “Starting tonight. I’m taking you out for dinner.”
She snorted. “You mean like a date?”
“Yeah, exactly like a date. We’ll talk and get to know each other. Maybe go out to the clubhouse afterward and you can meet some of my brothers from Coeur d’Alene.”
“Not sure I’m ready for that.”
“There’s a party tomorrow night,” I said. “A bunch of the old ladies are coming to town.”
She frowned. “That seems a little random.”
I sighed, shaking my head. “It’s complicated. We’re making some changes in the club structure. It’s about rebuilding relationships, and having the girls here will help with that. Ultimately the club is for the men, but having all the women on board helps with that a lot. We want the local girls to understand what they’re part of. Let them bond with the old ladies, you know?”
> “Why do you call them old ladies?” she asked, wrinkling her nose.
“Fuck if I know,” I admitted. “It’s just what they’re called. They’re our women—our property.”
“I’m not sure which part of that offends me more, the old or the property.”
“They’re both terms of respect,” I said firmly. “If a woman’s your old lady, it means you trust her. Not just with your life, but with all your brothers’ lives, too. Property is the same way—it’s about making it clear to everyone that you’re under our protection. They fuck with you, the Reapers will make them pay. Women in our world consider it an honor.”
“That’s bullshit,” she said, eyes sparking. Good. She’d seemed so defeated when she’d talked about her daughter, but now she was coming back. Here was the woman who kept fighting—exactly what I wanted to see.
“Only if you consider ‘old’ an insult,” I replied. “You saying that being old is a bad thing? You know, in the Reapers the older guys mentor the younger ones. Out in the regular world, people stick to their own age groups, but in the MC world everyone is together. You might want to reconsider before making a snap judgment.”
Tinker narrowed her eyes. “And property?”
I sighed. “I think you need to see it to understand. Give me a chance, okay? Get to know my people and you’ll see what I’m talking about. It’s different, but it’s good. We’re a family.”
She still looked skeptical, but she nodded her head.
“Okay, I’ll try to keep an open mind,” she agreed.
“So I’ll pick you up at six.”
“I didn’t say I’d go out with you.”
Yeah, she didn’t get a choice, although I was smart enough not to say it.
“Six work for you?” I asked. “I’m not him. Give me a chance and I’ll show you how much I’m not him.”
She sighed, then nodded. “Okay. But I’m not agreeing to anything more than one date, understand? You haven’t won.”
