FILLED BY THE BAD BOY: Tidal Knights MC

by Paula Cox

  “It’s not my job to make you hopeful,” I say. “It’s not my job to make you trust me.”

  “Lana. Listen. Tell me whose child it is.”

  “Do the math, Kade.” I sigh. I am tired. The anger is making me weary. “I haven’t been with another man since we met—since over a year before we met, in fact. You are the only man I’ve been with.”

  “That means . . .” His eyes move from my face down to my belly.

  “That means your swimmers are the only ones who have come anywhere near my eggs, congratulations.”

  Despite the sarcasm and weariness in my voice, I would let go of my anger if Kade jumped up, walked around the table, wrapped his arms around me, kissed me. I would let go of it without a doubt. This moment is too important for that. But Kade does none of that.

  He says, “So there’s nothing going on with you and Scud.”

  When he says that, all I can think is that for the rest of my life, when I remember this moment, it will be stained with that comment.

  I stand up.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Anywhere—somewhere away from you.”

  He gestures at the window. “You’ll get drenched.”

  “Then I’ll get drenched. I can’t stand to look at you. You’ve ruined this. You’ve basically called me a whore to my face and I won’t stand for it.”

  I march to the door, throw it open, and step out into the lashing rain.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Kade

  Goddamn it, this relationship shit is hard. For a second after Lana just walks away, I sit here trying to get my head around it all. So she and Scud weren’t—of course they fuckin’ weren’t. I was an asshole for thinking that. Which means Scud must’ve been bothering her in some way. But he’ll deny it, and it wouldn’t look too good for the president to start on his VP, especially at a time like this, on the word of a woman . . .

  Fuck, my mind ain’t where it needs to be.

  I jump up and follow Lana across the café, out into the rain. She paces down the street, head held high. Normally, a woman walks away like this, making me chase her, and I just let her go. I never want to be the man chasing a woman down the street. But she’s the mother of my child; my child is in her belly. I want to sit down, take a moment, process it. I want to tell Duster. I want to hold Lana. I want all of this but she just keeps walking away from me through the rain.

  I jog after her, take off my leather and lay it over her shoulders.

  Rain lashes into our faces.

  “This is stupid,” I say. “We should go inside.”

  “So you can insult me some more?”

  “Goddamn, Lana. How the fuck was I supposed to know?”

  “If you’d waited for an explanation, instead of accusing me of fucking Scud, you would’ve known much sooner.”

  She walks directly through a puddle, drenching her legs.

  She’s going to catch hypothermia if she keeps on like this. Which would be bad enough if it was only herself she had to worry about. But my child—a man has to protect his child.

  I pick Lana up, holding her in my arms, ignoring the way she squeals and kicks. “Let me go, Kade!” she punches me in the chest. “Let me go!”

  My leather drops from her shoulders onto the sidewalk, into a puddle. I ignore it and carry Lana up the stairs to the town hall. I set her down out of the rain. “Wait here.” I collect my leather, rain-soaked, flecked with mud, and then return to her.

  She’s soaked, hair plastered to her forehead, arms folded under her breasts. Breasts which are, I realize now I look at them properly, bigger than when we first met.

  “So you’re having my baby,” I say. “What was all that shit with Scud about, then?”

  “Do you really want to know?” She leans against the wall. “Or are you going to accuse me of asking for it?”

  “I wouldn’t do that.”

  “You did. Just now. You basically did.”

  I swallow. “Fine. I’m sorry for that. I won’t do it again.”

  She tells me what happened, about Scud coming onto her, making lewd comments, grabbing her arm and chasing her around the table.

  I feel rage grip me. It makes the rage I used to feel back in the trailer park, the rage that gripped me every time I found Duster tooled up or came home to find Dad passed out with whisky spilled over the floor, look small and meaningless. This is the rage a man can only feel when the mother of his child is threatened. The rage of needing to protect your own. And yet, my rage is muddled by the reality of the club. It’s vulnerable. We’re in a crisis. If I kicked the shit out of my VP—which is what I want to do—it might push things over the edge. The men might lose faith, might start questioning me.

  “I’ll kill him,” I say.

  “Oh, don’t be silly!” Lana snaps, waving a hand. “It was scary, and horrible, but he didn’t actually do anything.”

  “He grabbed your wrist.”

  “Yes, and I scratched him and made him let go.”

  “If I hadn’t come in . . .”

  “But you did.” Lana steps up to me, places her hand on my chest, a wet hand against a wet shirt against wet skin, cold and yet somehow warm. She’s always warm. “He’s not the point, Kade. The child is the point.”

  “I know.”

  The baby is mine. The baby is mine. The baby is mine. Three times isn’t enough for it to really hit me. Hell, I don’t think three-hundred would be enough. I place my hand atop Lana’s.

  And then she says it, says something I can’t say back, not now, not with the club at risk, not when I have to be strong.

  She says, “I love you, Kade.”

  I should say it back. It’s true. I know it’s true. I feel it in my bones. I feel it all over. But if I say it, I will be letting something in. Letting in feelings I have never let in before. Who knows what could happen? It’d make me weak. It’d make me start caring more than I should. It’d make me question everything. Maybe we’d be out in gunfight with the Italians and I’d have to be fearless but all I’d be thinking about is how I have a woman and a child to take care of. Maybe it’d turn me into a coward.

  She looks at me expectantly. I should say it. I should. It’d be easier to say it if I didn’t feel it. Then I could just lie. Keep her happy. But I do feel it. And feelings get a man in my line of work killed damn quickly.

  She takes a step back. “Oh,” she says. “I thought—oh.”

  Say it, man. Say it. Say it!

  I don’t, can’t. Not now.

  The rain tap-tap-taps against the roof of the town hall. At the other side of the shelter, a group of kids stand in a circle smoking cigarettes, and an elderly couple sits on a public bench, looking peacefully out at the summer rain.

  “I’m still moving to Seattle with Terry,” Lana says after a pause.

  “Moving to . . .” With my child? “You’re not.”

  “I’m not?” She coughs out a laugh. She’s trying to hold back tears, I realize. ’Cause I didn’t say I loved her back. I’m an asshole, that’s for sure, but I never claimed to be anything—“I am,” she snaps. “You don’t own me, Kade. Despite what you think, no man owns me. I am moving to Seattle with my friend and I am going to start looking out for myself again. That’s all I can do. I was an idiot for thinking anything else.”

  “Lana,” I say, trying to keep my voice calm. She’s in one hell of a mood today. Can’t blame her, but it doesn’t make it any easier. “You are not—”

  “Stop fucking telling me what I am and am not doing!” she screams. The kids cackle madly from the other side of the shelter. The old couple flinches away. Lana bites her lip, and then whispers fiercely: “I am moving in with Terry, Kade. You’ve only ever seen me as property, anyway. Right from the start, you’ve just seen me as something which you can use whenever you want. And sure, maybe I’ve gone along with that. But that isn’t good enough for me anymore. I want my own life back. I’m not going to be a decoration for the clubhouse any lon
ger. So I am going to move to Seattle with Terry and I am going to make a new life for myself. Don’t tell me what to do. I am not your bike, Kade. You can’t turn me on and off whenever you feel like it.”

  “Lana—”

  She glares at me and I know I’ve done something wrong. I know I’ve done many things wrong. I shouldn’t have questioned her about Scud. I should’ve been happier when she told me about the kid. I should’ve told her I loved her back. All these things, I should’ve done. But doing the right thing has never been one of my strengths.

  “Don’t,” she interrupts. “Just don’t. I am done, Kade. If all you see me as is something to stick your prick in after a long day, I am done.”

  She folds her arms, pouts at me.

  Even now, I know I could fix this by telling her I love her. But that’s something I just can’t do. Not with all the other shit going on.

  “Let’s get you back to the clubhouse,” I say.

  “This is my last night there,” she replies. “I’m moving tomorrow. I’m calling Terry as soon as we’re out of the rain.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Lana

  All through the night, I expect Kade to knock on the door and tell me he loves me, tell me he doesn’t want me to go, tell me he can’t stand the idea. But he doesn’t; he just tells me I can’t go. And that makes me want to go even more. I sleep with the door locked just in case Scud tries anything. Part of me wants Kade to beat up Scud, despite what I said. But he doesn’t do that, either. His mind is on his club and it’s like I’m an afterthought. I try and see it from his perspective. In a matter of hours I’ve gone from a casual fuck-buddy to a massive commitment. Sure, that would scare a man. I can understand that. But it doesn’t make it any easier for me to accept.

  I roll over and close my eyes. I don’t know I’m sleeping until I open then again and sunlight slants through the windows, patchy sunlight pockmarked with clinging raindrops. I lean up, groan, check my phone. Terry has texted me. She’s picking me up in two hours.

  I go to my writing desk and begin collecting my things, and then pack my clothes into my bag. I’ve only been at the clubhouse for a few weeks but the idea of leaving it saddens me. I’ve begun to see it as my home. I pile my bags on the bed. Two bags, one filled with books and writing materials, the other with clothes: two bags, my entire existence. I sit on the edge of the bed and place my hands on my knees, waiting. I feel oddly calm. Accepting. This is it, then. This is how it’s going to happen.

  Kade is out, somewhere, on club business. I can’t even blame him for that. Two of his men—his friends—have been killed by the Italians. Of course he has to focus on that. But to look into my eyes when I’ve told him I love him and not say it back. To just let it hang there. To let it hang there making me feel more rotten and ridiculous as each second passes by. That’s the worst part. I truly thought he loved me. Perhaps that was naïve of me. Perhaps I was letting storybook ideas get ahead of reality. I saw Kade wrapping his arms around me, kissing me deeply, whispering tenderly close to my ear so I felt his breath on my skin: “I love you.” I saw all of that in my head dozens of times. But in the end all we did was stand under a rain-battered roof with more unsaid than said words passing between us.

  I mutter, “There once was a girl who thought her man loved her until she brought it out in the open and realized it was all ash and broken and nothing and—” I snort, fighting back tears. An unladylike sound, but I’ve already made it clear I won’t sit around here being a beck-and-call biker lady. I shouldn’t have let it go on for so long as it is. Maybe that’s why Scud got so many absurd ideas.

  Even now, with Terry less than an hour from picking me up, if Kade knocked on the door and asked me to stay, told me he loved me, said he’d stand by me. Not ordered me to stay, like he has already. But asked me. Asked me like I am a real person and not another task on his to-do list.

  But he doesn’t, and soon it is time for Terry to pick me up. I check my phone: I’m here, hon.

  I stand up, coughing back tears. Leaving anywhere can be upsetting. Leaving the father of your child without a proper goodbye is . . . No, I won’t cry. I won’t let that happen. I fight back the tears, push them deep inside of me, wipe my eyes and pick up my bags. I will not cry.

  I walk through the clubhouse, empty apart from the pledges who hang around to alert anyone if the Italians attack, and out onto the street. Outside, two Tidal Knights sit in a pickup. They’re the same ones who watched me and Kelly at the café. They’re going to follow us to Seattle, I know; Kade told me. Despite not being willing to admit he loves me, he’s willing to take two of his men away from the Italian trouble and put them on following duty.

  I guess that’s men for you. He won’t open his heart but he’ll open his wallet.

  Terry walks across the parking lot and takes one of the bags from me. She’s dressed in a woman’s suit, pale blue, which makes her look imposing and professional. Thick-framed glasses are perched on her nose.

  “Didn’t know you wore glasses,” I say. I hear the choking noise in my voice, on the precipice of falling into Tear Valley. I clear my throat. It does nothing to push back the impending tears.

  I will not cry.

  “I usually wear contacts,” Terry says, carrying the bag to the trunk. I drop in my rucksack and we go to the front of the car. Terry nods at the pick-up across the road. “That our escort?”

  “For the time being, yes.”

  “Your man really doesn’t take any chances.”

  “He’s not my man.”

  Terry looks at me.

  I wave my hand. “Just leave it.”

  “Okay, then. Let’s get going.”

  We climb into the car and make the drive to Seattle in silence. I stare out of the window at the passing scenery, which blurs in my vision. I don’t ask myself if it blurs because the car is moving fast or if because tears brim in my eyes. I can’t afford to ask myself that. All I know is that with each passing moment, Kade gets farther away. It doesn’t matter that two Tidal Knights follow us to Seattle.

  Finally, we stop outside a tall apartment building on the outskirts of the city. As we walk toward the entrance, an artsy-type couple walks out holding hands, one of the ladies with short dyed-pink hair, the other lady wearing a beautiful multicolored scarf. They talk loudly about F. Scott Fitzgerald, and the pink-haired one opens the door for us.

  “They seem nice,” I comment.

  “A lot of nice people here,” Terry agrees.

  Her apartment is on the third-floor. It’s a modern two-bedroom with refurbished kitchen and bathroom, sleek, and hardwood flooring. My bedroom has a desk and an en-suite.

  “Home sweet home,” I say, and even though this place is beautiful, I can’t help but think about the clubhouse. I can’t help but think how, tonight for the first time in weeks, Kade will not be visiting me. Tonight, if I get cold, or scared, or lonely, I will have to stay cold and scared and lonely. Tonight, I won’t be able to rest my head against Kade’s hard body for comfort. I place my clothes in the wardrobe, my books on the shelf, and my writing material on the desk.

  Then I join Terry in the living room.

  She tilts her head at me, looks at me with her mother’s eyes.

  “Stop looking at me like that,” I say, sitting on the white-leather couch.

  “You’ve barely said a word since you got into the car.”

  “I—” Damn these eyes and damn these hormones and damn these persistent tears. “There isn’t much to say. That’s all.”

  My voice rises and falls as sobs try and sabotage my words. I bite down. I keep thinking about that moment under the shelter at the town hall, the moment where the rain pounded, where everything could’ve been so different. He could’ve pulled me close to him and told me he loved me and—

  “Oh, hon,” Terry says. She moves from the chair to the couch, shimmying along it until she’s close to me. “Oh, hon.”

  “Don’t,” I mutter. “Don’t, Terry.�
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  “You’re hurting and you’re my friend. I don’t want to see you hurting.”

  “I told him—”

  I explain about the café and the walk in the rain. I leave out the business with Scud. Terry would probably drive back to Evergreen and take care of him herself if I told her about that.

  “You were expecting more,” she says softly, when I’m finished. She places her hand on my back, rubbing it much as she did back at the Twin Peaks when the morning sickness first hit me. “You were expecting him to say it back.”