Her mother was an imposing woman. She wasn’t tall, just average at a hair past five and a half feet, but she could sure put the fear of god in a person when she was angry. Her hair, even at fifty, was jet black with only a few gray streaks. She took pride in her appearance and was always dressed like she was heading off to church. Well, maybe not that fancy, but she didn’t frump around the house in sweats either. It was always slacks and blouses, blouses and slacks. The one time Savannah saw her mother buy a pair of jeans, she almost had a heart attack.
“Your father talks to Kian all the time. He’s his business partner. I don’t know why you insist on not telling him about the baby.” Gianna paused and her lips pressed into a thin line. “Unless he’s the father?” She glared at her daughter, daring her to admit the truth.
Savannah snorted. “God, mom! You already know that’s not true. Kian has some pretty distinct features and Carter has none. Plus, if it was true, you know that I’d never admit it, as dad would kill him and then he’d go to jail and I don’t want to see my father rot away in there.”
“I don’t know why you won’t just tell us, Savannah. We’re both over being angry about it. When you told me, it was a shock. I’ll admit that your father and I were very disappointed and we might not have handled the news in the best way possible.”
“That’s a real understatement there.”
Gianna’s cheeks actually heated up and Savannah was a little taken aback. Her mother didn’t exactly apologize for anything. She had her pride and that kept her neck more than a little stiff. “Yes, well, you can imagine how hard it was for us.”
Savannah sighed. “Yes, I know. I’m thankful you let me stay here, and for all the help you’ve given me. Carter adores you both and that will only grow as he gets older.”
“He’s a beautiful child.”
Despite her mother’s anger about the pregnancy and her misgivings, the minute she set eyes on Carter, she was instantly in love. She was still a little reserved, or at least, she didn’t do everything for Savannah. She wanted her daughter to learn the hard way just how tough being a mother was. Savannah got it. Carter was her son, not her mother’s. She was thankful for whatever helping hand Gianna lent her. Just giving her a continued place to live, rent free, meant the world. There was a time when she thought her parents might actually kick her out.
She’d never told them she was dating Mike. They’d only been together for six months and it wasn’t even a real thing at first, at least not on her part. She’d never asked him over for dinner because she didn’t want her parents to meet him. They wouldn’t have approved, even though he was Kian’s friend. Knowing Kian as a business partner and a sort of pseudo son was one thing. Having your precious daughter date his best friend, a tattoo artist who swore too much and worked too much, who drank whiskey straight and battled his own demons, that was another.
So when she’d found out she was pregnant, it was yet another reason she didn’t tell her parents who the father was. She didn’t want a man popping in and out of her son’s life. Worse, she was ashamed to admit she didn’t want Mike popping in and out or hers, reminding her that she actually missed him, that she dreamed of him, that she thought about him, that she saw him in every aspect of her son. That she loved him, whatever that actually meant. With all her wild hormones, her regrets, her jumbled up emotions, she wasn’t exactly sure. Throw not sleeping into the mix and she was a mess.
“The best.” She smiled warmly at her mother, who couldn’t help but smile back. “I noticed you’re not using the hand beater to mix that.”
“Do you think I want to wake that kid up after you spend three hours trying to get him down for a nap?”
“Thanks, mom. You’re the best.”
Her mother cast a worried glance her way. “Are you sure you’re alright?”
“What do you mean?”
“We know you haven’t been sleeping. Your father and I have actually started using earplugs at night and that gives us a good rest, but I know Carter has been giving you hell about that. He’s a little angel most of the time for me. It just seems that at night he doesn’t want to go down and I don’t see you taking many naps during the day. I know from experience how hard it can be to be sleep deprived. When I had you, your father was working all the time. It was just me and you and a lot of sleepless nights.”
Savannah actually had to blink back tears, another unfortunate side effect of lingering pregnancy hormones and being so tired. “I guess it’s true what they say about not really appreciating your mother until you become one. I do appreciate you mom, really.”
Gianna smiled at her with more tenderness look than Savannah had seen her mother give in a long time. “So tell me then, why don’t you want Kian to know about Carter? You always liked him. More than you should.”
“I…” she nearly choked on her saliva. “Just please, tell dad not to say anything when he meets with Kian. He saw us, I’m sure he did, even though I got into the car right away. Just let him assume that Carter is some kid I’m babysitting or a friend’s child or something. Please.”
“We’re not ashamed of you, Savannah, if that’s what you’re worried about. We still go to church every Sunday. The entire place knows and we’ve never once said we were anything but proud of you. I am proud of you. I don’t know if you know that. I’m sorry if it hasn’t always seemed like it, but I see how hard you’re trying and how much you love that child and it makes my heart happy. I did something right as a mother to have such a compassionate daughter. Taking on a challenge like that when you’re so young, alone, isn’t something I would have wanted for you, but I love you just the same.”
“Mom…” Savannah reached up and brushed away scalding tears. “Geez, you’re making me cry.”
Her mother dropped the wooden spoon back into the bowl with a clatter. She opened her arms and Savannah fell into them easily. She let her mother run her hand over her back, soothing her.
“I’ll see what I can do. I’ll talk to your father. If you really don’t want him to say anything, he won’t. But you also have to be prepared for the fact that Kian did see you yesterday. Why ever it is that you don’t want him to know, he might already know, and your father can’t lie. He won’t lie to Kian. You understand?”
“Yes. I know that they’re partners and dad doesn’t want to have to start that, breaking their trust after all these years. I respect that. I just want, if Kian asks, for dad not to say anything. Tell him to change the subject, no matter how many times he has to do it.”
Her mother pulled back and shook her head, still not understanding just why it mattered so much. She couldn’t understand, not when she didn’t even know about Mike. As far as her parents knew, Savannah had turned sixteen and that had been the end of reigning in her wild side. She was always out and they’d given up trying to keep her in. They knew she wasn’t truly doing anything bad. A little underage drinking and dating guys who always took care to get her home in one piece wasn’t far worse than what some other people were doing.
She’d given them hell, more or less, and she regretted it now, as a mother. She couldn’t imagine her son acting that way. When her mother waited up for her, she now understood why she’d done it. Not so she could scream and yell and rant about her daughter’s irresponsible behavior, but because she was so worried she might not come home at all.
“Thanks, mom.”
Her mother nodded, pulling away, back to business once more. “You probably have about an hour before Carter wakes up. Why don’t you try and get a nap in.”
“Really?”
“Yes. You look like you need it. Your eyes are bloodshot and the purple streaks under them haven’t gone away for months. I miss my beautiful daughter.”
Savannah rolled her eyes. “Thanks mom.” She turned, already heading for her room. Carter slept across from her, in the office that had been converted into a nursery.
She couldn’t truly be mad. Right about now, her problems temporarily solved, her worries eased just
a little, a nap sounded like heaven.
Chapter 5
A Late Night Heart To Heart
Mike
A second pint of frothy beer was set in front of Mike, his old, empty glass swiftly bustled out of the way. Kian slid into the booth across from him and their young server, a pretty brunette wearing a skirt that was far too short and showed way too much of her long, golden legs and just the top of her ass cheeks, flashed Kian a flirtatious smile. It only took her a few seconds to spot the gold wedding band on Kian’s left hand and after that she stuck to business, bringing Kian a pint of his own.
“Thanks for meeting me. I know it’s late and you want to get home, but I couldn’t handle waiting another night.”
Kian just nodded, one of those yah, whatever nods that said he truly would rather be at home with his wife and their adopted daughter. The guy’s dark countenance gave him a naturally broody look. He was completely unapproachable and oddly enough that seemed to draw women to him. They used to flock around him all the time and he’d completely ignore them. Half of his damn clientele came and got tattooed just so they could titter away at him for hours while he inked away, his eyes stopped up, his mind a thousand miles away.
Since he’d been married and he put that gold band on his finger, the female attention had waned. If anything, Kian seemed to be relived.
Mike used to be jealous, of Kian’s natural charm, though the guy sure as hell didn’t want any of it or ask for it. Now, he was pretty much in the same boat. He just wanted to be left alone. Since breaking up with Christine, he’d been on full shutdown mode. He knew it wasn’t fair to be with anyone else, even for a one night deal, when he was a lost cause.
“So, what did you find out?” Mike sipped at his amber ale. It tasted sour, though he knew that had everything to do with the nerves churning their way up from his stomach into his throat and wasn’t the fault of the pub or the brewer at all. His first pint had tasted marginally better, while he waited for Kian to arrive. Now that the guy was there, shit got real.
“I had to pry it out of Jordan. It took me longer than I thought it would. He kept skirting around it. I’d ask him straight out if Savannah had a baby and he’d start talking about the club’s numbers, repairs, the guy who got bounced out of the bar for selling smack last week and on and on.”
“So he was obviously trying to evade the question.”
“All damn night.” Kian picked up his pint and drained a good half of it in one long pull, a sure sign that he was tired of talking already.
“Did he eventually come clean?”
“Yah. A few hours in. I had to basically pull out all the stops. I just kept asking, over and over again, wearing him down and finally he admitted the truth. She did have a baby. The kid is hers, not some friend’s or someone she was babysitting for the day or whatever. It’s hers.”
“He didn’t try and lie to you?”
“The thing about Jordan is he doesn’t lie. The guy is honest as the day is long. Which is odd, considering the club is seedy as hell. He somehow manages to stay on the right side of the law, always has, though I have no idea how. I guess he has a talent for it. People know he’s a straight shooter and so they trust him. It’s one of the reasons I’ve only had to be a silent partner all these years.”
“Okay. Well?” Mike leaned forward, hands on the table top, right near his sweating pint.
“He doesn’t know who the father is. She’s never told them. He admitted to me, and I could tell he didn’t want to, that she was being kind of wild. I pretty much knew that. She’s been a handful since the time she was sixteen. He said his wife put her on the pill when she was fifteen since she already looked like a woman and he couldn’t keep her at home. He didn’t want to tell me that either. You should have seen his face. He was just trying to help me understand. He was trying to tell me she isn’t a bad girl, but I’ve always known that. It’s tough being a teenager. I get it. God, we all get it. We were all there at one point or other.”
Mike nodded. It would have killed him to admit how many mistakes he’d made over a lifetime. His recent breakup with Christine didn’t exactly make him proud of himself. “Tell me about it,” he mumbled. He dragged back his pint and sighed as the cool liquid washed down his dry throat. “So she got pregnant and hasn’t told them whose the kid is?”
“Nope. But if you go back… he’s three months old. I made Jordan tell me.”
“Nine and three is a year. She would have had to be pregnant right at the time she broke up with me.”
“Or it’s not yours.”
“Or it’s not mine.” Mike leaned back. He folded his arms across his chest and blew out a deep breath in an effort to keep his anxiety from cutting off his air supply completely. It didn’t work.
“Or it’s not yours.”
“So you don’t know. We still don’t know anything.”
“No. I’m sorry. Jordan can’t tell me what he doesn’t know. It’s not easy for a father to admit he doesn’t know who the father is of his own grandchild.”
“It’s weird. Why wouldn’t she just tell them?”
“Maybe she doesn’t know either.”
Mike’s mouth was instantly flooded with a sour taste. He didn’t want to think of Savannah and another man. Maybe more than one. He didn’t want that baby to be another guy’s. Did he really want it to be his? That was the question he’d tossed over and over in his mind for days. He couldn’t stop thinking. The million possibilities played over and over in his mind. If the kid was his, he just couldn’t understand why Savannah hadn’t told him, even in passing. Just a hey, by the way, I’m pregnant and it’s yours, would have been nice. Did she really think he was that bad that he didn’t deserve to know? The thought ate at him more than anything. The thought that she might possibly hate him. Or not care. Ambivalence was the worst thought of all.
“Well, thanks for trying man.”
Kian leaned forward. The expression on his face was grim, not a look that Mike had seen in a while, since Katelyn and Isabella had come into the guy’s life and made him a hell of a lot happier and even a little bit softer.
“I think you need to ask her.”
“How could I do that? It’s not like I can just show up at her house and demand answers. If she didn’t tell her parents, she’s not going to tell me.”
“Maybe she’s scared. She’s young. Neither of us, as men, have any idea what it would be like to be raised in a pretty strict household, to be twenty years old and have to tell your parents that you’re pregnant and not in any kind of committed relationship.”
Mike shook his head. He imagined Savannah, alone, scared, holding that damn pregnancy test in her hand, staring at two pink lines. The image nearly killed him. If it was his, hell, even if that kid wasn’t his, he would have wanted to be there for her.
That realization knocked him back, or at least it would have if he hadn’t been sitting down. As it was, his head spun. I really do love her. If he’d doubted it at all before, which he hadn’t, there was no way he would have doubted it at present.
“So you think she would be willing to talk to me if I show up?”
Kian considered that. His lips pulled into an even thinner line. “Maybe you could write her a letter. I could give it to her father or you could mail it. It doesn’t seem personal, but at the same time, she’d probably read it and it would give her time to think things over.”
“What the hell would I say? Oh, by the way, is the kid mine?”
“No. What do you truly feel about it, Mike? It’s been a couple days and you’ve been clammed up tighter than I’ve ever seen you. I have no idea what you’re actually thinking or feeling. Do you want to get involved? If not, then don’t write her. If it was yours, I’m sure she would have told you. If you do want to- well- uh- get involved in some way, then maybe offer your support. Jordan seemed to indicate that she’s not having the easiest time with things. If you care and I’m not saying you do, but if you do, then maybe let her know.”
“She was the one who broke up with me,” Mike said raggedly.
“That doesn’t mean she didn’t care. I could tell she did. Do you think it’s possible she might have cared too much? As a young person, hell even now, loving someone can be scary as hell, or at the very least confusing. She might have broken up with you because you were getting a little too close and then found out she was pregnant and she just didn’t know how to tell you. She waited too long and then she couldn’t figure out a way to let you know, after the fact. Maybe she just needs someone to nudge her into taking that first step.”
“And maybe it’s not mine and I should just mind my own damn business.”
Kian gave him a pointed look. “Does that really matter? Isabella isn’t mine or Katelyn’s, well, not her daughter at any rate, but even if she wasn’t her niece she was a child alone who needed love and that’s all that mattered to us. That little girl is every bit my daughter. I love her and I would defend her with my life.”
“I know, man. I know.”
“If Savannah still means something to you, and I’ve seen the way you look, Mike. I’ve seen your damn sketchbook.”
“What the hell, Kian?”
“You leave it open on the break room table all the time. I wasn’t snooping around. Even the damn tattoos of women you do look a little like her, in some way or other. I know she’s been on your mind. I know you never really got over her. Believe me, as a guy who spent a lot of years learning how to get past my own past, or at least, live with it on a daily basis in a way that is almost healthy, I know what it looks like when someone isn’t over it.”
“I’ve dated other people.”
“Your heart wasn’t in it though, was it?”
“No,” Mike finally admitted. He picked up his pint and drained the remainder, just for good measure. Kian didn’t move. His eyes remained eerily focused and intent. “Okay, you win. I’ve thought about her since she broke up with me. I wasn’t ready for it. I cared about her and she just up and left one day. Said a whole bunch of shit that didn’t make a lot of sense. I was trying harder with her than I have with anyone else, even though I thought she was just with me to get to you.”
Hot Ink: All 3 Tattoo Shop Romance Books + 2 Exclusive Bonus Stories Page 15
