Bad Apple (The Uncertain Saints MC #4)

by Lani Lynn Vale

  “We don’t…have them with us right now,” he lied.

  I looked down at the thirty or so catfish on the stringer tied to the boat, and then back at the boys.

  “Are y’all under sixteen?” I asked.

  They both looked at each other again.

  See, in the state of Texas, if you were under the age of sixteen, you didn’t have to have a license to fish.

  However, if you were sixteen, you definitely didn’t want to be lying about not drinking all the beer that I could clearly tell they’d imbibed on.

  “Listen,” I said to the two boys that were obviously under the age of sixteen. In fact, if I had to guess, I’d say they were more along the age of fourteen or fifteen. “How about you call your parents. Have them come up here, and as long as all of those fish are legal, we’ll not worry about it. Just make sure you ride home with them.”

  Both boys nodded their heads vigorously.

  “Get them,” I ordered.

  Twenty minutes later, an obviously upset man and an equally upset mother hurried down the boat ramp to where the boys were still located.

  Not even five seconds after seeing them, the woman started yelling.

  The blonde kid winced and ducked his head, clearly not liking the fact that his mother was making such a big deal of it all. The father, though, was a different story.

  He was watching the redheaded kid with an intensity so great that I almost felt sorry for the kid.

  Almost.

  “What has my son done?” He asked unhappily.

  I relayed to him what I’d done and was just at the part where I was asking their ages when a familiar sounding motorcycle started to creep down the road.

  I turned and nodded at Peek to let him know I saw him and turned back to my conversation.

  “Your son and his friend decided to get drunk in a boat,” I wanted to laugh as I explained this, but the moment I saw the father turn to the kid, his whole demeanor changed to one of extreme annoyance.

  “Thank you. And what kind of…”

  “APPLE!” Peek yelled.

  My head whipped around and my stomach clenched at the emotion I saw etched into Peek’s haggard face.

  “Please make sure they don’t drink and boat anymore, it could be just as detrimental as drinking and driving,” I hurried, backing away and turning to run toward Peek.

  My heart was beating fast in my chest as my face remained glued to Peek’s expression.

  “What?” I asked, my stomach now rolling.

  He shook his head.

  “Get in your truck. I’ll drive.”

  I studied his face for a few long seconds then nodded, tossing him my keys.

  If he didn’t want me to drive, there was a reason.

  And I had a feeling I knew exactly the reason for his abrupt arrival.

  We were about two minutes into the drive when I finally got the nerve to ask.

  “What happened to her?” I cleared my throat.

  “Car wreck,” he said. “The officer, Corey Capone, died at the scene. They rushed Kitt to the hospital with a severe head injury and some trauma to her lower body.”

  My eyes closed.

  “And the baby?” I asked gruffly.

  “I don’t know.”

  The moment we arrived at the hospital my feet were moving me out of the truck and through the hospital doors that Peek parked about two feet away from.

  “Apple!” Ridley caught me by the arm before I could barrel into the ER.

  My head turned to study him.

  His eyes were red from what looked like crying, and his hair was a fucking mess.

  Which, for Ridley, was amazing in and of itself, seeing as he hated for his hair to be even a single strand out of place.

  “Tell me,” I demanded, grabbing a fistful of his shirt and pulling him to me.

  He wrapped his arms around my larger frame and hugged me to him tightly.

  “She’s in surgery. Second floor. I’m just waiting on you. Let’s go,” he let me go.

  We took the stairs up to the second floor.

  I was so numb that I couldn’t feel the way my heart pounded or the way my hands felt like ice.

  Ridley walked up to the receptionist’s desk and showed her his badge.

  “Harrison County Sheriff. I’m here for Kitt Walker,” he said.

  The woman’s eyes went from Ridley’s face to her computer where her fingers quickly started to fly over the keyboard.

  “She’s still in surgery. If you would like to wait here I can go check with the nurse…”

  “I’m her fiancé. She’s having my baby. If you would do that, that would be good,” I blurted, interrupting her explanation.

  The woman smiled softly.

  “I’ll go check,” she pushed back from her desk.

  The woman went to stand, and I walked around the side of the desk to help her.

  She had to be at least ninety, if not older.

  But the old woman walked out the door and came back within five minutes.

  “You have to stay here,” she pointed at Ridley. “But you can come with me. She’s been asking for you.”

  My eyes started to sting as I followed the old woman through the door behind her desk.

  I looked back once at Ridley, who looked torn.

  I knew he wanted to come.

  But he didn’t want to make a big scene.

  I gave him one grateful nod before the doors shut behind us.

  “Which way?” I grated roughly.

  She pointed.

  “I’ll take you, dear.” She held my hand. “Don’t want you getting lost.”

  I closed my eyes and tried not to scream at the old woman.

  She was walking so goddamned slow that I was tempted to pick her the fuck up and ask her where to take her.

  “She just got into surgery. She’s been having seizure after seizure, and they’ve just now gotten those under control enough to sew her up, according to the doctor. The baby was delivered via C-section about five minutes ago,” she recited.

  I fought the urge to clench my hands, knowing in this state that I would likely break the old lady’s bones.

  “Apple Drew?” A woman asked, startling me.

  I looked up and to the side to see a nurse in green scrubs outside a plain white door.

  The old lady gave my hand one last squeeze before letting me go.

  “Yes, ma’am,” my voice cracked slightly.

  She smiled at me.

  “We were going to let you come in with her for a few moments, but she’s completely under sedation now so she won’t be able to speak to you,” she said. “The baby, being seven and a half weeks early, will be taken to NICU. You may go with them, but you’ll be asked to change into clean clothes and a gown.”

  She eyed the mud on my boots. “And I have some shoe covers we’d like you to put on.”

  I nodded my head.

  “And Kitt? The baby? Are they okay?” I asked.

  I must’ve sounded ravaged, because she gave me a soft smile.

  “Both are okay,” she promised. “The baby is healthy and had a forceful scream before I left her. She should be following me out…”

  The door popped open behind her, and I heard the healthy set of lungs come out into the hallway.

  My daughter, a red, screaming, covered in white goo, little bundle of pissed off came out of the door being pushed in a clear contraption by another nurse.

  “Daddy?” The other nurse asked.

  I nodded, my feet frozen to the floor.

  “Mommy’s doing okay,” she grinned. “And this little one will likely be just fine, also. We’re taking her to the NICU just in case, though.”

  I nodded mutely.

  “Ready?” She asked, pushing my baby past the door in the direction of a bank of elevators.

  I nodded, but still my feet wouldn’t move.

  “She’s
going to be just fine.”

  The nurse’s words gave me the power to move, but only until my hand could touch the cool white door.

  I closed my eyes and leaned my head against it, saying a prayer for the first time in over a year.

  Don’t leave me. Please fight.

  My baby’s whimper turned to a quiet hiccup, and I let my hand drop to my side.

  “I’m ready.”

  Chapter 17

  It’s an ‘I want to fake my death, move to Mexico and live on tequila and tacos’ kind of day.

  -Coffee Cup

  Apple

  “You’re sure?” I asked the nurse.

  She nodded.

  “She needs the oxygen for now,” she pointed to the mask that was over Emily’s tiny nose. “You saw her chest?”

  I nodded.

  She’d been breathing fine at first, but over time, her breathing became labored. Her chest had started to cave inwards with the force of her breaths, and the NICU nurses and a doctor had immediately placed her on oxygen.

  I studied her face, and her perfect little lips, so happy that all the malformations that the doctors said might be possible while Kitt was on her seizure meds didn’t come to fruition.

  She was a perfect little four-pound baby, and I wanted to hold her so badly I could scream.

  “When will I get to hold her?” I asked, my finger running along Emily’s chest.

  “Maybe tomorrow, once she’s stable,” the nurse answered. “We’ll have to just wait and see. Babies, at this age, are so fragile, and we don’t want to disturb her any more than we have to until we figure out just how healthy this baby is.”

  I nodded, understanding that it could be that way.

  I’d done a lot of research on my phone and read about a hundred pamphlets while I’d been waiting on them to get her stabilized.

  My phone buzzed, and I pulled it out of my pocket to see the text from Ridley.

  Ridley (10:00 PM): No change. Still asleep.

  My text was a picture of Emily with the oxygen nose shit taking up the entirety of her face.

  Ridley’s response made me snort.

  Ridley (10:02): Looks like her mama. Same toes.

  “All right, Mr. Apple,” the nurse said sympathetically. “The NICU hours are from eight AM until eight PM. We’re going to have to ask you to leave,” she whispered apologetically.

  I winced.

  “Are you sure I have to leave?” My voice pleaded with her.

  She nodded.

  “I am. I’m sorry. But you can be here as soon as the clock strikes eight AM. I’ll also be calling you if anything changes. You can also call me anytime you feel you need an update, okay?” She offered.

  I nodded. “Yeah, okay.”

  With one last touch against Emily’s cheek, I left the NICU feeling like I’d left my own beating heart behind.

  I walked down one flight of stairs and turned left, following the directions I’d gotten from Ridley, arriving at Kitt’s room and stopping in surprise when I saw not just Ridley inside, but Griffin and his wife, Mig and his wife, Casten and his wife, Peek and his wife, and Wolf.

  They all stood the moment I came into the room.

  “Pictures!” Lenore declared loudly.

  I smiled and pulled out my phone, giving it to Lenore.

  The other ladies quickly gathered around the phone and cooed over the pictures.

  My eyes, however, were all for Kitt.

  She looked tiny in the big white hospital bed.

  Her head had a huge laceration from the top of her hairline all the way down to her eyebrow.

  Her leg was up in the air, wrapped from ankle to thigh.

  The bedding was bunched up over her midsection, which looked weird not swollen with our child.

  Her eyes were both black, and she had crusted, dried blood in her hair and around her ear.

  I grabbed a washcloth from the sink, wet it and gently went to work on the blood.

  I had to go rinse it at least three times before I was satisfied that it was all gone, and when I looked up next, the room was empty.

  Taking a glance behind me to be sure, I closed my eyes.

  Sighing in relief, I took a seat on the very edge of Kitt’s bed, careful not to jostle her, and stared at her, willing her to wake.

  “This wasn’t how this was supposed to go,” I told her, lifting my hand to brush a piece of her beautiful hair off her forehead. “You were supposed to have this kid naturally, and I was supposed to cut the umbilical cord. What to Expect When You’re Expecting said so.”

  That beautiful laugh of hers didn’t light up the air around me, and I closed my eyes as the tears that were clogging my throat threatened to spill over.

  But then something she’d said a couple days back, the night I finally decided to pull my head out of my ass and tell her everything there was to know about me, good and bad, came back to me.

  I love you. I love you when you’re you. I love you when you’re not you. I love you when you’re sick. I love you when you’re healthy. I’d take care of you even if you were a quadriplegic. You’re it for me, and I’m it for you. Got it?

  “I love you. I love you when you’re you. I love you when you’re not you. I love you when you’re sick. I love you when you’re healthy. I’d take care of you even if you were a quadriplegic. You’re it for me, and I’m it for you. Got it?” I whispered.

  She still didn’t answer, but I wasn’t worried. She’d come back to me. And when she did, she was mine.

  Forever.

  ***

  Day four after the accident, Kitt woke with a vengeance.

  “Get your hands off me, you stupid fool!” I heard yelled loudly. “Where’s my baby?”

  I rolled over from my back to my side and stared at the most beautiful vision I’d ever seen.

  Kitt. Awake and pissed.

  “Ma’am. Do you know where you are?” The nurse, the same one that’d been her nurse for the last two nights, asked her, ignoring her rude comments.

  “I’m in the hospital, you twit,” she said. “Even I can see that, and I don’t know what day it is or how I got here. Now, take me to my baby!”

  “Ma’am,” the nurse tried to say. “I’ll have to ask your doctor if it’s okay for you to see the baby.” She pointed to Kitt’s leg that was still up in the contraption that kept it immobile. “He said we could take it down today, but I’ll have to make sure before we do.”

  “You do that.” Kitt snarled. “Now.”

  “I need to give you your medicines first,” she informed her. “And we’ve been pumping your breast milk for your baby every two hours. Which is another thing I was in here to do.”

  “Who would give you permission to do something like that?” Kitt hissed. “Isn’t that a sexual violation?”

  “Kitt,” my deep, resonate voice said softly. “Don’t.”

  Kitt’s head snapped sideways, and her eyes widened.

  “You,” she hissed. “What did you do to me?”

  I wanted to laugh.

  I didn’t dare.

  “I gave her permission to do that, otherwise we would’ve had to see if we could find a milk bank that would supply Emily’s meals for her,” I sat up and placed my feet flat on the floor.

  Kitt’s eyes narrowed.

  “You named our child Emily?” She screeched, eyes narrowing. “Who gave you permission to do that?”

  I stood, keeping my eyes on her.

  “Can you come back in thirty minutes?” I asked the nurse. “I’ll do the milking.”

  Kitt’s gasp of outrage followed the nurse out, and she glared at me with venom in her eyes.

  “Did you just say you were going to milk me?” She asked with a snarl. “Like a fucking cow?”

  I bent over so my arms were on either side of her hips and turned my head so I could see her face straight on.

  “I did. What are you going to do abou
t it?” I asked, moving so close to her that all I could see were her eyes.

  “I’m going to let you,” she whispered. “But I’m not going to be happy about it.”

  I wanted to laugh.

  “I will,” I suppressed my grin. “Because I like touching your boobs.”

  She gave up the ghost and threw her head back and laughed.

  “You remembered that I wanted to call her Emily?” She asked once she composed herself.

  I nodded.

  “What’d you use as her middle name?” She wondered.

  I grinned. “Ryan.”

  “Emily Ryan Drew?” Her eyes went dreamy.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I liked it.”

  “That sounds good. But my brother’s going to get a big head,” she pursed her lips.

  “Ridley Ryan Walker was already taken,” my brother said from the door. “So we had to settle for Emily. Why you’d want to name our baby after our mother is beyond me.”

  I snorted.

  Ridley and Kitt’s mother wasn’t the nicest of people, from what I’d heard. She’d been strict and overbearing, and had died with their father when they were teenagers during a traffic accident.

  They’d lived with their grandfather until the age of eighteen when he decided they were old enough to live on their own. The next day he moved into a nursing home two states up from them and refused to come home anymore because he liked the fishing in Tennessee too much.

  If they were going to name the baby after anyone, it should have been their grandfather.

  Not their mother.

  But who knew the mind of a woman, anyway?

  Chapter 18

  Porn is bullshit. How the hell do they have sex without the fitted sheet popping off?

  -Text from Ridley to Apple

  Kitt

  I stared at Apple as he broke through yet another large log with his massive axe, and my loins clenched with need.

  I looked over at Perry, Apple’s father.

  “Do you think you could watch her for a couple of minutes,” I pleaded.

  Perry looked over from his position, glancing at Emily where she was swinging in her new, state of the art swing, and nodded.

  “I can,” he agreed, his voice slurred slightly.