by Cee Bowerman
I picked up Bird’s phone and scrolled to Kale’s name. He picked up on the first ring, and I could hear him breathing heavy. “I saw the lights, so I pulled into the clubhouse. We’re walking over to Mom and Dad’s now.”
Kale hung up on me, so I told Bird what he had said.
Bird was gripping the steering wheel with both hands, breathing deeply through his nose.
“They are all okay, Bird. The girls took care of them. Your sister took care of them.” I reached over and put my hand on his arm. He let it drop from the steering wheel and I twined our fingers together. “The kids were all asleep when I talked to Willow. They will probably never even know anything happened.”
“I swear to God, Summer. That bitch…”
“I know, honey. Just let the cops settle things now and then you do what you need to do to make it feel right, okay?”
Bird put his foot on the brake, preparing to get off the highway to turn down the road to our house. He picked up our joined hands and kissed my knuckles.
“I’m okay, Summer. I’ll be calm. How are you?”
“I was fucking terrified, Bird. And, there’s a hidden room in your house?”
“Yeah. There is. It’s just a staircase, really. I’ll show it to you tomorrow when the boys are down for their naps. I don’t want them to know about it. It’s for safety, not for playing.”
My thoughts were racing. Why in the hell did he have a hidden staircase in his house and why did he think he needed to keep it a secret from me?
I tried to let Bird’s hand go and he held on tight.
“Don’t be mad at me, Summer. I would have told you about it, but it only crossed my mind once, and that was when my brothers were talking right after the wedding. I promise I’m not hiding stuff from you on purpose.”
“Okay.” I stared at his profile as we pulled up next to the police car in the driveway. Bird squeezed my hand and then hopped out of the truck to come around and open my door. Once I was out, he grabbed my hand again and led me to the front door. An officer stopped us halfway across the grass, and Bird told him he owned the house. We waited there until the officer called the ones inside on his radio. Soon, the other officer responded, and they let us walk into our own house.
I saw my sister first and rushed to hug her.
“The kids are all back to bed in your room. They slept through the whole thing. Jenna and I drug that portable crib up there so we could hear Lark if she cried. We were just going to sleep in bed with the boys.” Willow’s face was dry, but I could tell that she had cried earlier at some point. “I heard them downstairs and the lady said to find the baby.”
“That’s Lark’s other grandmother, Willow. She wants the baby. She doesn’t want Bird to have her. We found out today that the judge is going to grant Bird and I full custody of her. I guess that sent her over the edge.”
Jenna moved over to us and I put my arms around her. “Thank you for protecting all of them, Jenna. God, you’re fucking awesome.”
Jenna smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I’d do whatever it took to take care of the family, Summer. Just know that, okay?”
Jenna pulled away and walked to Bird. She put her arms around his waist and buried her face in his chest. I could see her shoulders moving as she sobbed into his shirt. Bird stopped speaking to the officer and leaned down to kiss his sister’s hair. He murmured something to her, and she nodded her head. Tonight’s events had disturbed Jenna in even more ways than they had Willow. I didn’t understand what was going on, and I could tell by the look on Bird’s face that he was not about to share it with me.
Martha waved at me from across the room where she was speaking to an officer. Smokey was on the other side of the room talking to a different officer. I didn’t see any signs of the prospects around, and I knew that for some reason Kale would be staying down at his parents’ house until the cops left.
I went upstairs to look in on my children and felt a little better when I saw all four of them sleeping soundly in our bedroom.
I stayed upstairs watching the kids sleep until I heard the front door shut behind the policemen. I went to the bedroom door and walked downstairs to find my husband. It did not surprise me at all to see Kale, Terra, Daughtry, Fain, Sonny and Clem walk through the side door within minutes after the police left.
The brothers all went straight to Jenna. Kale pulled her up off the couch and wrapped her in his arms. He was murmuring things in her ear, and I saw her shoulders shake again at his words.
“Is Jenna going to be okay?” I whispered to Bird as I sat down in his lap on the couch. “She’s so upset.”
“She’ll be fine, Sunshine. She had a rough patch a while back, and we thought she had worked through it. I guess tonight just brought it all back up.” Bird whispered to me and he pulled my head down to his chest. “We’ll take care of her. That’s what we do, baby.”
I nodded my head, my brain running ninety miles an hour trying to figure out what could have happened to Jenna to make her react this way. Other than intruders threatening to kidnap the baby, of course.
“I’m going to take Jenna home with Terra and me, Bird. I’ll catch up with you tomorrow, brother.” Kale and Terra both waved as they walked to the side door, Jenna between them.
Martha and Smokey both hugged and kissed us after that, and they too were gone in just a few minutes. The other brothers and club members all dispersed after calling out goodbyes to Bird and me. My sister was the only other person left here, and she had already excused herself to the guest room.
“I have a lot of questions, Bird.”
“I knew you would, Sunshine. Throw them at me one by one and I’ll answer what I can.”
“Why is Jenna so upset?”
“I can’t answer that, sweetheart. I’m sorry.”
“Okay. Why would you not want her to call the cops.”
“Because the cops take someone to jail, they get a lawyer, bail out and come fuck shit up again. In this case, and others, I don’t want them to have that chance.”
“So, you don’t call the cops and then what happens to them?”
Bird just shook his head, and I knew he wouldn’t give me an answer to that question either.
“Why do you have a hidden staircase in your house, and how does Jenna know about it?”
“Originally I installed it so I could get downstairs without anyone seeing me. Just paranoia, I guess. Almost a year ago we had an issue with a drug dealer here in town. He targeted my family. He and some of his men broke in while we were sleeping. Terra is a light sleeper and heard them outside. She woke up and warned us all. I was the last room she got to, and she and I snuck downstairs. The men were killed, including the leader, and the cops were involved. And the FBI.”
“People. Not just a person, but people, were killed in your house? By who?”
“It’s not haunted or anything, Summer.”
“Jesus Christ, Bird, that’s not what I mean. Who killed them?”
“Well, all of us, kind of. Everyone upstairs was awake and had guns. Terra and I were down here when the main guy was killed.”
“And you killed him?”
“No.” Bird shook his head.
“Terra killed him?” I squeaked out.
Bird nodded. “With a knife. She threw it. Hit him right in the neck.”
“Holy shit.”
“I redecorated though. Got all new floors, painted all the walls, new furniture, new carpet all over. The works.”
I blinked at him. He really seemed to think I was worried about stains or ghosts or something inconsequential like that. That wasn’t the problem at all. I was thinking that living with Bird could be dangerous.
“That was why you had a gun in the cabinet downstairs.”
Bird nodded again.
“Oh my God.” I could feel my breathing start to get faster and there were spots in my vision. I needed to calm down. “Oh, my God.”
“Summer. Take deep breaths. Don’t yo
u fucking pass out on me.”
After a minute or so, I was able to slow my breathing down. My heart rate was a little slower, and my vision cleared up. I knew I wouldn’t be able to stand up right now, but I would at least remain conscious.
“Honey. Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“Are the kids and I in danger because we live here with you?”
Bird sighed. “As far as I’m concerned, no. We have a state-of-the-art security system we set at night, I’m not sure why Jenna didn’t have it turned on. If it’s tripped it will wake us up, Mom and Dad up, and can even be heard down in the clubhouse when the jukebox is playing. If mine is tripped, an alarm goes straight to the company, the lights in my parents’ house and the clubhouse blink on and off and their alarm alerts until the alarm here is reset. Things work the same here and the clubhouse if Mom and Dad’s alarm goes off. In a few months we will have two dogs here to alert us. I am always vigilant, and I know you will be now too. I won’t do anything to hurt our family, Summer. I swear to you, you are all as safe as I can make you.”
I sat there thinking for a few minutes and realized that Bird was right. In this world anything could happen. Car accidents, illness, freak happenings of nature. Any number of things could hurt my family, and there was not always a way to prepare for it. Deep in my heart, I knew that Bird would kill or even die trying to protect my children. Our children. Me. I would do the same for the kids and him. I knew that.
“Okay. I’m settled down now. I know you will keep us safe, Bird. I do want to know where the hidden places are in the house. I also want to know where the gun safes are hidden and how to get into them. I’ll want a tutorial on the alarm system and how it works. I’m okay with the dogs now, as long as they are trained like you said they would be, and they are safe with the children. I’m okay. Are you okay?”
“I’m fucking pissed, but that old bitch is in jail right now, so it’s going to be okay. If anything, this all worked out for the best after all, even though it scared the shit out of everyone involved.”
“Okay.”
“Let’s go carve out six inches of space on either side of the boys and get some sleep. I’ll have a prospect go to the hotel and pick up our things and check us out.”
“I enjoyed our date night.”
“Oh, Sunshine. I did too.”
18.
“I’m sorry my pregnancy hormones called you bad names. Will you get me some ice cream?”
Summer to Bird
As I slowly woke up, I could hear the boys laughing downstairs with Bird, and wondered how in the world I had slept through them all three waking up and moving around. I reached for my phone to check the time, and saw a note stuck to it that said, “Don’t pee yet. Call me up here first.”
Oh, shit. I was going to take a pregnancy test this morning. With all the events of last night, I never thought about it again.
I pulled my phone off the charger and sat up in bed. I had to pee in a bad way and hoped that Bird could find a way to get to me soon. After I walked over to the staircase, I shrugged my shoulders and sat down to use the slide. It was growing on me. I knew when I was big and pregnant, I would probably use the damn thing every day.
When I landed at the bottom, the boys were there to greet me, all three of them had sticky faces covered in syrup.
“Daddy Bird cooked for us!” Hawk exclaimed as he valiantly tried to pull me to my feet. “Pancakes!”
“I bet they were good. Did you get any syrup on the pancakes?” I heard Bird laugh in the kitchen, and I looked over at him with a smile.
“Mama. C’mon. Daddy cook.” Phoenix was pushing at my arm, trying to help Hawk get me off the slide. “C’mon.”
I groaned and complained as I slowly stood up from the slide. “Oh, my back. I think one of you should carry me to the table.”
“I carry you, Mama.” Phoenix volunteered. He grabbed my thigh with both arms and heaved. I lifted my leg up off the ground an inch and moved forward. He heaved again, and we made our way slowly to the kitchen. When we got there, he put his hand up for a high five from Bird. “I helped Mama, Daddy. I did it!”
Bird smiled down at Phoenix and then picked him up for a quick hug. “I saw you, buddy. You’re a good helper.”
“I got muscles, Daddy. Like Uncle Kale.” Bird nodded gravely and agreed with Phoenix.
“You boys ready for that show I told you about?” Bird asked the boys and they all three quickly started yelling loudly and rushed to the chairs in front of the television. “They are going to watch a big boy show about monsters and flying dogs. There’s a swamp they can get lost in and all sorts of craziness.”
I raised my eyebrows, wondering what in the world he was talking about. He whispered as he walked past me, “The Neverending Story. Jenna loved it.”
I laughed and let Bird take my hand to lead me to the bathroom. Once he had the tv set up and the movie playing, he leaned over the playpen to check on Lark. He smiled down at her and grabbed my hand again. We went into the bathroom together and he pulled the test out of his pocket.
“I’ve been waiting patiently.”
“I have to pee in front of you?”
“There’s a cup on the back of the toilet. Pee in that and then I’ll come back in and we can do the test together.”
“What do you want? Positive or negative?”
“Whatever happens, happens. Boy, girl or whatever, I’ll be happy. If there’s no baby this month, we just let it roll until it happens. We’ve got four to entertain, so it’s not as if we’re going to be lonely.”
“Okay. Get out. I have to pee. Bad.” Bird laughed at me as he shut the door behind him.
I did my business, getting plenty in the cup for the test. Once I was finished and started washing my hands, the door opened and Bird came back into the bathroom. He left the door open so we could see the boys as they watched their show.
He ripped the packaging with his teeth and pulled the test out. Without any hesitation, he dipped the stick in the cup and counted out loud. After a set amount of time, he pulled the stick out and stuck the cap on it.
“Done this before?” I asked him quietly. I could feel my eyebrows creeping up to my hairline in irritation.
“I read the directions a few times while I waited on you. I didn’t want to leave any room for user error.”
“I don’t know that you can screw this up. I mean, it’s pee. And then a result. It’s not rocket science.”
Bird shrugged.
“So how long do we wait?”
“Results can be instant, but they suggest that you wait three minutes, leaving the test on a dry, flat surface.”
“Oh. You did study the directions.”
“There is a tiny sliver of a chance that this could be wrong, but it’s tiny. If you’re at all pregnant, it will show.”
“Bird, you keep saying that, but a woman can’t be a little bit pregnant. You know that, right?”
“Well, if you’re only a few weeks pregnant, that’s a little bit. When you’re like nine months along and the baby is falling out, that’s really pregnant. You get me?”
“The baby doesn’t just fall out, Bird. You know that too, right?”
“Well yeah. You have to push for a second and then it shoots right out.”
I raised one eyebrow. Oh, this was going to be a joy with him by my side. I’d have to get his mother to educate him, so I didn’t have to rip his beautiful head off his body like the praying mantis female did to her mate. I might do it anyway, if he didn’t stop spouting things about how easy pregnancy and childbirth seemed. I closed my eyes and prayed for him to get a small but significant kidney stone in the next month, just to let him experience the closest thing to childbirth any man would ever know.
The timer on the stick beeped and my eyes opened and shot to Bird’s.
“You ready? You’ll get to be with this one from conception on up. The other four will be a cake walk in comparison.”
“I liked the c
onception part; the rest will be just fine.”
I growled at him and walked over to the vanity. He put his hand over the test before I got a good look.
“I love you, Summer.”
“I love you too, Bird. Right this minute you have no idea just how much.”
Bird took a deep breath and moved his hand. The test showed a bright pink + sign. Not any doubt that I was pregnant, according to the test. I looked over at Bird and his eyes were bright.
“Oh, shit! It’s pink! It’s another girl!”
