by Blair Grey
The list was long. Enormous, really. And there had been a really long night—Friday, was it?—when I’d been worried that he wasn’t going to pull through.
It had terrified me. I’d thought that I had already lost him but losing him for good felt entirely different. Knowing that I would never see him smile again… that had sliced right through my body.
I had been numb when Bobby called me to tell me what had happened at the clubhouse. When he told me that Dad was in jail, all I could think was “Good riddance.” Bobby didn’t know about the assault; je’d just heard about the drugs. But I knew Dad must have had some hand in this, too.
And sure enough, he had. I had heard everything that Marcus had said to Ray. Up to and including the fact that he loved me.
“I’ll give you two some privacy,” Ray said gently, removing himself from the room and shutting the door carefully behind him.
“You idiot,” I said, shaking my head. I could feel tears in my eyes. God, it felt like I’d been crying all week, but no matter how much I tried to stop it, I couldn’t. Was this what the whole pregnancy was going to be like? I definitely hoped not.
I sank into the chair that Ray had vacated. Marcus’s hand twitched on the edge of his bed, looking for mine, and I slipped my fingers into his, soothed by that gentle contact.
“You were here before,” Marcus said in surprise. “You held my hand.” He narrowed his eyes. “Or was that Ray?”
I laughed and shook my head. “No, it was me,” I told him. “After that little stunt you pulled before when you refused to let anyone else help you, they brought me up here to deal with you the night you came in. But I… fainted.” I blushed and looked away.
Marcus didn’t tease me about it, though. Instead, he looked stricken. “I’m sorry you had to see that,” he said.
“What the hell were you thinking?”
Marcus sighed. “I was thinking that if I didn’t do anything, then I was never going to get to see you again,” he said. “And I hated the idea of that.”
“So you decided to take on the Unknowns single-handedly?” I asked. “And Ray let you?” I’d wanted to have this conversation with Ray, to ream him out for all of it from the moment he’d arrived at the hospital. Two things had stopped me: I was too worried about Marcus to be picking fights, and I could tell that Ray was nearly as worried as I was.
I wondered about the two of them. They had sort of a father–son relationship, I eventually concluded. And with this little baby growing inside of me, I imagined I could tell exactly what Ray was feeling right now, seeing his boy spread out in a hospital bed like this.
It was going to be a long road to recovery, and the hospital wasn’t the place for Ray and me to bicker about whose fault that was.
Marcus was shaking his head, though. “The fight was never part of the deal,” he admitted. “That was me going against everything that Ray had told me to do. And I shouldn’t have done it.” He made a face. “I got pretty lucky, I guess.”
I laughed in disbelief. “Yeah,” I said. “You got pretty damned lucky.”
Marcus was quiet for a long moment. “I’m going to have to leave. At least for a little while, until things calm down. I doubt I managed to take out all of the Unknowns in one night.”
“You didn’t,” I said, shaking my head. “Or at least, not from what I’ve heard.” When he gave me a sharp look, I shrugged. “I’ve got my sources. Not because I’m part of the club. But because it helps to know who my father has pissed off and whether they’re likely to come after me.”
“Speaking of your father,” Marcus said. He cleared his throat, looking awkward. “I’m sorry. I didn’t kill him, but he should be in jail at least for a little while.”
“A long while, as it turns out,” I said. “Turns out that he was wanted in a couple other states, so everything you did here just helped them to put him away.”
It was hard not to be cheerful about it. It meant that I would never have to worry about him messing up my life again. Or at least, not for a while. I still wondered if they would need me to be part of the trial. I sure hoped not. What was I going to say about the man? I hardly knew him, and I had no idea what sorts of illegal things he might have gotten up to over the years.
I just knew I didn’t want any part of it.
“And you’re not mad about that?” Marcus asked carefully.
I laughed and shook my head. “I don’t have a relationship with him anymore,” I said firmly. “He was never there for me, growing up. To be honest, I hate the guy.” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Let the anger fade away. He hadn’t managed to mess things up between Marcus and me, no matter what he had tried.
I was quiet for a long moment. “So you’re going to go away?” I finally asked, even though I didn’t really want to hear the answer.
“I have to,” Marcus said. He paused. “But I was hoping that maybe you’d come with me. It wouldn’t be forever. Just until things calm down around here. This is home, ultimately. I’ll be back. And you don’t have to come with me. But as you probably heard, I love you. And I want you there with me. Wherever ‘there’ happens to be.”
I stared at him for a long moment, trying to decide. I had been doing a lot of thinking over the past few days, but I still felt no closer to making a decision. It wasn’t just my future that hung in the balance here. It was the baby’s future as well. I had seen firsthand the kind of life that this child could be doomed to, with someone like Marcus as a father.
God, it would kill me if I had to see my son come through the hospital doors looking like that one day. I didn’t think I could handle that.
And I wanted to be mad at Marcus, too. The fact remained that he hadn’t told me what I was getting myself into. He hadn’t told me that he was in Red Eyes. After he had been so mad about me withholding secrets from him, after he had been so mad about the artificial insemination thing, how was that fair?
But I couldn’t seem to hold on to my anger. It had kept slipping away over the past days until now there was barely a flicker of it left. No, I couldn’t stay angry, because seeing Marcus there, in a hospital bed, looking so frail, I had to realize that I loved him. Just like he loved me. I couldn’t bear to lose him from my life.
I couldn’t bear to let him leave town without me.
“There’s something I have to tell you before you start planning our futures,” I said softly, pulling my hand back and looking away from him. Again, those stupid tears.
I had to tell him, though. I couldn’t lie to him any longer. I knew that he was going to leave town, that I was going to lose him. But he needed to know about the child. His child. I didn’t expect that it would change things. If anything, it would probably send him running from town even faster.
He didn’t want this. He wouldn’t want anything to do with me, after this.
But I still had to tell him. Before it was too late.
Marcus sighed, seeming to know exactly what I was about to tell him. Or maybe not exactly what I was about to tell him. “You already went through with the artificial insemination plan?” he asked.
I looked over at him in surprise. His face was turned toward the ceiling again, his eyes closed, as though if he shut his eyes, he could shut out all of this, anything that he disliked.
I stood quickly, a lump in my throat. “I should go,” I said, not having the guts to tell him the truth, that the baby was his. He didn’t want a kid. He had so much as told me that. No use screwing up his life. And it was better for me this way anyway, wasn’t it? I would get to make whatever choices I wanted. I would never have to worry about my child growing up in a motorcycle club, constantly in danger just because of who his father was.
But before I could leave, Marcus caught my hand, tugging me over toward the bed even though I could see that the move hurt him. He put his hand against my stomach. “I want to be there for you,” he said honestly, looking up at me. He swallowed hard, but when he spoke again, his voice was even more hoar
se than before. “I’m terrified, I’ll admit it. I want to be a good father. I don’t want to fuck this kid up.”
“Then don’t,” I said softly, sinking back down into the chair and taking his hand in both of mine. “I didn’t go through with the artificial insemination, though. I couldn’t. Because I was already pregnant.”
Marcus stared at me for a long moment and then drew in a sharp breath. “Mine?” he asked almost inaudibly.
I nodded. “Yours,” I said seriously.
Marcus lay back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling again. But he didn’t seem angry. Instead, he seemed quietly thoughtful. Like he was already planning.
“We’ll leave Las Cruces,” he said. “We’ll start a new life. You, me, and our child.”
“What about Red Eyes?” I asked, just to make sure we were on the same page.
Marcus shook his head, his eyes falling shut. “This is my out,” he said. “I told Ray I would do him one last favor. Do everything I could to get rid of the Unknowns. And then I was out.”
“Is that really what you want?” I asked. When he looked curiously over at me, I shrugged. “My dad quit the MC life for a while. Until it all got to be too much. Then he went back. Just about killed my mother.”
“I’m not like that,” Marcus insisted. “I’ve got my degrees. I’ve got my other work. And I’ve been thinking about getting out for a while now. The only thing stopping me was that the guys were my only family.” His hand squeezed mine briefly. “But you’re my family now.”
I smiled down at him, fully believing his words. “You should get some rest,” I told him. “We have a lot of planning to do.”
“Not so much,” Marcus said, closing his eyes. “I already know exactly where I want to take you.”
37
Marcus
One month later
Saturday
I woke up in stages, first becoming aware of the scent of soft flesh against my nose, of the hair strewn across the pillow, of the soft breaths exhaled against my side. I smiled to myself and opened my eyes. Leila.
I’d woken up with her nearly every day since I had gotten out of the hospital, which was almost three weeks ago now. A month since my run-in with the Unknowns, a month since I had formally left Red Eyes.
I didn’t regret any of it. How could I, with this beautiful angel sleeping here next to me? And we never would have gotten here otherwise.
The guys teased me about it of course. But I could tell they were just glad to see me happy. I hadn’t realized how long it had been since I was truly happy. With everything with the Unknowns, and even before that if I was being honest, I had been so angry. Cameron had hit the nail on the head when he said I seemed a lot less tense now.
I was a lot less tense now. I was happy.
I thought about getting breakfast ready, but I decided that this once, I would rather lay here in bed, take all the cuddles that I could get. It was nice, this domestic bliss. We weren’t going to be here, in this house that I had lived in for half of forever, for much longer, and I wanted to savor it. Even though I was excited for the adventures ahead, there was something about this that I was going to miss, too.
Leila stirred against me. “Penny for your thoughts,” she said around a yawn, pushing her long, dark hair back off from her face.
I laughed and shook my head. “It’s too early in the morning to be thinking anything,” I told her.
“Not so for you,” Leila said, grinning at me as she rolled away. “You’re always thinking, from the moment you wake up until the moment your head touches the pillow. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.” She stretched catlike against the sheets and then turned back into my side, her fingers tracing absent patterns on the muscles of my chest and making something stir within me.
Making something stir without me, too. My morning wood was needy and insistent, as it was most mornings, but I ignored it for now. We had spent the first few days that I was home having sex in nearly every room in the house, until we were both raw and needed to rest up and recover. I tried to take it easy now. Save it for when I was really riled up.
Which, knowing us, would be in just a little while. But I wanted to savor the sweetness of this morning for a little while first. I didn’t want to just roll on top of her and have my way with her. Not this time.
“Come on, what are you thinking about?” Leila pressed. “You look so serious.”
I laughed and rolled on top of her anyway, pinning her down against the bed. This time, I put my head on her chest, peering innocently up at her. “I was just thinking about us,” I told her truthfully.
“In the shower?” she asked.
I groaned as she slipped a leg between mine. “Maybe,” I said. Then, I shrugged. “No, I was thinking about the house. Our new place.”
We had gone up to Portland together a week ago, and after a few days of searching, we had found the perfect place. It was a little small, but perfect for a young family like us. And in a good location, too. Good schools in the area, and close to a hospital, which Leila had already netted herself a job at through some old contacts.
Not that she would be starting work up there too soon. She was thinking about staying home with our daughter until she was two years old.
Not that we knew it was a daughter yet. We wouldn’t find that out for a little while longer, but I was hoping for a daughter. Girls might be complicated, but they were a lot simpler than boys.
“What about our new place?” Leila asked, and I could tell that she was thinking about it, too.
“We could get a dog,” I suggested. “We have the yard space. And I was thinking that we could put a swing up on the front porch, too.” There were so many options. Whatever we ended up doing, one thing was for sure: I wanted it to be completely different than what we had here. I wanted it to be our place, not just my place or her place. A place where we could raise our baby. Together.
“I’d like that,” Leila said. “You know, I was thinking last night about those paint chips we were looking at. Do you think we could paint our kitchen yellow? I’ve always wanted a yellow kitchen. I thought it would be cozy.”
“I like that,” I told her, kissing her on the top of the head. “And whatever leftover paint we had, we could use it on the trim in the baby’s room. Paint it blue or something, with yellow accents.”
“That sounds nice,” Leila said, her voice dreamy.
“I never thought I’d be doing this,” I finally admitted. The real crux of my thoughts over the past few weeks.
Leila looked worriedly up at me. “Are you starting to have regrets?” she asked.
“No, of course not!” I said immediately. “I like this. Planning all of it. I just never thought I’d be leaving everything, giving everything up. All so that I could have a family. But this is so much better than I could ever have expected for myself.”
Leila hummed, staring off at the ceiling, a thoughtful expression on her own face. “I never would have thought you would agree to this, either,” she finally admitted. “When I first met you, I was sure that you were just some dumb biker dude. I didn’t know you were in Red Eyes, but I think I kind of suspected it. Only the more I got to know you, the easier it was to convince myself that you must not be. That I must have been mistaken. That’s why finding out that you really were in an MC just killed me.”
“I should have told you,” I sighed. “I knew I should have. I just didn’t want you to look at me differently. I didn’t want you to refuse to have anything to do with me.”
We were both quiet for a moment, thinking about it.
Things had been incredible between us over the past few weeks. We had grown impossibly close, until I really couldn’t imagine what I would do if things didn’t work out between us. I had introduced her around to the guys from Red Eyes; we had all had dinner together once, and then she and Ray and Will and Belle had had a couple of cookouts as well. She was surprisingly accepting of that part of my life, and I appreciated that.
I’d gone with her over to Rachel’s place for dinner, too. I could tell there was a part of Rachel that hated me for taking her best friend away from her, even though she had to realize that Leila had to get out of Las Cruces. She had promised to visit us up in Portland, and I had a sneaking suspicion that she would move up there, herself, before long.
We’d see, though.
Portland was the total opposite of Las Cruces climate-wise, and it was going to take us both some getting used to. Leila was excited about it, though. She had already ordered a couple of cute sweaters and a pair of boots. I knew there would be an adjustment period for both of us, but I was so excited to start this adventure with her.
And in less than a year, we’d have a little one as well.
“Savannah for a girl, or Christopher for a boy,” I said.
Leila laughed and pushed at my shoulder. “You know how I feel about names that are longer than two syllables,” she said. “Then they’re going to need nicknames, and we’re not going to get to choose what they are. Or we will, up until the kid goes to school and everyone else starts calling them something different. Katies become Kates. Kids named Chris become Tophers.”
I laughed. “That’s not a real thing,” I said, shaking my head.
“It is so,” Leila said. “I went to school with a kid named Topher. Total stoner, too. We’re not naming our kid Christopher.”
She rolled out of bed. “I’m getting in the shower,” she announced. She paused. “You’re welcome to join me, though. Unless you’re going to keep suggesting dreadful names.”
I laughed and followed her into the bathroom and into the shower. “Hey, I love you,” I said as we stood there beneath the spray.
