by K. Ryan
I wanted to ask him if he still had my name inked right over his heart, but finding out for sure would require him to take his shirt off and I just wasn't mentally prepared for that tonight in light of everything else.
Instead, I reached out to let my fingers skim across those three letters written on the top of his left wrist.
"When did you get this?" I murmured.
"Awhile ago," he whispered hoarsely, echoing my vague answer from last night.
Tears stung my eyes. I'd put up a brave front all day, but I just didn't have the strength.
"How did we get here, Caleb?" I whispered.
He sighed heavily and his hand dropped back down to the mattress. "Shitty luck and even shittier decisions."
"Yeah," I laughed mirthlessly. "I guess that sounds about right. I mean, I know how it happened, but it still just doesn't make any sense. I just don't understand why it happened."
While on paper, my life was everything a well-adjusted, mature 30-year-old should want—professional success, stability, money, a tiny bit of fame, and a healed relationship with my dad—none of it felt real except for the part about my dad. The truth was I just wasn't all that well-adjusted. I just wasn't all that happy. And I probably wasn't as mature as I pretended to be either.
"I know what you mean," Caleb's thick voice called out to me. "I think about that everyday."
"Me too," I admitted.
Silence permeated the air between us before I finally found the words I wanted to say.
"I can't believe she'd be eight."
He winced and swallowed hard, rubbing his eyes with his hands. When his hand dropped back to the mattress again with his palm out to me, I knew what he was asking for. I slid my hand into his waiting palm and squeezed tight.
"You know," he murmured. "I always pictured her with your eyes. Your smile, too. She would've looked just like you. Would've driven me crazy, too, probably."
I smiled through my tears and finally wiped them away with the back of my free hand.
"Well, I always pictured her with your eyes. You know that crazy look you get sometimes when you're up to no good? She would've totally had that."
He laughed, but it was a pain-filled one, the kind of laugh that took as much as it gave.
"Sometimes when I take Coop for walks in the park, I purposefully avoid the playgrounds just because I can't handle seeing all the moms there with their kids. Part of me wants to scream at them because they don't know how lucky they are and part of me just wants to scream."
A strangled sound choked in his throat and he rubbed his mouth with his free hand, but I pressed on.
"I just never knew anything could hurt that much. The contractions felt like someone was stabbing me from the inside and I could feel it, Caleb. I could feel her leaving us. The doctor didn't even have to tell me because I already knew. And all the rest of it, seeing her, holding her, having to say goodbye to her..."
He shifted long enough to wrap his arm around my shoulders to pull me to his chest and I buried my face in his T-shirt.
"I've never felt so helpless in my entire life," he whispered in my hair.
"You were there," I told him. "That's what I needed."
His lips brushed against my forehead and I leaned into him, letting him envelope me as the memories of that day washed over us.
"I still feel like it's my fault," I exhaled, finally voicing what I'd never been able to say out loud before, not even in front of my therapist.
"Iz—"
"I felt those pains in my stomach for almost an hour before I did anything about it," I cut in abruptly. "I was too scared. I thought if maybe I pretended it wasn't happening then it would go away, but all that did was make it worse."
"You didn't do anything wrong," Caleb murmured. "And there wasn't anything we could do."
"I know that now," I nodded into his chest. "But I still keep thinking, did I not take care of myself the way I was supposed to? Did I not eat enough? Sleep enough?"
For some reason, feeling his arms around me finally gave me the strength to say the words that always lingered below the surface of my guilt and my heartbreak.
"I'm so scared," I whispered and he tilted my head back to look at me, his blue eyes watering with unshed tears. "What if it happens again, Caleb? I'd never survive it."
His thumb ran across my cheek to catch a stray tear and then he leaned down to brush his lips against mine. It was exactly what I needed and all of my fears didn't seem quite so momentous as long as he was holding me like this.
"That doctor told me it happens a lot," Caleb swallowed tightly, brushing some hair out of my eyes. "He said plenty of women go on to have babies after and I believe that, Iz. When we're...when you're ready, things'll play out in that hospital differently."
I smiled at the gesture. There was no way either of us could possibly know for sure that it would, but now hope trampled through all that lingering fear. And here we were, talking about this like we were almost a real couple, making plans and getting ready to make more babies. Bittersweet irony, especially today.
"Do you regret any of it?" he asked me now.
"What do you mean?"
He lifted a shoulder and sighed into my hair. "Do you wish you hadn't—"
"No, not for a second. I don't regret that we got to hold her, that we got to see her. I'll never regret that as long as I live."
Caleb nodded somberly and kissed me again.
"I guess sometimes I think maybe we should've done something to acknowledge that she was real."
"She was real," Caleb told me hoarsely. "You gave birth to her. We held her. She was real, Iz."
"I know," I smiled again through my tears. "I just wish we'd had some sort of service or something like that. I'm not even all that religious, but I think it would've been nice."
It would've been closure, too, but neither of us were really in the right mindset at the time for that.
"I didn't know you..." he shook his head. "I never even thought of that. I'm sorry, Iz. Everything just happened so fast, you know? I could barely keep my head on straight, let alone keep up."
"We crashed and burned pretty epically, didn't we?"
"Yeah," he laughed sadly. "We did."
"I think we were just too young to handle all that at once."
He nodded and blew out a deep breath. "I'm sorry I couldn't give you all the things I wanted to back then. I just couldn't balance everything in a way that would've gotten us a different ending. I guess it's like you said—I was too young and too stupid to know that I didn't know everything."
The problem was that somewhere, deep down, I still wanted him to give me all those things we'd wanted when we were young and naive and hopelessly, recklessly in love. I just didn't trust myself to reach for it.
I nuzzled his chest a little more, pressing myself against him, and he sucked in a hard breath.
"Maybe I should sleep on the couch in my office," he chuckled. "That might be safer."
"No," I shook my head, just burying my face even deeper in his chest. "I want you right here."
He stilled against me and swallowed tight. "Iz, I'm gonna tell you something right now and I don't want you to say anything, okay? I'll just hold you for the rest of the night."
I almost didn't want to know. I almost didn't want to let myself hear. But what else was I supposed to do?
He must've taken my silence as his answer because he leaned forward, pressed his lips to my forehead, and whispered: "I should've married you when I had the chance."
I let him wrap his arms around me even tighter, drawing me closer, pressing me in deeper, and I buried my face in his chest, finally allowing tears, grief, and heartbreak to rest for the night. Wrapped up in Caleb, surrounded by his warmth, enveloped in the safety I always felt in his arms, it was almost too good to be true. Too real not to be a dream.
And that was enough to carry me away until it was too good to be true, until I jerked awake in the middle of the night to the sound of b
reaking glass.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
I Got You
Caleb
I shot up in bed, stiff and on high alert. Isabelle had already jerked out of my arms and stared back at me, wide-eyed and chest heaving. Everything seemed to rush around me in a blur—I leapt off my bed, dove underneath it for the handgun I kept hidden there for this very reason, and skidded over to the window overlooking the garage.
Four hooded figures stalked through my shop wielding crow bars and bats and with each step, another crash. Another blow. Another wave of destruction. Breaking glass, smashing metal—it all pounded through my ears, but my adrenaline had me taking a different course. There was no time to even consider an alternative because I had a one-track mind now.
I turned on my heel to sprint back to my bed, hauled Isabelle to her feet, and pushed her to the window on the opposite end of my apartment.
"We gotta get outta here, Iz," the words tumbled out of me in a rush. "We're going down the fire escape, okay? Stay with me."
She nodded as I shoved the window open and gripped her hips to steady her climb through. I followed her once both her feet were solid on the makeshift metal stairs, pushing her head down, and putting myself out in front to shield her as much as possible. Which was lucky, too, considering the second we passed the shop's first story window, a cacophony of gunshots and shattering glass rained down on us.
"Get down!" I pushed out roughly and jerked away from the window just in time to narrowly miss another bullet.
The side of my neck stung and burned white-hot, but that was the least of my concerns right now. I wasn't hit and neither was Isabelle and beyond getting inside my truck, that was all that mattered. We just had to get to my truck—
Another round of bullets blasted through the walls of my shop, obliterating everything in its wake. We had to move.
"Go, Iz!"
My hands found her back to shove her in front of me so my body was squarely between her and my shop. Even though my knee was already locking up on me, I pushed the stiffness away and powered through it, letting adrenaline take me the rest of the way.
We rounded the corner of the building and took off into a hard sprint, moving as fast as we could through the open parking lot. My heart thudded in my chest as another bullet zipped past my neck, but I just had to keep her moving. Another string of bullets screamed out from behind us and I hauled Isabelle down to the pavement, covering her body with mine as much as possible until we got an opening.
My right bicep stung, but adrenaline pushed me through it. And kept pushing. And kept pushing until I was the one pushing Isabelle headfirst into my truck on the driver's side. Sirens blared down the street, but I just kept pushing.
"Keep your head down, Iz," I grunted as I turned the ignition to get us the hell out of there.
The pain in my arm had morphed into a sharp throb when I twisted the steering wheel to peal out of my parking lot. As soon as I had us speeding down the street and away from my shop, my hand clenched her thigh to make sure she was still in one piece.
"You okay?"
She nodded, wide-eyed and terrified, and then her eyes settled on the stream of blood dripping down my arm.
"It's just a graze," I shook my head, but kept my eyes on the road. "I'm alright."
We flew past a trio of squad cars and Isabelle whipped around to watch them head right for my shop.
"Where are we going?"
"Anywhere but here," I told her and kept my hand firmly on her thigh just to remind myself she was really okay and that we'd really survived this.
I could deal with everything else later.
My shop and everything in it was replaceable, but the cargo sitting next to me in my truck was not.
. . .
About an hour later, and after I'd gotten the confirmation I needed from Saul, we pulled back into my shop's parking lot and I braced myself for the damage.
The parking lot was crammed full with trucks, motorcycles, and squad cars—I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. This was pandemonium, at least in Claremont terms. A break-in, a shooting, a hit, whatever this was, it wasn't something that happened here on a regular basis mainly because the Horsemen were smart enough to keep that off their turf as often as possible.
Cops and the club were the least of my problems right now. And as I surveyed the parking lot, some of the familiar faces surrounding me were exactly the ones I expected to see. Saul aside, I saw every single person I'd hired to work for me in the shop. They'd all shown up, faces etched in somber determination—this was their livelihood too and they needed it just as much as I did. Even Sam was here and I guessed that had more to do with the fact that Jared had been working his shift at their house tonight.
But I did not expect to see Dom and my mom standing off to the side, decked out in their familiar leather uniforms and trying to maintain a respectful distance.
I barely had time to nod their way because Chief Kelly and a few of his deputies had already descended.
For insurance purposes, this was exactly what needed to happen. I couldn't file any sort of claim without a police report, but at the same time, making this official could easily escalate this little situation faster than any of us could ever anticipate.
We gave our statements, each of us regurgitating the story exactly as Kelly needed to hear it for his report, and even when he warned me that his team was still taking pictures for evidence, I pushed right past him and headed straight for the garage, but I still skidded in my tracks when my feet crossed the threshold.
It was like someone had ripped my shop right off the ground and flipped it over on its side. Every project. Every work station. Every single piece of equipment. It was all destroyed. A fucking tornado might as well have torn through this place. There was broken glass, shards of metal, blown-out tires, overturned tables and chairs, dumped-out toolboxes and not a single square foot of concrete inside my shop had gone untouched.
Hands closed over my shoulders to keep me in place, but I wasn't with it enough to even know who was touching me.
All my blood, sweat, and tears...it was all gone. And with it, thousands and thousands of dollars-worth of damage.
The depth of my fury knew no bounds and all I could see was hot shards of red, splintering my vision and tearing through the little control I had left. Finally, I gave in to all the emotions I knew Wallace wanted me to feel—rage, devastation, helplessness, hopelessness—they were all here for this sick, twisted party.
So I picked up the first stray, leftover crowbar I could find and finished the job. My only victim, a mangled Yamaha that was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, weathered the brunt of my fury as I heaved that crowbar down into it again and again and again until I finally tossed the crowbar to the ground and kicked over what was left of it.
I crouched down to the ground with my head in my hands and squeezed my eyes shut before finally screaming muffled obscenities into my hands. Everything I'd built, everything I'd done and every sacrifice I'd made...it was all for nothing. I didn't need an insurance appraiser to tell me the damage done tonight wouldn't just take months to repair.
It would be years. Fucking years before I worked myself out from underneath this shit. The equipment and this building were insured, but everything else? All the business I had booked solid through the end of the year and beyond? My shop's reputation?
It was all dead now.
And now I just couldn't handle this pity party. Didn't want to see the sympathy and the horror on all their faces because it just mirrored what I already felt. I couldn't take this shit anymore.
Soft hands skimmed over my shoulders and I felt her crouch down next to me as she wrapped her arms around my waist to hold me tight.
"Iz," I croaked and shut my eyes to the sight in front of me. "There's glass everywhere and you're not wearing any shoes. You gotta stay away from me right now."
Her touch lifted for just a moment and then her face pressed into my shoulder. She sh
ook her head and seemed to move in even closer.
"You're not wearing any shoes either," she reminded me softly.
"Yeah, well, I don't really give a shit about my feet."
She smiled into my shoulder. "Just mine?"
"Something like that," I muttered and scrubbed both hands over my eyes.
Isabelle's hands ghosted over the sides of my face and I gave in to her touch for a moment, letting the softness I found there drown everything else out. Reprieve was fleeting. Comfort felt hollow. And even though part of me just wanted to fall into her arms and cry myself into a pathetic stupor, it wouldn't erase what happened tonight.
So I pushed up to my feet, missing the feel of her hands on me the second they slipped away, and faced the crowd behind me with my hands on my hips and my resolve steeled. Their faces were just as grim as they were before, not like I expected anything different, and when my mom stepped forward, I wavered.
Her hands reached out, something I hadn't seen in years, and they closed around my shoulders, pressing me in tight and giving me a little bit of that unconditional love I'd always thought I had.
"I'm so sorry," she whispered in my ear. "This is just...our shop doesn't look much better than yours."
My head jerked back and my eyes shot over to Dom, who just nodded grimly. There wasn't much time to ruminate on the way she said our shop, as if it was an ever-present, not-so-subtle way of reminding me of all the ways she thought I'd failed her.
"Maybe it's time you finally came back to the clubhouse," she pushed on, her eyes pleading and watery. "You can talk to Marcus, figure out a plan, and then everyone can get in front of this before it gets worse."
Of course, by saying everyone she was lumping me in with the club. As if she'd ever do anything else. As if I could forget she'd all but frozen me out of her life. And as if she could read my thoughts and sense where this was heading, my mom's dark gaze flitted to Dom, who'd already stepped forward to intervene.
"Caleb," he told me, his voice gravelly and thick with emotion. "She's right. I think you gotta come back now, even if it's just to talk out what the next step needs to be."
