A Baby for the Daddy: Boys of Rockford Series

by Maverick, Henley

  A Baby for the Daddy

  Boys of Rockford Series

  Henley Maverick

  Copyright © 2018 by Henley Maverick

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  1. Knight

  2. Tenley

  3. Knight

  4. Tenley

  5. Knight

  6. Tenley

  7. Knight

  8. Tenley

  9. Knight

  10. Tenley

  11. Knight

  12. Tenley

  13. Knight

  14. Tenley

  15. Knight

  16. Tenley

  17. Knight

  18. Tenley

  19. Knight

  20. Tenley

  21. Knight

  22. Tenley

  23. Knight

  24. Tenley

  25. Knight

  26. Cal

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  1

  Knight

  “What the hell, man?” Bear answered the phone with a growl that made me wince.

  “Bro, please, you gotta help me,” I said, my voice more desperate than ever before. “It’s really bad this time.”

  Bear cursed under his breath and I winced again. I deserved that. I deserved every bit of it. But this time, this time it hit me out of nowhere. It blindsided me. This time, it really wasn’t my fault. Well, not entirely.

  “What did you do?”

  “I’m in the hospital,” I muttered, holding up my hand attached to all kinds of wires and tubes and shit.

  “That doesn’t answer my question,” he said, his voice getting lower, a warning creeping into it.

  I shook my head even though he couldn’t see it, my throat tight with a lump that I couldn’t swallow. Normally I didn’t worry about stuff like this. Normally, I didn’t worry about anything. It all blew over eventually. But not this time. There was no way this could blow over.

  I just couldn’t believe I’d let it happen. How could I have been so stupid? So careless?

  “It’s so damn bad, Bear,” I groaned, dropping my head into my hands.

  It all started last night. A night that had been perfectly fucking normal until my entire world came tumbling down.

  * * *

  “Oh, Knight! Fuck me!” Shelly screamed, grasping at the headboard, her knuckles white, her back arched up toward me. Shelly had a nasal voice, and when she said my name, there was no way I could stop myself from hearing a small goat or sheep. It wasn’t helping the mood. Luckily for me, Shelly liked it a little rough.

  I changed the position so her back was pressed against my chest and covered her mouth as I buried my cock in her repeatedly. She moaned and writhed, an exaggerated show for my benefit that I never asked for, but they can’t all be great fucks.

  Just when I was about to get there — thanks to Shelly’s cries being muffled — there was knock on the door. Shelly’s eyes darted to me and I just shook my head.

  “They can come back later,” I growled. She moaned, her eyes rolling back in her head like that was the hottest thing anyone has said to her. Hell, maybe it was. She couldn’t have had much better than me in a place like Rockford.

  There weren’t many choices floating around in a small town like this one, and when the pickings were slim, you lowered your standards. That’s how I wound up with a regular fuck like Shelly with her bleating goat moans and cottage cheese ass.

  But it was like that old saying about pizza. Even the worst pizza is still better than no pizza. I was still having sex, so that was something.

  I fucked her harder, using her, not caring if I was holding on too tight to bruise.

  That knock came again. Shelly looked at me, this time with a plea in her eyes. She couldn’t say anything with my hand covering her mouth, but I didn’t need to hear what she had to say.

  “Fuck,” I roared, pushing her away unceremoniously, stalking towards the front door. If whoever was on the other side of that damn door couldn’t take a hint and come back later, then I wouldn’t bother to put on fucking clothes. I’d answer the damn door with my dick still wet from Shelly and not give a flying fuck.

  “What the hell is so goddamned important?” I growled as I ripped the door open on its hinges, nearly wrenching my shoulder along with it since it wasn’t that hard to open.

  Wouldn’t be the first time my temper got the best of me. But my shoulder was fine, the door was fine, what was not fine was the nervous-looking kid on the other side of my door.

  A fucking kid.

  Shit, my dick’s hanging out, I thought, lunging and grabbing a blanket from the nearby couch. I wrapped the blanket around myself before I turned back to the door, a menacing scowl, my jaw clenched so tight I thought I might break some of my own teeth.

  “What?” I barked.

  He jumped back, his brows knitting together. The kid couldn’t have been a teenager yet, but he wasn’t too far off by the gangly look of him.

  “Uh… Hi,” he said, his voice cracking, his bottom lip quivering. What the hell was he doing at my doorstep. Was he lost?

  “If you’re trying to sell something, now’s not the time kid. I’ll buy some of your cookies or whatever if you come back in like… twenty minutes,” I said, sending a glance toward my bedroom. I expected that Shelly would be reluctant to leave, but maybe the kid showing up again could help move that along. Maybe there was some lemonade to be made here.

  But he frowned at me, nervousness giving way to irritation. “No, I’m not trying to sell anything. I’m looking for someone.”

  “Have you heard of the internet? People don’t go door to door these days. What are you, a time traveler?”

  “No, not exactly, I’m—”

  “I don’t have time for this right now. Didn’t your mom ever teach you not to… go knocking on strangers’ doors?”

  It sounded ridiculous when I said it out loud, but well… There we were. I thought I’d made it clear to the kid that I wanted him to scram, but he wasn’t budging, and I could hear Shelly calling from the bedroom to find out what the holdup was. I could feel my chances of finishing this tonight dwindling, and it was making me even more annoyed with the interloper since it was all his fault.

  “My name’s Cal,” he said, like I gave a shit about that. “Short for Calhoun,” he added. That made me pause, frowning. So, what if the kid’s name was the same as my last name? It wasn’t that unusual.

  “So?”

  He sighed, rolling his eyes. “Are you going to make me stay out here to explain it all?”

  “Explain what?” I asked, completely aghast. I felt like there was something going way over my head, but it was so far that I couldn’t even figure out what the hell it was. This kid was looking at me like I was an idiot, and to be honest, I was starting to feel like an idiot because I couldn’t get him to go the hell away. I couldn’t seem to out-maneuver a pre-teen. What did that say about me?

  “Fine, I guess she was right about you,” he said, scoffing at me.

  “She? Who? What the hell? I don’t know who you are, or who you think you are, coming to my house and giving me attitude like that, but we’re done here,” I snapped, pushing the door closed. Only it didn’t close. The kid stuck his foot through, and his face crumpled as the door connected.

&nbs
p; “You want to know who I am?” he asked, his voice wavering again. He looked paler, too. Clammy, like he was going to be sick.

  Great, there was some pre-pubescent here to spread the plague on my doorstep and I was practically naked. Just another ordinary Sunday night.

  “Honestly, at this point my annoyance is outweighing my curiosity, so not really,” I grumbled, trying to shove his foot out of the entryway.

  He took a deep breath and I looked at his face, thinking he might be getting ready to sock me. His hands were balled into fists, his eyes screwed shut. I wasn’t too worried. Kind of hard to land a punch with your eyes closed.

  “I’m your son,” he growled through clenched teeth, the sound oddly familiar, yet different, too. I realized that he sounded like Bear had when he was a lot younger. Probably how I sounded too, to other people.

  And that’s what made the meaning of his words hit me like a ton of bricks. I staggered a bit, grabbing onto the jamb for support, shaking my head, telling myself there was no way that was possible until the words cemented themselves.

  “No. There’s no way that’s possible,” I said, gripping tighter onto the annoyance, not the shock of some kid telling me they’re mine. It was a misunderstanding. Surely.

  There was a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes, the eyes that were the color of the sky on a crisp autumn day.

  Just like mine.

  Don’t let him get into your head. It’s probably a scam or something, a voice in my head told me, trying to be reasonable.

  I’d never been very good at listening to reason.

  “You’re Knight, right? Knight Calhoun?”

  I scoffed. “So, you know my name, big deal, kid.”

  “Knight, what’s going on out here?” Shelly asked, padding out of the bedroom with my t-shirt stretched over her hips.

  “Don’t worry about it, I’ll be there in a second,” I said, waving her off.

  The kid — Cal, if he was to be believed — tried to crane his head around me to look at Shelly, but I blocked him.

  “You need to get out of here,” I said, trying again to shove him out of my doorway, but for being a kid, he had a stubborn streak in him. He wasn’t budging.

  “My mom told me that my dad lives here, in Rockford. I knew that I was named after you, but I didn’t know your name until she showed me that book with all your pictures in it.”

  I frowned, shaking my head. He wasn’t making a whole lot of sense.

  “Um… a yearbook?” he said, looking completely unsure.

  “Wait, your mom has a yearbook with my picture in it?” That gave the kid’s story some credence, but it still seemed pretty sketchy.

  For one thing, he was too old to be my kid. If he was around eleven or twelve like I was estimating, then I would’ve been fifteen? Sixteen at most when he was born. And don’t get me wrong, I was having sex back then, but the only time I ever went without a condom was with…

  My blood went cold in an instant, and the sound of insects buzzing filled my ears.

  “Kniiiight?” Shelly asked, standing completely out of view of the doorway, but where she could snake her hand up under the blanket in the back, fondling my balls from behind.

  I grunted and shook her off, the edges of my vision going hazy as I looked at the kid and tried to figure out if what I was thinking was even possible. I was crazy, wasn’t I? I had to be.

  Shelly made an offended noise but didn’t drape herself over me again.

  “Who did you say your mom is, kid?”

  “I didn’t, and my name’s Cal,” he said, sounding impatient.

  I huffed, feeling impatient myself.

  “Fine, Cal, who is your mom?”

  I knew the answer before he said it. I knew from the dark curls of hair falling over his forehead, that wrinkle in his nose when he was annoyed — it was all her. It was all—

  “Tenley Alexander,” he said, confirming my worst nightmares. The tunnel closed in, the sound of a train rushing in my brain. But then I realized that was the sound of my own pulse rushing through my ear drums, racing so fast it seemed like my veins might explode with the force of it.

  That was the last thought I had as my vision went completely dark and I felt the ground rushing toward me.

  2

  Tenley

  Lord help me, I prayed as the rain poured down in sheets so thick I could hardly see through. When I get my hands on that child of mine, help me not strangle him.

  My hands were tight on the steering wheel, knuckles white, palms sweaty, the world outside nothing but a wall of water.

  I couldn’t believe he had done that!

  Out of all the knuckle-headed hare-brained schemes my little guy had come up with over the years, that one took the damn cake. He was just too much like his dad. Even though he’d never met Knight, they both had that rebellious streak, that lack of disregard for the rules when the rules got in their way.

  The same things that drew me to Knight when we were stupid teenagers fooling around are the same things that had me running around like a madwoman after my son.

  You reap what you sow, a voice in my head reminded me. Countless years of my dad’s sermons had driven that point home, and yet somehow, I never managed to learn the lesson.

  I glanced at the clock and shook my head again. It was nearly midnight, and the drive that should’ve only taken two and a half hours took much longer because of the weather. Honestly, if it wasn’t for Cal leaving, I never would have driven in this mess. It wasn’t safe, and every time my tires slipped on the road, I was sure I was going to go flying off into a ditch where no one would ever find me.

  Damn it, Cal.

  That would certainly be one way to make sure my kid was scarred for life. He runs away and I die in a ditch coming to find him.

  I needed to get to him in one piece so I could tear him apart with my bare hands.

  How long had he been planning this excursion of his? It was too well thought-out to have been a spontaneous decision. He waited until I was at bible study, until he knew I’d be gone from home for a couple of hours. I didn’t know where he got the money for the bus ticket. He must’ve been saving his allowances and birthday money.

  I should’ve known better than to underestimate him.

  Cal’s always wanted to know about his dad. I just never wanted to tell him much. Knight is nothing but trouble, and I knew he wouldn’t want anything to do with his kid, so what was the point of telling him? I never told Knight about Cal, and I did my best to keep most information about Knight from Cal.

  Apparently, I didn’t do a good enough job. Cal wanted to know more, and he’d decided if he wasn’t going to get much from me, he was going to go find it himself.

  Crazy kid.

  I returned home from bible study, tired and expecting to find him up too late watching movies I wouldn’t approve of, but instead, I came home to a quiet house. Cal almost never went to bed without some cajoling, so that alone was enough to start raising the alarms. It was then that I went into the kitchen and saw the piece of paper on the counter.

  My heart had seized up in my chest, my throat tightening so I couldn’t breathe properly. I was hyperventilating by the time I picked the note up, my whole body flooded with panic.

  I didn’t know what to expect. Coming home to my kid missing and a note on the counter couldn’t lead to anything good. He’d either ran away or been kidnapped. I didn’t exactly have the funds to pay a ransom, so that seemed pretty unlikely, and the moment my eyes landed on Cal’s familiar scrawl, I knew it was the former.

  I’m going to Rockford to meet my dad, the note said. Don’t worry I’ll be fine.

  Yeah right, I thought to myself, shoving the note in my pocket as I turned on my heel to head for the door again. I had no idea how long ago he’d left, but I hoped that I could catch up to him, that I could get to Rockford before it all blew up.

  But the weather had other plans. I was only twenty minutes out when the sky opened and started dumpi
ng buckets on me. The rest of the trip to Rockford was a crawl, barely inching down the highway with my hazard lights on, praying that the bus with my kid on it didn’t encounter this same awful weather.

  It was easy enough for most of the drive to distract myself with the road and weather conditions, to spend my time grumbling at Cal and thinking about the appropriate punishment for this, but the moment I saw the sign for Rockford, I couldn’t distract myself anymore.

  Welcome to Rockford.

  Home of the Wild, the sign said, cheerful enough, even though all it did was put a pit of dread in my stomach.

  It was like a black hole in there, sucking out all the light inside of me until I felt like a withered husk of a person, just for crossing into this town.

  So many years had passed since I last stepped foot in this place, and when I left, I swore to myself that I’d never come back. That it was full of too many bad memories and too much hurt. I couldn’t stand it.

  But there I was. Memories flooding back and crushing me under their weight.

  I never should have told Cal anything about his dad. I should’ve just made up some story and made sure he never learned the truth.

  But I was naive. I thought that it couldn’t do any harm to give him little bits here and there to stop the incessant stream of questions.

  Clearly, I was wrong. Clearly, there was plenty of harm done, and now I was back in this awful place I’d never wanted to see again.

  Even though Rockford was only a couple hours away from where we ended up, it felt like another world. It felt like a foreign place where I didn’t belong. But even then, it was familiar. Not a lot had changed in the twelve years since I left the place. Even through the rain, I could see the familiar shops, the layout of the town almost spot-on to what it had been, except for the traffic light on Main Street that used to be a stop sign.