Cooper

by Hazel Parker

  My hands pulled at my hair, the pain in my follicles rooting me to this moment, to the ground.

  What can I do? What am I going to do?

  Every possible option ran through my head. Revenge. That’s all I could think of what not right now. Right now, I had to make sure my brother was going to wake up tomorrow.

  “What happened?” Gus roared, rounding the corner.

  “He was jumped.”

  “The hell? Ev? I would have guessed you, not him. What happened?”

  The boys stared at me all looking for an answer. Jerry, Warren, Gus, and Luke were waiting here, more were waiting at the club. I couldn’t lie. I wouldn’t lie. A man takes responsibility for his mistakes.

  “It was my fault.”

  “What? I don’t understand.” Warren said taking a step back.

  There was nothing I could say to explain it anyway.

  “Some shit came up. I got drunk and trashed a bike… Turned out to be Casper’s.”

  “You couldn’t have gotten drunk at the club?” Jerry asked.

  Gus cut in. “The Casper?” Gus’ face turned red. “Casper fucking Karin? That Casper?” I couldn’t help but feel like I was letting him down.

  I wanted to hang my head in shame, but that’s not how I was raised. A man accepts his shame head on. “Yeah. That one. He must have thought Evan was me, and knowing them, they probably didn’t wait to ask any questions or make sure they had the right guy, not that they’d care. So they made him pay for my crime.”

  “How bad is it trashed?”

  “I don’t know. I was drunk off my ass, I barely remember doing it.” I couldn’t help feeling like I sounded like a child. “I knocked it completely over so I imagine it’s scratched, got broken mirrors and dents.”

  That was putting it lightly. That bike was heavy. It hit the ground hard, and I knew it was more than broken glass and dents. The left side of that bike was probably shredded.

  “Jesus!” Warren yelled, rubbing his temples.

  Where I’m from, motorcycles were like jewelry. You chose them by hand, not from a sell lot. You did your research and decided what’s best for you. Unlike most clubs, Los Banditos was a club that accepted all bike types. We weren’t all Harleys or just crotch rockets. Yeah, the old guys gave us hell about our small bikes, complaining that all we wanted to do was look fancy, but in the end they respected our choice. Bikes were personal. We built them up, bought accessories, changed out the inside, chose specific paint jobs, loved them, and made them perfect. Bikes were more than machines. They were an extension of the self.

  My bike represented me. It looked how I wanted it to looked, matched my jacket and my helmet. Fucking with anyone’s bike was the equivalent to fucking with their kid. It was worse than that. I might as well have cut off his arm or spit in his face. He had every right to be angry. Bikes are sacred.

  “How bad is Evan?”

  That was the most important part.

  “I don’t know. We just found him.”

  “We?” Jerry said.

  I turned around to look into the glass pane of the door. Kaylen was bent over the bed crying. I could tell from the wet spot pooled on the sheet. Her face was a mask of concern, watching Evan’s face for something, anything, and I felt like someone punched me in the chest. I know that face. I’ve seen it before. It was the way my mother looked at my dad when he was in the hospital. The way Lila looked at Harrison. The way Kaylen was looking at Evan was like he was the sole center of her galaxy and if he died, she would spiral out of orbit.

  She’s in love with him.

  I don’t know why it was came like some grand realization. I should have seen it before.

  Why didn’t I see it coming?

  She couldn’t take her eyes off him. She could see him without seeing us. She saw him as someone separate—as Evan, not the other twin. He deserved a woman like her and I was just a nuisance, standing in the way.

  “Yeah, we. Kaylen is in there right now.”

  “Does she work here? She’s in scrubs.” Luke asked naively. He hadn’t been able to make it to the hospital when Harrison was first hit.

  “Yeah. She does.”

  “Look, I don’t want no drama shit, Ethan. I swear, your brother is barely holding on and I can barely handle this and the IRS on our ass. I don’t have time for some argument over a broad.”

  I couldn’t keep myself from growling. I didn’t like him calling Kaylen any names.

  “Don’t say that,” I growled under my breath. “There will be no fighting. She’s his. Shit’s cleared up. Ain’t no problem.”

  “Good,” he said with a nod before walking away.

  Tonight there’d be a meeting. This I knew for certain. I’d call it my damn self. The Skulls were going to get what they had coming. Nobody touched my brother except me, and to hurt him this way when he’d done nothing wrong was the highest offense. Mark my words. They messed with the wrong fucking twin.

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  Chapter 1

  Today was one of those days that just felt lucky. And it was a day when Kelly Wilson needed luck. She was currently settled at a Harrah’s blackjack table. Eagerly, she watched the dealer as he began to reach for the cards. She’d already placed her bet. This was going to be her moment.

  It seems Kelly had known about gambling her entire life. And of course, she had heard the good and the bad. Her native Georgia did not allow casinos, so she would travel to South Carolina and take her pick of casinos seated at the base of the mountains. Part of her wished that her home state would embrace casinos and the revenue they brought. Part of her enjoyed having an excuse to get away whenever she was home from college.

  Kelly found gambling to be extremely glamorous. She watched all the movies growing up. Gorgeous, sexy women, gangsters, and the glamourous lifestyle—what wasn’t to love? The women were always decked out in jewels and expensive clothes. She idolized it and wanted to be that. Reality, of course, is much different.

  Like she had never seen any gangsters or glamourous gorgeous women here in Cherokee. Once she was good enough, she would get to Vegas, experience the real deal. Hopefully hit it big.

  The University of Tennessee in Knoxville had really stood out to her as a high school senior. Not only was it only a three-hour drive from her home in Atlanta, the Indian casinos in Cherokee were only a couple of hours away by bus. So she applied and got accepted.

  Kelly’s obsession with the gangster lifestyle continued. The fantasies of money and men swirled happily in her mind from her very first trip. She had told herself on that trip that she was on her way to being a big-time gambler. She thought back on that day a lot lately.

  The first time that she had made the trip was right after her twenty-first birthday, and her heart had leapt at the sights and sounds of the casino. Granted, it was smaller than she had seen on television, but still incredible. The rush that Kelly felt as she put her first coin into the penny slot, the thrill at watching the screen spin and the images pop up, it was all unforgettable. She did not care that her winnings were minuscule; she was having fun and that was what mattered.

  Actually, she had not won much at all that first trip. In fact, she had lost a lot—a thousand dollars, to be exact. She had left feeling disheartened, but it was okay. No one was perfect their first time, right?

  Today it was going to be different. Actually, she had said that every other time, but this time she felt it. It would be different.

  Or maybe it was just that she needed this trip to be different. This time, she really needed to win some money.

  At the table in front of her, the dealer flipped over the cards. Instantly, Kelly’s eyes widened in horror. She did not need to listen to what he said, or pay any further attention. She knew from what she had seen in the cards what had happened: she had just lost everything.

  It was all the blackjack tab
le’s fault. Her preferred method was slot machines. They were simple. You could just sit back, feed coins in, have a conversation with a friend, maybe have a drink, and watch your money add up. But today, after just a few coins, she had realized that this was not her day on the slot machines. She had decided to try her luck on table games. Those were more glamorous anyway.

  The only game that she was familiar with was blackjack. Craps looked too hard, and it made her nervous. But anyone could count to twenty-one. Yes, blackjack was a good start.

  An electric jolt seemed to rush through her body as she watched her chips disappear. Her hands started to tremble and she felt sick. This could not be real. This could not be happening. She was a college student. She did not have any income. The only money that she had was supposed to be for her tuition. Her mother—an Atlanta hairdresser—had saved up everything so that Kelly could go to school. She had turned it over to Kelly, believing that she would be responsible. And now, she had just lost every penny of that twenty-five thousand dollars.

  “What am I going to do?” she finally spoke the words aloud to her friend, Beth. They were on the bus, heading back to Knoxville. Kelly was shell-shocked since everything had happened. Beth looked over at her. She seemed sympathetic. Kelly was glad for that. If Beth had been the “I told you so” kind of friend, she might have left her in Cherokee.

  “Call your mom as soon as you get back.” Kelly instantly shook her head.

  “I can’t. That’s the one thing that I absolutely cannot do.” Calling her mother would do her no good. Her mother had no more money to give. Besides that, she would be devastated that Kelly had done something so foolish. She could only imagine the lecture. The last thing she wanted was to tell her mother what a disappointment that she had become.

  “But what else can you do?” Beth tried.

  “I don’t know,” Kelly answered honestly. She did not. She honestly could not come up with an idea of what to do to get herself out of this mess. Loans and work study were out of the question. It was entirely too late in the year to try. She would be turned down immediately

  She supposed that she could get a job somewhere, but with her class schedule, she knew that she could not work a ton of hours. Besides, could she really make enough waiting tables to pay for an entire college semester? Internships were also out. It was not like any of them actually paid, anyway.

  “I’ll tell you what you need.” Beth winked slyly. Kelly waited. She could only imagine where this was going.

  “What?”

  “A sugar daddy.” Beth giggled. Kelly bit back a sigh. This was serious, and Beth was screwing around.

  “Beth.”

  “Oh come on!” The other girl shoved her shoulder. Okay, so Beth was not screwing around; she was trying to get a laugh out of her friend. Now that Kelly could appreciate. At least she understood the seriousness of the situation. “All you need is one hot, older guy with a fortune and he’ll pay for everything. Your mom will never know!”

  Kelly had to laugh. If only it were that simple. Hell, if it were that simple she may never have tried college at all.

  The bus headed back to Knoxville. The two girls fell silent. Beth put in her earbuds and settled back into the bus seat. Kelly knew that she would fall asleep. While it was not a bad idea, Kelly was too nervous to sleep. Instead, she grabbed a magazine that someone had left in the pocket of the seat back in front of her. Kelly began flipping through it. She was about halfway through when she stumbled across the advertisement.

  It was a neatly placed ad in the center of the magazine, in a spread about children and families. Kelly realized that it was an ad for surrogacy. That was something that she did not know much about. She read further.

  Well-established couple seeking healthy, young woman to help us add to our family.

  While we may seem to have everything, a baby is the one thing that we are lacking. Won’t you help us in completing our family?

  All expenses paid.

  Kelly’s eyes lit up. She could do that! She could have a baby for a couple! If she got pregnant in the next few months, she could have the baby around the time the next term ended. She had never gone home for breaks during the year, so her mother would never have to know.

  Kelly slipped the magazine into her bag. Yes, this was the answer to all of her problems.

  Chapter 2

  Grant Stone was excited to get the call about a possible surrogate. He was not particularly excited because he was dying to be a father, but because it would shut Monica up.

  Having a baby was all that Monica Stone had talked about for the last few years. They had been married for five years, and Grant was fairly certain that it had been Monica’s number one goal.

  Monica had turned thirty just two months after him. She was beautiful, in a cold way. Her hair was long and dark, her eyes bright blue. Her talents included spending his money, and talking to him about ways that he could spend his money.

  Grant had made his money very quickly. The investment group that he owned had taken off, and soon he was young with more money than he had ever considered. Magazines lauded him as one of the hottest thirty and under in Knoxville. He suspected that was how Monica had found him.

  She had come up to him at a cocktail party. She was wearing an expensive, red dress that was too short and too low cut. While he knew that she probably was not the best woman he could have met, his body was more than interested. Pretty soon, she was on his arm at corporate events, and in his bed after them.

  Grant’s parents thought that he should have a good woman with him. They had been married for thirty-two years. His father was a businessman, and knew what it was like to have a woman standing beside him. So Grant had done the right thing: he had gone out and bought an engagement band. Monica had not hesitated in saying yes.

  After they had gotten married, Monica had started whispering about a baby. The whispers grew louder, and soon Monica was showing him nursery designs and stockpiling tiny clothes. He knew that he was now going to give her both his money and his sperm. He had never felt that she really loved him; it was all about what he could do for her.

  Fortunately, or unfortunately, pregnancy had not taken. Monica was getting frustrated. Grant told himself that he loved her, and that he wanted to give her everything that she wanted. Sometimes, it was a Chanel purse. Other times, it was her dream baby. He would give it to her.

  Monica had been thrilled to find out that someone wanted to give them a baby. She had undergone all of the tests to find out why she couldn’t conceive. The doctors told her that her uterus just would not take a pregnancy, and that their best choices were adoption or a surrogate. Monica did not want to risk the possibility of biological parents coming to take back a child, so she had insisted on a surrogate. Grant had complied.

  They were currently seated in a Knoxville Irish pub and restaurant. Monica was fidgeting, waiting impatiently for the candidate to arrive.

  “Would you calm down?” Grant muttered through his teeth. Monica turned to him, giving him a harsh glare.

  “Well, forgive me for being nervous about meeting the potential carrier of our child. You know, you could express a little interest yourself.”

  “I am expressing interest!” Grant stopped talking when he saw a blonde woman enter the doorway. Her hair fell in thick, silky waves around her shoulders. Her eyes were bright blue. She looked so incredibly sweet. He wondered if this was just the woman that they were waiting for—at least he hoped that it was.

  Kelly looked across the room. Immediately, her eyes locked on a couple seated beside one another at a side booth. The woman was wearing an expensive dress and had an even more expensive trench coat hanging on a hook beside the booth. The man wore a sport coat over a blue button down shirt that had the first two buttons open. His hair was a deep brown. He wore it long and combed back on his head. His face was tinged with a hint of facial hair.

  Was this the couple that she was here to see? She realized awkwardly that she was starin
g, so she made her way over to the table.

  “Um, hi. Mr. and Mrs. Stone?” The woman was on her feet immediately.

  “I’m Monica Stone.” She held out her hand. Kelly took it, shaking. The woman gave her a friendly smile. “And this is my husband, Grant.”

  Kelly was embarrassed at how much that she had been staring at the man. He stood up to join his wife, taking Kelly’s hand.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Kelly.”

  “Um, you too, Mr. Stone.” Kelly pulled her hand back too quickly.

  “Please, call me Grant.” He sat back down in the booth.

  “And I’m Monica.” She sat down beside her husband. Kelly sat down across from them. They were a really nice looking couple. She hoped that they were as nice as they looked.

  “Can we get you a drink?” Grant motioned to a waitress.

  “Um, yes, please.” Kelly rubbed her palms on her jeans to calm her nerves. She ordered a beer. Grant ordered himself a whiskey, and Monica a martini.

  “So,” Grant broke the ice, “what do you do?”

  “I’m a student,” Kelly told him. “At University of Tennessee.”

  “What’s your major?” Monica asked.

  “Marketing,” Kelly answered. “With a minor in history.”

  “History?” Grant looked interested. Kelly nodded.

  “I just like history,” she gave him a small smile. “I always have. I think that it’s interesting.” Grant nodded.

  “I always liked history too.” He noticed that Monica was staring at him. “Right. You’re probably wondering a little about us.”

  “I am,” Kelly answered honestly. “What do you do?”

  “I run my own investment corporation,” Grant explained. Kelly was instantly impressed.