by Brook Wilder
Her mouth gaped open and close as she struggled for what to say, how to explain. Out of all the scenarios she’d come up with of telling him about the baby, this certainly hadn’t even been one that she considered.
There was a frozen moment, and then as if jumping into double speed, Jackrabbit swept one arm under her knees and the other under her shoulders he picked her up to hold her against his chest as if she weighed nothing.
He didn’t stop as he carried her through the crowd and Rachael could feel the Roadburners curious gazes but all she could do was sit there in his arms and let him carry her.
“Really, Johnny, you can put me down, now. I can walk.” Rachael demanded, but her voice was soft, at odds with her words. It didn’t matter. He didn’t listen to her anyway. He didn’t even pause until they were walking down a short hallway.
He took a quick turn into a large storage closet, still not putting her down until the door was shut and locked tight behind them, trapping them inside.
***
There was loud ringing in his ears. That’s all he could think about, wondering absently if maybe he was going deaf. Maybe he’d had one too many head injuries and it was finally starting to show. It was the same ringing he remembered from his time in the military right after a bomb had gone off. The same exact sound.
In fact, he felt like he was back in that war zone, bullets snapping overhead and adrenaline pumping through his veins like a drug. His body was shaking and his senses were on high alert. At any moment he was expecting his enemies to start raining bullets down on him, but this wasn’t the war. This was something else altogether, something else that he’d never face before, and damned if it didn’t scare the shit out of him more than being in battle ever did.
Over and over again he heard her words playing in his head like a broken record. Pregnant. Baby. Pregnant. Baby. Pregnant. Over and over they echoed, growing louder and louder until he squeezed his eyes closed, convinced that his head was going to explode as the ringing grew even sharper.
Jackrabbit opened his mouth, trying to say something, anything at all, but he couldn’t form a single word. His throat had suddenly gone tight. I can’t breathe. The thought was surprisingly calm. I’m in shock. I must be in shock.
That was the only explanation for the sudden numbness that had spread throughout his body. Or maybe it’s just lack of oxygen.
“Jackrabbit?” Rachael said tentatively, “Johnny?” It felt like he was moving in slow motion as he glanced down into her waiting face.
“Are you planning on putting me down anytime soon?”
As her words registered he looked down, realizing for the first time that he still held her in his arms. With a cough to clear his throat, he slowly released her and let her slide down his body to set her on her feet like she was made of porcelain. He was just going through the motions without realizing what or why he was doing them.
The silence stretched out between them but Jackrabbit’s mind was blank, still wrestling with the bomb that Rachael had just dropped. She stared up at him for a long moment before the silence finally grew too much for either of them to handle.
“Say something.” She said, the words exploding from her.
But that was the problem, he had no idea what to fucking say. He didn’t even know where to begin.
“I don’t even know where to begin…” He trailed off, trying to get a grip on his thoughts but it was hard with his pulse pounding hard in his ears. “Rachael. You’re…”
“Pregnant.” She finished the sentence for him when he couldn’t force out the word. He gave her a look with brows raised.
“You’re sure?”
Slowly she nodded her head. “I went to the doctor on Wednesday. I am definitely pregnant. I’m still figuring out what I’m going to do but I just… I just thought you should know.”
“Hell of a way to tell a guy.”
“Yeah, well, that wasn’t exactly how I had it planned. But when that guy shoved me I just…I snapped.”
“He hurt you?” Jackrabbit said, his voice suddenly low and deep at the thought of anyone laying a hand on her. He’d only walked in to the tail end of whatever had happened.
“No, he didn’t hurt me. Just startled me. Didn’t like it when I turned him down. Believe me. I know how to handle guys like him.”
“Rachael, you have to be careful.” He shook his head as all the conflicting emotions raced through his blood stream and left him a mass of confusion.
All the reason’s he couldn’t be a father ran through his head at once. He didn’t know the first thing about what made a father, his own had been less than ideal before leaving them for good, let alone being a good partner.
He was allergic to commitment. He knew that. Rachael had known that. And as far as he could tell she’d felt exactly the same. So were did that leave him now. Where did that leave the two of them?
His chaotic thoughts battled each other, muddy and confusing and all tangled together in a mess that he didn’t even know where to begin sorting through. But riding underneath them all was a deep seated doubt that had grown and thrived within him long before Rachael had crashed into his life.
Jackrabbit opened his mouth and the words were falling out of his mouth before he could even think to stop them.
“Are you sure that I’m the father?”
Rachael recoiled as if he’d slapped her.
Guilt instantly assailed him. But before he could even open his mouth to form some sort of apology, her hand was flying towards him. His cheek stung like fire where it landed and then she was turning away with a huff of anger.
“I just thought you deserved to know.” Her eyes were burning with green fire. “Well, I’ve done the right thing told you, and now I’m done here.”
Jackrabbit took a step after her as she threw open the door to the storage closet. It crashed against the wall with a loud bang. Rachael didn’t stop as she made her way through the bar, storming out of the clubhouse and leaving him standing there, arms outstretched and mouth gaping open.
Jackrabbit took two stumbling steps after her but something stopped him. Memories of the past rose up to choke him, memories of betrayal, memories of broken trust, and memories of heart ache that he swore he’d never suffer through again.
He’d done that once. He’d gone and fallen in love with a girl that he thought cared for him only to have that love thrown back in his face. Well, it had been a bitter fucking pill to swallow but he learned his lesson. Don’t trust anyone. They’ll just turn on you in the end. They all did.
Shaken more than he wanted to admit, Jackrabbit swiped a hand over his face. Hell, he didn’t know the first thing about raising a child. With a sharp, humorless laugh he finally walked out of the storage closet. He needed a drink, damn it, and a stiff one at that.
CHAPTER FIVE
The Texas skyline stretched out for miles and miles around him. Warm wind whipped through his hair and jacket, cooling him as he rode. The wide open highway was empty except for the occasional hazy mirage rising from the asphalt.
Jackrabbit inhaled as deep as he could, his knuckles tightening on the throttle and pushing his bike even faster. But it still didn’t seem fast enough to outrun his own thoughts. Nothing had been able to do that.
His mind had been in chaos since the bombshell that Rae had dropped on him. His life had blown up that night and now nothing was the same. Jackrabbit hated it. He hated not being in control, not knowing exactly what his next move was going to be.
It was exactly the worst thing to feel with the threat of Finn hanging over all their heads. He tried to throw himself into his new role as president of the Roadburners at the clubhouse, desperately trying to distract himself from Rachael’s news but even that hadn’t worked. She was always there, always in the back of his head. But damned if he knew what to fucking do about it.
His easy living motto had always suited him just find, but now, that had gone right out the window. And if he was honest with himself, it had
even before Rae had told him about the baby.
A little kernel of panic erupted at the direction of his wayward thoughts and he forced his mind back to the task at hand. He’d been at the clubhouse all night and well into the morning trying to track out Finn and his crew’s movements when an S.O.S. text had come in from Harlow.
It had just said that there was something he needed to see. And that it was urgent. Whatever the hell that meant. Jackrabbit thought. Harlow had a tendency towards the dramatic but for as long as he’d know the man, he’d been spot on about all his hunches and gut instincts.
Jackrabbit saw the mile marker that Harlow had mentioned in the text and pulled off the road towards the shoulder, trying to tear his mind from thoughts of Rachael and the baby to focus on whatever new problem had popped up. It seemed like there was a new one every day and they all seemed to revolve around the same damn person. Finn. He just prayed that this one would be different.
He stopped the engine, threw down the kickstand and looked around the empty landscape in confusion. This was the spot Harlow had told him but all he saw was a few scattered trees and a rocky outcropping that edged the highway shoulder.
Fighting down his own irritation, Jackrabbit pulled out his cell phone and was about to call Harlow to demand a fucking explanation when he saw it. The drops of blood. They were already starting to dry under the hot Texas sun but the dark red was unmistakable.
The arid landscape, the blood soaking into the dry ground, suddenly he was transported back somewhere else entirely and somewhere he never wanted to be again. Back to the war. Back to the midst of the smoke and exposions. Back to the blood as bullets and shrapnel ripped through flesh and bone.
He stood there for a long moment, frozen on the outside but inside he was pure chaos as he fought to drag himself back to reality. He wasn’t in the war anymore. But it sure as hell did look like someone was trying to bring it back to his doorstep.
Cursing in his head, Jackrabbit left his bike parked where it was on the side of the road and followed the trail of blood towards the rocky outcrop. It wasn’t until he was closer that he heard a muffled grunt of pain and then he was sprinting forward, concern furrowing his brows as he ran.
“Fuck. What the fuck happened?” Jackrabbit said as he rounded the edge of the large boulder. He saw two of his Roadburners. One was lying on the ground, propped against the rocks and grimacing in pain and other was Harlow. His second in command was crouched over the other man, holding a dirty bandage to the other’s bleeding shoulder.
Harlow glanced up at Jackrabbit’s gruff question.
“I’m not going to ask again, Harlow. What the fuck happened here?” Jackrabbit’s jaw clenched together so tightly he could barely form the words.
Harlow just gave him a calm look and a small shrug. “Not totally sure boss. One minute we were riding and the next…”
“Gun shots.” The other man, Jones, groaned from where he was laying on the ground and Jackrabbit could hear the agony in his voice. “Gun shots from that ridge.” He nodded several yards away and Jackrabbit squinted, then his eyes widened in surprise.
“That’s some distance to take a few pot shots at guys on motorcycles.” Jackrabbit mumbled, suddenly uneasy. He didn’t know many who could attempt and make a shot like that. In fact, he only knew one: Finn.
“It’s gotta be Finn.” Harlow said and Jackrabbit just nodded his head.
“I know.”
“It was a warning.” Harlow continued as if he hadn’t even said anything.
“A warning?” Jackrabbit snapped. “He talked to you?”
“No, but one of his men did.” The man’s solemn face grew even more haggard looking, “He’s back. And he’s coming after members of the Roadburners.”
“Shit.” Jackrabbit bit of the curse, casting a paranoid stare out over the horizon line. There was little chance that Finn was still there. But what surprised him most was the first thought that ran through his head at Harlow’s news. It wasn’t the Roadburners, which he knew it should be.
It was Rachael. All Rachael, and the realization that she might be in danger. Especially if Finn finds out that she’s pregnant with his child.
It wasn’t exactly a secret to the crew after Rachael’s outburst at the clubhouse the night she came to tell him. Damn it. This was the last thing he needed. Another complication. But inside he wasn’t thinking of her as a complication. Inside he was terrified that she might get hurt because of him, that their baby might get hurt because of him. He’d never be able to live with himself if something happened to them.
Jackrabbit’s nerves were on high alert and that spot in the middle of his shoulder blades started to itch as if he could feel a target painted on his back already. They couldn’t stay out in the open like this. It was too dangerous.
“Come on, Harlow. Let’s get him up. We need to get the fuck out of here.” Jackrabbit knelt down beside the injured man. “You think you can ride with that bum shoulder? The club house isn’t that far. We can get you patched up there.”
Jones gritted his teeth before he nodded stiffly. “Yeah, boss, I think so.”
“Good. Then let’s get the hell out of here. I don’t want to be caught out in the open like a bunch of fucking sitting ducks just waiting to get picked off. Harlow, give me a hand.”
Harlow gave the area one last sweeping glance and said. “Yeah, boss.”
With Jackrabbit on one side and Harlow on the other, they helped Jones up to his feet and walked over to where the two men’s bikes had been quickly stashed behind a hedge of shrubs.
Quickly, Jackrabbit took the makeshift bandage that was already starting to dry with Jones’ blood under the hot Texas sun and made some readjustments to it. The wound didn’t look too bad. The bullet had grazed the flesh but otherwise left no other marks. It was too clean to be an accident.
Jackrabbit shot another searching glance over the barren landscape. There was nothing there but rocks and a few shrubby trees. He knew there was no one else out there, just like he knew that Finn could have killed them both if he’d wanted to. Harlow was right. This had been a warning shot. The real question was: when will warning shots turn to killing shots?
His mind struggled with the question as he helped the man on his bike, making sure he could ride on his own before nodding for Harlow to do the same.
“Back to the clubhouse. Now.” Jackrabbit’s voice was low and hoarse. He caught the worried looks on the other two men’s faces and knew he had to appear composed. But there was not a damn thing he could do about the nerves eating him alive.
“Well, what the hell are you waiting for, the fucking light to change? Go! Ride!” Jackrabbit growled the words as he started his own bike, the sound of the engine roaring through the air before taking off.
He didn’t look behind him to see if the other two men were following. He could hear the sound of their bikes catching up to his on the otherwise empty road as they flew down the highway, all three anxious to get out from the open.
His thoughts ran circles around his head. He knew the men were worried. Hell, he was worried too. But as the new president of the motorcycle club, the last thing he needed was for them to lose confidence in him.
They made the ride back to the clubhouse in record time. All of them were feeling that itchy feeling now, the one that makes the little hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Jackrabbit could see it in the way the other two kept throwing looks over their shoulder, some at him and some at the surrounding countryside.
None of them relaxed until they were pulling into the cracked parking lot in front of the Roadburners club and even then Harlow kept glancing furtively around every corner and every shadow as they parked their bikes and walked to the entrance.
Jackrabbit opened the door and as soon as he walked in he could feel the tension choking all the oxygen out of the room. Apparently, news travelled fast. Somehow they already knew about the attack, if not the details, and they knew Finn was behind it.
“Well, fuck.” Jackrabbit sighed quietly as the conversation dropped and he noticed the sideways looks that were sent his way. It was obvious what they’d been talking about. The problem with Finn, and him.
Jackrabbit knew he needed to act, and fast. Distrust was like a disease and he couldn’t allow it to spread. Not now, not after he’d just started, and especially not with the threat of Finn hanging over all their heads like a fucking hangman’s noose. The Roadburners needed a leader now more than ever, and damn it, Jackrabbit was going to be that leader come hell or high water.
He barely paused as he walked all the way into the main bar of the clubhouse, shoving a big biker aside as he jumped up onto one of the worn wooden tables that littered the warehouse looking space.
