by Beth Flynn
Unbeknownst to Christy, it was then that he put a plan into action. A plan that would prove whether he was capable of fathering a child. He’d had enough connections in the drug and pharmaceutical industries to pull it off. And standing outside the bathroom door, he now believed that he had.
He rapped lightly on the door. “Are you okay, Owani?” he asked and was surprised when it opened so quickly.
“I’m fine,” she told him. “Apparently, breakfast didn’t agree with me.”
“Isn’t this the third day breakfast hasn’t agreed with you?” His dark eyes followed her as she walked to their dresser and bent over a drawer. “Maybe you’re pregnant.”
He watched her back stiffen and knew he’d just provided an option she hadn’t considered. She turned around and gave him a big smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes. It’s dawning on her, he thought. And she’s wondering how it could be possible.
“Maybe,” she told him, and he couldn’t help but notice that she didn’t look happy. She looked worried.
“I’ll see a doctor when we get back from our trip,” she offered. Changing the subject, she asked, “I’m all packed and ready. We can leave as early as you want tomorrow. Do you think Kit will be at this one? She doesn’t like to go to any of them. It would be nice to see her.”
Christy was referring to the organized annual gathering of South Florida bikers. Rival gangs called a once a year truce and agreed to temporarily wave the white flag to meet with each other and nonviolently air their grievances. Even though Anthony didn’t consider his group a formal club, he still had enough of an influence to require his attendance.
“I don’t know,” he answered. “I have to call Grizz for something else, so I’ll ask him.”
And Anthony did call Grizz. From the privacy of his office he asked, almost begged Grizz to make sure Kit accompanied him to the meeting. “Christy needs a friend now.” Anthony raked his hand down his face. “I don’t know. There’s something going on with her. Something she’s not telling me. I thought we were good, but now…” His words drifted off. Grizz assured him he’d do his best to convince Kit to be there.
Anthony didn’t tell Grizz that he suspected Christy was pregnant. He wanted to see if Christy would confide in Kit and if so, try to figure out why she wouldn’t tell him. Why didn’t she, after more than two years of trying to conceive, seem happy? Was this all a ruse because she didn’t want to be legally married to him? The thought pierced his heart. What if his trickery would come back to haunt him? What if they were bringing a child into the world that Christy didn’t want?
Anthony stood in his office and looked at the phone he’d just hung up. His pain turned to anger, and without telling Christy where he was going, he headed for the camp. When he got there, he passed Gloria coming out of a bunkhouse. Without acknowledging her, he headed straight for his hatchet that was buried in a stump.
He hurled his ax through the air hitting the target dead on each time. He'd retrieved it after about the tenth throw and was getting ready to hurl it again when he felt a gentle hand on his shoulder.
It was Gloria.
“What’s wrong, Anthony?” came her calm voice. "You've seemed happier than I've ever seen you, but not today. What's changed?"
His lips were set in a thin line, his eyes unreadable. She didn’t think he was going to answer her.
“What’s changed? Obviously, nothing,” he said, his voice sarcastic. “The woman I’m in love with, the one I want to marry, the one I’ve tried to marry, is still hiding from me. She’s keeping secrets. She won’t let me in.”
“Your Christy is an enigma," Gloria said, nodding her head. "I’ve never met anyone like her, Anthony. She could be sunning herself on the French Riviera or gambling with a James Bond lookalike in Monte Carlo. Heck, she could fly to Italy for a pizza and fly back the same night. And she’s not doing any of those things. She’s here. With you. She spends her days passing out antibiotics and baby formula to hookers. Adopting maimed animals and opening parks and clinics. Why do you think that is?” She tilted her head to one side as she waited for his answer.
“I don’t know,” he told her, his anger subsiding. “I honestly don’t know.”
“Because she loves you, Anthony! How can you not see that?” Gloria asked.
“Because there’s stuff she won’t share with me. Because she won’t marry me,” he huffed.
Gloria gave him a kind smile. “It sounds like she’s hiding something, but I don’t think it has anything to do with whether or not she loves you. And truthfully, you can’t press someone into telling you something they don’t want to.” She looked away and then quickly looked up at him. “Well, I suppose you could,” she said somewhat sheepishly. “But I’m talking more about secrets of the heart.”
He nodded and gave an audible sigh. As if waking up from a dream, he took in his surroundings and realized what he could've done out of anger. If he'd run across the wrong person, he had no doubt he'd have beaten them within an inch of their life.
Swiping his hand through his hair and taking a calming breath he said, "Thanks, Gloria. Thanks for talking to me."
"Anytime, Anthony," she said as she patted his huge arm.
“Did Ron know you were this smart when he married you?” he teased.
“No,” she teased back. “But then again, there’s still a lot Ron doesn’t know about me.” She gave Anthony a wink as she headed for her car.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Naples, Florida 1982
The biker meeting was a few days behind them when Anthony finally had the chance to talk to Kit, who’d agreed to go to the gathering specifically to have some alone time with Christy on Anthony’s behalf. On his way back from an investment meeting in Miami, Anthony stopped at the sprawling ranch house Grizz had built for Kit.
They sat at the kitchen table and talked over coffee. It was just the two of them.
“You’re not betraying a confidence if it’s information I already know, Kit.”
She looked at him sideways. “The reason she’s struggling with telling you is deeper, Anthony, and it should come from her. Not me.”
“I know without even seeing proof that her father raped her and got her pregnant.” An odd expression came over his face then, and he could barely believe the next words that came out of his mouth. “Unless.” He paused. “Unless, it wasn’t rape?” It came out as a question since he couldn’t allow himself to believe it. “Could she have been having consensual sex with her father?”
“No!” Kit was quick to answer. “It absolutely, positively was rape. And you’re right. It was her father.” She saw the guilt on his face for having let himself even think it could’ve been consensual followed by the relief of knowing it wasn’t true.
“She still hasn’t told me she’s pregnant. And I know she’s pregnant so don’t tell me she isn’t.”
“Yes, she’s pregnant. Christy and I snuck away from the meeting and went to a clinic to confirm it.”
“Do you think she hasn’t told me because she doesn’t plan on keeping it?” he asked. He couldn’t mask the pain in his voice.
Kit reached across the table and took his hand. “Anthony, she definitely wants your baby. But she is hiding some things. And they aren’t big awful secrets. But she thinks they are. She told me that you seemed fine when you asked her if Van was Abby’s father, but she still denied it because she couldn’t bear for you to know it’s the truth. And I get that and I believe that it’s not her shame to carry. But she does. And there are other truths she shared with me that you will have to hear from her. Nothing earth-shattering, but it’s messing with her head. If you can get her to tell you, I think it will relieve her anguish.”
“I’ve tried with her, Kit. I’ve never been so patient with anyone in my life. If she won’t open up to me, I can’t think of anyone else who’ll be able to fill me in on what’s really happening in her head.”
Kit looked thoughtful and resting her elbows on the table, she
said, “Maybe you should go back to the beginning. Talk to someone who’s always been there.”
Anthony pulled his long hair back behind his shoulders. “You mean Litzy? I finally talked to Litzy and she hasn’t told me anything I don’t already know.”
“Christy told me that Litzy was hired when she was still a baby. Is there anybody who was around before that who could shed some light on this family?” Kit asked.
He slowly shook his head, but then remembered a conversation he’d had with Christy a couple of years ago. They were talking about who she would like to see in charge of the dealerships. She’d suggested Bobbi’s longtime friend and assistant, Valerie. Valerie had been offered the job, but opted for retirement.
He could hear Christy’s words as if she’d spoken them yesterday.
Who better to manage the dealerships than someone who knows my family inside and out? Someone who’d been at Bobbi's side since the beginning?"
Two Days Later
“How long have you known I’m pregnant?” Christy asked, her blue eyes brimming with tears that threatened to spill over.
“Since before we went to the biker meeting,” he answered, pulling her close. He’d taken her to the beach, the same spot where he’d proposed. “What I can’t figure out is why you haven’t told me.”
“Well, I would’ve eventually,” she confessed. “I guess I needed to prepare myself. There is so much about me that is messed up, Anthony.”
They were sitting side by side on the sand, staring out at a crystal blue ocean that didn’t come close to rivaling her eyes.
“I know everything, Christy. I’m pretty sure I know even more than you do.”
She pulled away from him and looked up.
Before she could question him, he said, “I’ve waited more than enough time for you to tell me the real reason you wouldn’t marry me, why you took the birth control pills behind my back, you lied about Litzy being Abby’s mother, about Abby’s paternity. I deserve answers. And I’m not giving you any until you give me some.”
Her eyes went wide. “You knew about the pills? How?”
“I found them the day I talked to Lenny Renquest. I met with him to invite him to the dedication of his daughter’s park. Only to find out he wasn’t Abby’s father. I went home and looked through your shoebox, hoping to find proof that Van was her father.”
Christy gasped, but he kept talking.
“I found six months of pills at the bottom of the box. And I don’t regret for one single second that I snuck one of them to a friend who deals in pharmaceuticals. He was able to replicate your exact pill packages using placebos. I swapped them all out with the fake ones.”
“I suppose I deserved that,” she said quietly.
“And again, I can’t figure out why. Are you going to tell me or keep me in the dark for another three years?”
She stood abruptly and looked down at him.
“Why?” she screamed. “You want to know why? How about because you were right? You were right when you guessed that Van sexually abused me. Repeatedly. My father was my daughter’s father. Do you know how screwed up that sentence is? Do you think that’s something I would want to admit to the man I love?”
Christy’s face was turning red and her hands were balled into fists at her sides.
Let it all out, Owani, he thought. Let it out, baby.
“And can you blame me for not wanting to get pregnant? Not wanting to marry you? I couldn’t risk having another baby that might, that might…” She held up a finger. “One. Die of a serious illness. I can’t lose another child, Anthony. I couldn’t bear for you to go through what I went through when Abby died. It’s a pain you never recover from. There’s no guarantee that our child wouldn’t have the same illness that took Abby’s life.” She then held up a second finger. “Or, two. Give birth to a child who inherits its grandfather’s gene for perversion? The thought of passing any form of Van, or even Vivian, down to a child is revolting. It’s in our family’s blood, Anthony.”
She waited for a reaction from him and braced herself for the revulsion and judgment he wouldn't be able to disguise. All she got was a faint nod that urged her to continue. She was certain that when she revealed the rest, she would be saying goodbye to a future with Anthony Bear. She inhaled deeply, allowing the salty ocean air to fill up her lungs. Releasing a tortured sigh, she continued, "It's not only that I gave birth to my sister. It's so much more than that, Anthony. You have no idea."
Knowing that she couldn’t bear the disgust she would read in his expression, she averted her eyes away from his and shared the rest of her story. She didn't give him time to react as she continued, torment in her voice, "So you see it's not just about Abby. And before you ask me how I know it's true, I heard my grandmother arguing about it with Van." She kicked at the sand and continued, "I was just a kid and I don't know how I ended up at the dealership that day, but a storm broke out and I hid in the closet in Van's office."
“I know, Christy. I know.” He reached for her then and pulled her down onto his lap. “But it still doesn’t explain why you won’t marry me. You could’ve married me and still hid the birth control pills from me.”
She looked up at him with tear-stained cheeks. Shaking her head slowly, she told him, “For no other reason than to give you an easy out when you figured out how screwed up I am. I almost left again after you asked if Van was Abby's father, but you seemed to believe the story I told about Lenny.” She swiped her arm across her face. “I knew you would eventually find all of this out and that I was living out my days with you on borrowed time. I was making it easy on you for when this day came. No messy divorce.”
“Except that you were wrong. There isn’t anything you could tell me that would make me love you less. Not a thing, Christy.”
“You said you already knew.” She hiccuped. “Did Kit tell you?”
“No.” He shook his head. “I paid a visit to an old friend. Someone who’s been around since the beginning. Valerie retired, but she decided to stay in Florida.”
“Valerie?” Christy asked.
“Your grandmother’s administrative assistant,” he quickly added.
“I know who she is, Anthony. I’m just surprised you went to see her.” She glanced toward the ocean, purposely avoiding his eyes. “So, what did she tell you that even I don’t know?” she asked. Her chest ached from crying and her voice came out weak and laced with defeat.
“Everything, Owani.” He paused, and turned her chin upward. Gazing into her eyes, he told her, “She told me everything.”
Chapter Fifty
Naples, Florida 1982
“He is the most beautiful baby I’ve ever laid eyes on. And I can’t figure out who he favors.”
Kit was sitting in a chair next to Christy’s hospital bed. Cradling the newborn to her chest, she smiled up at Christy. “His eyes aren’t blue or brown. I think they’re light gray.”
Christy grinned down at her friend. “I didn’t think he was ever going to come out, Kit. I was worried he was going to get stuck in my birth canal. He’s gigantic.”
“Exactly like his father,” Kit laughed. “Don’t think I haven’t considered the possibility of having some gargantuan babies of my own one day.” Kit’s husband, Grizz, was an inch shorter than Anthony’s six foot six, and just as wide. “Now that I’ve finished up my degree, we’re trying to get pregnant.”
Christy’s eyes shone with excitement. “Oh, I hope it happens soon. Our children could be friends!”
“That would be nice,” Kit told her as she stood up. “I love his name, Christy. It’s so unique and special.” She placed the infant in Christy’s waiting arms. “Slade suits him perfectly.” Kit had been staring at the newborn when her eyes fell on Christy’s left hand. “And marriage suits you as much as motherhood.”
Christy responded with a wide smile.
Kit excused herself to use the restroom leaving Christy alone with her newborn and her thoughts.
Yes, it
does, Christy thought dreamily as she reflected on Kit’s last comment. She thought back to their hasty nuptials. Once she’d agreed to marry Anthony he’d wanted to give her a wedding that every woman would dream of, but she insisted on a quick and private ceremony. She’d already made him wait long enough for her and so they were married at the courthouse by a justice of the peace. Their first picks to act as witnesses would’ve been Nisha and Alexander, but they both knew that was impossible. Christy slowly shook her head as she thought about the life Nisha and Alexander had chosen and even though she couldn’t see her straight-laced, Christian sister-in-law opting for that kind of life, it was proof that perhaps at the end of the day, love does conquer all.
Grizz and Kit weren’t in town, so that left another unusual couple. A couple that were even more mismatched than all the others, including her and Anthony.
Lucy Renquest and Jonas Brooks had been together since right after Christy had Abby’s park dedication. Who’d have thought the extremely intelligent girl who spent her time in a lab trying to cure flesh-eating diseases would’ve ended up with an illiterate, murderous biker who’d won the thousand dollars Anthony had offered to the man who filled up the bucket with the most flesh.
Christy shook her head at the memory at the same time Kit returned followed by a nurse who said it was time to take baby Slade back to the nursery. Christy reluctantly handed him over, and when she looked at Kit, her eyes were watery.
“Oh, Christy. Don’t be upset. They’ll be bringing him back, sweetie. Didn’t you tell me Anthony will be here for his next feeding?”
“It’s not that. Something has been nagging at me for a while.” Christy swallowed thickly and said, “I owe you an apology, Kit.”
Kit slowly shook her head, the surprise on her face evident. “An apology?” she asked. “For what?”
