But the fact is, even if I could form some kind of bond with Draven, I never could with Maria. She'd get hurt. I wouldn't be able to stand it. It's a damn pattern with me. I won't love her, she's safer if I don't.
“You are the best brother anyone could ask for, nothing will ever change between us, Hammer, nothing. You can have a relationship with them, I will still be here, big brother.”
“I didn't expect you to react this way, Tank. When did you become so understanding?”
He laughs. “Always, you prick! But the truth is, I started looking at things a lot differently the day Ember came into my life.”
I scrub my hands over my tired face. “Why the hell should I give them a chance? I like my life the way it is, I ain't got room for nothing else.”
“That's bullshit and you know it! Is this what I should have said? I can't take Ember on because I like my life the way it is?”
“Of course not.”
“Then don't think that way about people who share your blood. Yes, Vidal is a vile cunt who cares for nothing, will kill you soon as look at you. But what he does care about is his family. Maria, Avery, you. I betcha anything Willow is included in that, and that baby inside of her. And you know what that means?”
I shrug.
“It means nothing can happen to her or your baby. Any man so much as looks at her and Vidal will kill them. He's untouchable, Hammer. He is literally untouchable. Anyone comes for you, for us, Vidal will deal with them, just like he's dealing with the shit storm happening right now.”
He has a point, even if it is using Draven for my own gains.
But why the hell shouldn't I? He has everything and everyone under his control, cops, judges, politicians. You name it, they work for him. Even if it's not always willingly. Money and power talk.
It wouldn't hurt me or the club to have him on side. If he was, we'd be just as untouchable.
“You're right, little brother.”
“I ain't the only one who's a little brother anymore.” He smirks, makes me laugh. God knows I don't laugh enough.
“Thanks, man. For everything.”
“Ain't nothing to thank me for, big brother.”
There's a lot to thank you for, Tank. More than you know.
Chapter Nineteen
Willow
I wish I could say things have gotten back to normal over the past week. I wish I could say my man wasn't out there fighting the people who threatened us, but I can't. Yes, we may be back home now, because Dad believes we're safe enough thanks to Draven Vidal and his help, but I'm still living alone in the house I shared with Jordan. I guess Hammer still stays at the clubhouse because he certainly doesn't stay here with me.
I feel like I've lost him already. He said he wanted to marry me, to be a father to our baby, but now I feel like he only said it for the sake of saying it.
I know I'm making a mountain out of a molehill, I'm sure he's busy with club business, helping his newfound brother deal with things, but it doesn't stop me feeling abandoned.
It's crazy. Sam Marshall, brother of Don Draven Vidal. I still can't get my head around it.
I suppose it means we're now under Draven's protection, but I'm not sure my dad likes that. He's always prided himself on taking care of his own business, the club, his family. He'll just have to get used to it. Now that Draven knows Hammer is his brother, there's no way he'll ever not look out for him. Even if Hammer tells him that he doesn't need or want it, Draven will still look out for him from afar.
I've been doing a lot of thinking this week, about Cindy mainly. I miss her so much. I miss the talks we used to have, the nights we'd spend watching movies while covering our faces in crap and relaxing, laughing at anything and everything.
Aren't young women supposed to go out almost every night and drink themselves stupid?
I've never been that girl.
Don't get me wrong, I used to go out dancing and having fun with my friends, I wasn't a total bore. But I'd be a liar if I said I didn't prefer to stay at home. It's not like I've ever really been a big drinker. I know you don't need alcohol to have a good time, but it sure helps.
I don't think this guilt is ever going to go away, nor will the feeling that I'm a poor substitute for my best friend.
How ridiculous is that?
But what my dad said about Cindy walking through the door and Hammer dropping me even if it meant he'd get just one more minute with Cindy has stuck in my head.
I don't want it there, the thought is horrible. But since we found out about the baby, it seems Hammer can't bear to be near me. I know I've been ill, but I'm fine now. He hasn't touched me since before I was sick, not even to kiss my cheek.
He calls me every day to see how I am, tells me he loves me before he hangs up, even pops by in the evening after I finish work, but he doesn't stay more than half an hour. There's always somewhere he has to be. Somewhere I'm not.
I think it's worse tonight because we argued.
Can you believe that?
Hammer and I argued.
I asked him why he wouldn't stay here with me.
His excuse, ‘I have things to do Willow.’
So I asked, ‘What's so important that you can't spend one night with me? You haven't in almost two weeks.’
His response, ‘You knew what it meant being with me, Will. Hell, you've spent your life around bikers, you know full well we're hardly home.’ Which is bullshit. My dad was home every night unless something big was going down, so I didn't buy it.
I said something that made him yell. Something silly, something I don't even remember now. But I won't be spoken to or yelled at like I'm nothing!
So I gave him a piece of my mind. We yelled back and forth. I screamed how he's avoiding me because of the baby, that if he doesn't want to be a father, then he should just leave.
I shouldn't have said it, but I was angry. It seemed he was deliberately trying to piss me off.
His reply was the last thing I expected. ‘Jesus Christ! I never got this shit from Cindy, at least she knew what being with me meant! She knew how to support me when I needed it. She didn't stand around yellin' her head off like a spoiled child!’
It hurt me so much. It just cemented in my mind what my dad said. Hammer would walk away from me in a heartbeat if Cindy walked through that door.
‘Baby, I didn't mean that.’ He looked mortified with himself, but he'd said it and there was no taking it back.
He reached out to grab my hand. I held mine up and backed away from him. ‘Yes, you did,’ I told him. ‘You meant it, and I know now that I will never mean as much to you as she did.’
‘That's not true, Will. I love you. I love you so much.’
‘Maybe,’ I smiled slightly. I was done fighting. ‘But the fact remains that you're still in love with Cindy, and nothing you say now will ever convince me otherwise.’
He stood there shaking his head, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water.
‘I love you, Sam. I have always loved you. I loved Cindy, she was my best friend. I miss her every day, and I know you do too. I would never ask you to forget what she meant to you or how much you loved her. But I won't play second best to a woman who is no longer here.’
I felt the tears clogging my throat, but none fell from my eyes, I held strong. I just wanted him to tell me I wrong, that I wasn't second best.
But that didn't happen.
He raked his fingers through his hair angrily, cursed under his breath, and walked away from me. Again!
I didn't cry. I won't. What good would that do me? He's not over Cindy, he never was and never will be. I gave myself to a man who will always be in love with a woman long since passed. Now I'm pregnant with his child and have no clue what the hell I'm going to do.
I don't know how I ended up here, I was going to see my mother, but somehow, I'm sitting beside Cindy's grave in the private cemetery owned by the club. A beautiful statue of an angel with huge wings looms above her grave. It's
packed with flowers like always. Coral has been here recently. I bet she came to tell Cindy her good news. She's pregnant also. A little further along than I am, but I am happy for her and Stryker, they've wanted this for so long now.
Cindy would have made the perfect aunt. She never wanted children of her own, but she always said how she couldn't wait for Coral to have a child for her to love and spoil.
Coral always puts down yellow roses. I always bring pink. Roses were Cindy's favorite flower, yellow her favorite color. Coral comes here at least once a week and has since Cindy was laid to rest. Their parents never come, they find it too hard. They couldn't forgive the club for what happened to their daughter. No one could blame them. They also can't forgive Coral for not leaving Stryker and going home with them.
In their minds, they'd suffered too much at the hands of bikers. Especially as Coral was kidnapped and raped by a pedophile when she was twelve, a biker no less. They moved away to California soon after. A few years later Coral came home and fell in love with Stryker. Her parents came to her wedding after they had a massive heart to heart.
Then Cindy went and fell in love with Hammer and was killed just a few short months later. Her parents blamed Hammer for it. Of course, they did, but it wasn't his fault. They refused to allow Cindy to be buried here, they wanted her cremated so they could take her ashes back home. So when we say that Cindy was laid to rest here, she wasn't. But this is her resting place, a place for everyone who loved her to come and talk to her.
Coral did take some of Cindy's ashes and put them in a small box, which is buried here. Cindy is here in some way, even if it's just a sprinkling of ash.
Coral's parents tried to force her to leave with them. I understood their fear at leaving her here with the club. But Coral refused to leave. She wouldn't leave her husband, nor would she blame Hammer for what happened to Cindy. Her parents were hurt and told her that they could no longer be a part of her life should she choose to stay here. And she did stay here.
Of course, they came around, they would never really abandon their daughter. But they don't come here, Coral visits them.
I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have my mother close by. I don't think I would have coped with any of what happened to me without her. Yes, I'm strong, I can survive anything. But my mother is my rock, I'd be lost without her.
My eyes wander to the huge bouquet of white roses to the left of Cindy's grave. They're fresh. I know who put them there without reading the card attached. But read it I do. I take the small card in my hand and read it to myself.
There won't be a day that goes by where I don't miss your smiling face, your warm words, your love.
There won't be a day that goes by where I don't think about you.
There won't be a day that goes by where I don't thank you for the strength you brought me, even in your passing.
You will always be in my heart. H.
I close my eyes and let the words swim around my mind. More proof that I will never match up, never be enough. He still loves her. He never has been and never will be truly mine. I was his stand-in for the woman he loves. My father was right, I'll never be enough.
It probably sounds like I'm jealous of my dead best friend. I'm not. If I could bring her back, I would. Even if that meant losing the man I love. I would stand back and smile with a happy heart because my best friend would be right here with me, and I wouldn't feel this pain inside of me.
“I came here to ask you something, my darling best friend. I came to ask you to watch over my baby. Mine and Hammer's baby. I know you're up there smiling down on me, knowing that I'm having his child. Because of how much love you have in your heart for us, I know you’re happy.
“I'm frightened, Cindy. I'm really frightened that this baby won't survive. I don't know why I feel this way, but lately, everything seems to be going wrong. I love Hammer, Cindy. I really do. He says he loves me, I don't doubt it, but I'm not enough for him.
“I never wanted to take your place,” I tell my best friend. I know she's up there listening to me. “I know you always knew how I felt about him, even when I denied it. I loved you enough to let you love him, for him to love you. Because you and I, we were just those kind of friends, weren't we? It didn't matter to us as long as the other was happy. But he still loves you, Cindy. He loves you so much, and he's still in pain. Losing you has never left him.”
I drag in a ragged breath. This hurts so much.
“I don't want him to forget you, because the Lord knows I never will. I don't even want him to stop loving you, but in loving you still, I fear he's only living a half-life. How do I bring him back to life, Cindy? God, I wish you were here to tell me what to do. I wish I knew how to heal his heart and make him whole again.”
“You already did.” I jump out of my skin and turn my head. How did I not sense him behind me? How did he even know I was here? He crouches down on his haunches beside me, just looking at me. “What's going on, Will?”
I shrug before taking a deep breath in through my nose and out through my mouth. I just need to be honest with him. “I'm sorry, Hammer, for everything. I know how hard this has been for you. I know how much you still love her, and I'm sorry that I've trapped you.”
“Trapped me?” He tips his head to the side and looks at me curiously.
“With the baby.” I shrug again. “I know you only asked me to be your old lady so I'd go to the safe house. You didn't need to do that, I would have been fine. I know you only asked me to marry you because of the baby. And I know that if there was a chance that Cindy could come back, even for a day, you'd be with her.”
He narrows his eyes.
But I'm not done yet. I need to get this out of my system, I won't let it fester. That won't do me any good. If I've learned anything from almost dying it's never to bottle things up.
“Cindy was my best friend, Hammer, the best I ever had, and I miss her just as much as you do. I never want you to forget her or stop loving her. But as much as I love her, I can't be second best to her. She's gone, and she's not coming back. No matter how hard we might wish for it.”
He doesn't say anything. He gets to his feet, then grabs my hands and hauls me to my feet in front of him. He doesn't let go of my hands, just looks me right in the eye. “First off, I'm sorry for what I said to you earlier, it was unforgivable. Secondly, you could never be second best. Yes, I will always love Cindy in my own way. I'll miss a lot about her. Like you said, she was your best friend, but she was mine also.”
I nod my head. I knew all of that. Cindy was a friend to everyone. Literally.
He cups my face with his big hand, and I'm lost in his eyes. This giant of a man whom I love more than life itself.
“When I told you that I loved you, I meant it, Willow. You are my best friend, my one true love, my soulmate.” A tear slips from my eye. How can he say that to me? “When Cindy was alive, you were always there for both of us. No matter how much it hurt you to see me with her, you never showed it. You made sure she knew how happy you were for her. When she died, you were the one who held me up, made sure I ate, showered, got up in the morning, didn't drink myself to death. You were the one who showed me that what happened to her wasn't my fault. And I want you to know that it wasn't yours either, and I want you to believe it because Cindy would never blame you.”
He knows me a little too well it would seem.
“You were the only one who could get through to me, Will. Not even Tank could. You never gave up on me when I tried to push you away, you just pushed back and showed me how to live again.
“When you were taken, when they did what they did to you, when I watched that motherfucker cut your throat, when I held on until the last moment, when I thought I'd lose you,” He looks up to the sky for a second, taking a deep breath. He's trying to pull back his emotions, it makes me cry more.
When he looks at me again, he takes my face in his hands and wipes away my tears with his thumbs. “There are no words to describe what it did
to me, Will. Yeah, I thought I'd die when Cindy was killed. But I didn't because I had you to keep me grounded. Seeing you like that, I knew if you'd died, then I wouldn't be able to go on living.”
“Please don't say that.”
“It's true. If I'd lost you, I would have gone with you, because you are the one I cannot live without. It was you all along, Will. Cindy knew that, she told me often enough.”
She told me the same thing. But never once did she yell. Never once did she ask me to stay away from them. Never once did she show any kind of jealousy toward me being in Hammer's life.
She was a special kind of friend. One who only comes along once in a lifetime. I was humbled by her. She was an angel on earth.
“I honestly believe she helped me keep you alive that day. I felt her presence as I held your throat in my hand. I felt her hand on top of mine, giving me strength, her words in my ear as she told me how she'd never leave you or me, that she loved us and she'd keep us safe.”
More tears fall from my eyes. I believe what he's saying because I heard her in my dreamy state after I woke up. I saw her in my dreams when I slept. She told me how she'd always be looking down on me, that she wanted me to be happy, and to never give up on Hammer because he needed me more than he knew.
After what he just told me about Cindy giving him the strength to keep me alive, I know what I saw and heard happened. She really is looking down on us, keeping us safe, loving us from afar. She wants us to love each other, she wants us to move forward together, she really is happy for us.
I love you, Cindy. My beautiful best friend.
“Everything in this life happens for a reason, Will. I can't say what would've happened if Cindy was still here. Yes, I would have married her, we would've had a life together. Could I honestly say that I wouldn't have realized that I was in love with you? No, I can't. Because the truth is, I think I've been in love with you for many years. It just took me until now to realize it.”
All For You (Snakes Henchmen MC Book 2) Page 17
