Blood & Bones: Cage (Blood Fury MC Book 5)

by Jeanne St. James

  “She might do it.”

  “She ain’t doin’ it,” Judge told his cousin. “And if the baby’s his, we’re not talkin’ a week. We’re talkin’ years. Maybe even eighteen.”

  Eighteen.

  Holy fuck.

  Judge wasn’t done. “Anyway, she’s gonna be busy bein’ a grandma if Cassie and I have one.”

  “You thinkin’ about it?” Deacon asked, surprised.

  “Jesus fuck,” Trip barked. “Can we get back on fuckin’ track? I got shit to do besides talkin’ about who’s knockin’ up who.”

  “Yeah, so... Know someone who might be able to give asshole a hand temporarily with the kid since she’s between jobs.”

  All eyes turned toward the club’s sergeant at arms and Cage held his breath. Judge didn’t look too excited about the option he was about to suggest. But Cage was game for anyone who knew what the fuck they were doing.

  Or even someone who kind of knew what they were doing.

  Anyone.

  Because he sure didn’t.

  And he didn’t need the DNA test to come back to know the baby now asleep in Dutch’s arms was his daughter.

  He knew. Deep in his gut.

  She wasn’t temporary. She was here to stay.

  And his father was right. CPS was not getting their claws in his daughter.

  No one was.

  She was blood.

  He’d never abandon his blood. Not like his mother did.

  He would just have to grow a set and play with the hand life just dealt him.

  But still, he needed to wait for the results to be sure. Because his gut instinct had been wrong before.

  Once or twice.

  “Aww, shit,” came from Deacon who stared at his cousin, Judge.

  The big man shook his head, not happy at all.

  “You think she’ll do it?” Deacon asked. “Basically you’re askin’ her to be a house mouse. For that reason alone, she might rip you a new one.”

  “Yeah,” Judge grunted. “That’s why I’ll do it over the phone and not in fuckin’ person. I ain’t dumb like you.”

  Deacon grinned. “Just ‘cause you say it don’t mean it’s true.”

  “Are you talkin’ about who I think you’re talkin’ about?” Trip asked, not hiding his surprise.

  “Who the fuck are you all talkin’ about?” Cage shouted, getting impatient with this secret talk. “Spit it out.”

  Judge’s nostrils flared. “Jemma.”

  Cage blinked. Judge’s baby sister? Last time he saw her, she was like five. Just a baby herself.

  “Ain’t she an RN?” Rook asked.

  “Yeah,” Judge grunted.

  A nurse? She might be perfect.

  “Then why the fuck would she take a spot as a house mouse?” Dutch groused.

  Fuck, Cage knew it was too good to be true. His father was right.

  “Normally, she wouldn’t,” Judge answered. “But like I said, she’s between jobs and was talkin’ to Lottie about comin’ home for a bit ‘til she finds somethin’ else.”

  “What the fuck happened to her job she had in...” Dutch tilted his head. “Where was it?”

  Judge snorted. “The last one? Cleveland.”

  Dutch made a disgusted face and spat on the ground. “Cleveland. Fuckin’ suck-ass Browns. They need a real football team.”

  “Christ, can we stay on topic?” Trip barked. “Think Jemma will do it? What happened to her job?”

  Deacon smirked. “She was workin’ with Doctor Handsy and he made the mistake of cornerin’ her in a closet.”

  “Fuck,” Rook groaned behind Cage.

  “Oh yeah,” Deacon said with a grin which quickly turned into a grimace. “Someone got their nads knocked out of alignment.”

  “Fuck!” Rook groaned louder.

  Then everyone took an automatic moment of silence in memory of it happening to them. Not one of them there didn’t know what it felt like when their nuts got knocked hard enough to make them crumple to the ground. Maybe even whimper a bit, too. Once they could breathe.

  “What the fuck? She got fired for protectin’ herself?” Whip asked behind Judge.

  “Doctor owned the hospice center.”

  “Hospice?” Cage asked. “What she know about babies?”

  “More than you, asshole,” Judge told him.

  Cage couldn’t argue that. And beggars couldn’t be choosy. Or however that saying went. “When she comin’ home?”

  “Was ridin’ out her last month’s rent where she was, while puttin’ out resumes in Cleveland hopin’ somethin’ came up in the meantime. She only planned on comin’ home if nothin’ panned out.”

  “Can I afford her?”

  Judge snorted. “A mechanic payin’ for an RN? Fuck no. She’s gonna have to do it as a favor while job huntin’.”

  “A favor to who?” Cage hardly knew her. He’d seen her a few times when she was just a little slip of a kid but that was it. They didn’t go to the same school or hang with the same crowd growing up. He couldn’t imagine she’d do a favor for him.

  “Guess to me. And then you’ll owe me a fuckin’ favor.” Judge lifted one eyebrow. “A big one. That’s if we don’t skin the fuckin’ colors off your back for fuckin’ up.”

  It might be worth owing the big guy a big favor because, right now, Cage was in way over his head. In fact, he was sitting at the bottom of the deep end of a pool holding a cinder block. And the baby had only appeared a few hours ago. He had a feeling things wouldn’t get better, but only worse.

  “But ain’t havin’ her come home early ‘til you know this kid’s yours. ‘Cause if she ain’t, the state will probably take her.”

  Nobody said anything for a long moment as they all considered the truth Judge said last. Most of the men standing near the picnic table had shitty childhoods, no one wished that shit on anyone, especially an innocent baby. Not if it could be avoided.

  “Just let me know as soon as you do,” Judge said.

  Cage nodded, his lips pressed together. He had no idea what he was going to do in the meantime.

  “Then once we know,” Trip began, “gonna call an exec meetin’ and deal with the broken rule.” He looked at Cage. “You won’t be in this one. Judge will let you know the consequences after we vote on it.”

  “I got any say in it?” he asked Trip.

  “If you did, you’d be sittin’ at the table with us when we decide.”

  Fuck. “Just wanna keep my colors. Sig’s wasn’t stripped. I expect the same.”

  “Not up to you,” Judge growled.

  “Road captain’s the easiest position to fill,” Trip reminded him. “Shoulda kept that in mind while you were bustin’ a nut in someone you knew was off limits.”

  “And speakin’ of off limits, just a reminder that Reilly and Saylor are off limits, too,” Judge said, first looking at Rook over Cage’s shoulder, Cage himself, then behind him at Whip and Rev. Though, Saylor was Rev’s baby sister, so the younger biker’s warning only applied to Reilly. “Picture them in those bonnets and black dresses.”

  A snort came from Dutch.

  “It’s a Kapp,” Sig corrected him.

  Judge’s eyebrows shot up his forehead. “Info I don’t give a fuck about. And neither should anyone else with a dick in this group.”

  Trip clapped his hands together once. “All right, got shit to do. Like make some fuckin’ money for this club so you all can eat, wipe your ass with more than one-ply toilet paper, and can get fucked up on whiskey and beer every weekend. And so do the rest of you. Let’s get to it.” He planted his fists on the table and leaned into them to go eye to eye with Cage. He lowered his voice. “Text us the second you hear. Then we’ll deal with it.”

  “Yeah.”

  Dutch rose from his seat. “All right, you knuckleheads, you’ve fucked off enough for the day. Those fuckin’ vehicles ain’t gonna fix themselves.”

  Whip, Rook and Rev headed into the garage through the back door, while
Deacon, Judge and Trip headed around the corner and out the front gate.

  Then it was just the two of them left, his father and him. Well, officially, three with the baby.

  Dutch stared at him for a long, uncomfortable minute. Cage braced himself for another whack upside the head. He couldn’t guarantee he wouldn’t strike back this time if his father tried it.

  “You ain’t workin’ today. Your job for the next few days, ‘til you figure out what the fuck’s goin’ on, is to take care of this kid. Ask Cassie for advice if you gotta. But get it from somewhere. I ain’t gonna raise this girl for you. I ain’t gonna be gettin’ up in the middle of the fuckin’ night to feed or change her. You are. No one else. You did somethin’ really fuckin’ stupid and now you might end up payin’ for it for a long fuckin’ time. Gonna get Rook to grab some of your shit from the bunkhouse and bring it over to the house. You can stay there ‘til we find out if it was your swimmer that made this baby. And when we find out it did, ‘cause I’m pretty fuckin’ sure that’d be your fuckin’ luck, then we’re gonna deal with findin’ you a place of your own. But dockin’ you a day’s pay for every day you don’t work. You also owe me for all the shit Reilly bought. And what she got ain’t everythin’ you’re gonna need. Havin’ this kid’s gonna cost you. Not just talkin’ about money, either. Your life’s just been changed forever.”

  Cage hadn’t heard a speech like that from his father in a long time. The speech he gave him and Rook after Bebe left hadn’t been that long. In fact, it had only been a couple sentences, if he included the grunts.

  Dutch shook his head, took a deep inhale, then turned to go inside. Just as he was reaching for the door, Cage called out, “Dad.”

  Dutch only turned his head as he waited.

  “Thanks.”

  His father said nothing and just went inside, slamming the door shut behind him.

  Chapter Four

  Cage ran down the hallway, something heavy bouncing against his legs trying to trip him up. All he knew was, he had to get back there and quickly. Otherwise, he’d be too late.

  He couldn’t be late.

  He couldn’t be left behind.

  If he was, he’d be forgotten.

  When he got to the bedroom, it was already empty.

  She was gone.

  “Wait, Mom. I’m going with you!” he screamed as he tore back down the hallway toward the front door, dragging the bag behind him. “Don’t leave! Please!”

  His full bag became heavier with each step, slowing him down.

  “Mom! Don’t leave without me!”

  The burden was suddenly so heavy, he couldn’t pull it anymore. He tried to drop it so he could run and catch her, but he couldn’t let it go. His hand was somehow stuck to it.

  He tugged and tugged, but the bag would no longer move.

  He fell to his knees, unable to control his sobbing. “Mom! Don’t you want me anymore?”

  With another garbled shout of “Mom!” Cage jackknifed up in bed, his heart racing, his forehead beaded with sweat, his vision unfocused.

  He blinked a couple times until it hit him where he was and what woke him.

  He was in a bedroom at his father’s place.

  He took a few deep inhales as he dragged his hands down his face.

  “Jesus fuck,” he whispered shakily. He snagged his cell phone off the charger next to the bed and hit the side button to light it up.

  Two am.

  A soft cry came from the corner of the room temporarily turned into a spare bedroom. His head twisted in that direction and he cursed Google for being right. Babies ate a fucking lot.

  He groaned and kicked off the bedding.

  He’d gotten shit sleep for the past three nights. He was fucking exhausted and he hadn’t even gone to work all week.

  How could babies be so fucking exhausting? They slept, shit and ate. That was it.

  He rolled out of bed with another groan and, without even looking in the thing Cassie called a bassinet, he headed out the door and into his father’s small galley kitchen.

  He automatically went through the motions of preparing a bottle and making sure the formula wasn’t too hot, then he bare-footed it back to the room.

  Yep, she was still crying, but now sounded pissed.

  “At least I’m not the only one fuckin’ annoyed,” he told her as he placed the bottle on the little table next to the bed and went over to scoop up the baby.

  Who the fuck would want to have a kid on purpose? He felt like a slave to this baby.

  He carefully climbed back on the bed with the baby now wrapped in one of the baby blankets Stella had dropped off, along with some other shit.

  Both Cassie and Stella had given him pointers, cooed over the baby, then left with smirks on their faces as soon as they could.

  They both had also voted no on naming the baby Duchess or Harley. He agreed with them on the first, not on the second.

  He settled the infant against his chest and grabbed the bottle. She already started to “root” against his bare skin. They said it was a sign she was hungry.

  He had thought the sign was all the crying she did.

  He stroked the baby’s cheek with his fingertip to let her know the bottle was coming, then tucked the nipple between her little pink bowed lips. Thank fuck she latched on immediately this time. He tilted the bottle up to avoid the air the women warned him about. Once she was sucking strongly, he sighed.

  He was tempted to lean his head back and close his eyes. But if he did that, he knew he’d be out instantly, especially with her warm body snuggled against him.

  He needed to keep his mind active and awake. He wedged her into the seam of his thighs, bending his knees slightly, and with one hand on the bottle to keep it in place, he snagged his phone with the other. He placed it on his thigh next to her and scrolled through his email until he spotted one he hadn’t noticed the last time he fed her.

  What the hell? How had he missed that?

  Exhaustion, that was fucking how.

  His heart lodged in his throat and a ringing filled his ears as he read the subject line. Paternity Results for Baby Dietrich.

  Baby Dietrich.

  Fuck.

  His gaze bounced from his phone to the nursing baby, who stared up at him as her little lips were busy.

  “Christ, monkey, this is it. What I’m about to read decides what happens to you from here.”

  His finger hovered over the lab’s email. He closed his eyes, took a breath, then when he opened them, he tapped the email and it popped up to fill his screen. He skipped all the bullshit at the top, the column with the heading child, the column with the heading alleged father, and each column consisting of a bunch of numbers called alleles...

  Then found the most important part. What he needed to know.

  What they all needed to know.

  What would determine this baby’s future. His, too.

  The unbearable pressure in his head began to throb.

  Thanks to Reilly, he heard Maury Povich’s voice as his brain deciphered what his eyes skimmed over, which was the interpretation at the very bottom in bold:

  Probability of Paternity: 99.9998%

  He blinked and read it again, just in case he misread it. Then the little voice in his brain said, “Hey, it’s not one hundred percent! There’s still a slight chance she’s not yours.”

  Right?

  He could ask Google if that was true, but he’d asked the search engine so many damn questions in the last few days that the Google lady was no longer speaking to him.

  He pushed the button on the side of the phone, anyway, hoping the Google lady had at least one more answer for him for a very important question. “Google, now what?”

  Of course, the only answer he got was silence.

  He guessed it was better than hearing, “You’re fucked,” in an emotionless computer voice.

  He dropped his head back against the wall and stared up at the dark ceiling.

  His
father’s words slammed him directly in the chest. Your life’s just been changed forever.

  He could still take the easy route and give her up for adoption. He could.

  Red did it with Levi.

  And Sarah gave up her daughter.

  People gave their kids up every fucking day.

  Maybe like Levi, she’d have a better life elsewhere. Not be stuck with a father like him. A man who wasn’t ready to be a father.

  A father who didn’t have a fucking clue.

  “Sorry I’m your dad, monkey. I didn’t ask for this. Know you didn’t, either.”

  When she stopped suckling, he put the bottle aside on the table and lifted her to his chest to burp her using one of the methods Cassie showed him.

  When a tiny burp escaped, he kept her there, against his shoulder, rubbing her back in her little onesie that had the Harley Davidson emblem on the front and Crawl. Walk. Ride. on the back.

  She was so fucking vulnerable. So fucking innocent. So unaware of the turmoil surrounding her arrival.

  Her mother didn’t want her. Just like his didn’t want him.

  He couldn’t give her up. He couldn’t walk away from her.

  He couldn’t do that.

  She wasn’t a mistake he could ignore or erase.

  Blood was supposed to be thicker than water. That was how the saying went, right?

  And they were blood.

  She was his.

  No matter what, she was a piece of him.

  The weight of his future was pressed against his chest. But he had no fucking clue where to go from here.

  Your life’s just been changed forever echoed through his head.

  Cage dropped the empty bottle into the sink with the rest of them. Someone needed to wash those bottles so he had some to use.

  This kid never stopped eating.

  He glanced at the clock on the stove. Six-twenty.

  Christ. He’d gotten no sleep after reading that email.

  Worse, he needed to give Trip and Judge the results. But it was too early yet.

  He also needed to tell his dad.

  And Rook.

  And, fuck, everyone.