“Knox,” she called. “Wait! It’s me.”
“Roxanne?” he whispered in disbelief, swallowed up by the darkness.
“Let’s get off the pathway,” she suggested, rubbing her arms at the chill in the air. She wore a snuggly fleece bed jacket that offered some warmth, but her silk pajamas weren’t much of a barrier, especially her legs.
“I refuse to hide like I’m a damn boy,” he told her, still at a distance. He hadn’t come any closer. “I’m sick of this. I don’t want to sneak around anymore, like we had to do yesterday.”
Roxy sighed. Motherfuckers and their egos. Getting pussy-blocked was damn annoying, but, after she stewed over Mortician’s explanation, she found it funny and a little endearing that he was going through all this trouble to protect her.
“We can get another quick forest fuck,” she suggested.
“No.”
The one word came out terse and final. Counting to ten, Roxy told herself to stay calm. Knox had every right to be so put out.
“Why don’t we go to the club house and get a cup of coffee?” she asked as sweet as can be. “I can meet you there. I’ll throw some clothes on and start breakfast early.”
He released an irritated sigh. “Are you sure Mortician will allow you to—”
“I understand you’re frustrated,” she broke in. “But it’s kind of funny, too. The boy is going through so much trouble…” Her voice trailed off and the little voice in her head that made her confront Mortician yesterday and insisted there was a method to his madness rose up. The one thing Mort wasn’t was a fucking hypocrite. As distasteful as the thought was, both he and Roxy knew he’d fucked Bailey before they were married, then acted like a pure ‘D’ fool afterwards. A grade-A ass…A…Roxy’s train of thought slipped away.
She hated how much she forgot. Her oncologist insisted she’d had very strong chemotherapy, and was still taking another type of strong chemotherapy, so side effects were to be expected.
“Roxanne, why did you stop me if you have nothing to say that I want to hear?”
“Knox—”
“You promised me you’d find a way for us to be together. Yet, you find Mortician’s bullshit endearing.”
Her hackles rose at how he sneered the word. “I did find a way for us to be together yesterday.”
Knox ignored her. “Why the fuck are you allowing his high-handedness?”
“I told you—” she started.
“Excuse me, but I don’t believe you. You’re the first person to tell someone to fuck off. You’ve done it to me. You’ve done it to my mother. Everyone, except Outlaw and Mortician. What gives, Roxanne?”
Roxy sighed. “I miss you as much as you miss me, sugar. But protecting me is important to him, Knox. He’s a good man. Let’s just go along with him to put him at ease.”
After hearing from Joyner, she knew it also went back to how many times she’d been married—and divorced. It stemmed from Duke’s words—how he saw her. Each day a new fear rose up; a new concern that marrying Knox wasn’t the best idea. She couldn’t get over her fear that she would ruin a good thing if she married Knox.
His uppityness didn’t help. Roxy had only to look at Kendall, and how unhappy she stayed because she could never find her place in the club. Thought herself above everyone.
Knox was the same way. And his mother was the worst bitch in the world, which really didn’t help matters.
“Maybe, I want to see how well you fit in at the club. Those boys are my family. I don’t want you to decide you’ve made a mistake after our vows, Knox.”
He released a bitter laugh. “I told you that wouldn’t happen when you first mentioned this to me. Obviously, you don’t believe me. You think that little of me?”
“Of course not,” she protested. “I love you very much. That’s just the point. Think about Kendall. The child is so unhappy because she doesn’t think she’s on the same level as Meggie and any of the other women.”
“She isn’t,” Knox told her. “However, I resent the comparison.”
Revealing herself to Knox had been a mistake. She hadn’t been able to sleep, so she’d decided to go stand on her landing for a little fresh air.
She’d been relishing the serenity of damp earth smells, barren trees, and cold air and missing Knox with everything in her. Since he’d moved to the club, she hadn’t slept well. Surrounded by quietness, she’d heard the banging on Mortician and Bailey’s front door. Two guards, who’d not so long returned to duty, after sleeping in the garage, rushed from their posts around her quarters. They weren’t alarmed, so Roxy’s suspicions had roused. She’d casually invited them in for coffee since it had already been brewing, then told them she needed to talk to Bailey.
Getting away, she’d quickly run to find Knox. She didn’t expect to find an argument.
“Roxanne, if all you’re going to do is stand there and stare at me, I will take my leave. I have nothing more to say to you, until you tell me what I want to hear.”
“What about what I want to hear, Knox?” she snapped, frustrated by his attitude, He took offense at everything the boys did.
“And what might that be?” he sneered. “Maybe, how I’m fed up with Mortician’s interference? Or, maybe, that I’m sick of hearing you tell me why you have to keep a purple fucking Navigator? It has ignorant trash written all over it. Just like Outlaw is.”
“Wait a goddamn minute, Knox. Don’t bring Outlaw into this when he’s not here to defend himself. As for Mortician, what the fuck did you say or do to make him even think of this stupid shit?”
Knox reddened, the flush creeping from his neck and into his face spreading like a poison ivy rash.
“Confess now, motherfucker, or forever hold your peace,” she demanded.
He huffed out a breath. “Fine. I didn’t want to propose to you! They forced me to do it. Why pay for something that I was getting for free? I regret asking for your hand, given your allegiance to them and not to me.”
Roxanne listened to Knox’s bitter words and let them sink in. He must’ve been some kind of a motherfucker in his refusal to marry her if Mortician had gone through the trouble of making sure they lived apart until after the wedding. “What kind of a motherfucker let another motherfucker force them to do shit they don’t want to do?” she snarled. “Cuz, motherfucker, if your fucking ass didn’t want to marry me, all you had to do was say so. Instead, you propose to me out of what? Fear? Pity? Just why the fuck did your ass propose, Knox?”
“Oh, so I’m Knox again and not motherfucker, huh?”
“Answer the goddamn question!” she ordered. “As far as I’m fucking concerned you can be Santa Claus.”
“Yeah, exactly,” Knox shot back. “That’s what I am to you. Santa Claus. You saw me and you saw money. You saw a younger man you wanted to lead around by his dick and force your degenerate friends on, thinking I’d just jump to your wishes. I’m sure it comes as a surprise to you, Cougar, that this cub has a brain of his own. I fucking resent having to follow another man’s wishes and that’s all I’ve been doing for weeks where you’re concerned. Well, it stops now. Either you’re doing this my way or I’m out. You can live the rest of your life in wretched loneliness, without me or my money.”
As Knox’s tirade ended, Roxy saw light beginning to filter through the trees. That meant, if she saw him, he saw her. Her devastation. Her humiliation.
Her tears.
Try as she might, she couldn’t withstand the onslaught of Knox’s venom. What little self-worth she had after Duke had finished with her, the man in front of her, the man she loved so completely, destroyed what was left.
He narrowed his eyes. “My way,” he started, “includes you signing a prenup. Another issue Mortician had, as if it is any of his business. He wouldn’t know what to do with wealth. He’d squander it on you and Bailey.”
Roxy blinked and swiped at the tears sliding down her face. She’d lick her wounds later. At the moment, she had to put a motherfucker in
his place.
“First of fucking all, fuck you. I wouldn’t fucking marry you if my goddamn life depended on it. Second, it’s nobody’s fault but your dumb ass that you didn’t have the fucking nuts to tell Mortician you wouldn’t marry me.”
“How could I when that psychopath was there, threatening my life in tandem with the rest of those criminals?” He stepped closer to her. “It was a fucking conspiracy. You knew I’d never marry you as long as you stooped low enough to drive the car Outlaw gifted to you, so you got to them and had them threaten me, bully me, into marrying you.”
“Back the fuck off me, Knox,” she told him, refusing to budge. He’d invaded her space.
He stood taller. “And what’s going to happen if I don’t?” he sneered. “You’re going to call one of your guard dogs? Hmmm? Or what? Cry louder since your silent tears aren’t working? Get down on your knees and beg me to move?”
“The day I beg you, motherfucker, is the day Satan rises from hell and shoves his pitchfork up your fucking dick. I don’t have to call one motherfucker to protect me because I’m perfectly capable of protecting myself.” She threw him a look, then yanked the engagement ring he’d given to her off her finger. “As to all that other shit you think you know, I’m not bothering to educate you. I have a good fifty years of living left and I don’t intend to spend it schooling you on shit you know nothing of. Besides, it would be a waste of my breath like your goddamn brain is a waste of your head space.” She held the ring out to him. It took everything in her not to release a heartbroken sob. “Take it, Knox.” Her voice wobbled, so she paused and cleared her throat. “I don’t want to marry you. As a matter of fact, I never want to lay eyes on your uppity ass again.”
He stared at her as if he’d never seen her. Suddenly, his beautiful amber eyes widened and the color dropped from his face.
“Roxanne,” he started, holding his hands up. “I didn’t mean—”
“Stop, Knox. Just stop. You meant every fucking word you said, otherwise you wouldn’t have said it.”
“No,” he protested, shaking his head. “No. I’m just…I’m just…I love you. I miss you.”
“Either you’re a fucking fool or you think I am,” Roxy spat, dropping her hand since Knox refused to take the ring. “I get enough of that bullshit from Duke. I don’t need it from you, too.”
“I’ve never called you ignorant.”
“A fucking oversight on your part, since you implied it by talking about my ride. You did call me a gold-digging, lonely, criminally-minded, old bitch.”
“Roxanne—”
“Shut the fuck up, Knox. I’m not interested in hearing anything you have to say ever again. Even if you hadn’t called me those names—”
“I didn’t call you anything of the kind.”
She glared at him and huffed out a breath. “Excuse me. Even if you hadn’t implied those things about me, I wouldn’t marry you because I would never sign a fucking prenup. So anyway it goes, take your fucking ring and shove it.”
Instead of holding it out to him again, she shoved it in his shirt pocket, turned on her heel, and marched away.
“Roxanne, wait!” Knox called. “Please. I’m begging you.”
Flipping him off, she walked on, and vowed to forget the day she’d ever met Knox Harrington.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Bitter cold threatened to swallow him up and freeze his body just as his heart had frozen. Blackness surrounded him, except for one, pristine white glimmer. The shine gleamed through the darkness of the black décor—walls, floors, seat covers, even clothing.
It struck Christopher then. Other people were there, sitting in the pews, faces grief-stricken and silent. He saw them in monotone vignettes, as if the edges of the scene refused to fully crystallize.
As if the reality of the situation was too unbearable.
Nothing made sense. Not the vicious temperature that seemed only to touch him. Wasn’t his boy in black shorts, sandals, and a summer T-shirt? Didn’t Rebel have on a summer dress?
Didn’t Meg…Christopher squinted. Where was she? He didn’t see her anywhere. Everyone else was there, but not his Megan. Frantic, he glanced all around. He wanted to move, wanted to run through the aisles, go from pew-to-pew, until he found her. She must be playing hide-and-seek with one of their kids.
His legs wouldn’t work. His attention kept straying to that white glimmer. Now, when he looked at it again, a bloody handprint marred the perfection.
“Megan!” he yelled. “Megan, baby, where you at?”
His voice sounded horrible, a combination of hoarseness, fear, and anguish.
“’Law, I want MegAnn,” CJ said around sniffles.
“Megan!” he called again, spying Mortician. “Mort, where she at? Where my woman?”
“Prez, fuck,” Mort murmured, his tone filled with the same pity so clear in his eyes.
Panic filled Christopher. “MEGAN!” he boomed, wild desperation creeping into him. He raised his hands. Blood coated them, dripped from his fingertips, ran down his arms. “No, no, no! Megan, baby, please?” he begged. “Come to me, please. I need you. You my everything. Where you at?”
“Her there, ‘Law,” CJ cried, pointing to the white sheen that became horrifyingly clear.
A coffin. Megan was in a coffin?
He shook his head in denial. Finally—finally—his legs allowed him to move. He didn’t feel so heavy and rooted to his spot. His hands trembled, but he had to show his boy that their MegAnn wasn’t in a casket. She was somewhere in the church, alive and well and vibrant. And loving him as no one else ever had or ever would.
He lifted the lid. No! No! No! No!
She was there. Still. Lifeless. Pale. Dressed entirely in white, like a little princess from one of the original Grimm’s Fairytales.
Forever young.
“Megan!” he cried, falling to his knees. “Megan, baby, wake-up.”
Through his tears, he saw a big, blond man, position himself in front of Megan. He glared at Christopher.
“My baby girl is with me now. You lost her. You failed her. Mystic took her from you. How could you let that happen? You never deserved her.”
Big Joe’s vision morphed into Mystic’s, the president of the Imperials. The one who’d taken Megan and hid her from Christopher, until it was too late. When Christopher finally found her, she was dead, her mouth frozen open as if she’d tried to gasp for breath but hadn’t been able to receive the life-giving oxygen she’d needed.
Mystic grinned at him. “Wasn’t me, Caldwell. You did this to her. You!”
With a furious growl, Christopher lunged at him, but Mystic disappeared. Instead, Christopher landed right next to Megan’s coffin. His bloody handprints laid against each of her cheeks, and marched down her white dress, ending at the bump in her belly.
Not only was Megan lost to him...Mystic had been right. Christopher was the reason she was dead.
Megan had been pregnant.
Christopher screamed.
“’Law, stop!”
“Christopher, you’re fine. I’m fine.”
Her soothing little voice hit him in the center of his chest and he trembled.
“No, baby,” he sobbed, screaming again because he didn’t know what else to do. “You gone. I lost you.”
Small hands touched his shoulder and shook him. “’Law, wake up, please!”
“No! She gone…”
“MegAnn, right here, ‘Law!”
Christopher resisted CJ’s impatient voice, still screaming, still seeing Megan in the coffin, pregnant, bloody, and snuffed from him. Sudden weight settled onto his chest, threatening to squeeze the life from him.
Her soft mouth brushed his cheek. “I’m here,” she swore. “Just open your eyes. You’ll see.”
“Wake up, ‘Law,” CJ demanded. “Stop being a bitch-ass baby.”
“Do not cuss, potato,” Megan chastised.
Bitch-ass baby. Potato. A mother’s loving sternness.
“You all sweaty, ‘Law.” CJ glanced to the side of him. “He gotta take a shower, MegAnn. Tell him.”
The scent of cherry blossoms filled Christopher’s brain. Megan.
Just as suddenly as it had descended, the weight lifted as Megan removed their boy from Christopher’s chest.
CJ squealed. “Put me down, Mommie!” he said around giggles. “I’m a big boy.”
Megan kissed Christopher’s cheek again. “We’ll wait for you downstairs,” she said softly.
She knew him so well. She knew when to wrap him in her pussy to comfort him and when to leave him alone so he could collect himself.
She waited until he sat up before she offered him another gentle smile, still holding their raucous boy in her arms.
“I love you,” she told him.
Christopher rubbed the back of his neck. “I love you, too, baby,” he mumbled.
“You okay, ‘Law?” His boy stopped squirming against his Ma long enough to ask him.
“Yeah, boy.”
They both smiled at him, as the full weight of that dream hit him and he scowled.
Setting CJ on his feet and grabbing his hand, Megan blew Christopher a kiss, then guided their boy out the door.
Alone, Christopher growled and jumped to his feet. His cock twitched with a slight pain, but he ignored it. This shit was absolutely un-fucking-acceptable. He’d gone the fuck ahead and had a dick-snip-flip, thinking he had the solution to his nightmares, when the motherfuckers decided to fuck with him even more and lead him to believe the cause of Megan’s death was pregnancy.
He had lost his goddamn, motherfucking mind.
Pacing, he thought of the nightmare he’d just had, and shivered.
What if it had been real? What if Christopher hadn’t found her in time after Mystic had taken her?
What if the pregnancy part was an omen?
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