Bronze (Blackwings MC - Devil Springs Book 5)

by Teagan Brooks

  I jumped to my feet and inhaled deeply, ready to roar in pain and anger, when a soft snore from the baby monitor caused me to pause. I glanced at the monitor to see Blue sleeping soundly in her baby carrier and forced myself to rein it in long enough to think about what I was doing.

  Picking up the portable monitor and hurrying to the garage, I used the last bit of restraint I had to quietly close the door before I laid into the punching bag that had seen me through several deaths—my grandfather, my parents, and now my friend.

  I don’t know how long I was out there, but I was covered in sweat and well beyond out of breath when I dropped to my knees and let the pain consume me.

  I cried for the loss of my friend and the mother of my child, which bled into the loss of my parents and my grandfather. How was I going to raise my daughter without them? Before I knew it, I had spiraled into a dark place with no light in sight until I felt a familiar presence at my side moments before my brother's arms surrounded me.

  He waited silently for me to get my shit together. When I finally did, he sat back on his heels and said, “Now that you got that out of your system, you’re going to get your ass up and go raise your daughter like the motherfucking boss you are.”

  “I’m scared to death,” I confessed.

  “From what I hear, every father is. Congratulations, you’re normal. Now, get the fuck up. This floor is bruising my tender ass.”

  And that’s what I did.

  I got the fuck up and raised my daughter.

  13

  I’m not going to lie; the first few weeks at home with Blue were hard, but not as hard as everyone made it out to be. I knew my take on things was different because every single member of my club family was more than willing to step in and lend a helping hand, especially the women in the club.

  Leigh took it upon herself to teach me everything she knew about babies. And just when I thought we’d finished with the lessons, Blue entered a new stage that came with a completely different set of things to learn, which usually rendered my new skills useless. It was a never-ending cycle, but I was beyond grateful for Leigh’s guidance. I also had a newfound appreciation for my own parents and wished there was some way I could tell them how grateful I was for everything they did for me and Copper.

  Then there was River. She had been permanently elevated to angel status in my book. First of all, she was not kidding about the different kinds of baby cries. I did what she said—read the information and took the time to memorize it. Once I was finished, I anxiously waited for Blue to cry so I could test the theory as well as myself. I felt like a bit of an asshole when I cheered for getting the “I’m hungry” cry correct while she was screaming her head off for her bottle.

  As a father, I didn’t have the ingrained maternal instinct that most women did. I hadn’t even had time to adjust to becoming a father before I suddenly was one. Giving me the ability to identify my daughter’s needs by the sound of her cries was enough to angelize River in my eyes forever, but then she went and saved Blue’s life, and mine by default.

  We’d been home from the hospital for almost four days, and things were going fairly well. Or so I thought. The only issue we were having was getting Blue to go back to sleep after her middle of the night feeding. For some reason, she fought sleep the hardest after that feeding. One night in particular, it was so bad that I put her in my truck and drove around until she fell asleep, which happened to be when we were near the clubhouse. Since I had a portable crib and all her essentials there, I pulled into the forecourt and carried her inside as if I were handling a live bomb.

  After sleeping for a few hours, Blue woke up right on time for her six o’clock feeding. I made her a bottle and changed her diaper while letting the warm formula cool for a few minutes. I knew it wasn’t too hot for her, but I felt like you could never be too careful when it came to heat or fire. Being severely burned was one of my biggest fears, which naturally extended to my daughter.

  We were developing a bit of a routine, and I was becoming more comfortable and confident in my role as a father. Dropping into the rocking chair Leigh had delivered to the clubhouse, I placed the bottle in Blue’s mouth after making sure we were both comfortable.

  “Good morning,” River said from where she was perched at the bar drinking a cup of coffee before she left for work.

  “Morning,” I replied and focused my attention on Blue.

  At first, everything went the same way it always did. She immediately hoovered the nipple into her mouth and started drinking with fervor. Then, she coughed. It was so tiny I almost ignored it, but thankfully, I didn’t. Instead, I yanked it from her mouth and examined her face. It was hard to tell at first. I wasn’t sure and thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. But after a few more seconds, I knew what I was seeing was real.

  Throwing the bottle across the room and getting to my feet, I yelled, “She’s turning blue!”

  “Give her to me and get the bulb suction!” she demanded.

  I handed Blue to her and grabbed the hospital-green bulb that just happened to be laying on top of the bar, holding it out to River. “I want you to thump the bottom of her foot,” she said and started suctioning Blue’s mouth and throat. I did as she instructed and flicked the tender skin on the bottom of my baby’s tiny foot.

  “No!” River yelled. “Harder! You need to make her cry!”

  The urgency in River’s voice had me thumping the bottom of my newborn’s foot as if she were a grown man. Her entire body tensed right before she let out a ferocious cry. River pulled the bulb from her mouth again and squeezed it, shooting a stream of formula across the room.

  Meanwhile, Blue continued to scream at the top of her lungs while her face turned as red as a tomato.

  “Holy shit!” I breathed, bracing myself on the rocking chair when I felt my knees weaken. “What the fuck just happened?”

  River turned from where she was hovering over Blue, where I presumed she was examining her, and said, “She choked, and we need to know why. Call her doctor’s office and have them page whoever is on call. Tell them exactly what happened. Then, ask them if they want you to bring her to the office or the hospital because we are taking her to one of those two places. I can watch her while you’re on the phone, but I’ll gladly talk to the physician on call if you need me to.”

  I made the call and relayed the information as River instructed. The doctor wanted us to be at the office when they opened in less than an hour. All the while, Blue was crying because she was still hungry, but we were given specific instructions not to feed her anything until she’d been examined. Thankfully, while I was scrambling to get us ready to go, River got someone to cover her shift so she could go with me to the pediatrician’s office.

  The few hours that followed were a whirlwind of activity blurred by a cloud of fear. We went from the pediatrician’s office to a specialist’s office and ended up at the hospital for a test that allowed them to look at her stomach using x-rays instead of having to stick a tube down her throat. I couldn’t remember what it was called, but it involved them giving Blue something in her bottle that would make her insides show up on the screen. I made a mental note to ask River what the test was called so I could be better prepared for the aftermath if Blue ever had to have that test again.

  Because no one prepared me for the epic chalky white shit my tiny girl would take afterward. A shit so epic it covered both me and her literally from chest to feet in poop that looked like wet cement while having the consistency of paint.

  I tried to yell for River but started to vomit halfway through her name. “Rivvurrrlllggghhh!”

  She appeared seconds later, as did my brother, Layla, Leigh, Batta, Tatum, and Judge—all watching me throw up to the side so I wouldn’t get vomit on my shit-covered daughter or my shit-covered self, as if it mattered at that point. I started to chuckle at the thought, and promptly choked on the puke spewing out of my mouth, redirecting the flow to my nose. While every fucking one of them stoo
d there and watched, refusing to touch me or my shit-coated spawn.

  It was one of the longest days I could recall—waiting to find out what was wrong with my daughter, and more importantly, what could be done to fix it. As it turned out, Blue had acid reflux, which the doctor assured me was very common in infants. He suggested she may have actually gagged instead of choked, but in any event, her body responded by protecting her airway; thus, Blue turned the color of her name.

  Ultimately, we were sent home with a prescription for me to add to her bottle before putting her down for the night, and that was that. No more turning blue for Blue and no more near heart attacks for me.

  However, there were times it seemed like she was struggling to drink her bottle. I mentioned it to Leigh, and she suggested trying a different bottle or a different nipple.

  “Jonah had a little bit of trouble eating when he first started bottle-feeding. I went through probably twenty different brands before I found one that worked well for him, and it’s still a popular brand today. I’ll run to the baby store and grab the kind I used, plus a few others for you to try. Do you need anything while I’m there?” Leigh asked, already hooking her purse over her shoulder.

  “Yeah, can you get me a tube of nipple cream?” Her eyes grew comically wide, causing me to burst into laughter. “I’m being serious,” I managed to say between laughs. “I had to start wearing my jewelry again, and my shirts are making my nipples chafe.”

  Leigh doubled over laughing, dropping her purse to the floor. “Oh!” Leigh guffawed. “This is because she tried to nurse you! I’m dying!!” She continued to laugh until another thought hit her that she had to share. “You’re not even capable of breast-feeding her, yet you still have sore nipples!” She slapped her thigh and looked toward the sky. “Oh, thank you, Goldie! I needed that!”

  “You’re not welcome,” I grumbled. I wouldn’t be ready to laugh about it until my nipples didn’t feel like they’d been rubbed with sandpaper.

  Leigh returned later that afternoon with more than “a few others” for us to try. “Did you get every bottle they had on the shelves?”

  “Technically, no. I got one of each kind on the shelves,” she smirked. “Before you say anything, I can take back whatever we don’t use, and maybe even some of the ones we do try if they guarantee satisfaction.”

  “Fair enough,” I agreed. “Let’s start with the kind you used with Judge.”

  And that’s what we did. At first, I thought we were going to be facing a long period of trial and error, but Leigh changed the nipple to one made of a different material and told me to try again. My jaw dropped in delightful surprise as Blue emptied the contents of her bottle without one single problem. “Holy shit,” I breathed.

  “Watch your mouth around the baby,” Leigh scolded.

  “That is physically and physiologically impossible, even if I had a mirror,” I retorted proudly.

  “You’re the essence of ‘being too smart for your own good,’” she said and gave me a pointed look, complete with an arched eyebrow.

  “Is there a Guinness World Record for the person who can arch their eyebrow the highest? Because we should really check into that. I think you could win.”

  “Just wait until you’re not holding that baby,” Leigh said in a low tone.

  Luckily, that was the last major hiccup we had while adjusting to our new world. That’s not to say that things went smoothly. Far from it. But it was the usual stuff that happened to new parents and nothing that affected her health or well-being. I still experienced my fair share of having outfits ruined by a shitty diaper that overflowed up the back—which usually happened within ten minutes of me putting the outfit on Blue—or her wanting to eat or be changed the moment I sat down to take a bite of whatever meal I’d just prepared. Parenthood was exactly what everyone who had kids said it was, and nothing like what most people without kids believed it to be.

  After the initial shock, I handled things well for the first couple of weeks. But as time passed, my pent-up emotions festered inside of me. I needed to find an outlet before they exploded into a mess of hurt feelings and damaged relationships. I was angry about so many things—Heidi’s death, raising Blue without her mother, raising Blue without my own mother, and if I was being honest, I was still mad about almost losing my life when Dez’s punk ass little brother stabbed me.

  I could feel Copper watching me like the hawk he and our father were named after. Thinking it was best if I brought it up before he felt the need to, I stopped by his office to talk to him.

  “I need to fight,” I told him without preamble.

  “So fight,” he said as if it were that simple.

  I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. “I don’t mean sparring at the gym, Copper. I mean real matches,” I explained and paused for a moment before I dropped the detail I knew he would have a problem with. “Underground matches.”

  “No fucking way!” he roared and rose to his feet.

  “I’m doing this with or without your permission. The only reason I’m telling you now is because I don’t keep secrets from my club brothers, and I don’t want there to be any blowback on the club. Meaning you and the guys can’t come to my matches.”

  He released a string of curse words under his breath and started to pace the short length of his office. “Fuck, Bronze. I get it. I really do, but this isn’t the way to go about dealing with your shit.”

  “It might not be the way you’d choose, but it’s the right way for me. Fighting in the Marines is what got me through losing Mom and Dad. I’d be dead or in prison if I hadn’t enlisted and started boxing. It’s what I know, and it works for me.”

  He glared at me, but I knew I would need to make some sort of concession before he would let it go. “Would it make you feel better if I touched base with Luca Peccati first?”

  Copper stopped pacing and faced me, cocking his head to the side. “The fuck does Luca have to do with this?”

  “His nephew got the idea to get into underground fighting from somewhere,” I suggested. When he continued to stare at me waiting for more, I admitted, “I checked out one of the fights in Cherryfield last week.”

  His head shot up. “Is that why Blue spent the night with us?”

  I snorted and shook my head. “No, Blue spent the night with you because Layla asked if she could. I said yes and didn’t waste the opportunity I was given.”

  “Make a connection or a point,” Copper grumbled.

  “I ran into Luca at the fight. I’m not sure if he has a team of fighters, takes bets, or both. He does have a shit ton of bodyguards, and it’s clear that he’s a big fucking deal. Hell, maybe he owns the place—”

  “Get on with it.”

  I rolled my eyes but made my point. “Luca said he would get my foot in the door if I was interested in fighting.”

  “And what does he want in return for that favor?”

  I smirked. “Your reassurance that he won’t anger our club by allowing me into his.”

  “You serious?” Copper asked skeptically.

  I nodded. “Yep. He said all he’d be doing was vouching that I wasn’t a fed, cop, scam artist, or someone who would share information about the fights with the media, particularly social media. After that, getting on the card’s up to me.”

  Copper rubbed his chin in the same way most of the males in our family did when they were considering their next words. Many thought the gesture meant they were thinking, but I knew they were actually choosing how to break the decision they’d already made. “I appreciate you not wanting the club to have any affiliation with the fights, but I can’t let you go to matches alone,” he said and held up his hand to keep me from interrupting. “Grant isn’t patched in yet, so he can go with you. Neither one of you’ll wear your cuts. Also, Coal’s been talking about a guy that’s been coming to the gym. He says he’s been asking about the club and might be interested in prospecting. You know who he’s talking about?”

  “It’d h
ave to be Drew. I haven’t been back at the gym that long, but Drew has been in there working out every day that I’ve been back. He’s young. I’m talking between eighteen and twenty.”

  Copper resumed pacing, though his pace was much slower, and most of the tension had left his shoulders. “I’ll stop by the gym tomorrow and have a chat with Drew. If he wants to prospect for the club, he can earn that chance by making up the second part of your entourage.”

  “What about Coal? He’s going to feel left out if both of his buddies get to go to the big city while he has to stay home,” I pointed out.

  “That’s a price he pays for wearing the cut,” Copper clipped.

  “Relax, bro. I was kidding. You need to get laid before your blood pressure goes up so high it makes you have a stroke. And I love you, but I will not wipe your ass.”

  “What if I broke both arms?”

  “Depends on how you broke them. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m saying I won’t wipe your ass if it needs to be wiped because you had a stroke from too much pent- up tension. Go fuck your wife. Wait. Are you two married?” I asked. I knew they weren’t, even though they’d been together for a couple of years, lived together, and he’d claimed her as his Old Lady.

  I also knew I’d look up to see Copper staring at me with worry all over his face. He’d been doing that every time I couldn’t remember something since I had to have emergency brain surgery after the clubhouse was bombed. I was a bit of an ass for fucking with him like that, but that’s what little brothers were supposed to do. “Again with all the worry. I’m just giving you shit because you haven’t married her yet. Have you even asked her? Seriously, man, what the fuck are you waiting for?”

  Before I could turn away, Copper flicked my nipple with his fingers. “You motherfucker!” I roared.

  “Is Blue still trying to get milk out of your tender teats?” he laughed.

  I eyed him knowingly. “Just wait. It’ll happen to you one day.” And I was going to make damn sure it did. Even if I had to spill some sugar water on his shirt while he was holding his own child.