by Anne Malcom
It was naïve maybe, but I was just happy to have him back. To sleep beside me every night. To whisper to him in the darkness, telling me things about himself that made tears stream down my face. He was still healing from wounds I would never be about to stitch up, erase, but I tended to them best I could. Loved him exactly as he was.
I even loved the Sons of Templar. It was hard at times, but mostly it was a life that I felt like I belonged in. There was danger. Uncertainty. Late nights. Lonely nights. Blood-soaked clothing. Bloody knuckles. But there were also full dinner tables. Barbeques. A sense of safety. Brotherhood for Ranger. Family like I never would’ve had otherwise.
My mom never came around to the house, but she at least attended our small wedding. On dad’s insistence, no doubt. We had dinner with them once a month. It was always strained.
But I had Ranger.
The club.
And now, a positive pregnancy test in my hands.
“You haven’t told Ranger?” Evie asked.
She was sitting out on our patio with a glass of whisky. I had wine that she’d urged me to at least sip to take the edge off.
Though I desperately needed something to take the edge off, I hadn’t touched it.
“He’s still on a run,” I said. “And I didn’t want to call him with this type of news. Especially...” I trailed off.
“Especially if you’re not sure if you wanna keep it,” Evie finished for me, no judgement in her voice.
I flinched anyway, hating the words being spoken out loud. Why should it make any difference? I’d been thinking those same words since I’d seen the result of the test.
“It doesn’t make you a bad person or bad wife if you don’t want it,” Evie continued.
“I want it,” I whispered, placing my hand on my still flat stomach. Hearing it out loud, actually thinking of a reality where I did something to the life Ranger and I had created with our love, I was suddenly sickened by the idea.
“Ranger doesn’t?”
I smiled. “No, he does. He’s wanted one since he got the patch. I just, I don’t know if this is the right time. With everything going on.”
I said everything as though I knew what that entailed. I didn’t completely. Ranger didn’t like to bring that shit home, said he didn’t want to pollute our alone time with the worries of the club. The dangers. I knew enough about some of it, though. The guns. The rival clubs. I knew things were tense right now.
“There’s never a right time to have a kid, sweetie. And honestly, if there was, right now would be the time. With everything going on, the club needs this. Ranger needs this. Some light in the middle of this shit. Something beautiful and pure. Something to fight for.” She sipped her whisky. “In saying that, it’s only beautiful if it’s right for you. There’s no shame in saying it’s not. No one will judge you.”
She was wrong. I would judge myself if I did what my mind whispered was best. Was safest. It would make me a coward. It would create cracks in my soul and in my marriage, eventually tearing it apart.
“You’re right,” I said after a beat. “This is what the club needs. What Ranger needs.” I looked down to my stomach. “A family.”
Eight Months Later
“We need to go to the hospital now,” Ranger clipped, glaring at me as I descended the stairs of our new home. He’d decided a beachside bungalow, while beautiful, was not practical for a baby. It was too small. Too unprotected.
Initially, I hadn’t known what he truly meant when he said ”unprotected”. We had enemies, I knew this, but they were faceless to me. I hadn’t put any thought to whatever the club was doing finding us at home, Old Ladies and families were off limits, in the rules of outlaw war. But things were turning. Men were getting tense, you could feel it in the air. It scared me, but not enough as it probably should’ve. I trusted Ranger to protect me. Us.
So we’d moved into town, onto a quiet street, into a beautiful house paid with money I knew was somehow stained with blood.
“We don’t need to go yet,” I said, pausing in the middle of the staircase. I inhaled sharply and clutched the railing as another contraction took hold.
Ranger watched, obviously furious at me for not listening to his alpha commands. He was also furious because he had to watch his wife go through pain, and there was nothing he could do about it. He was committed to protecting me from anything and everything, and right now, there was a lot to protect me from. He could do plenty about the outside influences, just not our son making his arrival known my ripping apart his mother’s womb.
He must’ve moved at some point because he was no longer glaring at me from the bottom of the stairs, I was in his arms as he descended them.
“Cody!” I snapped. “You can’t carry me. I’m an elephant, and you’ll pull something. Plus, I’m totally capable of walking.”
He put me down but did not let me go. One of his hands went to the large swell of my stomach, the other to the back of my neck. “Not going to apologize for not letting my pregnant wife go through fucking contractions on the middle of the staircase,” he gritted out. “You can be the strong, independent woman all you want in every other aspect of your life. But not this part. Not when my whole world is possibly in danger. When I can’t do a damn thing but take you to the hospital. So let me take you to the fucking hospital.
Long story short, I let him take me to the fucking hospital.
Jack Cody Derrick was born fifteen hours later.
The entire club took over the waiting room during that time, showing their support. Showing me my son would always have family.
I closed the door, quietly.
Not that I needed to, Jack slept like the dead. He had since we’d brought him home from the hospital.
Quiet.
Too quiet.
It had me checking on him every five minutes to make sure he was still breathing. Olive stayed with us for the first two weeks of Jack’s life. She might not have approved of the life her son had chosen, but she loved him and supported him no matter what. She supported me no matter what too.
My own mother warmed up with the birth of her first grandchild, but that wasn’t really saying much considering she was my mother. It was like saying hell had gotten itself a space heater.
She wouldn’t be the favorite grandmother, that title was reserved for Olive. My father, on the other hand, would most definitely be the favorite grandfather, and not just because he was the only one Jack would have.
Along with his grandparents and parents, Jack had an entire club of uncles ready to fight for him, to protect him. He even had a Sons of Templar onesie already. He was born into the club, and most likely would patch in to it when he was older. Of course he would have a choice, and I could be wrong about the kind of man he’d turn out to be; he may not want anything to do with the club, but I didn’t think so. I had the feeling he would grow up to idolize his dad and the men in the club. He would be surrounded by family, by Harleys, the idea of a life lived free and wild.
The thought was bittersweet. I loved the club, loved the idea of my son wearing a patch and having brothers. But not the way the club was now. Not with the idea that my baby boy could either end up behind bars or in an early grave if the club continued on the way it was going.
It would kill me if something happened to my son because of the club. It would kill all the love and loyalty I had for the club. I shouldn’t have been thinking of such morbid things when my son was still decades away from such a choice, but I couldn’t help it. My mind forced me to think of every single danger to my boy so I could protect him from it.
Including the club.
Yet I couldn’t protect him from that.
“He sleeping?” Ranger asked, handing me a glass of wine.
I took it, thankful for the fact that my husband was cooking me dinner and had wine ready for me after putting our son to bed.
“Yeah,” I said taking the first sip. It was cold, sweet and cheap. The only wine I really drank. I was
n’t cultured in my drinking habits and was happy with a beer most of the time. But dealing with a baby required wine. Ideally some mood stabilizers too.
Ranger lowered the burner on the stove, put down his beer—he was not a wine guy—and moved to kiss me. Long. Slow. Enough to make my stomach dip beautifully.
“Good,” he murmured. “As much as I love our son, and I do, more than anything in the world, I do need some alone time with his mother.” His hands trailed along my hips—much wider than they had been before Jack. Fortunately, Ranger hadn’t made me feel self-conscious about that one bit.
“You’re not allowed to do that,” I murmured. “We still have two more weeks before the doctor said we’re allowed to do anything that involves what you’re insinuating.”
Now, physically, there was no way I was ready for sex down there. Things were tender, healing but tender. Having a child was exactly as painful as everyone said, and anyone who said different was on a serious amount of drugs or was a huge fucking liar.
But inside of me, my hormones, my soul… yeah, it wanted my husband. Really fucking bad.
He kissed me again before pulling back, his eyes running over my body with hunger. “Yes, my love. I am all too painfully aware of the stretch of time that’s passed since I was inside my wife,” he smirked, his eyes lingering, almost tempting me to forget about my ruined vagina in order to let him make good on all his promises.
Ranger stepped back farther and picked up his beer. “I’m not exactly a patient man, but it does stand to reason that I should wait for you to be completely healed for what I have in store for you.”
Another stomach dip as Ranger turned back to the stove. My eyes moved across his back, memorizing the vision of my husband in our kitchen while our son slept.
“I need you to make me a promise,” I said.
Ranger obviously heard something in my voice because he turned off the stove again and came back to stand in front of me, giving me all of his attention.
“Anything.”
I took a sip of wine. A big one. “I need you to live to be an old man,” I said. “I want your hair to turn gray, I want you to complain about your knees, refuse to get hearing aids even though you need me to repeat myself a thousand times. Although that might not have to do with medical hearing impairment, just male hearing in general.” I smiled weakly.
“I want you to hold our first grandchild in your arms. Then the second. I want you to be the old biker who reminisces about the ol’ days over whisky. I want to grow old beside you. But to do that, you have to live through these days. I’m not asking you to give up your patch, though, sometimes I wish I could ask, wishing you’d say yes. But that’s not how it works. So you keep that patch on. Keep it on now and keep it on as the Old Man I need you to be.” I stepped forward to clutch his neck. “Please, Cody,” I whispered. “Please live to be an old man.”
He didn’t answer straight away. His eyes searched mine, running over my body as if he was imprinting every part of me into his mind. I knew the look because I had the same one on my face every time he left the house lately.
“I’d never leave you in this world without me. I’ll do everything in my power to keep me here, right here,” he murmured, his lips close to mine.
“Promise?”
His eyes flickered with a danger that had become so common. “Promise.”
Chapter 5
One Year Later
We didn’t speak as we left the hospital.
Ranger held my hand, though, I didn’t want him to touch me. I just didn’t have enough energy to try to pull my hand out of his iron grip. Didn’t have the strength to look him in the eye and tell him his hand on my skin made acid from my heart crawl up my throat.
He needed this. Some form of support. Of love. Because this was the only thing he could do. The only thing he had control over was the grip he had on my hand. He couldn’t save me, couldn’t save the baby we’d lost at fourteen weeks.
So he held my hand.
And I tried to handle it.
The entire club was there when Jack was born.
There was no one there when my second baby died. This was not something to celebrate. People did not want to be around this. Have to face the ugliness.
Even Ranger didn’t want to be around this. Around me. He wanted to escape. I didn’t blame him. If I could’ve escaped my body, I would have.
He wordlessly opened the door for me, helped me in then closed it. I held my breath, trying to prepare myself for being in an enclosed space with him. My husband. The man I knew better than myself. The man who knew everything about me. I winced when he got in the car. The air felt stifling, I couldn’t breathe around him.
Ranger went to start the car then paused, looking over at me. I saw all of this through my peripheral vision, no way could I look straight at him.
“I don’t know what to say,” he choked out, voice broken.
I continued to stare ahead of me. As cruel as it was, I couldn’t control it.
“Don’t say anything,” I replied, my voice emotionless. “Just take me home.”
I didn’t have shoes.
If the check-in clerk at the only slightly cheesy, Hawaiian themed motel two hours out of town thought that a woman checking in with no shoes and luggage consisting of two paper bags full of vodka was odd, he didn’t show it. He simply handed me a plastic key card and told me to enjoy my stay.
I didn’t reply, but I don’t think that bothered him either. He just went back to his crinkled Playboy.
It must’ve hurt, walking with bare feet along the rough ground. But I didn’t feel it. I was numb. Except between my legs and in my stomach, which felt painfully empty and ruined. The vodka would surely help that.
It would help me forget that I’d walked out of my house, the one where my husband was bathing our child, and stolen the first car I could, stopping only to get vodka, then drove myself out of town without a word to anyone.
Yes, I needed to forget that too. Even now, the shame and guilt crawled up the back of my neck and threatened to paralyze me.
My hand was shaking when I put the keycard in. Still shaking when I unscrewed the first bottle of vodka. It was steadier when I opened the second one.
Something blocked out my sun.
There had been a bright warmth at the back of my closed eyelids, one that I was trying to get to burn away all my shame—in addition to the vodka I’d ingested—and put me to sleep.
I’d managed to get some—sleep, that was—the night before, but that was only because of the sheer amount of vodka I’d consumed on an empty stomach.
My head was still pounding, and the candy bar I’d choked down from the vending machine hadn’t exactly soaked up much alcohol.
I was still wearing my clothes from yesterday as I hadn’t had the sense to pack a bikini for this trip. Which was fine, since the pool looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in the past month. Or year, maybe.
As it was, I was doing my best to soak up the sun on this crappy lounger, trying to forget about what a terrible person I was.
It had been almost working until someone decided to block out the sun.
I kept my eyes closed for a full minute, hoping whoever was there would get bored and leave me alone. No such luck. With a frustrated groan, I succumbed to the fact that I’d have to go through the painful process of opening my eyes.
The figure was blurry at first, but familiar. Wearing a Sons of Templar cut. Should I have been surprised?
“I thought it might take you a little longer to track me down,” I muttered, my words thick.
Gage stared down at me for a beat, probably deciding whether he was going to try and talk to me—not exactly his strong suit—or just do the alpha male thing and throw me over his shoulder then drag me back to Amber.
He surprised me when he moved to sit on the lounger next to me, taking the bottle from beside me, taking a hearty swig without flinching. An impressive feat since it was warm, cheap vodka at... I d
idn’t know the exact time, but it was still morning.
“Is Ranger too mad at me to come and get me himself?” I asked. “Does he hate me?” The last part was said in a small, vulnerable, terrified voice. That pissed me off. People were already going to treat me different now. Smaller. More breakable. I didn’t have to sound that way too.
He had every right to hate me. What I’d done was unforgivable. Abandoning him and our son in a time when they needed me most.
“Sweetheart, no one on this earth and no one wearing this cut has the capacity to hate you,” he replied. “Most especially your husband. You know that.”
I stared at the dirt in the pool. “I don’t know anything anymore.”
“You do. You just can’t see anything through the pain you’re going through,” Gage countered.
“What do you know about it?” I snapped, suddenly furious at his presence, his kindness.
Neither of us spoke, a vodka-infused silence lingering for a long time. “I had a kid.” he finally said, his voice the softest I’d ever heard it. “A daughter. I lost her. It was a pain unlike anything I can explain. I wanted to rip off my skin just so I wouldn’t have to feel the pain of her loss slowly killin’ me. So I know about the pain.”
His words, the loss etched into his voice, carved a hole in my chest.
I turned my head, Gage was staring at the pool, clutching the vodka bottle. His arms were covered in scars, ones that I’d always wondered about but never questioned. No one had. He’d had the misfortune to wear the scars of his past on his arms, like his insides had run out of room. I’d always known it must’ve been bad, his past, but I never imagined it could be something like this. Because I couldn’t fathom the idea of walking, breathing, having a heartbeat if I lost Jack.
I was doing all of those things now, though, even though I’d lost a baby who didn’t have a name.
I didn’t say I was sorry, though twenty-four hours ago I would’ve. Would’ve told him I was sorry for his loss and tried to hug him, given him some kind of support. I would’ve been deluded enough into thinking that there was a point in doing such things. Like they would make any kind of difference.