Game Changer (Hell's Saints Motorcycle Club)

by Marinaro, Paula

  “Don’t want to know.” Diego was looking at me.

  Pain clouded my eyes and I said, “Yeah, I got that a few months back.”

  Diego looked confused then rubbed the back of his neck. “Shit, no honey. No. That was a question. As in, you don’t want to know?”

  “Oh.” I said uncomfortably.

  I held out my hands for the keys. Diego looked at my hand as though he was confused.

  “Keys?” I said to him.

  “Why don’t you want to know, Raine?” His voice was strained and those worry lines were creasing his eyes.

  “Why?” I was looking at those new creases of worry.

  “Yeah, the uhh…the uhhh…” Damn if his voice didn’t trail off again.

  “The baby. Why don’t I want to know the sex of the baby?” I asked.

  Jesus, we had been reduced to the verbal communication of third graders.

  “Yeah, is something wrong? Are you worried?” Diego had stepped in closer.

  “Worried?” I backed up into the car.

  “Yeah, are you worried the baby won’t make it? Is that why you don’t want to know?” His voice cracked when it stopped on the words won’t make it.

  Oh my god.

  “Jesus. Diego of course not. No. No. Everything is fine. Everything is fine.” I put my hand on his arm to emphasize my point. Then when I realized what I had done, I went to pull it away.

  His big hand covered mine.

  “So you are okay. The… the… the… baby is okay?” He put pressure on my hand.

  “Yeah everything is okay.” Right then the baby kicked hard.

  I made a pained face and rubbed my belly where the little foot had kicked hard at his mamma.

  “Ouch.” I said and despite myself, smiled reassuringly at my arch enemy and the father of my baby.

  Diego grabbed my elbow and tried to steer me towards the picnic tables.

  “Are you okay? Come on over here and sit, Raine.” He was leading me away from my getaway car.

  “Stop it, Diego, I am fi…..” and I felt the whoosh of a hard kick again.

  I put my hand over my stomach and rubbed again.

  “Raine, you are freaking me the fuck out.” Diego was by my side looking pale.

  “Oh for Christ’s sake. Here.” I grabbed his hand and put it on my stomach. “It’s the baby kicking.”

  I realized what I had done too late. The baby kicked his daddy again hard. Diego’s hand jumped as the baby pushed against the warmth of his big hand. Diego had such a look of pure wonder and joy on his face, for a moment I forgot all the horrible terrible heart wrenching things he had said to me.

  But just for a moment.

  “Wow. Strong little ass kicker.” Diego was smiling up at me.

  At that minute I really wanted to be anywhere else but here. Because that smile made me realize everything I could have with him and this baby and everything I wouldn’t have. Everything he didn’t want. I wasn’t sure what this momentarily lapse was, but I was pretty sure he hadn’t changed his mind about wanting us. And even if he had, I wasn’t sure I could ever want him back.

  “Yeah, well…” I said eloquently.

  “That stuff in the paper you circled. You need that stuff?” He was standing close again.

  “What stuff?” I was walking back towards the car again.

  “That baby seat and shit.” Diego had caught up with me.

  “Yeah.”

  Dammit.

  “I mean no.” I mean not from you.

  Then I had had enough. I stopped dead in my tracks and turned to him.

  “What are you doing Diego?” I asked him.

  “Trying to figure out what you need Raine.” He answered heavily.

  “I’m going to get what I need for the baby. I have a job and the money I still have left from saving. Glory, Claire and I all pitch in for the rent at the lake house, even though Prosper doesn’t want to take it…” I trailed off, not really understanding why I was telling him any of it.

  “I’m trying to figure out what you need Raine.” He moved his big body closer to me. “I’m trying to figure out what I need to do to get you to the place where we can at least talk. I am trying to figure out what you need to get to that place where you stop looking right fucking through me.”

  “Why?” I demanded.

  “Why what?”

  “Why does it matter? Why do you care?” I heard the crackle of my heart breaking.

  He looked at me like I was crazy. “You’re carrying my baby, Raine.”

  “Are you kidding me right now Diego? Are you fucking kidding me?” I could not believe this.

  “Now? Now I am carrying your baby?” I was not going to cry.

  “What happened to ‘not happening’? What happened to ‘you do this, you do this alone?’ I threw his words back at him.

  “Well, I made a mistake.” Diego growled. His eyes hard. His arms bulging tight against his chest. Standing there in front of me like he had every right to.

  Oh no. Oh no he was not.

  “A mistake?” I was fuming.

  “Diego, Have you really no clue? Really? A mistake?”

  His arms crossed tighter and he widened his legs. A muscle clenched in his cheek.

  “Yeah, baby. I made a mistake.” His eyes on me.

  “A mistake? Is that what we are calling it now? A mistake?” I hissed.

  “Forgetting to pick up the clothes from the cleaners is a mistake, Diego. Paying too much for milk is a mistake. Picking the wrong shoes to go with the wrong goddamn dress is a mistake. What you said to me? What you made me hear coming out of the mouth of my baby’s father? That was more than a mistake. That was a blunder of epic, epic proportions Diego. It was mean, it was hurtful and it was unforgiveable. Unfuckingforgiveable.”

  And there it was. I was crying.

  “Raine.” Diego moved his hand to the car and his body to the left of it boxing me up against the hot fiberglass.

  “Jesus. No. No. No. No. You hurt me Diego. You threw me and this baby away. You stood in my house and punched two holes in the wall to emphasize your point. And you left them there. You left those holes there. Just like the holes you left in my heart.” I was wiping the wet off my cheeks.

  “You broke my heart.” I was heaving. “Look what you’ve done to me.”

  I moved my hand to my left breast. “You have broken my heart.”

  Then I started to really sob.

  “Raine.” I heard his voice through my heaving.

  Goddammit. I had not wanted to do this in front of him.

  “Diego, give me the keys. Just give me the keys.” I was beside myself.

  “Crow, follow me up to the lake house? I’m gonna need a ride back.” Crow had followed them outside.

  “Got that, brother.” Crow called out.

  “Get in the car, baby. No way am I letting you drive this upset.” Diego was evidently back to bossing me around.

  I got in the car. Not because I was back to letting him. But because he was right. I was too upset to drive.

  Chapter 58

  It wouldn’t start. Her goddamn piece of fifteen year old shit of a car would not start. Jesus.

  Then on the third try it turned over. Goddamn it.

  Diego heaved a sigh and counted to fucking ten before he put the ancient tin can in gear.

  Is there anything that worked in his life right now? Anything?

  Raine was sitting next to him holding a tissue in her tiny hands trying to stop crying but the wet kept coming down her cheeks and she was doing this little hiccup thing. Her face was toward the window but he knew she was still fighting those tears. And his beautiful woman was losing the battle.

  When had he become such a prick?

  He had lost his shit when she had told him about the baby. Lost. His. Shit.

  When had he become such a fucking coward?

  Janey and the baby. That was bad. That was earth shattering, tear your gut out, lose the will to go on sad shit.


  But he had gone on. He had moved on. He chosen to go on. After that first attempt at blowing his brains out, he could have tried again. He could have walked away from his brothers, from his life and in the privacy of his own home, did the deed.

  But he didn’t.

  And it had taken a long time. A very fucking long time but he was glad he hadn’t.

  The unbelievable true love he had for Janey was that of a boy on the brink of manhood. When they fell in love they had been just kids. When it had ended he had barely begun to shave.

  The love he felt for Raine. That was all man. That was the love a man felt for his woman.

  He was no kid any more. He was a big, hard, tattooed outlaw. Afraid of nothing, game for anything. He was a tough sonofobitch who had seen it all, done most of it and regretted none of it. He had balls of steel and a backbone to match.

  Except when it came to her.

  This little black haired, blue eyed beauty sitting next to him. When it came to Raine, Diego came undone. It had started when she walked into that filthy little kitchen and put herself between her sister and that loaded gun, and it had never stopped. Everything about her fascinated him. Her courage, her sense of humor, her loyalty to friends and devotion to family.

  She would have taken a bullet to save her sister, of that he had no doubt. That kind of courage is something the brothers knew and respected. Jules had seen it when she walked into the clubhouse. Prosper…well, he had seen it when she was a little tiny bit of a thing. Crow had seen it too, and he had been willing to go up against his brother for a chance at owning that.

  And the rest of them. He lost count of how many fucking times he had to lay claim to her in Nevada. Jesus, the brothers may be a bunch of dumb fucking badasses who had made more than a few bad choices in their lives, but they all fucking knew quality women when they saw them.

  And Raine wasn’t the only one they were sniffing to get a chance at. Jesus, if Claire and Glory knew how many of his brothers were lying in bed jerking off at the thought of getting them in their bed, on the back of their bikes, and under their hard bodies they would have gone running towards the hills.

  Come to think of it, maybe they did know. You never saw one of those chicks without the other. Never caught them alone. Now that he thought of it, Claire and Glory didn’t even fucking really talk to anyone but Dolly, Pinky, or Prosper. They weren’t snotty bitches, no noses up in the air kind of thing. They just didn’t make themselves available for the smooth rap of the boys. Reno and Jules were the exception. Where that shit would lead was anyone’s guess.

  But nah, these three women. Raine, Claire and Glory they were different, definitely different from the pieces that hung around the club. They looked different. They weren’t half dressed all the time for one thing. It was a rare occasion when you would see one of them without a pair of jeans and a tee shirt on. Their skin was smooth and unmarked. No tramp stamps on any of them. Most of the bitches who hung around the club smelled like tobacco and cheap perfume. The two sisters and Glory smelled like flowers, or vanilla.

  And they were natural fucking beauties.

  Raine and Claire.

  Copper skinned, dark hair, blue eyed beauties. Claire had a small smattering of brown freckles across her nose. Her hair was wavy where Raine’s was straight and Claire wore it a little shorter. But the resemblance to each other was amazing.

  Glory.

  She looked like a fucking angel.

  Her eyes were a light glacier blue that Diego knew could turn to ice in a split second. Her hair was silky and almost white. It was beginning to grow out a little from the rad short hair that Gino’s fucking actions had caused. She had a long thin neck and was taller than both the Winston sisters. She had long legs and by the looks of it, perfectly formed tits. Her vocal chords had been permanently damaged from the beating they had taken when Glory had tried to scream her way out of the clutches of that dago lunatic. So her voice was low and raspy and throaty. She always sounded like she was just getting up out of bed.

  And she was wide eyed. Glory looked lost and scared most of the time. It drove the brothers crazy. At the party, a couple of the brothers from Nevada had told the boys that they had seen Glory or someone that looked a hell of a lot like her dancing in a titty bar about a year or so ago. When the brother’s heard that they all had looked in Glory’s direction where she was dishing out mac and cheese and instantly got wood.

  Glory was a puzzle that had the brothers standing in line to solve. Claire was a challenge that more than a few brothers were up to taking.

  But aside from how it affected his woman, Diego didn’t really give two fucks about all of that.

  What he cared about, who he cared about, was the woman sitting crying in the seat next to him.

  He was going to make this right. He had to. Had to make it right for her. For himself. And for the baby they were going to have.

  And he would.

  But first he had to figure out how.

  Then he had to convince Raine to give him another chance.

  To give them another chance.

  How he was going to do that when she hadn’t looked at him in months? That was going to take some doing.

  Somehow Raine had made him invisible to her. Even when he was standing in front of her practically waving a fucking white flag, she looked passed him.

  He had to find a way to make her see him again. Godammit. Most of the things he had done and said that night were a blur for him.

  But evidently not for her. Apparently Raine remembered every single thing he had said. Every fucking hurtful word he threw at her, she had caught and used to form a barricade around her heart.

  He had done this and he had to fix it. But for the life of him he didn’t know how.

  Fucking Complicated. Prosper had been right.

  Chapter 59

  Over the next week after my run in with Diego virtually all the items on my “wish list” had shown up at the lake house door marked rush shipment. Even though I was pretty sure I knew who the gifts were from, I did my best to investigate. I tried the tracking slips but to no avail. I even put Pinky on snoop detail. She turned up nothing. If I knew for sure that Diego had sent them, I would have returned them. But I knew he would deny it. Without proof, I would just look like a dramatic pregnant woman causing a scene.

  Besides, the stuff was kickass and they were all the items on my list except they were the highest end in their category. I had received a car seat, a stroller, a baby basinet, a baby sling, a carrier and some butter soft receiving blankets in neutral colors. I couldn’t help but being delighted when I opened them.

  I hadn’t picked out the crib or the other baby furniture. There were two small spare rooms in the lake house. They were both too far away from my own bedroom to be appropriate and would require me switching rooms with Claire or Glory so I had waited on that for now. Both of the rooms would require some work anyway. A fresh coat of paint and some carpeting at the least. Proper wanted to help with that but he had been away a lot since the party, presumably on club business. Pinky wasn’t saying much and the small bit of info she was willing to part with made me think whatever it was, was serious.

  The holes in the wall that Mr. “Don’t want anything to do with the baby” had put his fist through had been fixed. Diego had actually showed up himself to do it but Glory, who was the only one there at the time, wouldn’t let him in. So Claire and I had come home to find two Hell’s Saints prospects sheet rocking over the holes in the walls that Diego’s fist had left.

  I guess having those holes sealed up was supposed to make me feel better. I would have felt better if they had been sealed up months ago. I would have felt a whole lot better if they had never been left at all.

  But no use crying over spilled milk. Diego was trying to make those words up to me. I knew he was. I knew he regretted saying them.

  I knew he wasn’t that guy.

  I knew it.

  I knew the things he said prob
ably kept him up nights with self-recrimination because he was not that guy. The guy who did and said those things was an utter and complete asshole. I knew Diego was not him.

  But he also was not the guy who wanted a baby. He was also not that guy.

  *****

  I was buttoning up my blouse after my eighth month checkup. Everything was great. My visits were now every two weeks, I could hardly believe that I was at that point.

  My blood pressure was still good, urine was fine, and I added another three pounds to the growing number on the scale. At thirty two weeks I had a weight gain of thirty pounds. I had been eating a healthy diet and exercising faithfully, so whatever pounds my body was putting on, it evidently needed. My uterine growth was right where it should be. All in all the pregnancy was progressing just perfectly.

  And I loved my doctor. He was old school. He was in his mid-seventies and although he was no longer taking new patients, he had made an exception for me. He practiced gynecology as well as obstetrics. Pinky and Dolly were not only patients of his, they were also friends. Reno had been delivered by Dr. Gideon. His practice was small and he liked it that way. I was never kept waiting more than a half an hour in the waiting room. Once I had an appointment and he had been called into the delivery room, I was told of the situation and rescheduled for the next day. None of this sitting around in an uncomfortable waiting room while he quickly delivered and raced back.

  The man took his time. He spent as much time with each of his patients as he needed to. He didn’t nag me about my weight and he didn’t order any tests that he felt were unnecessary, yet he was thorough. The one thing that did bother him was that I had filled in nothing about the medical history of the baby’s father. He was not pleased with that, and had no qualms in telling me how he felt.

  My poor baby. I knew very little of the medical history of our family. I knew a little about my father’s side. But my mother’s side I knew nothing about. I had filled in the sections as best as I could. The part of the health questionnaire that asked about the baby daddy’s history, I had left totally blank. It bothered me. It did I spent more than one night lying in bed thinking about Janey and her baby and wondered what had caused the baby to die in womb and if the baby had been healthy otherwise and if not, did that have something to do with Diego’s DNA.