I hopped up onto the counter, ignored the water that seeped into my panties, and tilted my head to stare at him.
“How about you tell me what’s been going on? And not give me the condensed version that I got in our letters,” I suggested.
I knew some of what he was going through, but not all of it.
“It all started when I came home.” He hitched one ass cheek onto the bathroom counter. “You remember Luca, correct?”
She nodded.
Luca was his best friend.
The man that had lost his memory and been in hell right along with Gab—Malachi for that year.
“Yes,” I confirmed.
“When he came back, everyone assumed he was me. They got him a job at the police station. He started… and then they realized who he was. When I came back, it was the next logical step—me getting a job there. Only, I didn’t want to go into motorcycle patrol like him. I wanted something else. Something that wouldn’t keep me doing the same thing day after day. So I went into the patrol department where we pretty much run calls for emergency services, do a bit of traffic concerns, and whatever else happens to happen that day whether it be school visits or something like that. Then in my spare time, I thought the SWAT team was great… but the longer that I’m here doing it, the worse that I feel. These demons…” He pointed at his head. “They’re not good.”
I pulled my legs up to my chest and tugged my t-shirt over my knees.
“Have you talked to someone?” I wondered.
He shook his head. “Only those that I needed to, to get where I’m at.”
I leaned my back against the mirror.
“Do you want to talk to me about it?” I questioned.
He looked absolutely horrified. “No!”
I rolled my eyes. “You don’t have to act like the idea of talking to me is abhorrent to you.”
He leaned against the wall and shook his head.
“It’s not that. It’s just that… I don’t want you to know what happened,” he said.
And his face went completely white, letting me know that whatever happened, he still hadn’t quite dealt with the aftermath.
I wondered what could’ve happened to a man like him to get his face looking that ashen.
Then again, maybe I didn’t want to know.
“Then don’t tell me,” I suggested. “But tell someone. Talk to someone. They’re not going to judge you, Gab—Malachi.”
His lips twitched at the mention of his name/not name.
“I might,” he admitted. “I might, but that won’t help me right now. Right now I’m stuck. And Luke’s kind of pissed that I’m getting all of these complaints about me.”
“Are the complaints warranted?” I wondered.
“Not really.” He shrugged his massive shoulder, causing the decorative towel on the wall to shift with his movement. “I think that I’ve just been getting a bunch of little bitches lately. They’re all ‘I want special treatment’ and I’m all ‘but you just nearly ran over a kid’ and they think that it’s okay to file a complaint about my attitude and lack of filter.”
My mouth kicked up into a smile that I tried to suppress. “What did you say?”
“Which time?” he asked.
I jumped off the counter and headed for my room.
“I need to get ready to go,” I admitted. “I think that my appointment is at eight-fifty. It’s almost what? Eight?”
“It’s only six,” he acknowledged, following me out.
I came to a sudden halt and looked at him over my shoulder.
He gave me a raised brow in return.
“You woke me up at six?” I asked. “What? Why?”
“I’ve been up for four hours,” he confessed. “I already let the dog out, too. And fed him. Also, I finished mowing your lawn.”
“It’s your grandmother’s lawn.” I felt it prudent to point out. “And I was going to do that today.”
“I did it for you.” He paused. “Even though I told my grandmother that I would do it.”
I didn’t say anything to that comment.
What I did do was walk to my closet and shut myself inside.
The room that I’d commandeered wasn’t the master. Nor was it the biggest room in the house.
What it did have, though, was one hell of a closet.
It was on the third floor, had nearly eighteen feet by six feet of closet space along with shelves galore on one side, and accommodated my wardrobe perfectly.
My row of tennis shoes were lined against the wall, and my massive amount of t-shirts, jeans, and shorts were all hanging up as if this was a showroom.
Walking to the wall of clothes, I stopped in front of the maxi dresses—the only damn things that I’d been able to stomach since I’d found out that I was pregnant.
I studied them, then inevitably picked the softest—the black one that’d been worn more times than not lately.
“That’s cute.” I heard Malachi say as I exited the closet.
I looked down at the dress.
“I can’t deal with shit confining me,” I admitted. “When it gets tight, I start to want to vomit.”
He snorted. “How far along are you?”
I scrunched up my nose. “Eight weeks?”
“You don’t know?” he asked. “Because that sounded like a question.”
I sat down on the bed and slipped my feet into my favorite shoes.
I sighed. “As far as I can tell, eight weeks. But I did it twice, four days apart, and I’m not sure which ‘time’ took. Okay?”
His lips kicked up at the corner.
Another grin that had my heart beating erratically.
Arrhythmia. In the medical world, that was called arrhythmia. And arrhythmia wasn’t a good thing.
“I guess I’ll take that answer.” He paused. “A few people must know the truth of how this immaculate conception actually occurred. Who? I don’t want to make a fool of myself lying to the wrong people.”
I looked over at him with amusement.
“One, Hastings, my brother’s wife.” I moved to the other tennis shoe. “Two, Amelia. Three, Reggie. Four, the man that I bought the sperm from.”
He sighed, causing his breath to whisper over my face.
He smelled like peppermint and coffee.
The smell made my stomach growl.
“Let’s go eat first,” he suggested. “Then we’ll go to your appointment, followed by me playing with my dog some.”
My eyes were warm as I looked over at him.
“That sounds like a plan,” I admitted. “Breakfast is my jam.”
“Nice little pun there,” he teased as he gestured to the door. “You want to ride on my bike?”
The thought of riding anywhere on his bike with him sounded like the best idea ever.
So, of course, I said yes.
We were just getting geared up to go when a car pulled in.
Since I’d recognized the car thanks to yesterday’s extremely uncomfortable introduction to the man’s parents, I didn’t bother stopping what I was doing—trying to fit the helmet he’d handed me onto my head.
My hair was in too high of a ponytail, so I yanked the tie out of my hair, fitted the helmet on, and then buckled it.
He eyed me for a few seconds as he studied my hair.
“That’s going to go up your nose if you don’t tame it,” he said.
I scrunched up my nose in reaction to the thought of it going up my nose, then tied it back into a low ponytail at the base of my skull.
Just as I’d finished, the car stopped next to us and the man from yesterday rolled down his window. However, during their small trek up the driveway, Gab—Malachi had positioned himself partially with his back to the car, meaning that he didn’t see the car window go down.
He’d heard it, though.
And based on the stiffness of his facial features, he wasn’t quite happy with the situation.
I gestured for him to get on the bike, and
he did so, followed shortly by me getting on with him, hiking my dress up high to do so.
“Gabriel.” The man’s dark, exotic voice had me turning to survey the man.
The man was facing our way, looking hard and disgusted at the bike that Malachi had climbed onto.
The woman was staring serenely at her phone, not bothering to even look up.
Malachi started the bike and it roared to life underneath me.
Now, I’d ridden on motorcycles before.
Quite a few times, actually.
My father had one, as well as both of my uncles, a handful of cousins, and even more friends.
So I was no newbie to riding on the back of one.
However, I was a newbie riding on one next to a man that I found highly attractive as well as a little bit scary.
I threaded my arms loosely around Malachi’s chest, only just realizing that he’d donned a leather jacket at some point after he’d left my room with me.
I was in a sweatshirt and a jean jacket, but somehow I knew that I was about to get super cold.
It didn’t matter, though.
Just the idea of being on the back of the bike with the man was making my heart rate do that arrhythmia thing again and my excitement level go through the roof.
Like touching him.
My hands were on him, but over a leather jacket so not on him, on him.
I couldn’t necessarily feel his heat at all… but I could feel his hardness.
The man felt like a solid rock of muscle.
“Ready?” he asked me, turning away from his father to look at me over the opposite shoulder.
“Ready,” I confirmed.
He looked at me. “I probably shouldn’t be letting you ride on my motorcycle while pregnant…”
My lips twitched. “You’ll keep me safe.”
“Gabriel! I’m talking to you, son,” the man hissed over the roar of the bike’s engine.
“I will,” he promised.
Then, without another word, he was riding down the driveway at a sedate pace.
He didn’t roar off as if he expected the hounds of Hell to follow him. Instead, he rolled out at a slow speed, letting me enjoy the quickly brightening day.
It was a fairly mild morning for November.
In fact, it was well into the seventies and I could already see that the day would be heavenly thanks to the nonexistent clouds in the sky.
“You might want to hold on a little tighter,” he said as we came to a stop at the end of the driveway.
Then he took my hands and threaded them underneath his zipped-up jacket and plastered them to his rock-hard belly.
He had abs.
Oh, boy, did he have abs.
They weren’t fake abs or just a tight stomach.
He had multiple dips and valleys that I could feel, as well as the line in the middle of the abs separating one set from the other.
It was only as he laughed that I realized I’d been caressing his belly.
I felt my cheeks heat.
“Sorry,” I admitted. “I’ve just never felt abs like this before. It was a shock.”
He reached down with his hand and patted my thigh in answer.
Then we were off down the road, and my poor little heart started another round of arrhythmia.
The trip to the diner was short and sweet, but oh, so memorable.
We arrived and parked in the very front of the lot—something I never got to do because I never left this early in the morning if I could help it—and both of us got off.
Together we walked into the diner, him not so much touching me as crowding me, if that made any sense whatsoever.
I could feel the length of heat at my back and knew without a doubt that he was there.
He opened the door for me, crowded me close at the hostess station, and all but stood on top of me as he walked with me to the seat the hostess had chosen for us. Allllllll the way at the back of the diner, allowing Malachi to put his back to the wall.
“You been here before?” I asked curiously.
He lifted his gaze to mine once he was seated comfortably and nodded once. “I have. I come here every day that I’m off.” He tapped his temple. “Demons don’t sleep.”
My heart dropped into my stomach.
“You sleep that bad?” I asked worriedly.
He shrugged. “I sleep. I guess that’s something that should matter?”
No. Just ‘sleep’ wasn’t good enough. You had to have enough of it to function.
“You know,” I said casually. “My father takes this medication every night. It’s non-addictive, you won’t become dependent on it, and it helps him sleep all the way through the night.”
His eyes quickly met mine.
“Will it make me groggy if I have to wake up in the middle of the night?” he asked curiously.
Now that I didn’t have an answer on.
“Well.” I paused. “He was taking it when he was on the SWAT team, and I would assume that he wouldn’t have continued to take it if that was a side-effect of the drug. I could ask him for you, though.”
He looked like I’d just handed him the fucking moon.
“Would you?” he asked.
I immediately pulled out my phone and sent the text, then shoved it back into my pocket as I tried not to stare at him.
Malachi was one of those people that really drew your eye.
He was tall, handsome, and had the most beautiful gray eyes that took my breath away every time I found myself staring into them.
He was muscular and had an intenseness about him that sometimes took me by surprise when I found myself under his full scrutiny.
“Done,” I told him huskily. “What are you ordering?”
He rubbed the back of his neck and was fully engrossed in his menu when the door to the diner opened again, causing Malachi to tense.
Upon seeing an elderly lady walk in, he immediately relaxed.
“I’m ordering…” He paused when the waitress came up to take our orders.
“I’m listening, dear.” She chuckled.
Malachi gestured at me to start, and I gave my order before sitting back and waiting for him to place his.
I listened in a sense of awe as he ordered, plate after plate, until he’d all but gotten around to saying nearly the entire menu.
“Any questions?”
I blinked at Malachi, but he wasn’t paying any attention to me.
He was paying attention to the waitress who’d just taken his colossal order.
“There’s no way on God’s green earth you’re going to eat all of that,” I said as the waitress smiled, flapped her notebook at him, and walked away.
Malachi’s eyes turned to me, his face a little stony.
“When I was imprisoned,” he said softly. “Food was scarce. I guess I haven’t really gotten to the point where I can just let it go at this point. I think that it’s easier and healthier to allow myself to buy everything than it is to just fight the feeling that I need to.”
That was understandable, and a little bit saddening.
I gently tried to steer the conversation away from his insecurities, and instead focused on something that he obviously loved to talk about—his grandmother.
CHAPTER 10
If a girl says she’ll be ready in five minutes, there’s no reason to remind her every fifteen minutes of it.
-Sierra to Malachi
MALACHI
Gabriel,
Graduation night was… fun.
Not.
So I got drunk, my dad caught me, and then made me ride home in the back of his police cruiser.
There were four of us back there and one of my friends decided to throw up on all of us while we were driving home. Needless to say, I learned my lesson—never drink in the same town as my father again.
I haven’t heard from you in a while.
I’m getting worried.
It’s been over four months now. That’s the longest that we’
ve gone since we started writing each other.
I hope to hear from you soon,
Sierra
• • •
“You’re freakin’ joking.” She laughed, looking at me like she couldn’t quite believe what I’d just said.
“Nope,” I said. “The fucking top dog. She challenged him right then and there to a push-up contest. It was… enlightening.”
I’d just gotten done telling her the story of the day that I’d sworn myself in to the United States Military.
How my grandmother had seen the man at the front of the room, marched right up to him, and had all but informed him he was a pussy if he didn’t do a push-up contest with her.
Of course, it’d happened.
And though my grandmother hadn’t won, she sure the hell hadn’t been badly beaten, either.
“Your grandmother is a hoot,” she admitted as she walked with me out of the doctor’s office.
We’d gone to her appointment—which was enlightening, to say the least.
It was determined that she was, indeed, eight weeks along based on growth.
She was also happy to hear that there was only one after, apparently, she’d had a dream that there were three.
Now we were on the way out of the office, and I was experiencing a rather funny feeling in the vicinity of my chest.
Somewhere close to my heart.
I hadn’t ever thought about kids.
Honestly, after my childhood, I hadn’t thought it would ever be a good thing to bring them around a couple of sad sacs like my parents.
But after seeing that tiny little blip on the screen today of Sierra’s child, I thought—holy hell. I wanted that.
Maybe not now, and definitely not at my present stage of unrest, but maybe one day I would absolutely love to have that in my life.
With a woman like Sierra, for sure.
Her reaction to seeing that baby on the screen? It had nearly ripped out my heart.
To see her so fucking happy was by far the best rise in my fucking happy levels that I’d experienced since I’d been home from war.
“She’s adorable,” she admitted. “Though, her dog is kind of scary.”
I snorted.
“Bobo was a military working dog like me,” I acknowledged. “Originally, I was supposed to be the one with him. I’d gotten him from a man that tries to place them into homes—the ones that don’t look like they’re going to make a great match with a regular family. When we got him, Bobo was a ‘no dogs, no kids’ placement. He’d suffered great trauma both during the war and after he got home. You heard about him and Dillan?”
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