“No. You have other people to see. Thank you,” I told him as I swiped at the tear running down my face.
“We’ll have a CD and some pictures waiting for you when you check out.” I nodded, but couldn’t say anything because I was a little bit too choked up. Being able to see my baby was everything. Watching Rabbit’s reaction to the heartbeat was something else though. If I hadn’t already been developing feelings for the man, seeing that would have been a game changer for sure.
As we were leaving the office, I took one of the images they had given me and I handed it to Rabbit. “What’s this for?”
“Consider it a belated Christmas gift,” I told him, and then I pointed to the image. It was one of my son’s heart. I wasn’t sure if he would understand the deeper meaning there, but I was done fighting. If he wanted to be in our lives, there wouldn’t be any more fight from my end about it.
Chapter 22 - Rabbit
Shameless knocked on my door and came strolling right in, reminding me of the visit Myra and I had with her doctor the other day. I smiled up at him without thinking about it and the asshole preened for me.
“Quit batting your eyelashes at me, old man. That shit is not okay!”
He laughed, but it was quickly replaced with concern again. “That MC you told me to keep watch on?” Shameless asked.
“Yeah?”
“They’re neck-deep in shit right now.”
“What kind of shit?”
“Seems to be internal, but at least one death so far and maybe more. My guy is trying to get accurate info.” I just stared at him for a moment. Then I asked the only pertinent question I had at the moment, because I needed to know if Myra should be made aware.
“Who died?”
“Young guy. Name’s Blaze.”
“You’re shitting me?” I jumped off the edge of the bed, where I’d been sitting before he came strolling in. Not that it did me any good. There really wasn’t anything to do with the nervous energy that just shocked my system.
“No. Why? He important?”
I moved around Shameless and shut my bedroom door so that we could keep this information just between the two of us until Myra could be notified. Though, I had reservations about telling her. “That was the name of Myra’s baby’s father.”
“Shit. What are you going to do? Planning to tell her?”
“I don’t know. What do I do? If she finds out I had them all watched, will she be pissed or thankful?”
“Didn’t you say you got a visit from one of them that prompted you keeping an eye out?”
“Yeah. Phoenix came here once.”
“Phoenix?” Shameless stepped back as his brows furrowed a little deeper, concern clear in his expression.
I nodded. “Why?”
“Far as I know, he’s the internal problem they’re having. Kid went crazy. Started killing, or threatening to kill, certain members of the club.”
“Fuck! Do you think we need to get Myra on lockdown?”
“That depends,” Shameless drew out lazily.
“On what exactly?”
“You claiming her as yours?” When I didn’t answer, he continued on. “You know the rules. You don’t claim her, she doesn’t get club protection.”
“I’ll claim her.” My hesitation to answer hadn’t been about me. Myra had been claimed by another MC member before, and I honestly didn’t know if she would be okay with it happening again. We didn’t really have time to play nice and get permissions here though. Her life might be in danger, and the worst part was, Phoenix had been within my reach, and I’d let him walk right back out of here.
“Then I think you might want to get her locked down. Phoenix was last seen headed out of town with a woman on the back of his bike. Might be headed this way if that woman of yours is any kind of unfinished business for him.” He was quiet a moment before hesitantly added the rest. “Or that baby, considering who the father was.”
“He didn’t seem interested in hurting her or letting anyone from his club know where she is.”
“Could be hiding her to hurt them, but Rabbit, we don’t know what tripped his trigger either.”
“I’ll get on it. Not sure she’s gonna be thrilled though.”
“I think she’ll cooperate just fine if you tell her the news.”
I agreed and hated it all at the same time. Telling her would mean breaking her heart a little more than it had already been broken. Whether the asshole had fucked up and lost her for good or not, Myra had loved him and she was having his baby. Hearing the news that her kid’s dad was dead was not going to be easy to take.
Rabbit: Need to talk to you. It’s important, can I come by after work?
I waited a good twenty minutes for a response, and then what I got made me feel even worse.
Myra: I’m not sure I like the sound of that. The last person who told me we needed to talk ended up breaking up with me publicly when I was trying to tell him we were having a baby.
Rabbit: I’m not breaking up with you.
I figured that would at least get her to smile.
Myra: Kind of hard to do when we’re not together.
“Oh! That’s what you think,” I mumbled out loud before texting her the time I’d be at her place and then I stuffed the cell phone in my back pocket and went to have a talk with Spinner. He and Cherry needed to know what was going on too so they wouldn’t be blindsided by what was about to happen.
Myra’s Suburban was already there in the drive when I arrived. Spinner ducked his head out of the house and gave me a nod, letting me know he had been keeping watch on her until I could get there. I had called him before I ever left my room at the clubhouse to fill him in. It was nice to see he took things as seriously as I did. Not that I expected anything less from my brother. I was still watching as he shut his door when I heard Myra.
“You coming in or are you and Spinner going to continue with the long-distance, heartfelt glances all evening?”
I shouldn’t have grinned. This wasn’t the time to think things were funny. She made it impossible not to though. I moved up the steps and followed her inside, locking the door behind me as I went through her whole apartment checking windows and making sure everything was secure.
“I wasn’t actually nervous before, but now the feeling that shit is about to hit the fan just became real.”
“Sorry,” I leaned in and kissed her on the cheek, not wanting to get too personal until I told her about what had to happen. “Let’s have a seat, okay?”
“Rabbit,” she started as one hip cocked to the side, her opposite brow arched, and her arms crossed under her tits. Might I also point out that those tits had definitely gotten larger since the first time I ogled them. Then she sighed and her shoulders sagged heavy, breasts fell slightly, and the attitude changed to defeated really quick. “I really can’t deal with the lead up for important conversations anymore. If you could just spit it out, that’d be great, because honestly, I don’t have the energy.”
I got up, crossed the room, took her into my arms, and sat my ass right back down on her couch with her on my lap. “I claimed you with the club today,” I told her. “I want you to know that I had a specific reason to do it, otherwise this conversation would have come first, but I don’t regret it, wouldn’t change it, and it would have happened eventually anyway. Understand?”
“Um,” she hesitated a moment, then looked me straight in the eye. “Yeah, I do.” She leaned in and kissed me on the cheek this time. “Thank you.”
“That’s it? You’re not going to ask me why? And you’re going to thank me?”
“Club princess,” Myra stated quickly as she pointed at herself. “I know if you’re claiming a girl you aren’t dating its somehow for her protection, right?”
I nodded my head, because what other response was there to her being so accommodating, thankful, and not angry with me like most women would have been?
“Rabbit, thank you for thinking of my safety and for caring
enough to make sure I’m protected. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d love to know why that was necessary.”
“I have some bad news for you,” I admitted and then watched as she took another deep breath, let it out slowly and whispered a quick, “Okay.” I started rubbing comforting circles over her back, trying to relax her a little. “I know which club you’re from because it wasn’t exactly hard to track down since I knew your hometown.” Myra said nothing to that so that I once again gave her a look like, ‘Really? You’re not mad about that?’
“Club princess,” she stated again. “I didn’t think the club would allow me so close to everyone and everything without doing a background check.”
“Right. So, we got word today that there’s something happening inside the Stoneridge Raiders MC, Oregon Chapter.” Her body tightened on my lap and she sat a bit straighter. “One of the members has flipped his switch and killed at least one Raider. There were threats, at the very least about others, but we don’t have conclusive evidence of any others yet.”
“Who was killed?” She asked.
“Blaze,” I whispered, but I swear the name sounded as loud as a bomb going off in a monastery full of monks who took a vow of silence.
“Blaze?” She asked after a moment, her hand automatically sliding over her belly as if it needed protection. “You’re sure?” I nodded and pulled her closer so that her head rested on my shoulder. I held her there as her shoulders shook. “I never had any intention of going back to him, or having anything to do with…” emotions clogged her words and she had to take a moment to settle herself before she could continue. “He ruined any possibility of there ever being an ‘us’ again, but I had hoped that one day my child could meet his father and know him. You know? I never would have wished for that to be impossible. I thought, maybe he’ll grow up some, and be a better dad than he was a man to me.”
“I think that’s what every good mother would hope for.” It was the truth. I can’t imagine my own mother would have ever wanted us to go a minute without knowing our dad, but then again, she was so in love with the man that she literally couldn’t live without him. “I’m so sorry, Myra. No matter what happened in the end of relationship, he still had a place in your heart.”
“We grew up together, literally from diapers,” she told me. “Before we were a couple, we were always friends.” She hiccupped the words out, but then cleared her throat and continued. “We would have been better off staying just friends. Then, we would still have been in one another’s life. Maybe he would still be alive?”
“Don’t put that on your shoulders. If you’d never been more than friends with him, you wouldn’t be here now.” I slid my hand around her waist and touched her smallish baby bump. You wouldn’t have this little guy on the way.”
“That’s true.”
“If you want to look at things like that, then take this from it. You were meant to be friends, and then more, so that this little dude could be made. Maybe that was Blaze’s purpose on this Earth, to create this life you carry.”
“Let’s not put that on his shoulders either,” Myra told me. She wasn’t talking about Blaze though, she meant the baby, and that just proved what a good mother she would be one day.
“Is there anything I can do?”
“You can hold me for a little while,” Myra whispered into my neck. Her hot breath and the wispy reminder that her lips were only like a millimeter away from my skin, made me feel things that were entirely too inappropriate for the circumstances.
We sat there, with her on my lap, as I held her. This woman’s strength was unbelievable already, but even holding her as she cried for a lost friend, one she had already suffered a loss for, I could feel it in her still. “Myra, do you want to call home? I can get you a phone that can’t be traced.”
She shook her head into my shoulder. “No. It’s strange, and I know I’m sitting here crying all over you, but I’ve already lost them. A part of me has already cried for everything I thought was mine in the past, the people, and the relationships. When I left, I knew I’d never be back and so it was as though they had died. If I call, I’ll be tempted to go back, to see them, to try again, and that’s not something that interests me right now. Maybe never. I’m sure this makes them worry more for me, but truthfully, they had a chance to be worried about me, when that worry would have changed my course.” She shrugged her shoulders.
“They fucked it up, even then?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer.
“Even then. I don’t want to call home. Thank you for helping me to say goodbye one last time though.”
“Anything you need, Myra. I meant that when I said it.”
“I’m starting to see that,” she whispered. “Do I need to pack a bag?”
“Yeah, I’m going to need you to get to your things together, but not until you’re ready.”
“I’m good. How long should I pack for?”
It was my turn to shrug. “Indefinitely, and we’ll go from there,” I told her. “Myra, you never asked-”
“Is it important?”
“Phoenix,” I told her.
“Phoenix did this?”
“Yeah.”
“Then it must have been justified,” she told me.
“Really? That quickly, you think a man who started killing his own club brothers must have been right to do it?”
“Yeah, I do. Of everyone there, Phoenix was the only one with a true moral compass. If someone was guilty of something, he didn’t usually let them slide on shit. If it was questionable, he’d find out the truth before passing judgement. I’m not just saying that because he told me he didn’t want to keep what happened a secret. I’m saying that because Phoenix would never betray a brotherhood he truly belonged to. Something had to have happened – something major – in order for that to happen.”
“Well, considering we don’t know what that something was, what he’s up to, or where he’s headed, you need to stay protected. He already threatened most of your father’s club from what we’re hearing.”
“I’ll go get ready. We can discuss this once we get to the clubhouse. Does your President need me to debrief them on the Stoneridge Raiders? I have to tell you now, I don’t know much about club business, and what I do know, I wouldn’t tell you. I might have disowned my family, and they proved they weren’t loyal to me at all, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be disloyal to them by talking about their day-to-day shit.”
“No one would ever ask that of you, and honestly that response says more about you than anything you could possibly contribute otherwise.”
Chapter 23 - Myra
Getting settled in at the clubhouse was easier said than done. Sure, I’d been there before. I knew people. The thing was, my heart was kind of sad and battered, the whole being claimed by Rabbit thing was new, and I kind of felt like a fish out of water.
Once everything was tucked away in the room that I would apparently be sharing with Rabbit, I just sat there on the edge of the bed and rubbed my tummy. “I’m so sorry, little one. I know I ran away from that situation, but I’d like to think your dad would have wanted to know you and be a part of your life, even if I never wanted to be a part of his again.” The tears fell hot and wet down my face and crashed into the same little bit of a belly that I was rubbing. I didn’t lie to Rabbit. I really did feel like I had already grieved Blaze, and I had, right along with my own family. The thing is I grieved for me before. Now, I was feeling the loss for my son – a son who would never have the chance to know his biological father.
I wondered if any harm had befallen my family, and why in the world Phoenix was that pissed off at the club I’d grown up in. There was a part of me that wanted to call and verify that all the people I loved were okay. Yeah, I wrote them all off because I couldn’t trust them, but that didn’t take away all the years I loved them. Still, the other part of me, the one that knew they’d drag me back home whether I wanted to go or not, told me to sit tight and just wait.
That, of course, led me to contemplate exactly where I was sitting tight. It was a new year, I was pregnant, claimed by another biker, and living in his clubhouse for my own protection for the time being. I laughed at myself. “I guess that vow of ‘no more bikers ever’ went out the window.” I didn’t even feel silly for talking out loud to myself.
“Hey,” a voice called out to me as the door opened with an awkward bump. “I brought up some food.” I turned to see Rabbit standing there with a tray in his hands.
“You want to talk about it?” He asked as he set the tray down on the table beside the bed. There was one on either side of the bed with a single drawer in each one. I hadn’t yet felt nosy enough to go picking through Rabbit’s stuff, even though he told me it was fine and he had nothing to hide.
I sat up and wiped my face on the sleeve of my shirt. “It’s really nothing. It hit me that my son would never have the chance to get to meet his biological father. I planned to cut him out of my life, but honestly, I don’t think that I could have cut him out of his son’s life completely. You know? We grew up together. He was always a good friend to me, one of the best, really. Blaze was just not cut out to be my boyfriend. The more time I’ve had to think about it, the worse I feel about our whole relationship. Was he unhappy the whole time? Did he resent me and our families pushing him on me? It took what he did and moving here for me to realize that I was never his choice.”
“Don’t go feeling bad for the guy just because he died. He took the coward’s way out by starting and maintaining a relationship with you when he didn’t want one. It ended up hurting you and will end up hurting your son too, in a way. He could have manned up from the start and told his family and yours that he didn’t want to be with you that way. It would have saved you a whole lot of heartache, preserved your friendship, and made life easier on all of you.”
“When did you become the wise one?” I asked, trying to deflect from the hard truth I was being made to swallow. Rabbit wasn’t wrong. I knew my feelings for Blaze were partially because our families kept drilling in our heads that I was supposed to want that type of relationship with him. I’d had crushes on other people, but I knew it was ‘wrong’ in their eyes. Could I really blame Blaze for being the coward when the same burden lie at my feet? “Ugh. We are never doing this to our baby,” I muttered without thinking.
The Restart and the Remedy (Aces High MC - Dakotas Book 3) Page 15