“I am so very sorry,” she stated while heading toward them. “You should not be in a position to take this child. I need you to know that we were watching her, waiting to see what she would do. Phoenix said that she wasn’t to be trusted around Myra.” Her head swiveled until her eyes came in contact with my woman.
“You are the only woman I’ve ever felt jealous of. I think he would have loved you, if his brother hadn’t sullied you first,” she added as her eyes dropped to Myra’s belly.
I moved to stand in front of my woman, because having some bitch tell my woman she’s jealous of her and then talk about how she’d been sullied, didn’t fucking sit well.
“No need for that. I don’t harm the innocent. The guilty, now that’s another story.” Her eyes moved back to Spinner and Cherry. “She left this little one at a fire station. We retrieved her before any of them found the baby. It was too cold and the bitch didn’t even knock, ring a bell, or so much as blow her horn to let anyone know she had been there.”
Cherry gasped, shocked yet again by the cool indifference her twin was capable of. Personally, I was disgusted that I had ever chosen to be with a woman who could just dump her baby out in South Dakota, in the middle of fucking winter. The Harbinger moved forward and placed the baby in Cherry’s arms. “In the diaper bag, you will find the original paperwork for the baby and also new documents. It is your choice which you use. The newer ones show that you are her birth mother and he is the father,” she told Cherry as she pointed to Spinner.
“How did you know?” Spinner asked.
“The bitch told us,” The Harbinger admitted with a sparkle of something dark in her eyes. Cherry kissed the top of the baby’s head, and held her tight. The Harbinger just watched for a moment before turning to Spinner, who was also watching his wife hold a baby that was his, but not technically hers. I could see the sorrow in his eyes for the hurt it must be causing his woman.
“Here,” The Harbinger called out to get Spinner’s attention before she attempted to hand him a piece of paper.
“What is this?” My brother asked as he glanced down at the paper.
“Latitude and Longitude of your closure,” was all she said before she dropped the diaper bag and turned to leave. “Phoenix didn’t want you to have that part, in case it ever came back on us, but I disagreed.”
She glanced between Spinner and Cherry who pretended not to be paying attention. “It was better that we handled it. Your hands stayed clean. I thought you would always be looking over your shoulder if you couldn’t confirm though.”
Spinner nodded, as if he agreed, but he did not speak those thoughts out loud.
“You have nothing to fear,” The Harbinger told Myra as she walked by to get to the door. Once there, Shameless opened it for her. “You have such pretty toys,” she told him after admiring the security system, and then she was gone.
“Okay everyone,” Myra called out after clapping her hands together rather loudly a couple of times. “The Hastings have a new baby that they weren’t prepared for,” she started and the entire room fell silent to hear what she had to say. “We need to get them prepared.” She turned to Spinner and Cherry. “Why don’t you two go to one of the rooms downstairs and get acquainted with your new daughter, and leave it to the rest of us to get everything set up that you need.” She moved closer to Cherry then and glanced down at the baby. “She’s beautiful, do you have any idea what you want done for her room?”
My sister-in-law’s eyes started leaking as she attempted to offer Myra a soft smile. “We don’t know what kind of life she’s had up to this point. So, she should have all the sweetness we can muster,” was her answer.
“Sweetness,” Myra agreed. “Got it.” She leaned in and kissed the side of Cherry’s head and whispered into her ear. Had I not been standing so close, I would have missed what she said completely. “I’m so sorry for your loss and the things she took from you, but you will be a wonderful mother. It already shows, and that little girl in your arms deserved you.”
“All right guys,” I called out. “You heard my woman! Let’s go get Spinner and Cherry’s house kitted out for them.”
Chapter 33 - Myra
It wasn’t long after the baby was dropped off by the woman who called herself The Harbinger, that Cherry convinced Spinner to just take them home. I still felt like the rest of us had a job to do, but my part in doing that job got cut short by the club’s President, Iceman.
“Prospect,” Iceman called out as I was plotting what we were going to need to grab from the store with Charlie and Liza. Two men stepped forward, both wearing ill-fitting kuttes that had the prospect rockers on them. “Take shifts, stand guard outside Spinner’s place. Six hours on, six off until you’re told otherwise by me. If you see anything out of the ordinary, hear something suspicious, you call for backup immediately. Every 30 minutes, I want an ‘all clear’ text otherwise, got it?”
“Yes, sir,” they both answered before taking off out of the clubhouse.
“Rabbit,” Iceman bellowed. “I don’t care what that freaky bitch had to say, I want you and Myra close. Locked down on the premises for now, so we’re not spread too thin.”
“I have work,” I interrupted.
Iceman glanced from my belly back up to my eyes. “Doc just put you on bedrest for the duration,” the infernal man told me without even missing a beat. I might have already known how motorcycle clubs worked, but that didn’t mean that I was happy about being told I would no longer be able to go to the job I just got and desperately needed.
“Seriously?” I started to argue, but Rabbit pulled me back to his chest, a move that was meant to be a silent warning, while also being part protective instinct.
“Shh, everything will be fine,” he whispered into my ear.
“Will it? I barely had that job and now they’ll have no choice but to replace me.”
“Doc will help you get another when the time is right,” he assured me.
“I really don’t think Phoenix will harm me.” It was a weak argument, I knew. The man had already killed my ex, and God only knew who else from my family’s club.
“I won’t take the chance,” he informed me.
“The club will put you on salary to help out around here when Doc can’t,” Iceman cut in. I also have a project I need your help with.”
That didn’t sound like it would be enjoyable. The Aces High Dakotas President hadn’t been around much since I’d come here. Granted, he seemed to have pulled his head out of whatever hole he’d buried it in, but that didn’t mean he was someone I liked or even knew well. I definitely hadn’t built any trust for the man.
“My office,” he demanded. “We’ll talk there.” The grumpy bastard didn’t even wait around. He just took off, expecting we would follow. One good thing – for Rabbit – was he seemed just as shocked by his president’s demands as I was.
“Let’s just hear him out and then we’ll make a decision,” Rabbit mumbled as we trailed behind Iceman at a much slower pace.
“Have a seat,” he demanded, once we were in the office with the door shut.
Like the good little boys and girls we were, the order was obeyed immediately.
“How badly do you want to remain off your family’s radar?”
“Are you threatening to expose me?” I asked, completely taken aback by the prospect, even though I should have known better considering my own family sold me up the river in their own way. It was still settling into my bones that I never had a single person actually show me loyalty of any kind until I got here. I hated to think I had just deluded myself into thinking this place, and these people, were different. The roll of Iceman’s eyes said that thought was preposterous, but I waited to hear the words too.
“I don’t know what kind of outfit your family runs, but that’s not how we do things here. We protect our own.”
“Okay?” My one word reply was more question than answer and Iceman remained quiet, waiting. “I’d rather not have to
deal with them at all. If I could fake my own death, without losing all of my schooling and hard work, I would.”
“Because eventually, they will find you and your credentials are going to be an easy way for them to do that,” he added.
“Have they contacted you?” I asked, suddenly nervous.
“No. I need to know though, are they the type to hurt you, if you were found here?”
“I’d like to say no. Not physically, at least, but they did enough damage that I could never trust them again.”
“Okay. We have several things happening right now and I’m going to need your help for some of them. First, we’re diving into club business here. You understand what that means?”
“You’ll be trusting me with information I wouldn’t know if it wasn’t important to what you need me to do.” My answer was simple.
He nodded. “We have a deal that we help our southern brothers out with sometimes. There may come a time when we need medical assistance for our people as a result. Doc can’t always be there to give it. That’s where you would come in. You handle small, patchwork traumas until Doc can get to them.” Rabbit tensed behind me, indicating he wasn’t exactly on board with this part of Iceman’s plan.
“Second, I need help.” He held his hand up and I could see the fine tremors rolling through it. “The shakes have been bad,” he admitted. “Drying out is trickier than I thought it would be.” It was my turn to nod in understanding.
“Just alcohol or drugs too?” I asked. “And don’t lie to me because it makes a difference.”
“Just the sauce,” he confirmed with a shy smile.
“We can work on that.”
“Third,” he continued on like we hadn’t been coming to an agreement already. “Doc does not want to be in charge of the BRATs’ health any longer. We can’t trust it to an outside source that might be easily compromised. Doc can train you so you can take over certifying health screenings, STI testing, drugs tests, and birth control for them.”
“I’m only freshly graduated and licensed. I’m just a registered nurse at that. I’m not a doctor and suddenly you want me acting as a gynecologist too?”
“Yes. Can you handle it?”
I watched the man then, taking in every nuance of him, his office, and the details of what he wanted from me. “You already wiped my credentials and work history, didn’t you?”
Iceman grinned at me. “Not yet, but we do have a guy on standby. Quickshot will make sure you’re a ghost, well and truly hidden.”
I turned to Rabbit. “Are you okay with this?”
“Not exactly happy it was brought up to you without me getting a head’s up,” he complained while staring Iceman down. “But, I admit the plan has merit.”
“One condition,” I told Iceman as I turned back to him.
“Name it.”
“The woman who Rabbit was with before, she will not come to me for anything.”
“Then we’ll let her go,” Iceman told me.
“You don’t have to go that far, I just won’t be able to remain professional,” I tried to say.
“Fuck!” Rabbit hissed from beside me, his hand clenched down on my thigh a little too roughly. I slapped at it, and he quickly let up. “I’m sorry,” he whispered and I honestly wasn’t sure if the apology was for squeezing my leg too hard or for having been with one of the club’s BRATs.
“Sweetheart, I get it. I’m telling you, there’s only one and she’ll be dismissed if you can’t handle treating her. I accept your condition.”
“Okay. Then let’s get started.” I told him, shocking both men.
“Why don’t you take the day,” Iceman offered.
“Are your shakes going away without taking a drink today?” I asked defiantly. The man glowered at me but shook his head. “Then let’s get started,” I repeated.
Chapter 34 - Rabbit
Iceman left us alone for a minute so we could discuss everything before Myra jumped in and got started helping my President out with his problems.
“Are you sure about this?”
I watched as her shoulders slumped forward and then she dropped her head down into her own hands. “He’s right,” she mumbled through them before turning her head and glancing over at me. “Probably the only reason my family hasn’t found me yet is because Phoenix caused so much havoc that they had to stop looking for me.” She laughed then. “Or hell, for all I know, I just don’t even matter to them now that Blaze is dead. Anything is possible. Up is down and down is sideways. It’s been crazy chaos since I found out about everything before I left Oregon. What I thought I once knew was never accurate and I think a huge part of me is still coming to terms with that.”
“Maybe it would be easier just to address your family, let them know you’ve moved on to a different life, and don’t worry about anything else. It’s not like they’re going to come here and kidnap you.”
Myra shrugged her shoulders and then leaned over so that she could rest her head on my arm. “I’m afraid to give them even a little piece of myself anymore. Even when they knew what was at stake, they couldn’t help themselves. They still betrayed me to Blaze. It was like I didn’t even matter. What I needed, it didn’t matter. I can’t live with the constant thought that I was never good enough to be their first priority.”
“Hey! You are good enough. Those issues were their problems, not yours.”
“I know that!” Her comeback was quick and a bit snappy. “Sorry, it’s just that I don’t doubt my own worth, I just don’t want to diminish it by letting them back in either. So, the only choice I really have here is to live as quietly as possible. Iceman just offered me the opportunity to do that.”
“I just want to know that you’re really okay with going ghost?”
“I’m okay with it as long as you don’t have a problem being with a ghost?”
“What? Why the hell would I have a problem with it? If no one can see you, they’ll never know you’re secretly giving me ghost head at the table.” She rolled her eyes at me, which was to be expected.
“I don’t think that’s how it works.”
“Myra, you need to understand that you’re mine. I’ll take you any way I can get you. If you have to be a ghost to the rest of the world, you’ll still be mine.”
“What about if you want to get married? That leaves a paper trail people can follow and if we do it under a fake name, then it isn’t real.”
“I’d never marry you under a fake name, but we can make it real and not have a paper trail all at the same time, little momma.” I grinned at her then. “I accept!”
“You accept what?”
“Your proposal of marriage, my love,” I teased her.
“Okay, well we’ll have to make that happen at a later date. Right now, I have an appointment with your shaky, cranky President, and it’s probably best not to keep him waiting.”
“You didn’t even flinch when I accepted your marriage proposal.”
“That’s because I’d marry you any day of the week, Rabbit. You’re my person. If you think I’d ever give you up easily, you don’t know me very well yet.”
“Oh, I know you very well. Some might say, intimately.”
“Some might say you should be lucky to know me intimately after how we met.” I couldn’t believe the woman. She said that with a straight face too, and then she glanced down at my dick.
I gasped like a little, old, southern woman clutching her pearls after being scandalized in church on Sunday. “It. Was. Cold. Out.”
Myra cracked up right as Iceman came back into his office. “I’m not even going to ask what that was about. We getting started, or does Rabbit need more hand holding about his little problem?” Iceman winked at my woman.
“You too, huh? Where’s the fucking loyalty around here?” I questioned them as I stood. Then I forgave my woman as I leaned in and stole a kiss from her laughing mouth, because that’s all I wanted anyway – to make her smile again after her life just jumped another
set of tracks she thought she was on. “Call me when you’re done, I’ll be right back here. I’m going to go grab some of our shit and bring it to the clubhouse while you’re working.”
“Okay, baby,” she told me. When I was almost out the door she called out to me again though. “Rabbit.”
“Yeah, little momma?”
“I love you!”
“Love you too.”
There was nothing else on this planet that felt as good as hearing those three words from someone who meant them wholeheartedly.
The End
6 months later
Charlie was staring at me, which most likely meant she had an inappropriate question brewing. “How does it feel to get a night off and out of the house?”
I glanced around, and noticed that Rabbit was nowhere to be seen still. He’d gone to the bathroom a few minutes ago. “Honestly? I’d almost rather be home. I miss him,” I admitted.
“Aww!” Charlie squealed. “That’s so sweet and wholesome,” she managed to get out before the waterworks started. It was only then that I noticed she hadn’t ordered an alcoholic beverage. I smiled knowingly as Rage made eye contact and grinned like the cat who got the canary. It was rare to see the normally angry-looking guy crack such a brilliant smile. What I wanted to do was jump up and hug him and Charlie, and congratulate them both on their news. Instead, I kept things chill with a slight tip of my head to acknowledge the fact that they weren’t ready to make their announcement publicly yet. I turned to see that Cherry was watching Charlie’s little crying fit with abject horror written on her face.
“I miss our sweet girl too, but honestly, Charlie, it’s not worth crying over,” my sister-in-law insisted. Cherry had a baby to care for too, but she hadn’t known the crazy hormone induced emotions that came along with pregnancy. I hoped, for her sake, that one day she might. I could tell that while she was happily raising their little girl, Cherry was still having a hard time with how the child had come into their lives. Spinner’s eyes caught mine before lifting over my shoulder and grinning. I glanced around again, hoping to find Rabbit.
The Restart and the Remedy (Aces High MC - Dakotas Book 3) Page 21