And that would mean telling them who the father of this child was.
I scanned the crowd and looked into the faces of people I knew. Mr. McDaniels, who owned the barbershop on the corner of this block. Andrea Lee, who owned and operated the best daycare in the city. Michael and Tina Carver, our neighbors and wonderful friends of the family. I recited all their names and how I knew them in my head, trying to distract myself from the fact that Cade was standing right in front of me.
His eyes were penetrative. Even from the stage, I could see his muscles underneath his leather cut. His strong arms and his chiseled abs popped into my head, puckering my nipples behind my bra as I swallowed hard. I had to think about anything else. Dead ponies or screaming babies or my grandmother naked. Anything to distract me from the fact that the drop-dead gorgeous man that knocked me up was standing right there.
In the middle of my father’s election rally.
“Ladies and gentlemen, if you elect me as your mayor, I have given you all these promises. However, there is one thing I can give you as mayor that my running mate, Alexa Harrison, cannot. And that is an unbiased opinion in everything I do. Everything Mayor Harrison does is steeped in emotion. Conflict. Opinion. She doesn’t seek out facts, she listens too much to those around her, and she’s easily swayed by emotional outbursts from those who pay her under the table. What you will get with me is a fresh start. An unbiased man with strong morals who will not only uphold what you want but not allow money to deter his mindset.”
It took all I could not to roll my eyes at his statement.
My father wanted to paint himself as the perfect person, but underneath he was the biggest misogynistic asshole I’d ever known. I watched him boss my mother around while complaining about all sorts of bullshit. Like how the house wasn’t clean enough or something was missing from dinner or how she hadn’t showered even though she was sick. My mother’s place was in the kitchen and with me while I was growing up, and he wouldn’t accept anything more or less. I watched my mother go from this strong, outstanding community woman to a housewife with no opinion and no sway when it came to her own damn life.
Watching my mother succumb to my father is what flourished my own passion for independence.
My father couldn’t stand it. He tried to control me, and my mother stood by while it happened. And sometimes, I caved. Like the school, I went to. I wanted to go to California State. Right there on the beach where I could get a degree in marine biology. But my father figured I would be better off as a lawyer, so I stayed here to do school while living at home. My father checked behind my grades, made friends with my teachers, and constantly made donations to my school to be kept in the loop with things. It was disgusting, and I wanted out from underneath his thumb.
I wanted to spread my wings as I had at that biker rally with Cade.
Cade.
My eyes snapped back to his.
Holy shit, he was still staring at me.
The crowd was clapping, but I had no idea why. My mother started putting pressure on my waist, dragging me off stage as I came back to reality. Our part was done. Being the smiling, picture-perfect family was over. Which meant I could get the fuck out of here. My mother escorted me to the curtain, and I chanced a look back, just to see if Cade was still standing there.
Just to make sure I hadn’t been dreaming anything.
And sure enough, he was there. With his piercing green eyes and his sharp facial features. Just him looking at me shivered my spine. I could almost feel the rough calluses of his hands on my ass. I could feel his teeth on the side of my neck. I could feel his hand coming down on my ass, punishing me for being such a bad girl before he licked my pussy dry.
He was still staring at me and watched me as my mother dragged me off stage.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” my mother asked. “Come on.”
“I need a bathroom,” I said.
Pulling away from my mother, I rushed off before anyone could catch up with me. I knew I was supposed to stay with The Black Angels that were backstage, but now that I knew they were affiliated with Cade I didn’t want to be around any of them. Would they recognize me? Would they rat me out to my mother? My parents thought I was with my best friend that weekend researching shit for law school.
They had no idea I was spreading my legs on the back of some stranger’s motorcycle.
I shoved myself into the bathroom and locked the door. I felt like I was going to vomit. I stormed into a bathroom stall and dropped to my knees, heaving into the toilet in front of me. I couldn’t allow myself to cry. It would ruin my makeup, and my mother wouldn’t stop bugging me until I’d fed her some lie that satiated her incessant need to control something. It wasn’t my fault she lost control of her life because she was a weak little bitch. And it wasn’t fair that I had to pay the price for it.
I threw up the measly breakfast I’d had before I peeled myself off the floor.
What the hell was I going to do? Was there any way for me to get out of here without anyone seeing? Would Cade come after me and bombard me with questions? I never dreamed I would see him again, and now he was here. And he knew I was pregnant.
Was it possible to pawn this child off as someone else’s?
I knew why he was here. He was here because he was protecting the rally. Which meant he was just as blindsided as I was. But if he came after me and my mother saw, all hell would break loose. He wouldn’t be safe, I wouldn’t be safe, and this child wouldn’t be safe.
Our child wouldn’t be safe.
“Harper?” my mother asked. “Open this door.”
“Just give me a second, okay?” I asked.
“What’s going on? Do you need a doctor? Is the baby okay?”
It made me sick that she was pretending to care. I knew she didn’t care. She didn’t give a damn about her grandson. All she cared about was making sure the image of our family wasn’t tainted in the public eye. Once my father won this election-- and he was projected to do so-- they’d go back to not even trying to give a shit about me.
“Harper, you’re embarrassing me. Whatever this is, it can wait until we get home. I’m going to the car. You’ve got ten minutes.”
And there she was. The mother of the year, hissing at her pregnant daughter to hurry the fuck up so we could get home. I wished the city could see this side of them. See how they treated me and how my father treated my mother. It was my mother’s fault she had caved to the likes of my father, but I couldn’t blame her for how she coped. She’d have to live with the mediocrity of her life for the rest of it. But I didn’t have to.
That was why I’d have to go home and slowly start packing. Because come election morning, while my parents were out campaigning in the streets, I’d be leaving this place.
And I wouldn’t be coming back.
Chapter 6
Cade
I could hear the crew talking in my ear, but I had no idea what the fuck they were saying. I was in a daze. Harper… she was more beautiful than I had remembered. Her strawberry blonde hair reflected the light in a way that made her look almost angelic. And it was a bit longer, which called to my fingers in a way that hadn’t happened in months. The dress she had on framed her body nicely, especially that little dip in her waist. I could remember the feeling of her waist in my hands. How she jumped up into my body and wrapped those thick little legs around mine.
But her stomach. It was rounder. Much rounder than the last time I’d seen her. She was pregnant, and as I stood there and did the math in my head, I felt my stomach drop to my toes. We met in early April, and now it was the middle of September. If I had gotten her pregnant, she would definitely be showing by this point. Especially with how toned her stomach had been.
Holy fuck, was that child mine?
I had to see her again. I had to talk with her. I had to know if she was all right. If she was being taken care of. Even if the child wasn’t mine, I still wanted to know how she was. If the pregnancy was being kind
to her and what she was doing with her life. I felt a pull towards the stage as I slowly started walking towards it. But her eyes were scanning the crowd. I knew she’d seen me. Our eyes had connected like they did at the biker rally all those months ago.
Was she intentionally avoiding my gaze?
The crowd erupted into cheers, and I scanned the audience. It was an automatic reaction. One that came with years of doing protection details like this. I saw Harper’s mother begin to drag her off stage, and once again her eyes were on me. There was a small chance that child she was pregnant with wasn’t mine, especially if she had been with someone else at that rally. But even though I’d only spent one night with her, I knew.
I knew in the pit of my gut that child was mine.
I wanted to be angry with her about not telling me, but I had no box to stand on. I didn’t have her number and she sure as hell didn’t have mine. I never thought I’d see her again, and the look of shock in her eyes told me she thought the same. I watched as her mother finally got her off stage, disappearing behind the curtain.
I couldn’t let her get away.
I had to see her.
“Doc?” I asked.
“Go for Doc.”
“The mother and the daughter, you see them backstage, right?” I asked.
“Yep. Got the mom. The daughter just ran off to the bathroom. We’re posting someone outside of it.”
“Don’t worry about that. I’m gonna make a perimeter run; then I’ll come stand by the bathroom. The crowd’s quiet and Blade can clock it from where he is,” I said.
“On it,” Blade said. “Rifle set and scanning.”
“Escorting the mother to the car. Daughter’s still in the bathroom. She’s probably sick or something,” Ink said.
“Roger that,” I said.
I pushed myself through the crowd and made my way to the outer rim of the audience. I walked quickly through the mass of people. There were police officers lining the entryway of the backstage. Standing in front of the fence that separated the crowd of people from the car that would take the family home. That death threat must’ve really spooked Ryan Thomas because having us here and the police here was overkill otherwise.
The police officers were looking at me as if I had just grown a second head. I walked around the fence and held my hands up, telling them I was checking the car. I had to argue with a police officer for a second before I turned around and showed him my leather cut, showcasing my name and our logo. The police officers were still wary of letting me around the car, so I relented and made my way around the back.
And I found my opening there.
There was a police officer playing on his phone and eating a sandwich. He looked like the type of officer that never once passed the physical training portion of his placement exams. He was standing at the only back entrance into this entire place, and he was face-deep in his fucking cell phone. Part of me was irate with him. Jeopardizing the family’s safety just to play some bullshit game on his phone.
But his downfall was my success, and I ran by him before he could get his head out of his phone.
I ducked into the shadows and watched as he jogged by. His head was darting from left to right, trying to figure out where I’d gone. He said something into the walkie-talkie on his shoulder, and I watched as three other police officers rounded the corner. They drew their weapons and began scanning the perimeter of the area I was in, so I bobbed when they weaved.
I knew I was out of place. Everyone backstage was in suits and clean-cut outfits. Every single one of The Black Angels was sorely out of place, but I didn’t care. The only thing I could think about was finding Harper. She had rushed into the bathroom and every minute she was in there alone was another minute where she thought she was alone.
And she wasn’t.
She wasn’t alone because I was here now.
I bobbed while the police officers weaved, and eventually, they gave up. Grinning, I watched as they retreated out towards the back gate I’d run through, then I stepped from the shadows. People gave me odd looks at first, wondering why the fuck I was hiding in the darkness. Then they saw my leather cut and the intercom in my ear and paid me no attention.
I looked around for the restroom, but I couldn’t find it. I was ten seconds away from asking someone where the fuck it was, and then I heard it.
I heard a door slam open, and it caused me to whip around.
Harper came slamming out of the bathroom as her dress fluttered around her legs. Her stomach was much larger up close than it had been on stage. There was no doubt in my mind that she was carrying my child. There was no doubt in my mind that I’d gotten her pregnant that weekend.
Holy fuck, pregnancy looked good on her.
Striding over to her, I reached my hand out for her arm. The moment my hand touched her skin electricity shot through my veins. The same electricity that set a fire in my gut that night at the rally. That wonderful night in South Dakota that forever imprinted this woman into my memory.
“Harper,” I said.
She ripped her arm out of my hand before she turned around, and I watched her eyes take me in before they widened in shock. Her lips parted to speak, but as I waited for her to say something, it was only silence that loomed between us. So, I asked her one of the two questions I wanted genuine answers to.
“How are you doing?”
Chapter 7
Harper
I collected myself in the bathroom and decided to take my makeup off. It looked terrible on me anyway and was only used to disguise things my mother saw as imperfections. My freckles, for one. She hated them. She had never told me she hated them, but every time she got the chance she covered them up. The foundation was heavy and caked on, and it took a great deal of soap and scrubbing to get it off. My eyes were lined with eyeliner to try and make my eyes pop, but I thought I looked like a raccoon. I couldn’t stand the stuff, but every time my mother found an excuse for it she was sitting me in front of her vanity.
I dried my face off and looked at myself in the mirror. I didn’t even recognize myself anymore. My eyes were heavy, and my cheeks were sunken in. My stomach was protruding unnaturally, and my tits were growing at an exponential rate. I was getting stretch marks on the side of my body, and my thighs were growing steadily every day. My feet were beginning to spread and I had gone up an entire fucking size in shoes.
I was falling apart, and I didn’t want to be in the public eye any longer.
I stalked out of the restroom and took in a deep breath of air. It wasn’t fresh. In fact, it was stale with the lies my father was spewing on stage. But he had people eating out of his hand and every single time he spoke publicly, his poll numbers rose.
He would win this election, and I was hoping he would. Because if he did, that meant I could sneak away for good and try my hands at a life I built for myself.
I started for the car, but I felt something warm wrap around my arm. I whipped around and gasped, throwing my arm instinctively over my stomach. I didn’t know who the hell was grabbing me or why they felt like they could, but I was ready to scream out for help if it was necessary.
But I found myself looking up into Cade’s eyes, and I froze.
I stared at him for a long time. I took in his green eyes as they danced around my body. I yanked my arm from his grasp and tried to conceal my stomach, but I knew it was no use. He was taking me in, up close and personal. Like he had that night we spent together.
Only this time, I could’ve sworn I saw disgust rolling across his face.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
His voice startled me. It was exactly as I remembered. Rough. Gravelly. Filled with a huskiness that sent electricity surging up my legs. I felt my knees growing weak and tears of relief springing to my eyes. I had thought about this in my dreams for weeks. I had pictured him riding into town on his bike, banging down my parent’s door, and whisking me away. Taking me and a small bag of my clothes with him as we rode off into
the sunset. I thought about him appearing and saving me from the hellhole I’d found myself in. Professing some sort of undying want to raise our child together.
But reality would always set in and I would always wake up. I would remember that he was a biker, not a father. That he was an outlaw, not a career man. His life wasn’t set up to raise a child. To have a family. To take care of a wife and nurture a mounting relationship.
Yet here he was, asking me how I was doing.
“Um… I’m fine,” I said.
I took a step back, trying my best to cover my stomach. Cade met me step by step, approaching me as I backtracked from him. I could feel his eyes on me, scanning my body and taking me in. My eyes were burning a hole in his chest as I smoothed my hands down my shirt.
And then my hands rippled over my stomach, and my baby boy kicked.
Our baby boy kicked.
I gasped and stopped my movements as my hands splayed across my stomach. Just for a moment, I was ripped into another world. The life within my stomach was kicking out at me. I could feel my little boy’s feet tap dancing against my hands. I felt tears well in my eyes as I pictured what he might look like. He’d have my freckles but Cade’s strong eyes. He’d have my hair, but he would have Cade’s height.
He was going to be a beautiful boy, and I couldn’t wait to raise him.
“Is it mine?”
Cade’s voice ripped me back to reality, his hand slowly approached my stomach. I shrunk back away from him, watching as his hand gravitated towards my stomach.
He pulled it away quickly, but his eyes had me hooked.
“Are you pregnant with my child?” he asked.
I wasn’t prepared to answer this question. I wasn’t ready to do this now. My eyes darted around as police officers began to stare. Then one of them started to move. Cade’s eyes flickered over to the officer approaching him, and I saw a sort of desperation cross his stare, so I took the window I saw.
Snake (The Road Rebels MC Book 3) Page 20