BIKER’S GIFT

by Claire St. Rose

  “Seriously, Jackdaw. If I wanted to kill her, I could’ve done it quickly enough when I was inserting the IV. Don’t be an idiot. This is all a stupid coincidence, but hell if I’m going to take my vendetta out on an innocent baby. It’s you that I’ve been trying to talk to for months.”

  Jack scoffed. “Talk to? You wanted to kill me. You made that perfectly clear.”

  All three voices raised, all of a sudden, and Mindy took a deep breath before shouting “Hey! All of you! Cut the shit.”

  Suddenly, all eyes were on her. Well. She should have expected that.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven “I don’t know what the hell is going on,” Mindy said, her voice incredibly cautious and careful. The room was quiet, but with the kind of tension that could break into an even more violent loudness if she didn’t say everything just right. “But my goal here is to make sure my baby is safe. All of your stupid motorcycle club war bullshit is going to fucking wait, do you hear me?”

  She surveyed each of the three faces now looking at her. Joanna had a small grin on her face as if she was proud of her patient, while Lauren’s eyebrows were raised, surprised, maybe? But Jack; Jack was the most gratifying. He looked embarrassed, and just a handful of seconds away from scuffing his shoe along the floor while he apologized.

  “Now,” Mindy said, straightening the sheets that were stretched over her legs and her belly. “Joanna was telling me something about the baby. Jack, since you’re here, and you have a vested interest, she should keep going now.” Lauren made to step away, and Mindy pointed her finger right at the other woman. “If you try to leave, he’s just going to fret and twitch over it—thinking about how you’re off plotting to kill him somewhere. Do me a favor and just stay, alright? You two can continue your fight in a minute.” Everyone was quiet for a moment, and after enjoying the fact that everyone was listening to her, Mindy waved a hand at Joanna to continue.

  “The thing about placental tears,” Joanna said as if she’d never been interrupted, “is that they’re really unpredictable. You could carry to term and never have another problem. It could tear further, and both your baby and you could be at serious risk. And quite frankly—” She shot this at Lauren, interestingly enough, not at Jack. “We’re not equipped to handle this here. We’re a small, regional hospital. You need to be in the city, where if things escalate, you can have an emergency C-section.”

  “Absolutely not,” Jack said. “I’m not letting her out of my sight.”

  “Even if it kills her?” Joanna snapped back at him. “What do you think, that if she starts to bleed out, you’re going to drive her back here on your goddamn motorcycle? I hope you’re looking forward to losing your wife as well as your baby.”

  Jack’s face went ashen under his wind-tanned complexion, and Joanna looked like she was going to bite her tongue to keep any more words from coming out.

  “You shouldn’t have been brought here,” Joanna said after a few moments. This time she very carefully did not look at Lauren. “The paramedics ruled out the most obvious causes of vaginal bleeding at twenty weeks’ gestational age in the field; they should’ve taken you straight to Grace Hospital. They never ever should’ve brought you to Providence Medical. And they should’ve known that.” Another snap in her tone, and this time it was Lauren who looked just a little bit embarrassed. “Now that you’re here, the most responsible thing I can do medically is to transfer you, now that you’re stable. You should stay on bed rest for the remainder of your pregnancy. No sex, no lifting, no anything. Rest, relaxation, and honestly, a few prayers might not hurt either.”

  “The bleeding stopped?” Mindy asked, trying hard not to burst into tears. For all the times she’d been tired of being alive, she’d never actually wished to be dead. “My belly doesn’t hurt anymore. Before, it hurt so much I couldn’t take a breath.”

  “It’s stopped for now,” Joanna said, carefully. “Frankly, I’ve never seen someone who showed so many signs of a stage two abruption spontaneously stop. I know it happens, but it’s certainly not a thing that we commonly see. I didn’t think—” She stopped, but Mindy could hear the words in the quiet. Joanna thought that she was going to lose her patient and her patient’s baby.

  “It was already slowing in the field,” Lauren said, her own voice quiet and careful. “That made polyps or something else the most likely cause. Jo, I promise I wouldn’t have brought her here if I’d known. I swear I wasn’t trying to get you involved in this.”

  “Well you did,” Joanna replied, but there was less malice in the retort than Mindy expected to hear. God knew she would have been nastier to Jack if he’d done something like that to her. Not that she was any kind of a doctor; the worst thing he probably could have done to her was brought a dozen bikers into the diner during a dinner rush or something. But that wasn’t the point. Focus, Mindy.

  Lauren glanced at Jack. “I heard about the marriage. Felicitations.” Her voice rolled through the Spanish like a native. It was musical and soft; that was lovely.

  “Shut up,” Jack replied. That was less lovely.

  Lauren sighed. She stepped into the room, closed the door behind her, then crossed to sit down in a chair. Jack glowered at her, but he didn’t try and stop her.

  “Look,” she said. “I’ve had one question to ask you for four months. I’m going to ask it now. Okay?”

  “What?”

  “If you didn’t kill my father, who did?”

  Jack made a sound, low in his throat, that Mindy thought of as his most intense frustration. “If I knew that, Lauren, I would’ve already served the son of a bitch’s head to you on a silver platter. I would’ve bought the goddamn platter, too. I keep telling everyone; I don’t goddamn well know.”

  “And why should I believe you?”

  “Because he was with me,” Mindy said, her voice cutting through the room again, making everyone look at her. She ran her hand over her belly. “Making this.” It was the corniest thing she’d ever said in her life, but she was hoping that the direct appeal to her status as a mother-in-training would make the women in the room sympathetic.

  It worked on Joanna, but Lauren rolled her eyes. “Of course she’d say that.”

  “Why?” Mindy snapped again. Jack started to say something else, but for once he went silent when she glared at him. “You don’t know me, and you don’t know anything about me, okay? I got hauled into all of this club shit against my will. I didn’t mean to be some kind of crazy pawn in this stupid war, but then your man Wester grabbed me and tried to—to I don’t even know what, but he scared the shit out of me, you understand? And—”

  “Hold on,” Lauren said. “What’s this about Wester?”

  Mindy glanced at Jack, who nodded at her to continue. “He was working with Cook, from the diner? To, I don’t know, deliver me to them. They were at some roadhouse, and Cook drove me out there. He said he was going to take me out of town, get me away from all of this mess, but he took me there instead. He got out of the car to talk to Wester about something, and Wester shot him in the stomach. I don’t know if he’s alive or not.” Sorrow she hadn’t felt for Cook in days rose in her, and she fought to control her voice and keep from crying. “Wester said he was going to—do things to me. To hurt me. Take my baby, once it was born. Jack saved me.”

  Lauren looked like she’d swallowed something that tasted absolutely awful.

  “Jack,” she started, then shook her head.

  “Your father was a good man,” Jack said, his tone quieter and calmer than it had been since Mindy had woken up. “He and I didn’t see eye to eye on much, but he was a good man. He wanted a different kind of club than I did, and was willing to go an awful lot further than I ever would to see it happen, but he wasn’t evil.” He took a deep breath. “Wester’s evil. He’s dishonoring your father’s memory. I didn’t kill Grim, Lauren, I swear it to you.”

  “We grew up together, Jack,” Lauren said. “I don’t know how you could’ve looked into Dad’s eyes and pulled
a trigger. In the back of the head, maybe, maybe you could’ve done that, but right in his face? I don’t know how you could’ve done that.”

  Jack shook his head. “I couldn’t have done that, Lauren. There’s no way. Grim took me in when no one else would have me. I’ll never forget how he saved my life, no matter what came after. I want the man who killed Grim just as much as you do, I swear it. I’ve been trying every damn thing I can think of to figure out who did this, but every lead comes up dry.”

  Lauren leaned forward, creating a steeple with her fingers and resting her chin on her hands.

  “I’ve tried to keep the club under control,” she said, almost talking to herself. “Tried to keep it going in Dad’s image. But the Wardens don’t patch women, you know that, and so the idea of being led by one?” It was her turn to let out a cold laugh. “They don’t quite spit and grab my ass when I walk by, but I’ve… There have been hints that they’re not paying much attention to what I say. I’ve been trying to figure out who’s the ringleader of the opposition.” She glanced up, meeting Jack’s gaze again. “Sounds like your money would be on Wester?”

  Jack was quiet a while, considering.

  “He crossed me plenty of times when we were all one club,” Jack said. “He was the first one to go behind Grim’s back if he didn’t agree with things. There were some that thought Wester was the one actually running a lot of the dark shit that was happening, and Grim just wasn’t willing to cross one of his lieutenants publicly. I was always partial to that theory, even if I couldn’t prove it. Yeah, if I had to put money on someone undermining you, he’s the first one I’d be looking at.”

  Lauren shook her head.

  “Alright,” she said, after a bit. “Alright. You head on back to the clubhouse. I need to do some cleaning, it sounds like.”

  Joanna started to protest, but Lauren glared at her. “Tell me this isn’t appropriate medical treatment when the bleeding has stopped. Monitor and treat only if necessary, right? Prolong gestation as long as baby and mother are healthy.”

  Joanna looked like she was swallowing glass as she spoke. “Technically, but someone has to monitor vitals. If either one of them shows even the slightest hint of distress, they have to get to an ER, a real ER, immediately.”

  Lauren glanced at Jack, who was focused on a very, very small square of the floor.

  “Alright,” she said. “I’ll bring the equipment by myself, tonight. I won’t get out of the van; I don’t want to cause trouble for you with your men.”

  “And women,” Jack said, after a moment. Lauren’s head snapped around. “Chain Gang patches anyone who wants in and meets criteria. Men, women, folks who identify as neither or a little of both. Whatever. We’re a family. You love all your family, doesn’t matter what they wear, or what they have between their legs.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Lauren said. Her voice sounded a little husky.

  “Do you need my help?” Jack asked. “I’d do what I could. For Grim. For how he saved me.”

  “I’m not sure,” Lauren said. “I’ll… keep you posted, alright? I’ll let you know how things go. Maybe we can pool our resources or something, keep from redoing each other’s work.”

  “That sounds like a plan,” Jack said. He stuck out his hand, and after a moment, Lauren shook it. “You need to realize, though, that I can’t call off the Gang. Not while the Wardens are still actively coming at us.”

  “I know,” Lauren said. “But I’ll talk to some people. I’ll make sure that those I trust stay clear.” She leaned over and touched Mindy’s hand. “And I swear to you, I wouldn’t have done a thing to endanger your baby or you. Woman to woman, alright? I wouldn’t do that.”

  “Thank you,” Mindy said. Lauren squeezed her hand and left the room.

  “Well,” Joanna said, still with that awful expression on her face. “Isn’t this just dandy?”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight Bed rest was fun for about a couple of days. Lounging in bed, getting to read what she wanted or watch whatever she wanted without fighting someone for a remote, or just napping whenever she got tired; all of that was pretty cool.

  But around day three, it started getting pretty boring. Mindy had watched all the movies she’d missed out on because of pulling double shifts at the diner. She’d read two books, napped more times than she could count, and was really horny. Her hormones did not know that she was on full pelvic rest, as Joanna had called it, and that she was not allowed to play, have sex, have an orgasm, or anything at all until the baby was born. Her hormones knew that she’d been having some of the best sex of her life for a week straight, and then she’d been cut off cold turkey. And even if she’d wanted to cheat on the rules, there was no way Jack was going to let her.

  Joanna had taught Jack how to take Mindy’s vitals and check on the baby’s heartbeat. Joanna drove by every other day to check on Mindy as well and take some measurements that were more complex and harder to check without a medical background.

  The weeks passed with no further pain or bleeding, or any other signs of trouble. Joanna began to look more optimistic when she came by, instead of looking like she was about to walk into a funeral. So that was pleasant.

  Still, Joanna refused to allow her up out of bed for more than fifteen minutes at a time, and Jack was there to make sure that Mindy followed every single rule that Joanna laid down. When he needed to go out on club business, he had someone else from the club keeping an eye on her. Mindy had gained something of a reputation as a cold bitch who was not to be messed with, somehow, but people were terrified of Jack, just as much as they loved him. It was painfully clear that absolutely no one was going to cross him and let her have an extra long shower. Rat bastards.

  Lauren didn’t come to the clubhouse, but Jack talked to her on an almost daily basis. They were cross-referencing the scant information each of them had been able to gather on Grim’s murder, and they were looking to find some commonality that they’d each missed separately, but when put together with the other person’s piece, would help them construct a whole that made sense.

  The Chain Gang was attacked, more than once. Patched folk would be out on the roads and come across a bunch of spikes laid down, taking out their tires. They’d go to a bar and get into fistfights with men they knew were Wardens, even though they weren’t wearing their leathers. Over and over, they were picked at, prodded, and often humiliated. Jack told the Gang, over and over, not to get involved, not to engage, that he was working on it—but people were listening less and less. There was tension rising in the clubhouse. Mindy did her best to shut it out, trying to stay focused on herself and the baby, but as soon as she’d started thinking of the Gang as her family, it was impossible to shake that image. They were her friends, her family, the people she believed in. The people who believed in her. They were protecting her and the baby. They were doing their best.

  “Here’s the problem,” Jack said, one morning when she was napped out and he hadn’t slept. He was lying on his back, next to her, with her head pillowed on her shoulder. It had been about three months since the agonizing day that had sent her to the ER. Her belly was so big now that she couldn’t really curl in on his shoulder anymore, but it was much better than nothing. “When I took you back from the Wardens, at least a couple of guys got shot. In all these skirmishes, we’re not the only ones getting wounded. But there’s been no real attempt at retribution. No real push to even the score. That’s just not right. That’s now how things are done. And people are getting antsy. It’s a great way to put people off, you know? To just make sure that they never quite settle; never quite get a chance to understand what’s coming next. In the movies, it always makes them complacent, but in real life, it just makes them more afraid, edgier. I’ve got to figure out how to get people to let off some steam, or when the attack does come, it’ll tear us apart.”

  Mindy thought about asking what happened if an attack never came, but based on the sound of Jack’s voice, she was pretty sure it would b
e a mistake. He wasn’t in a place to hear about maybe it would all work out eventually. And that was fair. She wasn’t sure she would be if she were in his shoes either. “You don’t think Lauren can hold them together? The Wardens, I mean?”

  He shook his head slowly; she heard his hair rasping against the pillow. “If it were another club, maybe. As it is? No, I’m afraid she can’t. I’d like to believe in her—and I swear to God this isn’t going to be a thing about her being a woman—but she’s never really been in the life. Grim tried to groom her, but even when he was the leader of the Gang, she wasn’t ever really part of the life. Like she knows how to ride a bike, of course, and she can do her own repairs. I know she and Joanna go out riding sometimes, but it’s not in her the way it is with some of us. She’s happy doing her work, and she doesn’t need the road under her wheels. She’ll live her whole life in this town, and that’s all right with her.

  “And you?” Mindy asked. “Will you live your whole life in this town?”