by Sophia Gray
“Because you stood up for me and you didn’t have to. And because you did it without throwing a single punch. You were unexpected.” Amelia glanced down. “And I thought you were the hottest guy I’d ever seen in person.”
“You thought?” he asked, stepping forward, caging her in, his body only a few inches from hers. “What happened between now and then?”
Amelia looked up at him, swallowing hard. “Nothing important.”
Slowly, his features hardened and he stepped back. “Except now you’re marrying someone else. That’s not important?”
What should she tell him? Confusion warred within her. How much did he need to know? What would send him running out?
“You were really fine with walking out of my house?” he asked. “And never coming back? Without saying a damn thing?”
“I had to,” she said. “If I’d waited...if you’d woken up...”
“You’d have stayed?”
“Did you want me to?” she asked, turning the tables on him. He didn’t answer. Amelia shook her head. “No. You’re not going to stand here and drag answers out of me without giving anything. Are you the kind of guy that makes breakfast for the women he brings home?”
“No,” he said, his anger rising up again. “I’m not even the kind of guy who stays the night. I just...”
“So you can just fuck and leave, but you’re going to judge me for it?”
“I’m not judging you! I missed you!”
She turned away, looking out over the sparkling pool while she blinked back tears. He moved behind her again, putting his hands on either side of her and leaning down to speak into her ear.
“Why are you marrying him?”
“Because I have to.”
She saw his hands clench on the railing. “No. You don’t. This is the 21st century, for God’s sake! You don’t have to marry anyone you don’t want to marry! You don’t lo--like him. Do you?”
“He’s okay. It’s a business partnership, nothing more than that. Do you want to know how our dates go? He picks me up; he spends the whole car ride texting people. We only go to places where he thinks we’ll be seen. He--”
“Why?” he demanded harshly. “Why the hell would you do this?”
“I... it’s hard to explain...Anthony...he has money--”
“You have money!”
She spun around. “And I won’t if I don’t do this!”
“Basically, your old man won’t give you money if you don’t marry this guy?”
“Yes.”
“And money’s more important than anything else?”
“No, but I do like to eat!”
“Then get a job like the rest of us!” Ethan shouted.
“It’s not that simple!” Amelia shouted back.
“Then explain it to me!”
She pushed her hands through her hair, fighting tears again. “I don’t know how. I don’t want you to walk out on me!”
Ethan grabbed her upper arms and pulled her against his chest. “Let’s get two things straight right now. You drive me fucking crazy, Amelia. But I’m not going anywhere unless you throw me out.”
She threw her arms around him.
“What the hell is going on here?”
Amelia spun to face her father. Ethan kept his arm over her shoulders, holding her against his side, tucking her in protectively.
“Amelia?” Gregory asked again. “What are you doing? You’re engaged to Anthony!”
“For now,” Ethan said, his body so tense that Amelia could feel every muscle tighten and flex. “Maybe she’ll change her mind. Since it’s her decision to make and everything.”
“You honestly think you’ll make a better father to that child than the governor’s son will? What could you give the baby? An addiction problem before it hits high school? A life on food stamps?”
Ethan looked down at Amelia in shock. “What?”
She dropped her face into her hands. Gregory Stratton stared at the two of them, seeming to realize Amelia hadn’t told Ethan yet.
“Get off my property or I’ll call the police,” he blustered.
“There’s...there’s a baby?” Ethan asked, ignoring her father, his voice nearly shaking. She didn’t answer. “Amelia. Are you pregnant? With...” He sounded almost staggered, completely shocked. She had no idea whether it was good or bad, though. She couldn’t bring herself to look at him.
“I’m calling the police,” Gregory said, pulling his cell phone out and beginning to dial.
“Just go,” Amelia said, completely humiliated and unable to take anymore. “Just go, Ethan, please.”
Her heart broke when she heard his heavy motorcycle boots thump over the wooden deck boards as he left her behind. Hands still over her face, she sank down and sobbed. Her father stood over her for a moment, but he didn’t speak before he turned and walked into the house.
Chapter 14
Ethan
Ethan walked out of the house, aware Gregory Stratton was following him closely and watching his every move. Probably to make sure he didn’t steal anything on the way. He shouldn’t have bothered. The only thing he’d wanted to leave with was on the back deck, refusing to look at him.
And she hadn’t told him she was pregnant. A month and a half of silence, an engagement to another man, and now this. Ethan’s head was spinning.
He shoved the huge metal gate open and walked down to where his bike was parked. Every footstep sent the words through his brain again. She was pregnant. With his kid. He didn’t even have an extra bedroom. Where would he put a baby? How would he afford to feed it?
He made enough to get by, to put a little aside even, but he wasn’t exactly rolling in dough. He could sell the bike. He could take on more hours at the shop. He could--
Ethan shook his head. No. What was he thinking? He didn’t have to worry about any of that because Stratton was going to call the cops if he ever so much as saw him within five hundred feet of Amelia. Amelia, who hadn’t told him she was pregnant.
Why in God’s hadn’t she told him? Why the hell hadn’t she said something? The conversation had been enlightening and infuriating, but he’d felt close to her. She stood up to him. So why couldn’t she stand up to her father? Or was it more that she simply wouldn’t?
He slung his leg over the bike and jerked his helmet down over his head. Now where the hell was he going to go? He couldn’t go home. There was no way he could face the bed that still gave him flashbacks of their night together. Not knowing what he knew now. Knowing he was never going to be able to be with her again.
The Flathead needed work and he had anger to burn off. That settled it. He’d go to headquarters.
He rode there almost distractedly and, when he recognized William’s bike parked out front, walked straight into the garage, bypassing the common room. He couldn’t bring himself to face the man, not while he was still so shell shocked. There were other guys there, as well, full patch members. Ethan vaguely remembered that they played poker once a week here. So they probably wouldn’t pay him any attention anyway. They tended to take the game pretty seriously.
He walked into the garage and over to the full-sized refrigerator they kept there. Maybe a beer or ten would help him get some feeling back in his numb brain and body. The massive black refrigerator was covered in layers of newspaper clippings, postcards...most of them featuring nearly naked women and dirty jokes...from rides various members had been on, and photographs of varying quality taken with cheap cameras. As he reached to pull the door open, he accidentally pushed a clipping of Stratton that someone had drawn devil horns onto off of the picture behind it.
He’d forgotten the picture was there. Ethan tugged it off of the fridge and leaned back against a workbench, beer forgotten. It was a picture of him with his father, right after he’d first come out to Nevada. He remembered posing for it now. Maria had taken the photo.
“Come on! It’s the first time your son has been to your motorcycle club!” she said, waving her
camera in their faces. “You’re gonna wanna remember it!”
Marcus looked at William over Maria’s head and William shrugged. “Might as well let her do it, man. She’s been taking pictures of every damn thing since I bought it for her. ‘Bout time she picked on somebody who ain’t me.”
“Shut up, or you’ll end up in the picture, too,” she said with a grin. “Now, get in closer, in front of that bike.” She glanced up at them, frustrated. “Pretend like you love each other, okay? We’re going for a Kodak moment here.”
Marcus put his arm over Ethan’s shoulders, both of them tensing up. This was the first time Marcus touched him since he’d arrived in Nevada two weeks before. Ethan stood stiffly, not leaning in. He’d been so unsure back then. Hell, they both had. And, of the twenty-seven years Ethan should have gotten with his father, he’d missed out on sixteen of them.
Was he really planning to do the same thing to his own kid? Ignoring it? Going back to his life with the motorcycle club as if he didn’t have any responsibilities at all? Letting Anthony Barlow raise his child just because the guy had more money than he did? Or worse, just because Gregory Stratton had told him to back off?
Hell no. With some of the shock dissipating and his brain firing on all cylinders again, Ethan knew there was no way some jackass politician was going to keep him out of his own kid’s life. He shoved the picture into his back pocket and started for the door. Then he pulled up short.
There was no way in hell he was going to get back into Amelia’s house without a fleet of cops showing up. He chewed his thumbnail, thinking hard. Then he pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed a number from his call log.
“Hi, Ethan,” Marta said.
She sounded a little cooler than normal, but he couldn’t really blame her. He’d basically ignored her on their date and stared at other women half the night. He probably wouldn’t have even answered the phone if the roles had been reversed.
“Hey,” he said. “I wondered if I could ask a favor.”
“You can ask,” she said cautiously.
“It’s nothing crazy,” he assured her. “I just need Amelia Stratton’s cell phone number.”
“Are you sure it’s not crazy?” Marta asked. “You’re not thinking of ruining my investigation, are you, Ethan?”
He didn’t begrudge the question. “No. You said yourself that Amelia doesn’t seem to be a big part of the picture. What I need to talk to her about isn’t related to Stratton.”
“But she is.” Marta pointed out.
Ethan blew out his breath in frustration. “Okay, forget I asked.”
“Wait a second.” She sighed. “You really are impulsive, aren’t you? I’m not saying no.”
“Then what the hell are you saying?” Time was ticking away and he was getting impatient.
“I’m saying there’s a strong chance she knows the campaign inside and out. If you get any information out of her, I want you to remember who put you in touch, that’s all.”
“I’m not grilling her for you.”
Marta laughed ruefully. “You wouldn’t be very good at it anyway. Like I said, you’re impulsive. Too impulsive for the long game. What I’m getting at is simple. If she’s associating with you, I’m banking on the fact that she doesn’t exactly share her father’s ideals. She might tell you things freely. She might even want to help. If she does, come to me.”
Ethan pushed a hand through his hair and sighed. “Okay, I get it.”
“I’ll call you back when I have the number.”
Ethan paced the room, too wired to think of working on the bike to kill some time. He couldn’t even bring himself to sit down, let alone do anything that required any detail.
“What’re you doin’ here?” William asked in surprise.
Ethan jumped. He hadn’t heard the other man walk in. “Uh, nothing. I mean, I thought about working on the bike, but now I don’t know.”
“Okay,” William said slowly, walking over to the fridge and pulling out a Stratton of beer. “You look nervous.”
“I didn’t hear you come in,” Ethan defended himself. “And hell, with everything that’s going on...Stratton and his damn speech...why wouldn’t I be nervous?”
“Okay,” William said again. “Maybe have a beer or somethin’ while you try to figure out whether you wanna work on that bike. You’re wound awful tight, kid.”
“Sure,” Ethan said. “Yeah, I’ll probably do that.”
His phone buzzed and he turned away from William, reading the text quickly. Marta had sent Amelia’s number and a message wishing him luck. Ethan dialed rapidly, trying to get himself together. William was right. He was wound so tightly that his muscles ached. He could feel a headache beginning at his temples too.
“Hello?”
“Amelia?”
He heard a gasp on the other end of the line and he hoped to God that her father wasn’t in the room. Stratton would be all over that in a heartbeat.
“Ethan?” she whispered.
He guessed her father wasn’t there and held back a sigh of relief. “Yeah. I need...I need to talk to you.” He paused, but when she didn’t speak, he went on. “I can’t leave it like that, Amelia. You can’t expect me to.”
“Ethan, if you keep pushing this, it’ll damage your club even more. That’s part of the reason I’m doing what I’m doing. He said he’ll destroy you if I didn’t!”
Ethan snorted. “You think he won’t anyway? Amelia, I don’t give a damn about damaging The Angel’s Keepers right now. Not after what you told me. I just...I can’t leave things like this. Even if you want to marry this Anthony guy, I’m gonna be part of this. I’m not walking away.”
Amelia caught her breath again, and Ethan discovered he was holding his breath. What was he going to do if she said no?
“Okay,” she said finally, her voice unsteady but determined. “We do need to talk. But how....”
“You’ll have to find a way to meet me outside. I’ll be waiting down the road.”
“Okay. I’ll...I’ll figure it out. See you soon.”
Ethan disconnected and shoved the phone down into his pocket. In his haste to get out the door, he didn’t see William in the doorway. All he could focus on was getting to Amelia before she changed her mind.
Chapter 15
Amelia
Amelia wrapped her hands around the steaming cup of coffee Ethan had placed in front of her. Summer was dying, and the nights were cooling rapidly, the way they always did in the desert. That wasn’t the problem at the moment, though. It was nerves, pure and simple, that made her shiver now.
He sat down across the table from her with his own mug. He took his coffee black. Hers was practically blonde. She wondered what that meant. If it even meant anything. She’d heard that smokers drank black coffee more often than nonsmokers. It was supposedly something about how smoking killed their taste buds. Did Ethan smoke? He hadn’t been smoking that night at the bar and she hadn’t smelled it on him on the ride back to his house. He’d just smelled like fresh air and leather.
She shook her head slightly. Why was she wasting her time thinking about that? Probably because she had no idea how to begin a conversation about what they actually needed to talk about.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked once he’d taken a sip of his coffee.
Apparently, he had no problem diving right in. She took a breath, rubbed her suddenly sweaty palms down the sides of her pants and gathered her thoughts. She wanted to be upfront and honest because it looked like they were going to be in each other’s lives for the long haul now. She was tired of tiptoeing around things with her father and Anthony. She wanted at least one person who knew her inside and out.
“Because you were already mad,” she said. “You walk in looking like a thunderstorm and expect me to say what? Glad you dropped by, I’m having your baby?”
A smile twitched at the corner of his mouth and he shook his head. “No. But tell me honestly, were you going to get aroun
d to it if your father hadn’t come home?”
Amelia ran her fingertip around the rim of her cup. “I can’t tell you honestly, because I don’t know. I...wanted to. But I can’t promise I would have had the courage to do it tonight.” Ethan frowned, but she went on before he could ask more questions. “I can tell you why and it doesn’t have anything to do with you as a person. It’s just that no one has had a good reaction to this news, Ethan. Anthony is annoyed because it speeds up the wedding. My father is humiliated. I’m terrified. I couldn’t handle it if you’d walked out on me, or told me to get rid of it. Out of all the outcomes I’ve already dealt with, I was expecting a good one from you. I never in a million years expected you to want to be a part of this.”