Point of Return

by Stacey Lynn

  “But…”

  “But together they’re a couple of back country hicks who are fucking morons. I don’t know why anyone left them alone in the yard. Anyway, they were messing around with one of the hydraulic pumps on the car crushers; then they started messing with the engine. Something blew up.” He ran both hands down his face and rolled to his side so he faced me. “I don’t know. We’ll figure it out tomorrow. We’ll need a new crusher, but I’m too exhausted to think about shit now. I’d rather talk about you not wearing my shirt.”

  I snorted. “Not tonight.”

  “But you look good in it, and in my bed, in my house.” One of his hands came out and my breath caught in my throat. His thumb gently swiped across my lips and I felt his rough, callused skin move slowly across my cheekbone and then back to my hair when he pushed it behind my ear. “You’d look better on the back of my bike.”

  “Daemon,” I warned him. I was also pretty sure I didn’t mean it. It was going to happen. Somehow, in the last week, even I had come to accept that.

  “Not yet.” He grinned victoriously and even in the darkened room, I could see wrinkled lines around his eyes. “But it will.”

  “I think there’s too much other crap going on right now for us to think about that happening.”

  He didn’t give me a chance to say anything else because Daemon’s arms were wrapped around me, and he had me flipped so my back pressed to his side. One arm cradled under my neck and his other hand rested on my swollen abdomen.

  He pressed a kiss to the back of my head. “We’ll figure it out.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut and my breath faltered at his familiar scent and the strength in his arms. Not to mention the erection I felt pressing into me. I ignored that one as much as possible, but it was difficult.

  “I’m having another man’s kid, Daemon. Someone you hate. You can’t just figure shit out.”

  He was silent for a beat before his hand on my stomach tightened slightly. “We’ll figure it out.”

  He sounded so sure, so confident, that I closed my eyes and chose to trust him and believe he’d be right. Maybe I was making things more complicated than they needed to be.

  “Looks like you’re ready to go, Gunner.” I spun around and surveyed the smaller office space we had spent the last two weeks converting into a new tattoo shop. Well, mostly Gunner had converted it.

  Sometimes men from the club came and helped.

  I suspected it was because Daemon was still nervous about not knowing for sure why a bomb had been thrown through Gunner’s old shop, and this was his way of protecting me. I was able to sort through the paperwork and re-organize the new back office. I had spent most of the week in the back printing out new photos of all of Gunner’s artwork along with decorating and hanging photos on the walls.

  The men did all the heavy work, and being pregnant, I let them. I was learning rough biker men liked taking care of women. And since I was beginning to like being taken care of, I let them.

  “You got plans later?”

  I smiled nervously as my hand lightly rubbed my abdomen. “I have a doctor’s appointment in a little bit, my first one.” I was close to twelve weeks and it was time for my first official prenatal appointment. I’d already been taking vitamins the clinic nurse had told me to buy. Every night I looked like I’d eaten three times my share in food, but besides the slightly swollen belly and my tender and even more swollen chest, I was feeling good.

  My morning sickness had disappeared. I hadn’t thrown up in over a week and I was feeling a lot less tired throughout the day. I hoped it was a sign of the end of the first trimester that I’d learned about in the books I’d been reading on my phone, when Gunner made me take breaks while he set up his new office.

  In reality, I wasn’t going to feel better about everything until I learned my baby was okay.

  My baby—because Travis hadn’t spoken to me since the day he called our child a bastard. Part of me knew he was angry we were over. I also knew he was angry I was still staying at Daemon’s. The other part just knew he was hurting, and he didn’t mean what he said to me that night.

  He couldn’t have. At least, I didn’t want to believe he could be so cold toward me. I shook Travis out of my head.

  “Daemon going, too?” Gunner asked as his eyes narrowed on my stomach with pure curiosity.

  I frowned at Gunner. “No, just me.”

  He made some strange, unintelligible noise and waved me off. “All right, then. Talk to you later, Liv. Be here whenever you can on Monday.”

  I waved him good-bye and climbed into my car wondering about the cause of the strange look from Gunner. I didn’t even tell Daemon about the appointment. He thought I had to work at Gunner’s new tattoo shop for the rest of the day. I hated the lie, but I didn’t want to be followed to my appointment, and I didn’t want any club members at the shop, watching me leave.

  And I didn’t want Daemon with me. Even if we were continuing to grow closer, we still hadn’t actually sat down and talked about what was going to happen. What we wanted to happen and how he felt about raising another man’s kid.

  I avoided bringing it up because I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear Daemon tell me he wanted to raise a kid with me. I was more certain I didn’t want to hear him tell me he didn’t want to raise another man’s kid.

  So, alone it was for me.

  Through the lump lodged in my throat, I finally allowed my tears to fall down my cheeks shamelessly. I had held it together as long as I could when I was in the doctor’s office. My chin trembled again as a sob poured out of me. I couldn’t wipe away the look on the nurse’s face or the pity in her eyes.

  Holding my phone in my trembling fingers, I left a message as soon as the voicemail beeped. “I need to talk to you. Meet me at the cliffs as soon as you get this. Please.”

  I shut my phone and threw it in my passenger’s seat. He might have hated me, but he was the first person who deserved to know.

  I started the car and then my forehead collapsed onto my steering wheel. My shoulders shook and the tears fell into my lap, wetting the paper with the notes the ultrasound tech had given me, with a sadness in her eyes I understood before the doctor ever saw me.

  With shaky hands, I had opened the note, but I already knew.

  I hadn’t heard the heartbeat. And whatever I had seen on the screen hadn’t look anything like the gummy bear the books told me to expect.

  No fetal pole. No heartbeat.

  I had lost my baby.

  “God,” I cried out through my tears. I wasn’t sure if it was a prayer or a curse. All I could see, all I could hear was the advice from the nurse.

  The nurse I had wanted to hit more than I had ever wanted to hurt anyone as she had looked at me in the office and gave me my options. “We can do a procedure to help you. It’s called a D&C and you can schedule it on your way out. Or, we can let this happen naturally. There will be some cramping for a few days, and some bleeding. Most miscarriages take care of themselves on their own. In a week or two, you can take a pregnancy test and if it’s negative then you know your hormone levels are back to normal and there’s no reason to come back in and see us.”

  “You’re telling a woman who just found out she’s losing her baby to take a pregnancy test to find out she’s not pregnant? What kind of a horrible thing to say is that!”

  I had screamed it at her, not caring if I was making a scene. Upset that I was by myself with no one to help me.

  Her look of shock, the realization of how cold that could sound to someone going through what I was dealing with, made her flee the room with only a mumbled and insincere apology.

  My sweaty hands squeaked along the leather steering wheel. I twisted them, fighting the urge to go back in and punch the nurse in the face.

  I hurt. Over the last few weeks, I had slowly become used to the idea of having a baby, even if I had to do it on my own. I hated that my slow burning excitement over feeling better had truly been the worst th
ing in the world.

  I hadn’t been getting better, getting closer to the second trimester.

  I had been carrying around a dead baby in my stomach and not even known it. When had it happened? I couldn’t stop trying to figure it out. Was it all the stress I had been through? Was it the anger I had carried in me?

  What had I done wrong?

  Was it punishment for considering getting an abortion at the very beginning? Had God decided that any woman willing to consider that option shouldn’t have a baby?

  “Ahh!” I screamed until my throat was raw and pounded the steering wheel so hard my car shook and the horn went off.

  A happy couple, a woman with a largely swollen abdomen jumped at the sound as they walked out of the clinic.

  I hated her. I narrowed my eyes and glared at them. Happy. Together. Healthy.

  As tears dripped down my face, I peeled out of the parking lot, trying to get out of there as fast as I could. Maybe some distance between the cold, evil nurse and me would calm my heart.

  I doubted it. The further I drove from the office and toward the cliffs at the park where Travis and I always went for a picnic lunch, the more the pain in my heart grew. And by the time I pulled into the park’s parking lot, there was a pain in my chest so large I was sure it would never go away.

  I left my phone in my car as I wandered aimlessly toward a bench that faced the cliffs overlooking Lake Superior at my favorite park, Harbor Point. The phone had been blowing up for the entire car ride. I didn’t know if it was Travis, telling me to go to hell, or Daemon wondering where in the hell I was.

  They were both going to be pissed. I wasn’t ready to deal with them. I didn’t want to deal with anything.

  I sat on the bench, the lake breeze whipping my hair across my face. My hair stuck to my wet cheeks, but I didn’t have the energy to push it away. I kept my arms crossed over my stomach, trying to figure out how it went wrong. What did I do wrong to cause this?

  I barely registered the sounds of the cars flying by on the scenic lake road. The road noise was a distant buzzing in my ears, but I heard the unmistakable sound of Travis’s truck pulling into the parking lot. I tried to straighten my shoulders, but the weight was too much. I didn’t have the strength.

  By the time I felt Travis’s presence next to me, my shoulders had slumped down so far I was almost doubled over in pain. Not the physical kind the nurse and doctor had warned me about.

  “What the hell, Olivia?”

  Travis’s deep voice rumbled over me like a tidal wave. I couldn’t look at him. I didn’t know if he’d care about what had just happened. All I knew was he had the right to know.

  His hand came to my cheeks and I felt him bend down next to me. I saw his shoes at my feet and then his knees as he bent down. His hand brushed the hair off my face. I didn’t know what he saw in me. I didn’t know if he recognized the red swollen eyes or the puffiness in my cheeks and nose.

  Did he see my despair? Did he care?

  “Shit, Olivia. Talk to me.”

  I shook my head, suddenly too scared to tell him. I couldn’t even raise my head to look at him as my sobs of grief racked through my body.

  “I’m so sorry,” I cried. Tears fell down my cheeks and my nose was running, but I couldn’t unwrap my arms from my stomach. I couldn’t let go even though there was nothing to hold on to.

  Travis’s arms wrapped around me, and he pulled me to his chest. I stiffened at first and then sunk into them.

  “I’m so sorry,” I cried again, softer this time. “I know you didn’t want it. I know you hate me.”

  “Shh, Olivia,” he said softly, one hand running over my hair. “I was just mad, but I didn’t mean it.”

  He held me while I cried until my tears ran dry and there was just the sound of me moaning in misery. Finally, after who knows how much time had passed, I bit my bottom lip and tried to stop my chin from trembling anymore.

  I pulled away from him and sat up, putting distance between us when I saw compassion in his eyes. I didn’t deserve it.

  “I lost the baby. I went in for an appointment today and it was just gone.” I choked over the last couple of words and stared at the water to try to stop new tears from forming. “I wanted it, Travis. I didn’t; not at first, but I really did want it.”

  I couldn’t look at him. I was too afraid what I would see, the knowledge that I wanted his baby, but didn’t want him. How much would that hurt him?

  He said nothing. A thick, palpable silence filled the space between us.

  Then I realized I owed him that. I owed it to look him in the eyes and apologize to him. When I faced him, I saw a lone tear fall down his cheek as he watched me. His lips pressed together too into a sad frown.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, nodding once.

  “Me, too.” It was an apology for so many things. He nodded again and then looked out at the water. I knew he took it the way I intended when one of his arms wrapped around my shoulders and he pulled me to him. My head fell to his shoulder as we both watched the barges and smaller boats move along the white-capped waters below us.

  And we sat like that; not saying a word, just silently apologizing to one another and comforting one another in a friendly way until hours passed and the sun was beginning to set on the water.

  “I need to get to work,” Travis finally said.

  I blinked and nodded against his shoulder but neither of us moved.

  “Come on, Olivia,” he said, standing up and pulling me to my feet.

  When he walked me to my car, he stood in front of me, my back against the door. We had been friends for so long, lovers for long enough. Now, nothing tied us to one another. I knew the minute he walked away from me this time, our relationship—our friendship—would have to be over.

  And I wasn’t ready to say good-bye to him.

  His hands reached out and cupped my cheeks. His thumbs grazed along my jaw. He regarded me like he was trying to memorize all of my features so I did the same to him. I took in his sad eyes, his short brown hair, the slight dimple in his chin and the firm shoulders that had always made him look so strong and brave in his uniform.

  I gave him a sad smile that he returned.

  “I wasn’t working with Black Death. I want you to know that. Regardless of what else you think of me, I need you to know that.”

  He spoke softly and it took me a minute for his words to register. It happened right before I took in the honesty radiating from his eyes.

  “Travis,” I said, reaching out and grasping his forearms with my hands. If he truly wasn’t working for Black Death, this changed everything Daemon and the club thought of him. “Tell me.”

  He shook his head and opened his mouth, but as he did, the rumble of motorcycle engines drowned out whatever words he was going to speak.

  Our heads snapped to the road at the same time, his hands dropped from my face.

  A blur of bikes, sport bikes—not Harleys, whipped around the curve in the road. I didn’t know how many, but all the men had black helmets with visors that covered their faces.

  That was all I saw before guns were raised, and I saw smoke coming from them.

  Travis dropped to the ground next to me.

  As I started to scream, knowing no one could hear, a fireball of pain hit my shoulder and everything went black.

  Two hours earlier

  “Find her!” I screamed at Xbox through the phone and then fisted it into my hands. Breaking it wouldn’t do any good if Liv actually got around to calling me back.

  Where in the hell had she gone?

  I had so much emotion coursing through my veins that I didn’t know if I wanted to strangle her or fuck her once I finally got my hands on her again.

  When she started ignoring my calls in the afternoon, I had only been annoyed. It wasn’t until Bull got back from a meeting with Cain, the V.P. of Black Death, that I got worried when I hadn’t heard from her.

  They were planning something.

  I s
pun around when I heard the door to the church room open. Switch walked in like he had all the time in the world; like it wasn’t a big deal that Liv had been avoiding my calls for six hours now, and no one knew where in the hell she went.

  “Gunner said she had a doctor’s appointment earlier,” he said. He placed both of his hands on the back of a leather chair and swung it back and forth casually. “Doctor’s office said her appointment was at two and she left right around three o’clock.”

  Three. That was when I first tried calling her.

  My nostrils flared and I pushed my fists into the top of our wooden table. My knuckles cracked and the square corners of the Nordic Lords rings I wore on my fingers dug into my skin.

  I sneered through the pain, taking deep breaths.

  “Need to find her,” I mumbled and pushed passed him, slamming the doors to our church meeting room and back to the main bar area at the clubhouse.

  No one was there but Bull. We had everyone else out looking for Liv.

  “What in the hell did Cain say?” I asked again. We’d been over his meeting with the Second in Command of the Black Death a half dozen times already. Something wasn’t making sense with it.

  Bull shook his head and threw back a shot. “We’ve been over this, D. I don’t know what they’re planning, but they need our help in stopping the Sporelli Family from gettin’ too close.”

  Sporelli Family. Chicago Mob family. What did they give a shit about a bunch of biker clubs in Wisconsin and Minnesota? It still didn’t make any sense to me.

  My phone buzzed in my pocket and I answered it, recognizing Xbox’s number. “Yeah?” I snapped at him.

  “She called the cop at three. That was the last call she made and she didn’t answer anything after that. That’s all I got so far.”

  Travis? She fucking called Travis? I growled into the phone. “She had an appointment at the Bay Clinic at two. See if they got her records on line yet. Fuck it, never mind.”