HIS VIRGIN VESSEL: A Dark Bad Boy Baby Romance (War Cry MC)

by Nicole Fox

  "Not wasted..."

  "Let me finish. I wasted that part of my life on being someone I didn't really want to be. Then, in a matter of a few days, you turned me all around and made me realize the man I should have been all along. And, even though I ended up in jail, I was still happier for it. Happier than I've ever been in fact. I guess my point is, if that's what you can do for me in a few days, how much happier could you make me in a week? A month? Or the rest of my life?" He reached off the bed for his pants and fumbled in the pocket. "The thing is, I could wait an acceptable length of time, but why bother when I already know what I want? Why wait for the rest of my life to start, when it could start right now?"

  Before my gaping eyes, he brought out a wooden ring from his pocket.

  "It's not much. Obviously, there are not jewelers in prison, but I made this in the woodshop. So, Corinne Dugas, I know you prefer to say the opposite of whatever gets suggested to you, but, in this case, I hope you won't. Will you marry me?"

  Chapter Thirty

  One Year Later

  I looked in the mirror and was quietly surprised, though not wholly displeased, by the man staring back at me. I used to automatically distrust men in suits, and now I was one. I'm not wholly displeased with that either.

  "You won't get any more handsome, the longer you stare," Corinne said, bustling in efficiently, wiping paint from her hands.

  "You don't know that," I replied.

  "Sure, I do. You know why?"

  "Because you know everything?"

  "Because you couldn't possibly be any more handsome than you are." She kissed my cheek.

  I kissed her back. "I couldn't be any happier than I am, either."

  "Really?"

  "Well, maybe if you let me..."

  "You're not getting a bike."

  "You get to carry on with your hobby."

  Corinne leveled a look at me. "That better be a slip of the tongue, because the painting currently drying in our living room was a one-thousand-dollar commission, buddy boy."

  "It's nice when you can make a hobby pay." Sometimes it was still fun to push Corinne's buttons.

  "Because this is your day, I'll let you off," Corinne said, heading for the door. "But you watch yourself with the 'H' word."

  Painting was not a hobby. It was Corinne's profession, and one at which she was doing increasingly well.

  I took one last look at the mirror. A lot could happen in a year, and there were trade-offs that we made. Trading in the bike for an SUV was one I was pleased to make because of the development that had necessitated it.

  "Anthony!" I called. "Are you ready to go?"

  "Tell Daddy you're ready to go," Corinne instructed our son as she held him in her arms. "Tell Daddy you're ready to go."

  "Daa!" yelled Anthony excitedly.

  "I'm calling that a win," I said. "He's only one syllable away from Daddy."

  "I'll get him in the car."

  The only thing that I could remember Corinne being wrong about (or at least admitting that she was wrong about) since we had been married was the gender of our child. 'I must have been thinking of our next one,' had been Corinne's comment. I'd never been sure what sort of a father I would be. I still wasn't really sure what sort of father I was, but I was enjoying it far more than I had expected. There was a sharp turnaround between a life of fighting, drinking, and going to jail, and a life of early morning feeds and diaper rash, but I think the stresses of my former life were actually a good training for the stresses of fatherhood.

  Corinne strapped Anthony into his car seat as I started the car. I did miss the bike, and, when our household finances allowed it, I was getting another one, which I would then get rid of before Anthony was old enough to start begging to be allowed to ride it. No son of mine was getting on a motorbike. They were nasty dangerous things, and, pretty soon, you end up in a gang of some sort.

  "Good luck!" Joseph yelled from the doorway of Fiona's. I was not sure exactly when it had happened, but he seemed to have moved in there. Fiona insisted he was just a live-in bouncer, and that anything there was between her and the man who was twenty-two years her junior was purely sexual, but that excuse was fast wearing thin. I wasn't sure about wedding bells ringing, but it had ‘relationship’ written all over it. Every now and then, Fiona and I would get a drink and wonder at how two confirmed singles like us had ended up like this. We all have to go sometime.

  # # #

  Arriving at the stadium, I waved to a few classmates who waved back. It was displacement activity, really, I was starting to feel uncharacteristically nervous.

  "Do you want to head on in?" Corinne asked. "I've got to go find our seats."

  "Hello there!" Before I could answer, Brian Dugas strode up, with Risa beside him. He kissed Corinne, ruffled Anthony's hair and saluted me. I returned it as best I could. It was still not a gesture that came naturally to me. I've been told that my salutes always come across as sarcastic. I'm not even sure how that's possible.

  "How's my little nephew?" Risa.

  Anthony reached out for his Aunt Risa, for whom he seemed to reserve a special adoration.

  "Turning into a big strong man," Brian enthused. At first, Brian had shown the natural antipathy of a middle-aged man becoming a Grandpa, but once Anthony was with us, he had taken to the role like a duck to water and was, somewhat ironically I felt, relishing the opportunity to be a bad influence.

  "I'd better..." I indicated the stadium.

  "Run inside, son," Brian said. "You don't want to be late."

  Minutes later, I was standing side-stage with a line of other police academy graduates in front of me (it's nothing like the film, you know). A year-long intensive course, and the patronage of Brian Dugas, had got me to this point that I could hardly believe I had reached.

  "You all right, Asa?" My friend, Lee, asked.

  "No, I'm good."

  "You look nervous."

  "Aren't you nervous?"

  "No. Final exams, I was nervous. This is just walking across a stage in front of a few people."

  "More than a few," I muttered.

  "Don't like crowds, huh?" asked Lee with a grin.

  "Or stages," I admitted. "Anything that suggests public performance, basically."

  "You'll be fine."

  "People always say that."

  Lee shrugged. "What's the worst that could happen?"

  I really wished he hadn't said that. I had quite a good imagination when it came to what the worst that could happen might be. It was strange. I had been through stuff in my life that anybody would have called scary, and, right now, I would have been much happier in any of those situations than I was walking across a stage. I'd had some serious doubts about this career path at various points along the way, but this was the first time that it genuinely scared me.

  It had been Brian's idea, of course, and I think my first reaction to it was pretty predictable.

  "Are you high?" I asked.

  Brian had frowned at me sternly. "I don't get high, son. Real men don't get high. Family is our high."

  "I don't think I'm cut out to be a cop," I explained. "And I reckon that if you were to take a quick poll of people who know me, then you'd find that to be a popular point of view."

  "Then you're all wrong," Brian said simply. "I've been in the force all my life, and I know what makes a man a good cop. Bravery - we both know you have that. Loyalty - I might not have liked them much, but you stuck to your War Cry crew like glue and wouldn’t rat them out to the feds. Honesty..."

  "You can't possibly think I'm honest! I'm an ex con."

  But Brian had waved off this objection. "There never was a time when you lied to me about Corinne, and God knows you could have. Maybe should have. And you never pretended to be anything you're not. You're straight down the line. The desire to stick up for the little guy - damn it, you've been doing that for years. Maybe I haven't always liked the way you went about it, but you saw folk who needed protecting, and you did the
necessary. You took a bunch of criminals and turned them into vigilantes. Who are also criminals, but their heart is in the right place."

  "Doesn't respect for the law count for something?" I asked.

  "I reckon you respect the law."

  "I've spent my adult life breaking it!"

  Brian nodded. "Have to respect something to break it. You think a karate master doesn't respect that brick he banging his head into? You have to respect it, or you end up with brain damage. Obviously, you would need to stop breaking the law, but I figure you were going to do that anyway."

  "Well, yeah, but..."

  Brian held up a hand. "Look, son, I'm not trying to force you to do something you don't want to do, but we both know you have the skills necessary to become a great cop. So, the only question you have to ask is: is serving the community something you want to do? Is it something you want Corinne to see you doing? Is it something you want that kid of yours, when it's born, to see you doing? Everything else is horseshit."

  And the answer to all those questions was… yes. Of course I wanted Corinne, and the bump that turned out to be Anthony, to be proud of me, but the important thing was that, the more I thought about it, the more I knew it was what I wanted. With War Cry gone, the community had no one to turn to, and I wanted them to able to turn to me. I wanted to be a cop who anyone could come up to on the street, or on whose doorbell anyone could ring. I wanted to be there for the kid whose parents mistreat him, but who is too scared to tell anyone.

  "Asa Covert."

  I took a deep breath and marched across the stage to be confirmed as an officer of justice. The crowd clapped. There, in the front row, was Porter Crucero, next to Risa, who was taking a picture. Sitting beside her was Brian, and beside him, my beautiful wife, with my son perched on her knees. Anthony waved at me and Corinne joined in. I probably wasn't supposed to wave back, but what the hell. I might be on the side of law and order now, but I'm still Asa Covert, and life doesn't get any better than this.

  THE END

  ***

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  (Bonus 1 of 2) The Hitman’s Child: A Dark Bad Boy Baby Romance

  By Nicole Fox

  She can have her choice: my baby in her belly, or my bullet in her brain.

  My clients want people dead.

  And if this man is to be believed, his ex-wife deserves her fate more than most.

  But I’m not so sure. Maybe she’s earned the sweet kiss of death…

  Or maybe all she needs is a hard, sweaty f*ck.

  She thought she was finally safe.

  But she didn’t know that I was coming to kill her.

  It was nothing personal.

  I’m a hitman, not a judge or jury.

  I don’t ask questions…

  I just pull the trigger and hide the bodies.

  But there’s something different about this one.

  Something innocent.

  Something pure.

  Is she really the monster her husband claims she is?

  Or is there another story hidden behind those pretty eyes?

  Only one way to know for sure:

  Force her to her knees and spread that mouth wide open.

  Chapter One

  Vanessa

  Vanessa Powers bent down to her daughter’s level and unzipped her light jacket. She glanced down the hall of the elementary school. Kids wove in and out of classrooms, yanking off rain boots and sweaters and jackets, and hanging them haphazardly on the hooks that lined the wall. No one was paying attention to them.

  “You’re going to do great,” Vanessa said, straightening Opal’s shirt. “I know it’s scary going into a new school, but you’ll make friends fast. You always do.”

  “What if no one likes me?”

  “There’s no way that will happen. Just be yourself.” Except she couldn’t fully do that. She hated to remind her daughter, hated that this was necessary, but she had no choice. Vanessa dropped her voice to just above a whisper. “Don’t forget to use your new name, though, okay?”

  Opal nodded. “Katrin. I know.”

  “Right. You got it.” Vanessa kissed her nose and helped her take off her jacket.

  “When will I get to tell people my real name?”

  “I don’t know. It’s not forever, though. I promise.”

  “But how will this hide me?”

  Vanessa pressed her lips together. She’d explained this in full detail to Opal more than once. When they were alone. Explaining it again in the busy school hall was not something she wanted to do. Too many people could overhear. She kept her voice as low as she could and leaned in, so that her lips were just inches from Opal’s.

  “I’ve told you, honey. We have pretend names so that people won’t know who we really are. If they find us, they will try to take you away from me, and I can’t let that happen.”

  “Well, I won’t let them take me.” Opal said it with such determination that Vanessa wanted to believer her daughter would have a chance if someone showed up and snatched her. But an eight year old against a grown man would surely not stand a chance.

  “I know you won’t,” Vanessa said, “but we can’t let it even get to that point, okay?”

  Opal nodded. “Okay. It’s like playing pretend all the time. I like pretend.”

  “I know you do.” Vanessa got to her feet and checked her watch. They would be late if they didn’t hurry. “That’s why I know you’ll do such a good job.”

  She took Opal’s hand and led her to the door.

  With her hand on her shoulder, she said in a fairly loud voice, “Okay, Katrin, this is your new classroom.”

  They walked to the front of the room and Vanessa caught the teacher’s attention.

  “Oh, good morning,” the woman said with a glowing smile. “This must by Katrin, our new student.”

  “It is.” Vanessa returned the smile and gave Opal a quick hug. She bent down one more time. “I have to get going. You know where I’ll be, and I’ll come right back here after school to take you home, okay? Don’t leave the room without me.”

  “I won’t.” Opal ran walked slowly over to the corner of the room where the book shelf was. Several other kids sat on a small piece of carpet, reading. Other kids were at their desks or the white board, busying themselves before class started.

  “You’re the new nurse, is that right?” the teacher asked.

  “Right,” Vanessa said. “And I’m late for my first day. I’ll be back to pick her up at the end of the day.”

  “Well, good luck, and we’ll see you then.”

  With a final exchange of smiles, Vanessa hurried from the room. Down one hall, then after a right turn, she found the nurse’s office.

  In the office, she found things as she’d expected. There was a cabinet with student medications on one side, a cot with a paper covering on the other. A desk sat against another wall, by the filing cabinets. After being hired, Vanessa had come to get an overview from the previous nurse. Where things were, the school policies, that sort of thing. Today, she’d be on her own, but after years of being a school nurse, she had plenty of experience. She was more worried about Opal and how she’d do as “Katrin” in a new school.

  The morning started slow and gave Vanessa a chance to review the policies again and to file some paperwork. There was a steady stream of children who came in to take medications throughout the day, and she tried to memorize as many names and faces as she could, since these kids would be regulars.

  Throughout the day, there were several tummy aches, a fever, which was also her first time sending a child home from school sick, and a sore throat. In the afternoon, as she waited for her student with the fever to be picked up, another student walked in. A boy in a dirty t-shirt and jea
ns.

  “My head hurts,” he said when Vanessa asked him what was wrong. “And my arm and shoulder.”

  “Okay, let’s take a look then to make sure your arm is okay.” Vanessa pushed up his sleeve to check his arm. “Where does it hurt?”

  He pointed to his elbow, then a spot on his shoulder. The elbow looked fine, but on his shoulder was a deep purple bruise.

  “How did you get the bruise?” she asked.

  He glanced over at it and mumbled, “I fell at recess.”