HIS BABY’S KEEPER

by Evelyn Glass

  Dean

  The engine hummed between Dean’s thighs, and he let his focus narrow down into a tight band. Nothing mattered but the bike underneath him, and the road ahead. He was one with the bike… or some kind of hippie shit like that. He let out a low chuckle, feeling his hands relax but steady on the handlebars, his body loose on top of the bike.

  And then the flag dropped, and he was roaring forward.

  He’d been riding for so long that he didn’t consciously think about what he was doing. Granted, he was on a dirt bike, not his usual Honda, but still, the motion was easy, calm, simple. He spun through the course that had been put together - of course - by the Scorpions. They’d deny it later, but there was no way Killian would’ve challenged him if he hadn’t thought he’d have an advantage. As if there was anyone in this fuckin’ town that Dean and Connell couldn’t get around when push came to shove. As if there was anyone in New England who could outrun Dean on any two-wheeled vehicle. Ridiculous.

  Killian was screaming behind him, trying to cut corners and catch up, but Dean had been ahead since the flag dropped, and that wasn’t going to stop now. He’d insisted on going over the bike himself, instead of just trusting Killian’s word that it was safe. It was a good thing, too, since the brake cables had been loosened, and one of the calibers had been knocked out of alignment. It was a good thing he was having a good day; otherwise, he’d have made Killian switch bikes and watched the redheaded idiot knock himself out on a tree. That would’ve been entertaining.

  He made the last turn, trusting his reflexes and balance as he laid the bike out at a ridiculous angle to the ground, then burned into the straightaway at the end of the trail. He could hear Killian behind him, still angry, trying to goose a little more speed out of his bike as he downshifted, but it was too little, far too late. As Dean rushed across the finish line drawn in the gravel at the end of the old quarry lot, he gave a little flourish, dragging the bike’s tail end through the crushed rocks, and making Killian swerve to keep from crashing.

  Killian was off his bike in half a heartbeat, the bike’s engine choking off as the sensors realized the rider had been ditched. Killian went for a gun, and everything went slow. Dean could hear Connell shouting behind him, and knew that his friend was probably pulling his own gun already, prepared to intervene not just for his buddy but for his VP. It wouldn’t be necessary. His reflexes were doing the same work for him. Dean reached for the telescopic baton he wore strapped to his belt whenever he went out as part of the Night Titans. He snapped it open even as he watched Killian’s approach. The pale man’s cheeks were bright red, whether from anger or exertion Dean didn’t know. He stomped forward like some kind of Mafioso bad ass in a terrible movie, his gun all the way extended and held in a single hand. It was nothing to step just a little bit to the side, then bring the baton down hard, just above Killian’s wrist. Dean didn’t hit hard enough to break the man’s arm, but he would have a multi-colored bruise there for days. The weapon dropped to the ground, and Dean kicked it away, then gave Killian a sharp slap between the ribs with the baton. That was all it took. Killian dropped to the ground, coughing and gagging.

  “What the hell are you thinking?” Dean growled. Out of his peripheral vision, he saw Connell pick up the fallen weapon and tuck it into his belt. Asshole was going to shoot his dick off one of these days, doing that. “If we were racing for territory, I could see you pulling a damn gun in my face, but wasn’t it you who called me out here for a little fun between friends?”

  Killian made a raspy sound, and then vomited a stream of bile into the gravel. Dean made a face at the spatter on his boots and made a point of wiping it clean with the other man’s shirt. He wasn’t vomiting blood, that was good. Dean hadn’t come out here to start a war, despite Killian firing off like a rocket. There was a chance the Scorpions would overlook him wiping the ground with their sergeant-at-arms, but it was a chance, not a guarantee. There was a time when Dean wouldn’t have cared about the difference. But that was in the past, and then some. Even with Samara gone, he owed it to those he cared about to do the right thing. To protect the town and the territory. That was what the club was supposed to be for, despite the fools who thought otherwise. Those who thought riding bikes and wearing leather was an excuse to run drugs and beat up women.

  Killian seemed to catch his breath, and he sat back on his heels. “Sorry,” he said, and he seemed to mean it. “Lost my cool there. And I swear, man, I didn’t know about the bike. About the brakes. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

  Dean wasn’t sure he believed that even a little, but it was good that they were going to separate peacefully. The other Scorpions who had come to watch the showdown were easing off as well, hands backing away from guns and resting more calmly over pockets again. He reached down and helped Killian to stand up and dust himself off. Connell pulled a bottle of water from somewhere, and Dean twisted the cap open and passed it over. Killian took a chug, rinsed his mouth, and spat again.

  “Killian,” Dean said, his voice deliberately pitched low. “We’re not going to have a problem here, are we?”

  Killian looked up at Dean, but his eyes flicked away before they could really meet Dean’s gaze. The kid didn’t really do eye contact, something Dean respected. His old man had punished him for looking people in the eyes more than once. He was pretty sure that wasn’t why Killian tended to avoid meeting anyone’s eyes, but it was still enough of a connection for some empathy.

  “No way,” he said. “I didn’t even want to do that. I’m sorry. It’s just that things are gonna be bad when we get back to the clubhouse, and I lost my patience.”

  Dean’s belly twisted up just a little. The Scorpions and the Titans had been coexisting just fine for years. The Scorpions ran a whole lot of shit that the Titans didn’t touch, and as long as it didn’t happen in the Titans’ territory, they officially didn’t care. But the President of the Scorpions had just changed, the old man retiring, and his jumped up asswipe of a kid was taking over. There had already been signs that things were going to get a lot messier before the days were done. Privately, Connell and Dean had already started making plans. What they’d do if war broke out. But Fred Killian was a good kid. He was a Scorpion because he’d lived on that side of the territory line, and he wasn’t involved in the dirty shit they did.

  He made his voice even quieter. “Fred, you have my number, right? You know I’ve always got a spot for you if you need one.”

  Fred nodded so hard it seemed like his head might snap off his neck. It was suddenly obvious that he was barely more than a scrawny overgrown kid. And when had Dean started to feel like twenty-seven was ancient, and everyone younger than him was an actual child?

  “I know, man, I know,” he said. “I gotta go, okay? I need to get out of here.”

  “Yeah,” Dean said. “Take care.”

  Fred picked up the dirt bike he’d been riding, and one of the other Scorpions picked up Dean’s. The small pack of men cleared out of the gravel lot until it was just Connell and Dean standing there, looking like two random dudes pissing in the wind.

  “What was all that shit?” Connell asked.

  Dean shook his head. “Storm’s coming. Prophetic-type stuff,” he said. “Nothing we haven’t already been talking through.”

  Connell grunted. “Want to talk it over some more? Over a couple plates of chili fries and beers?”

  Dean laughed and softly punched the other man in the bicep. Connell was more than ten years his senior, and he’d been the President of the Night Titans motorcycle club for about fifteen years now. He was the one who’d cleaned the club up, and when he’d seen a young Dean causing trouble at the unified high school, he’d given him a job working on bikes and sweeping floors. It had been hard work, but it had earned him enough money to get away from his drunk father and junkie mother, and that was all he’d wanted at the time. Then he’d met Samara…

  The anniversary was hitting him harder than usual this year. He did his be
st to put it out of his mind.

  Connell looked at him like he knew exactly what Dean was thinking about.

  “Come on, kid,” he said, and Dean had to laugh; he’d picked up the word from somewhere. “Let’s go out and chase away some negative thoughts.”

  “Okay,” Dean said. “But no chili fries for you. They make you fart like a damn dog, and it’s too cold to have the windows down in the Buick this time of year.” As he started to walk towards the old car they’d driven to the gravel quarry, his phone started to ring. He glanced down, and his heart all but stopped when he saw Abbey’s number on the caller ID.

  “Just a minute,” he said, not really looking at Connell. “I have to take this.”

  His heart beat a little too fast every time Abbey called. It was silly. She was nearly always just confirming that he was going to stop by for a visit or letting him know about some new expense that had come up, but it never stopped him from worrying. Even though Mia was with Abbey so he wouldn’t have to worry that he was putting the little girl in danger. He took several long steps away from Connell, more for his own mental privacy than anything else. He tapped to answer the call and put the phone to his ear, turning his body firmly away from his friend.

  “Hey, Abbey. Everything okay?”

  “You gotta go get her, Dean.”

  Abbey’s voice was choked with tears and something more. His heart started to race. He’d been so careful for so many years, and he’d given up so much to protect the child, Sam’s child. His child. He lived in terror of someone figuring out the connection between him and Sam, and from there, it wouldn’t be much to notice that Sam’s sister had moved back to town with a baby right around the time that Sam had died. It wouldn’t take much for someone to realize that the child could be used to pull the strings of the most powerful group of quasi-outlaws in the city. He did everything he could to keep Mia safe, but a lot of that safety had to do with keeping his distance.

  “What happened, Abbey?” he asked again, letting his voice drop lower, and a little more intense.

  “What happened is that I was already running late to pick up Mia from aftercare, and then some shit for brains rear-ended me, and my car is completely totaled. I need you to pick her up.” Abbey sounded close to panic, but Dean felt his heart slowing down.

  “Okay, no problem. Will they let me?”

  “Yeah, you’re on her emergency list, it won’t be an issue. Hold on a second,” she said, and then Dean heard a muffled rustling like Abbey had turned the phone so that it was pressed up against her shirt. He heard her speaking, though he couldn’t make out the words or tell who she was talking to. There was a short, sharp sound and the rustling stopped at the same time that he heard Abbey start to scream. He heard himself yelling, but she didn’t respond, and then the call dropped, as quick as it had started.

  He turned, horrified, toward Connell. Connell was already ready to move.

  “I’ll find out what’s going on,” he said, clearly having overheard the entire conversation despite Dean’s distance. “You go take care of the kid.”

  There was a weight to the statement that made Dean more than a little nervous. Connell was the one person who held all the pieces and had probably put them together over the years. He was pretty sure that Connell would keep his teeth together, no matter what happened, but Dean hadn’t spent the last seven years protecting a little girl to risk blowing everything up right now. He had to trust someone, and Connell was the only one who was here.

  He’d tried to get Connell to come to the gravel quarry with him in his rebuilt Buick Grand Sport, but Connell had rolled his eyes and insisted that Dean drove like someone’s grandma. He’d taken his bike. Dean was grateful for it now as he sprinted across the lot to his car, and Connell headed the other way, toward his chopper. He already had his phone out and was barking questions at someone, presumably at the clubhouse.

  Dean put it out of his mind. He had one mission right now. He had to get to his daughter.

  Chapter Two

  Emma

  Emma tried to glance at her watch without letting the child with her see what she was doing. Abbey Grisham was absolutely never late picking up her daughter, and Emma didn’t want to worry the pint-sized angel in front of her. Mia was sweet, kind, and well-behaved. Staying late with her wasn’t much of a burden. But it was concerning all the same. Abbey hadn’t called or texted and was half an hour late. It wasn’t like her. The center theoretically closed at four-thirty, and it was pushing five o’clock now. Everyone else had left, with Emma agreeing to stay and wait. If Abbey weren’t here in the next few minutes, Emma would have to start calling emergency numbers to try and get someone here. For the child’s safety, if nothing else.

  Mia glanced up from the puzzle she was putting together, and the girl offered a small smile. “I know my mom is running late. You don’t have to pretend.”

  Emma forced herself to smile reassuringly. “I’m sure she’s just stuck in traffic, kiddo, nothing much to worry about.”

  “She’s not usually late. She’s very careful. She knows I worry a lot.” Mia spoke like she was repeating something she’d heard a bunch of times before, and Emma pushed herself to keep smiling, even as she worried whether she was starting to look unbalanced.

  “Are you hungry?” Emma asked, feeling a strong need to change the subject. “I have some crackers in my desk, and we can have a little extra snack if you want?”

  “No thanks,” Mia said.

  The child was almost too well-behaved in situations like this. Emma had been working at the center for the past two years as part of the after-school team while she worked on getting her Masters in Education. She wanted to work with young kids who had learning disabilities and autism, helping them to understand and work with their differences instead of trying to extinguish them. She’d wished before that she had the authority to ask Abbey to get Mia evaluated. A child should be nervous in this situation, maybe even acting out because of feeling a little bit panicked. Parents were supposed to be their constants, and while things happened, a kid taking parental mistakes and problems in stride all too often indicated that their home life was not as happy as it might have looked on the surface.

  Mia was an exceptionally pretty child. She had light brown skin with a reddish undertone, spattered dark freckles over her nose and cheeks, and deep brown hair that fell down to her shoulders in bouncy corkscrew curls. Her mother had much darker skin than her daughter, but the same freckles and curls. Emma was all too aware of the tendency of social and educational workers to stereotype African American families as less likely to be well supported and successful, but she also knew that getting a dark-skinned child, especially a dark-skinned girl, screened for any kind of developmental disability, would be difficult to impossible.

  Emma took a deep breath and forced herself to relax. One late pickup, even without a call, was not a reason to get worried. God knew there were other parents within the center who were much less considerate. Her priority right now was to make sure Mia was okay.

  She was about to suggest that they go outside to play for a little bit — the October weather in New England was crisp, and it was still light out. There was something depressing and a little bit creepy about being in a school after everyone had left. Before she got the words out, she heard the sound of a car pulling up outside. A big engine from the sound of it. She walked over and glanced out — Abbey drove a small hybrid, but this sounded much older and rumbled more. She glanced out and saw a car from her dreams. A 1968 Gran Sport 400 with a convertible top, painted in coal black. When she was a kid, her dad had been into collecting muscle cars. She’d sat on a stack of tires and watched him work on engines and transmissions. He’d never put his hands on a Gran Sport, though. He’d played mostly with old Chevys and Fords.

  She’d always had a fantasy about being eaten out in a Gran Sport, her feet up on the dashboard, which absolutely did not go with her teacher-uniform of leggings, mid length skirt, and boxy pullover s
weater, but she was soaking wet just thinking about it.

  The driver side door opened, and her fantasy got even more explicit. A tall man got out of the car. His features were notably handsome, with black hair that was undercut on the bottom and shaggy long on top. He wore jeans that were caked with dust, and a black T-shirt with the logo of a local garage emblazoned on the chest. He moved with a loose-limbed grace that made her think of a dancer. He looked like a walking bad-boy daydream. If he were walking into a bar, Emma would’ve thrown herself at him. Though, she had to admit that him walking towards her school made her want to lock herself and Mia into the closet.

  But Mia was standing up on her chair, clear excitement on her face. “Uncle Dean!” she shouted, waving frantically. The windows were open just a bit, and the man must have heard Mia’s call. His attention focused on their window, his expression relaxing just a little bit. Emma felt the butterflies in her own stomach relax as well.

  “You know him?” she asked Mia, just for protocol’s sake. The girl nodded eagerly. Emma turned to meet him at the door.

  “Hi,” he said as soon as she appeared. He didn’t try to step forward or inside. She liked that he seemed to know what was up. “I’m here to pick up Mia. My sister-in-law said I was on the emergency list?”