The Other Half of Me: (Dragon Skulls MC)

by Rose Briner

  I don’t ask for a ride back to his office; I need some time alone as I walk down the steps and back towards his office to collect my Harley.

  Suddenly I don’t feel so great. It was wonderful sticking it to Allison, but I loved that kid, now I’ve lost another person, and I was looking forward to having him in my life.

  I resist the urge to shout as I walk further down the street. That dark cloud is getting closer by the second, I can feel it.

  I have this feeling that very soon it will take over me completely.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Natalie

  “How long has been acting like this?” asks Dorothy as she takes a bite of her Chinese food. We’re at the mall in Seattle shopping for new clothes; she finally got around to taking me out.

  “A few weeks,” I sigh as I throw down my fork and place my head in my hands. To be exact, four long, agonizing weeks. Ever since he left for Seattle to visit his lawyer. I don’t know what happened when he left, but the man that came back wasn’t the same one that left.”

  “Since when exactly?” she questions cautiously. I eye her through my hands so she can’t see me looking at her. I know she knows what’s going on, I know she knows everything he’s hiding from me, but I’ve had no luck moving her, Drag, Parker or anyone else around me for that matter. Hell, I’ve even considered finding Daisy, that’s how desperate I’ve become to know what he’s not telling me.

  “Since Seattle,” I confess.

  She doesn’t seem surprised; that’s not shocking at all.

  “Can I give you some motherly advice?” I lift my head up and look at her from across the top of the table. I wave a hand in front of me without saying a word, “he’s the one you want to hear it from, I know you expect me to tell you what’s going on, but I can’t. It would only anger you if I told you the truth. Just be there for him sweetie, love him like I know you do in your heart, you can’t do more than that right now. He’ll come around, I promise you,” she reaches across the table and squeezes my hand.

  I feel like crying suddenly, she’s so sure he’ll come around, but she hasn’t seen the anger that fills his eyes every time I try to ask him what’s wrong.

  One week after Parker’s departure for Seattle…

  I’m walking out of the clubhouse to throw away some garbage when I spot Parker’s Harley in the lineup. I know it wasn’t here an hour ago, I was just out here helping set up for the guests the club is hosting tonight. I go back inside to his room and turn the lock and peer inside. There, inside in the dark sits Parker with his back to me.

  I don’t know how he managed to get past me and into this room without me noticing; it must have been when I was folding Dean’s laundry. Dean has become like an older brother to me; he’s just as protective of me now as everyone else is. The only person who seems bothered by my presence here is Jack.

  “Parker?” I call as I leave the door open and step further into the room. I want to shut the door, but then I won’t be able to see anything. I’d probably fall and bump my head on the floor; that would be a wonderful way to welcome him back.

  He doesn’t respond, but I know he hears me because his shoulders are moving up and down in the darkness and he stiffens when I call his name.

  “Parker?” I call again a little louder this time, reaching out and placing my hand slowly on his shoulder.

  His hand falls over the top of mine, and he pulls me around, so I’m sitting in his lap. He doesn’t say a word as he buries his face in my hair. I’ve stopped wearing it up in braids; he always takes them out, so I figured that meant he didn’t like it like that.

  His shoulders shake as he holds me close, so I reach up and turn to straddle his lap as I hold him close to me.

  “What’s wrong, baby?” I ask as I pull away from him. He doesn’t answer as he shakes his head. Something is seriously wrong with him if he’s acting like this.

  “Just hold me,” he pleads softly.

  So, I do just that, I hold him as close as I can to me and squeeze him as hard as I can.

  There’s nothing erotic about this moment; this is just me holding the man I’ve come to love. I haven’t told him this. It’s way too soon for me to tell him how I feel about him. He’d probably just think I had some crazy school girl crush on him or something.

  After a while, he picks me up and sets me down on the bed as he clicks his door shut and turns the light on. I force my eyes shut against the blinding overhead light. When they readjust, I find him reaching into his bag to remove something. It looks like another cut.

  He doesn’t open it as he comes down on his knees before me, “This belongs to you, if I ever see you wearing Drag’s cut again, I’ll burn it,” he states as he hands it to me.

  I open it and cover my mouth when I see what it is; it’s a fucking property patch. To these guys this must mean something important because they keep talking about it, I don’t know what it means other than that Parker considers me his. Or at least, that’s what the Property of Thunder on the back says to me.

  “Park, it’s beautiful,” I tell him as I touch the back of it with my fingers and put it on.

  “I love you,” he chokes out as he looks up at me. His mouth says it, but his eyes don’t match. There’s something not right with him, but I’m not going to ruin this moment with my suspicions.

  “I love you too,” I breathe as I pull him in to hug me. He just holds me; he doesn’t move to do anything else. This isn’t the man I’ve known, after being gone for a week, you would think the first thing he would do is jump me. He’s either fucking someone else or something is eating away at him. I believe it’s the latter or the two. Why would he give me a property patch if he had someone else on the side? We haven’t been together long, and he could easily walk away if he wants.

  “I’m going to get something to drink; you want something?” I ask him as I stand from the bed and put the patch on for the first time. Perfect fit.

  “Water, please,” he says as he scoots up the bed and gets under the covers.

  I stand there and watch him for a moment as he turns to face the wall before I leave and go to the kitchen.

  A whistle behind me stops me dead in my tracks.

  “Is that what the fuck I think it is?” I turn to find Dean leaning up against the wall behind me.

  “It is,” I reply with a broad smile.

  “About fucking time,” he says as he puts a fist in the air. “If he didn’t do it, I was going to,” he says as he walks back off down the hall.

  I don’t know how that man isn’t married by now; he must have women lined up down the block waiting for a chance to be with him. Sometimes I wonder if he’s joking or serious.

  I laugh to myself as I take my time walking past the main room so the club whores can see my patch before I head into the kitchen. I can hear their gasps and whispers behind me. I withhold my giggle as I get two glasses of water and head back to Parker’s room.

  When I enter the room, the light is off again, so I leave the door open. Parker is crying on the bed.

  I quickly place the waters on the dresser and climb the bed to get to him. “What’s wrong, Parker?” I ask him as I turn him to face me.

  “The fucking kid isn’t mine, that’s what, are you fucking happy now?” he roars at me. I fall back and almost fall off the bed. The fire in his eyes when he fixes is glare on me, is enough for me to realize he somehow blames me for this.

  “Parker, I’m-”

  “Don’t you dare tell me your sorry, I don’t want your sympathy. Everyone who has ever loved me, eventually leaves me, how long before you leave me too?” he roars at me.

  I look behind me at the open door and hang my head; half the club is standing in the doorway watching the exchange. I get up and leave after that, shutting the door behind me. He needs to be alone right now.

  But it was more than that; things went back to normal after that as long as I didn’t ask him what else was wrong. I know there’s more to it than that, he k
new we all suspected that wasn’t his kid, so why is he still holding on to this?

  “I know you won’t tell me what he’s hiding, but it’s more than Brandon isn’t it?” I ask, my eyes pleading with her to tell me what else is wrong with him.

  She looks down at her food and nods at her plate. I fucking knew it. But how can you fix someone who won’t let you in? How can he share a life with me if he won’t tell me what’s going on? I’d lay my life down for that man, and yet he won’t share all of himself with me. How can someone be worth dying for if they won’t share themselves with you?

  “Can we go home, please?” I ask her as I stand from the table.

  Shit, the pain again.

  “Natalie, what’s wrong?” Dorothy asks as she rounds the table to my side.

  “I don’t know; I’ve been having these pains in my stomach for a while now,” I confess as I hold onto the table for support.

  “I’m going to arrange for you to see a doctor in Everett, I need you to promise me you are going to go,” she insists as she throws our garbage away and helps me into the car.

  Great, like I don’t already have enough on my hands with Parker, now I have a medical problem.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Natalie

  Things have gotten better with Parker over the last week, I’ve done exactly what Dorothy has told me to do. I just don’t bring up the issues, and he’s gone back to normal. Well, as normal as he could get. There’s still something in his eyes when he looks down at me; he looks downright petrified sometimes, but if he isn’t ready to share, then I won’t push him. I’d rather have some of him, then none of him, so I take what pieces of him I can get.

  I’m lying to myself every single day that this isn’t slowly killing me.

  “I’m heading off to work, Angel, I’ll be back around five,” he says as he walks out the front door of our house. We’ve officially moved into the house. He still has his room at the clubhouse, but he doesn’t sleep there anymore.

  I wait until I’m sure he’s gone before I head out to meet Dorothy, she’s loaning me her car, but I can’t get out of here without having her here. Parker and Drag still won’t let me out without an armed escort. I don’t understand why, the last few weeks have been quiet; I think Jimbo has just decided that I wasn’t worth the trouble, so he’s moved on with his life. I smile softly at that thought as I make my way down to the waiting car just inside the gate. Tim is used to seeing me leave with Dorothy, so he just waves as I get into the car and we exit the yard.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?” she asks as we pull up to her house.

  “I need to do this alone,” I tell her as she gets out of the car and hands me the keys. I look back up at the house just as the door shuts behind her. I almost want her to come with me, but I’ve gotten so used to doing things on my own, that I just head off and go alone.

  I get a little lost on the drive, but finally, locate the small clinic just outside of Everett. I pass the lodge we stayed in when I was here last, and I smile sadly at it when the memories flood me of what happened in there. I sit in the car for a while staring up at the building before me; I bet I have cancer or some shit like that.

  I exit the car and head inside, just minutes before my scheduled appointment time.

  “Miss King,” the nurse calls out to me after I register at the front.

  She leads me into one of the back rooms and shuts the door behind us.

  “So, what brings you in today, Miss King?” she asks as she starts to type on the computer in front of her.

  “Please call me Natalie,” I tell her with a small smile. “I’m having these weird stomach pains; they come at random, and sometimes I have trouble standing for long periods of time.”

  She nods as she makes notes on the computer, “When was the first date of your last period?”

  I shrug at her, “I’ve never really had an accurate cycle, so it could happen any day or not for another six months.”

  “Okay,” she tells me with a smile, “the doctor will be in shortly.”

  Minutes later, the doctor walks in the door and takes a seat before me.

  “Let me check your stomach,” she tells me as she encourages me to lie back on the examination table. “Does this hurt here?” she asks as she presses gently on my stomach.

  “Yeah, that hurts, I think it might have something to do with old injuries I sustained a while back,” I tell her shyly. There’s no way I’m going to tell her what the wounds are from.

  She stands from her chair and looks down at me, “I’ll be right back.”

  I watch as she opens the door and wheels a machine in behind her.

  “Are you sure you’re not pregnant?” she asks me.

  My breath hitches as I blink back at her, “The doctor in Port Angeles told me I couldn't have kids.” I gulp down the lump in my throat. The doctor said that after one of Jimbo’s episodes that the likelihood I could get pregnant was about one in a million.

  She turns the machine on and starts typing, “You sure about that?” she asks me slowly as she points at the screen.

  “No way,” I tell her as I stare back at the screen. “There’s no way that’s possible.”

  On the screen is a tiny image of what appears to be a baby.

  “This is a joke, right?” I ask her.

  “I’m afraid not, sweetie, you are a couple of weeks, maybe about five or six weeks along,” she says as she prints me out a photo and hands it to me. “I want to see you again in a couple of weeks; I’m going to have the nurse give you some pills I want you to take, the pain you're experiencing should go away soon.”

  I stare down at the photo as she leaves the room.

  “No fucking way,” I say to myself. “There’s no fucking way this is possible; he’s going to think I did this shit on purpose.”

  Then I start to wonder to myself why he didn’t use condoms. He was always talking about how women tried to get with guys like them so they would be trapped with a baby, strapped for life. So why then, unless he got a hold of my medical files. Roman probably had something to do with this. Why believe me when I told him we didn’t need to use them? He didn’t know me like that.

  “I’ll fucking kill them,” I whisper as I realize they probably knew everything about me.

  Suddenly I feel reckless as I walk back out to the car. If I’m going to be having his baby, might as well do something crazy to prove to him I’m not with him so I can strap him with a kid.

  I pull back out onto the Interstate and into downtown Everett before I park the car and get out.

  “Can I help you, miss?” asks the young woman behind the counter.

  “Yeah, I want to get a tattoo,” I tell her, suddenly feeling confident.

  “You have the design you want?”

  “I do,” I tell her as I pull a picture out of my purse. “I want it exactly like that, on my back,” I tell her as I point at it.

  Five hours later I’m done and on my way back to Maple Valley. Might as well go all in, right?

  I want to cry when I pull back into Maple Valley; I don’t know what’s going to happen now as I pull in front of Drag’s house and get out. Dorothy is there waiting for me when I get to the door.

  “What happened?” she asks as I walk past her and sit on the couch.

  “You're good at keeping secrets for Parker, so now you get to keep one from him and Drag, he’s not here is he?” I ask her as I look around the room.

  She sits down next to me and shakes her head, “He’s at the clubhouse, what’s wrong?” she asks as she touches my shoulder.

  “Here,” I tell her as I pull the sonogram photo out of my purse.

  “Is this what I think it is?” she asks as she points at the baby in the middle.

  “Dorothy, listen, I need to make this clear, I was told in Port Angeles that I couldn't have children, I swear I didn’t do this on purpose,” I tell her as I start to cry.

  “I’m going to be a Grand
ma?” she asks as she looks up at me. That’s when I notice she’s crying.

  “You aren’t mad?” I ask her in confusion.

  “No, sweetie, welcome to the family,” she says as she engulfs me in a hug.

  I winch when she squeezes me too hard, “Careful, fresh ink,” I tell her as she pulls away.

  “Can I see it?”

  “Nope, when it heals,” I smile coyly at her.

  “Let’s go so you can get some rest, I’ll come and check on you tomorrow,” she tells me as we get into the car.

  Ten minutes later, I’m walking up to the house and find the front door wide open. I think the time has come for truths between Parker and me, especially since we’re going to be having a baby now.

  “Parker, we need to talk,” I tell him when I get inside the house and find him sitting on the edge of our bed.

  “I don’t want to talk,” he says as he looks up at me. “I have nothing that needs to be said, we’ve been over this, why can’t you just leave it alone? Why do you keep pushing me for answers?”

  I’m taken aback by his sudden hostility. I’m used to him yelling about my questions, but he’s never reacted quite like this. Something must have happened today.

  “Parker, please we need to talk about something,” I tell him as I round the bed and put my hands on his shoulders.

  “Get the hell away from me,” I hear him mumble under his breath. Maybe he found out about the baby?

  “What?” I ask in confusion. “Listen if this is about the baby, I-”

  “Get the hell away from me,” he thunders as he pushes my hands away from his body. I almost fall off the side of the bed when I see the murderous glare in his eyes. “This isn’t about Brandon,” he roars at me.

  So, this is why they call him Thunder. I had my suspicions, but now I’m positive. I would’ve known about this a long time ago if he shared his past with me. It dawns on me for the first time that I know nothing about the man before me.

  “All right,” I reply solemnly as I slowly exit the house. I’ll let him have this moment for now. Dorothy told me when he gets like this to just walk away.