I looked at the address on my phone. I had to call an old friend I hadn’t talked to in a long time to get that address. I don’t know how the hell Cal figured out where to find his dad, but I was still hoping that there hadn’t been too much damage done.
There was a lot about my past that I’d never told my kid, and I’d like to keep it that way. I certainly didn’t trust Knight to have any sense of decency, not with what I knew about him. Granted, it had been years since I’d seen him last, but people didn’t change. Not really. I was still expecting the same cocky, swaggering asshole with no respect for authority or propriety.
When I was a teenager, it was sexy, that kind of rebellion. I was a preacher’s daughter and hooking up with a bad boy like Knight Calhoun was everything I was never supposed to do.
But I was an adult now. I had a kid to think about thanks to my foolhardy past, and that attitude that had been so sexy once upon a time was annoying me now, just thinking about it. And I wasn’t even at his place yet.
The rain was starting to die off, just a light drizzle in the night, painting the whole town with reflected fuzzy light. There were flashing lights, though, I realized as I turned down the street that should be Knight’s. Flashing lights from a police car or an ambulance…
My chest tightened, and I slammed on the accelerator, tires sliding out on the wet road as I raced down to the site of the disturbance. It didn’t take me but a second to realize that it was an ambulance, and then I frantically looked around, making sure I was at the right address. My brain was in a state of panic, too many questions racing through at once.
What happened here? Was Cal here? Did Knight hurt him? Was he sick?
I parked in the middle of the street and ran out of the car, not giving a shit about the rain.
“Cal!” I called over the chaos. “Cal! Baby, where are you?”
One of the first responders sent me a curious look, but he was busy with something else, loading someone into the back of the truck. I swallowed past the lump in my throat, trying to find the words to ask if the person on that stretcher was my baby, when a voice cut through the bedlam.
“Mom?”
Air rushed out of me and I turned to see Cal running toward me. “Mom!” he cried, wrapping me in a big hug.
All the annoyance and anger left in a whoosh and I just squeezed him back, holding him tight, swearing I was never going to let him go again.
“I was so worried,” I said, squeezing him even tighter, tears threatening to overwhelm me. “What were you thinking?” I admonished him, kissing his head, his forehead, his cheeks, making sure he was still my perfect little boy. Not a scratch on him.
“I just wanted to—”
I sighed, shoulders slumping. “I know. You wanted to meet your dad.” That made something else in my head click. Something that seemed important. I looked back at the ambulance, at my worried kid, and I put things together.
“Where is he?”
3
Knight
Ugh, what the hell happened to me?
My whole body ached and there was a bright light shining on my closed eyelids. Did I sleep through the entire day again?
There was some weird beeping happening too. Annoying as shit, too persistent to be any alarm I’d set.
I groaned, trying to pry my eyes open even though they felt like they were glued shut. I finally managed, eyelids snapping apart with a hint of pain like I’d ripped off a layer of skin. And then I winced at the light. So much damn light I couldn’t see anything, eyes watering and blinking uncontrollably until they were full of tears.
Fuck, I thought as I lifted my hand to wipe at them. But then there was something weird about my hand. Pain and pressure, not to mention when I tried to move it felt like I was leashed to something.
It took some doing, but I finally managed to wipe my eyes and get them opened, blinking at the hospital room.
What the hell?
I couldn’t remember anything that brought me here. I couldn’t remember what happened last night, but it’s not the first time I’ve woken up in a hospital bed. Normally I had some idea of what landed me there, though. I didn’t have a clue why I was here. And as much as my head was throbbing and screaming with pain, it didn’t feel like what I was used to. It didn’t feel like a normal hangover. It felt like someone took a hammer to my skull.
I blinked a few more times, looking around the room, trying to force myself to remember what happened the night before.
I remembered sitting at home, drinking like normal. I remembered getting the text from Shelly, desperate and practically begging for it. I remembered telling her to head over, getting right down to business without any foreplay. I didn’t play that game. Girls came to me because I knew what I was doing, but I also knew that I didn’t have to work for any of it. I was the best option they had in Rockford, so they kept coming back.
But Shelly wasn’t the only thing I remembered from last night. There was something else. Something that interrupted us. Knocking on the door, I was angry, stalking over, yanking it open…
The kid.
It all came rushing back to me at once. That kid, standing on my doorstep, saying he was mine.
But that wasn’t possible. I didn’t have any kids. I’d never been that careless. Except with…
Tenley.
With her, everything was different. She was the girl that had twisted me up from the moment I saw her on the playground and she never left my head my whole damn life. With Tenley, I was different. I didn’t feel like such an empty husk of a person. And I’d been careless with her. Of course, I had. But we were just kids. Kids learning about each other, learning about sex. She hadn’t been my first, but she’d always been the prize. The good girl I wanted to do terrible things to.
And once I’d gotten my chance?
There was no stopping us.
At least not until she up and left town one day, never to show up again. Never answered my calls or emails. Nothing. Just fucking silence for twelve years.
And now there was some kid claiming to be mine. Ours.
Un-fucking-believable.
It was no wonder I’d passed out and fell down the front steps, cracking my head on the sidewalk. I only vaguely remembered seeing my blood spilling out on the concrete, convinced my brains were pouring out too.
I didn’t know what had happened to the kid — or Shelly for that matter — I vaguely remembered lights and people carrying me, but it was all a blur, just a fog in my brain.
I wondered how long I’d been laid up in this hospital bed. Who even knew I was there? I groaned, reaching to the bedside for my phone, but of course it wasn’t there. It was probably still at my house. With my clothes. But there was a landline on the wall and I grabbed it, forcing myself to remember the number Bear had since cell phones became popular.
I was lucky he was a stubborn bastard and never changed his number.
The phone rang a couple times, and I thought he might not answer. That would be just fucking great. I was stuck in the hospital with no way to get a hold of anyone, and I wanted to get the hell out. Hospitals had always given me the creeps. It’s just a building full of sick and dead people. I wasn’t sick or dead, I didn’t fucking belong there.
“Come on man, pick up,” I grumbled, glaring at the phone, my head throbbing as I did. Even thinking made my head hurt, but I couldn’t stop thinking that once I was out of this place I’d be home with a glass — let’s be honest, a bottle — of whiskey in hand.
“What the hell do you want, Knight?” Bear growled after answering.
“Bro, you gotta help me,” I said, on the verge of tears. I didn’t know what the hell that was about — could head injuries make you emotional? I didn’t cry normally. “It’s bad this time. I need you.”
He sighed, and I could just imagine him shaking his head. “I’m so sick of your bullshit Knight. I don’t have time for it anymore.”
I groaned, pain lancing through my head. I reached for the
source of it, but my entire head was bandaged. I still wondered the extent of my injuries, but so far there hadn’t been a nurse or doctor to greet me. Hell, if I had it my way, I’d be out of that place before they ever showed up.
“I just need you to do me one favor—”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me right now,” he roared. I could hear a softer voice in the background. It sounded like they were trying to calm him down. Good fucking luck with that. There was a reason my big bro got the nickname ‘Bear.’ And it wasn’t because he was irresistibly cute and cuddly, that’s for damn sure.
“I’m in the hospital,” I said, hoping that would get him on my side quicker.
Sure enough, he sounded much less angry, more worried when he said, “What?”
“Yeah… I… I had an accident sort of. Look, it doesn’t matter. But I can’t leave this place without some clothes—”
“What kind of accident do you have without fucking clothes?” Bear asked, the annoyance back in full force.
“Can we not focus on that right now?” I whined, my head feeling like it was going to crack open and erupt like Krakatau.
“We are going to focus on it, because you’re calling me at a really fucking inconvenient time and I deserve an explanation before I put my life on hold for you again. Dammit, Knight,” he said my name like it was the curse word. I knew I should feel bad, but it was hard to have any sympathy for my brother when I was the one in the hospital bed, trying to recover from having a bombshell dropped on me.
“I fell down and cracked my head open, okay?” I hissed out, feeling stupid as hell for that landing me in the hospital. But if my memories were right, I didn’t exactly have any say in it. I’d blacked out and everything else had just sort of… happened around me.
Bear laughed at me, but it wasn’t a ha-ha kind of laugh. It was a disbelieving laugh. A you’ve-got-to-be-fucking-kidding-me laugh.
I wish I was kidding, but the IV in my hand said otherwise.
“How drunk were you?” he asked.
“I wasn’t drunk—”
“Oh, so you didn’t have anything to drink at all?” he asked.
“I didn’t say that.”
“Uh-huh. This is the bullshit I’m talking about, Knight. When the hell are you going to grow up?”
I growled, my hand so tight on the hospital’s phone that the cheap plastic cracked under my grip. “Could you save me the goddamn life lessons and just bring me some clothes, so I can get the hell out of here? Lecture me later.”
“You’re fucking ridiculous, you know that?” he growled, and then the line went dead. I stared at the phone in complete shock, trying to figure out if the phone cut us off or if my brother had just hung up on me. I knew I’d done a lot of dumb shit and needed him to bail me out more times than I should be proud to admit, but come on, you didn’t just hang up on your brother when he needed you. That was fucked up.
And I didn’t even know if he was going to come through for me or not.
I tried to call him again, but the call went straight to voicemail. I groaned and sighed. “Look man, I know you’re pissed at me. I get it. I fucked up. I’m a fuck up, it’s what I do. I’m sorry. Please though, I need you to do me a solid. I can’t walk out of here naked and I don’t have any way to get home. Your number’s the only one I know by—” BEEP, the voicemail cut me off. My message was too long, but hopefully it was enough to get my brother on board.
In the past, I would have kept it up. Kept calling and leaving voicemails until something happened. But he was already pissed at me as it was. That wasn’t going to make things any better.
I smacked the button on the wall to call a nurse, but no one came. After another five minutes, I hit it again, and again, losing my patience with this bullshit situation. I wanted to know what the hell had happened to me and if I could leave. I hated sitting in this bed, connected to tubes, unsure of how I could disentangle myself enough to go take a piss.
Finally, an older lady in Scooby Doo scrubs filled up the entire doorway to my room.
“You only have to press it once,” she said, her tone tart.
“I just woke up and don’t know what’s going on, cut me some slack.”
She just pursed her lips at me. Guess no one was going to be on my side today. Fucking typical.
“You’ve got eight stitches and a concussion. Doctor’s prescribed some pills for the headache you’re going to have for a few days until the swelling goes down. No drinking, no driving on those pills, got it? Otherwise you’ll be back here but down in the freezer.”
“Charming.”
“He’s given you steroids to help promote healing. You might notice mood swings, increased appetite, weight gain—”
“Lovely.”
She glared at me, clearly not appreciating being cut off. “Don’t stop taking either of the medications suddenly. Take them only as recommended. With the steroids, you’ll have to taper your dosage or there will be withdrawal side effects.”
“Come in for a bump on the head and leave with a few new addictions, got it,” I said, unable to stop myself.
She huffed at me. “It won’t be quite so funny when you’re back here in a week because you didn’t listen to me,” she said.
“What the hell did I do to you?”
“You pressed my buzzer forty times while I was with the parents of a child who had to be rushed into emergency surgery. You are not my only patient. You are not even close to my most important one. And right now, you’re pretty far down on my list of favorites.”
I frowned, feeling unnecessarily attacked.
Was it my fault that this hospital was apparently lacking in adequate staff?
“When can I get out of here?”
She looked at me as though she wished the answer was ‘right now,’ but by the firm line of her mouth, I knew it wasn’t.
“You were unconscious for over twelve hours, so the doctor’s going to recommend you stay at least overnight—”
“Fuck that,” I grumbled. But at the same time, what she said stuck with me. I was out that long? I lost a whole day?
“I thought you might say that. In which case you’re free to leave against medical advice at any time, as long as you sign the release.”
“Great, I’ll sign it. Do you have any clothes I can wear?”
She looked down at the blanket covering my lap, and for the first time, I thought her mask cracked a bit. “There’s always lost and found.”
I shuddered. “How many of those things were ‘lost’ by people down in the freezers?”
She just smirked as she left my room, hopefully to get the papers that would get me out of this creepy-ass place.
A minute later there was a knock on my door. It was still mostly open, but the knock made it swing all the way, and there in the doorway — unmistakable even after all these years — was the last person I ever expected to see there. She was still as gorgeous as ever, petite, dark hair, a heart-shaped face and exotic eyes that had always drawn me in like a moth to a damn bug zapper.
Tenley looked me up and down, and I couldn’t read her expression. Finally, she said, “Hi Knight.”
4
Tenley
“Tenley,” he finally said, his voice sending shivers down my spine and goosebumps up my arms. Damn him.
“So… uh… I guess there’s something we need to talk about,” I said, my throat so dry I couldn’t even swallow. Why did he have to look so good, even battered and broken in the hospital? He’d always been attractive, but when I knew him before, it was the good looks of a teenager. He was all man now. Broad shoulders, bulging muscles, hard face… It didn’t feel real to see him like that. After all these years, seeing him so different and still so much the same was trippy.
“Yeah, I guess there is,” he said, his voice still an angry snarl, like a badger trapped in a cage. I didn’t blame him. This was awkward as hell. I had no idea how to tell someone that they’d had a child for twelve years they never
knew about. I didn’t know how to tell him that I never mentioned his kid because of what a loose cannon he always was.
The silence hung between us thought for a long time. I couldn’t manage to find the words — or the courage — to say anything, and so I just stood there, right inside the doorway, staring at him, my heart beating in my throat.
“What the hell?” he finally whispered, and it broke me. I couldn’t let him see how terrible I felt, but God, that betrayed whisper just shattered my heart.
“So… We have a son,” I said carefully, stepping closer to his bed, going toward the chair next to it. I had a feeling this was going to be a long talk, but I didn’t want to just waltz right in and take a seat in case he chased me out.
“I got that much. Seems I’m getting the memo a little late though, don’t you think?”
I winced at that, but I deserved it. I knew if the tables were turned, I’d be just as upset. He couldn’t know, because I never told him. But I went through a lot those years. All these years since I last saw him. I’ve been through a hell of a lot as a single mom, and he didn’t know about any of it, so he could keep his accusations to himself for now.
“I know I should have told you sooner, but I couldn’t—”
“Why?” he asked, his voice so soft and broken that I had to sink into the chair. It felt like the air in the room had just gotten heavier and I couldn’t support my own weight anymore. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
I swallowed, studying his expression, the firm line of his mouth, the way he was staring straight off at the ceiling, not looking at me, not blinking, his eyes glassy with tears.
I did that to him. For all the hurt that Knight had caused me, I never wanted to do the same to him, and yet there I was. Breaking the guy that couldn’t be broken.
A Baby for the Daddy: Boys of Rockford Series Page 2