by Naomi West
But is that what she wanted? A new life, far from here? What about Tanner, then? What about the father of her child? The relationship, if she could even call it that, would be over between them. No more mind-bending sex, no one to hold her tight at night, no strong hands running over her body.
She found herself not wanting to be pregnant. Not yet, at least. If she was, all this might be over. She would have held up her end of the bargain, and he could start to take care of her as just another financial burden. Where would she be, then?
She shook her head as she felt the urge to pee coming. Five seconds, the box said. No more than five seconds in the stream. Got it. She dipped the tip in, counting Mississippis in her head. She pulled the stick out after five, held it tip down as she took care of everything.
Tanner was waiting for her in the hallway. “Well?” he asked as she came out.
“I haven't looked,” she said. “I thought we should, you know, together.”
He smiled a tight smile, one Star couldn't discern the meaning of, as he joined her in her small bathroom.
Star sucked in a breath as she held the stick up to the light.
“Does that . . .?” Tanner asked.
She nodded.
There was a blue cross, a positive symbol, on the indicator. Just like she'd feared.
“Well,” she said with a sigh, “there you go. You've got your baby now. Happy?”
# # #
Tanner
Suddenly, he felt like he'd been living in the attic, or a dank basement, for the last couple weeks, and someone had just come in and turned the light on over his head. But, instead of an overhanging light, the bulb had been a simple little test that Star taken. The thought that he was going to be a father just shot right through his chest and punctured his heart.
He was going to be a father. A pops, just like his old man had been. Maybe not exactly like him, of course. But, shit, he was going to be a dad.
“I . . . I . . .” he mumbled, unable to get any real words out his mouth.
“Well?” she pressed. “Aren't you happy about getting your inheritance, at least?”
He realized, as she asked her question that, honestly, he didn't really give a shit about the money. The inheritance was important for helping his mom, of course. But, in the grand scheme of things? No, the cash and assets didn't really matter. What mattered was his blood, and that his and Star's child grew up to be healthy and strong.
Tanner shook his head.
“Well, what then?” she asked again, concern in her voice. “Tell me, Tanner.”
“You're having my baby,” he said, a smile slowly growing on his face. “I mean, I'm going to be a dad.” He turned to her slowly, to that beautiful heart-shaped face of hers. He reached up a hand, touched her cheek. “Yes. I'm happy.”
She smiled wanly at him. “So, what does this mean for us?”
A flash of memories surged in his mind suddenly. An image of the big Roaming Wolves member looming over him, baseball bat in hand. That guy, whoever he was, he was out there, still. And, this was personal. A moment of doubt entered his mind. He needed to keep Star, and their child, away from this guy. Safe from him.
“Well, our agreement was that you'd get to keep the baby,” he said, surprising even himself as the words left his mouth. “I don't get a say in it, do I?”
“Of course you get a say in it. This thing takes two, doesn't it?”
He shrugged, continuing with his line of thinking. “That wasn't the agreement. In fact, the agreement was for us to have a baby, and then that be it.”
“So, you want to stick with it, then? And not stick with me?”
“No, that's not what I'm saying.”
She paused, pressed her lips together, and glared up at him. “What's going on? What aren't you telling me?”
Tanner looked away. “I'm just worried, that's all. I still have to go after the Roaming Wolves, for what they did to Brendon. One of them, one I saw in the apartment where we found my brother, I think he's got it in for me.”
“What do you mean? What does that have to do with us?”
“I mean, I don't know if I can protect you from them. From him.”
“You got Brendon back,” she pointed out, her voice getting more exasperated. “What more do you need to do?”
“Look,” he said, begrudgingly telling her about the MC's business, “we think we found where the guy is, the guy who got Brendon hooked on smack.”
“What?” she nearly yelled, then turned and went into the living room.
“We've got these guys right where we want them, now. I mean, this could all be over soon.”
“You're going to be a fucking father, Tanner,” Star yelled. “And you want to go traipsing around, chasing after bikers?”
“These guys have it out for me, out for us. We need to show them we can't be pushed around.”
She gritted her teeth and turned away from him for a second. When she looked back, her eyes were on fire. “I want to go with you, then.”
“What?” Tanner asked, his head almost snapping back in surprise. “Fuck no. This ain't women's business. You can't just show up and expect to do this kind of thing. What if you got hurt?”
“What if I got hurt?” she yelled. “What if you got hurt?”
“You know what,” he said, pushing past her to get to the door. “I'm going. I'll talk to you later.”
He was out the door, slamming it shut behind him before she could finish her yelling.
Tanner was halfway to his bike when she threw open the door. “Screw you, Tanner Rainier!”
The last time they'd slept together, he'd felt like they'd connected, like she understood who he was, and what he sometimes had to do. But now, with this and the way she was acting, he realized that maybe he was wrong. Maybe Star didn't understand him, and maybe she never would. He just kept walking.
He'd be damned if she tried to tie him down, or pull him away, like Willow had to Brendon. And this was how shit like that always started. “Don't go with your friends. Don't have that beer. Do you think you need that piece of fried chicken?”
Relationships kept you away from what really mattered. Their arrangement, and the way they had things before, was the way to go. He'd had the right idea from the beginning.
Of course, if that was true . . . why did he care so damn much about her, and their child growing inside her?
He pushed the thought aside and climbed on to his bike. He kicked his hog alive, and sped off to meet the rest of the Blood Warriors.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Tanner
He pulled up on the little dirt road about thirty minutes later. Cam, Blade, and Tyke were all waiting for him, and Blade pointedly checked his watch as he approached and brought his bike up next to the small group. He killed the engine.
Down below, through a dense thicket of trees, a small, rundown compound of sorts stretched out over a piece of leveled land. Most of the buildings were steel sheds, but one in the back, closest to them, was mostly wood-frame construction.
The turnoff for the road had been nearly completely covered by trees, and he'd missed the gravel the first go round. He cussed himself for letting his thoughts of Star cloud his mind like they had, but it was the honest truth as to what had happened. He was too focused on her, and he needed to keep his head in the game.
Of course, she was carrying his child. His own little piece of the future. His legacy, like his dad had wanted. Shit, this was just too fucking complicated. What was the right answer?
But, he knew the answer to that question. This wasn't a multiple choice test, where you just filled in a bubble. Where, even if you had no clue what the answer was, you still had a 25% chance of getting the solution right. This was his life, Star's life, and the baby's life.
His head was a jumble, though, and so he did what he always did: he shoved his worries aside, and focused on the Blood Warriors, and the business at hand.
“You're late,” Blade said in his gra
velly voice. He had a pair of binoculars in one hand.
“Started to worry you weren't gonna show, buddy,” Tyke added.
“I know,” Tanner said, feeling exasperated. He knew that, between Brendon and Star, he hadn't been around much for the last few weeks. Damn her and her trying to keep him from his brothers out here. “I'm sorry, okay?”
Blade just looked at him and gave a little nod of understanding. “Okay,” he simply said. He could tell Tanner knew he'd fucked up. That was enough.
“That the place?” Tanner asked as he dismounted from his bike and crept up to the road's edge.
“That's the place,” Blade replied as he handed over the binoculars to Tanner.
He pressed the binoculars to his eyes and checked the compound out. There were a bunch of bikes out front of their clubhouse, but not their full compliment. “Think we can get in and out?”
“Yep, see that down there,” Blade said, as he touched his shoulder and pointed at a little gate near the back of the compound. “That leads up to this main road. Too rough a trail for us to get our bikes down, but it should be plenty easy for us to get in and out on foot.”
“Plus,” Cam added, “they won't be able to follow us out on their bikes, neither. They'll have to take the long way around to try and catch us at the highway.”
“Exactly,” Tyke said from over near his bike. He pulled something out of his saddle bag, a big, glass liquor bottle and a white handkerchief. “We toss this bad boy at that back wooden building, then see who comes out.”
Tanner saw the logic. “Like kicking over an ant pile.” Maybe, that big bastard from the apartment would be coming out to see what all the ruckus was. Maybe. Then, Tanner would be able to get a better look at him and see if that jogged any of his memories.
“Well,” Blade drawled in that gravelly voice of his, “we got a few hours to kill till sundown. Then a couple after that. We should probably come up this way a little early, so they don't see our headlights coming along this back road.”
“Good idea,” Tanner agreed.
“Meet up at he Crow?” Tyke asked everyone.
“Sounds good,” Blade agreed.
All four of them climbed back on their bikes, and, in no time, were riding back the way they'd come.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Tanner
They rode back that night in pairs, with Tyke on the back of Tanner's motorcycle, and Cam on the back of Blade's. There was a cloud cover that hung low and blocked the moon, which was good for what they had planned, but not so much for riding without the headlamp on. The cadre of raiders got down from their bikes and crept along the road, just like earlier in the day, towards the cutoff that would lead them down to the rear of the compound.
The compound itself was barely lit, with just a few bare-bulb fixtures hanging over the entryways, and one set of lights lit near the main entrance. As long as they didn't go through the middle of the area, Tanner figured, they'd be fine getting in and out.
Regardless, Tanner's nerves were shot. This was either a great plan, or a horrendously stupid one. But what else did they have? He just had to find out who that guy was, and why he'd come gunning for him and his family. He wouldn't be able to sleep at night until he found out and was able to mete out a little of his own kind of justice.
Cam had the bolt cutters in hand, and Tanner was in charge of the Molotov cocktail that Tyke had thrown together. Tanner gripped the bottle tight, the handkerchief hanging loose down the side and down the bottle.
“Remember,” Blade whispered. “We start the fire. We get back under cover. We see if our mystery man is one of the guys that comes to put it out. Got it?”
The men nodded. They made their way down the rough trail, the limbs and leaves tearing at their hair and jackets as they went, trudging through the shadows of the trees.
Tanner had played in these woods, when he was a kid. He and Brendon and some of the other boys, all on the little 50cc dirt bikes that Pops had bought them for their birthdays. They'd only been out late like this a couple times, and he'd remembered how creepy the woods could get.
Man, their pops had tanned their hides that night they'd come home late. Told them he'd whipped them so bad cause Mom had been worried sick. Now, though, as he thought to how protective he felt of the little Rainier growing in Star's belly, he wondered if just his mom had been worried.
Soon, they arrived at the gate at the back of the old fence, though, and Tanner had to push all the other thoughts from his mind. This was serious work that had to be done, and done right.
Cam came up with the bolt cutters and cut through the rusty lock, dropping the broken hunk of metal to the leaf-covered ground. From there, they had just another twenty or thirty feet to the storage building. They pulled open the gate with a creak and a squeal of old, rusty hinges.
Tanner took the lead, firebomb in one hand, his pops' old lighter in the other. He stayed low as he half-jogged to the back of the storage unit. Right behind him, he could hear Blade's heavy footfalls striking on the hard-packed dirt.
“Ready?” Blade whispered in a harsh-sounding voice.
“Yeah,” Tanner whispered back. He could just make out Blade's features in the dark. “You?”
The president of the Blood Warriors nodded.
Tanner ran his pops' old metal lighter down the leg of his jeans, flipping open the lid, then zipped it back down the other direction and struck the wheel on the flint. A flame kindled to life, and he lit the handkerchief. Flame flickered up the cotton, and Tanner sent the bottle sailing through the air.
The Molotov cocktail went perfectly through the back window and shattered inside. Immediately, flames began licking at the air inside the storage unit, growing quickly with intensity.
“Shit, Tanner,” Blade hissed beside him, grabbing him by the vest.
“What?” Tanner asked.
“There's red canisters in there,” Blade yelled as he grabbed Tanner and threw him to the ground, leaping on top of him. A loud whoomph went up, and an ear-splitting boom ripped through the compound.
Blade was up and off of Tanner, screaming as he patted at the back of his vest. Tongues of flame licked at the night sky, and the president's hands beat at the fire ineffectively.
Now it was Tanner's turn to yank his old mentor to the ground. “Roll!”
As Blade rolled on the ground, Tanner threw dirt on him, trying to finish the smothering of the dying flames.
There was a loud thunk and suddenly, the area on the other side of the burning storage unit lit up bright as day. Flood lights illuminated the whole area, and men began to yell to alert the others.
Tanner reached down, grabbed Blade by his vest, and bodily yanked him to his feet. Together, they ran back to the open gate and fled into the forest. He looked back over his shoulder at the burning wreckage, but could only make out vague forms screaming for water hoses and buckets.
Beside him, Blade groaned in pain as they passed through. “Shit, shit, shit,” he swore as they got down in the brush next to Tyke and Cam. “My hands, I think they're fucked.”
“Well,” Tyke growled, “that didn't go to plan.”
“Yeah,” Tanner agreed. “Guess we should have checked if it was their fuel storage before we torched it.”
Blade hissed. “I gotta get to the hospital, boys.”
“You sure?” Cam asked.
“This ain't good, that's damn certain.”
Tanner looked back at the storage unit. The smoke was thick and heavy, and the back lighting from the flood lights was too bright. There was no chance they were going to see their mystery man, not in that mess.
“Okay,” Tanner agreed. “Let's get you some help.”
Together, the four of them made their way up through the wood and to the back road they'd parked their bikes on. They were all huffing and puffing with the exertion, Tanner least of all, and Blade most.
“Cam, you and Tyke take my bike back to the clubhouse, make sure it's safe. My hands are fuc
ked, and I ain't gonna be able to ride for a while.”
“I'll take him out to a hospital,” Tanner said, stepping in.
“Which one?” Tyke asked as they took the keys and climbed on Blade's bike.
“Better you don't know,” Tanner said. “If something happens, and the cops get involved, there's no sense in you two taking the fall.”
“No sense in any of you taking it,” Blade butted in, his focus on Tanner, “you mean.”
“Whatever,” Tanner said.