by Paula Cox
I felt my stomach sink. “Swell.”
“Don’t get me wrong. Gunner is the best thing that has ever happened to me, to Rand and me both, but it’s not easy. If you can get in touch with Cain, you should. I’m not kidding. You’re going to need the help.”
“You sound like my grandmother.”
“Because she has been there. Look, I don’t mean to scare you, okay? But you need to know what you are getting into. I can understand you not wanting to get involved with Cain if he is like you said, but—” she placed her hand on my arm and gave it a squeeze, “—you are about to start the hardest job you have ever loved.”
I don’t know why what she said touched me, but it did, and I could feel the tears well in my eyes. “I’m scared, Christy. I don’t know what to do.”
“I know, Alex. I’ve been there. Rand and I were married when I got pregnant, and I was still scared. I can’t imagine how scared you must be. And I won’t kid you; it’s hard. I quit my job; it’s been hard making ends meet on just Rand’s salary. He works all the overtime he can get at the shop, and it’s still hard. And he’s tired all the time. But, as I said, it has been the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to us, and I wouldn’t change a thing.”
“Does Rand feel the say way?”
“I think so,” Christy said with a smile that touched my heart. Rand and Christy had gotten married right out of high school, but they seemed so in love. I wondered what it would be like to love someone like that.
“He comes home and as soon as he gets his shower and eats, he takes Gunner and holds him for a while as they watch television. He’s really good with him and can get him to sleep when I can’t.”
“If I had someone like Rand, this wouldn’t be so scary,” I whispered. I had never been jealous of Christy before, but I was now. Christy leaned over and pulled me into a hug.
“It will be okay,” she whispered into my ear before pulling back. “I’m actually looking forward to having someone to talk to about babies for a change. If you need any help, or you have any questions and need to talk, you know who to call,” she said as she jerked a thumb at her chest.
I had to work hard to keep my tears of gratitude in check. “Thank you, Christy. That means a lot to me,” I said with a sniff and a laugh.
“Hey, we moms have to stick together. Come out to the house sometime. I’ll let you practice changing diapers on Gunner,” she grinned.
We talked a while longer then gathered our refuse and left. I felt better now than I had since I found out I was pregnant as Christy’s honest and straightforward support buoyed my spirits. We hugged again as I prepared to get into my little Mazda MX5 and Christy into her towering Ford Explorer. I began to back out of my spot first and gave Christy a wiggle of my fingers in goodbye. She returned my wave with a smile, but I could see sadness in her eyes.
***
The next night I had just popped the bottle of Southern Comfort up from a toe drop, eliciting roars of approval from my clients, and was splashing it into four glasses when I saw him come in. Cain and three more guys, in the Hellhounds’ colors, swaggered in like they owned the place and looked around.
Cain smiled when he spotted me and sauntered over and sat down. “How you doing… Alexandria.”
I knew right then that he had forgotten my name and had gotten it off The Claw’s website, but it wasn’t polite to embarrass the guests. It cuts down on the tips, too. “I’m doing great. Want your regular?”
“You remember what I drank?” He sounded surprised.
“Sure. Don Julio Reposado over a single cube.” I reached behind the bar and pulled out the amber colored bottle and sat it in front of him. I liked clients like Cain. They drank the good stuff and tipped accordingly.
He smiled. “Sure. Why not. Impress me.”
I grin, grabbed the bottle by the neck and gave it a spin up behind my back, bounced it off my elbow, stalled it on the back of my hand before I dropped it, caught it on my toe for a moment, then kicked it back up into my hand. I popped the top and tossed a double shot into a glass from three inches away and set the glass in front of him. I finished by dropping in a single ice cube with no flourish at all.
“How was that?” I asked as I pulled the twenty from his fingers and tucked it away.
“Not bad,” he said as he grinned. He picked up his drink and took a sip before he looked me dead in the eye. “But not as impressive as what you did after we left here that night.”
That stopped me cold. “Yes. Well, you were very charming.”
He grinned at me and I could feel the pull again. Damnit. He was just too good looking for his own good. Six-three, if he was an inch, with a body that made women drool, long straw colored hair that was clean and neatly cut, and beard that followed and reinforced his strong jawline. In short, a walking wet dream.
“The question is, can I be charming enough again?”
“I’m impressed that you could remember my name. The last time you were…”
“Smashed? Snockered? Shit-faced? Pixilated? Blotto?”
I laughed in delight. “Pixilated? The polite term is ‘under the weather.’”
“Yes I was. But I couldn’t forget you. Alexandria Bernhardt, related to the famous nineteenth century French actress, Sarah Bernhardt.”
I gave him credit for remembering that much. “Call me Alex,” I said and then grinned as he blushed, knowing he had been caught out. “Don’t worry about it. Tell me your last name and we’ll call it even.”
“Rodgers,” he said as he reached across the bar. “Cain Rodgers.”
I shook his hand. “Hang on a minute, Cain,” I said as I moved off to wait on another customer.
***
“Want a refill?” I asked when I returned to him.
“One more, but that’s it. I want to have a better recollection of tonight.”
“Oh?” I asked with my ‘leave me a big tip’ smile as I refilled his glass. “What’s happening tonight?”
“It all depends on the most beautiful woman in the state of Louisiana.”
“Will she be by later?”
Cain snickered into his drink then put it down. “Beautiful, talented, and modest. A truly deadly combination.”
I blew him a kiss then moved off again. It’s all part of the game. Flirt with the customers and show them a good time. But I really needed to talk to him and tell him what had happened. I had no way to contact him and then he just walked back in one day. That had to be a sign that I should tell him. I made up my mind. Granny and Christy were right; he deserved to know. As I filled a table order I debated with myself over what to do. One part of me wanted to take him to bed. He couldn’t get me any more pregnant, and I would like to see what he could do when he wasn’t… pixilated. I smiled at my new favorite term for being drunk out of your mind. But the other part of me was saying that it would be cruel to break the news to him while we were playing hide the sausage.
After catching up the orders, and earning another tip, I walked back to Cain. “I would like to talk to you, if you can stick around until we close.”
“Talk? Or something else?” he asked with a smile that made my heart speed up.
“Just talk to start with, okay?”
He gave me a slight head nod. “Sure. I can do that,” he said, but his look said he had a lot more planned for tonight. God how I wanted to indulge him, but we had to talk first.
***
“Come here often?” Cain asked with a grin as we slid into a table.
It was almost three in the morning and this is where I came if I wanted to grab a quick something before heading home. Lard Have Mercy was open late, the food and coffee were good, the service quick, and the prices low. We were the only two people in the place, so it was perfect if he created a scene.
“Not often, but try the beignets. They’re to die for.”
“The what?”
“You’ve never heard of a beignet? It’s kind of like a doughnut, but better.”
“Make that two chicory coffees,” I amended. “Trust me,” I added as I looked at him.
The waitress looked at Cain, either for confirmation or because he was so damned easy to look at. “Chicory it is,” he said with a grin then turned his attention me. “So, what we going to talk about?” He leaned in very close. “I have a suggestion if you need an icebreaker.”
Cain had been even more charming tonight than he had been the last time he was in The Claw, perhaps because he wasn’t so pixilated.
I cleared my throat and spun the utensils on the table in front of me. “Cain, I don’t know how to tell you this.”
He grinned wickedly at me. “Just spit it out.”
If that is what he wanted. I leaned in. “I’m pregnant.”
I watched the color drain from his face as his smile slowly disappeared. “What?”
“I said I’m pregnant.” He sat there, staring at me for a long time. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”
He leaned in to meet me in the middle of the table. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m fucking sure!” I hissed. “And before you ask, yes, I know it’s yours!”
“Holy shit,” he whispered as he leaned back into his chair.
I watched him. I knew it was a lot for him to take in, and I kind of dropped it on him sudden like, but I wanted him to say something. Anything. I waited as he continued to stare at me and I felt my temper rising with every tick of the clock on the wall. He wanted to get fucked tonight. Well, he was fucked now.
“Is that all you have to say?” I whispered harshly after I had given him a solid two minutes to get over his initial shock.
“I don’t know what to say,” he muttered, his face never changing.
“That’s just great,” I snarled loudly as I pushed back from the table with a hard shove and jumped to my feet.
“Wait! Alex! Where are you going?” he called as I spun on my toe and marched toward the door without a backwards glance, passing the waitress with our order on the way.
Chapter 4
I was just slamming the door of my car when Cain came charging out of Lard Have Mercy. “Alex! Wait a minute,” he shouted as he stopped by my door, but I was already backing out, the tires spinning on the wet pavement as the car whined backwards. I was so mad and hurt I couldn’t see straight. All I wanted was for him to make some kind of acknowledgement of what had happened, not just sit there and stare at me like I was a leper or something.
I whipped my car around in the parking lot and then punched it, revving the engine hard as I raced for the exit. I barely slowed as I slid out into the road then banged up through the gears, taking my anger out on my little car. I wiped my eyes and looked in the rearview. I could see a single headlight turning to follow.
I braked to a hard stop at a red light and Cain rolled up beside me. “Alex! Would you just wait a minute?” The moment the light turned green I revved the engine and dumped the clutch, the rear tires wailing as they fought for grip on the slick road.
We had to stop three more times before I arrived home, and each time Cain pulled up beside me. After his second attempt to get my attention failed, he stopped trying and just followed. When I arrived home I raised the garage door and pulled into the small one car. I started the door down while I was still in the car, but he got his hands on it and the safety sensor thing tripped and it started back up. I punched the button to start the door down again, but once again, he stopped it. I gritted my teeth and got out of my car.
“Get out of my house before I call the cops,” I snarled.
“Go ahead. They can stand here while we talk this over.”
“You had your chance!”
“Oh for fucks sake! Cut me some slack! I just found out I was a father! How did you expect me to react? You at least had a little warning when you found out!”
I softened a little. Maybe I was being too hard on him. And he was right. I had a week to steel myself for the news, and even then, I was a complete mess for two days after I found out.
I stared at him a moment, then sighed. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I overreacted. Do you want to come in?”
“Thank you,” he said gruffly as he stepped into the garage.
I slapped the box by the door to start the garage door down as I stepped into the kitchen, Cain following me in and shutting the door. “Nice place. You live alone?”
“Yeah. It’s small but it’s all I need,” I said as I wandered into the living room. “Can I get you anything?”
“No. Thank you, though.” We sat down on the couch. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but how did this happen? I wore… protection.”
“I know. I made sure of it. Did one of them break?”
I saw Cain swallow hard. “I don’t know. I can’t remember. I was so fucked up. But it had to be something like that, right?”
“Yeah.” I looked at my shoes.
“Alex, I don’t know what to say. I could say I’m sorry, but that would be a lie. I’m sorry I got you pregnant, but I’m not sorry that I spent the night with you.”
“Well, I’m sorry I spent the night with you,” I countered, then immediately felt bad for saying it. It wasn’t Cain’s fault any more than it was mine. “Sorry. That wasn’t very nice.”
“It’s okay,” he said, but I could tell the remark stung him.
We sat in silence for a moment. “What do you do, Cain? I don’t know anything about you. I’m not asking to try to get something from you. I would just like to know more about my baby’s father.”
“I’m in sales.”
“I know that. You told me. But what do you sell? Who do you work for?”
He hesitated a moment. “I work for the Hellhounds and I buy and sell machined parts.”
“Machined parts? What does that mean?”
“They’re just precision milled metal parts that are used to build various machines.”
“What kind of machines?”
“Different things. I buy the component, the Hellhounds put them together, and we sell the finished product on to our customers. Simple really.”
I could tell he was dancing around something. “You’re not going to tell me what the machines are, are you?”
He smiled, but it didn’t affect me like it had earlier. “No. Sorry. Trade secret.”
“Are the machines legal?”
“Yes. Millions of people have them.”
I grunted, unsure that I believed him. “So what’s with the 1% patch then?”
His eyes widened slightly. “You know what that means?”
“It means you ride with an outlaw club.”
“That’s one interpretation. The other is that I ride my bike, rain or shine, 365 days a year.”
“Is that why you wear it?”
“Does it matter?”
“It does to me.”
“Why? You seemed to like me well enough before.”
“That was before I was going to be mother. I can’t have a drug dealer, or whatever you do, hanging around.”
Cain barked out a laugh. “Is that what you think we do? Sell drugs?” He chuckled again. “I told you the truth. We buy parts, put them together, and sell them on. We don’t have any involvement in drugs at all. No prostitution. No counterfeiting. No guns for hire. Nothing like that.”
“But you won’t tell me what you do?”
“No, sorry, I can’t. We have to protect our client’s identity. It’s part of the deal.”
“Why are you here, in New Orleans?”
“I came to pick up another load of parts. Well, that’s why I was here the last time. This time I had to come down and deal with a problem with customs.”
“You expect me to believe you are a perfectly legitimate businessman that just happens to ride with an outlaw club?”
“I expect you to believe that I work for a group, that just happens to be a motorcy
cle club, that is in the import business, yes. Because it’s the truth. What about you? Do you work full time at The Cat’s Claw?”
“Yes. Tuesday through Saturday, six until two.”
“You make good money?”
“I do okay. You?”
“I do okay,” he replied with a grin. I suspected he did a little better than just okay with him drinking Don Julio Tequila and dropping twenties like Washingtons. “What are you plans for the baby?” he asked softly.