Bayou Devils MC: The Complete Series

by A. M. Myers

  “What time are we going to head over?”

  He shrugs as he sinks into the couch next to me. “Blaze said he’s throwing the burgers on the grill in an hour but we can head over anytime.”

  “Okay, do you want to go now then?”

  “Whatever, Kady.”

  Frowning, I study him as he stares down at his lap, wishing I could take it all back and silently imploring him to talk to me. I knew telling him everything would upset him but I’ve never seen him like this. I even woke up in the middle of the night and he was just gone. I sat up for an hour, waiting for him and worrying, before I passed out again and when I woke up this morning, he was back. I don’t know where he went or what he did but he hasn’t said anything about any of it and if I could do something to fix it, I would. Finally, after it’s clear that he’s not going to say anything, I sigh.

  “Okay, well, give me five minutes to get ready and then we can go, okay?”

  “‘Kay.”

  I shove off the couch and walk back to the bedroom on the verge of tears, wondering if Noah and I can truly get through this. He told me so many times how he and I were destined for each other but he didn’t know the truth then. He didn’t know about Thomas. Dropping my hands to my belly, tears sting my eyes as the only image I have of my baby boy fills my mind. He was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen and his angry cry as I held him in my arms completely stole my heart. I sink to the bed as the tears begin to fall. It’s been so long since I’ve even allowed myself to think about him because it causes me so much pain and I don’t know how I would get out of bed most days if I didn’t block it out.

  “Baby?” Noah asks, charging into the room and as soon as he sees me crying on the bed, he freezes. We stare at each other for a moment before his face crumples. He kneels in front of me and pulls me into his arms.

  “I’m so sorry,” I whisper and he jerks back.

  “What the hell are you sorry for?”

  I wipe the tears from my cheeks as I struggle to catch my breath. “I…I don’t know. I just hate seeing you this upset.”

  “Gorgeous,” he murmurs, cupping my cheek as he shakes his head. “I’m upset because I’m so damn angry at myself that I don’t even know how to look at you. I’m so fucking sorry.”

  “You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”

  He shakes his head again, leaning his forehead against mine as he closes his eyes. “I never should have challenged him the way I did. God, I was such an arrogant son of a bitch and I’ve taken everything from you, the one woman I love more than anything else on this earth.”

  “Noah,” I breathe, pulling back to meet his gaze. “You haven’t taken anything from me and there’s no way you could have known how completely unhinged he was. Could you have been a little less cocky? Sure but none of this is your fault.”

  “If I hadn’t…”

  I press my finger to his lips, silencing him. “If you had known the consequences of the things you were doing then, if you had known that Oliver would go crazy and do what he did, you never would have gone up against him. I know that.”

  “I still don’t know how you can look at me,” he whispers, dropping his gaze to the floor and my heart aches as I guide his eyes back to mine and smile.

  “Because I love you. Always have and always will. We’re destined, right?”

  He scoffs. “I’m beginning to think we’re fated… and not in a good way.”

  “Stop it,” I snap and he blinks in surprise. “I don’t know who you are right now but you’re going to snap out of it and I don’t ever want to hear you talk about us like that again.”

  “Kady,” he sighs, grabbing my hand and bringing it to his lips before he drops it and stands up. “Just let it go.”

  “No, I’m not…”

  “You about ready?” he asks, interrupting me. “We should get going.”

  I open my mouth to argue with him but he turns and leaves the room before I can even get a word out. Watching the doorway, I wait for him to turn around, come back, and tell me that he’s sorry but he doesn’t. I bite back a sob as a few tears slip down my cheeks. Yeah, Noah and I like to argue but this is different. This feels like I’m about to lose everything all over again and my heart feels like it’s being shattered. More tears assault me as I brace my hands on the edge of the bed next to me and take a deep breath, trying to get my emotions under control.

  How in the hell am I suppose to go to a party right now when I feel like Noah is drifting away from me?

  My head drops back. I stare up at the ceiling, pain snaking through my body like a disease - insidious and deadly - and I fight back tears as questions that I can’t answer keep popping into my mind. Questions that, depending on the answer, could thrust my life into a whole new level of hell - one where I have to live without the only boy I’ve ever loved.

  “Kady, let’s go,” he calls from the living room and I suck in a breath as I stand up and wipe the tears from my face. As much as I don’t want to go, I can’t give up yet. I haven’t lost him yet and I won’t go down without a fight.

  With new resolve, I change my clothes in record time - rocking my red jeans, a white tank top, black heels, and the black leather jacket that Noah got me when he first joined the club. It’s been in the back of the closet collecting dust for the past seven years but it seems like a fitting time to break it out again.

  “You ready to…whoa,” Noah says, poking his head in the bedroom as his eyes greedily travel the length of my body. “Jesus, baby.”

  I hold my hands out and twirl for him. “You like?”

  “Yeah,” he answers, giving me a hint of a smile but it’s nowhere near the reaction I’m used to from him. “I’ll go start the truck.”

  “Noah, wait.”

  “What?”

  I cross the room to him and reach for his hand. “I love you.”

  Our eyes meet and the pain shining back at me dishes up a whole new layer of heartbreak. Seeing my usually playful and confident man look so lost kills me. He sighs, pulling me into his arms and squeezing me hard as he presses his lips to my forehead and just when I think he’s going to say it back, he releases me and takes my hand again.

  “Come on. We’re gonna miss dinner if we don’t hurry up.”

  I nod, biting my lips as tears sting my eyes again. There’s never been a time in our life together when Noah hasn’t said those three words back to me and the implication of their disappearance terrifies me. But I need to put on a good face and get through tonight before I deal with that.

  He holds my hand as we walk out of the house to the truck and instead of letting me climb in on his side, he walks me around to the passenger seat and opens the door for me. When he gets behind the wheel, he doesn’t hold his hand out for me to slide across the seat like I usually do and my heart is aching too much to even try it. God, what if he stopped me? I don’t think I could take it. We ride in silence to the clubhouse and with each mile that passes, I feel like he slips away from me a little bit more and I have no idea how to stop it.

  When we pull into the clubhouse parking lot, I scan the lot and I’m transported back in time seven years. It looks almost exactly like it did before but when I look again, I notice picnic tables where a boxing ring used to be and a playground where they used to have a stage for girls to dance for them. The guys are all outside and there are a few girls here but they’re not the same kind of girls who hung around the club before.

  “What do you think?” Noah asks and I turn to him with a smile.

  “Looks promising.”

  He nods as he pulls the truck into a spot, turns it off, and jumps out without another word. I drop my head, sucking in a breath as I mentally prepare myself to act like I’m perfectly okay right now when it feels like my soul is being ripped in two. I know what it’s like to live without Noah and now that he’s back, I don’t want to experience that ever again.

  My door opens and my head jerks up as Noah holds his hand out to me. I take it
, watching him warily as he slings his arm over my shoulders and kisses the side of my head. His silence is the worst torture I’ve ever been through and that’s saying something. I want to scream at him to talk to me, yell at me… anything other than this but I know it wouldn’t do any good. Besides, we have an audience now.

  “Kady!” Blaze calls, walking over to us with a beer in his hand. He and Noah exchange nods before he turns to me. “Do you think I could have a minute with you?”

  I nod, peeking up at Noah but he’s staring at the bonfire roaring in the fire pit. “Sure.”

  Blaze motions for me to follow him and Noah releases me before heading off to join the other guys. I watch him for a moment, wondering what I can do to fix this, before turning to Blaze and forcing a smile to my face.

  “Everything okay?” he asks and I nod.

  “Yeah. What’s up?”

  He glances back at Noah and sighs. “Listen, Kady… it’s probably not my place to say anything but I remember what the two of you were like back then and I can see that something is not okay right now.”

  I nod with a sigh.

  That’s the understatement of the year.

  “Just give it time, okay? What the two of you are going through…” He shakes his head and something about the pain in his eyes makes me think he understands exactly what Noah and I are dealing with. “It’s a lot and more than enough to break most couples up but I can confidently say y’all are not most couples. You can get through this.”

  “Thank you for that,” I whisper, feeling a little better about the situation. He’s right. What Noah and I are going through is a lot for anyone to handle. “Now, what did you want to talk to me about?”

  He glances down at the pavement before meeting my eyes. “I owe you an apology.”

  “For what?”

  “For the way everything went down back then. For being a shitty president and not looking out for you and Henn the way I should have. Him getting locked up was one of the big things that pushed me to change this club and I think if you give us a chance, you’ll see that we’re a real family now but I understand if you can’t do that.”

  “Hey,” I whisper, shrugging my shoulder. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  Nodding, he takes a sip of his beer. “Yeah, you are.”

  “And honestly, it’s in the past. I spent a very long time being angry at everyone but I don’t want to be that person anymore. I just want to move forward.”

  “That sounds like a damn good plan to me,” he answers, looking relieved as he smiles at me and I can see how much my forgiveness meant to him. It’s another sign that this club and its members really have changed for the better.

  * * * *

  My eyes burn and I fight back a yawn as I stare at the paper on the clipboard in my hand and write down the hourly stats for one of our critical patients. My stomach churns but I know I won’t be able to eat anything. I haven’t done a whole lot of eating or sleeping since Noah and I left the clubhouse two days ago. We’ve just been tiptoeing around each other for the past forty-eight hours with barely any interaction. I don’t even know what he’s still doing at the cabin if he’s this checked out of our relationship. Unless he’s just there because he feels like he has to be to protect me from Oliver. If that’s the case, though, he can beat it. I’m perfectly capable of protecting myself, just the same way I have for the past six years, and if I’m not, I could always call Blaze. He gave me his cell number and the number of every guy in the club before he left the party the other night, telling me that if I ever needed anything, all I had to do was pick up the phone.

  “Kady!”

  I whip around to look at Hannah as she stands in the doorway of the back room, her hands on her hips and an irritated look on her face. “What?”

  “I’ve been trying to talk to you for like five minutes but you’re so damn zoned out. What’s going on with you?”

  “I’m sorry, Han,” I sigh, setting my clipboard down on the table. Her brows knit together in concern.

  “What’s up, babe? You’re really out of it lately.”

  Tears fill my eyes before I can stop them and I clamp my hand over my mouth. God, the last thing I need to do is cry at work. Hannah blinks in surprise before rushing over to me and wrapping her arms around me.

  “Kady, you’re scaring me,” she whispers, an ache in her voice and I shake my head. Ugh. This is so stupid. Fuck Noah for making me feel like this instead of just talking to me.

  “It’s nothing, I promise.”

  She jerks back, holding my arms as she meets my eyes. “Are you fucking kidding me? I’ve never seen you like this so it’s definitely not nothing.”

  “I really don’t want to talk about it here,” I tell her, glancing around to make sure none of the other girls are around us. She glances over her shoulder before turning back to me and nodding.

  “Okay, I’m going to go tell Dr. Hebert that you don’t feel good and then I’ll drive you home, okay?”

  I bite my lip and nod as I wipe a tear from my face. As she turns to go talk to Dr. Hebert, I put away the clipboard and gather up my things before slipping out the back of the building. A few minutes later, she joins me.

  “Come on, you.” She links her arm through mine and guides me to her car, which is good since Noah insisted on dropping me off this morning. I climb in the car and release a breath, feeling more relaxed than I have in days but the thought of going back to the cabin erases that in an instant.

  “Can you take me to your house?” I ask as soon as Hannah slips behind the wheel and she turns to me with wide eyes.

  “Spill, now,” she orders as she closes her door. I sigh as she starts up the car and when she turns to me again, her expression is unyielding. “Any day now, Kady.”

  I sigh again. “It’s just… things between Noah and I have been… tense.”

  “Why?”

  “I told him everything.”

  She deflates as a look of sympathy flashes across her face. “Everything, everything? Even Thomas?”

  I nod.

  “And how is Noah taking it?”

  “Not well,” I admit, my voice cracking as tears fill my eyes again. “He’s still there with me twenty-four seven, but we’ve barely spoken in three days. I think he blames himself but I can’t be sure because he won’t open up to me.”

  “Oh, honey,” she whispers, trying to hug me with the center console between us before giving up with a sigh. “What are you going to do?”

  I shake my head as the tears begin to fall again and pain splinters my chest.. “I have no clue but it feels like I’m losing him, Han.”

  “No. That’s not possible.”

  “You haven’t seen him.” I look up at her. “He’s like a different person.”

  She grabs my hand and gives it a squeeze. “You just have to have faith and if he thinks he can walk away from you, I’ll straighten him out.”

  “You look a little scary right now,” I tell her, laughing through my tears. God, I haven’t cried this much since I escaped the apartment and it has me feeling all kinds of weak. Hannah grins and cracks her knuckles in an attempt to cheer me up and it works - if only momentarily.

  “All right, I’ll call Dr. Hebert from my house and tell him I’m taking care of you then we can order pizza and watch movies all night.”

  I nod. “That sounds amazing.”

  With a smile, she nods and pulls the car out of the parking lot. We don’t even make it to the end of the road when she glances in the rearview mirror and sucks in a breath.

  “I think we have a tail.”

  I arch a brow as I glance over my shoulder. “A tail? What are you, a cop all of the sudden?”

  There’s a dark SUV right on our bumper and my stomach rolls. It looks just like the one Oliver’s goon was driving when he cornered me outside work.

  “Speed up and make a few turns but don’t use the blinker. Let’s see if he’s really following us.”

  The car speeds up and s
he makes a last minute turn without the blinker as I grab the handle above my head and stare out the back window. The SUV makes the same turn, his tires screeching and I whisper a curse.

  “Again.”

  We go through the same maneuver a few times before I plop back down in my seat and pull my phone out of my bag.

  “What do I do, Kady?”

  I glance over my shoulder again as I dial Blaze’s number. “Just keep driving.”

  “Hello?” he answers on the third ring and I breathe a sigh of relief.

  “Hi, Blaze. This is Kady. I’m with my friend, Hannah, and we’re being followed by a big, black SUV. I need your help.”

  The background noise on his end gets louder and he lets out a whistle that pierces my ear. I jerk the phone away before tentatively putting it back to my ear. “Where are you at?”

  I glance around for a street name before relaying it to him. “We’re not far from the animal clinic. Should we just go back there?”

  “Absolutely not. Under no circumstances should you stop, you understand me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have your friend drive you to the cabin and we’ll be waiting there for you, okay?”

  “Kady!” I hear Noah yell in the background and I close my eyes as I suck in a breath. I can’t deal with him, or us, right now.

  “Okay, thank you, Blaze,” I say before hanging up the phone and relaying the instructions to Hannah. Her grip on the steering wheel tightens as she presses down on the gas and heads toward the interstate. My stomach turns as I glance behind us again. The SUV is still right on our tail and I just hope the club makes it to the cabin before we do.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Noah

  Music pumps through the clubhouse as Chance, Smith, and a few of the other guys play pool in the corner, laughing loudly. I lift the beer bottle to my lips and take a sip, wincing as it burns down my throat. Not that there’s anything wrong with the beer. It’s just me and this fucked up situation I’ve found myself in that is putting this awful taste in my mouth.