Bound by Steel: Mountain Misfits MC Book 3

by Voss, Deja

  Instead, I talked to Sloan. Or I guess you could say, I got talked to by Sloan. I get it. Her and Ollie grew up together, but she wasn’t there on Friday. She’s just an old lady. All she knows is her friend is in jail and I’m the jackass running free, living my best life.

  “My lawyer is coming to the clubhouse today,” I explained to her. “He has an envelope for Olive. Should be enough to cover her legal fees and take care of her bills for the time being. I don’t want her going back to work.”

  “You don’t have any say in that matter, Red. But I’ll relay the message.”

  “Don’t give me fucking attitude, Sloan,” I said, my anger growing. “You weren’t there. You don’t know what I do.”

  “I know everything,” she insisted. “I know how much Olive loves you. I know how much she trusts you and cares about you, and I know that she’s sitting in a jail cell right now blaming herself for all this. I know you’re a good man, Red, otherwise she wouldn’t feel that way, but right now I could kill you. You’re not here to protect her. She’s the one suffering while you get to pretend like nothing happened. You gave up your say in how she lives her life the minute you walked away.”

  “I had to. For the club. It’s not just me. It was for your husband’s safety. Your kid. Everyone.”

  “I’m trying to wrap my brain around that,” she said softly. “I really am. It’s really hard to do thinking about her locked up and helpless though. I’ll make sure she’s taken care of. You do what you need to do.”

  She hung up the phone, and I was left with more questions than answers. I always know the right thing to do, but now, I don’t have a choice. I have to do the wrong thing. I have to stay here in hiding or Olive will end up in worse shape than she already is.

  Not just because she’ll be an accessory to murder, but because I will inevitably keep fucking up over and over again. The only solace I have is the fact that she has Tank. And even that doesn’t truly comfort me like I thought it would, like we agreed on in our pact. It’s just a band-aid over the wound. Deep down it makes me burn with jealousy. Thinking about the two of them settling down, having a happy life, getting married. It was never supposed to be me, but I thought I had more time. I thought I could play this game, pretend like I was the kind of man who deserved a good life, a good woman, the kind of man that Tank is.

  I’m not though.

  I feel more homeless than I ever have in my entire life, even when I was living out on the streets.

  “Does this have something to do with the old lady?” my coach finally asks.

  “Yeah,” I say. “I fucked it all up. Bad. She’s way too good for me.”

  “You didn’t put your hands on her, did you, son?”

  “I would never.”

  “I know you wouldn’t. I just had to ask. Maybe the best thing you can do right now is just use that. Whatever it is that you’re feeling, put it all into your training. Give her some time to cool down. You’re doing the things you need to do to give her a good life. Take it all out in the ring. Prove to her that you’re committed. Prove to her that you’re going to provide for her. Show me that advance I gave you is gonna get paid back,” he says, slapping me on the back.

  “I don’t think that’s how this is going to go down.”

  “Girl or no girl, you wanna be a drunk homeless nobody or do you want to be the Red we all know you can be?”

  All these people, they think I can amount to something. I keep trying to prove them wrong and they just won’t listen. My club. My coach. My agent.

  He is right though; Ollie doesn’t deserve me right now while I’m at my worst. I’m going to get my shit together the only way I know how, and then I’m going to do whatever it takes to fix this.

  I grab my jump rope from my bag and start warming up, even though I feel like I’m going to throw up all over the gym. The smile on my coach’s face is worth trying to hold down last night’s vodka. Maybe if I’m really good today, he’ll let me borrow his phone. I might not be able to be with her right now, but I need to tell her that I’ll be back soon, and better than ever.

  32

  Olive:

  “I feel like I deserve a treat after all that,” I tell Tank as we pull out onto the highway in his truck. I feel bad the poor guy had to join for me for this fun-filled day of blood work, dental work, and a trip to the baby doctor. He did it all with a smile on his face, though. I swear he had more questions for the ob-gyn than I did, and how excited he was to look up inside me with a flashlight while the doctor explained my lady parts was slightly unnerving. Whatever it takes to keep my man happy.

  There was no doubt in my mind I was pregnant, so hearing it from the doctor came as no sudden surprise. I came right out and asked the doctor when I could get a paternity test and I think he thought I was kidding the way that he looked at Tank.

  “I mean it,” I said. “What’s the soonest we can do that?”

  He suggested two weeks from now, which should land me at about eight weeks pregnant, and when I come in for my blood work for that, we can do my first ultrasound as well. To say that I’m looking forward to that is an understatement. Not just the peace of mind paternity test, but the fact that I’ll be able to hear my baby’s heartbeat for the first time. It’s all starting to feel so real to me, and it actually feels kind of good.

  “Well, sushi is out of the question,” he says.

  “And coffee,” I whine.

  “Pizza and root beer are still on the table, though.”

  “Yeah. Do I have to wear my tooth?” I ask, holding up the fake tooth on a retainer the dentist gave to me for the time being. I’m going to have to get a dental implant, but it could take up to six months, and he highly advised against having it done during pregnancy because it wasn’t an emergency situation.

  “I don’t care what you do with that damn thing,” he laughs. “I wouldn’t leave it laying around the bar though. You might creep some people out.”

  “Fine,” I say dramatically.

  His hand hasn’t left my body since last night. It’s kind of sweet. I know that the last few days have been full of drama and chaos and unexpected turns of events, and the way that he’s caring for me makes me feel safe. It almost makes me feel like we’re a normal couple and if we were to just go on our life journey like this, we could be perfectly content.

  Still, I’m struggling with keeping the other man off my mind. I should hate him. I should want nothing to do with him, but for all I know, we’re going to be bonded for the rest of our lives by this child. I know it sounds terrible, but I’d give anything to see him right now, or at least talk to him.

  I know it’s not the smart thing to do. I know it’s not the right thing to do. I don’t think there’s any greener grass than the pasture I’m standing in with Tank, but these what ifs plague my thoughts. I’ll just have to bite my tongue.

  By the time we have lunch, I’m exhausted. I can barely keep my eyes open on the ride home. The doctor suggested making sure I eat small meals at least every two hours to keep my nausea down, and I don’t think I’m going to have any problem with that.

  We spend the rest of the evening watching TV and lounging around the house. No one calls. No one stops by. It’s like we are the only two people in the world, and it’s kind of awesome.

  We go back to the bedroom and he passes out almost instantly, squeezing my body to his, his lips pressed into my back. While I love being so close to him, the heat from his skin is making mine crawl. I guess my hormones are doing exactly what they’re supposed to be doing, reminding me every second of every day that I am pregnant. I can’t get comfortable. The room feels like it’s spinning and I can’t stop sweating.

  I sneak out of bed, trying not to disturb him and go to the kitchen for a glass of water.

  I must be losing my damn mind in the process, because I hear a chirping sound coming from one of the drawers. Maybe my ears are just ringing. Is that a normal pregnancy side effect?

  I chug the water, a
nd the chirping doesn’t stop. I turn on the kitchen light and start tearing through the drawers, looking for whatever it is I’m hearing.

  When I hit the junk drawer, this flip phone that looks like it’s at least twenty years old is vibrating all around, lighting up. The number on it is random, but I have a feeling in my gut I know exactly who it is.

  I pick it up from the drawer, holding it in my hand, staring at it, trying to think of what the right thing to do would be. Should I wake Tank up?

  Should I just put it away and ignore it and pretend like this never happened?

  Should I answer it, just in case it’s not who I think it is, and instead is Tank’s secret girlfriend looking for a late-night booty call?

  “Hello?” I whisper, my hands trembling.

  “Olive, is that you?” The sound of his voice makes my heart beat so fast I think I should probably sit down. I slide to the floor.

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “Are you ok?”

  “I’m fine. Everything is fine. You can come home now.”

  The silence is deafening.

  “Red,” I plead. “Everything is under control. Nobody pressed charges. The DA dropped the case. The man was just some random creep who was spying on us. Please come back.”

  “I’m sorry, Olive,” he says. “It’s more than that. I love you, girl, I always will, but I can’t do this with you anymore. You need to forget about me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I gotta go,” he says. “I’m sorry about everything.”

  Just like that, he hangs up the phone.

  I feel this overwhelming urge to scream building up in my lungs, as if maybe if I yell loud enough he’ll hear me from wherever he is and come running back, telling me he was just kidding, everything can go back to good again.

  Instead, I grab the phone and throw it on the floor as hard as I can. I pick up a frying pan out of the sink and just start wailing on the phone, shattering it, shards of plastic flying as the tears begin flowing.

  “Ollie, what are you doing?” Tank is standing in the doorway of the kitchen, just watching. I can see his face sink into sadness when he realizes what’s going on.

  I fall to the floor and cry.

  Cry because I’m being shitty and selfish, hating myself for letting this person get inside me. Cry because there’s a man I love, a man who would do anything for me standing right in front of me and I can’t just let go of Red. He holds me in his arms and doesn’t say a word, just lets me cry it out, kissing my forehead and squeezing me tight, and all the while I just feel terrible for even putting him through this. What must be going through his mind right now is enough to make me start dry heaving.

  I have to stop hurting this man.

  There’s only one way to do that. I’m going to redirect my love for Red into hate. He’s dead to me.

  “Are you alright?” he whispers. I press my lips to his, needing to feel him, needing to remind myself that what we have is real and it’s not going anywhere.

  “Yeah.”

  “Let’s go back to bed,” he suggests, helping me up off the floor.

  “You got anymore secret phones I need to know about?”

  “We’ll talk about that in the morning. I think you murdered this one, though.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say with a sigh. For everything. For all the crazy I’ve put him through. There’s only so much I can blame on hormones. I can see the hurt in his eyes and I don’t know if it’s because he is mad at me or mad at Red or just plain tired and frustrated.

  “Don’t,” he says sternly.

  33

  Two weeks of normal has been good for my soul. I’ve been back to work at the bar with very little incident, although I feel like I’m being babysat by at least three brothers at all times, and if one more of these jackasses asks if they can touch my belly I’m going to have to start throwing punches.

  Thanks to the morning sickness, I haven’t put on much weight at all. Still, knowing that I’m carrying a child has changed my urge to wear high-heeled boots and strapless crop tops. I haven’t gone full-blown conservative, and you will have to pry my leather pants out of my cold dead hands, but there are a few things that are getting retired, at least for the next few months.

  The ultrasound was basically magical for the two of us, that little bean on the monitor the most beautiful thing I know I’ve ever seen. The paternity test was uneventful, besides the fact that he made it clear he really didn’t want to do it. I gave some blood, he swabbed his cheek, now we wait a few days and I’ll have the peace of mind I need.

  No matter what the outcome.

  No matter what the outcome, this baby is mine. No matter what the outcome, I’m going to spend the rest of my life with this man. No matter how many envelopes of cash Red has his lawyer drop off at the clubhouse, he’s not entitled to any part of this, at least, not until he has the decency to show his face around here again.

  The letter comes in the mail while Tank is at work. I’d already warned him I’m going to open it with or without him home and he just shrugged and said he didn’t care. He doesn’t. He’s made the fact that he’s going to treat this child as his own, regardless of the outcome of our paternity test, perfectly clear.

  “Burn it for all I care,” he said when I texted him that the letter arrived.

  He’s really put his foot down about this, and I’m flattered. I know I’m being kind of a handful right now.

  I hold the envelope in my hands and take a deep breath. I know everything is going to be ok. This is just the last piece of the puzzle, the last thing I need to do to put my mind at rest.

  “What do you think, tiny person?” I ask. “Who’s going to be your real dad?”

  Nothing has ever come easy to me.

  Even when things are supposed to, there’s always some sort of hitch. There’s always some sort of twist, but when I pull open the letter and see those words, I feel like things are finally turning around.

  Thurston Ellis, paternity confirmed.

  It takes everything in me to refrain from doing a cartwheel. I am pretty sure I’d probably lose the rest of my teeth if I tried that stunt right now. Instead, I start to cry. Tears of joy. I don’t know what I was worried about, but I am relieved. I am free from Red.

  Now I just have to focus on this little Tank growing inside of me. Staying healthy. Keeping my stress levels low. It’s all going to be so easy for once.

  My phone rings and I can’t help but laugh.

  “What’s it say?” he asks.

  “I thought I was supposed to burn it. Do you want me to get it out of the oven?”

  “Quit playing.”

  “Looks like you’re stuck with me, Tank. You’re going to be a dad.”

  “For real?” he stammers. I can hear the excitement in his voice.

  “I have it in writing. Sorry, bud; you’re the one who willingly let the doctor swab your cheek.”

  “You know it wouldn’t have made a difference either way. This is great news, though.”

  “You want to tell your parents?” I ask. I know it’s been hard for him to keep it from them. I just wasn’t comfortable until we got that first ultrasound. I’d hate to have to ‘untell’ them the news, should anything go wrong.

  “We should both tell them. You know they’re going to want to know when we’re getting married, though.”

  “Well that’s up to you, Tank.” I never in my life thought anyone would want to marry me. All these girls spend their time daydreaming about their perfect wedding, that was never something I let myself do. Girls like me don’t usually get that luxury. We usually end up being the fun aunt, forty years old with a house full of cats and a basement full of wine and a bunch of boyfriends, but never any that want to settle down.

  “It’s kind of up to you, too, you know. You do have a say in this,” he says. “We’ll talk about it tonight.”

  We gotta get through Gavin and Sloan’s wedding next month first, though. I know she’s
my best friend and she’d never complain outwardly, but I can’t let all this upstage her big day.

  “Did you take your vitamins?” he asks. “Did you eat some fruit today? The doctor said ten fruits and vegetables. How much water have you drank?”

  “Goddamn, Tank,” I giggle. “Is this how it’s going to be now? You just don’t worry about it. I got this under control. Besides, the only thing this baby likes right now is ice cream.”

  “I love you, Olive. I know you’re going to be a great mom.”

  “There’s no doubt you’re going to be an awesome dad. I love you so much. Go get your work done. I want to see you.”

  “I’ll be home soon,” he assures me.

  34

  “This is not good. Not good at all,” I whine, holding up the bridesmaids gown that is definitely way too snug for me now.

  “You did this on purpose didn’t you,” Sloan laughs, “You wanted to get out of wearing this hideous thing so you went and got yourself knocked up. Come on in, sweetie. It’s going to be ok.”

  “You bitch!” I tease. “You knew all along this dress was a nightmare. What did I ever do to you?”

  “Aunt Ollie!” their daughter, Evie, squeals as she spots me. She comes bouncing over, her chubby little legs still learning how to navigate themselves in a straight line. “This my dress?”

  “Might as well be. It’ll probably look better on her than me at this point,” I say.

  “More sparkles!”

  “This child is pretty smart, Sloan. There is definitely not enough sparkles on this thing.”