Chapter Seven
Morgan
I took a deep breath before I entered Beth’s coffee shop. This was how I got through; I played a part. I became a different person. Morgan Delany, the fun friend. The wild friend.
At home, when I was alone, that was when I was Morgan Peterson.
The grieving widow.
The grieving mother.
I walked up to the counter and said hello to Beth. I placed my order, and she offered to bring it to the table. When I turned, my heart stopped in my chest. I wondered if it would ever get easier.
Bailey, Skylar, and Henley sat at the table with their toddlers. They were all born close together and were about two years old now. Claudia and Sugar both had strollers containing their one-year-olds. And Phoebe sat in the corner, protected, as she held her newborn son, Tad.
Phoebe looked up at me with a sad smile. I wondered if she knew something. The Malpas sisters, whom Scribe referred to as the three witches, always seemed to know things they shouldn’t, and long before anyone else knew.
I wondered if Phoebe had picked up on my feelings more than once. She’d experienced something worse than I had. She and Priest had been married for a decade, only no one knew. They’d split up after the loss of their son.
Phoebe had been halfway through her pregnancy. She’d felt the kicks; she’d heard his little heartbeat. And then she had him ripped away from her in a traumatic attack. She’d also lost her uterus and any chance of having another baby.
Until Sarah, Gunner’s wife, had offered to be a surrogate for her. Now she was here today with her son, who was only a few weeks old.
I hadn’t lost my uterus like Phoebe had. I’d lost my heart. I’d lost any chance of having another child when I lost Jude.
I smiled at her and sat at the opposite end of the table. I wasn’t ready to hold her baby. Not now. Not so close to the anniversary of the loss of my own.
It was why I hadn’t been to see Devlyn. She had three babies, and it wasn’t fair. I didn’t hold it against Devlyn; she hadn’t planned on getting pregnant, the same way Jude and I hadn’t planned it.
And I was happy for her, I was. I wanted my best friend to be happy. To live a full life. I just wasn’t ready to be a part of it.
Not this month.
“Okay,” Bailey began. “I need a break. King has Rose for the night, so we’re all going out. He has ordered his merry band of misfits to babysit tonight.”
“Is it really called babysitting when it’s their children?” Claudia asked.
Bailey waved her hand in the air. “Whatever, what else would it be called?”
“Parenting?” Laurel scoffed.
I sipped my coffee while they discussed the merits of whether or not they were allowed to call it babysitting. I didn’t offer any opinion because, well, I didn’t have kids. I also didn’t have a husband.
I shouldn’t have come. My mother insisted I torture myself every week. She called it friendship. I called it hell. The topic always revolved around husbands and children.
I was the only one who didn’t have either.
But my mother was right; these women had become my friends before they were tied down. It wouldn’t be fair of me to cut them off simply because their lives reminded me of what I’d lost.
The conversation had moved on to something else when Skylar piped up with a story about Cameron’s shenanigans before we arrived.
“The poor man was just sitting there drinking his coffee when Cameron told him he didn’t like him.” Skylar’s voice held exasperation at her brother, but also unmistakable love.
“What did he do?” Bailey asked, a hint of caution in her question.
“As far as I know, he didn’t do anything. I asked Beth about it, but she said he just came in, ordered, and sat down. Hadn’t spoken to anyone until Cameron walked up to his table.”
“He’s just like King. So freaking suspicious of everyone,” Bailey said as she broke off a piece of donut for Rose.
“Did you talk to him?” Josie asked.
“After I made Cameron apologize, I introduced myself. His name was Jude.”
The reaction was instantaneous. I couldn’t have stopped it if I’d tried. My body locked up. I closed my eyes briefly, trying not to draw attention to the way my breathing had picked up.
I took a deep breath and set my cup down. I rubbed my hands up and down my thighs, trying to get the blood flowing again. When I looked up, Phoebe’s eyes were on mine.
She studied me with a knowing look. Her eyes bored into my soul, and she saw me. Saw my pain and my grief. Seven years’ worth of misery, all made known simply by the mention of a name.
“Was he cute?” Laurel asked.
Everyone looked her way, except Phoebe, who kept her eyes on me. I should have felt uncomfortable. I should have been wriggling in my seat under her intense gaze. Instead, I felt something akin to comfort. Something familiar.
A shared trauma.
I blinked away the tears as Sugar asked, “How would Banks feel knowing you were asking about a mysterious stranger?”
“Who said he was mysterious?” Skylar chuckled.
“You know once it gets round town, he’ll either be a handsome, mysterious stranger or a creepy stalker.”
“Hey, let’s not talk about stalkers,” Henley said, scrunching her nose.
“Has anyone heard from Lacey?” I asked, trying to change the subject away from the stranger with the name I didn’t want to hear again.
“No,” Laurel said with a sigh. “She disappeared with Alexsandr, and Banks has been going crazy. He just found his brother, and then he disappeared.”
“Did it have something to do with the war?” Skylar asked quietly.
Just last month, my brother’s club in Nebraska was attacked. I’d almost lost him, and he didn’t even know who I was, other than his best friend’s widow.
It had been a long few days waiting for information on whether or not he’d survived.
I couldn’t ask about him without raising suspicions, so I did my best to keep my anxiety at bay.
Finally, I’d called Devlyn to see if she’d heard anything.
Gator’s cousin Romeo, who I knew well, was also in King’s club.
They’d both survived.
“I don’t think so,” Laurel answered. “They’ve been gone since Christmas.”
The conversation turned solemn as the women spoke about what they’d heard about the attack and who had been injured and who hadn’t survived.
An hour later, we left with plans to meet at the Tavern for dinner and drinks. All I wanted to do was go home and go to bed. But this was the Morgan they all knew. The one they expected to show up and would question relentlessly if she didn’t.
The Irish Rose Tavern sat at the edge of town. Run by the club, it was a safe environment for the women to let their hair down and get crazy. Not that these women needed much of an excuse.
But I sure did.
I knew it wasn’t healthy, but I looked forward to these nights. Drinking to drown out the grief. Getting lost in the abyss of alcohol, the only reprieve available to shut out the voice in my head that told me I should have done more for my son.
There was nothing I could have done, the doctor told me. There was no answer to why things had gone the way they had. His only solace was a curt, ‘These things happen.’
I thought King was ready to kill the man for his lack of compassion when he told me my child was gone. He kicked him out of the room, demanding another doctor, then sat on the bed and held me while I sobbed into his chest.
The way a big brother would.
Only, neither of us had known at the time.
The music blasted through the bar as the waitress dropped off our drinks. Round after round we made toasts to the club, the men, the children. All the things I’d lost.
Not that I’d ever had the club. Jude would only let me meet a few of the brothers. He’d never taken me to the clubhouse. Never explained why.
I tried to tell myself he married me because he loved me, not just because we were having a baby, but I always wondered if we’d still be together if he hadn’t died.
Bailey was the first one to stand and move to the dance floor. She grabbed my hand and dragged me along with her. I loved dancing. I loved to close my eyes and let my body move to the music.
It wasn’t long before I felt hands on my hips. I didn’t open my eyes, not right away. The hands were too big to be one of the girls’, and if I kept my eyes closed, I could imagine those hands were Jude’s.
No matter how much I drank, reality always came crashing down, and the moment my consciousness remembered he was gone, I pulled away from the man behind me.
“Where are you going?”
I turned and found David Gearing. He’d been asking me out for years, but I always turned him down. He wasn’t safe. He looked at me with hearts in his eyes, and I was too nice a person to get involved with someone looking for more, especially when I didn’t have more to give.
“Dance with me, Morgan.”
“Sorry, David.”
I moved away from the dance floor, heading to the bar for another drink when he caught my hand, pulling me back. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone at the bar stand and move my way, but Bailey was quicker.
“Get your hands off her, David, unless you need a reminder that we don’t touch women without permission.”
She stood in front of us, hands on her hips. Five feet of nothing but piss and vinegar. There was a reason she was called Venom.
David sighed. “I just want to dance with her, Bailey.”
Bailey took a step closer and looked up at David. “And she said no. Do you know what the word no fucking means, David?”
David’s body stiffened. I watched the look on his face turn in an instant to pure rage. Not because Bailey was in his face. But because he knew there was nothing he could do about it.
“Bitch,” he muttered as he turned around and walked out the door.
“Asshole,” Bailey yelled at his back.
She looked at me, and her face broke out into a smile. I shook my head and laughed as she hooked her arm in mine and asked the waitress to bring a round of shots to the table.
“Mike will be pissed if he has to arrest us again,” Sugar said, reaching for her beer.
“Jude was ready to step in if Bailey hadn’t,” Skylar said absently.
“What? He’s here?” Henley asked. She stood up from her seat and looked over my shoulder. “Where is he?”
“He was at the bar,” Skylar answered.
I turned and looked over my shoulder just in time to see someone walk toward the door. I didn’t get a good look at him in the dim light, but something warm ran through me.
Maybe it was the idea that someone was willing to step in and help a woman in need. Maybe it was the alcohol running through my blood. Maybe I was finally letting go of the past and my heart was ready to move on.
A picture of my husband flashed before my eyes. His blue eyes, his strong jaw, the way he smiled at me the first time I met him. My heart hurt, and my eyes filled with tears.
Nope, not ready.
I guess it was the alcohol after all.
Another hour went by when the men finally came to collect their women. Scribe and Henley walked me home. As Devlyn’s best friend, I counted Devlyn and Henley as my sisters. Scribe being married to Henley meant he watched out for me.
I said goodnight and closed my door, locking it behind me. Tomorrow would suck, but at least tonight I would sleep without the nightmares.
I tossed my keys onto the table and walked down the hall to my bedroom. I sat on my bed to take off my shoes when I heard a throat clear.
My head snapped up, and I was suddenly sober as a judge while I stared into the deep blue eyes of my husband.
My dead husband.
“You want to tell me why some asshole had his fucking hands on my wife?”