Chapter 14 LEO #2
My knuckles were red beneath the faucet, the water having warmed to a scalding temperature, but still, I scrubbed. I would not walk into that hospital with grease on my damn fingers. There wasn’t much I could control in this, but my hands would be clean.
For once in my fucking life, I wanted clean hands.
“You’re good.” Isaiah reached in front of me and shut off the water. “You’re clean.”
My hands were practically raw, but that didn’t mean they were clean. I wasn’t clean.
The violence we’d committed. The laws we’d broken. The lives we’d ended. Cass, our child, shouldn’t have my ghosts haunt their lives.
“No, I’m not.” My voice was hoarse.
Emmett walked over and put his hand on my shoulder. “It’s in the past, brother.”
How could it be in the past when I thought about the club each and every day?
“You’ve got a choice,” Isaiah said, tossing me a towel to dry my hands. “Let that past ruin your future. Or learn from it and vow never to let it happen again.”
“Easy as that?”
“No, man.” He shook his head. “It’s never easy. You fight every day. You work your ass off to be better than you were. And you show up, especially on the bad days, because they make you want to keep fighting.”
I closed my eyes and let his words sink in.
Isaiah had his own demons, ones he’d battled on his own. While I’d always had the club, my brothers, Isaiah had lived a solitary life. He’d lost a woman in a car accident and had gone to prison because he’d been the driver behind the wheel.
When he’d moved to Clifton Forge and come to work at the garage, he hadn’t spoken much. He’d been closest to Presley. But then Draven had been framed. Isaiah had found himself in the middle of our mess and he’d walked away with the ultimate prize. Genevieve. He wasn’t fighting alone these days.
Fight.
“I gotta go.” I nodded at the guys, then strode for the door. One set of bootsteps echoed behind.
Emmett caught up quickly and kept pace toward our bikes parked against the chain-link fence. March had come and with it, the spring weather. My truck had been abandoned in the driveway at home.
“You don’t have to come,” I told Emmett as I straddled my bike.
“And take your shift in the office? No, thanks. I’d rather wait at the hospital.”
“Thanks, brother.”
He answered by putting on a pair of shades and starting his bike.
The hospital was on the other end of town, close to the Missouri River, which ran along the edge of Clifton Forge. There were a few patches of ice at the water’s edge, but for the most part, it had all melted. The same was true with the snowbanks, now gone from streets and yards.
The air was fresh and crisp as it whipped over my face. Thank God for it. I needed the minute on the bike, to feel the road and the vibration of the machine. To think. To fight.
Cass didn’t deserve me, but I wouldn’t leave her alone. I simply couldn’t.
Emmett and I parked in the visitor lot, and I forced my steps to remain even as we trekked to the hospital’s entrance.
My knees were shaking. My limbs felt like rubber.
But I walked, one foot in front of the other, through the sliding glass doors and along the hallways marked with arrows toward the maternity unit.
A nurse dressed in purple floral-print scrubs greeted me from behind a counter. “Can I help you?”
“Cassandra Cline.”
“And you are?” Her gaze shifted between Emmett and me.
I swallowed hard. A good goddamn question. Who was I?
Thankfully, I didn’t have to answer. Dale came walking down a hallway, his face pale and etched with worry. “Leo.”
I pushed off the counter to meet him beside a wheelchair. “Is she okay? Can I see her?”
“Room one ten.” He pointed down the hallway. “Last one on the left.”
“Thanks,” I said, surprised he’d tell me.
“I’ll hang in the waiting area,” Emmett said. “Holler if you need anything.”
I nodded and took off, walking toward Cass’s room. I knocked and eased the door open. The oxygen rushed from my lungs the moment my gaze landed on her dressed in a faded blue gown and propped up on a bed in the center of the room.
She looked beautiful. Breathtaking. Fuck, but I had missed her.
Even though her belly was covered with a white blanket, I could see how she’d grown. Her hair was spread out across the pillows behind her back. The smooth skin of her cheeks was flushed and dewy. When her gaze turned to me and I met those caramel irises, I was done.
Without thinking, I strode to the bed and put my hands on her face. Then I pressed my lips to hers and gave myself a second to soak her in before pulling back. “Hi.”
“Hi,” she whispered as I dropped my forehead to hers.
“You okay?”
“Ask me again in a minute.” She squeezed her eyes shut and her hands went to her side as her entire body tensed.
I stood straight, watching with wide eyes as she gritted her teeth and winced.
“Breathe through it.” Claudia rushed to Cass’s side, taking her daughter’s hand. She met my gaze from the other side of the bed and gave me a pained smile.
I hadn’t noticed her when I’d come in, too consumed with Cass.
“That’s it.” Claudia rubbed the back of Cass’s hand, twisting to look at the monitor next to an IV stand. “Almost done.”
The spike on the monitor’s screen was going down.
“Ouch.” Cass collapsed into the pillows, her eyes still closed.
“Are you sure you don’t want the epidural?” Claudia asked.
“I don’t know.” Cass looked to her mother. “Yes. No.”
“Does it hurt that bad?”
Both women shot me a glare.
“Sorry.” I held up my hands. “Should I go?”
“No, you stay.” Claudia bent and kissed Cass’s forehead, making the decision for me. Then she swept out of the room, leaving us alone.
“Are you sure she should leave? I don’t know what I’m doing,” I admitted.
“Neither do I. That’s what the nurses are for. And I’ve read books.”
Of course she had. She was prepared. All I’d done was build a damn crib.
“I like the crib,” she whispered.
“It’s a nice piece. Sturdy. Took me a few hours to build.”
“Last night?”
I shook my head. “The day you moved out.”
“Leo.” Her gaze softened. “Why?”
“Because it’s so big that your dad can’t fit it through the door without spending three hours taking it apart.”
She giggled. “So you did it to punish Dad?”
“No, I did it because I hoped you’d come back.”
“We have a lot to talk about.”
I sat on the edge of the bed and took her hand. “I know.”
“But not right now.” A twist of pain crossed her gorgeous face.
My eyes shot to the monitor and the line that was shooting up. Fuck. Where was Claudia? What had she said? “Breathe.”
Cass nodded, hissing out a breath as her hand gripped mine like a vise.
The contraction seemed to go on forever until finally, Cass unclenched her teeth and sank into the pillow. “Ooof, that hurts.”
Ooof, that hurts soon turned into damn it, that hurts. Damn it became hell. Hell became shit. Shit became fuck.
Tears streamed down Cass’s face as Dr. Tan swept into the room.
“How are we doing?” she asked, going to the foot of the bed and flipping up the covers.
I focused on Cass, pushing a lock of hair off her sweaty forehead. “What can I do?”
“Say something,” Cass said. “Distract me before the next one comes.”
The contractions were right on top of each other now. “Scarlett is here. Pretty sure she’s in labor too.”
“Really?” A smile whispered across her face. “Our babies might have the same birthday.”
It was getting close to midnight according to the clock on the wall. “If not the same birthday, damn close.”
“I’d say you’re having this baby today.” Dr. Tan stood and smiled. “Ready to try pushing?”
“Like right now?” Cass’s eyes widened.
“Yep.” Dr. Tan and the nurses buzzed around the room, the doctor suiting up in a blue covering as one nurse went to the other side of the bed. “Okay, Leo. Grab a leg.”
“Huh?”
“Hold her leg, just like this.” The nurse smiled at me like she thought I’d been waiting all day to be honored with this task.
“Or you can come down here and watch.” The dare gleamed in Dr. Tan’s eyes.
I dove for Cass’s leg. “I’m good.”
I’d expected Cass to scream as she pushed. I’d expected her to yell and shout, maybe throw a few well-earned insults and fuck yous my way. But every time the doctor told her to push, she clamped down her teeth and pushed.
Four in total.
Then came the wail.
A wail from a pair of newborn lungs. A wail from a red-faced baby girl. A wail that changed everything.
Not long after, the smiley nurse shoved a pair of scissors in my hand and told me where to snip the cord.
Then they whisked the baby to a tray, where she was cleaned and wrapped, then returned to Cass to rest on her bare chest, giving us a few minutes alone before they’d come back to help Cass clean up.
There were new tears down her cheeks now. My hands acted on instinct and brushed them away.
Fuck, she was tough. Tougher than me a million times over.
“Do you want to hold her?” Cass asked.
“I don’t know how.” Even with my friends and their kids, I’d never held a baby before. I waited until they were at least two and a lot less breakable.
A new tear fell from Cass’s cheek as I sat down and held out my arms.
She reached out, placing the baby’s head in the crook of my elbow and her tiny body along my forearm.
What was I doing here? How was I ever going to make this work? But even when the nurses came in and helped Cass to the shower, I refused to let the baby go.
The nurses helped Cass change into a pair of her own pajamas before getting her into a wheelchair. Then one of them stole the baby from my arms.
“Are we going somewhere?”
“This is just a delivery room,” a nurse answered. “We’ll get you settled into a recovery room for the night.”
I nodded and since the nurse pushed the baby in her cart crib, I slung Cass’s bag over a shoulder and pushed her wheelchair down the hallway toward the opposite end of the unit to a smaller, dimly lit room with a full-sized bed.
Cass took the baby, baring a breast for an attempt at nursing, while the staff came in and out of the room, bringing water and pamphlets and instructions.
“Will you go find my parents?” Cass winced as the baby latched on to a nipple. “My mom texted that they found a quiet waiting room on the second floor.”
“Sure.” I backed away and the moment I was in the hallway and out of sight, I planted my hands on my thighs and put my head between my knees.
Oh, shit. Oh, shit. The delivery had taken hours but it had still happened too fast.
The sound of a door opening and closing had me standing straight. Dale and Claudia appeared, having come from the stairwell.
Awesome. Dale had just seen me close to passing out.
I pointed to Cass’s door, too freaked to be embarrassed.
Neither of them spoke as they rushed past me and to their daughter.
I shuffled down the hallway, my hands shoved into my pockets to hide their shaking, not exactly sure where I was going until a familiar voice caught my ear and I steered myself toward the closest waiting room.
There were people in the chairs. My people. Presley was asleep against Shaw’s shoulder. Dash was a couple seats down, stretched out with his eyes closed. Emmett was standing beside Luke.
They stared at me as I walked over.
“Everything okay?” Luke asked.
Okay? She was so little. How did you take care of someone that small? How did I change her diaper or teach her to ride a bike or help her with math homework? I wasn’t equipped to do any of those things.
But I would. Because she was . . . mine. Forever, she was mine.
“I have a daughter.” I blinked and raked a hand through my hair. “Holy fuck, I have a daughter.”