Chapter 1
“ARE YOU READY?” HE asked. She stared up at him. The man of her dreams.
“As can be, I guess,” she wavered. Having never been anywhere but the city she had been born in, she was undoubtedly nervous.
Her bag was packed, she didn't own much. Everything fit in a backpack he had bought for her specifically for the trip. Considering he was on a motorcycle.
She had some money in savings and they had planned on making the trip back to his home longer than expected by sightseeing.
When he had learned she hadn't been outside of her hometown, he had suggested a road trip. And not just a point A to point B trip. They had laid out a paper map and he had searched his phone for tourist towns and exhibits.
The map had a wavy red line drawn from Nevada to Indiana by the time he was done. Stacy had never been so excited to start a journey in her life. Even if she was scared.
“Are you sure?” she asked him.
His arms went around her waist and he pulled her closer. “More than, baby. More than.”
STACY
Stacy glared at her phone’s alarm, although she was secretly grateful. She swiped at the stupid tear that clung to the corner of her eye. Why had she dreamed of that man again?
Did she want to get up and start the day once more? Not really. But she had no choice.
If she didn't get up with her alarm, Harry and Helen would soon be jumping on her bed to wake her.
Stacy loved her children. Dearly. Twins were a handful though. At times she thought her days as a stage dancer, Las Vegas Showgirl, was easier than chasing her two six year olds.
Stacy would do anything for her children. She had since day one. Did she miss her life in Vegas? At times, sure. But she was a foster kid raised in a group home with no family in sight. What was she to do? Move back to nothingness in Vegas when she had nothingness here?
She couldn't say she had completely nothing. Frank, Eleanor, and Mary were good to her and the kids. Frank was her landlord and boss, Eleanor his wife. They were practically her new adoptive parents. Mary was the sweet lady who rented the other apartment above the diner that Frank owned and watched the children when she had to work late.
It wasn't much of a life anyway. She worked tirelessly at the diner, watching a slew of employees come and go.
The twins were almost in kindergarten now. Having spent the last couple years in all day preschool slash day care. Stacy had been so grateful to Frank, Eleanor, and Mary. They had been Godsends when the twins were little, always helping out. To the point the kids called Frank: Grandpa, Eleanor: Grandma, and Mary: Granny.
They were the closest thing to family that Stacy had ever had. Even the few friends Stacy had managed to make in Vegas were more acquaintances than family.
When she had left Vegas, she didn't get a teary goodbye or anything from the girls that she had worked with for five years. The show must go on. Was their motto.
Stacy still tried to live that. Had been since she had shown the pregnancy stick to the man in her dreams and he had disappeared completely.
Frank had offered to hire a PI, but Stacy figured it was useless. There was no point.
Her husband of six months had abandoned her to her fate of being a single mom. Why would she look for him when he walked out on her?
Stacy ignored the twinge in her chest as she closed her eyes to keep from tearing up. She still loved that man and hated him all at once. Maybe Eleanor was right and she needed to move on.
“Mommy!” Helen screamed at the top of her lungs. Not again, Stacy prayed as she sprang from the bed and rushed to the second bedroom in the tiny apartment.
Sure enough, Harry was puking. Again. Luckily this time in a makeshift bucket: a plastic flower pot with plastic bags lined in it.
“Hey, baby, it's okay, I've got you,” Stacy cooed and rubbed Harry's back as he crouched on the floor.
“Want me to get Granny?” Helen asked, her eyes glistening with tears.
“You can, sweetie. Thank you, and I'm sorry I wasn't here right away.”
“It hurts,” Harry complained after he settled down. Sitting on the floor by their bed, she scooped Harry into her arms and rocked him. Soothing his hair back with her hands, she kissed his head and prayed for a miracle.
They had seen a couple doctors, but to no avail. Blood tests came back negative. Yet her baby hurt and ached and she couldn't help him at all. Stacy wished she could take the pain away. She would gladly carry his burden.
Mary entered the room, silently took the puke bag and discarded it. Her face was set in stone when she returned. “I'm telling Frank to do it. I'm also telling you to go to Riley.”
“But...” she trailed off. She couldn't afford the children's hospital.
The motherly finger came out, pointing right at Stacy. “I will help. Frank and Eleanor will help. They have programs to help. But child, he's sick. I don't care what his pediatrician says.”
Stacy closed her eyes as she rested her cheek on Harry's head. Helen had shuffled back in, and Stacy opened her other arm for her daughter. Cradling both children, Stacy wished the dream Travis had sold her on had come true. To be surrounded by a giant, loving family.
She'd just have to make due with the dream of her children.
“Call him,” she whispered. Frank knew people who knew people sort of way. He had been an icon in the community for eons.
“I'll go get your book and give it to him.” Her book was a folder of all her information she had on the man, Travis. Their marriage certificate. Photos, that she had duplicates of for an album for the kids. That Stacy spied was on the top shelf of their toy bin and looked to be covered in dust. They had once looked at it daily asking when Daddy was going to be back. Stacy didn't have that answer.
Said book also included all the other important information. Birth certificates, socials, medical records as needed. Sonograms. Letters from Travis as he had wooed her in Vegas. Those hurt the worst.
When Eleanor entered the tiny bedroom, Stacy knew the kids weren't going to school. They made Harry as comfortable as they could while Helen snuggled with her brother. They watched movies together on the tiny flat screen that had been a Christmas gift.
Stacy made phone call after phone call to doctors and finally had an appointment. It was a month out, and unless she wanted to take him in via emergency services, it would have to do.
After a quick shower, where Stacy would admit to breaking down in, she dressed and headed down to the diner for a half shift. She needed to keep her mind on the mundane. Her heart broke as she kissed her babies and left them in the capable hands of Grandma Eleanor.
The show must go on.
ECHO
“Left!” Hammer shouted. “I said left!”
Echo shouted back, “that is my left!”
Hammer paused in what he was doing, mouth hanging open. “Shit. Sorry. Yeah, that is. I forgot, man. My left,” he said calmer this time, and they worked together to move the support beam into place.
Ever since his accident, Echo's brain had switched his left and right. No matter how much therapy he did, his left now operated as his right, and vice versa.
So when he heard left, he did the opposite. At least he could fucking walk and use his arms.
Only other thing he was missing was a chunk of memory. Roughly two years worth. Or so he thought. Going by events with his club, he figured it was two years.
Josephine, his therapist, had been working with him on attempting to retrieve any lost memory. She said one day it may all come rushing back, or it may always be blank, provided he didn't lose any more memory, he was what he was.
Hammer and him worked together silently for a while before Hammer asked if he wanted to go to the diner.
Echo immediately stiffened. The one time he had gone into the diner near the club's other businesses, he had high tailed it out of there. One waitress, who was sexy as fuck from a distance, made him leery. And he couldn't admit that he had ended up with a massive migraine when he left. He hadn't stayed to eat, bowing out with a lame excuse.
“Uh, how about a different one?” he asked. They were in a major city. There were diner's everywhere.
Hammer raised his brow in question. “Why do you refuse to go there?”
Damn fucking shit. Of course someone had noticed.
“I don't know, man,” Echo shrugged. What was he supposed to say?
“Ah, have an ex that works there?” Hammer teased as he nudged Echo's arm.
Did he? Fuck. He hadn't had a hook up since... he honestly couldn't remember when. Just the idea of trying to find a woman for the night sent his skin crawling with disgust.
Josephine had once suggested maybe he was more inclined to a manly figure. Echo tried one night at Nights, to even peruse the clientele. Nope. The male body did nothing for his libido.
Thirty-two years old and he was a monk. For some reason celibacy fit him. He remembered enjoying sex when he was younger. But maybe his body just wasn't ready. Spending nearly two years in and out of a hospital, therapy, and surgeries, it was no wonder his body didn't work.
Well, it did work. Only at night, and only if he watched Miss Congeniality 2 or any other movie with Vegas showgirls. Who knew that was a kink.
Echo glanced at Hammer, as if he was waiting on a reprimand. The man was only a few years older than him, had an eighteen year old daughter, and was pretty much a monk himself.
“Fine. Wherever you want to go. I'll pay, since I was a dick earlier.”
Echo snorted. “Man, it's easy to forget. I've lived with it for four years now and I still have issues.”
“I understand issues,” Hammer nodded his head as he pulled off his gloves and tossed them in the cab of his truck where they had ended up.
“Yo, boss man!” Another worker shouted. “She's back!” Jax threw his hand over his shoulder to where a woman with long blonde hair with a no nonsense attitude came striding over.
“Damnit,” Hammer cursed under his breath. “Raincheck, Echo? She's in a mood.” Hammer inhaled, straightened his shoulders, curved his lips up into a grin and turned. “Inspector Foster, what can I help you with?”
Echo bit his lip to keep from laughing as he watched Hammer square up with the building inspector. Poor man. To Echo and any other brother working with Hammer's crew could see Milly Foster had a thing for Hammer. Never in all their years of construction had an inspector ever been to a site so many times.
“When will he get the picture that she likes him?” Jax asked as he stood and watched Foster give Hammer a hard time.
Snorting, Echo shook.his head. “One day it will hit him and then his trailer won't be safe to enter. Although, I've been told you're not better on knowing when you have an admirer.” Echo turned, leaving Jax's mouth hanging open.
“What do you know?”
Echo shrugged this time, keeping his smirk to himself. “Just that you have an admirer that if it were a snake it'd bite you in the ass.”
Jax grumbled and kicked at the gravel. “I don't want to mess it up.”
One thing came to mind. “Would it be worth it?” Echo headed off the site to his motorcycle leaving Jax to contemplate his words.
Regardless of his accident, hopping back on a new ride was easier than he expected. Like riding a bicycle. A few heart racing panic attacks at first and then he was going for long rides to Indy, Chicago and even Evansville. He couldn't manage St. Louis though for some odd reason.
Any time he tried to head west a headache would start, so he refrained.
Maybe he needed to talk to Josephine about the headaches. Or his doctor. Could they be a sign his memory was struggling to come to light? He never understood all that jargon in the hospital, but maybe?
Maybe it was time to test out the diner?
Echo sent out a text to his best buds asking them to meet him.