Chapter 3 #2
“She didn’t look like the type to go for bikers,” Ricochet commented. “Pretty clean cut. What made you think she sleeps around?”
“I panicked,” I admitted.
“You think it’s someone else’s?” Hell asked.
“No. I don’t remember most of the night, but she seems like a straight shooter.
If she says it’s mine, it probably is. I don’t have the type of luck for her to be wrong.
” Red was creeping in around the edges of my vision at the thought of another man touching her.
What the hell was wrong with me? I never got possessive over women.
Plenty of girls had tried in the past to make me jealous.
I’d just laughed it off and left. I didn’t play those games.
Yet, here I was acting like a jealous boyfriend at just the thought of Danica being impregnated by some other guy. How could I be terrified to have a kid, yet pissed at the thought of it being someone else’s?
“My plan,” I finally spoke up, “is to get drunk off my ass.”
My friends shot each other looks again. “Um…didn’t this start because…” Ricochet shut his mouth when I scowled over at him.
“Fuck off, both of you. I deserve it after getting this kind of news.”
“And then what?” Hell prompted.
“Then I’m going to go visit my baby mama.
” My face screwed up in a grimace. Fuck my life.
When had everything gone off the rails? After Rachel left I promised myself I’d never get involved with anyone seriously again.
It was a rough lesson to learn at twenty-three years old, but I’d managed to keep myself unencumbered for seven years.
Seemed like my luck had finally run out.
Everything had changed the night I’d walked into a bar in town and laid eyes on the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, sitting alone at a table.
I wasn’t sure exactly what my plan was going forward, despite my brothers’ prompting, but whether I was willing to admit it or not, I knew it involved convincing Dani to give me a shot to be a father.
That also meant having her in my life, if only for a short time if she chose to leave and not let me see my kid.
She’d burrowed into my thoughts and I couldn’t seem to get rid of her.
I needed to spend enough time around her to decide if I wanted to even consider making this permanent, or if the fascination would fade and I could go back to being a single man.
Considering the way women tended to walk out of my life I figured Danica would be the one to leave first. She’d realize that I wasn’t father material and take our kid and run.
At some point, I’d come to the realization that one woman taking off on me was a coincidence.
Two was a pattern and the only thing in common was me.
My mother and former fiancé were the reasons I always left before anything got serious with anyone.
I wasn’t going to let feelings get involved just to walk out on them, or have them leave me.
I still remembered the look on Dad’s face the day Mom dropped us off, then left. Kit’s cries still echoed inside my mind. I hadn’t cried a tear from that day on.
When Rachel came into my life, I thought that I’d found the one. That there really were women out there who would stick by you and love you through it all. Then she’d walked out on me, too. It’d been like deja vu. I hadn’t let anyone but my family and club brothers close since.
Dani deserved a man like the kind I saw out with their kids.
The kind that could commit to her. That would stick around and keep a smile on her face.
Not the kind that inadvertently shoved women out of his life.
And though I didn’t want to give her the opportunity to get close, then leave, I had to do something to try to connect with my kid.
I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if I knew about them, but left the way my mom had.
* * *
Setting my helmet on the seat of my motorcycle, I stood, staring at the house. It was outside the city, closer to Gwen’s place than the clubhouse. Ricochet’s sister and kids lived out here in Picture Rocks, and so did his old lady. Or they had. Now they were living at the clubhouse.
Until we figured out what link Gwen’s ex, Trent, had with the district attorney, and what he, and possibly the mayor, were up to, we needed to be careful. Ricochet had seen to it that Trent paid for kicking the shit out of Gwen.
As much as we all wanted to kill him with our bare hands, he was too powerfully connected for us to do that.
We hadn’t needed that coming back on Ricochet or the club.
So Ricochet propositioned Fremont, something the district attorney couldn’t resist, and Trent had ended up in prison.
He hadn’t lasted more than forty-eight hours.
We were pretty sure Fremont had something to do with that, which meant Trent knew his secrets.
Things Fremont hadn’t wanted spilled. None of us were sad that the little fucker was dead, but it opened our eyes to the need to protect our women and children.
We also realized that Fremont was a sleeping dragon, and that we were now on his radar.
The old ladies were happy enough with the temporary arrangement.
Kit was pissed at me. My sister already worked at our bar and was sick of me hovering over her.
So living in the same clubhouse as me wasn’t her ideal situation, though she was making the best of it for the sake of the other women.
She claimed I’d been too overprotective of her our whole lives and she was free to do whatever she wanted.
Fuck that. Like I was going to let anyone touch her.
Wasn’t happening. Not on my watch. I’d always had that protective instinct, but my father helped cultivate it by having me watch over my baby sister.
Didn’t matter that she was twenty-eight.
I still watched her like a hawk. Last thing we needed was some asshole knocking her around or knocking her up.
I ignored the blatant hypocrisy considering I was exactly like the men I would never allow around her. It was the reason I knew most guys weren’t good enough for her.
Knocking on the door, I looped my thumbs in the pockets of my jeans and waited.
My eyes narrowed when a man answered the door.
He was wearing a shirt with a collar that was buttoned down the front and those dad jeans I wouldn’t be caught dead in.
My eyes landed on his feet where he was wearing loafers.
What a tool.
The look of disgust on his face mirrored my own. “Who are you?” he asked.
“Looking for Danica.”
“She’s not here. You the parent of one of her kids?”
Blinking, I tried to figure out what that sentence meant. How many kids did she have? “Know where I can find her?”
“Like I’d tell you that,” he said with a sneer.
“Listen, asshole, I don’t have all day. Know where she is? Or not?”
He stepped out onto the porch, coming loafer to boot with me.
I arched a brow as he glared at me. He was only an inch or so shorter than me, but had the build I liked to call skinny-fat.
Muscles were something he’d only learned about in high school biology.
He’d certainly never seen the inside of a weight room and I was willing to bet his hands were soft as fuck. I had no respect for men like this.
“No you listen, Asshole . I don’t have to tell you-”
He broke off when I grabbed him by that fancy shirt of his and twisted the slack out of it so it was easier to lift him up onto his toes. Involuntarily, of course. “Call me an asshole again.”
His eyes widened. “You’re fucking psychotic. Let me go, or I’m calling the cops.” He cursed as he stumbled backward when I abruptly released him.
“You’re not worth my time.” Turning around, I went back to my bike.
“Fucking piece of shit,” I muttered as I watched him go back inside the house.
I didn’t know what kind of relationship he had with Danica, but I didn’t like him.
If he was a brother, I was going to have a problem with her family.
If he was something else, he was going to have a problem with me.
Pulling out my phone, I hit a contact and waited until it was answered. “Rip, hey.”
“Hey, Smoke. What’s up?”
“You busy?”
“Never too busy for you, Brother. What’s going on?”
“Need you to do me a favor. Remember that plate you ran?” I got on my bike, watching the house for signs that the dipshit inside was getting brave.
He didn’t bother to come out again, though.
“Didn’t find her at this address. Any chance you and Dash could do a deep dive?
See if you can figure out where she works? Or…something?”
“Can’t you just wait for her to get home?”
Something about the guy had set off my instincts. I wasn’t sure what, but I had a feeling about him. “I don’t think she’s staying here right now.”
“Yeah, alright. We’ll dig a little and get back to you.”
“Thanks, Rip.” I disconnected the call, put my helmet on, and took off. Danica wouldn’t be able to hide for long.