Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Popeye
“Dad?” Grace’s voice drew me back to the present.
I looked up. Grace pulled away from King, her face red and swollen from crying, but her eyes were clearer now. Calmer. Like she’d finally found solid ground after drowning for so long.
“Thank you,” she said. “For telling me. For helping me understand her.”
“Always,” I said, my voice rough. I pulled her into my arms. “I’ll always be here now, Grace. Whatever you need.”
She nodded, and I knew it was time to give them space. Time to let Grace process everything with King. As hard as it was, it was time to step back and let my daughter grieve in her own way.
I’d lost something in the years Grace was hidden away from me. The connection, the bond a father and daughter built through decades of time spent together. I’d never had that, and I didn’t know if I ever would.
I left the office, closing the door quietly behind me, and walked through the empty clubhouse. Tank was wiping down the bar, but he didn’t look up as I passed. Didn’t ask questions. Just let me go.
Outside, the late afternoon sun was warm on my face. My bike sat in the parking lot, Christina’s journal in my pocket. I stood there for a long moment, staring at nothing, trying to process everything that had just happened.
Grace had a brother. A brother she’d never known. A brother who didn’t know she existed. A brother who wasn’t my son.
Christina had carried that secret to her grave.
I pulled out my phone and stared at Trudy’s name in my contacts. My thumb hovered over the call button.
No.
I needed more than her voice. I needed to see her. Touch her. Feel something real and solid and present instead of drowning in the ghosts of a past I couldn’t change.
I shoved the phone back in my pocket, swung my leg over the bike, and fired up the engine. The rumble beneath me was familiar, grounding. I pulled Christina’s journal from my jacket, looked at it one last time, then tucked it into the saddlebag.
Not tonight. Tonight I needed to be with someone who was alive. Someone I could hold in my arms. Someone who didn’t need me but wanted me.
The ride through Diamond Creek didn’t take long. The sun was sinking lower on the horizon, painting everything in shades of orange and gold. The wind whipped past, cold and sharp, clearing my head with every mile.
By the time I pulled onto Trudy’s street, the sky had deepened to purple, stars just beginning to prick through the darkness. Her house sat quiet, warm light glowing behind the curtains. The porch light was on, casting a soft yellow glow over the red front door.
I killed the engine and sat there for a moment, hands still gripping the handlebars as I stared at the house in front of me. With a heavy breath, I swung off the bike and walked up the path to her door, my boots heavy on the wooden steps. My hand was steady when I raised it to knock.
Three solid raps.
A pause. Movement inside. Footsteps approaching.
The door swung open, and there she was.
Trudy stood in the doorway, barefoot, wearing soft pants and an oversized sweater that slipped off one shoulder. Her hair was down, loose around her face. No makeup. No armor. Just her.
And she was pissed.
Her eyes weren’t wide with surprise; they were hard. Cold. Her jaw was set, her arms crossed over her chest, and she didn’t say a word. Just stared at me with an expression that made it clear exactly what she thought of me showing up on her doorstep after ghosting her at the bakery.
I felt the weight of it. The consequences of walking out without explanation. Without even looking back.
“Trudy—” I started.
She didn’t move. Didn’t soften. Just kept staring at me with those ice-cold eyes.
Then something shifted. Her gaze traveled over my face, studying me, and I saw the exact moment she registered that something was wrong. Her expression cracked, just slightly. The hardness in her eyes flickered.
But she didn’t step aside. Didn’t invite me in. She just stood there, guarded, waiting for me to explain myself.
“I need you,” I said, my voice rough. “I just... I need you.”
For a long moment, she didn’t move. Then, finally, she stepped back, pulling the door open wider.
I stepped inside, and she closed the door behind me. She didn’t say anything. Just walked past me into the living room and sat on the edge of the sofa, hands folded in her lap. Waiting.
I stood there like a fucking idiot, holding Christina’s journal against my chest, trying to figure out where to start.
“You left,” Trudy said finally, her voice flat. “You sat at that table for hours, reading that goddamn book, and then you just... left. Didn’t say a word. Didn’t look at me. Just walked out like I wasn’t even there.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” Her eyes flashed. “Because from where I was standing, it looked like you got what you wanted from me and then decided I wasn’t worth an explanation when something more important came up.”
Fuck. That was what she thought? That I’d used her and tossed her aside?
“That’s not what happened,” I said.
“Then what did happen, Stephen?” She stood up, arms crossed again. “Because I’ve been sitting here all evening trying to figure out what the hell I did wrong. What I said. What I?—”
“You didn’t do anything wrong.” I moved toward her, but she stepped back. “Trudy, you didn’t do a goddamn thing wrong. This isn’t about you.”
“Then what is it about?” Her voice cracked. “Because you don’t get to show up here, tell me you need me, and expect me to just?—”
I stepped into her space, took her face in my hands, and kissed her.
The world around us seemed to fade away in that moment, leaving only the two of us suspended in time.
The feel of her skin, soft and warm beneath my touch, sent electricity coursing through my veins.
The taste of her lips on mine, sweet with a hint of the wine she was probably drinking because she was pissed at me, settled something inside of me that had been restless and searching for far too long.
It was like finding the missing piece of a puzzle I didn’t even know was incomplete.
Her breath mingled with mine as she leaned into the kiss, and I felt her hands come up to rest against my chest, fingers curling into the fabric of my shirt as if anchoring herself to me.
“No!” Trudy ripped away from me, shoving at my chest. “You don’t get to come here and kiss me and expect that makes everything okay.” Trudy turned her back on me and picked up her wine from the coffee table, downing the rest of the glass. She took a deep breath and spun back to me.
The anger I saw on her face turned me on, and I could feel my dick getting hard.
“Will you let me explain?”
Trudy didn’t answer; she moved to the sofa and sat down. She poured another glass of wine from the bottle and sat in the corner of the couch, eying me. If I were being honest, in that moment, I wasn’t entirely sure if she expected me to speak or get the fuck out of her house.
So I took a chance that the connection we had meant something and I sat down at the other end of the couch, leaning my elbows on my knees.
“I want to tell you about Christina.” The words came out rough. “Start from the beginning.”
Trudy’s expression shifted. The anger was still there, but something else crept in. Concern. “Okay.”
My hands twisted together. I was about to tell the woman I was falling in love with about the woman I thought was the love of my life.
“I met Christina in Purgatory, California. I was VP of the Soulless Sinners MC back then, working under George Stone. He sent me out there on club business, intelligence gathering on the Golden Skulls MC. Rival club. Dangerous fucking situation.”
Trudy was silent beside me, but I knew she was listening.
“I walked into their clubhouse, and there she was.” I ran a hand over my face. “Christina was... different. Didn’t belong in that world. Too soft. Too quiet. Too fucking breakable. But I couldn’t stay away from her.”
“You fell in love,” Trudy said quietly.
“Yeah. I fell in love.” The words tasted bitter. “We started seeing each other. And she got pregnant. With Grace.”
Trudy’s eyes widened slightly, but she didn’t interrupt.
“I knew I couldn’t keep her in California,” I continued. “The MC world was too dangerous. George was escalating shit with the Golden Skulls, and Christina... she was terrified. So I made a choice. I hid her.”
“Hid her?”
“In Arkansas.” I looked at Trudy. “Changed her name to Scarlett Bishop. Asked a man I thought I could trust to watch over her while I was away on club business. Thought I was protecting her. Thought I was keeping her safe.”
“But you weren’t,” Trudy said.
“No. I wasn’t.” I leaned back, resting my head against the sofa back. “When Grace was born, I was lucky enough to be there. And for years, I visited them. Whenever I could get away without letting my president know where I was going.” I blew out a heavy breath. “We kept it a secret.”
“Christina and Grace?”
“Yes. I kept my family a secret from my club. But we also kept me a secret from Grace. We never told Grace I was her father. We thought it was safer that way. Thought if Grace didn’t know, she couldn’t accidentally tell anyone.
Couldn’t put herself in danger. So I was just...
some guy who visited. Some friend of her mother’s. ”
“Jesus, Stephen.”
“Yeah.” I rubbed my face. “For eight years, I was in Grace’s life. I was simply Uncle Stephen. And then one day when Grace was about eight years old, Christina just... disappeared.”
I heard her shuffle on the couch. The slight clink as she set her wine glass down before she moved closer. Maybe to comfort me; maybe to hear me better as my voice dipped lower. I chose to believe it was the former.
“One day I showed up in Arkansas, and they were gone,” I said, my voice rough.
“No warning. No explanation. No fucking goodbye. Just gone. I went to Titan, demanding to know where they were. And he looked me in the eye and told me Scarlett had taken Grace and run. Said she didn’t want me in their lives anymore. Said she’d made her choice.”
“Oh my God.”
“I spent twenty fucking years searching for them, Trudy.” The anger rose up, hot and bitter. “Twenty years. I looked everywhere. Followed every lead. But Christina had vanished.”
Her hand on my thigh felt like a brand, searing through the fabric of my jeans and burning itself into my skin. The weight of it was impossibly heavy, anchoring me to the spot.
“Eight months ago,” I continued, “I finally got a lead. James Doherty, the former president of the Golden Skulls, and Grace’s uncle, reached out after he’d seen her in the clubhouse wearing King’s property cut.”
“That’s when you came here,” Trudy said.
“Yeah. That’s when I came here.” I looked at her. “Grace is thirty years old now. Pregnant with her first baby. My grandchild. She’s built a whole fucking life without me. And I missed all of it.”
“Stephen—”
“When I first met Grace in August, she told me her mother had died. Lung cancer. Said it was about five years ago now.” I paused, remembering that conversation. “Grace took care of her until the end. Watched her mother die. And I wasn’t there. Didn’t even know Christina was sick.”
Trudy squeezed my hand.
“For weeks I barely left the clubhouse. I wanted to spend every second with my daughter, and when King had to go to Virginia and then Louisiana, Grace wouldn’t stay here without him, and I wouldn’t stay here without Grace. So I went with them.”
I ran my other hand over my face. “I fucking hate New Orleans. That was where Christina went when she left Arkansas, probably ’cause she knew I’d never look for her there.
” I turned to look at her. There were tears in her eyes as she waited for me to continue.
“While I was there, Gator, the president of the Bourbon Kings MC, gave me a journal. Said Christina had left it with him before she died. She’d told him to give it to me if I ever came looking for Grace. ”
“Grace didn’t know about the journal?” she asked.
“No. Christina specifically said Grace wasn’t ready for what was in it. With everything going on between the clubs, I’d forgotten about the journal until last week. Hell, Trudy, I wasn’t ready for what was in that fucking book.”
Trudy was quiet for a moment, then asked, “What’s in the journal?”