Chapter 16
Grumpy didn’t question whether or not he was still alive.
He hurt too much to be dead. To say that everything hurt would have been an understatement, but he also knew he’d survived worse pain.
Unlike last time, he knew where he was and why he was there.
Or at least, he guessed where he was, since he hadn’t opened his eye yet.
That heavy antiseptic, rubbery stale smell was too distinct for him to be anywhere except at a hospital.
When he’d woken up six months ago, his thoughts had been extremely chaotic due to his TBI.
Even mild, it had caused a lot of confusion and the occasional memory loss.
There was one heartbreakingly scary day when he hadn’t remembered that Ghost was now his president and he’d asked where Melanie was.
Thankfully, none of his memory loss had been permanent; it had just been jumbled for a while.
That was not the case now. He remembered the tornado.
More than that, he remembered his extreme fear at the knowledge that he was not strong or fast enough to protect his woman and his pregnant daughter.
The taste of failure was sour on his tongue, twisting his stomach into terrible knots.
Whatever medication the hospital was feeding him must have been strong, though, because he didn’t think he was going to vomit.
Which made it worse in a way, unable to purge that feeling physically.
Instead, he had to battle through it mentally while his body lay useless.
He needed to get up. He needed to find Kelly and Maddie.
Where were they? Were they safe? Hurt? What about his grandbabies?
Grumpy would never forgive himself if any of them had gotten hurt.
What if Maddie survived but one or both of her babies hadn’t?
He needed to be there for her, to help her through that awful reality.
It was weird, thinking of himself as a grandfather.
For nearly a decade, he’d struggled with the word ‘father’.
He’d watched others with their kids, only Steel and Lucky at first, and then the others as they started creating their families.
On his worst days, he’d been jealous. He’d own that.
He’d loved being Maddie’s father, loved feeling part of a unit with Tanya and Mads.
Others in the club had questioned Bulldog’s immediate assurance that Cassie and Lila, both children Abby had rescued from the cult she’d escaped from, were as much his children as the two babies Abby had borne her rapist. None of his four children that he’d suddenly claimed were his by blood.
The others hadn’t gotten it, but Grumpy had.
Fatherhood wasn’t about blood, about passing on his genetics. It was about legacy, love, and the knowledge that there was nothing he would not do for his child.
On his better days, Grumpy had simply been sad.
That cloud of despair hovering over his heart, remembering what he’d lost because a court decided blood was more important than action.
If he’d tried to see Mads in spite of the restraining order, there was a good chance he’d have gone to jail.
Sometimes he thought it would have been worth it.
At least then he could say he’d tried to fight for her, instead of feeling like a coward most days for running away.
But logic always chased away those fantasies.
Going to jail wouldn’t have proven anything to anyone, beyond that he was stupid enough to ignore a judge’s ruling.
Neither the judge’s decision nor Tanya’s desire for revenge had changed anything. Not for him, and now he knew, not for Maddie either. Blood be damned, he was still her father.
Matters of the heart aside, he hadn’t been her father in ten years. Not in action anyway. And now, in a span of minutes, he’d reclaimed that title, as well as a new one. Grandfather.
In the most fucked-up, entirely sadistic way, the tornado was almost ironic.
Like a physical manifestation of the whirlwind of emotions going through Grumpy for the past six months.
Finally making a decision to claim Kelly, the explosion, his mother’s arrival, Kelly stepping back into the proverbial “friend zone”, endless surgeries and therapies, being displaced from the club, his mom’s overbearingness, Kelly’s blurted out confession, the extent of his mother’s manipulations being brought to light and the discovery that his daughter had come to see him at the hospital after ten years of no contact, and finally the certainty that he was getting himself to Texas, come hell or high water.
The only constants were his feelings for Kelly and hers for him.
He would never doubt their bond, their connection.
Friend, lover, spouse… It didn’t matter.
For the past ten years, it hadn’t mattered.
Grumpy might not have been in a mental state to have been who and what she needed in her life, what she deserved, but it hadn’t changed anything.
The only difference was that he would no longer be sneaking around her to secretly do things that made her life easier.
Sex would happen when they were ready, and not a second before.
Their love was stronger than any single act of passion.
Grumpy needed to get up. He needed to get to his girls.
Where were they? Were they scared or hurt?
He recalled the culvert. If he was in a hospital, that meant their hiding spot had been discovered by first responders.
They’d have found Maddie and Kelly, too.
Jackson better be with them, watching over them while Grumpy was lying here uselessly in this hospital bed.
For several long minutes, Grumpy focused on just getting his eye to open. It felt like his eyelid was infused with lead and weighed down by sand. How could a fucking eyelid weigh so much? He was able to make his fingers move before he was able to open his eye.
The first thing Grumpy saw was a pair of booted feet.
The soles were well worn, scuffed but not dirty.
If the wearer was anything like Grumpy, the tedious task of cleaning his or her boots had been drilled into them since the time they were eighteen.
It went beyond pride of the uniform, teaching patience and attention to detail.
Grumpy’s single eye followed up the boot-wearer’s jean-clad legs to his tan, long sleeve Henley, leather cut, and crossed arms, finally coming to rest on a pair of stern green eyes.
“The club’s made a decision,” Ghost informed him. Though his voice sounded muffled, like Ghost was speaking through glass, Grumpy understood him. “Your new road name is ‘Gimpy’, and you’ll be wrapped in bubble wrap and living in a plastic bubble from now on.” He tossed a thumb over his shoulder.
It took some concentration for Grumpy to get his eye to follow Ghost’s thumb to the large brown boxes labeled “bubble wrap” stacked behind his president.
Behind and next to them were sixteen extremely stern faces of Grumpy’s club brothers.
Keys, Jigsaw, and Angel were notably absent, but the rest of them were there.
Lucky, Bulldog, Jumper, Demo, Bear, Ranger, Scar, Cage, Pumpkin, Poker, Scooby, Bones, Pirate, Starbucks, Papaw, and Boots.
Crowded together in leather cuts, Grumpy could barely make out the edge of another hospital bed behind them.
Plus Ghost by Grumpy’s bed with his fucking boots up on the nightstand, that was nearly the entire club.
Who the hell was in Mount Grove with the women and children?
“Also, we’ve decided that we like Maddie more than you,” Ghost continued. “We’ve known for years that we liked Kelly more than you, and that certainly hasn’t changed. But now Maddie’s up there, too. Just so you know.”
From the angle of the room, Grumpy realized he was propped up on his right side. There was a wedge under his neck and ear rather than a pillow that would have blocked his vision.
At the sound of his girls’ names, Grumpy tried to ask about them, but his jaw felt too heavy. Not like when it had been screwed shut. Just too dry to move.
Despite his stern, pissed-off expression, Ghost took pity on him.
“They’re fine,” he informed Grumpy, his voice much kinder.
Relief flooded Grumpy at the news to the point where he thought he might pass out for a moment.
“Both were treated for hypothermia, and doing a hell of a lot better than you. Maddie is in the labor and delivery ward for fetal monitoring, and she and the babies are doing well. They brought her down here earlier to see you. Kelly’s been back and forth between here and there.
Angel and Ruth are with them. Your daughter’s got a fierce protector in your woman,” Ghost added with obvious approval.
“Even with a busted shoulder, Kelly’s ensuring Maddie doesn’t want for anything. ”
At the words “busted shoulder”, Grumpy’s fear returned. A strangled grunt escaped his nose.
“It’s nothing serious,” Bear said, speaking up for the first time. “It’s a partial dislocation of her left shoulder. A few weeks in a sling and she’ll be good as new.”
As much as Grumpy hated hearing about Kelly’s injury and worried about the pain she must be in, he couldn’t argue that she’d gotten off lucky with such a minor wound.
He was sure many people today—or whenever the tornado had been—could not say the same.
Hearing that Kelly was with Maddie also soothed something inside him, even if he was dying to see both his girls.