Bumpy Ride (Category 5 Knights MC Romance Book 3) Page 6

  With time, my love for Everest has evolved. The ardent passion of a teenager became an almost brotherly tenderness. The bond between us is indisputable evidence that a man and a woman can be friends.

  My affection for Doc is something altogether different. It started with a blaze. A spectacular fire, one so hot, I almost ran for fear of getting scorched. But Doc was patient, he waited and climbed over all my barricades. Being with him was heavenly, so much, that he won my total surrender.

  Of course, once he had me at his mercy, the man vanished, leaving me wondering if it would be wiser to smother the embers or protect them.

  Ignoring Doc's question -- even though they both know I have heard it -- I say, "So, you two have met."

  Everest smiles and comes to hug me.

  "Yeah, and I'm happy he was here to help yesterday."

  I hug him back and concur. "Yes, Doc saved my father's life."

  Doc observes the way we're touching and when Everest lets me go, he comes to me and wraps an arm around my waist to pull me against him. The gesture is so possessive, it makes me want to laugh.

  Men are nothing but big apes with an irresistible urge to mark their territories. I look up to him and add, "And now he thinks he has a claim on me."

  "Oh, does he, now?" Everest is laughing. "I'm guessing that's my cue to leave. You two have things to discuss in private."

  I silently mouth "traitor" and watch him run away with a cocky smile on his face.

  "How's Brains today?" I ask.

  "Do you always call your father that?"

  "Nah, sometimes I call him Dad," I admit. "But since his new Old Lady is younger than me, I think he likes it better when I use his road name."

  "Oh, I see." Doc walks with me to doorway of my room and whispers, "He's doing well. We chatted a bit when he woke up earlier. He was feeling hungry enough to taste your chicken stock."

  He walks me to my bed. A hand on my father's forehead reassures me. He's not feverish and his coloring is almost normal. He stirs when I touch him, but doesn't open his eyes.

  I push my door closed behind us as we retreat to the living room, then make my way to the kitchen. My stomach demands food.

  "Want something?" I ask. In my grandmother's house—well, my house now--I can't help but be hospitable. The good manners she drilled into me override my desire to bark at him.

  "No, it's all good. I made myself eggs earlier. Thanks."

  A clean pan and plate resting by the sink confirm he's been cooking and tidying. He's more orderly than I am. I make myself a bowl of cereal, and as I sit at the table, marvel at the fact it's the first time in ages that I actually look forward to food in the morning.

  Doc takes the chair across from mine and asks, "Are you taking supplements?"

  "Nope," I answer with my mouth full and watch him frown at me. Before he has a chance to protest, I hold out my hand to stop him. "Hey, I'm doing what I can. My health insurance just kicked in."

  Doc rolls his eyes at me and sighs.

  "You mean you haven't consulted at all?"

  What part of no medical insurance did he not get? The man remains silent for a minute, his fingers nervously taping the table. "Can you get someone to watch over your dad today?"

  "Nah, it's all good. I'm not working today."

  He sighs again and talking very softly as if dressing a stubborn child, he says, "I'm taking you to the hospital to run a full exam."

  I finish my cereals silently mulling over his proposal. "You really mean it?"

  "What?"

  "You're taking charge from now on?"

  He nods. "I rarely say things I don't mean."

  "Why?"

  One corner of his lips twitch and he doesn't answer right away.

  "You're a smart woman, I'm pretty sure you can figure it out."

  He picks up my empty bowl and takes it to the kitchen. While he washes it, I pick up the old fashion phone and dial my mother's place. I'm in luck since Birdy picks up.

  "Good morning, sunshine," I say. "Could you come over right away. I need you for a bit."

  14

  Doc

  Point Lookout Hospital doesn't have the latest equipment for sonograms, but what is available will be adequate for what I need to do today.

  Everest's paternity denial has my mind reeling. There was no reason for him to lie. He doesn't have anything to prove. Not to me. Furthermore, I'm certain I didn't intimidate him. Fuck, if we were to fight, there's no question who would come out on top. I’m now more comfortable with a scalpel than bare fists.

  A technician is waiting for us in the examination room. I called ahead an hour ago and even though she was not happy with my request, she has everything ready when we arrive. We’re a bit late cause drawing blood for the tests took longer than I anticipated.

  The woman gives me a questioning glance as she helps Bunny climb onto the table. Usually the doctors don't bother to get their patients settled in.

  "I'll take it from here," I tell her keeping the door open for her. She frowns. Yeah, it's her room, but I'm higher on the food chain. "I'll only be a few minutes." She hesitates, and I decide to go for the carrot instead of the stick. "And I'll owe you."

  That's a deal maker. She shrugs and relents.

  "Pull your tee shirt up and slide your pants down a bit," I tell Bunny.

  "The least you could do is ask me nicely."

  Her eyes are sparkling. Yeah! Sulky Bunny is gone.

  To welcome Happy Bunny back, I play along. "My dearest Bunny, would you please be kind enough to oblige."

  "Well, of course, Doctor."

  Her eyes land on the monitoring device just as I squirt gel on her tummy. It's cold enough to make her squeal.

  "Did you do this on purpose?" She shakes a finger at me. "Maybe I should ask for another doctor."

  Her protest stops cold as she looks at the probe I'm holding. There's no reason for any apprehension, but she doesn't know that.

  I press the tip of the probe against her tummy and glide it on the gel. In a second, the monitor comes alive and a wooshing sound fills the tiny room.

  Her eyes are wide, and as the sound becomes more regular, she asks "Is that the heart beat?"

  "Yep, loud and strong," I tell her as I move the probe around and get a feel for the position of the baby.

  "That's good, right?" The anxiety in her voice melts my heart. She didn't avoid prenatal care on purpose. Poor baby couldn't afford it. It makes me wonder about the financial situation of the Tornadoes.

  If the MC is affluent, Brains should have offered to help. After all, the man just became a father, he knows what a pregnancy cost... The other possibility is she and her dad don't talk much.

  "Absolutely." I use my best doctor voice to tell what I'm doing as I play with the dials to get some measurements.

  "So with this machine, you'll be able to tell if everything's all right?"

  "If you give me the date of conception, I'll be able to compare my results with tables that show what a normal growth is like."

  "Oh, I see." Her answer is almost a whisper.

  "So?"

  She stares at the black and white dots of the screen has if they held the secret of the universe.

  "What if I couldn't give you an exact date?"

  I roll my eyes at her. "Give me some sort of clue, something like the date of your last period."

  She opens and closes her mouth like a fish out of water.

  Patience is usually my strongest suit. My grandmother used to tell me that I reminded her of the ocean eating away a cliff. In her eyes, it was a good thing. "Pebble after pebble, the waves carve the way into the most resistant stones," she repeated.

  But today all my patience has vanished. I suspect--or should I say hope-- I'm the father and I want an answer now.

  "End of June," Bunny's voice is so low, I'm not sure I heard her right.

  Three words, three knives in my heart. She conceived after I left. Fuck. The baby's not mine.

 
"So your last periods were at the end of June?"

  Somehow, I control my voice. My tone is detached, professional, almost cold. I hate myself for being such a stupid fool. I should have let the technician conduct the exam. I should have ... Bunny catches my hand and shakes her head.

  Looking right in my eyes, she clarifies her answer. "No. What I meant is the date of conception was either June twenty-eight or twenty-nine."

  I freeze, and for a few seconds, I forget how to breathe. Her news hits me in the stomach like an iron fist.

  The kid is mine.

  My mind goes back to that crazy weekend we spent locked up in her studio, only leaving her bed to open the door to the pizza or Thai food delivery. I knew at the time I wouldn't be back for weeks and wanted to get my fill of her before I left.

  But I couldn't.

  I acted like a real bastard 'cause when I ran out of condoms, instead of rushing out to get a new box, I continued to make love to her only thinking of my urges. A bastard with a total disregard of the possible consequences.

  And here I am now, looking at the perfect profile of the consequence on the monitor.

  "Look," I say. "There's our baby's head."

  I click the first snap shot of our child and send it out to the printer. While the machine cranks out the black and white rendition of the screen, I wipe away the gel from Bunny's belly.

  I pull her yoga pants up and her tee shirt down and finally find the courage to look at her face again.

  Her voices trembles. "You said, our baby."

  She studies my face and I can't understand what she's looking for. Her question give me a clue, it's certainty.

  "You have no doubts?"

  None at all and if I was a brave man, now would be the right time to confess what I have done.

  "There must have been a tear or something ..."

  I put a finger to her lips to hush her. Maybe I can sweep the accident issue under the rug.

  "How it happened doesn't matter, does it?" Gosh, I'm such a coward. "I'm just happy he's here."

  "He," she squeals. "It's a boy?"

  "Yeah. A boy unless, of course, that was a piece of umbilical cord I saw between the legs."

  Bunny mocks punch me.

  "And if I hadn't wanted to know?"

  "Then you'd be shit out of luck, my love."

  The way she smiles at my term of endearment melts my heart again. I'm bending over to kiss her when a knock on the door stops me.

  "I'm sorry, Doctor," the technician says. "But I'll need the room back now. I have two scheduled patients waiting."

  15

  Bunny

  As we ride back to my place, I get lost in the contemplation of my son's profile. Technology is amazing. The baby is still in me, all wrapped up, protected and cozy for a few more months, but I can already see what he'll look like.

  Doc drives. He's been very quiet since we got in my car. I break the silence. "You're right, we need to talk."

  "It's no longer the first order of business."

  "Of course, first thing is to check on Dad," I concede.

  "Nope there's something more urgent we need to do." He glances at me and notices my frown. What could be more urgent?

  "This has been my longest dry ever..." His tone is so weird I'm not sure if he's joking or not.

  “You want to have sex?"

  My question makes him grin. "Yeah, don't you?"

  "Of course, I do." The words come out before I take the time to think. I catch myself and temper the enthusiasm of my spontaneous answer. "But not before we have a serious discussion."

  "So you wanna fight first?"

  I roll my eyes at him. "I said discussion, not fight."

  He frowns as if I'm not making sense. Thinks it over for a few seconds and asks, with his eyes on the road, "Can I make a suggestion?"

  I nod and wonder what he's going to come up with.

  "What if we had sex first? Then we could talk. We could even fight if you want."

  "Why do you insist I want to argue with you?"

  He throws a sideway glance at me, and with a perfect poker face gives me an absurd answer. "'Cause I think make up sex could be fun."

  I want to laugh, but instead I bite my lip. He's so adorable, I could instantly wipe his slate clean, but then I would resent it. So no, today I won't give in so easily.

  "Oh come on, Bunny, give me at least a smile, that was funny."

  "Yeah, when you're around, you're a funny guy." As the words escape from my lips, I realize how much pain I have been smothering the past six months. I didn't want to admit it, even to myself, but his silence hurt so damned much.

  Unable to ignore the shift in my mood, Doc gives up his sales pitch for a quickie to quench his thirst. "Okay, we'll talk, if you want, but not in the car."

  Contradictory is my middle name for the day.

  "Why not, this seems like a perfect place?"

  "No, it's not." He shakes his head. "Not at all. 'Cause, you see, when we do talk, I want to hold you and tell you how sorry I am I messed up so badly." I hold my breath. He probably doesn't realize, but we're actually talking. "I don't want to have my eyes on the road, but on you when I promise it will never happen again."

  That's the sweetest thing he's ever told me and I badly want to believe him.

  "There's no excuse for what I've done. I should have reached out. I should have called you at the bar. At least once... I should have explained."

  "Why didn't you?" That's the million dollar question for me.

  "I'm not sure."

  "You're not getting off this easy," I declare. "You're not a kid who doesn't know why he does things. You're a grown man. A responsible one at that, given your choice of profession. So tell me 'cause..."

  He raises a pacifying hand from the steering wheel to stop my torrent of angry words. "All right, all right, gimme a minute."

  We're home. He parks in my garage and fumbles with the beeper. The door slides down behind us and he cuts off the engine. I watch him staring at his hands on the steering wheel. His grip is so tense, his knuckles are white.

  Time passes and the timer kills the light. Still neither of us makes a move to get out of the car.

  "First, I didn't call because I was a dick head."

  That's for sure, but not really helpful.

  "I missed you so much, calling you was not gonna cut it. It was gonna be like putting salt on a gaping wound. So I decided to wait a bit." He takes a deep breath and in the semidarkness of the garage, I see his hands moving. "Did you ever have to do something so painful that you decided to postpone it?"

  My answer is an absolute no. When I have something unpleasant to do, I do it right away to get it over with. No point in having something you dread hanging over your head for days or even hours. But I'm guessing he's not built the same.

  "And then the longer you wait the more difficult it gets..." he shifts and reaches out for my hand. "It took me two months to get my head out of my ass. When I did, I swapped hours and rode back to you but you were gone ..."

  "That was Labor Day weekend," I whisper putting the dots together.

  "How do you know?"

  "I left a letter for you with Sam."

  "I never got it." He squeezes my hand a little tighter.

  "Yeah, he told me. He was out of town that night and no one else knew about it."

  We both sigh at the same time and chuckle.

  He bends over and brushes my lips with his. His kiss is chaste and pure and ... loving?

  "But then Prince asked us to join the Defiance chapter," he says. "Florida was tempting, but what sealed the deal was that he told me you were back in Point Lookout."

  He bends over again, and this time, it's a real kiss. One of those that melts my heart. It's not chaste; it speaks of desire.

  Doc pulls away, and resting his forehead against mine asks, "Can I safely assume we're done with the talking now?"

  I nod bumping our noses together and giggle. Six months of tensio
n have magically evaporated and I'm feeling giddy.

  "Can we have sex now?"

  "Right this instant?"

  The man is incorrigible.

  Before I even get a chance to explain that I'm six month pregnant and there's no way we're doing this in the car, Birdy saves me the trouble.

  She opens the connecting door and switches on the light. My sister always had a great sense of timing.

  Unaware that she could possibly have interrupted something or killed a magic moment, she looks at the washing machine and then at us. She says, "Oh, there you are. What are you doing in the dark? And how come there's not a clean towel in the house?"

  16

  Doc

  "Alone at last," Bunny says as I close the door on the last departing visitor. Between most of the members of the Ryan family tribe and the Tornadoes who rode over to help Brains get home, we haven't had a second to ourselves.

  Bunny gets up from her rocking chair and contemplates the mess. Paper plates and plastic cups, half empty food containers and beer cans. Birdy did offer to stay and help clean up, but I declined. All of this can wait until tomorrow.

  My dislike for clutter is smothered by my craving for Bunny. I need to touch her, feel her, taste her again. I'm done waiting.

  "Is my lady ready for bed?"

  She laughs. "You do have a one track mind."

  With a mock offended expression on my face, I protest. "I don't remember you ever complaining about it."

  Following her to the larger bedroom after making sure all doors are locked, I notice there's something I will need to thank Bunny's sisters for the next time I see them. They made the bed with clean sheets.

  Bunny opens the bed and sits. Her shoes fly to the other side of the room and she yawns. "I'm so tired I could fall asleep this instant, fully clothed."

  "Ain't gonna happen," I say.

  "You're absolutely right. I need to brush my teeth first." The way Bunny smiles at me, I know she's perfectly aware that my main concern was not with her dental hygiene. "Oh, and I have a spare toothbrush for you," she adds as she enters the bathroom.