Bad Apple (The Uncertain Saints MC #4) (19 page)

I winced.

“Are you sure I have to leave?” My voice pleaded with her.

She nodded.

“I am. I’m sorry. But you can be here as soon as the clock strikes eight AM. I’ll also be calling you if anything changes. You can also call me anytime you feel you need an update, okay?” She offered.

I nodded. “Yeah, okay.”

With one last touch against Emily’s cheek, I left the NICU feeling like I’d left my own beating heart behind.

I walked down one flight of stairs and turned left, following the directions I’d gotten from Ridley, arriving at Kitt’s room and stopping in surprise when I saw not just Ridley inside, but Griffin and his wife, Mig and his wife, Casten and his wife, Peek and his wife, and Wolf.

They all stood the moment I came into the room.

“Pictures!” Lenore declared loudly.

I smiled and pulled out my phone, giving it to Lenore.

The other ladies quickly gathered around the phone and cooed over the pictures.

My eyes, however, were all for Kitt.

She looked tiny in the big white hospital bed.

Her head had a huge laceration from the top of her hairline all the way down to her eyebrow.

Her leg was up in the air, wrapped from ankle to thigh.

The bedding was bunched up over her midsection, which looked weird not swollen with our child.

Her eyes were both black, and she had crusted, dried blood in her hair and around her ear.

I grabbed a washcloth from the sink, wet it and gently went to work on the blood.

I had to go rinse it at least three times before I was satisfied that it was all gone, and when I looked up next, the room was empty.

Taking a glance behind me to be sure, I closed my eyes.

Sighing in relief, I took a seat on the very edge of Kitt’s bed, careful not to jostle her, and stared at her, willing her to wake.

“This wasn’t how this was supposed to go,” I told her, lifting my hand to brush a piece of her beautiful hair off her forehead. “You were supposed to have this kid naturally, and I was supposed to cut the umbilical cord.
What to Expect When You’re Expecting
said so.”

That beautiful laugh of hers didn’t light up the air around me, and I closed my eyes as the tears that were clogging my throat threatened to spill over.

But then something she’d said a couple days back, the night I finally decided to pull my head out of my ass and tell her everything there was to know about me, good and bad, came back to me.

I love you. I love you when you’re you. I love you when you’re not you. I love you when you’re sick. I love you when you’re healthy. I’d take care of you even if you were a quadriplegic. You’re it for me, and I’m it for you. Got it?

“I love you. I love you when you’re you. I love you when you’re not you. I love you when you’re sick. I love you when you’re healthy. I’d take care of you even if you were a quadriplegic. You’re it for me, and I’m it for you.
Got it?” I whispered.

She still didn’t answer, but I wasn’t worried. She’d come back to me. And when she did, she was mine.

Forever.

Day four after the accident, Kitt woke with a vengeance.

“Get your hands off me, you stupid fool!” I heard yelled loudly. “Where’s my baby?”

I rolled over from my back to my side and stared at the most beautiful vision I’d ever seen.

Kitt. Awake and pissed.

“Ma’am. Do you know where you are?” The nurse, the same one that’d been her nurse for the last two nights, asked her, ignoring her rude comments.

“I’m in the hospital, you twit,” she said. “Even I can see that, and I don’t know what day it is or how I got here. Now, take me to my baby!”

“Ma’am,” the nurse tried to say. “I’ll have to ask your doctor if it’s okay for you to see the baby.” She pointed to Kitt’s leg that was still up in the contraption that kept it immobile. “He said we could take it down today, but I’ll have to make sure before we do.”

“You do that.” Kitt snarled. “Now.”

“I need to give you your medicines first,” she informed her. “And we’ve been pumping your breast milk for your baby every two hours. Which is another thing I was in here to do.”

“Who would give you permission to do something like that?” Kitt hissed. “Isn’t that a sexual violation?”

“Kitt,” my deep, resonate voice said softly. “Don’t.”

Kitt’s head snapped sideways, and her eyes widened.

“You,” she hissed. “What did you do to me?”

I wanted to laugh.

I didn’t dare.

“I gave her permission to do that, otherwise we would’ve had to see if we could find a milk bank that would supply Emily’s meals for her,” I sat up and placed my feet flat on the floor.

Kitt’s eyes narrowed.

“You named our child Emily?” She screeched, eyes narrowing. “Who gave you permission to do that?”

I stood, keeping my eyes on her.

“Can you come back in thirty minutes?” I asked the nurse
. “I’ll do the milking.”

Kitt’s gasp of outrage followed the nurse out, and she glared at me with venom in her eyes.

“Did you just say you were going to milk me?” She asked with a snarl. “Like a fucking cow?”

I bent over so my arms were on either side of her hips and turned my head so I could see her face straight on.

“I did. What are you going to do about it?” I asked, moving so close to her that all I could see were her eyes.

“I’m going to let you,” she whispered. “But I’m not going to be happy about it.”

I wanted to laugh.

“I will,” I suppressed my grin. “Because I like touching your boobs.”

She gave up the ghost and threw her head back and laughed.

“You remembered that I wanted to call her Emily?” She asked once she composed herself.

I nodded.

“What’d you use as her middle name?” She wondered.

I grinned. “Ryan.”

“Emily Ryan Drew?” Her eyes went dreamy.

“Yeah,” I said. “I liked it.”

“That sounds good. But my brother’s going to get a big head,” she pursed her lips.

“Ridley Ryan Walker was already taken,” my brother said from the door. “So we had to settle for Emily. Why you’d want to name our baby after our mother is beyond me.”

I snorted.

Ridley and Kitt’s mother wasn’t the nicest of people, from what I’d heard. She’d been strict and overbearing, and had died with their father when they were teenagers during a traffic accident.

They’d lived with their grandfather until the age of eighteen when he decided they were old enough to live on their own. The next day he moved into a nursing home two states up from them and refused to come home anymore because he liked the fishing in Tennessee too much.

If they were going to name the baby after anyone, it should have been their grandfather.

Not their mother.

But who knew the mind of a woman, anyway?

Porn is bullshit. How the hell do they have sex without the fitted sheet popping off?

-Text from Ridley to Apple

Kitt

I stared at Apple as he broke through yet another large log with his massive axe, and my loins clenched with need.

I looked over at Perry, Apple’s father.

“Do you think you could watch her for a couple of minutes,” I pleaded.

Perry looked over from his position, glancing at Emily where she was swinging in her new, state of the art swing, and nodded.

“I can,” he agreed, his voice slurred slightly.

I smiled and stood, taking a hesitant step on my now cast-free foot.

“Thank you,” I murmured before heading in Apple’s direction.

Today, I’d had three appointments.

One for my OB checkup, stating I was now cleared to have all the sex I wanted. The second to have my cast removed from my leg. And the third was an appointment with my seizure doc who put me on a different regimen of meds.

My phone rang when I was just about to go down the steps, and I glared at it once I read the readout.

“Hello?” I asked shortly.

“Hi, Kitt!” Jake sang. “I noticed you weren’t home, and I was just calling to check on you!”

I gritted my teeth, so close to telling the guy to go fuck himself that it wasn’t even funny.

“I’m fine, Jake,” I growled through clenched teeth. “Bye.”

I hung up and glared at my phone, shoving it back into my pocket in favor of throwing it.

“Who was that?” Apple asked, taking another swing of the axe.

I watched as his body rippled and bunched. Then I watched as he bent over, grabbed the wood that was piled up on either side of his chopping block and tossed it aside to the huge pile that was even further away.

I lost count of how many logs he’d split today.

This morning, I’d looked out the window and had seen what looked like a whole freakin’ tree ready to be cut up.

And I’d arrived back home to it all in sections, and the majority of it cut up into firewood.

“How long have you been going?” I asked him. “Have you taken a break at all?”

He looked at me over his shoulder, his face dripping with sweat.

His beard was curlier than usual due to the moisture on his face, and it made him look even more rugged than I was used to from him.

His gray t-shirt was clinging to the planes of his chest and back, and his jeans had a ring of sweat right around the waist that went down past his ass.

His arms were covered in small slivers of wood, and his glasses had small particles clinging to them, too.

“Since you left,” he panted. “I have two pieces left, and I’m done.”

He indicated the two larger logs that he had left to be split, and I sighed.

Taking one long glance behind me at Perry, I slipped past the house so he couldn’t see anymore but Apple could, and stared at Apple until he turned to me.

Once I had his eyes, I hooked my fingers in the hem of my shirt, and then ripped it up and off my head.

His eyes bugged as he took a quick glance behind him, and then back to me.

“Put it back on,” he ordered gruffly.

I shook my head.

“Can’t,” I disagreed. “The doctor cleared me for sex. Either you give it to me, or I go take care of it myself like old times.”

His eyes narrowed. “I’m almost done. I’ll come up there when I’m finished.”

He was trying hard, I’d give him that.

In fact, he’d been a good boy for going on two months now.

He’d been busting his ass as he tried to make everyone happy.

He helped me with Emily. He helped me out even more when a seizure would knock me down on my ass. He helped Ridley. He helped his father. He helped other game wardens who were sick, picking up the odd shift for other areas here and there.

And then there was the wood splitting when he was home and he wasn’t needed elsewhere.

Needless to say, I was getting sick and tired of him taking care of everyone but himself.

“Apple,” I said, my tone biting.

Apple’s eyes, already focused on me but not my face, snapped up to mine.

“Yeah?” He gasped, chest still heaving.

“You either come up here now, or I’ll go home with Emily and not come back for the night.”

His eyes narrowed.

“Are you giving me an ultimatum here?” He warned.

I nodded.

“Yes,” I nodded sharply. “Either you give me what I want, or I leave.”

“You won’t leave me,” he ordered.

I wanted to laugh.

I wouldn’t leave him. But I’d go home and stop watching his sexy body as he worked his ass off.

Then he’d follow me home later, and I’d already be in bed.

Which he wouldn’t wake me from.

Not if he could help it.

The only way he’d actually wake me was if Emily needed to be fed and I didn’t hear her crying, but I always heard her.

So he wouldn’t have that excuse, and he’d have to leave me alone because he was too scared of being the cause of one of my seizures.

I lifted my finger and watched him watch me.

His eyes staying glued to mine.

I could tell he wanted to drop those eyes and watch my fingers circle my pebbled nipples, but he didn’t.

He kept watching my eyes,
intently
.

Knowing he’d follow if I left, I turned my back on him and walked to the barn where he no longer lived.

He’d moved in with us mostly. His stuff was still in the barn, but most of his clothes were now housed in my closet.

His shoes took up the underside of my bed.

His guns took up a shelf in my bathroom closet.

I stocked his favorite cookies, Oreos, in my pantry.

For all intents and purposes, he was now moved into the house with me, Emily and Ridley.

Although Ridley rarely saw him.

When Ridley was there, Apple was at work. When Apple was there, Ridley was at work.

I wasn’t even sure if Ridley knew exactly what was going on with Apple and me.

It looked poorly that every time Ridley walked in the door, Apple was walking out of it.

And not all of those times was Apple working.

Sometimes he was chopping wood like he was doing now. Others he was just walking out the door to walk out the door, and I wanted to know why.

Emily had been home with us for a little over four weeks now, and of those four weeks, I might have seen Apple for a whole four hours of it.

He was there, but he wasn’t
there
.

And I wanted to know why.

Which was why I was ambushing him today.

He either gave me what I wanted, or I went all crazy on him and started making a big deal of it when I really didn’t want to.

I made it to the top of the steps before I heard the barn door creak open below.

I was bending over the bed, my hands on the checkered cotton sheets, when I felt Apple’s hands on my hips, pulling me against his hard erection that was tenting the front of his jeans.

I didn’t even care that those jeans were covered in sweat and wood chips.

I was ecstatic that he was even acknowledging that I was there.

“I’m tired,” he grunted softly.

I looked at him over my shoulder, my brows furrowed.

“You don’t want to do this?” I asked carefully.