Forever Rockers (14 page)

My head snapped around and I looked straight at Harper. What little color was in her face drained and I reached across Emmie to grab her hand. “Beautiful.”

Harper swallowed hard. “But how?” she breathed, shaking her head. “No one knows. No one. I didn’t say a word.”

“What, exactly, are you talking about, Harper?” Seller’s voice pulled her violet eyes back to him.

I watched as her tongue came out to dampen her lips before she spoke. “When… When the fertility clinic in Germany leaked the story about my…issues,” she said, grimacing and shaking her head, “well, we let them run with that story. The truth is—” Tears filled her eyes. “Hell, I don’t even know what the truth is now. It hasn’t been working, but Dr. Bambach has me on a new hormone therapy treatment that might give us a chance at getting pregnant.”

The man’s eyes narrowed. “You said you told no one?” She nodded. “How does the doctor get in touch with you?”

“They call my cell and I’ve gotten a few emails with reminders about follow-up appointments as well as one or two asking how I was handling the new dosages.”

“Work emails?” he demanded, getting to his feet.

It was her turn to shrug. “I only have one email account. I get work and personal messages sent to it. It’s just…easier.”

“Does anyone at the office know how to get into your account?” Emmie voiced before Seller could.

Dread churned in my stomach as I watched Harper’s face fall. “A handful of people can. Hannah, for one. My personal assistant, Sean. A few others.”

“I need their names, Harper. All of them. Did you get any emails from the doctor around the same time as the two bus incidents? If this person saw an email that led her to believe that you might be able to get pregnant with Shane’s child after all, it might have been enough to make her have a mental break.”

Violet eyes darkened as she tried to remember. “I had an email from Bambach’s nurse the day before the first one. She was doing a follow-up about my treatments. Asking if I was still keeping to the schedule she’d given me, about when to take my injections, and if I had any questions. The second time…” She sucked in a ragged breath and wrapped her arms around herself as she shivered. “It was because I’d needed to change my dosages and Bambach had emailed me personally, because he wanted to tell me that two more women in his test study had finally gotten pregnant. I’d been so excited I’d sent him back a long email thanking him for all of his help and telling him that I was confident that he could help me as well.” She swallowed hard and lowered her head. “That doesn’t seem to be the case though. I had a visit with him this past Friday and I told him if this round of treatments doesn’t work then I’m done.” 

“I’m sorry, Harper,” Emmie murmured, putting an arm around Harper’s shoulders.

Harper gave her a trembling smile. “It’s okay. I’ve finally admitted to myself that it isn’t likely to happen for me. Once I’m done with this round, Shane and I are going to start the paperwork for adoption.”

“That’s great, sweetie. I’m so glad you want to go that route. Adoption holds a special place in my heart after the way four Demons seemed to have adopted me and took me away from my worst nightmares.” Emmie hugged her. “I’ll love him or her just as much as if they were your biological child, I swear it.”

Seller’s eyes darkened as he watched them for a long time, but I could almost see the wheels turning in his head, taking it all in and probably seeing all the different dangers that I couldn’t. The urgency on his usually neutral face as he turned his eyes on me had my heart racing. “If she does get pregnant before we figure out who is doing this, she’s going to be in twice as much danger, Stevenson.”

C
HAPTER
N
INE

Lana

Sunlight streaked through the window blinds. Drake’s warm breath tickled my neck and I cuddled closer as I reluctantly lifted my lids to frown at the clock. I blinked, not believing my eyes when I saw it was after seven.

No way.

There had been no noise on the baby monitor beside my alarm clock to alert me to the baby’s crying—although I was sure I wouldn’t have needed it if she had started crying. My baby daughter had a set of lungs on her that made me wonder how good of a singer she would be one day. From the way she could go nonstop at times I was sure she would make a great little rock princess.

But the monitor had remained quiet for the most part and was still quiet as a tomb. Fear had me jumping up and running from the bedroom, not caring that my body was still tender and aching from giving birth just a few weeks before.

“Angel?” Drake called behind me and then I could hear his feet hitting the floor as he ran after me. “Is she okay?”

I didn’t have time to answer him as I rushed across the hall and into the nursery where Arella should be sleeping. In the weeks since her birth she had given us one sleepless night after another. She never slept through the night, and more often than not cried day and night.

Entering the nursery, tears of relief filled my eyes when I saw her sound asleep in her crib, her chest lifting and falling evenly, and a pacifier I hadn’t given her in her mouth as she sucked away in her sleep. On the floor with a pillow and a little blanket covering her small body was Neveah, cuddled up to the stuffed Build-A-Bear angel bear Drake had helped her make before we’d left for the summer tour.

Behind me Drake dropped his hands onto my shoulders and let out a relieved breath when his eyes took in what I was seeing. “What’s she doing in here?” he whispered at my ear so as not to wake either of our beautiful daughters.

I shook my head. “I’ve no idea,” I whispered back.

He pressed a kiss to the back of my head and carefully moved around me so that he could crouch down beside our firstborn. Reaching out his hand, he softly stroked a finger over Neveah’s soft cheek. Her eyes, identical to her father’s, fluttered open innocently and she smiled happily up at the big bad rocker. “Daddy.”

“Morning, my angel.” His voice was quiet but full of all the love and joy our daughters brought him. “Why aren’t you in bed?”

“Ellie needed me,” she said simply and glanced up at the crib.

The way she had grasped talking so easily never failed to surprise me. Neveah was already showing signs of above-average intelligence. Her doctor had even suggested putting her in a gifted preschool in L.A. I was on the fence about it. I didn’t want her to have to start going to school until she was ready, didn’t want to steal away the years she could be having fun rather than having to be put on a schedule that most kids three times older than Neveah couldn’t handle. Yet, at the same time, I knew she was too smart to not want to give her the chance to challenge herself as much as I could already see she needed.

Drake straightened, lifting Neveah into his arms as he did. He kissed her forehead and then moved closer to the crib to gaze down at our second little angel. When we’d found out we were having another daughter—something Drake had been over the moon about—he’d already had her name picked out. Arella Faith. Arella was Hebrew for angel, fitting for our baby girl.

Arella really was an angel, looking a little more like me than her father, but already showing signs of having the Stevenson eyes. I doubted there would ever be a Stevenson born who didn’t inherit those blue-gray eyes that could see through a person to their soul. Still, I wondered if my baby was a dark angel at times, but maybe that was because I was so exhausted all the time.

My anemia this time was worse than it had been after my first delivery, but at least I wasn’t having to fight post-partum as well.

“How did Ellie need you, Nev?” Drake asked the toddler in his arms quietly.

“She was whiny. So I gives her my binky.” She stared down lovingly at her baby sister.

We’d worried that Neveah would be jealous of the new baby, but all she’d done was want to help and shower kisses all over
her baby
, as she liked to call Arella.

Drake raised a brow at the girl. “Where was it?” He looked over at me. “She hasn’t had that thing in months. Do you know where she got it at, Angel?”

I shrugged. “I think it was in her room on her bookshelf. I’ve kept it clean though, just in case she ever wanted it back.” I moved closer to them, smiling from the still-sleeping baby back to my sexy rocker demon and the toddler in his arms. “Arella hasn’t liked the ones I’ve been trying to tempt her with lately. I guess she needed one that was already broken in.” I reached up and pushed a few dark strands back from Neveah’s beautiful little face. “Good job, Nevi.”

“Should we let her sleep?” Drake looked worriedly down at the baby. “Maybe we should wake her up and try to get her on a schedule.”

I shook my head. “No, babe. Let’s let her sleep a little more. I’m sure she needs it. She’s gotten as much sleep as we have lately. She needs it.” I took Neveah from his arms. “How about pancakes for breakfast, my angel?”

“Mickey?” she asked hopefully.

“I think I can do that.” I pressed a kiss to her forehead before unlocking the gate at the top of the stairs and walking down.

The house had been baby-proofed before we’d moved in. Now that we were spending more and more time on the West Coast, we’d needed more room. I hadn’t wanted to give up the house in New York, so we kept it and let family stay in it when they had to be in New York for any reason. Drake had given up his spot as judge on
America’s Rocker
the year before when Axton had left as well. The show had three new judges this year, and while it was still a popular show, it wasn’t getting nearly as high ratings as it had when Drake, Ax, and my father had been on there.

Drake followed us down the stairs and into the kitchen after going back to our room to grab the baby monitor so we could listen for Arella. I set Neveah in her booster seat at the kitchen table and started gathering things I needed for pancakes.

“Want some help, Angel?” Drake offered as he opened the fridge and extracted the carton of orange juice.

He hadn’t been letting me do much of anything lately. I hadn’t cooked much in the last few weeks and Drake had been doing the dishes as well as keeping up with the laundry. We had a housekeeper who came in twice a week, but my husband had been doing a great job of keeping toys neat and tidy as well as taking the trash out nightly.

Looking at Drake now, it was so hard to believe that until I’d come along—and for a little while after I’d come along—he’d been a shell of a man who was lost in his tortured past and hid from everything. Now he was full of so much life, so much energy. The day I’d married him, he’d seemed so happy, some of the demons shadowing his eyes had faded. The moment the doctor had placed Neveah in his arms, I’d seen a few more of those dark shadows fade. Just as many more had faded when Arella was pushed into the world and handed over to her sobbing father. I loved that we were pushing the past out of him. The barest of those dark shadows remained in his blue-gray eyes, but I figured a few more daughters—a few more of Drake’s angels—and his past would be well and truly in the past where it belonged.

“No, babe. I got this,” I assured him as he wrapped his arms around my waist, making me ache for something I was still weeks away from getting. That didn’t stop me from rubbing my hips against his bulging erection though, and I grinned when I heard the breath hiss out of him. “You can go get the morning paper, though. I’d like to see if news of what happened at Harper’s office yesterday hit the legit news.” I turned in his arms long enough to kiss him before firmly pushing him away, afraid I would attack him right there on the kitchen floor for a taste of the pleasure I’d been without for way too long.

Drake winked down at me and I turned back to the task at hand. Neveah loved her pancakes and she was probably hungry. The events of the day before started to flood back into my head since Drake was no longer in the room to fog it up and I started cracking eggs a little rougher than I normally would have as I thought about the circus that was becoming my brother-in-law’s and best friend’s lives.

When Emmie had shown up at our house with three of Charles Seller’s men, I’d been scared out of my mind until they had searched the house and deemed it free of any spy gear. Once the fear for my children had been calmed, my fear for the rest of our family had only escalated, and my rage had started to simmer when I’d learned that someone had planted cameras in Mia’s room.

Drake was gone for less than two minutes and was already unfolding the newspaper as he took his seat beside Neveah at the table. He didn’t speak as he looked over the front page and then opened it to skim through the rest. I glanced up from mixing the pancake batter every few seconds as I felt his tension seem to fill the room. He closed the paper with a curse that he only partially got out before he remembered our child was sitting there watching him so intently.

“Daddy, kiss?” Neveah offered as she saw that vein in his forehead pulse.

He leaned forward and accepted her kiss, but it did nothing for the tension in him, making me question what he’d read.

“Is it that bad?” I murmured, trying to keep my voice calm so as not to scare or worry Neveah. She picked up on emotions so easily and I didn’t want her to feel the fear and tension that was currently turning our entire family into basket cases.

“Nothing about Harper or Shane,” Drake assured me, but his jaw was still clenched tight.

I lifted a brow. “What, then?” He wouldn’t be acting like that for no reason, so I knew there was something in there about at least one member of our family.

“It’s hard to explain, Angel.” His gaze went to Neveah and I got the message loud and clear. He didn’t want to talk about it in front of her. That only escalated my trepidation. “Let’s have breakfast and then… then you should call Cole.”

My hand paused in the middle of stirring the pancake batter. “Dad?” Why the hell did I need to call my father? I’d just spoken to him the week before. He was out of the country doing some work in London. Apparently he was helping with some music talent show that had shelled out some big cash for him to make a few appearances as a guest judge. “Is he okay? Has something happened?” My heart twisted painfully. Had something…