Raw: The Ultimate Mc Collection (74 page)

It was as if I had the whole world all to myself.  I laughed under my breath as I realized that I no longer wanted the world to myself anymore.  I wanted my world to be filled with the sweetest, sexiest man I had ever encountered and his adorable daughter.

I looked out at the parking lot outside of the garden gate, and noticed a car I didn’t recognize.  A plain, black sedan was parked in the corner.  Was it the same one Mike had hesitated when he spotted the other day?  I wouldn’t have noticed it at all, except it was the only car that was backed into its parking space.  I put my hand up to my forehead, shielding my eyes from the sun to see better.  The car appeared to be empty.  I scanned the parking lot again, looking for any sight of another person, any sight of Todd, but there was nobody around.  

I sighed in relief.  The car probably just belonged to a guest.  My apartment complex was fairly large and busy, and strange cars weren’t that unusual.   If it was Todd, he would have confronted me by now.

What was the point of just watching me and sending me text messages?  He was just trying to scare me.  And while it might have been slightly working, I wasn’t about to let him see it.

The sound of my phone ringing brought me back inside, and when I saw it was Mike, my heart began beating a little faster and I smiled with relief.

“Hey, baby!” I said as I answered.

“Hey.”  As soon as I heard his voice, I knew something was wrong.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’m okay.  But something happened last night.  It’s Reaper.” 

“What happened? Is Reaper okay?”  

“We won’t know for a while.  He was shot, Daisy.  It’s bad.  It’s real bad,” he said.  His voice cracked with fear and I instantly felt terrible for him.

“Oh, Mike, I’m so sorry.  My god!  Is there anything I can do?”

“Actually, yes, that’s why I’m calling.  But first, is everything okay at your place?”

“Yes, everything’s fine here.”

“Any word from Todd?”

“No, nothing.  I haven’t seen him, he hasn’t texted, nothing at all.”

“Okay, good.”

“What can I do, Mike?  I want to help.  Where are you?” I asked.

“I’m at the clubhouse.  We all are.  I have a doctor here working on Reaper,” he replied.

“Oh.  Um…okay.  You can’t go to the hospital, I’m guessing?”

“No, that’s not an option,” he said, curtly.

“Okay.  What can I do?”

“Rosie is going to be waking up real soon.  I don’t want her to see Reaper, or even know what’s going on, not until she has to know.  I was wondering if you could come over and pick her up?”

“Oh, yes, of course!”

“I’m worried about you two being at your place, too, though.  How do you feel about taking her back to my house and hanging out there until I can get away from here?”

“That’s fine, Mike.  Whatever you need, sweetheart” I said.  My heart was breaking for him.

“Thanks, Daisy.  I really appreciate it.”

“Of course, my lo— ,” I stopped myself before I said the word ‘love’, forgetting in that moment that we weren’t there yet, at least not out loud.  “Anything at all.”

I heard the relief in his voice as he gave me directions to the clubhouse.  When he said goodbye, I felt so sad for him.  He sounded so worried.

I changed my clothes and gathered a few things to take with me.  I wasn’t sure how long I would be at his house.  As I was packing a few change of clothes, I saw my gun on the nightstand and contemplated if I should take it or not.  

Deciding it was better to be safe than sorry, I engaged the lock on it, and placed it in my backpack with the rest of my things.  

CHAPTER NINETEEN

MIKE

Seeing Daisy walk into the clubhouse was like seeing an angel walk into my life.  My heart was filled with such darkness, the visions of the night before looping through my head like a bad movie, and the never ending crushing guilt that I always experienced when I had to hurt someone weighing heavily on my mind — all this, combined with the enormous fear that Reaper wouldn’t make it, were making me feel like the world was crashing around me.

When Daisy walked into the room, for one brief moment, all that was lifted and I felt nothing but love and happiness.  But then, I remembered what she was going through herself, and I knew the darkness in our lives wasn’t gone yet.

We still had Todd to deal with.  I wasn’t sure when he would appear, but I knew it wasn’t going to be pretty when it all went down.  I almost didn’t want to put Rosie at risk by being with Daisy, but I was in a tight spot and I had no choice.  At least if they were together, I could keep a better eye on them.  I compromised with myself by putting them at my house with one of the brothers guarding them there.  That was the best I could do.  I couldn’t leave Reaper’s side just yet and I didn’t want to break Rosie’s heart, either.   Reaper was like a second father to her.  She would have been devastated.

The other risk was that we were pretty much sitting ducks at this point.  If the Cretins decided to retaliate, and I knew they would sooner or later, the first place they would come was the clubhouse.

I had to get them both out of there and into a safe place as soon as possible.

Getting Rosie out of the clubhouse without seeing Reaper first was quite a challenge, and I felt terrible lying to her and telling her he was running an errand for me.  As she and lil’ Mike jumped into Daisy’s truck and she kissed me goodbye, it was bittersweet.  At that moment, I had never wished more that my life was different.  I desperately wanted to jump in the truck with them, and drive far down the road and somehow find a way to leave it all behind.

But I couldn’t.  This was my life.  This was all my fault, all my responsibility.  And if Reaper didn’t make it, I didn’t know how I was going to go on.

Sam had arrived at the clubhouse before we did, and had already set up a makeshift operating room in the back bedroom.  The brothers set up bright lights and helped her lay all her tools out as she went about inspecting Reaper’s wound.  After five minutes, she came out with a quick update before disappearing back into the closed room.

“He’s lost a lot of blood.  A hell of a lot, Mike.  The bullet nicked his lung, and severed an artery.  It doesn’t look good, but I can assure you I will do my best to save him.”

“Thank you, Sam.  I’ll be right here.  Let me know if there’s anything at all that you need.”

I watched her walk back in, my heart ripped to shreds with worry.  He had to make it, he just had to.

CHAPTER TWENTY

DAISY

By the time we arrived at Mike and Rosie’s house, it was ten in the morning.  I left my things in the truck and followed Rosie into the house.

She gave me a tour as soon as we got inside, not even questioning the appearance of Sonny, the burly man Mike had sent along with us.  He stayed right outside the front door, and I felt a slight sense of relief knowing he was there.

Their house was exactly as I had pictured it.  Modest, but cozy and comfortable.  It was nothing like the cement-floored clubhouse I had just seen.  The living room was filled with pictures of Rosie and Mike, and a few with Rosie and Reaper and Mike with some of the other men, all wearing their cuts proudly and standing next to their bikes.

She walked me to the back of the house first, taking me through the back door and onto a wide, back patio that led down to a huge back yard.  The yard was filled almost entirely with a huge Oak tree that was engulfed by the most elaborate tree house I had ever seen.

“My daddy built that!”

“He did?” I asked, incredulously.  It was enormous, and had lots of twisting bridges and stair cases and railed off platforms.

“It’s absolutely amazing, Rosie! I can’t believe he did all this himself.”

“Well, he did have a little help from the club,” she said.

“Okay, I see, well it’s beautiful!”

“Thanks! Let’s go to my room,” she said, grabbing my hand and pulling me along.

When Rosie showed me her room, she did so with pride.  The walls were painted a gorgeous lavender color and she had matching lavender lace curtains.   Her white daybed was covered in a pink flowered print comforter.  I noticed the two pictures on her nightstand, and walked over to look at them.

“This must be your mama,” I said to Rosie, as I looked at the photo.  “She was beautiful.”

“Yeah, she was, huh?”

She definitely was.  Her thick black curly hair framed her gorgeous, youthful face.  She had huge green eyes, and a pretty smile.  It was one of those smiles that was so sweet and genuine, you knew she had to be a really nice person.

I looked at the other picture, a snapshot of Mike and Rosie at Disneyland, both of them wearing mouse ears.

“This is wonderful!” I said, laughing.

“I know, I love that picture so much!” she said, laughing with me.  “Daddy was okay with wearing the ears, but it took some convincing to get him to take a photo with them on.”

“I bet!” I said, returning the pictures to her nightstand, and following behind her as she completed her tour of the house.  It smelled like the two of them.  I loved that about houses, how they often adopted the smell of the inhabitants.  Or, maybe it was the other way around.  Either way, their house smelled faintly of leather, crayons and lilac.

I made Rosie breakfast as she fed lil’ Mike.  She was so sweet with him, and I smiled as she made sure to give him exactly the correct amount of food.

“Daddy says bulldogs can get fat really easily, and so we have to be very careful with how much we feed him,” she told me.

“He is a very affectionate dog, isn’t he?” I said, as I watched him rub his face against her leg before diving into his food bowl, sloppily consuming his food in a messy frenzy of saliva and snorting and slurping.

He finished quickly, his brown eyes pleading for more from Rosie.

“No, lil’ Mike! That’s all you get, boy.”  Rosie sat down on the kitchen floor, hugging and petting him.  He began licking her face, and her giggles filled the house.

It was weird being here without Mike.  Especially since it was the first time I had seen his home.  But I could see Rosie was very comfortable, and that made me happy.

“Reaper usually makes me pancakes,” she said, quietly petting lil’ Mike as I stirred the batter.  I felt terrible about Reaper.  Mike’s face had been filled with worry when I saw him at the clubhouse, and when he told me what the doctor said, I could feel him shaking.  I agreed with him that Rosie didn’t need to know about Reaper just yet, so when she mentioned him, I kept my voice calm.

“I bet they’re awesome!  Hopefully, these will be almost as good as his!”

She smiled up at me, her eyes curious.

“Do you like my Daddy?” she asked.

“Sure, I like him, honey.  Your Daddy is a very nice man.”    I wasn’t sure where this line of questioning was headed, but I was determined to tread lightly.

“I think he likes you, too,” she said quietly. “I’ve never seen him smile at anyone else that way.”

“Oh.”  I said, at once elated and yet at a total loss for words.

“It’s okay, though,” she said. “I like you too, Ms. Daisy.”

“Oh, honey,” I said, walking over to her and leaning down to hug her.  “I like you, too!  And I’ll tell you what, Rosie.  If we aren’t at school, you can just call me Daisy, okay?”

“Okay, cool.”  She jumped up and hugged me quickly before running down the hall to her room.  “I’m going to go play in my room, let me know when the pancakes are ready!”

In a flash, she was gone.  It was all so simple for kids.  Rosie didn’t seem to question why I was there, or how long I was going to be there.  She just accepted it.  And her acceptance made it all so easy.

It made me hopeful that if or when the time came to tell Rosie that she was going to be seeing a lot of me, she would be just fine with it.

I was just putting the pancakes on the plates when I heard a soft thump outside.  When I saw lil’ Mike start to growl at the door, I put down the spatula and walked to the front door.  I peered out of the peephole, and saw nothing at all.  Slowly, holding back the growling bulldog with my foot, I opened the door.  Everything was calm and peaceful, only there was one thing missing.