Romance: Motorcycle Club Romance: Outlaw Biker's Baby (Contemporary Alpha Male MC Biker Romance) (Bad Boy MC Biker Pregnancy Romance) (82 page)

I felt dead to the
world,
and parts of me were numb.  Then Rex exploded inside me, filling me up more than he already had.  I welcomed it.

Then he joined me on the
clover
, feeling just as dead as I. 

“
Thanks,
Rex,” I managed to say.

He grunted.

“For saving my life,” I added.

He threw his arm over me and for the first time in forever I felt like I was in the right place.

8.

I woke up to the sound of a phone ringing.  It wasn’t my
phone, I
was sure of that.  No, it was the phone that the two officers had on them. 

I didn’t answer. 

But, after it would stop ringing, it would immediately begin again.  I considered turning the thing off so it wouldn’t bother me.  I knew who would be on the other side.  Still, I wanted to tell him where to shove it.

I answered the phone.

“Hello,” I said confidently.

“So you
did
get rid of my two good officers,” said Mr. Novak over the phone.

“It wasn’t me, but I was there when it happened.  And, trust me, he would do the same to you if you were there,” I said.

“Oh, would he?” he asked.

“He would,” I replied.

“Then why don’t you have him come out and prove it,” he said.

“Why would we drive all the way back to the city for him to beat you up?  I’m just here to tell you to stay away.  I won’t go to the
cops,
and you won’t get your money back,” I said.

“Well,
that’s too bad
,” he said over the phone.

“Because I’m right here,” he said.  I heard him
nearby,
and my heart skipped a beat.  I looked around and saw him standing by a tree.  Then I saw the rest of his gang start
to file
out. 

I quickly covered myself up, while Rex lied naked in the clover, snoring. 

“How did you find us?” I asked.

He pointed to the phone.

“If you need to, you can find any phone anywhere in the world; it helps when you have a few cops in your pocket that can take care of that for you,” he said.

I smacked Rex alongside his head, and he just rolled over.

“Heavy sleeper, it seems,” Mr. Novak said.

I stood up and pulled the gun out of my jeans.

“I don’t think you’ll need that,” he said.

A couple of guys I recognized from the other day stepped out from behind the trees, brandishing much bigger guns.  I dropped my small pistol to the ground. 

“Is this the guy that’s supposed to beat me to a bloody pulp?” Mr. Novak asked.

I nodded.

He pulled a pistol out and shot Rex in the arm.

Rex stirred and snapped awake. 
At least,
a bullet was able to wake him up.

“Geez, Celia.  I’m awake.  You didn’t have to shoot me,” Rex said.

Mr. Novak laughed.  I wanted to
laugh
but my sense of humor
was lost
in the moment.

“Rex, this is the guy that sent those cops after me,” I said.

Rex pulled on his jeans.

“He don’t look so tough, I bet you could probably beat him up,” Rex said.

Mr. Novak stopped laughing.

“You think this bitch could even lay a hand on me?” he said.

“No, I’m saying she’d knock you out,” Rex replied. 

Rex’s arm was bleeding pretty badly, but he didn’t seem to care.  He just grabbed his shirt from the other night, ripped it up, and tied it around the wound. 

“I’ve had enough of this,” started Mr. Novak, “get rid of them.”

The thugs took their aim, only to
be smashed
upside the head with clubs and tire irons; the rest of the motorcycle club was here.

“
Thanks,
boys, I was wondering when you’d finally show up,” Rex said, pulling on his vest.

Rex stomped his way over towards Mr. Novak.  They were both hulking men, Rex was more barrel chested, but Mr. Novak was a little taller with more chiseled muscles. 

“I hear you tried to have my girl killed,” Rex said.

“Loose ends need tying up,” he said.

They stood toe to toe, neither of them wanting to back down or show any sign of weakness.  I knew
Rex; he
didn’t have an ounce of weakness in him, and he didn’t bow down to anyone.

“You wanna know what the worst thing is?” Rex asked but wasn’t looking for an answer, “waking up to a gunshot wound.”

Rex reached out and grabbed the gun from Mr. Novak.  The two wrestled with it for a brief
moment,
but Rex was clearly stronger.  I wanted to cheer on Rex and see him wipe the smile from Mr. Novak’s face for good. 

“What should I do with this guy, Celia?  It’s my wedding present to you,” he offered.

I thought about it for a second.  I wanted to do nothing more than what Rex did to the cops the other night.  I wanted to find my friend Jimmy and dig a grave right next to him to plant Mr. Novak.  I wanted to have Rex squeeze him until all of his bones snapped. 

Most of all, I just wanted to feel safe.  And, I felt safe, as long as Rex was nearby. 

I walked up to Mr. Novak.

“What is your life worth to you,” I asked.

“Everything,” he replied. 

I laughed. 

“Yeah?  And how much is everything,” I
asked.

He pulled a small black book from his chest pocket. 

“This has all my bank codes and passwords.  It’s worth almost ten million if you let me go,” he said.

I snatched the book from his hand and started thumbing through it.  Just a bunch of numbers and passwords, but it looked real enough.

“So I get to leave,” Mr. Novak asked.

“Sure,” I said, “I’ll let you go.”

He let out a sigh of relief. 

“To prison,” I added. 

Rex was a good man, and I knew what he wanted to do.

“Only downside is you didn’t bargain for what you’d look like when you got there,” I said.

Rex knew what I meant.  He threw a punch that would’ve splintered a tree square into Mr. Novak’s stomach.  The man fell to the ground with the wind knocked out of him. 

But, in desperation he threw a quick jab, trying his best to strike Rex.  Rex
easily
blocked the blow and delivered a kick to Mr. Novak’s chest.  Running on pure adrenaline, Mr. Novak tackled Rex to the ground.  He threw punch after punch as hard as he could, but the punches didn’t seem to faze Rex in the slightest. 

Rex just stood up and picked the man up by the collar, only to deliver a blow square
to
the side of Mr. Novak’s face.  It was brutal to watch.  They two of them kept at it for a while. 

Before long, Mr. Novak was bloodied and beaten.  His strength had been bested easily by the only person that knew how to make me happy.  I
was seeing
, again, the
reason why
I was always so close to him in my youth.

Good people are hard to find, so sometimes you find a bad one that knows just what you need. 

I tucked the book into my pocket and made my way toward the road.  Rex seemed to be enjoying himself with his punching bag.  After about five minutes of taking a beating, I saw one of the club members come back with a length of
rope
and tie it around Mr. Novak’s torso.

The dragged him back to the motorcycles and tied the other end of the rope to the bike. 

I gave Rex a kiss on the cheek as he rode off down the street with Mr. Novak in tow. 

Unfortunately, the ride didn’t last as long as I would have hoped.

9.

“Celia Murphy?” chimed the voice of the officer.

I stood up and walked over to the holding cell bars.

“You’re free to go,” he said.

I walked out toward the lobby of the police station.  A good amount of the rest of the club was there waiting, except for Rex. 

“Celia Murphy,” said the old woman behind the desk, “your marriage license is in order.  Here’s your certificate.”

I laughed at how droll she made the whole proceeding sound.  If only Rex were here to see this, he’d probably laugh about it too.  I was his now and forever. 

“Will Rex be out soon,” I asked.

The officer that led me out was sitting at the front desk.  He looked at me in disbelief at the question.

“You do know we caught him dragging a man behind a motorcycle, down Main Street, at highway speeds, right?  I wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up locked up for the rest of his life.”

“Naw, he’ll get out, he always does,” I said.

I was contacted later that day by drug enforcement officers.  The information I had and the bodies I’d left were more than enough to convince them that I was just fighting for my life. 

It took a
while,
but I finally managed to convince them to let Rex go.  Mr. Novak had survived and was in critical care at the local hospital.  I felt completely free of my dumb mistake. 

In the end,
I felt sorry for my friend Jimmy who got stuck
in a mess
he couldn’t dig himself
out of
.  But, some good did come from the whole situation.  I got my man back. 

We saddled up outside the police
station,
and I leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

“You know, we’re married now,” I said.

“I think I want a divorce,” Rex replied, “You’re just too much trouble.”

We both laughed, and everything felt right.  As we drove down the open road, as I had so many years ago, I felt free.

*****

THE END

“Yes, I’m incredibly frustrated, Joyce,” I shouted into the phone.  She had the patience of a saint to let me fume over the phone for the hundredth time about the same thing. 

“It’s going to be okay, Hellen.  It’s just a wedding; if it makes your mom happy you should just go with it,” she replied, reassuringly.

I sighed and sunk into my chair a little further.  The airport was empty, for the most part, which gave me plenty of room to sprawl out. 

“Why is it that my mom can find three guys that will marry
her,
and I can’t even find one?” I asked.

“You’ll find
someone; I
just know you will.  Just be patient and let it happen.  That’s how it worked for me and Bill, I just stopped
looking,
and he happened to show up.”

“I haven’t even started
looking,
and now you’re telling me I should stop?” I asked.

“Just keep doing what you’re doing and the right guy is bound to show up when you least expect it,” she said.  I know her words weren’t meant to stress me out, nor make me more frustrated, but it wasn’t something I could just set aside. 

“I thought he already had,” I said.

“Not every guy is going to be like Mark, Hel,” she replied coldly.

I
really
thought that I had met a wonderful person when I started dating Mark.  He was gorgeous and knew how to please me in more ways than one.  I even thought he’d ask to move in together soon, but when I surprised him at his
apartment,
I knew it wouldn’t work out.  Or
at least,
that’s how I felt after I saw him in bed with another woman.

“I think I’m just done trying, altogether.  I need a ‘man’ break.  I think I’m just going to get drunk, tell my mom congratulations, and forget life for a while,” I said.

“Promise me one thing, Hel,” she said.

“Okay, fine, what,” I sighed.

“Promise me you’ll keep an open mind.  You never know what’s out there unless you give it a chance.”

“I make no promises, but I’ll try,” I said.

“I gotta go, the kids waking up; have fun Hellen, for both of us!”

“I’m glad I have your permission;
I
’ll drink twice as much,” I said with a laugh while ended the call. 

A chime rang over the intercom; my flight was beginning to board.  I exhaled deeply, trying to push out all my frustrations and anxiety.  I could feel myself edging closer to some semblance of normality; that all came crashing down the
moment,
I picked up my luggage and headed toward the gate. 

2.

“Hellen!” reverberated my mother’s familiar screech from the crowd.  She was a woman blessed with a lack of embarrassment.  I did my best to keep up with her.

“Mom,” I said back with an awkward look over the gathered crowd that was now paying almost exclusive attention to us.

“You look gorgeous as always, how was the flight,” she asked off-handedly.

“Do you
really
care about the flight?  That seems like needless small talk,” I replied with a cocked eye.

“Well, can’t blame a girl for trying,” she said with a shrug.

I sat my things on a nearby bench and looked her square in the eye.

“Can we just talk about the elephant in the room and get this over with?” I asked in a pleading manner.

She swept over and took the seat by my bags, plopping down loudly on the wooden bench.

“Oh fine,” she started, “but let me say a
couple of
things quick before you start storming your mouth off at your mother.”

I let out a drawn out sigh and took a seat beside her on the bench. 

“Duke isn’t like your father.  He’s straightforward and loud, and I like that.  Your father was too timid and always too busy for us.  Secondly, Duke knows what it means to be a father; he has a son, and his son turned out alright, just like you.”

“Are you telling me I’m going to have a step-brother?” I asked.

“Why yes, and he’s just a little older than you,” she replied with a smile.

I rested my head in my hands and massaged my temples to ease
the headache
that was beginning to form.

“Don’t you think a step-brother is something you could have told me about over the phone before ambushing me with it in person?”

She
laughed,
and it only served to make my head pound even harder.

“I don’t see why it would
really
matter.”

“Mom, I don’t know how to tell you, but this all sounds ridiculous.  I’m going to be related to two people that I haven’t even met, or knew existed more than a month ago.  Don’t you think you’re getting married just a little too quickly?”

She calmed herself and embraced me as she always had in the past to comfort me.  I missed her warm hugs; I didn’t get enough of them when I was living almost an entire country away.

“I’m at a point where life doesn’t give you anything; all it does is start taking it away.  So, I scrape and claw to hold onto anything that feels right. 
This feels
right
, and I don’t have all the time in the world to be dating.  I need someone that’ll take care of me when I’m sick, and that I can depend on.”

She held me for a few
minutes,
and I didn’t want it to end.  It felt like the end of our simple little family.  I was regretting my inability to visit her when she was lonely, and all the holidays I never returned.  She was always my rock when I needed to feel grounded; my wings when I needed to fly.  She deserved something real that she could hold
onto,
and I felt like a jerk having thought of denying her the satisfaction.

“I love you mom; whatever crazy decisions you decide to make, I’ll support you.”

I stood up and wiped the tears that were beginning to form from the corner of my eyes.

“Let’s meet the man that managed to sweep you off your feet.”

She clapped her hands and stood up as I snatched my things from the bench.  Arm and arm we strolled from the tiny municipal airport and to the old familiar truck she had always driven.

3.

To say Otto’s Pub was a popular place would be like comparing it to an oasis.  People
really
only went there because it was the only watering hole in the tiny city that mattered. 

Sure, there were a
couple of
other bars in the area, but none of them
were manned
by the famous Otto who could down a beer in less time than it took you to snap your fingers. 

Our truck sidled into a spot surrounded by several motorcycles.

“Umm, are you sure this is
a good time to be
visiting the bar, mom?” I asked nervously.

“Trust me
Hel; this
is the best time,” she replied with a smile.

I palmed a small can of mace that I kept in my purse, hoping that I wouldn’t have to use it. 

She pushed her way through the assembled bikers as though she was a queen, and they parted as such.  I felt more than a little embarrassed, and with my head down I followed her inside.

The old diner
was packed
.  Every plush and
colorful
booth
was
overstuffed with men and women of all different sizes and shapes.  Through all this, my mother trotted along like this was normal, and I continued to shuffle along behind her.

We came to a halt in front of a booth that rested against the back wall of the pub, where two men were already sitting with beers already half drunk.

“Duke, I’d like to introduce you to my daughter, Hellen,” started my mom, whom promptly pushed me to the forefront to put me on display. 

I felt incredibly uncomfortable
being gawked
at by two men whom I hadn’t met previously met.  One of them was large, burly and much
older
while the second was tall and muscular with tattoos that ran the length of his arm.

The younger of the two held my gaze for more than a moment before turning his head away. 

The older of them, whom I believed might just be Duke, pried himself from the booth and wrapped his big oafish arms around me in a hug that
easily
lifted me from the floor.

“Hellen, your
mother,
has said some of the sweetest things about you!” he shouted with excitement. 

I smiled awkwardly, but could help but giggle at his silliness. 

“Nice to meet you, Duke,” I said trying to find the breath in the midst of his tight embrace.

He returned me to my feet and pulled my mom in close and gave her a big kiss on the cheek. 

“As you can tell, your ma is a real gem.”

They stared
into
each other for a time before a look of sudden realization came to Duke.

“Right! 
This here
is my son Axel.  I think he’s a
couple of
years
older than
you,
but
all things considered,
I think you two might just get along.”

I turned my attention to the man still sitting
at
the booth.  He gave a customary wave before pulling himself to his feet.  It seemed he couldn’t quite decide whether to shake my hand or give me a hug, as he held his gloved hand out only to retract it and offer me a hug.

He was warm as he held me.  His skin felt like rough leather, a welcome change when compared to so many soft men I had held over the years.  He smelled of grease and oil, and unapologetically so. 

“Ahem,” I heard my mother cough behind me.

Axel released me, and I realized it had been a little longer than a welcome embrace should have been.  I straightened my skirt and hair; returning quickly to my mother’s side.

“The wedding is on Sunday, so it’s a party tonight, then Saturday we’ll be going for a fitting.  So, don’t drink too
much tonight
, okay sweetie?”

I nodded; my head was loopy from the strain of meeting my new in-laws so quickly.  It was a lot to take in, and I
really
just wanted to get some sleep, the jet-lag wasn’t helping much either.

“Can I just get some sleep in my room, Mom,” I asked.

The beer she thrust into my open hand answered that question.

“Dear, you’re young, just have some fun tonight and sleep later,” she smiled that naïve smile I had come to recognize as uniquely hers and I relented with a sip of the
cool
frothy beverage in my hand.

The music grew louder as the night continued.  I wanted to be social, but at the same
time,
I didn’t want to get to know a bunch of people that I wouldn’t stay in
contact with
.

That wasn’t for their lack of trying. 

I was a petite piece of meat, and I had a feeling it was only a matter of time before one of them decided I was ready for tasting.  More than a few men were watching me out of the corner of their eye.  They probably didn’t think I noticed, but they were terrible at hiding their lust.  It was an odd thing to see, but several of these guys had more than their fair share of bruises and bandages.  These were ruffians
anyway
, so it was to
be expected
. 

Still, I was used to men ogling me.  I liked to stay fit, and in my
profession,
I was always running around, which helped me stay in shape.  My measurements weren’t anything to gawk at, but they were plenty enough to attract onlookers and the lustful gaze of men. 

“Hey there, cutie,” said a bald man walking toward me later in the evening.  He had a gap between his teeth that seemed very unbecoming, and a smile that made me think he had more on his mind than just conversation.

“Not interested,” I replied, half-tired, and half-drunk, and not in any mood to flirt.

He continued toward me, and I thrust my hand into my pocket for my mace.

“I wasn’t asking,” he replied suggestively.

A blur streaked from the corner of my vision and before I even realized what had happened, the bald man was sprawled out on the floor of the bar. 

Standing over his conquest was Axel, looking at the rest of the bikers with a stern gaze.  I could feel the intensity in his eyes without even seeing them.  Even Duke
gave him a nod
.

“There’s that right hook, I taught him that you know,” shouted Duke from the back. 

I would have laughed at his boast if I weren’t still in shock from the surprise of it all.  Axel turned back to me and cracked his knuckles.