Page 36 of A Love So Hard

I spun so fast he never saw it coming. I snatched the man up right there in front of Lucy, her kid – our kid – and the nurse who was now yelling for someone to help and I promised the man the death he deserved for pulling the shit he had. “Your life is forfeit from this point forward. You fucked up, old man. Did Timeless know about this?”

He shook his head in the negative as much as he could. I placed him back on the ground and let go of his neck. When the hospital security came bounding in the room Jack waved them off. “No! It was just a misunderstanding. It’s fine.”

“No, it is not fine,” the nurse sassed back. “That man needs to be removed from this hospital. Our patient is here because of domestic abuse, she certainly doesn’t need to relive it or have more of it around. Clearly, this man can’t control himself.”

I turned scathing eyes on her. “I just found out this man has been hiding my child from me. He lied to his daughter, he lied to me, and it kept us apart. It kept us apart so much so that she ended up with another man who put her in here. That man, that piece of shit that would beat a woman black and blue was with my woman and my son, because of the lies this fucker told. You’re lucky he isn’t dead on your floor. If you’re removing anyone from this room it will be him and for his own safety.”

“Please, listen to what he says. That other man is nothing to me and I don’t want him here,” Lucy’s voice trembled with the emotion she was trying not to put on display.

“Lucy,” Jack called out to her.

“Get. Out.” Her tone was abrupt and left no room for argument.

“I’ll leave, but you both need to let me explain,” he started and when I took a step toward him, fists clenched, the security team stepped in and backed him out of the room.

“Ma’am?” The nurse questioned Lucy while staring at me. She was a ballsy bitch.

“He stays,” was all Lucy said before she turned her face down and kissed the top of the little boy’s head. Another kick to the heart nearly took me to my knees when I realized I had a son, and I didn’t even know his damn name. I waited there by the door while everyone cleared out and then she moved the boy to a more comfortable position. His hair appeared slightly darker at the roots and at the height of its length it had taken on almost a golden blond tint. It was evident the child spent a lot of time outside in the Florida sunshine. He drifted off to sleep again as his mother started rubbing those soothing circles around his back as if it was something done often enough to be habit and not a new comfort.

Every little thing was twisting my heart. I had missed so much. I had missed seeing my Lucy pregnant with our child. I missed his birth, and the first few years of his life all because of a meddling old man who didn’t have the first clue what was really best for his family. She wasn’t even his blood. This boy was mine though. He would pay a hefty price for hiding my blood from me.

“Come, sit, and tell me everything from the start. I am beginning to believe everything was not as it seemed.”

I took a seat in the unforgivingly hard chair beside her bed and I started at the beginning, leaving nothing out. “I showed Merc my surprise for you before anyone showed up for the party,” I began, falling into the memory easily enough. “I had a kutte made special for you with a property patch on it, and I had hidden away an engagement ring in the tiny little zippered pocket.”

“You were going to propose to me?”

I nodded my head. “I told you before I planned on spending the rest of my life with you. I only waited until the deal for our house went through. I didn’t want to ask you to marry a man with no house. The clubhouse is just fine for gatherings, but it isn’t a place to raise a family.”

“Okay, so if you had plans to ask me to marry you, why did I find you with another woman that night?” Her voice was even in tone, but she couldn’t hide the hitch of emotion that welled up at the end.

“I can tell you what I know, and then what I was told.” She gave me a questioning look. “You’ll understand in a minute.” I launched into the story of what happened to me, how Stiff – Johnny – had set me up, drugged me, and nearly killed me while allowing the club whores of his choosing to rape me as I sat there incapacitated. I even told her what happened to all of them as a result. I wasn’t holding anything back. It seemed to be the one thing that kept us apart for far too many years – withheld facts, misleading information, lies and bullshit. I was done with it all. I told her everything including all the times I’d gone to Jack, crying, screaming, threatening his life – each one depended on how far down into the abyss I had sunk on that particular day before showing up. I also told her the story of her birth, her true parentage, and how even her biological father had a part in our being kept away from one another. In the end she just sat there staring off into space as a steady stream of tears dripped down her battered cheeks.

I wanted so badly to reach out and touch her, comfort her, but I didn’t know if I had the right to do so. I didn’t know if she would find my touch comforting or another source of pain. “I need to know something now,” I finally managed to get out, breaking the silence as I did.

“What?”

“I need to know my son’s name,” I told her. Her response was a small smile before she leaned in and placed a sweet kiss on the top of his sun-bleached hair.

“His name is Toby. Tobias Jason Carter.” When she saw the scowl cross my face she just shook her head. “Even though I thought you hated us and didn’t want us I was still going to use your name. They wouldn’t let me. They told me since I wasn’t married to you I couldn’t put your name on the birth certificate unless you were there to okay it.” She shrugged her little shoulders and then winced at the pain the movement must have caused. “I asked my dad, and he just told me that you didn’t want anything to do with us. I didn’t know what else to do. I gave him your middle name, because I knew you didn’t like Charles. It was all I could give him of you.”

“You could have come to me,” I insisted.

“I feel horrible for not sticking around now that I know what you went through, but remember, from my point of view that last night was humiliating and heartbreaking. I had my soul crushed, and then every time I asked my father to let you know how the baby was doing before he was born, he said you didn’t care.” She shook her head. “Before I gave birth, I wasn’t strong enough to face that kind of rejection head on. After he came into this world, I couldn’t bear him knowing you only to be turned away. I know first hand how horrible that feels.”

I growled out my frustration then. “Except you were never turned away!” My tone had become to sharp and it jolted Toby from his sleep.

“Momma?” He questioned as his eyes turned to me with a solid amount of fear in them. I never wanted my son to know fear when he looked me in the eye again.

“It’s okay, baby.”

“He huwts you?”

“No, baby. He won’t hurt me. He won’t hurt you either. He’s here to help us?” The last was a question for me to which I nodded my head.

“That’s right. I’m here to take you and your momma on a trip to some place special where the bad man won’t ever hurt you again.”

I watched as my son’s eyes shifted from fear to a bright-eyed wonder. “You Batmans?”

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