Page 35 of A Love So Hard

“She’s in the hospital right now. The man she started dating he…” Jack choked on the emotion I could see playing across his face. “He beat her so bad she probably won’t be released any time soon, but the bastard is still out there. I’m worried he’ll come back for her and for…” he stopped himself there. Jack glanced from me to Timeless then. “I know I have no right to ask, but I need the club’s help getting her back here and making sure she stays safe until the bastard is caught.”

I didn’t know what to think or feel. Everything came to a standstill and I knew my brothers were waiting on a response from me. Part of me, the bitter, jealous part, wanted to tell him she made her choice. The other part of me – the one that hadn’t been able to let go if I was being honest with myself – wanted to rush to her side and make sure she never had to hurt again. “She know you’re asking this of us?”

He shook his head. “She just called from the hospital less than an hour ago. I didn’t get to talk to her long. I have my stuff packed up in the truck,” he pointed back towards where he’d parked so that the entrance to our lot was blocked for the most part.

I took in a deep breath and then released it before glancing over at Timeless. “This is your call to make,” I informed him as if he didn’t already know. “You’re still Prez until we finish this run.”

“Whether she knows it or not, Lucy is the daughter of the MC’s President. She is an MC Princess and is due the protection of one. It doesn’t matter that she was kept away in order to maintain her safety,” Jack pleaded his case. He kept his voice low, not wanting the others to hear his words. It didn’t matter. I’d let that particular cat out of the bag a while ago when I was in one of my snits about not being able to find her.

“My call as President of the Charleston Chapter of the Aces High MC is that my daughter is under the club’s protection. She always has been and always will be until she takes her last breath. Double-D, follow Jack down there and go get our girl. Bring her back here where we can keep her safe.”

“Follow Jack down, huh?” Guilt swamped my President’s face. “You knew where she was this whole time,” the last was a statement not a question. He’d just made it obvious that he had known.

“Lucy was never supposed to be an active or even noticeable part of this club, Double-D. I told you that before.”

“Did you help Stiff set me up in order to make sure she got cut out of the club again?” I had to ask; because now I wasn’t so sure whom the hell I could trust.

“Fuck no! Fuck you for even asking that. I never interfered while she was here, but once she was gone I made sure she stayed gone and hidden.”

“So it’s your fault she’s in the hospital then?” I asked petulantly. “I would have never laid a hand on that woman in anger. Hell, there would have been 20 men deep here waiting to kick my ass if I had.” I scoffed at him. “You were so fuckin’ worried about how dangerous your own fuckin’ club might have been for her that you forgot what civilians are like.”

Timeless looked absolutely defeated then. “We don’t have time for this. I need to leave,” Jack interrupted.

“Go with Jack,” Timeless ordered again. “This is why the club is turning over into younger hands. I’m man enough to admit I fucked up, so did Jack. You’re just going to have to get over our fuckups so that you can help protect our girl. That’s my final order as Prez of this club. You will be personally responsible for her. Now, go.”

Well fuck. I guess my plan to try to move on now was royally screwed because I couldn’t disobey that order. I also wouldn’t be able to turn Lucy over to be someone else’s responsibility once I started either. Yeah, I was well and truly fucked. Luckily, I was already packed for a trip, so I turned my bike around and got in behind Jack as he aimed his truck toward the highway and I followed.

It took a little over seven and a half hours to drive from Charleston to Apalachicola thanks to an accident along the way. I could have weaved through the traffic on my bike, but Jack couldn’t get his truck through, and the bastard refused to give me the address. Hell, even when he did, he failed to mention she wasn’t at the house anyway. She was still in the hospital awaiting discharge. The hospital was refusing to send her home until they knew she had someone she could trust there to help care for her.

When we pulled up and finally got parked outside of the hospital Jack started talking. “There’s something I need to tell you before you head up there.”

“What room is she in?” I asked, cutting him off from whatever it was he felt needed to be said.

“No, you need to listen,” he started. His words were choked off when I wrapped my hand around his throat and tugged him up against the cab of his own truck.

“No, you listen! I went through hell and back because of some shit that was done to me. Never something I did. I asked you for your help. You refused. I have to do this thing now; after I reconciled the fact that I needed to start getting the fuck over her and moving on only to have you come and stir more shit up. Now, I have to deal with whatever mess she’s gotten herself into all because you fuckers thought I wasn’t good enough. FUCK YOU! What’s going to happen is that you’re going to tell me her room number, and then I’m going to get on up there and see when Lucy will be ready to travel. Until she is I’ll stand guard outside her room if I have to. Then we’ll take her by her place to pack whatever she needs now, and she’ll be sitting shotgun with you in your truck while I pull security on the way back to make sure no one is following. Now what the fuck room is she in?”

I let go of his throat and listened while he sputtered before his eyes came up to meet mine. They were full of regret and sorrow, but intermixed was a healthy dose of fear. I chalked the last up to the fact that I just had him hemmed up by the throat. I wasn’t sure what the rest meant. I didn’t much care either.

“533,” he answered and then I was off to go find Lucy and get this shit over with. At least, that’s what I told myself as I rushed into the hospital.

When I got to room 533 I leaned into the door where a little window gave me a glimpse into the small room. She wasn’t alone, though I couldn’t really wrap my head around what I was seeing. My Lucy was lying there in the hospital bed with another body curled around hers. I nearly fell to my knees at the sight. When her father had told me she’d moved on there was a part of me that never believed it, but there before me was the proof that she hadn’t waited long to do so. A tiny little boy’s body was curled into his mother, her hand stroking gently up and down his back ignoring the fact that she had an IV stuck in the same hand she was using for the gesture.

“I tried to warn you,” Jack whispered from somewhere behind me. I swallowed the emotion that was building inside, because this wasn’t the time or place to lose my shit. She had been through enough. That was plain to see by the bruising on every part of her body that I could see. “You need to know,” he started speaking again. I put a hand up in the air indicating he needed to stop talking, and he followed that order for once. Instead of standing there in the hallway dwelling on what could have been I took a deep breath and then clicked open the door.

Her head snapped up immediately, attention settling on the door that burst open with a little too much enthusiasm. I hadn’t been able to get myself completely under control. “CJ?” was whispered from her lips as she stared at me in shock. Her voice must have roused the boy because he turned to look at me then and I swear my heart nearly slammed right out of my chest at the sight. That little boy was the spitting image of me when I was a kid. I turned accusing eyes toward Jack then.

“You kept THIS from me?” My chest rose and fell with as my temper soared. “I have a son, and you kept it from me?” My voice had risen with my temper and the only thing that stayed it was the tiny whimper that came from the body of a little boy who was no doubt, my child.

“You knew,” Lucy stated evenly after narrowing her eyes on me.

“Like fuck! If I knew I had a son in this world, that you had ever even been pregnant, nothing this side of heaven or hell could have stopped me from coming after you. I would have maimed and tortured whoever needed it in order to get that information.” With the last, I turned my gaze back to Jack. “You knew, and you let me believe she was with someone else almost from the beginning. You knew what happened to me, and I think it’s probably obvious now, that you never filled her in. You kept my family from me!”

“Sir, you’re going to have to calm down or we’ll have security escort you out.”

I ignored the nurse and turned back to Lucy. “I never knew,” I repeated. She watched, as I could no longer hold back the emotion that flooded my whole being. “I never knew,” I choked out again. Lucy’s eyes trailed the tear that ran from the corner of my eye, down my face, and to the spot on my kutte where the salty liquid bled into the leather there just above my name.

She cradled her son to her and then turned her eyes from my to her father. “You told me,” she started and then stopped. She was lost in her thoughts for a moment before she corrected herself. “Mom told me you said that his answer to me being pregnant was ‘since you wanted to be on your own so bad, keep the bastard on your own too.’ That’s what she told me he said to you when you told him I was pregnant.”

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