Page 62 of A Love So Hard

“Ever!” Gretchen called out and then broke into tears. The woman had a hell of a road rash across her right cheek and her entire right arm was bandaged up. I was putting two and two together as we stood there. Lucy tugged on my hand, not realizing why everyone had come to a stop.

“Ever!” A tortured voice called out before the sobbing started. “Please, they won’t tell me,” she hiccupped out through her sobs. “Is he okay?”

“Is who okay?” Ever asked.

“Toby,” Gretchen whispered, but we all heard her and then we converged on the girl that was being swallowed up by the hospital bed she was sitting in. “We were on our way,” she started. She glanced over at Lucy’s puzzled face. “Your house, we were headed there to…” Her hand moved to her belly and our suspicions were confirmed. It was then that noticed we had Merc and Crow standing there with us. Her tears swallowed her up again as my eyes met Merc’s. His grim face said it all. He understood what had just happened. I did have a grandchild on the way, but maybe not anymore.

“I am…” she cried harder then. “I was pregnant. We were going to tell you.” When I turned back around the woman was engulfed in the arms of both Lucy and Ever.

“Oh, sweet girl,” Lucy cooed.

“Gretchen,” Ever’s voice broke on the woman’s name. It hit me then where I’d seen the woman before. She worked in at Permanent Marks with Ever. I flashback of my son flirting with her back when we were there to talk about the tattoos we all received hit me. Jesus. Had they been together all this time?

“What is going on in here?” a male voice asked. “You all need to leave.” Lucy stood, leaving Gretchen to lean on our daughter.

“We are her family,” she stated coolly.

“Lucy?” The man asked as he moved around Merc so he could see who all was in here with his patient. “What’s going on? I was told the young lady didn’t have family here to call.”

“My son is her man, so she has his family here with her, and you will update her on his condition as if she was one of us.”

I was so damn proud of my woman. She just found out this was Toby’s girl, and she was giving her the same due as anyone’s old lady would get. “Yeah, okay, we’ll see to that,” the doctor agreed. Then he turned to Gretchen. “Are you okay with these people being here when we talk about your condition though?” He asked, ignoring the rest of us. Ballsy fucker, but I had respect for that. He wasn’t going to roll over and just assume.

Gretchen nodded her head that was resting against my daughter’s shoulder. A beep sounded somewhere in the room and Deck spoke up. “Jay’s here with Anna. I’ll go get them,” he said and then he was gone from the room.

“Ms. Tierny,” he sighed. “We have an OB coming down to check you over and make sure that everything is as it should be.”

Her tear soaked face glared at the doctor. “Everything isn’t as it should be,” she hissed at him through gritted teeth. “I shouldn’t be here. Toby shouldn’t be in surgery. My baby shouldn’t be gone. What more do you want? Is there something else you’d like to take?”

Lucy was back on the side of the bed Ever wasn’t taken up and she took hold of the angry woman, whispering words in her ear that weren’t meant for the rest of us. Lucy stroked down the woman’s hair that was obvious a mess from a combination of helmet head and everything they’d gone through in the accident. I didn’t miss the fact that the ends of her hair were coated in a brownish red color.

“We need to check to see if your body needs help with the,” the doctor cut himself off and glanced around at the angry faces watching him. “I’m sorry,” he offered. “There isn’t an easy way to do something like this.” I clamped a hand down on his shoulder and squeezed, because he wasn’t wrong. He was basically telling my daughter in law that they might need to suck her dead baby out of her body. No, there wouldn’t be an easy or tactful way to say something like that. Lucy and Ever held onto the girl who was shaking through her sobs again.

“Doc, how about you give the women a few minutes. You know who Lucy is?” he nodded his head. “Let her work her magic,” I suggested.

“Use the call button for the nurses station,” he informed me.

“Yeah man, make sure that they bring any news of Toby to us here. We’ll be sitting with his woman until he’s brought back down.”

I felt the man flinch under my hand and I wanted to roar out my rage at what that might mean. He would have seen my son when he came in. He would know what kind of shape he was in. I was about to step out of the room with the doctor and make him tell me exactly what was going on with my son, but I was stopped by the words the girl had been mumbling.

“She tried to kill us. She did this. She took my baby. I warned him she’d been coming around more and more. My baby is gone now. What am I supposed to do? I want to take everything from her the way she took it all from me.”

I turned and marched my ass the few steps it took to come up to her bedside, then I knelt there on the floor beside where my wife held the woman on the bed. “What did you just say, darlin’?”

“She killed my baby!” The girl wailed hysterically.

“Who?” I asked, thinking I might already know considering the conversation I’d had with both my wife and son just days ago.

“Seneca,” she hissed out. “Your fucking club whore killed my baby!”

I stood and moved away from her anger even as I understood it. I turned to Merc. “Find her,” I ordered. Sandman looked as though he was going to be sick. He was the one who had brought that particular whore into the club. That wasn’t fair. She had come in with another hang around, but he sponsored her staying on as one of the club’s regular women.

“I’ll find her,” he insisted and then he took off. I turned back in time to see the devastation and anger written all over my old lady’s face. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! I’d let Toby talk me out of how serious the situation might have actually been. I should have known. My son was so much like me. I hadn’t wanted to admit to myself, let alone out loud, that fucking club whores had raped me all those years ago. I still had trouble spitting out those words on the rare occasion I needed to speak on it. Which was twice in the past 23 years since it happened.

A throat cleared behind me. “Excuse me, I need to be able to speak with a Ms. Gretchen Tierny,” the man called out as I turned to see who it was. A police detective, who seemed familiar to me, stood there in jeans and a polo shirt with a badge hanging around his neck from a chain.

“Did you find her?” Gretchen asked, her voice husky from all the crying.

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