Page 89 of Fearless

“Not ready yet.” Ava laid them on the rim of a sink and washed her hands. She was trembling all over. She’d felt pasty and sick all day, just thinking about it. She knew that another student could come into the restroom at any moment, but she wasn’t sure she cared. Thanks to Ainsley’s nose, the popular crowd hated her. The people who’d been indifferent toward her were either secretly thankful the Boss Bitch had gotten her face smashed, or wary they’d be Ava’s next target. Mostly, she just got avoided. A rumor that she was pregnant couldn’t kill her reputation any more.

“If you are,” Leah said, voice becoming careful. “What are you going to do?”

Ava shook her head; her hair fell down around her face and she stared through the tunnel it made at the sticks, laser-focused. She could hardly breathe. “I’ll have to tell him.”

Leah’s hand was soft and careful on her elbow. “What will he say?”

“I dunno. Guess I’m about to find out.”

All the tests were in agreement.

Positive.

Maggie heard the bikes come in. It was a Wednesday, almost three weeks since Mercy had gone north on his drug-dealer hunt with Walsh, RJ, and Rottie. Through the wide, unadorned window of her office in the central building, she watched the boys come swooping onto the Dartmoor property in effortless, bird-like formation.

She picked Mercy out of the four of them; his long legs. As they parked, she stood and walked to the door, stepped out into the autumn sunshine and propped herself in the threshold, waiting.

She felt like a traitor, like a rat, like someone so unlike herself. But this wasn’t about the club – not mostly. It was about her baby.

**

Mercy registered the still, golden silhouette of Maggie at the main office, and decided not to look her way. He had this sinking feeling, as he swung off his bike, that she was looking for him.

“God, I want my bed,” Rottie muttered. “That’s all I want, for three days: bed.”

“With the kiddos jumping into it with you?” RJ asked with a laugh.

“Babysitter. Bed and a babysitter.”

The central office was an unimpressive thing, a cinderblock-walled square with just enough room for office space, a bathroom, and minimal file storage. Each Dartmoor business had its own office, but Ghost liked having a hub, a place where copies of all the books were kept on file, where a master computer tabulated each month’s combined income totals. A center point, a nucleus for the beast that was Dartmoor. Maggie ran the day-to-day; Ghost had the final say.

It was a hundred feet from the clubhouse, set back from the bike shop parking lot. It didn’t have a porch, so Maggie stood in the full sunlight, hair blazing, shades masking her eyes. Her body language saidserious, and her gaze, even from behind the glasses, he could tell was trained on him.

But he was going to ignore her. She was an old lady – but just an old lady. She wasn’t his boss; he didn’t answer to her.

He got halfway to the clubhouse when he heard, “Mercy,” cut through the afternoon, an arrow straight through the middle of him. “Can I talk to you a sec?” When he glanced at her, she offered a bare smile. “Just a literal sec, promise. I have a question.”

RJ and Rottie kept walking.

Walsh glanced back over his shoulder once, his blank face knowing somehow.

Mercy knuckled his shades further up his nose and turned toward the woman whose daughter he’d been screwing. Hands in his pockets, unhurried, he met her in front of the office, just out of earshot of anyone who might be happening past. His shadow fell across her and her hair lost some of its brilliance. Her face looked tight and lined.

“What’s up?”

She took a breath that rattled at the end, and pushed her sunglasses up onto her forehead. Her eyes weren’t the flinty hazel shards he’d expected. They were deep and wet with sadness. That was the only way he could describe the emotion she projected toward him: sadness.

“The dinner,” she said. “You and Ava in the kitchen.” Her eyebrows went up in silent question.

He said nothing.

“Merc, I’ve always known that she carries a huge, flaming torch for you. But I never thought you’d take her up on the offer. You’re more careful than that.”

He glanced away from her; he’d expected a very different kind of accusation. He had no idea what to do with this.

“I like you,” Maggie went on. “Hell, I love you. You know that. You’re family. You’re the only reason Ava and I are alive right now, and believe me, I know that. I don’t take that lightly.”

He waited for it.

---