Page 68 of The Wild Charge

“Right. Pack your things, take a few vacation days – or quit, I don’t care – and fly to Knoxville. I’ve got a job for you, and it’ll pay better than line work.”

Maddox snorted. “And be completely illegal, right?”

“Maybe it will, maybe it won’t,” Fox hedged. “I won’t make you get your hands dirty. You can say you honestly had no part in what follows – unless you want one, that is.”

“You’re unbelievable,” Maddox said. But he held onto the line, and, after a minute, he breathed out a sigh. “You know you guys can’t bring down an organization this big, right? Not that I don’t admire the whole honorable outlaw thing, but this is way, way beyond the reach of an MC.”

“You’d think that,” Fox said. “Give us a chance to prove you wrong.”

Another long beat passed. Then: “What the hell. Do I need to rent a car, or is one of you losers gonna pick me up?”

Fox grinned to himself. “Don’t worry, sunshine. I’ll send someone.”

Eighteen

“How’d it go?” Axelle asked as Eden slid into the passenger seat of the GTO.

Eden let out a big breath that did nothing to ease the tightness she’d been carrying in her chest all morning. She wouldn’t say that she was panicked anymore, but had a feeling her nerves were about to become her constant companions for the foreseeable future. “I’m definitely pregnant.”

“Uh…and you feel…?” Axelle said in a sad attempt at tactful.

Eden managed a smile. “Not bad. Just nervous.”

“Well, yeah. I’d be shitting myself.”

“I think that part comes later, when I’m too big to move.”

Axelle’s eyes bugged – and then she snorted, and they both laughed. It smoothed the rest of Eden’s tension away, and she flopped her head back against the seat as Axelle cranked the car.

“I’m tired,” she said, seriously. “And worried. But. I don’t know.” She pressed a hand over her still-flat stomach and felt a fluttering within – not the baby, she knew, still too tiny to feel, but a few butterflies that hinted, faintly, at something like excitement. “We’ll take it one day at a time, I suppose.”

Axelle piloted them out onto the street with her usual deft touch, and Eden melted down into the plush leather of the seat. She knew that she needed to take a driving test and get her American license; could most certainly afford a car of her own, but there was something comforting about riding along with Axe, the idea that she was in the company of an expert. A familiar, reassuring sensation, at this point.

“You hungry?” Axelle asked.

“Famished, actually.” Doubtless she’d get halfway through her meal and her stomach would sour, but at the moment, she was ravenous.

“Anything sound good?”

“You know…I could go for Taco Bell.”

“Ha! Whatever baby wants, huh?”

She fired off a few texts as they made their way through the slow crawl of morning downtown traffic: a doctor’s appointment update for Michelle, a confirmation to a client, an idea she’d had in the waiting room for Ratchet, and a request for a progress report from Charlie. As they settled at the back of the drive-through line, her phone trilled with a Facetime call.

“Huh,” she said aloud.

“Who is it?”

“Raven.”

Fox’s sister filled the screen when she accepted the call, artfully disheveled in a no-doubt designer hoodie. A white-trimmed window allowed late afternoon sunlight to frame her from behind, and somehow, despite the rounded camera angle of her phone, she managed to look as beautiful as she did in person. It wasn’t fair, honestly.

“Eden, darling,” she greeted. “How was the appointment?”

Eden blinked. “How do you know about my appointment?”

Raven lifted a hand in a breezy gesture. “Michelle told me.”

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