Page 28 of Speed

“In her room playing. We ran errands and finished with the grocery store.”

“Ready to talk about this morning? Were the tears about him?” Carly took a drink and watched me.

“Like I told you. Going to tell me what’s with you and Crusher? Or a matter of fact the whole Black Hawk MC?” My closest friend’s eyebrows pushed together, and her eyes flashed.

“Nothing I can’t handle, and as far as the club, besides them being arrogant thinking they are all that and then some. I don’t think of them. You can’t tell me you like the fact they think the sun and the moon set on what they want or that every woman should drop their panties because they enter a room. You and I both were raised around men like that, why would I want to be another notch on someone’s bedpost?” Carly crossed her arms over her chest and glared at me.

“Glare all you want. But you know that is total bullshit. Not every one of them is like that. My dad loved my mom, she was everything to him. You saw the good in most the men, just like me. Are you including my dad in that, or what?”

“l love your dad. If it weren't for him, living in the club would have sucked. He moved me here with you, paid my tuition just like yours. However, he is your dad, not mine. You have a parent who loves you and would move heaven and earth for you and Reed. A parent who grieved when he lost his wife. I have a dead mother who died because drugs were more important than her daughter and a dad on the run for being so strung out he tried to take over the club because in his drug induced mind he deserved it.”

“My dad has never treated you different because of what your dad tried to do, so don’t disrespect him or yourself for that matter by making light of him protecting what he considers his family, which includes you. The men in the club may be brash and rough around the edges on a good day, but family is everything, and when they do love, the woman they choose gets their whole heart.” I got up and took the pizza out of the oven, pulled plates out, and moved it to the table. Carly didn’t reply until I was on my way to call Ally down for dinner.

“Sami, why don’t you take your own advice. The man should know his daughter, and she should have the chance to have a father. I know you don’t want her to get hurt, but if he hurts her, that is on him. And I know you, which leads me to believe that it’s not all you are worried about because if it were, you wouldn’t have protected him by not telling everyone he was your daughter’s dad. So I asked myself why would it have made a difference to you, whether he accepted her or not.”

I stopped but didn’t turn around, “Did you come up with anything, since you spend so much time wondering about my choices and not your own?”

“Yes. We’ve lived here long enough to have learned the story of how the sons of Black Hawk got started. I think you are worried about him thinking you tried to trap him when all you really want is for him to accept her—and most importantly you.” I was done listening, I continued on my way to call my daughter to dinner.

Once Ally was in the room, I knew no more would be said about Speed. The three of us ate and laughed at some of the things Ally told us. Mundane things. When dinner was finished, Carly headed back to work and Ally to take a bath and get ready for bed.

So when I no longer heard noise coming from the bathroom, I put the dishcloth down and headed up the stairs and paused when I reached the doorway. Ally was on the counter, her face pressed close to the mirror, turning her head from side to side, her hands touching her face, her hair.

I walked in quietly, not wanting to scare her. “Whatcha you doing, baby?” She continued to look at herself, only glancing up to acknowledge that I had entered the room.

“Lookin’ at my face.”

“Well, I can see that, but why?” I smiled when she huffed like it was self-explanatory.

“‘Cause he had my face.”

“Who had your face? What’re you talking about, baby?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. My stomach clenched and I rubbed the area.

“The man in the store.” Her eyes met mine in the mirror.

“Ally, help me out here. What man and what store?”

“He helped me gets the cereal.” She sat down on the counter and faced me.

“Yes, you told me about a man helping you, but why does that have you looking in the mirror, sweetie?”

“I tolds you, he had my face and eyes.”

Any other time she’d talk someone’s head off. Instead it was as if I had to pry every drop of information out of her. He’d seen her, and I had no clue how to handle it. For almost five years I ran over what I would say when this time came. But as I looked at my daughter none of it came to me.

“Yes, you did say that. I’m just not understanding what you think that means.”

“We looks alike, ‘cept he’s a boy.” Damn it, my time was officially up. Evidently my daughter and her father had inadvertently met, which led to if she noticed the resemblance, so had he. Awesome.

“What did the man say, baby?”

“Nothing, he gave me the cereal.” She scooted down off the counter and looked up at me, lip between her teeth. I’d never felt so sick to my stomach as I had at that moment. I wasn’t ready for this. “Did you fix the popcorn?” My breath came back, and my heart started to beat again. I’d never been so thankful for the attention span of a child.

“I will before we start the movie.” I picked up the discarded clothes on the floor and followed Ally to her room.

“Cans we watchFrozen?” Hopeful eyes looked at me, and though we’d watched it a hundred times at least, I couldn’t refuse. Not that it would matter what was on, my thoughts would be for the man who ran into the daughter he didn’t know about, yet he hadn’t bothered to find out why he hadn’t been told, so what did that say about him?

“Frozenit is.” After I had tossed the clothes into the hamper, Ally grabbed the monkey off her bed, and we headed down the stairs. I’d worry tomorrow about how this was going to work out, minimizing the hurt to my daughter was my number one concern, but how did I prepare her for the chance of rejection from a man she’d never met. It was so going to suck.

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