Page 38 of Biker's Baby

SEVENTEEN

Abe

“Watch it!You want the damages to come out of your paycheck? Didn’t think so!”

The supervisor yelled at me before stalking off toward his office. I cringed. My knee-jerk reaction was to go punch the guy for screaming at me like that, but I also knew he was right.

I had nearly run the forklift right into a full pallet of canned goods. It not only would have created a massive mess in the warehouse, but it would have rendered the cans useless as well. Perhaps there would be some that could get through it unscathed, but I didn’t think that was very likely, and any can that was dented would be discarded by the company.

It could wind up being a costly mistake, and if it was caused because I wasn’t being very careful, it could very easily come out of my paycheck, too. And that was something I really didn’t want to happen.

“What’s going on with you? Pay attention!” Glenn called out from his own forklift.

“Fuck off!” I shouted back to him, only half-joking.

He said something else, but I was too focused on what I was doing to pay any more attention to what he had to say. Well, I was too focused on trying not to screw up again to pay him any more of my attention.

The fact of the matter was that my mind was on entirely different things than being at work. I wasn’t at all in this warehouse. I was back home. With Iris.

She had been on my mind more than ever today, and I knew it had to have something to do with the fact we’d gone to that park the day before. Going to that diner hadn’t helped, either. It had been yet another step in things being so comfortable between us. It was hard for me to accept the fact this was just temporary.

Even more than that, I had to accept the fact I didn’t know much about Iris.

Here she was, living in my home. I was treating her kid like he was my own, but I honestly didn’t know who his father happened to be. It could be that Joel guy Iris was so scared of for all I knew, and I could wind up in some terrible fight with the guy before this was over.

On the other hand, it could be someone else entirely.

It was none of my business what Iris did with her body, and I honestly didn’t care if she had slept around more than I had. It was her business, and she certainly had the looks to do it if that’s what she chose. I didn’t own her. No one did. She was her own person, through and through.

I wasn’t happy with the thought of her fucking some other guy. But I didn’t see it as a dealbreaker. She wasn’t with anyone right now, and I wanted to work up the courage to tell her I wanted to give us a shot. A real shot.

Of course, I knew that was the worst idea I could possibly be having right now. She came with a lot of baggage. Shit, she came with even more baggage now than she had when I was protecting her two years ago. Now, she came with another whole person attached.

And, if I was wrong about this Joel guy being the father, then that took me back to the fact she could have another man in her life who wasn’t going away simply because this child was now with her. It would make things difficult, but then the romantic side of me told me that there wasn’t any baggage she could have that would make me not want to be with her.

She was just as gorgeous now as she had always been. Perhaps even more so.

The way she cared for Tristan made my heart melt. I could only imagine what she must do when it was the holidays or the kid’s birthday. She was such a caring, doting mother, I loved to watch the way she would put that little boy before her in everything.

She really cared about him more than herself. Of course, Iris had always been a giving person. Never had I thought of her as selfish, and I couldn’t imagine using that word to describe her now. It just wasn’t in her nature to be that way.

And knowing how giving she was just made me want to give more to her. I wanted to take care of her – not just right now when she was dealing with a stalker, but for the rest of her life. I wanted to show her that there were good men out there, and that she didn’t have to keep throwing her life away with the kind of man who was going to hunt her down and make her life miserable when she tried to get out of the relationship.

Iris never seemed to stop and think when she was getting into a relationship whether it was the kind of relationship that would last, or if she would wind up in a hell on earth because of her choices. There had been more times than I could count when I was watching over her before that I wanted to ask her point blank why she had gotten with someone who had treated her the way that ex did.

Now she was with some other guy who was chasing after her.

And it wasn’t the kind of pursuing that came when someone was in love. No, she was scared of this man, and I had the feeling there was reason for her to feel that way. I wasn’t afraid of him myself, but I was afraid of what might happen to her if he caught up with her.

Though I wasn’t the most truthful person on the planet, there were some things I could see clearly – and things I could say honestly about other people. One of those things was about Iris. It was a fact I couldn’t ignore any longer, though it was the whole reason why she was back in my life now.

She had terrible taste in men. She always had. Well, I wasn’t terrible. If she could go with me, if she gave me that real chance I was asking her to give, then she would have chosen a really good guy for the first time. But then, I was a walking lie.

So how good of a guy would I be for her, really?

I yanked on the levers inside my forklift again, nearly missing another stack of product. Thankfully, this time, there wasn’t anyone in the immediate vicinity to see the near accident, so I was able to get away with that one without being yelled at.

But, when our lunch hour came, I hadn’t even sat down before Glenn started in on me for how careless I’d been.

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