Chapter Twelve

Grace

“Tell me something, baby,” Cullen growled as I curled up next to him with my head on his chest. “When you left that night, where’d you go?”

I sighed. I didn’t want to think about it. “Does it matter?”

He nodded. “I’m asking because it was night, you were pregnant, and damned if that didn’t take some balls. You must’ve really hated me.”

He was right. Nobody could get me as pissed off as Cullen McKnight could. I rolled onto him, kissing his chest. “Yeah. So?”

“So next time you’re thinking of skipping out on me, tell me. We’ll have a talk. Okay?”

I gazed at him, not willing to answer that. It all depended on how much of an asshole he was.

He played with my hair, threading it through his fingers, which were stained in motor oil. He had that delicious smell of badass and motor oil that made my knees week. “You have any boyfriends since me?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Oh. Tons. Being pregnant is a definite man magnet.”

He shrugged, tracing a finger up my spine, to the only tattoo I’d ever gotten, a cluster of birds, flying away, from my collarbone to behind my ear. I’d gotten it with him, on a dare, I think when we were a little drunk. It was hilarious, now, considering I’d flown away from him, and how I never flew, really. I’d left him, but was always nearby, in Aveline Bay. Maybe part of me had always been hoping he’d find me.

“You’re hotter now, baby. Even as a mom. That body of yours . . . fuck. I didn’t think it could get any better. I want to keep you in my bed and fuck you well and good. I bet all the other men did, too.”

I laughed. “You sound jealous.”

“I am.”

I just smiled at him. “Jealous of no one. They didn’t exist.”

“They exist. You just didn’t know it. But you belong to me, baby. And I’m not going to let anyone touch a hair on your head.”

It was early afternoon, so I wasn’t sleeping anyway. But now I really wasn’t sleeping.

As I lay in Cullen’s arms, wondering how the hell I’d gotten the strength to leave him before, it gradually settled on me. Things weren’t different.

And I’d just gone and made them a hell of a lot more complicated.

But the funny thing was, I didn’t care. My life had always been complicated. Maybe this was just made to happen. Why else was I never able to forget him?

I knew I’d be safe with Cullen. I knew he’d die to protect me. And Ella, too, though he hadn’t warmed up to her yet. She’d wrap him around her finger. Soon. And though it wasn’t the life I would’ve chosen for her, I wanted her to know her daddy.

We could be happy together.

I told myself that, again and again, as I held him tight.

Then I heard a cry. Ella was awake.

I expected Cullen to keep dozing, or pretend not to hear, but he slipped out from my arms and kissed my forehead. “I’ll get her. You stay there.”

I sat up on both elbows and looked at him. “You sure?”

He nodded as he slipped into his boxers and jeans. “I’m not helpless. I got this.”

I smiled. This I got to see.

Curiosity got the better of me about three seconds after he disappeared out the door. I threw on his t-shirt and crept into the hallway.

He was already cradling a babbling, grinning Ella in his arms, bouncing her like a true pro. “Hey, kid,” he said in a low voice. “Where’s the fire?”

No wonder she was grinning madly at him. There could be no hotter sight than this.

He motioned me toward the bedroom. I went back inside and he brought Ella in, and put her down on the bed. She rolled around onto her hands and knees and looked around at the pillows. He sat down on the side of the bed, and I thought, oh, gosh, we are such a cute little family.

Then I looked over and saw his leather kutte hanging on the back of the door, with the Steel Cobras crest on the back.

Suddenly, I was back on the foldout couch in the basement of his sister’s house. It was after midnight, and Cullen had gone to church and said he’d be back by ten.

That was when I flipped on the television and saw the local news reports of a shootout out by the docks, right where Cullen said the Cobras met. He’d gone out, shoving his gun into the back of his jeans, all badass, saying that some guys were trying to fuck with them and he needed to represent and show them who was boss.

When he’d returned, that vest of his was covered in blood. It bled through his fingers and the tiny handkerchief he’d put over it, dripping all over the floor. The second I saw him, I shrieked. I thought he was dying.

But he was lucky. A bullet had grazed his chin, coming just inches away from his artery in his neck. He still had the scar, a tiny white nick buried somewhere under all that beard. He’d told me, as we lay in bed that night once the bleeding had stopped, that he’d been getting out of church and some gang members had just opened fire on them. He wasn’t sure who they were, or why they were after him, but, “Baby, what can I say? We got a lot of enemies.”

A lot of enemies.

So many enemies, he didn’t even know who they were. How could he protect me when he wasn’t even sure where the danger was coming from? How could we be a family like that?

I looked around as Ella innocently explored the bed, rolling around the pillows. Somewhere, in this room, I bet Cullen had a gun. Loaded. He was always stupid and dangerous with it. He’d leave it lying around, loaded, anywhere.

If things were going to work, we’d have to baby-proof this house. First rule: Locking up all the guns. Because there was no way in hell he’d ever leave the Cobras. So he’d always have those enemies.

I reached over and felt her butt. “She needs her diaper changed.”

He quickly handed her over to me. “That’s where you come in.”

“Oh, so, you don’t want to learn?”

“Hell no,” he said, shaking his head. “She’s a girl.”

I took her into the other room and spread her out on a blanket on the carpet. Her diaper was bloated with pee. I peeled it off as he averted his eyes. So now he gets a sense of shame? Oh, boy. I said, “Hand me those wipes and a diaper.”

He looked at the assortment of things on the dresser and finally found the tub and a diaper, which he handed to me. I lifted her legs with one hand, and then she started kicking, twisting and screeching for Cullen. She might have been sweet as pie with him, casting his hypnotic spell to quiet her down. With me, she was her bouncy, toddler, lightning-in-a-bottle self.

I couldn’t get her to stay still long enough to change her diaper.

“You want to help?” I asked him, grabbing her before she scrambled off the bed. “Well help me calm her down.”

So he came over to the bed and sat down and did some trick with his fingers and she stared as if hypnotized while I did my thing changing her.

“There,” I said as I finally put her bloomers into place. “Easy when we’re a team. Thanks for your help.”

He was still averting his eyes from the diaper part of the operation, focusing on the broad smile and chorus of giggles he had coaxed out of her. “I’m glad. But I ain’t ever doing that.”

Hmph, I thought, giving Ella the sign that she was free. She cooed happily and peeled off the bed, ready for action again. I handed her a sippy cup of water and she drained it, giving him her big blue eyes.

“Never say never.”

He leaned against the wall and plunged his hands into his pockets. “Read my lips, baby. NEVER.”

Right. Cullen was too damn stubborn. All in for fun and games but try to find him when it was time to go to work. “Fine.” I stood up and started to chase her as she ran past him for the door.

“Where you going?”

I started toward the staircase. “You can’t keep me in your bed forever, Cullen. I’ve got our daughter to take care of now. And right now, she wants to play and have a little something to eat.” I managed to catch her hand and kissed her petal-soft skin. “Don’t you baby?”

Her answer was to wrestle herself away from me and follow her daddy around like a cute little puppy looking for treats.

In the kitchen I looked around at all the beer and liquor bottles on the shelves and decided that today, I’d work on tossing them out. If he wanted to keep me here, I was going to make the place safer. I fixed Ella her lunch and sat her on a high stool with a back at the counter. As she stuffed her little rosebud mouth, I started making a list of things we needed to baby-proof.

Cullen walked into the kitchen a few minutes later, so I ripped my list off the pad and handed it to him. “Can you get this for us? Maybe at Target? They have an aisle just for baby safety stuff, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find.”

He read it over. I expected him to argue. As he usually did. Instead, he nodded. “What the hell is a tot-lock?” he asked.

“It keeps cabinets closed so that a baby can’t get into them and drink anything dangerous.”

“I keep my alcohol up high.”

I rolled my eyes at him. “Not that. Cleaning products. The stuff you keep under the sink.”

He narrowed his eyes. “I don’t have any cleaning products.”

I looked around. “Obviously. So you never clean this place?”

“I have a housecleaning service come in. Once a week.”

I looked at all the beer bottles and scoffed. “Did she miss a week or two? And obviously, you’re not used to kids. Not that I’d expect you to be, but can we do it more often than that? With a toddler, things get pretty messy, pretty quick.”

He gave me a look like I was speaking a foreign language, but as I stared at the list in his hands, I figured that was good enough for a start. We’d already upended his whole life. I didn’t want to freak him out completely.

Before he left, he activated the security system, kissed us goodbye, and then I took Ella on a tour of the house, trying to find something to keep her occupied. Cullen’s mansion was so huge, there were rooms I didn’t think he ever used. This would probably be great for hide-and-seek games next year when Ella was a little older, but I didn’t see many things around that were safe and fun for her now.

I wondered where he kept his gun. Knowing Cullen, if he was out with his guys, he probably had it with him. I kept Ella distracted on the other side of the bed and sure enough, when I peeked in the drawer of his night-table, I found a never-ending stash of condoms and a few loose bullets, rolling around there. But no gun. I would have freaked if I’d seen one with Ella so close. I just breathed a sigh of relief and we continued our tour of the house.

The next room I chose had a wall of framed platinum records, all belonging to Cullen’s dad. There was even an old guitar hanging on the wall alongside a picture of a balding, longhaired man that I knew was Cullen’s dad. He was balancing a smiling boy with a bowl haircut on his knee who couldn’t have been much older than Ella.

Cullen.

I thought back to the one and only time I met Brent McKnight, the rock-star legend from the heavy metal band The Fritz. When I met him, he was sitting in Aria’s house, drinking beers with like six empty bottles lined up in front of him and Cullen.

Although he was almost bald on top, his mane of long, stringy hair hung like a dirty curtain around the side and down his back. Despite his skinny arms and legs, he had a beer belly and his ruddy face showed his love of booze. He’d brought along a girlfriend who didn’t even look legal; she had some track marks on her arms, as did he. The tension in the room was so thick, I could tell Cullen and Aria didn’t want him there.

When he’d looked me up and down, I could almost see a resemblance to Cullen in his blue eyes, though they were glazed from whatever drugs he’d been doing that day. He’d fastened those eyes on my cleavage and said, “What do you see in that fucking pussy boy of mine? Sit that cute little ass of yours on my face and I’ll show you what a real man can do.”

Really. A class act.

And his girlfriend hadn’t batted an eyelash. I’d felt so sick after that I went to the bathroom and retched over the toilet for a good ten minutes. And I wasn’t even pregnant yet.

All I knew was that if Cullen ever thought of treating me like that, I wouldn’t just leave him. I’d kick him repeatedly in the balls first. Hard.

I knew he hated his dad. But he never said much else. I guess he didn’t hate him enough to toss all this stuff away. His father wasn’t a good dad. I figured Cullen must’ve wrestled with that, every day. Would he be like his father?

Ella was his chance to find out.

I knew it scared him.

And Cullen didn’t like to admit anything scared him.

But I bet it scared him even more than the thought of taking a bullet from the Fury. He may have talked a good game, like he didn’t give a shit about anyone or anything else, but some things he’d easily defend, paying no regard to his own safety. The Cobras. Me.

Maybe one day, Ella as well.

I went through a formal dining room, complete with a glass table that Cullen had probably never used.

Then we made it down the hall and went through about ten more giant, dark rooms that didn’t have any furniture. I wondered why he hadn’t sold this place, when I knew there was no nostalgia attached to it, and it was clear he didn’t need all the space.

He had a nice swimming pool, though, with grottos and waterfalls and a hot tub. I could imagine teaching Ella to swim there. There was also a little pool house, butted up against the edge of the property, that probably had an even better view of the ocean. Cullen had told me he’d stayed there as a teen, when his father’s partying had started to get out of hand. I slid open the screen door and started to walk outside, to the deck, but then I worried that would set off the alarm.

When the phone in the kitchen started to ring, I debated if I should answer it. I finally picked it up.

“Hey,” a voice said right away. It was Cullen. “You got the code to disarm the alarm? There’s a delivery truck coming, and you’ll need to let them in.”

“Yeah, I got it. You sent a delivery truck?” I asked. I was pretty sure my list wasn’t all that long. Of course, he only had a motorcycle, so that made sense.

He hung up and when the delivery truck arrived about a half hour later, I disarmed the alarm and opened the door, expecting a few big bags. But the man in the red uniform was holding a massive teddy bear, about ten times the size of Ella.

That was definitely not on the list.

Ella squealed and went running for it, getting lost in the huge fluffy plush animal.

“Where do you want everything, ma’am?” he asked me, stepping into the foyer as I rescued Ella from the bear’s embrace.

“Oh. You can just put it right here,” I said. “I’ll sort it out later.”

And then I watched as he and another man made several trips, bringing in bags and boxes, filling his enormous foyer. I peeked into some of the bags and saw a wealth of baby paraphernalia. The baby proofing security stuff was there, as well . . . did he really buy a breast pump? What was he expecting I was going to do with that? I stopped breastfeeding over a year ago.

After about the tenth trip, I started to worry there wouldn’t be enough space. “Just a couple more things, ma’am,” the driver said, because I must’ve looked concerned.

The last thing they brought in was a brand-new toddler bed and mattress. And sheets with little pink elephants all over them.

Cullen must have had a saleslady helping him. I couldn’t see him doing all of this himself.

About fifteen minutes later, he pulled up on his motorcycle as Ella and I were going through everything. The foyer looked a little like a Kids ‘R Us.

“Did I do okay?” he asked, pulling off his helmet and scratching the back of his neck as he surveyed the disorder in the foyer.

I nodded, speechless, as I weaved my way around the piles of toys and clothes. I kissed him so hard, it struck him by surprise. When he broke the kiss, he grinned down at me.

“Guess that’s a yes?”

I nodded, still unable to get the words out. I felt tears pinching the corners of my eyes.

Because the list of things he’d defend with no regard to his safety?

Right then, I knew Ella had made the cut.