Jack

 

I couldn’t stop thinking about the baby and about all that Ellie had been through with him already. I’d only known them for just over a week, but they were both already setting in deep under my skin. This whole day at the shop was dragging like molasses—just like every other day since they walked into my shop. I only wanted to be back home, with them, spending time and…I don’t know. Just spending time.

 

As far as Ellie went, I was clear on one point for certain: I wanted her. She was sexy as fuck. She was beautiful, soft, strong, fiery, funny, smart, and fucking hot. Just thinking about her got me hard. I was spending a lot of time forcing myself to think about post-workout athletic socks and shoes, in an attempt at calming my dick down.

 

Thoughts of Peter—of that tiny little humanoid body, that soft little head and fisting hand—filled the rest of my time. I still couldn’t tell if he looked like Keith, and it kind of pissed me off that both Trini and Grath, those bastards, laughed at me and said I was blind not to see the resemblance. How the hell could they see it? Babies all looked alike. Period, end of.

 

But I was starting to really believe it, that Peter was Keith’s, and therefore, in a roundabout way, mine. Mine now, because Keith couldn’t be here. Yeah, definitely mine.

 

And that made Ellie…mine. Not quite sure on what grounds, but I was definitely feeling some strong possessive and protective instincts over her, too.

 

And when I thought about Ellie being mine…yeah, the sex thing again. Damn, she was hot. And there was definitely a firestorm of chemistry between us. That would play out. I knew it, I felt it, I wanted it, I was gonna make sure that happened.

 

Except…aw, fuck. If Peter was Keith’s, thus mine, then that meant that I needed things with Ellie to be copacetic, long-term. I knew I had to wait to see how the test came back, and make sure that no matter what, sex with Ellie was not going to interfere with my place in Peter’s life, if it came back positive. Because no way would I let there be any interference there. If that boy was of my blood, then they were stuck with me. I was gonna be hands-on and all in.

 

Damn, and that right there was enough to throw my mind back to Ellie, and images of my hands on her, and myself all in, then out, pounding in, sliding out. Fuuuck. I wanted her like no one else I could think of.

 

“Jack! Dude! Jack, nine-one-one!” Trini was running back to my office, her eyes wide and her phone in her hand.

 

I snapped to attention. “What? What the fuck, Trini? Where’s the fucking fire?”

 

“It’s Ellie. Or it’s the baby. Or, I don’t know! But it’s at your house. Something is happening at your house, and I don’t know what it is, but…”

 

I was on my feet at ‘Ellie,’ grabbing my keys and scanning my office for my wallet, sloshing papers off my desk and causing a general disaster, but not giving a damn about it.

 

“I’m out.” I was practically running through the shop to get to my bike.

 

“Call me with an…” I heard as the door swung shut behind me.

 

No more than six minutes later I pulled up to my place, which already had a small bunch of my MC brothers’ bikes parked out front in a less-than-organized fashion. This was not the Iron Bandits’ way, and I knew my brothers had my back, that they had rushed to get here just as fast as I had.

 

I didn’t see fire or smoke, I didn’t see ambulances or cop cars. I didn’t see Ellie. I didn’t see anything off.

 

I did see my front door open on its hinges, and our chapter road captain, Hops, ready and waiting for me there.

 

“Come on, Jack-o. It’s good you got here.”

 

“What the fuck is going on?” I needed info, stat.

 

“First, you gotta know, everyone is all right. No one got hurt. Girl’s fine, baby’s fine. You might-a told us you were a family man at some point, caused some shock with the boys. But they’re fine.” He chuckled, clearly trying to relieve my tension, but I still lacked the necessary deets, and I was getting more and more pissed off by the moment.

 

“Drop the shit, Hops.”

 

But I didn’t wait for a reply.

 

“Grath! Ellie! Where the fuck are you?” I yelled as I stormed into the house, on a mission to locate Ellie and see for myself that she and Peter were all right. I found them in the living room: Ellie pacing around, trying to calm a very fussy Peter, and Grath and the rest of the guys—four of them—hovering over and around her, looking none too pleased with the situation.

 

“What in the hell is going on here? What the fuck happened?”

 

Hops was following right on my heels, and took the lead. “Grath got a call from your woman here. She was cryin’, goin’ on about some guy cagin’ her in the house, had a baseball bat and a gun. She said she thought he’d use it. Baby was cryin’, and she locked herself and him in your bathroom, back o’ the house, in case the guy got in. Didn’t have her phone on her, used the one from your bedroom to call. As soon as Grath took the call, we were all on our bikes, got here fast as we could. Didn’t catch the guy—he was gone before we got here—but he left a message. Grath called Trini soon as we found your woman, made sure she was okay. That’s it. ’S all I know.”

 

I turned to Ellie, a little out of control with raging questions that demanded better answers. “Why the fuck didn’t you call me?”

 

She flinched, but also straightened her back as much as she could with the baby still in her arms. This woman had grit, I had to give her that. “I hit 2 on speed-dial, that’s who I got. You want me to call you in a repeat situation, you put your cell on your speed-dial.”

 

Okay. That was fair. “Good answer.” I gave her the point, and she relaxed again with a huff.

 

I still had a thousand more questions. In order to get her attention focused on me and keep it there, I took the baby into my hands and set him up by my neck, and looked her straight in the eye. “Ellie, talk to me.”

 

She finally stopped pacing, and while I held the baby—who had, indeed, been surprised enough by my quick grab and his new situation to calm the fuck down and start mouthing my collarbone—she took a deep breath and began filling in the blanks. “Yeah, so, it was that guy I told you about. You know, the one who followed me from Portland? I thought he was gone, out of my life, finally. I haven’t seen him in months. Months and months. Since I left here last summer, you know? But he found me here, somehow. I don’t know how, Jack. I don’t know how he found us.”

 

“Okay, babe, so he found you. Here. What did he do?”

 

“He was outside, yelling, calling me all kinds of names. You know. He knows about you, or…I mean, he knows I’m living here with you. He knows about Peter. I think he’s been watching us, watching the house. He knew you were gone today, he knew I was here alone with the baby. And he was livid. He said he was gonna take care of you, and then he’d take care of my baby, and then it’d be just me and him, the way it was meant to be.”

 

She was turning green, and looked about ready to puke. I shot a look at Grath, and he saw it, too. He called out to his partner, Stephan, “Water,” and took Ellie’s hand, pulling her toward the bathroom in the hallway. It took her a moment to see where he was leading her, and she shook her head and pulled out of his light grasp.

 

“No, it’s—I’m okay. I’ll be okay. I’m not going to lose it. I swear.”

 

“Okay, honey. But maybe you should sit down, yeah?”

 

“Yeah. Okay.” Grath and women, man. He never failed to connect easily.

 

She sat on the couch, took the proffered glass, and sipped gingerly. I took a seat right next to her, put my freer arm around her, and she leaned into me and Peter, burying her face between Peter’s chest and my own.

 

I could feel all the guys’ eyes on us, could sense some surprise in the room, but I had no time for that shit.

 

I put my nose in Ellie’s hair, and could feel calm finally come into my own body, smelling the coconut shampoo she favored and the sweet vanilla scent that drifted lightly around her. We formed a unit, the three of us, and having them both in my arms was a comfort I had never known before.

 

Eventually, I pulled back. “You’re okay, Ellie. He’s gone, right? You did right, made the right calls. You did great. He fucked up, tipped his hand, and now we know he’s out there. We’ll find him. And we’ll take care of it. I will make sure he does not get to you and Peter. I swear it.”

 

“You can’t say that. You can’t make that promise. You can’t be with me, with us, all the time. That’s not fair to you, and it’s not right. So don’t make that promise. I don’t accept it.”

 

I was about to argue with her, but she shook her head firmly and simply said, “Stop it. I mean it, Jack. Stop it.”

 

This woman. So fucking stubborn.

 

Still, the story lacked completion. I dug. “I still don’t have the whole picture, babe. What made him leave, if he was so ramped up to get to you today?”

 

“I screamed at him that I was calling the cops, that they’d be here any minute. He’s allergic to the concept—I think I told you that before, right? Cops freak him out. So, he’s yelling and muttering out there like the complete deranged psychopath that he is, and about a minute or two later he threw a rock through your bedroom window and took off. He must have figured I’d gone to the back of the house—I’m really sorry about your bedroom—God, I was so scared he’d made up some kind of a bomb, or that it was a grenade, or something. I heard the window crash, and just huddled in the bathtub for forever, waiting for some huge blast. Thank God it never came. They said it was just a rock. A big rock.”

 

Grath caught my eye again, and tipped his head toward my room, then walked in that direction. I kissed the top of Ellie’s head, did the same to Peter, and handed him off to her to cuddle on her own. When I got to my room, I found the window glass shattered all over the carpeting, and some shards had reached as far as the bed itself. What a huge pain in the ass that was gonna be to clean up, but at least neither Ellie nor Peter had been touched by it. That woman was smart. Awesomely smart. Thank Christ.

 

Grath reached behind me, to the top of my dresser cabinet, where a grapefruit-sized rock had been placed, probably by one of my club brothers. “I thought you should see this before she does. Not sure if you want to show it to her or not. It came with this wrapped around it.” And he handed me a dirty, wrinkled receipt. I turned it over, and read the note.

 

You made me do it once. I’ll do it again and again. For you. For us. Forever.

 

What in the hell did that mean?