Jamie

 

“Ouch.” I couldn’t help but wince when I felt the sting of alcohol on my scalp.

 

“Sorry,” Traci murmured. “I’ll have you cleaned up soon. It’s not deep. Hardly anything.”

 

“Head wounds always bleed more,” I said.

 

Erica snorted from her seat across from me. “Yeah, no kidding.” She’d needed stitches, though. My cut wasn’t anything a few butterfly bandages couldn’t handle.

 

I ached all over—the sting of my scalp was nothing compared to my bruised tailbone, aching arms and legs. My jaw hurt so much that it was tough to speak. Even my throat hurt from screaming. Still, I wouldn’t let go of Gigi. She was curled up in my lap, a warm, limp body in the middle of sleep. I wasn’t sure I would ever let go of her. Not after we came so close to losing her.

 

When I pulled up at the clubhouse with her, Erica had come running out. Gigi’s scream of total joy was ear-splitting but understandable. She’d thrown herself into Erica’s arms, overjoyed that she was still alive. Erica had felt the same about Gigi.

 

We sat together in the lounge with Traci making sure I was okay. Gigi was unharmed—physically, anyway. I didn’t know about emotional damage. She was young enough that it would subside over time, but she would need our help to get over it. I wouldn’t let the experience stick with her, no matter what I had to do.

 

“I’m going to need a handful of ibuprofen,” I murmured, shifting uncomfortably. I was sitting on a pillow, but it still didn’t help. Once the adrenaline wore off, the pain came crashing into me.

 

“We’ll get you fixed up,” Erica promised. “You should’ve gone to the hospital, like I did. Stubborn.”

 

“No way. I didn’t want the police to know what happened. You could get away with saying you fell and hit your head. What was I going to say? They would’ve seen the bruises.” I had a bruised jaw from the hit the buyer laid on me, and bruises circled my biceps thanks to The Scarecrow’s hands. The cops would’ve been brought straight to me.

 

“I know Lance would feel better if he was sure you don’t have a concussion. You could get painkillers at the hospital, too.”

 

“I’m sure Lance would feel better without having the police at his door.” I smiled at Erica, who nodded. “Besides, I feel fine. I’ll stay up all night it if makes you feel better. I won’t sleep. Just to be on the safe side.”

 

“After what you’ve been through?” She looked skeptical.

 

“Sweetie, I couldn’t sleep right now if you paid me.” I shivered a little at the word “paid,” memories of bargaining with The Scarecrow coming back. No, sleep wasn’t an option. I didn’t feel like dealing with the nightmares.

 

Some of the club members walked in and out, checking on us from time to time. One of them got my ibuprofen at Erica’s request, another brought ice for my jaw. I held the pack with one hand, with Gigi under the other arm. Nobody could take her away from me.

 

“You were so brave,” Traci murmured, sitting beside me. She held the ice in place for me for a while, giving my arm a break. “Everybody said how loud you screamed. Gigi told us how you fought them off. I mean, this bruise…”

 

I shrugged it off. “Either of you would have done it to protect her. Trust me, you don’t know what you’re capable of until you’re in the situation. I would never have imagined fighting the two of them off like that. In the moment, it was all I could do. And it’s not like I fought them off, I only held them back.”

 

“Long enough for the guys to come in and get you.”

 

I shook my head. I still felt like a failure—there was no way to describe it. I shouldn’t have let it happen in the first place. I should have fought harder when it did happen. I should have killed them both. I would have, if I could. I still would even after the fact. It took a lot of self-control not to take The Scarecrow’s gun and shoot them both when I saw them tied up on the bed.

 

It was better for them to go to prison for a long, long time. They would suffer the way they made other people suffer. Tears came to my eyes.

 

“What is it?” Traci slid an arm around my shoulders.

 

“I can’t imagine how many other women weren’t so lucky is all.”

 

Traci squeezed gently, and the three of us sat in silence for a long time.

 

***

 

“I’d better put her to bed.”

 

I looked up to find Lance standing over me. It was the first time I’d seen him since we got back to the clubhouse. He’d been in his office, door closed, for hours.

 

“She’s fine with me,” I whispered. Traci and Erica were both asleep—they’d decided to sit up with me, but it hadn’t taken long before they nodded off. I was the only one still awake. I’d thought there were voices coming from Lance’s office, but didn’t know who was inside.

 

“Let me take her upstairs,” he said, scooping her up. “You need to rest—but before that, we have to talk. I’ll be right back.” He carried her upstairs before I could protest. I waited for him, looking around the room from my seat. I never thought I’d be grateful to see the inside of the clubhouse again, but when we got back I’d almost kissed the floor in relief. Anything was better than that motel room and whatever waited for me after that.

 

How would I ever repay any of them for what they did for me? For Gigi? I wasn’t clear on the details, being unconscious for most of it, but I’d heard Slate shot the gun out of The Scarecrow’s hand. So close to my head, too. He was a sharpshooter in the Army, I found out. Lucky for me he was still so accurate.

 

I felt much the same as I had while I sat at my house earlier. My image of myself was changing. My image of them was changing, too. They did the right thing. They might have been criminals, capable of any number of shady things, but they weren’t bad people. They weren’t evil, like The Scarecrow and his buyer. They fought for what was right. It was never clearer to me, the difference between them and the really bad people in the world.

 

Lance came back downstairs. I couldn’t read the look on his face. Relief? Tension? Discomfort? All three? He came to me, holding out his hands.

 

“What is it?” I asked. I wished he would talk to me. It felt almost like there was a wall between us. Did he hate me for letting Gigi get kidnapped? Did he think I should’ve tried harder to protect her?

 

“Come with me. There’s something we have to talk over.”

 

I got up slowly, wincing at the pain in my lower back. I’d be sleeping on my stomach whenever I next slept. Good thing, too, since the back of my head was off-limits until the pain there went down.

 

He led me to the office, with me limping the whole way. It wasn’t until we stepped inside and the door closed behind us that I realized who Lance had been with all night.

 

“You.” I nearly growled when I saw Rae sitting on the sofa by the wall. She wouldn’t meet my eyes. “How could you?”

 

“So you know, then?” Lance murmured.

 

“I figured it out. How else would he know where she was?” I shook Lance’s hands off and walked to her, pain forgotten. “How can you call yourself a mother?” I asked.

 

She sat still, looking at the floor.

 

“Look at me.” I waited until she lifted her head. Her eyes met mine. I let all the hatred I felt for her show in my face. She shrank in front of me.

 

“Okay. Enough for now. Come on.” Lance led me to a chair beside his desk. He sat next to me with a sigh. “I’ve been talking some things over with Rae,” he said.

 

“How can you talk to her about anything? She doesn’t deserve the time!”

 

“Can you please wait a minute? Please. Just listen.”

 

I glared at him. How could he talk to me that way after what I had been through? But I held my tongue, if only because my throat was raw and my jaw ached.

 

Rae cleared her throat. “I’ll never forgive myself for what I did. Ever. You don’t need to tell me it was wrong. I panicked when he told me he would kill me.”

 

“She owed him money,” Lance explained, his voice quiet.

 

“So you were clean, huh? Just like you always told me?” I scoffed.

 

She winced. “Yeah, I know. I hate myself for that, too. You don’t have to remind me.”

 

“I do have to remind you,” I said. Lance reached out to stop me from speaking, but I brushed him off. “You let a man take your daughter. You knew he was going to sell her. Sell. Her.”

 

“Enough, Jamie. She knows. That’s not why we’re here together.” I looked at him, waiting for an explanation. “We’re talking about custody of Gigi.”

 

“I want Lance to take her,” Rae said.

 

I scoffed. “I would hope so.” No way I would let her have Gigi after what she did. I would have paid whatever it took to take her to court and wipe the floor with her.

 

“Rae’s gonna sign custody over to me. I’m gonna send her to rehab so she can clean up her act.”

 

I glanced at Rae. “What, you think you can get back into her good graces when you’re sober?”

 

She shook her head. “No. I need to get outta here. Away from everything. I’m not coming back.” She smiled sadly. “I was never cut out to be a mother. I did my best.” She looked me in the eye again, without me telling her to. “I did my best. You’ve gotta believe that. You don’t know how it is, living with something like I do. It’s hell.”

 

I didn’t have anything to say in response. “You’re sure you want this?” I asked Lance.

 

“Of course I do. I want my daughter.” Something inside me glowed with pride. He was the man I hoped he was. He would stand up and do what was right for his little girl. “I want my daughter’s mother to be okay, too. She didn’t do as bad a job as she could have. Believe me, I know.” His eyes went a little unfocused, a little distant.

 

I was a little shocked at how well he was taking everything, though. He wasn’t angry, but maybe resentful. I wondered if he was really the best answer for Gigi. Would he be there for her, twenty-four seven? Would he clean up his act? Would he have the patience and free time for her? His club had been the focus of his life for so long—would the switch be easy on him? I doubted it. I didn’t love the idea of Gigi having to deal with his growing pains. She had been through enough already, more than any kid her age should ever go through.

 

Rae stood up. “I’m gonna go now.” She walked out of the room without another word. Without even a backward glance. I listened as the front door opened and closed. I didn’t know how she’d get home, and I didn’t care.

 

Lance stood, too. “She won’t go to rehab,” he murmured. “She only said that so she wouldn’t look like the piece of shit person she is.”

 

“You think she’ll stay around?”

 

He shrugged. “I don’t much care anymore. As long as she hands Gigi over to me, she can do whatever she wants.”

 

I looked up at him, wondering. “You’re sure you’re ready for this?”

 

“Who is when they have a kid? The only difference is I don’t have to change diapers. I’m okay with that.” He gave me a tired smile.

 

“It’s a huge lifestyle change, though.”

 

“You think I don’t know that?” He narrowed his eyes. “You’re still trying to get me to give her to you. Is that it?”

 

I shook my head, totally serious. “Not at all.”

 

“You’re serious?”

 

I nodded. “Deadly. I don’t have what it takes to be a mother to her.”

 

Lance crouched in front of me, no longer joking. “What the hell are you talking about? You sound nuts. Maybe you do have a concussion.” He held my chin, looking into my eyes like he was checking to see if they were focused.

 

I pushed his hand away gently. “I’m fine. I mean what I’m saying. I don’t have what it takes. I’m too selfish. This whole time I thought I knew better than anybody else how to take care of her. It wasn’t about her. It was about my ego. I had to be the hero, you know? I had to save the day. I knew it all, I could save her. What a joke.”

 

“Where’s this coming from? The way I heard it, you just about got yourself killed trying to stop them from taking my kid. That sounds like something a mother would do, doesn’t it?”

 

I shook my head. “You don’t understand. I should have been here with her instead of at my house. I didn’t take you seriously when you said we were in danger—that she was in danger. I sat around, hanging out, while that pig was kidnapping her. He might have killed Erica. She fought back at least. She did what she had to do.”

 

“Right, and it didn’t matter either way. You can’t see things that didn’t happen—I mean, you can’t sit there and say you would have fought him off. He would’ve hurt you. He hurt you in that room, didn’t he?” He touched the back of his head, referencing my injury.

 

“Yes, that’s true.”

 

“You did what you could when it counted. You went there to protect her.”

 

“I should’ve called you.”

 

That stopped him. He frowned, thinking it over. “Maybe you should have. Yeah. Now we know.”

 

“What? We know I should call you the next time your daughter is kidnapped?”

 

He cocked his head to the side, smirking. “We know we’re a team. You can’t take everything on by yourself. I can’t take everything on alone either. We have to work together. Especially if we’re gonna be raising a little girl.”

 

It took a moment for his words to sink in. My face went slack, my jaw hung open. He smiled, closing my mouth with a finger under my chin. Then he caressed my jaw—gently, hardly touching me, his brow furrowed.

 

“What are you saying?” I asked in a whisper.

 

“It’s a lot to ask. I know that. But I was thinking…you’re right. I can’t do it alone. And yeah, I have a lot of people here.” He nodded toward the lounge outside the office, and I knew he meant the club. “It’s not the same as having a mom, though. I know you love her. She loves you. I know you would lay it all down for her, too. I don’t hafta to be a genius to know the right thing here.”

 

I was speechless. When I finally stopped screaming in my head long enough to think straight, I whispered, “How? How would we do this?”

 

He looked at my hands. “I thought…you would stay. Maybe. If you wanted to.”

 

I could hardly breathe. It felt like my chest would explode from the size of my heart as it grew and grew.

 

“You mean it? Like…what, as a nanny or something?” I hoped it wasn’t what he meant, but I couldn’t take any chances. I didn’t want my heart broken when I assumed the wrong thing.

 

“No.” He looked at me, frowning. “That wasn’t what I meant at all. I want you. You. I want you to stay.”

 

“Oh,” I breathed. It was all I could do.

 

“You’re not gonna make this easy on me. Okay, fine.” He took a deep breath. “I love you.”

 

The tears in my eyes made his face blur in front of me, but it looked like he was smiling.

 

“You’re not just saying that after tonight?” I asked.

 

“Why can’t you ever make anything easy? I love you. Isn’t that enough?”

 

“Of course it is. I just want to be sure. I don’t want you to feel like you should say it after everything that happened tonight.”

 

“No way. I love you. I fucking love you. That’s it. Even if you don’t wanna stay with me, I’ll still fucking love you.”

 

I laughed, my hand shooting up to my jaw when pain zipped through it. He frowned.

 

“I could kill that bastard for touching you,” he growled.

 

“It’s okay. He’ll get what’s coming to him.” I could hardly believe how happy that thought made me.

 

“So? What do you think? I mean, no pressure. Don’t feel like you have to just because I love you and would probably die if you left me.”

 

I shook my head, grinning. “No pressure at all.”

 

“None.” He grinned, too.

 

“You know I love you.” I took his face in my hands, marveling at the way life worked out sometimes, before his lips met mine in a gentle, sweet kiss I wished could last forever.