Chapter One
Lisa
Sleep fades from my brain as the sound of my phone ringing pulls me from dreamland. I roll away from Round and grab my phone from the nightstand. I almost hit silent, but the flash of Gidget’s face on the screen has me bringing it to my ear.
“Hello,” I whisper, trying not to wake up my old man.
“Raine just called me and said she is pregnant. She’s claiming it’s Parker’s baby!” Gidget shouts, sounding frantic. “As many condoms as Parker goes through, how in the hell did he get that bitch pregnant?”
“She called you?” I ask, not even bothering to try to hide the anger from my voice.
I’ve seen bitches call members’ old ladies, even been told of a few running to the President to pull this shit. Never in all my years at the club have I ever heard of one calling a members’ mother. The whole thing would be comical if it wasn’t for the fact that the mother involved just happens to be my daughter-in-law.
I close my eyes and draw in a frustrated breath. “She’s lying. She had her monthly checkup last week, and the doc would have told me if she had been pregnant. Not to mention, she was pulled from the rotation last weekend because she was on her period.”
Sarah, aka Raine, is a club whore that has been nothing but trouble since she walked into the club seven months ago. First, she did her best to land herself an officer, not caring they were all married and didn’t want a damn thing to do with her. Then, she moved on to Parker, son to the VP and my grandson.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Gidget growls into the phone. “I’m gonna kill her skanky ass. Then, I’m gonna have a long talk with my son about choosing a better hole to stick his dick in. He may be a grown man, but he’s gonna listen to me this time. I’ll have Smoke hold him down if I have to.”
Parker, Park to his brothers, both by blood and oath, has been living on the wild side for a while now. Before he even started prospecting for the Grim Bastards, every club whore and hanger on has been hot on his heels. Being Round’s grandson and Smoke’s son, they all assume he will have an officer’s patch on his cut soon. They’re right but also wrong. He’ll be an officer someday soon, but only because he will earn that right.
“Let me handle Raine. This isn’t the first problem she’s caused, but it will be the last,” I say as Round rolls into my body, wrapping his arms around me. “You just talk to Park.”
I can hear Gidget drawing in a deep breath before she says, “I’m worried he may have inherited more than just the color of his hair from Richard.”
Richard may have provided half of Parker’s DNA, but he is in no way his father. By the time the boy turned ten years old, the fucker had given up his parental rights. By age eleven, Parker was legally Smoke’s son and carrying the last name Roundtree.
“You know that’s not true, honey,” I say, heartbroken that Gidget would even utter those words. “Parker is more like Smoke than Trace or Marley, either one. He’s following right along in his daddy’s footsteps, and you know that Smoke is the only daddy that boy has ever had.”
Before she can respond, I hear a dog barking then the phone being muffled. Finally, she comes back. “Parker’s here, so I better go. But you will deal with Raine, right?”
“Oh, I’ll deal with her all right,” I reply, wondering which of the other girls I’ll get to kick the bitch’s ass and wishing I was still young enough to do it myself.
“Love you, Lisa,” she says, quickly followed by Parker shouting. “Tell Grandma I’m gonna stop by tonight, and I’m hoping she has some lasagna waiting for me.”
“Love you, too,” I return with a smile. “And tell him I’ll make it happen if he promises to stay longer than it takes to woof it down.”
Hitting the end button, I place my phone back on the nightstand and settle against Round. “Parker has placed an order for lasagna tonight.”
“Sounds good to me,” he says, kissing my bare shoulder.
Even after nearly eighteen years together, and fourteen years of marriage, the sound of his voice causes a shiver to run through my body. At sixty-four, Round is softening around the middle a bit and has grown a few extra lines on his face, but he is still the most handsome man I have ever seen. I figure, add another twenty years, and he will be sexy as hell pushing around a walker.
Wiggling enough for him to release his hold, I roll over to my other side and cuddle into him. “I need to get up and get us some breakfast made. I have to head over to the club and deal with Raine’s crazy ass.”
He cocks his brow, so I tell him all about my conversation with our daughter-in-law and my thoughts on the situation. “I can’t believe she had the nerve to call Gidget.”
“She told on him to his mom.” A smile spreads across his lips as he shakes his head and laughs. “Parker’s gonna hear shit about this forever.”
“I doubt anyone will know. Parker sure in the hell isn’t gonna tell anyone, and by the time I’m done with Raine, she won’t ever speak another word to a Grim Bastard without pissing in her pants.”
“I’m gonna make sure everyone knows. It’s too fucking funny to keep to myself,” he says with another laugh.
“That’s gonna piss your grandson off,” I say, placing a kiss on his lips and pulling out of his arms to slide out of bed.
His laughter fills the room this time. “That’s just a bonus.”
I shake my head as I pull my jeans, panties, and bra out of the dresser. “You want a bowl of oatmeal or maybe some scrambled eggs and toast? I don’t have time for much more today.”
“Nah,” he says with a shake of his head. “I think I’m gonna try to grab a few more minutes of sleep before we head to the clubhouse.”
In all of the years we’ve been together, never once has Round missed breakfast. There were more than a few times we didn’t get up until half the day was gone. No matter, when he finally rolled out of bed, he has always eaten breakfast.
“I could make you a BLT. You can eat it on the road.” Granted, riding a bike will make eating a bit of a trick, but I’ve seen him do it before.
He shakes his head. “If I get hungry, I’ll eat at the clubhouse later.”
For some reason, the thought of him missing breakfast makes me worry. “Are you feeling all right?”
Since we’ve been together, he has only seen a doctor twice. Once, he’d caught strep throat from one of the grandkids. He coughed and hacked for three days, but only went when his fever reached 104 and I threw a fucking fit.
The other time was a bit more intense. He had been helping Hack and Pru put in new steps down to their basement. He was cutting a board and hit a knot. The skill saw jumped and hit the hand Round was using to hold the wood steady. It took off three of his fingers, so it was either go to the emergency room or bleed to death.
“Just do what you gotta do and wake me up when it’s time to leave,” he replies, not even attempting to answer my question.
I stare at him for a second, nod my head, go to the closet, and grab one of my well-worn Harley tees. “Okay.”
Just before I step out of the room, he calls for me. “Hey, baby.”
I turn around and he is staring right at me. “Do you have any fucking idea how much I love you?”
“Probably just as much as I love you,” I respond with a smile.
“No,” he barks with a shake of his head. “There’s no way you love me as much as I love you, close but not as much. My day doesn’t start until I see you smile. It doesn’t end until you’re in my arms. I live and breathe because of you. If something ever happened to you, Smoke would have to bury my ass right alongside you.”
“I feel the same way, Round. I couldn’t live a day without you by my side,” I say, fighting the urge to walk over to the bed and crawl back in with him.
As much as I want to hold him at this moment, something is holding me back. Somehow, I just know if I get close, he will quit talking. Even though he has told me he loves me thousands of times and in a million different ways, this seems to be more important. Almost like the words he is speaking are a vow that will hold us together for eternity.
“Don’t say shit like that, Lisa. You’re a hell of a lot younger than me. Not to mention, I always got a cigarette between my lips and a bottle of beer in my hand,” he says with a shake of his head. “I’ll die before you.”
“There’s only eight years between us. I don’t want…” I start, but he cuts me off with another shake of his head.
“When I’m gone, I don’t want you sitting around here grieving yourself to death. I want you to find someone else. Just make sure the bastard is good enough for someone as wonderful as you,” he states and rolls to his side, away from me. “Make sure you wake me up in time to take a shower before we leave.”
I just stand here staring at him, knowing the conversation is over. I could shout my denial until I’m blue in the face, but he won’t listen. When Round is done talking, he’s DONE. It doesn’t matter, though; I know the truth. If he goes before me, there will never be another man in my life. No one could ever measure up to the man that has been by my side for the last eighteen years.
Finally, I turn away from Round and walk out of the room. For some reason, I can’t force myself to shut the door. I’ll just be extra quiet as I get ready. Right now, I don’t want anything between us, not even a door.
Taking my clothes to the guest bathroom, I leave the door open and jump into the shower. All my stuff is in our shower, so I use the shampoo and body wash that is out for the grandkids’ visits. By the time I’m done, I don’t feel any better than I did before getting in the shower.
After drying my hair with a towel, I pull out the extra hairdryer and get busy. Using remnants of makeup my granddaughter left here during her last visit, I attempt to make myself look presentable. I finally give up when I realize glitter lip-gloss doesn’t look right on a fifty-six-year-old woman.
I quietly walk to the kitchen and scan the boxes of half-eaten cereal on top of the fridge. I’m hungry, but there’s no damn way I’m cooking for just myself. After quickly making a bowl of Frosted Flakes, I sit at the table and stare at the bowl. Even as my stomach growls, I just can’t force myself to take a bite. After all these years of sharing breakfast with Round, it just feels wrong eating without him by my side.
Sitting at the table, I chew on my thumbnail with worry. Something just seems off. I’m not sure if it’s just the fact that my old man isn’t sitting beside me or something else. All I know is something is wrong. I want to go wake Round and ask if he feels it, too, but I don’t want to wake him if he’s tired. Instead, I look at the clock on the stove and watch the minutes tick by.
Thirty minutes pass before I pick up the bowl and take it to the sink. Letting the garbage disposal do its job, I quickly wash it out, set it on the drying rack, and head to the coffee pot. Round may not want to eat, but there is no way he won’t want a cup of coffee.
Leaving it to brew, I walk from room to room picking up the house. I even strip the sheets off the bed in the guest room, when I see that Trix and Boz’s youngest left a half-eaten piece of pizza in the bed the last time he stayed. By the time I get them loaded in the washer and a clean set of sheets on the bed, another thirty minutes have passed by. Realizing it’s been nearly two hours since I got out of bed, I head back to the kitchen.
It’s nearly eleven now, so we need to be getting to the clubhouse soon. I need to take care of this shit with Raine before the club fills up. If not, everyone will be around to watch what is going down. That won’t end well. The first time the bitch pops off, one of the brothers will take her ass out. I’ve been around the club whores long enough to realize the best way to handle one is to let her run her mouth, have one of the other girls kick her ass, and dump her outside of the club walls. It’s much easier to slap her around a bit and kick her out than to deal with a dead body on club property.
I fill two cups and head back to the bedroom. As soon as I step inside the room, a cold chill washes over my body. I look to the bed and see Round in the same spot he was in when I left, and the chill only intensifies. Walking around the bed, I stare down at him.
At first glance, he looks like he is sleeping peacefully. But when I look a little closer, I see his eyes are open and staring, unfocused, straight ahead. In an instant, fear unlike anything I have ever felt before fills me. The cups drop from my hands, scorching liquid covering my bare feet. I ignore the sting, climb onto the bed, and grab his arm.
“Baby, wake up!” I shout, shaking him ferociously. He doesn’t respond, doesn’t say a word. His eyes don’t even blink.
I push him to his back, shaking him again. “Please, Round. You have to wake up.”
Leaning down, I press my cheek against his lips in an attempt to see if he is breathing. I can’t feel anything, but I’m not sure. My ear goes to his bare chest next, hoping to hear a heartbeat. I don’t hear anything. Nothing, not a damn thing.
I try to think of everything I have learned about CPR. It’s not much, just what I’ve seen on TV. Getting on my knees beside him, I blow in his mouth and pump my hands over his heart. Counting to ten, I do it over and over with no response.
I’m not sure what I’m doing, not sure if it will help, but I have to do something. Round has to come back to me. Time passes, but I have no idea how long. The only thing I know is the man I love more than life itself is gone.
I finally fall across his chest and start screaming. “No, no, no! You can’t leave me!”
Knowing I have to make a call, I push myself up and place a kiss against his cold lips. My eyes stay locked on his for a second before I reach up and gently close them. After one more kiss, I force myself to sit up and reach for the phone.
“Just so you know, no one will ever be good enough for me. It’s not possible because there’s not another Round in this world,” I whisper before pushing 911 and putting my phone to my ear.
“911, what is your emergency?”
Letting out a sob, I cuddle into Round’s side. “My husband is dead.”