33.

Beau

Seven months later…

“Come on darlin’, you got this.”

“No. I don’t,” she cries. Yes cries. Squeezin’ my hand so tight, my eyes tear. “I don’t got this Beau. Get them to turn back on the epidural. Pleeeaaassseeee!”

“Can’t Elise,” Dr. Brennan tells her, her voice full of authority.

“Yes you can! My husband is a scary badass biker who will fuck your world! Turn the goddamned epidural back on!”

“Baby’s crowning,” the doctor tells her.

“Fuck. Your. World.” She yells right as Dr. Brennan pulls at my hand not bein’ crushed by my wife.

“Come, Beau. Your baby’s head is out.”

Uh… I thought my job was to stay by my wife’s head lettin’ her crush the circulation from my fingers. Not sure I can deal with—that thought gets cut right the hell off as the doctor drops my hand only to force my head around and down to see my kid squeezing out of my beautiful wife.

Shit that looks painful.

Not for the first time in this pregnancy, I shoot a thank you to the universe that I’m not the one in her place, especially now on the bed with her feet planted against the mattress baring down. I’m a big man. I can only assume…

“Arms out Hollister.” The doc orders. Then she forces my hands to grip my kid’s shoulders, and together we pull him or h—holy hell it’s a him!

“It’s a him,” I tell my wife. “It’s a him darlin.”

“A him,” she whispers, sounding absolutely spent.

***

Elise’s been out for a while. Me and my boy been spendin’ some quality father-son time bondin’. He’s learned a lot so far. How his mama and I met. How he’s the first legacy born to the club in years. I thought babies squirmed a lot, but not him. This little guy seems content to just be held in his daddy’s arms.

“Never thought we’d get here,” my wife surprises me, murmuring into the darkened room.

“Hey baby girl. How you doin’?”

“Better.”

She presses the remote button to move her bed into a more seated position.

I stand from the chair me and boy have occupied to move to her bedside. I can read her look clearly and slide him from my arms to hers, kissing her first and then placing a gentle one to the top of his head. She kisses his head, too.

“We have a family, Beau. Can you believe it?”

“Yeah darlin’ I can. You gave this to me. I knew the day I met you in front of the Whippy Dip, if I was ever lucky enough to be here, it’d be with you.”

Before she can respond to my confession, there’s a soft knock on the door.

“Open,” she calls. And there, the rest of our family, Tommy, Maryanne, Chaos, Livvy, Sneak, Trisha, Carver, Blood, Duke, Scotch, Blue, Blaze, Levi and even Crass pile into our little room. Blue, Blaze and especially Levi wearing full patches. Fuck if they hadn’t earned ‘em.

Especially Levi. Took bullets for my woman. Sacrifice like that forges a bond never forgotten.

I heard the gunfire. We were close to the rendezvous point. Tommy next to me, I took off running toward the sound of the shots only to see him drop. I went cold but pushed on, hoping to get to Elise in time. Houdini already had her on the one car ferry, the driver shot dead.

“Logan,” I called out to him. He stilled, and I didn’t know where to look, to him or to Tommy bent over a prone Levi trying to save his life. I made the choice. “Lo, come on. You don’t gotta do this. Let her go. I won’t come after you, just let her go.”

“Don’t know who you’re talkin’ to, Logan’s dead Boss. Don’t you remember?”

And as he pulled Elise in front of him to shield him from my bullets aimed in his direction, I knew he was right.

Logan was dead.

While we hunted Houdini and Elise, Levi fought for his life. We’d gotten to him in time for Tommy to call it in, air vaccing him up to Cincinnati where they rushed him into surgery. Then the waiting began. He’d stayed on life support for a few days. Once we’d found Elise and she’d been checked out and cleared by a doctor, she refused to leave his bedside.

Since I refused to leave her side, we spent our first week of marriage in a hospital room.

Didn’t matter, she was safe in my arms.

Dr. Brennan was another new addition. She came to town before the wedding. Thornbriar needed a new doctor, she said she’d been passing through and decided to stay. Convenient since Elise couldn’t leave the compound. She’s pretty. Curly, naturally red hair and bright green eyes. The hair she always keeps pulled back in a bun, even when we’d see her at the grocery store. And her eyes are always assessing. Not sure what she thinks of the club, but if she had any prejudices, she never lets on. And the woman shows no fear, even in the face of my wife threatening her badass biker would fuck her world.

“Hey guys,” Elise says warmly, through her smile. “Come on in.”

Liv takes up position next to Elise’s head, placing her hand on Elise’s shoulder. “He’s beautiful, sweetheart. Just beautiful.”

“Yeah…” Elise’s eyes go dreamy. “Everyone, I’d like to introduce you to Gunner Levi Hollister.”

“Gunner?” Chaos stumbles over boy’s name like he can’t quite figure out the taste. “Where’d you come up with that?”

Elise stares down, smiling at our son and then turns that smile up towards Crass.

“That…uh…that’d be me…” he grumbles to the laughter of the group.

“You want to hold him?” she asks Crass. “Beau, let him hold him.”

I take our boy from her arms, handing him gently over to his namesake, Gunner “Crass” Duncan.

As he stares down at my Gunner, Crass says, “That boy is the spitting image of his daddy.”

I respond by takin’ my boy back and holding him up against Crass so their faces are flush next to each other, and search back and forth between them.

“Yeah,” I growl. “And when I find the fucker, I’m gonna fuckin’ kill’ em.”