Page 32

King

“Gabby?” I call as I open the door to our place.

Our place.

Fuck, that sounds good. It fills me with a contentment I’m positive I’ve never experienced before. Of course, every day with Gabby seems to improve, which means tomorrow is already shaping up to be pretty damn spectacular.

I frown when she doesn’t answer. Normally when I get home in the evenings, Gabby is fixing dinner, or if she’s had a rough day, she’s lying on the couch with her feet up.

Sure, we’ve only been back from the trip to Cherokee for three days, but we’re settled in and I’m happy.

Gabby said she’s happy. I’d tried my best to keep my fingers on the pulse of her mood.

I sure as hell didn’t want to give her time to slip back into the haze of the past. It has been going pretty damn great.

We fell into being together in a way that is natural and very fucking satisfying.

Our nights are filled with exploring her body and getting her used to my touch.

She’s been getting braver and I’m very careful to let her know I’m good with anything she wants—which is the fucking truth.

“Gabby!” I yell again.

I’m not a man prone to panic, but it’s dark outside.

Her car is in the drive and the fact that she’s not here …

I push away the fear that’s trying to claw at me.

I’m just starting to settle in at the club.

I don’t know everything, but there are no big enemies out there.

There are no life-or-death club matters going on that would put my woman at risk.

Hell, even if they were, at this point, I’m not on the radar as part of the Savage crew.

So, they shouldn’t come after my old lady.

My old lady.

I smile. I doubt Gabby realizes I’ve claimed her as mine, but I have.

When she’s ready, she’ll have everything in me.

I’m not going to hold back. That’s the last thing I want to do.

When I make it to the utility room—which is really just a back porch that has been enclosed with a deck off of it—and finally take a breath as my gaze locks on Gabby, sitting on the back deck, looking up at the moon, sadness so thick on her face it’s painful to see.

She’s cradling her cell to her ear. Fuck .

I carefully open the door, not wanting to spook her.

“Okay, Mom. Yeah, that’d be good. Uh … yeah, tell Daddy I love him. No, it’s fine. I’m tired. You can tell him, though. Okay, bye.”

She takes her phone away from her ear, clicking it off.

“You okay, Sunshine?”

“My once-a-month, less-than-joyful phone call from Mom,” she explains, her voice matter of fact and far from joy.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I ask, walking over to her. I bend down, picking her up, then settle back in her chair, holding her in my lap as I kick my legs out over the banister. Gabby doesn’t even blink. She just leans against me, burying her face in the side of my neck.

“Mom’s broken. No, she’s shattered . It is done in such an intricately tortuous way that I don’t think she will ever find her way out of it. So, I don’t guess there’s much to talk about, King.”

“Your dad can’t help with some of that?”

She lets out a bitter sounding snort—that can’t be described as laugher at all.

“My father can only deal with his anger, King. He’s doing what he usually does, giving Mom his love, but he’s filled with his own anger and thoughts of vengeance that haven’t ended just because they ended the men who killed my brother.

He wants to find a way to bring the guy back and kill him all over again. ”

“That’s an emotion that I kind of understand, darlin’.”

“Yeah, except while doing it, you’d see to your family as well.”

“Gabby—”

“You definitely wouldn’t ignore your child for months because you blamed her. Would you, King?” she asks, looking up at me with tears in her eyes—tears that rip open my heart. I kiss them away, tasting the salty remnants of her anguish, wishing I could absorb it all into my body.

“None of what happened was your fault, Gabby. None of it .”

“It’s not even about that,” she whispers, her voice trembling so much she has to stop mid-sentence to take a breath.

“What’s it about?” I probe.

“Mom wants me to come home.”

“I can take you there to visit, sweetheart. We can go after our jellybean is born.”

She closes her eyes. “They don’t know I’m pregnant.”

My body almost turns into stone. I don’t move. Everything feels so intense and heavy, I’m not sure I could. “You haven’t told them? You could have the baby at any time. How do they not know?”

“That’s easy. Dad doesn’t want to look at me?—”

“Gabby …”

“No, that’s even wrong. He doesn’t want anything to do with me because he hasn’t spoken to me in over six months, either.

Every single call Mom asks if I want to talk to my father, and then explains that she’ll go get him if I do.

Then she’ll come up with some half-hearted excuse on how he left to give us privacy.

It’s all a lie, though. The truth is he doesn’t want to look at me, he doesn’t want to hear my voice, and he wishes I was dead and Diego was still alive. ”

“Fuck, sweetheart?—”

“What he doesn’t understand is I wish that, too, King.”

“No,” I growl, the burn of that hitting me so fucking deep that it takes my breath. Before I can say anything else, she shakes her head. It moves back and forth so furiously it must be painful. Her hands curl into my tee as her body trembles.

“Straight up. I’d trade my life for Diego’s in a heartbeat if he could be back here with his smile, that cocky voice of his, and the way he loved to chase everything in a skirt. I wouldn’t even blink. Hell, I’ve prayed for the chance, King. There’s nothing I can do.”

“Baby, stop,” I croon, holding her tighter.

“I would give anything to take his place,” she whispers. “There’s nothing I can do,” she finally repeats.

I brace my hands on each side of her neck.

I force her beautiful smoky blue eyes to look at me.

I hate the tears sliding from them, even acknowledging how beautiful and real that is to see.

There were times that being with Shelby made me feel like I was frozen out by her.

The woman compartmentalized all of her emotions to the tiniest sliver of one.

Hell, sometimes having sex that she seemed completely distanced during it.

Looking back now, all those red warning flags mock the shit out of me.

I’m lucky I got out of that marriage before my dick froze off while fucking her.

“You need to stop. Your brother would not want this for you. I didn’t know him, but I know that any man in the same type of life I’m in knows the danger he’s courting.

He knows what could happen and honestly, baby, that’s part of what feeds his hunger for this life.

You live every day as your last. You do it minute by minute and you get off on that thrill. I know that’s twisted, but it’s true.”

“That’s not who you are,” she argues at once.

“It’s not now, but it was. Once you settle into the life, you find your brothers, you find your family, and you find a good woman.

Then, you have a new mission. You live every day as it's your last, but you do it knowing you are protecting those you care about, a world you love and a family that you are a part of. I know this because I may have been lost for a while, but I’m coming back to myself.

I’m coming back and I’m settling into a world here with men I like, people I respect, and a good woman who I fucking want to keep in my life. ”

“King—”

“I know losing your brother has killed you inside, baby, but I need you to hear me.”

“I’m hearing you,” she whispers

“No, sweetheart. I need you to really listen and take it in. Your brother wouldn’t want you saying this shit. He waded into that war because it was who he was. It was to help you because I know he loved you.”

“You can’t know that. You didn’t?—”

“I met him. We didn’t talk, but I noticed the type of man he was.

I also know because you’ve let me past your walls and I’ve seen the real you, Gabby.

You can’t help but love the woman you are.

I also know that no man would give up his life and want someone he cared about wishing they’d been the one to die.

He’d want you to live happy, and he’d want you to concentrate on building a life you loved not only for you, but for jellybean, too.

” I let my thumb drift against the soft skin of her cheek, pulling her face closer and leaning down so our foreheads touch.

“It’s going to be okay. Your parents are lost right now, but they’ll come out of it.

You’re scared, but together we’re going to steer you out of that, too. ”

“I wake up every day feeling like half a person,” she admits, and the pain in those words strikes another blow inside me.

“Baby—”

“Then, I look at you and I wonder why a man like you—a good man down to his bones—wants to even spend time with someone like me.”

“You don’t get this, but I look at you and I see a woman who understands me. A woman who makes me feel …”

“Feel what?” she whispers.

“Settled,” I tell her and want to wince at my choice of words.

Women want flowery shit, I know that. They want to hear how they make the world better for their man and how happy they make them.

Yet when I look at Gabby, the one word that hits me over and over is …

settled. Gabby has no idea that to a man who never had a real home or a woman in his life that he could depend on—feeling settled is like being in heaven.

I watch as she does a slow blink. Yeah, I was right. She has no idea. I start to explain, but she grins at me and anything I would have said dies on the tip of my tongue.

“I never imagined in all my life I’d like it when a man says he feels settled around me,” she murmurs.

I use my fingers to brush away the remnants of her tears. “That’s not a bad thing, Sunshine,” I try to reassure her.