Page 5 of Carver (Satan’s Angels MC #8)

Once they start, the waterworks streak silently down my cheeks.

This is all a lot. My family usually goes to Seattle for supplies, so I’ve only been to Hart once before.

The thought of having to fight my way through a bunch of big, burly bikers to get to the man I love.

Finding him and somehow reaching him . Enduring the pain right beside him, cracking another line down the middle of my heart.

The worst part is the thought of leaving my daughter.

I’ve never been away from her overnight before.

She’s had my family around her all her life, and often, my mom or my sister helped out at night.

I don’t know what I would have done without my family, and I know they’ve got this, but it’s still just so… hard .

I try not to think about it for the rest of the drive, and when I get home, I focus all my attention on Elowen.

She’s been crawling for a few months, and now she pulls herself up on everything, so she thinks it’s great fun to stand using the aid of the bed and watch me put a few changes of clothes into my backpack.

I make it a game for her, pulling funny faces and babbling in our made up language until she roars with that beautiful baby laughter.

We pack the truck together, along with my mom.

When it’s time to hand my daughter over, my heart cracks and splinters, but I force myself to keep smiling so Elowen won’t know that anything is wrong.

I inhale her familiar baby scent and brush a kiss over her dark, downy hair.

I make a big production of peek-a-boo with her while my mom holds her flailing, excited little body.

As soon as I get into the truck, I roll down the window and wave madly.

My mom and Elowen both wave back.

She’s used to me going out for short amounts of time to run errands. She doesn’t lose her smile or break into hysterics. As long as my mom or Ginny is around, she won’t have any trouble with separation anxiety.

My brother and dad will spoil her extra when they get back from the fields too.

I keep waving and waving, smiling until my cheeks hurt, until I’m down the long driveway and at the main road. I still wave, but roll up the window quickly so the gravel dust doesn’t come rushing in to choke me.

This.

This is what it means to be a mother.

It means doing the hard stuff, even when it’s unthinkably painful. It means trying to make a better world for your child. It means protecting them from harm and mending their hearts before they have a chance to break.

Elowen is just a baby, but she won’t always be. One day, she’ll ask where she came from. She’ll want to know who her father is.

I’ll always love Dominic with every fiber of my being. There’s no part of me that would ever have given up on him and let him go. But having Elowen makes it more important than ever that I connect with him in Hart.

And finally tell him the truth.

***

The clubhouse belonging to the Satan’s Angels is a big brick building.

It has a warehouse-y, industrial look to it.

It’s a squat building, square and one level.

I know I’m in the right place because there’s a massive metal sign over the front door, one of those machined types that has Satan’s Angels cut out of it in bold, scrawling letters.

There are also two large sculptures by the door, I recognize them as Dom’s.

They’re so beautiful that my chest swells until it hurts.

The front door is metal and looks strong enough to survive a bomb blast. It’s around dinner time.

When I drove past, I noted all the bikes lined up in a chain link compound affixed to the side of the building.

The razor wire along the top gives the place a distinctly unfriendly vibe, but I bang on the door anyway. I wait a few minutes and knock again.

No one answers.

I try a third time, and when the door doesn’t magically open for me, I stalk back down the sidewalk and grab the folded lawn chair out of the back of the truck.

Mom packed sandwiches, so I grab the lunch bag too. I set up camp right in the middle of the lush lawn. It’s neatly cut and so green that the place probably has underground sprinklers.

Twenty minutes later, after eating the sandwich I brought, I tuck the lunch bag back into the front seat and get out a book. Returning to my lawn chair, I plop down and start to read.

In the past, even during the worst moments, I had no trouble losing myself in a book.

The first few minutes might have been rough, but if I pushed through, I was gone.

That’s the beauty of reading. It takes you outside yourself for a while.

You get to visit all sorts of different worlds, places, and times.

I can’t lose myself now. I’m very well aware of my surroundings.

The clubhouse isn’t on the edge of the small city, but it’s not near downtown either.

There are plenty of other warehouses in the area, peppered with stores and shops too.

This corner lot doesn’t see a lot of traffic, at least not on a Monday evening.

I cross my legs to shift position. My back is starting to hurt, and my ass and legs are getting numb. If I wait much longer, I’ll have to find a bathroom somewhere, but I’m going right back.

I lower the book in my lap and set my fingers on the page to save my spot.

My dad moved away from the family farm when he was in his twenties.

He had two older brothers who were supposed to take it over, but they had a falling out with their father and left him alone to farm the land himself.

My grandpa did that until he was diagnosed with dementia.

My uncles both had families, one in Florida and the other in New York, and neither of them were in a position to move back.

My dad was working for an oil and gas company as a corporate lawyer.

We had a nice house in Seattle, and I’d say we were settled and happy, but to my parents, family came first.

My parents packed us up and moved back out here. They rented the house fully furnished. It meant that my dad had to give up his career, but he doesn’t see that as a sacrifice. Just a change.

Gabriel was eleven, I was nine, and Ginny was five.

My mom had plenty on her hands making a big adjustment like that, learning to become a farm wife, and raising three kids, but she also nursed my grandpa in his final years.

Unlike in Seattle, we didn’t go to school.

My mom also homeschooled us. She wanted to be home as much as possible with my grandpa.

Even if he couldn’t remember who we were exactly, it was important to her that we were in his life.

Having us at home also allowed us to learn the farm and help with the chores. My grandpa didn’t just farm the land. He had animals too.

We didn’t end up going to school for years. We loved homeschooling. My mom and dad were excellent teachers. They both have law degrees. Mom was about to go back to work when we moved to the farm, and Dad had to give up his job, but they’ll always have that education.

It was Dad who argued that Gabriel should go to school for grades ten, eleven, and twelve, so that it would be easier for him to get into college if he wanted to.

And since Gabriel was going, that meant we had to go too.

We didn’t really, but he put up such a fuss about it, that my parents caved and wouldn’t allow Ginny and I to be at home.

Gabriel is a farm boy through and through.

He says he’ll never go to college, but Dad always says that never is a dumb word and preparation never hurt anyone.

I remember the first day I ever saw Dominic Hale. I didn’t know then what he’d mean to me, but I swear I knew he was special.

Dominic was so quiet. He was a tall kid, but way too thin. He was obviously a loner. The school was just big enough that we didn’t have all our classes together, but I never saw him hang out with anyone. He didn’t appear to have friends. At lunch time, he ate alone.

He’d sit in the school’s lunchroom with a pile of books on the table in front of him.

History, art, language, novels. He’d lose himself in them.

When he wasn’t reading, he sketched in an old notebook.

Since I was fascinated by him, entranced and enchanted after just a few days, I’d covertly observe him.

He didn’t always have clean clothes, and he almost never had lunch. I wondered why no one noticed. I did.

It was a few weeks before I got up the courage to go and sit at his empty table one day.

I’d packed a double lunch. I sat down and silently pushed it over to him.

So he couldn’t make it about pride, I told him my name, said I thought he was interesting, and if I was being honest, hot, and then I touched him.

My hand shot out and covered his, though covered isn’t the right word.

Even back then, Dom’s hands were massive.

I picked it up, told him it was beautiful, and then leaned forward all the way across the table and kissed his palm.

I curled his hand tight around him so he could keep that with him always.

Yeah.

I didn’t exactly believe in being subtle.

Eleven years later, not much has changed. Here I am, ready to play the long game, trying to ignore the fact that I have to pee, and unless I get up soon to stretch out and pace, both my feet are going to go to sleep.

I finally give up, walk a few paces to stretch out the aching soreness in my muscles, then go and bang on the clubhouse door again.

No one answers. Big surprise.

I pack up my lawn chair and book, but only so that I can go and find a washroom in a convenience store a few blocks over. I buy a water because I feel terrible for just using their facilities, and head straight back.

I pop up the chair, get my book, and get ready to do this all night if I have to.

***

I don’t know how long I sit there reading, but it starts to get dark before I hear the first signs of life.