Page 10 of Zeppelin (Satan’s Angels MC #9)

Ginny

I didn’t know the second that I got pregnant, but I knew within two weeks. Most people say it takes at least six to feel sick, but I got the exhaustion and nausea right from the start. As soon as my period was late by a day, I just knew .

It’s wild how fast you can get used to waking up at all hours of the night with wicked acid crawling up your throat, belly spinning, head pounding, sheets soaked and twisted.

I wake up into the early gray of morning. We’re slowly creeping towards the longest day of the year, but it’s still over a month away. It gets somewhat light around five, but it’s not quite there yet. The window to the right of my bed is spattered with raindrops.

After inhaling a shuddering breath against the nausea climbing up my throat and the acid already burning there, I release my breath and take another.

I slow it down and deep breathe, hoping that I’m not going to have to race to the bathroom.

I focus on the drumming rain against the shingles, the sound of birdsong ushering in the sunrise that’s yet to come.

My grandpa built this house for my grandma. She wanted large rooms and lots of them, so it’s a bigger house than most, with two bedrooms upstairs, and two on the main floor. Bronte’s room has been somewhat converted into a guest room over the past few months, and that’s where Zeppelin is staying.

My stomach refuses to settle so I sit up, careful not to disturb Freckle, the tiny tortie, and Moonstone, the huge gray cat, curled up at the foot of my bed.

It was a late night last night. I waited until we were having dessert at the table, even though the anxiety pretty much slayed me, to tell my family about the baby.

My mom cried. My poor dad was confused. Gabe didn’t know what to make of it, but he did look like he wanted to leap across the table and pummel Zeppelin, for no reason at all except that he’s Jack’s twin and if Gabe can’t get to Jack, then he might as well take out his frustration on the next best option.

There were a thousand questions, a whole lot of worry, and more tears.

I made sure that my family didn’t bombard Zeppelin and I got my brother calmed down.

Zep has honestly been nothing but kind. He was unnaturally quiet—not surprising given the chaos that ensued for over an hour after I dropped my news—but when it died down, he assured my family he’d do what he could to support me in any way I needed.

He quietly told them how he wanted to be a better man for the baby.

They were all just coming around to my confidence in raising a child basically on my own, albeit with Zeppelin’s help too, when I asked about the farmhouse.

My dad and brother tried every argument they could think of to dissuade me, but my mom finally stepped in and said that if it was what I wanted and it was feasible, then she didn’t see why I couldn’t make a household of my own.

I’d be fifteen minutes away on a slow drive.

My dad had painstakingly kept the house from going to ruin and Mom thought it might as well see some living and loving under its roof again.

I’ve never been more thankful for open-minded parents.

Thinking about it now, and my plans for the future, distracts me for a few seconds from my tossing stomach.

Fresh air helps.

I slip off the bed and walk to the window to crank it open.

It was too late to call Bronte last night, but I’m going to do it this morning. She won’t mind that I’m not there to tell her in person. Well, maybe she will a little, but she’s practical, and video chatting with her is the next best thing to being together.

It’s lighter now, but the sun is still just a suggestion behind the trees lining the yard.

My mom will be up soon, out doing chores in the barn.

After Bronte left, I started taking care of breakfast and packing lunches for my dad and Gabe.

I go out after they’re gone and collect eggs.

Late morning, my mom and I do chores together, and afternoons are either spent prepping for markets, gardening, or doing other chores.

I startle, edging back from the window, nearly stumbling over my own feet. I grasp the windowsill, blinking rapidly to ensure that I’m not seeing things.

The dark shape standing in the middle of the yard isn’t a bear or a cow that’s broken out of the pasture.

My heart lurches to see the rain falling down around the tall man. It’s not pouring, but it’s not all that warm out at night yet, and it’s more than just a drizzle. The treetops bend and sway at the edge of the yard. The wind is probably ice cold.

How long has Zeppelin been standing out there, wearing only a t-shirt and jeans?

His hair doesn’t flutter in the wind. It’s slicked against his skull. His shirt is slicked down against the muscles in his broad back and shoulders.

My stomach flips. Can’t he feel the cold? Doesn’t he care? Why is he outside in the wet, and how long has he been out there? Is it really so unbearable in here, warm and dry? Does he need the surface pain to drown out the demons that live below his skin?

I tear out of my room, my rocky stomach forgotten. Throwing open the linen closet, I reach to the top shelf, where all the old quilts are folded for moving something or for a picnic, or the beach.

I dash downstairs, only stopping in the mudroom to throw on my raincoat over my pajama pants and tank top and shove my feet into my rubber boots.

I don’t know what happened in the garden.

Some kind of floodgates opening. I imagine that he’s been shoving down a lot of stuff since he was young, but especially since Jack died.

The slow leak likely gave way to a flood, and the whole thing just burst wide open.

I wasn’t unnerved. I’m no stranger to men having emotions.

My parents have always protected us from the hard parts of life, but he was never afraid to show us what he was feeling.

My brother is tough as they come, but he’s sensitive too.

Above all, he’s loyal and kind. He’d do anything for us, and he does.

I don’t believe men have to be closed off and unavailable to be masculine. You can be full of testosterone, you can even be deadly, or be a badass, you can be tough as boot leather on the inside and the outside, but you can still mourn. You can cry. You should cry.

Zeppelin didn’t even seem to know what was happening when he broke down.

It seemed like he’d been swimming, fighting huge waves and nasty currents for so long that he was just tired and got sucked under.

That one big wave swamped him, pulled him down, dragged him through it.

There was no fighting it anymore. Only surrender.

I know what that costs a man like him, and seeing it happen in real time right in front of me, my only instinct was to comfort him. My family is big on hugs, so that’s what I did. I didn’t know what else to do. He put distance between us after, but it was more of a polite and respectful space.

“Zeppelin?” He doesn’t turn around.

Did he hear me coming? Does he even hear me? Has my voice cut through his turmoil and whatever he’s battling?

I don’t want to startle him and have him react badly. I bite down on the inside of my cheek and suck in a breath before I try again.

“Zeppelin. What are you doing out here? It’s raining and it’s cold.” The breeze cuts through my clothing, and even as I say the words, my teeth chatter.

He angles around, staring through vacant eyes, water sluicing down his face. His lashes are dark clumps, his hair matted to his skull. Rivulets of water trickle down his temples, his nose, his chin, eventually catching in his beard.

I should have brought towels too.

I unfold the quilt. It’s twin sized at best. When I flip it over Zeppelin’s powerful shoulders, it barely covers any of him.

He doesn’t blink. He doesn’t shiver. He stands there, frozen. Is he so cold on the inside that the outside doesn’t even matter? I don’t know what’s happening, but I can see that it’s painful for him.

I don’t know how my hands fall away from the blanket to cup his face, but somehow they’re there, stroking down his frigid cheeks, caressing his drenched beard.

My gut spasms as his eyes slowly focus, like he was deep inside himself, lost even, and he’s just fully coming back.

My mom has said more than once that looking into the eyes of a person who means something to you and noting how they reflect joy, light, life, and love back at you because they see all the goodness in you even when you can’t see it in yourself, is one of the most precious blessings in life.

I stumble back, raking my hand through his beard and tugging too hard before I catch myself. I blink, sure that I didn’t mean to see that or think it. I can give Zeppelin a fraction of that because he needs it. He’s not a bad man and someone should tell him that until he believes it.

I saw how he looked at my mom every time she gave him a tender word.

He has the rough love of men all around him, but has he ever known anything soft and tender?

Did he have a family? What was his life like growing up?

I keep getting the feeling that it was basically just him and Jack, and if that was true, how much worse is losing him and plunging headlong into that feeling instead of icing himself off from it so he doesn’t have to feel anything at all?

My heart picks up as a violent shiver rocks me.

I blame the cold. I blame it for the tingles that rip through my upper thighs and peak my nipples under the thin tank and raincoat.

I blame it for imagining me holding a soft, precious newborn, a child who will undoubtedly be the love of my life and the most precious thing in the world, and sharing that with the man right in front of me so that we both feel whole.

My stomach flips and flops, spinning a little sickeningly.