Quietly, he gave it to him.
“I actually do love her.”
That got him something.
“Next one you get, do better with that.”
Then Carson Steele hung up on him.
Aaron clenched his teeth.
Then he grabbed his glass, went down to the kitchen, poured another drink, and called his attorney.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Start
Joker
“I WILL, ANGIE. And thank you.” Pause then, “Right. I’ll call when I decide. Thank you again for everything. ’Bye.”
Carissa dropped her phone and looked to Joker.
“I don’t get it,” she declared.
Joker had been watching her lying on the couch, legs out, back up, talking on the phone while her son crawled all over her, alternately trying to eat her dress and the duck head toy he was dragging with him.
She might not get it.
But Joker got it.
Aaron Neiland had a soul.
Just barely, but he had one.
“Told you he phoned me, Carrie,” he reminded her quietly.
“I know. But he offered a settlement of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to see to Aaron’s care and upbringing while I quit work and go to school,” she announced.
Holy fuck.
Joker’s body got tight.
That jackhole didn’t get to take care of his girl.
If she wanted to quit and go to school, he could shove his money up his ass. Joker would take care of that for her.
He didn’t get a chance to say that since she kept talking.
“She also said that Aaron’s attorney told her that once I finish with school and start with my career, he’ll continue child support until Travis is eighteen, if I so wish. Any adjustments to that due to cost of living or Travis’s needs should be requested through my attorney and he’ll consider it. And if Travis goes to college, a decision about continued support and who’ll pay tuition and other expenses will be negotiated at the time.”
“Visitation?” Joker forced out.
“He feels Travis is coping with the current schedule and encourages me to allow it to remain the same without further negotiations.”
“And?” Joker asked.
“And what?” she asked back.
“What do you think of all this?” he prompted.
She threw up her phone hand then used it to catch her son before he rolled off her and the couch after he got too involved with banging her on the belly with his duck and lost balance.
“I don’t know what to think, sweetie.” It was a soft cry, probably so she wouldn’t freak Travis. “That meeting was nasty. I told you how nasty it was. Now this?”
“He had a change of heart.”
“Aaron doesn’t get those,” she muttered, putting both hands on Travis and setting him on the floor considering he was leaning that way and grunting.
Once on the floor, Travis boogied to where Joker was stretched out opposite her, pushed up to his knees and banged Joker on his hip with the duck.
Joker grabbed the kid and hauled him to his stomach.
He started crawling all over him.
“Then a miracle has happened,” he told her. “Roll with it. What else would you do?”
“I don’t want his money,” she was still muttering, her eyes on her boy.
“Carrie,” he called.
She looked to him. “I don’t.”
He hated the idea of her ex taking care of her.
But still, that was a shit-ton of money.
So it hurt, but for her, he had to ask, “Is that smart?”
“Maybe not, but, Joker, he was nasty. Or, his father was, and his father is an extension of him.”
“I get you, but—”
“LeLane’s hired me when I was pregnant,” she cut him off to say. “They work with my schedule as best as they can. They deserve loyalty. I want to be a stylist, but I want to make it so I’m a stylist. Not be giving some woman fabulous hair and thinking that Aaron was the one who made it so I could do that.”
Joker felt his lips twitch.
“So, I’ll take support,” she declared. “And he’s right. Travis is okay with this schedule, and if Aaron stops being a jerk, then it’ll settle even more for him because he’ll feel it’s settled for all of us. I’ll work for a while at LeLane’s, and with Travis’s support money coming in, save up for my own education. Once I’m there and I can give it to myself, I’ll go for it.”
“You’re turnin’ down a quarter of a million that, bottom line, that guy owes you, baby,” he said gently.
“I’m turning down guilt money that will make him feel better for being so mean to me,” she returned. “I don’t care if he feels better or not. I don’t care about him at all. I’ll take his support money for Travis because he’s Travis’s dad. Other than that, he doesn’t exist for me.”
He grinned at her.
“Your call,” he said.
“It is. Now, it’s time to feed my family. Are you doing the cooking and I’m doing Travis, or the other way around?”
“You ever gonna make that chili you promised me?”
She smiled at him. “Guess I’m doing the cooking.”
Joker smiled back then grabbed hold of her boy.
He dragged him up his chest as the kid squealed.
When he got him face to face, he said, “That means I get you.”
And for his troubles, he got clocked in the face with a duck.
* * *
Three weeks later, Joker was walking from Ride to the Compound when his phone rang.
He pulled it out, saw who was calling and put it to his ear.
“Yo, Lee.”
“You busy right now?”
“Nope,” he answered, seeing as he wasn’t. Carissa’s ex had Travis so she had an afternoon shift. He was done with what he wanted to get done on his new build that day, so he was headed to the Compound to have a few beers with his brothers.
“Need you at Children’s Hospital,” Lee told him.
Joker stopped dead.
“Why?”
“Callin’ a marker, brother,” Lee said quietly.
Fuck.
“I’m on my bike,” Joker told him.
“Maternity,” Lee replied.
Shit.
“Got it. I’ll be there.”
He shoved his phone in his pocket and went to his bike.
Then he rode to the hospital.
He hit maternity only to see Lee wasn’t alone.
Hank was with him.
“I’m here, what?” he asked when he stopped close.
“Need you to suit up,” Lee told him.
“What?”
Lee knocked on a door. It opened, a nurse peered out, looked at Joker, then raised her hand and crooked her finger.
Joker looked to Lee, to Hank, then to the woman.
He followed her.
Once inside the door, he suited up. Covers over his boots. Cut off and gown over his tee.
Once done, she led him to a room that had little domed cots.
She stopped beside one and he stopped with her, looked down, and stared at the tiniest baby he’d seen in his life. The kid couldn’t be bigger than his hand. He had tubes in his mouth and in his thin arm, cotton taped over his eyes, yellowed mocha skin, tufts of soft black curly hair.
“Preemie,” the nurse said softly. “Addict.”
Those two words sliced through his stomach, and Joker cut his eyes to her.
“She’ll be good,” she said. “She got this far, no stopping her now.”
Joker looked down at the baby, who was not a he but a she.
“Can she be held?” he asked.
“No, but she can be touched,” the nurse answered. “Through those holes in the sides. Let me get you a glove.”
She got him a glove.
Joker put on the glove, shoved through, and he was right. The kid was as big as his hand.
But she seemed so fragile, he hesitated to touch her. Instead, he pressed his finger to her palm.
And when he did, her fingers curled right around.
Tight.
“Told you she’ll be good,” the nurse muttered.
Joker stared at the baby girl, feeling something soak into him through his fingertip.
Then, gently he pulled his finger away and his hand out of the hole.
He nodded to the nurse and walked to the door. He took off the shit he’d put on and walked back into the hall.
“Do not fuck with me on this,” he growled to Lee.
“Woman came in, had the kid, took off. She barely hit recovery before she vanished. No one’s seen her since,” Hank told him. “It’s been a week and a half.”
Joker glared at him.
“She was high when she came in. Deserted her baby,” Hank went on.
“And how many people out there are in line for this kid?” Joker asked.
“None,” Hank stated.
“Mixed race,” Lee said quietly, and Joker narrowed his eyes at him, knowing that didn’t mean dick to people who wanted a kid. “Born preemie, addicted, serious shit, Joke. And all systems are go now, but no one has any clue what’s gonna happen with that kid. How she’ll grow up. How she’ll develop. There could be problems down the line, and those problems and their likelihood, those in line have backed off. That little girl needs someone special who can suck it up and don’t give a fuck what they’ll face, long’s they got a kid to love. Now, if we don’t find people who got it in ’em to give her a beautiful life anyway, she grows up in the system.”
“So what you’re sayin’ is, you want me to go to my high school history teacher who’s been through the wringer with his wife and offer up a kid with issues and a mom that’s disappeared?” he asked.
“You think for a second they’ll say no, then no, I don’t want that shit,” Lee returned.
“My guess, they won’t blink at the kid. But the mom has disappeared. She comes back—”
“She won’t come back,” Hank stated.
“If she comes back—” Joker started again.
“She won’t come back,” Lee said firmly.
Joker stared at him.
Then he asked, “Dad?”
“Dad’s out of the picture,” Hank said.
Fuck.
They knew the dad.
They also knew the mom.
They knew everything.
Fuck.
“How out of the picture?” Joker pushed.
“Very,” Hank told him.
Joker looked between the both of them.
Then he clipped, “I get their hopes up, shit goes south, we got a problem.”
“There won’t be any problems,” Lee replied inflexibly.
Joker took a beat.
Then he said, “You gotta give me twenty-four hours.”
“Why?” Lee asked.
“’Cause I gotta talk to Carissa,” he told him.
“Good call. She can back you up with your teacher,” Hank muttered.
Actually, he hadn’t thought of that. But he’d pull her in on that too.
What he’d thought of was little fingers curled around his own.
Tight.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “But gotta talk to her mostly because, they say no, I gotta know if she’s good takin’ on a baby who might have problems down the line.”
Lee’s head jerked, and Hank stared.
Joker walked away.
* * *
The next day, standing in the Compound, Carissa at his side, her hand tight in his, Joker stared at Keith Robinson, who stood, head bent, hand lifted and wrapped around the back of his neck.
They were the only ones in the room.
They waited.
He took his time.
Finally, he dropped his hand and looked at Joker.
“I can’t put my wife through it again.”
Joker nodded.
He’d given him the info, and he wasn’t surprised at his decision. The man loved his wife. Carissa went through what Keith watched his wife go through, Joker would make the same call.
“Then Carissa and I are takin’ her on.”
Keith blinked before his face changed.
“That’s honorable Carson,” he looked to Carissa, “Carissa, honey,” back to Joker, “but believe me when I say that if things turn, you fall in love in an instant, and hearts break very easily.”
“I’ve been assured by people who can do that that things won’t change,” Joker told him, repeating something he’d already shared.
“You think that and then—”
“Keith, you don’t get me,” Joker cut him off quietly. “These people would not have approached me if they didn’t know things would not change.”
Keith stared into his eyes.
Joker let him.
Carissa squeezed his hand and leaned into his arm.
“Maybe I should talk to my wife,” Keith whispered.
Carissa made a sound like she was fighting tears.
“Maybe you should,” Joker replied. “No pressure. Either way, that little girl will have a home. But you got my number. We’ll be at the hospital.”
Keith nodded and didn’t waste time after his handshake for Joker and letting Carissa touch her cheek to his before he took off.
“Do you pray?”
Carrie’s quiet question made him look down at her to see she was looking after Keith.
“No,” he answered.
Her gaze came to him.
“Start,” she whispered.
He looked in her eyes.
Then he started.
* * *
Joker was leaning his shoulders against a wall in the maternity ward at Children’s Hospital, watching Keith Robinson walk into a room with a physician and a CPS officer.
Carissa and Keith’s wife were suited up and in a room with the incubator, holding Keith’s new daughter.
The door closed on Keith, and when it did, Joker felt a whisper up the back of his neck.
He turned his head and instantly braced.
At the end of the corridor stood Knight Sebring.
Next to him was a woman Joker knew. She’d been on Chaos’s patch often. He’d ousted her a few times himself. She was a mouse, a flake, and an addict. She had no business being in the life. She was too weak. That life was going to chew her up, it was only a matter of time.
He hadn’t seen her in months, and he’d thought the life had chewed her up.
Now he saw she looked frail and tired, and was wearing a bulky hoodie and baseball cap pulled low over her forehead.
Knight tipped his head to the side.
Joker jerked up his chin.
Knight nodded.
The woman put her hand to her mouth and her body bucked as her face collapsed.
Knight put a hand to her back, turned her, and they disappeared.
So this wasn’t Lee’s deal.
It was Knight’s.
Which meant that woman had just disappeared, she did it safe, she’d do it clean. Knight was giving her a new life plus the knowledge her kid would be loved.
Joker drew in breath.
Then he looked at his boots and let it out.
* * *
Carissa sat next to him in his truck as they drove from the hospital.
“You know I love you?” she asked quietly.
“I know you love me, Carrie,” he answered the same way, squeezing her hand he held on his thigh.
She squeezed back.
They rode in silence.
She broke it with, “I want another one.”
“I know, Butterfly.”
“Soon,” she whispered.
He’d do soon. He would have planted one in her that night, but he’d been declared clean (something, for her, she’d already thought of, considering her ex had replaced her, and it was something that came as a matter of course through her care while having Travis) and she was now
on the Pill.
“We’ll do soon,” he promised.
That got him another squeeze.
“You want Las Delicias?” he asked.
“I do, but that’s our family place, you, Travis, and me,” she answered, and he felt his chest get light. “Why don’t we get a burger or something?”
“Whatever you want, Carrie,” he muttered.
She squeezed his hand again.
He drove her to My Brother’s Bar for a burger.
And after, he took her to Dairy Queen for a Blizzard.
* * *
“Joke!”
He turned his head at Lenny’s call, and at what he saw, Joker muttered, “’Scuse me,” to the photographer he was talking to.
Then he smiled as he walked through the garage to Carissa, who was wearing a sweet tank with shiny shit stitched on the front, sweeter jeans, and the high-heeled black ankle boots he’d fucked her in the night she keyed his father’s car.
She also had big hair, lots of makeup, and a huge, bright smile. The whole package meant Joker was fighting his dick getting hard as he made his way to her.
When she got close, she made that a more difficult struggle because she immediately wrapped her arms around him, pressed tight, and tipped her head back.
In return, he dipped his and slid his fingers into the back pockets of her jeans.
“I’m dressed as biker babe just in case Henry Gagnon happens to get a shot of me,” she announced. “I don’t want to let down the side.”
She couldn’t do that even if she was wearing that butt-ugly nightshirt he had thankfully not seen since he asked her to lose it.
“In other words, you couldn’t stay away,” he replied.
Her eyes sparkled as she pressed closer. “Wilde and Hay here to instigate their fabulous spread on my manly man biker and his brethren? No way.”
He grinned.
She kept talking.
“And I have two pieces of good news I had to share immediately,” she told him, saying the “two” and “immediately” on squeezes.
“Yeah?”
She launched in, “First, Megan called. She and Keith get to take Isadora home today.”
It had been just over two weeks since the decision had been made. They needed Isadora to gain weight, learn how to suck so she could feed, and have her blinders taken off.
Guess all that happened.
“Great news, Butterfly,” he murmured his understatement.
“Yes, amazing, and get this,” she went on. “Aaron called me.”