“Deacon, I’m not fucking playing, man. I need your ass out here. Now!”
When I pulled away, Cheyenne mewled in frustration, her legs scissoring for friction. She’d been close before we were interrupted. Craning my neck toward the door, I shouted, “If this isn’t a matter of life or death, I will cut your fucking balls off!”
“It is,” came Rev’s muffled reply.
“Motherfucker,” I grumbled, as I slid off the bed. Snatching up my T-shirt and jeans, I put them on in record speed. When Cheyenne started to get up, I shook my head. “You stay just like that.”
With a sly smile, she spread her legs and ran her fingers teasingly over her pussy. “Just like this?”
“Yeah, but don’t get yourself off while I’m gone. I’m the only one who gets to do that.”
She scowled at me just before I turned to head to the door. When I threw it open, Rev shot me a disgusted look. “For fuck’s sake, man, wipe your mouth and fix your hair a little.”
Instead of arguing that I didn’t give two shits what anyone thought of my appearance, I licked my lips to savor Cheyenne a little longer. Then I dragged my arm across my mouth. As we started down the hall, I jerked a hand through my hair to try to tame the mess that Cheyenne had made.
When I rounded the corner, a silver-haired Hispanic woman came into view. Her apprehension of being in the clubhouse was rolling off her in waves. Her dark eyes darted from left to right, and she nervously fidgeted with her flowing, multicolored skirt. I couldn’t imagine what was so fucking important about this woman to interrupt a fuck-fest.
When her gaze landed on me, her hand flew to her throat. Her expression appeared as someone who had seen a ghost. I glanced from her to Bishop. His usual poker face had been abandoned for one of disbelief. It wasn’t something I was used to seeing. I cocked my brows at him, and he slowly shook his head.
After exhaling a frustrated breath, I asked, “Now, what is so fucking important I had to be dragged out here?”
“You David Malloy?” she asked in a thick accent. Even though she had asked the question, I could tell she already knew exactly who I was.
“Sí, señora,” I replied, crossing my arms over my chest.
Hearing her native tongue didn’t impress her. Instead, she shot me a disapproving look, like I was being a giant smartass, and she was probably right.
“You know Lacey?”
I snorted contemptuously. “Don’t tell me she sent you to try to get some money out of me or something. I cut ties with that bitch five years ago.”
“I no friend of hers.”
“Then what the fuck do you want?”
Behind me, Rev coughed his disapproval for my hostile tone, and I rolled my eyes. “Why are you here about Lacey?” I asked.
“She dead.”
I didn’t like it that my chest tightened at the news. Lacey King had been my first love—my only real love, if I was honest. We were together for three years. Her occasional drug use and drinking hadn’t been an issue when we first started dating, but after her mother died in a car accident, it morphed into a true addiction. When I refused to give her any drug money, she started fucking some guys in one of our rival clubs. Because of my love for her, I didn’t kick her to the curb when I found out. No, I paid for her to go to rehab. She got out, and we had one good month together. During those few weeks, I actually thought of making her my old lady.
And then she fell off the wagon with alcohol. I told her it was either the alcohol or me—she chose the alcohol and left. That had been five years ago, and I hadn’t heard anything from her since. Until now.
“Let me guess. She OD’d or died of alcohol poisoning?”
The woman slowly shook her head. “She murdered.”
My brows rose in surprise. “By who?”
“Police, they don’t know,” she replied. But from the fear that burned in her eyes, I knew there was more to the story than she or the authorities were letting on. “I bring you something of hers.”
“Trust me, there’s nothing of hers I want.”
“You want this. It is yours, too.”
I racked my brain, trying to think if there was something that Lacey had taken from me all those years ago. But I kept drawing a blank. Then, for the first time, I saw there was someone with the woman. A tiny, dark-haired girl was hidden within the many folds of the woman’s skirt. “Willow, come out.”
The moment the little girl stepped into my line of sight, I felt like I’d been hit by a fucking lightning bolt. My body shuddered from the aftershocks. It was as if I were looking at the female version of myself when I had been that age. “Fuck me.”
“This belongs to you. Willow, she your daughter.”
At that moment, the room tilted and spun, and if it hadn’t been for Rev behind me, I probably would have done a pansy-ass thing like fucking passing out. I momentarily leaned on his strength until I could recover. Although the physical evidence showed that the kid was mine, I immediately went on the defensive. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. I don’t have any fucking kids.”
Wide-eyed, the little girl stared up at me. From her expression of wonderment, I knew she was putting the pieces together. Regardless of my denial, she knew the truth—I was her father. As I glared down at her, an unwanted feeling of pride coursed through my veins.
Mine.
I’d created the angelic-looking thing before me. As I mentally counted the months and years in my mind, I couldn’t help but think she had been conceived during that one perfect month with Lacey. We’d fucked morning, noon, and night, so I guess it wasn’t hard to imagine I’d knocked her up. I’d certainly been barebacking, and she was off all meds. I guessed now that had included her birth control.
The woman reached into the large bag on her shoulder. After taking out a piece of paper, she thrust it at me. “You on Willow’s birth certificate,” she argued.
Just hearing the girl’s name caused a stabbing pain to shoot through my chest straight to my heart. Willow … My daughter’s fucking name was Willow. The first time Lacey and I had ever fucked was under one of the willow trees in the field down the hill from the compound. Before we’d fucked, we’d sat under one for hours, talking and laughing. Like a lovesick pussy, I’d even carved our initials into one of the trees. Then everything had gone to fucking hell, but she’d remembered enough to name our daughter something meaningful.
“Look,” the woman instructed, flashing the paper in front of my face.
I grabbed it from her and stared down at it. There it was in bold, black ink. Under “Father’s Name” was David Malloy. What the fuck had Lacey been thinking? She’d put my name on a legal document, yet she’d never fucking picked up a phone to tell me I had a kid? There were a thousand things I wanted to scream at her at that moment, but I couldn’t. I’d never get to have the answers I so desperately sought, because she was dead. Worst of all, she’d been murdered. What the hell had she gotten herself into?
Even with the evidence before me, I still replied, “Yeah, well, I still want a DNA test.”
Rev’s strong hand gripped my shoulder. “There’s no doubt in hell she’s yours, Deacon.”
I jerked my head to glare at him. “And if she is, what the hell am I supposed to do with a kid?”
He pinned me with a hard stare. “You’ll do the responsible thing and try to raise her.”
“Fuck that!” I shouted before tossing the birth certificate back at the woman. Without another word, I turned and stalked out of the bar. There was no way in hell I could stay there one more minute. Suffocating panic had invaded my body.
Lacey was dead—she’d been murdered. I had a kid—a daughter I had no fucking idea what to do with. A boy would have been one thing, but a girl? You had to be tender and sweet to girls. I didn’t have a tender or sweet bone in my fucking body.
My out-of-control thoughts sent me sprinting down the dirt road. My heavy boots kicked up a cloud of dust behind me. When I reached the last
row house on the left, I threw open the door without even a hello. Now retired, my mother spent her days volunteering with her church. But she was always home by five, because she wanted to watch fucking Little House on the Prairie.
Her blue eyes appraised me from her seat on the couch. She rose to her feet, beckoning me to her. “David, what’s wrong?” she questioned, fear resonating in her voice. From her expression, I could tell she was envisioning a hundred different scenarios involving the death of Rev or Bishop.
Although I wanted to put her out of her misery, I couldn’t. I couldn’t move—I was frozen to the fucking floor. I didn’t know how to break the news to her. I just knew I wanted her to somehow make it all right. “I have a kid,” I finally blurted.
Relief flickered through her eyes, and she momentarily raised her face to the ceiling as if she was thanking God that her boys were safe. For now.
When she looked to me, her brows rose in surprise. “Cheyenne’s pregnant?”
I scowled at the assumption. My mother sure as hell didn’t approve of my fucking around, and she didn’t care very much for Cheyenne. She wanted me to find a nice girl to settle down with to make babies, not knock up the club whore who’d been on her back in all the guys’ beds. But I could tell she would swallow all her negative feelings if there was a baby involved—a grandbaby for her.
“Talk to me, David,” she instructed.
Finally able to move, I picked one foot up and then the other to close the gap between us. As bitchass as it sounds, just the feel of her hand on my arm brought me so much comfort. With a sigh of both anguish and contentment, I let her pull me into her arms. And even though I had the most amazing woman before me, I couldn’t help letting my thoughts go to my birth mom.
Hers was the sad tale of a good girl who’d gotten involved with the wrong man. She’d been a warm, nurturing mother who kissed my cuts and scrapes and wrapped me in her arms when I had nightmares. She just hadn’t planned on my abusive old man getting out of prison, hunting us down, and then strangling her one night when I was seven.
She went in the ground, he went to jail, and I went into the system. From there, I ricocheted from one shithole to another. The anger and violence I’d inherited from my old man started surfacing when I hit puberty, and that’s when I went out on my own. Yeah, a thirteen-year-old kid couldn’t do much for himself on the streets but steal … and fight.
The ring is where Preach found me. Big for my age, I fought illegally in an underground circuit. For six months, I lived a hand-to-mouth existence, busting noses and cracking jaws, thinking no one in the fucking world cared about me. But I was wrong.
Fate is a funny motherfucker. Once upon a time, my mother had attended Preach’s church. In fact, Preach and Mama Beth had hidden her and me from my father when he was on one of his drunken rampages before he was sent to prison. We’d run away in the middle of the night when my mother found out he was being released. It was probably the worst thing she could have done. She might still be alive today if she had stayed. After all, we had shelter and protection when we were with Preach.
The angry part of me wanted to tell Preach to go fuck himself when he offered me his home. I had no love for holy men like him. As if he sensed that, he had rolled up his sleeves to show me his heavily tattooed arms. He’d given me his story—the good, the bad, and the ugly—and I never looked back. I once again returned to Preach’s house. He then legally adopted me, and I became the oldest of the Malloy boys. For the most part, Rev and Bishop didn’t give me too much shit. Sure, we got into a few scuffles and scrapes. You can’t add in a teenager to a family with a nine- and six-year-old and not expect problems.
Mama Beth’s small hand on my shoulder brought me back into the present. “Speak to me, son.”
I pulled away to stare into her questioning eyes. “Lacey is dead. Murdered.”
A tiny gasp escaped her lips. It had been five years since Lacey had been a part of my life, but Mama Beth knew her significance. “I’m so sorry.”
“There’s more,” I croaked.
“Sit down, honey,” she instructed, leading us over to the couch. Once I collapsed down on the worn sofa, I put my head in my hands.
“She had a daughter. … I have a daughter.”
Mama Beth reached over to take my chin in her fingers. She tilted my head to where I had to look at her. She cocked her brows at me, silently urging me to keep talking. “With Lacey gone, she’s my responsibility. Hell, my name is right there on the birth certificate. But the worst thing …” I raked a shaky hand through my hair. “The kid looks just like me.”
Blues eyes narrowed dangerously at me. “The worst thing? Don’t ever let me hear you talk negatively about this child again. You were blessed to create a life, David. There are many people in the world who are never granted that gift.”
My mouth dropped open, and I couldn’t help staring at Mama Beth like she had lost her mind. I had just told her the greatest nightmare of my life had come true, and she was giving me shit because I wasn’t dancing in the streets with happiness. She knew just as well as I did that I had no fucking business being a father. Anger that had started bubbling inside me welled over, and I reached a breaking point. “But don’t you get it? I don’t want her!” I protested, rising off the couch.
“I don’t think that’s an option.”
I shook my head. “I cannot be a father.”
With a mirthless laugh, she replied, “You are her father.”
“By DNA, I’m her father, but I’m not the kind of man to be a parent.”
“What you mean is, you’re too selfish and scared to take responsibility for your actions.”
I threw my hands up. “Oh no, don’t hang that shit on me. There is no way I can provide a stable environment for this kid.”
Crossing her arms over her chest, Mama Beth challenged, “And just what are you suggesting?”
“I’ll take her down to Child Protective Services and put her up for adoption. Hell, she’d be much better off with two parents.”
“And how well did foster care work for you?”
My fists clenched at my sides, and it took everything within me not to pick up the statue of Jesus on the coffee table and hurl it at the wall. Trying to keep a lid on my emotions, I breathed in and out several times. No matter how pissed I was, I would not disrespect my mother in her home by flying off the handle. “Things might work out better for her,” I finally replied.
Sweeping one of her hands to her hip, Mama Beth wagged a finger in my face. “You listen to me, David Malloy. I will not let my granddaughter be put up for … adoption.” She spat out the last word like it was the most despicable thing she could imagine. Shaking her head, she added, “Not as long as I have a breath left within me.”
I raised my brows at the ferocity of her statement and tone. She might have been slight of stature, but in that moment, I knew she meant business. “What are you suggesting? Raising her yourself? If that’s your decision, don’t be thinking I’m going to help out.”
“Sit down, David,” she commanded. Always the obedient boy in her presence, I took a seat again. She drew in a ragged breath before speaking. “My heart has been so very heavy with the wayward path you have been on. No matter how much love your brothers and I give, you still remain isolated and untouchable.” She shook her head. “If you can’t give and receive love, you’re not really living.” I opened my mouth to protest, but she wagged a finger at me again. “You’re almost thirty years old, David. You’ve wasted so many years on deadly sins. It’s time you found true peace in your life.”
“And you think raising this kid is going to do that?” I snapped.
“She will teach you to love selflessly.”
“I do love selflessly.”
Mama Beth tightened her lips, giving me one of her no-nonsense looks, like she knew I was bullshitting both her and myself. “I don’t think I can do this,” I muttered.
“But I know you can.”
At the
sound of a throat clearing, I glanced up. Rev was framed in the doorway holding Willow’s hand. She tucked herself close to his side, and I could only imagine what he had done to win her over. Great. My kid liked my fucking brother better than me. “Mrs. Martinez left. I’ve got the prospects bringing in Willow’s things.”
“To the clubhouse?”
Rev nodded. “I figured we could put one of the cots in your room there for the night. Then tomorrow we could get her a proper bed for here at the house.” With a smile, he gazed down at Willow. “You pick out anything you want, sweetheart. We’ll get you whatever colors you love the most. You name it, and it’s yours.”
Willow didn’t say a word. Instead, she gave Rev a shy smile and squeezed his hand. At what must’ve been my confused expression, Rev shook his head. “Mrs. Martinez said Willow hasn’t spoken since her mother—” He stopped when a small tremor went through Willow’s body. With his eyes, Rev answered the question that was running through my mind.
Fuck. Willow had seen Lacey die. Not only did I have a motherless kid, but I had one who was so mentally fucked-up from what she had seen that she’d stopped talking. Christ, the last thing she needed was me and my world. She needed some parents like off Little House on the Prairie and some serious therapy.
Breaking the silence, Rev swung Willow’s arm, where it was clasped in his hand, back and forth playfully. “But that doesn’t matter to us. Willow, you can talk when you want to. Right, guys?”
Mama Beth rose from the couch. “That’s right.” She held her arms open to Willow, who stared at them with slight trepidation. “I’m your grandmother, honey. I’m going to help your daddy take good care of you.”
Willow stared past Mama Beth to me. I guess she was wondering why I wasn’t welcoming her into my arms. The truth was I didn’t know what the hell to do. Was it creepy if I touched her? Did I even want to touch her? The longer she stared at me, the more I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I needed a release—to bury myself in Cheyenne or to make a run for my bike.