Unbeloved Read online

  And yes, dammit. He did smell good. An understated, yet softly spicy bouquet wafted off his skin, and along with it, the faint odor of sweat and the crisp scent of leather.

  Swallowing hard and with a slightly trembling hand, I reached for my money and when I did, his free hand came down on top, his hands caging mine, his touch freezing me in place.

  “You should stop by the club and see me sometime,” he said, his eyes lazy, his smile filled with less-than-honorable intent. A smile that had my stomach flip-flopping.

  I cleared my throat and managed to choke out, “I . . . I’m married.”

  Jase’s smile never wavered. “Baby, I ain’t tryin’ to marry you.”

  Releasing me, he held up his left hand and wiggled his ring finger back and forth. His wedding band, a thin band of platinum, glinted menacingly in the sunlight. “Got the battle scars to prove it too.”

  I stared up at him as foreign thoughts infiltrated my brain, thoughts of him and me naked, sweaty, our bodies colliding. I saw heated kisses and furious groping and—

  Instantly disgusted, more so with myself than at his audacity, I had spun back around and quickly jerked open the driver’s side door. Yanking it closed behind me, I’d thrust the key into the engine, slammed the truck into reverse, and hit the gas. As I had burned rubber out of the parking lot, I could see him in my rearview mirror, still standing where I’d left him.

  Laughing.

  What an absolute scumbag.

  What an absolutely, perfectly sculpted, beautifully smelling . . . scumbag.

  • • •

  Since I was young and unhappy in my marriage, it had only taken Jase a few months of pursuing me before I’d succumbed, and an even shorter period of time before I’d fallen head over heels in love with him. A love I’d chosen above all else—my marriage had ended and my family was lost to me, viewing me as an adulterer; the utmost disgrace.

  And my dignity, I’d sacrificed that as well.

  And for what? To be a club whore?

  I might be off-limits to the other boys, belonging only to Jase, but the painful truth was that he’d never be mine. All these years later he was still married, still armed with a litany of excuses as to why he couldn’t yet leave his wife, and still promising that he someday would.

  It was a promise I’d recently given up on.

  I could either accept my fate and status in Jase’s life—always a club whore, never an old lady, forever waiting for what little crumbs he would toss my way—or I could leave him.

  But how could I leave him? After all I’d given up, all I’d sacrificed for him, the sheer lengths I’d gone to ensure that someday I would be his one and only, how could I simply walk away?

  The truth was that I couldn’t.

  Leaving him meant losing the security he provided me. I’d lose the apartment he paid for in town, and my only source of income: my position at the clubhouse.

  So as I made nice at a barbeque I had no interest in attending, I matched his happy expression, hoping from this distance that it would appear genuine, and that unlike Eva, he wouldn’t see through my facade.

  I shouldn’t have been worried. As usual, Jase was oblivious to my wants and needs, only ever focused on his own. So much so that he was unaware of my biggest secret yet.

  The secret I carried inside my belly.

  Unbeknownst to Jase or to anyone other than myself, the life growing inside me was not a product of my relationship with Jase. It was the result of an affair with another member of the Hell’s Horsemen. It had begun as a drunken slipup, a night of much-needed comfort spent in the arms of another, but over time had become something else entirely. Even years later, it was still something I’d never quite known how to process, could never truly comprehend, but at the same time . . . I’d eventually begun to depend on it. Need it, even.

  The other man provided me with an outlet nothing else in my life allowed me. When I was with him, I was never consumed with feelings of inadequacy, fearing that every move I made was being compared to another woman. With him, I felt almost free.

  Turning away from Jase, I squeezed my eyes shut, easily envisioning him, a beer in one hand, a cigarette in the other, as stoic and as silent as ever.

  The dark to Jase’s light, James “Hawk” Young’s skin held a duskier undertone, his features were more striking, almost otherworldly. Even without the additional height of his Mohawk, he was taller than Jase, larger with bulky muscles and an overall stature that could very easily be construed as intimidating.

  At first, I too had been intimidated by Hawk. After our first night together he’d come to me again, wanting more. When I’d refused him, he’d threatened to tell Jase what we’d done. Terrified of losing the only man I’d ever loved, I’d agreed.

  And in the end, I’d been the furthest thing from intimidated.

  In the end . . . I’d been in love with two men.

  It was yet another mistake I’d made.

  But even as I thought those very words, I could hear Hawk, his voice uncommonly deep, his expression forever firm as he stared down at me and said, “There ain’t no such thing as mistakes, Dorothy. There’s only shit that happens and shit that don’t.”

  I swallowed back a threatening sob, furiously blinking back my quickly gathering tears. No matter what Hawk thought, I knew in my heart what we had done was wrong. Hawk had betrayed the bonds of the brotherhood, and I had betrayed Jase by allowing another man into my bed. Even worse, I had allowed Jase to believe that the baby inside me was his.

  But what choice did I have? If I admitted my sins, I would lose everything. As it was, I’d already lost Hawk.

  I could still see him, the joyous expression on his face when I’d told him I was pregnant. And then the pain that had shattered his joy when I’d told him the baby wasn’t his.

  Hawk had known the admission for what it truly was, a bald-faced lie stoked by fear in the addled mind of a confused woman. But even knowing this, he hadn’t put up a fight. Instead, he’d left.

  I didn’t blame him for leaving, for choosing life as a nomad over continuing to live a life full of lies and secrets. I just hadn’t realized how drastically my life would change with his absence. I hadn’t realized how much I had come to depend on him, and in turn, how much I would miss him.

  Good God, what was wrong with me? Almost thirty-seven years old with a grown child and pregnant with another, yet in many ways I was still a child myself. I was without purpose, always unsure of myself and my feelings, giving love away as easily as breathing, all while flitting and flailing aimlessly through my life . . . if you could even call this delusional sham I’d created around myself a life.

  The light touch of a hand on my stomach brought me reeling back from depressing musings, to the young woman who’d stepped up beside me. Blonde, beautiful, and dimpled as all Deuce’s children were, Danielle “Danny” West smiled kindly at me.

  Blowing out a breath to ensure my voice wouldn’t quiver, I then covered her hand with my own and gave her fingers a light squeeze. “Only a few more weeks,” I said. “I can’t wait for this baby to come. I’m too old to be pregnant.”

  Danny’s smile turned sympathetic, but anything she might have said in response was stopped short by the man who walked up behind her. ZZ, her boyfriend, slid his arm around her middle and pulled her tightly up against him.

  “Hey, baby,” he murmured.

  Danny turned in his arms, returning his embrace, and placed a kiss upon his chest.

  It was refreshing to see her happy again. Not too long ago, she’d been depressed, constantly brooding, and engaging in destructive behavior that had belied her usually outgoing and upbeat personality.

  It was ZZ who’d pulled her out of her funk and brought her back to the land of the living. At first Deuce hadn’t been thrilled with the match, but not even Deuce could deny the significant change in his daughter, nor could he refute how good of a man ZZ was. Smart, sweet, and loyal, ZZ was the perfect match for his president�
�s daughter.

  But even as thrilled as I was for Danny, I couldn’t help but be reminded of my own daughter, Tegen.

  Not much younger than Danny, Tegen was away at college in San Francisco. Her phone calls were minimal and her visits home practically nonexistent. Although she’d never much cared much for Miles City, always wishing for something bigger, something better, I couldn’t help but think it had been her disappointment in me and my life choices that precipitated her hasty departure and reluctance to visit.

  “Oh my God!” Kami shrieked. “Oh my fucking God, he’s proposing!”

  Startled from my reflections, I glanced up, seeking the cause of Kami’s outburst. I’d been so lost inside my own thoughts I hadn’t even realized the yard had gone quiet, or that the couple who’d been standing right beside me only minutes before were now in the center of the yard, all attention on them.

  Down on one knee, ZZ was holding up a small black box in offering to Danny. She stood before him, staring down at him, her pretty features twisted with shock.

  My throat convulsed, suddenly dry and scratchy, and I swallowed repeatedly, trying to wet it, trying to keep my composure.

  That would never be me. That would never be me.

  “I’m going to cry,” Adriana whispered, and covered her mouth with her hand. Rolling his eyes, yet smiling, Mick wrapped his arm around her shoulders and drew her close to him.

  Even Kami, a born cynic, forever bickering with her own husband, looked misty eyed.

  “Baby girl!”

  My gaze traveled to where Deuce and Eva had come together. Standing side by side, both of them were smiling happily in Danny’s direction.

  “You say the fuckin’ word,” Deuce yelled, “and I will throw that asshole into next fuckin’ week! Fact is, whether you say yes or no, I’m still gonna beat the fuckin’ shit outta him!”

  Eva shoved playfully at Deuce’s abdomen and in response he captured her neck, pulling her against his body and into a loving embrace.

  Good God, I was surrounded by it. So much love and affection. So many happy couples, both mature relationships and ones that were just beginning. Love was everywhere, literally all around me except for where I wanted it, needed it, most of all.

  I couldn’t stop myself from crying, not this time. I was too pregnant, the welling emotion was too great. So often while at the clubhouse, during birthday parties or barbeques, when I’d been forced to watch Jase interact with his wife and children—and dying inside a little each time—from across the room or the yard, I would find Hawk. Our eyes would meet, and then I was no longer falling apart but instead was centered by Hawk’s desire for me, warmed by it, strengthened by it. Again and again, with just one look, he would save me from myself.

  I needed that now, his strength, him.

  As my tears began to fall, I hurriedly turned away from my friends, searching out the most expedient way back to the solitude and emotional safety of the clubhouse.

  That was when I saw her.

  Standing at the far edge of the lawn, just outside the circle of gathered people, was Jase’s wife, Chrissy.

  My tears dried instantly as my breath hitched and my stomach sank. She wasn’t here to attend the party.

  It wasn’t the tears streaming down her pretty face that gave it away, or her disheveled hair and wrinkled clothing. It wasn’t even the wild look in her eyes. It was the simple act of her gaze meeting mine, really and truly seeing me for the very first time. She’d never looked at me before, only in passing glances, and always dismissing me.

  She knew. She knew everything.

  All these years of being thrust together, living in the same town, attending the same parties, both in love with the same man, yet strangers still.

  Not anymore.

  Her gaze dropped to my swollen belly. In a mindless instinctive reaction, I raised my hands to cover it. To somehow protect the life inside me from what I knew was about to transpire, to shield its innocence from the ugly secrets that were about to be ripped from the darkness and sent, screaming and bleeding, into the light.

  Tentatively, I took a step backward and was about to take another when movement at her side caught my attention.

  A flash of light.

  A glint of metal.

  Shrieking, I turned to run, but above my cry heard a booming crack. As if I’d been punched, my head snapped backward, knocking me off my feet.

  Then I was falling and people were screaming. There was so much screaming, it was all I could hear, and yet it sounded far away, off in the distance.

  “Dorothy!”

  Voices echoed all around me.

  Hands grabbed at me.

  A face hovered directly over mine.

  I knew that face, I knew her, she was my . . . she was . . .

  Tears streamed down her cheeks and her mouth was moving, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying. I couldn’t hear anything. Why couldn’t I hear anything?

  I tried to ask her why I couldn’t hear, but my mouth wouldn’t work.

  Another face, a man with pretty blue eyes, appeared beside the woman, wildly shaking his head back and forth. I knew him. I couldn’t remember who he was or how I knew him, only that I knew him.

  Like the woman, he too was crying and his lips were moving, but still there was no sound. I tried to lift my arm, to reach out to him, to . . .

  My vision began to blur, distorting and warping the faces around me. I blinked furiously, trying to see, trying to understand.

  Something awful was happening, I knew that much, something horrible. And these people, whoever they were, I wanted to help them.

  But I couldn’t move, I couldn’t hear, and black spots floated over me, quickly growing larger, taking over my vision.

  I was tired. So, so tired.

  I just had to . . . close my eyes . . . for just a second . . .

  Darkness enveloped me.

  And then, there was nothing.

  Not even darkness.

  Chapter Two

  Seven years later

  I missed the snow. In Montana, it always snowed on Christmas.

  In San Francisco, it rained instead. And rained. And rained.

  Curled up on my living room couch, a cup of coffee in one hand, my cell phone in the other, I watched the rainwater as it sluiced down the glass in thick rivulets, distorting and blending all the colors of the outside world into one gray mass.

  A sort of symbolism in relation to my life, a little too colorful of a life, I mused, twisting my lips sardonically. A life that had started out naive, full of pinks and blues, but as I grew older became full of brilliant reds and yellows, and then later filled with stormy, sorrow-filled grays.

  Since my recovery I’d done what I could to wash most of that color away, leaving behind my chaotic life in Miles City, Montana, and starting over in San Francisco, California.

  A necessary step in letting go, forgoing the brilliance for softer colors, neutral, relaxing shades. Because when you’d lived through nearly dying, you learned to appreciate the quiet, calmer colors of life.

  Letting my cell phone fall into my lap, I lifted my hand, pushing back my thick mane of wavy red hair to finger the long, thin scar that ran the length of my skull.

  The lone bullet meant to kill me and the child I’d carried inside me had failed. My son, Christopher, and I had thankfully survived. Christopher had been unscathed, but the trauma had left me with a blank canvas. For a long time, I’d had been without the knowledge of my life, who my children were, even my own name.

  Thanks to my great doctors, therapy, and a strong dose of luck, I’d eventually regained the knowledge I’d lost. And when I had, I’d wished I hadn’t.

  They say that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and while that might be true for some, for me it had the opposite effect. At first I couldn’t face what I had done, the pain I had caused so many, let alone face the people my actions had directly impacted.

  For shooting me, Chrissy had been convicted
of first-degree attempted murder and had been sentenced to prison. And Jase had nearly taken his own life while in the throes of grief. Their three daughters had subsequently been left without their mother, with an incapable father, forced to transition into adulthood on their own.

  And Hawk, after finding out I’d been shot, flew into a very public fit of rage that had shed light on Christopher’s true paternity. His disloyalty to his brother now exposed, Hawk retreated even further into himself, and his visits home to Montana became more infrequent.

  Unable to deal with the overwhelming sorrow and the crippling guilt I felt, unable to figure out how to move forward, I simply hid myself away, going so far as to feign ignorance even after my memories had returned to me.

  It had taken another near tragedy, this time involving Tegen, for me to finally see past my own nose, to realize that I’d spent my entire life in hiding. Hiding from my past, from my present, and any sort of future I might hope to someday have.

  Refusing to let history repeat itself, and done with hiding, I moved my son and myself to San Francisco, not only to see my daughter through her rough patch, but to start fresh.

  My wish was for the three of us to become the strong and solid family we always should have been, to live in such a way that didn’t cause anyone any pain, and for the opportunity to make new memories for us all, this time ones that would be worth remembering.

  It took some time, but eventually I got my wish.

  Since then, Tegen had moved back to Miles City, was happily married to Deuce’s son, Cage, and Christopher was living the peaceful and carefree life of a seven-year-old. Despite whatever resentments still lay between Hawk and me, he was a regular in Christopher’s life, which was all that mattered.

  Our son had that effect on us, no matter how strained our relationship with each other. Christopher was our Switzerland, a span of untouched land covered in wildflowers that stretched between two crumbling cities.

  Both my children were safe, they were happy, and they were surrounded by those who loved them. There really wasn’t much more a mother could ask for.