Haunt (Bayonet Scars #6) (17 page)

I slowly slip into a quiet, thoughtless abyss.

A loud, obnoxious banging sounds from the other side of the front door. I don’t know if I’ve been asleep for a minute or an hour, but suddenly I’m not asleep anymore. I’m wide awake and fixing to beat somebody’s ass. I pull my tired body up from the couch and practically crawl to the front door. My eyes are heavy, my head hurts, my body is worn, and my right index finger twitches to pull the trigger on a gun I’m not even holding. I might not have a gun in hand, but I could go for an old-fashioned ass whooping right about now. So help me God, today is not the day to go to jail. I’ve got shit to do.

I pull the door open without even thinking about it being someone dangerous. By the time I realize it could’ve been a threat, it’s too late. My vision is fuzzy from my being half-asleep, so I close one eye to better focus only to wish I hadn’t. Ryan Stone, Wyatt’s new sergeant-at-arms, is standing in the doorway with a pissed-off look on his face. I’ve known Ryan for most of my life, and he’s not only an asshole, but he’s a cocky asshole to boot. He’s moody, irrational, and, last I checked, a fucking child half the time. I like his dad, Jim, a lot, so I should probably avoid choking his son.

Still, it’s a fantasy.

“Moving truck’s here,” he says shoving past me and into the house. I breathe a sigh of relief and look outside only to find Ruby’s red Suburban. The moving truck is nowhere in sight.

“I don’t see it.”

“Yeah, what I meant to say was the moving truck is at your new house. Your shit will fit in the Suburban, right?”

“New house? Excuse me?”

Just when I’m about to lay into him, a few men I recognize walk through the door. First in is Bear—whose name I only remember because he’s one hairy motherfucker—and then Jeremy, who I have on good authority is everybody’s favorite prospect. Except for Grady’s, of course. The kid reminds me a lot of Wyatt before he got into the drugs and women. He’s handsome as hell. No wonder Grady’s daughter fell in love with him.

Next in is Diesel. I smile to myself, but it falls when I see the black and purple bruises around his left eye and the bridge of his nose and the large cut on his bottom lip.

“You look a little rough around the edges,” I say. He lifts his uninjured eyebrow and grimaces. This ass-beating is obviously fresh. The bruises from when he told Wyatt about what went down with Rig had finally started to fade just a few days ago. And now this. I’m normally of the mindset that brothers fight and sometimes they get some nasty merit badges for their efforts. But this is different. Wyatt’s anger is misplaced. He’s angry with Rig and himself and even me. Not Diesel. I just hope this fresh set of bruises is from something else.

“Talk to your old man.”

Well, there goes that hope. I’m just going to have to talk to Wyatt about laying his anger on Diesel.

“Asshole’s got a temper,” I say and give him a sad smile. Wyatt losing his shit on him the first time made sense—he’d given him some seriously bad news. And it happened right after Wyatt found out about Zander. But this? This is bullshit.

“Where’s Wyatt?” My hands are on my hips, and I’m getting more irritated by the second. Diesel shrugs and wanders into the kitchen where he starts disassembling the highchair with ease. My head falls to the side in wonderment. He’s done in half a minute and has moved on to the cupboard where I keep Piper’s plastic dishes.

“Up until about a month ago, Chel, Xavier, and I were roommates. Ain’t my business how you run your shit, babe, but you should call your sister. She misses you. Needs you now. Your sister and my woman don’t get along, and it’s driving me fucking crazy—but they both love you.” My stomach drops. I haven’t seen her since that first day back. I’m such an asshole. So caught up in my own shit, I totally blew her off. It wasn’t on purpose, there’s just been so much going on and . . . I don’t have an excuse. I just suck at being a good sister. I’m an even worse aunt. I’ve never met Xavier, but apparently Diesel’s stepped up for the kid.

I nod and leave him to the kitchen, deciding that the last thing I want to talk about is Chel. I love her. She’s my sister. I just don’t understand her, and it makes me feel judgmental, and I hate feeling that way. In the living room, Bear is tossing toys in a trash bag. I remind myself that I could fight this whole moving-to-a-place-I-don’t-know thing. It won’t do any good, though, and I know that, so I just take a deep breath and go with the flow. If I pitch a fit, Wyatt will show up and threaten to tan my hide in front of the boys. Then Zander will get pissed when he finds out and pick a fight with his dad over it—and he
will
find out even if it’s not from me, because he’s nosy like that—and that’s two relationships that really can’t handle the strain. So I bite my tongue and thank God my boy is at school right now.

Heading down the hallway, I note that Dad’s bedroom door is open, and thank God he’s off doing something I’d rather not think about. Not that he’d interfere with club shit—and this is definitely club shit whether I like it or not—but he’s a grouchy motherfucker, and I don’t have the patience to deal with his commentary right now. He’d tell me to be grateful that Wyatt’s trying and not to fight with him about this moving stuff. It doesn’t matter that I came to that decision on my own. I don’t want my father telling me to do it. Piper’s and my room is at the end of the hall, with Zander’s bedroom door just a few feet from it on the right. He hasn’t done anything with his room, even though I told him to get comfortable. I realize that, for once, it’s a good thing he rarely listens to me as I watch Jeremy take his two duffel bags out of the room with ease and toss them in the living room.

A loud, high-pitched scream comes from my bedroom. I pick up the pace and rush through the open bedroom door at the end of the hall to find the issue. Piper is standing up in her Pack ’n Play with tears falling down her face like a waterfall, holding on to the railing, and screaming at the top of her lungs. My attention shifts to Ryan, who’s in the corner of the room frozen in place. One eye is bigger than the other, and he’s staring at my kid like she’s a two-headed monster—which she sometimes imitates—and holding her favorite stuffed dog in his hand. I weigh my options and decide to make this a teaching moment.

“She doesn’t know you, and you have Barky. He’s her favorite.”

He stares at me stupidly, so I nod to the dog in his hands. He eyes the dog questioningly and walks it over to the portable crib, bends at his knees, and shows it to her.

“It’s okay, Pippy,” I say in a gentle voice and move to stand next to Ryan, bending at the knee, too. Slowly, the tears stop and all that’s left is a crusted mess of boogers and tears on her face. “This is Ryan.”

She reaches her little arms out to him and says, “Mine.”

“How did Barky get out of your crib?” I ask, putting a hand up to stop Ryan from handing it to her. This throwing the fucking dog out and then pitching a fit about it business has to stop. The kid sniffles and just stares at me with knitted brows and a seriously ticked-off expression on her tiny little mug. I repeat the question and wait for her answer. Zander was a hot mess and was throwing his toys until he was three, but I learned this time. Sometimes I feel bad for my girl that she’s second in line and I’ve learned from raising her brother—she doesn’t get away with even half the shit he used to.

“Don’t know.” Well, she can say those two words almost as clearly as she can say
no
. I’m all about learning and growing as a person, but couldn’t she learn something other than sass? That answer doesn’t work for me, so I continue to wait.

Finally she tries to tell me some kind of complicated story. At least that’s what I’m inferring from the baby babble. It’s not really English and makes absolutely no sense, but it sounds an awful lot like an excuse.

“Stop throwing Barky, baby girl,” I say and let Ryan hand him over. She sits back down, hugging her dog and babbling to herself.

With the crisis averted, Ryan goes back to packing shit up. I refuse to let him touch my stuff and instead opt for packing it up myself. We didn’t bring much with us, just what would fit in my SUV and Elle’s stepdad’s truck bed. Everything else was put on a big-ass moving truck to arrive later.

I take a deep breath and try to focus on the task at hand. If I think too much about what’s coming, I’m going to make myself sick. I just need Wyatt here to tell me where we’re going and what’s going on. I want him to do that annoying fucking thing he’s been doing lately where he kisses my forehead when he sees me. It drives me nuts, but right now I need that contact. Everything keeps changing in my life and my kids’ lives, and it’s fucking scary. My life was stagnant for years, and now, in a matter of weeks, everything has flipped upside down.

The panic creeps in, sending boulders at my chest, butterflies to my stomach, and a shiver up my spine. I’m trying so hard to hold it together, facing the wall so nobody can see my face and focusing on keeping my breathing regulated, but nothing is working. Finally I resort to the one thing I know will help—Wyatt.

I fire off a quick text with the only thing I need to say: I NEED YOU.

CHAPTER 15

It’s been thirty-seven minutes and still no response from Wyatt. Jeremy got some kind of call as we were leaving the house to which he told the caller, “She’s fine,” and then promptly hung up. And now, for the second time this month, I’m being forced to ride as a passenger in my own vehicle. The first time was to prevent an escape, but this time is just stupid.

“Pres told me not to let you out of my sight,” Jeremy said when he slid behind the wheel. Much to my dismay, Diesel nabbed shotgun and left me in the backseat with Piper. I could’ve complained, but it would have gotten me nowhere. I doubt any of the boys would understand what I was complaining about anyway. Ryan and Bear took the Suburban and headed out after us. We’ve gotten on the highway, and we’re heading north into town now. Highway 101 lines the California coastline, oftentimes veering in and out of one small town after another, where it becomes a central street with stoplights and businesses before turning back into a real highway again just beyond the city limits. Before I got too pregnant to ride, Wyatt took me up the coast, and we tooled through at least four small towns before it got late and we headed back. That night he told me something he’d never said before—and something he’s never said since—that he was hoping for Baby Z. That’s always been one of my favorite memories of California. Actually it’s one of my favorite memories ever. It’s the only thing that ever pulls me out of the suffocating depression that sometimes kicks in. When Zander was a baby and I could barely get out of bed to care for him, knowing Wyatt wanted him—even if he wasn’t there—was the only thing that motivated me to make sure he was well cared for.

“Where are we going?” Zander asks.

I open my mouth to tell him that I wish I knew, but I decide against it. I’m supposed to be the adult here, and adults are supposed to have answers like this for their kids. Zander and I have never been in this situation before. I always keep him tuned in when it involves him. But this isn’t my show. This is his dad’s shit, and I don’t know what’s going on. I trust Wyatt to take care of us, though. He would never do anything to intentionally hurt us. I let out a heavy sigh and tell my boy we’re going to our new home. I don’t want him getting the idea that it’s cool to just take over someone’s entire life like Forsaken men are known to do, but I’m not going to condemn the club for it either, so it’s best I keep my mouth shut.

This situation is entirely new for my little family, so I do my best to put on a happy face. It doesn’t work—Zander sees right through it—so I give up halfway to town. By the time we’re on Main Street, breezing past a few neighborhoods I could see myself living in, Zander quips that this is basically a kidnapping. Jeremy’s jaw tenses, and he eyes my kid like he’s fixing to kick his ass or something equally as stupid, but he thinks better of it and just tells Z that it’s not kidnapping if you’re with your parents. Z doesn’t take kindly to Jeremy’s attitude, and he spends the rest of the drive giving him a dirty look but wisely keeps his mouth shut. Christ, I have one boy already. I don’t need another one on my hands, but it looks like these two are awful keen on giving each other shit, so it doesn’t really matter what I want.

By the time I chill a little about the looks Zander and Jeremy are giving each other, I realize that we’ve already been through town, and before I know it, we’re on Sherwood Road. I can’t imagine where Wyatt’s planned on moving us to, but I just hope it’s not too far out of town. It would suck to be out in the middle of nowhere—again.

Much to my surprise, Jeremy slows the SUV and turns down Riverdale Drive. It’s been years since I’ve been out here. I think Zander had just turned six or something when Grady had called, telling me Wyatt was on a bender. He must have been at the end of his rope. He had never called before, and he never has since. The only other time I’ve been called out to handle my man was when we conceived Piper. That time, though, it was Mishy who called at Ruby’s behest. I’d refused that time, but then he went missing, and I gave in. I may hate all the shit he’s put me through, but he’s the father of my kids. I didn’t have to like him or his behavior to help. Keeping Zander and Piper’s dad safe is the absolute least I can do for my kids.

“Thinkin’ too much, babe,” Diesel says, breaking the silence in the car.

I pull myself from my thoughts and fix my eyes on his. Wide, sympathetic eyes stare back at me the same way they did the day I turned up at the clubhouse to tell Wyatt about Z. I flush in embarrassment. Did my little trip down memory lane worry Diesel that much? The last time he looked at me like this I was in the middle of a panic attack. When I finally tear my eyes from Diesel, I find Zander’s body is completely still. He’s listening intently even if he appears to be looking out the window.