Romance: Motorcycle Club Romance: Outlaw Biker's Baby (Contemporary Alpha Male MC Biker Romance) (Bad Boy MC Biker Pregnancy Romance) (62 page)

They all had offers for the property, and
he, of course,
accepted the largest which was over a billion dollars.  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing; I didn’t imagine there was that much oil beneath his farm.

I started feeling guiltier after he accepted the offer.  He didn’t even mind selling the old ranch house.  The small house that I’d come to know and love.

If I didn’t tell him the truth soon, I had a feeling that I would never get the chance.  With the deals all signed and done, I asked him if he had
a chance for
us to be alone.

We met in the
barn
a bit later.

“Mike, I don’t know why I waited this long, but
I
have something incredibly important I have to tell you.”

He nodded, there was a giant smile shot across his face that probably wouldn’t go anywhere anytime soon, or so I thought.

“Mike, I’m pregnant, only a couple months now,” I said after a long sigh.

Mike turned in place, started to pace around the doorway to the barn.

“Are you serious?  You waited until now to tell me?”

I nodded.

“Do you know how bad this sounds?”

“What are you trying to say, Mike,” I asked.

“You had so long to tell me, how long have you known?”

I couldn’t look him in the eye.

“More than a month,” I squeaked out.

He smacked his hand against his face in annoyance.

“You know what, I doubt you were ever going to tell me.  I know I’m not father material.  I could
tell
you just wanted to sleep with me, and then you were just going to move on again just like you did before.  You just can’t seem to stand and face your
own
problems.”

I held back the tears as best I could,
I
couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“That’s mean, Mike.”

“You’re damn right it’s mean,” he replied, “you’re having a
baby,
and now you’re lording it over me after I make a deal for the largest sum of money I’ll ever see in my life.  I bet now you’re going to ask for half of it just because I happened to sleep with you.”

I couldn’t stand the scrutiny, so I ran from the barn and headed toward the ranch house.

I charged up the stairs and into my room where I had my bag already packed from before.  I threw a few other things inside before running out the door.

Buck waited outside.

“You
takin’
off, Jennie?” he said,
simply
.

“I won’t stay where
I’m not wanted
, Buck,” I replied.

“
Me
and Larry want you here,” he said.

“Well, the owner doesn’t want me anywhere near this place.  And, I’m obliged to listen to him.”

I couldn’t hold back the tears anymore.  I liked Buck, the way he always knew how to state things just right, and the way he would always help out when you needed it.

“Listen,
Jennie, you get lost out in the world, you know you always got a home here.  We aren’t
goin’
anywhere,
ya
hear?”

I nodded and started hiking down the road.  It was probably a
two-hour
walk into town, but that wasn’t anything to
worry about
. 
At least,
I wouldn’t have to listen to Mike judge my every move and accuse me of wanting his money. 

The time passed
slowly,
and I took the time to gather my thoughts.  I didn’t
want
to return home, there was nothing for me there, and I had no interest in going back to that situation.

I wanted so badly for things to work out with Mike.  But, the more I thought about it, the harder it was for me to keep my thoughts straight. 

I took the first bus that left town, which led me further west.  I felt like I was just running away from my problems, but I couldn’t think of anything else to do.  There was nothing left for me here, nor was there anything left in the city.

I wondered where I would end up.

5.

Three months
passed,
and I found myself a place to work.  I started a waitress job at a diner
at
the other side of the state.  The work was simple and kept me
busy,
so I never had time to think about much else.  I didn’t mind that at all.

I’d sometimes catch a man in a hat that looked similar, but looking closer would prove it wasn’t.  I just kept smiling through the pain and trying my best to let it all pass.

Then I worked one Sunday
morning,
and a well-dressed man sat at the end of the bar reading his newspaper.  I sidled up.

“What can I get you,” I asked.

“Cup of coffee, if you don’t
mind,
” he replied.

I recognized the voice.  It was gruff but still sounded young. 

“Mike?” I asked.

He lowered the newspaper and had a big smile shooting across his face again.

“You’re a hard woman to track down,” he said.

“I don’t like being found,” I replied.

I started walking
away,
but he held out a hand to stop me.

“I just want to talk,” he said.

“That depends on which one of you is doing the talking, is it the kind man I fell in love with, or the rich man that brushed me off.”

He leaned forward in his seat.

“I’ve had a lot of time to think about a lot of things while you were gone,” he started, “watching my family home get demolished opened my eyes.  I
started
to wonder what was going to leave me
next,
and
sure enough,
Buck and Larry found better jobs elsewhere.”

I nodded and leaned over the counter.

“I got nothing left that I recognize, Jennie.  And, I miss those simple days.  Waking up with the sunset to feed the pigs, and milk the cows.  Going for a long ride on my family farm in the afternoon, stopping off for a swim at the old pond, these were reasons for living.”

His tone was becoming a lot more somber as he continued.

“Money… changes people.  I started seeing things that weren’t there and
pushing
away everyone I cared about.”

It was surprisingly dead in the diner
for
a Sunday morning.

“Then I found this.”

He slapped a newspaper down on the table in front of him.  My photo was plastered all over it; it was something I tried my hardest to forget.

“You’re a riddle, Jennie.  I can’t figure you out.  I wanted to think that I
did
and that I might be able to get things back to the way they were.  Why didn’t you tell me where you came from, I wouldn’t have treated you any differently.”

I sighed.

“Listen,
Mike, I wanted to tell you every day, but I also didn’t want that life.  They were forcing me into a marriage, and I won’t marry someone I barely know.”

“Jennie, you’re a character.  You have all this money and
opportunity,
and you decide that it would be better to walk away and live on a farm?”

I giggled at the thought.

“Jennie, I love you.  You mean the world to me.  I can’t think of what my life would be like without you and the baby in it.  If you don’t want me in your life then that’s your choice, I’m not your family, I won’t force you to do something you don’t want to.  But, if there’s a slight possibility that you’d be interested in spending your life with me, you’d make me the happiest man alive.”

I looked at him, tears starting to well up behind my eyes again; he still was the best man that I knew.

“When you marry for money, you marry for the wrong reasons.  I don’t want a dime of your fortune, Mike.  I never did.  You just wouldn’t listen to me when I was talking.”

Mike lowered his head, a bit defeated.  Then two large hands patted him on the
back;
Larry and Buck were regulars on Sunday morning, I just didn’t want to tell Mike.

“Guys,” he said, “I can’t believe you two are here right now.”

They all embraced each other in a hug.

“We both knew that you and Jennie were shacking up whenever you went into town.  It’s not that hard to figure out, and neither of you did a good job of hiding it,” Buck said.

“We weren’t looking for a bunch of
money,
we just wanted to work with you again, Mike.  I am not looking for a free meal, I’m
lookin’
for a good job,” Larry added.

I walked around the diner countertop and joined the group.  Mike pulled me in for a warm embrace in the
odd
group and let out a laugh.

“So, does this mean we’re all getting’ back together?” he asked.

“Only under one condition,” I said.

I whispered in Mike’s ear, and I think he got it because he pulled out his phone and started making calls right away.

It was maybe a week later when we all met up again. T
his time,
Mike picked me up in the same old truck we had driven into town before.  I sat in the same seat I always had, with the same tears covered in tape. 

I could see the small house off
in
the horizon.  The white dot in the middle of a vast landscape, with a barn sitting off to the side, invited me closer. 

The house looked identical to the old ranch house we’d spent so much
time in
. 
Except everything was newer. The walls were finally repainted, the leaks in the roof were covered, and I couldn’t have been happier.

I was finally home.

*****

THE END

The College Rockstar – A College Rockstar Romance

Chapter one

     He likened an angel in a heavenly chorus.

     That is, whenever any random angel in a heavenly
chorus
decided to set aside the commonplace harp and pick up a wicked
hot
axe
in its place.

    
Cara Donahue sat at a quiet corner table at Night Grooves, a low-lit night club that formed the eastern border of the campus at Primswell University. She stared with wide eyes at the man who stood center stage at the crowded, compact club; the ebullient backdrop of a red scarlet curtain seeming a perfect accent to his ethereal show.

     She listened enrapt as the
statuesque
man before her, a beautiful vision of flowing golden hair,
wide
azure eyes, bronzed chiseled features and—for an angel at least—a downright devilish smile, performed a rousing rock instrumental titled “Nightsong.”

     "This is an original composition,” she whispered as an aside to her companion at the table, a petite blonde who rolled her blue eyes heavenward in response to this news.

     “You don’t say?” sniffed Morgan Cleary, Cara’s roommate and partner in crime (well, as much crime as two relatively sedate English lit majors possibly could muster). “You’ve only told me that at least once during each of the eight consecutive evenings that we’ve spent here, hidden in the corner and drinking lukewarm beer while we drool profusely over the object of your desire.”

     Cara shook her head.

     “Ian so is not the object of my desire,” she mumbled these last words in
a low
abashed tone, even as her rebellious bespectacled eyes devoured the
sublime
vision of the angel with the guitar; an angel dressed tonight in a skin tight leather jumpsuit that accentuated every muscle of his
tall,
statuesque
form.

     Not that she noticed.

     “Look, I just love his music OK?” Cara insisted, turning briefly
to regard her smirking roommate as
she added, “Imagine one of our very own classmates, cutting a CD and touring the state with his
own
brand of classic rock—all before graduation!  If only I could have the same luck with that
novel,
I’m trying to sell.”
She paused here. She then piled a small mound of chocolate covered peanuts unceremonious between her lips. “You would think that some big city—or, what the heck, even small city—publisher would jump all over a steampunk version of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, with some mild picaresque themes subtly intertwined.
No accounting for taste in the world of modern publishing, I guess.”

     Morgan chuckled.

     “It’ll
happen,
Sis.
And in the meantime, you’ll always have your tutoring job waiting for you at the student services building,” her roommate reminded her, nodding in the direction of the performer onstage. “And if you really are just an admirer of Ian McGovern’s music, then why are you shy about talking to him?”

     Cara bit her lip.

    
“Well maybe I have yet to garner the courage to actually, you know, speak to him,” she admitted with an awkward shrug. “But I did manage to move up a couple of rows from the last show—so potentially, if he ever lifts his head from that blasted guitar at any point and time, we could indeed make eye contact.
Potentially.”

     Just then the object of her—um—admiration did indeed raise his head from the blasted guitar; his full moist lips graced with a slight frown as he seemed to be trying to figure out just who was talking
through
his show.

     “Oh drat it to blazes,” Cara released through gritted teeth, adding as she jumped from her seat and ran some skittish hands down the length of the basic black dress that covered her
Rubenesque
form, “We’ve been found out. Code red! Let’s go!”

     Just then she realized she’d said these words out loud; intensifying her ire as she grabbed the hand of her
wide-eyed
friend and ran for the door—the tousled strands of her cocoa brown hair flying like a banner posted to note the moment of her complete and total humiliation.

     She froze
before
the door of the club, her cheeks flushing red hot as she heard a round of deep melodic laughter erupt from the stage behind them; followed by the opening strings of a rhythmic mid-tempo rock tune whose title and theme she knew all too well.

     “Baby
don’t
go,” Ian howled, his deep throaty voice and stirring guitar riffs still
searing
her senses—even as they drove her straight out the door. “Please don’t leave me behind you, craving your light and your love.”

     “Cha,
very funny
dude,” she mumbled, adding as she and her stunned friend made fast tracks out the door, “All that I’m craving right now is cab fare. Or the timely arrival of a bus. Or a
friggin’
unicycle. You know, whatever works.”

     What was not working, she decided quickly, was this entire disaster of an evening.