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  She had been so smart. Hell, he paid her way college! I knew she had to have a degree under her belt. In what, I wasn’t sure, but I knew that she had to have one. And to now be living like she was – hiding from someone who was threatening her and her daughter – the thought was just baffling to me.

  But yet, still not as baffling as the fact I was soon going to be married to the girl, and we’d be our own happy family.

  On the outside, anyway.

  It took the better part of the afternoon to get through all the garbage, then I set to cleaning the place. I vacuumed, I wiped down the countertops, I took care of the dishes, I even managed to get all the dirty laundry in the hamper before I heard the knock at the door.

  I wasn’t sure what April was going to do with her apartment, but she’d already told me she wasn’t going to be able to pay for it if she wasn’t living there. That was her problem, among other things. All I had to worry about was getting her in the house and unpacked.

  “Thank you,” she said when I took the bags from her. She had Sabrina in one hand, and a large bag in the other, along with her purse.

  “That’s big,” I said.

  “It’s her crib. If we could set that up first, I can put her in there to play with her blocks while I bring in the rest of the boxes and bags from the car. There’s not a lot, but I don’t want her in here unsupervised when I’m not here,” she replied.

  I almost told her I would be in the house, but I refrained. I didn’t want to get roped into watching Sabrina, ever. She was here for her protection, but she was still April’s kid, and I didn’t want to get involved in that dynamic. Hell, there was a part of me that regretted getting into this situation already.

  Seeing how April interacted with Sabrina was hard for me. She clearly loved her daughter more than anything, and though I did admire that about her considering how Sabrina was brought into the world, it did remind me of my own lack of love in my childhood.

  My family had been anything but close. I hated the word for the longest time. It was part of the reason I’d never thought about settling down too seriously before. I didn’t want to repeat what I’d gone through growing up from a different angle.

  And though my parents had since passed on, I was still worried about how my own family would turn out, regardless of how I treated my wife and kids.

  We set up the crib in the spare room, and I cleared my throat. “I cleaned up a lot of the place. There might still be a spare bottle cap around, so make sure you keep an eye out.”

  “I will, thanks,” April said. “She puts everything in her mouth, so I’ve been watching her like a hawk for a while.”

  “I don’t know how you do it,” I said with a shake of my head. “I’d be exhausted.”

  “I am,” April laughed. “I’m going to bring in more boxes.”

  “Let me help,” I followed her out to the car, and together we stacked them in the spare room. It took nearly an hour to get them all inside, but once they were in, April seemed a lot more relieved.

  “Thanks for the help,” she said. “With everything.”

  “It’s the least I can do,” I told her. She gave me a wry smile, and it was clear she didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to make her feel uncomfortable, but at the same time, I was feeling uncomfortable myself. I wasn’t sure how to deal with any of this.

  Hell, having the two of them in my house, large though it was, made me feel claustrophobic. I grabbed a beer out of the fridge. I knew April was worried about me drinking when I told her I’d help them out, but it was my house, and I didn’t move them in for her to tell me what to do.

  I drank a couple beers as April unloaded boxes. At first, I was going to hang out in the spare room and see if there was anything I could do to help, but it was too much for me to handle. I still struggled with PTSD from the military, and I needed space, so I fled to the kitchen.

  It wasn’t long before I heard Sabrina crying, and April brought her out on her hip. “Could you bring out the high chair for me? It’s in the other room.”

  I nodded, heading back to the spare room to find the chair already set up. I carried it to the kitchen, only to find April looking in the pantry. “Don’t you have any real food?”

  I winced. I rarely ate at home and couldn’t cook for shit. “I’ll order something. You like pizza?”

  “Who doesn’t?” she asked. She set Sabrina in the chair and headed back to the room to get baby food, and I put the order in.

  “I’m going out to the garage to make a phone call. Let me know when the pizza guy is here,” I told her.

  “Okay,” she said.

  It wasn’t until I had another beer in my hand in the garage that I felt better. I could at least breathe again. I didn’t think this was entirely a mistake. I was glad to know she was safe here. But it was going to be hard with both of them suddenly in my house.

  I’d gone from zero to sixty in this, and I wasn’t sure how to deal with it.

  The first person I called was Spencer, my current best friend. He was also in the Navy, and he knew how to find information. Hell, he was the one who told me where April lived that morning. I told him the situation, and he was sending out feelers to see what might have gone down in Tim’s MC.

  “It’s not good, Bud,” he told me.

  “Yeah, but how bad is it?” I asked.

  “It seems like the whole MC is involved in something big. I’m still not sure what. Money laundering, perhaps? Something. At the end of the day, I talked to my guy in Arbor Hills Penitentiary, and from what I understand, there are a couple of guys from the MC locked up there,” Spencer said.

  “Convicted?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Not of all charges, however. As it turns out, the cops weren’t able to retrieve all the evidence in the case against them. Namely, several hundred thousand dollars,” Spencer replied. “So they are in on lesser counts, but still have connection to a much larger case.”

  “So what we’re thinking is that someone walked with the money,” I said.

  “Precisely. And that could have been your friend, or that could have been someone else who pinned it on him. Either way, I would say that amount of cash is enough to get someone iced,” Spencer replied.

  “No shit,” I said with a shake of my head. “Fuck man.”

  “Do you have anyone else on this?” Spencer asked.

  “I talked to Nathan, hoping he might have heard something living in the neutral town,” I told him. “I was going to call him next and see if he was able to dig up anything.”

  “Good idea,” Spencer agreed. “Let me know if you find out anything worth knowing, and I’ll keep my ear to the ground, too.”

  “I appreciate it, Bud,” I said. “Sounds like this is going to go down hard.”

  “Sounds like it already has,” Spencer replied. “Make sure you don’t get caught in the crossfire.”

  “You know me,” I laughed.

  “Yeah, that’s what worries me,” he said and we both laughed.

  There was a knock at the garage door, and I looked over my shoulder. April appeared and pointed into the house. “Pizza guy’s here.”

  “Gotta go, Bud,” I said into the phone. “Dinner’s here.”

  “Take care,” Spencer said. We hung up the phone and I sighed. I had no idea how I was going to take care in this situation, but God knew I was too far in to turn back now.

  But at the moment, my biggest problem was the pizza guy.

  I put my phone in my pocket, drained the rest of my beer, and went inside to pay him.

  Family life would be interesting, that was for damn sure.

  9

  April

  I picked at my pizza, wondering for the millionth time if I was making a mistake. It was hard to imagine my life had come to this. As I looked around the condo, I could tell the place hadn’t been cleaned in ages. Picked up, sure. Vacuumed, maybe, but it was clear to me Aaron wasn’t too obsessed with cleanliness.

  I was surprised to f
ind the place as picked up as it was. If I could even call it that. He had empty and partially full bottles of booze in every nook and cranny – all over the house. The only room that was free of all bottles was the spare bedroom, and I couldn’t help but wonder if that had been done right before we showed up.

  It wasn’t a bad place, it just needed a good clean, that was all, and I didn’t think I could rely on Aaron to be the one to do that. Then again, I wasn’t sure if I could rely on him to do much of anything. The thought of going before a judge with this sort of living situation seemed just as risky to me as going before the judge with what I had in my own apartment.

  At least there I had the power over how clean the place was. Sure, there were a lot of cons in the situation – and I knew I was pretty much fucked if I were to try to go against Hanson and his lawyer standing on my own two feet, so I was just going to have to deal with this.

  Beggars couldn’t be choosers, after all.

  Aaron was in the living room. He had something on tv, and I’d quickly learned he wasn’t one much for conversation. That was fine with me. I tried not to keep track of the number of beers he’d drank since I walked through the door, but it was hard not to.

  And damn, he’d held his own. I was starting to wonder if he stayed in a steady state of mostly drunk all the time, or if he ever came out of it. It couldn’t be safe for him to be out on the road – either for himself or others.

  If he were to pull out in front of a car when he was on his bike, that would be it. He’d be fucked, and possibly killed. If he didn’t end up paralyzed or something else, it wouldn’t be good.

  His phone went off, and he rose, walking over to the garbage and throwing away the plate. “I’m going to take off. I’ll be back later.”

  “Okay,” I said. He walked out, and I rolled my eyes. If this was how our relationship really was – like a real relationship – I’d want out in a heartbeat. No wonder he was still single after all this time. Shit, at least Tim had a lot going for him. He never was really interested in settling down with anyone because of the MC, but I knew he could have if he wanted to.

  Then again, I wasn’t really one to talk. I wasn’t married, either. Not in the right way, anyway. I’d thought I would be by now. There had been a lot of guys I’d dated in college, and more than one of them I had seen as husband material.

  But, Tim had been overprotective of me then, just as he had been right up to his death. No matter who I brought home, he would find some flaw in them and tell me I was better off studying than thinking there was any real future with the guy. Being as young as I was at the time, I felt he was right. He was paying for the tuition, after all, and I wanted to make him proud.

  Tim had been something of a father figure to me, even though he was my brother. Our parents had been killed in an accident when we were young, and though our grandparents were our legal guardians, he was the one I went to for everything. He always had the answers, and he always knew how to explain things to me in a way I could understand.

  I missed him, wondering what he would have said to this situation. I was sure he wouldn’t have approved. But then, what other choice did I have? He wouldn’t approve of much of my life if he really knew the truth – especially not of Sabrina’s father.

  There was a part of me that thought he might have guessed one of the MC guys was the man, but he never pursued it. Perhaps he felt it was better that he didn’t know who it was than if he did. Maybe he feared the worst, There were plenty of men in the MC he didn’t get along with, even if he was part of the group.

  And Henson was one of those men.

  Sabrina started to fuss in her chair, and with a smile, I picked her up. “What’s wrong, Baby? Do you want a bath?”

  I pushed the chair to the side, telling myself I’d clean it later. Not that it mattered. Hell, with the way the rest of the house looked, I was sure Aaron wouldn’t even notice that the high chair hadn’t been taken care of. Unless, of course, he was one of those people who didn’t mind his own mess, but when it came to the messes of others, it damn well better be picked up.

  Then again, being drunk all the time, he might not even notice it, either.

  I walked to the bathroom with Sabrina on my hip. A bath sounded nice for me as well, but there was no way I was getting in the tub when I wasn’t sure when Aaron would be back. I thought he was attracted to me. He had acted like it the night before. But, considering the way he was acting now, I wasn’t so sure.

  Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe he thought he was just going to get away with sex. Who knew? It was hard to read what was going on in his head, and there were many times I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

  “Oh, forget that, you aren’t getting in there,” I said when I pulled back the shower curtain and saw the state of the tub. I wasn’t sure what I expected, but that certainly wasn’t it. I wouldn’t put anything in that tub, let alone my daughter.

  It would take at least an hour of hard scrubbing to make it anything I’d be willing to put her in, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to go through with that.

  “How does anyone live like this?” I said to Sabrina as we headed back to the spare room. “Let’s read a book, okay?”

  She wasn’t picky over what we did. She was just happy to be with me, and I was happy to be with her. I hated that we were in this situation, and I reminded myself it was only temporary. Once I was through with all the court shit, then I could focus on her and I.

  I didn’t know how we were going to handle the end of our marriage, but I figured that was something we could talk about when the time came. Maybe we’d get it annulled. With any luck, this wasn’t going to take long. I hoped Henson would drop the whole thing when he heard that I’d gotten married.

  Or, perhaps the judge would be able to tell him to fuck off and we’d call it good after that. At any rate, I didn’t think I could live in a place like this long term. Not in these conditions anyway.

  I read to Sabrina until her eyes got heavy, then I laid her in her crib, glad for the chance to get some things done. My court date was the following week, and I wanted to be Mrs. Jackson by then. It would look a lot better for me if I was married rather than just living with someone, so I wanted to get down to the courthouse as soon as possible.

  I’d brought a white sundress with me. It would due for this joke of a wedding we were going to have. It was a far cry from what I thought my wedding day would be, that was for sure.

  Though I hated to admit it now, Hanson had swept me off my feet. I was completely addicted to him, sure he was the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I knew he was rough around the edges, there was no denying that. But Hell, I could fix him. That wouldn’t be hard at all.

  Or, so I thought.

  I had been so naïve and stupid, it was laughable now. After all, if he was the one guy who was willing to sneak around with me behind my brother’s back, shouldn’t that have been a warning? But no. At the time, I was convinced it was the hottest thing that we could be doing.

  He was forbidden, the one I wasn’t supposed to have. And he wanted me. Tim didn’t like it, or he wouldn’t have, if he’d known. That’s why he couldn’t. We could do what we wanted when he wasn’t around. It had been sexy, secret. It was perfect.

  Until it wasn’t.

  I learned the hard way that I should have listened to my brother, and I was paying for it now. With my daughter sleeping in the other room and my cotton dress folded neatly and ready to go, I set my mind to cleaning the place. I was here, engaged to a drunk because of the choices I’d made before, and now I had to deal with it.

  With gloves on, I set to scrubbing everything. The countertops, the bathtub, the sink. I cleaned up the high chair and swept the floor. The more I could clean before Aaron showed up, the better. I didn’t want his help, but I didn’t want to clean in front of him, either.

  I sighed as I sprayed down the counters and wiped them once more, hoping to get some of the germs out of there. I knew I shouldn’t complain
. Things could be a lot worse. But then, I was frustrated, too.

  Tim had clearly gotten himself into some tough shit, and I wondered why. He had so much going for him, what could have gone wrong? What did he do that got him killed? Clearly, he felt that he had to do it, or he wouldn’t have gone through with it.

  It pissed me off, but at the same time, I knew I couldn’t blame him. There were times when a person had to do what they had to do, and maybe he was dealing with one of those times.

  Hell, here I was, standing in a kitchen that wasn’t mine, cleaning as though my own life depended on it. I couldn’t judge him for what he’d done. I was doing the same thing.

  I just hoped it would turn out better for me.

  10

  Aaron

  I walked into the bar a little apprehensive. I had been a little more than relieved to receive the text from Spencer telling me he had someone for me to talk to. Though things were fine in the house with April, there was an awkwardness to having her in the kitchen with the kid and me being in the living room with the pizza.

  There was a wall mostly separating the two rooms, but it was still easy for me to see into the kitchen and know what they two of them were doing. And, it I was perfectly honest with myself, it as hard not to watch.

  April was a natural with that kid. She fed her, she crooned over her, she treated her like she was the only thing in the world that mattered. And, I knew in April’s world, Sabrina was.

  I caught myself shaking my head a couple times. It wasn’t that I didn’t agree with what I saw in the other room. Hell no, quite the opposite, in fact. Though my own mother had been one of the shittiest parents on the planet, this woman treated this girl like gold.

  And I was happy to lend a hand.

  But, I still didn’t feel I belonged in the kitchen with them, and I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. It was rare for me to have that feeling in life. I was so assertive most of the time – to the point many of my MC brothers referred to me as the asshole of the bunch.