Carry You Home (Carry Your Heart #2) (21 page)

I had to forget her. I had to erase her memory as much as I could. Holding onto it wouldn't help me move forward.

My eyes fell to the clock on my phone and then I tossed it down onto our bed. Caleb should be home from the shop anytime now. We had a big night ahead of us and here I was, clouding the mood and wallowing in a pit of despair and depression that still wouldn't change the outcome.

Becca was gone. It was over.

I needed to find a way to move on.

I needed to find a way to forget that I'd been just as willing to write Becca off as the rest of them, that I'd basically handed her over to them, written directions and all, with barely any hesitation. The second she'd asked me to choose between her and Caleb, I was done with her. Now, I was just as callous, as ruthless, and as selfish as the rest of them. I could've tried to help her, but I'd turned my back on my best friend instead and I still couldn't reconcile the repercussions of what I'd done.

I just didn't recognize the person staring back at me in the mirror sometimes.

Life, for the most part, was moving on, so it was for the best I move with it. Caleb and I went about our normal routines, juggling work, school, and the club. We didn't talk about the fact that Dom had barely spoken to him these last three weeks. We didn't talk about the fact that Eli had blasted out of the clubhouse on his bike two days after that night and hadn't been back since.

I didn't really want to talk about anything involving the club anymore. Sometimes, I wished I could forget it even existed.

As I slipped my dress for tonight off the hanger, my eyes fell to the other one covered up by a garment bag and a light smile touched my lips.

One more weekend and I'd be wearing that dress at City Hall.

Maybe that's all I needed to do now: just focus on the positive, the things I should be looking forward to anyway.

Those two dresses were the first maternity clothes I'd purchased, which I figured was a celebration in itself. I set the black dress on the bed and then let myself unzip the garment bag for a quick look at my dress for my first wedding to Caleb. It was simple, but beautiful. The beaded, strapless bodice dipped into an empire waist with flowing layers of organza skimming my knees. The layers would lay right over my little baby bump, not necessarily to hide it, but to accentuate these new curves.

My hand drifted down to my stomach, covering the gentle curve and I smiled. A light fluttering right in the center of my stomach had me chuckling; she was definitely making her presence known, as if I could ever forget about her.

With that thought, I zipped the garment bag back up and tucked it into the back of my closet again. The black dress for tonight slid on pretty easily, given that my stomach was a little more rounded since the last time I tried it on. It was just a simple black dress with a high-cut tank-top style neckline with racer-back scoops cut out in the back. I liked it because it was form-fitting and I found myself chomping at the bit to wear it around for everyone to see.

Just as I finished touching up a few long curls with my curling wand, that tell-tale roar of a motorcycle ripped down the street and right into the driveway. Butterflies flurried in my stomach and I gave my hair one last spritz with some spray before changing course to the hallway to find Caleb tossing his cut over the side of the couch with a shopping bag in his hand.

His eyes flicked to me for a just second and then slammed back to me, a slow, sexy grin spreading across his lips as I met him in the living room. He gave a low whistle and shook his head, promptly tossed the shopping bag on the couch, and reached for me to pull me into his arms.

"Iz," he murmured and pressed his lips into my neck. "You look..." he trailed off and tilted his head just enough to address Seth, who was perched dutifully on our couch, "Prospect. Get outta my house."

Seth scrambled off the couch and hightailed out the front door, but neither one of us was really paying all that much attention to him. My lips curled up as Caleb's hands slipped around my waist to pull me against his chest. His mouth was on my neck again, leaving little trails of hot fire in his lips' wake and I shivered in his arms as his hands skated down my hips to skim the edge of my knee-length dress up my thighs.

I laughed, pushing him back with both hands before we got too carried away. "As much as I would love to take this further, you need to change and we have to get going otherwise I'm gonna be late."

Caleb groaned and knocked his forehead into my shoulder. "Ten minutes?"

"No," I shook my head, still laughing, and shoved him backwards so I could grab the shopping bag and sneak away. "We needed to leave 10 minutes ago. What is it with you and 10 minutes anyway? Whatever happened to 15? Or 20? Or some foreplay, maybe?"

His lips twitched with amusement. "You can have all the foreplay you want. Just as long as you keep that dress on."

I was already backpedalling into the kitchen to put some space between us and called over my shoulder, "Isn't the whole point to get my dress
off
?"

"Oh, don't worry, Iz," Caleb called back to me from the hallway, where he was, thankfully, heading towards our bedroom. "It'll come off. Doesn't mean I don't wanna enjoy that dress though."

"Wow," I muttered, shaking my head as I hopped up on the counter and rifled through the shopping bag, my eyes lighting up at what was inside. By the time Caleb re-appeared in the kitchen, still buttoning up his white collared shirt, I'd already dug away at a good chunk of the mint chocolate chip ice cream he'd brought home for me.

When I hopped off the counter to put the container in the freezer, he was hot on my heels with his lips on my shoulder. His hands slid around my stomach, easily finding the swollen roundness there.

"I felt that little fluttering again today before you got home," I told him. "She's just getting comfortable. You know, stretching out, making a little more room."

Caleb laughed, gently turning me around in his arms until I faced him. "It's a good thing we'll get all that resolved once and for all soon enough. Then you'll eat your words, Iz."

"Shut it. I'm right. You're wrong."

"Okay. Whatever you say."

I leaned back a little to take him in and ran my hands over the hard planes of muscle underneath his shirt. "You look nice."

He took a step back and spread his arms out wide to give me a better view. "So I pass?"

"Oh yeah," I nodded. "You'll do."

Caleb leaned forward to kiss me, thought better of it, and opted to plant a quick kiss on my forehead. But when his phone buzzed in his back pocket, my heart skidded and plummeted right into my stomach. I knew what that meant and I blew out a shaky breath as he shot me a worried glance before digging for his phone. I didn't even need him to tell me what the text said—the way his face fell and the way he squeezed his eyes shut pretty much said it all.

"You have to go, don't you?" I whispered.

"Church in 10," he nodded soberly. "I'll get there in time, Iz. As soon as I can, I'll get my ass to the gallery. I promise."

All I could do was mask my disappointment as best I could and watch him head back into the living room for his cut, his phone to his ear while he made some last-minute arrangements. My frustration wouldn't do anything but make Caleb feel even more guilty than he already did and make me feel even more stressed out than I already was.

With his keys in one hand, he swung his cut on over his shoulders as he strode back into the kitchen. It was a jarring image: that clean-cut white button-down tucked into black dress pants with his leather Horsemen cut thrown over the top. It didn't quite mesh, but it didn't quite look out of place on him either. The two sides to him were more apparent now than ever, the outlaw and the sweet, sensitive father of my baby.

Two sides of the same coin.

Two completely different lives.

"I don't have time to change," Caleb told me quietly and then bent down to press a quick kiss onto my stomach. "Gotta get you to the clubhouse so you can hitch a ride with the prospect."

At the very least, I was grateful he hadn't called Skyler or Lexie to take his place until he could get there. I just didn't want to turn my first showcase into a bigger deal than it needed to be because I kind of just wanted to get it over with more than anything. Besides, I'd just wanted to be alone since Becca's exit from my life and Skyler and Lexie had been just as distant as Dom since everything had went down.

"I'm not gonna miss any of it," he promised me again. "Even if church runs a little long, I'll get there as soon as I can. I'll do 150 on the highway if I have to."

"Can your truck really go that fast?"

"She will if I tell her to."

We'd meant to cut the tension, to lighten up this dismal reality, but it didn't work. Even as he ushered me into his truck, I just couldn't shake this sick feeling in my stomach.

The club was his full-time job and he was on call 24/7. If he got the call, he had to go. No matter what was happening, no matter what responsibilities he had at home with me, one phone call and he'd have to be on his bike en route to the clubhouse. The club didn't give a shit that we had somewhere important
to be tonight because it wasn't important to them.

I had a sinking feeling that I could be in labor, ready to deliver, and Marcus would still feel like he could call him away and Caleb would still feel like he had to go.

That was just something I'd never get used to.

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Caleb

I pulled out my chair at the table, ignoring Casey's eyebrows wiggling idiotically at my shirt and pants, and I chose to pop a piece of nicotine gum into my mouth instead of giving him any sort of reaction.

Damn, this gum tasted like shit. Like mint and piss. Moldy piss. Well, it looked like I'd found something that tasted worse than Isabelle's cooking. At best, this was just a distraction until church started and until I could get my ass back on the road. I had a 45-minute drive ahead of me and I needed to get this over with
now.

I already felt like a big enough asshole the way it was. The longer I sat here, the worse I felt for basically throwing Isabelle to the prospect and ditching her for the clubhouse. Now I couldn't stop thinking about what I had to miss because I was sitting here instead. About where I'd rather be than here at this table.

My eyes fell to the empty chair just a few paces down the table from me and I pushed out a heavy sigh. Eli was still MIA, still out on the road, on his own, trying to sort out his demons. I didn't envy him for a second, but after a three-week absence with virtually zero contact with anyone, the mere mention of his name was becoming almost as taboo as the would-be-rat I'd dropped off at the precinct.

Finally, Marcus dropped down into his seat at the head of the table and pounded the gavel, eyeing my attire with one skeptical, cocked eyebrow. Whatever. They could rag on me however they wanted as long as we moved this along.

"This'll be a quick one, boys," Marcus huffed out gruffly with one last glance my way. "There's just one order of business to handle tonight, but it's a big one. Got a call from Wallace, says the Warlords are lookin' for a delivery ASAP for a buyer and are willing to pay for our speedy service."

I straightened up my chair and asked the question on everyone's mind: "How much are we talkin' about here?"

"$30K bonus for the delivery. Whoever goes splits it," Marcus related.

Shit.

I didn't even need to look at Dom to know he was on the same page as me. Everything I'd had to pay for in the past few months and all the bills that would rack up on me in the next few years too, flashed through my mind all at once.
The house payments. Isabelle's engagement ring. The $5K I'd handed to her dad in that envelope. Jesus, the last health insurance bill I'd paid had been nearly $700 thanks to Isabelle's shit insurance through the shop. Apparently, a pregnancy was a 'pre-existing condition' in their minds and so I'd footed almost 75 percent of that recent bill.

I'd feel a helluva lot better going into our wedding next weekend with that extra cash in the bank. All the things I'd promised her and all the things I wanted to give her...I could start reaching for it with this money.

"What about the ATF?" Heath asked quietly from his end of the table.

"Nobody's seen or heard from them since I left Becca at the precinct," I offered. Right about now, I was willing to do and say just about anything to get my ass added to this run. "Kelly told us himself they packed up their shit and lit outta here, what, not even three days after? They threw all their chips down on a dark horse that never had a shot at winning and they lost. We were careful, we covered our asses, and it paid off. They're long gone."

My gut was telling me I was right and the last time my gut told me to do something, I was the one who'd been careful when everyone else sitting at this table did nothing but blindly follow orders.

Heath took a long pull from his cigarette in thought. "Yeah. But we don't know they're gone for sure. How do we know they're not just hidin' out somewhere and waitin' for us to make our next move?"

"They didn't get what they wanted from us," Dom tossed out, casting me a careful glance as he spoke. "They moved on. Pulled out and cut their losses. There's no sense in us bleedin' cash any longer than we have to."