misunderstoodebook (14 page)

“If you’re in trouble, we can help you,” he swore with enough conviction to get the biggest cynic to believe him. “
I
can help you. You have to tell me. Why do you seem so fragile?”

Because she was. “There’s nothing to tell.”

He pulled away from her. “Fine, Kendall. Know this if you’re on a nefarious mission for Spoon, you’ll be sorry.”

“Earlier it seemed as if you had no problem with Spoon.”

He knuckled her lips. “Spoon was fine, then. But discovering your bullshit background—“

“I don’t have a bullshit background. I am an attorney.”

“Who’s on a leave-of-absence for whatever reason.”

“You discovered that in a background check?”

“Nope, we discovered that by calling Brooks Redding.”

She sucked in a breath. “You did what?” she asked on a strangled gasp.

“What’s the Logan connection?” he asked in a hard voice.

“You know why—“

“Bullshit. I haven’t seen him in ten years and I wouldn’t have given a fuck if I
never
saw him again in this life or the next.”

Whatever game Johnnie was playing, she wouldn’t be caught. Spoon had people
everywhere.
And Spoon knew what Logan was doing. To her, it was insane to think an outsider would know such a vile secret and his own grandson wouldn’t. Despite the rumbling softness of his words, she wouldn’t fall prey to them. “You aren’t giving me a job and you don’t trust me. There’s no reason for me to remain.”

His lips thinned but he released her. “I’m giving you a chance to tell your story. That opportunity is fast disappearing. You walk out that fucking door without telling me the truth and I discover something I don’t like…” His voice trailed off and the threat hovered between them.

If she walked out that door, then it’d be another epic fail on her part with catastrophic consequences. But what other choice did she have? Without a word, she turned on her heels and started for the door when his voice halted her.

“Kendall?”

“Yes?”

“May I call you?”

He wanted to call her? A few weeks ago, she would’ve jumped at the chance. Now? Never.

Instead of responding, she did what worked best for her lately—she ran.

Kendall rolled out of bed, tired but more lucid than she’d been yesterday. She’d almost succumbed to the urge to drug herself. But Spoon had called, horrible as ever, and asked what had taken place at the club, then encouraged her to medicate herself.

Still on a high from her unproductive but post-orgasmic time with Johnnie, she’d rebelled and decided to
not
listen to Spoon. She had to start facing her grief and shock at some point. Lifting her head, Kendall squinted at the digital clock on the nightstand. 10:08AM. Already running late. She had to get a move on. After approaching Spoon’s men to allow her to run an errand, she didn’t want them to change their reptilian minds. They would in a heartbeat, too, even though they’d already made her pay three hundred dollars each.

With all that, she knew she was still risking their betrayal, but what choice did she have?

Though her business remained unknown to them, they allotted her three hours.

Ignoring the nausea overtaking her for the second day in a row, Kendall rushed through dressing herself. Once outside, she waved to her two babysitters, got into her car and sped off.

An hour later, Kendall sat in the small room in a hospital gown, concentrating on the transducer sliding across her gelled belly. She wanted to look anywhere but at the screen where the technician was following up the test that had confirmed Kendall’s pregnancy with an ultrasound to establish the gestational age of the fetus. As if
she
didn’t know when it had happened.

That didn’t matter, though. Before she swallowed the abortion pills, the clinic needed to cover their asses. Hence, the confirmation of when she’d helped create this life.

She thought back to
that
night. It replayed in her head so often, she could pick out every nuance of what had taken place. Whether it was reality was another story. She gave herself a mental shrug. Who cared? One reality was Johnnie’s choice of songs.
With Arms Wide Arm.
Ironic he’d chosen that the night he’d made her a mother-to-be. Given her her Baby Biker. Which she’d come to destroy.

Yesterday, when Johnnie had held that little boy, all Kendall pictured was
their
baby in his strong arms, his big hands cradling a delicate little head.

The stilling of the technician’s hand broke into Kendall’s musings. She closed her eyes, grateful the torture was coming to an end.

Then, a worse occurrence. The girl slid a row of knobs and turned on the sound.

Whirring noises from blood flow that could very well have been Baby Biker’s heartbeat.

She twisted away and drew in a deep breath, a moment away from clapping her hands over her ears. But the sound resounded in her head.

Bump. Ba-bump. Ba-bump.

The technician turned a frown to her. “Are you all right, Ms. Miller?”

No. No. She needed to tell Johnnie. Not only about the baby, either. She needed to tell him everything.

Not meeting her eyes, but staring at the fuzzy stuff on the screen, Kendall nodded. She couldn’t make out heads or tails—or heartbeat—but she knew Baby Biker existed. Hearing the noise, imagining the heartbeat, was as powerful as seeing it. Instead of pointing anything out, the tech darkened the screen, grabbed the photos she’d printed and stuck them in a chart.

She smiled, indicating the door. “Follow me, ma’am.”

“Okay,” Kendall whispered, ragged and raw, although the girl didn’t notice. The utmost professional, she didn’t offer any clue…to what Kendall should do. Kendall wished they’d give her the pill and the one she needed to bring to the motel with her, so it would be done with. They could take Baby Biker from her just like everyone else had been taken from her.

“You can get dressed,” she instructed once they crossed a small connecting hallway to the exam room. “The doctor will be in soon.”

Did she really want to do this? Did she have a choice? Baby Biker had been developing in a hostile environment, complete with drugs, stress, and alcohol. It might be damaged.

And? Damaged or not, it was
hers
.

Kendall licked her lips. “S-suppose I take one pill?” Maybe, she could take one and think a little more on it. Then, if she made the decision to go through with the abortion, she’d have the other pill.

“Dr. Jones will be happy to answer all your questions. He’ll be in soon.”

The tech left Kendall alone, the baby’s heartbeat playing like a record in her head running alongside her doubts and recriminations. She wondered why she’d elected the abortion pill when she could’ve chosen another method. Suctioning. Vacuuming. Neither of those would’ve required the stupid ultrasound, just the pregnancy test since she hadn’t been to a physician before today.

She’d have to finish Baby Biker herself. Her mother’s exploding head flashed in her mind’s eye and she jerked and jumped to her feet, releasing a sob.

Blood. Blood was everywhere. Would be everywhere like a red river of destruction. It wouldn’t be her mother’s, though. It would be her Baby Biker.

She couldn’t do it. No, she had to do it, but in a different way.

Just as she reached the conclusion she’d scheduled the wrong type of abortion, the door swung open.

“I can’t do it this way,” she blurted in a high, frantic tone. “I…We need to reschedule.”

Dr. Jones was a thin, African-American man with a kind face and understanding brown eyes. He looked startled at her greeting, but he nodded. “We can do that, Ms. Miller. Whatever’s best for you.” He laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. “You’re only five weeks along. You still have time to decide if you want the abortion at all.”

Her decision was made. She couldn’t go through with it today. But she would.

Soon.

Flipping open her chart, Dr. Jones glanced at the notes, before closing the manila folder. He lifted his hand, holding out two black and white squares. The ultrasound photos. She didn’t need them. She wouldn’t be able to pick out anything in that windshield wiper shape. Especially not Baby Biker. Wrapping her arms around her waist, her gaze fastened to the photos.

Bump. Ba-bump. Ba-bump.

She snatched the images, grabbed her purse, and ran to her car. Vowing she’d return in a couple weeks when the memory of the heartbeat wasn’t so fresh in her head.

When she’d properly mourned the circumstances of her pregnancy and let go of the thought of holding her baby in her arms.

Chapter 8

Logan, first, then Kendall. That would be the order of things in which Johnnie would handle the situations and fuck everything else. Logan was quite a fucking problem, but, then, so was Kendall.

So far, what they were digging up wasn’t good on either of them.

Their PI had given Johnnie the basics on Kendall. A younger sister who’d dropped out of sight. A mother who’d died recently. Kendall was born in Portland. Obtained her law degree from Lewis & Clark. She had no children. Had never been married. She’d dated a man named Benny before meeting her current lover. Spoon. Not
ex-lover.

Fucking current. The man was pretty solid on their runs but he was also an ambitious asshole. A legally
married
ambitious asshole who put his old ladies to work on their backs.

Johnnie’s nostrils flared. Kendall had laid on her back easy enough five weeks ago. If she was there at Spoon’s behest to fuck with them, then Johnnie would be expected to take her out.

Fuck him. He recoiled at the thought of killing her, although he had to do
something
with her. And he had to get it done before Christopher returned. If Johnnie couldn’t take care of her, Christopher would do it without blinking an eye.

Then there was Logan. It pissed the fuck out of Johnnie to have to halt their investigation of Kendall because of his grandfather. Even if it was just a temporary delay. They’d gotten most of the information on Kendall within a few hours. It shouldn’t be long before they found out about Logan and they could get back to Kendall.

There was no time for fucking up now. No time for making Logan suffer. Boss had gone through a lot of fucking trouble to keep Logan alive. Just as Johnnie had never understood what in fuck Big Joe had on Logan that had stopped Boss from being buried years ago, Johnnie wanted to know why the fuck Big Joe had kept Logan alive.

Cursing, Johnnie headed to Val’s room and pushed open the door. Val was leaning against his headboard, snoring. On his nightstand an empty bottle of tequila and two bottles of prescription meds taunted Johnnie.
Fuck
. Everything was headed down the shitter all at once. Another thing he’d put on the back burner and observe—Val’s use of the fucking pills. As much as he hated the thought, in the great fucking scheme of things—Val dealing with an addiction was the least of their problems. Later, after Logan was gone…They could breathe again.

They could…forget. Forgetting worked best.
That
way, no matter who walked into their lives, Johnnie could bury it all so deeply into his conscience, he wouldn’t care. That’s who he was. He didn’t give one good fuck.

Johnnie headed to Val’s small desk, scowling at the framed 11x14 photo of Zoann. God, how could he have ever ignored the absolute sadness in her eyes? She’d pushed everyone away, especially him and Christopher. In turn, Johnnie had given her a great big
fuck off.
Not knowing what else to do and having enough of his own fucking problems to concern himself with what had crawled up her ass.

But she’d been angry, hurt, and confused. She simply hadn’t believed in them anymore and, as a result, rejected love and kindness. The million dollar question was how had she ended up in Val’s bed? More importantly,
why
?

Of course, there was a reason his road name was Valentine and not all of it had to do with a mass shooting reminiscent of the Capone-style St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. That bastard knew about romancing women.
   

Looking at Zoann’s photo now, he saw
Bitsy
instead of
Bitchy
. The girl who’d chased behind her big brother. How could their motherfucker of a grandfather come now and expect forgiveness? Because he was fucking
old
? Logan had sown the seeds when he was young and able-bodied, so this is what the fuck he was reaping. Not one fucking person interested in helping him to save his fucking soul.

Johnnie glowered at nothing in particular and eyed the small stack of papers in front of the photo. The unfolded ones allowed him to identify the letters from Big Joe to Logan that Val had collected for him yesterday. Too busy cultivating the hydro grows when Val had finally returned, Johnnie hadn’t been able to deal with that until today. It was all about fucking prioritizing at the moment, so that’s what he’d done.

He read through a couple of the letters, little snippets jumping out at him.

My little girl married Christopher.

Beautiful grandson.

Come visit. Straighten everything out. See your great-grandson.
Christopher’s
boy.