Never Ever: Book One Perdition MC (9 page)

“Deal.”

He didn’t come back until after closing time, coming in just
as she’d started to decide what she was hungry for. He shot her a token, “Hey
babe,” And hauled a bunch of bags towards the bedroom, “Uh, hi. Need help with
that?”

“Nope.” He said firmly, while he went back out for a second
haul, and she wondered if she was going to have room for all his stuff.
Curious, she followed him into her room and the breath whooshed out of her when
she saw what he’d done. He was in the process of putting a dark blue pillow
case on a weird, huge pillow, a case that matched the ones on her bed, some
other baby stuff… “Roar, what is all this?” She asked softly, and he looked up
at her with a mouthful of the pillow. “Saw you shoving pillows all up under you
earlier to get comfortable. It’s a
preggo
pillow or
something. Lady at the store said it would help support you when you’re
sleeping.”

She stood there just sort of…
gobsmacked
and watched him put the case on the big pillow. He gave it a final jerk to
settle it and then dropped it on the bed, looking at her expectantly, and she
just stared back at him, not sure what he was waiting for. “Oh,” She jolted and
crossed the room to give him that kiss he’d demanded of her, annoyed because
she liked the way he smiled down at her with his big hands on her butt. Smug.
He was smiling smugly. “You went and got baby stuff.” She stated, unable to
keep from curling her fingers into his cut, her thumbs rubbing at the familiar
smoothness of the leather. “Yeah.”

“Why?”

“I know shit about babies. You said I got till March, figure
by that time I ought to know a few things about babies.”

Damn. She liked that too.   

Turned out later that night, she discovered she really liked
the
preggo
pillow. It was the shit.

Chapter Nine

Two days later, she was standing at the edge of her new
planting field, where she intended to grow a huge berry patch. The storm that
had blown in and lasted for two days had been impressive, the rain had come down
so hard she’d worried half her nursery would have been washed away. But now,
she found a bunch of the starters she’d painstakingly planted, tossed around
because the boars had come in and rooted them up from the soft, wet ground. She
was pissed as she stood there, the toe of her boot nudging the sad, torn up
little roots, plotting some porcine murder when her cell rang. “Yeah?” She
answered, not having bothered to look at the caller ID, and Roar’s rough
morning voice filled her ear. “Where the fuck are you?” He growled angrily, and
she looked back at the house, “Out back, looking at my fucked up berry patch.
Boars got in and screwed it up, and the storm last night tore up half the damn
patch-“

“Ever, it’s just past sun up. What the fuck are you even doing
awake? And why the fuck do you keep leaving the bed without waking me up?”

She pulled the phone away from her ear and stared at it for a
minute, hearing him bellow her name demandingly. Hell, she could hear the echo
of it from the house a quarter mile away. “I’m awake because your son likes to
make me puke my guts up promptly at 5:45, every morning. I leave the bed in an
effort not to puke on you, you’re welcome, and I don’t wake you because who the
fuck wants an audience for that?”

“You…” He made a tight, pissed off, growling sound and
followed up with a testy huff, “Wake me up if you’re leaving the house. Fuck
me, woman. Wake me up anyway. Where’s ‘out back’?”

There was something in his voice, a note to the coarse growl
that made her insides give a shudder. She didn’t have a name to identify it,
because it wasn’t just that he cared or was concerned. It went deeper. Deeper
to a place she wasn’t ready to dive into yet. “Walk out the back door and look
right,” She saw him stomp out to the back porch and look to where she waved at
him. “Get back here.” He ordered, hung up and stomped back in the house. She
looked down at
Squatch
, and his tongue lolled
happily, giving her an adoring look that made her reach down and ruffle his
ears. “Apparently we’ve been commanded back to the house.”
Squatch
barked in excitement and took off towards home, but then stopped and ran back,
jumping around her legs until she started moving, and took off, then came back,
again and again, panting hard by the time they got to the house and covered in
mud. “Wash room, dude.”

Squatch
used his doggie
door,
that
led right into the big tub she’d installed in the mudroom just for
him, so she could hose him off after their jaunts into the woods. She hosed him
down and toweled him off as good as she could, then he hopped down and bounced
into the house to fling himself down onto his
dogbed
by the fire place. He was snoring by the time she hit the kitchen, where Roar
was grumbling around while he made up something that resembled eggs. “Books
said you’d only be sick for the first three months.” He grunted at her, and she
slid onto a bar stool and watched him making a mess on her stove. “Some women
don’t get sick at all. Some are sick through the whole thing. Just depends, I
told you, my doctor says I’m a normal pregnant lady.”

He grunted again and banged around until he found plates to
scoop up and dump half the concoction on one plate, smacked it in front of her
and she stared at it, uncertain that the human stomach was meant to digest the
contents. She could identify the eggs, and what looked like salsa, some kind of
meat, maybe cheese? “Looks terrible, tastes pretty good.” Roar told her,
putting a plate of hot tortillas between them and scooped some of his stuff on
to one of them. She cautiously forked up a bite, and was shocked as the flavors
burst across her tongue. It was bacon, some shredded potatoes tossed in,
cheddar, some garlic, and she tasted her own familiar salsa that had been
spooned in. She cleaned her plate in record time, and looked up to see Roar
staring at her with his tortilla halfway to his mouth. He’d not even taken one
bite and she’d cleaned her plate. “What?” She asked, cheeks burning
self-consciously, wondering if he was going to eat his whole portion. “
Nothin
, baby. You want more?” She shook her head, deciding
she wanted toast and grape jelly. Or lemon curd. Yeah. “Toast.”

She got out her favorite potato bread and sliced off a few
thick wedges, popping them into the toaster, looking out the back window at the
fields, wondering how much a few hog traps would cost. Or if she should just
set up some blinds and- “Babe, you like burnt toast?” Roar’s voice made her
jolt back to the present just in time to save her toast from being to toasty.
She heard him open his mouth to say something, but was forestalled by the
ringing of his cell. “Yeah?” He grunted, then grunted the same word again, only
less of a question, more of an agreement. “I’ll make it happen.” He said, hung
up, and turned around on his stool to face her. “Top want’s a meet. Today.” She
nodded, scooping out a blob of butter to smear on her toast, the smell of the
lemon curd making her mouth water. “Just have to open up, tell the girls I’m
going out and we can go.” She licked the spoon clean of the tangy lemony goodness,
not realizing she’d been rubbing her stomach until Roar came up behind her and
his palm settled on top of hers. “Thought you had a
doctors
appointment today.” He murmured in her ear,
and she glanced over at the calendar on the fridge. “Shit. Totally forgot. I
can reschedule,”

“Top didn’t give me a time, just said to bring you by today.
We’re
goin
to see your doc.”

“Ok. You make good breakfast.”

“Noticed you liked it. Love the way you smell.” He buried his
nose in her hair and breathed in deep. “Pisses me off when I wake up and you’re
not in bed next to me.”

“Take it up with your demon seed that makes me puke my guts
up at 5:45 on the dot.”

“You can call my kid a demon, but I can’t call him a brat?”

“You puking your guts up every morning?”

“No.”

“Then yeah. I can call your kid a demon.”

His laughter rolled through the kitchen like an echo of the
thunder still rolling outside.

She got some of her minions to go out and clean up the berry
patches, answered a few calls, took a walk around the nursery to make sure
there hadn’t been any more damage done to the nursery, and noted some boar
tracks close to the fence. Bastards. After that, she climbed on the back of
Roar’s bike and he took her into town for her
doctors
appointment. Dr. Wilder wasn’t thrilled about
the tattoo, but apart from a warning about infection, she didn’t say anything
more. She flipped the lights off and turned the sonogram machine on, and that
was about the time that Roar got quiet. He stared at the black and white image
on the computer screen and didn’t say a word until they were walking into the
Perdition compound.

Chapter Ten

He’d curled his hand around her calf at every stoplight,
taken her hand when they got off the bike and walked inside, totally ignoring
the greetings his brother’s shouted from across the room, and when they
eyeballed her with narrow eyed speculation, she shrugged and let him tow her
down a picture lined hallway and banged a heavy fist on the closed door. “It’s
open!” A gruff voice called, and Roar led her in to the clutter free office,
where a roughly handsome older man sat behind the equally clutter free desk. It
smelled like smoke, and she found the only dirty thing in the room, which was a
half full ashtray on the corner of the desk. But when she looked at it, the
lean, salt and pepper haired man stood up, walked around her and shouted for
one of the prospects.
Shitkickers
pounded down the
hall and a tow headed kid eagerly asked, “What’s up, Prez?” The
prez
shoved the ashtray at the kid and told him gruffly,
“Get that clean. Tell the boys no smoking inside till this one is gone.” He
hooked his thumb at her, the prospect leaned around to look at her, smiled slow
and sweet at her, winked and then jogged out with a, “On it, boss.”

The
prez
slammed the door shut
after the kid, looked at her for a minute, then at Roar and back to her.
“What’s wrong with him?” He demanded shortly, and she shrugged. “No idea. He
quit talking after we hit the doctor’s office. Been mute like that ever since.”
She watched the older man’s lips twitch, “He see the kid on a sonogram?” She
nodded, a tad bit surprised that the rough looking biker knew what all was
involved with an OBG appointment. He chuckled softly and went over to a
cabinet, poured a stiff three fingers of Johnny Walker into a glass, shoved
Roar into a chair and handed him the glass. Roar knocked it back with a wince,
wrapped his arm around her hips to tug her onto the arm of the chair, and
continued on with his silence. “He’ll get it together after a while. I’m Top, run
this club.” She offered her hand and caught his approval when she squeezed his
work roughened hand firmly. “Everly Nolan.” He arched a brow at her, and she
shrugged as he released her. “Taggart.” She amended. “Changed my name for
safety reasons.”

“You look like your mama.”

His deep voice and what he said, kicked her in the gut. She
was glad she was sitting down, and looked up at him now leaning back against
the desk while he looked down at her. If he knew her mother, that meant he was
in his fifties, maybe, but he was one of those older guys that only got sexier
with age. His dark hair was cut nice, his long mustache trimmed neatly, the
scruffle
on his jaw and the wrinkles in his black tee the
only untidy thing about him. He had rings on his hands, copper cuffs on each
wrist, and like her father had, he just oozed authority. His dark brown eyes
were piercing, but gentle when he looked at her. “Your dad and
me
were both the same age, we met up at a summit in Colorado
in ’87 and shot the shit while the higher ups had their meet. Perdition was
turning towards bail bonds and contract work. Your granddad was still convinced
old school was the only way to go. I met your mama few days later, before the
summit ended and we all went our separate ways. Bitch was the hottest thing I’d
ever seen, gave your dad hell
cause
she kept running
off to the payphone to call your grandma to check on you, and he watched her go
the whole time. You got her eyes. And apparently her temper too.”

She didn’t know what to say to that except, “Ginger.” Which
made the Perdition Prez throw his head back and laugh. “Ginger,” He agreed.
“Glad to know you weren’t one of the bodies in that
clusterfuck
,
honey.” She nodded and with that, she got a chin jerk, and those dark eyes
dropped to where Roar had his hand on her belly. “So, you know what it is yet?”

“Boy,”

“Shit, you find out today?”

“No, today was just a status check. Everything’s going good.”

“Still getting sick in the morning?”

“Yeah. Dizzy sometimes too.”

“He bring you on his bike?”