Chapter Twenty

Bethany

I'd woken bright and early in preparation for the family day at the clubhouse. It was going to be a huge event, and in a way, it was nice to go to something like that and not actually be responsible for planning it. I had managed to get Coyote's club a discount on the inflatable castle rental through one of my connections, so I felt like in a way I was contributing. I was looking forward to catching up with the Dark Slayers and their wives. There had been a lot of changes since I left town, back then I'd gotten quite close to Storm's wife, Zoe, her sister, Alison, and Alison's husband, Grit, who had given me a job at his gym.

I was already making breakfast when Coyote came downstairs. While I had been tempted to stay in bed with him and continue on from last night's pleasures, I knew my little girl would be getting fidgety. We'd told her about the special day earlier in the week and bless her, she'd thought it was her birthday. I'd explained that her birthday was still a month away, but we could call this a practice party. When she turned two, she was still a bit too young to really appreciate things, so we'd just had a quiet party at Reggie's with his nieces. This year I promised her a party at Patterdale Waterpark, and we could invite her friends from daycare. Callie and Breaker's kids would be coming too, and I suspect, knowing how good Nessa was at making friends, that she'd probably come back today with a whole bunch of new best buddies.

"Morning, beautiful," Coyote said as he stood behind me and kissed the back of my neck. I leaned against him feeling the hard planes of his chest against my back. I was tempted to press my ass into a certain area to see if anything else was hard, but Nessa would no doubt be awake any minute. I'd taken the baby monitor with me so I could listen out for her waking up and go and get her ready—while at almost three, she could dress herself, if left to her own devices the resulting outfit could be quite interesting. I flipped the pancakes and turned around to kiss Coyote.

"Good morning, handsome." Before either of us could say anything more, we heard the noise of childish giggles and yipping coming from the monitor, "Looks like someone is awake."

"Do you want me to see to her while you finish breakfast?" Coyote asked.

"If you could, that would be great," I responded as I poured more batter into the pan. "I left her outfit over the chair, if she insists on the fairy wings then let her wear them." Noticing his bemused look I added, "We had a bunch of kid's Halloween costumes come into the store last week. One of the packages was damaged and there were a pair of gauze fairy wings loose. We couldn't sell them, so I brought them back, she's been asking to wear them every morning and me being bad mommy said she couldn't."

Coyote laughed, "So you're bad cop and I'm good cop?"

"Something like that," I said. As he went upstairs to get Nessa ready, I pondered what he'd said for a moment. In the week that we'd been staying with him we'd fallen into an easy routine with him helping out with Nessa like we were a real family. It was making keeping secrets from him even more difficult. I'd decided after the weekend I would bite the bullet and get one of the home paternity test kits. I figured that way I could use anonymous names on the form, my paranoia was so great that Cyclops would discover what I'd done. I knew that was crazy, but the way he'd looked at Nessa at the opening of Coyote's auto repair shop had chilled me to the bone.

Truth be told, that encounter had really spooked me, even though I'd not seen hide nor hair of him since. Just seeing him brought back all those memories of being violated, and the uneasy calm I'd managed to build up in the last three and a half years felt fragile as if it would collapse at any moment. I had to stay strong for Nessa, but it was making me jumpy. On Thursday evening when I'd left work, I'd thought someone was following me as I drove the hour-long journey back to Coyote's house. I'd kept glancing in the rear-view mirror but hadn't seen anything suspicious, at least no bikes. I don't know if Coyote still had his prospects shadowing me, after Rufus had been dealt with, and the cops deciding that the fire was arson, I doubted he had much reason to keep an eye on me.

"Mommy, look at me!" A little voice called out and I lifted my head up and smiled. Nessa looked so cute, she was wearing the red and white polka dot sundress I'd bought her and a pair of matching red sneakers. Coyote had braided her hair and added a couple of flower barrettes. The outfit was topped with a large pair of glittery fairy wings, and she was carrying a wand.

"Wow! You're a fairy queen," I said and smiled up at Coyote as my daughter danced around the room with Ruby hot on her heels. I asked him, "Where did you get the wand?"

"Remember the old sheriff's badge I used to wear on my cut, back when I thought it was cool? I taped it to a wheel spoke."

"Creative and handsome," I quipped.

"Told you I had some uses," he said as he arranged our plates on the kitchen table and got out the maple syrup.

"Does fairy princess Nessa want her pancakes?" I shouted, as my daughter skipped back into the kitchen with a puzzled look on her face.

"What's up?" Coyote asked.

"Doesn't work," she said while shaking the homemade wand and screwing up her eyebrows in deep concentration.

"What are you trying to do, sweetheart?" I asked as I lifted her up onto her booster seat.

"Ruby wants wings."

"Ah," Coyote said sounding deadly serious. "I'm sorry princess, I think the wand doesn't work on dogs."

I sensed a tantrum, so before her bottom lip started to wobble, I placed a plate with two small pancakes on it in front of her, and it worked like magic, "Booberries and bananananas!" she exclaimed happily as she grabbed her fork.

"Yes, blueberries and bananas, don't eat too many though, because a little bird told me there'll be cotton candy later."

Coyote sat down beside her and leaned over cutting her pancake into pieces to make it easier for her to spear them up, and my heart just about melted seeing them together. I ate my pancakes silently watching as they both chatted and fooled about. It just seemed so natural, the way they interacted. He was asking about daycare and nodding earnestly as she told him about what Alejandro had told her and the fight she'd had with Kelly over the pink playdough.

This was how our future could be.

***

I drove to the Dark Slayers clubhouse, with Coyote following behind on his bike. It had been over three years since I'd last been at the clubhouse, obviously the original building had been burned to the ground when they had a run in with the cult, but the new building was on the same spot. The drive had been uneventful, but once again I'd had the strangest sensation I was being watched. As I turned off to the exit that led to the clubhouse, suddenly a bike pulled up beside me, I glanced in the rear-view mirror to see where Coyote was, and I saw he'd gotten caught in the traffic lights. My eyes went to Nessa who was happily flicking through a picture book on the back seat. My heart started racing as I turned my head to the left, the biker was practically level with me and my blood chilled when I saw his dead-eyed stare and realized it was Cyclops. I started to panic as I tried to figure out how to get myself and my daughter away from him. It was clear he was trying to scare me, as when I caught his gaze he had a look of malicious glee on his face.

Almost as soon as he appeared, he suddenly sped up and disappeared along the road. I realized the reason for this when Coyote pulled up next to me. We drove like this for the remainder of the journey to the clubhouse, by the time we arrived my heart had gotten itself under control, but I was still shaken. I tried to put a brave face on for Nessa's benefit.

"We're here sweetie," I said as I unbuckled her from the car seat. Coyote was by my side instantly and his arms were around me. So as not to scare Nessa he whispered, "You okay querida?"

"I just got a shock. What did he want?"

Coyote shrugged, "Twisted Metal are assholes. They like to show off around town, I'm guessing he knew you were with me and wanted to have some kind of pissing contest."

I nodded shakily, I wasn't so sure that was true. I'd seen the way his eyes had alighted on Nessa as he rode past us and the way he'd been at Coyote's grand opening.

***

I eventually put my worries aside, and we had a wonderful day at the clubhouse. A lot of the other brothers' wives had kids close in age to Nessa, so she had great fun. While Coyote was chatting with his club brothers I got to know the old ladies. In addition to the women I already knew, I met some really fun new faces, there was Bella who was married to Forge, the brother in charge of the grill. They had the sweetest toddler, then there was Aprilia who was married to Forge's best friend Mason, a huge Cajun bear of a man. Later on, everyone had gotten excited because Jav's younger brother Corey had dropped by with his girlfriend Dusty. She was Celt's daughter, it seemed like only yesterday she'd been a shy little thing and now she was old enough to be studying at UCLA. I'd remembered Celt, Hacker, Renegade, and Thunder from back in the day when they used to hang out at the gym, but honestly it was like a whirlwind of names and faces today. But all of them were welcoming and watching everyone together made me think of one big happy family. And if I stayed with Coyote then they could be my family too. I had to tell him he might be Nessa's father and my determination to do that grew.

Before long things were starting to die down, there were a few tantrums as some of the younger kids after coming down from their sugar high and missed afternoon naps, started getting cranky. Luckily, Nessa had almost outgrown that stage, but still I didn't want to upset her routine too much. I was packing away her things as we walked through the clubhouse when Breaker stepped out.

"Can I have a word with you, brother," he said to Coyote looking all kinds of serious.

Coyote ruffled Nessa's hair, and I couldn't help but notice the weird look that Breaker gave him. I guess it did look like we were trying to play happy families. Or at least maybe that's what he thought I was doing, and he thought it was too soon. If only he knew the truth.

"Can't it wait until later?" Coyote asked. Callie and Breaker were coming over to our house after the festivities ended. Coyote's mom was looking after their kids tonight, tomorrow Breaker and Coyote were planning on riding to the port to check on a shipment of automobile parts from Japan. Callie and I hadn't decided on our day yet, we thought we'd play it by ear once she'd collected the kids from her mom.

"Nope," Breaker said, being uncharacteristically brusque.

At that point, Nessa decided to start getting cranky. She was tired and overstimulated and if we didn't go now then there was gonna be an almighty tantrum, "Look, I'll go ahead," I said. While I'd been shaken this morning by my run in with Cyclops, to be honest, right now the prospect of Nessa having a full-on meltdown at the clubhouse was the worse option.

Coyote opened his mouth to protest, "Really I'll be fine," I said as I tried to soothe Nessa. "I'll see you later."

Breaker continued to glare at me, and I wondered what his problem was, we'd always been on good terms. I guessed that he was pissed at something or other and I shouldn't take it personally.

I was halfway to the door when Coyote shouted after me, "If you can hang on five minutes, Mace, Cooper, and Axel are coming around. They'll escort you and Nessa home."

"Okay," I called back. Three prospects sounded like overkill, but right now I wasn't about to argue with him. This morning's encounter had shaken me more than I liked to admit, so I was happy to be escorted home like a VIP.