Tears welled in Sammy’s lower lids. “Oliver loves wolves. He’s pretty much obsessed with them. I wanted to take him to this wolf sanctuary outside of Bozeman. Now I might never get the chance.”
“Yes, you will.” The walls of my chest squeezed sotight that it felt like my heart might stop beating. I couldn’t stand to see her in pain. “Come here.”
She let me pull her into my arms and sobbed against the dry shirt I’d borrowed from Arrow. A mix of emotions swirled through me. I hated seeing her cry and would do anything to make her feel better. But I was also pissed. We had a kid together, and she’d never bothered to tell me? Now wasn’t the time, but I was going to get all the answers she owed me as soon as we got our son back.
Our son… fuck.
I’d never imagined myself with a kid. My dad was a piece of shit whose legacy needed to end with me. At least that had been my plan. My mom wasn’t much better. The gene pool I came from had nothing to offer. Sammy knew how I felt. Once upon a time, we told each other everything. How could she have kept something so important from me and for so long?
Thunder tapped me on the shoulder. I looked up to see the room had cleared except for him and Arrow. “Both of you should stay here tonight. Why don’t you go get her settled, then come back down and we’ll hash out the details for tomorrow?”
“You can take Stone’s room,” Arrow said. “He’s on his honeymoon and wouldn’t mind you crashing there.”
I took the key Thunder offered and pulled Sammy to her feet. “Come on, Sam.”
“I’d rather be part of the conversation on how we’re going to get Oliver back.” She lifted her chin, more than willing to stare down Thunder.
He shook his head. “It’s club business. All you needto know is that we’ll get your son back. The less you know about how, the better off you’ll be.”
Sammy wasn’t the type of woman who backed down easily, but Thunder wasn’t a man who liked to be challenged. “Fine. Just know that if anything happens to him, I’m going to hold you and the Mustang Mountain Riders responsible. We were doing okay on our own. If Juice hadn’t stopped in tonight, none of this would have happened.”
I put my arm around her and steered her through the doorway. She was right. I shouldn’t have stopped in Silver Creek. Though if I hadn’t, would she ever have told me about our son? Anger made my blood heat. I wanted answers—ones only Sammy could provide.
Instead of pinning her against the wall in the hallway and demanding she tell me everything, I gently led her to Stone’s room. With so many people staying at the clubhouse and on the grounds, it was the only available place to crash.
“You should be comfortable here for the night.” I pulled a set of clean sheets from the shelf in the closet and started to make up the bed.
“You want me to stay out of the way while you and your buddies make plans, is that it?” She grabbed the fitted sheet and slid the edge over the corner of the mattress. “I’m just supposed to stand by and trust that everything’s going to turn out, okay?”
I tossed the side of the top sheet over the mattress, and we worked together to tuck it in around the edges. “Everythingwillbe okay. I promise you, I’m not going tolet anything happen to Oliver.” Saying his name for the first time felt strange. Made me wonder how she’d decided what to call him. There was so much about him I didn’t know. I’d missed out on five whole years. I’d never get that time back. Never know what it felt like to hold him as a baby. To hear his first word or see his first smile.
“You shouldn’t make promises you can’t possibly keep.” She stared at me from the other side of the bed. Her eyes glimmered in the dim light. The shadows from the lamp on the bedside table made her cheeks look sunken and hollow.
I walked around the bed and reached for her hand. “I’ve never lied to you, Sammy, and I’m not about to start now. Iwillbring Oliver back, and once I do, we’re going to have a long talk about why you never told me I had a son.”
“You think I didn’t try? We shared one night together and two days later you dropped out of school and left town. When I found out I was pregnant, I tried to reach out. Your number had been disconnected. The emails I sent bounced back.” She pulled her hands away from mine and crossed her arms under her chest. “You fell off the face of the earth, Juice.”
“No. You knew where I was. You could have reached out to my agent, to the tour promoter… you could have left me a message at one of the venues where we were performing.” She was one of the smartest people I knew. If Sammy wanted to get something done, she figured out a way. I’d seen her do it dozens of times in the past.
She opened her mouth to speak, but I didn’t want to hear any more of her lies.
“I need to get back down there and talk to Thunder. Lock the door behind me.”
“Where are you going to sleep tonight?” She bit down on her lip, probably wondering how best to tell me she didn’t want me anywhere near her.
“I’ll crash on one of the couches downstairs.”
“I’m going with you in the morning.” Her hands moved to her hips like she was daring me to argue with her.
The guys would be pissed, but she had a right to be nearby and not over an hour away when we got our hands on Oliver. “Only if you swear you’ll do exactly what I tell you to. I can’t have you fucking up our plans and getting in the way.”
“Fine.”
Sirius jumped up on the bed and turned in circles before settling down on one of the pillows. Stone was going to love knowing my dog had been taking up half of his bed.
“You okay with him staying here tonight?” I nodded toward the dog who let out a huge sigh.
Sammy sat down on the edge of the bed and buried her fingers in Sirius’s thick, soft fur. “Yes. I doubt I’ll get much sleep. It’ll be nice to have some company.”
