“Ride with me?”
“Yes.One of us will be with you at all times until we can find Tinker.”Oh, right.How could she have forgotten about Tinker?She dug her keys out of her other coat pocket and handed them to Cutter.“Here.You drive.”She was exhausted.Between her nerves and getting sick, she was wiped.She climbed into the passenger side and buckled up while Cutter got behind the wheel and adjusted the seat.“You good?”
She leaned her head against the rest and nodded her head.“Yes.I’ll be fine.I’m just tired now.”She waited for him to start the car before she told him they needed to make a stop on the way home.She directed him to Cathy’s house and tried not to think about what seeing Jed with another woman so soon had felt like.She should have known whatever was between them was always destined to end after his comment on their relationship.It is what it is.He was telling her, without saying the actual words, that there was a time limit on them.
* * *
Jed
“What the hell was she doing here?”Jed asked after the door closed behind Sadie.
Before Darren could reply, Race asked, “Who’s on Sadie?”
Fuck.Gritting his teeth, he admitted, “No one, I guess.”
Race’s scowl deepened.He waved for Cutter to follow Sadie.
“What the fuck do you meanno one, you guess?”Darren growled, stomping his way to Jed.
“I mean, I found out she’s pregnant with someone else’s kid, and I left.I didn’t think about getting someone else on her.”Darren shoved him hard, almost causing him to land on his ass.
“What the fuck?How long has she been without protection?Did we not all agree less than twenty-four hours ago that if you couldn’t be with her, you needed to let us know so someone else could cover her?”He didn’t give Jed a chance to respond, not that he had a good argument to defend himself.Whether he was seeing Sadie or not, he still should have seen to her safety.
Darren walked off, then spun around, stomping back.“I can’t believe you left her unprotected, knowing Tinker’s got a hard-on for getting his hands on her to get to you.”
Jed wasn’t sure, but in his opinion, he couldn’t help but feel Darren was taking this fuck up with Sadie a little too personally.
“Well, he doesn’t need to use her to get to me anymore.As soon as I found out that she was knocked up by someone else, I ended it.There’s no reason for him to go after her anymore.”
Darren ran his hands roughly over his face, a muscle ticking in his jaw.“Do you think he knows that, dickhead?Or that it will matter to him that things are over between you two?”
No, it wouldn’t matter to Tinker.There was no way for him to know that he and Sadie were on the outs since no one had seen him in forever.No, even if he knew it wouldn’t matter because Tinker would know that Jed wouldn’t stand by and allow a woman to be hurt.Even if she was a cold-hearted bitch.
Dropping his hands on his hips and shaking his head, Darren turned disgust-filled eyes on Jed and blew up his world.“You are such a fucking idiot.The baby you’re so worried about being passed off as yours is mine.She came here today to tell me she’s pregnant.”
“What?”Jed choked.“And you believed her?”What kind of game was she playing?
“Did you forget about the two of us being held against our will and forced to fuck?The baby she’s carrying is mine.”With that, he spun on his heel and moved toward the door.Halfway there, he turned to fire one more parting shot.“You don’t fucking know her at all.If you did, you’d know she’s a damn good woman who's had more than her fair share of hard knocks.”He threw his hands out to his sides and backed the rest of the way to the door.“You’d be fucking lucky to have her.”
“Where are you going?”How could Darren drop all this on him and leave?
“To tell the woman I love I’m having a baby with someone else.”He slammed his hands into the push bar on the door and stormed out.
Jed was left standing in the middle of the floor, stunned at everything he learned.Glancing at the bar, Race’s lips pressed tight in a disappointed grimace, and Dagger’s slow shaking of his head made him feel about two inches tall.He started for the hall, intending to get dressed and take a ride to clear his head, but came up short when he saw Tori standing at the mouth of the hall, biting into her bottom lip, and her eyes were sad as if even she was disappointed in him.
In his room, he quickly pulled on another shirt, pulled his socks on, and shoved his feet into his boots.Grabbing his cut from the chair, he shrugged it on and palmed his keys.Not wanting to suffer his president’s and VP’s disappointment again, he slipped out the back door and rounded the building, heading for his truck.He jumped in and backed out.He wasn’t sure where he was going, but he couldn’t stay there.What he wouldn’t give for some warm weather so he could ride his bike.
As he took a back road out of town, he thought it was probably a good thing he ended it with Sadie.Even if the baby wasn’t a stranger's it would still be awkward.Darren was his brother, and things would be complicated.How could he be with Sadie while she was having his brother’s baby?That led him to wonder how things were going to go with Kylie when Darren gave her the news that Sadie was pregnant.She would probably lose her mind.The poor woman would be devastated.She’d been through so much already with Tuck and Darren; would this be the one thing that sent her running from both of them?
If Kylie kicked Darren to the curb, would he try and get together with Sadie for the baby’s sake?Jed didn’t like that idea.And he didn’t like that he didn’t like the idea even more.
As he drove, his imagination went wild.He could picture Darren and Sadie together.He’d be a good father to both his baby and Oliver.He’d be good to Sadie, too, even if his heart was with someone else.Fuck.If they got together, Jed would have to leave town.There was no way he could be around the two of them together.
Why did the thought of that hurt so bad?
* * *
Race
