She was hurting.
She would always hurt. The same way I hurt. The pain from losing a child, a child you so desperately wanted, never healed.
Her car door opened, and she stepped out and looked around as she swiped her cheeks. She stared in my direction, but she didn’t see me. I’d become a chameleon. In the years I’d been gone, I’d learned to hide in plain sight.
I was just another person visiting the lake.
Her attention on me quickly faded, and she walked to the water’s edge. She sat on the bank and wrapped her arms around her legs and pressed her cheek against her knees.
Morgan had told me about this lake. We’d lain in bed together after making love, and she’d talked about her hometown.
Seven years ago...
“It’s beautiful, Jude. Like a Norman Rockwell painting. Or Mayberry.” She giggled, and I felt my dick waking up. Fuck, this woman. Every sound she made, whether she was laughing in joy or screaming in anger, made me want her.
“Mayberry, huh? You have your own Barney Fife?”
“Definitely not. The sheriff is no Andy Griffith. In fact, more times than I can count, the club’s had to take matters into its own hands to fix things.”
She was talking about the Sons of Hell. I knew who Callum Montclair was. Knew who his father had been. His sister had disappeared in college, and they never stopped looking for her. Her whereabouts had only been discovered a few years ago, along with her daughter.
I ran my hand over Morgan’s flat belly. A futile attempt to protect the child growing there. This life wasn’t meant for kids. It wasn’t meant for women like Morgan.
She wasn’t soft exactly, more like pure. Untainted by violence and betrayal. She didn’t know the danger that came with this life. Didn’t understand what I had dragged her into.
I never should have touched her, but from the moment we met, she was mine. I would do everything in my power to keep her from being hurt by this life.
“Tell me about Rosewood,” I said.
“There’s this lake. It’s so beautiful and peaceful. The perfect place for family picnics.” She smiled at me over her shoulder. Her hand covered mine, and she whispered, “We can take the baby when he’s older.”
“He?”
“Or she.” She shrugged. “I don’t like calling our baby ‘it,’ so I alternate between he and she.”
“Have you thought about names?” I asked her.
“Some. It’s hard to decide. Names are so important.” She snuggled back against my chest, and my arms tightened around her. I wanted to keep her right here, always. Away from my life outside these walls, away from the danger and the threats.
“Like Jude, for instance. It means praised one or let him be praised.”
I bent down and kissed her neck. “You were certainly praising me a few minutes ago.”
She squirmed for a moment before letting out a moan as I sucked at a spot near her shoulder.
“Jude is a bible name,” she continued. “He was one of the twelve apostles.”
I stiffened without thought.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized, turning in my arms. “We can talk about names later.”
“No, it’s not your fault. Besides, pretty sure my mother named me after a Beatles song.”
That wasn’t true. The one thing my father had insisted on was giving us biblical names. My brother’s birth name was Justus. He changed it to Justin when he turned eighteen.
“Maybe we steer clear of the Bible names, though.”
She smiled and nodded, the moment now tainted by my hangups when it came to my father. The man was a bastard; I wanted nothing to do with him.
