Cross My Heart (The Devil's Riders 8.50)

But I still hated her. I still wanted to scream. To hit something. To ride too fast.

Hell, if Jan left me, I wanted to crash.

My kids needed me. I knew that. I wouldn’t do anything reckless or stupid. But I wanted to.

“Workshop. Now,” she said. “Call your friends. It’s still early. Have a drink. Have ten.”

“What?” I said, leaning back to stare at her.

“Just don’t hack your arm off. No power tool if you get drunk.”

“I don’t drink.”

“Well, I think you should. Once in a while. I am going to sleep. But you don’t need to be here. I will leave the door open. If the kids need me, I can get up.”

“No.”

“I am fine. You know I wake up every couple of hours anyway. I will stay in bed all damned day tomorrow if you do this for me.”

I stared at her. It was impossible to get her to rest. I nodded, having no intention of doing what she said. Other than going to the workshop, of course.

“I’ll go. I’ll even have a drink. But I am bringing the baby monitors. You will not be on duty tonight.”

She smiled at me, patting my arm. I stared at her delicate hand. Every inch of her was beautiful.

“There is some whiskey above the stove,” she murmured, her eyes already drifting shut. I watched her drift off, feelings of fear, helplessness, and love battling inside me. Then I stood, turned on the white noise machine by the door, and closed it softly behind me.

I checked on all the children, setting up the baby monitor and finding a spare to leave in the hallway. We had so many kids, it would be impossible for me to keep an ‘ear’ on all of them. I taped a note to our bedroom door for the older ones, knowing that someone would not sleep through the night.

Let mommy sleep, I’m in the workshop if you need me. Love, Dad.

Then I grabbed the bottle of whiskey and did just as my wife had told me to do. I went out to the workshop and poured myself a drink.

I did something I never did. Something I hadn’t wanted to do since that time years ago when I had been afraid to touch my beautiful Jan. When I had fought myself tooth and nail to stay away from her, thinking I would never be good enough for someone like her.

I got methodically and deliberately drunk.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Whiskey

“Drake, shut the fuck up,” I said, glaring at the loud mouth in the car with me. I was already regretting bringing him on this emergency trip. Thankfully, Moose was completely silent in the backseat.

Half the crew was at the hospital. But a couple of us were on daddy duty. In this case, the daddy was Jack.

And we were keeping him distracted for a couple of hours.

Jack was my man. The guy I had looked up to from day one. A silent, moving mountain of integrity.

He didn’t pull punches. He didn’t have to. He had an innate sense of right and wrong. He was a natural leader. Almost as much as Devlin. In fact, the two of them complimented each other perfectly.

Even if Dev hadn’t been a born leader, having Jack behind him glaring at anyone who crossed him would have been enough. But Dev was the best leader I could imagine. He was more outgoing than Jack, too.

The truth was, the big man would have hated being in charge.

But tonight, he needed us. He needed to be distracted. Later my woman would be at the hospital and I would be coming by to pick her up. I wouldn’t be drinking with the guys tonight. Drake and Moose would handle that. I was on driving duty.

There was a very good chance I wasn’t getting a lick of sleep tonight. I didn’t mind. I wouldn’t have been able to sleep anyway, worrying about my people.

My brothers. My sisters. My family.

“Drake keep the horseshit to a minimum,” I said as we clambered out of my SUV. “Tank is coming,” I added, as incentive. Tank was the one guy that scared Drake. I loved having the guy around. Moose, Tank, Jack, and myself were the only really massive guys in the club. We all loved Drake enough that we wouldn’t deliberately destroy him.

But Drake didn’t know that. And that was our advantage. Tank was seceretly a softy on the inside, but only to the guys he loved. Hell, I wasn’t even sure he was a softy like the rest of us. He was even harder to read than Jack was. All I knew for sure was that he was one of the most loyal guys around. Also, his softly spoken observations were fucking hilarious. I loved the dude.

I grinned as Tank pulled up on his ride.

The man’s bike was even bigger than mine. The only one among us with a bigger machine was Jack, and that was because his was custom made to fit his big ass body.