I couldn’t ask for more than that. And now they were about to become parents.
“Hey, Uncle Bull,” Chastity said, pressing a kiss to my cheek.
“Hey, sweet girl. You feeling okay?”
“Yeah, but the sooner this baby is out of me, the better. I’m tired of waddling like a duck and dry heaving every time I smell meat.” She rubbed her huge belly. “Can we talk?”
“This sounds serious. Should I be concerned?”
In my family, pregnancy wasn’t without risk. My mom almost died giving birth to my older sister, Veronica, and I was born by C-section after my mom’s heart stopped during labor. Thankfully, she’d pulled through. But I was the last of her children, even though she’d wanted more.
And Veronica had problems giving birth to all four of her babies. After her eldest, Chance, was born, the doctor advised her not to have anymore. It was the same advice he gave her following Cade and Caleb’s birth. And it was advice she finally listened to following Chastity’s harrowing birth.
I prayed that things went smoothly for my niece.
Her smile was beautiful. “No. Everything is fine. Perfect, actually.”
I relaxed.
“Come on, we can talk in my office.” I led her and Ruger out of the bar.
“I hope you don’t mind but I asked Indy and Cade to join us,” Chastity said.
No sooner had we walked into my office when the door opened, and Cade walked in with his very own mini-me on his shoulders. River was almost five, and the spitting image of his father.
Indy walked in behind them, carrying little Bella in her arms. As soon as she saw me, Bella reached out her chubby arms and wriggled against her mom as if to say, give me to him. Her adorable little face broke into a big smile the moment Indy handed her over and I secured her in my arms. The kid loved me, and I was fucking crazy about her.
Her name was an homage to Mirabella, the murdered wife of a now-deceased club member. Mirabella died when a psychopath executed a campaign of revenge against the club. The same man also kidnapped Indy, but fell short of killing her because Cade put two bullets in him.
“So, what is this all about?” I asked, sitting behind my desk with Bella on my lap.
“Well, we have a favor to ask,” Chastity said, trying to get comfortable in the chair.
I gave her a nod. “Go on.”
“We’d like you to be Will’s godfather,” she said. “And we’d like Cade and Indy to be his godparents too,” she added, looking at her brother and his wife.
“If anything happened to us…we want our boy to be raised by family.” Ruger placed his hand on his wife’s belly. “By the people we know will raise him right.”
Our world was unpredictable. Life could turn on a dime.
Godfather.
It was the closest I was going to get to being a father.
I was resigned to having no children of my own. I had the club. I had my nieces and nephews, and now my grand-nephews and nieces. And while there had always been a dull ache in my chest knowing I’d never hold my own kid, I gave up the dream.
After all, my chance died in a car wreck eighteen years earlier.
And I had never come close with anyone since. There had been no close calls, of course, because when I fucked, I fucked with protection.
A baby I would love.
A fucking STD, I wouldn’t.
I smiled at my niece and my best friend. “Nothing would make me happier.”
BULL
I left the clubhouse and headed for home. As the wind whipped across my face, I thought about Indy and Cade, and how River looked just like his father, and how Bella was the cutest thing since fucking sliced bread. Then, I thought of Caleb and Honey, and how their kids crawled all over them, spreading their love and adoration over their parents like fairy dust. I thought of Cassidy and Chance, and precocious little Ava who had her daddy wrapped around her little finger like twine.
Then I thought of my best friend and my niece, about to start their very own family, and the small ache in my chest, the one that had been there for eighteen years, seeped into every nook and cranny of my dark heart.
I wasn’t one to feel sorry for myself. It was a waste of fucking time.
And nobody liked a pity-party for one.
But something about today’s meeting with my family had dragged some deeply buried shit to the surface.
I put it down to the apprehension I felt toward what I was going to do. Tomorrow was going to be ugly. I didn’t enjoy a lot of the things I did as president, but some things needed to be done. Tomorrow was no different. It was probably why I was feeling so damn nostalgic.