“There’s never a right time to have a kid, sweetie. And honestly, if there was, right now would be the time. With everything going on, the club needs this. Ranger needs this. Some light in the middle of this shit. Something beautiful and pure. Something to fight for.” She sipped her whisky. “In saying that, it’s only beautiful if it’s right for you. There’s no shame in saying it’s not. No one will judge you.”
She was wrong. I would judge myself if I did what my mind whispered was best. Was safest. It would make me a coward. It would create cracks in my soul and in my marriage, eventually tearing it apart.
“You’re right,” I said after a beat. “This is what the club needs. What Ranger needs.” I looked down to my stomach. “A family.”Eight Months Later“We need to go to the hospital now,” Ranger clipped, glaring at me as I descended the stairs of our new home. He’d decided a beachside bungalow, while beautiful, was not practical for a baby. It was too small. Too unprotected.
Initially, I hadn’t known what he truly meant when he said ”unprotected”. We had enemies, I knew this, but they were faceless to me. I hadn’t put any thought to whatever the club was doing finding us at home, Old Ladies and families were off limits, in the rules of outlaw war. But things were turning. Men were getting tense, you could feel it in the air. It scared me, but not enough as it probably should’ve. I trusted Ranger to protect me. Us.
So we’d moved into town, onto a quiet street, into a beautiful house paid with money I knew was somehow stained with blood.
“We don’t need to go yet,” I said, pausing in the middle of the staircase. I inhaled sharply and clutched the railing as another contraction took hold.
Ranger watched, obviously furious at me for not listening to his alpha commands. He was also furious because he had to watch his wife go through pain, and there was nothing he could do about it. He was committed to protecting me from anything and everything, and right now, there was a lot to protect me from. He could do plenty about the outside influences, just not our son making his arrival known my ripping apart his mother’s womb.
He must’ve moved at some point because he was no longer glaring at me from the bottom of the stairs, I was in his arms as he descended them.
“Cody!” I snapped. “You can’t carry me. I’m an elephant, and you’ll pull something. Plus, I’m totally capable of walking.”
He put me down but did not let me go. One of his hands went to the large swell of my stomach, the other to the back of my neck. “Not going to apologize for not letting my pregnant wife go through fucking contractions on the middle of the staircase,” he gritted out. “You can be the strong, independent woman all you want in every other aspect of your life. But not this part. Not when my whole world is possibly in danger. When I can’t do a damn thing but take you to the hospital. So let me take you to the fucking hospital.
Long story short, I let him take me to the fucking hospital.
Jack Cody Derrick was born fifteen hours later.
The entire club took over the waiting room during that time, showing their support. Showing me my son would always have family.I closed the door, quietly.
Not that I needed to, Jack slept like the dead. He had since we’d brought him home from the hospital.
Quiet.
Too quiet.
It had me checking on him every five minutes to make sure he was still breathing. Olive stayed with us for the first two weeks of Jack’s life. She might not have approved of the life her son had chosen, but she loved him and supported him no matter what. She supported me no matter what too.
My own mother warmed up with the birth of her first grandchild, but that wasn’t really saying much considering she was my mother. It was like saying hell had gotten itself a space heater.
She wouldn’t be the favorite grandmother, that title was reserved for Olive. My father, on the other hand, would most definitely be the favorite grandfather, and not just because he was the only one Jack would have.
Along with his grandparents and parents, Jack had an entire club of uncles ready to fight for him, to protect him. He even had a Sons of Templar onesie already. He was born into the club, and most likely would patch in to it when he was older. Of course he would have a choice, and I could be wrong about the kind of man he’d turn out to be; he may not want anything to do with the club, but I didn’t think so. I had the feeling he would grow up to idolize his dad and the men in the club. He would be surrounded by family, by Harleys, the idea of a life lived free and wild.