This was not happening.
How the fuck could it happen?
No way. The note was a fucking lie.
It was all a lie.
He’d worn a condom both times. He swore he did.
He had to have. He’d never risk getting saddled with a snot monkey.
He had no desire to be a father. Especially to some Amish baby that probably wasn’t even his.
This was all bullshit.
She fucked someone else. An Amish guy or something and wanted to pawn the unwanted kid off on him. Pass it off as his, get the kid out of the community so she didn’t look like a slut who gave up her virginity before marriage.
That was it.
It was all a fucking lie. That was what he would tell Bryson. To take the kid and do whatever with it. He wanted nothing to do with someone else’s brat.
He spun and strode back toward the group, who all stared at him.
His gaze landed on his brother who looked almost as pissed as Dutch.
His feet stopped moving halfway through the lot. He stood there, helpless, the note still crumpled in his fist.
He closed his eyes and scrubbed a hand down his face.
Out of nowhere, he was standing in a yard of brown, dead grass.
On that day.
The day she left.
The day she deserted him and Rook.
Left them behind without a second thought.
Not giving a flying fuck about what happened to them.
Simply gave up her sons because she was done with the MC life. Done with her ol’ man. Done with her own fucking children.
She had abandoned them all.
His eyes popped open when the balled-up note was snatched from his hand. His father unwrinkled it and quickly read it.
Then his dark brown eyes hit his. Cage didn’t even bother to duck when Dutch swung. His old man clubbed him alongside the head, rattling his brains for a second. “Stupid motherfucker.”
Bryson yelled out a, “Yo! Dutch! You can’t do that shit in front of me.”
Dutch ignored the pig in uniform. “Taught you boys to wrap your fuckin’ shit tight, didn’t I? You just made me a goddamn granddaddy before my fuckin’ time.” He jerked on his long salt-and-pepper beard. He shook the wrinkled note in front of Cage’s face. “Makin’ me feel old. Goddamn it.” He spat tobacco juice on the ground at Cage’s feet, splashing his boots.
Dutch took the note with him when he walked back to where Bryson was holding the baby. Rev and Whip were gone, most likely ordered to get back to work by his father. And Rook and Reilly remained with the cop.
Rook’s face was now unreadable. Reilly kept glancing back and forth from Dutch to Cage with a worried look.
“You know her? This S?” Matt Bryson asked, gently bouncing the baby because it was now crying softly. Like a kitten. Which was what should have been in that fucking box in the first place!
“Of fuckin’ course he knew her if he stuck his dick in her and got her knocked up,” Dutch growled.
“You didn’t force her—”
Rook shouted a, “Hey!” cutting the pig off. “My brother don’t need to force a fuckin’ woman.”
Cage looked up from the now red-faced infant in Bryson’s arm. “No. Didn’t force her. She gave it up willingly.”
Bryson stared down at the baby and sighed. “You think it’s yours?”
“Dunno,” Cage answered honestly. “Wrapped it tight each time... Could be tryin’ to pawn her spawn off on me... Not sure.”
“What do you want to do?” Bryson asked.
“This isn’t like kittens, Cage. You can’t take him to the Humane Society,” Reilly said behind him, like she was being fucking helpful.
“EMS is already en route. I can call CPS, if you want. Especially if you don’t think he’s yours.”
He?
No fucking way he had a son. And this was all starting to feel a little too real.
He had drank so much last night he’d blacked out. Now he was just sleeping it off and this was just a nightmare.
That was it.
This was all a fucking nightmare to teach him a lesson about drinking too much.
He’d imagined everything that happened this morning. He didn’t wake up with some random snatch in his room. Reilly never showed up, riding his ass about being late. And in a little while he’d open his eyes and see his dirty laundry still scattered all over his room.
Yep. He was recovering from the whiskey bender he had last night.
The baby’s cry turned into a wail.
“DNA test would be smart,” Bryson suggested, as if this wasn’t a nightmare. “Then if he’s yours, you can put him up for adoption. Maybe Teddy and Adam would be interested.”
Right. Hand his son over to a gay couple to raise.
Fuck, they’d do a better job than him. What the fuck did he know about babies? Nothing.
He didn’t want to learn, either.
“If this is my grandbaby, he ain’t goin’ nowhere,” Dutch groused. “If he’s blood, he stays with blood. He ain’t goin’ to the ER for CPS to take ‘im. He ain’t bein’ put up for adoption. My son’s gonna grow a fuckin’ set and raise the son he made ‘cause he was too stupid not to knock up some Amish girl who he fuckin’ knows he wasn’t supposed to fuck around with.” The last came out on a roar. His red-faced father turned toward Bryson. “Now, Matt, gonna kindly ask you to turn around while I clobber some fuckin’ sense into my own crotch fruit. Shoulda made his momma swallow that fuckin’ load.”