“What is it?” I demanded, my voice shaking as the memory of thinking Raider had been in the blast earlier that day came back to haunt me all over again. Colt’s jaw clenched, making my already queasy stomach protest more. “Colt?”
Seei
ng the fear in my eyes, he softened his expression slightly and gave me a grim smile. “I just wanted to come say bye, Quinnie.”
The word sounded foreign to me. Bye? What did that mean? “Y-you’re leaving? Now?” When I needed him the most? When I was scared for him and anyone who wore the Angel’s Halo MC cut?
His stiff shoulders lifted in a shrug. “I’ve got some business to take care of, sweetheart. I don’t know when I’ll be back, but I wanted to see you before I left.”
Business. Meaning he was going on a run for the MC. I knew better than to ask where he was going or why. He wouldn’t have told me even if I had asked, but he always told me bye before he went on one. I hugged him tightly. “Be careful,” I whispered against the leather of his cut.
He kissed the top of my head that didn’t even reach his chin. “I will. Not sure when I’ll be back,” he said again. “But I won’t be able to call to check on you much. Be careful, okay? Don’t do anything reckless. I’d hate to have to kill someone if something happened to you or the baby. And call if you need me or Kelli for anything life-or-death.”
My eyes widened. “Kelli’s going with you?” On a run? That made no sense to me.
“Yeah, just me and her. I wouldn’t take her with me unless I had to,” he assured me with another grim smile, but there was something in his green eyes that had me taking a step back from him.
I trusted Colt with my life. He had been there for me through every up and down in my life. He was the one person in the world I knew I could count on no matter the time of day, no questions asked. He was my person, and I liked to think I was his too. I had never been scared of him. Never. But right then, with that look on his handsome face and that look in his eyes, he was making me nervous.
“Just be careful, Colt.” He nodded his dirty-blond head, and I hugged him again. “I love you.”
I got another kiss on top of my head before he stepped back. “Love you, Quinnie,” he gritted out and walked away.
I stood there in the doorway watching him walk down the hall. Something was wrong, I knew it, could feel it. But if it was MC-related, I knew I would never know what it was. I started to go back into the bedroom when I saw Raven come out of a room farther down the hall. Seeing me standing there, she came over to me.
“Hey. The kids okay?” She stuck her head in to look at her kids who, while still a little shaken up from the earlier chaos, seemed blissfully unaware of the true destruction that had been done today.
“They’re doing good,” I assured her. “Everything okay? You look run off your feet.”
Her lips twisted into a sad excuse for a smile. “Willa passed out. Doc is in there with her and Spider now, but he’s not happy with her blood pressure. He and Spider are making her go to the hospital for the night.”
“Oh my God,” I whispered low, so the kids couldn’t hear me. “Is she going to be okay?”
“I think she will be, if she can survive Spider’s freak-out.”
“Let me know if there is anything I can do. I feel like I’m just hiding in here.” Or like I’m being locked up, but I didn’t tell her that.
She didn’t need to know that her brother had exhausted me by making me come over and over again until I had fallen asleep on top of him. Or that he had woken me a while later to deposit his niece and nephew in the room with me before giving me a kiss and disappearing. That had been hours ago, and I hadn’t seen or heard from him since. I knew he was shaken up after what had happened to Tanner and Warden, that it was hurting him deeply. And I even accepted that he was worried about something happening to me and the baby, but I wanted to be with him right now. Wanted just to hold his hand if nothing else, damn it.
He had promised me he would be careful, but I didn’t completely trust that he hadn’t been crossing his fingers. He was hot-tempered and wanted to avenge his friends. Part of me wanted him to kill the mofos who had taken Tanner and Warden from us. But a bigger, terrified part of me wanted him to just hold me and let the others deal with it.
“Flick’s going to come and watch the kids in a few. Come and get something to eat,” Raven urged. She touched a hand to my stomach only to drop it quickly when she realized what she had done. “Sorry. I hated it when people touched my stomach when I was pregnant with Max. I was as big as a house, and I guess a pregnant belly is like a magnet or something, but you’re still not even showing.” She shook her head with a tiny smile lifting one side of her mouth. “I’m just really excited to be getting a niece or nephew.”
“It’s okay. You can touch my stomach whenever you get the urge,” I promised her. “Where is my baby daddy, by the way? Have you seen him?”
“Sorry, I haven’t seen him, babe.”
I forced a smile. “Okay. Well, I’ll come eat as soon as Flick comes to relieve me.”
She turned to go, then stopped and looked back at me over her shoulder. “He’s just worried about you, Quinn. He doesn’t want anything to happen to you and the baby.”
I tried to make my smile brighter, but it was still forced. “I know.”
Ten minutes later, Flick knocked on the door. She had two plates for the kids in her hands. “I’ve come to feed the monstrous Reid spawn.”
“Aunt Flick!” Max jumped up and ran over to hug her leg.
“Hey, buddy.” With him still clinging to her leg, she half walked, half waddled over to the bed where she set the two paper plates down and then picked him up. Giving him a loud, smacking kiss on the cheek, she tickled him under the chin and rubbed her nose against his. “You hungry? Because I’m not sure if I just heard your tummy growl or if you’re actually turning into a demon spawn.”