Bear: Chapter 14
It had been two days since Hope had been taken to the hospital. They’d been running what felt like a million tests on her and finding nothing. However, her fever remained high and her white blood cell count was off. They were waiting for some other test results to come back.
I hadn’t slept or left the hospital for a second. The club took shifts sitting with me. I wanted to be sitting in Hope’s room, but Ilara was in there. She’d told the staff that under no circumstances was I to be allowed in Hope’s room or told anything about her condition. I was fucking crushed. I tried a couple of times to get her to let me explain, but she walked off without saying a word.
My club was being supportive, well, all but Outlaw. He seemed to be determined to hold a grudge. I knew they were all itching to know who the hell Tarin was. I wanted to tell Ilara first, but at this rate, I might not get to do it. I knew it was time to talk to my club. It would help me pass the time as we waited to hear something. I’d talked to Bull, and he called church. We were going to hold it here in the hospital. Zara had found us a conference room we could use for an hour.
I sat there as my brothers streamed into the room. They took their seats and looked at me expectantly. Bull gave me a chin lift, so I dove right in. “Okay, I’d hoped that I would be able to talk to Ilara about this first, however that’s not going to happen any time soon. So, here’s the damn truth about Tarin and what happened the other night.”
I narrowed my eyes at Outlaw. “First, I absolutely didn’t cheat on Ilara. I would never do that. I love her and Hope more than anything in this world. When we figure out what is wrong with Hope, I’ll be getting back both of them.”
“We understand, Bear. We’re sorry we have to do this now, but we need to know what the hell happened, so we can help,” Rebel told me.
“Thanks, Reb. Here it goes. When Ilara took Hope home and I stayed, I intended to talk to Terror and Reaper about Todd Hamilton. Once that was done, I was going to go home and talk to Ilara about something else. Before I could find them to talk, a young woman approached me. I had no idea who she was or how she’d gotten in the compound. It was obvious from the way she was dressed, that she wasn’t a bunny with one of the other clubs. She asked if I was Donovan Wood.”
The guys all muttered. It was unusual for an outsider to know our names, let alone use them.
“I was instantly on alert. Who the hell was she? She told me that she had to talk to me and she wanted to do it in private. I told her she needed to get lost. I didn’t know her. I’d never slept with her. She insisted, and I was about to show her to the door when she said a name, a name from my past.”
I paused. “When she said it, I took her straight to my room to talk. Looking back, it was stupid to do that. I should have used Bull’s office or even took her into church, but I was on autopilot. When we got inside, she told me why she’d come. Her story knocked me for a damn loop.”
“What was the story? Stop pussyfooting around and tell us,” Outlaw growled.
“I’m getting there, fucker. Tarin is twenty-five years old. She said her mom had just died, and she found papers in her firebox. One of those papers was her birth certificate. On it, I’m listed as her father.”
“Wait a minute, you told us you couldn’t have kids,” Tank said with a frown.
“I know. That’s what I was told all those years ago when I was with Carol. She left me because of it. Anyway, I told Tarin she was mistaken. Yes, I’d been with her mom, but I couldn’t have kids. She handed me her birth certificate. Her birthday is eight months after Carol left me.”
“That still doesn’t mean anything. She could have been cheating on you. You had a test done that said you were sterile,” Player said. I’d been open with the guys about my history. They all knew I’d wanted a family and had been dumped because I couldn’t father kids.
“I know and I told Tarin all of that. She gave me another thing. It was a diary. She said it was in the lockbox along with her birth certificate. She showed me a couple of sections. It was Carol’s handwriting. I recognized it. Carol wrote about how she didn’t want to have kids. She didn’t want to tell me because she knew I’d leave her. For the whole two years we were trying to conceive before I got out of the Army, she’d been secretly taking birth control pills to prevent it.”
I heard groans from around the table.
“When I insisted we have ourselves tested and she couldn’t talk me out of it, she came up with an idea. She always made it home before I did. She got the mail every day. When the results came, she copied it and changed the wording to say I was sterile. That’s the one she showed me when I got home. She wrote that she was pissed when I later said we could adopt.
“She told me she didn’t want kids if they weren’t ours. She thought that would stop me. After all, the reason we couldn’t have them was because of me. I’d be too honorable to leave if it was my fault. However, that blew up in her face when I came back a month later and was insisting on us considering adoption. She knew then I wouldn’t give up. She was backed into a corner.”
“Why didn’t she just tell you? She had to know you were going to leave one way or the other at that point,” Bull asked.
“She did, but she was pissed and she was apparently a cunt. I never saw it. She decided she’d do one more thing before she left me to find someone who wouldn’t want kids. She wrote a nasty letter to me about how she couldn’t be with someone who wasn’t a real man and she took our savings and left.”
I heard several of them swearing.
“So, what happened when she found out she was pregnant, assuming this Tarin is yours?” Outlaw asked me. I could tell he was skeptical of her claim.
“She realized it a few weeks later. She came back, but I’d packed my shit, and left the damned state. No one knew where I went. I just wandered all over. She couldn’t find me. She was pissed again.”
“Why didn’t she have an abortion if she didn’t want kids so much? Why did she have Tarin?” Maverick asked.
“That was explained in her diary too. She was considering an abortion, but she’d met this guy who had a bunch of money right after she left me. He was into her and she thought she’d hit the mother lode. Only she found out, he wanted kids. She decided she’d have Tarin and tell him she was his. When she was born early, she told him she was premature. The sucker believed the baby was his, and he married her.”
“Jesus Christ, did she ever tell him? Or did Tarin when she found out?” Tank asked me in disbelief.
“He’s dead. He died a few years ago. However, he was no longer with Carol. He divorced her when Tarin was ten. I have no idea why he never saw the damn birth certificate. Knowing her, she probably forged one with his name on it. He paid his child support and wasn’t a part of their lives after that. She didn’t tell me a lot, but I got the impression life with her mother was not a good one.”
“Okay, I feel for her and I’m pissed off for you. That was a damn ugly, spiteful thing to do, but you don’t know for sure if what is in that diary is true. She might have just written it, so Tarin would find it when she died. She might not be your daughter. Explain how she found you?” Payne added as he frowned.