Page 78 of Talon (Road Rebels MC 2)
The girl’s eyes were green… like mine.
Chapter 2
Sydney
I could see the shock on Hawk’s face as I stood there in the doorway. His eyes were darting between Emery and me, and I could tell he was slowly putting the pieces together. I looked at her freckles, and her hair, smiling lightly as Emery’s curls fluttered with the wind. Nevada’s heat was unforgiving, but the wind always felt cleansing upon my skin.
But then I saw him notice her eye color.
I had nowhere else to go. My mother met my father at a biker rally in California. She was a young, naive woman with a body to kill for and my father was part of The Road Rebels based out of Nevada. They held a tryst that lasted through the weekend, then mom left with a souvenir she didn’t understand she would be stuck with until eight weeks later. She was halfway through her college career and couldn’t stomach having a child, so she tracked down my father and left me with him.
The problem was, The Road Rebels wanted to induct her.
They wanted her to stay, and for awhile she considered it. She almost threw her entire life away, staying next to my father. But my father was the smart one. He knew she had brains as well as class. He didn’t want to see her throw away her life like that, so my father agreed to raise me while she went off and lived her life. She wrote me letters every week, letters I eventually started writing back to while the entity of the club thought she was dead.
It was the only way to keep them from coming after her.
The Road Rebels weren’t mean, they were simply protective. Once you hooked up with a member and bore their child, you were one of them for life. That sometimes came with certain protections, but it also came with a great deal of sacrifice. My father couldn’t promise her a safe life. He couldn’t even promise her a life that would be fit for raising a child. But he could promise her that she could live her life the way she wanted while guaranteeing that I would never hate her.
I grew up being tugged between two different worlds. The one that called to me and the one that protected me. The one that raised me and the one I saw in my dreams. My mother and I sent pictures back and forth, and she would send me birthday and Christmas presents, but it was never the same. I didn’t hate her, but I didn’t understand. How she could leave me with a group like this and go on to live her life. How she could bear a child, she then gave away.
I don’t believe I ever hated her, but I did resent her for never being around.
As I grew older, I realized why she didn’t stay. The Road Rebels were fiercely protective and loyal to a fault. One wrong step, even for a second, and you were an enemy. They protected their family by keeping them close, and my mother never could’ve lived the life she wanted. She could’ve never finished her degree and gone on to medical school. She never could’ve become the nationally-renowned trauma surgeon she was had it not been for the promise my father made her.
The promise he made to raise me to be the woman she always wanted me to be.
When that fateful night happened-- that night when The Devil Saints blindsided us-- I couldn’t breathe. I understood hand-to-hand combat. I understood knife fights. I understood how to use things around me to defend myself. But I had always been squeamish around guns. My father taught me how to defend myself in multiple ways, but I never could stomach the cool feeling of that popping metal against my skin. The Devil Saints had ambushed our lodge, screaming about how my father was fucking their President’s wife.
I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t think for one second that my father would’ve done something that stupid. Bullets whizzed by our heads while I cowered behind some barrels, clinging to my father as he tried to get me to calm down. I kept asking him if it was true. If he really was sleeping with one of their women.
His lack of an answer gave me everything I needed to know.
“Sydney. What are you doing here?” Hawk asked.
His voice pulled me from my thoughts. I looked down at Emery as her big doe eyes focused on me, and for a second I had to remember. I had to take in what was happening around me. How I ended up on his doorstep.
Tears rose in my eyes as I slowly panned my gaze back up to his.
“We’ve got nowhere else to go, Hawk,” I said breathlessly.
Without another word exchanged, he stepped off to the side. I ushered Emery in with both of our bags slung around our shoulders. I felt them sliding from my shoulder as I tried to catch them, then I realized Hawk was clutching them. His arms flexed with strength as the veins in his neck began to bulge slightly, and as my eyes met his, I felt that telltale electricity ricochet up my spine.
It was like he was looking right through me. Piercing through my act as I licked my lips.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“I… don’t know,” I said honestly.
“Come sit down. I’ll get you a beer. Would…?”
He looked down at Emery who was slowly exploring the house. She always had her father’s adventurous spirit. Not afraid of anything. Not even strangers. She’d take off in a crowd chasing a balloon because she wanted that damn balloon and wouldn’t give a second thought as to the danger she was in.
Every time I looked at her, I saw Hawk.
“If you have milk, that’ll be just fine for her,” I said.
“Her…” he whispered.
“Emery,” I said.
“Huh?”
“Her name is Emery.”
Hawk nodded before he dropped our stuff to the side. He shuffled on into the kitchen, and I slowly approached our daughter. I couldn’t imagine the shock surging through Hawk’s system right now, so I knew I had to tread lightly.
If he threw us out, we would be homeless.
“Here,” he said as he placed the cold glass against my skin. “Take it. Ya look like you could use it.”
“Thanks. I think.”
I watched him go over and kneel down next to Emery. Her eyes met his, and instantly she smiled. Her fingertips came up and touched his eyes, recognizing the color as her own while she giggled. Her hands migrated over Hawk’s nose, something else of his she’d stolen while she was growing within me, and for a second I saw a smile tug at Hawk’s cheeks.
“Milk?” he asked.
“Thanks,” she said lightly.
He stayed kneeled down, just taking her all in while she looked out into the backyard. I’d been to this house so many times, but a lot had been added on in the time I’d been gone. Hawk built a guesthouse out back as well as installed a hot tub. He’d always been one to enjoy the finer things in life. When his father was living, the house was bare. The only furniture in the home was what his father absolutely needed and nothing else.
With Hawk, however, there were a few decorative pieces as well as a fresh coat of paint.
“The place looks nice,” I said.
“Took some work after Dad died,” he said.
“What’s your name?” Emery asked.
“My name?” Hawk asked.
“Yeah.”
“Hawk. What’s yours?” he asked.
“Emery.”
“Well, Emery. It’s really nice to meet you,” he said.
“You have my color eyes,” she said.
I froze, the beer bottle tipped up at my lips as Hawk slowly threw his gaze my way. I knew there were questions he deserved answers to. Questions he would eventually ask before I could even consider asking if we could stay. He deserved all those answers, but I didn’t want to do any of that in front of Emery.
She wasn’t ready for that just yet.
“Would you like to go play outside?” Hawk asked.
“Mommy? Could I?” she asked.
“Of course, sweetheart. Just stay where I can see you.”
Emery took her milk outside and went to lay on the grass. She could spend hours looking up at the sky and naming all the shapes in the clouds she saw. I walked over and stood by Hawk while the both of us sipped our beers, and after a few minutes, he finally broke the silence.
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“What do you mean ‘you have nowhere else to go’?” he asked.
“Mom’s dead, and we’re on the run,” I said matter-of-factly.
“You’re gonna have to unpack that a bit,” he said.
“You know how my father said my mom died?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Well, she didn’t. He just said that so she could go live her life.”
“Oh.”
“Those letters I always wrote as a kid? You remember ‘em?” I asked.
“Yep. I remember you stuffin’ ‘em away so I couldn’t see them,” he said.
“They were to her.”
“Oh.”
His eyes were trained heavily on Emery. He watched her lay there in the grass and giggle at the clouds. He watched her roll around and run in circles. He wanted her to entertain herself and study the bugs on the ground.
And I could’ve sworn the shadow of a grin was wafting across his face.
“She’s just fine by herself, isn’t she?” he asked.
“Yep. Reminds me of someone I know,” I said.
“She’s mine, isn’t she?” he asked.
I turned towards him and downed the rest of my beer. He turned his head but kept his body towards his daughter, silently showing where he already stood regarding his loyalty. I couldn’t blame him. Not after leaving him in the middle of the night like I did. If he never wanted to see me again, I wanted to make sure his daughter had access to him. Access to both parents.
Something I never had growing up.
“I swear to you, I didn’t know I was pregnant when I left,” I said.
“Why did you leave?” he asked.
