Raven’s Climb: Wrath MC by Tiffany Casper

Chapter 4

Michelle

Today has been a shitty day. The first thing to make this day so horrible was that I had forgotten to set my alarm clock, but thankfully Laci was an early riser.

So I hadn’t been able to straighten nor tame my unruly curly hair. Today I just threw a clip in it and allowed all my curls to bounce free.

The second thing to happen after I dropped Laci off at school was that the moment I pulled up at the hospital there had been a bad accident this morning on the highway. They really needed to add more lights and people needed to obey them also when a light changes to yellow, you slow the fuck down not speed up. Do they know that red means to stop? Apparently not.

So many lives’ have been lost because of stupid bastards like that. Take their license away and be done with it.

I was in my own head trying to calm my breaths when I had to call time of death on a five-year-old little boy who had been in the back seat when an angry driver didn’t like that the mother of said little boy was obeying the law.

It wasn’t her fault that the driver had been in a rush. Would I be imprisoned if I put something into his IV that made his heart stop as retribution? Probably, would it be worth it? Most definitely.

If I didn’t have Laci, I would have done it.

“Michelle? Is that really you?” Everything in my mind froze as a voice I haven’t heard in years but only in my dreams spoke from behind me.

Don’t you do it, Michelle, you keep on walking. Don’t you dare look back at him. Had another position opened up anywhere else in the continental U.S. I would have jumped on it.

“Michelle,” he whispered.

Sighing, I turned around to look up at the man that broke my heart all those years ago. The man that left me when I needed him the most. The one and only time when I was scared out of my mind. Literally.

Damn did he age good. My God, he was breathtaking. His hair was the same, his eyes were the same. He now sported a beard that would feel great as he moved his mouth all over my skin, get a grip girl. All of his looks did nothing to hide the fact that his heart was black.

“Cameron,” I nodded. There was something in his eyes when I called him Cameron, but just like that, he wiped it away. I wasn’t the one to make that choice, he was.

“You work here now?” He asked as he took in my white lab coat.

“Yes, as of about six months ago.” Placing my hands in my coat so he wouldn’t see that they were trembling.

“What do you do?” His hands were in his pockets and I noticed that he had hunched his shoulders in on himself, so as to not scare me with how much bigger he had gotten.

Two of my thighs resembled one of his, and let’s face it, I was no longer a size four, no my ass only fit in a size ten now.

I had been determined to lose my baby weight after I had Laci but then I had said screw it and I embraced my new curves.

Sure, I got looks everywhere I went and I was flattered, but I’ve never allowed anyone past first base. If I was being honest, I didn’t even allow them to be on the roster.

“I work in the emergency room for now. One day I plan on getting my doctorate and working in general pediatrics medicine.”

“Wow. You always talked about it, glad to see you’ve made it. How come you didn’t go all the way.”

Before I could reply to him, Mackenzie walked up, “Ms. O’Connell here are the files from the other hospital.”

“Thank you, Mackenzie.” After she walked away I looked up at Cameron and said, “Good to see you.” See, I could use the manners that my mom and my aunt taught me.

Turning from him I started to walk away then heard, “Have coffee with me after your shift.”

“Can’t I have plans.” Turning back around I walked to the nurse's station.

The rest of the day was filled with Cameron Titus Bryant. The bastard. Just like that six years later, and he was still all I could think about.

Thankfully, the moment I picked Laci up from after-school care, my mind was filled with her and her only.

What would I do without her? Where would I be? I didn’t even want to think about it.

We had just gotten our order of food at Calhoun’s when I noticed a shadow fall over our table. Looking up it was to see Cameron standing there. He was staring at Laci.

I could tell that he saw the resemblance between the two of them, it was something that had floored me when I first laid eyes on Laci when they had placed her on my chest. Shaking his head he turned his attention back to me, “Michelle.”

Nodding, “Cameron.”

“Who is this?” He asked me as he looked back over at Laci.

“This is my daughter Laci.” I bit my lip when I saw fury flare in his eyes. We had talked about children too. He knew that I had wanted to have two kids. And all of them too have him as their father. He also knew what names I wanted them to have too.

Strange how what we want to work out never really does. And sometimes, like with my daughter, things worked out even better.

“Let me guess, Laci with an I right?” He remembered that?

“Good guess. How did you know?” Laci chimed in.

“Your momma told me if she ever had a girl, that was what she would name her.”

“That’s so cool,” Laci said as she dipped her fry in a mixture of ketchup and mayo.

Cameron smirked when she did that, “Damn just like her momma.”

I held in the grin that wanted to come forth as I did the same thing.

“Y’all having a mommy-daughter date?”

“Yes. About three times a week if I’m not on shift.” I answered him.

Laci decided then that she was going to get to know this man that was a stranger to her but that had never been a stranger to me, well until that night, “Do you ride a motorcycle?”

“I do.” His attention was solely on her and my insides quivered.

“How fast does it go?”

“Depends on the road.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Dirt road, about thirty miles an hour, flat top with no cracks, about one fifteen, one twenty.”

Her eyes were wide when she asked, “Can I go for a ride?”

“Long as your momma okays it and you get a little bigger.”

“Cool. I’ll work on her. Do you have any brothers?” Shaking my head I took a bite of my burger.

“I do.” It was then that he turned and pointed to some other men in the far corner of the restaurant. “They aren’t my brothers by blood but they are my brothers.”

“I gotcha. Kind of like Callie and her mommy.”

His brows furrowed as he asked, “What do you mean?”

“Callie’s mommy isn’t her real mommy, she’s her step mommy but Callie won’t call the woman that gave birth to her mom.”

He nodded in understanding, “Yeah just like that.”

What shocked me was not once did Cameron get irritated with her questions. Normally when a six-year-old starts asking questions people get annoyed, but not Cameron.

It was then that he pulled his phone out of his back pocket and checked the display. I saw his jaw tighten as he looked at me, “Gotta run. It was good to see you.” He said to me then turned his gaze to Laci, “Nice to meet you peanut.”

With that, he walked away. And damn if I didn’t watch his behind the entire way.

“Mommy, that was him, wasn’t it?” Her head was turned as she watched Cameron walk to the hostess station and then left.

“Yes sweet pea, that was him.”

“I look like him. Don’t I?” She wasn’t the only one that saw that. She should have been his.

If only he would have listened to me, “Yes baby, you do.”

When the waitress brought us to-go cups, I asked for the check.

“No need. Y’alls meal has already been covered.” I wasn’t going to get mad at the waitress; she was only doing her job. But I was going to get mad at Cameron.

However that night after Laci went to bed, I didn’t even try to keep the tears at bay.

I had thought that Laci had gone to sleep. Though that wasn’t the case.

I felt her climb on my bed as she wrapped her little arms around my neck and held me while I cried.

“I got you, mommy. I love you.”

“I love you too, sweet pea so very much.”

“Do you want to give him another chance?”

“I don’t know, baby.”

“Well, you always tell me to look for the good in people and not the bad.” My six-year-old is turning things around on me.

Chuckling, I unwrapped from her and pulled her in my arms as I grabbed the remote and started Frozen for her.

Within minutes she was sound asleep, I was the only one that was still wide awake as the credits rolled on the screen.

What was I going to do?