Ryker by Jeneveir Evans

Prologue

No language can express the power and beauty and heroism of a mother’s love.

~Edwin Hubbel Chapin~

Deb

March 12th, 1999

Curled up on the living room window-seat, I was staring blindly outside at nothing. I was still in shock by what had occurred earlier. Dog had called and ordered me to his office. I hadn’t a clue when I walked through the door what I was about to face. What came next was the heart wrenching knowledge that I had failed my son. A fear that I had struggled with as a young single parent because I didn’t know if my decisions were the right ones for my children. I often wondered if other single parents, or parents in general, dealt with the same thing.

I sat, listened, and cried as Dog told me what Bane had been going through since he was a preteen. How had I missed not knowing my son struggled with a depression so severe that he’d thought about killing himself? Dog even alluded that, if fate hadn’t stepped in, he might have tried. How had I not known that? How? How had I missed the fact that he was so tormented by not knowing about his father that he’d fought a demon that had tried daily to destroy his life?

I felt like a failure as a mom. I’d thought I had known both of my children well. That had been blown out of the water tonight. I’d come to find out that I didn’t really know my son at all. Oh, I’d realized it had frustrated him when I wouldn’t tell him about his father. Yet, in my infinite wisdom, I thought I was doing the best thing for him by not letting him know that Ryker didn’t want him. That Ry didn’t want children, period. I’d thought to spare both my kids the truth, that the man whose sperm had created them, had made his own woman get abortions so he didn’t have any kids. I thought I had been doing the right thing by sparing them that horrible truth.

Yet it backfired on me, instead it left a wound inside Bane that festered until the lesion oozed so much unhealthy discharge that it ate at Bane’s psyche. I had inadvertently caused more harm than good by keeping the knowledge away from him. Now I feared for his sanity. When he walked out of Dog’s office, his eyes looked empty of life, spiritless. He looked like a dead man walking.

I’d done that to him. I’d done that to my son because I had refused to tell him about Ryker until this very night.

Even now the thought of Ry’s name hurt me. God, I’d been so young, so naive, so stupid. I’d thought at twenty, I knew it all. My first year at Sturgis when I was eighteen, I’d driven there in the piece of shit car I had at the time because I wanted to experience all the wildness, all the craziness, that the partying at Sturgis had to offer. I had been a free spirit who enjoyed sex and pot. Bikers had always drawn me. They were loud and crass, take no prisoners, badass men. I loved the gruffness of them. They were all male, pure alpha, and I had reveled in all they had to offer.

Sarge had seen me there and said if I was going to continue going to the rally that I was to ride with them from then on, which I did. I’d help the MC set up camp, then I was dropped off in the middle of town and I usually didn’t see them again until it was time to head home.

The first time I saw Ryker, I was partying in one of the bars in town. I’d been holding a beer in my hand as I danced to the rock music blaring over the speakers. I happened to be facing the door when he walked through it. His eyes had met mine across the room and I’d been drawn to him like a drunk to a bottle of the finest, smoothest bottle of Jameson Irish whiskey. He had mesmerized me.

He’d strolled over to me, grabbed my beer, took a long drink while holding eye contact, then he put one hand behind my head and pulled me in for a kiss. By the time he was through, I hadn’t even remembered my own name. I stayed with him until the rally was over. While we had tried to be careful, there had been a couple of times when lust had overcome us and he’d forgotten to wear protection. I’m fairly certain Bane was conceived while we had been skinny-dipping.

I fell head over heels in love with him. I’d naively thought he had feelings for me too, he’d acted like he did. I’d hoped against hope he would ask me to go with him when it was time to leave, but he didn’t. Instead at the end of the rally, I’d smiled bravely and waved him off. I’d left my heart in South Dakota. I’d also left Sturgis in 1970 pregnant with Bane.

I didn’t plan to go back after Bane was born, but decided I’d go and see if I could find Ryker. I wanted to tell him he had a son. I went to the same bar and when he walked through the door, it felt like the sun had started shining again after being behind the clouds for so long. In less than a minute, we had been all over each other. We’d wanted one another so much that we couldn’t keep our hands off the other. For two days, we’d screwed like the world was coming to an end. Sadly for me, it did on the third morning.

Ryker’s Old Lady Layla showed up at their camp and informed me that I was just one of Ry’s many whores. She told me that last year he’d come home to her and laughed about the little girl he’d fucked who had stars in her eyes. She smeared it in my face that I would never be anything to him. Then she went on to tell me not to try to trap him by getting pregnant. She said he didn’t want children and had made her get several abortions no matter how much she begged to have his baby.

She then dropped her bag on the tent floor and told me that Ryker didn’t need his rally whore anymore, that she would take care of his needs for the rest of Sturgis. She said to get my skanky ass out of her tent before she had me thrown out. After she left, I’d woodenly gotten dressed and gone outside only to see Ryker standing by the fire with his arm around her shoulder.

Even though he looked upset, he’d called for one of the guys to take me back to town. He never said a word to me. His Prez, King, and Ryker’s Old Lady grinned cruelly at me the entire time. His woman had a triumphant look of ‘he’s mine, bitch,’ on her face.

I’d been devastated.

After I was dropped off in town, I’d made my way back to ARMC’s camp and hadn’t left it again. I’d only thought my heart hurt when I left the previous year. By the time I made it home, I wasn’t sure if I had a heart left. Three months later, I realized that I’d brought another piece of Ryker home with me. I had Leigh almost nine months to the day of my last night with Ryker.

From that day forward, I’d left party-girl Deb behind. In her place, I’d become withdrawn, quiet, a shell of my former self. I didn’t date. I only smiled when I was with the kids.

Not once over the ensuing years did I look for another man. Ry had ruined me in more than one way by what had happened between us. I didn’t trust in my ability to know whether a man was good or bad. Besides, even through all the hurt, pain, and betrayal, I, stupidly, still loved Ryker. How fucked up was that?

Raising the kids had been hard. Both of my children looked just like their father and I’ve had to see his face every day for the past twenty-eight years. But that hadn’t been a hardship to me, because I was still getting to see my beloved Ryker. During my brief time with him, the good man, the caring man that I knew was the man I still longed for. Even to this day, it floored me that Ry had hidden his true self from me, because the man his woman described hadn’t been the man I’d spent my time with.

I wiped off the tears that kept falling down my face. My son was riding off to God knows where and I had no way of finding out where he had gone.

The entire time we were in Dog’s office, I could tell he was struggling. I hated that I didn’t know what was going on with him. The past several months he’d been off but, when I asked him what was wrong, he told me he didn’t want to talk about it. He was a grown man now and didn’t come to his mom about his problems. After today, I’m not sure that he ever had.

Even after I finally gave in and told him his father’s name, he was still upset with me. I knew what he was thinking, I should have told him long ago.

Looking back now, I knew he was right, I should have.

I asked him if he was going to find Ryker. He said that wasn’t where he was headed and he didn’t want me to know where he was going. That had cut deep, knowing that my son didn’t want his mom to have any knowledge of his whereabouts.

He gave Dog three envelopes and asked for Dog and Viper’s promise not to tell anyone his destination, then he was gone.

He hadn’t attempted to give me a hug, he hadn’t said goodbye, he hadn’t even looked at me before he walked out the door. The way he left, it felt like he didn’t plan to come back. The anguish that thought brought was almost more than I could handle.

All I had done was try to protect my son and, in the end, I’d ended up destroying him.

~***~