Ryker by Jeneveir Evans
Chapter 34
The truth hurts because it’s real. It hurts because it mattered. And that’s an important thing to acknowledge to yourself.
~John Green~
Deb
November 11th, 1999
I couldn’t handle it any longer. I had let myself become so hurt with the knowledge of Ry and his family coming here, then finding out his family was still here, that I’d allowed a month to go by without seeing Dane. I’d behaved immaturely by withdrawing into myself and sulking. Now Dane was over six weeks old. I’d missed four weeks of getting to hold him, four weeks of seeing him grow. I’d done that, me, not anyone else. I deserve all the regret and loss I’m feeling.
As soon as Brax got in from the shop, I let him know that I was going to Bane’s to visit the baby. I stepped out of the house, squared my shoulders and gave myself a pep talk as I walked to my son’s home. At least this time I wouldn’t be blindsided by the fact that Ry’s family was here. I took the steps at a jog and knocked on the door. It was almost identical to the last time I was here, Trina opened the door.
I glanced at her briefly before my eyes were drawn to her arms. She was holding Dane. The amount of time I’d let slip by since I’d last been here hit me hard when I saw him.
“No,” I moaned. “He’s gotten so big. Oh, Deb, what did you do? Why did you wait so long?”
“He has gotten big, hasn’t he?” Trina commented softly.
I nodded without looking at her. My eyes were locked on Dane.
“He looks so much like Bane as a baby. I’d swear I was looking at him,” I murmured.
“I thought I was looking at my sons the first time I saw him. I haven’t changed my mind since then either. He looks just like Taron and Raiden.”
I lifted my eyes to hers. “I take it they look just like Ry too?”
She laughed lightly. “Like they’d been dug out of his butt.”
I choked on a laugh at what she said.
“Leigh looks just like him too,” I added.
“He definitely has dominant genes. Tor and Bronte look like him as well. Bane has shown us pictures of Leigh. Bronte and she could be twins.”
“Really?” I was shocked. “They look that much alike?”
“Yeah, they do. Come on in. I have a few pictures of the kids that I can show you.”
I took a step toward her but she didn’t move, instead she held out Dane to me. I gently took him and snuggled him into my arms. I leaned down and breathed him in deep.
“There’s nothing like it, is there?” she uttered, still keeping her voice soft.
I looked up at her and smiled. “No, there isn’t. It has to be the best smell in the world.”
She returned my smile. “I agree with you one hundred percent.”
She turned and headed into the house and I followed, closing the door behind me. As I got further into the living room, I noticed how quiet it was.
“Where is everyone?” I questioned.
“They all went to town. Bane went back to work this week and Kenzie had her doctor’s appointment today. She said she wanted to go get something sexy to wear for tonight. All the kids went with her. I would love to be a fly on the wall on that shopping trip. Taron and Raid will give her hell. The girl will be so embarrassed, she’ll probably kill them before she gets them home.”
My snicker was almost silent. I was shocked to find myself enjoying talking to Trina. The jealousy I expected to feel wasn’t flaring like I thought it would. Even though Bane said there was nothing between Ry and her, I still didn’t fully believe that.
I walked over to the couch and settled down on one end of it.
“Would you like something to drink?” Trina asked.
“No, thanks. I’m good. I’ve got everything I need in my arms.”
“I’ll be right back. I’m gonna go grab those pictures to show you.”
While she was gone, I marveled over how much Dane had grown. I could kick my ass for letting myself miss these past three weeks of visiting him. I’d give myself the week Ry was here, but the others were uncalled for. I looked up when I heard Trina coming. She walked over to me and sat in the chair next to the corner of the couch I was sitting on. She held out a picture and I took it.
“That’s a picture of Bronte about a month ago.”
I gasped when I saw it. “Oh my God,” I mumbled in shock. “She looks just like Leigh.”
She held out another one and I took it.
“That’s Tor, he’s twenty-four.” I shook my head when I saw the young man’s face. He looked like a younger Bane. He even wore his hair long.
I reached for the next picture.
“That’s Taron. He turned nineteen a couple months ago. And this,” she said as she held out one last picture, “is Raiden. He’ll be eighteen at the end of the month.”
“It’s simply amazing,” I muttered. “I’m not sure it’s fair either. They could have at least had some of our features.”
“I agree. But there’s one thing about it, there’s no way Ry can say they aren’t his kids.”
My shoulders shook as I laughed under my breath at what she said. I looked at her and grinned.
“You’ve got that right.”
I became silent as I looked at her. I owed her an apology.
“I’d like to apologize to you for the way I acted when I came over before.”
She waved her hand in the air.
“There’s nothing to apologize for. I hope you don’t mind, but I tore into Bane’s ass for not telling you that the four of us were staying here with him until Ry gets things squared away.”
“Bane said that y’all would be living here when he gets whatever it is taken care of.”
“That’s the plan. It’s going to be different. Although I have to admit that I’m already addicted to sweet ice tea.”
I snickered. “That’s not hard to do. It’s my favorite drink too.”
“Deb,” she uttered hesitantly. “I want you to know that Ry and I aren’t together.”
I tightened up at what she said. “It’s not my business if you are or if you’re not, Trina.”
“Well, for what it’s worth, we’re not. We haven’t been since I conceived Raiden.”
I looked at her disbelievingly. She nodded at me when she saw my expression.
“It’s the truth.”
“Then why are you still living with him?” I blurted out. “No, no. Don’t answer that. I don’t have the right to ask.”
“I think you do have the right. Do you mind if I tell you a little bit about myself?”
I bit my lip. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know, but I had already been rude to this woman once and, if I was honest with myself, I could tell that I would like her if Ry wasn’t in the picture.
“If you’d rather I didn’t, I won’t. But I think you should hear it.”
“Okay,” I murmured.
“I was raised in Hell’s Retribution. My dad was a member and my ma was his Old Lady. I was their only child. When I was eight my dad was killed in the same incident that Ry’s dad was killed in. Since my ma liked being a biker’s Old Lady, it didn’t take her long to get another one of the brothers to make her his.
“Everything was fine for the first few years, but when I turned fourteen, things started changing. It started out with my ma’s Old Man staring at me for a couple years. It progressed into him saying suggestive things to me. Things that made me very uncomfortable. For all that I was being raised in the environment, I wasn’t around most of the brothers a lot.
“Dad and Ry’s dad were close friends, so I was around Ry quite a bit until Dad died. Afterwards, I would see him here and there. He’d occasionally check in with me to make sure everything was okay. I didn’t tell him what Slasher was saying to me. By the time I was seventeen, I was doing my best to stay away from Slasher. He had started getting handsy. It was things like ‘accidently’ brushing his hand across my ass or across my breasts.
“I should have told my ma but like a dumbass, I didn’t. When I graduated, it started getting really bad. He managed a couple times to pin me to the wall, grab my breasts and ground his hard-on against me. Late in the night after my nineteenth birthday party, I woke up to find him in my bed on top of me. Thank God for small miracles, because the bastard was drunk as a skunk. I managed to get away, grab some clothes and run outside.
“I ran behind a vehicle and quickly got dressed. Since we lived in a ratty little trailer in the compound, I ran toward the clubhouse. I was searching for Ry or Brawn. I knew they wouldn’t let Slasher do anything to me. Ry was getting on his motorcycle to leave when I found him. I guess he saw how terrified I was and he told me to hop on. I did.
“I was lucky that he was even still there. By this time, Ry had Tor and Bronte and he usually didn’t stay long at any of the club parties since he always had to get a babysitter to watch the kids. He took me back to his apartment, dismissed the babysitter and made me tell him what was going on.
“He got pissed and wanted to go back and confront Slasher, but I told him to let it be. I’d kept that shit quiet for years. I told him that no one was going to believe my story now. I knew the majority of the brothers wouldn’t. I told Ry I didn’t want to go back home.
“About that time, Bronte started crying. I went into the kids’ bedroom and picked her up. She was wet so I changed her diaper. When I turned around Ry was standing in the hallway watching me. Bronte was nuzzling my breasts so I knew she was hungry and I had Ry get me a bottle.
“Ry watched me silently the entire time I fed her. When I had Bronte asleep and in bed again, I walked back to the living room, sat on the couch and tried to decide what I was going to do. When I looked up, it was to find Ry studying me. I haven’t ever been afraid of him, but he was freaking me out. I asked him what was wrong. He said he didn’t realize that I was that good with kids. I let him know that I’d been babysitting since I was twelve.
“He looked me dead in the face and said, ‘Be my house mouse. Take care of Tor and Bronte for me.’ Ry made it clear from the very start that if I wanted a relationship with him then I didn’t need to agree. He told me that his heart belonged to someone else and it would never be his to give away again. The most he did was fuck a woman and it was usually just one time. Hell, I had nowhere else to go so I said yes.
“A year later my ma found Slasher with another woman. She got pissed, left the compound and moved to Sioux Falls where her sister lived. She wanted me to come with her but there was no way I could. By then I loved Tor and Bronte like they were my own.
“The year Bronte turned two, Ry came to me and offered me the same deal that he had offered the two club whores who were Tor and Bronte’s mothers. He offered me five thousand to get pregnant and have his child. He said he’d give me another five when the baby was born. I told him that I would think about it. I already felt like I was the kids’ mom and couldn’t see myself ever leaving them. There was one stipulation that Ry had made that was holding me back from accepting his offer.
“I would have to give up all rights to my child. I couldn’t see myself doing that. Yet the longer I thought about a baby of my own, the more I wanted one. Don’t get me wrong, I feel like Tor and Bronte are mine just as much as Taron and Raiden are and I’ll fight anyone who says otherwise. Still the longing to feel my own child grow inside me took hold.
“I finally went to Ry and told him I would agree on one condition. That condition was that I would always be allowed to live with him and raise the kids. He agreed and we had legal paperwork drawn up. We waited to have sex until it was my most fertile time of the month. I got pregnant that very first month.
“We didn’t have sex again until I went to him a few months after Taron was born and told him I wanted another child. I asked him if we could keep the same arrangement. He was elated to do it. He had always wanted a lot of kids. Our arrangement would give him four.
“Like before, I got pregnant the first month. I haven’t had sex with Ry since then. We parent together, even live in the same house, but we live our own lives.”
I looked at her, really looked. She seemed sincere, yet I found it hard to believe that she wasn’t in love with Ry.
“You don’t believe me, do you?”
I shrugged. “I just find it hard to believe that a woman can live with a man for that long and not have a relationship with him.”
“I do have a relationship with him. I’m the mother of his children. We parent together. We discuss things about the kids, as for the rest of it, I don’t know, I just never really had any desire for anything more.”
“You don’t love him?”
I didn’t know how she could not love him. Ry was the type of man that got under your skin and stayed there.
“Yes, I love him.”
I felt my stomach clench. I knew she had to be in love with him. I bet he felt the same way about her.
“I see the look on your face. It was there before I finished speaking. He’s my children's father. He’s been a good dad. He’s been there for me. I love him for that but, Deb, I’ve never been in love with him. Those feelings have never been there.
“I would have liked to have had more kids and had planned on suggesting it. But trust me when I say that when you have four kids under six, you have your hands full. Then soon all that morphed into T-ball, softball, football, and martial arts classes. I was so busy all the time that I felt like I was meeting myself coming and going. So I never brought it up. Sometimes I wish I had. I’d love to have a couple more children.”
“You’re still young enough to have kids. You and Ry can still have more,” I suggested.
She smiled at me as she shook her head.
“I’m fairly sure that part of my life is over now. I’m forty. I would have liked to have children with someone I was in love with. I think it would have been even more special to carry the child of the man that I loved.”
“You’re really not in love with him?” I asked again.
“No, Deb. I’m not now nor have I ever been in love with Ry. I can tell that floors you, why?”
“I just can’t imagine not loving Ry,” I murmured.
“You still love him, don’t you?”
I shook my head no, but the lie wouldn’t come from my lips.
“Deb, whatever you and I talk about, I’m not going to run back to Ry and tell him. I’m allowed my own life with my own friends. I have boyfriends from time to time. I’m still a woman and I like a man’s company. Ry’s a big boy. He can take care of himself.”
It was like my mouth wasn’t connected to my brain. Why I trusted this woman, I don’t know, yet I did.
“I wanted more kids too.”
“With Ry?”
“Yeah,” I whispered as I stared into Dane’s face. “I loved carrying Bane and Leigh. I have loved being their mom more than anything in my life.”
“Deb,” Trina called softly.
I reluctantly looked up at her. I couldn’t believe I had just told her that.
“It’s okay to love, Ry. He’s a good man. For what it’s worth, he’s always been in love with you too. Everyone knew about you, Deb. For a while everyone thought that he was going to kill himself.”
I jerked my head back when she said that. What did she mean?
“What?” I was stunned by what she said. “What do you mean by that?”
She hesitated like she couldn't decide if she should tell me or not.
“Please, Trina. Tell me what you mean.”
Still she didn’t answer.
“Trina, please,” I begged.
“I was thirteen the year that his bitch of an Old Lady pulled her stunt with you. After Ry came back from the rally, I heard Ma talk about how he was living in the bottom of a bottle. I didn’t know what she meant at first. Then I saw Ry one day. He was passed out in the backyard of the clubhouse with a bottle of whiskey clutched in his hand.
“He stayed that way for about two years. I’m not sure what happened, but something pulled him out of it. He never discussed any of that time with me. He went cold turkey and quit drinking for a long time. It’s a rare thing to see him drink anything other than a few beers. I’m not going to tell you anymore than that. You should get the rest of his story from him.
“Deb, you should really hear him out. I know it’s not my place to say this and I know you were hurt, but Ry was devastated when he realized he lost you. I heard after you were dropped off in Sturgis, he looked for you for the rest of the rally.”
I spent the next hour with Dane and Trina. I left before the kids got home. She had given me so much to think about. There was a part of me that didn’t believe her, then there was a part of me that thought she was telling the truth. The only reason I didn’t want to believe any of it is because if all she said was true, then I’d wasted so many years of my life when I could have been with the man I still loved to this day.
I escaped to the gazebo to think. I ran everything over in my head that Trina had told me, then I added in what Bane had said. I examined everything over and over and I wasn’t happy with my conclusions. I never once looked at what had happened between Ry and me other than through the eyes of a young, slightly naive twenty-year-old.
~***~