BILLIONAIRE BIKERS: 3 MC Romance Books (66 page)

Audra was pacing the room. It had been too long. She should have heard from Lucas by now. She went down and asked Jerry and Gordon for the umpteenth time if they had heard anything.

By now she was pretty sure what was going on with her. Although she wasn’t actively sick in the mornings, she was really nauseous, and the only things that sounded good to her the rest of the day were soup, quinoa, and vegetables.

Her breasts continued to ache, and she remembered from biology class in high school that a woman’s breasts begin to form a network of ducts for milk production when they are pregnant. Even as little as she knew about pregnancy, she was sure that was what was happening.

She wanted to be elated, but the tenuousness of her situation and the uncertainty of her relationship with Lucas was not a happy circumstance. She had plenty to think and worry about, yet she knew she could not do one thing to change her situation. If she had been somewhere normal, she would have forced herself to continue her daily routine, but, of late, her daily routine had turned to sheer boredom.

She looked on her Kindle to see what she could do to truly occupy her mind instead of just entertaining herself, and she found a program she had downloaded last year to teach herself French. She had taken two years in high school in order to qualify for college acceptance, but she had practiced little. She had an advanced program along with advanced grammar packets and even mobile apps from Rosetta Stone that allowed her to listen and practice.

She decided to throw herself into the French until she heard something. She knew he had to be all right, and something was just preventing him from contacting them.

When she told Gordon what she was doing, he gave her a couple of French books he had--one novel and one volume of poetry and short stories.

# # #

When Lucas woke up the second time, he blinked at bright lights and loud beeping sounds. He looked around him and saw machines and an IV. Next thing he knew, the chief’s face was above him.

“Glad you’re back with us, Roberts,” he said.

Once again he tried to sit up, but this time he was tethered by tubes instead of pain.

“Just lay still. Your nurse will be in here soon.”

Lucas tried to speak, but his tongue was swollen and dry, and he couldn’t talk.

“Somebody tipped us off as to where you were, and then they apparently just dumped you at the side of the road. Some of Blanco’s men,” he said.

Lucas shook his head.

“Not Blanco’s men?”

Just then the nurse came in, and Lucas pointed at the water pitcher. The nurse poured him a cup of water, then propped pillows behind him so he could drink. After a few sips, he looked at the chief.

“Michaelson,” he said, hoarsely.

“Michaelson?” the chief asked. “Are you sure?”

Lucas nodded.

“You think it was Michaelson that shot you?”

Lucas nodded again. “I think he shot and killed Fetsko.”

The chief looked surprised again. “We haven’t heard anything about Fetsko. You’re sure it was Michaelson?”

Lucas nodded.

The chief stood and looked far away, as if putting a puzzle together in his mind.

“I’ll be back soon,” he said, patting Lucas’s leg. “I don’t think you’re going anywhere.”

Lucas just lay back on his pillows. At least he wasn’t in pain, but now he felt really hazy and suspected they were giving him some pretty strong pain meds.

As he drifted in and out of sleep and a morphine haze over the next two days, he would dream of Michaelson, of Ethan, and of Audra. As they lowered the amount of morphine they were giving him, and he began to be more alert, he began to distrust that the thing with Michaelson wasn’t just a figment of his imagination.

It made sense—sort of—he had probably been in some pain-induced hallucination. Fetsko had just told him about Michaelson’s suspension, and he had wondered where Michaelson was. The rest was a no-brainer. Of course, he would dream of Ethan, and, instead of Elena, Audra. All of it made logical sense.

That afternoon, when the chief came back to see him, Lucas told him that he doubted that it had been Michaelson after all. 

“We all think it was more likely that it was one of Blanco’s men who had been following Fetsko and figured out you were there, too. Unfortunately, Fetsko hasn’t surfaced yet to either negate or corroborate your story.”

“Well, if my story was true,” Lucas said, “we wouldn’t expect him to surface, would we?”

The chief looked thoughtful. “No, I guess you’re right.”

Two days later they released him with a splint. He was healing remarkably well, the doctor had said, considering the injury. Lucas had been lucky that the shot had gone straight through, and at an angle that missed his heart. His pectoral muscle was torn, so they had him pretty well immobilized. They gave him a prescription for pain meds and gave him a number to call to set up physical therapy when he was ready.

His first thought was that he wouldn’t be able to ride the Harley, and his second thought was that he was in a hospital in Yuma while his bike was still in Calexico…at least that was where he had left it.

He decided to just get dressed and then call someone to come after him. Who, he wasn’t sure. The Marshals Service was more or less disavowing him at this moment, and no one knew where Fetsko was.

As he slipped into his motorcycle jacket, fumbling to figure out how to keep it on over the immobilized arm, a piece of paper fell out of his pocket onto the floor. He bent to pick it up and realized immediately that he wouldn’t repeat that movement anytime soon. He did manage to pick up the paper and sit back down on the bed.

Unfolding the paper, he read, “Call this number when you’re ready to make the exchange we discussed. M.”

So it
had been
Michaelson. Lucas’s first instinct was to give the paper to the chief, but then he started thinking about it. He re-pocketed the paper.

A nurse came in with his release forms. They required that he give an address where he would be staying, so he just gave them his parents’ address. He got up and started to move slowly out into the hallway.

He went to a nearby waiting room and sat down. He wasn’t sure of anything at the moment. He could call his parents to come and pick him up. However, he really wanted to get back to Audra. But the minute her name passed through his memory, the weight of Michaelson’s proposal struck him.

Ethan was alive? Why? Why had they kept him alive? Could it be true, or are they just using this to con me into bringing Audra to them? And why would they let me or Ethan live after I brought Audra?
Not that I would care. My life wouldn’t be worth much if I turned Audra over to Michaelson. But Ethan!
It was almost more than his mind could deal with in his weakened state.

He needed to rest. It would take his parents three hours to get there, even if they left in the next five minutes. If he called Jerry, he bet they could have him back at the compound in less time than that.

He felt around and discovered that he still had his special little cell phone on him. He got up, walked outside, and dialed.

“Jerry?”

“Where are you, man? We were starting to worry.”

“I’m in a hospital in Yuma. Can you come get me?”

“I’m sure Gordon can do something. Stand by.”

There was a few seconds of silence, then Jerry came back on the line. “We’ll take care of it, good buddy. Just sit tight on the same floor where you were a patient.”

“Roger.” The line went dead.

Twenty minutes later, two orderlies showed up with a wheel chair.

“Mr. Roberts? You’re taking life-flight to Edwards Air Force Base.” The one speaking gestured that he should get into the wheel chair.

“I don’t know who you are, Man, but you must be somebody important. I’ve never seen anyone who can walk be life-flighted before.”

Lucas just grinned.

Jerry was there to pick him up in a car when the helicopter dropped onto the pad.

They left the base and headed out into the desert. Lucas was back at the compound less than two hours after he called Jerry.

Audra came running, and Lucas quickly shed his jacket so that she could see he was injured.

“Oh, my God! What happened?” she demanded to know.

“C’mon,” Gordon said. “Dinner’s ready. Let’s all sit down, and you can tell us your whole story, Lucas.”

Lucas told all that had happened since he had left the compound, except that he omitted the part about Michaelson. He told them he had been shot in the parking lot and woke up in the hospital.

“But if you were shot in a parking lot in Calexico, how did you end up in a hospital in Yuma?”

“The chief said they just got a tip where to pick me up, went to where they indicated, and found me lying on a roadside between Yuma and Calexico.”

The color drained from Audra’s face. “Between Yuma and Calexico?”

“That’s what they said.”

She said nothing else, but concentrated on her food while listening to everyone else talk.

After dinner, she helped him upstairs to their apartment, excusing herself from dinner cleanup with Gordon shooing her out.

As soon as they were in the room, she layered the pillows and fluffed them up for him to lie down. She turned on the fireplace and set the heat timer for sixty minutes.

He lay down, and she sat on the bed next to him. He was quiet for a little while, and she broke the silence.

“It frightens me that they picked you up between Calexico and Yuma. It sounds like they must have taken you to the same place where I was.”

Lucas looked at her. “Don’t be frightened. I’m here.”

“Why do you think they let you go?”

“Because no one knows where you are. No one. Not the Marshals Service, not my partner. No one. If they kill me, they will never find you.”

She just looked at him, looking back and forth in his eyes. She swallowed hard.

“I wonder which one of us it will be?” she asked.

“Which one of us?”

“Will they ultimately get frustrated and kill you, or…?”

“As long as I’m alive, you’re alive. If I’m dead, you’re alive. If they kill you, they will kill me, too, because they will no longer need me. So, my safest bet is to keep you alive,” he said, taking her hand and smiling.

She continued to look at him. She wanted to blurt out about the baby, but she had thought it through over and over. Now was not the time. She didn’t know when, if ever, would be the right time. But she knew that it wouldn’t be now, and she might be able to keep it from him for several months. It depended on how observant he was, or how much he was around. That was more the uncertainty. She didn’t know what he was thinking or what his plans were.

He lay back and looked up at the ceiling. “There’s a little bag over there with my meds. They tell me that it’s best that I keep taking them around the clock for a while to keep the pain under control. I’m already overdue.”

She found them and brought him one each of three pills along with a glass of water.

“Two for pain, and one is an antibiotic. Standard procedure I guess when you’ve had a foreign object make its trajectory through your body.”

She climbed onto the bed beside him, kissing his neck and squeezing his arm.

“I’m sorry,” she said, a tear dropping down her face. “I’m sorry you have to go through so much pain for me.”

He tousled her hair. “You were a pain in my ass; now you’re a pain in my shoulder,” he said, drawing her to him and kissing her ardently.

He lay back again and sighed. “I’m afraid it will be a while before I can give you more than that.”

“Oh, baby,” she said. “I’m just glad to have you beside me.”

He fell asleep holding her hand.

As his pain meds were wearing off in the night, Lucas awoke. He lay there listening to Audra’s even breathing.

Ethan!
He felt like his heart was tearing in two—half with hope and love, the other half with terror.
What would he be like? Who had been raising him for three years? What influences had he had?
Lucas wondered if he would recognize him. He had always looked so much like his mother, but he knew that children’s features often changed rapidly.

In the next moment, he was struck with even more terror.
How could he possibly exchange one for the other?
He had his love for Ethan on the backburner; it had been more of a deep longing and a sorrow than anything he actively knew as love. His love for Audra was so fresh, new, and excruciatingly tender, and it filled him so much. But obviously he couldn’t just forget Ethan.

Before he could have sacrificed himself to protect Audra, but doing so now would mean abandoning Ethan as well. No solution would present itself no matter how hard he thought. It seemed unsolvable.

He got up slowly, standing and steadying himself. She stirred.

“Lucas?”

“I’m just getting my meds,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” she said, sitting up. “You should have woken me.”

“It’s okay.” He downed the pills and came back to the bed. He was anxious for the oblivion of the medication. He pulled her to him and wrapped himself around her as best he could.

# # #

“Jerry, I need to borrow your vehicle.”

“You sold my vehicle, remember? And I didn’t even get the Rubicon.”

“Oh. What were you driving the other day?”

“That’s
my
jeep,” Gordon piped up.

“Okay, then. Gordon, I need to borrow your vehicle.”

“How do you think you’re going to drive?”

“Slowly.”

“Can I take you somewhere?”

“I just need to check in with my partner,” Lucas said.

“So, can I take you somewhere?”

“I’d really rather go by myself.”

“Why don’t you let me drive?” Audra offered.

That frightened him even more, knowing what he was about to do.

“Look, I just need to make a goddamned phone call. I don’t need a chaperone.”

Everybody just looked at him.

“Testy, testy,” Jerry said. “You’re still too much under the influence, bro. No way is anybody letting you drive out of here.”

Lucas turned on his heel and walked out into the dome. Audra followed him. “Won’t you let me drive you?”

“No. I don’t want you leaving this compound till there’s a helicopter on the ground to take us to Phoenix.”

She wanted to protest further but thought better of it.

# # #

That night, he got up when he knew for sure that Audra was sleeping. He retrieved the number from his jacket pocket and slipped it into his jeans pocket. He had waited until the meds wore off so he would be at least halfway clear-headed.

He slipped out under the blanket hanging in the door and padded silently down the concrete steps. He stopped, listening to the night sounds of the automated systems in the dome. He was confident he was the only one awake.

He slipped out a side door and out under the night sky. He caught his breath at the sight of a billion stars overhead. The moon either wasn’t up yet or had already set, he wasn’t sure which. He got out his cell phone and stood, swaying like a drunk, looking at it. Of course he had no service out here. He would have to take one of the vehicles.

As he turned to go back into the complex, he heard a low growl.
How could I have forgotten?
The dogs would let him out, but they wouldn’t let him back in without Gordon’s signal.

Lucky for Lucas, Gordon slept with one eye open. He was out the door in a shot, calling off the dogs.

“Roberts?”

“Yeah.”

“What the hell are you doing?”

“I’m not sure. I need to make a phone call.”

Gordon realized Lucas was disoriented. He took him by the arm and walked him back through the complex and up to their apartment. He opened the blanket and Audra was sitting on the side of the bed. She jumped up and rushed to them.

“Found this boy wandering outside. Get him to bed. When he gets up in the morning, I’ll take him somewhere he can make his phone call.”

Audra nodded and led Lucas back to bed.

# # #

The next morning, Lucas and Gordon left the complex and headed out towards the air base. Lucas kept watching his phone, and as soon as he had a signal, he stopped Gordon. He got out and walked a considerable way from the vehicle and punched in the number from the paper.

“Roberts?” the voice answered.

“It is.”

“You ready to make the exchange?”

“You name the time and place a week from now, and I’ll arrange it. But I need to know you’re not bullshitting me about Ethan.”

There was a sound as though someone was covering the phone’s speaker. Then, a small, tentative voice came on.

“Dad?”

“Ethan!” Tears sprung to Lucas’s eyes. “Oh, my god, Ethan. Are you okay? Are they hurting you?”

“No, dad. I’m okay.”

Suddenly Lucas had no clue what to say.

“Ethan, do you remember your mother’s name?”

“Uh-h-h-h, y-yeah, dad. Elena.”

Relief washed over him. “I’m coming to get you next week, Ethan.”

“Is that enough for you, Roberts?” Michaelson was back on the line.

“Yes. I’ll bring the girl.”

“See that you do.” The call disconnected.

Lucas walked back and got into the Jeep with Gordon.

“You don’t look so good, buddy,” Gordon said. “You okay?”

“I will be,” he said. “I will be.”