Page 75 of Taking What's Ours
“We’ll crack the window and leave her in the truck. This won’t take long.”
A million explanations run through my head. Maybe he’s showing me the graves of some of his brothers. How sad.
He parks along the single lane pavement, rolls the windows down enough for Rosie to get her head out, then shuts the truck off and gets out.
This time I don’t wait for him to come around to my side, and I meet him at the bumper. He holds his hand out, and I slip mine in his. Then we walk a good distance, passing grave after grave.
“They’re over here,” he breathes.
They. Plural. More than one brother is buried here.
We stop at a dark polished granite marker. The last name across the top readsBarnes. Under it are two names. Hannah and Sophie.
My eyes dart to Baja.
“This is what I’m afraid of, Elaina.”
“Who are they?” I ask, fearing I already know. Hannah has a year she was born and a year she died. Sophie only has one year engraved under her name.
“I was with Hannah for two years before she got pregnant. She was so excited when we found out we were having a daughter. We fought over the name. She wanted Sophie. I wanted something else. Hell, I don’t even remember what it was anymore.”
“What happened?” I whisper.
“Back then there was an MC making a move on our state. The Phantom Marauders. They were trying to push through New Mexico. Witnesses said they’d seen them roar up the highway just before Hannah was found. She’d been run off the road. Hit a tree. She was eight months pregnant.”
“Oh, my God,” I whisper.
“She was already dead when the trooper got to her; they transported her to the hospital. Thought they could at least save the baby, but she passed with her mother.”
I set my hand on his arm. “Oh, Baja. I’m so sorry.”
He lifts a chin to the marker. “Hannah wanted to call her Sophie, so that’s what I put on the stone.”
“It was such a tragic accident.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. It wasn’t an accident. That MC ran her off the road on purpose.”
“Why would they do that?”
“I had a club emblem on the back of my old truck. She was driving it that day. They targeted her.”
“It’s so senseless.”
“Not to them. That’s what this life does—it destroys. And last night, it could have been you.”
“And yet you stay in it.”
“It’s what I am now, Elaina. I’m a Royal Bastard officer, and I’ll die one.”
I don’t say any more. To tell the truth, I’m at a loss for words.
His phone goes off and he pulls it from his pocket. “Let me take you home.”
“Is that the club?”
He nods.
We’re both quiet on the drive back, each in our own head. I’m not sure I can think of a way to overcome a roadblock like the one he just revealed. But as I sit here in the seat next to him, watching him brood over the death of a woman and baby he obviously loved, knowing their loss must have destroyed him, I know one thing. I never want to leave his side. He’s the man I was always meant to be with. I can feel it in my bones.