He Chose the MC Princess Over Me While I Was Secretly Pregnant With His Heir, Now He Wants Us Back novel · Chapter 1 of 32
Chapter 1: The Seat Behind Him
At his father's Memorial Ride the founder's daughter climbs onto the seat behind Lena's husband and Lena walks away from the club, dropping the ultrasound photo in the gravel; a stranger's text says: Both of you.
Forty engines were warming up in the clubhouse lot when Joelle Dawes swung her leg over my seat.
The ultrasound photo was folded in my jacket pocket, where it had been since the doctor's office on Tuesday.
I had been planning to hand it to my husband at his father's grave, after the ride, with nobody else around.
I had practiced the sentence in the bar's walk-in cooler for three days.
It was the one morning a year the club rolled out as a single line.
The president went first.
His old lady rode behind him.
Everyone in the valley knew what that seat meant, and for nine years it had been mine.
I stood by the porch rail with a tray of coffees I had carried out for the prospects.
Joelle was the founder's daughter.
She had grown up on club money and club rules, and she wore a white leather jacket that had never seen rain.
She slid her arms around Boone's waist and set her chin against his shoulder.
Boone sat there with his hands on the grips.
He didn't tell her to get off.
I waited for him to turn his head.
Men I had fed at my table every Sunday for nine years sat on their bikes and looked at their mirrors.
One I had driven to the ER at four in the morning.
One whose daughter's birthday cake I had baked.
Not one of them said a word.
At the back of the line, Joelle's father sat on his bike with his arms folded, watching Boone and not me.
His name was Amos Dawes, and he had founded this club before my husband could walk.
Rafe was the only one who looked at me.
He was Boone's vice president and his best friend since they were twelve.
He took the tray out of my hands before it shook.
"Lena, hang on," he said, low. "Don't do anything. Let him get through the ride and he'll explain it."
"Explain what?" I said. "She's on my seat, Rafe."
"There's a reason. Boone wouldn't do this for nothing." He squeezed my elbow. "Wait for him tonight. Please."
His voice was warm, and I wanted very badly to believe him.
Boone raised his fist.
Forty bikes rolled out of the lot in a roar of noise, and the gravel kicked up against my jeans.
He did not look back to see where I was standing.
That was the part I could not get past.
I could have stood the seat being given away.
I could not stand that he never checked whether I was watching.
So he never saw me walk away.
I took the photo out of my pocket one last time.
The little gray bean in the middle of it had a heartbeat, the doctor said, and it was eight weeks old.
I had lost a baby once, three years ago.
This time I had waited until Tuesday to let myself hope.
I let the photo go.
It dropped face up in the gravel.
Then I walked into the bar I had run for the club since I was twenty and picked up my purse from under the register.
Nothing else in that building was mine.
The cash drawer and the ring of keys on the hook were club property, so I left them where they hung.
My wedding ring came off at the sink.
It was a plain silver band Boone had bought at a pawn shop when we were broke, and I set it on the drain board next to the lemons.
Rafe was right about one thing.
The explaining could wait.
I wasn't going to be there for it.
I climbed into my truck, an old Ford with a cracked dash.
I drove out the back road behind the clubhouse so I wouldn't pass the line on the highway.
By the county line my hands had stopped shaking.
I pulled into the gas station at Hellgate Junction because I had no idea where I was going.
I sat with the engine off and the heater ticking.
Then I knew.
Birdie Lund had been my mother's best friend, and she owned a motel and diner ninety miles north.
At my mother's funeral she had told me there would always be a bed at the Lost Trail.
I turned my phone back on to call her.
It buzzed in my hand before I touched the screen.
There were no missed calls from Boone.
There was one new text, from a number I did not know.
It said: Safe driving, Mrs. Gallagher. Both of you.
I read it three times.
Nobody knew about the baby.
Only the doctor knew, and me.
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