Madeline Sheehan - Unbeloved

I didn’t blame him for leaving, for choosing life as a nomad over continuing to live a life full of lies and secrets. I just hadn’t realized how drastically my life would change with his absence. I hadn’t realized how much I had come to depend on him, and in turn, how much I would miss him.

Good God, what was wrong with me? Almost thirty-seven years old with a grown child and pregnant with another, yet in many ways I was still a child myself. I was without purpose, always unsure of myself and my feelings, giving love away as easily as breathing, all while flitting and flailing aimlessly through my life . . . if you could even call this delusional sham I’d created around myself a life.

The light touch of a hand on my stomach brought me reeling back from depressing musings, to the young woman who’d stepped up beside me. Blonde, beautiful, and dimpled as all Deuce’s children were, Danielle “Danny” West smiled kindly at me.

Blowing out a breath to ensure my voice wouldn’t quiver, I then covered her hand with my own and gave her fingers a light squeeze. “Only a few more weeks,” I said. “I can’t wait for this baby to come. I’m too old to be pregnant.”

Danny’s smile turned sympathetic, but anything she might have said in response was stopped short by the man who walked up behind her. ZZ, her boyfriend, slid his arm around her middle and pulled her tightly up against him.

“Hey, baby,” he murmured.

Danny turned in his arms, returning his embrace, and placed a kiss upon his chest.

It was refreshing to see her happy again. Not too long ago, she’d been depressed, constantly brooding, and engaging in destructive behavior that had belied her usually outgoing and upbeat personality.

It was ZZ who’d pulled her out of her funk and brought her back to the land of the living. At first Deuce hadn’t been thrilled with the match, but not even Deuce could deny the significant change in his daughter, nor could he refute how good of a man ZZ was. Smart, sweet, and loyal, ZZ was the perfect match for his president’s daughter.

But even as thrilled as I was for Danny, I couldn’t help but be reminded of my own daughter, Tegen.

Not much younger than Danny, Tegen was away at college in San Francisco. Her phone calls were minimal and her visits home practically nonexistent. Although she’d never much cared much for Miles City, always wishing for something bigger, something better, I couldn’t help but think it had been her disappointment in me and my life choices that precipitated her hasty departure and reluctance to visit.

“Oh my God!” Kami shrieked. “Oh my fucking God, he’s proposing!”

Startled from my reflections, I glanced up, seeking the cause of Kami’s outburst. I’d been so lost inside my own thoughts I hadn’t even realized the yard had gone quiet, or that the couple who’d been standing right beside me only minutes before were now in the center of the yard, all attention on them.

Down on one knee, ZZ was holding up a small black box in offering to Danny. She stood before him, staring down at him, her pretty features twisted with shock.

My throat convulsed, suddenly dry and scratchy, and I swallowed repeatedly, trying to wet it, trying to keep my composure.

That would never be me. That would never be me.

“I’m going to cry,” Adriana whispered, and covered her mouth with her hand. Rolling his eyes, yet smiling, Mick wrapped his arm around her shoulders and drew her close to him.

Even Kami, a born cynic, forever bickering with her own husband, looked misty eyed.

“Baby girl!”

My gaze traveled to where Deuce and Eva had come together. Standing side by side, both of them were smiling happily in Danny’s direction.

“You say the fuckin’ word,” Deuce yelled, “and I will throw that asshole into next fuckin’ week! Fact is, whether you say yes or no, I’m still gonna beat the fuckin’ shit outta him!”

Eva shoved playfully at Deuce’s abdomen and in response he captured her neck, pulling her against his body and into a loving embrace.

Good God, I was surrounded by it. So much love and affection. So many happy couples, both mature relationships and ones that were just beginning. Love was everywhere, literally all around me except for where I wanted it, needed it, most of all.

I couldn’t stop myself from crying, not this time. I was too pregnant, the welling emotion was too great. So often while at the clubhouse, during birthday parties or barbeques, when I’d been forced to watch Jase interact with his wife and children—and dying inside a little each time—from across the room or the yard, I would find Hawk. Our eyes would meet, and then I was no longer falling apart but instead was centered by Hawk’s desire for me, warmed by it, strengthened by it. Again and again, with just one look, he would save me from myself.

I needed that now, his strength, him.

As my tears began to fall, I hurriedly turned away from my friends, searching out the most expedient way back to the solitude and emotional safety of the clubhouse.

That was when I saw her.

Standing at the far edge of the lawn, just outside the circle of gathered people, was Jase’s wife, Chrissy.

My tears dried instantly as my breath hitched and my stomach sank. She wasn’t here to attend the party.

It wasn’t the tears streaming down her pretty face that gave it away, or her disheveled hair and wrinkled clothing. It wasn’t even the wild look in her eyes. It was the simple act of her gaze meeting mine, really and truly seeing me for the very first time. She’d never looked at me before, only in passing glances, and always dismissing me.

She knew. She knew everything.

All these years of being thrust together, living in the same town, attending the same parties, both in love with the same man, yet strangers still.

Not anymore.

Her gaze dropped to my swollen belly. In a mindless instinctive reaction, I raised my hands to cover it. To somehow protect the life inside me from what I knew was about to transpire, to shield its innocence from the ugly secrets that were about to be ripped from the darkness and sent, screaming and bleeding, into the light.

Tentatively, I took a step backward and was about to take another when movement at her side caught my attention.

A flash of light.

A glint of metal.

Shrieking, I turned to run, but above my cry heard a booming crack. As if I’d been punched, my head snapped backward, knocking me off my feet.

Then I was falling and people were screaming. There was so much screaming, it was all I could hear, and yet it sounded far away, off in the distance.

“Dorothy!”

Voices echoed all around me.

Hands grabbed at me.

A face hovered directly over mine.

I knew that face, I knew her, she was my . . . she was . . .

Tears streamed down her cheeks and her mouth was moving, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying. I couldn’t hear anything. Why couldn’t I hear anything?

I tried to ask her why I couldn’t hear, but my mouth wouldn’t work.

Another face, a man with pretty blue eyes, appeared beside the woman, wildly shaking his head back and forth. I knew him. I couldn’t remember who he was or how I knew him, only that I knew him.

Like the woman, he too was crying and his lips were moving, but still there was no sound. I tried to lift my arm, to reach out to him, to . . .

My vision began to blur, distorting and warping the faces around me. I blinked furiously, trying to see, trying to understand.

Something awful was happening, I knew that much, something horrible. And these people, whoever they were, I wanted to help them.

But I couldn’t move, I couldn’t hear, and black spots floated over me, quickly growing larger, taking over my vision.