New Love (Angels Warriors MC Trilogy Book 0) (8 page)

I get home as fast as I can, away from Mason. I can’t believe he spoke to me that way, and put his hands on me? I was in shock. I didn’t bother listening to anything he might have said after I was pushed to the floor. I got up quickly and left.

I crawl into bed, tears welling up. I am so stupid. He isn’t ready, and I am not sure he ever will be. After that night with Mason, our first night together, I went and got put on the pill. I’ve taken it every day. The last month has been strange though, I don’t remember taking it, but every day when I would pull out the pill packet, that days pill was gone, so I just put it off as maybe I forgot I had taken it already.

Sleep is hard to come by, and after about an hour of restlessness, I feel horrible, horrible pains. I sit up in bed, holding my stomach, as I feel something leaking from me.

The fall... Something happened when Mason pushed me. I get out of bed right away and throw some clothes on, grabbing my purse from where I tossed it on the couch, and head out. 

I speed, getting to the hospital as fast as I can. Going to the ER doors, Kimmy, one of the nurses I work with sometimes, is there, smiling. “Hey, what are you doing here? It’s your night off.”

“I need to see the doctor,” I breathe out, holding my stomach as another pain hits me again.

“Janie, get a wheelchair, now!” Kimmy shouts.

I get in quickly, not even checking in at the desk or waiting in the waiting room. They run tests, and then Dr. Mercer comes in.

“Miss Parker, never seen you on this side of the clipboard before.”

“Yeah.”

“Kim is bringing in the ultrasound machine, and we’ll take a look, okay? Your tests all say everything is fine, but we’re just going to take a look, to double check.”

I am so scared. I grab my cell phone from my purse and hit call.

“Hello?”

“Shawn? Um, I need you.”

I am over at Lilly and Zippo’s letting Hunter sleep over. I need to think, and I can’t take care of him when my head is so fucked.  Lilly knows something is going on, but I can’t tell her what. She will be so ashamed of me. Fuck, I am ashamed of me.

I go home, intent on getting shit-faced drunk so I don’t have to think about any of this. But I can’t stop thinking about Moira and the look on her face. She was terrified of me, and with good reason.

My phone rings, and I’m hoping it’s Moira, but I don’t recognize the number.

“Hello?”

“This Mason Harris?”

“Yeah.”

“Moira’s in the hospital. She told me not to call you, but this is your child, too, so I told her too bad so sad.”

“She okay?”

“Yes, she’s fine, but they’re monitoring her. She had a fall, I guess, some bleeding.”

It’s my fault. Fuckin’ hell, this is my fault.

“I’ll be there soon.”

I hang up and head to the hospital, hoping I haven’t fucked this up for good.  Would motherfuckin’ serve me right, though. I don’t deserve to be happy.

When I get to the hospital, she doesn’t want me in her room, but Shawn from the garage is with her and convinces her to let me be present. I didn’t know they were so close. It hits me I have just been going through the motions and not really getting to know her the way she deserves.  I have used her and treated her like pure shit. Now, she might be losing a child.

I feel so lost, but I don’t want to let her go. I don’t want her to give up on me, on us... if there really even is an ‘us’.

I’m lying in the hospital bed, waiting for the ultrasound machine to come in the room, when I feel him. I look to Shawn, and she doesn’t even look the slightest bit guilty.

“I’m so fuckin’ sorry,” Mason croaks.

I don’t say a word. We can’t be us; we can’t be anything.

“Moira, he’s talking to you,” Shawn states.

“Duh,” I say to her rudely as I shoot her a glare.

Just then, the doctor comes in with the machine. “Oh, hi there, you must be the father?”

Mason nods as the machine is wheeled right next to the bed. “All right, let’s take a look, shall we?”

Warm gel is rubbed across my stomach, and Mason keeps staring at me and my stomach. I have to look away from him. I can’t. I’ll break and beg him to be with me or something. My hormones are whacked.

He moves the Doppler around on my stomach and then pauses. “Everything looks great, Moira. You are showing about eleven weeks.”

“The first time,” Mason mumbles under his breath.

Great. We conceived this child when we first had sex, which is when he called out his wife’s name. That will be a great story to tell Junior one day. Not.

Could this be any more awkward?

“Moira…” he starts, but I hold my hand up.

“Let’s not do this whole thing. You aren’t ready. I should have walked away, but I thought I felt something and that maybe you did, too. I was wrong. I get it. I am moving forward. You are stuck in the past. I get it.”

He doesn’t say anything, just keeps looking at my stomach while I wait for my discharge papers.

After taking Moira home, even though she fought me on it, I drive away. I didn’t want to drive away. I wanted to stay, talk to her, but I also need to get my head on straight before that happens. I need to make peace with people.

Knowing that Henry is here, since they officially moved in together, I pull up to Mona’s place. I knock on the front door and wait.

Minutes later, the door opens and Henry stands there. When he goes to walk away to get Mona for me, I call to him. “Can we talk?”

“Yeah,” he says quietly.

I follow him into the study and sit down on the couch, him in the chair just off to the side.

“I don’t blame you. Shit was on me, shit was on Trent, and I’m sorry,” I tell him.

His eyes close, and he lets out a breath. “Mason, there is nothing you need to apologize for. I’ll always be here for you. Always.”

We talk a little more. The weight of the guilt I’ve been carrying around is finally gone from my shoulders. Now to go to Eden. She deserves, more than anything, for me to stop being a dick.

I ride over to their house, and Angel answers the door. “If you’re here to be a dick, leave.”

I shake my head. “I’m not. I want to talk to Eden.”

He stares at me, face blank, and then nods, letting me in the house.

“Uncle Mason!” screams Glenna, Ethan, and Jessica, all at the same time, bursting my damn eardrums.

“Hey, guys.”

“Kids, go get washed up for bed. Leave Mason and your mom alone,” Angel says to them, and they run up the stairs with him following.

Eden comes to me, slowly, until I throw my arms out. Instantly, she runs into me, causing me to step back a few paces.  I hold her tight, my face in her hair. “I’m sorry Eden,” I tell her.

“Don’t. Don’t be sorry. We’re all hurting, Mason. We all are.”

I hold her for a while longer, until we break apart and sit on the couch. I tell her about Moira, and her face turns white.

“I was so mean to her the other day. I need to go to her, apologize.”

I chuckle slightly when Eden tells me all the things she’s said to her. Typical Eden, looking out for me even when I was hating on her. I tell her not to worry about it. I’ll fix it, once I think of something good.

“Marry her.”

“What?” I ask her in shock.

“It’s only been a few months. It’s fast, but if you love her, Mason, marry her.”

She gets up and goes to a drawer in the china cabinet, pulling something out. “Mrs. Shepard gave me this in her Will, told me to give it to you when the time was right, since well, both Lilly and I have one already. She told me that I wasn’t to give it to you until I knew we were going to be okay, and you got your head out of your ass.” She passes it to me, and once it’s in my hand, I see what it is.

“Mrs. Shepard’s ring?” I ask her, shocked.

Eden nods. “Did you know her name was Eleanor?”

I burst out laughing. 

A while later, after Angel tells me to be at work first thing in the morning, I leave the house, knowing everything is going to be just fine.

One week later

I’m busy in the ER tonight, I was supposed to be on shift up in the mental ward tonight, but the ER was so busy they did some shifting around. On my lunch break, I decide to just hit the local McDonald’s. I feel weird, like someone is following me. Sure enough, once I sit down at a table, two shadows come over me.

Looking up, I see it’s Lilly and Eden. “Uh, hi?”

Both girls sit down and just stare at me.

“Can I do something for you?” I look between the two of them. I am so hungry I wish they’d get on with whatever they are up to.

“I was wrong,” Eden starts. “You are good for Mason. He loves you.”

I shake my head. “Mason doesn’t care about me, not like that.”

“You are stubborn,” Eden snaps at me.

“I won’t be with a man who puts his hands on me,” I say, clenching my teeth. My baby deserves better than growing up in an abusive broken home. I don’t tell them that, though.

Lilly narrows her eyes. “That dickhead.”

“Mason told me everything- what happened, how it happened. He’s going to start talking to someone. I gave him the name of a good doctor. He feels like shit for what he did, what he said. Please, just don’t give up on him,” Eden says, pleading with me.

“I don’t know. I can promise to think about it.”

“I guess that’s all we can hope for.”

“Now, um we’re going to order some food, come back, and talk. I promise we won’t be up in your face. We just want to talk about the Mason we know, and maybe, if you’re up for it, a bit of Hilary?” Lilly says, staring at me intently.

I nod, biting my bottom lip.

***

A Few Days Later

A knock at my door startles me awake. Checking the time, I see it’s noon. Shit, I’ve only been asleep for three hours. Night shift is killing me, especially being pregnant. I haven’t had any morning sickness, but I’ve been more tired than usual.

I walk slowly to the front door and open it to see Mason drenched from the rain and out of breath, probably from running up the stairs, looking upset. I stare at him for a moment before he moves so fast, I get dizzy. Pinning me to the wall, he kisses me rough, demanding, and oh so passionate.

“Fuck, Moira, I’m sorry. I was an idiot for what I said, what I did,” he tells me, breaking our kiss. “I was scared, okay? It brought back so much shit. Hilary has only been dead six months, and you tell me you’re pregnant... Fuck, I felt guilty.”

“I understand, Mason. Maybe we were moving too fast. You just lost your wife. You have a baby,” I say, shrugging slightly, my voice cracking. “You’re just not ready to move on.”

He squeezes me tightly. “I am ready, Moira, and I’m ready with you. Hilary and I were over years ago. I just held onto the hope that we weren’t. The truth is, our marriage was over before it really even began. We were young. I was angry all the time- cheating, abusive. Hilary and I were done,” he says firmly. “You are my future. I want you. I want you for me, and I want you to be Hunter’s mother. He already loves you.”

Tears form in my eyes as I stare up at Mason, biting my bottom lip.

“I have the house listed. That was mine and Hil’s house, and I can’t... I won’t have you living there with me, in that home. We need our own. Something to call ours.”

Hearing him call Hilary by his nickname he gave her kind of cuts through me a bit. But knowing he wants to start all over, brand new, gives me hope.

“I love you, Moira.”

Shock courses through me, and I don’t say anything for a while. Is this for real? This stuff never happens in real life, not mine anyway.

“Say something, please,” he pleads, slightly shaking me.

“I love you, too, Mason,” I finally stutter out.

He grins, lighting up his whole face. “Marry me.”

My eyes bug out, and I whisper up at him, tears in my eyes. “Yes.” Oh my God, did I just agree to marry him? He goes down on his knees with his head against my stomach and places a sweet kiss on my navel.

“I promise, Moira, with everything in me, I’ll make us a family. I’ll be a good man for you and the kids. I’m not easy to love, but I promise, I’ll be worth it.”

Right at this moment, I know everything is going to be just perfect.