Gabriel - Jessie Cooke Page 0,6

take a little day trip.”

“Okay...” Gabe said, nervously. “Can I ask where we’re headed?”

“Baton Rouge.”

2

Before leaving for Baton Rouge, Blackheart told Gabriel what Patrice had said to him at Booger’s wake. Now as he rode along the I-10, he had to think about that. He couldn’t help but wonder why she hadn’t mentioned it to him. They hadn’t had sex yet because Patrice told him she didn’t do that until she was at the point of knowing a man well enough to know she wanted a relationship with him. He’d been okay with that because all along he’d felt like they had been growing closer, and he was sure she felt as strongly about him as he did her. Now he had to wonder if she’d only been using him to get closer to his president. When Gabe was younger he’d had problems with his self-esteem. He knew he wasn’t the best-looking guy around, and he’d never felt like he was very smart. But once he put on that Jokers kutte, he’d gotten a lot more female attention and it had done wonders for his ego. Of course, now he was wondering why a beautiful woman who was six years older than him, a hell of a lot smarter, and had a good career, would want him. It had been like instant attraction for them...or at least for him...but maybe that was her plan all along.

Blackheart hadn’t told Gabe if he thought there was a chance he’d fathered her or not. He had apparently simply walked away when she’d confronted him the night before. He told Gabe after talking it over with Sally; he’d gone to look for Patrice the next morning to finally talk to her about it, and she was nowhere to be found. He’d gone to her apartment first and when she didn’t answer the door, he went to the hospital. There, he was told by one of her co-workers that she was supposed to be on shift, but she’d called off sick that morning. From there he’d assumed she was with Gabe, but in the meantime he’d been working his magic like he always did and he already had a name and address for her parents in Baton Rouge.

Gabe’s head continued to pound as thoughts raced wildly through his head. He glanced over at Blackheart, riding next to him with his long, black hair blowing in the wind underneath his half-shell helmet. For as long as Gabe could remember, Blackheart had been the epitome of everything he’d wanted to be someday. His parents had given him a good life. They didn’t have much money but they worked hard for everything they did have, and gave Gabriel everything he needed. He never doubted that he was loved and wanted the way some of the kids he’d grown up on the bayou with doubted...but something inside of him always drove him to want more. Blackheart stopped by once a week to see his dad. Gabe never knew what kind of business the two men did together, but he found himself at a very young age looking forward to those visits. The man who to a ten-year-old boy looked like a giant always brought him some kind of trinket from New Orleans and was never too busy to spend a few minutes catching up with the boy about what was going on in his life. When his own dad died, Gabe had even felt guilty for all the times he’d wished Blackheart were his father instead.

When Gabriel’s parents were killed in that car accident, it had been Blackheart who woke the sixteen-year-old up to tell him. He’d been filled with compassion and he’d assured Gabe that the club, and he himself, would be there for him, and he’d never want for anything, and Blackheart had never wavered on that promise. At first, Gabe’s Paw Paw and Maw Maw had taken him in. His mother’s parents were good people, but losing their daughter had broken them, and they just didn’t have much left to give a needy, adolescent boy. But true to his word, Blackheart had been there, checking on him every week or sending one of the guys out to see if he needed anything. Gabe’s Paw Paw was much too proud to take any money from anyone that he didn’t feel like he “earned,” but the young man’s grandparents had been shocked, and grateful, when Blackheart “discovered” an insurance policy their daughter and husband had taken out, naming