Scars of Yesterday (Sons of Templar MC #8) - Anne Malcom Page 0,17

I felt like I belonged in. There was danger. Uncertainty. Late nights. Lonely nights. Blood-soaked clothing. Bloody knuckles. But there were also full dinner tables. Barbeques. A sense of safety. Brotherhood for Ranger. Family like I never would’ve had otherwise.

My mom never came around to the house, but she at least attended our small wedding. On dad’s insistence, no doubt. We had dinner with them once a month. It was always strained.

But I had Ranger.

The club.

And now, a positive pregnancy test in my hands.

“You haven’t told Ranger?” Evie asked.

She was sitting out on our patio with a glass of whisky. I had wine that she’d urged me to at least sip to take the edge off.

Though I desperately needed something to take the edge off, I hadn’t touched it.

“He’s still on a run,” I said. “And I didn’t want to call him with this type of news. Especially...” I trailed off.

“Especially if you’re not sure if you wanna keep it,” Evie finished for me, no judgement in her voice.

I flinched anyway, hating the words being spoken out loud. Why should it make any difference? I’d been thinking those same words since I’d seen the result of the test.

“It doesn’t make you a bad person or bad wife if you don’t want it,” Evie continued.

“I want it,” I whispered, placing my hand on my still flat stomach. Hearing it out loud, actually thinking of a reality where I did something to the life Ranger and I had created with our love, I was suddenly sickened by the idea.

“Ranger doesn’t?”

I smiled. “No, he does. He’s wanted one since he got the patch. I just, I don’t know if this is the right time. With everything going on.”

I said everything as though I knew what that entailed. I didn’t completely. Ranger didn’t like to bring that shit home, said he didn’t want to pollute our alone time with the worries of the club. The dangers. I knew enough about some of it, though. The guns. The rival clubs. I knew things were tense right now.

“There’s never a right time to have a kid, sweetie. And honestly, if there was, right now would be the time. With everything going on, the club needs this. Ranger needs this. Some light in the middle of this shit. Something beautiful and pure. Something to fight for.” She sipped her whisky. “In saying that, it’s only beautiful if it’s right for you. There’s no shame in saying it’s not. No one will judge you.”

She was wrong. I would judge myself if I did what my mind whispered was best. Was safest. It would make me a coward. It would create cracks in my soul and in my marriage, eventually tearing it apart.

“You’re right,” I said after a beat. “This is what the club needs. What Ranger needs.” I looked down to my stomach. “A family.”

Eight Months Later

“We need to go to the hospital now,” Ranger clipped, glaring at me as I descended the stairs of our new home. He’d decided a beachside bungalow, while beautiful, was not practical for a baby. It was too small. Too unprotected.

Initially, I hadn’t known what he truly meant when he said ”unprotected”. We had enemies, I knew this, but they were faceless to me. I hadn’t put any thought to whatever the club was doing finding us at home, Old Ladies and families were off limits, in the rules of outlaw war. But things were turning. Men were getting tense, you could feel it in the air. It scared me, but not enough as it probably should’ve. I trusted Ranger to protect me. Us.

So we’d moved into town, onto a quiet street, into a beautiful house paid with money I knew was somehow stained with blood.

“We don’t need to go yet,” I said, pausing in the middle of the staircase. I inhaled sharply and clutched the railing as another contraction took hold.

Ranger watched, obviously furious at me for not listening to his alpha commands. He was also furious because he had to watch his wife go through pain, and there was nothing he could do about it. He was committed to protecting me from anything and everything, and right now, there was a lot to protect me from. He could do plenty about the outside influences, just not our son making his arrival known my ripping apart his mother’s womb.

He must’ve moved at some point because he was no longer glaring at me from the bottom of the stairs, I was in