Crossroads (Beautiful Biker MC Romance Series) - DD Prince Page 0,28

that’d give me reason to visit my old stomping grounds. Meet up with an old friend, usually. Sometimes I’d stop by the club or Aunt Delia’s for some reason or another. Today, I was here just for this. I almost didn’t come, but I worried she’d have no one to talk to and nothing to do if I didn’t. Plus, I didn’t want to sit around the clubhouse today and deal with any shit about last night from Rider, Dad, or anybody else.

I felt awful for her. Her husband was a hard-working man, but he was quiet, not a super-communicative man from what I could tell. She told me she didn’t have many friends. She’d been friendly with a neighbor who’d moved and her best friend since childhood had died suddenly the year before, so she really didn’t have anyone. They were dealing with their grief individually, not leaning on one another for support and it seemed very depressing in the Hanson household despite that Luke had been gone over eight months. I suggested, last visit, that I take her out shopping or to a movie next visit… do something besides sit in the house and look at pictures of Luke everywhere. She had a practical shrine to him in the living room. She and her husband spent all their non-working / non-sleeping hours in that room, and they did it by being surrounded by their only son, their very dead son, and yet not talking about it, about their emotions, about much of anything.

Their house was tidy, but old and modest. Despite the frayed sofa arms and the scratches on the old hardwood floor that had a small threadbare area rug over it, there was not a speck of dust anywhere and the place had been filled with signs of love and care. Crocheted doilies. Framed photos. All Luke’s school pictures. Their wedding photo and pictures of other loved ones.

From the way she described him, to deal with their loss, I suspected Mr. Hanson stared emotionless at the television and she cleaned the already clean house.

I had an hour-long visit with her, and she didn’t want to go out, citing that she had housework to catch up on (on a house that was spotless), so I said goodbye, telling her I’d investigate the Melanie situation. When I got into my car, I called the number she’d given me.

“Is this Melanie?” I greeted after the phone was answered with a suspicious-sounding feminine Hello. I heard a baby crying in the background.

“Who’s askin’?”

“I’m Jojo. I know, um… knew, Luke Hanson. I was just with his mother. Is it true he’s the father of your baby?”

She held the phone. The baby continued crying.

“Can we meet?” I asked.

“Jojo. Jojo who?” Her voice had gone alarmed. “Not Valentine? You related to Rider?”

“He’s my brother.”

“He told me to stay away, said if I came anywhere near anyone he cared about again, he’d make me sorry.”

“This is me asking you to meet. Don’t worry about Rider getting mad.”

She held the phone a second before saying, “Fine. Meet me at the park.”

“Which park?”

She told me the spot and I knew it well. Me and my friends used to score dope there when we were in high school.

When I got to the park, I saw a scraggly pale chick on a bench rocking a stroller with a crying toddler in it. She rocked that stroller absently, staring off into space.

I made my approach.

“Melanie?”

She looked up at me and she assessed me as she did.

I did the same. I recognized her. I couldn’t place from where, though.

She was dirty. Her clothes. Her hair. She had dark circles under her eyes. My eyes moved to the baby, who I could see was around a year old and he was crying hard, his little face red, his fingers in his mouth and drool dripping down his chin. His stroller was filthy.

“You’re Jojo. Of course you are. You have the same eyes as Rider. And his mom.”

I gave her a tight smile. She was correct; me and Ride got Mom’s turquoise eyes. Spence and Deacon had brown and gold eyes like Dad. And at the mention of my mom it dawned, and I remembered her. She was in my driveway talking to my mother one day, not long before Dad sold the house. Mom rushed me off, not telling me who she was.

“Thought he might have been Rider’s, but Ride says it couldn’t have been and now I see Lick more ‘n