Crossroads (Beautiful Biker MC Romance Series) - DD Prince Page 0,30

before they died, and his parents inherited it.

Melanie sniffled. “Well, maybe Lick ain’t the father. Maybe it is your brother.” She looked off into space. “See… I’m sure I specifically remember him bein’ in my face with those gorgeous eyes that’re like yours while he was inside of me.”

God, this chick. I shook that off with a grimace.

Wait.

“Wait. Did you say two weeks from the last day of your last period? It’s two weeks from the first day of your last period. You’re out by a week.”

She looked at me blankly. Then she blinked, got a faraway look in her eyes, and then she twitched. “No. It lines up. That’s what I meant.”

She was lying her face off; I was sure of it.

I stared a minute. She stared back without flinching. Dad always said that when someone stared into your eyes for a long time trying to convince you of something, it often meant they were a practiced liar. Dad said to look and look hard and you’d know. I knew.

“I don’t know what to tell ya, sister. If you want a DNA test to rule out either of them, I’m sure we can do that and that’d help you at least know for sure. We can ask Mrs. Hanson if there’s anything left that can be used to test. A hairbrush maybe. Or wait… I think nowadays, if she takes a test they can tell her if your son is related to her.”

“Maybe I oughta go see him. Talk to him.”

She was obviously talking about my brother. Her words had given me a pretty clear perspective of what’d gone down in that threesome and if Rider said what he said, it was likely true.

First off, my father drilled it into my brothers that you do not ever go ungloved. Clearly, that was a lesson for Dad because my mother wound up a Valentine and she wouldn’t have otherwise, though the four of us were also here because of my dad’s weakness for her. Clearly, with four kids and the number of times they split up between all of us and throughout my childhood he’d had a weak spot for her.

Dad kept a box of condoms in a cabinet behind the bar in the basement and they all knew about it the minute they sprouted their first pubic hair. Not joking. I took the box once to keep in case I ever needed them, and two days later there was a new box with no questions asked.

My brother would’ve for sure worn a rubber whether he was having sex in front or in the back.

Second: I knew babies didn’t 100% always look like their dads, but this baby didn’t look remotely like Ride. He also didn’t look like Luke. Melanie’s hair was dirty blonde. Her son’s hair was strawberry blond. And his skin was very fair. Rider had medium brown hair closer to Mom’s natural shade than the rest of us that had very dark hair like Dad, but Ride wasn’t fair-skinned like this. Lick had dark hair and dark eyes with more of an olive complexion.

“My opinion… get a DNA test. That’ll do the talking.”

She got a faraway look in her eyes. “I just really need to fuckin’ sleep. He’s teething and he just cries n’ cries.”

“He’s napping now. It’d probably be a good time to get home and take a nap, too,” I suggested. “We can talk later if you want my help getting a DNA test.”

“Actually, any way you can come n’ sit with him so’s I can do that? Nap, I mean? I swear, the minute I close my eyes, he’ll be cryin’ and if I don’t get some sleep I don’t know what I’ll do. Just hang for a few hours so I can sleep just a bit?”

I considered it a moment. She looked rough.

“Please,” she said. “He might be your nephew.”

“Yeah, okay. Let’s go,” I said. He wasn’t my nephew, I felt that in my bones, but she clearly had no support system at all.

I followed her two blocks to a shabby low-rise apartment building, leaving my car where it was, parked near the park.

***

Her ground-floor apartment was small, and it was filthy. It smelled like a combination of dirty diapers, dirty laundry, ashtray, and dust. My nose actually tingled with the amount of dust in the place. The apartment was a room with a kitchenette that took up one wall plus a bedroom and bathroom. The counters were covered in stuff. She pushed