Page 8 of Angel

Angel moved past him, closing the door as silently as she could. She was halfway to the door when she realized he was still standing there, watching her. She felt her shoulders sag. He had come over in the middle of the night to watch Bree for her. She wondered which Honey he’d kicked out to do it. Since Steel forbade the Honeys to sleepover in the clubhouse, he would have had to have sent her home to come over.

Still, she did owe him her appreciation at the very least. “Thank you. For Bree.” It felt like all she did was thank him for Bree.

“One of these days you’re going to let me in,” he told her with no malice or animosity in his voice. “One day soon you’re going to realize that we belong together, sweetness. I’m not going to let the best thing that ever happened to me slip through my fingers because you’re too stubborn to acknowledge it. We’re meant to be together.”

Angel’s jaw dropped. He’d never spoken those type of words to her before. It was a declaration, plain and simple.

Before she could come up with a response, he walked away. Leaving Angel staring after him with a heavy heart.

She wished his words were true. She really did. But how could they be? He claimed to have feelings for her but still slept with other women?

Angel supposed she couldn’t blame him for that though. It would be hypocritical of her, since she’d slept with another man. Not only that, but she’d also gotten pregnant by that unknown man. If Cage found out, he’d never look at her the same way.

Perhaps that was her true fear. Beyond the pity she would receive once the other women knew she’d lost her baby, it was Cage’s reaction that she didn’t want to see. The hurt, the disappointment… She owed him nothing, and yet she felt like she’d betrayed him.

She was no better than the Honeys who bounced between the club brothers’ beds.

Tessa passed the word that Angel had the stomach flu. The ol’ ladies came over to help Bree and to deliver soup. None of them wanted to risk catching anything so thankfully none of them stayed long. It helped that Angel looked awful.

She wasn’t eating. She wasn’t sleeping. She wasn’t drinking.

It surprised Angel when she learned that Tessa hadn’t told Bear about her miscarriage. She supposed Tessa would be used to keeping things quiet due to doctor-patient confidentiality on a regular basis. Still, Bear had to have questions.

Jenna had tried to ask Angel about her pregnancy, but Angel did not answer. She wondered if the older woman suspected. Tessa was the only one who knew for a fact that Angel didn’t have the flu.

The most surprising visit had been from Cage. Regardless of her supposed illness, he crawled onto her bed beside her, remaining over the covers while she was under. Angel wanted to kick him out of her bed, but she honestly didn’t have the energy to fight with him. And, she grudgingly had to admit, his back rub had felt nice.

Cage caught her up on the two Church meetings she had missed. It was rare that Steel excused an absence from Church, but the flu was definitely one of those reasons. No one wanted the entire club to get sick. It was hard enough keeping all the club kids separated when one of them got sick; it was probably worse for the adults.

He told her about how Steel, Jumper, Bulldog, and Ghost, who had replaced Scar as the club’s Enforcer, had gone to Pittsburgh to offer an olive branch to the Pythons, as well as a warning to remain on their turf. No one had expected them to return with an abandoned teenager named Ollie.

“Scrawny little guy,” Cage said offhandedly. “No doubt Jenna’s been spending the past few days trying to fatten him up.”

Shock had broken through her wallowing at the news that Scar was back. “Not officially,” Cage specified. “We’re not exactly sure what’s going on with him, but apparently he’s working with that mystery biker that saved Jasmine and Sophia.”

Dr. Jasmine Sharpe was the town’s veterinarian and Jumper’s ol’ lady. She and her best friend, Sophia, had gotten themselves into a bit of a pickle when they had started investigating dead Pitbull bodies that had been left around town. Unfortunately, their investigation led them right to the doorstep of the McCrery brothers, who had secretly been running an illegal dogfighting ring just outside VDMC borders. Due to their recent partnership with the Black Pythons MC, a one-percenters club out of Pittsburgh, the McCrery brothers had been cleaning house and Jasmine had walked in on them about to burn the evidence of their dogfighting—as well as a body.

The body had belonged to the VP of the Pythons, a man with the road name Venom. He also happened to be the President’s brother. The Via Daemonia might not agree with how the Pythons earned their scratch, but it wasn’t their business or town. They couldn’t solve all the world’s problems. They stuck to their town and made sure that Mount Grove was a safe and peaceful place for its residents and their families.

King Cobra, the Pythons’ President, had rejected Steel’s peace offer and had made a blatant threat against Mount Grove and the VDMC. They had only gotten out unscathed because Scar had shown up in typical Scar fashion—meaning literally out of nowhere.

“Ghost says Bulldog thinks Scar is going to stick around, but no one’s seen him since that first Church meeting. Steel was willing to work with him, let him back into the club with some restrictions, but Scar declined.”

Angel actually lifted her head off of the pillow at that. The movement sent a whiff of something nasty towards her nose. When was the last time she’d showered?

Glancing over at the corner of her bedroom, she saw that her hamper was no longer in its normal location. Had one of the ol’ ladies done her laundry? If so, they would have seen her bloody sheets. Angel had planned to throw them out…whenever she got to doing her laundry.

She needed a new mattress too. All she’d done was flip it after returning from the hospital. The evidence of her miscarriage was only hidden.

His eyes were soft with concern as he stared down at her. “How are you feeling?”

Cage was sitting up against her headboard with his long legs crossed at the ankles. His socks had little red cars on them from that Pixar movie and Angel wondered which club kid had given them to him. Probably Scotty, Lucky’s seventeen-year-old son with Down Syndrome.

Angel’s eyes narrowed. Cage looked…good. Hell, he looked better than good. He looked right in her bed.

Cage’s assertion that he wanted to date her wasn’t an issue. It wasn’t even the fact that she didn’t believe he would be satisfied in a monogamous relationship or that she couldn’t see herself being happy with him.

The problem was that she could. She could see it clear as day: coming home to him, sharing a bed with him, loving him, being a family with him… The vision was so tantalizing that she could taste it.

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