“Oh hell no!” Kelly bellows with a thunder so mighty the walls shake and windows rattle.
There’s no time to look back. My legs move of their own accord, adrenaline giving me speed. I open the door of the loft and I’m out, running down the hallway toward the exit. Waiting for the elevator is suicide. I hit the stairs, somehow capable of flight despite moments earlier feeling weaker than cooked spaghetti. My breath comes fast and my hair flies out behind me as I leap to the bottom landing. My feet hit with a bone-jarring thud that causes my teeth to clunk, but I don’t stop.
“Babe, stop or die!” Kelly shouts behind me, so close the threat feels like whiplash.
I’m out the door and hitting the pavement before he catches me. My bicep is grabbed with a mighty grip. I turn and swing on instinct with the same fist that holds his keys.
Kelly ducks. Then he straightens, eyeballing me as I stand white-knuckled and chest heaving. He’s waiting for my next move. My eyes slide to the bike parked by the kerb. Goddammit, it’s so close! They slide back.
Kelly’s glare is hard enough to fracture the pavement. “Don’t even.”
My gaze narrows. “You don’t understand.”
“I don’t need to.” He jabs a thunderous finger at his motorcycle. “That is my baby. No one rides her but me. No one.”
“Then take me,” I beg, the panic to reach Jake making me desperate.
Kelly shakes his head. “You’re not thinking straight. Wait until you’ve had some sleep. We’ll find out where he is tomorrow, and I’ll take you then,” he says, his voice taking on a soothing quality as if I’m a wild animal to be tamed. “Besides,” he adds, eyes dropping to my belly with a dubious expression, “you’re pregnant.”
“No shit?” I hiss, ire rising.
Kelly huffs. “You can’t ride a horse when you’re pregnant. The same goes for bikes.”
“What the hell do you know about pregnancy?” I shout, beyond frustrated.
“Clearly more than you,” he points out like a big fucking know-it-all.
“Who do you think you are? The pregnancy police?”
He folds his arms. “When it comes to you, babe, looks like I have to be.”
“I’m not your babe,” I spit out, “and screw this.” I start for the Harley, but Kelly grabs me and literally rips the keys from my hand. “Ouch!” I bellow. “That hurt, you fucking asshead!”
“Oh my god! You bitches are gonna send me fuckin’ bat shit crazy.”
Kelly stalks toward his bike. Swinging one powerful thigh over the seat, he settles. The machine lowers under his considerable weight. After turning the key, it rumbles to life. Then his head swivels to look at me and he huffs unhappily. “Well get the fuck on already.”
“Stop swearing at me,” I retort snidely as I walk to the bike and climb on behind him.
He shakes his head and honestly I can’t blame him. My mood is up and down like a crazy, pregnant woman, which is ironic, considering that’s exactly what I am.
Kelly hands me the one helmet he has with him. “Where are we going?”
“If I could be happy in only place for the rest of my life it would be here, at this very beach,” Jake said. He was sitting on the bonnet of his car, feet resting on the metal bumper, and his gaze on the Melbourne beach in front of us. Waves rolled in, one after the other. It was hypnotic.
I sat beside him, his heavy arm wrapped around my back. My head tipped sideways to rest on his shoulder. “Why?”
“Because the ocean is the great unknown. It holds all the answers, yet it gives none of them up. You have to venture out through wild seas, risking your life just to seek them. It holds you at its mercy and yet you always come back to it. Over and over. Always searching. Always wanting more.” Jake turned his head, looking down at me, his brown eyes dark and fathomless. “It reminds me of you.”
I remember it clearly. We were so young and stupidly in love. He likened me to something so vast and intrinsically beautiful it left me feeling like I truly mattered to him.
“Why this very beach though?” I asked.
“Because it’s here, with you, where I regained my faith.”
“In what?”
His eyes left mine and returned to the sea. “Life, Mac. In life.”
“Melbourne,” I say to Kelly with conviction.
To his credit, my answer doesn’t faze him. He simply nods and waits for me to pull the helmet over my head. When I’m done, I rest my hands on his waist and we pull out on to the street.
The air is cool on my bare arms. Dawn is coming. The dark horizon has begun to lighten, hinting at a clear blue day ahead. My mind is on Jake as we roll to a stop at a red light. I’m angry. Crazy angry. But I’m scared. The one thing I never wanted to happen has come to fruition.
Jake has left. And I’m having his baby.
The pain of the past twists my belly in a knot.
I’m not prepared to survive a loss like that again. I’m in this now. So deep there’s no coming out. And damned if I’m going to do it alone.
Kelly and I are half an hour along the motorway to Melbourne when he begins to slow the bike. The rumbling engine cuts back. I look over his shoulder. “What’s going on?”
Of course he can’t hear me.
We pull over to the side of the motorway. Cars drive past sporadically as I tug the helmet from my head. “Why did you stop?”
“Because of that,” he says, nodding ahead of him.
I’m running fingers through the snarls in my hair when I notice it. A 1979 Dodge Charger parked off the road ahead of us. The colour a candy apple red. The car unmistakeably belongs to Jake.
I climb off the bike, shove the helmet at Kelly, and run on unsteady legs toward the car. My senses are on high alert, my heart galloping in my chest. Something feels off and my fears are realised when I find no one inside. The Charger is empty. Jake would never abandon his car by the side of the motorway.
“Kelly,” I gasp once, painfully, loudly.
He snatches my hand and pulls me to the far side of Jake’s car, away from the oncoming traffic. We reach the large barrier that blocks the Motorway from suburban homes and local roads. Standing between the cement wall and the passenger side of Jake’s car, Kelly takes my shoulders and glares. “You’re letting your mind run away from you, Mac. It’s likely just an empty tank and he’s hitched a ride to get fuel.”
My lungs ease a fraction at the sliver of hope Kelly offers. But when I look over his shoulder at the car, I see blood. A large smear of it decorates the headrest of the driver’s seat. Panic surges. “Oh no.” The words emerge as a breathy moan.
“What?” Kelly turns, following my line of sight. “Fuck.”
The ground tilts. I fall against Kelly, and he grapples with my sudden weight. He turns me around and pushes me up against the passenger door of the car, propping me upright. “What kind of trouble is Jake in?”
My head is fuzzy as I sort through every dangerous altercation we’ve been involved in recently, which is a lot when I take the time to think about it.
“Mac!” Kelly barks.
I shake my head. “None. There’s nothing I can think of.”