“What does that mean? Is some stranger going to show up at my door thinking they have a right to see my baby?”
“First of all, in our community, we don’t pull crap like that. Tate would be aware. He’d tell you beforehand. Your little bundle of joy is part of something bigger. You’ll just have to deal. That’s really all you’ve got in this life. You deal with babies the same way you deal with life…one thing at a time.” Cindy taps her fingernails against the table. “Do you love him?”
Isn’t that the million-dollar question? But I don’t say a word. I won’t have this particular discussion with the woman Tate and I had a threesome with.
“You need to ask yourself some questions and answer it honestly. Do you want to keep Tate in the baby’s life? If you do, then figure out what works best for you. He’ll respect whatever you decide, and the MC will be there with anything you need. I’m not saying it’ll be easy. It’s just better when you have friends.”
Chapter 22
Molly
I unlock my phone the second I sit in my Jeep.
I need to talk to Mom.
Pulling up her number on speed dial, I hit the call button. The damn thing goes to voicemail. I blow up the woman’s phone, dialing over and over. She answers on the tenth call.
There’s no hi, and I don’t wait for the woman to say hello either. “Come home now, Mom. We need to talk.”
“Honey is everything okay?” she asks. She’s probably at the country club in North Las Vegas. The sound of her friends all babbling in the background already infuriates me.
“I’m fine. But no, everything is not okay. How soon can you be here?”
“Not until tonight. Can this wait?”
I start the car. “I’m coming to you now. Don’t leave the country club. That’s where you are, right?”
“Yes, but what in the world has gotten into you?”
I’m tempted to blurt out the question, but if Cindy isn’t completely crazy, I want to look my mother in the eye to find out why she’s been keeping secrets from me for all these years. “See you in an hour, Mom. Oh, and get us a suite. This has to be a private talk.”
“Molly, why are you—”
I hang up and drive out of the diner’s parking lot, leaving a trail of desert dust in my wake until I turn onto the I-15 highway. My mind is racing, and my stomach is churning for the entire ride. One of my parents was involved with the Mongols MC? In deep enough for Cindy to have seen my birthmark before and remember it after all this time? And if it’s not a birthmark, what the hell is it? I have no memory of stepping foot in a clubhouse during my childhood or adolescent years, or even for most of my adulthood. I’d only been in two. While I was with Jett back in Louisiana, and here in town with Tate. I had to have been really young, or a baby. The fact that Cindy spotted my faded little birthmark that she says isn’t a birthmark, and remembered it, well, I still can’t wrap my mind around it at all.
Just a little over an hour later I’m in North Las Vegas. I take the winding turns on the road flanked by the lush manicured golf green of the country club where my mother has a membership. Getting to the parking lot of the main building, I grab my purse and hop out of the Jeep. I hurry inside. Thank goodness, I dressed decently before I left the house, or they’d never let me in, family of a member or not. The dress code is strictly enforced. I don’t bother to text my mother and announce I’m here. I walk right into the dining hall. Even in my haste, I draw in a breath when I enter the hall. The place is breathtaking. It’s the one major project my late father was hired to design before he moved the family to Louisiana. Mom always used to say he was one of the most talented architects in the region. The main reason she comes down to the country club so often is to feel connected to him again.
I’ve never seen any architecture anywhere else that’s so awe-inspiring. The room is vast, like walking into an English castle. It has a soaring cathedral ceiling made of some type of light-colored wood, probably maple or oak. Four gothic-like chandeliers light up the ceiling even more. There’s timeless wall paneling down the rounded sides. They straighten out and meet the all-glass walls on either side of the structure. At the far corner is a massive wood burning fireplace, large enough to dwarf Tate if he stood next to it. It looks like something out of a Viking movie, complete with a hand-carved crest on the mantle. After I take in the space, I scan the room for Mom, who’s sitting at a table with four ladies her age, blabbering.