He shrugged, like he was trying to shrug off the past and his regrets.
“So I let her go. That night, she asked me if I really loved her. Asked me if I loved her enough to let her go and be happy with someone who could give her what she wanted.” He dropped his head in sudden exhaustion. “I let her go. She took my heart with her—I never got it back. Made the two women after your mother miserable for it. Made the mistake of marrying one.”
“Are you married now?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Nah. Divorced. Your mother was the love of my life.”
“Any,” I licked my suddenly dry lips, “any kids?”
“No. Just…you.”
Just me.
Knight talked of legacies. Was this mine? Born from criminals? My mother’s family on both sides belonged to notorious gangster families. And my father—Knight—was president of a biker club.
And now I’d taken up with Colt.
Mom had wanted something different for me. Something different for herself. So she’d left Knight and I’d grown up without a father. I’d grown up without a mother, too, and in some strange twist of fate that upbringing led me right back to a life with Colt.
“I came to Waco once,” he said quietly. “A few years after she left. Walked right into your grandparent’s store and there she was behind the counter. She looked the same as the last time I had seen her.” He shook his head. “No, that’s not really true. She looked…settled into her body. Lived in, you know? Like the few years apart from me had made her an adult or some shit. Though now I realize it might have been because she had become a mother. I don’t know.”
I nodded in understanding. “There’s something that happens in your twenties. Like you become sure of yourself in your body. I know what you mean.”
He smiled slightly. “Yeah, exactly.”
“What did she do? When she saw you?”
“Nothing. She just watched and waited.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say to her. I knew begging her to come back wouldn’t do anything. I’d ridden over eighteen hundred miles on my bike just so I could see her and then turn around and leave again.”
I swallowed the emotion brewing in my throat. “Do you think—do you think it would’ve been different for all of us if you’d said something? Do you think she would’ve told you about me?”
“I don’t know, Mia. I’ve spent twenty-five years trying not to think about the past. All my fuck ups and great regrets, you know? Shit like that can kill a man.”
We fell silent and took a few minutes passing the bottle of bourbon back and forth.
“Did she ever get married? Do you have any siblings?” he asked suddenly.
“You didn’t keep tabs on her? Well, I guess that makes sense since you knew nothing about me.” My tone wasn’t bitter, just honest. “No, she never married and I don’t have any siblings. She died when I was five.”
“Scarlett died,” he stated.
I could hear the tension in his voice, the shock of learning that the woman he’d loved most of his life had passed.
“She drowned. Off the coast of Catalina. She was swimming, and a riptide…” I didn’t need to finish.
He made a slight noise, almost like a stifled wail, but it caught in the back of his throat.
I forced myself to finish the rest of the story. Only Shelly and Grammie knew it. I hadn’t even been able to bring myself to tell Colt. We had enough horrors to contend with. But I owed this to Knight.
“I saw it,” I murmured.
Knight’s eyes snapped to mine.
“I didn’t speak for two years.”
He leaned forward, his face earnest. “Tell me about your life. Tell me everything.”
I talked to my father long into the night. Not once was there a knock on the door interrupting us. Questions turned into stories. Stories that made my childhood vivid.
He winced when I recounted when I was eight and fell out of a tree, breaking my arm. He laughed when I told him when I was ten I tackled a schoolyard bully.
“What about you?” I asked finally sometime around two in the morning. “I’ve told you about me. What about you?”
“Not much to tell,” he said quietly. “I have a small house on the lake. Spend my time working on my bike when I’m not dealing with club business.”
It sounded like a lonely existence to me, but who was I to judge? I couldn’t tell his age since his face was hiding behind his beard and the sun had weathered his skin.
“How old are you?” I asked suddenly.
“Forty-six.”
“Forty-six,” I repeated. “You were twenty-one when I was born. That’s so young.”
Mom had been twenty. I couldn’t imagine having a baby that young. I couldn’t imagine having to scrape it all together. Thank God for Grammie who’d been there through it all.
Still, I couldn’t help but wonder what my life would’ve looked like if Knight had been in it. Would we have lived on the lake? Would we have spent Saturday mornings on a boat? Would my mother still be alive?
The questions were exhausting and the bourbon was causing my eyelids to droop.
“You should hit the sack,” Knight said. “You look exhausted.”
“It’s been a long day.”
“Yeah.” He nodded but made no move to stand up.
I forced myself to rise and then I went for the door.
“Does he make you happy?” he asked suddenly. “I know I’ve got no right to ask. I’m your father, but I’m not your dad. But I still want to know…”
I smiled and turned my head to look at him over my shoulder. “Yeah. He makes me happy.”
I left him sitting alone, pondering everything we’d discussed.
He was right, though. He wasn’t my dad. A dad picked you up when you scraped your knees. A dad checked in your closet for monsters. A dad threatened to kill any boy who broke your heart.
I might’ve shared DNA with Knight, but that didn’t make him family.
Colt was propped up in bed, shirtless, the lamp on the bedside table casting a warm glow across his golden skin. Seeing my name in ink settled me in a way I couldn’t explain. It was like Colt’s arms were around me, giving me silent, solid comfort.
He looked up from his phone. “Hey.”
“Hey.” I shut the door and then padded my way over to the bed, falling face first on top of the comforter.
“Long night?”
“Long night with bourbon.”
He chuckled.
“I have a father,” I murmured.
He paused and then said, “Yeah.”
“Still trying to wrap my mind around that.”
Colt lifted his arm so I could scoot closer to him. I pressed my nose into his side and took a moment to breathe him in, needing the solid assurance that he was there.
“What happened with your call to Sanchez?” I asked, my eyes drifting shut.
“He’s agreed to help us. Not without a steep price though. His shit is already being distributed through the Southwest. He hasn’t claimed Waco, but he is now. He also wants his product in the Heartland of the United States.”