Outlaw’s Redemption Novel – The last thing anyone needs is a hot biker like Ian. He can never know about our child. But now he wants me back. … “We’re not getting back together, Ian, because the way you live your life is not how I want to live mine,” I say more calmly than I feel. “Please hear me out. There’s no more MC, so you don’t have to worry about that either. I am totally free of my old life, and I’m all yours. We can do whatever you want. Even get that bar of yours up and running again.” He pauses and does take my hands this time, the touch feeling like I’ve walked under the warm, soft stream of a waterfall. “Just give me another chance, Sara,” he says. “Please. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.” My fingers close around his hands involuntarily, automatically, because it’s exactly what I want to be doing.
SARA “I guess it’s time,” Ian says, turning from the window where he’s been standing for the last hour. Or has it been longer? I’ve lost all sense of time and space in the midst of this unavoidable, unyielding panic that’s been gripping me for the better part of the last two days. The cold, silvery light of dawn is making everything look sharp like a knife’s edge, even the pillows on our bed and the lacy curtains on the window. I look up from my hands, which I’ve been clutching together so hard in my lap it feels as though they’re stuck together. They’re shaking now as I pry them apart and stand up to join him by the window. They should be shaking, because what I’m about to say is no easy thing. But it needs to be said. And this time I mean it. Because the baby growing inside me deserves better. Better than this heartache, better than the fear I know from all the years of being Ian’s old lady. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg of my reasons why Ian must never know about the child I’m carrying. Today is the beginning of my new life. He turns to me as I reach him by the window.
“It’s over between us,” I manage to say, and my voice sounds exactly like it has the hundreds of times I’ve said it before. But this time is different. This time I will stay away. Forever. “You’re going to prison a single man. And you’re coming out that way too.” His face is completely unreadable, early dawn shadows playing across the chiseled angle of his jaw, his high cheekbones, his perfectly shaped nose and lips. He’s not saying anything, not moving, might as well be cut from marble. He already looks like the statue of some Greek or Roman God, perfect in every way. Outwardly. Inwardly, it’s another story. He’s the guy who’ll break my heart over and over again, for eternity, if I let him. Break our child’s heart. If I let him. That’s what it all boils down to. He’s the one for me, my soul mate, my cross to bear, and I can’t imagine my life without him in it. I always snap right back to him, every time I try to pull away. But this time it will be different.
He smiles at me, the sunlight in his bright blue eyes chasing away all shadows. “For the thousandth time, Peach. I’m sorry about this. But I’ll be out before you know it. Eight months tops.” He is currently out on bond, but has to begin his sentence today. “You were sentenced to a year and a half,” I say as though we’re still just discussing my decision. We’re not. “Yeah, but I’ll get out early for good behavior,” he says, that wide smile still making the edges of his lips curl up. “Who? You?” I ask snappishly. I know Ian is excited to be going to prison, since it’ll give him a chance to prove just what a bad boy he is. I can’t believe he sucked me into discussing all this again. “We’re breaking up.” His summery smile from before is barely a grin now. “We’ll talk about it later. There’s no time now. My ride’s here.” There’s no anger, no sorrow, no plea, not much of anything in his voice, unless it’s dejected resignation. “No, Ian, we won’t,” I say more firmly than I feel, because I feel like my soul is floating in the air between us right now, touching his, and I can’t believe this is the last time we’ll be seeing each other.
But I have to protect our child. “I mean it this time. We had a good run, but I won’t be tied down to a convicted criminal. It’s where I draw the line.” The harshness of my words hurts me, and I’m sure it’s the same for him. But he’s still looking at me in that dejected, “Here we go again” way. He has no real reason to think my decision to break up with him is permanent. I’ve lost count of how many times we’ve broken up in the last thirteen years since we started dating. And we’re still together. Still as in love as we ever were. I hate to say these words now, on the morning of his departure for prison, hate to think them, but I’m keeping our baby, and it deserves a better life, a better father. One who will not put himself in danger whenever he can. One who doesn’t live and breathe violence. He pulls me closer, resting his hands on me. “If I’d known this was coming, I’d have made more of our last night together.” A reverberating pang of desire sounds in my belly, and I realize I can still feel his shaft deep inside me if I concentrate on it. I can still feel the echoes of my orgasms too.
We did make the most of last night. I made sure of it, since it was our last night together. In the middle of it, I even forgot all my reasons for breaking up with him. Which isn’t hard, since the desire and passion he has for me would make any girl swoon and lose her head. But we’re standing in the light of the cutting, cold dawn of the day he goes to prison. And I remember all my reasons. I wrap my arms around his waist and hug him tightly, rest my head against his chest and listen to his racing heartbeat. He’s not as calm as he seems. “I love you, Ian. I’ll always love you,” I mutter, even though I shouldn’t be saying that at all. “But this is too much for me to handle.” A car horn blips outside, and he kises the top of my head, squeezing me tighter still. “I love you too,” he says with that mischievous gleam in his eyes that he gets every time he’s about to do something bad. “And no, I won’t give up that easily. I’ll make it up to you when I get out.
But now I really do have to go.” His lips find mine before I have time to draw a breath, let alone reply. But that’s OK, because his kises have always been better than breathing, and I’ve always needed them more than air. It’s no different now, even though I’m breaking up with him. And that hope, that love, that sense that all is well and always will be, which he wakes in me is so strong right now, I almost forget all my reasons for breaking up with him again. Don’t go!is on the tip of my tongue as he stops the kis and releases me. “Goodbye, Ian,” I say instead. He grins at me one last time before leaving our bedroom. I know he didn’t say goodbye because he won’t admit that’s what this is. But it is. Goodbye forever. And my stomach is clenching, my head spinning, as all the reasons why it has to be so drown me in a flood of hot tears. But the fact that he’s actually looking forward to going to jail is at the top of my list of reasons. Through the window, I watch him exit the house, jog the few steps to Tommy’s car and open the passenger side door. He looks up at me, raises his hand and waves. And I wave back, have no control of it.
This is the last time we’ll see each other. If I’m to hide this baby from him, I must leave town. Go somewhere where he’ll never find me. Maybe even change my name. And that prospect makes me nauseous, so much so I rush to the bathroom, where I just dry retch a couple of times, since nothing comes up. I think it’s too early for the morning sickness to start. By my calculations, I’ve been pregnant for less than a month. I still have plenty of time to make all the arrangements. But I have to do this. I see no other way. Ian is a violent criminal, and has no desire to ever change. He got lucky this time.
He’s only going to jail for eighteen months for beating up a guy who’s still walking around on crutches and probably always will. Next time, Ian won’t be so lucky. Nor should he be, if I’m being objective. He’ll never stop being a bad boy, he likes it too much. So our child will never know his or her father. Will never suffer the consequences of it. Keeping it away from Ian is the only logical and sane thing to do. Because the path he’s heading down can only lead to more jail time, or even death.