Gypsy king

I sucked in a deep breath and marched down the aisle. When I got to the pregnancy tests, I quickly sca

The cashier made no comment as she sca

The sinking feeling in my stomach was unbearable. The anxiety, crushing. Was I pregnant? I’d been in such a rush to buy the tests, I hadn’t really thought of what would happen after I took them. But as my house, and toilet, drew nearer, a panicked chill settled into my bones.

A month ago, the idea of being pregnant would have sent me into joyful hysterics. But now? If I had a baby, would I lose Dash? Was I enough to raise a child on my own? Would I be heartbroken if the tests were negative?

Three positive pregnancy tests later, I didn’t have to worry about that last question.

“HEY, BABE.” Dash walked through my front door without knocking.

I was in the kitchen, sitting at the island, staring blankly at the striations and granules in my gray granite counter. I’d canceled di

“Got some news.” He took the stool by my side, leaning over to kiss my temple. “Dad met with Tucker today.”

“Yeah?” I faked some excitement about the meeting with the Warriors’ president. “What did he say?”

“Dad says Tucker swears it wasn’t the Warriors. He took a look at the photo and get this.” Dash leaned to the side to fish out his wallet. Then he slipped out a copy of the photo Emmett had printed from the surveillance video, flattening it on the counter.

I leaned in close. “What am I looking at?”

“See this right here?” He pointed to the stitched Warriors logo on the man’s cut. “See at the bottom of the arrowhead, where it flares?”

“Yeah.”

“Tucker said they changed the patch a few years ago, cleaned up some of the edges and got rid of that flare. Everyone in the club got new cuts.”

“Did they confiscate the old ones?”

“Nope. Which means whoever has an old cut has been a Warrior for a while. And that confirms it wasn’t one of the former Gypsies who joined them this past year.”

So a Warrior was trying to restart an old war. “Can we get a list of names?”

“Not from Tucker. He’ll never give up his men. But Dad is going to start putting names on paper. He’s with Emmett and Leo at the garage, doing it now. Told them I’d be over soon. Thought you might want to come along.”

“No, thanks.” I wasn’t feeling up to a trip to the garage. And I had a feeling after I told Dash I was pregnant, he wouldn’t want me along either.

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“And, um . . . Genevieve?” He struggled to say her name. Dash hadn’t thawed to the notion of his sister.

“Her flight gets in late tonight. She’s staying in Bozeman and will drive over tomorrow. She thinks she’ll be in town midmorning. She promised to call and I’ll go meet her at the cemetery.”

“Call me when she leaves. Tell me how she takes it.”

“I will.”

I didn’t have a clue how I was going to tell Genevieve that she was Draven’s daughter. And as if that weren’t hard enough, I was also going to try and convince her that he hadn’t killed her mother. That fledgling friendship we’d forged over chocolate chip cookies was guaranteed a crushing.

Dash stood and went to the cupboards for a glass, filling it with water from the fridge. He was itching to get to the garage.

“So, before you go . . .” God, how did I say this? I busied my hands by folding up the photo and reaching for his wallet to put it away. I opened the bifold, ready to stuff it inside, but another folded page caught my attention.

I lifted it out, recognizing a black and white photo. The trophy case behind the kids was familiar. It had been the backdrop for numerous pictures in the Clifton Forge High yearbooks.

“What is this?”

Dash lowered the water glass from his lips and closed his eyes. “I, uh . . . shit.”

Unfolding the page, I sca

It was the younger version of a face I’d seen in an obituary.

Chrissy Slater.

“Dash. What’s this?”

He had the decency to look guilty. “A page I found at the high school when we were looking at yearbooks.”

“You found this and never showed me.” I fought the urge to crumple the photo into a ball and throw it at his face.

“I was going to. Swear. But then it didn’t seem that important after you learned Mom and Amina were friends.”

“It didn’t seem important?” I gaped at him, sliding off my stool. “You promised that you’d tell me everything. You pretended not to know your mom and Amina were friends. I asked you, straight up, if you knew and you lied to me. What else have you lied about?”

“Nothing.”

“I trusted you. How could you do this to me? After everything? I trusted you.” Against my better judgment, I’d believed Dash. I’d believed in him.

“Bryce, come on.” Dash took a step toward me. “It’s not that big of a deal.”

“No. It is a big deal.” I backed away. “Is this why you called the cops that day? So I wouldn’t find out you tore the page from the yearbook?”

“Yes. And I’m sorry. But we were in a different place then. We weren’t together.”

“No, we were only fucking, right? I was just another woman to use until you had your fill. Do you still feel like that?”

His jaw clenched as it tightened. “You know I don’t.”

I closed my eyes, fighting the urge to cry. How could I trust him? After all our time together, he could have told me, but he’d kept the secret.

It was a nothing secret too. Nothing. Something so small that, by keeping it from me, he’d actually made it worse. Bigger than it had to be.

Or maybe I was blowing this out of proportion. Maybe this pregnancy was making me overthink everything. How were we ever going to be together if he didn’t confide in me? How were we going to have a child?

He crossed the distance between us. “Baby, you’re overreacting.”

“Maybe I am,” I whispered. “But something about this feels . . . off. Like we have a fundamental problem here.”

“A fundamental problem? It’s a goddamn picture. Yeah, I should have told you, but it stopped being important.”

“You promised no secrets. You wouldn’t hide anything from me. Otherwise I’d write it all.”

“Wait.” His eyes narrowed. “Is that what this is about? Your story?”

My story? What was he talking about? “Huh?”

“It is, isn’t it? Fuck. I’m so fucking stupid. I actually thought we had something here. But you’ve just been playing me from the start. Waiting until I did something that would justify you writing the tell-all you’ve been dying to write.”

“That’s not true.”

“You’ve already got it written, haven’t you?” He pointed to my laptop still in the tote on the counter. “It’s all done, isn’t it?”

“Yes, I wrote it,” I admitted. “In case you betrayed me. But it was only for backup. I’m not going to print it.”

“How do I know that?”

I threw up my hands. “Because I’m telling you this isn’t about the story. And I haven’t made it a habit of lying to you.”

“It’s always been the story. From the begi