"How's therapy?" Kip asked with a big smile. I had been going to see the therapist he'd recommended twice a week for over a month. She liked to talk more about my relationship with Happy and Kip than my time in Iraq. I wanted to tell her to fuck off and stop going but therapy wasn't cheap and it had taken a miracle to get the Veterans Administration to pay for it.
"I think she dresses like a pin-up girl and the office smells like vanilla." I wasn't in the mood to talk about therapy. Kip laughed. "Why are you in such a good mood?"
"Because, sis. This may be my last day as a prospect." He tossed a cheese cracker at me and hopped off the back of his truck. I knew he had been working hard for his top rocker so I let him be goofy. Personally, I wasn't thrilled with the direction the club was going. Things were starting to get more and more violent, which meant Happy was putting his neck out for the club more and more. We'd had a couple arguments about it. I was terrified that he would go back to prison because I knew he only had two strikes left with the state. Two more and he could go away for life. "You could smile."
"I could." I agreed. He shoved his hands in his back pockets and sighed. "Don't look at me like that."
"Like what?" He asked innocently. I narrowed my eyes at him, unamused with his fake innocence. "Come on, Kat. I know something is wrong with-"
"With what? With me and Happy? With me?" I ground my teeth together and walked away. Happy had just pulled onto the lot and I didn't want to talk him or Kip. I tried to side step Happy but he caught my arm. "Let go."
"No," he said, pulling me into his arms. I tried to push away but he just held me tighter. I felt tears welling up in my eyes and stopped fighting him. "Prospect, tell Clay I'm going home for the day."
"What?" I blinked up at him. He nudged me towards the bike that he had just gotten off but remained silent. I sighed, pulling my helmet out of his saddle bag. Happy and I had rented a house when he officially transferred to Charming a few weeks before. It was nice to get out of Kip's hair but it made avoiding Happy difficult. He stayed off the accelerator on the ride over to our house. It was unlike him and it just reinforced my suspicion that something was wrong. "What are you doing?"
"Forcing you to talk to me." He hung his kutte on the coat rack by the door and stepped out of his boots. I dropped my bag on the hook beside his kutte. Our house was on the small side but it was plenty for the two of us. "Do you want to talk or do I have to pull it out of you?"
"What are you talking about?" I walked to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. Happy followed me and leaned against the counter. I slammed the refrigerator closed and raised my hands at him.
"I took the trash out, Kat." He watched me closely for some type of reaction. I realized what he was trying to get me to talk about and turned away. "Come on, babe, talk to me. Stop pushing me away."
"It was negative, okay? There's nothing to talk to you about." I felt the tears start to stream down my face. Happy walked out of the kitchen and I heard a door slam. My tears started falling faster. A couple minutes later, he came back with an envelope in his hand. I bit my lip. "Are those the papers I sent you?"
"Papers? What the fuck, Kat. No they aren't fucking divorce papers." Happy closed his eyes and took a deep breath. I watched him open the envelope and suddenly, I realized what it was. "I'm sorry we never talked about her. I guess I told myself that if you needed to talk about it you would."
"Please, don't." I sobbed. Happy looked up at me and put the paper on the counter, face down. He pulled me into his arms and held me tightly as I cried. It was the first time I had ever let anyone see me cry over our daughter. No one knew about my miscarriage, no one except for the doctor and Happy. "I'm sorry."
"Don't. You didn't do anything wrong, Kat. I should have been there for you. I should have made you talk or something." Happy pressed a kiss on top of my head and hugged me tighter.
"I'm three weeks late." I wasn't sure if he was able to understand me, my forehead was pressed against his chest and I could barely even hear my own words. Happy stroked my back.
"Do you want me to take you to the doctor?" His voice was so soft, I looked up and noticed his eyes were glossy. I shook my head.
"No, can we just stay in bed all day?" I suddenly felt completely drained. Happy didn't answer, he just picked me up and carried me to our bedroom. I got undressed quickly and slipped into one of Happy's t-shirts. He joined me in the bed and let me curl up with my back against his chest. "I'm sorry I've been a bitch to you."
"It's okay, baby." He kissed my shoulder gently. I could tell he was thinking about something by the way his voice trailed off. I rolled over to face him. He seemed tired. I put my hand on his scruffy cheek. "If I had to choose between you and a kid, it will always be you, Kat."
"I know." I had no doubt that what he said was true. When we found out I was pregnant, he was pissed. He said he didn't want kids and that I should have taken the pill when I was supposed to. For the first week or two after the positive pregnancy test, we barely spoke. It wasn't until I forced him to come to the doctor's office for an ultrasound that he changed his mind. He finally stopped being angry once he saw the first ultrasound but it wasn't until we found out the gender that he was actually excited. I thought he was going to want a little boy but when we found out we were going to have a daughter, he was happier than I'd ever seen him before. When I miscarried at twenty-two weeks, I was in the hospital for a week. I lost a lot of blood and was touch and go for a couple days.
"Is Kip getting patched in today?" I asked, hoping to change the subject to something light. Happy shook his head.
"No," He sighed. "It will probably be Friday unless he fucks it up between now and-"
"Did you hear that?" I sat straight up. I had heard a loud thud, like a door closing or something hitting the outside of the house. Happy jumped out of bed and grabbed his Glock off the nightstand. The thud happened again, only this time it was followed by a scraping noise. I bit my lip and opened my nightstand drawer. My phone was in one hand and my gun in the other. Happy peeked out of the window.
"Call Jax." He said, racking a round into the chamber of his gun. My hands were shaking as I scrolled down my list of contacts to Jax's number. Happy stepped into the hall and I scrambled out of the bed.
"Happy told me to call you. I think there's someone outside." I whispered after Jax had answered the phone. He ended the call without a word. Happy was somewhere down the hall when the thud happened again. I stepped into my jeans, still holding onto my gun and the phone. If my house was about to be overrun with SAMCRO, I at least wanted to have pants on. I heard motorcycles in the distance before squealing tires right outside. Happy came back into the bedroom looking furious. He pulled his jeans and shirt on, slamming his gun back in his holster. "What was it?"
"Someone vandalized the house. Stay in here until I come in and get you." I blinked. Those thuds were someone vandalizing the house? With what? Who would be so dumb, so bold to do that with Happy home? I pulled my hair up into a messy bun and paced the room as I waited. Kip walked into the bedroom.
"Your bed is huge." He said, getting distracted by the unmade bed behind me. I narrowed my eyes at him. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. What happened?" I set my gun back in the drawer of my nightstand. Kip rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "Kip."
"There's some spray paint but we think they were trying to get somebody to come outside." He tried to catch me as I rushed past him but I was able to slip by. When I got outside, Phil and another prospect were already trying to clean the siding. Someone had spray painted the anarchy symbol in the center of a bullseye. It was stupid but the message was clear.
"Who did this?" I asked Happy. He didn't say anything. He just kept his arms crossed over his chest and stared at the house. I turned to Jax. "Jax?"
"I don't know, Kat. Could be Nordics or somebody new." He shrugged, obviously holding out on me. I pursed my lips.
"By someone new do you mean the freaks that opened the cigar shop in town? The League of American Nationalists?" I shrugged when Jax looked at me with wide eyes. "I'm not stupid."
"I know you aren't." Jax said. "Juice and Tig are trying to catch up with the van."
"Kat, go pack a bag. You're staying at the clubhouse." Happy said, still looking over my head at the house. I shook my head. "I'm not asking you."
"This is our house, Happy. I have guns and know how to protect myself." He finally looked at me with a scowl. "If you're that worried about it, make a prospect sleep on the couch. Better yet, you can stay here instead of chasing them down."
"What if you had been here alone? There were at least three of them." He growled.
"Then I would have called you or Kip, just like I called Jax." I stubbornly put my hands on my hips. "I've probably shot more people than you have."
"Oh you think so?" Happy challenged me. Jax cleared his throat but Happy and I were still scowling at each other in silent disagreement. "Fine, stay here tonight but I'm dealing with this."
"Fine but I'm getting a dog." I shot back. He blinked, opening his mouth and closing it without saying a word. "What?"
"Nothing. Just don't get a small rat or something." He grumbled. I smiled and rose up on my toes to give him a quick kiss on the cheek. He caught my chin and kissed me deeply. Kip groaned when Happy squeezed my butt.
"If you're not too busy, Juice and Tig found the van." Chibs said with a laugh. I stepped back from Happy with a nod.
"Be careful." I said, watching his expression change. He nodded and straightened his kutte. I stood in the driveway and watched as everyone left. To keep my mind off of what they were headed towards, I went inside and started looking online for a dog breeder. I knew we would have to talk about the miscarriage at some point but for now it was on the back burner.
I checked a few websites for breeders in California, but eventually I found myself searching for more information on L.O.A.N and Ethan Zobelle. The more information I found, the more I wanted. I started printing out what I found and sorted the information in stacks around me. I had information on their business ventures, members, governmental affiliations and several crimes that they were accused of. Interestingly, lawsuits and criminal charges against the businesses and members of L.O.A.N always disappeared.
"Shit! Put the gun down." Juice said, jumping back. He'd gotten into the house without me hearing him and had scared me when his shadow appeared in front of me. I took my earphones out and lowered the gun. "Good thing I wasn't trying to kill you. How did you not hear my bike or me knocking?"
"I had my music turned up." I turned my iPod towards him, showing him the Eminem song I was listening to. "Don't tell Happy about that shit. I'll never get to stay home by myself."
"What is all this?" Juice picked up one of the stacks of paper and started thumbing through the information. I set my laptop aside and climbed out of the floor. I looked around me, realizing I had gotten a little carried away. Juice let out a low whistle. "Shit. You've been busy."
"Yeah. I kind of went down a rabbit hole." I gave him a rundown of the information organization system I had devised. He still seemed a little shocked. "Anyways, I thought the club couldn't have too much intel on them."
"Trying to put me out of a job?" He laughed. I bit my lip. "I'm just kidding, Kat."
"They can't know I'm the one that looked all of this up. Just take it and add it to whatever you've already got." I smiled. He hesitated but eventually started gathering the papers up. "Wait. You and Tig found that van. What happened? Is everybody okay?"
"Yeah. Happy is, uh, talking to them." Juice was a terrible liar. I laughed and explained to him that I was pretty well versed in what my husband did for the club. "Yeah, he was eyeing a power drill when I left."
"I guess they shouldn't have made it personal." I shrugged. "Look, I'm starving. Do you want something to eat?"
Juice continued going through the information I'd found while I made some spaghetti. I offered to make him some meat sauce but he insisted that tomato sauce was fine. When we sat down at the table, he was studying the criminal charges against Zobelle. He looked up at me and raised his brow.
"How did you get this?" He held up a transcript of Zobelle's conversation with his lawyer after coming under the microscope for a murder. "They wouldn't have posted this online."
"So, before I went into the canine unit, I considered going into cyber intel. I was three weeks from graduating the program when my application for canine was accepted." I explained. Juice laughed and flourished the page.
"This is amazing. It may be something we can leverage. If you weren't already with Hap, I would kiss you." He laughed. I felt my cheeks blush and quickly stood up so he wouldn't notice.
Why did that happen? I walked into the kitchen and put my plate in the sink with a deep breath. Juice is good looking and had actually given me a compliment that didn't focus on my boobs or ass; it was just nice to have someone compliment my brain, I told myself. There was no doubt in my mind that I loved Happy and I never once considered cheating on him.
"You're overreacting." I hissed at myself. I was exhausted from dealing with the negative pregnancy test and the vandalism. Since seeing the therapist, I had come to realize that I had a tendency to over react and act irrationally when I was overwhelmed. When I finally walked out of the kitchen, I found Juice still sitting at the table pouring over the less than legal information I had obtained.
"I think this isn't supposed to be in here." He laughed, handing me a sheet I had printed out about adopting retired military dogs. I nodded and took the paper. "You didn't get to adopt your partner when you separated?"
"No. He was only three and one of the top bomb dogs in the country." I frowned and put the paper on the counter. "He actually died in the line of duty a couple years ago. The person I had trained was his handler."
"Shit. I'm sorry, Kat. I didn't know." Juice frowned. I swallowed hard, wishing I hadn't started talking about Rex. It was a known trigger.
"No one does." I admitted. I needed to get away from the conversation. I bit my bottom lip, racing through options for changing the subject. "Do you want a beer?"
"Sure." He smiled. "So, can you walk me through getting this transcript?"
"Yeah of course." Juice and I sat on the couch with the laptop between us as I showed him how I'd used a backdoor into the attorney's email server. We dove back into the server and looked for anything else that the club could tie to Zobelle.
"Hey." I rubbed my eyes and sat up. The living room was bright with the sun pouring in from the open blinds. Happy's jaw was tight. Juice and I had fallen asleep on the couch. The dead laptop was sitting on the coffee table with more than a dozen empty beer bottles. Juice stretched his arms out as he stood up. "There a reason you and my wife got drunk together?"
"Happy, it's not like that." I yawned. He scowled at me and then turned to Juice. He held up the papers and motioned towards me.
"She was showing me some hacking shit to get some dirt on Zobelle. Nothing happened." Juice laughed but it didn't seem that Happy found anything funny. "Bro, come on."
"If you don't get out of my house, I'll fucking shoot you." Happy growled. I shook my head at him, unsure of where his hostility was coming from. Juice sighed and left without another word. I started cleaning up the empty bottles as Happy glared at me. "Leave the fucking bottles, Kat."
"Why are you being an ass? Juice was trying to get information on L.O.A.N." I dropped the garbage bag and folded my arms. Happy shook his head.
"I don't care about the intel. He's got no business getting drunk, in our house, alone with you." I scoffed and his eyes flashed with a rage that was usually reserved for enemies of the club. "Don't push me. I haven't slept since yesterday morning and I came home to find my wife on the couch with my brother."
"Oh stop." I snapped. He balled his hands into fists. "What? Do you not trust me?"
"That's not the fucking point." His voice was growing louder. I laughed out of frustration.
"Yes, it is." I couldn't believe he was acting like I was someone that would cheat. "Go to bed if you are so tired."
"No. I'm not going to bed pissed off at you." He snapped. I shook my head and resumed cleaning. "How would you feel if I got drunk with Ima?"
"Really? Would you and Ima be hacking for hours to get intel for the club? I didn't realize she knew how to turn a computer on." I shoved past him on my way to the front door. He grabbed the garbage bag from me and stormed outside. I rolled my eyes and waited. He had always refused to let me take garbage out. A minute later, he slammed the door closed and stormed over to me. I was caught off guard when he threw me over his shoulder and carried me down the hall.
"You're mine." He growled. I moaned and arched my back, still recovering from my orgasm. Argument and make-up sex was always on a whole other level with Happy. He stopped thrusting and grabbed my chin. "I love you."
"I love you." I panted. He kissed me roughly and slowed things down until he found his own release. After another round and a quick shower, we climbed back into bed. Happy yawned, kissing my shoulder when his mouth closed.
"You can tell me what you found later." He whispered. I smiled and cuddled up next to him.