Tank

16 - Stranger at the door

Tank

I’ve been waiting outside Nova’s apartment for the past hour. After this past week, I need to talk to her. She’s been away for a week, so I haven’t had the chance yet. God only knows where she’s been, but Jett told me not to worry. The idio.t thinks I see her as a little sister the way I do Willow, and I was concerned. I do, in a way.

However, it’s more than that. It’s not just the fact I want to fuc.k Nova, and I do want to fuc.k her quite badly, in fact. I feel something more. I want all of her. Everything.

Hell, what the fuc.k am I talking about?

I don’t even know what I feel for her anymore. I can’t get her out of my head; I know that much. I’ve been so worried about her this past week that it’s almost driven me to distraction.

I thought she’d be home by now. Jett said Nova called him to let him know she was on her way home and wouldn’t be long. I just want to check on her and make sure she’s okay. I know it’s late, but I won’t be able to settle unless I see for myself that she's okay.

I hear the rumble of a bike. I turn my head and see her gliding up the street on her Harley.

A girl who can ride a motorcycle and enjoy it as much as I do?

Solid Gold.

My mother rode bikes. She loved them and said she couldn’t get enough of the wind blowing through her long hair. My father wasn’t so keen on his Old Lady riding like that. He soon put a stop to it. He was a good man, but he worried far too much about his wife and the things she did or wanted to do. However, she loved him regardless. Plus, he’d have her riding on the back of his bike every day if that’s what she wanted. It made her happy, and that’s all that mattered.

I watch Nova remove her helmet and shake her long, wavy hair before climbing off her bike. I shove my leather gloves inside my helmet and walk out of the shadows. Yeah, I’m kind of a stalker.

“How long have you been hiding in the dark?”

I stop dead in my tracks.

How in the hell did she know I was here?

I didn’t make any noise, or at least, I don’t think I did, and my bike isn’t in view.

“How did you know I was here?”

She turns her pretty eyes to me, and a slow smirk creeps across her face. Man, she’s hot. “Intuition.” That is all she says on the matter. Well, she’s got damn good intuition. “Coming in?”

I nod and follow her into her small apartment, hardly big enough to swing a cat.

I notice she doesn’t have any bags with her.

What kind of vacation has she been on where she doesn’t need luggage?

We both place our helmets on the dresser beside her front door. I then watch her in fascination as she strips away her leathers without even batting an eyelid that I’m watching her. Nova shimmies into her room, and I follow because it’s like she’s cast a spell on me, and I can’t help but do so.

I hear her giggling to herself as she steps out of her jeans, and there she stands in nothing but her bra and panties, a perfect red set that somehow makes her body look a shade darker. Her body is so toned. God, I think I’m about to bust out my jeans; I’m so fuckin’ hard!

Gone is the little girl who used to follow me around, and in her place is a woman who is not afraid of her own sexuality. Damn, she is something to behold.

She’s so beautiful it’s stifling, even with the visible scar on her chest above her right breast. Jett’s a good-looking guy, but Nova is a fuckin’ Goddess. They definitely have good genes.

I wonder if Nova looks more like her mother. I know she doesn’t look much like Shepard, which is crazy when Jett looks like Shepard, and you can so see she’s Jett’s sister.

“You’re so beautiful.” The words came out before I could stop them, and I can’t seem to tear my eyes away from her body. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a woman with such defined Abs before. I know she works out, but shi.t. “I’ve never seen a woman so...” I’m lost for words.

“I’m not all that.” She practically mumbles, snapping me out of my erotic trance. She pulls an overly long t-shirt over her head, covering that incredible body. “I’m going to take a shower. I’ve been riding for hours. Why don’t you grab a couple of beers from the fridge? I’ll meet you in the living room in a few minutes. Maybe you can tell me why you were skulking outside my house in the dark.” She doesn’t wait for me to give a response; she’s already closing the bathroom door.

What the hell was all that about?

Sitting on Nova’s small blue couch, too small for my massive frame, I notice a small photo album on her coffee table. I rest my beer bottle on the table and snatch up the album. I sit back on this not-so-comfortable couch and open it up.

I smile at the pictures of a little girl no older than maybe six or seven months, a pretty little thing with brown hair and blue eyes smiling wide for the camera. Many pictures of the same child from birth to six or seven months. She’s a beautiful child.

I wonder who she is. Maybe this is Nova when she was a baby. The child definitely looks like her. Just the way Shepard described his baby girl, just like the pictures he used to show us all.

The front door suddenly knocks. I can still hear the shower, so I know Nova isn’t done yet. I know what it’s like when you’ve been riding for hours on end, and all you want to do is stand under the shower for a month and relax those aching muscles.

I place the album on the coffee table and make my way to the door. I open it to a woman in her mid-thirties, with blonde hair, holding a sleeping baby in her arms, a cute little thing with short brown pigtails, sleeping on the woman's shoulder.

“Can I help you?” I ask as she adjusts the bag on her other shoulder.

“I’m looking for Anna. Is she here? I hope so I managed to track her to this address. She wouldn’t give it to me when she called, so I found out for myself.” She says, looking past my shoulder as if trying to find Nova. I’m not surprised this woman called Nova Anna; it was the name she went by, after all.

“She’s in the shower. Who are you?”

“Mandy. I’m not staying.” I watch as she places the baby bag on the floor in front of my feet. “This is Ember.” She says as she hands the sleeping babe to me. I take her, not really knowing what to do. “Rest her head on your shoulder. You’re a big guy, she won't wake with you holding her.”

“Right. You wanna tell me what the hell is going on? Because I’m a little confused here.” I’m more than confused, to be honest.

I adjust the baby in my arms, God, she’s so tiny it’s like holding a doll. I just don’t get why she’s handed her baby off to me and why the fuc.k, I took her! I’m a biker, for Christ’s sake.

Who the fuc.k would give their child to a man who looks the way I do?

Is she mental?

“Her things are in this case.” Mandy pulls a small suitcase from behind her, and now I’m even more confused. “Her diapers and milk are in the baby bag along with her favorite blanket and teddy bear.”

I narrow my eyes.

Why does it feel like this woman is about to leave her baby with me?

“You are Anna’s boyfriend, right?” Boyfriend, I haven’t been anyone’s boyfriend in a good long while. “You’re Tank, right?” I narrow my eyes again.

She can see my name on my cut, any idio.t can, but why the hell would she think I’m Nova’s boyfriend?

“Anna told me about you in our last call. I must say she described you to a tee. From what I got when we talked the past couple of times, she seemed to like you, so I assume you’re her boyfriend. As Anna wouldn’t tell me where she was, and she called me from a public call box, I managed to track her to this town. I heard about your club after asking in town if anyone knew who you were. An elderly woman in the ice cream shop told me your club’s name and that she’d seen Anna around after I showed her a picture. Finding Anna’s address was difficult, but people talk.” She shrugs.

Nova told this woman we were dating?

Why on this earth would she do that?

And remind me to have words with old May about keeping her trap shut!

“Yes, I’m Tank,” I say warily. “Do you want to come in? I’m sure you'd like to put your daughter to bed. I’ll make you some coffee. Anna should be out in a moment.”

“My daughter?” She almost laughs sarcastically while pointing to herself. “Hell, she’s not my daughter; she’s your girlfriend’s, and I am done.”

Nova has a daughter?

Well, shi.t!