Rachael clawed at his face, his arms, anything she could reach. She felt wild. Out of control. All the stress and fear and terror and panic from the last week bubbling up to the surface.
"Don't you dare touch me, you pathetic, disgusting, douchebag! I'm pregnant! You hurt me that's one thing, but you hurt my baby and I swear to god I'll claw your eyes out, got it?!" She shouted the words, lost in the blood-pumping heat of the moment and it took her a long moment to realized that there was another set of arms around her, gentle arms, arms that were struggling to pull her back from the douchebag who was now staring at her in shock. And he wasn't the only one.
Slowly, Rachael noticed the hush that had fallen around her and even more slowly, she turned to look over her shoulder. Her eyes collided with Jackrabbit's, emerald green against ocean blue but now his was wide with shock.
Her mouth gaped open and close as she struggled for what to say, how to explain. Out of all the scenarios she'd come up with of telling him about the baby, this certainly hadn't even been one that she considered.
There was a frozen moment, and then as if jumping into double speed, Jackrabbit swept one arm under her knees and the other under her shoulders he picked her up to hold her against his chest as if she weighed nothing.
He didn't stop as he carried her through the crowd and Rachael could feel the Roadburners curious gazes but all she could do was sit there in his arms and let him carry her.
"Really, Johnny, you can put me down, now. I can walk." Rachael demanded, but her voice was soft, at odds with her words. It didn't matter. He didn't listen to her anyway. He didn't even pause until they were walking down a short hallway.
He took a quick turn into a large storage closet, still not putting her down until the door was shut and locked tight behind them, trapping them inside.
***
There was loud ringing in his ears. That's all he could think about, wondering absently if maybe he was going deaf. Maybe he'd had one too many head injuries and it was finally starting to show. It was the same ringing he remembered from his time in the military right after a bomb had gone off. The same exact sound.
In fact, he felt like he was back in that war zone, bullets snapping overhead and adrenaline pumping through his veins like a drug. His body was shaking and his senses were on high alert. At any moment he was expecting his enemies to start raining bullets down on him, but this wasn't the war. This was something else altogether, something else that he'd never face before, and damned if it didn't scare the shit out of him more than being in battle ever did.
Over and over again he heard her words playing in his head like a broken record. Pregnant. Baby. Pregnant. Baby. Pregnant. Over and over they echoed, growing louder and louder until he squeezed his eyes closed, convinced that his head was going to explode as the ringing grew even sharper.
Jackrabbit opened his mouth, trying to say something, anything at all, but he couldn't form a single word. His throat had suddenly gone tight. I can't breathe. The thought was surprisingly calm. I'm in shock. I must be in shock.
That was the only explanation for the sudden numbness that had spread throughout his body. Or maybe it's just lack of oxygen.
"Jackrabbit?" Rachael said tentatively, "Johnny?" It felt like he was moving in slow motion as he glanced down into her waiting face.
"Are you planning on putting me down anytime soon?"
As her words registered he looked down, realizing for the first time that he still held her in his arms. With a cough to clear his throat, he slowly released her and let her slide down his body to set her on her feet like she was made of porcelain. He was just going through the motions without realizing what or why he was doing them.
The silence stretched out between them but Jackrabbit's mind was blank, still wrestling with the bomb that Rachael had just dropped. She stared up at him for a long moment before the silence finally grew too much for either of them to handle.
"Say something." She said, the words exploding from her.
But that was the problem, he had no idea what to fucking say. He didn't even know where to begin.
"I don't even know where to begin … " He trailed off, trying to get a grip on his thoughts but it was hard with his pulse pounding hard in his ears. "Rachael. You're … "
"Pregnant." She finished the sentence for him when he couldn't force out the word. He gave her a look with brows raised.
"You're sure?"
Slowly she nodded her head. "I went to the doctor on Wednesday. I am definitely pregnant. I'm still figuring out what I'm going to do but I just … I just thought you should know."
"Hell of a way to tell a guy."
"Yeah, well, that wasn't exactly how I had it planned. But when that guy shoved me I just … I snapped."
"He hurt you?" Jackrabbit said, his voice suddenly low and deep at the thought of anyone laying a hand on her. He'd only walked in to the tail end of whatever had happened.
"No, he didn't hurt me. Just startled me. Didn't like it when I turned him down. Believe me. I know how to handle guys like him."
"Rachael, you have to be careful." He shook his head as all the conflicting emotions raced through his blood stream and left him a mass of confusion.
All the reason's he couldn't be a father ran through his head at once. He didn't know the first thing about what made a father, his own had been less than ideal before leaving them for good, let alone being a good partner.
He was allergic to commitment. He knew that. Rachael had known that. And as far as he could tell she'd felt exactly the same. So were did that leave him now. Where did that leave the two of them?
His chaotic thoughts battled each other, muddy and confusing and all tangled together in a mess that he didn't even know where to begin sorting through. But riding underneath them all was a deep seated doubt that had grown and thrived within him long before Rachael had crashed into his life.
Jackrabbit opened his mouth and the words were falling out of his mouth before he could even think to stop them.
"Are you sure that I'm the father?"
Rachael recoiled as if he'd slapped her.
Guilt instantly assailed him. But before he could even open his mouth to form some sort of apology, her hand was flying towards him. His cheek stung like fire where it landed and then she was turning away with a huff of anger.
"I just thought you deserved to know." Her eyes were burning with green fire. "Well, I've done the right thing told you, and now I'm done here."
Jackrabbit took a step after her as she threw open the door to the storage closet. It crashed against the wall with a loud bang. Rachael didn't stop as she made her way through the bar, storming out of the clubhouse and leaving him standing there, arms outstretched and mouth gaping open.
Jackrabbit took two stumbling steps after her but something stopped him. Memories of the past rose up to choke him, memories of betrayal, memories of broken trust, and memories of heart ache that he swore he'd never suffer through again.
He'd done that once. He'd gone and fallen in love with a girl that he thought cared for him only to have that love thrown back in his face. Well, it had been a bitter fucking pill to swallow but he learned his lesson. Don't trust anyone. They'll just turn on you in the end. They all did.
Shaken more than he wanted to admit, Jackrabbit swiped a hand over his face. Hell, he didn't know the first thing about raising a child. With a sharp, humorless laugh he finally walked out of the storage closet. He needed a drink, damn it, and a stiff one at that.
Chapter 5
The Texas skyline stretched out for miles and miles around him. Warm wind whipped through his hair and jacket, cooling him as he rode. The wide open highway was empty except for the occasional hazy mirage rising from the asphalt.
Jackrabbit inhaled as deep as he could, his knuckles tightening on the throttle and pushing his bike even faster. But it still didn't seem fast enough to outrun his own thoughts. Nothing had been able to do that.
His mind had been in chaos since the bombshell that Rae had dropped on him. His life had blown up that night and now nothing was the same. Jackrabbit hated it. He hated not being in control, not knowing exactly what his next move was going to be.
It was exactly the worst thing to feel with the threat of Finn hanging over all their heads. He tried to throw himself into his new role as president of the Roadburners at the clubhouse, desperately trying to distract himself from Rachael's news but even that hadn't worked. She was always there, always in the back of his head. But damned if he knew what to fucking do about it.
His easy living motto had always suited him just find, but now, that had gone right out the window. And if he was honest with himself, it had even before Rae had told him about the baby.