A Season in Gemini, Intro (11 page)
Read A Season in Gemini, Intro Online
Authors: Victoria Danann
It didn’t stop him from trying.
When the calendar ran down to seven days left, he made his play.
“
I don’t want you to go. Stay here. With me.”
“
I can’t.”
“
Why?”
“
Because this is your life. Not mine.”
“
But it could be ours.”
“
No. It couldn’t. It would always be me trying to fit into yours.”
She cried. She told him she loved him and always would. She cried some more. But in the end she left with her father.
CHAPTER 7
Brant sat on his bike on a patch of grass at the southern end of the airport and watched the Germane jet take off. The sleek plane was beautiful and Arctic white, but looked miniscule sandwiched between a 747 and an Airbus on the runway. He watched it climb until it was out of sight.
Some guys would have crawled into a hole with a bottle. But Brant rode to Chuy’s, took a seat on the patio, and ordered a frozen Margarita with fish tacos.
His life would be forever divided into before and after that summer. Before Garland, he’d been a simple man with simple needs. After she left, he was a man on a mission called money.
When the table server came to check on him, he put cash in her hand and stepped out the patio gate. Fifteen minutes later he was walking past the bar in the Sons of Sanctuary club house.
“
Where’s the old man?”
“
Office,” said Digger, looking up from his beer.
Brant knocked twice. When he heard his father say, “Open,” he stepped in.
“
Make me a prospect.”
F.J. Fornight looked his son over. “What brought this on?”
“
I got my reasons.”
After staring Brant down for a full minute, he said, “Okay. I’ll sponsor you. You know the rules. No favors.”
“
Got it.”
“
Church day after tomorrow. Seven o’clock. I’ll put it to vote, but everybody has to agree.”
“
I know. I’ll be here.”
Brant had his hand on the door, when his father said, “This have anything to do with that beauty you brought by?”
It had always been impossible to get anything past his old man.
“
Reasons are my own.”
F.J. nodded and went back to what he was doing.
EPILOGUE
Garland was three weeks into the fall semester at the Wharton School when her pregnancy was confirmed. Her initial panic was assuaged when she reasoned that lots of women go to school while pregnant. She’d have to take off spring semester because of her due date. Her father would have to be told. And Brant. She couldn’t decide which she dreaded most. The single saving grace was that she could do it by phone and wouldn’t have to see either of their faces.
It took four days to work up her courage. She took a hot tea out onto the balcony of her University City apartment that overlooked the Schuykill River. She pulled the hoodie up on her red, boiled wool jacket because it was chilly out. If there was going to be serious unpleasantness, she wanted to deal with it outside.
The phone call with her father was every bit as awful as expected, especially the part where he insisted that there was a quick fix that could resolve the problem for everyone. It left her shaken, and thinking it was a mistake to plan to make both calls on the same day.
The phone rang three times before Brant answered. Since she was intimately acquainted with how small his house was, she almost hung up.
“
Hello.”
Her breath caught, hearing the sound of his voice. It was like a blow to her solar plexus and caused her to close her eyes. “It’s me.”
There was a long pause before he simply said, “Garland.”
She heard the lingering pain in his voice and hated herself for causing it. “I have news.”
“
Okay.”
“
I’m pregnant.”
Another long pause. “I thought you were on the pill?”
“
I am. Was. It’s not guaranteed.”
“
So what do you want to do?”
“
I’m having a baby in April.”
“
You’re keepin’ him.”
She heard relief in Brant’s voice. “Of course I’m keeping it.”
“
No. I didn’t mean keepin’ him like that. I meant you’re not thinkin’ about adoption or any shit like that. Because I have dibs.”
“
Dibs?” She smiled. “You’re calling dibs on the baby?”
There was a part of her that was thrilled that Brant wanted to be father to their child.
He let out a long breath. “Yeah, if you didn’t want to raise him, I would make it work. Somehow. Gonna be hard for me to be part of his life if you stay in Yankeeland.”
“
I guess. Okay, then. I just wanted you to know.”
“
Garland.” His heart seized with panic knowing she was about to hang up. He didn’t know what to say. He just knew that he didn’t want to let go of that little piece of Garland, her voice on a phone that was fifteen hundred miles away.
“
Yes?”
“
How are you?”
She sighed into the receiver. “School is okay. I like business better than I thought I would.” Pause. “How about you?”
“
I miss you. I wish you’d change your mind. Especially now.”
“
I think about you a lot. But we made the right decision.”
Brant barked out a laugh. “
We
didn’t decide this.
You
did.”
She sighed again. “Let’s don’t fight. I called Dad first and it was… hard.”
Brant relented and backed off, as he always did. He couldn’t stand to think about her hurting. Fucking David St. Germaine had some karma coming and Brant fantasized about being the one to serve it up.
“
Okay. Are you… stayin’ in school?”
“
This semester. At least. Next semester… well, with an April baby…”
“
Yeah. Let me know if you need anything?”
“
Sure.”
“
Or just want to talk?”
It was her turn to pause. “Hearing your voice just makes it harder.”
“
Yeah.” Brant wasn’t accustomed to the sting of tears threatening. He was a bad-ass second generation biker. Not a slobbering little pussy-face bitch. “I’m here if you change your mind. At least give me regular updates about the baby.”
“
Okay, bye.” She started to hang up and then called out. “Brant?”
He heard her voice and brought the phone back to his ear. “Yeah?”
“
Why do you keep calling the baby ‘he’?”
He smiled.
On May 1st, when the sun resided in the constellation of Aries, Garland St. Germaine gave birth to two big beautiful boys. Identical twins. She named them Brandon and Brannach.
When she’d learned that the ‘baby’ was actually babies, she and Brant Fornight had many long talks before deciding that he would take one home to Texas and she would keep the other. The first time she saw the boys, she regretted that decision with all her soul. But she was also grateful for the gift of that choice because the look on Brant’s face when he held Brannach told her that it was the right thing to do. She knew that little boy would help heal the scar that she’d left on her biker’s heart.
They decided together that it would be easier on the boys to not know about each other. So, on the birth certificates, Brandon was given the surname St. Germaine and Brannach became a Fornight.
It was 1988 when Brant boarded a plane for Austin with a brand new baby and an ache in his heart that never went away.
TWO PRINCES:
The Biker and The Billionaire
Two brothers, one a player, one a playboy, are on a collision course with destiny and
two broken hearts.
Brigid was a graduate student at the University of Texas. It wasn’t hard getting her thesis approved, but finding a Hill Country motorcycle club willing to give her access to their lifestyle was starting to look impossible. Then she got a lead. A friend of a friend had a cousin with family ties to The Sons of Sanctuary. Perfect. Or so she thought.
What she wanted was information to prove a scholarly proposition. The last thing she had in mind was falling for one of the members of the club. Especially since she was a feminist academic out to prove that motorcycle clubs are organized according to the same structure as primitive tribal society.
Brash was standing in line at the H.E.B. Market when his world tipped on its axis. While waiting his turn to check out, his gaze had wandered to the magazine display and settled on the new issue of “NOW”. The image on the cover, although GQ’d up in an insanely urbane way, was… him.
After reading the article, he threw some stuff in a duffle and left his only home, a room at The Sons of Sanctuary clubhouse, with a vague explanation about needing a couple of days away. He left his truck at the Austin airport and caught a plane for New York, on a mission to find a mysterious guy walking around with his face.
Thank you for reading
A Season in Gemini.
I hope you enjoyed it and want to continue this series. As you may know, I also write paranormal romance. Give it a try. You can begin the journey with
My Familiar Stranger
for FREE.
Victoria Danann
New York Times and USA Today BESTSELLING AUTHOR
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