But even with that joy and hope, there was a single thing that could deflate my heart in a single glance. A reaction from one man.
Jax.
He hadn’t said a word to me beyond Max’s training and my household chores. He brought me groceries on Mondays, and it just made it harder when I saw he remembered all my favorite things.
According to Jax, my truck was still in the shop, so I had to be content to stay here and let him see to my every need like some kept woman. The idea made me restless and anxious, but there was little I could do when it’d be an hour walk into town from the ranch.
I sighed as I sat tucked into the soft, well-worn arm chair in the family room retying my Honda knot. My aching leg rested out on the matching ottoman, adorned with a ruffled skirt, as I waited for Jax to arrive, so training could start.
He always came at midday when the sun was at his hottest and when Max would be lethargic, meaning she was lethargic and agreeable. Our sessions never lasted more than an hour since he didn’t want any of us with heat stroke or dehydration.
As I worked the lasso, untying the rope after another failed attempt, the distant drum of a motorcycle sounded, growing louder and louder until the man of the hour pulled to a stop on the drive.
I slipped on my boots, ignoring the dull ache of my leg and walked out onto the porch. Sunlight was hot against my skin and bright in my eyes as I looked down the steps to see a dark head turning to face me. He had his jeans, shirt, and of course his leather cut, and the way he leaned back on his bike to look at me had the shirt riding up the few inches to reveal a smooth, hard stomach and a trail of dark curls leading under his jeans. I tried my best not to follow it, but the girl who had crushed on Jackson for so many years felt no different when she saw his darker counterpart. Even if he didn’t share the affection.
“On time as usual,” I commented, my boots creaking against the steps, my bad leg heavier than the other. I’d slipped a pain pill as I waited for Jax and praised myself for having the foresight to refill the bottle from the pharmacy outside of town my second night after my work at the bar. It was a twenty-four hour one and I would soon have to make a trip out there somehow. Whether by taxi, or hopefully my truck if it was fixed in time, before I hit the bottom of the bottle.
Jax grunted, rising from his seat and removing his Stetson from the saddle bag, moving the black helmet aside.
“Why do you have a bike helmet but don’t wear it?” I asked, curiosity getting the better of me.
“It’s for bitches to wear,” he replied, fitting his hat on his head as if he hadn’t called me a bitch.
“Excuse me?”
Sensing the annoyance in my tone, I saw the flicker of surprise on his face and then understanding. “Ah, I meant women. I often end up giving them a lift back from the bar when they’re too shit-faced to walk home.”
“So you put them on the back on your bike, take them to your club, and fuck them?”
“I never said that,” Jax replied, his dark, neat eyebrows wrinkling, the sun casting a shadow over his eyes. “But if they’re willing, why the hell shouldn’t I?”
I gagged. “I didn’t need to know.”
“You asked.” Jax turned on his heels and moved over to the pasture where I let Max out that morning.
It was the only thing I could do without supervision. I was back to being a twelve-year-old again, forced to sneak in the stallion’s pen because I was barred from going near it, unlike Jackson. He was allowed to go in with them when he was that age. It was something that I didn’t think about on regular occasions and wasn’t holding a grudge over whatsoever.
Despite not being allowed in the pen with Max on my own, it wasn’t all bad. Since she let me get closer to her now, I was able to get into her pen or stall enough to open the door without spooking her.
She never moved toward me or walked anywhere when I was with her, but she didn’t seem to mind when I walked near her. She just waited until I was gone before she moved.
Jax, on the other hand had managed to get her used to having a rope around her neck, and although he didn’t pet her, she didn’t mind brushing up against him when he was near.
Something that made me insane with jealously.
“Whatever,” I grumbled to him, stomping after him and waiting until he’d gracefully leapt up onto the top bar of the fence while I went around and through the gate instead of painstakingly climbing up over it with my leg and having him frown at me the entire time.
I used to launch myself up and over them back in the day and I could see the question in his eyes every time I did something with less vigor than in my teen years. I hoped he just blamed it on my age.
“You’ll need this,” Jax called out to me. He held out an outstretched rope with a Honda Knot tied with perfection on one end.
I stared at it. I knew exactly what it meant as he handed it to me. Knew there were a few other things that could be done with a rope and all but one of those Jax wouldn’t want to be doing with me.
“I get to try?” I whispered, taking the rope from his hands. The coarse feeling of it was like home and heaven all in one, light as a wisp in my hands.
“I think it’s time,” Jax replied, the confidence in his voice rippling through the air and into me. Somehow, the surety he possessed made me feel praised.
I swallowed. “Okay.”
Turning so the sun was at my back, the warmth pushed me forward, my skin sticking to the long sleeves of my shirt. I was breathing harder the closer I grew to her, trying my best not to show my nerves and spook her.
Max raised her head, her deep brown eyes lit like a fire under the sun as she watched me get closer. Her ears stayed forefront, but she didn’t shy away from my approach.
Inch by inch disappeared, and a calmness descended upon me. I steered clear of direct eye contact but kept my gaze steady. My heart rate calmed as I approached her, the warmth of her breath pushing back the tendrils of my hair that fell over my face.
She was so close, like wrapping me in her body’s warm embrace.
This was my beautiful, powerful girl who had been at my side for over ten years. The girl I owed my life and my heart to. She deserved everything in this world, because no matter how stubborn she was, or how much attitude she threw at me, she was more valuable than anything else on this planet.
My hand reached up, the rope loose in my hands as I moved. Calling forth the same natural movement I had developed over our years together, the calmness we used to share, I lifted the lasso over her ears and let it slip over her short black mane.
Her breathing hitched, and her body went as still as stone.
Maybe it was too soon. Maybe it—
She snorted. A playful, satisfied huff into my face.
“Maxi,” I whispered as the widest, almost painful smile, lit up on my face.
I didn’t think. My hand reached up to her face, palm flat and firm. I was aware of Jax’s voice somewhere in the distance, but I couldn’t stop. The soft, hot, and sweat-damp fur pressed against my palm as my hand rested between the bridge of her eyes.
Max’s breathing stilled again, just for a moment. It was enough. I broke out of my trance and Jax’s crystal voice cut through the air.
“Ronnie!” he snapped, and I was aware he had jumped down from his perch, a second lasso in a firm grip between both of his hands. “Don’t push it.”
I looked to Max, feeling the cool breeze over my damp palm from where her head pulled away from me to look to Jax. Both of us could feel the tension rippling in the air, but he didn’t look at Max, he kept his eyes on me.
“Ronnie,” he said, with a little more persistence. I understood.
Little steps.
I slid my fingers up the slack rope, my index hooking over the knot and tugging it down the rope. Max stood still as the lasso loosened around her neck until it fell from her shoulders and to the dirt.
I wrapped it back up around my arm and tucked it over my shoulder. Looking once more at Max
before stepping away. She watched me, eyes following me as I made my way back over to Jax.
When I met up with Jax at the fence, without thinking about it, I bounced on my feet and pushed myself up over the fence, twisting my body and dropping down the other side. The impact on my leg was small, but I wasn’t even thinking about it as Jax dropped down next to me wide-eyed.
And then, it was like a bubble popped. My hand began to tingle with the feeling of Max that had been left like a wax impression on my skin, and I realized what I had just done.
I broke.
Tears and sobs came out in one big burst, and I threw myself at Jax, my arms going around his wide sides as I felt the single ray of light and hope break through the dreary darkness I had been shrouded in for the last twelve months.
I didn’t care that he tensed up like stone. Or that his arms didn’t come around me. Or the way he stopped breathing all together. All I could think about was Max.
“I touched her,” I sobbed. “I finally touched her.”
Because it was that moment that I let myself at long last believe the one thing I had been begging God for the last year. “She’s here. She gets to stay,” I cried. “I don’t have to put her down.”
And that’s when I felt the weight on my back and neck. Jax’s arms wound around me, his hand pressing against the nape of my neck, plastering me to his chest as he dropped his head into my hair, and through the emotion overwhelming me, I could do nothing but cling back to him, and realize that this is what I had needed in my life.
I needed Jax.
Chapter Seven
Jax
I couldn’t sleep.
I couldn’t think.
I couldn’t even breathe without tasting her smell on my lips.
Two beers and three shots of vodka later and I couldn’t get her off me, the feeling of her hair tangled in my hands, her tears sunken into the ink of my skin, her warmth seeping deep into my bones.
I had to fight the itching and burning to scrape away the traces of her presence. Had to pretend that I didn’t feel the regret weighing like lead in my stomach. Had to fight the urge to let the thoughts screaming in the back of my mind come forth.
As desperate as my fight may have been, it couldn’t stop the awareness creeping through.
I knew what this was. I knew these feelings. I’d seen them a thousand times in the hearts of my brothers and I could pretend that their fate wouldn’t be awaiting me, but I was smart enough to know better.
But that was where my intelligence ended. If I had anymore, I would have never touched Ronnie. I would have pushed her away the second she wrapped her arms around me and I wouldn’t have looked back.
But I hadn’t done that. And the second I embraced her, I felt it all.
Wanting to give her everything she could ever need. Wanting to protect her from any harm that dare come her way. Wanting to be all she could ever want.
She’d never affected me like this when she was younger. I had known her from the age of zero to seventeen and had pulled her out of trouble over a hundred times the entire way up. Whether she got herself stuck in a tree or almost accidentally buried herself alive, I’d had to drag her ass kicking and screaming all the way. And then she’d fallen in love with me. Puberty came and instead of me dragging her out of trouble, she was on my heels following me headfirst into it. I hadn’t cared, I was good-looking, and she had been three years younger than me. A bullheaded girl in need of a few more brain cells.
But this… woman wasn’t the same girl. She was still stubborn and liked to run her mouth, finding trouble wherever she went, but she wasn’t walking in my footsteps anymore. She was by my side, out of my shadow and glowing with her own light, making me look in her direction.
I hated it.
Even if I knew, and even if I was aware of what was growing deep inside me, there were some feelings like that I couldn’t just erase. Things that couldn’t be unwritten from our past.
Ronnie betrayed me. She had decided not to trust and follow me, proving her love for me was nothing more than a childhood crush. And when she’d chosen that place over me… I couldn’t.
“Shit,” I hissed, taking my shot from the side of the bar and tossing it back.
“You going to spit it out?” A voice cut from my side, and I found a graceful, redheaded queen saddling up to me.
“Depends on how you taste.” I winked, making Kay roll her eyes.
“My dead husband will be turning in his grave,” she scoffed, taking the bottle from my hand and pouring her own shot of vodka. She took it without a bat of an eyelash and although Kay was an older woman, she didn’t have any trouble keeping the hens in this godforsaken club in line, or taking a shot.
Kay put down her glass before reaching over, grabbing my forearm and dragging it in front of her. Gentle, long fingers skimmed across the skin on my arms, inspecting the bare stripes cutting through my tribal tattoos. “These parts might scar,” she said, pointing to the bits of red skin crisscrossing over the apex of my muscle. “But the rest should heal fine. You can get your tattoos redone once you’re fully healed. Do try to keep them out the sun, though.”
“But what if I end up with a patchy tan,” I gasped, though the end may have slurred slightly.
“You men and your vanity.” She shook her head, giving my arm a good slap before releasing it. I winced and hoped to God that Kay thought I was kidding because that fucking hurt like a bitch.
She scoffed at my reaction, and I managed to get away with my dignity intact as she walked away from me.
“Oh, Jax,” Kay called, causing me to spin on my chair. “Sober up, you’re on carpool duty tonight.”
I looked down to the shot Pipe refilled, the sucker quite happy to remain quiet behind the bar as I had been trying to drink myself into oblivion.
“There’s a perfectly capable prospect right there!” I whined, jerking my thumb at Pipe, his near bald head turning in my direction.
The fucker had enough nerve to grin back at me and said, “I can’t drive.”
“You liar,” I snorted. “You’ve got your Harley sitting right out fucking side.”
“I can ride,” Pipe explained. “But I can’t drive. I don’t have a license for a car.”
I knew Jeremiah was a stickler for rules, and if he caught our recruit driving several drunk girls home, he’d be all too happy to lock him up for a night or two.
I threw my hands up at him. “What the fuck good are you, then?” I cried in defeat as my arms collapsed down onto the bar. I looked at my shot, the surface rippling with the impact of my arms.
Pipe saw it as well, and just as I saw the fucker’s big fat hands reach for it, I snatched it from the bar and took it so fast, I nearly swallowed the glass with it.
“Jax!” Kay hissed from her spot away from me. Had she been any closer, she probably would have slapped me for that too.
“Don’t sass me, woman,” I grunted, sticking my tongue out at her. “I’m going to need it.”
* * *
Five hours later, I was proved right. Unfortunately, I had a high tolerance for alcohol and the vodka might as well have been water as I was cruising down the main road in Hunter’s brand-new cage I had to pay for last week, wishing that I was still drunk as the girls’ singing rang through my ears.
“Can I go bury myself in a hole yet?” I asked, turning to Mallory in the passenger seat, chuckling to herself as she watched the girls. At least I had one semi-sober.
“Pineapples!” She broke out into a fit of giggles and I realized that perhaps I was alone on our journey home.
Whatever Mallory meant must have been an inside joke, because the whole rear end of the car shook as the girls broke out into hilarious fits of laughter, tears ruining their panda eyes and running mascara.
Mallory, Anna, Baby, and Georgia were living it up, and I was slowly dying.
Girls’ night sucked.
“Why me?” I whimpered, slamming my head into the steering wheel as w
e pulled up to a red light.
I watched in the rearview mirror as a black Jeep pulled up behind us, noticing Anna’s blonde hair, which stuck up in all sorts of directions thanks to the bar fight she’d be in. Some girl had made a comment that set all sorts of red lights in Anna’s eyes. According to Mallory, it had been something that made Anna think of Ash, and I didn’t push for an explanation after that. Anna had her problems she was working through and there was nothing we could do to help.
“Because you didn’t tell us that you’re a hot cowboy!” Mallory screeched into my ear, and at 4 a.m., that was not what I wanted to hear.
“Would you sleep with me if I’d told you that when I met you?”
I met Mallory on the same day as Hunter, having carted his truck over three state lines to pick up his hot-as-fuck baby momma and nephew.
“No,” Mallory scoffed. “Look but don’t touch has always been my motto.”
I couldn’t help my laugh at that one. If anybody heard Mallory’s life story, they’d soon learn that that quote was most certainly not Mallory’s motto. She could have saved herself a lot of trouble if it had been.
“Getting back to point.” Anna popped her head between us, looking frighteningly clear-headed as she stared at me through the rearview mirror. “When do we get to meet your mysterious girl?”
“You don’t,” I replied, cutting her off with a little more abruptness than I’d have liked.
Mallory looked at me like my eyes had fallen out of my head. Okay, maybe it was a bit more than I had intended.
“All right, whatever.” Anna waved her hands in defense, and thankfully, the light turned green and I put my foot down, forcing Anna to sit back.
Georgia and Baby watched the interaction but otherwise didn’t interfere. Where Mallory and Anna were old ladies in this club, which in some twisted way, gave them a free pass for sticking their head in my business and giving me shit for it, the club girls didn’t have the same luxury. Drunk or not, they understood that.
Jax: Black Angels MC, #3 Page 9