She nodded her head, eyes staring into the center of my chest, as if it were my nipples that were talking to her.
“Don’t overthink it,” I whispered, stepping forward and into her space. I smelled the wash of rain from last night mixed into her light scent of summer grass and hay. It was like a beacon of home as I took a deep breath against her hair and pressed a gentle kiss to her cool forehead.
Her hand jumped to her forehead, pressing against it like I had branded a mark on her skin, confusion and shock woven into her features. She looked at me, flabbergasted, waiting for answers.
Answers she wasn’t going to get. Not from me.
Whatever conclusion she was going to come to went beyond my imagination’s capabilities. My actions, my words, my motives. All of them would remain a mystery to her.
For now.
Chapter Sixteen
Ronnie
I knew I was different.
Knew I didn’t think like normal people.
But I didn’t think I was this bad.
When you weren’t a thinking kind of girl, trying to unravel a taciturn man like Jax was impossible. Trying to take all my stress out on bundled starch, I wondered why the fuck Jax wasn’t back to explain his bipolar attitude to me two and a half weeks ago. He said he’d only be gone for a few days!
He kissed me and then just left. The feeling of his lips on my forehead was like a burning scar that I couldn’t forget. It sat at the forefront of my brain both figuratively and literally. For a man who couldn’t bear to be in my vicinity two months ago, to go and do that with such care, just when I wasn’t sure what kind of progress we had been making….
I didn’t forget about the sex either. It was pathetic of me to get worked up over a kiss to the forehead when I had already gone the full mile with him. But for Jax, sex was just a greeting and we already established that we weren’t going to talk about it. That or the barn. Even if Jax said we would, we didn’t, and we probably wouldn’t ever.
So that was also on the list of my current unsolved mysteries.
But the kiss he gave me before he left… it felt gentle, caring, and left me full of expectations that I couldn’t bring myself to confront. Did it mean something? Did it not?
Something about him had changed toward me. I’d caught just a glimpse of it that morning. And now I was facing a wall of uncertainty, not having even the slightest clue what to do with that information.
Nearly three weeks later, I was nowhere closer to an answer.
“This sucks,” I grumbled, throwing the last hay bale onto the back of the truck. It gave a screech in protest but otherwise held the weight on its back axis with ease. I hadn’t had a chance to thank Jax’s friend, Hunter, for fixing her, but I would get around to it eventually. He’d be my babysitter soon enough.
I sighed, reaching for the truck door handle, about to climb in when the reflection in the glass window caught my attention. A storm of dust and dirt thrown into the air was hurtling down the path toward the house with a growing vibration that rang like a siren throughout the property.
Pretty was hanging out on the back porch, keeping an eye on me with a textbook on his lap. It was Philosophy 101 and from the constant barrage of annoyed growls I’d heard a field over, I had a feeling he was having similar difficulties to me. Perhaps thinking wasn’t meant for either of us.
At the sound of the engine reaching the house, I saw Pretty’s head snap up to attention and meet my gaze across the low bent crops. We were thinking the same thing.
Oh shit.
I saw Pretty throw his book and disappear into the house as I rushed through the middle of the crops, not bothering to go around the edge for the fear of being seen. I held my side, the aching throb beginning to start as it always did when I overexerted myself. It hadn’t been painful while I was baling the hay. In fact, the stretching felt good to me after sitting around for the past two weeks.
Which was against my current nurse’s -a.k.a. Mint’s- orders.
I heard the cut out of the engine as I was exiting the crop field. My heart was beating in my chest so hard I thought it was going to fall out by the sheer fear that had me sprinting even faster toward the back porch steps. If I could just make it to the bench....
I didn’t.
Instead, my foot caught on a stupid, insignificant little rock, and at the speed I was going, there was no other way for me but down.
Facedown.
I hissed as my chin smashed against the old wooden steps. I couldn’t decide whether to focus on the crippling throbbing down my side, or the bruising I could feel coming underneath my face.
“Shit,” I hissed, a hand grappling me as I withered on the step.
“Shit is right.” I heard the deep, malicious tone of Mint hovering above me. He had his hands propped on his hips, eyes downright fierce as they pinned me to the stairs. I felt like a naughty child all over again. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
“Um... I was thinking about fixing the stairs?”
“With your face?” Mint didn’t look convinced, and even I had to admit, it was a pathetic excuse.
The big guy rolled his green eyes before he grumbled some more shit and reached down to pluck me from my position on the floor. He did it with ease that I had once been blissfully unaware of before Jax had dumped three big brothers on my doorstep.
“You nearly broke your ribs, for Christ sake, V,” Mint grumbled, setting me down on Pretty’s bench, where all his books were scattered.
“I know,” I grumbled, looking down at his scuffed, dirty boots. “You’ve told me a thousand times already.”
I didn’t mean to add the last part, and the silence that followed was heavy. Fuck, I’d have done anything to have the chair swallow me right then. It was like I had reverted to my teenage years and I was getting caught sneaking out the house.
“Lighten up on her, Mint.” Pretty peaked from around the doorway.
Coward.
“She’s bored as hell.” Pretty shrugged. “We can’t keep her cooped up forever.”
“It’s not forever,” Mint grumbled. “It’s until her ribs heal properly. You bump them again before they’re fixed, and you’ll have a broken one, not a bruised one.” He waged his finger between the both of us. “That hurts a hell of lot worse.”
When Jax had told me that Mint was the quiet one, I managed to confirm a theory of mine.
Jax is a lying bastard.
I rolled my eyes, and Mint must have a pair in the back of his head or something, because his head snapped back to me with such a speed, I almost screamed. Not to mention that expression.
If looks could kill….
“But she’s driving me crazy. I get Jax said we had to keep an eye on her, but that doesn’t mean we have to do it here. We could take her to the clubhouse, so she can bother someone else?”
“Jeez, thanks, Pretty,” I grumbled, sulking.
“Come on, V. You know I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Your looks won’t work on me, traitor,” I hissed.
“In that case, swing those eyes my way, baby boy.” A sweet, sharp voice came from inside the house, and not just me, but the two brothers froze with an undeniable expression of dread.
“Hello, boys,” Anna swaggered out of the threshold and onto the back porch, patting Pretty’s arm on her way out. The small blonde had the two men take a quick retreating step, eyes weary and body on guard.
Her baby blue eyes, dolled with dark makeup to match the corset, showing off the assets that would make any dairy cow jealous. Though I wasn’t sure that they’d appreciate the leather black leggings that sank into a pair of well-worn red boots as much. “I heard my services were needed?”
“No,” Mint snapped. He was already over by Anna’s side, arms on her shoulders, pushing her toward the door, not even hiding the fact he didn’t want either of us anywhere near each other. Anna was a bad influence, or so I was told. On multiple occasions. By multiple people.
“I don’t believe you.” Mint raised a dark eyebrow, and I sat watching the exchange as Anna reached down into her cleavage and pulled out a dark phone. Damn. I wouldn’t be able to hold a pencil between my tits, never mind a cell.
“That’s harsh, but here you go.” Anna’s long nail flicked across the phone, dialing in what must have been a one-thousand-digit code before turning the screen toward Mint.
Paranoid, much?
The huge man bent forward, minimizing the tall difference between himself and the petite woman. His brows furred as he scrutinized the screen for a long while before he righted himself.
“The number matches,” Mint grumbled. “I still don’t get why Jax would let you girls go out. I’m calling him to double-check as soon as I get a chance, you get that, right?”
“I get it. All the boys’ phones will be turned back on in a few hours. You can check then.” Anna shrugged, flicking her blonde hair over her shoulder. “But until then….” She whirled toward me and I felt my back snap straight. Her blue eyes scanned over my outfit before she extended her small hand.
“Shall we?”
I looked back at her and the outfit she was wearing with a frown. I knew for sure that there were no suitable clothes for a night out upstairs in the few drawers my little duffle bag had filled. Or at least, that’s what I assumed we’d be doing.
“Come on, girl, grab my hand. I gotta change too.”
I glared at her breasts. And the corset. And the jeans. And the boots.
I breathed, my gaze moving back up to her eyes. “There’s more?” I whispered.
She grinned.
* * *
When I had asked Anna about the “more” earlier, I couldn’t have imagined she meant less. With the cropped corset and Daisy Dukes cupping the globes of my ass, I couldn’t help how self-conscious I felt. I had never worn anything like this… anything so risqué.
Not to mention my scars. They were on show for the whole world, pink and angry little streaks marring over my hip and down my thigh. I had refused at first, but with a blatant shrug, Anna showed me the dark colored scar across her stomach. It didn’t have the same years on it as mine nor was it anywhere as large as mine, but it was a subtle enough gesture of sisterhood. Of solidarity.
Everyone has scars.
She had patted my ass and told me to embrace it. And after pre-drinks, and now three more in, I was more than ready to embrace anything.
“So,” Mallory, the natural redhead asked as she leaned across the table, sipping a cute pink cocktail. “Cowboy?”
“Cowboy,” I scoffed, just the thought making me want to tear up with the hilarity. “More like rogue.”
My Jackson might may have once had that cowboy charm, but he’d grown into more of a devilish bad boy now, and I hated to think how much it suited him.
“Well, it’s nice to see him interested in someone for once.” Mallory smiled, stirring her fruity drink with the little pink straw.
“That doesn’t sound like what I’ve heard,” I replied, sighing into the margarita Anna ordered for me. The drink had the clarity I wished my problems did. Its endless transparency was much like the endless feeling of falling when it came to Jax. I had yet to find any footing, and for all the emotion that was being sapped from me being around him, I saw no end in sight.
“Well, it’s true that he played around a bit,” Anna grumbled. “Well, a lot.”
Mallory sent her a sharp look, probably at her bluntness, but I didn’t mind.
It wasn’t like I didn’t know it.
“But he’s never been serious. Not even once. He was as fickle as they came, and I’ve had to kick out way too many women that had fallen too deep into his empty charm.” Anna ran a hand through her shortened hair, ruffling the white fluff that fell in a way that screamed hot bedroom hair. I wondered what she was trying to entice, considering the hot, Russian man she had made her husb—I meant … old man?
Is that what they call it?
“Was he always like that?” Bell, the young brunette asked, running a hand through her hair. It was long and silky, matching the soft pale skin she had despite the warm summer that had just passed.
“His looks have always caught the attention of girls. From baby on up. But when I knew him, he hadn’t been too interested. The odd fling here or there, but his real love had been the horses,” I reminisced, the loud music of the club seeming to fade away as I remembered seeing him in the fields, the winds blowing, grass rustling against his legs as he rested his palms against the great beasts. “When he was working with them, he always had such a look of… pure satisfaction. He just looked so in place. Like it was where he belonged. I thought that would never change....”
The girls fell silent following my closing words.
“Maybe it hasn’t.” Anna’s voice cut through. I looked up to see her staring across the club, her eyes not locking on anything but just scanning through the faces. Her mind looked somewhere far beyond, and for a moment, I thought she wasn’t going to say anything more, her red lips pursed at the rim of her glass. But then she said something I didn’t expect. “Just because someone is different from how you remember them doesn’t mean that everything about them has changed. I don’t know what you’ve been thinking—” She turned to look me dead in the eyes with a weight of seriousness I had yet to see from her. It held me in place as I soaked up her every word. “—but the Jax you’re seeing isn’t an entirely different person from the Jackson you knew. They’re not two different people. He’s the same Jackson you knew, he’s just… different.”
I had nothing to say to that.
I couldn’t deny that even though I noticed the little pieces of Jackson inside of Jax, I had been doing exactly what she said this entire time. I’d separated them. I made it black and white, the way I separated my past from his present.
“Anyway, I didn’t bust my ass to get you out here just to get you to blab on about our boy,” Anna scoffed, lifting the margarita to her lips, and in one swift swig, the liquid washed down her throat, and the bottom of the glass hit the table. “We came here to get smashed. ROUNDS!”
Anna thrust herself up from the table, almost knocking the glasses over and waved to the bartender who gave a curt nod in her direction. “We’re gonna get the strongest they’ve got. If I’m gonna get in trouble for this shit, I better make it worthwhile.”
“Wait?” Mallory cut in. “What do you mean, trouble?”
Anna smirked just as a tray of shots was delivered to our table with record timing. It barely took ten seconds! I looked to Anna who dished one out to everyone before picking her glass up in the center.
“Fuck thinking. Let’s get drunk!” she cheered, and deciding it best to take my opportunity for relief and letting go by the horns, I held up my own shot glass and clinked it against hers.
“Cheers!”
And just like that, the round went down. And then another followed. And another.
In the words of a not-so-wise woman…
It was time to get smashed!
Chapter Seventeen
Jax
I wasn’t tired. No, I was ready-to-plant-my-face-into-the-ground-and-sleep exhausted. The concrete under my vibrating bike engine was way too tempting as the moist air was beading on the chicken skin across my arms. Despite the warmth of the late evening, my body was cold, and it only sapped more energy from me.
“You’re going to sleep here tonight?” Wolf looked across to me, still straddling his own bike. He didn’t look much better than I did, but with everything we’d had to worry about these past couple of weeks, I couldn’t blame him.
“Fuck going home,” Hunter grumbled before I could give my own answer. “This’ll be my first decent night’s sleep. Plus, Mallory and the kids are here anyway.”
I looked over to the ma
n who had already been sleep-deprived way before our most recent wave of trouble had surfaced on our territory. He had his head pressed into his handle bars, and for every moment of silence he gave me, I wondered if he was asleep.
Wolf gave a tired but amused smile at Hunter’s suffering, one I related to but couldn’t do myself. Even my face muscles had given up.
I turned to the direction of the town, to where I knew the house would be on the other side. Ronnie had been waiting almost three weeks already, and even though I had hoped time away from her would give me more time to think, I hadn’t been given that privilege. There had been too much Black Jack mess to sort out and the last week of our trip was spent calming the mafia so they didn’t shoot our asses, or worse, take their gun-running business elsewhere.
“Jax,” Wolf growled, catching my attention. He gave me a stern look. “What I said may have sounded like a question, but it wasn’t.”
Still….
“Look,” Wolf took a smoother tone. “Mint’s on watch now, so your girl is safe. And you look like you’re about to fall asleep on the floor. You’re too tired to ride, so sleep here.”
“Yeah, all right, Prez,” I grumbled, bringing up my hand to rub the phantom ache of the frown that had been planted on my face until I lost the energy to do so. “Let’s get in and hit the hay.”
“Hay’s for you, cowboy,” Wolf chuckled, a harsh grin of humor looking more intimating than amusing. “If my woman did as she was told, Dimitri will be at Kay’s and I’m gonna have myself a willing woman.”
I couldn’t help the corners of my lips turn at that statement. Although Anna was more than consenting with Wolf, willing wouldn’t have been my choice of words. Tired or not, Anna would make the man work for it.
“How do you even have the energy for that, asshole?” Hunter grumbled from his motionless lump.
Wolf smirked. “I’ll tell you when you’re older.”
“What? Tell us all about those blue pills in your bedside drawer?” I chuckled, feeling the light energy and flicker of attitude I always had in troves.
Jax: Black Angels MC, #3 Page 20