by Amy Gamet
Jessa stared at the door as the tears came, great gasping sobs for everything she’d done, everything she’d lost, and what she’d been about to do.
God help me.
She had to get out of here. She’d come with Jax because she was in danger, but their stalker was dead now and she no longer had to worry about her safety. It was time to get away from Jax, once and for all.
19
Jax sat at the bar and drank whiskey.
Jessa's words were swirling through his mind as the alcohol swirled in his stomach.
I'll never forgive you for taking him from me.
He took another sip of his drink, but it didn't erase the taste of her from his mouth or wipe clean his memory of her reaction to him. He'd been torturing himself, wondering if everything he remembered about their night together had been exaggerated. Now he was tortured by the fact that it had not.
Yet she hated him.
He’d laid it all on the line, told her how much that night had meant to him, how much he wanted to repeat it, and all she wanted was to forget.
What the hell was he supposed to do with that?
His cell phone rang and he saw it was Logan. "What's up?"
"I was able to access Jessa's medical records directly."
Jax’s stomach clenched. "Go on."
“It’s good news. There is nothing about cancer in these files," said Logan. "These records are just for basic checkups, as if she were seeing a general physician."
Relief flooded through Jax. She’d been telling the truth, and he couldn't have been more grateful. Jessa did not have cancer. She was going to be okay.
Thank God.
"Except for one thing," said Logan. "I don’t know if it’s relevant or not, but since you asked me to look in her files, it seems like maybe it’s something I should—”
“What is it, Logan?”
“She's pregnant."
Jax slammed his drink down on the bar. "What?"
“Pregnant. You know, she’s having a baby.”
“I know what the hell pregnant means, you idiot. When is she due?”
“Uh, let me see… looks like March eighteenth.”
Jax rolled his eyes. “That was three months ago, Logan.”
“Oh no, wait. Sorry. That’s the date of her last period. What was that, like two and a half months ago?"
Jax’s senses reeled as his mind flew through the calendar. He needed to get off this phone. Needed to get out of this bar. Somehow he managed to make his voice work. "Anything else?"
"That's all I found."
"Okay, thanks." Jax ended the call with shaking fingers and got to his feet. Any alcoholic haze he'd managed to attain had already evaporated from his mind. He threw money on the bar, not waiting for change, and headed back upstairs to the room.
A baby.
He was going to be a father.
It didn’t matter how it happened, didn’t matter they hadn’t intended to create a new life. He was going to be a father, and Jessa was the mother of his child.
Awe spread its wings wide inside his spirit and he smiled a wobbling smile.
Why hadn’t she told him? Didn’t she know he’d be happy?
He walked down the corridor, not feeling the floor beneath his feet. In the blink of an eye, his life had changed. He was having a baby with Jessa.
Jesus.
He laughed an awkward laugh that sounded a bit like a sob as he waited for the elevator. He was going to be a father.
He reached their hotel room and inserted his key. She stood beside the bed and straightened when he walked in. He let his eyes feast on her face. What would their child look like? Would he have her black hair, the sharpened features of her Cherokee face?
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.
“What?”
His eyes dropped from hers and took in her breasts, her belly, and back up again. He remembered how she’d flinched in pain when he suckled her breast. How she’d ignored the coffee and wine he’d bought for her. Her apparent sickness in the truck. He felt for what she was already going through, the changes that were taking place in her body. “About the baby."
Her eyes went wide and her mouth opened.
“Logan got your medical records. I know you’re pregnant.” His lips pressed together as he smiled. “I know you’re carrying my child.” He walked toward her and opened his arms.
She pushed him away. “You had no right to go through my medical records!”
“I was worried about you. We can do this, Jessa. Everything will be okay. I’ll support you and the baby. We’ll raise the baby together—”
“No! You had no right to go through my medical records. You just think you can do anything, that nobody’s in charge of you. And you don’t care who gets hurt in the process.”
“I needed to know why you bought a new identity, what you’re running away from. We’ve been looking at everything. Financial, medical. I need to understand why you ran away, and you weren’t helping me…”
A horrible understanding polarized his brain, and for a long moment he simply stared at her while the pieces slipped quietly into place. “Wait a second.” He ran a hand through his hair. “You knew you were pregnant and you didn’t tell me. You weren’t going to tell me.”
The look on her face was full of such hatred he was taken aback.
“Oh my God,” he whispered. “You were running from me.”
She took a step backwards and he advanced on her. “You were running from me!” He shook his head, disbelief attempting to derail what was clearly the truth. “You were running from me so I wouldn’t know about the baby!”
No visitation.
Anger burst forth from him like hot lava into the sky. He turned and smashed his fist through the wall, pleased when Jessa jumped.
“My baby,” she whispered.
“Ours!” he yelled. “You weren’t going to tell me. You're carrying my child, and you weren't even going to fucking tell me! That's why you wanted a new identity, so I couldn't find you. So I couldn't find you and my own child.”
Her stare was icy.
“It must have been horrible for you,” he said. “Getting pregnant by the one man you can’t stand.”
“An eye for an eye.”
“What did you say?”
“I lost my baby when you killed Ralph. You owed me one."
He put one hand on either side of his head and turned away from her and this craziness. Not even Linda's betrayals compared to this. That's when he saw her bag packed and ready to go. He pointed to it and turned back to her. "If I hadn't come back just now, you would have been gone."
She crossed her arms.
He stormed to her. "Answer me! If I hadn't come back here, would you have left?"
She glared at him and spit out between her teeth, “Hell yes, I would have left. I can’t stand you. I don’t want you in my life or my baby’s life."
"Well then, we’re just going to have to make sure you stick around." He dug in his bag and withdrew a pair of handcuffs. He turned to her, pleased when a knowing look appeared in her eyes.
"No."
"You don't get to decide anymore.” He put one handcuff around her wrist and the other around the arm of a heavy chair. "And you sure as hell don't get to walk out of here with my child.”
All he could see in his mind's eye was Jessa, beautiful Jessa, naked beneath him and guiding him inside her without a condom.
I want you to come inside me.
She’d been planning to steal from him, to take the one thing more precious than any other. The family that rightfully belonged to him.
20
Jessa wept into her pillow in the darkened hotel room. When it was time for sleep, Jax had chained her to the bed frame using the handcuffs and some cable he had in the car. Now he lay beside her, sleeping as she cried.
She touched her lower abdomen.
I'm so sorry, baby.
She'd been a fool to think she could get away f
rom Jax, to have thought she could keep the child a secret forever. She remembered Jax's face as he accused her of everything she had done. There was some comfort in the hatred she saw there. At least it was better than the wanting.
She had no defense against that.
She squeezed her eyes shut and a fresh crop of tears made their way to the pillow. Her baby was the one who was going to pay the price for this. Her baby was the one who would be stuck with a tin man for a father. It wasn't fair, but nothing was ever fair.
Ralph was the one who should have been her child’s father, Ralph was the one who wanted a baby with her, who would have been such an incredible dad.
Not Jax.
Never Jax.
She thought of Linda, Jax's ex-wife, back in the day when Linda and Jax were still married. The two women had been friends, if not the best of friends. They had a lot in common back then, each of them married to a man who was married to HERO Force. Linda had told Jessa how cold Jax could be. How unforgiving. He'd made Linda's life miserable, and now he was going to make her and her child's life miserable as well.
It's all my fault.
She took a shaking breath in and felt the mattress move as Jax rolled over. He was invading her personal space by sharing the bed with her, but he told her chivalry died the moment she decided to take his son or daughter away. So here she was, tethered to a bed in a motel room with the one man who she desperately wanted to get away from.
What the hell was she going to do?
She needed a plan. Something to work for. If only he would realize what a terrible father he would make, how much better off this baby would be without him, then surely he would not choose to be a part of its life.
Would he?
Ralph used to say Jax was tenacious as a pit bull. She clearly remembered how brutally Jax had ripped apart his ex-wife in court. She and Ralph had even fought about it—her defending Linda, him clearly on Jax’s side. She’d made a fool out of him, Ralph said, and broken his heart. Jessa was fairly certain Jax didn’t have a heart, and personally held Linda blameless.
At least Linda had managed to get away from Jax, while here she was, sharing a bed with him.
And let’s not forget, you’re carrying his child.
Her baby. Not his.
Hers.
21
Jax stared unseeing into the room. The bed trembled as he listened to Jessa cry. Not that he had a lot of sympathy for her. She deserved anything that came her way after what she had done to him. He still couldn't believe it. Sweet Jessa, who'd never hurt anyone in her life as far as he knew, had planned and schemed to take keep his child from him.
Was there anything worse in the world?
His eyes closed of their own volition.
I want you to come inside me, Jax.
God, how those words had turned him on. He'd wanted to lay claim to her, to have his body mix inside her — hell, yes, maybe have the potential to change everything. He sighed. Not that he knew she was going to get pregnant, of course not. But in that moment, if she had told him she wanted a baby, he would happily have obliged.
Not if you knew she intended to cut you out of that child's life forever.
He hadn't given her hatred enough credit, hadn't realized how truly and completely she had wished him ill. He'd known she was angry, sure. He'd known she was hurt, grieving, even. But he had not understood the lengths to which she would go to get back at him.
So what the hell was he going to do now? He wanted her to have the baby. There was no question about that. That little boy or girl was so tiny right now, but already he loved it. That was the hardest part. Because right now, he could not see a way that this would work out as a happy family for his child.
Whether the baby ended up with Jessa alone or with him alone or with some awkward and hellish arrangement in between, he couldn't see a happy life emerging from this mess.
A child of his deserved better than that.
He rolled over and looked at the ceiling, staring at the shadows there as if they might hold the answers to the universe’s major questions.
A baby.
God, it was hard to believe. He'd wanted to be a father for as long as he could remember. Now somewhere inside Jessa was a tiny human being made of her and him.
He smiled in the darkness.
He had to find a way for this child to have a good life. And, much as he didn't want to admit it, the baby's best chance for happiness depended on his own ability to live with the child's mother.
I may never be able to do that.
He wanted to kill her.
He looked over at the silhouette of her body outlined by the covers. Just yesterday, he'd been fighting for her life. Willing to lay down his own if it meant she would be okay.
Thank God that was over. Yes, the rotten liar was safe, and he would do whatever he had to do to make sure she stayed that way. But live with her? Trust her and let her get close to him?
No way.
22
"Where are we going?" asked Jessa.
They'd already been driving for almost an hour, and she hadn't even bothered to ask. Jax was clearly in a foul mood — not that she could blame him — and she had little desire to incur his wrath once again.
"I'm taking you to my house."
She had suspected as much. She didn’t have a house to go to, and he clearly wasn’t planning on letting her out of his sight. She was weak from being in his presence, from the lies and the emotional uproar of him finding out she was pregnant. No, she was tired of him before that. Needing her space. "And then what? You can't keep me handcuffed forever."
He shot her a wry look. "Why not?"
Jessa shook her head and looked out the window. "Sooner or later, you're going to have to let me go. You do know that, so why are you pretending?"
"I'm not pretending anything, Jessa. I'll leave that to you. I would just like to know that you're not going to run off with my kid the minute I turn my back. And until I feel comfortable that isn't going to happen, you're going to stay tied up like a Doberman."
She scoffed. “Just slightly illegal."
"It's a hell of a lot better than what you did to me, honey."
They drove the rest of the distance in silence, all of Jessa's plans to convince him he'd be a lousy parent falling by the wayside. She couldn't talk to him when he was like this. There was no point. He was as stubborn as hell, and there wasn't a damn thing she could do about that.
She vaguely recognized the mountain he lived on when they got to it, the twisting and turning road bringing her nausea back to life. The last time she’d been here had been with Ralph. "I think I'm going to be sick.”
“Just pretend I don't know you're pregnant. That ought to settle your stomach right down."
She glared at him. "This is not a joke, Jax. I've had morning sickness for weeks now."
“Forgive me if I’m running low on sympathy for you at the moment.”
"Forget it. Just forget it."
Jax slowed to a crawl near a tall wrought iron gate. He frowned.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Someone's been here." He pointed to a set of tire tracks faintly visible in the wet leaves to the side of the gate. "I wasn't expecting any visitors." He reached over her lap to open the glove compartment and retrieved his weapon, noting how she shied away from him as he did.
“Do you always reach for a gun when you have a houseguest?" she asked.
Jax stared at her. "This is not a houseguest, Jessa. The only houseguests that I get know damn well not to drive around the security gate. I'm wondering if this might be a special visit courtesy of that fancy lawyer in Boston."
He could see his words register on her sense of security, her eyes widening with concern.
"What do you mean?” she asked. “We already killed the man who was after me."
"He may not be the only one. If he was paid to go after you, then the person who hired him might have hired someone in his place.”<
br />
She closed her eyes and pressed a hand to her stomach. “Why only one? Why not send two?”
“Or three, or four.”
Her eyes popped open.
“We don’t know what we’re dealing with here, Jessa. For all we know, that lawyer tipped someone off that Maria Elena was there looking for answers. And that she wasn't alone."
Jessa's eyes widened. "Oh my God, did we give them your name?"
He nodded once. “I did. Do you want to know how many Jax Andersson's there are in the United States?"
She took a deep breath in and exhaled slowly. "No, I don't think I do."
Jax hit a button on the dashboard of his car, and the gates opened wide. “There are three.” They drove up to the house without talking, a sprawling cedar two-story that settled into the mountainside like a cliff.
Jessa’s first visit here had been when Jax and Linda were still married, for a skiing weekend with Ralph. She remembered being impressed by the sprawling house, with its cedar siding, tall windows, and rambling floor plan. It was mere weeks before Jax announced he and Linda were splitting up, and the couple was clearly not getting along.
The weekend from hell.
One evening in particular, Jessa had overheard the pair arguing in the kitchen late at night when she’d gone to get a glass of water. She should have walked away when she heard Linda say, “You don’t even touch me anymore,” but her curiosity had gotten the better of her.
Jax’s voice had been deep and filled with pain. “I touch your skin, and I wonder who’s touched you there before me. I wonder when.”
“We have to move forward, Jax. We can’t keep dwelling in the past.”
“I wonder if you brought them into our bed.” The sound of a chair squeaking across the floor. “Did you, Linda? Did you bring them into our bed? Did you tell them how lonely it is with your husband gone for weeks at a time?”
“Stop it.”
“Christ, you did, didn’t you? You let them fuck you right there. What else did you do?”