Unbeloved (25 page)

For Jase, finding a house to rent hadn’t been difficult. Neither had filling it with the minimal furniture he had brought with him.

And after Deuce had called in a favor at the local auto body shop in town, obtaining employment had been a piece of fucking cake.

What hadn’t been easy was having to say good-bye to everyone. Even Hawk, despite his scowl, had shaken Jase’s hand. During the party, he’d come to find out that it was Hawk who was leaving, was turning himself over to the law in order to take down the Russians blackmailing Deuce and Preacher. Despite how he felt about Hawk and Dorothy being together, you couldn’t hate a man who would sacrifice his own life for the good of the club.

In a way
, Jase felt like Hawk had everything Jase never had. The woman they both loved belonged to Hawk, the respect of everyone in the club belonged to Hawk, and whereas Jase had left the club behind, Hawk would never. Even in the face of his imprisonment.

He was a far better man than
Jase would ever be, as well as being a better father than Jase would ever be.

Hawk
deserved both Dorothy and the club.

And
Jase deserved . . .

Well, he didn
’t know what the fuck he deserved, but his father’s words had been playing on repeat over and over in his head. He only had one life to live, he only had this one life to make things right, and, Jesus Christ, he was going to do his damnedest to do just that.

His first week in town had been quiet, and other than watching
his girls from afar, he’d left them alone. The twins lived together in a large apartment building not far from the college they were attending, but Maribelle lived alone in a studio apartment above an antiques store. Unlike the twins she was often alone, her only social interaction with the customers at a nearby café where she worked.

Several days in a row after work,
Jase had stood across the street, hidden by his heavy winter wear, just watching her through the foggy glass windows of the café. While she might smile at the people she was waiting on, Jase knew it was fake and forced. Maribelle, when she was truly happy, showed her teeth when she smiled. These smiles looked almost painful, her lips pressed tightly together, her brow furrowed and pinched. And the dimple he knew to be on the left side of her cheek never once revealed itself.

Unlike the twins, who were happily behavi
ng as most college students do and seeming to have a booming social life, Maribelle had shut down. No longer was she the ambitious girl she’d once been, peppy and spunky, and who’d graduated from college with honors. Ignoring her degree, she’d become a waitress, and had taken to hiding from the world instead of participating in it. He could only attribute her downward spiral to the many responsibilities she’d been laden with after her mother had gone to jail. Taking care of the twins, being the mother they no longer had, as well as keeping up with Chrissy’s legal matters, Maribelle had forgotten to take care of herself.

He could
have gone straight to the twins. Without Maribelle around to influence them, he didn’t doubt he’d at least get them to hear what he had to say, but it was Maribelle who was suffering the most, and going behind her back to her sisters wouldn’t earn him any favors with her.

It was
Maribelle’s love and respect he needed to win back first, and then the twins would follow.

And so, on his seventh day in town, he decided to finally show his face.
Once he’d parked his truck across the street from where she worked, he tried desperately to clean the grease from his hands. After succeeding in wiping most of it onto his coveralls, he took a glimpse in the rearview mirror at himself. Gone was the good-looking, cocky son of a bitch he’d once been. He was looking his age lately, older and infinitely more tired. Most days he went without shaving, and he hadn’t gotten around to getting a haircut in quite a while.

Sadly, he was beginning to look the part of a man who
’d lost everything.

The bells on the door jingled as he pushed it open,
and everyone in the small café turned to look at him, even Maribelle. Standing beside a small round table with two seated customers, she was wearing a small black apron, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, and she had a pen and pad of paper in her hand. In the process of scribbling something down when she’d heard the bells, she glanced up and then back down, instantly dismissing him.

As she went back to writing on her pad
, Jase’s heart started to pound in his chest. He was entertaining the thought of turning around, his tail tucked between his legs, when her head snapped back up. Her eyes looked him over, from head to toe and back up again, before growing wide with surprise.

G
rabbing the bill of his ball cap, Jase pulled it from his head, ran a hand through his messy hair, and gave his daughter a small smile.

Looking bewildered, Maribelle glanced back down at her customers, said a few words that
Jase couldn’t make out, and began making her way toward him. He watched as she walked, her steps unsure and small, and remembered instead the little girl who used to come barreling down the driveway when he’d come home from a reserves weekend or a long run with the club.

Stopping in front of him, she tucked her pen into the base of her ponytail and shoved her notepad into the front of her apron.

“What are you doing here?” she asked quietly. “And why are you wearing that?” She gestured to his coveralls.

“
Been workin’ at Pop’s a few blocks thataway,” he said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. “Doin’ custom work and shit.”

Maribelle
’s caramel-colored eyes grew even wider. “Why?” she whispered. “I mean, what? Do you live here now?”

Clutching his hat in front of him,
Jase twisted the mesh material, beginning to feel uneasy. He could almost envision the very loud, very public scene she would make if the knowledge that he’d moved to her town rubbed her the wrong way. And he didn’t want to get her fired because of him. If that happened, it would just be one more thing he would have to try to make right, and the list was already too long as it was.

So he changed tactics.

“Left the club,” he said, keeping his voice low and hoping she’d take the hint and do the same. “Moved here to try and make shit right.”

“
You left the club,” she repeated dumbly, staring blankly up at him. “You left the club you’ve been a part of your entire life, that you’ve always chosen above everything else, even your own family?”

Jase
’s knuckles cracked as the grip on his hat tightened. Yeah, he was a crappy dad. And he deserved every single piece of shit she was going to fling his way.

“
Yeah,” he said hoarsely, “but I ain’t been there my whole life, there was something I did before the club, somethin’ I was, that was a fuck of a lot more important than a club. Took me a while to figure it out, Belle, but I was a father first and I wanna be your father again.”

Uncomfortable silence filled the small space between them, during which
Jase could practically feel the rejection that was sure to come, when suddenly Maribelle’s gaze dropped to the floor, her lips twisting and flattening. He knew that look. That was the look his little girl made when she was trying not to cry.

“
Belle,” he said softly. “I didn’t come here to upset you. Just wanted you to know how much I love you and your sisters. Just wanted a chance to be a family again.”

“
You just expect me to forgive you?” she whispered, still blinking. A drop fell from her lowered eyelashes and onto the floor near her sneakers. “Just because you quit the club and moved to my town, I’m just supposed to forget? Just like that?”

“
No,” he said, wishing he could pull her into a hug, wishing that things were simple again, that his girls were still little and all their hurts easily fixed with just a little bit of love.

“
I’m not expectin’ anything,” he said. “Was just maybe hopin’ for the chance to try . . .”

When she didn
’t respond, Jase took her silence as his cue to leave. Putting his cap back on, he pulled the bill down low and cleared his throat.

“
I’ll leave you alone now,” he whispered. “You ever want to talk, I’m living on Forest Street. Got that little white house on the corner.”

He turned to go, feeli
ng sick and suffocated by the disappointment quickly filling him, when he felt a light touch on his bicep.

“
Wait,” Maribelle said.

Turning back around
, he found her eyes on him, filled with unshed tears. “I have a break coming up,” she said, swallowing hard.

Jase
couldn’t believe it, that she was actually letting him in, and despite himself, he smiled at her. A real, goddamn, genuine fucking smile.

“
Great,” he said, his voice cracking. “’Cause your old man would love to buy you a cup of joe.”

Despite her tears, Maribelle snorted.
“You sound like Grandpa.”

As his daughter walked off,
Jase finished stomping off the snow from his boots before heading to the back of the café to find a quiet place to sit. While he waited for Maribelle to join him, he couldn’t help but think that sounding like his old man, or even being like his old man, something he’d never thought of as a compliment before, was just about the very best thing he’d ever heard.

A cup of coffee appeared in front of him as Maribelle took the seat opposite him. Placing her hands in her lap, she glanced up at him.

“So,” she said softly. “What should we talk about?”

Reaching for his coffee, wrapp
ing his had around the warm mug and feeling the same sort of warmth beginning to spread within him, Jase shrugged.

“Everything,” he said.
“I want to know everything.”

The road to redemption might be damn hard, but in the end
—if you reached the end—his father was right. It was worth it.

Maribelle was worth it.

Funny how her birth was the reason he’d started running, but she ended up being the reason he’d stopped.

Life was really fucking funny that way.

“
To Hawk!” Cox shouted, lifting a bottle of whiskey up into the air. “A brother through and through!”

In unison, all the boys standing around the clubhouse bar picked up their shot glasses and thr
ew back their drinks.

“
To Hawk!” they shouted back.

“
To my dad!” Christopher chimed in from his seat beside Hawk. He raised his glass of soda in the air and the men around him cheered again. Seeing him, so young, praising his father alongside the boys . . .

Well, if it
weren’t for Tegen standing beside me, for taking my hand into hers and giving me a hard squeeze, I would have lost it right then and there.

I had only one hour left. One hour left with him
, and I was forced to spend it at the clubhouse sharing my last hour with everyone else. I understood that everybody wanted to say their good-byes, but after a night of making love, very little sleep, and a tear-filled morning, the club was the last place I wanted to be.

I wasn
’t ready to let go.

I would
never be ready to let go.

“
Don’t drop the soap!” Tap called out, his lewd implication prompting a round of hearty laughter.

“
And to Prez,” Cox continued when the laughter had died down. He turned to face Deuce. “For givin’ all us assholes a fuckin’ home!”

Standing just outside his office door
s, Deuce was leaning back against the wall, his arms folded over his chest, watching them all with a solemn expression on his face.

“
And to Foxy!” Cox’s gaze slid to where Eva was standing beside her husband, and his smile turned into his typical shit-eating grin. “For makin’ us assholes a family!”

“
And to Cox!” Kami shouted. “For giving us all something to laugh at!”

“
And to Kami!” Cox shot back. “For spending all my damn money!”

“
Good God,” I muttered, dropping Tegen’s hand and turning away from everyone. As happy as I was that Cox and Kami seemed to be back to their normal selves, I couldn’t take it, not one more second of it. Everyone acting like this was just another day, making stupid jokes, completely oblivious that Hawk was about to go to jail for crimes he didn’t commit. All because Deuce wouldn’t be swayed by the same cartel who put Hawk in this position in the first place.

“
Mom!” Tegen called out as I stormed away from her. Picking up speed I ignored her, hurrying toward the hallway that would lead me to the back of the club and away from the uncaring, unfeeling ridiculousness happening all around me.

Thankfully I found Hawk
’s bedroom door unlocked, and as I slammed it behind me I burst into tears.

The last month had been a whirlwind of emotions, overwhelming to say the least
, and now it was all coming to a head—all the realizations, the regret, the tears, the unstoppable flood of feelings, and it was just too much. I couldn’t take it, couldn’t process all that had happened in such a short time. Even more, I couldn’t fathom how it had all gone by so quickly and was ending before it had really had a chance to even begin.

With tears streaming down my cheeks, I took a seat on the edge of Hawk
’s neatly made bed, and through blurry eyes looked around the small room. The room where this had started all those years ago. Where two people had come together for reasons unknown to them at the time, but in the end . . .

I sighed. How could I be angry?
Losing myself to anger at a time like this would only be selfish and serve no purpose.

Feeling calmer and more in control, I was wiping my cheeks when the door creaked open. Hawk
limped slowly into the room on his crutches, and awkwardly used his elbow to shut the door behind him.

“
They don’t mean any harm,” he said. “They’re only tryin’ to keep shit light for my sake.”

Pushing my hair away from my face, I sighed loudly.
“I know. I just . . . I just . . . I can’t . . .”

Letting out another sigh, a frustrated one because I couldn
’t put my feelings into words that I hadn’t already used a hundred times before, I pushed myself up off the bed and crossed the room. Slipping my arms around his waist, I leaned my head against his abdomen.

“
It just hurts,” I managed to finish in a small voice. “Why does everything have to always hurt so bad?”

“
Because life hurts.” He dropped his face onto the top of my head, burying his nose into my hair and inhaling deeply. “Hidin’ is fuckin’ easy. It’s really livin’ that’s hard, that sometimes hurts like a son of a bitch.

“
But, D,” he continued, slowly rubbing his nose back and forth across the top of my head. “We keep ridin’ that shit because it’s worth it, baby. When all is said and fuckin’ done, when we ain’t got no more time left, we’re gonna be grateful for those rides.

“
I’m grateful,” he finished softly. “For you, for Christopher, and for the club.”

I didn
’t say anything; there was nothing left to say. These moments, they ended here and now, and tomorrow a new chapter in my life would begin. So I just held on to him, to this moment, breathing him in, committing his scent to memory, and reveling in the feel of his big, warm body surrounding mine.

I
’d always both admired and envied Hawk’s strength. He was a man through and through.

But now it was my turn to be strong.

For him. For us. For our family.

And come hell or high water, I was determined to
do just that.

• • •

Throughout the course of his life, Hawk had lived through some really bad days. Some real ugly shit that most times was just easier to forget than to go through the pain of working through it.

This wasn
’t one of those times.

This was far, far worse.

Seated on the couch beside his son, Hawk slid his arm around the boy’s small shoulders. Holding him close, he gave Christopher one last squeeze.

“
Gotta get goin’,” he said roughly. “But I’ll be seein’ you soon.”

As his son looked up at him, messy red hair framing
a face full of confusion and hurt, Hawk had a hard time keeping his emotions in check. It was the first time in a long time that he’d so much as felt the urge to cry, the last time being the night after he’d watched a bullet tear through his father’s skull. Since then, he’d felt a shit ton of emotions, some good, most bad, but none that had the ability to gut him like one look from his kid could.

“
Gimme a hug,” he whispered, giving Christopher a tug. As the boy turned his body into Hawk’s and wrapped his skinny arms around his neck, Hawk squeezed his eyes tightly shut and put every ounce of himself into that hug.

“
You take care of your mom,” he whispered, burying his face into his son’s hair. “Promise me you’ll take care of your mom.”

Against his shoulder he felt Christopher
’s head nod, and that was good enough for him.

Opening his eyes, he found Tegen already waiting to take Christopher. His chest aching, he nodded at her and released his son.

“Come here, little brother,” Tegen said softly.

Christopher clung to him, refusing to budge
, and when Hawk tried to forcefully pry him from his body, the boy let out a small sob. In that moment, at the sound of his son crying, Hawk could no longer keep it together. Cupping the back of his son’s head, holding his small body tightly to him, he let his own tears fall, uncaring who saw them, and just held his boy as close as he could. Because, god-fucking-dammit, the next time he’d have this chance, to be free to hold his boy, his boy was going to be a man.

He was going to miss it all.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, what came next was as equally miserable.

Once Christopher was in Tegen
’s arms and Cage was helping Hawk to his feet, the rest of the boys began to get up from their seats. One by one they lined up by the door, their expressions ranging from solemn to just plain sad.

Holding Christopher tightly to her, Tegen grabbed Hawk
’s hand, threaded her fingers through his, and gave his hand a hard squeeze. It was a surprising gesture, coming from Tegen, but one that Hawk welcomed.

“
Come back to them,” she whispered. “Come back to them or I’ll come kill you.”

Using the crutch under his right arm to hold his
weight, he reached for Tegen. He wrapped his hand around the back of her head and pulled her forward to kiss her soundly on her cheek. Then, after doing the same to Christopher, he started for the boys.

It was slow going with those damn crutches of his, only making the journey across the room even worse, forcing him to look longer at all those forlorn faces awaiting him.

Mick was first, and that damn softie of an old man pulled him into a gripping hug. “Might be dead by the time you get out, so I’m givin’ your ass a fuckin’ hug.”

Beside him
, Freebird snorted. “He ain’t gonna be dead,” the old hippie said. “But I will, so come ’ere and lay some sugar on me, darlin’.”

As
Freebird hugged him, giving him a purposely sloppy kiss on the cheek, a titter of laughter trickled down the line of men.

Next was Dirty
, and knowing that the man hated any sort of physical contact with anyone, Hawk simply held out his fist, waiting for a tap. But Dirty surprised everyone by taking Hawk’s fist between both his hands and squeezing.

“
I’ll see you later, brother,” the man said. Touched, Hawk could only nod in response.

He continued down the line
, saying good-bye to Bucket, Worm, Danny D. and Danny L., Tap, Anger, and Chips, and then to the nomads Marsh, Dimebag, and Tramp. Handshakes, back slaps, and more hugs than he’d ever been given before in his life were all exchanged.

When he reached Cox,
despite his black eye and swollen lip, courtesy of Kami, the asshole was grinning.

“
Remember,” Cox said. “Don’t be droppin’ the fuckin’ soap, brother.”

Sn
orting, Hawk crooked a finger. “Come here, asswipe,” he said and when Cox leaned in, Hawk grabbed the back of his head and pulled him into a hug.

“
You and Kami,” Hawk whispered. “Don’t let whatever bullshit she’s always spoutin’ come between you two. You keep her happy, keep you happy, and I can fuckin’ promise you, I won’t be droppin’ any soap.”

Shoving
a surprised Cox away from him, Hawk gave him a light slap across the face, flashed him a very Cox-like grin, and then turned away to face Ripper, the last man in line.

Hawk loved all his brothers, but like in all groups of friends or clubs, some people were closer than others
. And although Hawk had made a point to never really get close to anyone so he could keep his past where it belonged—in the past—he’d been a loner.

So when it came to having actual friends, he didn
’t have a damn one, but what he did have was Ripper. They’d clicked in some way, leaving Hawk always feeling comfortable in his presence. In his own way he’d looked out for Ripper and Ripper for him, kept each other’s secrets, and always had each other’s back. That was mutual respect, brothers to the end, and to Hawk that was far better than having a “friend.”

“
My boy—” Hawk started and Ripper immediately shook his head.

“
You don’t gotta ask,” he said. “Dude, you know I got you.”

Then
Hawk handed Ripper his crutches, and after awkwardly shrugging out of his cut, took back his crutches and handed over his vest.

“
You’re gonna be wearin’ this again,” Ripper said. “You fuckin’ will, brother.”

“
Damn straight,” was Hawk’s answer. And as Ripper pulled him into a hug, Hawk might have hugged the man a little tighter than he’d hugged the others.

And lastly, were Deuce and Eva. Standing side by side near the door, Eva gestured for him to come to her.
As she wrapped her arms around his middle, Hawk rested his chin on top of her head, keeping his eyes on Deuce.

“
Keep an eye on that old man of yours,” he said softly. “I want him bossin’ my ass around the second I get outta there.”

“
I promise,” she whispered, sniffing as she pulled away.

With Deuce by his side
, Hawk turned around to look at the club and the boys one last time. He took it all in, the building he called home, the faces of the men he called brothers, before his gaze stopped on Christopher, and the tears running down the boy’s cheeks. When he couldn’t take another fucking second of it, seeing all that love and sadness—especially from his son—and all of it for him, he turned around and walked the fuck out.

“
I’ll be in the truck,” Deuce muttered, storming past him. “Take as long as you need.”