“You heard me tell him that I have you earlier, but I just talked to him again and I told him that my plan was to pit Stone against Raptor. Stone still wants you, too. Apparently, he didn’t like getting stabbed with a pool stick.” Jackson swiped his garlic bread around his plate, scooping up the last of his sauce and looked at the pot on the stove. “Can I have more?”
I fought a grin. He was just like Micah in some ways. I took his plate and walked to the stove. “I was aiming for his head.”
“It’s actually a simple plan and one I hope works, because if not, I have to go in guns blazing and that might piss off the local cops.” He smirked. “Not that I mind.”
I piled his plate his with noodles and sauce again before adding more garlic bread and handing it back to him. I nodded my head towards his beer. “Another?”
He shook his head. “I’m good, thanks.”
I fixed him a glass of sweet tea and shook my head at how domestic it all felt.
“He’s going to tell Stone and Raptor that we have you and tell them the highest bidder gets you. The thing about the Devils’ president is that he’s a fucking idiot. It hasn’t crossed his mind that they’ll retaliate against him. Raptor more than Stone. Bay MC and the Wolves have already been at war. Stone and his men set off a fucking bomb outside of the Wolves compound. It killed a few of the brothers. Raptor retaliated with an insane drive-by outside of the Bay MC. Killed even more. I’m hoping with the added pressure from the Devils, they’ll just all fucking kill each other.
“The Devils agreed to help find you, for the money, but the president never agreed to turn you over. It’s going to force Raptor to attack the Devils. Which also helps with my case. The Devils will retaliate, too, and then the cops can storm in and save the day. Arrest the ones who aren’t dead. And if Stone and Raptor aren’t dead…I’ll go in and finish it.”
I sat down across from him and grasped my glass. The ice cubes were melting and the amber-colored tea was getting lighter. “Crimson Security has a loose regard of the law, huh?”
He stared at me. “It has nothing to do with Crimson. It’s personal.”
My stomach fluttered and I just nodded. The whole thing needed to end soon because the longer I was around the not-so-mean version of Jackson, the harder it was to remember that we weren’t actually together.
“It’s a dumb plan, really. I’m counting on all these assholes being as dumb as they seem. So far, they haven’t surprised me.”
“Won’t the Devils expect you to show up with me?”
“I told the president that I was keeping you in a different location to make sure no one tried to snatch you away to get the money for themselves.”
“He must really trust you.”
Jackson frowned and nodded. “I earned it.”
I hated seeing him look like that, so I stood up and moved behind him to gently massage his shoulders. I wasn’t following the rules I’d made in my head about staying away from him, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. I stroked my fingers over his neck and brushed them through his hair. “How long do you think it will take?”
How long do we have left together?
He sighed and caught me to pull me into his lap. Micah had been in bed for an hour already, exhausted from more training. Jackson buried his face in my hair and exhaled slowly. “It’s a toss-up. Depends on how amped up they all are. I know the president already made the call to both Raptor and Stone. It could be as early as tomorrow night or a week from now. Who knows?”
I wrapped my arms around his neck and laughed when he reached around me for another piece of garlic bread. “I’m not sure whether I should be insulted that I can’t hold your attention over bread or really flattered that you like my bread so much.”
He grunted. “Flattered. You make the best food. I’ll miss it.”
And there it was. The awkward fact that, although it felt like we were starting something, we weren’t starting anything.
I cupped his face in my hands and forced his eyes to mine. “Do you think you can tear yourself away from the bread for a little while?”
“What did you have in mind? It’d have to be something really good to tear me away from your cooking.”
I grinned. It was probably stupid, but I didn’t know when I’d get the chance to feel anything like what I felt in Jackson’s arms again. I wanted to have plenty of hot memories for the cold nights. “Come on.”
I led him outside and pushed him down on the swing. Then I lifted my dress and straddled his lap. Reaching between us, I undid his pants and pulled him out.
He was already hard and ready. “Jesus, Camila.”
I lowered myself onto him and moaned as he filled me. I dropped my dress back down and held onto his shoulders. “This will always be better than my cooking.”
He captured my mouth in a hot kiss as I started to ride him. “I’ll definitely miss this more.”
*
Another week passed before Jackson stomped into the house one night and waved his phone at me. “It happened.”
I looked up from where I was reading next to Micah and my heart stopped for a second.
He looked wild, standing in the entryway to the living room, his hair longer and even more unruly than ever. His eyes were bright and I could see the pulse fluttering at his throat from the excitement of doing his job well and his glance flickered between me and Micah. He’d spent nearly every day with Micah, teaching him how to protect himself, and every night with me, teaching me new ways to try to touch the heavens.
I put my book down and nodded. “When do you…”
He came over and pulled me up from the couch. “We’ll be back in a few minutes, Micah.”
Micah didn’t look up from his game. “Yeah, yeah, grown-up stuff.”
Jackson pulled me outside and to the swing. We’d broken it the week before, but he’d fixed it. “Tomorrow morning. I need to go and make sure it’s really over. That just got sucked into another investigation, so he’s already splitting his time. He can’t really get away. I want to make sure that Raptor is dead.”
Ignoring the pain in my chest, I nodded. “What happened?”
“The Wolves tried to pull a drive-by on the Devils, but Stone was already at the compound, trying to sweeten his offer. They chased the Wolves and ended up in a shootout on the side of Interstate 18. The guys who aren’t in the morgue or the hospital are in jail. There were several witnesses. The Devils made it out better than I hoped, so I still have a job to get back to. After I check out the Raptor angle. His name didn’t appear in the reports so far.”
I just kept nodding.
“I’ll send a message when I know anything about him.”
I bit my lip and shook my head. Of course, he wouldn’t come back to deliver the news himself. I didn’t know what I was thinking. That, maybe, he’d want to see me one more time before he said goodbye for forever. For all I knew, he wasn’t concerned about it at all.
Except, I knew that wasn’t true. He liked me. He liked us. Micah had gotten under his skin, too. We’d been living like some weird family and I knew it had grown on him. Maybe that was it, though. Everything I was thinking made us sound like some sort of fungus. Under his skin and growing on him. Not everyone wanted family and forever. Even if he liked us, that wouldn’t necessarily translate into a relationship for him.
That seemed to be the case.
“I’m going to ask one of the guys to send someone your way to help you get started on the paperwork for adopting Micah. We know a few judges and lawyers who will make it easier for you.”
I blinked as I stared out at the night sky. Black, like his eyes. There were no stars showing and as I breathed deeply, I could smell a storm on the horizon. Figured.
“They can also help you get him set up in the local school. I’m sure you don’t need help, but I took a bunch of your bread to a restaurant in town yesterday. It worked better than a resume. You have an interview the day after tomorrow. The owner has been doing all the cooking himself for the last year or two, but he seemed tired when I talked to him. I’m sure it wouldn’t be hard to talk him into taking a break and giving you a chance.”
I closed my eyes and listened to him rattle off everything he’d done to make my life easier. He’d thought of everything.
“I also checked out a local carpenter. If you need help, he’s the best guy in town for the job. He’s got a clean background, too. A pretty wife with four kids already. Seemed safe enough.”
I’d been early with thinking he’d covered everything, apparently.
“I wanted to give Micah a gift, so I paid for him to have store credit for a while at that bookstore. It should keep him in books for a while. Who knows with him, though. He could use it all tomorrow and be bored again by Wednesday.”
It was too much. Not just the gifts, but the whole thing. He was acting like he was a soldier, returning to war. He wasn’t being drafted, though. He was choosing to leave us and never come back. I had to wonder if the gifts were a way to clear his conscience.
“He’ll love it. And when the books run out and he misses you, I’ll just throw a few more books at him.” I stood up and paced the uneven earth in front of the swing. “Eventually, he’ll stop missing you, I’m sure.”
He growled. “I’m just trying to”
“Appease your conscience? Oops, I made the pathetic single wannabe mother and her orphan kid fall for me. I better throw some gifts at them so they won’t notice the gaping hole when I leave. They don’t help, Jackson. You know what he’s going to think when he finds out about the books? What a great man you’d be to have in his life. You paid attention to him and you cared enough to do that. And me? I’m thinking that there’s a man who makes me come like crazy and cared enough to take care of me.” I wiped away an angry tear. “But not enough to stay.”
I gasped as the unfairness of it all hit me. “No one stays. Jesus Christ. No one ever stays.
“It’s my fault. Of course, I knew you were leaving. I knew it and I still managed to fuck up enough to care about you. So much.”
Jackson looked away from my gaze and gripped the seat of the swing. “You knew I was leaving, Camila.”
I turned my back to him as the first drops of rain fell. One hit me on the tip of my nose and dripped off. I swallowed down the emotion and nodded. “You’re right. Sorry.”
He stood up and touched my shoulder. “Come on. Let’s get inside.”
I looked up at the sky and sighed. Maybe, if I used my imagination, I could see the pitch-black sky as Jackson’s eyes and the rain as him caring enough to shed a few tears for me. “Go on in without me.”
“Are you sure? It’s going to rain.”
I forced a smile as I looked back at him and nodded. “Yeah.”
“Okay. I’m going to talk to Micah. You want me to wait for you?”
And see the look of heartbreak on Micah’s face that I knew would mirror my own? No thanks. “No. You guys can handle it.”
He nodded slowly and walked to the screen door. “I’ll wait up for you.”
I waited until he got inside to really cry. It wasn’t pretty. I was angry at myself for being stupid and I was angry at Jackson for turning out to be a good guy. I was devastated because I’d ignored reality and let myself feel like we were a family. I’d never experienced a healthy version of that before. Well, I guess I still hadn’t.
The rain started slowly at first, sprinkling me in a fine layer that took a while to actually wet my skin. Then it fell harder, washing away my tears with it, and leaving me drenched and shivering. It was brutal as it pounded me, but I just sat on the swing and welcomed the slight stinging.
Life had never been fair, but I’d never expected it to be. Even with the stuff with the club, I never felt like I was being slighted. I knew it wasn’t personal. I’d gotten a crappy hand in life. I wasn’t happy about any of it, but I expected it. I hadn’t expected to mourn the loss of Jackson.
Which just made me an idiot. He was a force to be reckoned with. I should’ve known he’d be a hard man to lose.
Eventually Micah came outside and sat beside me. He looked like he’d cried, too, but the rain made it hard to tell. He curled into my side and I held him.
A good mother would’ve taken him back inside right away. The rain was chilly and we’d both probably get a cold. When I looked down at him, though, he looked like I felt. We needed to just be washed clean of everything for a while.