“You forget how to chop wood, son?”

Jase glared at his father.

No, he hadn’t fucking forgotten how to chop wood; he’d fucking forgotten how to function without some sort of liquor coursing through his veins.

After sleeping off his hangover, he’d woken up in need of a drink only to find that the remaining liquor in Cage’s truck had mysteriously disappeared, as had his keys. At first he’d been pissed off, storming through his parents’ house, wildly searching through the cupboards and ransacking the closets. And then he’d been desperate, even going as far as to look under beds and in his parents’ dresser drawers for a bottle of anything. Any-fucking-thing. Only to come up empty. Not only that, he’d ended up with his father’s meaty fist slamming into his face.

While lying on the floor, his vision going in and out, he’d thought he’d heard his father calling him a goddamn drunk and his mother arguing that he wasn’t, but was only in need of a good cleanup.

After that, everything grew a little fuzzy. The next thing he knew he was in his old bed, hanging over the side, puking up whatever was left in his empty stomach into a small trash can his poor mother held beneath his head.

He spent the next few days either in bed sleeping away the physical misery his body was enduring or pacing his room, trying to walk off the constant nausea and the need to make a liquor store run. Which he would have if his father hadn’t been standing guard outside his bedroom with a .22 rifle cradled in his arms. Even Jase’s oldest brother, Daniel, had joined the party, and was taking turns with their father to babysit him.

It was both humiliating and sobering, pun fucking intended.

And now that he could walk without shaking and speak without retching, his father had a list of chores for him to do. But instead of calling them chores, his dear old dad was fondly referring to them as necessary punishments for being such a dumbass.

Shoveling the driveway and sidewalk had been first on his list of dumbassery punishments, followed by cleaning the windows from the inside, scraping the grime off the old claw-foot tub upstairs, straightening up the holy mess that was the attic, mending a broken log in the backyard fence, and now, God help him, he was chopping wood in the snow. Had been at it all day because, for reasons unknown to him, his parents had a deep-rooted love of wood-burning stoves.

Then, to make already shitty circumstances even worse, his other brother had shown up this morning with his wife and two little kids in tow. One girl, one boy, dressed in the obligatory blue and pink, both cherub-faced, well-behaved little fuckers who adored their parents and only served to agitate Jase when everyone else was fawning over them. In fact, he almost preferred being outside, freezing his ass off, turning his hands into blister-ridden messes to being cooped up inside the house with the happy fucking family.

Over and over again he’d continuously asked himself why he’d come here, and he’d still be asking himself at that very moment if he hadn’t already figured out the answer.

As usual, his old man had been right about him. He was a drunk. He’d started drinking heavily the moment he’d found out the baby Dorothy had given birth to wasn’t his, that Hawk had betrayed the bonds of brotherhood, and to top it all off, Dorothy didn’t even remember him and subsequently wanted nothing to do with him.

So he’d kept drinking all through Chrissy’s trial, and throughout the years that followed. He struggled to be a father, but instead ended up as a nuisance to his girls, a motherfucking embarrassment too caught up in his own bullshit to be able to pay any attention to them.

And then even later, after Dorothy’s memories had returned and he kept trying to speak to her, each time getting rejected, he turned time and time again to the bottle to stave off the pain she caused him with every word she wouldn’t speak, every look she wouldn’t give, every touch she withheld from him.

As the years rolled by, he continued throwing drinks back until drinking had become a part of his daily routine. He could function better with alcohol in his system than he could without it.

But truth be told, hindsight was 20/20. After the surprisingly awful bout of withdrawal he’d just endured, he’d come to the conclusion that his old man, as fucking usual, was right.

He, Jason Brady, was a goddamn drunk.

And despite his liquor-soaked brain cells, coming home had obviously been an unconscious cry for much-needed help.

So he was chopping wood, or rather he was trying to chop wood. Not an easy task when his muscles felt like jelly, and the sharp smell of cedar wasn’t helping his constant nausea.

Even though he was taller and in much better shape than his father, Jase could barely lift the ax, let alone get enough momentum to split logs in one swing, leaving him feeling like a goddamn little girl. Except a little girl would probably be far more useful to his father than he currently was.

“You thought about whatcha gonna do after this?” Walter asked. Not waiting for Jase’s response, his father swung the ax and the thick log split a good ways down the center. Pausing, his father used the woolen sleeve of his thick flannel jacket to wipe the sweat from his brow before he swung again.

As the wood split into two separate pieces and fell from the chopping block, his father tossed the ax aside and turned to look at Jase.

“So?” he asked. “Whatcha gonna do?”

Jase stared at him, confused by the question. What did he mean, what was he going to do?

“Go home,” he started off slowly. “Go back to—”

“The club,” Walter finished for him. “And sleepin’ around and drinkin’, no doubt.”

Jase paused for a moment, letting his father’s words sink in. And when they did, he couldn’t help but realize that, yeah, that was more than likely exactly what would happen. But what other choice did he have? He couldn’t live with his parents. Men in their forties didn’t live with their parents, not if they could help it, and he damn sure couldn’t stay in this town. Not with the threat of running into Chrissy’s family. If his arrival here was made public, there wasn’t a doubt in Jase’s mind that a lynch mob, complete with pitchforks and shotguns, would be gunning for him with Chrissy’s father in the lead.

So then, what was left? He couldn’t very well rejoin the reserves, not at his age and with his record. All he had was the club. It was all he knew at this point.

“The club.” Jase nodded slowly. “I ain’t got nothin’ else.”

His father frowned at him, not that the man wasn’t already frowning at him to begin with. In fact, all his father had done since his arrival was frown and shake his head while grumbling under his breath.

“You know what they say about makin’ the same mistake over and over again, and thinkin’ it’s gonna be different this time?”

“No, Dad.” Jase sighed. “What do they say?”

“They say it’s damn crazy, is what they say!”

Jase scrubbed his gloved hand across his jaw. “Then what, Dad? What the fuck do you think I should do?”

“No!” Walter shot back. “What the fuck do YOU think you should do? You’re a grown man, son, not a little boy. And it’s time you start actin’ like it.”

Jase knew his father was right, was dead fucking right, but still, hearing the man say it, call him out on his bullshit point-blank . . . didn’t feel so good.

“Get a job?” Jase suggested with a limp shrug of his shoulder. He really didn’t know what his father expected of him. How could he leave the club? Leave Deuce and the boys? It wasn’t computing in his head.

“You’re gettin’ warmer,” Walter said with a sigh. “Get a job where?”

Jase stared at the older man, utterly perplexed. “Anywhere?”

His father, despite the man’s love of calling people out on their wrongdoings, had always been a fairly even-tempered guy. So when he suddenly lurched forward and grabbed the collar of Jase’s jacket, using it to wrench him forward, Jase was shocked speechless.

“What do you want most in the damn world?” Walter gritted out, his breath smelling of the butterscotch candies he’d always loved.

“More than anything else,” he continued, tightening his grip on Jase’s collar. “What do you want from this life you’re so quick to give up? ’Cause you aren’t gonna get another one. There are no second chances once you’ve closed those eyes for the last damn time. So I’m gonna ask you again, Jason, what do you damn well want?”

Jase’s thoughts went wild, spinning around before fanning out in a mad scramble. What did he want? What the fuck did he want? What did he really truly want more than anything?

He didn’t have to think about it for very long.

“I want my girls,” he said quietly. “I want my kids back.”

“And how you gonna make that happen?” Walter asked.

Jase didn’t know how he was going to make that happen, but he knew one thing for certain. As long as he was a Hell’s Horseman, his girls would have nothing to do with him.

“I gotta leave the club,” he whispered, dropping his gaze to the snow-covered lawn. “Get a job, somewhere near the girls, maybe.”

When his father didn’t readily respond, Jase glanced up to find the old man smiling at him. It was a satisfied smile, and one that Jase had never seen before. Correction, it was a look that Jase had never seen directed at him before.

“You’ve always been a good mechanic,” Walter said, releasing him. Bending down with a grunt, his father grabbed the handle of the ax and swung it up over his shoulder.

Then, in typical Walter Brady fashion, without another word he turned around and walked away, leaving Jase standing there alone with his thoughts, staring off across his parents’ acreage, feeling as empty and as cold as his surroundings.

The very thought of leaving the club left him with a fear he’d never felt before. When everyone else had left, the club had always been there. It was his foundation. His safe place. His whole world.

And maybe that was his biggest problem. The club was his crutch, the one place he could hide from the mess he’d made of his life.

He swallowed back a wave of sickness that had nothing to do with his detoxing body and everything to do with the fear of living outside the club. He’d be a regular joe. No band of brothers, be it military or motorcycle club, to tell him what to do, or catch him when he fell flat on his face. And he always did fall flat on his damn face.

But his girls . . . Without them, what was he?

As far as he could see, without them he wasn’t worth a damn.

“Uncle Jason! Uncle Jason!”

Jase turned, barely having time to jump out of the way as his niece and nephew came barreling through the snow, nearly waist deep on them both. They were wearing matching pink and blue snowsuits that made them look like tiny colorful marshmallows.

“Build a snowman with us!” the girl yelled as they ran past him. Jase tried to smile at them, but failed. Neither child had ever met him before, yet they’d instantly accepted him as their uncle. It only deepened his yearning to be reunited with his own children, who wouldn’t be nearly as accepting, if at all.

His younger brother, Michael, who’d been quickly following his children, paused beside Jase with a smile on his face. Of course he was smiling at him. Michael was a Brady, and Bradys loved their family despite their faults.

“How’s it going, big brother?” he asked, knocking Jase softly on the shoulder with his fist.

Brother.

It struck him then they he might no longer have the reserves, and if he left the club he’d no longer have the boys, but he’d always have his family, complete with two brothers who would always have his back.

“Listen,” Jase said. “I owe you an apology—”

Michael shook his head. “Nah,” he said. “We all knew you’d come home again.”

Jase studied the younger man, almost a mirror image of himself back when he was still in thirties. Yet instead of the hard lines and firm jaw that Jase had inherited from their father, Michael had a more rounded face with wide blue eyes like their mother’s that gave him a perpetual youthful appearance.

Remembering when they were kids and how Michael had always looked up to him, Jase felt a wave of guilt wash over him. Michael might easily forgive, but Jase couldn’t forgive himself for not being there for his little brother’s marriage, or for the birth of his children. Those were things Bradys did simply because they loved their family.

Jase didn’t deserve to a Brady.

“Help me out?” Michael suggested. “Those two monsters can go all day, and after Mom let them eat a plate of her sugar cookies . . .” He shook his head. “I’ll be running out of energy long before they do.”

Jase glanced to where the kids were unsuccessfully trying to roll a ball of snow, but instead of seeing his brother’s kids, he saw his own girls in their childhood, running through the snow-covered backyard, bundled from head to toe, grins gracing their innocent faces.

He’d tried so hard to keep them innocent, separate from his other life, from what he did for a living and his numerous indiscretions.

He’d never wanted to hurt them, but he had.

And now it was time to make a change.

“Build a snowman,” he said, giving his brother a sad smile. “Why the hell not?”

Jase wasn’t stupid enough to think that redemption would be handed to him on a silver platter. But as he walked side by side with his brother, leaning down to grab handfuls of snow as he went, he figured he had to start somewhere.

Might as well start with a snowman.