Grumpy ass. I was the one who got kicked by a horse. Not him.
Pretty gave a light chuckle before he tapped Jax on the shoulder. “Why don’t you head to the house and check the damage? We’ll take a look and then bring her over. I think your power’s out in the main house; all the lights are off.”
“No, I’ll stay here. I’ll carry her.” Jax folded his arms over his chest, not looking at me but leaving no room for argument.
“Fine. You can carry her, you bastard. Just go check your house.” Pretty’s voice was still light, a chirpy smile on his tired face, but the way his hand was tight on Jax’s shoulder didn’t leave me with a reassuring feeling.
Nor did Jax’s response.
All his muscles tightened, and instead his stubbornness disappeared in an instant. “I got it.” Jax nodded, before turning to military-man. “You good, Mint?”
Mint? Is that his name? What is with these boys and their names?
“Yeah, I’m good, brother.” He nodded. “Take Pretty with you.”
Jax glanced at Pretty before giving him a nod and began heading toward the door.
Mint slipped off his coat and caught Jax before leaving. “Take this,” he offered, watching as a small smirk slipped on Jax’s face. “It’s so you can bring the girl back some dry clothes. She’s freezing.”
Jax’s eyes skipped back over to me, and the second his eyes met mine, I felt mine fall to the floor. I had never been a coward by any measure, but the moment I saw the concern flicker into his harsh eyes, I couldn’t face it.
If he doesn’t regret leaving me… why does he care?
“All right,” Jax nodded, pulling the coat into his arms, not wearing it, before heading to the barn doors. He paused before closing them behind him, then popped his head back in with a final warning to Mint. “Mind her. She bites.”
The door slammed shut.
Mint looked down at me and I felt my sinking glare return. “He meant the horse,” I hissed.
A quirk of a smile appeared on the man’s stoic face. “I’m sure he did.”
After that, I managed to conceal my clothes behind me as I pulled up my shirt enough for Mint to take a look. He was careful not to make me uncomfortable but also unyielding to let my awkwardness get in the way of his assessment, making me pull my shirt up all the way until the bottoms of my boobs were shoved right in his face. Well, they weren’t that big, so they weren’t suffocating the man, but still…. At least, he stopped my shirt before my nipples poked him in the eye.
It also wasn’t as uncomfortable as I had expected as his eyes went over my scars. He didn’t say anything about them. He didn’t give them a second glance. It was as if there was barely anything more than a scratch in front of him, not the forever scars to prove that I had been mauled.
He confirmed what I had suspected about the bones and about him. He had the training of a military medic; he told me the bones were not broken but bruised and there was no need to go to the hospital.
It was a short examination, but Mint went through a list of warnings and was polite enough to give me his leather club jacket when I began to shake. He seemed hesitant at first, but when the shivering made me cough and jerk at my side, he reluctantly gave it up.
Just when I was sure I was beginning to get hypothermia despite the jacket and suggest that Mint carry me back to the house, since I was sure I couldn’t walk on my own, the two boys returned.
Jax and Pretty barreled in out of the rain, both squealing like little pups about how cold it was and how soaking wet they were. Jax’s eyes went over to me, eyes scanning from my face down until stopping dead at the sight of the jacket around my shoulders.
For a moment the cold I had been fighting off pierced right through me as I couldn’t read the look in his eyes. It jumped to Mint, who shrugged but took a respectful step back out, and although I had no idea what happened, that was all it took for Jax to relax. He took a deep breath and nodded at his brother, sending what seemed like a subtle relief through the otherwise stoic man.
“Um,” I interrupted, catching his attention. “Did you get the power back on?”
“Huh?” Jax frowned at my question, as If I had asked him what the ass of a badger tasted like before he got a hard nudge from beside him.
“Sure did,” Pretty answered, slapping his hands on Jax’s shoulder’s and giving them that squeeze that connected their telepathic communication wavelength. It must have been their weird way of sending unspoken thoughts to each other.
Jax jerked, understanding the question before he nodded back at me. “Yeah. The storm cut the power, but it’s fine. It’s back on now.”
“Oh.” I nodded. “Did you find the fuse box okay?”
“Yeah.” Jax turned and began talking to Mint, not even a heartbeat after my question and I felt myself bristle. Ass.
They spoke in softer voices, but from what I got, it was about Mint’s assessment of me, although I couldn’t understand why I apparently wasn’t allowed to hear. At some point Pretty tapped Jax’s shoulders before wagging a finger and gesturing over his shoulder at me and then at Mint.
Taking notice of me at last, Jax shrugged off his rain coat and pulled a pile of clothes from underneath its cover. He handed them to Pretty and the young man crouched down beside me. He offered out the pile of clothes, a leather jacket sat on top of it.
“You’re gonna have to swap the jacket, sweetheart,” Pretty explained, his expression friendly. “Mint’s gonna need it to ride back, so you’re just going to have to settle with that grumpy ass’s.”
“Ah, of course.” I chuckled, enjoying the little bit of sunshine this youngster was offering me. “You’re so much nicer than your brothers.”
“I wouldn’t say that just yet.” Pretty offered me a wicked grin, the boyishness of his face lost in the angles of his face. It seemed he was more handsome than pretty. “I may peek while you’re changing.”
The suddenness of the comment made me burst out laughing, causing a rippling hiss down my side and the attention of the other two in the barn. Even Max had her head peering over the side as Pretty gave me a smile and placed the clothes next to my lap.
Pretty shrugged and closed the stall gate behind him, giving me some semblance of privacy as I struggled to change my clothes. There was a pair of panties in my pile, and realizing it was no doubt Jax going through my panties drawer made me glare down at the frilly pink ones he had chosen. He had also pulled out the bra that matched the panties, but they were a nice pair that I avoided because they were a little tight in a way that made my boobs look a little more pronounced and my ass a bit rounded.
I forewent them this time as well, not wanting to put them on over my bruises. I swapped my jeans and shirt for dry ones and tucked the unwanted garments into the pocket of Jax’s leather jacket. It was warm. Much warmer than Mint’s had been. I figured it was because of Jax’s high body temperature. It came with that leather musk, stained with patches of oil with wrinkles and creases from years of wear. The labels, Road Captain and the stripes, name badge, and territory label were all hand sewn.
In my drifting mind, I didn’t realize that the door had been opened and Jax stood leaning against the opening to the stall. His eyes were watching me with his hawk-like vision. He was quiet… observing.
It made me hesitant to break the silence.
“Are we ready to go?” I rubbed my hand over the back of my neck as I tried to look at anything but him.
Jax nodded, pushing from the post. He pulled the heavy pile of wet clothes off my lap, and I let him take them. He took Mint’s Jacket from the pile and tossed it over the stall.
“Thank you!” I called after I saw it fly over the side. A moment and a rustle later, Mint’s head popped up over the side and gave me a returning nod.
Jax carried on as if it didn’t happen, moving the clothes out of the way before crouching down at my side. “Cross your arms over your chest.”
“Not around your neck?” I frowned at the str
ong but slender man. I wasn’t sure I had enough faith for him to keep me in his arms by his strength alone.
“It’ll hurt you if you do that.” He gestured down to my side. “Don’t worry, Ronnie,” he murmured, “I got you.”
The softness in his voice threw me, and I wondered what count of the personality flip we were now on. In the last hour alone, he had changed too many times and my own emotions were suffering from whiplash. That and exhaustion had me giving up on analyzing anything else to do with this mysterious man today as I placed my arms across my chest, each hand over the opposite shoulder.
One arm went around my waist, making sure to have my injured side close to him as his hand wrapped around my good side, and the other hand went underneath my knees. For a moment, as he shifted his gravity back and began to lift me, I jerked at the fear of falling to one side. His muscles squeezed me closer as he stood and centered himself, forcing my body to curl into his chest, safe and sound.
“I told you,” Jax murmured, “I got you.”
I nodded against him, too aware of the soft feel of his shirt beneath my cheek, and even more so, the warmth radiating from beneath it. “We’re gonna get a little wet, but you’ll have to bear with it.”
Clutching to him as he began to move without my consent, I fisted his cotton shirt across the back of his neck.
I didn’t have time to complain. My opening mouth was filled with a startled gasp at the rain dousing over my skin. It was bitter and cold, and the parts not protected by the leather were being pelted with hard hail. The rain drops sinking beneath my collar and traveling down over my spine felt like frozen blades cutting through my warm skin deep to the bone.
My head was tucked deep into Jax’s chin, the brush of his Adam’s apple against my forehead, and the steady, fast beating of his heart beneath my fingers. I was cocooned by his body, not one-hundred percent shielded from the rain but enough that I wasn’t soaked through when the glow of the porch light washed over us.
I heard the hollow thumps and the familiar creak of the porch step before we crossed the threshold.
“We’re here,” Jax grumbled, forcing me to pull my face out of the humid crevice I had created. I turned ever so slightly to look at the house.
Is it perfectly fine?
With the way he and his brother had been speaking earlier, I had thought that something had happened to the house, but the couch was still crookedly in the corner, my rope still draped over the arm chair, the rug that I hadn’t been bothered to straighten was still slightly off center with the grooves of the wooden floor. Everything was as it had been.
Kicking the door shut with his boot, Jax whisked me into the sitting room and jostled me in his arms until he was able to lay me down on the couch. My eyes ran over everything again, but I still didn’t see anything wrong. Even so, I couldn’t shake the feeling there was something Jax wasn’t telling me.
Then again, there was still little Jax would tell me. If being dismissed like I had been only an hour earlier was any indication, I shouldn’t pry for more details. Jax wasn’t the type to tell a white lie, even to spare a poor girl’s heart.
I looked up to see dark brown eyes staring back down at me. A frown was worn into the grooves of his face. It took me a moment, but I realized he wasn’t looking at me. Instead, he was boring holes into the leather jacket around my shoulders.
“You’ll be wanting this back, right?” I held my breath and pushed myself up, ignoring the twinges down my side as I began to slip one shoulder off.
“No.” Jax’s sharp command had me jerking to a stop. A painful one.
He shook his head, a little spray of water flicking through the air. “Keep it on for now,” he grumbled before stomping off to the kitchen.
Okay then.
The heavy resounding of his boots returned. He pulled a little collapsible table from under the couch that I hadn’t known was there and set it out in front of me. A moment later, he placed a glass of water on a coaster, and next to it, a handful of painkillers. I didn’t remember having those in the house? Where did he get them?
“Mint brought them. They’re strong stuff, so they should knock you out.”
They were sedatives? Pain medication was something I was used to, and although I wasn’t unfamiliar with sedative medication… it hadn’t been the best of experiences. Not when I had them shoved down my throat for weeks after the attack.
I gave them a wary eye. “I think I’ll pass.”
“Ronnie,” Jax sighed, as his towering figure dropping beside me. I turned to face him, and his defeated expression felt ten times worse than the unreadable frown. “I’m guessing you were prescribed the strong stuff after the accident. But even if it brings bad memories, can you take them for me? Please?”
I wasn’t sure what made me more uncomfortable, the pills or Jax’s saying please.
I groaned, looking down to the capsules on the table. The churning feeling in my stomach didn’t subside at his plea. But my heart, as stubborn as it was, couldn’t bare his pitiful expression.
Might as well get this over with.
With a deep breath, I tossed back my head, and with a mouthful of water, the little pill went down the hatch.
Satisfied, Jax began to turn away and without thinking, my hand lunged to catch him. The sleeve of his plaid shirt and waterproof jacket rustled at my grip and Jax stopped before the material could tug. “You’re staying, aren’t you?”
That undecipherable expression came rushing back. Not the one from in the barn, but the one from when I told him about the accident those months before. The one where a look of silence felt more intimidating than any rage could have.
It made my fingers slip from his coat and tuck back over my chest. My eyes bore down to my feet at the edge of the couch.
Jax didn’t say anything. He stood there for what felt like the longest moment in history, before I heard the rustle of his coat in the corner of the room.
Sneaking a peek, he had moved without a sound yet again. Now, his figure stood by the window, eyes cast out into the storm.
He stayed like that. Not a word spoken between us.
I watched him for as long as I could, wondering for the longest time what he was thinking about.
At some point, the sedatives lapped over my mind, and at long last, I slipped under.
I never did figure him out.
I doubted I ever could.
Chapter Fifteen
Jax
The storm beat down on us all the way back to the club. Cold wore at my skin and muscles as the short trip across town dragged on. The thin coat did little to protect me and by the time my brothers and I were pulling through the club gates, Pipe jogging across the parking lot at a sonic pace to let us in before rushing back into the club house, I was solid stone.
“Jesus, you’re freezing,” Anna hissed as I wrapped my arms around her petite body.
“Warm me up?” I whispered in her ear, earning myself a snicker.
“How about I beat your ass on fire?” Wolf growled from behind me. “That’ll warm you up.”
My arms sprung out at my side, palms raised in surrender as I turned around to see the humungous Russian glaring down at me, arms crossed and more than ready to beat my cold ass until I was cold and dead. He was barely tolerable of mine and Anna’s closeness, but as a gesture to the small wildcat, he often let me slide with things that another man would have hung, shot, and castrated me for.
“You can do that later,” Mint grumbled as she shook his wet hair like a dog, flicking water everywhere. “We’ve got a problem.”
I went to put my hands back down but not before Wolf’s huge hand clapped me over the back of the head, sending my ass stumbling into one of the stools, my hands, thankfully, already out to stop my collision.
Big bastard.
“I’m assuming this is why you’ve call us here in the middle of a freaking hurricane?”
Wolf ran a hand through his long silver hair, faded streaks of pink h
idden between the white strands that were now beginning to outnumber the remaining black hairs as he dropped himself into one of the leather couches.
On any other day, we would have had this in a church meeting, but with the weather, there was no one other than the patched brothers and Anna at the compound, so Wolf didn’t seem to want to bother with formalities.
“Someone broke into the house on the farm,” Pretty cut to the chase before I could. He was already shrugging off his jacket, handing it to the awaiting Anna, before she went to collect Mint’s as well.
She got to me and offered out her hand before pausing. “Where’s yours?”
“Leave it,” I grumbled, a little too quick.
Anna’s brows shot to the top of her forehead, eyes and mouth looking like they were about to bite my head off for being so rude. But she didn’t. Instead, she did something way worse.
She smirked.
Happier than she should have been, she trotted off with the two wet cuts down the hallways and into the kitchen where they would be left to dry.
I looked back over to Wolf where he was considering the direction his old lady left in, before shrugging at me and turning back to the wide group.
“Your girl?” Wolf flicked his chin up at me.
“We weren’t in the house. When the storm hit, we were out with Max and she panicked. Ronnie got kicked and we had to make do in the barn.”
A bushy grey eyebrow crooked in his direction but fell fast with a short nod. His look meant something I had a feeling I didn’t want to interpret, but either way, I appreciated him not saying anything about it.
Mint leaned up against the pool table next to Pretty, his own short hair damp. “Looks like they were trying to hit the house while the storm was in. Not sure if they expected anybody to be there or not.”
A deep growl filled the room, and only one massive man could make that noise and he was sitting right in front of me.
I kept my head down, my own hand winding down the back of my neck, brushing aside the clinging strands of hair.
Jax: Black Angels MC, #3 Page 18
