Ivory's Addiction

by Teirney Medeiros

  She must have broken his nose, because both of his eyes were blackened, the cartilage swollen beneath the bridge. Nana offered them coffee and cookies, and though she loved her nana dearly, civility toward that sewer rat grated on her nerves. She took her seat across from the two officials, with Ashley on her lap. To Nathan’s credit, he at least looked reticent.

  Mickey sat beside Ivory, her unofficial bodyguard in Jax’s place. Or, rather, Nathan might need the protection from her. “So, I assume you are here to sign the formal paperwork.”

  The documents in question were lined up on the table, and Ivory glared at Claire when she started to read the procedural information. “All you have to do is sign the paperwork, Ivory.”

  She’d already bawled her eyes out over the thing she couldn’t control, and if she cried now, it wasn’t for her loss, but Ashley’s. Nathan took the child into his arms, and since Ashley liked him, she went willingly.

  When Nathan stepped out the door with her bundle of joy in his arms, Ivory felt a piece of her heart go. Claire stopped just before the door. “He’s going to be under watch for the first few weeks. You know how it goes.” She paused. “Come back to the office. I miss you. He’s dropped any charges, and you knew he would.”

  As much as she loved working for the city, Ivory couldn’t fathom going back to the red tape, the misery. She wanted to do something worth doing. She wanted to help. “No. I think I’m going back to school. Get my masters degree in counseling and work with a firm. I can do more in that area.”

  Her reasoning couldn’t be argued with, and Ivory knew she and Claire would remain friends despite her absence from the work place. “Have you seen Jenny? She called me and told me how it went.”

  The mention of her best friend caused Ivory to draw up short. In all the mess, she’d forgotten Jenny’s involvement. “I might go to Heron House today. We have some things to talk about.”

  “I imagine so.”

  They said their good-byes, and Ivory shut the door, leaning her head against it. Ashley found her father, and Ivory definitely did not like giving her to him. She wanted to scream, but beneath Nathan’s slut complex, he basically ran a tight ship and could be a good guy. He loved Ashley as much as she, even if he hadn’t taken care of her the way Ivory did.

  Jax never invested emotionally with Ashley the way Ivory did, and she couldn’t blame him. Hard to get close to people when most of them leave you or die. She wrapped her arms around her middle. In another two months, she’d suffer kidney shots and bladder flattening, and love every minute of it. She wasn’t alone. She had Nana, Mickey, and the baby.

  Maybe when she could forgive Nathan, she’d even get to be a part of Ashley’s life. Nana beckoned her into the kitchen and flourished a chocolate cake.

  “What’s this for?”

  The smell of the double layer, hot chocolate and fudge made Ivory pant. She wanted that cake. “I thought you might need a good dose of chocolate today.”

  “For breakfast?”

  “You can eat chocolate any time of day,” Nana said, brandishing a knife and slicing into the decadent confection.

  Ivory took her seat at the breakfast table and tapped her fingers against the wood. “Do you think Jenny knew what she was doing?”

  “No. I don’t. Did you know what you were doing the first time you went to Jax’s house?”

  Nana had a point there. “Addiction. It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it.”

  They ate in silence, and where Ashley hurt too much to think about, Ivory’s thoughts about Jax comforted her. She found herself often going over the memories, desperate to think of some small detail she hadn’t thought of before. The calluses on his fingers, or the mole just below his ear. The small scar above his lip. She wanted to know how he got that one, and never thought to ask.

  His leaving left something undone inside her, like a book unfinished and the author didn’t feel like writing the ending. Ivory toyed with the cake bits as she thought about his eyes, the haunted expressions. The ghosts he lived with.

  The man was a ghost himself, sometimes there and others, not. She couldn’t fault him for needing to go. It was hard to commit one thing when you’ve lived like a nomad. At least she had Jax Jr. If it hurt for a while, that was okay with her, too. She’d just let it hurt. The only way to live, she found, is as though you didn’t have tomorrow. Jax showed her that. He gave that to her.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  “How much I love him,” she whispered, her lower lip caught between her teeth.

  Nana bent over her, cradling her head. “Oh, baby girl, he’ll be coming back. Don’t cry.”

  “It just hurts so much. One day he’s here, and the next he’s not.”

  They rocked together, and Nana wiped away her tears with her grandfather’s handkerchief. “Now you listen to me. Men, they’re different from us. Your grandfather, he left me. Did I ever tell you that?”

  “No.”

  The cake gone and their plates empty, Ivory listened as Nana poured her some decaf coffee and a cup of her own. “It was in the sixties. Wanted to be a hippie and follow the movement. I said, go, then, if that’s what you want.”

  Despite her sorrow, Ivory smiled. She could see Nana saying that. “And he did?”

  “He certainly did. Took him a year to come back, but then, when he did, we got married and lived happily until his death. My point is, they got to find their own way home. If a woman tells him where he needs to be, he’ll buck like a bull with his nuts tied up.”

  Candid statements from Nana’s mouth, and Ivory burst out laughing. “Oh, Nana. I love you so much.”

  “I love you, too. Now go on, forgive Jenny, and bring her on by. We got some more cake and brandy. Though, you can’t have none. I guess you’ll have to make do with orange juice.”

  Ivory wiped her tears away and knew she’d be okay. Nana wouldn’t have it any other way.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  It took a week for Ivory to build enough emotional strength up to visit Jenny. When she opened the door to Heron House, the racket of kids at play assaulted her ears, and Ivory grinned. Tanya sat in the middle of the great room, the younger children in a circle.

  “She’s in the office.”

  Ivory nodded, and made her way up the curving staircase that lead to the upstairs quarters and Jenny’s office. She knocked softly on the door, and Jenny’s voice called her inside. When she saw her friend, it looked like she’d lost ten pounds, and blue circles adorned her eyes. Her nose red, and hair askew, Ivory first felt pity, and then chagrin.

  “I came to see how you are.”

  The creak of Jenny’s desk chair as she rolled from beneath the desk filled the void, and Ivory took a seat on the only other piece of furniture in the room besides the desk and chair. The sofa. She patted the seat beside her.

  Jenny opened her mouth to say something, but closed it with a click of her teeth.

  “It’s okay, I forgive you. There’s no point in throwing away twenty years of friendship over Nathan.”

  “I’m so sorry. I don’t deserve to live.” Jenny sniffled. “I guess I fell for his charming self, and was blinded to anything other than his needs.”

  That she understood in spades. “Come here. He fooled us both.”

  The rocky feeling she’d felt upon entering the house vanished, and Ivory was thankful to simply have her friend back. “I’ve missed you. Jax left. Ashley’s with he we will not name, and I’m a mess.”

  “Sounds like we’re in need of a girl’s night,” Jenny said.

  “Virgin kind. No alcohol for the mama-to-be.”

  The baby made his presence known when Jenny laid a hand across Ivory’s stomach, and the little guy kicked. Just a small bump, but they laughed anyway. “He’s strong for only seventeen weeks.”

  “Well, I say he, but it could be a she.”

  “You haven’t found out?”

  “No, haven’t wanted to know,” Ivory confessed. “I guess we�
�ll find out on the birth day.”

  They caught up on the small things, and Ivory left with a lighter sensation in her heart. Classes at the university would start in April for the summer session, and Ivory enrolled. By the time April arrived in Boston, Ivory received a letter from Jax.

  She held the envelope in her hand like she’d found the Holy Grail. She ripped open the paper, and yanked out the documents inside. A brief note accompanied the deed to a house. Ivory scanned the short letter.

  Ivory,

  This is the deed to my house in Manchester. As you can see, your name now holds the title of owner. I want you and my child to live there. Jax.

  Even thousands of miles away, Jax still gave her orders. At seven months, her stomach protruded beyond her toes, and Ivory nearly fell on her way back up the stairs in her rush because she couldn’t see where she went.

  “Nana!”

  Her grandmother called back.

  “He wants me to live in Manchester.”

  “Who?”

  “Jax, old woman,” Mickey called out. “He’s gone and asked her to move in.”

  His statement stopped her dead in her tracks. Was Jax back? “Do you know something, Mickey?”

  “Nope.”

  The single word lodged in Ivory’s brain. He knew something all right. She wouldn’t have the chance to ask him about it because she had a class at the university, but eventually she’d get it out of him, even if she had to hold him down and tickle it out of him.

  * * * *

  Jax opened his front door, greeted by the smells and sights of a house lived in. Ivory’s small touches stood out to his naked eye. The throw pillows on the couch, the television in the corner. Knickknacks cluttered up his end tables, and pictures hung on his walls.

  He made his way past the great room and into the kitchen. She’d painted, the soft yellow easier to deal with than white, and added colored curtains. Everywhere he looked, she’d made his house a home. He touched the notepad on the counter, her handwriting in cursive. He still had the note she’d written him the first time Ashley came to his house.

  Her calendar was filled with class schedules and appointments. Ashley’s name was scrawled across several dates, and what time to pick her up. Obviously, Nathan let Ivory see the child. His heart grew heavy when he called out her name and she didn’t answer. He’d let Mickey know he would arrive today.

  His answering machine blinked, and a message came across when he pushed play. “She’s in labor, fuck-nut. Get your ass to the hospital ASAP.”

  The hospital drive took forever, and Jax blasted his horn more than once at an idiot driver. He reached the maternity floor in time to hear a scream blast through the quiet area. He flinched, but spotted Nana and Mickey right away, hovering around a door. Nana noticed him first.

  Nana stood up, her smile wide and her arms open. “I knew you’d come.”

  “How is she?”

  “Cursing the day your mama bore you,” Nana said. Her birdlike arms waved about as she ushered him toward the set of double doors. Ivory’s screams cut through his defenses. She wailed out his name, and then called him the devil to boot.

  When he walked into the delivery room and saw her, Jax would have gone to his knees if he thought he could help her. His spitfire thrashed on the bed, her cheeks red, tears on her face. Her hair plastered to her forehead with sweat and the towel Jenny kept there. She gripped the bedrails so tight, her knuckles turned white. Good Lord, what had he done to her?

  * * * *

  Oh, the pain. She’d never felt anything like it. Jenny counted down the seconds between contractions, and urged her to breathe, but all Ivory could think about was the ripping in her abdomen. “Get me some ice,” she panted.

  “No time,” a nurse reported. “You’re dilated to ten, sugar. Your little one is almost here.”

  Ivory let her head fall back against the bed. “I can’t do this.”

  Another contraction bore down on her, and Ivory bowed off the bed. “I am never having sex again.”

  “I have something to say about that.”

  That voice. She jerked her head and saw Jax enter the room. His brooding expression and firmed lips displayed his unease. His green eyes traveled over her body, and Ivory felt a blush creep up her cheeks. “You fucking asshole.”

  “This must be the father,” the nurse blustered.

  “He’s the devil,” Ivory gritted out between her teeth. Another wave of pain crashed over her body. “I want drugs. I want drugs,” she wailed. “Please.”

  “Too late, hun, you wanted a natural birth,” Jenny soothed.

  Jax’s hand on her arm calmed Ivory down. For all her curses, her heart swelled at the sight of him, and some of the tears on her face weren’t from the pain. “I was wrong.”

  She sucked in a breath, held it, let it go. “I need to push. Now.”

  Doctors and nurses bustled about, and Ivory felt the stirrups beneath her knees. They pushed her sheet up, and someone she couldn’t see, said, “Okay, Ivory. I want you to push for me.”

  She shut her eyes, and bore down with all she had. Jenny counted the time, and after the ten seconds were up, Ivory let go. Her uterine muscles clenched once more. “Again,” came the mystery person.

  The feeling of Jax’s hand in hers gave her strength, and Ivory gave it all she had. They repeated the process three more times, and just when she couldn’t do anymore, she heard the first wail of her baby. She laid back, laughter in her chest, but too tired to do anything about it. She glanced up at Jax, who’d gone pale, but stood stoic with his shoulders squared.

  “That’s our child making all that noise,” she huffed.

  The baby’s cries filled the room, and Ivory’s arms felt empty. She wanted to hold her child. The nurse carried a tiny bundle, the blue blanket wrapped around the squalling child. When they put him in her arms, Ivory took a look at her son.

  “Oh, you’re perfect.”

  “He looks like Jax,” Jenny offered.

  “Yes, he does, doesn’t he? He’s gonna break hearts.”

  Once the room quieted down and Ivory had a chance to rest, the baby cradled in her arms, she looked at Jax. “So?”

  His sheepish look touched her heart, and he held his hands out. “Have you thought of a name?”

  “Jackson.”

  She thought she saw tears in his eyes, and Ivory held hers back as she took in the picture of him as he bent to kiss his son’s forehead. “Thank you, for coming.”

  “I said I would.”

  “Will you stay at the house while you’re here?” She hated the school-girlish hope in her voice.

  The nurses came back to check on her and take Jackson to the nursery. Jax settled down beside her. A look of pain crossed his face, and Ivory wanted to smooth it away. “It’s okay, you don’t have to stay if you can’t.”

  His eyes widened. “The hell I won’t.”

  She shut her mouth. He continued, “I’m out. I resigned my commission.”

  Did she hear right? “You did?”

  His words came out on a breath. “I sought treatment for my PTSD. When I choked you, I realized I couldn’t keep doing this. I would have to make a choice, and if I wanted a life with you, then I’d need to make the right one.”

  “Jax.”

  “Let me finish. I’ve practiced this.” He ran a hand over his buzzed head. “I can’t promise I’m better, but I am getting better. I won’t be easy to live with, and I’ll make demands from you I understand you may not like.”

  “Jax,” she warned.

  “But, I love you, Ivory. And I want my life to be with you. I don’t want to die for the things I’ve done, and if I’d stayed on that road, I’d have been killed in combat or taken my own life. I still have nightmares, and occasionally freak out.”

  Her heart overflowed. She couldn’t keep it in anymore. More tears leaked from her eyes, and Ivory held her arms out. “Say that to me again.”

  “I occasionally freak out?”

>   “No, not that part. The ‘I love you’ part.”

  “I love you, Ivory.”

  His deep baritone voice uttering those words to her made Ivory insane with happiness. She planted her lips on his. She almost lost him. To himself. To life. To the military. “Don’t leave me again. I can’t take that.”

  “Neither can I,” he whispered. “I’m not going anywhere. Marry me.”