And then he wanted to keep her. Forever.
Yes, that. Let’s do that, his eagle urged, faint desperation in his voice.
“My eyes are up here, asshole,” Piper said tightly.
Lips quirking, he looked up into her gorgeous, unique eyes. “Sorry. You’ve changed, and I had to take it in.”
She rolled her eyes, her ire sparking hotter. “Let me guess, like everyone else in this town, you think it sucks. Well, guess what. I don’t give a flying fuck what anyone else thinks, and that sure as shit goes double for you.”
“Actually, I was thinking that you’re fucking hot, Piper. All the changes agree with you.”
Her eyes went wide and her mouth popped open for a moment before she got control over herself again. But it was long enough for him to see that she had her tongue pierced, and Jesus God, could she get any hotter? He was going to go up in flames in a matter of moments, he knew.
Eyes narrowing again, she glared at him, but he could see the faint pink staining her cheeks from his words. And that mix of badass with sweetness weakened his already weak knees.
“I repeat, what the fuck are you doing here, St. James?”
“It’s Thursday.”
“What does it being Thursday have to do with anything?” she asked, her frown turning puzzled.
“I mow the yard and do other maintenance shit on Thursdays.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked, frown deepening before realization dawned in her eyes. “You? Grandma hired you to help her out around the house? Why the hell would she do that?”
“Helen never told you?” he asked, taken aback.
“Since when do you call her Helen, and not Mrs. Mansfield?” she shot back.
“Since she told me to three years ago when she approached me about doing the handiwork around here. She really never told you?”
“Obviously not. I never would have allowed it,” she spat.
Unable to resist, he threw his head back with a laugh, startling himself. He couldn’t remember the last time he laughed with genuine amusement. “And when could anyone ever forbid Helen to do anything? She did what she wanted.”
Lips tightening, Piper’s glare intensified, but she couldn’t argue that, and he knew it. “You can leave. I can mow the yard my damn self.”
“I’m sure you can, but what about everything else? This old house has a lot of quirks, and I know them front and back.”
“I’m more than capable of handling it all myself. So you can leave, and don’t bother coming back.”
Pursing his lips, he nodded slowly. “I’m sure you can. But if there’s anything you can’t figure out or fix, call me. My cell number is on the board by the fridge.”
Smiling tightly, she replied, “Thanks. But I won’t be using it.” She nodded toward the gate that lead to the street.
“Okay, okay. I can take a hint,” he said with a smile.
Looking her over one more time, he turned to go, almost tripping over the dog sitting silently behind him. “Fuck, where did he come from? Ugly little critter.”
“Snickers! Come here, boy,” Piper called.
The little dog jumped up and ran to Piper, where she picked him up and snuggled him close, her glare hot enough to melt Jax’s hide off. Well, shit. He’d just insulted her dog. He definitely wasn’t winning any points with her this afternoon.
Winning points? Did he want to win points? He considered it for a split second before nodding to himself. Yes, yes he did want to win points.
“I mean, not ugly, just—different,” he said, trying to backpedal.
“So everything that’s different is ugly? I’m different.”
“You’re not ugly, Piper—”
“Just. Leave. I don’t have the patience for you anymore,” she bit out.
Well, shit. With a nod, he turned to leave. He heard her mutter, “Some watchdog you are, Snickers,” as he walked away, and despite having dug himself in worse with her, he felt his lips pulling into a smile. The action felt as foreign as his laughter had. He hadn’t done either in years. In fact, the last time he had was eight years ago, with Piper.
Getting in his truck, he started it before scrubbing his hands over his face. Blowing out a breath, he headed back toward Rocky River, his eagle protesting leaving his mate behind after seeing her for the first time in so long.
He’d come over today to fulfill an obligation, and a promise to Helen to keep the house in good shape after she passed. She had pneumonia when she passed away, and predicted that she didn’t have much time left on Earth. Jax had thought that was just the ramblings of a sick older woman, but she called it. A pang of sorrow hit his chest, and he brought a hand up to his chest. He’d miss that crazy old woman, that was for sure.
But what he hadn’t expected was for the sight of Piper to completely change his world view. He naively thought he could walk in and see her, and remain the same afterward. But nothing was the same. Everything standing between them was still true. None of that had changed.
What changed was his perception of it. He could protect Piper if the threats began again. He was a nervous twenty-year-old back then, defiant, but still scared his grandfather and colony would go after her. He was eight years older now, and he’d grown up a lot in those eight years. He was stronger, wiser, tougher now.
He’d traveled the country with Ian, learning to fight and becoming one of the best. He wasn’t being boastful, just stating a fact. He could take on anyone his grandfather tried to send after him or Piper. He was strong enough to protect her now.
And he knew, from the moment he saw her again, so different yet still the same Piper, that he wasn’t going to be able to walk away from her again. He was an idiot for ever thinking he could. Breaking things off with her eight years ago had been the hardest thing he ever did, and damned near impossible. He knew two seconds after laying eyes on her today that he wasn’t going to be able to do it again.
The real battle was going to be getting her to forgive him and give him another shot. He hurt her deeply when he ended things back then, and even the Piper of old would have a hard time getting past that. This new spitfire Piper was going to give him hell, and never let up. There had been no crack in her tough exterior today, no hint that seeing him had affected her like seeing her did for him. The faint blush she had was the only thing that hinted to her having felt anything for him but fury and disdain.
To his surprise, he welcomed the war to win her heart back. If nothing else, this was going to prove interesting, and he couldn’t wait to get started.
Deciding to bypass the driveway to Rocky River, he cruised down the back road, wanting time to think over strategy. But he found himself wondering at the drastic change in her. It wasn’t that he didn’t like it, or didn’t think it was her. She wasn’t trying to be something she wasn’t, although she’d never been quite that fierce in the past. But even as a kid, she had that same fire inside her.
What bothered him was how he’d seen her in a photo at her grandmother’s house once. It was taken around five years ago, back when she’d been married. His gut tightened as he thought of her married to another man, but he pushed it away. The time for jealousy was long past, but he knew he’d always hate her ex-husband with everything in him for being the man who spent his days and nights with Piper.
But this wasn’t about that. This was about the change in Piper. Thinking back to that photograph, his eyes narrowed thoughtfully. All he thought at the time was how beautiful she was, but now he was recalling the details in the photo. Her brown hair had been highlighted with blonde, her makeup and jewelry, minimal. She’d been wearing heels, a knee length khaki skirt, and a pale pink top with a white sweater over it. Clothes even the old Piper wouldn’t have worn, but he just assumed she’d changed.
What was hitting him like a punch to the gut was the strain around her smile, and the poorly hidden sadness in her eyes. Maybe she hadn’t changed on the inside enough to change her clothes and look to how she was then.
Maybe who she was wasn’t who she wanted to be, and she felt forced. And once she was divorced, she shed that image and went full force to the one she wanted.
Her look right now might seem extreme to those who knew her in the past and grew up with her. But to him, it felt like she looked exactly right for who she was inside. Whoever she tried to look like when she was married, that wasn’t Piper.
Fury boiled through his veins at the thought of her husband allowing, or even encouraging, her to change herself like that, but he cautioned himself to slow down. He was making a lot of assumptions right now, all based on a single image captured on film. For all he knew, who she was in the photo was who she wanted to be at that point in time. And maybe she’d been having a bad day, and her smile and eyes reflected that.
All he knew for certain was he would take Piper any way he could get her. Who she was as a teenager, who she’d been in her early twenties, and who she was now. Past, present, and future Piper, and he would count himself the luckiest son of a bitch to ever live if he got the chance to spend his life with any version of Piper she chose to be.
“One day, I’ll take you on a date to Cocky Pete’s,” Jax told Piper, handing her the four-leaf clover he found.
Accepting it, she laughed, looking up from where her head was laying on his lap. “A date to an old saloon? Sooo romantic, Jax.”
“What could be more romantic than taking you to an old whorehouse?” he replied, shooting her a wink.
Laughing, she reached a hand up and swatted his stomach. “For sure. What was I thinking?”
Grinning, he captured her hand with his, pressing a kiss to her knuckles before twining their fingers together. “I want to take you everywhere, Piper. When you’re old enough to get in, you’ll come home from college on break, and I’ll take you there. And once you graduate, we’ll go everywhere, see the world together. I want to experience it all with you.”
The smile faded from Piper’s face and she sat up, scooting close to him. “I don’t want to leave you behind when I go to college next year. I don’t need to go, anyway. I already know I’m going to work in the bakery when I’m older, and take it over one day. I don’t need to go to college for that.”
He reached up and brushed her hair from her face. “You need to go, Pippy. For the experience of it all, if nothing else. I want you to have everything.”
“But I don’t want to leave you for four years, Jax. I want to stay here and work in the bakery. I want you.”
“You have me. Heart and soul. But you need this, you know you do.”
“I don’t know any such thing, Jackson St. James. But I know I love you.”
“And I love you, Piper McCoy. Always.”
“Always.”
Piper pushed open the door to Cocky Pete’s, looking around the crowded bar for Kelly. She was surprised to see so many people here on a Thursday night, but she supposed in a town as small as Eagle Creek, there wasn’t much else to do.
Spotting her friend waving at her, Piper began making her way to the booth Kelly was seated at. “Hey, Kelly,” she said, sliding in the booth.
“Hey! I ordered us a pitcher of margaritas. I hope that’s okay.”
“Sounds good,” Piper replied, looking around the bar before returning her gaze to her friend. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I just can’t get over how different you look now.”
Shrugging, Piper waited until the waitress placed the pitcher and glasses on the table before replying. “I like expressing myself creatively.”
“Still,” Kelly replied as she poured them glasses. “It’s so unlike you. Your divorce must have been very hard to push you into reacting like this.”
Choking on her sip, Piper swallowed and set her glass down. “Kelly, really? This doesn’t have anything to do with my divorce. I talked about doing this kind of thing all the time when we were teenagers.”
“I mean, yeah, but we also talked about running away from home and becoming tour groupies for Snow Patrol too, and you didn’t do that. Was it really hard?”
“Was what hard?” Piper asked with a frown, not following.
“Your divorce, silly,” Kelly replied, avid curiosity in her eyes.
“It wasn’t the easiest thing I’ve ever done,” she said, resisting the urge to squirm at the question. “But it was what was best for me.”
Kelly reached across the table and patted Piper’s hand. “This is me, Piper. We’ve been best friends since we were six. You don’t have to lie to me. It must have been devastating.”
Humming, Piper shrugged and took a sip of her margarita. The sympathy in her friend’s eyes made her uncomfortable, and judging by the look on her face, she wasn’t going to accept the truth. Which was just what Piper said. Divorcing Scott was the best decision she ever made, and she was so much better for it.
“So what have you been up to since high school, Kel? Besides working at the bakery?” she asked, trying to turn the conversation away from her disastrous marriage and subsequent divorce.
“Oh, not much. I dated Darryl Hanson for a while, remember him? We broke up when he moved away. Such a shame. And I fly to Chicago fairly often to help take care of my mom. Other than that, it’s really a boring life I lead, and so much different than how I envisioned my life would go. Much less exciting, you know,” Kelly replied with a light laugh.
“Sometimes less excitement is better,” Piper replied softly.
“Oh, that’s right. You run a homeless shelter, don’t you? I’m sure those people give you lots of excitement. I bet you have some stories stored up. Spill!”
Frowning over how Kelly called the homeless Piper worked with those people, she reminded herself that Kelly was always a gossip and a drama queen. She didn’t mean any harm, and certainly didn’t mean it like it sounded. Piper hoped, anyway.
“We get some drama from time to time,” she admitted, mostly because she knew Kelly wouldn’t let up until she said something along those lines. “But for the most part, my regulars are amazing people who’ve just had a rough time. They’re sweet and gentle, and I spend a lot of time trying to help them find jobs and low-income housing. Trying to help improve their lives in a small way.”
Kelly looked almost disappointed at the lack of gossip, but she forged on. “And what about you? Do you live in low-income housing, as well? Working at a homeless shelter, even running one as you do, can’t bring in much money, I’m sure. However do you get by?”
Just barely resisting the urge to roll her eyes at Kelly’s continual hunt for gossip, she replied, “I’m an artist, too. I paint portraits as well as landscapes. I’ve had a couple of showings at a gallery, too. It brings in plenty to pay the bills. I work at the homeless shelter because I want to help, not to make money.”
“Oh, that’s right. Helen mentioned that before. I guess it slipped my mind.” Reaching out, she patted Piper’s hand again. “Helping out sounds so much like the Piper I knew from high school. I’m glad the changes on the outside weren’t changes on the inside as well.”
Piper gave a half-smile. Kelly was exactly as she’d been in high school. Gossipy and a lover of drama, but with a heart of gold inside. People had often taken her the wrong way, but Piper always knew how good her friend was, down inside. She was just opening her mouth to reply when Kelly’s eyes widened at something behind Piper.
Leaning forward, Kelly said, “I’m sure you must be over him, especially since you moved on and married. But I don’t want you to be taken off guard by seeing him for the first time in eight years. Jax just walked in with the other fighters.”
Before Kelly even spoke, Piper knew he was here. Like it had always been. His presence was like a sixth sense, her whole being focused and awake when he was around, and like all the air had been sucked from the room.
Keeping her voice even, she asked, “Fighters?”
“Your grandmother never told you?” Kelly asked in surprise.
“We never talked about Jax,” she replie
d with a shake of her head.
“Are you still hung up on him?” Kelly asked suspiciously.
“What? No,” Piper insisted, ignoring the voice inside her that said she’d lied. “More like I never cared enough to want to know.”
Kelly nodded, eyes clearing of questions. “That makes sense. Anyway, Jax left not long after you two broke up, but you knew that part. He met up with Ian Gallagher, you remember him? He was a grade ahead of us. At some point, they learned how to fight, and roamed the country, fighting matches wherever they went. They fight MMA style. So hot,” she said dreamily.
“Do you have a thing for Ian Gallagher, Kelly?” she asked, taking a sip of her drink to hide her smile.
“Ian?” Kelly asked, genuine surprise in her voice. “No, not at all. Although, I have to admit, he’s pretty hot. All big and muscled up. Still, no, I don’t.”
Piper nodded, wondering whether that was true or not, despite the surprise in Kelly’s tone. “I guess they don’t fight anymore if they’re settled back in Eagle Creek. Not much opportunity to fight around here.”
“No, they still do. There are fights held almost every Saturday night at the Anderson ranch.”
“Really? This is the last town I’d expect see stuff like that happen.”
“Not much else to do around here,” Kelly said with a shrug, laughter in her voice.
Piper checked her phone and raised her eyebrows when she saw the time. They’d been chatting for well over an hour, but the time had flown by. The evening was still fairly young, but she was going to grab at the excuse to split, now that Jax was there.
“Kelly, I’ve had a great time, but I need to be getting back to the house. I need to let my dog outside soon.”
Disappointment flitted across Kelly’s face. “Oh, I didn’t know you had a dog. I wish you could stay longer, but I understand. How long will you be in town?”
“I have a lot to do, what with going through Grandma’s things, and getting everything ready to sell, so I gave myself a month here. I’m hoping to have it done sooner, though.”
Fight Song: A Paranormal Shifter Romance (Rocky River Fighters Book 3) Page 3
