“What’s that?”
“The moment I finally get to see those granny panties.”
“Oh?” She giggled like a little kid. “And you know what I’ve waited for all day?”
One side of Jack’s mouth turned up in a half smirk. “What’s that?”
“For you to finally give me my Christmas present.”
“I- well- that might be a problem. I kind of just- came here without stopping…”
Tia gripped Jack’s face and pulled him to her. “You’re my Christmas present, you dolt.”
He bellowed out a laugh, a real laugh. “In that case, merry Christmas, Tia.” He crushed their mouths together in a wild, white hot kiss that proved he was indeed the best Christmas present of all.”
Epilogue
JACK
Life was good. Shockingly good. He never would have believed it was possible for him. Tia was like a magician. She took him and transformed him. She forgave him and she loved him. She saw right through him and she created a man that he always wanted to be, but never thought he’d be able to get close to. It was easier than he thought, to be that man, to finally be a good guy, for her.
Nine months wasn’t a lot of time. For most people. Then again, he wasn’t most people and neither was Tia. They’d shared an apartment from start of their stay in St. Paul and so far, it was working. As in, neither one of them had killed the other. Success. It wasn’t always easy, but then again, what in life was? They made it work and the happiness Jack knew sure as hell outweighed the few hard times and arguments.
He’d learned a lot. How not to be an asshole. How to treat Tia with respect, even if he disagreed. How to cool down and take a walk or a ride when he needed it. How to suck it up and take one for the team once and a while.
In essence, he grew up.
Jack fingered the ring in his pocket. He hadn’t bothered with a box. It was lame and cheesy. Also, the thing hadn’t come with one and he didn’t know where to find it, so he’d gone without. He was flying by the seat of his pants as it was. The box wouldn’t make a damn difference.
The door opened and closed and Tia appeared in the entrance. The place opened up to a galley kitchen and then to a larger square dining area which flowed into the living room. There wasn’t much to the six hundred square foot apartment, but he had plans to change that. Things never mattered to Jack. The place was a home because Tia was there.
“What’s all this?” Tia’s face transformed. She’d worked late, again, trying to get the company’s newest marketing campaign wrapped up. She’d been at it for weeks, working far too hard. He thought it would be a nice surprise for her.
Jack cleared his throat. He glanced at the flickering candles on the small table, at the glasses of red wine and the half full bottle ready for refills. “The last time that we had lasagna it didn’t end so well. I thought I’d try again.”
“Oh no. I spent hours scrubbing off that stain last time.”
“What stain?”
Though he’d turned off all the lights in the place, Tia’s blush was unmistakable. Her face was practically scarlet. “Never mind.”
“Can’t I mind? I really want to hear this story.”
Tia set her purse and keys down on the counter. She bent and unzipped her ankle boots and stalked over to the table. “No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I’m pretty sure that I do.”
She winced. “The last tray of lasagna might have hit the wall after you left, okay? Are you satisfied now?”
He gave a snort of laughter. “Oh god. Yes. Yes, I’m satisfied. Sit down. Tell me what you think. It’s about the finest that the Italian place down the block had to offer.”
She raised a brow. “You didn’t make it?”
“We both know I can’t even toast a slice of bread without burning it.”
“That’s because that toaster is garbage. I keep telling you to get a new one.”
“Anyway. Have a taste.” Jack scooped out a generous portion onto Tia’s plate. She dug in hungrily and sighed in contentment.
“I thought I could never eat this again, honestly, but this… my compliments to the chef.”
“I’m kidding. I made it.”
“What?” Her mouth dropped open. “Seriously?”
“Yeah. I couldn’t think of a better way to spend my day off. I gave it a try. I just said it wasn’t mine in case it was disgusting.”
“As long as you didn’t secretly poison it…”
“Now why would I do that?” Jack faked a wounded look as he helped himself to a piece. He took a bite, chewed and swallowed, just to prove his point. “There you go. Safe.”
“I don’t know. Maybe you’re tired of me. Maybe you just laced my half.”
He set his fork aside carefully and reached into his pocket. When he produced the ring, Tia’s mouth fell open. “I’m not tired of you, Tia. Not by a long shot. If I did you in now, who would go on rides with me? Who would nag me to pick up after myself? Who would watch the worst action movies with me and cook me dinner? Who would bug me to take out the trash?”
“Sounds so romantic.” Tia’s eyes filled up with tears, belying her sarcastic statement.
“It is romantic,” Jack insisted. “Because it’s with you. I love doing life with you, Tia. I wasn’t sure you wanted to be married, especially to me, but I remember that was once included in your happily ever after description. So here it is. I hope you’ll put up with me for the rest of my life. I hope you won’t get sick of me and hit me with a frying pan and put me in an early grave. Honestly, I want to do all of life with you. All the messy parts and the great parts, the sad parts and the shitty parts and the happy parts. The sexy parts and the not so sexy parts.”
“I don’t have any not so sexy parts.”
“You’re right,” Jack laughed. “You got me there.”
Tia reached out and took the ring from him. She held it up to the candlelight. “Oh my god. This ring… it’s exactly what I wanted. But I never told you…”
“Right. Well, I hope that I can get things right, one out of every ten times. I’m sure I’ll disappoint you with something else later.”
Tia laughed, but the laughter turned into tears. They coursed down her cheeks and Jack wondered if she was lying and she hated the ring. It was raw gold, hammered into a ring with some unfinished, rawer pink stone at the top. He liked what it symbolized. The perfection and beauty of something completely unrefined. Maybe she didn’t get the metaphor. Or maybe it was just the thought of being yoked to him that did it.
She launched herself across the table, nearly spilling both glasses of wine. He caught one as she flung her arms around his neck and kissed him frantically. He kissed her back, relieved and astonished and just so damn head over heels in love with her.
“Yes. Yes, I’ll marry you. Yes, I’ll take your fake last name. Yes, I can’t wait.” She pulled away a fraction and glanced at the table, at the candles, at the meal. “This is just about perfect. You did good, Jack.”
He leaned in and kissed her until they both couldn’t breathe. “I- like- that,” he panted. “Let’s- hang onto- that- for another- minute. Something I did- is perfect. Wait. Let me get my phone and record you saying it.”
Tia’s eyes glistened. She swiped away her tears. “I’m going to be married to the biggest dork around,” she giggled. “And I love it. I love it so much. I love you, Jack. You are perfect.”
He kissed her again, not because he wanted to cut off any more words, but because he had to have her. Tia was amazing. She was beautiful and wonderful and by some crazy miracle, completely his. The lasagna, however good as it was, could wait. Nothing would ever taste as good as his wife to be.
The End
CREED
LONELY RIDER MC 3
Chapter 1
KATE
No one expected a nice family gathering to be interrupted by a thump at the front door. Or rather, no one expected that thump to come in the form of a battered, bleeding body.
One that Jack Stevens didn’t hesitate to haul inside the house.
Kate Reid knew that her sister’s husband didn’t have the cleanest record. He might have come from a rich family and an Ivy League school on paper, but Tia let on that some of that might not be true. It wasn’t a full out confession. Kate just gathered bits and pieces of information here and there, like piecing a puzzle together.
Obviously that puzzle was missing a few pieces. As in, large, gaping holes. The way Jack dragged the battered man inside made it obvious that the guy fit in one of those gaps.
“Jesus, god,” Tia exhaled from the hall.
Just behind them, in their perfect little kitchen, was a perfect all-American meal that she and Tia spent the better part of the day making. There were fucking yams for goodness sakes. And green beans. And peach pie for dessert.
They were celebrating Kate’s arrival in St. Paul. She’d literally arrived that morning, dumped her bags in the spare room, and kicked off the first day of her two-week vacation by cooking. Which wasn’t something she enjoyed. Or was good at. Somehow it had all come together and turned out alright.
And then Punching Bag Pete showed up and ruined it all.
Because no one, even the hardiest person, could have an appetite after looking at the guy’s wounds. He might have been a huge bastard, as in, the most obscenely jacked man Kate had seen in her entire life, but even granite muscles and a huge frame couldn’t save the guy from looking like he’d be a corpse in a matter of hours.
Jack bent over the guy and ripped open what had once been a red and black plaid shirt. It was still a red and black plaid shirt, but it sure as hell wasn’t good for anything after the blood stains were done with it. The worn in jeans the guy had on were in no better shape and no less stained. Dubious blackish purple spots competed with the dark brown stains that were probably blood. Huge black boots covered the guy’s feet.
He was a giant. A beast. A mountain of a man so that even Jack, who was equally as massive, had trouble pulling him into the house. His blonde hair was matted with so much blood it was pretty much impossible to guess at the natural color. The same went for his face. His eyes were swollen shut, purple circles forming underneath, probably compliments of a broken nose. His lips were split and there was bruising and swelling on his jaw and cheeks. His forehead had a huge cut on it that had already coagulated.
It was a lucky thing for the poor bastard that it was April and a warm April at that. Minnesota wasn’t like Florida, where she and Tia grew up. It was rarely warm unless it was July or August.
“Jesus. He’s been shot in the shoulder.” Jack exclaimed as soon as he got the shirt open.
“It looks like someone beat the crap out of him,” Tia pointed out. Which was useless, because even a blind man could see the bruises, welts and cuts that ran over the entire surface of the guy’s chest, arms and face.
Kate wished she could stand there and point out the obvious like her sister did. Her mouth dried up and her stomach revolved at the sight of the sticky blood coagulating around the wound. Unfortunately, hauling the guy in hadn’t done him any favors. A fresh, bright red trickle seeped from the gaping hole in his shoulder.
“Fuck,” Kate breathed. “That is gross.” Tia shot her a look and she shrugged innocently. “Who is he?”
Jack’s head shot up. “That isn’t important. A friend from the past, that’s all you two need to know.” He gripped the guy’s shoulder, the one that didn’t have a damn bullet hole in it and squeezed gently. There was a horrible, guttural, garbled up groan, like the guy was choking on blood, but the man’s eyes filtered open.
“Jack…” the fear in Tia’s voice was unmistakable and when Kate swiveled her eyes towards her petite sister, she found that her face was completely ashen. She held a hand up to her mouth, though she didn’t clamp it over her lips. “Are we- are we in danger?”
Jack leaned closer and inspected the wound. He didn’t turn to Tia. “I don’t know,” he said softly.
That hand at her sister’s mouth clamped down harder. Her normally wide eyes were as big as saucers as she glanced between her husband and Kate. Kate leaned against the wall, fighting a stomach that sloshed around at the gruesome sight before her. She couldn’t exactly feel sorry for the guy. When she took a second look, she realized what she should have known from the start. The guy probably wasn’t living on the right side of the law.
He had a mean look to him that couldn’t be mistaken through his swollen features. His biker boots gave him away. Those were the same kind of boots Jack wore and the two men probably shared a not too flattering past. At least, she thought so. Tia wasn’t exactly up front with that information. In short, he looked like a guy people didn’t want to fuck with. It wasn’t too hard to figure out that since the guy looked like a human piñata, some real bad shit must have gone down.
Kate rushed forward and grabbed her sister’s hand. She squeezed hard. “Don’t worry,” she breathed. She mustered up a whole hell of a lot of confidence she didn’t feel. “Everything is going to be okay. Jack’s not going to let anything happen to you.”
Jack’s neck cranked around. The guy was drop dead gorgeous. Tia wasn’t the kind of woman who normally was attracted to the whole Hollywood good looks thing. Although, Jack was clearly anything but Mr. Perfect underneath his blonde hair and chiseled features. He loved her sister, so Kate kept her mouth shut. The look on his face told her both that she was right and also that Jack was a whole lot meaner than she imagined. Did her sister know about this side of her husband? Kate might have suspected, but she’d never seen actual violence flash in her brother in law’s strange gray eyes.
She glanced at Tia’s face just as Jack shot them a tight nod and turned back to the guy leaking all over the white tile floor. The shock in Tia’s eyes told Kate all she needed to know. She clearly didn’t know everything about Jack. She knew enough and she’d accepted him and loved him for who he was, but she’d never expected this.
That made two of them. Hopefully not three.
Kate wasn’t the kind of person who stood idly by when she knew she was needed. Even if that meant getting her hands dirty. She just hoped she wouldn’t heave up her damn breakfast in the process. She dropped Tia’s cold as ice hand and stepped forward. “What can I do?”
Jack didn’t look back at her. “The bullet went clean through. He’s lost a lot of blood.”
“Where- where did he come from?” Tia stammered.
“I don’t know,” Jack answered. It was obvious that he wished he knew and he wasn’t as calm and cool on the inside as he was on the outside. Whatever his past was, it looked like it just showed up on the doorstep in the worst possible way.
Kate’s hands shook and her stomach sloshed. “I’ll help you lift him if we need to move him.” She turned to her sister. “Do you have a first aid kit? If not, a needle and thread and a bottle of anything hard should work.” Jack shot her a look as she bent down on the opposite side of the battered man. “What? I read it in a book, okay?”
His lips set in a hard line. “Right. Can you get me those things, Ti?” Jack turned to his wife and flashed her a calm, reassuring smile.
“Yeah. Yeah, sure.” Tia disappeared down the hall and a loud banging echoed in the kitchen.
Jack’s smile died the second she left the room. It left Kate with a real bad feeling. She tried to concentrate on her hands, which moved uselessly, hovering over the guy’s plaid clad arm. “How did he even survive this long? How- I’m with Ti on this one. I want to know where he came from. How did he get here? There isn’t a car- did he- walk? It’s not like he could just get in a cab and demand to be brought here… how did he know where you live?” She shot an accusing look at Jack, but when his light eyes swept to her face, she realized that he genuinely was as confused as she and Tia were.
“I don’t know,” he said on a hard exhale. “All I know right now is that he better live long enough to tell us.”
“What the hell does that mean?�
� Kate was unable to keep the fear from leaching into her voice.
“Just what I said.” Jack swallowed hard and she knew that was straight up bullshit.
“No. No way. You think someone’s going to come looking for him? Someone from something you both were a part of?”
Jack reached up and checked the guy’s eyes. He must not have liked what he saw, since his lips tinned out. “Look,” he said without looking at her at all. “What I was a part of isn’t around anymore. Everyone got out because it ceased to exist. My guess is that some of the guys went and joined up with clubs elsewhere. Not everyone had the means to exist on their own after. For some guys, even if they did, that kind of lifestyle was the only one they ever knew. It might not be one everyone else agrees with or tries to understand, but for most of those guys, that’s the only family they’ll ever have.”
“Which is why you hauled him in without a second glance and haven’t called for an ambulance?”
“Right.” Jack shot her a look that silenced her. “No hospitals.” He looked towards the kitchen. “And please, don’t frighten your sister. I know that you’re a goddamn sharp tack and you like to ask questions. Don’t. For once in your life, just please don’t. The less you both know, the better.”
“I wasn’t asking too many questions!” Kate protested sharply.
“Yes. You were.”
“No. I have a right to ask whatever I need to at the moment. This guy is shot, beat to shit and laying in my sister’s entrance way. He’s not on death’s doorstep, he’s on yours and I love my sister, so I have a right to know what the fuck is going on.”
“No.” Jack shook his head. “You don’t. And I can’t answer your questions because I don’t know what the fuck is going on.”
“Wake him up then and I’ll ask him myself.”
Jack shook his head and actually rolled his eyes. It made Kate wonder what the heck he’d seen in his lifetime if he could actually find time to express sarcasm over the current situation. “Does it look like I can?”
Lonely Rider - The Box Set: A Motorcycle Club Romance - The Complete Series Page 28
