“Always.”
Chapter 28
Chase
I gently cradle my nephew to my chest, looking down at his tiny little face. He blinks up at me, opening his mouth as he lets out a soft coo. He yawns and his eyelids get heavy. I rock him back and forth, and he falls asleep.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I tell my brother. “This baby thing is easy.”
Josh gives me a dead stare. “He was exhausted from crying nonstop before you got here.”
Amusement plays on my face and I sit on the couch, moving as slow as possible to not wake the baby. I’m holding Noah, who’s the bigger of the babies. Josh has Aaron and is trying to get him to take a bottle. I lean back, letting Noah rest against me. My mind is on Sierra and the little life inside of her.
We sure as shit didn’t mean for it to happen. We were careless, getting caught up in the moment pretty much every time we fucked, and now we’re paying the price. Though right now, I don’t feel as panicked as I did before. Sierra will be a good mom, hands down. And me…I at least know what not to do thanks to my own dad.
“This is kinda nice,” I admit, looking down at the sleeping baby.
“Is it making you want one?” Josh jokes.
“Someday,” I answer, feeling the urge to blurt out that Sierra is pregnant.
“Wait until they wake up. You’ll think twice.”
“I will admit I want one at a time, though.”
“Going from one to three is quite the adjustment. When Dakota was a newborn, we were able to take turns. You’re still tired as fuck, but it’s one-on-one. Having two…it’s hard. But worth it. So fucking worth it.”
Josh pulls the bottle from Aaron’s mouth and sets it on the couch next to him. He turns on the TV, volume so low you can hardly hear it.
“How are you?” he asks. “You look a lot better.”
“I feel better. I’m sore,” I admit. “And kinda rundown. But I’m alive. Thanks to Sierra.”
“She seemed pretty upset when she called to tell me you were sick.”
I nod. “I guess things looked bad for a while. It’s weird having someone care like that.”
“So I take it you’re staying in Summer Hill?”
“I am,” I say casually. I’m never fucking leaving this place unless Sierra and our child come with me. Wherever she is—wherever they are—is where I’m meant to be. It’s home. “I never thought I’d end up here.”
“I’m glad you did.”
“You and Sierra are the only ones who think that.”
Josh raises an eyebrow. “Her family likes you though, right?”
“Hah,” I say with a snort of laughter, causing Noah to stir. I shush him back to sleep. “I’ll just say they’re not my biggest fans. I have no trust fund or background in farming. I’m their last pick for Sierra.”
Josh shakes his head. “I don’t get people like that. You two are happy together, right? Isn’t that enough?”
“You’d think so.”
“Take care of yourself, man,” I say to Jax and hand him his bag. Heat from the sun melts down on us, and mosquitos swarm around my face. I swat them away, squinting in the bright light. “Don’t get killed.”
“Rule number one,” Jax says with a toothy grin. “Same goes for you. It seems pretty dangerous here.” He raises his eyebrows and looks out at the water. “There aren’t crocodiles in there, are there?”
“Alligators,” I correct. “You’re going to fucking Florida. You should know that shit. And no. Sierra said it’s too cold for them up here, thankfully. Those fuckers freak me out.”
“You and me both.”
The taxi bumps along the country road, pulling into The Mill House parking lot. Jax claps me on the back, giving a curt nod before getting into the cab. His plan is to go visit his mistress in Miami for a few days before heading up north again. Mason, another bounty hunter, has been keeping an eye out for the Haynes brothers, who are after Jax’s head. He hasn’t seen them lately, making Jax think they gave up and moved on to something else, but I think they’re pissed enough to not let this go anytime soon.
A few months ago, the bank repossessed their matching pair of foreign sports cars and Jax tracked them down to collect on the cash. Since there were two cars, I drove one while he drove the other, taking them back to the dealership. The brothers, who owned a nightclub, weren’t happy. The matching cars, however douchy, were their pride and joy, and made them look legit when they pulled up to their club.
Having their cars taken back by the bank was an ego blow, plus proved that their club wasn’t doing as well as they claimed. Too stupid to understand that by not paying, they lost their cars, they blamed Jax, and think he still has the cars just sitting in a garage somewhere.
Once Jefferson gets back from Europe, he’ll get the proper paperwork along with a restraining order against the brothers. It’s the simplest way to get assholes off our case. Matt Jefferson is a lawyer turned state judge who resides in Indianapolis. Jax and I helped him out when his teenage daughter decided to have a party on their family boat, resulting in her twenty-three-year-old boyfriend ‘borrowing’ the boat, two jet skis, and a brand new Chevy Silverado to pull it with. He doesn’t understand what we do but appreciates it. The law can only go so far, and I wish we had more politicians like him…or maybe not.
Once Jax is gone, I go into the apartment and grumble at the mess. Even when we were working the same jobs, I could never live with Jax. He’s too much of a fucking pig. Not long into cleaning, I start to feel shitty. The skin around my incision is tight and itchy, and I’m overall tired. I lay down in my bed, and with the river in the background, I pass out, not waking again until Sierra calls me on her way home from work.
“Lisa wants to get drinks tonight,” she says, panic-stricken. “I can’t drink or sit in a smoky bar.”
“Tell her to come here,” I suggest. “Sit in the restaurant side where there’s no smoking. I’ll make you something with no alcohol and she’ll never know.”
“That’s a good idea. But you can’t work yet.”
“I can help out for a bit while you two are here at least.”
“You sound like you just woke up,” she says, and I hear her start her car. “Are you feeling okay? The doctor said to be on the lookout for signs of the infection coming back.”
“I was asleep. Jax left and I had to clean up his fucking mess. I laid down and fell asleep.”
“Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“Nah, it’s fine. When are you going out?”
“Seven. We’ll go to The Mill House. Stay there and get some sleep. I’ll bring you dinner at six. And Chase?”
“Yeah?”
“That picture you sent me of you holding baby Noah…I know we said we’d take a few days to really talk about it but I already know. I knew as soon as I saw that second pink line, actually.”
“What do you know?” I ask, needing to hear her say it out loud.