8. Chapter Eight
Chapter Eight
Jax
Earlier…
Jax was at the florist shop not far from the Center, picking up some flowers to have on the dining room table that night. He was fixing dinner for Kincade, with help from Ford. It was going to be a simple meal—pork chops, baked sweet potatoes, and a mandarin-pecan salad Katrina had mentioned was one of Cade’s favorites. She got the recipe from the family cook and emailed it to him. Jax was very excited.
He and Ford had discussed it and decided Jax would take the first run at feeling out Cade regarding becoming parents. He’d rehearsed it in his head all the way to the other side of town, but nothing sounded right.
“ We love you. Our life is great just like it is, but Ford and I thought maybe we could explore having a baby together?” It made it sound like Cade’s opinion didn’t matter, and they were coming to him as an afterthought. That wouldn’t do.
“What would you think about having a baby? I’d like kids, and I think Ford might like kids. What do you think?” That approach sounded a bit vague. Jax didn’t like it.
“We all love each other, and that can be enough, but have you thought about maybe the three of us having a discussion about adding to our family?” That sounded closer to the tone he wanted to set.
They damn well should have been talking to Cade about it before that night, but the three of them were so busy, even having to resort to keeping a calendar they synced so they each knew what the others were doing. A subtle approach was likely the best.
If they were going to have a child, they’d have to rethink the schedules they kept. Would one of them stop working and stay home with the child? Would Ford and Cade continue to split time at the club as they currently were, and then he could be a backup at night to help with the baby? What if there was more than one baby? Who’d father the baby? Where would they get the eggs?
There were far too many questions to consider. Once the door was opened, they could discuss it like rational adults. He just needed to open the door.
He paid for the rose bouquet and told them he’d pick it up at four that afternoon. When he hopped into his Expedition, his cell was ringing from its perch in the cup holder. He picked it up to see it was Ford.
“Hey, baby,” he answered.
“Jax, I just got a call from the police. A 9-1-1 call came from the Club. The alarm didn’t go off, which means Cade shut it off when he got inside. I’m headed there now,” Ford told him.
“I’m on my way,” Jax told him as he turned his SUV in the direction of Andersonville. He called Wes Martin, leaving him a message that he wouldn’t be in as early as he’d promised, and could he handle things until Jax had a better handle on what was happening at the club?
He ended the call and tossed his phone into the passenger seat, cursing himself for not being earlier that morning. He and Ford got up to a little mischief before he left for the Center, and after they’d enjoyed a very fulfilling sixty-nine, Jax had fallen back to sleep for half an hour. When he woke, Ford was still sleeping, so he hopped out of bed to start his day. The news that something had happened at the club had him worried and plagued with guilt.
When he rolled up on the scene, there were cops and paramedics everywhere. Jax’s worst nightmare was coming true.
An hour later, they were standing inside the club as the police were questioning Ford. “Where did they take our hu—son?” Jax asked. He was tired of the bullshit.
“Your son? The suspects are outside on the curb. You think this was an inside job?” one of the detectives asked.
“No, you jackass. Kincade Delacroix. He’s our son,” Jax snapped at the man.
“Look, get Detective Antonio Del Torro to meet us at the hospital. He knows us. You’re all worthless,” Ford yelled as he took Jax’s hand, leading him out to the Expedition. They climbed in and headed toward the hospital.
“Should you have stayed there?” Jax asked.
“Fuck it, I don’t give a shit about anything but Cade. Just get us there,” Ford directed, so Jax obeyed.
When they heard the level of his injuries, they were both stunned, but the ER doctor told them it was too early to provide a prognosis. The next forty-eight hours would be crucial.
Jax held Ford as the two of them sat together, crying. If anything happened to Kincade, they’d be lost.
Four days later, Jax woke first. He turned to see it was six o’clock, and he was pissed they’d slept so long. Ford was still asleep, and as tempted as he was to leave him home to rest because sleeping at the hospital had been awful, he knew the blond would be pissed if he did. He leaned down and gently kissed his husband’s lips, happy to hear a humming. When Ford’s eyes shot open, Jax smiled. “Morning, babe.”
“Morning, love. Any word?” Ford sat up in the bed. Jax grabbed his cell to see a text from Andria, the night nurse.
Your son woke up at about 3:00. Dr. Crosby’s been called. He’s still sleeping because we gave him a shot for the pain in his arm. I’m going to hang around. See you soon. Andria
Jax couldn’t help but slap Ford’s leg. “He’s awake. He woke up at three. I knew we should have fuckin’ stayed.”
They’d been there every day to watch over Cade, but the one night they’d allowed Cleveland and Griffon to push them out of the room to go home, they hadn’t been there for Cade when he needed them.
“Hey, boss,” Cleveland greeted as he strolled down the hallway where Jax and Ford were standing outside Cade’s room waiting for the resident to check him over so they could return to their vigil.
“Hey! How was the vacation?” Ford greeted them with hugs. Jax joined them because the couple was close to Cade, and they’d been missed.
Griff giggled, much like Cade. “We eloped because that wedding shit was too much. Don’t tell Winnie, okay? Cleve’s gonna go over to her place in the morning to talk to her, but we thought we’d relieve the two of you so you could go home. I heard from Brady the club’s closed, so we have nowhere to be. How long have you two been here? You look like shit, by the way,” Griff pointed out. Jax didn’t doubt it.
They introduced Griff as Cade’s little brother and, apparently, Cleveland as Griff’s husband. The two friends were given permission to spend the night so Jax and Ford could get their first night’s sleep since Cade had been shot.
“Let’s just get cleaned up and go see him. Come on.” Ford took Jax’s hand and dragged him into the shower. They quickly cleaned up, neither bothering to shave.
After they were dressed, they grabbed extra clothes so they could be ready to spend the night until they could bring Cade home. Jax popped off a quick text to Katrina.
He’s awake. We’ll meet you at the hospital. Jax
The two men hopped into the SUV, and Jax drove them to the hospital, staying just under the speed limit. It was just the beginning of rush hour, for which he was grateful. He held Ford’s hand the whole way.
“He’s gonna be fine, baby.” Jax kept repeating the phrase over and over, as much to soothe himself as his husband.
After an hour’s worth of instructions, they brought Cade home on Sunday morning. The neurologist had ordered a few last-minute tests before release, so they had to wait, but Jax was happy to have his younger husband home where he belonged.
Jackson carried him inside because the doctor had mentioned there was some residual weakness on his right side from the concussion. Since Cade had a broken arm, crutches were out of the question, so Jax would be his personal pack mule until Cade was one hundred percent. It was no trouble at all.
After he settled Cade on the sectional in the great room, Jax sat down next to him. Ford was in the kitchen making tea and toast because the meds Cade was taking for the pain in his arm made him nauseous. “So, tell me what happened. We haven’t had a minute to talk, really. I want the details, Kincade.” Jax was trying not to be demanding or intimidating, but he couldn’t hide the worries that had consumed him for a week.
“I… Oh! Guess who I ran into? Vance Blake—Special Agent Vance Blake. Remember him from the shelter? Tall, redheaded kid? Anyway, he’s an FBI agent who was undercover there, along with Kevin, remember Kevin? Short Asian guy, really muscled up?”
Jax smiled. “Okay. Put a pin on that for now. Tell me what happened when you went into the club, please?” This time, his request was much calmer.
Ford walked in with a tray and placed it on the coffee table, handing the two men each a cup of tea and presenting the toast to Kincade, complete with strawberry jam just as he liked it. “What are we talking about?” Ford’s concern was etched on his face just as it had been since the incident.
Jax was certain the blond was blaming himself for the break-in and Cade’s injuries. He’d kept the club closed since it happened, and Jax knew Ford was deciding whether to keep it at all, but it was too early for those types of decisions.
“I’m trying to get Cade to tell us what happened that morning. We’ve heard pieces of it from the cops, but that one fucker at the scene seemed to think you were in on it and something went wrong,” Jax remembered. It pissed him off when he’d heard it the first time, and it didn’t make him any happier as he remembered the interview he and Ford had had to sit through.
“Detective Del Torro doesn’t work this precinct. So, how about you tell me what’s going on,” the short, fat, balding detective insisted as he directed them to seats at the precinct in Andersonville. Jax was about ready to blow his gasket, but when he felt Ford’s hand on his thigh, he calmed.
“We own Fairytails. Jax and I are married, and Kincade is our son. We adopted him,” Ford explained.
The fat man laughed. “Yous two adopted that kid? Why? He seemed to be old enough to fend for hisself,” the man said, causing Jax’s blood to boil.
“Why we adopted Kincade isn’t the issue, is it? You have two suspects in custody, right?” Jax pointed out.
“Baby banger-wannabes. One’s thirteen and the other’s fourteen. We can’t get a name from either of them, much less an address. They’re not in the system, but we believe they’re affiliated with one of the local street gangs. The gun they had wasn’t registered to anybody, no surprise. You sure your son didn’t set you up? We found a bag of cash with about two grand in it,” the detective, Bryan Small, suggested.
Ford laughed, and Jax could tell it was from nerves. “Why would Kincade set us up to be robbed? There’s money in the safe, and he has the combination. The business is in his name as well, Detective Small. This wasn’t orchestrated. They broke in through the back door because they didn’t think anyone would be in so early, just like they did in other businesses in the neighborhood.
“If you’re trying to paint our Cade as a master criminal, starting his own gang with adolescent thieves, you’re sadly mistaken. Now, we need to get to the hospital,” Ford was done jacking around with the cops, as was Jax.
“Okay. I let myself in and locked the front door, but I didn’t set the alarm because I knew Tao was coming to power wash the patio and the furniture that morning. I guess I didn’t really think it through, okay?
“When I walked down the stairs with the bat, I only wanted to scare them and make them leave. I could tell they were kids, guys. I didn’t expect them to have a gun, and I thank my lucky stars they were bad shots or I’d be dead, I guess.
“Look, do we know what happened to those kids? Detective Johns, the tall one, wouldn’t say much about it the few times they interviewed me. I didn’t like the short one,” Cade told them, which made both men laugh because they hated the prick, too.
“Was Small the fat one? He told us one was thirteen and one was fourteen. It was some sort of gang initiation, they suspect. Anyway, the boys are locked up in some juvenile detention center,” Jax said.
Cade sat up quickly. “We have to get them a lawyer, Jackson.”
Jax looked at Ford, who also bore a look of disbelief. They were willing to write it off to the concussion, but when Kincade pursued it, Jax was blown away. “Look, they didn’t mean to hurt me, okay? They were doing a stupid thing, and haven’t we all done stupid things? I’m going to call Roberta Stubbe. They didn’t kill me, only nicked me, and it’s not their fault I fell down the stairs, is it?”
Jackson Pierre Hayes-Thomas-Delacroix was stunned for not the first time in his life, but it was for a very different reason. If his husband, Kincade, had so much compassion for a couple of stupid kids who were prepared to gun him down in cold blood, the young man was ready to be a father. Of that, Jax was sure.
Jax walked into the rehab room at the Center to see it was busy. He’d been retooling the schedule so the three Delacroix men could go away on vacation. It was only a long weekend in a little village in Wisconsin but they had rented a cabin and everyone was excited to go.
“Slowly, Cade,” he heard Wes instruct. He looked over to see his best therapist was working with his younger husband, which was a relief. Cade’s cast had been removed a week earlier, and he’d just started therapy.
He still had a bit of numbness in his right leg, but the neuro assured them it would go away as the swelling reduced. It was only seven weeks since the assault, and a concussion like Cade’s could take up to six months to heal properly.
He approached the area where Wes and Cade were working, staying behind Cade so as not to disturb them. “You were an S&M master in another life, weren’t you?” The snap in Cade’s voice as he worked with a small weight, moving his arm in an outward motion with the weight in his hand, made Wes grin.
“Why, yes, I was. How did you ever guess? Five more, and square your shoulders. I can give you the other weight so your tits aren’t lopsided,” Wes teased. Jax couldn’t hold the laugh on that one.
Cade rested the weight against his right thigh as he turned to see Jax behind him. The bright smile on the brunet’s face was a reward. “You could make him stop being so mean, you know?”
Jax stepped forward and kissed Cade on the lips. All his employees, including Janelle Crow, knew who Cade was and what he meant to Jax. Janelle finally gave up her failed pursuit of Jax after Ford’s cancer scare, which was a relief.
“According to his contract, I actually can’t, chére. He’s hired to get you back into fighting shape, and if I don’t let him do his job then I’m not giving you your money’s worth,” Jax told him as he picked up the small weight and handed it back to his husband.
Cade giggled. “I’m on the mortgage. I’m not paying him anything.”
Jax sighed. “Oh, we’re paying him a lot of money, so stop fucking around. We need to get you finished so we can go home. We can steam and whirlpool when we get there. We need to talk to Ford about reopening the club. It’s been almost two months,” he told his husband before making his way to the office to shut down for the day.
Cade walked over to Wes and extended his hand to shake. “Thanks, Wesley. I’m sorry I was a prick. I’ll do better next time, I swear.”
An hour later, the two men were sitting in the hot tub on the pool deck, kissing as if they’d been separated for months. When Ford came downstairs and stripped, hopping in with them, it was as perfect as Jax had ever hoped it could be.