Chapter 19
Jax sat at the bar and drank whiskey.
Jessa's words were swirling through his mind as the alcohol swirled in his stomach.
I'll never forgive you for taking him from me.
He took another sip of his drink, but it didn't erase the taste of her from his mouth or wipe clean his memory of her reaction to him. He'd been torturing himself, wondering if everything he remembered about their night together had been exaggerated. Now he was tortured by the fact that it had not.
Yet she hated him.
He’d laid it all on the line, told her how much that night had meant to him, how much he wanted to repeat it, and all she wanted was to forget.
What the hell was he supposed to do with that?
His cell phone rang and he saw it was Logan. "What's up?"
"I was able to access Jessa's medical records directly."
Jax’s stomach clenched. "Go on."
“It’s good news. There is nothing about cancer in these files," said Logan. "These records are just for basic checkups, as if she were seeing a general physician."
Relief flooded through Jax. She’d been telling the truth, and he couldn't have been more grateful. Jessa did not have cancer. She was going to be okay.
Thank God.
"Except for one thing," said Logan. "I don’t know if it’s relevant or not, but since you asked me to look in her files, it seems like maybe it’s something I should—”
“What is it, Logan?”
“She's pregnant."
Jax slammed his drink down on the bar. "What?"
“Pregnant. You know, she’s having a baby.”
“I know what the hell pregnant means, you idiot. When is she due?”
“Uh, let me see… looks like March eighteenth.”
Jax rolled his eyes. “That was three months ago, Logan.”
“Oh no, wait. Sorry. That’s the date of her last period. What was that, like two and a half months ago?"
Jax’s senses reeled as his mind flew through the calendar. He needed to get off this phone. Needed to get out of this bar. Somehow he managed to make his voice work. "Anything else?"
"That's all I found."
"Okay, thanks." Jax ended the call with shaking fingers and got to his feet. Any alcoholic haze he'd managed to attain had already evaporated from his mind. He threw money on the bar, not waiting for change, and headed back upstairs to the room.
A baby.
He was going to be a father.
It didn’t matter how it happened, didn’t matter they hadn’t intended to create a new life. He was going to be a father, and Jessa was the mother of his child.
Awe spread its wings wide inside his spirit and he smiled a wobbling smile.
Why hadn’t she told him? Didn’t she know he’d be happy?
He walked down the corridor, not feeling the floor beneath his feet. In the blink of an eye, his life had changed. He was having a baby with Jessa.
Jesus.
He laughed an awkward laugh that sounded a bit like a sob as he waited for the elevator. He was going to be a father.
He reached their hotel room and inserted his key. She stood beside the bed and straightened when he walked in. He let his eyes feast on her face. What would their child look like? Would he have her black hair, the sharpened features of her Cherokee face?
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.
“What?”
His eyes dropped from hers and took in her breasts, her belly, and back up again.
He remembered how she’d flinched in pain when he suckled her breast. How she’d ignored the coffee and wine he’d bought for her.
Her apparent sickness in the truck. He felt for what she was already going through, the changes that were taking place in her body. “About the baby."
Her eyes went wide and her mouth opened.
“Logan got your medical records. I know you’re pregnant.” His lips pressed together as he smiled. “I know you’re carrying my child.” He walked toward her and opened his arms.
She pushed him away. “You had no right to go through my medical records!”
“I was worried about you. We can do this, Jessa. Everything will be okay. I’ll support you and the baby. We’ll raise the baby together—”
“No! You had no right to go through my medical records. You just think you can do anything, that nobody’s in charge of you. And you don’t care who gets hurt in the process.”
“I needed to know why you bought a new identity, what you’re running away from. We’ve been looking at everything. Financial, medical. I need to understand why you ran away, and you weren’t helping me…”
A horrible understanding polarized his brain, and for a long moment he simply stared at her while the pieces slipped quietly into place. “Wait a second.” He ran a hand through his hair. “You knew you were pregnant and you didn’t tell me. You weren’t going to tell me.”
The look on her face was full of such hatred he was taken aback.
“Oh my God,” he whispered. “You were running from me.”
She took a step backwards and he advanced on her. “You were running from me!” He shook his head, disbelief attempting to derail what was clearly the truth. “You were running from me so I wouldn’t know about the baby!”
No visitation.
Anger burst forth from him like hot lava into the sky. He turned and smashed his fist through the wall, pleased when Jessa jumped.
“My baby,” she whispered.
“Ours!” he yelled. “You weren’t going to tell me. You're carrying my child, and you weren't even going to fucking tell me! That's why you wanted a new identity, so I couldn't find you. So I couldn't find you and my own child.”
Her stare was icy.
“It must have been horrible for you,” he said. “Getting pregnant by the one man you can’t stand.”
“An eye for an eye.”
“What did you say?”
“I lost my baby when you killed Ralph. You owed me one."
He put one hand on either side of his head and turned away from her and this craziness. Not even Linda's betrayals compared to this. That's when he saw her bag packed and ready to go. He pointed to it and turned back to her. "If I hadn't come back just now, you would have been gone."
She crossed her arms.
He stormed to her. "Answer me! If I hadn't come back here, would you have left?"
She glared at him and spit out between her teeth, “Hell yes, I would have left. I can’t stand you. I don’t want you in my life or my baby’s life."
"Well then, we’re just going to have to make sure you stick around." He dug in his bag and withdrew a pair of handcuffs. He turned to her, pleased when a knowing look appeared in her eyes.
"No."
"You don't get to decide anymore.” He put one handcuff around her wrist and the other around the arm of a heavy chair. "And you sure as hell don't get to walk out of here with my child.”
All he could see in his mind's eye was Jessa, beautiful Jessa, naked beneath him and guiding him inside her without a condom.
I want you to come inside me.
She’d been planning to steal from him, to take the one thing more precious than any other. The family that rightfully belonged to him.