Chapter 22
Carol
The nights at the Executioners’ clubhouse hum like I used to. Not Christmas Carols. Engines rumble, men laugh in deep, rough bursts, someone curses loud enough to shake the vents. I start bartending to feel useful.
Later, I lie in my room with the tiny Christmas tree glowing faint gold, the heater humming weakly, and the baby rolling slow under my ribs like he’s trying to find the warmest corner to settle into.
There’s a weight on the nightstand I’ve been ignoring for days. The leather-bound journal Humbug gave me before the fire burned everything else down.
I haven’t opened it.
Not until tonight.
A folded page sticks out like he wanted me to notice it eventually.
I open it.
His name for me is scribbled across the top.
Peppermint
His handwriting looks grouchy, like it was carved into the page with frustration and nerves.
Peppermint,
I don’t know how to say this out loud. Maybe writing it down makes it real before I screw it all up again.
I lied to you because I thought I was protecting you. Truth is, I was protecting myself. You made me feel like more than a bastard with a patch and a past. And I didn’t know how to live up to that.
I told myself letting you go was mercy. Told myself you’d be safer without me, without Trina, without the club, without the shadows I drag behind me.
But when you walked away, the whole world went quiet in the worst way. Couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t breathe right. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the look on your face when I let you down.
Trina showed up one night, drunk. She tried to climb back into my life. I almost let her. Not because I wanted her, but because feeling nothing was easier than feeling everything, I felt for you.
But she touched me, and all I could see was your face. Your hands. Your laugh. The way your eyes soften before you kiss me. I shoved her out and realized I’d crossed a line I couldn’t come back from.
So, I bought you this journal. Figured if you didn’t want me, at least you’d have some place to put the parts of yourself you shouldn’t have to bury.
But I’m begging you now, give me a chance to earn back what I lost. Not your pity. Not a free pass. Just a chance.
I don’t know how to be the man you deserve, Peppermint. But I want to learn.
— Jack
The words blur as tears pool, warm and surprising. This is the man who carried me out of a burning bakery. The man who lied to me, yes, but the only one who’s ever made me feel like I wasn’t alone in the world.
I flip to the blank page across from his letter and pick up the pen he tucked inside.
Jack,
You think you break everything you touch, but you didn’t break me. I left because I was scared. Not of you, but of how deeply I already loved you.
Your lie showed me the truth. That I had been living a lie. Not with you, but in this town, with Blake. Lying to myself. Leaving, I thought I was leaving lies behind.
And I didn’t want to disappear into your chaos. But running from it didn’t save me. It just showed me I was already tied to you in ways that scared the hell out of me.
I don’t know if forgiveness comes all at once. I think it comes in pieces, like building a snowman.
You want a chance to earn this? Okay. Then show me who you are now, not who you were when you lied. Show me the man who wrote this letter and carried me out of fire. I’ll meet you halfway.
— Carol Peppermint
I close the journal.
I sleep with it under my pillow.
The next morning a knock pulls me from sleep.
“Yeah?” I call.
Humbug steps inside, damp hair, gray T-shirt, jeans low on his hips. Sexy as sin. He freezes when he sees the journal in my bed.
“You… read it?”
“I did.”
His jaw flexes. “And? You mad?”
“No,” I say softly. “I wrote back.”
His eyes widen just slightly, the closest thing he has to vulnerability.
“Can I?”
I hand it to him.
He reads my reply in silence, eyes moving slow, steady.
When he finishes, he closes the journal and presses both hands over it like he’s protecting something fragile.
“I ain’t gonna waste this chance,” he murmurs.
“I know,” I whisper.
Two days later Honey drives me to the clinic in town, but Humbug shows up anyway, late, sweaty, wearing his cut like armor. He slams the door open and the nurse jumps.
“Where is she?” he growls.
“Jack,” I whisper, flushed. “It’s a checkup. Not a knife fight.”
He softens immediately.
“Yeah. I know. Just… needed to be here.”
When the doctor presses the Doppler wand against my belly, Humbug holds his breath. Then the heartbeat crackles through the speaker, fast, strong, alive. Humbug’s big hand finds mine. His thumb shakes.
He doesn’t hide it.
“That’s… ours?” he whispers, voice breaking like a man who never imagined making something good.
“Ours,” I repeat.
He kisses the corner of my mouth before he even realizes he’s doing it.
A week later, Frost knocks on my door.
“Carol… you gotta see this.”
He leads me down the hall to one of the spare rooms. The one the club used for storage. The door’s open. Inside, Humbug stands surrounded by piles of tiny blankets, boxes of diapers, a stuffed reindeer, and a crib half-assembled on the floor.
He’s sweating, cursing under his breath, holding a tiny mobile shaped like snowflakes. He freezes when he sees me.
“Don’t freak out,” he mutters. “It ain’t done.”
My throat tightens. “You did all this?”
He shrugs, embarrassed. “Baby needs a place to sleep. Don’t mean he’s gotta sleep in a den of bikers.”
“You picked snowflakes,” I whisper, touching the mobile.
He grunts. “You like Christmas crap.”
I step closer, fingertips brushing the crib. It’s sturdy. Warm. Safe.
“Jack… this is beautiful.”
He looks away, ears flushing. “Don’t say that. I ain’t…”
I wrap my arms around him before I can think. He stiffens, then melts, hands settling careful and protective around me and the curve of my stomach.
“You’re earning it,” I whisper into his chest.
“All of it.”
The next month, Humbug’s waiting outside my door at dawn. He hands me a thermos of peppermint cocoa, extra sweet. He doesn’t say anything about it, just walks me to the truck like he’s terrified I’ll change my mind.
At the clinic, the doctor asks, “Any father’s questions today?”
Humbug clears his throat. “Yeah. Uh… how fragile is she supposed to be? ‘Cause she’s pickin’ up heavy shit and it’s makin’ me crazy.”
“Jack,” I groan.
The doctor laughs. “She’s fine. But keep doing what you’re doing. Support helps.”
He nods with grim determination, like he’s been given a mission. When the ultrasound shows the baby’s profile, Humbug’s hand covers his mouth.
“That’s…he looks like...” We find out we are having a boy.
“You okay?” I ask.
He nods, swallowing hard. “He’s real.”
“He is.”
He whispers, “I’ll never let him down.”
Forgiveness isn’t one moment, it’s a hundred small ones. It’s Humbug knocking before entering my room. It’s him leaving snacks outside my door because I keep forgetting to eat. It’s the way he cuts my fruit.
The way he lets me snap at him when my nerves fray. The way he silently installs a softer mattress and pretends it was “club inventory.” The way he refuses to let me carry anything heavier than a cupcake.
One night, I find another note slipped inside the journal.
You said forgiveness comes in pieces. So, I’m giving you pieces back, every day, until you let me hold you again.
— J
I add.
Keep going. I’m not running this time. I wouldn’t get very far in my condition.
Another month passes of Humbug earning my trust. The brothers are hanging lights outside the clubhouse, and Humbug is arguing with the ladder like it personally wronged him.
“Hold it steady!” he barks.
“I am,” Frost calls back.
“You ain’t! It shook!”
“It’s windy, dumbass!”
I watch from the porch steps, laughing.
Humbug sees me, breath catching.
“You okay, Peppermint?”
“I’m… happy,” I say honestly.
He climbs down fast, wipes his hands on his jeans, and cups my cheek in one rough palm.
“You keep sayin’ stuff like that,” he murmurs. “And I’m gonna think I did somethin’ right.”
“You did.”
He kisses me, slow, certain, gentle enough that the baby kicks between us as if claiming the moment too.
Snow falls soft as breath across Evervale.
The lights glow warm.
The clubhouse feels like a home I never meant to have but somehow can’t imagine leaving. I sit on the edge of my bed, the journal open in my lap.
My page.
His page.
Healing written in ink.
He walks in, smelling like motor oil, grime under his nails from working all day at his shop. Sitting beside me, big and quiet and warm, he rests his hand over the arc of my stomach.
“You forgive me yet?” he asks.
I smile, soft. “I’m getting there.”
He kisses my temple, whispering against my skin, “I’ll wait. However long it takes.”