Chapter Twenty-Four
Chasm
My fingers trembled as I took the picture. We never got one last time. I stared at the black-and-white image of a blob that didn’t look anything like a baby. It looked more like a peanut.
I glanced at Morgan, my eyes wide. Movement behind her caught my eye, and when Rian moved forward, all I saw was his hand on her back.
“Who the fuck is he?” I asked, hitching my chin at him.
“He’s one of my father’s men. From Louisiana.”
My eyes cut to her; she saw the question and sighed.
“My brother wanted me to go to Nebraska, and my father agreed. But King, the Sons of Hell president, said that would be the first place Stone would look for me. If he really were coming for me. So I went to Louisiana. To the Bourbon Kings.”
“To Devlyn,” I said.
“To Devlyn. But when I found out I was pregnant...”
“You came here.”
“I came here.”
I looked at the picture in my hand. My finger traced over the tiny body. “Are you okay?”
“So far.” She shrugged.
I looked at her then. I saw the fear in her eyes. The same fear that I was feeling. Fear that she would lose another baby. That I might lose her.
“Will you stay?” I asked.
“I’d planned to. But I can’t fight with you, Jude. It’s too much stress on the baby.”
“I’m sorry.” I took her hands in mine. “Let’s get—”
“Don’t you dare say it.” She pressed her hand over my mouth.
“But, Morgan,” I mumbled.
“No, Jude. We tried that once. It didn’t work. I’m here so you can be a part of your child’s life. But you and I don’t work.”
“Bullshit.”
“Jude.” Morgan shook her head, and I pulled her against my chest.
“Just try,” I begged into her hair.
“No.” She pulled back and took a step away from me. “I’ll stay here until the baby is born. But after I’m going home to Rosewood.”
“How can I be in the baby’s life if you live three states away?”
“My parents did it.”
“Morgan.”
“That’s my offer, Jude. Take it or leave it.”
A throat cleared behind me, and I remembered we weren’t alone. I looked up and found my brothers watching us intently.
“Fine. But you stay at the clubhouse.” She opened her mouth to protest, and I placed a finger against her lips. “We don’t know where Stone is or what his plans are. I need you and our baby safe.”
“Fine, but I want my own room. And my mother stays too.”
I nodded, already planning a way to put her next to me. I looked over at B. He sighed and closed his eyes but nodded and disappeared down the hall.
“The asshole doesn’t stay.”
“Jude—” she started.
“No, Morgan. I have plenty of men to keep you safe. Send him home.” She nodded and walked over to talk to Rian. He looked up at me as she spoke quietly, and I wanted to know what the fuck she was saying to him.
When he pulled her against him and kissed her head, I growled and took a step.
“Don’t do it,” Smokey said behind me.
“He—”
“Has been watching over her. You need to go over there and thank him.”
I turned to look at Smokey. My mouth hung open and my eyes studied the old man. He had been one of Titan’s enforcers, and one of the few old guards that was still alive.
“You want me to thank him?” I asked, convinced I’d heard him wrong.
“You want your woman back?” When I didn’t answer him, and instead just glared at the old man, he said, “Then get your ass over there and thank the son of a bitch.”
“How does thanking—”
“Do as you’re fucking told,” he growled, giving me a shove.
“Jesus Christ, I thought I was the fucking president here,” I muttered to myself as I walked across the room. Morgan’s mother watched me with a careful eye as I stepped up and held out my hand.
“Rian, thank you for making sure my wife and her mother made it here safely.”
“I’m not your wife, Jude,” Morgan corrected.
“We never got divorced,” I reminded her.
“You died,” she insisted, crossing her arms.
I patted my chest and legs. “Alive and in the flesh, baby.” Then I looked at Rian again. “Thank you.”
He nodded and looked at Morgan. “You understand I can’t leave until he tells me.”
“I’ll call him,” she said. She turned to me. “Can you give Rian a room until I speak to my father?”
I looked between the two of them. “He doesn’t need to stay,” I answered.
“Jude, if you sent one of your men to do something and they came home before you told them they were done, how would you react? What would you do?”
“I’d beat the shit out of him for not following orders,” I answered without thinking. As my words rang out, I realized what she’d done. “Fine,” I agreed through gritted teeth. “Misty! Show the man to a room.”
“Sure thing, Prez.”
Misty sashayed up to Rian and ran a finger over his chest. “Follow me, handsome.”
Morgan rolled her eyes and shook her head. “The club whores call you Prez?”
“Yeah, there a problem with that?”
“Nope,” she said, popping the p at the end, and something told me there was absolutely a problem with that.
I smiled to myself. She was fucking jealous. Jealous I could work with. Jealous meant she still fucking loved me.
“Where are my mother and I staying?”
“Upstairs. Follow me.”
“Prospects. Go get their bags and bring them upstairs.” I held out my arm to my wife, who might not legally be my wife anymore, but she would be.
I already had Justin working on getting my life reinstated.
Once I was legally alive again, I could marry this woman a second time and keep her tied to me forever.
She shook her head and linked her arm with her mother’s. “Lead the way,” she said with a smile.
She had been living here for a week, and I was dying. She was killing me. Morgan walked around the clubhouse in jeans that looked painted on her ass and tank tops.
Okay, sure, it was fall, and the weather could be unpredictable. And maybe she started out with a sweater in the morning, and when the temperature rose throughout the day, she’d have to take the sweater off to cool down.
Hormones, she called it.
Bullshit is what I called it.
She was trying to kill me. Torture me by showing off her creamy skin that I wasn’t allowed to fucking touch.
My men touched her.
They passed her in the kitchen and placed a hand on her back so they didn’t bump into her. Or their fingers brushed as they handed her a drink she’d asked them to get.
She had them eating out of the palm of her hand like sappy fucking puppies.
Don’t get me wrong, I was glad they liked her and even happier she liked them. It was important for my men to love and trust my old lady. But this shit was getting out of hand.
“PROSPECT!”
The prospect holding my wife’s hand dropped it quickly and stood up. “Yes, sir?”
“What the fuck are you doing?”
“Jude—” Morgan started, and I held my hand up to her. I knew it was rude. I knew it would piss her off, but better she was pissed at me for being rude than pissed at me for saying shit I shouldn’t.
“Um... uh...” He looked at Morgan for help.
“Brian was letting me rub a new lotion on his hands,” my wife said, defending the prick.
“A new what?” I asked, not understanding.
“A new lotion,” she repeated, standing up. “Zombie helped me set up a spot in the basement to work.”
“Work?” I asked, sure I heard her wrong. “Why are you working?”
“Because I have a spa that I will eventually return to.”
“You don’t have to work, babe.”
She stared me down, and that was when I knew I had fucked up.
Again.
“I don’t have to work, Jude. I choose to work. I love what I do, and you know that.” She turned to Brian. “When your shift is over, come find me and I’ll give you that massage.”
“Like fucking hell you will!”
I heard the snickers around the room, followed by Ambush’s whispered, “Abort,” as he walked by me. I ignored them all while Morgan glared at me.
“Is there a problem with me working while I’m here?”
“Yes,” I answered quickly.
“Why?” she asked, crossing her arms. Fucking hell, I loved and hated when she did that. It was a signal that I was headed straight toward enemy territory, but the way it pushed her tits up short circuited my brain and I missed the red flag every fucking time.
“Because you should be resting. So nothing happens to the baby.”
I knew as soon as I said it, I was a fucking asshole. Knew she would take it the wrong way. “Morgan.”
“Fuck you, Jude.”
She walked away without another word, but I saw the hurt in her eyes. Saw the guilt that she didn’t deserve. I dropped my chin to my chest.
“Great job, Prez,” Venom sneered as he walked by me.
In one week, my wife had won over every man in the clubhouse. The whores hated her, especially Jenna, but so far, they hadn’t tried any shit. I had B make it clear to them all that they would be out on their ass, no questions asked, if they gave Morgan a hard time.
I sat at the bar, and Brian placed a beer in front of me. I lifted it to my lips and took a long drink before setting it back down.
“I’m sorry, Prez.” I looked at the prospect. “I just figured it was better to agree rather than tell her no—her being your old lady and all.”
I sighed heavily. “She’s not my old lady, Brian. Not yet.”
“But she was, wasn’t she?” I nodded. “Maybe I don’t understand how it works. I mean, I know death dissolves a marriage, but does it dissolve the old lady title? Like, don’t the titles in the MC supersede death?”
I smiled at the prospect. “You are absolutely right, Brian.”
I rapped my knuckles on the bar as I stood. A smile split across my face as I walked off looking for my old lady. She might not legally be my wife anymore, but she was still my old lady.
I went to the basement first, assuming that was where she would go. When I reached the room B had given her, I walked in and my mouth dropped open.
The walls were lined with shelves; the beginning stages of a collection of bowls and herbs filled those shelves. By the time the baby was born, those shelves would be filled, similar to the guest room in her house in Virginia.
I leaned against the door in awe of my old lady. I wondered if she truly understood how amazing she was.
“What are you doing down here?”
I turned at her mother’s voice.
“I was looking for Morgan.”
“She’s in her room.” Her voice was cold. It didn’t hold the warmth it had a week ago, when she was rooting for us to be together.
“She told you what I said, didn’t she?”
Benny nodded.
“I didn’t mean it the way it came out, Benny. I just...” I didn’t know how to explain what I was feeling. The fear that had overtaken me once I knew she was pregnant.
“You need to talk to her.”
“I’ve tried. She won’t listen.”
“Maybe it’s you who needs to listen.”
“She won’t talk to me, Benny.” I put my hands in my pockets and sighed. “I fucked up; I know that. How do I get her to forgive me?”
Morgan’s mother looked at me. “Forgiveness isn’t something you ask for, Jude. It’s something you earn.”