23. Big Bear
BIG BEAR
Jordyn
To escape the anguished aftermath of telling Jamie how long I’d cried after what happened to me and Rocket’s baby, my baby, I’d kissed him.
The gentle touch of his whisper-soft fingertips on my spine kindled a burning passion deep inside. A passion I never knew existed. One that came from consent. From someone not screwing around with my mind, dehumanizing me, or telling me that all I was good for?—
No. I didn’t care. A giddy little cry came from my lips as Jamie’s hand gripped the back of my hair. This sort of domination was different. Not putting me down. Making me feel less than to lift himself up. No, every touch was firm, steady, and made me struggle for an inhale.
DING .
DONG .
My thoughts scattered, yet I couldn’t help but let out a breathless, giddy chuckle. “Don’t get it. Please don’t get it.”
“They’ll go away.” He laughed, one that ran deep from his strong abdomen pressed against me. “If they don’t, I’ll persuade them.”
Another ring of the doorbell and Jamie sat back. I cried inside. No . No . No . This was not happening! He was kissing me like he wanted … more.
Between moaning at the trail of kisses that scattered down my jaw, I added, “Okay. We just have to be really quiet. Then I’ll forget everything in my past.” What else could I forget?
I’d forget my ABCs as long as this lasted forever.
“Everything from the last day back. I won’t even remember the horrible dream I had last night just?—”
The door opened, and I clung to him as he stood up. Maybe we could just disappear. I’d spent half of my childhood wishing I’d vanish. If they didn’t see us, we could continue this upstairs.
“Jamie?” called a feminine, Scottish voice.
I climbed down from the tree of a man before me as his body tensed in a way that didn’t match the tension woven through him a mere minute ago.
“Aye,” he grunted.
The front door opened to reveal a large woman with short, mostly silver hair.
The wavy curls framed her ears. Made her appear more “I love fresh-baked cookies and binge-watching cartoons on Friday nights with my grans” instead of the mother of a Scottish Crime syndicate.
While looks could be deceiving, I really wanted this.
I wanted to be fooled by her and believe that she’d call me daughter. That I’d have a family.
Without a word, she stepped into the large cabin that resembled a French Chalet. Where she had her son in the width department, he had her in the height department. She wrapped her arms around him; his chin fit like perfection on top of her head .
I glanced away.
I’d never had a mother. Never thought much of her and skipped pages in books that mentioned mother figures.
Not many action flicks had mothers, either.
As they hugged, I remembered how Rocket cradled our baby in his hands.
Even more pain than I thought imaginable poured from me in waves when I’d asked him to save her.
“She’s dead, Jordyn. All that opening your legs with that old man. You must’ve given the governor children? Yeah, I bet you thought you were special, giving that walking skeleton children,” Rocket had said, holding our baby at arms distance.
“What are you talking about? I’ve never …” I’d clutched the side of the couch. The pain wouldn’t allow me to get up. Take her and cuddle her to my breast.
He’d snarled, “I thought this would be our first baby. It’s my first baby, just not yours. That’s why she came out dead. You know, I was kidding about giving her up. But nothing I ever want goes right, anyway.”
Though it felt like I’d pushed all my insides out onto that couch, the pain in my heart seemed hollower. I stuttered, “R-Rocket, please, just rub her chest softly. Maybe she just needs encourage?—”
“Clean yourself up while I take this down to the dumpster.”
Rocket had always ran hot and cold. But that day? The North Pole had nothing on him. And I had never forgotten the chill.
Usually, it was my own, raw, broken sound that yanked me out of the memory of losing our child, snapping me out of the darkness.
Sometimes, it wasn’t even the crying that pulled me back—it was the sting of the backhand of a past owner who didn’t want to hear it.
Today marked a new dawn. The emotive sobs that cracked through the silence didn’t come from me.
And still, my heart clenched.
A new kind of ache.
A new kind of dawn.
Jamie’s mother cried and hugged her son as if she still saw the frightened little boy we both once knew.
I stepped forward and placed my hand on her back.
Something fluttered in my chest. I wanted to speak life into the deep pit of despair that surrounded her, and I could imagine that over the years, this broken, sorrowful stance is how she came at him.
Wanting to bring about hope when everything about her screamed, hopeless .
A part of me could see why he ran away from his family.
Not because of the past that broke this once sweet, innocent kid.
But a mother’s desire to make it all better when she couldn’t.
People couldn’t change others. Couldn’t wipe away the pain as sure as my palm over her heaving back couldn’t help.
As sure as me wanting my legs wrapped around Jamie in tender release couldn’t redeem what I’d lost. A man and sex did not constitute salvation.
Jamie gave me a look of apology.
She needs this , I mouthed.
His eyes said, I know.
As I rubbed a hand over Mrs. MacKenzie’s back, and her legs caved while she clung to Jamie, I felt others watching. My eyes flicked to the open door.
Leith. Camdyn. Brody. And the man who probably regurgitated Brody almost forty years ago, sporting a white peppered beard and the same shoulders that could go to war.
Two more men were there. One had a faux-hawk fade, a Dodgers cap in his hands, and the other, who had Jamie’s eyes, had a leaner build.
The men, big and strong, seemed brought low by the display .
“I’m okay, Mam.” Jamie, his usual deep voice, was brought low too.
“I’m so sorry, Jamie.” She gained her bearings, though not letting go. She seemed to support her weight now. “I just missed me son, is all.”
“I know.” From over her head, Jamie glanced at me. “Mam, I need to introduce you to someone. Jordyn, you can call my mother Nan. She takes in everyone, so Nan is what the entire neighborhood calls her.”
“You’re one of the weans ?” Eyes dripping with tears locked on me.
And then déjà vu like I’d never seen it before embraced me tightly.
Although I didn’t know a mother’s love, kiss, or hug, I’d felt it a mere moment ago when she hugged Jamie, like she wrapped her arms around me too.
Now, I knew this type of love. After another tight embrace, she pulled me at arm’s length.
“All I knew … All I knew about was Jamie. I wasn’t in my right mind.
Jesus, I prayed like I never had before, but something in me never set right.
Instead of questioning Nolan, I focused every effort on my sweet Jamie. I’m so sorry.”
Looking her in the eye, I said, “You were exactly what Jamie needed.”
“I was?” Her eyes lit up. A hunch told me the confident woman had a decades-old sore spot, and I’d just mended it.
“Yes, Mam,” Jamie sighed. “I couldn’t wish for more. Suppose I felt something was wrong too. Therapy wasn’t cutting it. Nothing did.”
“Until you tried …” She shook her head. “I called Tatum. Asked the dear girl why she’d not reached out to us. We’d had that conversation about the man who abused her when she was little, but I called her again. Gave Tatum an earful for getting you involved.”
“I was a man, Mam.”
“You were?— ”
“Twenty-three, I believe. A man.”
“You tried to kill yourself because of Tatum’s quest to catch a pedophile. I understood her reasoning; she needed help. But some poor soul died, and you—you, almost … I let her know it was unacceptable behavior.”
Jamie groaned. I understood him completely. Jamie had helped Tatum in their twenties. His mom made it seem like Tatum had asked him—a mere little boy at the time—for a favor.
Big Brody gave my hand a firm shake. “Jordyn, it’s nice to meet you.”
“Same,” I said.
Nan smiled and shook my hand. “Jordyn, what’s your last name, dear?”
“I don’t, uh …” My suddenly sweaty palm worked over the side of my thigh. My mind fixated on the fake birth certificate. Just say Greene, Jordy! Nah. It seemed utterly stupid to mention Camdyn’s wife’s family name, especially under his and his brother’s watchful eyes.
“Doesn’t matter,” Jamie said, “it’ll be MacKenzie once I’ve corrected a few issues.”
Oh ? Jamie telling me he wanted to marry me was so not Jamie telling his parents he wanted me.
Jamie started toward his brothers. “Leith, mind if we change keys. Your ride is too flashy for my needs.”
“Yeah.” His brother chewed his lip, fishing keys from his pocket. “I screwed up, bràthair . I called Nolan?—”
“When?” Jamie snatched the keys from his hand.
“Monday of last week. First thing in the morning.”
I gasped. “We’d been doing our own thing all this time. Five months,” I spoke to Jamie’s steely spine as if he needed a reminder.
Jamie turned around to address us all, slipping the key into his pocket. “And Chelomey quickly secured the team that came after?—”
“What team?” Big Brody barked.
“Long story. No time.” As Jamie spoke, his voice held a faraway tone. “It’s good you all are here. Well, most of you. Jordyn needs protection.”
“ Jordyn is in the room, and where are you going?” I growled. “You can’t just pawn me off on people … ahem .” In a room where my beautiful dark color stood out, I felt extra seen. I extracted my foot from my mouth and clamped my lips shut.
“I like you.” Leith grinned, the smile eons different from the frown he’d offered when I walked out of his brother’s house.
“Me too,” Dodger cap guy flashed a smile that could light up the dark. He nodded. “I’m Lachlan.”
“Boy five?” I arched a brow.
“Five of seven, yep. But let’s just say I’m also the best the MacKenzies had to offer.
” He winked. He really had a nice voice.
A few years younger than Jamie and a few inches shorter—maybe six foot three—he had a laid-back confidence.
Yeah, that was it. While the same words might sound prideful from anyone else’s mouth to my ears, his self-assurance made me like the guy.
I shook his hand, large and powerful.
“All lies,” said the next guy, who stood head-to-head with Lachlan. He had a leaner build, but he wore faded jeans and a white T-shirt like they were made for him. The kind of look that turned heads.
“You’re number six? Rory.” He was the brother Jamie said fell in love with every girl in high school.
And not like a player. Jamie said he’d had it bad.
Great, I’d almost met all the MacKenzie brothers.
Except for Baby Jake. I didn’t mind waiting to meet him, though.
Jamie seemed to be annoyed by how Jake offered unsolicited clinical assessments and hadn’t quite gotten his PhD yet .
“Or Romeo,” Mr. Rory Pompadour winked. Man, he had perfect hair. “Just call me Romeo.”
Cute. But too young. He had to be twenty-five, twenty-six? And he had no job, from what Jamie said. If he kept flirting, I’d suggest he become a social media influencer and give me 10 percent.
“Don’t be too kind to Jordyn, Rory, ” Jamie said, an order, not a suggestion.
He then turned his narrowed gaze on Lachlan.
“You either, Lach, or I’ll break those money-making legs.
” Jamie patted Lachlan’s shoulder. While I wondered about those legs and athletic build, Jamie attacked Leith with a hard shoulder pat.
“And you too. Your wife will get to attack the scraps that are left after I kill you. Maybe she’ll even use that katana she got from Michie again, big brother. ”
“Can I get in on this?” Camdyn chuckled. The glint in his eyes teasing.
Jamie growled, “Don’t?—”
“Jordyn, you’re just what my brother needs. See, I didn’t even compliment her on being too beautiful for you, Jamie, like our cheesy little brothers.”
Lachlan scoffed. “No one has ever called me cheesy.”
“How about you all drop it? And make sure Jordyn is safe.” Jamie strode to the closet next to the front door and removed the backpack. He knelt down and tugged out bricks of cash on the ground. Our identification. All that remained was …
That reliable gun he had to put together.
“You want to kill someone?” I asked.
“I’m going to make things right. And nae, I don’t require any help. You all will just compromise the op.”
Nan approached as he zipped the backpack and placed it over his shoulder. “Mark my words, Jamie, we will have us a blether once you return.”
My brow rose. Blether ?
Lachlan mouthed, Talk .
After a silent nod of agreement and one last look in my direction, Jamie vanished behind the door.