Chapter 3
BOLT
It has been six weeks since that night in Southampton.
I haven’t been able to shake Jeanie. She lives in my thoughts, and I replay that night over and over again.
I’ve wracked my brain to remember as much about our conversation as I could to see if there are any clues on how to track her down, but there is nothing.
She had a tattoo on her hip of a skull in a top hat, but I hadn’t been able to read the writing in the dark, and I now regret it.
I have a feeling that I’ll never meet another woman like her.
She somehow made the worst night of my life better, dragging me from my melancholy thoughts, and she brightened the world for those few hours that we’d spent together.
“You doing okay, little brother?” Coal asks, clasping my shoulder and giving me a little shake.
Turning my head towards my older brother, the club president, I’m once again struck with awe at how much he’s accomplished in his life.
He’s always been the one who’s pulled me out of scrapes, and I’m sad to say that after everything with Leila, I’d gone off the rails and caused my family a shit tonne of worry.
I’ve grown up a lot in the last year. I take my position as Road Captain seriously because Coal put a lot of faith in me getting my shit together, and I’d hate to let him down.
Especially now with all the shit that is swirling around us.
We are a brother short with Copper undercover, and not having Copper here is stressing Coal out.
The two of them are close, being the eldest of us siblings.
They’ve always been there for us, no matter what idiotic thing we’d done.
Realising I haven’t answered him, I reply, “I’m okay, Coal. ”
“You sure?” he asks with concern, his brow creasing into a frown. “You haven’t been yourself recently. I mean, there’s a party going on, and you’ve ignored every woman that’s hit on you so far, and you’ve been staring into that glass of whisky for the last hour, and not drunk a drop.”
He isn’t wrong. We decided to have a party before our Christmas decorations go up tomorrow. It will be the last big bash until the New Year’s one that Mom and Thea have planned. Tomorrow our clubhouse will look like Christmas has thrown up all over it if I know my mother and sister.
“Leave the lad alone, a ghrá,” Thea chides him, gently slipping under his arm. An arm that he immediately tightens around her shoulders. “He’s allowed to say no to the whores.”
Thea winks at me when she catches my eye and, chuckling, I say, “Yeah, Coal, no means no.”
Coal rolls his eyes at me. “Okay, okay. I was just checking on you. I know what last month was, and you’ve been really quiet, so I was making sure all was good.”
His words warm my heart. I love my family, and I know I’m lucky enough to have been born into one of the best. Turning my head so I can see my brother and Pres better, I tell him, “I promise, Coal, I’m fine.
Easy pussy...” I look apologetically at Thea, who waves her hand at me to continue.
“Anyway, easy pussy isn’t doing it for me lately.
I want what you two have, what Mom and Dad have.
What Copper and his woman are building. Until then, I’m going to give women a break. ”
Coal nods with understanding, and Thea’s looking proud. “I get it, brother,” Coal says, then continues, “Remember, though, I’m here if you need anything.”
“I know, brother,” I acknowledge. “Now respectfully, fuck off and enjoy the rest of the night with your old lady.”
Thea laughs and Coal grins, but they take me at my word and walk off hand in hand to Coal’s office where I know the door will be locked, and they’re only to be disturbed if it’s an emergency, or if their daughter, Shea, needs them.
I go back to contemplating my whisky, ignoring the party raging on behind me until Blue interrupts me when he leans over the bar. “Brother, there’s a woman at the gate asking for you, but she hasn't been cleared to come in.”
We implemented the background checks on all who step foot on our property not long after Thea arrived and Copper went undercover. We need to know who is on our property, as the undercover work we do is sensitive.
The last thing we need is to have our business out there for every man and his dog.
“If she’s not on the list, then she needs to leave,” I tell Blue.
He hesitates a beat then says, “Thing is, she’s not exactly a stranger. Hang on...” He holds up his hand to me when I go to speak. “Let me clarify. She’s a stranger, but we know her family.”
Now I’m fucking confused. Which of our allies would send a woman to us who isn’t on our cleared list?
“Did she give you a name and why she is asking for me?” I want to know.
“No idea where she got your name, but her name is Jeanie O’Shea.”
“Fuck,” I whisper, my heart beating double time when I hear her first name. Could it be her? Happiness floods through me at the hope that fills me. Perhaps it is? I don’t care why she tracked me down. All I know is that I’m fucking glad she did.
I bolt from my stool, leaving my drink on the bar and ignoring Blue’s surprised look. I stride out of the clubhouse, unaware that my abrupt exit has caught the brothers’ attention.
I’m in a hurry to get to the woman who’s the first to have made me feel alive in six long years.
It doesn’t take me long to reach the gate, and my strides shorten as soon as I see her leaning against the side of her vehicle, ankles crossed, hands in the pockets of her puffer jacket and a purple beanie covering her long, dark hair. She’s as gorgeous as ever.
“Jeanie,” I whisper, but she must hear me because she turns her violet eyes towards me and smiles.
“Bolt,” she breathes. “You’re a Queens Wraith.”
I walk over to the button on the gate and hit it, waiting for the electric gate to slide open enough that I can slip out as quickly as possible. Walking over to her, I stop as soon as I’m within arm’s reach.
Jeanie straightens from her slouched position, the toes of her boots touching mine. She reaches up and ruffles my hair, murmuring. “You cut your hair.”
“I did,” I reply. “It was time.”
“I like it.” She smirks at me.
“Do you want to come in?” I want to know.
Her smile fades. “I do.” She nods. “We need to talk.”
The happiness at seeing her dims at her reply, and I swallow. “About?”
She looks at me from beneath her lashes. “I think you know. A girl doesn’t track her one-night stand down for many reasons.”
I swipe my hand over my mouth and swallow down the bile that rises in my throat.
It seems history really does repeat itself.
“Fuck,” I whisper, and tears prick my eyes, and I can’t stop the words that tumble out of me.
“Please don’t get rid of my baby. I know I don’t have any right to ask you that, but I’m begging you—please don’t.
I’ll take all responsibility if you don’t want it.
” My breath hitches, and I struggle to breathe as panic fills me.
I’m not sure whether I can do this again.
“Hey,” Jeanie whispers, enfolding me in her arms and hugging me. “Breathe with me, okay. Slowly, in and out. It’s going to be okay. I’m sorry, Bolt. I should have handled that better, especially knowing your history.”
She still doesn’t let me go. As my breathing evens out and as my panic eases, I realise I’m clutching her coat in my fists, my face buried in her neck as I inhale her scent.
I’m not sure how long we stand like that with her supporting me and murmuring comforting words, hands smoothing up and down my back.
Eventually the panic subsides, and her quietly promised whispers penetrate the panicked haze that I’m trapped in.
Maybe I should be embarrassed at falling apart, but Jeanie doesn’t seem to be fazed by my panic attack.
Easing my hold on her, I’ve got to pull myself together and listen to what she has to say.
“I’m sorry,” I apologise, lifting my head from where I buried it in the crook of her neck. “We should go in and have a proper conversation in private. I’ll try not to have another meltdown.”
“I think privacy is a moot point.” Jeanie snickers as I hear footsteps behind us. “I’m guessing this is your brotherhood coming en masse to check on you?”
“Fuck, probably,” I mumble.
“Before they get here,” Jeanie says. “Rest easy, I’m not getting rid of the baby. I’d never do that. I came to tell you about the baby so that you could make a choice if you want to be involved or not. From your reaction, I think I have my answer.”
“Fuck, Jeanie. Damn right I do, but I’m also fucking thrilled to see you. I haven't forgotten our night together, and I’ve been going through my memories of that night wondering how I could track you down,” I admit.
Jeanie beams a smile at me. “Me too. I finally caved and spoke to my sister. She’s an old lady in the Crow MC.
Sam’s,” she clarifies before continuing.
“I started here because this was the first American MC we could think of. I’m stoked to find you so quickly.
And just so you know, I haven't been able to forget that night either.”
It’s a small world. I know Sam, not well, but I know him. He was the biological son of our VP in the mother chapter in the US and spent some time with our MC a few years ago.
Cupping her cheeks, the feeling of rightness that I felt the night we met fills me.
Tilting my head, I take her mouth with mine.
And the same as the night we met, Jeanie kisses me back just as enthusiastically as she did then.
If Coal hadn’t interrupted us, I have no doubt that I’d have scooped her up and taken her to my mobile home then and there.
Sadly, he did.
“Bolt, can you let the lady go and introduce us?” Coal orders.
“Fucking hell,” I grumble, and Jeanie giggles, pressing one last kiss to my lips before she says, “Introduce me, and then we’ll talk.”