Chapter 1
PRESENT DAY – DAY AFTER PUMPKIN
Steel let out a long, low groan that was quickly accompanied by a light, feminine laugh. The best fucking sound in his world.
Flaming orange hair filled his vision as Jenna rose over him.
About five years ago, Jenna’s hair started to lose some of its brightness and gray/white hairs appeared.
She’d immediately dyed her hair, thinking he would think less of her as her age started to show.
Ridiculous. As much as he loved her fiery locks, they did not define her.
Besides, he’d gone gray long before she had, and it had only seemed to make her hotter for him.
Their sex life had taken a turn recently.
Even before her diagnosis, they’d stopped with the rough, hard, fast fucks that had driven them for a good part of their marriage.
Steel hadn’t even noticed at first. It had been a natural progression for them.
The slow, toe-curling, passionate lovemaking that set his body on fire.
He didn’t miss the hard fucking. Christ, there’d been times when he’d been home from deployment and they hadn’t even made it to the main road.
Their truck had been their makeshift bedroom too many times to count.
Steel was pretty sure they’d conceived Jordan in the back of his truck.
It was a sad day when that truck died and Steel had been forced to get a new one.
He still had it, refusing to have it sold for parts.
Not only had Mr. Zarin given him that truck when he was sixteen, but he had far too many memories in it to let it be dismantled.
As a military man, he’d been trained not to get sentimental over things.
Things could be replaced, people couldn’t.
Their home was never permanent and always at Uncle Sam’s directive.
But that truck was his. A piece of Port Townsend, of home. His only piece actually.
Jenna was fucking beautiful. She dyed her hair to make herself feel good, which was all that mattered to Steel. Now if he ever found out she was going on a diet? He’d shut that shit down in a heartbeat. There was never a more perfect woman than the one lowering herself down onto his chest.
Steel threaded his fingers through her hair.
They’d shower in a bit and then he’d comb it for her.
Showering with Jenna had always been a luxury more than a necessity.
At least, until last April when she’d fallen while showering and he wasn’t in the house.
Their adopted son, Ollie, had found her and been able to get her help.
Jenna thought it was an inconvenience that Steel had mandated they shower together from now on.
Her silly brain could not comprehend the privilege that it was.
Nearly a year ago, Jenna and Steel had gotten the test results back.
It hadn’t been what they’d feared. Her dizziness, constant tripping, shortness of breath, and forgetful spells had driven them to see a doctor, who had then sent them to a specialist. Cancer had been the assumption.
It wasn’t, but in some ways, it was just as devastating.
Late-onset multiple sclerosis, or LOMS. In and of itself, MS was not a death sentence.
The amount of independent research Steel had done, beyond what her doctors had informed them of, had confirmed that.
Steel also reached out to people living with MS and family members so Jenna had people to talk to with personal experience of what she was going through.
Medical research and advancements were being made every day.
It was no longer a matter of when but if the disease would claim a life.
Jenna, though, was diagnosed in her fifties, classifying her as late-onset.
This added complications to her life expectancy as well as symptoms. The disease was progressing more aggressively than Relapsing-Remitting MS that was typically detected in younger individuals.
At present, Jenna was categorized as Secondary-Progressive MS, which meant her symptoms were steadily worsening over time, even without active relapses.
They were not waving the white flag, though. There was a lot they could do to slow the progression, including some Eastern therapies. It helped that there was a doctor, an RN, and an acupuncturist within the club, and all three lived within walking distance of Steel and Jenna’s house.
Even so, it felt like there was a constant clock ticking in the back of Steel’s mind.
Reminding him that his mornings waking up to Jenna next to him were numbered.
He was fighting it, did his best to ignore the continuous tick, tick, tick…
but there were times when it grew incessant and there was no muting it.
A part of him wondered if this was how death row inmates felt, the constant pressure of the inevitable.
Jenna’s faith had not faltered since receiving her diagnosis, but Steel already knew she was so much stronger than he was.
How could any god, Christian or otherwise, take this beautiful, courageous, smart, funny, passionate woman from this earth?
How was that good and just when evil walked about so freely?
What ‘great plan’ could possibly involve removing her from this world?
Steel was very aware that all things died. That was the cycle of life. You’re born, you live, you die, and the circle continues. Hell, he’d raised a daughter whose favorite movie growing up was The Lion King. He was very familiar with the song and the implications behind the lyrics.
But Jenna? Why her? There was no better woman to walk this earth, and yet she was the one whose body was slowly betraying her.
Why not him? He was the killer, the one with blood on his hands.
Last January, he’d executed a woman who’d betrayed his club and tried to have one of his club brothers kidnapped by an outlaw biker club.
Cage had only escaped, because even in his drugged state, he’d only had eyes for Angel.
Steel had killed others too. He’d had rapists tortured, murderers killed. Hell, there was currently a pedophile in the cellar below the clubhouse.
He thought justice might have finally come calling when he’d been arrested for Dixie Gilbert’s murder four days ago.
He might not have pulled that trigger, but he’d certainly pulled others.
And while he felt no guilt or remorse for those deaths, he knew it did not change the blood staining his hands.
It should be him. If there was a god or some cosmic justice system, it should be him.
Changed nothing, though. There was no part of him that planned on living in this world without her.
People in grief talked about living after their loved one was gone.
The strength it took to continue on, for their kids or siblings or whomever it was that they clung to.
Steel was a weak man. He’d lived through fifteen years without this woman in his life, from the time he’d been born to the moment he’d met her on that sidewalk outside a used bookstore in Port Townsend, Washington.
He’d spent over forty with her, and he would spend as much time as she had left with her.
Be it days or years, they would be together. But there would be no after her.
He didn’t have the strength. Their kids were not enough to keep him going, nor was the club they had built together. Not his sister or his nieces and nephews. There was nothing in this world that would keep him going. As soon as her heart stopped beating, so would his.
Naked, Jenna stared down at her husband.
Some called him gruff while others saw him as an asshole.
She’d only ever seen the man she fell in love with, the boy who had sacrificed everything for his little sister and worked himself to the bone to provide for her when they were a young married couple.
People thought they were foolish for marrying so young.
She’d gotten married on her eighteenth birthday after all.
But they didn’t understand. It wasn’t about sticking it to her parents or proving a point.
She would have married him the day they’d met, if the law had allowed them.
Putting a ring on his finger had been an expression of love. She was claiming him, solely and completely. She was saying to the world back off, he’s mine and then proved it every day by sticking by him, through thick and thin.
Things were different now, her diagnosis the invisible elephant in every room, but she had unyielding faith in them. She would never give up, never stop fighting to have more time with this man.
She loved Jack Duncan. And even after so long together, she was finding herself falling more in love with him. There had never been a day when she’d been bored with him. Pissed off, absolutely.
When she heard about couples falling out of love with one another, it made her wonder how.
Did it start gradually or was their love just not as strong from the start?
Jenna couldn’t imagine Jack ever doing something to make her stop loving him.
Or either of them becoming so complacent in their lives that they got bored with each other.
Even after raising three children and adopting another, their sex life had never suffered. Countries apart, their letters while Jack had been deployed had been explicit and full of promise for their reunion.
Jenna sat up slightly, her legs falling to the mattress at his hips. Her man’s body was perfection. Jack had started seriously working out after her mother’s bodyguards had beat him and twenty years in the Marines had done the rest. She loved every muscle, evidence of his strength and perseverance.