Page 2 of Finding His Redemption

Jax shoved out of bed, pulled on yesterday’s jeans and boots, grabbed the duffel he hadn’t unpacked, and bolted. He didn’t even know where the hell he was going. Just away.

The hallway outside his door was narrow, wood-panneled, and dim. The voices came from the far end where the hallway opened to a common room. More wood paneling, vaulted ceiling, stone fireplace, cold but swept clean, worn leather couches that had seen years of asses and boots. A scarred pool table sat off to one side, half-covered in laundry. The far wall was all windows, morning light slanting across the hardwood floor and catching dust in the air.

There were six men in the room.

One stood at the stove. Tall and rangy, hair a curly mess, he hummed off-key and flipped bacon like breakfast was a Broadway audition. He wore a threadbare US Navy T-shirt, plaid sleep pants, and… bunny slippers?

What the hell was up with that?

A giant, shaggy beast of a dog tore through the room, slinging water and drool in its wake.

“Goddammit, King!” A mountain of a man gave chase with a towel. Muscled, inked, with buzzed hair, he looked like he’d been carved out of bad decisions. The dog slid on the hardwood and slammed into a couch, shaking water in all directions.

Someone else tried to help wrangle the beast—a man with a Marine Corps globe and anchor tattoo on his forearm and rust-brown hair that looked like he let the wind style it for him.

“Jonah, on your six,” the big guy called.

The Marine turned and launched at the dog, who slipped easily from his grasp. Unlike the big guy, Jonah looked like he was enjoying every second of the chase.

A man with dark hair and darker eyes full of shadows snapped his laptop from the table before the dog crashed into it, sending a half-full coffee mug flying. “This is why I don’t do breakfast.”

“Or joy,” a black man said from one of the couches. He lounged there like he didn’t have a care in the world, wearing nothing but a grin and a pair of loose basketball shorts that left nothing to the imagination.

The man with the shadowed eyes glared at him. “Jesus, X. Put some clothes on. Nobody wants to see your cock flopping around.”

“Why not? It’s a thing of beauty. Dare I say, a gift to humanity.”

“Yeah,” said the guy in the bunny slippers, deadpan. “The gift that keeps on giving syphilis.”

X flipped him off as the others howled with laughter. Loud, easy laughter. Like this kind of chaos was normal. Like they were brothers.

Jax wasn’t part of it. Couldn’t be. His brothers were dead, and the two that weren’t wanted nothing to do with him.

Jonah was the first to spot him lingering in the hallway. “Yo, you’re the new guy, right? I’m Jonah. Sorry for the craziness. King’s a menace. You want coffee?” Each sentence came rapid-fire. The guy had the same happy-go-lucky energy as the puppies Jax used to train in prison.

Jax didn’t answer.

The sixth man was crouched in front of the fireplace, stoking the flames. He had broad shoulders and a solid build beneath a red-and-navy plaid shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbows. A thick, dark beard covered his jaw, and his neatly trimmed hair wasswept back like he’d run a hand through it out of habit, not vanity. One scarred hand flexed as he braced it against a knee to stand, his movements economical, controlled.

A wolfhound sat calmly beside him. Shaggy, broad-chested, with watchful eyes, the dog sat there like a sentinel, silent and unmoved, until the man shifted. Then his ears twitched and his body tensed, ready to follow or defend, whatever the man needed.

The man’s hazel eyes met Jax’s with quiet understanding. “I’m Anson,” he said. “You okay?”

No.

Not at fucking all.

The walls pressed in. His chest clamped tight.

Too many bodies. Too much noise.

Jax strode across the common room, ignoring the six sets of human eyes and the two dogs. He pushed through the front door hard enough that the screen banged shut behind him, and he heard one of the men laugh.

“Twenty bucks says he comes back.”

“Not taking that bet, Riv,” X responded. “Boone always gets them to come back.”

Outside, the morning sun was just cresting the mountain ridge. Dew clung to the grass. The air smelled like pine and horses.