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Chapter Twenty-Four

Ronnie

S hit. Shit. Shit.

“What do I do?” I cried with hysteria, throwing my body into the wooden drawer tossed among the others across the bedroom floor. Clothes tossed here, there, and everywhere, exposing everything I owned except the single gold piece of jewelry that I was looking for.

The canvas bag’s zips laid in pieces from where I had nearly ripped the thing in two, hoping to God it had just fallen somewhere down the back of the cupboard, or in a small pocket of the bag.

But no.

It was gone.

I rubbed the tears away from my cheeks, the wobbling vision and burning corneas doing nothing to aid me in my search. “Where else could it be?” I shrieked, kicking a pile of clothes, and slamming my toe into a drawer hidden beneath the piles.

“Motherfucking, ducking cocksucker asshole!” I whined, my palm trying to suffocate the heavy throbbing deep within my toe. Pain throbbed up my foot, shin, and knee and I rolled on the floor.

This is not the time to be in pain!

I’ve got to find it before—

“Can’t say I’ve ever heard such an amazing string of curse words before.”

I froze.

Jax.

I spun, my eyes catching the mess that even a blind man would notice as I turned to see his figure leaning against the doorframe. His hip popped out to one side, the side of his leather cut falling behind the protruding bone. The thin shirt he was wearing gave an inside view to his sculpted V, and the black and tanned skin that decorated it.

I was stupid to be eyeing up that piece of skin, but it caught my eyes and it was a better option to looking at his face.

Maybe I could just say I wanted to do some spring cleaning. In the middle of October.

Or maybe I just didn’t like my clothes anymore. The clothes that I had been overjoyed to have received a few weeks ago when he had let me choose them at the department store in the middle of town.

“Did a bomb hit this place?” Jax purred, his hip pushing from the door frame as it swaggered toward me, hidden once again by the fabric of his shirt and the leather of his cut. I continued to stare a burning hole into it, as if I could pierce through the thick materials with just will power alone.

“I was just doing some… uh, spring cleaning?” I coughed, shrugging like it was just a normal thing for me to spontaneously throw my clothes across the room.

“You? Cleaning?” Jax chuckled. “I highly doubt that.”

I didn’t have to look at his face to hear the long drawl of sarcasm dripping from his words.

“Hey!” I snapped, my eyes jumping to his face without thought as I opened my mouth to let rip about how I do clean and can clean… sometimes . I couldn’t get the words out, though.

Not when I saw his expression.

His tone may have been full of laughter and ease, but the expression on his face… it was one of pain. His weary head hung from tight shoulders curled into his chest. His hands tightened around the loops of his jeans, elbows pressed into his ribs. And his hair, the curled mess that was left to fly free had been pushed back by a headband. One I hadn’t seen before. It revealed his dark, sad eyes and heavy furred brow staring down into my face.

“Jax… did something happen?” I stepped forward, my hand reaching out to touch his arm as I forgot about my own dilemma. Something bad must have happened to have changed him so much.

My hand met his firm arm, and I felt the twinge of his muscles.

I felt the flinch.

Confused, I stared down at the limb, like it hadn’t just happened. Maybe he was just surprised or shock to be touched or—

“Ronnie.” Jax’s firm tone had my head snapping back to his. His head still hung, but now it was above me, a small distance, but in that moment, it felt as if he was staring from miles away. Like an echo reaching me from an endless cavern.

“Jax?” I could hear the caution slipping into my tone, feel the slight quiver over my lips as a heavy rock weighed down on my stomach.

Something was wrong.

“We need to talk.”

“No.” I shook my head, my heavy feet taking a heavy step away from him. “We don’t need to talk. You just need to tell me what happened.”

Jax took one step closer.

I took one back.

“Was it the club?” I blurted, my head shaking as I kicked a pile of clothes with my heel. “It was the club, right? Something happened to one of your brothers?”

Jax shook his head.

“Then the girls? Something happened—”

Jax shook his head again, following my steps.

My foot stumbled as the duffle caught my heel. I jerked upright, throwing my center of gravity backward and hitting the wall hard enough to remind me of my ribs that had bruised a few months ago. The same breathless feeling was taking over my chest, as every instinct inside of me screamed to run. To get away from whatever it was that Jax was bringing toward me.

“Is it Max?” I whispered, in a last desperate attempt, selfishly hoping that the news he bore on his face was that something had happened to my best friend as opposed to the only option left.

Jax shook his head again.

“I found the phone,” Jax whispered.

Just five small words. That was all it took to make my world come crumbling down.

“You didn’t turn it on, did you?” The sudden rush of anxiety took over. I lunged myself at him, my hand diving for the lapel of his cut. “Please tell me you didn’t turn it on!”

Jax pulled at my wrists, moving me away in a gentle yet firm push before stepping away from me. “Why didn’t you tell me, Ronnie?” Jax shook his head, brow knitted together even tighter as his face screamed at the lack of comprehension from my actions.

“You really don’t understand?”

Now it was my turn to be confused. I stared, gobsmacked, at the man who looked as if he were innocent of any sin. As if he didn’t even know why I couldn’t tell him. Why I had to hide this from him. Why it was the one thing I couldn’t be honest with him about.

“No, Ronnie. Why—”

“Because you abandoned me!” The scream was sharp and burst from my lips as if from nowhere. It had risen from somewhere deep and dark inside of me, a well in the depth of my soul that I had spent the last eight years of my life pretending didn’t exist. But now… it was overflowing. “I was all alone, Jax! I had to survive. I learned that I couldn’t trust anyone. That nobody had my back, and nobody ever would.”

“But what about now?” Jax shouted back, his boot taking a heavy, weighted step forward. “Do these last few months mean nothing to you? Have I not proven enough already that I wanted to mend things with you? That we can be—”

“Just like before?” I cut him off, aware of the sarcastic venom dripping from the words. “You think I would be able to just waltz back in here and confess every single bad thing that has happened to me and that you would be able to make things right for me? You didn’t even want to see me. You didn’t even care when I turned up here. Who’s to say you wouldn’t abandon me at any second?”

“It’s not like that now, Ronnie!” Jax ran a hand through his knotted dark hair, tugging on the mass, his lip pulling at the movement in a short snarl. “You know you can trust me now. You could have told me—”

“Told you what? That my life was a mess. That I became an empty shell, surviving day by day in a loveless marriage where I was useful only for bearing children. My mind had been so trampled on that the only real time I felt alive was when I could pretend to run away on my best friend’s back. When I could pretend that, one day, you’d come back for me!”

“You really married?” Jax paused, the tension in his shoulders seeming to sink as the words set in.

“Don’t sound so surprised, Jax,” I accused. “If you saw the phone, you saw the ring too.”

Jax didn’t flinch.

I stood my ground, my face beginning to ache from the tight pull of my brows as I stared at him in disbelief. “You think I spent forever waiting for you to come back? Pining over the boy who had never glanced in my direction for even a single moment?”

“But I just thought—”

“I waited at first,” I cut him off, my eyes dropping to the piles of clothes scattered around on the wooden floor. My eyes stared holes into them, but I wasn’t looking at them. I was looking into the past. To the girl whose head turned at the sound of a motor on the road, waiting for a dark-haired man to come to her rescue. To the girl who chased every storm as if the rain that took the boy away might bring him back to her. To the girl who thought her world wouldn’t turn without him there.

That pathetic girl….

“I thought what I did to you was wrong. That I betrayed you. That it was all my fault that you left. I spent the last eight years believing I committed the sin, and I sent you away. And I regretted it.” I shook my head, the clothes wobbling in front of my vision. “To think it took this long to realize that I wasn’t the one at fault. I didn’t scare you off or send you away. You abandoned me ….”

“Ronnie—” I heard the hoarse croak in Jax’s voice, but I didn’t look up.

“It’s all your fault,” I whispered. “Not mine.”

“Ro—”

“You never came back, Jackson. ” I turned, lifting my head to see him. My tears rolled down my hot cheeks, and I let them fall from my chin to the floor, staring at the face of the man I had spent years waiting for. My hero. My savior. My everything. I didn’t recognize it because this was not Jackson. He stopped being Jackson the moment he turned his back on me. “And you never will.”

Tears rolled down the edges of his cheeks. This fearless, reckless man who rode his bike faster than anyone would dare and wouldn’t hesitate to take a bullet was standing helpless and silent in my presence.

The sin of his past.

“I think I’ve said enough for tonight,” I breathed, my mind numb. Whether it was from the stress, the pain, and the heartache, it didn’t matter; they all became one heavy weight on my shoulders. “Goodnight, Jax.”

I turned, grabbed a pile of my clothes, and stared down at my moving feet as they carried me down the stairs, out the house, and over to the barn.

Max stared at me with unmoving eyes as I entered. Judging me quietly.

You said too much.

“I don’t need your judgment tonight, okay?” I snapped, earning a huff and a grunt from Max as she turned to face away from me.

Even my own horse didn’t want to look at me.

I laid down on the bench where Jax had confirmed his feelings for me, staring at the back of a brand-new shovel reflecting the puffed, red face glaring back at it. It only took a second for me to turn onto my other side.

I didn’t want to look at me either.

Not even as my tears dampened the hay. Or as my sniffles and sobs filled the quiet barn, wondering if I was crying for Jax or for me.

Probably both.

It wasn’t long before I heard the rumble of Jax’s bike fading away into the distance, leaving me behind once more. I buried my face into my arm and pretended that I didn’t hear it, hoping to fall asleep and leave all this heartache behind, even if for a moment.

But I didn’t sleep that night.

Just like that night.