Reclaimed (24 page)

“Loving my babies is never something you should thank me for, babe. Having someone care for them like they were their own, loving them as only a mother can, that is an honor to share with you.” She lifted her hand and tucked a lock of my hair behind my ear as she stepped forward and lowered her voice. “I will always be grateful for the peace you gave me, Felicity. What you gave me and Lucy, can never be repaid no matter how hard I try. If you ever need anything—anything—you only have to say the word.”

I caught her hand and gave it a small squeeze. “I’ll remember that,” I teased her with a wink. We both knew I would never use her like that…unless it was absolutely necessary. 

“Good,” she said with a smirk.

I gave her fingers a tighter squeeze. “The same goes for you, Emmie. I know you have Seller for security, but if you ever need anything… Well, you know I’ll get anything you need done without asking any questions.”

Her smirk faded in an instant. “I wish you wouldn’t go.”

Her chin started to tremble and I quickly wrapped my arms around her small frame. “I’m sorry, Em. So, so sorry.”

“I know. I’m just being silly. I told you I hate change.” She gave a sad little laugh and pulled back. “Go. Be with your scary biker. I only want you to be happy.”

I nearly grinned at the similarities between the two people I loved so much. Here was Emmie telling me the same thing Jet had just said the night before. I knew I could be happy here with Emmie and her family, but not as happy as I would be back in Creswell Springs.

With Jet.

With one last tight hug, I stepped back and walked toward the waiting taxi. The driver opened the back door for me. As the driver started to pull away from the curb, I glanced back. My chest clenched when I saw Emmie standing on the front step with Nik’s arms around her while she cried.

I was exhausted by the time I got to the airport, so I was ten times as grumpy as I normally would have been when I found out my return flight had been cancelled and the soonest I could get back to Creswell Springs was the following afternoon unless I rented a car.

Deciding it was probably better if I got some sleep before I suddenly started murdering the airport staff, I walked the few blocks to the nearest hotel and crashed as soon as I was in my room. I slept deeply and woke up more than ten hours later, reaching for Jet.

Not finding him next to me like I’d come to rely on, to need, I sat up in the queen-sized bed and glanced at the clock. I still had a few hours before I had to go to the airport. The distance between me and Jet felt like it spanned the entire Earth at that moment. I regretted not telling him that I loved him when I’d had the chance, but I was determined that I would fix that as soon as I got home.

The flight home was longer than the one down to LA, at least it felt like it was to me. By the time I was on the ground I was anxious to find Jet, but I’d forgotten one little detail.

How the hell was I going to get there?

Biting into my bottom lip, I called Raven’s number. It rang and rang and rang, making me wonder if she was busy…or pissed at me. Maybe she thought I had gone back the Armstrongs and didn’t plan on coming back. My heart squeezed at the thought that I might have hurt her.

Shaking that thought off with the promise I would fix what I’d broken with Raven, I dialed the only other number I could think of. Since I wanted to surprise Jet, I couldn’t call him yet. That left only one person.

Hawk picked up on the second ring. “If you’re calling to ask me to get my brother to kill someone for you, you’re out of luck this time around.”

I pressed my lips together, wondering if he was pissed at me too. “Can you come pick me up?” I finally asked after a moment of silence on both our parts.

“Look, Flick, I’m over all that shit about Jet and the favor you asked, but there is no way in hell I’m leaving Gracie long enough to drive down to SoCal for your ass.”

“I’m not in SoCal,” I assured him. “I’m home. Well, almost home. I don’t have a way back from the airport.”

“Oh…” I could picture his brow wrinkling, and grinned. “Well, that’s different. I’m on my way now.”

It took him more than forty minutes to get there. Pulling up outside the airport, I was glad to see he had brought the Chevelle that Gracie drove instead of his hog. I’d forgotten to tell him I needed a way to get my luggage home since I’d picked up the rest of my things while at Emmie’s. Green eyes widened when he saw the three suitcases I had beside me.

“You home for good, Flick?”

“Yep,” I confirmed. “Think you could drop me off at the bar and take these back to your house?” After the way I’d left things with Jet two nights before, I wasn’t sure how happy he would be to see me, but I had to at least try.

He actually grinned at me. “No problem, honey.”

After he tossed my things in the trunk, he got in and we were soon on the road leading back to Creswell Springs. Nervously I looked over at the man I’d always considered a brother. “Is Jet mad at me?”

Hawk grimaced. “Who isn’t he mad at right now, Flick? He’s pretty shook up about you leaving again and he’s taking it out on everyone. He’s like a bear with a sore head, even made Raven cry this morning.”

“I’m sorry,” I muttered and glanced down at my hands as I twisted them together in my lap. “Is…Is Rave mad too?”

“I wouldn’t say mad. More disappointed and hurt,” he said with a shrug of his massive shoulders. “But with you home for good, she’ll get over it really quick.”

Relieved that he thought so, I turned back to look out the passenger window as he quickly got us back to Creswell Springs. Before long he was pulling up in front of the bar and I nearly tripped in my rush to get out. “Thanks, Hawk,” I called before practically sprinting inside.

Once I was inside, however, it was to find the place in complete and total chaos. Everyone was trying to get as close to the bar top as possible. People were screaming and a few of the MC members were actually taking bets on who would win the apparent fight that was going on.

Confused, because I could hear Jet and Colt both yelling—and from the sound of it they were yelling at each other—I pushed through the crowd until I finally reached the bar. The sight I found shocked the hell out of me.

Jet had Colt pinned to the floor, punching him everywhere but his face, but Colt was fighting back despite being trapped underneath his heavier, muscled older brother. Spider and Bash were trying to pull Jet off with Raider and Tanner assisting, but Jet looked like he was in full-on rage mode. Even with their combined efforts they couldn’t pull Jet off.

“What in the ever loving hell are you guys doing back there?”

J
ET

I was starting to hate Saturday nights at the bar.

Over the last two nights I’d started hating everything, the world in general, but mostly myself. I’d just let her go. Fuck, how could I have just let her go, let her leave me again? Sure I’d said I wanted her to be happy, but I’d hoped that she would want to be happy with me.

Letting her go back to the rockers had been the hardest thing I’d ever done, perhaps the most unselfish thing I’d ever done, too. That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt, didn’t mean I wasn’t pissed, didn’t mean I wasn’t going crazy without her.

Because I was.

I was hurt.

I was pissed.

I was losing my fucking mind.

“Yo, Jet. Can you bring a case of Bud out and stock the fridge for me?” Colt called out from behind the bar as he hustled drinks for the row of sheep and ol’ ladies seated on the stools in front of him.

I got up from the table I’d sat down at more than half an hour before. It took all my self restraint not to pick up the chair I’d been sitting in only seconds before and throwing it across the room. Fist clenched, I stormed into the back, hating that my baby brother had bothered me when all I wanted was to get lost in my misery.

Picking up two cases of Bud, I carried them out front and would have slammed them down on the floor if Raider hadn’t appeared out of nowhere and taken them both from me. He didn’t say a word as he opened the cases and started stocking the fridge. I wasn’t surprised by how my brother was acting around me. They all seemed to be walking cautiously around me the last two days. Not that I could blame them.

Fuck, I knew I was losing my shit. I’d even snapped at Raven just that morning and made her cry. Cry, damn it. Raven. My baby. The girl I’d practically raised as my own instead of just my baby sister.

I started to turn away, wanting nothing more than to just go back to the table I’d sat at for the majority of the night, and wallow in my self-loathing. Colt turned from putting drink in front of two sheep and stepped into my path.

Hands balled at his sides, he glared at me. “Stop being a fucking pussy and go after her.”

I wasn’t going to punch my brother in the face. I wasn’t. Going to. Punch my brother. In. The. Face.

“You love her, you always have. We all know it. So fight for her, show her that you’re the man she deserves. Not the pussy walking around with a thorn in his paw.” Colt lifted his hands and pushed me. Hard.

It was so unexpected that it caught me off guard and his push sent me back a few feet.

Don’t punch him. Don’t punch him. Don’t punch him.

Well, don’t punch him in the face, damn it.

With a growl, I tackled Colt to the floor and started pounding on everything but his face. “Shut the fuck up. You know nothing. Nothing. I want her to be happy and I can’t give that to her.”

I was so lost in my head as I bellowed in my brother’s face and punched him over and over again that I didn’t even feel the arms trying to pull me off of him. Colt fought back, landing a blow to the side of my head, but I was too far gone to feel the pain from it.

“Fucking hell,” I heard a dark voice grunt above me, and some of the rage started to fade enough for me to realize what was going on around me even as I kept pummeling my brother in the sides. Raider, Bash, Spider and Tanner were all standing over me, trying to pull me off of Colt. “Get the fuck off him, Jet or I’m gonna knock your ass out,” Spider threatened.

“Do it,” I dared him. “Do it.” Maybe then I could get away from the pain that was tearing my fucking soul apart.

“What in the ever loving hell are you guys doing back there?”

My head snapped up, sure that the hit Colt had just scored against the side of my head was causing my mind to play tricks on me. There, between two sheep, stood the only person I would crawl on my knees to get to. It couldn’t be real, though. I’d sent her back to Southern California, to where she would be happy. There was no way she was here now.

Right?

Distracted, I wasn’t expecting the punch to the face Colt delivered. My teeth snapped together and I felt the sharp edge of a back tooth cut into the inside of my cheek. Blood filled my mouth and my jaw started to throb, but Flick didn’t fade from my line of sight.

Wait a damn minute.

She wasn’t a dream?

That realization was enough for me to forgive my baby brother the direct hit to my face. I spit a mouthful of the blood onto his chest and shrugged off the others’ hands as I got to my feet under my own steam. Never taking my eyes off of the female only a matter of feet away, I moved forward and climbed onto the bar top.

Her blue eyes widened and the sheep around her laughed up at me like I was playing a game.

This was no fucking game.

Bending, I caught her under her shoulders, her light weight in my hands felt like heaven as I lifted her up to stand beside me on the bar top. Dressed in a pair of tight jeans and a top that hinted at the luscious tits underneath, my hungry eyes ate up the sight of her while my soul soaked up the fact that she was really there.

She came back.

“What are you doing here?” I breathed as I lowered my head and brushed the softest kiss I could over her lips. As hungry as I was for her, I knew if I took more than a small kiss I’d fuck her right there in front of everyone.

“I kind of live here,” she murmured, seeming almost spellbound as my breaths came in quick, short pants.

“Wh-what?”

Her lips tilted up at the corners in a shy kind of smile that was no less sexy to me. “I went back and got my things and my last paycheck. It was hard telling Emmie and the kids goodbye, but it was harder to be away from you.”

My heart clenched. “Yeah?” She nodded. “Fuck, Felicity. Swear to me you’re home for good. Swear it.” Her eyes flared bright when I used her real name.

“Swear,” she murmured and stepped up on her tiptoes to brush her lips against mine.

“Thank fuck for that,” I breathed as I took control of the kiss and deepened it.

Around us I could hear the entire bar laughing and carrying on. There were more than several “about time” comments and even one or two “Flick, you lucky bitch”. A few of my MC brothers wolf whistled when I grabbed Flick’s ass and held on tight, grinding my aching dick against her softness. Only then did I draw back, not wanting anyone to see how hot I could get my woman, and looked down at the beautiful, breathless female in my arms.

“Here, brother. Raven thought you might need this. She’s been working on it all day.”

The sound of Hawk’s voice pulled me back into the here and now and I looked down to find him holding a cut. It wasn’t the same as the one I had on, but the one that ol’ ladies wore. Raven had one that Bash had given her, as did Gracie. Every ol’ lady had one to mark her as not only taken, but to let everyone know exactly who she belonged to.

Reaching down, I took the cut. Without hesitating I turned Flick so her back was to me and breathed a sigh of relief when she went willingly. As I put the cut on her, I saw that my sister had been busy—and more optimistic than I had been by the looks of it. On the back “Property of Angel’s Halo Jet” was sewn into the black leather in white.

Dropping the material into place, I took a second to savor the sight before my hunger for her kicked in once more and I pulled her back around to kiss the breath out of her. Around us, everyone was quiet now, even the sheep. A happy laugh built in my chest. Had I ever been this happy? This content with life?