Part 30 (2/2)
Maggie said, ”For real on the whiskey. And why don't you tell me what the h.e.l.l happened, while you're at it.” She patted the bedspread for him to sit down.
Jase made her wait until he got them both two fingers of a very smooth whiskey he'd been keeping stashed away in his kitchen. They clinked a small 'cheers'. The whiskey burned down her throat, and toasted up her insides nicely.
”What do you remember?” said Jase.
”Just what I told the sheriff. I couldn't see anything on the van ride, didn't know where we were. I didn't recognize any of the Rebel Cross men... only Evan,” she said. ”They left me in there for a while until suddenly I could hear gunfire from somewhere close. Gunfire came and went, and then Evan came in and started untying me. He kept saying we had to go, he had to get me out of there.”
”That was Will and Ghost,” said Jase. ”If Will hadn't called me about Drake, I probably never would have found you.”
”I can't believe that motherf.u.c.ker had something to do with all of this,” said Maggie. Even as she said it, some part of her actually did believe it. He had never sat right with her.
”It's always about the deals for him. That's what made him so good for the club; he had connections to everyone. It was stupid of us to think he would keep us sacred,” said Jase. ”But that opportunistic little f.u.c.k has cut his last deal around these parts.”
”Is that secret club business you're sharing with me?” said Maggie.
Jase smiled and moved a bit of hair out of her face. ”From now on, my love, I will be sharing all secret club business with you.”
Maggie raised an eyebrow. ”Really?”
Jase nodded, serious. ”You might not wear a cut, but your blood is in the MC as much as any of us that do. Henry was wrong to try and keep you out of it. And if we're going to be together, it makes no sense for me to try to keep you out of it, either. We have to trust each other.” He bent and pressed his forehead against hers. ”We share it all.”
Maggie smiled to herself. ”I like that.”
Jase pulled back and kissed her. Then he cleared his throat and looked away. ”So I suppose you'll just be staying here then, hmm?”
Maggie grinned widely, watching his face tint red. ”You mean while I recover?” She teased.
”Well of course, yes-- plus the days after that.”
”Oh? How many days?”
”I don't know, like....three or four? Or all of them?” said Jase with a grin he could no longer fight.
”I told you, Campbell, you gotta put a ring on it,” said Maggie, tapping her left hand sarcastically.
”Oh, right,” he said. He suddenly stood and started digging through his pockets, and Maggie felt her heart stop. She stared at him with wide eyes as he sat back down with something in his hand.
Jase turned and saw the look on her face and froze. Then he said, ”Oh, this isn't.... this isn't that.”
Maggie slumped and started laughing at herself.
”When would I have had time to get a ring?” said Jase with a shake of his head and a laugh.
”I don't know, I've been on a painkiller high for twenty-four hours!” she said.
”Don't worry, beautiful, you won't be waiting long for that,” he said. He opened her hand and dropped into it her mother's rosewood-beaded rosary. ”They found this in the van that s.n.a.t.c.hed you. Henry said it was yours.”
Maggie gasped and closed her hand tightly. In the chaos of the kidnapping, she hadn't even noticed the rosary fall out of her pocket. She looked at Jase with a teary smile. She felt too overwhelmed to speak.
Jase returned the smile and put a gentle hand on her head, smoothing her hair. ”I never did get you that coffee.”
She cleared her throat. ”That sounds nice,” said Maggie. ”I think I'll stay right here this time.”
Jase laughed. He bent and gave her a kiss. ”I wouldn't mind if you were in that bed every time I came looking.”
He headed down the hall towards the kitchen and Maggie called after him, ”Like you're that lucky!” She heard him chuckle to himself.
Maggie sunk into the warm softness of Jase's bed and clenched her mother's rosary tightly in her palm. It was probably all in her fuzzy mind, but she thought the beads felt hot under her touch. She listened to the sounds of Jase in the kitchen, the soft chirping of the summer birds outside the window, the faraway hum of tractors on the farmland.
Safe, loved, and warm, Maggie realized, in that moment, that her life had become better than any daydream she could conjure. Henry had said she only need find hands that can handle her. There was no question-if there ever had been-whose hands she needed.
It was only Jase who tamed the fire in her heart.
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Bonus Book 2 - Kellan
The next bonus book is Kellan. Despite being a follow-up to the novel Slade, Kellan is completely stand-alone and you don't need to have read Slade to enjoy or understand it. As with all my books, this story has an HEA and no cliffhanger.
~ One ~
Kellan
I'd just gotten the s.h.i.+t kicked out of me in the ring, and all I had to show for it was a pair of nice t.i.ts.
But don't worry about me. You should've seen the other guy.
This was what winners got, what we were ent.i.tled to: a hot chick to wipe the blood off our lips and wrap her own around our c.o.c.ks. Sometimes they were groupies from the crowd, or sloppy drunks our managers could convince to hang out in the winner's room for the ride of their life with a big, bad, dangerous guy like myself. Killer Kellan. That was what they called me. But when I was in this room with some h.o.r.n.y babe with a tight, ripe p.u.s.s.y, they only called me one thing.
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