Madeline Sheehan - Unbeloved

Closing his eyes, Jase took a deep breath. When he opened them, he gave Deuce a long, hard look, willing himself to be strong. Strong like Deuce always was.

“Thanks, brother.”

“Now go,” Deuce ordered, turning away from him. “Get to livin’ again.”

Jase’s muscles tensed and his jaw locked up tight. He wasn’t going to be a pussy now; he was going to walk out those doors, his head held high, proud of what he was finally getting around to doing. His fucking emotions, goddamn them, were not going to get the better of him this time.

Wrapping his hand on the doorknob, Jase pulled open the door.

“Fucker!” Cage yelled, pointing as he stormed towards him. “What the fuck did you do to my truck? You don’t fuck around with another man’s truck!”

“Stop whinin’!” Ripper shouted from across the room. “Your truck ain’t shit!”

“Jase!” Cox pounded on the bar. “Get your ass over here. I got stories to tell and ain’t nobody listenin’!”

Grinning, Jase closed Deuce’s office door behind him and slowly headed out into the club.

For the last time.

It was being touted as a party, but I knew what the reality of this impromptu get-together at the clubhouse really was. A good-bye party. Everyone had come—the boys, their wives or girlfriends, and all of their children. Even the nomads, the men who didn’t live in Miles City, had shown up.

Feeling pride in Hawk’s sacrifice, his true past all but forgotten, they’d all come to pay their respects, as well as say good-bye to one of their own.

As much as I appreciated their efforts, I didn’t feel much like a party, and so I stayed on the sidelines, avoiding everyone. I wanted nothing more than to be curled up in bed beside Hawk, running my hands over him, every inch of him, memorizing every plane and hollow of his body, the feel of every muscle and bone beneath his skin, every line on his face, every callus on his hands, every hair, both coarse and soft, upon his body.

I wanted to stare at his face, into his eyes, until it was all I could see, so much so that every time I would close my eyes from now until forever, it would be those fiercely handsome, dangerously dark features that would form in the blackness of my subconscious.

I wanted to keep him with me even when he couldn’t be with me himself.

But I wasn’t the only one who loved Hawk and wanted to spend much-needed time with him before he left us. He might have never been much of a talker, always more of doer than the others, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t formed bonds with them over the years.

I surveyed the room, my eyes dancing across the many faces until I found the one I sought. Hawk was seated on a bar stool, leaning heavily to his right with a crutch nestled under his arm, bearing most of his weight. His head was freshly shaven, his Mohawk gone, and all that remained of his beard was a couple of days’ worth of prickly growth.

But it wasn’t his handsome features that held my gaze. It was the strength behind them. The inner man.

I loved him for that strength. For being the devoted father he was, for never once giving up on me despite my reluctance. But mostly I loved him for loving me in the face of my many, many weaknesses.

Jase and I were never meant to be. Jase and I were one and the same, both weak minded, and weak willed. We’d both felt trapped, stuck in lives we’d never wanted, and because of that had come together during a dark and seemingly hopeless time in my life.

For a short time, he’d been what I’d truly wanted.

But never what I’d needed.

Hawk was the strong, sturdy, emotionally solid man I needed, and I could only hope that one day Jase would realize this truth as well and find a woman who provided him with the same sort of support and unconditional love.

My only solace in losing Hawk was the knowledge that I would never lose that love. He might not be able to physically be with me during the time he’d be gone, but he’d never leave me. And not even the thick concrete walls and steel bars of a prison could take that from me.

“I’d be willin’ to bet he’ll be in for ten years, max.”

The couch dipped as Deuce dropped down on the cushion beside me, startling me out of my thoughts.

“Five to seven with good behavior,” Deuce continued. “It’ll go by before you know it, and he’ll be home again.”

Sighing, I turned away from Hawk to give Deuce my full attention. God knew the man wouldn’t deal well with being ignored.

Holding a drink in his hand, Deuce offered it to me. “You’ll get through this, D.”

Deuce said ten years as if it were nothing, as if ten years were just a blip in the span of a life that usually only consisted of sixty or seventy, and that was if you were lucky.

Ten years meant ten long years without the man I loved, and Christopher growing up without his father. Ten years was ten goddamn years, and it was most certainly not a blip.

I would be in my fifties, Christopher would graduating high school, and Hawk would have missed it all. Swallowing back a wave of sorrow, I chased my feelings with a large gulp of whatever Deuce had brought me and ended up nearly choking to death. What was this? Rubbing alcohol?

“He wants you here, you know?” Deuce said quietly, leaning toward me. “He wants you and the boy here so he knows you’re bein’ takin’ care of. I gotta say, D, that I agree with him. I can help you find a house, a job, whatever you need.”

As much as I hated uprooting Christopher from his school, his friends, and his city, I would be a liar if I didn’t admit I didn’t want to return to San Francisco. Especially with the loss of Hawk’s visits, I would have no one but Christopher. Tegen’s friends were nice enough, but I was never able to connect emotionally with them. I wanted to be with my daughter, to be around women my own age . . . and of course, the club.

But I didn’t need Deuce to find me a house, not when I was related to the only real estate agent in town.

And it was about time I faced my family.

“I’ll call my sister,” I said. “See what’s on the market.”

“How long’s it been since you and her spoke?”

I shrugged again. “A very long time.”

“Your folks too?”

Sighing, I nodded. “I know they’ve reached out to Tegen a few times, and so have her father’s parents, but she’s told me she made it clear to them that she wants nothing to do with them.” I shook my head. “Then of course she had to take it one step further and tell them her name was Tegen West, ensuring they knew exactly who her father-in-law was.”

I gave Deuce a pointed look. “I can only imagine the looks on their God-fearing faces.”

Deuce barked out a deep belly laugh that drew the attention of nearly everyone around us.

“You better put that shit on my tab,” he said, still chuckling. “And, D? I ain’t takin’ no for an answer.”

I didn’t think he would. He never had, and I’d learned that back when he’d insisted on paying for Tegen to live in San Francisco. I wasn’t dumb enough to refuse his offer, not when all I had were my disability checks, and what little was in my savings. It wasn’t nearly enough to purchase a decent home for my son to grow up in.

“I’m on it, Prez,” I teased. “But only if you can promise me that it’s safe.”

Deuce gave me a sidelong look. “Safe?” he asked, perplexed.

I shrugged, feeling out of place talking to Deuce about his business. “The Russians? From everything Hawk has told me, and what he plans to do . . . Won’t there be some sort of retaliation? What if they find out Christopher is Hawk’s son?”

Deuce grimaced. “I’ve got some shit lined up as a fuckin’ safeguard. I can’t promise they ain’t gonna hit us back, but I can promise it ain’t gonna be in my fuckin’ town, and ain’t nobody gonna think that little leprechaun is Hawk’s boy.”

His gaze shifted to Christopher. Seated on the floor, his legs crossed into a pretzel, my son and a few of the other children were sitting in a circle.

“Looks like you made him all on your own, darlin’.”

I laughed even as I squinted to get a better look at what the children were doing. “What are they doing?” I said. “Is Ivy teaching them . . . ?” I trailed off, my eyes widening. “My God, Deuce, she’s only twelve and teaching them to play poker!”

Deuce shrugged. “Devin, that little fuckin’ shit, taught her.” He shrugged again. “At least it ain’t strip poker.”

As I gaped at him, he gave my leg a conciliatory pat. “Anyways, you let me worry about the Russians and my daughter’s gambling problem. You just raise that boy and live your life, you feel me?”

I looked back at Christopher, then at Hawk, who was engaged in conversation, before looking again at Deuce. His eyes were the softest I’d ever seen them, the kindest too.

“I feel you,” I whispered, grateful for his support, but also beginning to feel very overwhelmed.

“And wherever Hawk gets put away,” he added, “I’ll be takin’ you to see him once a month. Myself.”

It wasn’t much, a visit once a month, but it was something. And it would have to serve in tiding me over for the next . . . ten years.

**•

“This is nice,” Dorothy said, snuggling closer to Hawk.

Lounging one of the club’s many reclining chairs, Hawk was able to keep his leg propped up as well as have Dorothy, as tiny as she was, seated on his lap, her body wound around his.

It was nice. Strange and really fucking nice. Nice because the pain meds he’d taken just a short while ago were kicking in, and strange because he and Dorothy had never done this before . . . just hung out, being lazy and stupid.