Page 67 of Blue-Eyed Jacks
Another laugh barked out of me.It didn’t go over well.“Sorry.I’m not used to it.”
Kate blinked.“Like being kissed.”Her eyes searched inward for answers.
Damn.She remembered that about me?
“Exactly.”I closed the gap between us and nudged her to get her attention.“Yourkisses.”My gaze fixed on her lips, and I forgot about anything but kissing her again.It had been so long since—
“Wait…ugh.I don’t wanna hear more of this.You two are disgusting.”Zoe plugged her ears and began that annoying “la-la-la” kids see in videos.
Kate’s spine straightened, and she brushed herself off, as if to dust off memories.But mine weren’t so easily forgotten.How could I?She was the only woman I’d kissed in the last twenty years.My one and only.The woman who gave me a smart ass little girl who liked hugs.Damn.
“Zoe, get over here.”
She unplugged her ears and stopped chanting.“Why?”
“Because you caught me by surprise earlier, and I wanna fix that.Hug?”I held my arms out, hoping like hell I hadn’t ruined a good thing.Sure, it was a shock to the system, and my first instinct was to grab my gun and shoot whoever was attacking me, but once it sunk in that this was my girl—my baby I never got to hold?Well, my whole soul missed what it never had.
Zoe wrapped around me and squeezed.I checked with Kate before wrapping my arms around my baby girl.She nodded, giving me permission to hug back.
Like a flood, emotions I didn’t know I had pushed up out of my gut and clenched my heart hard.I barely felt Zoe in my arms.I squeezed her just a little to ground me.Kate joined us, wrapping an arm around Zoe and one around me.Her breath brushed my neck as she tried and failed to bury her face in my shoulder.
Her body shuddered with a sob.
And I couldn’t let that go.“Sorry, kid.Mom’s turn.”I let go of Zoe and wrapped Kate up tight, pulling her into me like I had those too-brief nights we had together.“Shh.I’m here.It’s going to be okay.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I don’t.But that won’t stop me from trying to make it okay.You gotta trust me on this.”
Kate searched my eyes before speaking.“I don’t want to stay here.It holds bad memories for me.”
I understood why.“Only tonight.I’ll set something else up for tomorrow.No cages.”
Kate relented and curled back into my chest.
I looked over her head to check on Zoe.
She mimicked her mom’s move earlier and wrapped around us.We were one, finally.A family.Even as fucked up as the situation was, we were whole.I kissed Kate’s hair, then her cheeks, which were wet with silent tears.And held on tight to see her face and feel her warm skin in my hands.She was kissably close.But I hesitated, knowing I didn’t deserve their love.
Kate’s lips hit mine.It was almost as much of a shock as the hugs.But I remembered this.I remembered every second of passion and torment and treasured that blissful fall into a peace so deep it was like the perfect sunrise every damn day.She wasminein that kiss.And I was hers.Wrapping it all together in perfection was Zoe.The cutest damn teenager I’d ever seen.I broke the kiss and held Kate close so I could check to see if we weirded the kid out.
Zoe rolled her eyes, but her smile quirked off to the side, just like mine.I raised a brow in a silent question.“You okay with this?”I asked.
Her matching eyebrow went up, just like mine, with one eye squinted and the other drilling into mine to make the point clear.She skewered me with a command that was easily read.I’d seen it too often in the mirror and from my father.“Don’t screw this up,”it said.
I shook my head.I’d move heaven and earth to make things right.She had my vow on that.
Zoe smiled and squeezed us both.
I wasn’t a good man, but one of the luckiest sons of bitches ever because of the two beautiful women who trusted me.I wouldnotscrew this up.
Chapter 20
Kate
Deep into the unlit hours before dawn, I snuck around Jackson to use the bathroom attached to his domain.While not a castle, it was a private suite of three rooms.It included an office with space for at least five men to sit if you didn’t count the chair behind the desk.From that throne, Jackson ruled these miscreants.
Attached to the office was a small bedroom with a queen-sized mattress, two mis-matched dressers, and a trunk overflowing with motorcycle gear.On the other side of the office was a private bathroom, complete with one of the smallest showers I’d ever seen.And for a woman who survived with an in-kitchen tub for over six months, it was one of the worst things I’d ever seen.But it was much better than the one I’d noticed on the trip to this little retreat.
