Page 126 of The Last Second Chance
“Let me talk to her.”
“If she needs to fight it out, I will. I’ll fight for her. Hell, I’ll fight her for her.” Panic licked at him.What if she couldn’t forgive him?
“Just give her a little space right now, okay? We’ll work this out. And then I’m going to murder my husband.”
“My money’s on you,” Jax said.
“And mine’s on you.”
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“Isupposeyou were in on this, too?” Joey snapped at her mother even as she poured April a cup of coffee.
April accepted the mug and leaned against the desk. “Your father never said a word to me. And for that he will pay.”
Her long denim-clad legs tucked into waterproof boots in a cheery purple. She wore her hair to her shoulders and rarely bothered with makeup. She’d spent her adulthood raising her daughters and working part-time as a bookkeeper for a car dealership. At home, April ruled with a martyr’s manipulation. Joey had no doubt her mother could make her dad’s life miserable.
“How could he have done that? Why does he hate Jax so much?”
“Joey, your father thought he’d lost you that night. Can you imagine what that was like for him? For me? When we knew you were going to be okay, his only thought was to protect you from anything like that ever happening again.”
“So you smothered the crap out of me and he threatened to take Pierce Acres away from John.”
“I’m not saying he did the right thing. In fact, I’m saying he did the stupidest thing he could have. But he did it because he didn’t want to lose you.”
“Well, guess what? He lost me anyway.” Joey stared morosely into her coffee.
“It doesn’t need to be this way,” April prodded. “You and Jax seem so happy together. Why can’t you go back to that?”
“Because.”
“He’s worked so hard to win back your trust.”
“There’s one thing that he should have done from the beginning, not leave. He should have stormed into my room and told me what Dad said to him. Barring that, when he came home he should have fucking told me why he left. But he didn’t. He tried to distract me with presents and sex instead of telling me the truth.”
“You’re right. They both should have been honest with you long before now.”
That shut Joey up. She sank down in the chair behind the desk. “So what do I do?”
“Do you want to be with Jax?”
“I honestly don’t know. It was one betrayal that I had to live through twice. Maybe that means something.”
“Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. So what does your gut tell you?”
“My gut’s confused,” Joey admitted. It was. She felt twisted up and hung out to dry. For the second time in less than a decade, her life had been turned upside down by the same man.
“What does your head say?”
“Kick their asses and leave them both hanging for a while.”
Her mother smiled at her and sipped her coffee. “I think that’s a fair decision.”
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The minute Forrestand April drove off, his brothers dragged Jax up to the brewery and cornered him outside the keg room.
“That’s why you left? Because your girlfriend’s dad scared you off with a lawsuit?” Carter said from his perch on an empty keg, his finger and thumb pinching the bridge of his nose.
