Madeline Sheehan - Unbeloved

He, Jason Brady, was a goddamn drunk.

And despite his liquor-soaked brain cells, coming home had obviously been an unconscious cry for much-needed help.

So he was chopping wood, or rather he was trying to chop wood. Not an easy task when his muscles felt like jelly, and the sharp smell of cedar wasn’t helping his constant nausea.

Even though he was taller and in much better shape than his father, Jase could barely lift the ax, let alone get enough momentum to split logs in one swing, leaving him feeling like a goddamn little girl. Except a little girl would probably be far more useful to his father than he currently was.

“You thought about whatcha gonna do after this?” Walter asked. Not waiting for Jase’s response, his father swung the ax and the thick log split a good ways down the center. Pausing, his father used the woolen sleeve of his thick flannel jacket to wipe the sweat from his brow before he swung again.

As the wood split into two separate pieces and fell from the chopping block, his father tossed the ax aside and turned to look at Jase.

“So?” he asked. “Whatcha gonna do?”

Jase stared at him, confused by the question. What did he mean, what was he going to do?

“Go home,” he started off slowly. “Go back to—”

“The club,” Walter finished for him. “And sleepin’ around and drinkin’, no doubt.”

Jase paused for a moment, letting his father’s words sink in. And when they did, he couldn’t help but realize that, yeah, that was more than likely exactly what would happen. But what other choice did he have? He couldn’t live with his parents. Men in their forties didn’t live with their parents, not if they could help it, and he damn sure couldn’t stay in this town. Not with the threat of running into Chrissy’s family. If his arrival here was made public, there wasn’t a doubt in Jase’s mind that a lynch mob, complete with pitchforks and shotguns, would be gunning for him with Chrissy’s father in the lead.

So then, what was left? He couldn’t very well rejoin the reserves, not at his age and with his record. All he had was the club. It was all he knew at this point.

“The club.” Jase nodded slowly. “I ain’t got nothin’ else.”

His father frowned at him, not that the man wasn’t already frowning at him to begin with. In fact, all his father had done since his arrival was frown and shake his head while grumbling under his breath.

“You know what they say about makin’ the same mistake over and over again, and thinkin’ it’s gonna be different this time?”

“No, Dad.” Jase sighed. “What do they say?”

“They say it’s damn crazy, is what they say!”

Jase scrubbed his gloved hand across his jaw. “Then what, Dad? What the fuck do you think I should do?”

“No!” Walter shot back. “What the fuck do YOU think you should do? You’re a grown man, son, not a little boy. And it’s time you start actin’ like it.”

Jase knew his father was right, was dead fucking right, but still, hearing the man say it, call him out on his bullshit point-blank . . . didn’t feel so good.

“Get a job?” Jase suggested with a limp shrug of his shoulder. He really didn’t know what his father expected of him. How could he leave the club? Leave Deuce and the boys? It wasn’t computing in his head.

“You’re gettin’ warmer,” Walter said with a sigh. “Get a job where?”

Jase stared at the older man, utterly perplexed. “Anywhere?”

His father, despite the man’s love of calling people out on their wrongdoings, had always been a fairly even-tempered guy. So when he suddenly lurched forward and grabbed the collar of Jase’s jacket, using it to wrench him forward, Jase was shocked speechless.

“What do you want most in the damn world?” Walter gritted out, his breath smelling of the butterscotch candies he’d always loved.

“More than anything else,” he continued, tightening his grip on Jase’s collar. “What do you want from this life you’re so quick to give up? ’Cause you aren’t gonna get another one. There are no second chances once you’ve closed those eyes for the last damn time. So I’m gonna ask you again, Jason, what do you damn well want?”

Jase’s thoughts went wild, spinning around before fanning out in a mad scramble. What did he want? What the fuck did he want? What did he really truly want more than anything?

He didn’t have to think about it for very long.

“I want my girls,” he said quietly. “I want my kids back.”

“And how you gonna make that happen?” Walter asked.

Jase didn’t know how he was going to make that happen, but he knew one thing for certain. As long as he was a Hell’s Horseman, his girls would have nothing to do with him.

“I gotta leave the club,” he whispered, dropping his gaze to the snow-covered lawn. “Get a job, somewhere near the girls, maybe.”

When his father didn’t readily respond, Jase glanced up to find the old man smiling at him. It was a satisfied smile, and one that Jase had never seen before. Correction, it was a look that Jase had never seen directed at him before.

“You’ve always been a good mechanic,” Walter said, releasing him. Bending down with a grunt, his father grabbed the handle of the ax and swung it up over his shoulder.

Then, in typical Walter Brady fashion, without another word he turned around and walked away, leaving Jase standing there alone with his thoughts, staring off across his parents’ acreage, feeling as empty and as cold as his surroundings.

The very thought of leaving the club left him with a fear he’d never felt before. When everyone else had left, the club had always been there. It was his foundation. His safe place. His whole world.

And maybe that was his biggest problem. The club was his crutch, the one place he could hide from the mess he’d made of his life.

He swallowed back a wave of sickness that had nothing to do with his detoxing body and everything to do with the fear of living outside the club. He’d be a regular joe. No band of brothers, be it military or motorcycle club, to tell him what to do, or catch him when he fell flat on his face. And he always did fall flat on his damn face.

But his girls . . . Without them, what was he?

As far as he could see, without them he wasn’t worth a damn.

“Uncle Jason! Uncle Jason!”

Jase turned, barely having time to jump out of the way as his niece and nephew came barreling through the snow, nearly waist deep on them both. They were wearing matching pink and blue snowsuits that made them look like tiny colorful marshmallows.

“Build a snowman with us!” the girl yelled as they ran past him. Jase tried to smile at them, but failed. Neither child had ever met him before, yet they’d instantly accepted him as their uncle. It only deepened his yearning to be reunited with his own children, who wouldn’t be nearly as accepting, if at all.

His younger brother, Michael, who’d been quickly following his children, paused beside Jase with a smile on his face. Of course he was smiling at him. Michael was a Brady, and Bradys loved their family despite their faults.

“How’s it going, big brother?” he asked, knocking Jase softly on the shoulder with his fist.

Brother.

It struck him then they he might no longer have the reserves, and if he left the club he’d no longer have the boys, but he’d always have his family, complete with two brothers who would always have his back.

“Listen,” Jase said. “I owe you an apology—”

Michael shook his head. “Nah,” he said. “We all knew you’d come home again.”

Jase studied the younger man, almost a mirror image of himself back when he was still in thirties. Yet instead of the hard lines and firm jaw that Jase had inherited from their father, Michael had a more rounded face with wide blue eyes like their mother’s that gave him a perpetual youthful appearance.

Remembering when they were kids and how Michael had always looked up to him, Jase felt a wave of guilt wash over him. Michael might easily forgive, but Jase couldn’t forgive himself for not being there for his little brother’s marriage, or for the birth of his children. Those were things Bradys did simply because they loved their family.

Jase didn’t deserve to a Brady.

“Help me out?” Michael suggested. “Those two monsters can go all day, and after Mom let them eat a plate of her sugar cookies . . .” He shook his head. “I’ll be running out of energy long before they do.”

Jase glanced to where the kids were unsuccessfully trying to roll a ball of snow, but instead of seeing his brother’s kids, he saw his own girls in their childhood, running through the snow-covered backyard, bundled from head to toe, grins gracing their innocent faces.

He’d tried so hard to keep them innocent, separate from his other life, from what he did for a living and his numerous indiscretions.

He’d never wanted to hurt them, but he had.

And now it was time to make a change.

“Build a snowman,” he said, giving his brother a sad smile. “Why the hell not?”

Jase wasn’t stupid enough to think that redemption would be handed to him on a silver platter. But as he walked side by side with his brother, leaning down to grab handfuls of snow as he went, he figured he had to start somewhere.

Might as well start with a snowman.

“What do you mean, Tegen and Cage are bringing Christopher here?”

With my hands on my hips I glared at Hawk, who was still in bed, looking much the same as I’d left him this morning. Only now he was sitting up, the bed a mess with papers that had been strewn across it, along with bits of food and an ashtray that looked precariously close to spilling over and covering the white sheets in black ash. And someone had lugged the flat screen up the stairs, along with both of Cage’s video game consoles.

It appeared that the boys had been visiting, and nobody had bothered to clean up.

This disgusting mess, coupled with the fact that Hawk hadn’t consulted me about bringing Christopher to Miles City, had taken me from feeling a sort of nervous excitement for what the night might have brought, to being downright irritated with him.

“I didn’t want him seeing you like this,” I continued. “What’s he going to think, finding his father all black and blue, hardly able to walk on his own? How are you going to explain that to him?”

Very slowly, Hawk set down the glass he was holding and turned to look at me in that maddening way he’d always looked at me when he thought I was acting like a lunatic. And maybe I was reacting badly, but if anything he should be used to me and my reactions by now. But what was really irking me, what I absolutely could not fathom, was why he hadn’t grasped yet that it was that damn look that only infuriated me further.

“I missed Christmas,” he said carefully, as if his words were footsteps and my temper was the thin ice he was skating on. “And I want to see my boy.”

“But you didn’t even consult me!” I cried. “And I’m his mother!”

“I’m his father,” Hawk replied coolly. “And I was planning on tellin’ him I wrecked. Fucked my bike up and myself.”

I couldn’t exactly argue with that and yet for some reason, because I had nothing to say in response and was starting to feel a little silly at my Tegen-esque outburst, I grew even more upset.

“Fine,” I muttered. “Fine, whatever, I’m . . .”

I stopped talking to glance quickly around the room, looking for something that would give me an excuse to make a quick exit. My eyes landed on the closest, most plausible excuse.

“I’m going to take a bath,” I said, averting my gaze from Hawk’s always prying eyes, and scurried off across the room.

When the door was closed behind me and I was safely ensconced inside the little room, I leaned back against the tile wall and took a deep, calming breath. I’d been so nervous, so wound up after talking with Eva, full of expectations and excitement for the upcoming evening with Hawk, that once I’d found out Christopher was coming, it had felt as if someone had pulled the plug on my newfound happiness. It wasn’t that I didn’t want Christopher to come to Miles City. I not only missed him, but I wanted him to see his father. It was just that . . .

Maybe I’d wanted Hawk to myself for just a little while, before I had to share him with a child who didn’t see nearly enough of him, and who monopolized the man whenever they were together. Not that it had ever bothered me before, but things were different now, things were changing, and maybe they were changing too quickly. I couldn’t keep up, my emotions couldn’t keep up, and I’d wanted just a couple of days where time could stop, and Hawk and I could get to know each other again. We could talk, make love, just be together for the first time out in the open, before our families, our lives, and the club all caught up to us and time started moving again.