Page 47 of Jax

We must be out of their reach by now.

Rain whipped at my hair and weighed down my clothes, but I flew with my brothers at my side, knowing we were at long last in the clear and heading back home. A house where there was, for a first time in a long time, a person waiting for me. A person I was happy to—

Bang.

Chapter Twelve

Ronnie

Tree branches rapped hard on the window as I paced back and forth across the hallway, up and down the stairs, and in and out of every room in the house, wearing an even groove into the ancient wooden floor.

As I peered into my bathroom, the billowing flutter of the curtains had my attention. Water had sprayed down the side of the wall, all over the window ledge, and onto the bathroom mat, now soaked with the natural downpour.

My eyes wandered back to the upstairs hallway and my feet wanted to inch back as far away from the bathroom as I could get. But the longer I lingered, debating, the more I knew I couldn’t leave it alone. Not with old, unvarnished wooden floors in house that needed more than just a lick of paint.

“Dammit,” I grunted, scooting over to the window and giving it a hard shove before the stiff thing came slamming down, keeping the storm on one side of the window and me safely on the other.

In the end, I thanked God for the distraction as I went about cleaning up the mess, dirtying all my towels in the process, and finding that it did little to stop me worrying about Max. I made certain she was as far away as possible from the storm. The barn shutters were closed and the gaps taped to clog the sound of thunder and the hell going on outside from her. I was hoping she wasn’t bursting with the same bad feeling and flashes of memories that were going through my head at every creaking tree, every harsh hiss of leaves and crops, and at every harrowing howl of the wind.

I took deep, even breaths, expelling the building anxiety inside of me. I took my time peeling off the damp clothes clinging to my body like a snake shedding its outgrown skin. It took everything in me not to tear them off with the memories they represented.

It’s just wet clothes.

I can handle being wet.

Wet clothes won’t hurt me.

Feeling proud when I dumped the last item of clothing into the pile, I wiped myself down with the last hand towel and climbed into a warm sweater and pajama pants.

I brought the towels and clothes downstairs to place near the door of the laundry. I decided not to go in because I knew the window in that room was busted and Jax still hadn’t ordered the glass pane for me to fix it. The flooring would just have to bear with it.

Hobbling over to the cushioned chair in the sitting room, I forced myself to sit, propping my aching leg up onto the frilly ottoman, adjusting here and there until it rested at an angle where the pull on my outside thigh was lessened. It was enough to calm the mild throb that awakened during every bad bout of weather.

Next was the distraction. I pulled out the rope I had tucked into the crevice of the chair cushions, tying and untying the knot again and again, trying to perfect it. I wrung and tugged at the rope to the steady creak of the house’s rickety walls.

The longer I kept at it, the easier the anxiety faded into the background, allowing me to become transfixed in the simple task, drowning out the storm around me.

The door burst open. My heard stopped.

A man staggered in covered in black and drenched by the rain, eyes shadowed from the dark outside.

I screamed.

His head whipped toward me, water sprayed across the white walls. Dark feral eyes and heavy, curled strands of wild hair stuck to the sharp edges of the face.

Wait… I knew those edges!

“…Jax?” I gasped, my racing heart thudding harder in my chest as he took a step toward me and I confirmed my guess. “You scared me, you bastard!” I hissed, launching myself out of the chair, dropping the rope I had intended to wield – as if it would have provided any kind of help.

I stomped right up to him, ready to punch him in the face for scaring the crap out of me. Only when my toes jerked at the slimy wet puddle like a gorge around his feet did I put off my punishment for later.

“Jax!” I scolded. “You’re soaking wet and you’re getting water everywhere!” I rushed past him, unnerved at the feel of the water lubricating the in-betweens of my toes. I refused to move my eyes anywhere near the open door, ignoring the cold wind rolling over my exposed skin. I headed toward the staircase, climbing them two at a time. “I’ll get you something to—”

“Ronnie,” Jax’s deep growl came from behind me.Rightbehind me.

I spun to see him two steps down below me, having moved up close without a sound.

There was something about him that had my hand gripping tight to the banister, whether it was the way his body was leaning forward, like a cat ready to pounce, or the fact that his eyes didn’t move a single inch from mine, not even as the storm’s reach was stretching across the hallway.

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