Page 34 of When It Reins
Do I take this challenge? Am I ready for that? If I can’t answer that simple question in my own head. I don’t know what I’m going to say to her.
“I can make you dinner,” I say, my words low and quiet and cowardly.
Fucking kiss her, idiot. Pull her to you and make every doubt she’s ever had about you vanish.
Before I work up the nerve, Juniper’s lips curve into a gorgeous smile, and she says, “You cook?”
“I cook.”
Half an hour later we’re sitting at my small table, eating steak and potatoes. It’s simple, and all I eat on the regular, but Juniper grinned and thanked me when I set it in front of her, lighting my chest up with happiness.
“This was so good,” Juniper says, finishing off her last bite and sitting back in her chair, satisfaction across her face.
I nod my head in thanks and take a sip of water.
Juniper leans on the table with her elbow, propping her head up with her hand, and stares at me. Normally this would make me self-conscious, but considering all I’ve been doing since she got here is stare at her, I can’t exactly complain.
“How’d you get involved in the club?” Her brows crinkle with her softly spoken question, and I clear my throat.
“It’s kind of a long story.” I wipe my mouth with my napkin and set it on my plate, getting up and taking the plates to the kitchen.
“Well, I’m kind of stuck here, so unless you want to drive me home, I have plenty of time,” Juniper says from her seat, watching me clean up.
I clear my throat and say, “I’m not sure your place is safe right now.”
Juniper’s eyebrow arches, and I shut off the water, moving back toward the table and holding out a hand. She places hers in mine with so much ease that I physically feel my chest unlock.
We move over to the couch, and she sits in the middle, leaving me two options. I try not to think too hard when I sit beside her, close enough that her thigh is touching mine, and I rest an arm on the back of the couch.
This is new territory for us, and I am having to physically restrain myself from doing something that she isn’t ready for.
I take a breath and gloss over my last comment about her safety and launch into a story that no one knows outside of the club.
“It was a deal I made for my family’s safety.” Juniper turns. Her eyes latch onto mine, and I stare at her gold-flecked eyes. “When I was nineteen, I decided to get out of town and join a group of guys on the rodeo circuit.”
“And Jax too?”
I nod my head, licking my lips. “Yeah, he ended up coming with me too.” I remember him begging me to let him come, not that I could have stopped him, but when he had, he’d been recently heartbroken by Felicity. “But what they don’t know is right before we were leaving, our dad was coming around, started trying to threaten me and my family.”
Juniper looks at me in confusion. “Your dad? I thought he only started coming around when Jax was back?”
I shake my head. Guilt and fear for what she might think of me when she finds out the truth tell me to keep my mouth shut. But then there is the other part of me that says I need to get this out in the open.
“No.” I sigh and look away from her. “He started coming around when Jax and Stetson were still in high school, and Logan was raising Luella, and I was the loner.” I remember him coming around, starting to try toform a connectionwith me. I let him, for a while, until he started mentioning my family. Getting the family back together and loving my mom again is what he used to say.
“He told me all sorts of things. Made promises I foolishly thought he might keep.”
“But he didn’t?”
“I didn’t let him. He started saying stuff about my family, about how he wanted me to be a bridge to connecting them again, and I got a weird vibe.” I take a breath, not used to talking so much. “I backed off, and he started threatening me and my family.”
“Oh, Mitch.” Juniper reaches over and lays her hand on my leg. “What happened?”
“I decided maybe if I left, he wouldn’t have leverage. But I also knew I couldn’t leave them unprotected, so I went to the club and asked for help.”
She sighs and twists her body to face me more fully. “How did you know to go to them?”
I shrug. “You hear rumors of them doing shady shit, but we knew Mick because he went to school with Logan, and I knew his reputation was always protecting the little guy. So I thought they might be willing to help out.”
