Unbeloved

Chapter Twenty-Two

For Jase, finding a house to rent hadn’t been difficult. Neither had filling it with the minimal furniture he had brought with him.

And after Deuce had called in a favor at the local auto body shop in town, obtaining employment had been a piece of fucking cake.

What hadn’t been easy was having to say good-bye to everyone. Even Hawk, despite his scowl, had shaken Jase’s hand. During the party, he’d come to find out that it was Hawk who was leaving, was turning himself over to the law in order to take down the Russians blackmailing Deuce and Preacher. Despite how he felt about Hawk and Dorothy being together, you couldn’t hate a man who would sacrifice his own life for the good of the club.

In a way, Jase felt like Hawk had everything Jase never had. The woman they both loved belonged to Hawk, the respect of everyone in the club belonged to Hawk, and whereas Jase had left the club behind, Hawk would never. Even in the face of his imprisonment.

He was a far better man than Jase would ever be, as well as being a better father than Jase would ever be.

Hawk deserved both Dorothy and the club.

And Jase deserved . . .

Well, he didn’t know what the fuck he deserved, but his father’s words had been playing on repeat over and over in his head. He only had one life to live, he only had this one life to make things right, and, Jesus Christ, he was going to do his damnedest to do just that.

His first week in town had been quiet, and other than watching his girls from afar, he’d left them alone. The twins lived together in a large apartment building not far from the college they were attending, but Maribelle lived alone in a studio apartment above an antiques store. Unlike the twins she was often alone, her only social interaction with the customers at a nearby café where she worked.

Several days in a row after work, Jase had stood across the street, hidden by his heavy winter wear, just watching her through the foggy glass windows of the café. While she might smile at the people she was waiting on, Jase knew it was fake and forced. Maribelle, when she was truly happy, showed her teeth when she smiled. These smiles looked almost painful, her lips pressed tightly together, her brow furrowed and pinched. And the dimple he knew to be on the left side of her cheek never once revealed itself.

Unlike the twins, who were happily behaving as most college students do and seeming to have a booming social life, Maribelle had shut down. No longer was she the ambitious girl she’d once been, peppy and spunky, and who’d graduated from college with honors. Ignoring her degree, she’d become a waitress, and had taken to hiding from the world instead of participating in it. He could only attribute her downward spiral to the many responsibilities she’d been laden with after her mother had gone to jail. Taking care of the twins, being the mother they no longer had, as well as keeping up with Chrissy’s legal matters, Maribelle had forgotten to take care of herself.

He could have gone straight to the twins. Without Maribelle around to influence them, he didn’t doubt he’d at least get them to hear what he had to say, but it was Maribelle who was suffering the most, and going behind her back to her sisters wouldn’t earn him any favors with her.

It was Maribelle’s love and respect he needed to win back first, and then the twins would follow.

And so, on his seventh day in town, he decided to finally show his face. Once he’d parked his truck across the street from where she worked, he tried desperately to clean the grease from his hands. After succeeding in wiping most of it onto his coveralls, he took a glimpse in the rearview mirror at himself. Gone was the good-looking, cocky son of a bitch he’d once been. He was looking his age lately, older and infinitely more tired. Most days he went without shaving, and he hadn’t gotten around to getting a haircut in quite a while.

Sadly, he was beginning to look the part of a man who’d lost everything.

The bells on the door jingled as he pushed it open, and everyone in the small café turned to look at him, even Maribelle. Standing beside a small round table with two seated customers, she was wearing a small black apron, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, and she had a pen and pad of paper in her hand. In the process of scribbling something down when she’d heard the bells, she glanced up and then back down, instantly dismissing him.

As she went back to writing on her pad, Jase’s heart started to pound in his chest. He was entertaining the thought of turning around, his tail tucked between his legs, when her head snapped back up. Her eyes looked him over, from head to toe and back up again, before growing wide with surprise.

Grabbing the bill of his ball cap, Jase pulled it from his head, ran a hand through his messy hair, and gave his daughter a small smile.

Looking bewildered, Maribelle glanced back down at her customers, said a few words that Jase couldn’t make out, and began making her way toward him. He watched as she walked, her steps unsure and small, and remembered instead the little girl who used to come barreling down the driveway when he’d come home from a reserves weekend or a long run with the club.

Stopping in front of him, she tucked her pen into the base of her ponytail and shoved her notepad into the front of her apron.

“What are you doing here?” she asked quietly. “And why are you wearing that?” She gestured to his coveralls.

“Been workin’ at Pop’s a few blocks thataway,” he said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. “Doin’ custom work and shit.”

Maribelle’s caramel-colored eyes grew even wider. “Why?” she whispered. “I mean, what? Do you live here now?”

Clutching his hat in front of him, Jase twisted the mesh material, beginning to feel uneasy. He could almost envision the very loud, very public scene she would make if the knowledge that he’d moved to her town rubbed her the wrong way. And he didn’t want to get her fired because of him. If that happened, it would just be one more thing he would have to try to make right, and the list was already too long as it was.

So he changed tactics.

“Left the club,” he said, keeping his voice low and hoping she’d take the hint and do the same. “Moved here to try and make shit right.”

“You left the club,” she repeated dumbly, staring blankly up at him. “You left the club you’ve been a part of your entire life, that you’ve always chosen above everything else, even your own family?”

Jase’s knuckles cracked as the grip on his hat tightened. Yeah, he was a crappy dad. And he deserved every single piece of shit she was going to fling his way.

“Yeah,” he said hoarsely, “but I ain’t been there my whole life, there was something I did before the club, somethin’ I was, that was a fuck of a lot more important than a club. Took me a while to figure it out, Belle, but I was a father first and I wanna be your father again.”

Uncomfortable silence filled the small space between them, during which Jase could practically feel the rejection that was sure to come, when suddenly Maribelle’s gaze dropped to the floor, her lips twisting and flattening. He knew that look. That was the look his little girl made when she was trying not to cry.

“Belle,” he said softly. “I didn’t come here to upset you. Just wanted you to know how much I love you and your sisters. Just wanted a chance to be a family again.”

“You just expect me to forgive you?” she whispered, still blinking. A drop fell from her lowered eyelashes and onto the floor near her sneakers. “Just because you quit the club and moved to my town, I’m just supposed to forget? Just like that?”

“No,” he said, wishing he could pull her into a hug, wishing that things were simple again, that his girls were still little and all their hurts easily fixed with just a little bit of love.

“I’m not expectin’ anything,” he said. “Was just maybe hopin’ for the chance to try . . .”

When she didn’t respond, Jase took her silence as his cue to leave. Putting his cap back on, he pulled the bill down low and cleared his throat.

“I’ll leave you alone now,” he whispered. “You ever want to talk, I’m living on Forest Street. Got that little white house on the corner.”

He turned to go, feeling sick and suffocated by the disappointment quickly filling him, when he felt a light touch on his bicep.

“Wait,” Maribelle said.

Turning back around, he found her eyes on him, filled with unshed tears. “I have a break coming up,” she said, swallowing hard.

Jase couldn’t believe it, that she was actually letting him in, and despite himself, he smiled at her. A real, goddamn, genuine fucking smile.

“Great,” he said, his voice cracking. “’Cause your old man would love to buy you a cup of joe.”

Despite her tears, Maribelle snorted. “You sound like Grandpa.”

As his daughter walked off, Jase finished stomping off the snow from his boots before heading to the back of the café to find a quiet place to sit. While he waited for Maribelle to join him, he couldn’t help but think that sounding like his old man, or even being like his old man, something he’d never thought of as a compliment before, was just about the very best thing he’d ever heard.

A cup of coffee appeared in front of him as Maribelle took the seat opposite him. Placing her hands in her lap, she glanced up at him.

“So,” she said softly. “What should we talk about?”

Reaching for his coffee, wrapping his had around the warm mug and feeling the same sort of warmth beginning to spread within him, Jase shrugged.

“Everything,” he said. “I want to know everything.”

The road to redemption might be damn hard, but in the end—if you reached the end—his father was right. It was worth it.

Maribelle was worth it.

Funny how her birth was the reason he’d started running, but she ended up being the reason he’d stopped.

Life was really fucking funny that way.