The Dangerous Curves Series

Chapter 57

She was quiet for a long time, and Jax didn’t push her. She was still in his arms, though, still running her fingers over his chest, so he just held on and hoped.

“Are you sorry?” she finally said.

Jax really thought about her question. It was one that he’d asked himself many times over the fourteen years since he’d raised his fist to Len Murdoch, mostly at night when sleep wouldn’t come. Sometimes, the answer had been yes; many times, the answer had been no. But what was the truth, the one deep in his heart?

“Yes,” he said to Sarah now. “Yes, I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For Len Murdoch’s family, mostly. His wife and kids.” Jax hesitated. “I took him away from them, and they never recovered financially or emotionally. His wife lost the house, I know, and the kids had to leave their private high school and college. They got hurt, badly, and they did nothing to deserve that. I devastated their family.”

“But yours was devastated too.”

“Yeah. And I had a pretty big hand in that. I was the one who ended up getting sent away for three years, leaving my sister at the mercy of social services. Megan lost everything, in one fell swoop – Mom, me, her home, her friends.” Jax shook his head. “The fact that she forgave me is nothing short of a f*****g miracle, let me tell you. But I’m sorry for what I did to Megan, too. It wasn’t her fault, and she got hurt.”

“So you’re sorry for hurting a bunch of innocent people?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you sorry you killed him?”

“Yeah, I am. I know why I did it, and I stand by the desire to have him pay for what he did to Mom… but my way wasn’t the right way.”

“Would you do it again?”

“Kill Murdoch?”

“Kill someone who hurt someone you cared about?”

Jax paused again, then decided to be honest. “I don’t know.”

“Would you have killed Joker Kane tonight?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No. I’d have hurt him as bad as I could get away with, no doubt about that. But I’d have stopped myself from taking it too far.”

“You promise me?”

He searched her eyes, saw her need for the truth.

“Yes, baby. I promise. I wouldn’t have taken it all the way.”

She relaxed. “OK, then.”

“…OK?”

“Yes. OK.” She kissed him now, and Jax almost sagged in relief. “I believe you.”

He gathered her in his arms, held her as tight as he could. He’d been terrified of losing Sarah twice that night: the first time when that fucker had had his hands on her, and the second when he’d been waiting for her to forgive and understand what he’d done to Murdoch.

While she’d been sleeping, he’d stayed awake, watching her and thinking. It had taken a knife to her throat to show him what had been in front of his face this whole time, but he saw it clear as day now: he loved her. He loved her so much, he thought he might stop breathing from the enormity and weight of it pressing on his heart.

Sarah had just dropped into his life, this amazing, beautiful, little miracle, and even though Jax wasn’t sure about promising forever, he sure as hell didn’t want to imagine his life without her. He loved her, and he would promise her more than ‘for now’, offer her better than ‘just temporary’.

He had just opened his mouth to utter those three little words that would change everything between them, the ones that were whispered at the end of cheesy rom-coms, when her cell phone rang. They both jumped in shock, and Sarah scrambled out of his arms to take the call.

“It’s Mom,” she said. “What the hell?”

Jax watched her answer, listened to the fear in her voice as she asked what was wrong. And when he understood that Noah was gone – gone from the house, and he’d taken his backpack with him – he felt her panic all the way through to his bones.

Sarah hung up, stumbled to her feet. Jax steadied her.

“What do you want to do?” he asked. “You want me to take you home?”

She shook her head. “I want to go look for him.”

“Where?” He opened the wardrobe against the far wall of the office, and pulled out a fresh t-shirt. “You have any idea where he might go?”

“None. I mean, he never even gets up in the middle of the night… why would he leave the house?” She stopped suddenly, frozen and horrified.

“What?” Jax was alarmed at the look on her face. “Baby, what?”

“Me.”

“You what?”

“He’s looking for me.”

“Why would he?”

“Because he’ll know that something happened to me tonight.”

“What? How?”

She shrugged. “Because we’re twins. I always know when he’s upset, even when he’s nowhere near me. And if I’m in trouble or hurt, he knows.”

Jax stared at her. “For real?”

“Yeah. I bet he woke up, and went looking for me to help me.” She spun on her heels, gathered up her purse and jacket. “He knew that Dave had beaten me up, even though I never said a word. He told me then that if it ever happened again, he’d come and save me. Dammit. How could I have forgotten that tonight? I should have gone straight home after you cleaned me up… this is all my fault.”

“Hey, whoa. No, it’s not.”

She rounded on him. “Yes, it is! If I were home with him, instead of here with you, Joker Kane would never have got his hands on me. If I were home with him, he’d have nothing to worry about. f**k, I’ve been so selfish, so goddamn self-absorbed.” She shook her head. “For these past few months, it’s all been about me and what I want. I neglected my family, and I wasn’t around when Noah needed me. Now he’s wandering around the city all alone – if anything happens to him, I’ll never, ever forgive myself.”

He was about to protest again, but then he saw the look of bleak self-loathing in her eyes, and he just knew. Jax knew that he’d lost Sarah that night after all – as sure as if Joker Kane had slashed her throat open in front of him. She may have been standing right in front of him, but she was gone.