Unbeloved (Undeniable #4)(21)

And just like that Jase was no longer amused, but instead, straight-up pissed the f*ck off. Slamming his palms down on the table, he shoved his chair back and shot to his feet. Of course, since he was shitfaced, he had to continue holding on to the table for a few more seconds to ensure he wouldn’t go toppling backward along with his chair.

Heads shot up all around the room as his brothers peered curiously at him with raised eyebrows. He paid them no attention as he stumbled his way to the office door, more than ready to be done with this bullshit meeting.

“Jase!” Deuce bellowed and he paused, his hand on the doorknob. “I didn’t say you could leave. This is a meeting and a vote. I made that pretty f*ckin’ clear.”

Jase glanced over his shoulder at his president and narrowed his eyes. “I don’t give a f*ck what you do with Hawk,” he spat venomously. “Or Luca, or whoever the f*ck he is. My vote goes to the club.”

Yanking one of the office’s double doors open, Jase forced his body into action, managing to stay upright just long enough to breach the doorway and slam the door closed behind him with enough force that the connecting walls shook in response.

With every intention of heading straight for the bar and the copious amount of booze beckoning him from its shelves, he spun away from the still-rattling door and started forward.

“Jase?”

Recognizing the voice, he froze in lumbering midstride and nearly fell over because of it. He’d known Dorothy was here, or at least he’d known she was in town, but had already figured he wouldn’t be seeing her, since she usually went to great lengths to ensure she was never in the same place at the same time he was. Never in a million years would he have guessed she would have come to the club.

Slowly, he turned to face her, squinting across the considerable distance between them, and found her standing just outside the hallway that led to the kitchen. He looked her up and down, just drinking her in for the first time in what felt like far too long.

Gone was the fresh-faced girl next door he’d fallen for. She no longer carried with her that aura of innocence and na?veté she’d held throughout her twenties and thirties. No, Dorothy finally looked like the grown woman she was. Her features had matured, sharpened, were no longer cute, but instead a refined sort of beautiful.

“Dorothy,” he said quietly, focusing on her face and those big and beautiful green eyes of hers. Her eyes hadn’t changed, and for some reason he took comfort in that. “I didn’t realize—”

“The vote,” she said tersely, interrupting him. “Did you vote yet?”

Jase’s mouth snapped shut as he noticed for the first time the slight tremble of her lips, her rigid posture, the way she was gripping her hands, wringing them together.

She was afraid.

For motherf*cking Hawk.

Of course she was. After all, she had come all the way from California just to find out what was going on with him. But what Jase had initially thought was only concern for the sake of her son’s father, looked to be something else entirely.

Jesus f*cking Christ, did she still have feelings for the man? Did the two of them have something going on that no one else knew about . . . again?

Feeling suddenly awkward, he reached up to rub his hand across the back of his neck, using the maneuver to avert his eyes, hoping she didn’t realize the sudden overwhelming disappointment that had gripped hold of his heart.

“I . . . uh . . .” He stumbled over his words, trying to form an answer that didn’t include telling her he’d just announced how much he didn’t care whether Hawk lived or died, seeing as she so obviously did care.

“No vote yet,” he said, clearing his throat. “I’m just taking a piss break.”

Nodding, Dorothy’s lips pressed tightly together and her eyes perceptibly widened. He knew that look, had seen it hundreds of times before. It was the face she made when she was desperately trying not to cry. Seeing that, something rattled painfully inside Jase’s chest, and his insides clenched uncomfortably. He hated that face, he f*cking loathed it . . . mostly because he’d always been the cause of it.

“Don’t worry,” he said quickly. “We’ll bring him home.”

“Okay,” she whispered, nodding more to herself than to him. “I’ll just be . . . I’ll just be in the kitchen.”

He watched her disappear around the corner, listened as the swinging doors to the kitchen creaked back and forth as she passed through them, and shortly after that came the banging of pots and pans.

Something warm burst forth within his gut, easing the uncomfortable tightening that had taken root. She was back, not only in Miles City but inside the clubhouse, and back inside the kitchen no less.

It was so f*cking familiar and, goddamn him, so incredibly comforting. After so many years of feeling nothing but the cold shoulder from both her and his family, feeling this semblance of his past, a place where he’d been happy and content, was more than welcome.

And he didn’t want to lose it.

Turning around, he burst back into Deuce’s office. Ignoring the stares of everyone in the room, he marched forward, shoved Anger out of the chair he’d been occupying before he’d left the room, and reclaimed his seat.

When it came time for him to cast his vote, he looked directly into Deuce’s narrowed eyes, raised two fingers in the air, and answered, “Yay. Bring him home.”