Beard Up(74)

He dropped the box on the table, tore off the top and shook out the contents onto the table in front of me.

"This is for you."

My throat thickened as I reached out and took it.

"I hope that you know that you're always welcome back here with us," Silas said. "You're a fine man, and one I wouldn't mind having in my club if you ever decide that Benton might be home again."

My smile was almost wistful.

"Ohh." I heard my wife's hitched voice say.

"This one is yours."

That's when Mina, who I hadn't realized had even come up beside me, burst out crying.

"I can't believe you found it!" she cried out, reaching out to take her folded leather vest from him. "I threw that out!"

Silas smile was instant.

"Yes, you threw it out, but you did it in front of four old ladies. We thought that one day you might want it back," Baylee, Sebastian's wife, broke in. "Though, at the time, we only thought you'd want it back as a remembrance of your old man. We certainly didn't think that you'd need it because your old man came back from the dead."

I grinned at Baylee. "Thank you."

She winked. "We made some modifications, though. We think you're going to like them."

Mina held out hers, and the smile on my face grew wide.

"Property of Ghost," I read. "I fuckin' like it."

She tossed me a withering look. "You're holding our kid. Watch your mouth."

I shrugged unrepentantly. "My bad."

She rolled her eyes and then threw her ‘Property of Ghost' vest on over her shoulders. The buttery leather settled perfectly over her body, and a feeling of contentment settled over me at seeing my name on her.

"I like it," I declared.

She stuck out her tongue.

"Yours is different, too."

That came from Big Papa.

My brows rose, and I gestured to Mina. "Hold it up for me to see, or take her." 

The baby was taken from my arms, not by Mina but by Fender.

He settled her into the crook of his arm and watched the proceedings.

"Thanks," I said, then took the leather in both hands and held it out in front of me.

"We changed your name," Silas began. "But that's not where the real change is, it's here."

He gestured to the back, and I turned it around, my stomach clenching when I saw not one rocker, but two, at the bottom of my cut. One rocker read Mooresville, AL and the other read Benton, LA.

I hadn't realized when my new cut had come up conveniently missing that they were merging it with my old one, but I could see the detail now that had been unique to each individual piece.

The gold buckles of my old cut, paired with the snap buttons of my new. My old patches mingled with my new ones. The two rockers declaring me a member of both chapters. God, I fucking loved everything about it.

"You're a member of both of our chapters. There's not going to be any bitching or questions asked. You just are and you always will be."

With that, he gestured for me to settle my vest where it belonged.

Right over my shoulders, covering my back.





***


I felt her watching me, and I knew that the time had come to finally approach her.

I'd apologized the moment I saw her the first time after she found out I was not really dead.

She hadn't accepted the apology.

I didn't blame her.

I'd damaged something between us, and until that damage was healed, her husband wouldn't accept my apology either.

Sure, he was happy that I was okay and had even been cordial, but it was the betrayal against his wife that he hadn't been able to forgive.

I'd made her suffer, and he would never forgive me for that.

All this time, she'd thought she'd been responsible for my death, and I'd never corrected her assumptions. So in all actuality, I really did deserve her anger. She'd lived with those feelings of guilt and remorse for years.

I hitched Gianna up onto my shoulder.

I'd been holding her all night.

She was definitely a daddy's girl, just like her sister, and hated everyone and everything unless she was sleeping, like she'd been doing for the majority of the day.

Moving to the shadows where she stood, I stopped just short of touching distance and said, "I'm sorry."

This time, though, instead of looking away from me like she usually did, she stared straight at me and then burst out crying.

Then she threw her arms around me and cried into my chest.

I wrapped my free hand around Rue's shoulders and pulled her in tight, dropping my chin down on top of her head and closing my eyes.

"I'm so glad you're okay," she said in between sobs. "I'm sorry I've been such a bitch these last few months. I was just so angry and hurt."

I made a humming noise under my breath. "You had every reason to be angry. You have to know that I didn't have a choice in the fake death at first, but I did have a hand in the way I allowed it to play out. I'll never forgive myself for allowing you to think I was dead for so long and causing you to carry around the guilt that I know you felt."