“Ace and I have to go to the clubhouse. Stay here. We’ll be back soon. Rest. We’ll be back as soon as we can.” I nodded. We watched them stomp out of the house. I could only imagine how that meeting was going to go. I knew they were probably going to discuss war strategy. Devyn and I sank down on the couch to watch television. I held her in my arms.
Bull:
As we entered the clubhouse, I felt my anger rising again. I’d worked to stomp it down at the house. Neither of them needed to have more stress placed upon them. Now that we were away from them, I could voice my rage. Seeing us, the guys all rose and headed into church. I took my seat and called the meeting to order.
“I want to know where that cocksucker is,” I growled. Outlaw was busy typing on his laptop. He shook his head.
“He appears to not be using his car we put the tracker on. It shows it hasn’t left his driveway in three days. He had no other vehicle registered to him. I’m searching for rentals.”
“Send some guys over to check out his house, though I seriously doubt he’d be there. He ran and hid somewhere. That is what we need to find out. We’ll run his ass to the ground. When we do, he’s mine. Bring him to the Cellar. Jocelyn is convinced he’s the one who attacked her at her house. I agree. They go nowhere without at least two guys on them. We can’t trust that if a place has been cleared that he can’t get to them. The backdoor, according to the manager, is supposed to always be locked from the outside. But it wasn’t. I won’t risk losing my family.”
All the guys nodded in agreement. Tank raised his hand. I gave him a nod.
“Maybe this isn’t the best time, but I wanted to ask you about what you said at the store. About checking to see if Jocelyn was pregnant or not. Are you two trying?”
I looked around at all of them. I slowly nodded. “Yes, we are. We want to see if we can have at least one kid together. I’m not getting any younger, so we decided to try right away. It hasn’t been long, but she could be, though the chance is slim.”
“Wow. I never thought you’d go for more kids,” Bear said. He’d been here when Harley was born. I shrugged.
“I asked her if she wanted to have more. We talked and found both of us would like to, so we decided to see what happens.” This got a lot of murmurs, but everyone looked to be pleased. Ace got a shit-eating grin on his face. “What’s that look for, Ace?”
“Well, since you referred to Devyn as your daughter and our kid as your grandkid, does that mean your baby will call our baby aunt or uncle and sister or brother? Because if that’s the case, that is some incestuous shit.” I flipped him the bird. The guys cracked up.
We decided to send Tate, Slash, and Rebel to check out Jonathan’s house. When the meeting broke up, we headed back to the house. I was going to have to see what I could do to reassure my woman while impressing upon her the importance of her doing exactly what I said. This should be fun.
?????
A week passed without a word on Jonathan. The ladies were complying with our guards’ mandate, though I knew it was chafing them. Jocelyn had two guys with her the entire time she was at work. One stayed in the office and the other right outside it. Lloyd had no problems with them once I told him what had happened.
Devyn didn’t leave the house much, so she was easier to keep secure. Bill called to say the pregnancy test had come back negative on Jocelyn. We were both disappointed. Outlaw was unable to find evidence Jonathan had rented a car and there were no others in his name. Smoke and Everly were back from their honeymoon. They were starting to dig into him as well.
The day after the attempt to take her, I called Terror and updated him. He’d volunteered to send over more men, but I told him we were fine for now. The one thing he did do was send over Savage and Janessa. They injected the women with the trackers. They spent the night and returned the next day. It was a little tense, but they were very friendly with Jocelyn.
When she wasn’t working or cooking, Jocelyn had started to take fighting classes with several of us. Devyn watched but didn’t participate. We wanted them to know some techniques just in case. I was pleased with how quickly Jocelyn picked up on the moves.
The women were also spending time at night talking about decorating ideas. A few were for our house, mostly paint colors. The rest were for when Ace and Devyn’s house was ready. They had at least three more months, but it would be here before they knew it.
A visit to the OB/GYN determined Devyn was two months along and the baby was due November twenty-seventh. When she hit twenty weeks, they’d do an ultrasound to see if they could find out the sex of the baby. I wished like hell Jocelyn was pregnant. The more we waited, the more I found I wanted to have a baby with her.
Today, Devyn was working on a course at the house and Jocelyn was still at work. Ace and I were sitting in the common room of the clubhouse when he asked to talk to me alone. We went to my office. He paced around the room as I sat there waiting to hear what he wanted to talk about. He abruptly stopped and faced me.
“I want to ask Devyn to marry me. Since she doesn’t have a dad, I’d like to ask your permission.” His request surprised me. Not that he wanted to marry her, but that he wanted my blessing. I rubbed my chin.
“Well, I think we need to talk about this. When did you want to ask her? I know you’re having the baby together and building the house, but if her being pregnant is the reason you want to get married, I have to say no.” He shot me a startled look then narrowed his eyes.
“Her being pregnant has nothing to do with why I want to marry her, other than I’d like to be married before the baby comes. I fell in love with her as soon as I saw her. I know I want only her for the rest of my life. She’s my old lady in the eyes of the club, but I want her to be my wife in the eyes of the world.”
His response made me proud. He’d come a long way from the kid who had prospected with us seven years ago. “Okay. There are a few things before I will agree. One, I need to pay for the wedding and house. Two, I’d like to coordinate when and how you’re asking. Three, do you have a ring yet?”
“Bull, I appreciate you wanting to pay, but I can afford to pay for the wedding and our house. Why do you want to know when and how? I do have the ring. I bought it three weeks ago.”
“Son, I have more money than I’ll ever need. You need to save yours for her schooling since I doubt Jocelyn will let me pay for it. She’s my daughter now. And I want to know when and how, so I can coordinate my proposal to Jocelyn accordingly.” The stunned look on his face was comical.
Then he got a smirk on his face. “Are you asking her to marry you because you want to knock her up and have you got a ring yet? And why aren’t you asking my permission to marry her. I’m her son now.”
I laughed. “Smartass. I want to marry her because I love her. Knocking her up would just be a bonus. I have the ring. Got it before we went to Dublin Falls, right after we went dress shopping. As for your permission, I’m asking if you’re saying yes and telling you if you’re saying no.”
We shared a good laugh. It felt good to talk about something good. We spent another hour discussing exactly how and when we would ask them. We wanted to do it together. That would be different. Now all we had to do was pull it off. We had six days to get our plans in order. Come Sunday, I hoped Jocelyn would be wearing my ring.