Charming Town| Jax Teller

Charming Town part 11

Eleven

Ryder didn't want to get her hopes up, that Jax didn't want to lose her or the kids, but he was never good at keeping his promises to her. He always found a way to hurt her. Even if it wasn't intentional. But yet waking up the next morning their bodies entwined, that familiar hope started building up in her stomach again. The loud knock on the dorm door followed by Chibs' voice startled her husband awake, "Be there in a minute." He groaned before pressing a sleepy kiss to the top of her head and pulling away from her. Fighting off the whine she had built up, she rolled over and buried her face into the pillow before pushing herself to get up.

She had responsibilities.

Harley needed to be picked up from her brother's house, the burial arrangements for Wendy needed to be made and she needed to find a place for them to stay since she refused to go back into the house that Wendy moved into and destroyed. Don't get her wrong, she loved Piney and the house she grew up in but there was no way in hell that she was going to raise her kids in that house.

Kids.

It surprised her how easily it went from her daughter to her kids. How quickly she wanted to be Abel's mother. Releasing a heavy sigh, she slipped out of the bed and pulled her shorts and undergarments back on followed by one of Jax's faded white SAMCRO shirts that was hanging out of the drawers. "I will be on the prepay today if you need me," Jax commented, startling her out of her thoughts. "Okay," She returned, "I am going to get Harley from Opie's, I have to go arrange Wendy's burial." 'Babe, you don't have to do that." He felt like he had been repeating that comment a lot in the last two days she had been back in Charming, "I can handle it."

"Yes, I do Jax, you won't do it, and she had no one else. The club was all she had. And as much as I want to hate her for thinking she could be me and take you away, she is still Abel's birth mother and if there is ever a chance of him finding out that I am not his mother, I want him to have something to go and visit.' It never ceased to amaze him how much he could love Ryder and how quickly she was able to adapt and think ahead.

She pulled the baggy shirt over her head and then looked at her blackberry that had gone several times in the night, but they had both slept through it. "Alice, one of the girls that works for me, has a couple of places lined up in Charming for me to look at. One is close to Gemma and Clay and the other is closer to Opie and Pops." She was fully expecting to go house hunting on her because of whatever club bs that he had going on.

'Gemma wants to clean up the other house."

"She can burn it to the ground for all I care, Jax, I refuse to step back into that house. I refuse to take Harley back to it and I refuse to take Abel into it.'

There was so much silent strength and faith that their son would pull through that her husband couldn't bring himself to tell her that he wasn't going to pull through. He didn't need to put that on her. It wasn't fair.

"Ry." He started, his hand catching her waist and pulling her to him. "Jax, we have stuff to do." she put her hand on his chest to push him away, "What happened last night was a one-time thing until we got shit worked out. And besides, the next person that will come back here is going to be Clay and I don't have enough caffeine in my system not to commit murder right now."

Choking back a laugh, he pressed a kiss to her mouth and released her.

***

"Juicy needs to talk to you two." Chibs started once they came out of the dorm area, the old lady looking down at the screen of her phone, her thumbs going across the keyboard. "He has answers on why that ATF agent is looking into the lass." "Chapel," Jax ordered before looking at the prospect who was standing at the bar, "bring the coffee in, I think we are going to need it."

Half-Sack nodded his head pulling his eyes away from Ryder, Juice had started to fill him in on the younger Winston and parts of the relationship between her and Jax. And he wasn't going to lie, he was curious about her, especially since she seemed nothing like the old man or her brother.

"New prospect?" she asked, the last she heard, there were no new prospects in any of the charters but then again, she had been so far removed that it was hard to keep things straight.

"Half-Sack." Juice filled in from where he was sitting at the table in the chapel.

"Do I want to know?"

"No, Lass, you don't.' Chibs answered. "What's his real name?" She countered taking the Scot's word for it.

"Kip." Her husband filled in as he steered her into the chapel and to the table.

She paused at the door; she could count on one hand how many times she had been into the chapel. And none of them were good experiences. She was sure that this one wasn't going to be good either. Her husband's warm hand in hers pulled her out of her thoughts and he pulled her to where her brother and father usually sat at the end of the table near where Juice was sitting.

"How much do you know about what your firm is doing?" He asked his dark eyes on the VP's old lady and not on the man that was sitting next to her. "More than I know about the club. I am next up to be a senior partner." She answered, "I met with the head of the Russian mob here a couple of weeks ago, Putlova, I think."

"Jesus Ry, why didn't you say anything?" Jax questioned scrubbing his hand down his face. "I was pissed at you Jackson and hurt.' She answered, twisting to look at him, "You would've made me come home sooner. Then I would have gone to New York for good with Harley."

Juice and Chibs shared a glance and then looked at the couple, they knew that the two had problems, but nothing was ever said to them about it. "We take a lot more precautions than the club does." She shrugged helplessly, 'The firm knows that I have gotten my hands dirty before for Samcrow, they brought me in about 6 months ago with it.'

'Were you by yourself?' Bobby Elvis asked from the doorway, he was holding a paper bag full of banana nut muffins and the full coffee pot.

"When I met with Putlova? No, I had security from the firm, and Hap and Koz went with me." She held up her hand to stop her husband's angry statement, "I got them out of trouble with Tacoma PD before they even got arrested. So, they owed me a huge favor."

As much as Jax wanted to be angry with Kozik and Happy, he couldn't. They had his wife's back when she didn't trust him enough to have it.

And he was thankful for that.

"Babe, you need to tell us what you can so we can help cover if need be," Jax commented as Clay stepped into the chapel, eyebrows raised in question, they never had this much excitement this early in the morning.

**

Tara was thankful when she showed up to the NICU to check on Abel Teller that the room was empty, the last thing that she wanted to do that morning was to deal with Gemma or her little pawn of a daughter-in-law Ryder. She had found herself coming into the area to think and try to formulate a plan.

Any sort of plan to get Jax back to her and have him terminate Ryder's rights as Abel's mother. She wanted to be his number one person. She had never truly been that because of Ryder being around like an ugly black cloud surrounding her and Jax's relationship. Her dark eyes studied the baby, before smirking, "Don't worry Abel, I am going to make everything right."