Page 80 of Deacon

His eyes found mine, a tired smirk tugging at his mouth. “You look worse.”

“Charming as ever.”

I wanted to stay irritated. Then I really looked at him. His long dark hair was pulled back from a face gone pale beneath the thick beard, his shoulders still too broad for the wheelchair, black VP cut hanging open over a hospital gown like sheer stubbornness had gotten him dressed and dragged him downstairs. Exhaustion shadowed his dark eyes, but the grit in them was pure Deacon, daring anybody to tell him he belonged anywhere except beside his club. Relief tangled with anger until I couldn’t separate one from the other.

Once Blue was ready for visitors, we kept the flow controlled. Even a collection of bikers understood that a woman who had just given birth and her newborn didn’t need an entire clubhouse packed around the bed at once.

Rook’s gaze shifted to Blue, asking without words. When she gave a small nod, he reached down and offered one finger, and Jackson’s tiny hand closed around it with surprising strength. Something in Rook’s face went still. “Strong,” he murmured.

Blue’s tired mouth softened. “Yeah?” Rook looked back at the baby, his voice low enough that the room seemed to quiet around it. “Good.” That was all he gave them before one last look at Jackson, then he stepped back as quietly as he’d come, leaving the word behind like a blessing.

Ink came next, hands buried in his pockets until Blue offered him the baby. He looked almost suspicious of the idea. “You sure?”

“She just pushed him out,” Evan said. “I think she’s qualified to decide.”

Ink took Jackson with extraordinary care. The baby frowned up at him, his little face tightening into something close to a scowl.

Evan grinned. “Look at that face. Already mean-muggin’ like he knows he’s being held by the hot biker with emotional damage.”

From his wheelchair, Deacon laughed. “Mean little thing. Jax suits him.”

“Little Jax,” Evan repeated immediately, delighted. “That’s it. He’s Little Jax now.”

Blue laughed softly and looked toward Priest.

Little Jax fit.

By the time Deacon maneuvered close enough for his turn, a nurse had appeared in the doorway and taken in the number of leather cuts surrounding her maternity patient. “You cannot have that many people in here.”

Deacon glanced at the hospital gown beneath his cut. “And yet.”

I looked away before the nurse caught me smiling.

Then Blue handed him Jackson.

The reaction inside me came fast and vicious.

Deacon settled the baby instinctively, one broad hand supporting the tiny head with a gentleness that looked almost impossible against his size. His face softened as he stared down at him, and seeing that expression hurt more than I was prepared for.

He looked right holding a baby.

Anger came first because I didn’t want that thought anywhere near me. He still owed me answers. He had disappeared from my life and left me to discover a pregnancy alone.

Grief followed harder.

He had never held Jade like this.

He had missed her newborn weight, her first sleepy noises, the way her tiny fingers curled around anything placed in her palm. I had never gotten to watch the father of my child look down at her with this stunned tenderness.

My vision blurred.

I turned away and straightened a blanket that needed no attention, because another second of watching him felt too much like pressing directly into an old wound.

“Hey there, little man,” Deacon murmured. “You keepin’ your mama on her toes already?”

The nurse made a strangled sound behind him, but another presence at the doorway shifted the room before she could object again.

The man who entered clearly belonged to them. Priest saw him first, his expression tightening before he controlled it, and Blue’s surprise told me exactly who he had to be. Priest’s brother. The one everyone had believed was dead. He moved like a man who knew he was pushing his luck and had made peace with it anyway. “You came back,” Blue said, and he gave the smallest shrug. “Couldn’t leave without meeting him.” His eyes dropped to the baby in Deacon’s arms, and something in his face went still. Not blank or hard. Just caught.