Finally pulling up to the airport, he watched as Dom and this tiny slip of a woman exited the building. He knew from the start she was different from any other woman in his friend’s life. She had Dom smiling, relaxed even. He was a different man already.
Jealousy threatened to consume him as he observed them. How easy they were with each other. Barely thirty-six hours in each other’s company and you’d think they’d been lovers for years—if Deidre had been older that is.
To most people, her being eighteen and Dom being in his thirties might be weird, but all you had to do was watch them to know they would be that one couple out of hundreds that would be together for life. He didn’t think either of them saw the worship and caring in the other’s eyes as Dom reassured her about something.
Not wanting to witness any more of their mushy love fest, he jumped from the truck. His leg only twinging slightly as he landed and made his presence known.
“Well, it looks like you made it back in one piece.” As soon as Dom turned around, his companion hid behind him making him scowl. So Case decided to play with him.
“Hot damn, who is this?” Trying to keep a straight face when his friend’s scowl deepened.
“Don’t,” Dom warned him.
Casey let his eyes roam up and down Deidre’s body just to fuck with him, saying, “Ho-ho, it’s like that, is it? Ok, ok, I can take a hint, but damn.” He figured he should probably shut up since Dom looked ready to kill him by this point.
When she hid further behind Dom, his own eyes followed her skittish moves. “Casey!” Dom yelled at him. “Eyes up.”
“Yeah, man, sorry. Let’s get your shit and go. Someone’s anxious to see you.”
The confused look on the little lady’s face had him wondering if Dom had told her about Jax. Raising his brow in question, Dom shook his head quickly, and they were off.
Shock permeated the air as soon as Deidre saw Jaxson. Casey almost felt bad for Dom…almost. The jackass should have been up front with the poor girl. Had a woman done that to him, he’d have run for the fucking hills as fast as his handicapped ass could take him.
He felt the pain clearly written across her face as she watched father and son together. After meeting Jaxson and him speaking to her, envy entered her eyes. Casey was amazed that she could so easily want to be a part o
f Dom and Jax’s lives.
She was clearly a better person than he.
Dee went inside following the running boy after Dom tried to grovel but to no avail. He had to know. “Why didn’t you tell her?”
“There wasn’t any time, Case.” He looked as defeated as she did a few minutes before.
“Wasn’t the flight like twelve hours or something?” he pressed.
“Drop it, man,” Dom growled at him. They walked into the house only for Casey to begin squirming as Jax ratted him out for gluing the housekeeper, Angie, to her chair.
What could he say? She taunted him all morning with his favorite cookies and wouldn’t let him have one.
After watching the sickeningly sweet way Dom watched his woman around his son and in his house, Case needed a breather from them. Never before had he thought about having a woman of his own. He’d never cared enough about anyone to consider keeping them.
The envy that ran rampant through his veins as he observed them was so new and foreign that he had to get away before either of them saw it. It was beginning to consume his mind as he sat at the small table in his kitchen staring at the bottle of Jack in front of him. It mocked him. Testing his control. Bending his will.
He kept the bottle around as a reminder of what he used to be. It had been the same bottle he drowned himself in after Dom had come and sobered his ass up. It helped as a way to keep his head straight and never become the Casey Risley he once hated.
He needed to know he was strong enough to resist it, but now? He felt the need to drown out his jealousy in the only way he knew how.
To drink.
Over the next few weeks, they all seemed to settle into some weird routine where Double D, my nickname for Dom’s woman, would cook and take care of Jax while he and Dom tried to figure where her father was and what he wanted with her.
When some fancy lawyer showed up in an attempt to serve Dom with papers about custody for Jax, he’d never laughed so hard in his life when she came out claiming to be Dom Slade. The look on his buddy’s face would have been comical if he hadn’t known the trouble she was going to be in. But it worked. They still hadn’t seen hide nor hair of the baby mama, Brooke, or her lawyers, so Case started to wonder if maybe she was somehow connected to Dee’s father. He sent his own searches in motion for that. Needing to be sure before he approached the couple about his suspicions.
After Raine had gotten out of the barn and through the corral last week, he thought for sure Dom was going to kill the poor horse for charging at Dee and Jax the way he had. But they understood it was fear that motivated the animal more than anything.
Dee had suffered a small concussion from the accident and was in the hospital overnight. He was unsurprised that she protected Jaxson with her own body. She was the most maternal woman he’d ever met. Perfect for them in every way.
She’d become like a little sister to him, and there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for her. Which was why he’d found himself taking her to the grocery store a few days later and getting shot. It wasn’t the first time he’d taken a bullet. Hell, the last time, he’d lost a limb. So the burning throughout his body as he waited to be released from the hospital was almost a comfort to him. It meant he was intact. That even though he was injured, he was alive and whole.