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“Yeah. Lovely fucking Marina, in the spirit of being the Christmas witch and all that nonsense, has decided she has proof of Jax being a terrible person for keeping Bonnie in unsafe conditions.”
Summer’s brow furrowed and her eyes darted back and forth between the two of us. “Unsafe conditions?”
“Apparently,” Jax said huskily, wiping at his eyes.
“And around dangerous people,” I added.
“Dangerous people…” Summer whispered. Her eyes glazed over slightly as if lost in thought, but her face softened when a tight sob escaped Jax, and she leaped into action.
“Jax, sweetie.” Around the desk, she moved until she was beside Jax, and she hugged his hunched-over form. “You’re a fucking fantastic father, you hear me? I’ve seen how much you dote on Bonnie and how much you love her. How much effort you put into her care. You have a fantastic case against Marina because you actually love Bonnie and…” Summer paused, shooting me a stressed glance. I felt the same stress in my own heart.
“Marina is just a bitch for not waiting until at least after the New Year. I mean who tries to start any kind of shit at this time of year? This week between Christmas and New Year’s barely even exists. It’s just a weird limbo which tells me how desperate she is.”
Summer’s words would have made me laugh in any other situation.
Jax slowly lifted his head, his eyes still shining, but he appeared to no longer be struggling with preventing himself from sobbing his heart out.
“You’re just saying that,” he muttered.
“As your fiancée, I don’t justsaythings,” Summer joked dryly but her face turned serious momentarily. “But even if… I mean, if something changed, I know you would act on it to the best of Bonnie’s interests. You can’t always be in control of outside consequences but that’s not your fault.”
“What do you mean?” The adoration for Summer was clear in Jax’s eyes even as he frowned.
“Well, I mean people that are in the resort and things like that. You don’t know their past or their histories or what they get up to in the dark, so you can’t be blamed for having Bonnie around them, y’know? Like maybe Marina just thinks that’s what she can use, that maybe there was someone at the resort that she deems asawfuland that’s what she’s doing.”
“She’s grasping at straws,” I agreed.
“It’s notlikethat though; you weren’t here, you didn’t hear her.” Jax pulled away from Summer and stood, pacing around the desk and rubbing his neck as if trying to shake off an invisible noose. “She wasconfident,and she might be a bitch but I know her. She has something. I just don’t know what.”
“How?” I asked with a sigh. “There’s nothing dangerous here. The worst threat is my own mother when she can’t get through to her bingo girls, or Theo when he decides to sleepwalk out onto the balcony. There’s no one dangerous here. The chalet is safe.”
“She said I was blind. She said I wasstupid,and that if I took just a second to look I would see what was in front of me, but she was laughing, glad that I couldn’t because it made the case so easy for her.”
“Jax,” I tried but he cut me off quickly.
“No, Luke. You don’t understand. This is different! Whatever she has, I could lose my child over it. Bonnie could be gone. Do you have any idea how terrifying that is?” Jax’s voice started to pick up and he gasped faintly, rubbing at his chest. “I could lose her. I could really lose her this time.”
“Jax, please—”
“I… I think I know,” Summer spoke up, silencing myself and Jax, who paused his pacing and looked at her with doe eyes.
“You know?” Jax asked. “Did she say something to you?”
Summer looked paler, almost sickly and her fingers twisted together in front of her abdomen. I hadn’t ever seen her look like this before, and my heart, already beating a drum of worry for Jax, added a stuttering beat for her too.
“Summer?”
She looked between us with shining eyes.
“I think… I think there’s something I should tell yo—”
“Luke!”
My mother’s cry from the other room silenced all words, and without a second thought, I bolted from the study and into the lounge. Jax and Summer followed behind me.
“Ma? Ma, what’s wrong?”
My mother stood by the open front door, bundled up in her thick cardigan with the chill air ruffling her gray curls. She gripped the door with one hand, her knuckles white, and all other thoughts evaporated, leaving only concern for my mother.
