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Little Toy Bikers and a Woman on the Run

Chapter 158 Talk

When she'd talked to Jax before at the hospital, it had been as Dr. Knowles. She couldn't hide behind her white coat now. She had to be herself and it terrified her. This could be the most important conversation of her life. No pressure there, she thought ruefully.

"How long have you had your house?" Tara asked.

"About a year and a half. I need to paint and fix it up, but it hasn't been a priority. You want something to drink? I have beer, water and orange juice."

"A beer would be good."

Jax grabbed a beer bottle from the refrigerator, removed the cap and handed it to her.

"Let's go into the living room," he said leading her into a large room with a stained beige couch, two arm chairs, a wall unit and a large flat screen TV. "It's done in Gemma's garage sale finds except the TV. That was me."

Tara chuckled nervously. She took a seat on the beige couch avoiding the big dark stain on the cushion in the middle of the sofa. Jax sat in a blue armchair.

She was disappointed that he didn't sit on the couch with her. That might be a bad sign. Better not read to much into small things or she'd make herself crazy or crazier, which might be more accurate. Take a breath and calm down, she told herself.

"I wanted to come by to apologize for breaking the news about Bela's paternity the way I did. Gemma was right. It would have been better if I had told you about the paternity first and then her death."

"It doesn't matter. Either way, I lost my kid."

Jax was calm and he wasn't angry with her. Tara took this to mean that the conversation was going well. She didn't know why she'd been so worried. She scooted back against the sofa cushion and took a sip of beer.

"Have you decided what you're going to do about the birth certificate?"

"I'm going to leave my name on it. It's the least I can do. I wasn't happy about the baby. I didn't want to have to change my life for a kid. I'd been telling Scarlett that Wendy was going to be a terrible mother. She told me I'd have to be a great father then."

When Jax said Scarlett's name, he got a look in his eyes that reminded Tara of the way he used to look at her. Could Jax already have fallen to love with Scarlett? No, if he had feelings for her, it couldn't compare with what they had when they were together. She was being her typical pessimistic self.

"Finally, it hit me that I might have to be the main parent in the kid's life," Jax continued. "I went to Wilda's to talk to Wendy. I really thought I'd found her in time. Just when I was ready to be a father, it was taken from me."

Ten years may have passed, but this was the Jax that Tara knew. The way he was opening up to her felt familiar, like no time had passed. The bond between them that had been so strong was still there. She had been right to come back to Charming.

"The crank was definitely laced with some kind of poison," Tara said. "Hale said they are still trying to figure out what kind. The dealer was also found dead by the same tainted crank. We would have been able to save Wendy and the baby if the crank hadn't been poisoned."

"I should have stopped the fight between you and Gemma. I was just in shock from everything that happened."

"I've always known that Gemma hates me."

"She's never liked you," Jax said correcting her. "She didn't hate you until you tried to get me to leave Charming with you."

"Did you ever wonder what would have happened if you had come with me when I left?"

Jax finished his beer, taking a moment to think through his answer to her question.

"Tara, you didn't leave Charming and then we broke up. We let people believe that because we didn't want everyone in this town in our business. We kept our relationship between us. We broke up and that's why you left Charming."

"If you had come with me, we could have worked things out. This town was destroying us."

Jax shook his head.

"You had this fantasy that if we left Charming, we would live happily ever after," Jax said with a trace if anger in his voice. "We would have been the same people, but in a different location. We might have made it a couple of more months if I'd left, but we would still have broken up. You know the truth—we had problems in our relationship. You do remember who cheated, don't you?"

The ice in his blue eyes chilled her to her bones. This conversation had taken the turn she was afraid it was going to take. She was hoping to avoid this subject. She should have known it was going to come up. She needed to find a way out of this. She could feel her future with Jax slipping away.

Think hard. Think fast. Think miracle. That's what it was going to take to talk her way out of this.

Author's Note: Cheating isn't the reason they split. Cheating was a result of relationship problems that will be revealed.