A/N-Thanks to everyone who reviewed! It definitely motivated me to get this done-and the fact that I don't have a whole lot to do this weekend. But that's beside the point. Anyways...this chapter should provide some more background information and dig into Jax's head a little (sorry about the profanity-it was hard to get into Jax's head and not include swearing, you know?). Let me know if you think I should bump up the rating but for now, I think I'm ok. Enjoy!

LOVE STORY

Chapter Two

Kate didn't know how to feel. Not only was Jax Teller in her apartment, he was sitting on her couch with her dog's head in his lap. Of all the guys that Jake could finally choose to trust, this was the one? And she'd thought he was so smart…with a wary glance at the happy couple, she stalked off to her bedroom to change out of her work clothes. Once the door was shut behind her, she felt like she finally had some breathing room to absorb everything that had happened that night. It felt like someone was holding her head underwater and she was just beginning to realize that she was going to drown. Not a very optimistic mental picture but she'd learned that optimism could only get a person so far. She was waist-deep in the shit and she had a feeling the shit was just going to keep piling on top of her.

As if her newly discovered debt to Samcro wasn't bad enough, the fact that Jax was in her apartment, on her couch, playing with her dog…she couldn't make sense of it. That wasn't the Jax she remembered. But then again, she'd known the Jax from nine years ago and she had no idea who he was now or what had happened to force him into semi-adulthood. Part of her didn't want to know. It was probably easier that way. Besides, despite that he seemed to be genuinely remorseful for what had just happened, he was still an active member of Samcro—the VP patch on his cut hadn't gone unnoticed by her-which meant he was the exact opposite of what she had been trying to surround herself with for the past nine years.

"Hey, Kate?" Jax's voice called from the living room. "I don't mean to be any trouble but…do you have anything here I can eat?"

She sighed as she pulled a worn t-shirt over her head and opened the door.

"Why do men need to be fed at all hours of the day?" She asked with half-mocking, half-serious exasperation.

He grinned up at her from the couch and shrugged. "Don't know…I just know that I'm starvin'."

"Well," she sighed. "If I'm going to be a prisoner, I might as well be a hospitable one."

The grin slide off his face and he quickly walked around the side of the couch to meet her head-on in the kitchen.

"No one's keeping you prisoner. It's not like that…" He tried to convince her.

"You're not here to keep an eye on the 'cargo', are you Jax? You're here to make sure I didn't call the cops the second you guys left the store. Can't say the thought didn't cross my mind before I found out you invited yourself into my apartment."

"Look…uhhh," he let out a frustrated breath. "I didn't hear that. Look, Kate, I'm trying to help you here…"

"How exactly is this helping me, Jax?" She was confronting him now; the fire she'd previously lost was starting to fan out again.

He reached out and lightly squeezed her shoulder, which only made her tense. He immediately realized his mistake, that they were not friends, not even close, and that he had no business touching her.

"I know it's been awhile and I know some bad shit has gone down in your life but a lot of bad shit has gone down in everyone's life."

"This isn't helping me." She crossed her arms defiantly across her chest.

He was clearly beginning to lose patience with her and raised his eyes to the ceiling for a moment. "Just listen to me…please?"

He waited a beat to see if she would actually oblige him and when she remained silent, he finally continued.

"I don't want to argue with you and I don't want you to be anymore pissed off about this situation than you need to be, ok? Look, I don't like this set-up anymore than you do. The club had other options but this was the more…discreet choice, like Clay said. We'll be able to go in and out unnoticed more easily here and it was an easy fix for a messed-up problem. I pushed for one of the other options but it was a club decision. Tig was supposed to come with us too but I talked the club into letting him stay back."

"Why?" She asked quietly.

"I didn't want you to feel ambushed." He replied simply, with a slight shrug. "I figured if it was just me and Clay, you wouldn't feel like you were being given orders."

She laughed humorlessly as she pulled her hair back into a low pony-tail. "Well, hate to break it to you—but that didn't really work."

He smiled sadly, that sympathetic, kind glint creeping back into his eyes. "I'm sorry about that."

After a long pause, he continued: "And Clay doesn't have any plans to hurt you, Kate. I know he sounded pretty serious back there but it was really just to scare you enough into going along with this without putting up much of a fight."

"Well, that one worked." She spat out acidly.

He stared back at her with a pained expression. "I'm sorry about that too."

She mulled over whether or not to ask him why it mattered, why she suddenly mattered after nine years. She'd never been anything to him but a kid to tease every once in a while. And she figured she might as well have been dead to them, as far as the club was concerned. She understood their need and why they needed her in particular but what she couldn't wrap her head around was why Jax was suddenly taking on the role of noble protector. She didn't need a protector. She had Jake for that.

Instead, she decided to rummage around the kitchen to find him something to eat. That was the less threatening choice.

"Man, I need a drink." She murmured.

"Shit…yeah, I second that. Got anything?" Jax asked anxiously.

She looked back at him for a brief moment and shrugged. "Yeah, but I'm not sure you'll like it."

He scoffed cockily and tilted his head to the side as he watched her move around the kitchen. "Never met a drink I didn't like."

"You like Bloody Marys?" She threw out.

"Are you shittin' me? The only way to get over a hangover is a nice spicy Bloody with a big pickle and some green olives." He replied, a renewed good-natured tone in his voice.

She looked surprised and then starting getting out everything she needed to make the drinks. "Well, good. They're kinda my specialty anyways."

"Specialty?" He seemed confused. "You don't serve drinks down there, do you?"

She laughed and just shook her head. "No…my store isn't that kind of establishment but I'm sure you knew that already… I don't really drink a lot but when I do, it's usually because I had a rough day. And for me, a nice spicy Bloody with a big pickle and some green olives is the only way to get over it."

He grinned and gestured to the glasses in her hand. "Alright…let's see what you got."

He watched in fascination as she mixed up the drinks. It was obvious she'd had a lot of practice and she expertly shook and poured ingredients into each glass like she'd been doing it forever. And for whatever reason, the whole process of making it relaxed her. She felt less on edge with her back to him, where she couldn't see him, could pretend he wasn't there, and that she was just preparing herself an immediate second drink. She looked up briefly from her work when she heard the jingle of Jake's collar move into the kitchen and couldn't hide the scowl that rose onto her lips when Jake dutifully took his place next to Jax.

"Aw, come on now…you jealous that Jake and me are buddies now?" Jax asked with a grin as he bent down to rub the soft fur on Jake's head. The little traitor nuzzled his snout into Jax's hand which only pissed her off more.

"No," she finally responded agitatedly. "It's just that…" She trailed off and leaned away from the counter, her head dipping down in frustration.

"What's wrong, Kate?"

She looked up at him, with his kind blue eyes, no presence of the bad biker boy she'd known before, his hand resting on top of her dog's head, in her kitchen, in her apartment, and it was just more than she could handle. She had finally reached her breaking point.

"I just feel like…like I just lost everything I've been trying to build…like you're my prison guard, watching over me to make sure I don't get into any trouble…" She trailed off. She wanted to ask him if he knew what it was like to have everything so easily ripped away…everything she had been trying to do, every way she had been trying to be independent and honest and good…they'd just come in and taken it all without a second thought.

A moment later her hand slammed down on the counter, causing both Jax and Jake to jump and one of the drinks to tip over.

"Damn it…" she muttered as she grabbed for some towels and bent down to clean up the mess. Before she could stop him, Jax was at her side, reaching for one of the towels in her hand and scooping up some of the spilt ice and tomato juice. She didn't need his help and she certainly didn't want his help but he was there anyway.

When the counter was back in order, they sat there in silence, leaning against the counter next to each other and with nothing to say. Jake's brown eyes moved uneasily between them, like he could sense the tension in the room and trotted over to Kate to lick her hand. She lightly stroked the top of his head and his tail began to wag, even slapping the lower cabinet next to him, because it seemed like she had calmed down a little. That dog knew her way too well.

Jax watched silently, almost curiously, as Jake sat down next to her and licked her hand again. For a moment, there was complete silence in the apartment and for once, that didn't bother her. Sometimes, when it was really just her and Jake, the silence was tough to swallow and she'd always have to have some noise in the background, the TV, radio, anything to drown out the realization that she was alone and, save for Jake, lonely. But right now, she wasn't alone and she didn't want to deal with what his presence meant. The more she thought about it, the more uneasy she felt. Whatever was going to happen with this arrangement, she knew it wasn't going to be as cut and dry as Clay had made it sound. They weren't necessarily going to leave 'just like that'…there would be long-standing repercussions to the night's events, what and how exactly, she wasn't quite sure but it was all something she had fought tooth and nail to avoid.

She knew, without a doubt, that she had lost control over her life that night. From now on, her comings and goings, her decisions, her customers, her finances, her apartment…probably even Jake…would be closely monitored and documented by Samcro. She now had something in her possession that they couldn't lose and once they found something more 'permanent', as both Clay and Jax had assured her, she knew the surveillance wouldn't stop. Once she knew their secrets, even if it was just one, she would forever be affiliated with them by anyone interested in Samcro—good or bad—and they would always have cause to feel ownership of her.

"So I guess you'll have to make me that Bloody some other time?" Jax finally asked quietly, not making eye contact with her.

She could only nod, her thoughts swimming. Even the words he'd just used, "some other time", seemed to confirm her fears. It was never going to stop.

"Kate?" He asked softly. She looked at him finally, his arms crossed over his chest, eyes down and unable to look back at her. But it was the conflict wearing into his face that struck her. Maybe it was time to finally find out what was going on in his head. Maybe, somehow, someway, she might have an ally after all.

She waited silently for him to continue. He didn't speak for awhile, like he was trying to make sense of his own thoughts and decipher how to verbalize what he was thinking.

"Look," he said finally, his voice barely above a murmur. "I know you don't want anything to do with the club…after we heard you'd emancipated yourself and left for college, we figured if you wanted or needed anything , we'd hear from you. Actually…to tell you the truth, I'd been kinda glad that we hadn't heard from you because that meant you were alright. Your business is doing just fine and who were we to come in and screw with any of that…"

Something in his voice hit a nerve with her and she had to ask.

"How do you know anything about my business?"

He looked at her for the first time since he'd begun speaking and there was a hint of guilt and remorse in his eyes.

"When the club heard you'd cashed the whole trust at once, it raised some eyebrows and Clay sent out a tail on you to find out what you were doing with all that money."

She shuddered a little. So they'd been watching her even then. Maybe she'd been completely wrong. Maybe there really was no escaping this band of motorcycle outlaws. She'd just gotten a head start.

"I went," he continued. "Partly because I didn't really trust anyone else and because I wanted to see for myself that you were ok."

For some reason, that made her feel a little bit better to know that it had been him and not some old, creepy biker man with a dirty bandanna following her around. At least, on some level, she trusted him even if she wasn't quite sure why.

"Bobby did a few runs on your finances," he went on. "And after that, we left you alone."

"Until you all decided you had a use for me." She couldn't hide the venom on her voice. From what he had told her, he didn't necessarily deserve it but she had to take her frustration about her current helplessness out on somebody.

"I'm sorry about that," he said soberly. "This doesn't sit right with me and Clay knows it."

"Why not?" There was that nagging part of her that felt she deserved to know why he felt the need to protect her and it had finally won.

"Things are a little rough for the club right now…some bad shit has gone down…some people have gotten hurt and I can't find a good enough reason to bring in someone new who doesn't need to be with us and doesn't want to be with us."

The way he gritted his teeth when he spoke and the clenched fist at his side told her there was something he wasn't telling her…there was more to this story. She supposed if she really needed the details though, he would've told her, wouldn't he? Besides, it was probably a story she didn't want to hear anyways. The less she knew the better.

"Anyways," Jax went on without looking at her. "I know it might not seem like it but this will all blow over eventually and things will go back to normal for you. It's not gonna be tomorrow but I'm hopin' it'll be sooner than we think."

She decided not to challenge him on that one, even though she kinda wanted to laugh in his face, because there was no point in arguing about the inevitable. Instead, she realized there was one detail they hadn't yet worked out: "And what happens when the Mayans or the Nords or whoever else finds out about your new storage space? I mean, I know the store is a good 45 minutes away from Charming but that doesn't mean they won't figure it out."

Jax nodded, a hint of admiration in his eyes as he met her gaze. Although they had been sitting close to each other against the counter, he hadn't been able to make contact with her for quite awhile. And now, he almost seemed proud of her for thinking of all the details. She wasn't naïve and she'd been down this road before.

"We're gonna make sure that doesn't happen. You won't see any of us around here in a cut. And we're going to take a different route every time we make a run here. And it's only gonna be me and one of the prospects makin' the runs to keep it lookin' more discreet. Look…nothing's gonna happen…besides, you've got that gun hidden away in your store if the occasion arises."

"Yeah,"she snorted.

He grinned, glad for the change in subject. "You do know how to use that thing, right?"

She laughed and resisted the urge to hit in him the shoulder like an old friend. They weren't friends.

"I wouldn't have it if I didn't know how to use it."

He nodded, satisfied with her answer but decided to ask anyways. "So…is there a reason in particular why you have that besides just safety?"

She let out a loud sigh and pushed herself off the counter, suddenly remembering he had been asking for food earlier. She pulled open the refrigerator and started fishing through it. Anything to keep her busy so keep her emotions under control. She'd only had to tell this story twice before and it wasn't something she'd been prepared to do tonight. She knew she could just no, that there wasn't a specific reason, but for whatever reason, not only did she feel like she could tell him, she felt that he should know.

"About a year ago, I was closing up the store and was just about to head upstairs when a big guy in a black mask held a knife to my throat. Forced me back inside, made me empty the cash register, and was pushing me back towards the bathroom. The only thing that saved me was Jake. He heard the one scream I managed to get out and somehow got out the door…the cops told me later that I'd left the door unlocked…anyways, Jake jumped on the guy, almost tore his arm apart…and after he threw Jake off of him, he just ran out. He left me tied up in the bathroom until the FedEx guy found me and Jake in the morning. After that, I bought a gun."

There was a little bit more to the story than that though. She didn't mention that the masked assailant had groped her and beaten her. There were evidence photos to prove it. But some details just didn't need to be shared. She looked up from the refrigerator to Jax, who was staring at her intently. They stayed like that for a few moments, her—waiting for him to say something, anything and him—trying to think of something to say. That story had obviously not been what he'd been expecting.

"And…" he struggled for words. "Did the cops get him?"

She nodded sadly. "Yeah, I think he might actually be in the same prison as…as my dad. I stopped paying attention after the jury sentenced him."

"Did you have to testify?"

"Yeah."

He nodded and bit his lip, unsure of what to say next.

"Well," she changed the subject again. "I'm sorry to tell you but I really don't have a whole lot of food…I guess I have to go grocery shopping more often. I can order a pizza if you want."

He nodded again, still having yet to find the ability to speak a full sentence. He ran a shaky hand through his slightly greasy blonde hair and then rubbed his face. He watched as she grabbed for her cell phone and ordered him a pizza. When the call was made, she sighed deeply and haphazardly threw her phone back into her oversized purse. She pushed herself off the counter again and headed for the couch, fully aware that both Jax and Jake were following her.

Jax fell into the chair across from her and crossed his hands behind his head, deep in thought.

Finally, he spoke. "So…what exactly made you want to open up a bookstore, of all things?"

She laughed, happy to finally be talking about something that wasn't so heavy. "What makes you say that?"

He shrugged and his hands fell into his lap. "I don't know…I guess I don't remember ever seeing you reading anything that wasn't for school…"

"At Teller-Morrow?" She asked incredulously, wondering where and how that could have happened anyways. Whenever she'd been at the shop, Gemma had always found something for her to do and if there wasn't something for her to do, she was ordered to do her homework.

Jax just shrugged again. "I don't know…anywhere."

She laughed again and didn't miss the lop-sided grin that crept onto his face. He was probably just happy to see her in a better mood; it wasn't like the day's events had been easy.

"Besides, when would you have noticed? As I seem to remember, every time I saw you at Teller-Morrow…or anywhere for that matter, you were always with a different girl. You definitely had better things to, uh, do, right?" She ribbed.

He grimaced and shook his head with a laugh. "Aw, come on…gimme a break, ok? I was young…and very stupid…crow eaters aren't exactly on my agenda anymore."

She raised an eyebrow, partly at the term he'd used—she vaguely remembered it to mean girls who, well, ate crow—and at this new piece of the puzzle. She'd assumed that the 'crow eaters' were just a way of life and would always be a way of life for any member of Samcro who didn't have a wife or—what were they called…old ladies—the ones who weren't married but might as well have been, just like her parents. Given the way he looked and the fact that he was the VP, crow eaters couldn't be in short supply.

"And why is that?" She asked against her better judgment.

He shrugged. "I had a kid."

Her eyes widened and her eyebrows rose again. That was definitely not the answer she'd been expecting.

"Well…that explains why you've been acting like such an adult. You kinda have to be one now, huh?"

He nodded with soft smile and took his phone out of his pocket. He flipped it open and handed it over to her.

"Here he is…his name's Abel. He just turned 2 a few weeks ago…my mom threw this big party with balloons and clowns…it was insane." He chuckled at the memory of his son with birthday cake smeared all over his face.

And there he was. He looked exactly like the baby pictures she remembered seeing of Jax—same head of curly blonde hair, same dimples, same blue eyes. That kid was going to be a heartbreaker. She was still trying to wrap her head around Jax as the father of this adorable little boy smiling back at her. His need to protect her was starting to make more sense now and it explained why the rough edge he'd had when he was 20 had all but disappeared. She couldn't help but smile as he took the phone back from her and glanced at the photo of his son with a grin before putting it back in his pocket. Fatherhood looked good on him.

"He's really cute, Jax." She said softly with a light smile. She wondered, briefly, about Abel's mother…who she was…where she was…but decided against it. That was more information about his life than she needed.

"Yeah, he is, isn't he?" He grinned back at her. "So…anyways…we were talking about how the hell you opened up a bookstore."

She laughed. "Well, if you really want to know, I majored in English at UCLA…I thought about teaching for a while but for whatever reason, I wasn't really feeling that so I got a minor in Business too. I don't know…I guess there was something about being my own boss that appealed to me and I did have some money lying around which of course, wasn't even really mine to begin with."

He didn't miss the bitterness in her voice and quickly cleared his throat. "The hours must really suck though, right?"

She nodded. "Yeah, I can't afford to hire anyone yet so it's just me. 9-7, Monday through Saturday, and 12-5 on Sundays. It would be nice to have a personal life, other than just Jake, but I guess I don't really have time for it. I have to be there."

"You know, when me and the prospect are here, just give us something to do—any heavy lifting, moving, whatever—put us to work and we'll help you out." He offered.

She smiled faintly. Well, if she was being forced into this situation, she might as well get a couple extra pair of hands out of it.

"Sure," she replied softly. She glanced at the clock above the mantel and sighed. They'd been talking for well over two hours. "Well, I gotta get to bed. There's an extra pillow and blanket in the closet by the table."

He nodded and rubbed his hands almost nervously against his worn jeans. They stared at each other for a moment.

"So…what's the plan for tomorrow?"

"Just do whatever you normally do—the prospect is going to get here right around closing time with another load. Oh shit, I almost forgot…I'm supposed to tell you that my mom's having a family dinner tomorrow night and she wanted me to ask you if you'd come after you close the store."

She exhaled loudly and once again, felt the walls closing in on her. His words, again, struck a nerve: "family dinner". She wasn't family and she really didn't want to be. She knew that once she came to one dinner, it would only be the gateway into further involvement with the club. One dinner would become two. Two would become three…and then once it started, how would it stop? And then she thought of Gemma, who she had called Auntie Gemma until she was 12 and who had been more like a mother to her when she'd lived in Charming than her own mother had. She had been the one who'd taken her to the drugstore to buy her first box of tampons—and explained how to use them—she'd been the one who had taken her dress shopping for all her high school dances, who had coached her through how to get Max Miller to kiss her in 9th grade, who'd given her spending money because she knew her mom was spending all their extra cash on drugs, who'd been her shoulder to cry on after her mom went to rehab for the first, second, and third time, and who'd supported her when she decided to emancipate herself from her parents right before her 17th birthday. Gemma had never denied her anything, and so she couldn't bring herself to deny Gemma now. Besides, she had a feeling that if she said no, she'd be receiving a visit from her anyways.

"Ok," she answered simply. That was all she could say. They said their good nights and then she retreated into the bedroom, her head swimming with all the information, all the details, and the emotions she wasn't ready to deal with yet.

Jax watched her bedroom door close and exhaled heavily. That definitely could've gone better but he figured it also could've gone a lot worse. He hadn't expected her to be happy about any of this but he had to give her credit for putting up a good fight. Truth be told, she hadn't really had a chance but he knew she had already been well aware of that, which made her strong stand all the more impressive.

When the doorbell rang, he paid for the pizza and began to walk around her apartment as he ate, investigating her life but being careful not to snoop too much. He couldn't quite put his finger on why he was so fascinated with the life she led…it seemed just as ordinary as any but he knew that it was actually the furthest thing from ordinary because of how she'd gotten it. It was, however, completely the opposite of anything he knew, which he guessed was why it was so interesting to him.

There was a black shelf next to the TV filled with movies and he took a moment to peruse its contents. There were some chick flicks he had zero interest in but some other titles like Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, Star Wars, and The Hangover that caught his eye. She actually had pretty good taste…for a girl. There some books on the shelf that he didn't recognize but he didn't feel too bad about that.

It was crazy…the more he found about her…the more he realized he had no idea who she was anymore. He knew next to nothing about her life after she'd high-tailed it out of Charming, besides what she'd just told him and what the club had dug up a few years earlier. He couldn't blame her, though, for getting the hell out of Charming. For all of Gemma's flaws as a mother, at least she wasn't a junkie and a porn producer. From what he remembered, LuAnn hadn't really been much of a parent to Kate after Otto got locked up. She'd gotten deeper into drugs—Gemma had said it was because she was depressed—and was spending all her time in CaraCara, something that drove Gemma and Clay crazy, and after Otto went to prison, he couldn't remember ever seeing LuAnn and Kate together. He knew Gemma had stepped in and picked up some of LuAnn's slack, took her to school, went shopping with her but he knew it couldn't be the same was being with your own mom. He couldn't feel anything but sorry for her…and the fact that Kate and his son had something so shitty in common did not sit well with him. At least Abel would never have to know how fucked-up his mom was…Kate had had to see it up close and personal. He figured she'd probably gotten very good at hiding the mess Otto and LuAnn had left behind.

He wandered further into the living room and studied the cluster of photos on her walls. He wasn't surprised that the photos weren't of her life before she'd left Charming. There were a few of her with a group of girls at a table, surrounded with margaritas and shots, a few with her and Jake, and a few with her and that same group of girls, but this time they were all wearing graduation cap and gowns. He couldn't help himself. She had grown up to be too damn pretty…beautiful….but he couldn't let himself think of her as hot. When she was younger, she'd been so sweet, so innocent, and so pretty with her long blonde hair and deep blue eyes. He'd be lying to himself if he hadn't wished she'd been a little bit older back then. So he'd joked around with her, teased her, and threatened any boyfriends that showed up at Teller-Morrow looking for her because…well, because she was 16 and Otto would have castrated him if he'd tried anything with her. Contrary to her earlier comment, he had most definitely noticed her.

And now, she wasn't 16 anymore. Even though he had seen her from a distance when he'd tailed her a few years ago, seeing her up close for the first time in nine years had been nothing short of a shock. He'd always known she was going to grow up to be beautiful but he couldn't have counted on everything else she had become... a gorgeous, smart, funny, independent, successful, and mostly sane woman, in spite of her childhood. But it was her fire…her strength…that he liked the most about her and he couldn't think of the last time he had admired any woman, next to his mom, until now. He knew that seemed pretty shitty—and he respected women—but it had been awhile since he'd encountered a woman with any 'admirable' qualities, and she had them in spades. But, he had to remind himself, she was off-limits to him then and she still was. He was here in her apartment now to keep her safe. That was it.

He smiled softly when he realized that the one thing those pictures had in common was that she looked really happy in every single one. It looked she had been able to find whatever she was looking for when she'd left Charming and he was glad for that. His stomach churned at the thought that, after tonight, it would probably be a while before she was ever that happy again. Samcro was to blame for that. He sighed again as he flopped onto the couch and discarded the pizza box. The absolute last thing he'd wanted to do was come in and completely disrupt her life. It seemed like she had a good thing going here and despite what he'd said earlier, the odds of her coming out of this unscathed were most likely slim to none. The best he could hope for was that she lost a few customers because of the constant presence of motorcycles.

He thought of Donna lying cold and bloodied in the middle of the street with that awful white sheet pulled over her body, a complete innocent in a fucked-up and corrupt world. And his mom, who was far from innocent but had done nothing to deserve the pain and the torture and the haunted look he saw in her eyes whenever she spoke about what had happened to her. The only real crime Donna and Gemma had committed was being involved with Samcro. And it seemed that women close to Samcro were getting hurt or murdered as of late. But he wasn't about to tell Kate that and scare the hell out of her, or worse, prompt her to call the cops. If she did, he wouldn't be able to put a stop to whatever sentence Samcro handed out for that.

Still, he wasn't about to let history repeat itself. Kate wasn't going to suffer the way Donna or Gemma had, especially since she didn't need or want to be part of that life. At least Donna and Gemma had known, mostly, what they'd signed for when they had gotten married. Being the daughter of one of the First Nine didn't necessarily have to mean something if she didn't want it to. No one had wanted to force her to come back because she hadn't had any contact with Samcro, not even with Gemma, since she'd left and because, as far as he was concerned, she was probably better off. And then their warehouse had been vandalized and Bobby remembered that they did, in fact, have other options. He couldn't believe what he was seeing when everyone, except him, voted to move the guns to Kate's store. And now he wasn't going to just stand by and let another woman get hurt because of the club's, and Clay's, overwhelming selfishness.

Besides, he figured she'd already been hurt enough. His blood began to boil when her previous words floated around in his head. That explained why she'd seemed scared to death when they came into the store, why she'd had the gun with her, and why she was running for the back door. He didn't want to picture that masked man hurting her but the images wouldn't stop. Why the fuck had they stopped keeping an eye on her? Couldn't they have done something to help her? To give that bastard what was coming to him after what he did to her?

He sighed and ran a shaky hand through his hair to make himself calm down. They'd thought she was fine, he reasoned, he'd seen it himself, and even if they had known, he had a feeling she'd wouldn't have taken their help anyways. At least the mother fucker was in rotting in jail. All the more reason to make sure nothing like that ever happened to her again.

With that thought, he flipped open his cell and called Juice.

"Hey man, can you do me a favor?" He said softly to make sure Kate wouldn't be able to hear him. "Kate told me she was attacked in the store a year ago…find out whatever you can about that, alright?" He paused, listening to Juice. "I just want make sure this guy isn't going to be a problem, alright? Ok…cool, thanks man."

He snapped his cell shut and sighed again. There had to more than just what she had told him. There was something in her voice, something that reminded him too much of the way Gemma had sounded the first time she'd told them she'd been raped, that prompted him to need more information. If this guy was out, or was just about to get out, he was going to be taken care of whether she was ok with it or not. At the very least he could make sure the bastard never came near her again.

His eyes found Jake, who had his head rested contently over Jax's legs, and when the dog met his gaze, he nodded to him, acknowledging a job well done. He bent down and patted the Jake's head.

"Good job, buddy," he murmured to the dog. "I'm glad you were there to protect her. You just keep on protecting her, ok? And I will to…how does that sound?"

When Jake responded by licking his hand, Jax nodded to himself, reassured that between the two of them, they just might be able to get her out of this in one piece.

A/N-Ahh...so they were both attracted to each other nine years ago but couldn't do anything about it...well, I can tell you that, for now at least, Jax's primary focus will be on keeping her safe and Kate's primary focus will be on staying as far away from Samcro as possible. But I think we all know that's not going to last for very long. The family dinner is next...

FYI-Starting this Wednesday, I'm going to be without the internet for about a week so I'm going to try to get another chapter up before then but I can't promise anything. At the very least, I'll have a couple updates ready to go by the time I get the internet back.

I hope you liked this chapter and as always...please R/R!