4

Little Toy Bikers and a Woman on the Run

Chapter 167 Voice

The alcohol mixed with a sleeping pill might not have been the best idea. Tara looked at the clock on her night table and discovered she had slept the day away and it was after five.

It didn't matter. She didn't have anything to do anyway except feel sorry for herself. She wasn't sure which hurt more—when Jax told her he didn't love her anymore or when he refused to have sex with her. Sleep had done nothing to dim the memory or taken some of the edge off her emotional pain.

How the hell hadn't she seen this coming? She wanted to believe that she and Jax had this epic love that would last forever. How could she have been that stupid? It was all the movies on TV and romance novels about epic love. She wanted to believe it existed for her and Jax—that what they had together was extraordinary, a love that only a rare few were lucky enough to feel.

It gutted her when he dismissed their love as just being a high school romance that had run its course. She felt it was so much more. It was hard to accept that her deep love for Jax wasn't returned. She didn't doubt that he had loved her with his whole heart in high school. She just couldn't believe that he didn't have a tiny bit of love left for her. Maybe he didn't even know it.

Even if he didn't love her now, he wasn't lost to her forever. He loved her once. He could fall in love with her again. She had changed a lot in ten years. The Tara he knew had been insecure and unsure of herself. Most sixteen year old girls were like that. It was part of growing up.

Jax had always known where he wanted to go and what he wanted to do with his life. His whole life was the MC. It was the family business. His mother, father and stepfather were all involved in it. Gemma used to talk about the MC like it was a monarchy. She was the queen, of course, and Jax was the prince waiting for his turn to rule.

She knew he would never leave Charming, but she'd still tried to get him to leave with her hoping that there was just a chance that he might leave. She thought if he loved her enough, he would come with her and they would be able to fight for their love and put their relationship back together. At least now she realized that was never going to happen. He wouldn't leave Charming and his destiny.

Tara needed to figure out how long she was willing to stay in Charming, trying to awaken Jax's dormant love for her or get him to fall in love with her again. A year. She would stay in town for a year. If it still looked hopeless in a year, she would leave town and never come back.

It didn't matter how much she humiliated herself as long as it didn't end up in her work history. She would leave town and move on with her life leaving the humiliation behind her if she couldn't get Jax back in a year.

Now that she had set a deadline, she would have to come up with a better plan. She hadn't really come up with much of a plan in the beginning. She hadn't really thought she would need one. She'd had a crazy and foolish hope that he would want to try their relationship again the second she mentioned it.

Tara knew she sometimes looked at things optimistically without regard to reality, facts or logic. It was magical thinking like believing in epic love stories and that she was special enough to have one with Jax. Despite what he said, she still believed they had an epic love story. She just needed to come up with a way to make him love her again.

After polishing off the Kahlua, Tara had come up with an idea; she would become friends with Scarlett. It would show Jax that she wasn't crazy with jealousy anymore.

She wouldn't try to mess up Scarlett and Jax's relationship. Everyone would expect that. Instead she would be a real friend to Scarlett. She would show Jax how much she had changed.

Jax and Scarlett's relationship would run its course and she would be there ready to step in to console a broken-hearted Jax. He would realize that she was his soul mate and his only true love.

She recognized that she might be doing more magical thinking, but she didn't care. While she believed she and Jax would find their way back together, life was worth living. She could always face an ugly reality in twelve months if they weren't back together.

Her cell phone rang and her heart beat a little faster when she didn't recognize the phone number, hoping it was Jax. She answered the call.

"You changed your number again," a male voice said.

"I have a restraining order," Tara said. "It covers phone calls too."

"I'm a federal agent, so I know that," he replied. "I don't know why you bother to change your number because I can always get it."

"You call me again and I will file charges. This is your last chance."

"Do you really think anyone would care enough to do anything about a little phone call?" he scoffed sarcastically. "See you soon, Tar-tar."

Tara ended the call and ran to the bathroom to throw up. She wasn't sure if it was all the Kahlua she drank or being called Tar-tar by the revolting Joshy Kohn.