CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN

Photo of Doj running on photobucket…that's actually my dog. Who Doj is based on, cause my puppy is a clown (and yes, we do call him Scooby). And we're back in Charming. Forgot to post the oneshot! I'm sorry, it's posted now.

The house is completely quiet when Jax pushes the door open, the mail that Gemma had been collecting each day is stacked on the table in the kitchen, Jax and I drop all the overfull suitcases onto the floor in the laundry and head straight back out the front door to the garage. Pulling into the lot of TM Doj is the first to notice, his attention going from Al and Cam where he'd been dancing around their legs, his head shoots up and his ears start bouncing as he runs full speed across the lot, skidding to a stop beside me he jumps up and plants his paws on my shoulders, covering my face in kisses that make me laugh.

"Doj down dammit." I splutter when he finally stops licking my chin. When he's back on his paws I sit on the running board and scratch behind his ears for several seconds till he calms down completely, which lasts till Jax chuckles when the tail starts going full speed again and Jax is the one covered in doggy kisses.

Gemma and Clay both appear behind us while I'm digging some of the wet wipes out of the diaper bag to wipe my face. Handing a couple to Jax while I get hugged from both sides Gemma starts running through a list of stuff.

"Your mail's all in your kitchen, there's a whole bunch of catalogues that arrived too, I brought a couple here to look at, hope you don't mind. There's a couple of big, like enormous, boxes that arrived while you were gone, I had them put in the new garage which was finished a few days ago." She starts pulling me towards the clubhouse while Jax lifts Abel out of the back of his Ram. "Clay's been getting all the updates on your business stuff."

Jax grabs his mother's hand and pulls her to a halt while Clay starts talking "The ice cream store wall has been pulled out, all the junk has been dumped and those two freezers you wanted kept have been moved to the store room in the back. The reroofing started today; it'll be done by Friday. Gary's set to go in next week, he's contracted some extra guys to come in and help so they'll get the whole place redone in 3 days at most. The other place is done, Gary just has to do a final check before the fire and security alarms are connected."

I nod as we step through the door, a few calls of greeting coming from the guys scattered around the mostly empty room. By the time that Gemma and Jax come through the door Abel is in Gemma's arms and she's looking down at him cooing meaningless words at him.

We spend almost an hour filling Clay and Gemma in on the trial information we'd forgotten, and how Abel handled the trip across the country.

Telling them about the journey to Denver where Abel had been in the same car as Happy, Jax and Cam and he'd started crying 30 minutes from where we'd booked to stay, and then screamed for the last 5 minutes. No one had bothered to tell me until we'd stopped and after I'd calmed him down all three of the adults in the car had ended up with a long winded rant that they should have stopped. By the time we finish the story Clay is laughing, Gemma's face is pink from laughing so hard and Jax is still looking like a freshly told off toddler.

Across the room a phone rings and none of us give any thought to it as Jax leans forward and grabs my hand "Ma, there is something we needed to tell you."

Gemma's face immediately turns from smiling to a serious look "What?"

Jax laughs and I slap his hand "It's nothing bad Gem. Promise."

Gemma lifts an eyebrow at us both and I pull the single envelope I'd grabbed from the pile and push it towards her.

"I wondered about this, but thought it might have been marriage licence or something." Gemma says, picking up the envelope with the court house logo on one side. Turning the envelope over she pulls the letter out and reads through the couple of paragraphs before looking up at me "Why didn't you tell us?"

I shrug as the letter confirming my adoption of Abel is passed to Clay "We didn't want to get anyone's hopes up, especially our own. With the trial and all the other shit I didn't know if it would be easy or not."

Gemma nods and then reaches across the table and hugs me tightly, the table digging into my stomach but I don't say a word as her grip tightens around my neck. Her softly whispered words echo something Jax said to me "You've been Abel's Mom since the first time you held him; some bit of paper doesn't make any difference baby."

Chibs' voice rising in volume from the corner startles me, his shouting something that I'm not sure is even English has everyone's attention turning to him. His eyes lock on Clay's and he jerks his head towards Chapel and closes his phone with an almost violent snap before throwing it across the room in a motion that has his arm moving through the air so fast that it's actually audible. Clay, Jax, Happy, Juice and Chibs all head towards the inner sanctum, Piney pulling himself off his bar stool slowly and heading towards the open door, closing it behind him Gemma frowns at the doors "What the fuck was that about?"

Lifting my eyebrow at her I giggle "Language Grandma. Don't want someone's first word to be profanity."

Gemma laughs and shakes her head "Sorry baby, it's bound to be either a curse word or something to do with a Harley."

I nod laughing with her "His first sentence will probably be something about fuel injection or carburettors."

Half an hour later Juice comes out of the room, grabs his phone and goes through to the kitchen a second later Jax pokes his head out through the doors and holds out his keys "I'll be a while babe. I'll get someone to bring me home."

I nod and cross the room "Everything okay?"

Jax shakes his head, kisses me hard on the mouth and presses his keys into my hand "Not at all, I'll fill you in later, love you Darlin'."

"Only on what I need to know baby. Love you too." The door closes and I turn around, collect Abel and his car seat and head out to the Ram, stopping by the office where Gemma had vanished to a while ago to finish some filing I let her know that they're still locked away and I'm leaving. She nods and comes around the desk, dropping kisses on Abel's face and hugging me tightly.

"It's good to have you back. Are you taking the monster?" I glance over at where Doj is sleeping just outside the door and nod.

"I will, I'll come by tomorrow and get his bowl and stuff."

The sound of bikes pulling into the lot distracts us both and Gemma frowns when she sees Bobby, Opie, Kip and Tig all fly into the lot, backing their bikes into their spots and heading straight towards the clubhouse with nothing more than waves in our direction. Grabbing hold of her attention again I pick up the car seat "I think I'll go over and see Donna instead. Let me know what's happening?"

Gemma nods and comes with me to put Abel and his car seat in the cradle while Doj jumps up on the other side of the seat and curls into a ball. As I start the engine my phone rings, hitting speaker phone I drop it on the dash. "Hi D. I'm on my way to yours."

Donna laughs "I'm already in your drive."

"Okay, well then I'm on my way home." I reply with a laugh "Give me 15 minutes, I've gotta stop at the market and get some food."

Pulling into my drive almost 20 minutes later I stifle a giggle. Ellie and Kenny are sitting on the desk by the front door swinging their legs in the air while Donna sorts through what I'm guessing is her mail.

Looking up when she hears the truck pull in she smiles and pulls all the papers into one pile and stands up.

Doj is out the car door before I can even get it completely open. Planting himself between the twins I just shake my head as his tail sweeps over the deck.