5

Chapter 537 Reconnection

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Scarlett contacted Tara and invited her to the clubhouse to keep her and Donna company while they waited for the guys to finish Church. Tara quickly accepted. She missed having her friends around her and she was determined to heal the rift with Scarlett.

She understood that she shouldn't have tried to get Jax involved with handling the Kohn situation. Scarlett was simply protecting Jax while she was just trying to protect herself. Now that the Kohn shooting was behind her, she could see that she wanted to use Jax so she didn't have to go through the legal process for shooting him. She wasn't thinking about Jax; she was thinking about what was best for her.

If Scarlett hadn't been there, she knew she would have called Jax for help. She still wondered what he would have done. Would he have killed Kohn for her out of their past connection or because he felt he owed her for saving his life? She was sure that Jax had killed for the MC; she figured one more wouldn't matter much to him. It occurred to her now that it wasn't the same thing. Jax wasn't a cold blooded killer.

What she hadn't thought through was how they were going to get away with killing Kohn. His rental car proved he'd come to her house. They would have had to dump his car. If Hale got a search warrant, he would have found evidence of Kohn's blood no matter how well she cleaned.

When she had her bedroom redone, there was blood that had seeped into the carpet and flooring underneath. There was blood splatter on the walls. Cleaning up a crime scene is not as easy as TV shows made it look.

The construction crew she hired with Scarlett's help cleaned up and replaced everything leaving no trace that Kohn had ever died in her bedroom. The bedroom felt like her own again and she'd had no ghostly visits.

No, now that it was all over, she was glad Scarlett had put an end to her plot to get Jax to kill Kohn for her. It had been a tough couple of weeks, but it was behind her and she never had to worry about getting investigated for Kohn's murder. His body wasn't going to be discovered and come back to bite her or Jax.

She was sitting at a table off to one side with Scarlett and Donna. She hesitated a moment before sharing her news about Eric. The two women looked at her before bursting into laughter. She joined in. It was pretty damned funny; she wasn't just sure which was funnier the gay porn or the animal stuff.

"Well, at least I found out why he wasn't that into me," Tara said when everyone had quit laughing.

"Why was he even trying to sort of date you? It doesn't make sense," Scarlett said.

"I'm just damned glad that I didn't go out on that boat trip," Tara said. "He invited me on a boat trip and I made an excuse not to go," she said explaining it to Donna.

"He must have had some reason for going out with you and continuing to go out with you," Scarlett insisted.

"Maybe he was hoping that he might start liking girls a little," Donna speculated.

"There are a lot of girls he could have tried out," Tara said. "He worked in the porn industry. I'm sure he must know some girls."

"Ima," Donna suggested. "He could have gone out with Ima."

"She works at Cara Cara the porn studio run by Luann Delaney. She's Otto's wife. He's a member of SAMCRO who got locked up for some attempted murder," Tara explained. "She has always been after Jax even when the three of us were back in high school together."

Suddenly Steve walked into the club. She hadn't seen him since Jax had told him he didn't need to watch over her. She'd called him twice and he hadn't returned her calls. Coming on top of Eric ghosting her, she figured he hadn't wanted to be around her because she'd killed Kohn or she was never more than an assignment from Jax.

His warm golden brown eyes lit up when he saw Tara. He immediately walked up to their table.

"How are you all doing?" he asked, his eyes still locked on Tara.

"OK," she said coolly. She wasn't going to pretend that everything was OK between them. He hadn't bothered to call her back and she wasn't in a forgiving mood.

"I was going to call you. I just got back a couple of days ago. A few days after I quit watching over you, I got a call that my brother had been in a bad car accident. I flew back to be with my family."

"Is he going to be OK?" Tara asked. That changed things. A family emergency like that took priority. He hadn't ghosted her because she killed Kohn. He probably didn't even know.

"Yeah. It was touch and go for awhile, but he's finally finished with all the surgeries and is going to recover."

Steve was definitely attractive. He wasn't a big guy. He was a couple of inches shorter than Jax with light brown hair, a wiry build, lean even features and a calm demeanor that she'd really liked. Her heart beat a little faster at the way he was looking at her.

"Why don't the two of you catch up?" Donna suggested. "Scarlett and I will be fine on our own."

Steve raised an eyebrow at Tara.

"I'd like that," he said with a smile.

"Me too," she said getting up from the table and going to sit down with Steve at another table.

She softly explained what happened with Kohn, how she'd been forced to shoot him, the investigation and her eventually being cleared.

He'd been so kind and supportive. She really missed having a man in her life and she really liked Steve. Steve didn't make her feel defective which was the way she felt when she was with Eric.

She didn't know where things were going to go with Steve; she just knew she was going to enjoy his company and see where things went from there.