Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
GIA
“Hey, Gia.” Jackson Hurst didn’t exactly smile, but one corner of his mouth lifted in that familiar half-smirk he reserved for people he was genuinely glad to see.
With Jackson, that was practically exuberance.
Somewhere along the way, life had taken too many shots at him, leaving him permanently serious.
“You’re back!” I crossed the distance and threw my arms around him.
Jackson went stiff in shock for half a heartbeat like nobody in his life hugged him first, which wasn’t true. I did it every time I saw him. Then one rough hand landed awkwardly between my shoulders.
Behind me, Timothy and Lisa both sucked in sharp breaths. Not because I hugged a man. Because I hugged Jackson, who over the past two decades had become unpredictable and dangerous. But not to me. To me, he was a hero.
I pulled back enough to look at him. “You said you wouldn’t be back for another few weeks, maybe a month.”
“Got a call that brought me back.” He gave me a pointed glare. “I asked you to wait to come back until I could be here. Then Timothy told me Jimmy hurt you again?”
“Misty needed me. They weren’t taking care of her.” As I stepped away from him, my throat tightened. I nodded toward Timothy. “You never told him you saved my life.”
Jackson’s lips flattened. “You made me swear not to. I take those kinds of promises serious.”
“What are you talking about?” Timothy shoved off his mama’s truck hard enough the suspension rocked. His eyes locked on Jackson like he was seconds from swinging at his own cousin.
Jackson muttered, “Well…shit.”
“Jackson,” Timothy warned.
“You know, Gia,” Jackson said carefully, “I really would’ve preferred we kept this between us.”
“It would’ve come out eventually,” I said.
He rocked back on his heels and rubbed a hand over his chin, tracing the scar on his chin. “Nope. Pretty sure it wouldn’t. He’s going to punch me. Then he’s going to hold a grudge. We all know he’s the worst at grudges. Look how he can’t get over the one he holds on you.”
“What is going on?” Timothy demanded.
I turned toward him, but it was Lisa I caught watching me now. Suspicious. Worried.
My stomach twisted. “I didn’t run away and hop on a bus or train that night long ago,” I said quietly. “I begged Jackson to drive me over the mountains.”
Timothy’s head snapped toward his cousin so fast it looked painful. “Why would she ask you?”
Jackson lifted both hands in surrender. “I need you to calm down long enough to hear this, ’cause if we’re going to tell this story, you’ll listen.
” He crossed his arms and waited until Timothy took a breath.
“That night after you and Gia had some kind of falling out, Jimmy went after her. Real bad.” His face hardened.
“We already had it arranged for me to get her out that night, but she never showed.”
Timothy slowly turned back toward me.
I swallowed against the pressure climbing up my throat.
In a voice that sounded gutted, Timothy asked, “You called him?”
“Dad found out from Misty about us. I knew it was bound to happen. I’d just hoped it would be after I left.” I forced the words out. “He was the worst he’d ever been coming after me. I did call you.” I could barely get out at a whisper. “You didn’t answer.”
The color drained out of Timothy’s face so fast it scared me. The damaged phone. I saw the exact second it hit him that while he’d been angry and without a functioning phone, I’d been alone and in need of help.
“I didn’t have anyone else. I called Jackson,” I said it without looking at Timothy.
“He came onto McClary land and got me. He wanted me to go to the local hospital and the police, but then I would’ve ended up back on the farm.
Dad was school buddies with the sheriff back then.
He wouldn’t have gone to jail. If I’d stayed here, he’d have killed me for sure.
Jackson drove me across the state line and… ”
The next part wasn’t good. I glanced over at Jackson who’d gone tight.
Timothy took one step toward me. “And what?”
Jackson opened his mouth.
I shook my head hard at him. Please don’t. Even now, after all these years, there was murder sitting just beneath Timothy’s skin where Jimmy’s name was concerned.
“And,” Timothy bit out, voice low and lethal. “What?”
Jackson looked at me one last time before answering softly, “I drove as fast as I could and took her to the first hospital I found just over the state line.”
Silence slammed down.
“She had two broken ribs,” he continued.
“Her left arm had to be set.” His jaw flexed.
“They kept her three days. She had a punctured lung, and she’d lost a lot of blood.
She was covered in...” He shook his head.
“There was internal stuff bruised up…bleeding. It was so bad. The doctors didn’t know how she didn’t die on the ride there.
” He swallowed hard and whispered, “The motherfucker went after her with a rolling pin.”
Timothy stared at him blankly at first like his mind physically could not make sense of the words. I looked away before I had to see the full devastation on his face.
“He stayed with me those three days.” I still couldn’t look at Timothy as the shame of being a victim washed over me again.
Three days of Jackson sleeping upright in a plastic chair beside my bed.
Three days of him sneaking cafeteria pudding cups onto my tray when eating hurt too bad.
Three days of him pretending not to notice when I cried after the nightmares.
“But graduation was coming,” I continued shakily. “He had to go back.”
“She made me swear not to tell you,” Jackson said hoarsely. “Said if you knew, you’d go after Jimmy and your mama would lose another son.”
Lisa made a broken sound.
Jackson looked at her immediately. “I’m sorry, ma’am.
I hated keeping it from him, but we’d just lost Brian.
Gia knew it would’ve been too much to lose Timothy too.
Hell…” His voice broke and he wiped his eyes as if they bothered him.
“If we lost Timothy, we would’ve lost Gia too when she found out.
I just know…” He met my gaze and shook his head. “You would’ve let go.”
Lisa crossed the distance and wrapped her arms around Jackson so fiercely his eyes widened in shock.
“Honey,” she whispered, voice trembling, “I’m so sorry you carried this alone.
” She pulled back enough to cup his face.
“Thank you for saving my son. But next time, young man, you come to me. This is the kind of thing we handle as a family. You never needed to do this alone.” She hugged him again and even though she whispered, I heard her clearly say, “I’d have shot him myself for doing that.
Actually, Mason would’ve marched over there and done it, then burned down that evil house. ”
Jackson looked devastated by that.
But Timothy—
Timothy exploded.
“Thank you?” he roared. The words cracked out of him hard enough to echo across the parking lot.
His chest heaved once. His hand curled into his hair like he could physically hold himself together.
“Everybody lied to me for years and you’re thanking him?
” His gaze snapped to Jackson with enough force to make Jackson straighten.
“Tell me something,” he snarled. “Did you dump her in some homeless shelter and walk away?” The last words came rough, splintering at the edges, like every ugly possibility had been eating him alive for years.
Jackson jerked back like Timothy had slapped him.
His brows slammed together. “It was a battered women’s shelter,” he shot back.
“What was I supposed to do? I was eighteen with no money and a truck that barely made it across the mountains. She couldn’t come back here.
” His voice roughened on the last words. “I had to come back.”
Timothy flinched like the reminder hit him square in the chest.
Jackson kept going anyway. “I helped her however I could.” His voice roughened.
“I enlisted right out of high school and sent her my signing bonus so she could get out of there. So she could get her GED. Go to college. Have a damn shot at life. And look at her. She’s incredible.
Then again, I’m pretty sure she started out that way. ”
The entire yard went silent.
Timothy wasn’t looking at the cousin who helped me run away. He was looking at the man who’d quietly held together the shattered pieces of my life the only way he could.
Timothy asked low, “Did Mark know?”
“I never told him. So don’t be blaming him. Now, did he know something was up? That something happened that night to make me disappear for a few days?” Jackson shrugged. “He’s my twin. Sometimes we don’t ask questions.”
“He saved my life, but it cost him too much. It cost all of us too much.” My voice went soft and heavy with guilt. “I didn’t like what the Navy did to Jackie.”
Jackson looked away, but not defensively. More like a man searching for the right doorway into a story too tangled to tell straight. He once admitted to me there were years of his life he didn’t even know how to put into words anymore.
Timothy’s stare sharpened. His jaw locked hard enough to tick. One hand flexed open and closed at his side before he shoved it into his pocket. “Are you saying you two got involved?”
The question came out low and rough, like he already hated whatever answer might follow.
Jackson barked out a humorless laugh at the same time I shook my head.
“No,” I said quickly. “Not like that.” I glanced at Jackson, my chest aching all over again. “He became the only family I had.”
Something flickered across Timothy’s face at the word family. He knew exactly what that meant. I’d had nobody but Jackson.
“Did you try to stop her from marrying Justin?” Timothy demanded suddenly, anger lashing out in a new direction now. “Or did you just stand there and let it happen too?”