Chapter 11
11
He puts the baby to bed.
Then he sits on the sofa, his eyes closed but his mind wide awake, waiting for the smell of flowers to fill the house again.
I almost cry with relief when I get back to the ranch and Lux’s car is still nowhere to be seen.
The abraded skin of my palms smarting something fierce, I quietly let myself into the house, hoping that the still darkness means Hunter put Alex down already, and he’s taken himself to the spare room for the night.
Honestly, I don’t even know why I try with this hope crap anymore.
“Are you okay?”
Practically hugging the kitchen sink, I nod without looking behind me, worried that the thirty minute drive from town wasn’t quite enough time to erase the puffy, red-rimmed evidence of this awful night. “Sorry I took so long. You can go now.”
For once, I’d like something to be easy. I’d like someone to listen to me. I’d like a goddamn break, but that’s not what I get; that’s not what the heavy footsteps thudding towards me are, nor the thick fingers enveloping my wrist.
Hunter lifts my hand. His thumb swipes along the curve of mine, coaxing my fingers to unfurl from a painfully, shamefully clenched fist and reveal bloody, shredded skin. “What happened?”
“I tripped.” The lie comes out so quickly, it’s barely even a thought. I kick out a leg, brandishing a matching knee too—innocent people don’t hide things, right? “Too clumsy for my own good.”
A puff of air brushes the side of my face, another warming the sensitive skin of my inner wrist when he stoops to get a better look. “Jesus, Caroline, that’s glass .”
It is? That must be why it hurts so bad. “It’s fine.”
I try to shake Hunter off, but his grip only tightens. With his free hand, he flicks the faucet on before grabbing my other wrist, gingerly but insistently guiding both of my hands beneath the cool water. When I hiss a pained breath, he mutters an apology, and another when he changes the water temperature to freaking boiling, a third when he runs his thumb over the meaty part of my palm.
“You got yourself good,” he… remarks? Admonishes? Laments? I can’t quite tell, and I’m too distracted to decipher it; by how close he is, by how gentle he’s being as he coaxes the debris free, by the effort of trying not to wail like a baby because freaking ow .
When the sporadic ping of gravel and glass falling into the metal sink basin comes to a stop and the water running off my palm fades from red to clear, Hunter scrutinizes my skin carefully. “I think it looks worse than it is.”
“That’s good,” I try to reply except the words get stuck in my throat, the thoughts in my brain jumbling, when he lifts my hands higher.
And blows hot air on my palms.
Suddenly, I’m indescribably grateful for the shitty, energy-efficient light bulbs Lux uses in the house; the poor lighting means I can convince myself Hunter can’t see the blood rushing to my cheeks. My sharp intake of breath, I can blame on the pain. The rapid thump of my heart needs no explanation, thankfully—how the hell does a girl explain she’s so touch starved, breath is doing it for her without melting into a mortified puddle?
Guiding me into a chair, Hunter pats me on the shoulder, talking to me like I’m a small, helpless child. “Gotta get the rest of the glass out, okay?”
“I can do it.” I can’t. I’m a baby when it comes to pain, and watching my blood wash down the drain has already made me queasy. But I’m hanging on by a thread as it is, and I don’t think I can handle any more… well, Hunter.
That broad chest heaving with a sigh, Hunter sets his hand on top of my head and tilts it back—and back and back and back—until my gaze reaches the apex of six feet and six inches of pure, frowning man. “Do you let anyone help you ever? Or is it just my help you fight?”
Extremely aware of the heat emanating from his palm, I roll my bottom lip between my teeth. “I accept help when I need it.”
The noise he makes is unconvinced, but he doesn’t press further. He smooths his hand down the back of my hair—I swear he tugs on the ends—before retreating so he can rummage through the cabinets to find the the well-used First Aid kit. Before I can protest, he sets it on the table and drops onto the chair nearest me.
“I’ll be quick,” he promises, and I find myself silently begging him to keep his word for reasons that have nothing to do with the uncomfortable sting of a pair of small tweezers yanking tiny shards of glass from my skin. No, I’m way more concerned with the sudden dryness of my throat, the disarming fluttering in my lower belly, the warm rush of long dormant arousal.
I panic, I’m ashamed to admit. I panic about being attracted to a man. I panic that he can tell. I panic because he’s pulling freaking glass out of my hands and I’m noticing the veins in his forearms when he reaches for antiseptic. The firm set of his jaw as he concentrates. Another gentle swipe of his thumb as he makes sure he got everything.
Honestly, this might be a new low for me.
A long, long twenty minutes later, my palms are clean, disinfected, and covered with BandAids, and I exhale deeply when Hunter gets to his feet. “Thank—”
The words are stolen from my mouth, the breath from my lungs soon to follow, when Hunter drops to a crouch in front of me. “Gotta check these too.”
Did I hit my head? Somehow asleep at my dad’s? Am I actually still napping on the sofa, and this whole evening has been nothing more than a fever dream? Or is Hunter actually, genuinely, on his knees before me, picking gravel out of mine?
I was red to begin with, but I somehow get even redder. I try not to squirm, and every time fingers graze my skin, I have to try a little harder. When I’m struck with the utterly unhinged urge to touch the soft-looking head of hair looming only inches away, I close my eyes. Squeeze them tightly shut. Only for them to fly open a few seconds later, copying the front door.
Lux comes to an abrupt halt in the doorway. Dark eyes hone in on me, then dip to her unconcerned ranch hand. Slowly, she closes the door behind her. Locks it. Cocks her head and croons, “Whatcha doing here, Hunter?”
“Horses were spooked,” he says without looking up, his actions unfaltering, as smooth as the lie. “Figured there might be somethin’ lurkin’ around, so I thought I’d keep an eye out.”
Lux hums a long, drawn-out noise. “And you think it might be in Line’s crotch?”
“ Lux. ” I stand hurriedly, intending on putting some space between me and Hunter, but he inhibits that plan. He doesn’t let me move, cupping the back of my thigh to hold me in place, until he smooths another couple of bandages over my knees.
Only then does he get to his feet. And before Lux can ask what happened, before I have to come up with a lie, he does it for me.
“Someone took a game of ‘Tag’ a little too seriously,” Hunter lies through his freaking teeth with ease, setting a hand on my head again, an odd move I’m not sure what to make of. Kind of like he’s ruffling my hair, but not quite so patronizing. Not patting either. Something else. Something, dare I say, dare I even think , affectionate. Then, he says goodnight, and he leaves.
And before Lux can open her mouth, I say goodnight and I leave too.
I groan as I finally give up on trying to organize next month’s orders, slamming the order book shut and burying my head in my hands. I couldn’t concentrate if my life depended on it. My brain is a cacophony of thoughts competing to be the loudest, and none of them are productive. They’re about as conducive to a working environment as… well, as a pair of busted palms are to a girl who spends her days meticulously arranging delicate flowers.
Whining a defeated noise, I slip the book back beneath the counter and drop to the ground, the tiles cold against my bare legs, the wall hard against my back. I knew I should’ve taken a rare day off instead of forcing myself out of bed; I knew the second I woke up that I’d be useless. I’m not sure I got even a single hour of sleep last night, what with all the tossing and turning I was doing.
Just like now, my brain wouldn’t shut off. Just like now, I was replaying last night, fretting over it endlessly. Just like now, I wondered how much longer I can keep doing this—how long until it all comes out.
It’s not the first time I’ve been summoned for designated driver duty, but last night felt— feels —different. It is different. Before last night, my dad’s drinking didn’t exist within the confines of Haven Ridge, or at least not outside of our home. He would drink there, or he would drink with his buddies a couple of towns over where nobody really knows him, nobody knows me .
Tommy knows me. Whoever else was in Bishop’s last night knows me too, and they know my dad, and my gut says if he carries on like this, everything will come out.
I don’t want that. God, how much I don’t want that. Maybe it makes me part of the problem, maybe I’m nothing more than an enabler facilitating my dad’s nasty habits, but I would far prefer being the despondent ex, or even that girl from high school whose name you struggle to remember, than the daughter of the town drunk.
When the bell above Bloom’s front door chimes, I briefly consider staying hidden behind the counter. I’m still contemplating it when I hear the tail end of a snapped sentence, and the familiar voice makes me stiffen.
“—unreasonable, Alexandra.”
“ I’m being unreasonable?” Lux parrots with a laugh, filling in the blanks. “Fuck you, Mark.”
Mark Monroe huffs, and I picture the smarmy, condescending irritation painting his unfortunately handsome face. “It’s not like I want the kid.”
“No.” If I was a gambler, I’d put fifty on Lux being red-faced and tight-fisted, just barely restraining the urge to knock her ex upside the head. “You just wanna be right. I repeat— fuck you .”
“You can believe whatever you wanna believe,” she adds before her ex can get a word in. “But if you think I’m ever letting you have any kind of a claim to my son after what you did—”
“For fuck’s sake, Ally, I broke up with you. That’s it. You’re not some battered woman.”
Third time’s the charm. “ Fuck. You. ”
Deciding the last thing I need is to spend the rest of the day mopping up blood, I scramble to my feet, casually leaning against the counter like it’s not at all weird that I waited a solid minute before announcing my presence. “I think it’s time to go, Mark.”
Two pissed gazes swing my way.
“Well.” I bristle as Mark snickers. “Look who speaks.”
Lux’s fingers twitch where they’re balled into fists at her sides. “Do I need to say it a fourth time, asshole?”
“You kiss my son with that mouth?”
My furious friend lunges forward a step and, quick as a flash, I round the counter, hip-checking her aside on my way to wrench the front door open. “Bye, Mark.”
Luckily for everyone—and ironic, too, considering the crap he just gave me—Mark’s never had much of a backbone. He did, after all, break up with Lux via an angry phone call from his mother . So, it’s unsurprising when it doesn’t take much to send him sloping back outside.
The click of me twisting the lock into place precedes Lux’s almighty groan. “Summer break,” she spits, explaining in two words why Mark is back in town instead of bothering the inhabitants of wherever he lives now. “Don’t you just love it?”
Flipping the sign on the door to the ‘closed’ side, I lead my friend upstairs. “Preaching to the choir.” The summer months and its inevitable influx of everyone I went to high school with coming home from college has long reigned supreme as my least favorite time of year.
Flopping belly-first onto my bed, Lux screams into my pillow. “He wants a paternity test.”
Perching beside her, I hesitate before cautiously saying, “Maybe it would make things easier.”
“I doubt that.” Lux rolls onto her side, blowing her hair out of her face as she props herself up on her elbows. “This is why I don’t leave the ranch.”
Again, we’re on the same page. If I could plant myself on a serene, secluded patch of Serenity and never leave, I would. “What’re you doing here, anyway? Where’s the boy?”
“Jackson’s got him. I needed a break.” She sighs a tortured noise. “ Lottie .”
“Ah.” The one word explanation is plenty.
Stretching towards me, Lux pokes my thigh. “Why didn’t you tell me she snuck out last night?”
Besides the fact I technically did too? “She already hates me. Forget stitches—I think I would get an early grave for snitching on her.”
“If it makes you feel any better, she hates me too.”
“I don’t think she does.” The perk of being ignored all the time; observing from the sidelines is a whole lot easier. I see the way Lottie looks at her big sister when she thinks no one is looking. “I think she might think you hate her, though.”
“Why do you say that?”
I shrug, only half kidding when I say, “Call it like recognizing like.”
“Shut up.” Another poke. “I never hated you.”
I pull a face.
“I didn’t.” Shuffling upright, Lux tucks her legs beneath her. “You really thought I hated you?”
I drop my gaze to my lap. “Didn’t you?”
“ No .” The mattress dips as Lux shifts to sit beside me, her thigh brushing mine. “It was never about you, okay? It was about our parents and our grandparents and being mad at the world. Us Jacksons, we have severe attachment issues. A genetic fear of abandonment, too. And Oscar… he’s always been more than our brother. A lot of the time, he feels more like our parent, especially for Eliza and the twins, and you know what the fairytales say. You’re supposed to hate the stepmother.”
Well, crap. I guess I never thought of it like that—I guess after years of being told everything is my fault, it was instinct to assume the blame.
“We were kids,” Lux continues softly. “We were assholes. I’m sorry, and I know Grace and Eliza are too. Give Lottie another year or two to become human again and I bet she will be.”
I smile briefly before sobering. “I’m sorry too. For making things more difficult.”
“All is forgiven.” Lux nudges her shoulder against mine, allowing all of five seconds of silence before breaking it. “So. Tell me the truth.”
Instinctively, my heart drops to my stomach.
“What was Hunter really doing on his knees?”
Choking on a relieved laugh, I shake my head as I get to my feet. “I should’ve kicked you out with Mark.”