Chapter 40
40
He almost cries.
He only doesn’t for her sake.
A long-suffering sigh breaks the peaceful silence of Serenity Ranch.
“Really?” A familiarly disdainful voice whines, quiet so as not to awaken the rest of her slumbering household. “This is, like, super creepy, Caroline. Like stalker creepy.”
Staring at the blood crusted around my nails, I imagine Lottie Jackson in my mind’s eye. I can hear the weight of the platform boots on her feet, the swish of a leather jacket as she crosses her arms, the huffed breath that probably displaces her wispy, red fringe. She’s scowling, undoubtedly, and creasing the makeup she carefully, quietly applied in the dark so as not to alert her siblings to her sneaking out—although, I guess it’s not really sneaking out if she’s nineteen. In my head, the dark eyeliner she favors is slightly smudged, the red outline of her lips isn’t quite perfect, whatever black outfit she slipped into is a little twisted from being blindly pulled on.
I don’t turn around to confirm.
“I won’t tell,” I mutter, picking at my nails. “You can go.”
I swear, I hear her eyes roll as clearly as I hear her sarcastic, “Thank you so much for your permission.”
Stomping as loudly as she dares given her current circumstances, she descends the porch steps. I expect her to stomp right past me, on a mission towards whoever must be waiting just far away enough for a car engine not to be heard, but she surprises me by pausing at the bottom step. And again by half-turning towards me, and once more by almost sounding concerned. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing. I’m leaving.” Face still tilted to the ground, I stand up, planning on skirting around Lottie and getting back in my truck because at some point during the half hour I’ve been sitting out here, I came to the conclusion that coming here was a bad idea, but I’m not quick enough.
Black-tipped fingers wrap around my bicep and yank me to a halt. A young face dips into my view, looking exactly as I imagined it, but I feel no triumph when eyes a couple of shades lighter than those of her siblings widen. “Is that blood ?”
I try to shake her off, and I succeed. “I’m going, okay? Pretend I wasn’t here.”
For Lottie, that should be the easiest thing in the world—there are only five people in the world who warrant any kind of concern on her part. Except, for some reason, she chooses this exact moment to temporarily add a sixth person to the roster.
When she screeches Lux’s name, I whip around to shush her, but I’m too slow once again. Her brother’s name leaves her mouth before I can slap a hand over it, and the split second I take to gape in surprise is enough for the two eldest Jackson’s to barrel out the front door.
“Seriously, Lottie?” Sleepy, surprised, and furious in equal measures, Jackson rakes a hand down his face. “ Again ? What can you even do in Haven Ridge this late?”
“I don’t think you wanna know,” Lux mutters, but unlike her brother, her focus isn’t on their little sister. She frowns at me, squinting against the darkness to better make out the ugly mess I only took a second to check out in my truck’s rear view mirror because a second was all I could stand to look at it for. “Cheryl get you?”
I swallow. Smile, or at least I try to. Admit, because I’m so very tired, too tired to lie, “It was my dad.”
Silence. At least ten seconds of it. And then, an unsure, “What?”
“My dad threw a glass flower at my head,” I say, and I almost laugh because it sounds so ridiculous.
“Why?”
“ Lottie ,” Lux hisses at her blunt sister, but she doesn’t take her eyes off me.
“Because he was drunk.” I pause before amending, “Because he is a drunk. He has been since my mom died. And he—” I swallow again, the truth like a rock in my throat. “He hates me. So he hurts me sometimes. That’s why I moved out. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
I swear, I’ve never heard the ranch nor the siblings who run it so silent. I swear even the cicadas stop chirping. I swear the Jacksons’ hearts stop beating, and the preternatural silence would creep me out if I wasn’t so busy marveling at Lottie showcasing an emotion other than anger.
Shocked curiosity dukes it out with hesitation when her brother taps her on the shoulder and tells her to go, and she actually dithers for a moment before taking off into the night, and I silently commend her ability to move so fast in such cumbersome boots over the uneven ground. And then, with a soft croon of my name, reality returns.
It’s Jackson who guides me inside, gingerly pushing on my shoulder until I take a seat at the kitchen table. It’s him who makes me tea even though I didn’t ask for it, but I’ll admit the fragrant steam emanating from the mug does have a certain soothing effect. It’s him who firmly shoos his other sisters back to bed when they come out to see what’s going on. When he reaches into the cabinet for a first aid kit, though, that’s when Lux takes over.
She breaks her silent stupor, murmuring that she’ll take over and ordering her brother away, only to repair it as she takes a seat beside me. She doesn’t say a word as she grips me by the chin, tilting my face towards the light, her gaze surveying every last bit of damage.
I know what she sees. A cut on my forehead, another on my temple, a few scattered across my cheeks and along the bridge of my nose, one on the delicate skin beneath my eye. Tiny slashes that bleed way more than I thought such a small wound would, that sting like a bitch—especially as Lux cleans, disinfects, and dabs honey on each of them.
Hands fisted in my lap, I wait for her to say something as she places butterfly stitches on a couple of them, barely able to breathe with the weight of anticipation crushing my chest.
The first time she sniffs, I don’t think anything of it. The second makes me frown, and I wince when the expression pulls at my cuts uncomfortably. When she starts to blink too quickly, and clears her throat loudly, I squint to get a better look at suspiciously shiny eyes. “Are you crying?”
Lux sniffs a third time. “I have allergies.”
“No, you don’t.”
Her dismissive harrumph doesn’t match a wobbling bottom lip, and I feel mine start to quiver in solidarity. “Lux, don’t.”
“I’m not.” A trembling breath leaves her. “This has been happening since your mom died?”
I shake my head because that’s not exactly right. I’m not quite sure how to explain it, but I try.
I tell her how Dad pretty much checked out the moment Mom passed. How it started with him ignoring me and devolved over the years into him resenting me, how it always came down to him hating me. I tell her about the accidental bumps and the purposeful vitriol and the drinking, so much drinking—and the covering for him, so much covering for him.
When I get to that night, that first awful night when everything went so wrong, and tonight, the night that feels like the end of something, somehow, I don't cry the same way Lux doesn’t cry. We both don’t cry together, our clammy hands clasped together.
“You were just a kid .”
I don’t know what to do but shrug. “I managed.”
“That’s why you were here all the time. You couldn’t—” Sucking in a breath, Lux sits back and swipes beneath her eyes. “We were so awful to you. You just wanted somewhere safe, and we were—
“Kids,” I repeat the sentiment. “We were all just kids.”
With a whimper, she pulls me into a hug. “I’m so sorry, Line. I’m so, so sorry.”
I don’t need the apology, but the hug, I accept readily. I cling to Lux, absorbing her sorrow and sharing mine, feeling that burden lift off my shoulders bit by bit. By the time we pull away, I can breathe a little easier—even if they are sobbed, whiney breaths.
Swiping at her eyes again, Lux cups one of my knees. “What’re you gonna do?”
“What do you mean?”
“You can’t act like nothing happened.”
I stay quiet.
“Caroline,” Lux admonishes, slowly shaking her head. “You can’t .”
I look down. “I’ve been doing it for years.”
“That’s not healthy . That’s not fair. That’s not… that’s not a life, Line. Not the kind you deserve.”
“What am I supposed to do?” Frustration furrows my brow, coils in my guts, makes my skin feel hot. “I tell someone, he maybe gets arrested, and everyone knows. Or I tell someone and nothing happens, and everybody still knows. I can’t live like that either.”
Lux goes quiet. She doesn’t argue—after all, she knows what living in this town, under the freaking microscope, is like. She thinks hard enough to scrunch her own brow. And then, measured and mindful, she asks, “Would you… Would you leave? Haven Ridge?”
“You think I should?”
“I don’t want you to,” she answers what I was really asking, with a small, somber smile. “But I think it’s worth considering.”
I don’t tell her that I do consider it. Briefly, but often. Little wishful intrusions that strike me throughout the day at random times, barely real thoughts, just… imagination. A pipe dream that will likely never come to fruition because, “I love Serenity. I love Bloom.”
“The ranch isn’t going anywhere,” Lux counters, and I hate how guarded I feel, how my mind tries to convince me she wants me to leave when she just confirmed the opposite. “And you can find another Bloom.”
“I…” I don’t think I could. Leave, that is. I think the mere concept is terrifying . I think I’d get two towns away before turning around. I think leaving feels an awful lot like defeat. I think… “I don’t know.”
“That’s okay.” She squeezes my knee gently. “Just think about it, okay?”
“I will,” I promise, and even that makes me itch.
“Stay here until you make a decision.”
“I—”
“ Can ,” Lux finishes for me, squeezing again as she adopts her stern mom-face. “You can. No arguments.”
I hear Hunter before I see him.
The front door slamming jolts me awake, leaving me momentarily disoriented until I recognize the shadowy lump curled up beside me as Lux. I frown through a yawn as I try to make out what’s not quite shouting, but not exactly quiet conversation either, coming from the kitchen. Scrubbing sleep from my eyes—and wincing as I accidentally graze my cheek too roughly—I start to sit up when the door to the spare room creaks open.
Surprisingly stealthy, a big body slips inside. Pausing in the doorway for a moment, Hunter creeps across the room to my side of the bed. He lifts the covers, and before he’s even really settled atop the mattress, I’m crawling on top of him and burying my face in the crook of his neck—stinging be damned. What’re you doing here?”
Fingers trace the length of my spine before settling on my hips. “Jackson called me.”
I tense, and I know he feels it, because his grip tightens in return. “What did he say?”
“Just that you needed me,” the whisper brushes my temple, lips close behind. “What happened, honey?”
I give it a minute. A long, long minute laying there, soaking in the quiet comfort of his presence, steeling myself for a conversation I’m so not looking forward to before oh-so-gracefully clambering off of him. I keep my head down as I get up, careful not to jostle Lux too much, and tiptoe out of the room. Hunter follows me down the dark hallway, into the dim kitchen only lit by the porch light perpetually left on, his anxiously concerned energy only feeding mine.
“Honey, what’s going on?”
Fingers dancing against my thighs, I gulp down as much air as my lungs can take, fix a watery smile into place, and turn around. “It’s not that bad, okay?” I find myself insisting on autopilot as I watch his face fall, the hardening of his expression so much more severe in the shadowy light. “It’s just a scratch.”
I blink and Hunter’s in front of me. I feel his fury like a hot gust of wind, and for a split second, it frightens me. It makes me want to cower instinctively, and when his hand rises, I almost flinch.
Until I realize it’s shaking.
His hand is shaking as it cups the slope of my neck, his thumb on my jaw gently urging my head to the side so he can get a better look. It’s a trick of the light, it must be, but I swear those beautiful, burnish eyes are pitch black as they flit between my scratches .
What feels like a lifetime passes before Hunter exhales harshly. “Your dad?”
I nod.
“He turned up at Bloom?”
I drop my gaze. “I went over there.”
His breathy, “ Caroline ,” isn’t quite a chastise, but it’s definitely something akin. Mostly concerned, though. Confused, too. Questioning.
“He left me a voicemail,” I tell him—I tell the floor, really, because I can’t bring myself to look up yet. “It was… I got worried.”
Another utterance of my name, just south of exasperated, makes me wrap my arms around myself, and I shake my head. “He didn’t sound okay. What was I supposed to do? I can’t just ignore him.”
“Yeah, honey, you can.”
“I can’t. He’s my dad , Hunter. He’s… I don’t have anyone else.”
Two fingers crook beneath my chin and tilt my head upwards. “How can you say that?” Hunter asks quietly. “I’m standing right here. I’ve been here. I told you I’d help you, that you could come to me. I asked you not to go over there alone.”
“You knew?”
Both our gazes fly to the doorway, and I wince. “Lux—”
A sharply raised hand cuts me off. She repeats, “You knew he was hurting her?”
“He only hurt me once,” I clarify—one purposeful time, one time Hunter knew about. “I asked him to stay out of it.”
Lux doesn’t stop glaring at Hunter. “And you listened? What is wrong with you?”
“Lux, stop it.”
“No.” Hunter shakes his head, that handsome face contorted with painful regret. “She’s right. I should’ve done something.” His touch falls from my chin, landing on the curve of my neck briefly, holding me in place as he kisses me so quickly, I barely register it’s happened until he retreats. “Go to bed. I’ll be right back.”
As he slips out the door, I frown at his retreating form, on the verge of asking where he’s going until it hits me. No . He wouldn't, right? I told him before, I begged him before, he wouldn’t .
An engine revving snaps me into action, but when I try to run outside, Lux slips in front of me. “ Nope .”
Side-stepping her, I reach for the key hook beside the front door. “I need to borrow your truck.”
She snatches her keys away before I can grab them. “Not happening.”
“Lux, he’s gonna do something stupid.”
“He’s already done something stupid.”
“He didn’t do anything wrong.”
She snorts.
“He didn’t ,” I insist, damn near screaming in exasperation as I try to dodge Lux once again and, once again, she blocks my path. “He helped me. He was gonna—he is gonna—beat the crap out of my dad for me, Lux.”
“ Good ,” she spits—she cackles , practically. “He should’ve. I hope he does now. Fuck, I wanna help him.”
“ Lux .”
“I get that he’s your dad, okay? I get that you’re you so you’ll love him no matter what because you think he’s your family, but he’s not, Caroline. Family doesn’t do that . You don’t walk into your family’s house and come out needing stitches. You don’t have to lie about your family to everyone for years.”
That pesky, chronic guilt churns my gut. “I’m sorry—”
“I’m not blaming you, Line. I don’t care that you lied, I care why you lied. To protect him? You think your mom would like that? You think she’d want you to take it in the name of family ? I know I didn’t know her, but I’m gonna go with no. I know the idea of having no parent is scary, that having one shitty one seems better, but trust me, it isn’t. And I know you, Line. I know you think you’re alone without him, and I hate that you do, because you’re not. ”
I hear her, I hear her loud and clear, I hear every damn word, but, “I can’t just let him get hurt.”
Standing firm, Lux crosses her arms over her chest. “Well, then you’re gonna have to walk into town.”
I consider it.
Lux must see it in my eyes. “I give it twenty minutes before he’s back,” she sighs, softening. “He’ll burn himself out halfway to town and turn around.
Yeah, no.
I’m pretty sure he won’t.
I don’t realize I’ve dozed off until creaky door hinges wake me up again.
Jolting upright, my head whips towards the front door. I slump in disappointment when I find it still closed, and realize the source of the noise is Jackson emerging from his room.
Only acknowledging me with a quick nod, he walks too casually into the kitchen, one false attempt at nonchalance away from whistling.
Lux, who up until five seconds ago was hunched over the kitchen table beside me because apparently, she doesn’t trust me not to steal her keys and make a break for it, straightens with a yawn and eyes her brother suspiciously as he shoves his feet into a pair of boots. “Where’re you going?”
“Nowhere,” he responds too quickly. “Just checking on the horses. Thought I heard something.”
Lux and I exchange a look. “You need your keys for that?”
His hand pauses halfway to his car keys. He says nothing, he doesn’t look at us either, and when he tries to grab them real quick and run, a noise akin to a growl leaves his sister. “Stop.”
Reluctantly, he does.
“Turn.”
Face pinched, he does that too.
“Spill.”
He tries to hold out, he really does, but a freaking Navy Seal couldn’t hold out against a Lux Jackson stare down. “Tommy called,” he reluctantly admits, and I swear my heart stops beating. “There was a fight.”