CHAPTER 10 Kimberly #3
We searched for forty-five minutes in silence, the only communication between us the occasional sweep of our flashlight beams crossing over the wet lawn like searchlights. My shoes were ruined, squelching with freezing water at every step, my hair plastered to my cheeks.
We met at the corner of the old potting shed—the original cedar structure from the nineteen-twenties that sat at the edge of the formal gardens.
"Nothing," I said, my teeth clicking together from the cold.
Jackson stood under the dripping eave of the roof, his black jacket sleek with rain. He looked unaffected by the elements, like a monument that had been carved to withstand a gale. His eyes traveled over my shivering shoulders, my wet clothes, and the mud on my face.
"You look ridiculous," he said, his tone flat, devoid of any sympathy whatsoever. "Go inside. Your physical presence out here is doing nothing but increasing the likelihood of an insurance claim for pneumonia."
"I am not going inside until I find her," I snapped, my voice shaking from cold and exhaustion and hatred for his face. "I am so angry at you right now I could honestly strangle you with my bare hands."
Jackson’s gaze dropped to my hands. They were red from the cold, covered in dirt, and trembling. He looked at them for three long seconds, then brought his eyes back to mine with the first genuine smile I had ever seen on his face—a cold, razor-sharp thing that made his eyes look like flint.
"They’re quite small, Ms. Bishop," he murmured, stepping closer until the brim of his hood was nearly touching my forehead. "I think your mechanical leverage is insufficient for the task. Go to the kitchen."
"Do you get off by being such an asshole?"
I turned to walk past him, but my boot caught the thick, exposed root of an old English oak, and my balance vanished. I pitched forward into the dark.
Jackson grabbed my arm. His grip was iron through the wet sleeve, and he yanked me upright before my face hit the gravel. The momentum swung me straight into his chest.
We stopped.
My hands were flat against his waterproof jacket, the hard, steady rise and fall of his ribs underneath.
His face was inches from mine, his breath warm and smelling of wintergreen against my wet lips.
His grip on my arm didn’t loosen; if anything, his fingers tightened, holding me so close I could feel the heat radiating from his body despite the freezing downpour.
The rain hammered against the cedar shingles above us.
Neither of us spoke. Neither of us moved.
His eyes were fixed on my mouth, his jaw tight, a muscle leaping in his cheek with a rhythmic, furious pulse.
The hatred between us thickened into something that felt less like an argument and more like an impending collision.
Then he let go, his hand dropping as if the fabric of my shirt had carried a current.
"Watch your footing," he said, his voice lower now, rough as gravel. "I don’t have the time to fill out an incident report for a clumsy houseguest."
"Plant your trees somewhere else," I breathed, my voice less steady than I wanted it to be.
I turned away from him, my heart slamming so hard I could hear it, and pushed the warped door of the potting shed open just to escape the look in his eyes.
The flashlight beam swept across the interior—across the bags of bone meal, the rusted trowels, and the stack of old terra cotta pots in the corner.
A low, gravelly rattle came from behind the pottery.
"Jack," I whispered, then louder, my voice cracking as I dropped to my knees on the dirt floor. "Jack, she’s here. Come here right now."
Maple was wedged into a small space between two bags of peat moss, her orange fur dark with sweat.
Her eyes were wide, glassy, locked on the corner of the wall.
Her body was rigid, contracting in tight, violent waves that made her whole frame shudder, and the first kitten—a tiny, dark gray scrap—was half-delivered and visibly stuck.
The sound she made when I touched her flank was a high, thin scream that put ice straight down my spine.
Jackson appeared in the doorway, his massive flashlight illuminating the small shed like an operating room. He knelt beside me in the dirt without a word, his long legs cramped against the potting bench, his jacket scraping the rough wood.
"The vet," I said, my hands hovering over the cat’s trembling belly, panic fluttering in my throat. "How far?"
"The clinic in Bellevue is forty minutes in this weather," Jackson said, his voice stripped of all sarcasm now, replaced by the cold, analytical tone he used for a failing subsidiary. He reached out, his gloved fingers gently touching the side of Maple’s head to hold her still.
"She won’t survive the drive. The labor has stalled. "
We looked at each other across the narrow space, the pregnant cat panting between us. For the first time since I’d crossed the threshold of Medina, Jackson Whitlock looked exactly like I felt.
Terrified.
Maple cried out again, her small claws digging into the burlap sack beneath her, and I gripped the edge of Jackson’s sleeve without thinking, looking at him through the dark. "We have to do it ourselves."