Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
TUCKER
My heart stopped dead in my chest, like someone had yanked the damn plug. Because there was Hazel perched on the hood of her van like some bloodied-up, half-drowned warrior princess, calmly stabbing herself with an EpiPen.
I scrambled down the embankment, dry summer grass crackling under my boots.
The sun slanted low behind Hazel like a damn halo.
She lifted her gaze, locking those baby blues on me like a heat-seeking missile.
Her wavy red hair flew around her face like she’d just walked out of a hurricane.
Or maybe she was the hurricane… And her expression?
It said loud and clear that she blamed me for every single one of her problems.
Which seemed fair. She was, and always had been, my biggest one.
She had a nasty wasp-sting welt on her forehead and blood spattered down her white tee. She was shivering hard enough to rattle her bones, dragging in air like it hurt.
Jesus. “How long since you were stung?” I demanded, splashing through the creek, eyes locked on hers.
“Go away,” she croaked, tossing the spent EpiPen aside and pressing a trembling hand to her chest.
For better or worse, I knew this woman. She was riding the edge between throwing up and passing out, white-knuckling it while the epinephrine—pure adrenaline—did its job, constricting her blood vessels, boosting her blood pressure, and, best, forcing her airway open.
She could also have internal injuries from the crash.
We needed a doctor like ten minutes ago. “Hospital. Now.”
“I know that wasn’t a command,” she wheezed. “Because last I checked, you’re not the boss of me. So kindly”—gasp—“fuck off.”
Right. Should’ve remembered. Cool and calm was my default setting. Except with her. Then I was pure bark and zero chill. But seeing her like this—hurting, wheezing for air, so damn stubborn—nearly broke me.
I couldn’t lose anyone else. Especially not her. “You need to—”
“I know.” She was already sliding down the hood like a spiteful mermaid. I lunged to catch her, but she slapped my hands away. “Don’t touch me.”
I raised my hands in surrender and followed her as she slogged through the shallow creek. She slipped twice before I swore and scooped her up, my hard look daring her to argue.
She didn’t, which told me just how bad off she really was. Her head lolled against my shoulder, eyes drifting shut, but her arms still wrapped around my neck like her body hadn’t gotten the memo that she was mad at me.
Like she’d forgotten how to hate me for half a second.
And maybe I’d forgotten too. Maybe I was holding her tighter than I needed to. Maybe I even let myself breathe her in because she was scented with something addicting and innately her and…the worst kind of temptation.
And why did she fit tucked against me, like she’d been born for my arms?
I carried her up the embankment and glanced down at her pale face, ready to hold her until the ambulance arrived, but she slapped her palms to my chest.
“Down.”
“Hazel—”
“Down.”
“Okay, Tough Girl.” I set her down, keeping a grip on her arms when she wobbled. Once she steadied, she shook me off. Heaven forbid she admit to a weakness.
“Déjà vu,” I said.
“You’ve got that backward.” She turned and started walking.
I blinked at her back. What the hell did that mean? She’d been the one to leave. And now… “Where are you going?”
She kept moving, not even close to steady, and my frustration simmered, sharp and familiar.
Lately, it seemed like I was drowning in it—from work, from Hazel, and also from Hank. My dad, who’d once been the biggest hard-ass in three counties, had suffered two strokes last year, followed by a craniotomy. In the mind fuck of the century, he’d come out of the ordeal nonverbal.
And…different.
These days he was golden retriever coded: sweet, unpredictable, and completely unaware of the chaos he left in his wake.
Before, when he’d still been a gruff old bastard, he’d managed to get himself kicked out of every assisted living center in the area.
Now, my siblings and I were taking turns caring for him.
And lucky me, it was my turn. Penny’s grandma watched him when I was on shift, but other than that, it was just the two of us and the chaos he’d personally gift wrapped and handed me.
“Hazel.”
She didn’t turn around. Already halfway down Sweetwater Street, framed by late-summer eucalyptus trees and shiny, touristy storefronts, she gave me a hand-up, palm-out gesture. “Not today, Mr. Bossy McBosserson.”
“You used an EpiPen,” I called. “You have to go to the hospital. You know this.”
Nothing. She kept walking.
“I didn’t ask for attitude,” I muttered.
“Oh, it comes for free,” she tossed back, still walking, middle finger high like a royal wave.
Shit. I climbed into the truck and crept along after her, windows down, lights on, siren chirping once. “Hazel.”
She jammed in a pair of earbuds with shaking fingers like she was just out for a breezy stroll and not about to hit the pavement.
Running when things got tough, like always.
She’d been running her whole life, like the summer her dad had smashed her bike and she ghosted me for weeks, or when she’d bolted the night her mom’s birthday had hit too hard.
Every time life cut close to the bone, she disappeared—mentally, physically, or metaphorically.
Only difference now that we were adults was that I kept waiting for her to stop.
I pulled up next to her. “Get in.”
She ignored me, one arm wrapped around her ribs. Blood stained her shirt, and I didn’t even know where it was coming from. Too many possible answers, and none of them were something I wanted to find out here on the street.
“Please,” I said. “Please get in.”
She finally deigned to glance over, eyebrows arched. “Did that hurt? Saying ‘please’?”
I ground my back teeth. “If I say yes, will you get in the damn truck?”
“Try me.”
“Yes,” I growled. “It physically pains me to say please when you’re about ready to face-plant on the road. Get in or—”
“Or what?”
Fuck. She wanted to play? Fine. I’d play. “I’ll tell all your secrets.”
She laughed. Sharp and disbelieving. “You wouldn’t dare.”
I gaped at her. “You’re seriously doing this now? You rolled back into town months ago without so much as a Hi, Tucker, oh good, you’re still alive. So sorry I ghosted you for over a decade. And now you want to mouth off while actively dying?”
She rolled her eyes so hard, I heard them rattle.
Done. I yanked the PA mic from its cradle on my dash and hit the button so that my voice projected down the street.
“In eighth grade, after Hazel Pierce was suspended for allegedly plagiarizing her sex-ed paper, she broke into her classroom and turned the whiteboard into a crime scene: fallopian tubes with fangs, sperm in riot gear. Permanent marker. Parental emails for days. She was nearly arrested for vandalism.”
“Like that’s a secret,” Hazel muttered and kept going, even as she wobbled, running on adrenaline and spite alone.
Shit. We passed the convenience store, which had been owned and run by Mrs. Cantu and her son, who’d lived on the second floor for as long as I could remember.
I hit the mic again. “Mrs. Cantu, it was Hazel who ding-dong ditched you every night for years.”
If looks could kill, I’d be dead, the murder weapon Hazel’s icy baby blues. And I got it; it’d been a low blow. Mrs. Cantu had always had it out for Hazel, certain she was the one shoplifting candy bars from the front display, telling anyone who’d listen.
And since Hazel hadn’t actually shoplifted as accused, she’d done her best to get even with the admittedly mean-spirited shopkeeper.
We kept moving, the sun casting long golden streaks across the horizon.
Hazel slowed but didn’t stop. It’d be an impressive use of the adrenaline if she weren’t about to give me a heart attack.
“And let’s not forget when she ‘renovated’ the gazebo overnight,” I said into the mic.
This also wasn’t that big a secret, but I was just pissed off and worried enough not to care.
“Built a trapdoor, reversed the benches, and hung three hundred water balloons on the cupola. The whole thing collapsed. That time, she was most definitely hauled down to the police station, but the only thing they could prove was that she’d gotten into her dad’s vodka.
” I knew this was a low blow, that she’d had an unhealthy relationship with alcohol that year, but had by all accounts given up drinking that midnight and had never looked back.
Hazel nearly fell over but righted herself.
God damn it. I went nuclear. It was hard to keep my voice even. “Hey, remember when Adam Weller told everyone you’d slept with him and you egged his dad’s dental office in retaliation?”
Hazel stopped short so fast, she nearly fell over. I tossed the PA mic down and was out of the truck in a flash.
She slowly pivoted, and I could have sworn her eyes looked suspiciously shiny as she stabbed her finger into my chest. “I never slept with him, and you know it.”
I did know it. The dick had made up that part, and I’d wanted to kill him for it.
Given how Hazel was looking at me, she also felt murderous. I’d have to sleep with one eye open tonight. I glanced at my watch. Five minutes since the adrenaline had hit. She was going to crash any second, and my worry kicked up ten notches.
So, naturally, Dr. Adam Weller, now the town dentist himself, chose that moment to open his office door, still in his white coat.
“What the hell?” he grumbled.
Hazel shot him a scowl that could’ve cracked enamel, a warning to stay out of this as she aimed all her fire at me. “You egged this place. You never told me why.”
I grabbed the hand she still held in midair, entangling our fingers. She was trembling like a leaf. “You know why,” I murmured.
“I don’t,” she whispered, tugging. “And I’m still not speaking to you.” Her eyes narrowed, but color was leaching from her face.
“Walk or carry?” I demanded, and when she didn’t answer, I scooped her up again and carried her to the truck. “And, hey, I didn’t even get to tell everyone why the courthouse clock still plays ‘Twinkle Twinkle’ every hour: You rewired the bell system yourself, leaving a note signed ‘Time Bandit.’”
She made a sound low in her throat—could’ve been a laugh, could’ve been a sob.
I found myself hugging her tight. “Get in the truck like a good girl, and I won’t tell anyone your deepest, darkest secret.”
She stilled, a flicker of something in her eyes. Vulnerability. Maybe hurt. Definitely hesitation. “You don’t know my deepest, darkest secret,” she finally said.
I gave her my slow, dangerous smile and used the poker face my mama had given me. “Wanna bet?”
“Please let me down,” she whispered.
I did. She stared at me for a long second. Then slowly turned to the passenger door, wavering.
I gave her a second, letting her choose.
She brushed against me as she leaned on the truck, all tremble and fire, and I hated how much I still knew her, that I still knew the exact sound she made when she was on the edge of capitulation.
The way she tipped her chin like a dare. The way she made surrender look like war.
“You’re bleeding,” I said.
“I’m not.”
“Your shirt—”
“It’s hot sauce.”
“Hot sauce?”
Her eyes narrowed. “If you laugh, I’ll find the strength to deck you.”
“Haze,” I said softly.
At the sound of her nickname, her breath caught.
She dropped her head to my chest.
I felt it then, the full-body sigh she didn’t mean to give me. The way her weight shifted, just slightly, like maybe she was tired of fighting.
Screw it. I lifted her into the seat, buckled her in, and slid behind the wheel, purposely not looking at her, not wanting to hear any objections as I took off for the hospital.
And the most terrifying part?
She didn’t object. Not a single peep.