CHAPTER SIX
Jack
My only friend was dead.
I don’t remember the walk back from Redemption Ranch, I just suddenly became aware I was outside the halfway house. Sadness like nothing I’d experienced for years had settled over me like a black cloud that refused to shift.
Over the years, Charlie and I had become close, which sounds crazy I know. I killed his wife. And not all the visits were great. Some of them I could feel his struggle with forgiveness. Sometimes he would sit in front of me and talk to God or Sherry about how he was feeling, and I just listened.
He was an astounding man, the best person that existed in Reverence. I was continually amazed by him and my respect for him was so profound that I wanted so badly to be like him. I promised myself when my life eventually restarted, I was going to be more like Charlie. Live my life in a way that he would be proud of.
Charlie told me that when I was released, he wanted me to come by the ranch. He said he had something for me. I don’t know what, and he never said anything more than that. Just told me that I didn’t need to worry about life once I was out, like he knew how much it stressed me out.
And now I’ll never know what it was, I’ll never get to make him proud of me. To make anyone proud of me.
I went into my room and glanced around the four walls with their chips and stains. I had nothing and no one. Except that sensation of wanting my mom, except I didn’t want my mom, I just wanted comfort and I didn’t know how to get it.
Goddamn, I was thirty now. And yet I felt like I had no clue how to life. I didn’t know how to do this, but I knew if Charlie was by my side, guiding me, I could do it. Now I was bereft.
I threw myself down on my bed, the springs creaking under my weight. I stared up at the ceiling just waiting for sleep to come. Eventually I slept but was disturbed by dreams of Charlie, Sherry and the accident.
I woke up the next morning, the cloud of misery still hanging over me. I didn’t know how to move on, to move forward, and didn’t want to. I wanted to stay in this pit of despair a little longer. But eventually my back ached too much from lying down.
I got up, pacing my room and attempting to work out what all the ceiling stains were and trying not to dwell on Charlie’s sad passing. I wanted to remember the good times with him, but the pain was too much.
I wasn’t hungry. Wasn’t tired. I needed a distraction. I read my pamphlet on how to cope with being released from prison. I read the rules and regulations surrounding my accommodation here. I had a 10pm curfew. I checked the clock on the wall that ticked so loudly it was like it was shouting each agonizingly boring second. I had an hour before I was stuck here until morning.
I needed to get out.
Grabbing my leather jacket that was too small but felt like the only thing that was truly mine, I left the house and set off down the street. I just walked, again loving the feeling of being able to walk for as long and as far as I wanted, not confined to an eight by ten cell or the exercise yard.
I ran. It lasted about thirty seconds until I was so out of breath I thought I would pass out. My lungs burned and it felt good to focus on the physical pain rather than the emotional loss of Charlie.
I was thinking about the last time I saw him, two months ago. He hadn’t looked as well as before but I just put it down to grief and tiredness. I wish I’d known. All the things I would have said to him if I’d known.
Thank you.
I’m so grateful.
I feel like your family.
I kept going because of you.
I love you like a father.
Grief wrapped an icy hand around my throat and my breath caught at the thoughts flooding my brain. I pushed the palms of my hand into my eyes, trying to scrub away the images behind them.
I heard a noise and looked up. I didn’t realize how far I’d walked and I was back at the scene where I’d taken Sherry’s life. And her bench was up ahead, with a familiar person sitting on it .
Kat.
I was going to leave, I was going to turn and run in the opposite direction. I knew how hard it must be for her to see me. It was hard for me to see her too. I swear I was going to walk away.
But then I heard her sob. It cut through me like nothing I’d known before. So full of anguish. And before I knew what was happening, I was getting closer.
Stop! Go back! What the fuck are you doing? My brain screamed and by the time I came to my senses, I was too close to leave without her noticing.
Except the closer I got, the less she seemed like herself. She was swaying slightly and muttering to herself.
“Kat?” I asked, keeping my distance in case of another altercation like yesterday morning.
Her head spun towards me but her eyes took a moment to focus. In the streetlight I could see her blue eyes were watery, like the ocean.
She scoffed. “Well, fuck. I guess thisss iss going to happen more hof…hoften, isn’t it?” she slurred.
Shit, she’s wasted.
She waved a piece of wet, torn paper at me. “I bet you’re here for thisss, huh? Jussst typical. Breaking my family wasn’t en…enough, you had to come and take our property too!”
“I have no clue what you’re talking about,” I said. I glanced around the street, conscious that although it wasn’t a main road, anything could happen out here. I was proof of that.
“Let’s get you home, I think you need to get to bed, Kat.”
Her eyes crackled with fire. She stood up, stumbling slightly. “Don’t you tell me what to do, don’t you dare tell me what to do!”
I held up my hands, wanting to keep this as peaceful as possible. “Okay, I’m sorry.”
“You’re s…sorry,” she mocked, her pretty face twisting in disgust. I probably shouldn’t notice how pretty her face is. Not just her face, her entire everything. The woman was a smoke show and I was only human, and hadn’t been around women for a very long time.
She stumbled back to the bench. “Goodnight, Mama,” she hiccupped, pressing two fingers to her lips and tapping them to the gold plaque. My stomach twisted at the fact that she had to say goodnight to a bit of gold and wood instead of a person.
Because of me.
She straightened and headed off. I watched her go and was ready to leave myself, it had to be close to ten and I really didn’t want to miss my curfew. But then she twisted her ankle and fell down.
“Shit.” I approached her, unable to watch her struggle to stand. I couldn’t leave her, no way was she going to make it home. There were bears and wolves out here, not to mention she could stumble into the path of an oncoming car.
“Come here,” I said, wrapping my arm around her waist and pulling her to her unsteady feet. She turned her head to me slowly, confused.
“Jack?” she murmured.
She gripped me tight as we stumbled and I held her tighter, pressing her against me. I liked that I didn’t have to crane my neck to look down at her, she was pretty tall for a woman. With tanned, toned legs that seemed endless. She was soft and dainty in my hands and my eyes dipped to her lips and for a brief moment I wondered what they would be like to taste.
Just as I remembered whose daughter I was holding, she realized who I was and shoved away from me. “Don’t touch me!”
“I’m sorry, I was just helping you up.”
“I’m ssorry, I’m sorryyy. You can say it until the bison come home but it don’t change a goddamn thing.”
“I can’t leave you here, Katarina. I know you don’t want me here but is there someone I can call to come get you?”
She glared at me before she began digging in her purse probably for her cell. She held the device up and kept tapping at the screen. “Ugh, come on, sstupid facial recogmation.”
What the hell is recogmation? I watched her keep trying and getting frustrated so I stepped in again. Not to help out really, I just needed to get back to the halfway house before my curfew. “Can I help?”
“It won’t recognize my…my face.” She held the device out to me. I took it, not understanding how these worked, phones were different to the one I had twelve years ago. I tapped the screen, just like I saw her do and it lit up.
“Passcode?” I asked her.
“Oh-four-oh-six-twenty-twelve,” she muttered, stumbling again and I reached out to grab her, ignoring the pounding in my chest when I realized the passcode was the date her mother died.
“Come sit down, at least,” I said, ushering her back to the bench. She pushed against me before shoving the bit of paper at my chest. I took it from her, cramming it in my back pocket while I sat her down and turned my attention to her phone.
“Want me to call your boyfriend to come get you?” I asked, tapping in her passcode. The phone unlocked and the home screen flashed up a picture of her mom and dad on their wedding day and I didn’t think it was possible, standing here at the site where I killed her mom, but my guilt worsened.
She scrunched her face as she looked up at me. “Boyfriend?”
“The guy from earlier?”
“Yesss, call Leo,” she replied.
For some reason it rankled me that he was her boyfriend. He seemed too young and too…whatever, it didn’t matter.
I found his contact and called him, explaining what happened when he answered and he said he would be by in a few minutes, thankfully.
I held her phone out and she snatched it, eyeing me suspiciously. Then she wobbled and her skin turned pale and then slightly green.
“Oh no,” she moaned. She leapt up, turned to the bushes and retched, her long pale hair falling into her face.
“Jesus Christ,” I exhaled and went over to her, grabbing her hair in two handfuls and holding it back. I don’t know when I decided that was a good move, only that I felt bad for her. Her body clenched violently and she coughed, more liquid gushing out then she tried to suck in air and flapped her hands.
I transferred her hair into one hand and patted her back. “Get it all out,” I sighed. It seemed to help and she calmed a little while she continued throwing up all the alcohol she’d drunk. My pats morphed into a soft stroking motion without me realizing. I didn’t notice she was done until she was snatching her hair off me, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
“Don’t be nice to me,” she grumped. I let her hair fall, the strands trailing through my fingers like silk .
“I will always be nice to you, Kat. I will do anything I can for you, forever,” I said, my words surprising me but they were the God’s honest truth. I owed this woman, all the women at Redemption, everything I had.
She frowned at me, her blue gaze piercing me but I didn’t shy away from it. I stood taller, let her see my sincerity. Her frown deepened and she nibbled at her lip. She opened her mouth but then we were flooded by the lights of an approaching vehicle.
The truck pulled up beside us and the guy from this morning, Leo, her boyfriend, was rushing out. He wrapped an arm around her and led her towards the passenger side. Once she was inside with her seatbelt firmly in place, he turned to me.
“Thanks for calling me, man.”
“Of course, least I can do.”
He nodded, getting in the other side of the truck when I asked him, “What time is it?”
He glanced at his watch. “Nine-fifty.”
“Shit! Thanks,” I shouted then turned and started running. I couldn’t miss my curfew so soon after being released. I didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize my future. My lungs were burning and my legs aching when the house came into view.
The man who ran it was standing outside looking at his watch, waiting for me.
“Not a second to spare, Cinderella,” he wheezed, before taking another drag on his cigarette.
I went to my room, collapsing onto the bed to try and get my breath back. The crinkling in my pants pocket had me frowning until I remembered it was the bit of paper Kat had been holding. I groaned, pulling it out and unfolding it.
It was wrinkled and had a stain on it that smelled suspiciously like whiskey. But as I read it, I realized what she’d been talking about when I found her. And I understood what Charlie meant when he said he had something to give me once I got out.
He was going to give me the cabin at the bottom of their land. Somewhere to live. The lump in my throat increased tenfold and tears sprang to my eyes at what a wonderful man he was. That he would give me a place to go when my sentence ended. Only I hadn’t signed it, it wasn’t mine.
Part of me wanted to grab a pen and scribble my signature on there, just to give myself some security in an uncertain life. But I could never do that to the Cartwright sisters. It was a beautiful gesture, but the person who made it wasn’t around anymore and I couldn’t in good conscience take what he’d given.
It was an important document, and I knew how Kat would feel about not having it. With a sigh and a groan, I realized I was going to have to drop it off to her tomorrow.
Let’s hope this time she didn’t scratch my eyes out when she saw me.