13. Jackson
Jackson
“ Y ou’ve reached Oz?—”
I stab the end call button with my thumb and toss my phone onto the porch swing so hard it bounces. “Fuck!”
She left.
She kissed me—kissed me like it meant something, like she was breaking open from the inside out—and then she ran.
And now I’ve been standing out here, in the dark, pacing this goddamn porch like a heartbroken teenager, calling her phone every five goddamn minutes like I’m not a grown-ass man with responsibilities and shit to do.
I rake a hand through my hair and grit my teeth. Is she ignoring me? Is her phone dead? Did she drive off a cliff or decide to disappear off the grid again like some ghost in fishnets and sarcasm?
Goddamn her.
I clench the railing and lean forward, staring out over the yard like it’ll give me answers. The thought creeps in—the one I’ve been trying to shove down all night:
What if she doesn’t come back?
Pop’s face flashes in my mind. The look he gave her when she made him laugh. The softness in his voice when he talks about her as if she’s already family. He’s attached. Hell, we all are. If she walks, there ain’t no getting another nurse. He won’t let anyone else near him. Not now. Not after Ozzy.
And me?
I’ll be fuckin’ wrecked.
Before I can follow that thought into a darker place, I hear the sound of tires crunching up the gravel.
I jerk upright, heart slamming in my chest, as headlights carve a path through the gray dawn.
Gretchen, her busted-ass car, putters up like nothing’s wrong; like she didn’t just disappear in the middle of the night and take my goddamn sanity with her.
She parks and I storm down the porch steps before I can stop myself.
The driver’s door opens and out steps Ozzy, looking completely unfazed. She’s wearing a Rowe Ranch hoodie that’s two sizes too big for her. I glance at the name in the corner and scowl. Carter.
She puts the donut she’s holding up to her lips and takes an overly large bite while daring me to say something.
Un-fucking-believable.
“Morning,” she offers casually around the bite. Her voice is soft and calm, like she didn’t just sent me into a goddamn mental breakdown.
“Morning?” My voice comes out sharp. Clipped. “What the fuck, Ozzy?”
She takes another bite like she doesn’t hear the fury in my voice, like she’s not deliberately trying to drive me fucking nuts.
And how did she get Carter’s hoodie? Why would she take his?
I don’t want his name on her chest . I try not to look at her mouth, but it’s impossible.
I can still feel her lips on mine. That goddamn tongue ring—hell, it echoes in my bones like an aftershock.
I want to grab her shoulders. I want to kiss her again and demand answers through gritted teeth. I want to scream.
“What?” She shrugs, like this is nothing. She holds up a pink bakery box with a smirk. “I brought donuts. Enough for everyone.”
I snatch the box out of her hands like it just insulted my mother. “Is this really how we’re doing this?” I growl. “You run off in the middle of the night after…that, and then you come strolling back at dawn wearing Carter’s hoodie with fucking donuts?”
The look she gives me is unreadable. That wall of hers is back up. Bricks laid, mortar set, barbed wire on top.
“I was worried.” My voice comes out softer than I want it to, though I mean it. “You ran away.”
Her gaze flickers as she bites the inside of her cheek.
“Yeah. I do that. Run, I mean.” She laughs, but it’s bitter, almost brittle.
“Best not to get too close to me. Running’s kinda what I do best.” She brushes past me.
Just strolls her fine ass into the house with no explanation, no apology.
Like we didn’t just rewrite something between us that can’t be undone.
And I stand there on the porch, holding a box of donuts, my heart still racing like I never got off the bull. And for the life of me, I can’t decide if I’m furious or falling.
Maybe both.
“Oh my god,” Theo wheezes, hands on her knees, sweat dripping down her slim, tanned face. “I swear to Christ, if y’all don’t give me a damn break, I’m gonna chop this next piece of wood naked. That’s a promise, not a threat.”
Carter lets out a loud groan. “Jesus, Theo. Please don’t.”
“Yeah,” Jensen mutters, barely looking up from his log as he swings his axe down with that annoyingly controlled precision. “No offense, but we’d all like to keep our lunch where it belongs.”
“Aw, come on.” Theo huffs, standing upright and wiping her face on the bottom of her tank top. “I bet I’d look majestic. Like some sweaty Norse goddess. Axe in one hand, tits out, hair blowin’ in the wind.”
“More like a cryptid,” I mutter, tossing another log onto the block in front of me. “There’s just some shit you just ain’t supposed to see.”
Carter elbows me in the ribs, grinning like an idiot. “Speaking of shit no one’s supposed to see—what did you do to Hellraiser?”
My jaw ticks. “I ain’t talking to you.”
“Aw, c’mon now, Jackie. You ain’t upset cause Hellraiser was in my hoodie are you?”
I slam my axe into the stump before glaring at my grinning little brother. “Keep it up, I’ll knock all your teeth out.”
Carter, never one to heed a warning, throws his head back as he laughs loudly.“You know Mama threw that in her car. That hoodie is old as shit. Nice to see the hard-on you’re sporting for our Hellraiser, though.”
“I told you to stop calling her that,” I grit out.
“You did. Just like you told me not to fuck Emmaleigh Anders.” He shrugs. “Look how that turned out.”
“That’s not helping your case, dumbass,” Jensen says flatly, splitting another log clean down the middle.
Theo points her axe at Carter like it’s a goddamn sword. “You’re a moron for screwing that girl. She thought Kentucky was a city in Florida.”
Carter holds up his hands. “I didn’t date her for her geographical knowledge.”
“Yeah, we know. You dated her for her daddy issues and double D’s,” Theo shoots back, but I catch the slight wince in her eyes as she swings again—then another, sharper one when she lifts the axe for a third go.
I straighten up, frowning. “You alright?”
“I’m peachy,” she bites out, setting her foot against the log and trying to steady herself. But the moment she swings again, she gasps—real pain this time—and folds forward with a quiet, “Shit…”
The axe thuds into the ground as she drops to one knee.
“Theo?” I rush forward just as she crumples to both. Her face is pale as hell, and her hands are gripping her side like she’s trying to hold herself together. “Jensen!” I bark. “Get Ozzy—now!”
“I’m fine,” Theo hisses, even as she shudders. “It’s just—fuck—it’s a little pain, not a?—”
“You’re not fine,” I argue, kneeling beside her. “Carter, get her some water. Theo, talk to me. Where’s it hurt?”
She pushes the bottle away when Carter brings it. “Stomach. Feels like something’s trying to claw its way out of me.”
Ozzy barrels out the back door with Jensen hot on her heels, medical bag in hand, her expression going from mild confusion to full-on nurse mode in about half a second. “What the hell happened?”
“She was splitting logs and went down hard,” I explain as Ozzy crouches beside me. “Says it’s her stomach.”
Theo’s trying to act tough—because of course she is—but there’s real fear under the pain in her eyes.
“Lay her flat,” Ozzy commands, already snapping on gloves. I ease Theo down onto the grass, but she instantly curls onto her side like her body’s trying to protect itself.
Ozzy gently lifts her shirt and palpates her lower right side. “Right here?” she asks, pressing in and releasing.
Theo sucks in a breath through her teeth, then lets out a blood-curdling scream. “MOTHERFUCKING COCKSUCKER!” she roars, kicking at the dirt.
Ozzy doesn’t flinch. She just looks up at me, eyes deadly serious. “We need to get her to a hospital. Now.”
“Get the truck,” I shout to Carter as I scoop Theo into my arms. She groans, her forehead resting against my shoulder, trembling with each breath.
I grip her tighter and mutter under my breath, “Just hang in there, sis. We’ve got you.”
A ruptured appendix.
It sounds so small, so routine. But the look on Ozzy’s face when she said it was serious makes my skin crawl.
They rushed Theo into surgery a couple hours ago, and now we’re just…
waiting. The quiet kind of waiting that scratches at the walls of your brain and makes time feel like it's moving through molasses.
Apparently, Theo was experiencing appendicitis yesterday but thought it was just menstrual cramps, which makes me wonder exactly how bad cramps are. Because if Theo was walking around with a ticking time bomb in her gut and still out splitting logs with us?
Christ.
“You alright?” Ozzy asks from beside me.
I blink out of my haze, while turning to look at her. “Yeah,” I mutter. “Just… tired.” I rub my jaw and try not to let the weight behind the word bleed through. “I hate hospitals.”
It’s not much of a confession, but it’s the closest I can get right now without unraveling completely.
“I get that,” she replies, sitting down and crossing one leg over the other. “Nobody likes them. They’re rarely the setting for a happy memory.”
I glance down at her legs, finding tattoos curling up her thighs like inked vines. I remember her saying she didn’t like looking at her scars. I wonder now— how many of those tattoos are armor? Disguises? Wounds dressed up as art?
“I was sick a lot as a kid,” I reveal softly. “I spent a lot of time in and out of hospitals.”
Ozzy gives me a sympathetic look. “That must’ve been hard. Was it for long?”