16. Jackson
Jackson
“ W hat in the actual fuck is wrong with you?” Derek’s voice is thunder, and before I can get a word in, I’m shoved hard into the old hay shed.
The door slams shut behind him. “You don’t raise your voice to a woman like that,” he growls, stalking closer like I’m some rabid animal in need of putting down.
“Not ever. And Ozzy? Are you out of your goddamn mind? I know you know what that girl’s been through.
You go for her throat like that again, I’ll break your fuckin’ jaw. ”
I flinch, jaw tightening, but I don’t argue. Because he’s right. I drop onto a bale of hay, elbows on my knees, face in my hands. “I didn’t mean to. Shit just… spiraled.”
“Yeah?” Derek snaps, arms crossed over his chest, muscles straining under his t-shirt. “Well, guess what? Intentions don’t mean a thing when your words hit like fists.”
“I know that,” I mutter, scrubbing my hands down my face. “I know I fucked up, alright? I just—goddamn it, I’m drowning here. Go on and hit me, I deserve it.” Silence stretches between us, heavy and suffocating.
Derek sighs and sinks down beside me, close enough that I feel his presence like a warning and a comfort. “No point in hitting you,” he mutters. “You already look like you got your ass handed to you.”
I let out a dry, bitter laugh. “Feel like it, too.” For a second, neither of us speaks.
“I can’t do it, Derek.” My voice breaks. “I can’t fucking do this. I can’t watch him die. I can’t watch our dad wither away like that. That’s not him. That’s not the man who raised us.”
Derek doesn’t speak for a moment, but when he does, his voice is softer.
Still rough, still firm, but laced with something else—understanding.
“He would’ve done it for you. Hell, he did do it for you.
Remember when you got sick? He barely slept.
Sat by your bed every night for months. Kept your medicine log in his damn breast pocket like it was a Bible. ”
I swallow hard. My throat burns. Fuck, I remember. The soup. The blankets. The nights I couldn’t breathe and he’d hold me up in the bath to clear my lungs. I remember it all.
“I hired Ozzy to help with his care,” Derek continues, “not to be his only company. But that’s what you let happen.
You let her shoulder it all while you hid out.
And now she’s right. He deserves to be moved.
To see his horse. His land. You wanna keep him locked upstairs until the last breath rattles out of his chest just because you’re scared? ”
I grit my teeth so hard my jaw aches. “I’m not scared.”
“Bullshit,” Derek bites. “You’re terrified. And I get it, Jackie. But you don’t get to take that fear out on the one person who’s actually showing up.”
The guilt punches me straight in the gut.
“Don’t you think I know that?” I hiss through clenched teeth.
“That man has been my everything since day one, and now he’s a skeleton.
Nothing but a shell; shitting and pissing on himself!
H-His mind is going. He looked at me yesterday and asked when I let my hair grow out like Jackie.
He thought I was you . It wrecked me, man. ”
“He’s still our father,” Derek snaps, voice sharp. “And if you’re too much of a coward to face that, then you can pack a bag and go stay at the bunkhouse. I’ll move him myself.”
My head snaps up. “You’d really kick me out of my own goddamn house?”
Derek glares at me like I just asked him if water was wet. “You really gonna make me?”
I look away. The silence that follows says more than anything we could yell.
“I’m not mad that you’re scared,” Derek says finally. “I’m mad that you took it out on her. On Ozzy. That girl’s been through hell, and you know it. And you just poured gasoline on it.”
“I know,” I whisper. “Fuck. I know. ”
He stands and dusts off his jeans. “Then fix it. Say sorry. Mean it.”
“If I try to talk to her right now, she’ll be wearing my nuts as earrings.”
“You like her?”
Sighing at his question, I look away and scratch my eyebrow.“Yeah, I do.”
“Then go apologize for being a dick, nuts or not.”
I move toward the door, brushing hay off my jeans. Just as I step outside, I catch the tail end of a familiar car tearing down the driveway.
Gravel sprays like shrapnel. Her taillights blur red in the distance.
“Where’s she headed?” I ask, storming toward the porch where Jensen’s sitting with his boots up.
Jensen gives me a sheepish look. “Uh… Theo.”
Derek walks up behind me, smirking. “Baby sister still out here stealing your girls?”
She left.
She left, and if I don’t fix this—really fix this—I’m going to lose the one person I never expected to need.
“You know…” Theo drawls, her eyes glued to the brunette shaking her ass on the dance floor.
It’s ladies’ night at The Spur, which means it’s a feeding frenzy for Theo.
And now that she’s coming up on her second week of recovery from her surgery, she’s playing up the ‘wounded puppy needing love’ act.
“Maybe I should just take Ozzy off your hands.”
I exhale hard through my nose while staring at the brat, fixing her with a glare. “I’m not playing tonight, Theo. Where is she?”
She doesn’t even blink. Just sips her beer like I’m background noise.
I glance toward Niamh, who’s perched on the bar like a smug little gargoyle, sipping something bright pink through a straw and watching me squirm.
“Ozzy’s car is out front,” I snap. “So unless she learned to teleport, she’s in this damn building. Now where is she?”
Niamh blinks, wide-eyed, and tips her head like a curious cat. “Ozzy… Ozzy who?”
I nearly snap the damn bar in half with how tight my grip gets. That’s when I see it. A flash of silver in the back kitchen window. I push away from the bar and storm through the swinging door, ignoring Niamh’s protest behind me.
“Ozzy!” I call out. Her back is to me—fuck, even that sets something off in me. She whirls, eyes narrowing, and ducks past me like I’m nothing but a breeze.
“Tink, wait—can we talk?”
She doesn’t break stride. Just strolls back into the main bar, slides onto a stool beside Theo, and lifts a single brow like she’s watching a particularly dumb rodeo clown.
“Sure thing,” she chirps.
“I meant somewhere private.”
She tilts her head in mock thought. “Yeahhh, see, I would, but… I don’t really feel like it. Appreciate the offer, though.” She shoots me a wink before turning her back to me like she didn’t just drive a dagger into my chest.
“Ozzy,” I try again, stepping closer, dropping my voice. “Please.”
She stiffens just enough for me to notice—just enough to twist the knife deeper. She doesn’t look at me, but the steel in her voice is unmistakable and I know I’ve stepped to close to her uninvited.
“Rowe, back. Up.”
I back up. But I don’t back off. “What do I have to do?” I ask, voice cracking under the weight of everything I want to say and can’t. “Beg?”
She shrugs, feigning boredom. “Couldn’t hurt.”
She starts chatting with Theo again, like I’m invisible. Like I didn’t tear her heart in two in the living room and call it a fair fight.
I look between her and the stage near the dance floor. And I realize if I don’t swallow every ounce of pride I’ve got and do something stupid , she’s going to slip through my fingers for good.
So I do what no self-respecting Rowe man would ever do in public.
I beg.
I climb up on stage, grab the mic from the stand, and hop down into the crowd, the weight of every stare slicing into my skin.
“Ozzy Davenport,” I cry out, the mic catching the strain in my voice. Every glass in the bar seems to pause mid-air. “I’m a dumbass. A stubborn, selfish, emotionally constipated bastard, and I’m sorry.” I lock eyes with her. She’s not laughing, but she’s listening.
I drop to my knees on the sticky bar floor, hands clasped like I’m praying. “Please. One minute. Sixty seconds of your time. That’s all I ask. You can cuss me out afterward.”
I see the color in her cheeks flare up. She stands before making a beeline to the front door. I drop the mic like it burned me and take off after her, heart in my throat.
She turns the corner into the alley behind The Spur, whirls around, and shoves me— hard . I let it throw me. She deserves that much.
“Are you serious? ” she hisses, her hair wild around her face, chest rising like she just ran a marathon. “What is wrong with you?”
“You said beg,” I reply softly. “So I begged.”
She lets out an incredulous breath, half laugh, half snarl. “Oh, and what? If I told you to bark like a dog?—”
“Woof,” I murmur.
Her mouth twitches—almost a smile, almost—but she rolls her eyes and crosses her arms.
“Alright, Rowe,” she hisses, voice low. “Talk.”
I step closer, not touching her, but close enough to feel her heat.
“I’m sorry,” I repeat, hoping she can hear the sincerity in my voice. “I fucked up. I let my fear take over. And I took it out on you, the one person who’s actually been there for my father. Who’s been there for me . ”
She doesn’t speak; just watches me like she’s waiting for a real answer. Not some cowboy apology full of charm and dust.
“I’ve been so goddamn scared of losing him, Ozzy. I thought if I didn’t look too close, if I didn’t feel too much, it won’t hit so hard when he finally goes. But you…” I drag a hand through my hair, breath shaking. “You make me feel everything . And it terrifies the shit out of me.”
Her brows pinch, but her arms uncross slightly.
“You were right,” I say. “About everything. And I was a coward for saying what I did. I’d take it back a thousand times if I could.”
There’s a long, heavy silence that falls between us. She looks up at me with eyes that don’t know whether to trust or walk away.
“You really gonna bark if I say so?” she asks quietly.
I smirk. “I’d do worse for you.”
And for the first time since I wrecked us, she laughs.
It’s small. But it’s something.
“Sixty seconds are up,” she says but doesn’t make a move to walk away.