13. Jack
THIRTEEN
Jack
The sound of Nat tossing and turning in the other room was getting to me.
But when the scared gasp and the whimpering kicked in, I burst into action.
I rushed inside the partially open door and got on my knees beside the queen-size bed, touching her shoulder gently, but she didn’t stop thrashing.
Her hair stuck to her face, and her pallor was all wrong.
“Nat,” I said firmly, pushing her shoulder a little harder.
Her eyes burst open, and she scanned her surroundings, taking in the bed she was lying on and the bunk beds I hadn’t removed across the room, before she blinked and focused on my face once more. “Jack?”
I pushed away the hair sticking to her face. “You’re in my cabin, Nat. You’re okay.”
“Okay,” she breathed. “Yeah. I’m okay.” She closed her eyes and leaned into my touch as she let out a longer breath. Even disheveled, she was beautiful. “Did a tree fall on my cabin?”
“It did.” I reluctantly removed my hand.
She absentmindedly touched her temple where my fingers had just been, breaking eye contact as she sat up. Her eyebrows pulled together as she looked around. “Did a tree hit this place, too?”
Was she concussed?
I moved my head into her line of sight, looking for blown pupils or something. I didn’t actually know what I was doing. I wasn’t a medical professional, but she was acting strangely.
“No.”
“Then why is it so messy?”
And just like that, my pity was gone.
I sighed and shook my head, standing up and turning to walk away. She followed, apparently, because she was touching my elbow within seconds.
“Ow. Ow. Ow,” she said with every step. I almost swept her off her feet to take away the pain, but thought better of it.
She was wincing, but that wasn’t what caught my attention.
No, it was the fact that she was in my bedroom, wearing my T-shirt and a pair of my sweatpants.
Why was that so hot? Why did I want to pick up an injured woman and pin her against the wall with my hips and mouth?
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” she squeaked out. This time, I couldn’t help myself. I reached out for her so I could take her into my arms and soothe her pain, but she touched my shoulder and shook her head. “I’m okay, Jack.” Now she was the one reassuring me?
Flashes of last night popped into my head.
Her voice had been barely intelligible from her room as the rain poured overhead.
The way she’d clung to me as I carried her.
I’d barely noticed my surroundings or who came to help last night.
I got her to the doctor, but the rest of it? Everything was so blurry.
The sound of rain broke me out of my stupor.
“It’s still storming outside? Seriously?” She walked on her heels over to the window. Her bandages seemed intact, so I didn’t give her shit about it.
“It’s not supposed to let up for a couple of days or so.”
“Too bad your weather app can’t predict falling trees. Then we wouldn’t be in this mess. Or—” She scanned my living room. “I guess you still would have been in a mess of your own.”
I surveyed my surroundings. Okay, so it was a little cluttered.
I’d sort of swept the clean laundry that had been on the couch onto the floor last night, and mail and manuals were lying on all surfaces around the room.
Not to mention the water glasses on my end table only added to the aesthetic.
But the toolboxes and drywall supplies I hadn’t moved into my second room were job-related since I treated it like a garage.
She certainly couldn’t judge me for that, right?
As she scrutinized the room, I eyed her and shook my head. It was time to get out of here. “Bathroom’s down the hall. Towels are in the closet, and first aid is under the sink. And there’s orange juice in the fridge.” Why was I babbling?
“Where are you going?” she asked as I reached for the door.
“Out. Help yourself to anything. I’ll be back in a bit.”
I could have stayed to help her, but I chose not to. I needed to put as much distance between the woman wearing my clothes and me as possible.
“Wait a minute. What happened?” A distressed Leo stared at me and Autumn through our video chat, and I sort of wished I hadn’t involved him in this mess.
“A storm took out Nat’s cabin,” I repeated patiently. He had to feel out of control being in California.
Autumn jumped in. “Nothing else appears to be damaged. We checked on all the campers last night while Jack took Nat to the hospital.”
“Hospital? What the hell?” Leo looked two seconds away from pulling out his hair or maybe jumping on an airplane to see that Nat was okay.
“It wasn’t the hospital,” I interjected. “I took her to see Dr. Alyse.”
That didn’t give him the relief I was hoping for. “I need more, Jack.”
“Nat stepped on some glass last night. Alyse removed it and bandaged her up. She’s a little shaken, but she’s fine.”
He breathed a sigh of relief. “I’d like to talk to her today and hear that from her.”
“Of course,” I promised.
“So, what kind of damage are we looking at?” Leo asked.
Ever the fixer, Autumn tried to assuage his fears.
“I’ll start by saying that none of the campers were affected, beyond having a big scare.
Damage-wise, there’s a whole-ass tree going down the middle of Nat’s cabin.
Then, there are the downed tree branches all over.
We’re in damage control in more ways than one, but as far as the camper experience goes, we’ve got some indoor activities planned for the time being.
We might bring back poker just to distract people from the rain. ”
“And the repairs?”
I shook my head. “I need to assess, but based on what I saw last night, we’re looking at weeks of repairs, at minimum. She’s going to need a place to go.”
I tracked Leo’s eyes to my best friend, who had already considered this.
“We’re completely booked up,” Autumn said apprehensively. “I have one spot in a month, but that would only be for the week. What about your cabin, Leo? Or Hazel’s.”
Leo sighed, defeated. “We both have our keys here.”
And I didn’t have keys to their places because technically, they were their homes. “And no one here has a spare key?”
“We do have spares, it’s just… I have Hazel’s—”
“And Hazel has yours.” Shit. There was no way we didn’t have an alternative.
“I’ll talk with Hazel, and we’ll pop the key in the mail, but for now, don’t you have bunk beds in your cabin, Jack?” Leo asked.
Autumn side-eyed me, and I knew what was coming next.
“They can’t live together. They’ll kill each other,” she said without preamble. “And my second bedroom was turned into an office after Jamie moved in. But someone can sleep on my couch? The only problem is, Jamie wakes up at five and is loud as hell in the morning, so I wouldn’t recommend it.”
“Leo, how long are you going to be gone?”
He cringed. “At least a week. Look, Hazel is at her limit. Now, we’re going to have to deal with insurance and repairs, and I don’t even want to bring this up to her. I need you two to figure something out.”
“We can do that,” we said in unison.
“Okay, thank you. Call if you need anything else.”
The screen went blank, leaving Autumn and me to stare at each other until she broke the silence with an undeniable truth: “This is a terrible idea.”
“Yeah, well…”
“Don’t you remember when it was just you and Leo?”
Leo had stayed with me during a squirrel infestation in his cabin. He’d discovered it when he’d fallen asleep with a piece of pizza crust in his hand and woken up with a squirrel on his chest holding said piece of crust. Then it bit him, which led to him bitching and moaning for a week.
But as horrifying as that was, it’d been worse when we lived together. We’d thought it’d be fine since we’d all lived together in one room at the very beginning, but we’d been wrong. Apparently, the girls had balanced us out.
It was time for me to rip the bandage off. “Did you see this morning?”
She closed her eyes. “It’s not great.”
“I’ll take all these options back to Nat and see what she wants to do.” I stood from my chair and grabbed my baseball cap, putting it back on. “And I’ll let you know how bad it is, damage-wise.”
It wasn’t good. I sat Nat down gently. She’d begrudgingly let me give her a piggyback ride over to her cabin. She’d slid on a pair of my shoes that were definitely too big for her.
We assessed the damage. The fallen tree had smashed her door to the point that it couldn’t be opened until I broke it out of its casing. I’d need to take a chainsaw to unblock the entrance. The roof was caved in, and I could only assume there would be water damage.
“Ow. Ow.”
I turned to find her walking gingerly on her heels just like this morning. Only now, it looked like she was wearing clown shoes. She looked ridiculous. And yet again, I rushed to pick her up.
She touched my forearm to stop me, kindness in her eyes. “You don’t have to carry me.”
“But you shouldn’t be walking.” I couldn’t stand the idea of her in pain. It made me physically ill. “And the doctor said to get some rest.”
She stared at me quizzically. “I hurt my feet, Jack. I didn’t get a concussion.”
Okay, that made sense. Despite everything, I offered my arm. When she took it, I breathed in relief. We walked the perimeter at a snail’s pace together.
Nat lifted a broken pot to a nasturtium plant. “What do we do?”
I winced as the pot fell to pieces when she tried to cover the exposed roots with dirt. “We need to retarp the roof since it wasn’t secured properly. I need to take photos for insurance and get the go-ahead to chop this up and get through the door.”
She nodded, swallowing loud enough that I heard it.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, fine.” She didn’t look fine. She stood in front of the ruins, and even in her distressed state, she looked beautiful. The juxtaposition of her light with the harsh destruction caused a lump in my throat.
“It’s okay to be upset that your home just got destroyed.”