Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
HAZEL
Lying on a cot in a curtained ER cubicle was bad enough. Having Tucker pace nearby like a tiger with a grudge?
Torture.
“If you keep that up,” I murmured, “you’re going to burn through the linoleum and drop straight into the morgue.”
He didn’t respond, just kept pacing, all broad shoulders and jaw muscles ticking, his shadow stretching beneath the harsh fluorescent lights.
“You know I’m going to live, right?”
He glanced at me—same dark eyes I used to love to stare into, same impossibly sexy mouth—and I was hit with the realization that he’d had twelve years of living without me. Twelve years of experiences and memories.
“Sit. You’re making me dizzy.”
He folded his tall frame onto the stool beside me. “You scared me today.”
“And you annoyed me. So, really, we’re square.” I smiled to soften the words, then tried to sit up straighter, wincing because my whole body ached. “I’m going to assume the nonstop PA system humiliation was your twisted way of keeping me from going into shock.”
He neither confirmed nor denied, but he didn’t have to. Like it or not, I knew him. He could calm down a bear cub in a thunderstorm and also piss one off just as fast, not that I was about to feed his ego and tell him that.
“Look…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “We can’t change our past. But we can put it behind us. Especially since it sounds like you’ll be around for a while.”
“Hopefully not.” I was here only until my dad was back to himself after suffering a heart attack not too long ago. But Tucker had a point. “So, what, a truce?”
He gave me one of those crooked smiles that might have melted a bit of my frost. The one I used to think was just for me. “Why not?”
I let out a half laugh. “How long do you think a truce between us will last? We don’t agree on anything.”
“We could—”
My dad barreled into the cubicle like a Category 5 storm. No knock, no warning, just bluster and concern rolled into a scowl.
“What the fuck happened?” he snapped, turning on Tucker like he’d personally launched the wasp.
Tucker raised his hands. “Wasp got her. She’s okay, Bill.”
“I want a moment alone with my daughter.” Dad was five seven, tops, but the way he held himself—like he could handle himself in any ring—usually had people hurrying to give him what he wanted.
And yet Tucker looked casually to me, a question in his gaze.
He wasn’t going anywhere unless I asked him to. So I did. “I’m betting you have to get back to work anyway, right?”
He hesitated, like he wanted to say something, or at the very least finish our conversation, but in the end, he left without another word.
Not surprising. Nor his first time.
Dad plopped onto the now-empty stool, breathing hard.
“Dad, I’m okay. Breathe.”
“You breathe,” he grumbled, but he stayed seated.
I was propped up with pillows, IV in one arm, hospital smell in my nose—antiseptic, cafeteria coffee, and faint salty air from a cracked window—while my dad hovered like I was six and had scraped my knee.
But I wasn’t six, and after years of awkward calls and very occasional visits, things felt… off between us.
And I had no idea how to bridge the gap.
“The doctor said to rest,” he said. “And relax.”
I gestured at myself, prone on the bed. “Check and check.”
“I know your mind’s going a million miles an hour.” His eyes held worry. “Work. Your van… You’re lying there worrying.”
Fact: I was twelve-out-of-ten worried. Being my own boss came with perks, like always having the final say, and no mandatory team-building in matching shirts. But it also meant the buck stopped with me.
I had a small crew: Tex, a seasoned veteran who acted like he’d invented the hammer, and Annie, a newbie with the enthusiasm of a golden retriever and twice the bounce. They were both great, but I hadn’t yet put them on a jobsite without me, and I wasn’t ready to do that now either.
Of the two jobs I had going this week, one for the county fairgrounds (which needed its pavilion rebuilt) and the bigger job for Colburn Restorations (which restored historical landmarks and was the best of the best) the latter was almost done.
I’d been awarded the emergency finish-carpentry contract after Ricky Herman, the previous subcontractor, had faked having all his tools stolen, committed insurance fraud, and picked more than one fight on-site, causing chaos and instability that threatened the entire job, earning himself a one-way ticket off the project.
I wanted to prove I was the right person for the job, but something felt off about it. Just little things, like small changes to our work that no one could explain. I needed to be there, a clear presence.
My other job was on a tight deadline. Missing that deadline would mean eating a 5 percent penalty. Not the end of the world, but enough to sting.
And here I sat on my ass, no one’s fault but my own.
“Tucker handled your van,” Dad said.
I sat up so fast, I got dizzy. “What?”
“He didn’t tell you?”
“He did not,” I said through my teeth. “Why would he do that? It’s not his problem.” I wasn’t his problem.
“Well, technically, as an emergency responder, it was his job to make sure it didn’t stay in the middle of the creek.” He shrugged. “But you’ve met the boy. No one can tell him what to do. Or not do.”
That my dad still called Tucker the boy gave me a secret satisfaction. Tucker was many things—big, tough, bossy, maddeningly competent—but boy wasn’t one of them. He was all man. Muscle, grit, command. The kind who made you forget your own name. Or maybe scream his.
The jerk.
“I didn’t ask for his help,” I muttered.
“Doesn’t matter. Van’s already at Mo’s Auto. Tucker said there’s barely a scratch and that your tools are safe and locked inside.”
“I didn’t need help.”
My dad snorted. “You never do. But maybe, for once, you could let some of us who care about you step up.”
Ugh. Emotional ambush. “I’m fine, Dad. You know that, right?”
He shook his head, the lines of stress on his face seeming deeper than they’d been yesterday. “You could have died, kid.”
The decades-old pet name hit me square in the chest. “But I didn’t.”
He shook his head. “You’re like a damn cat with nine lives. Who knows how many you’ve got left?” He pressed a hand to his chest.
Alarm sparked and I shot upright. “Chest pains?”
“No. Dad pains. I want to cocoon you in fucking Bubble Wrap.”
I liked that he wanted to. That he still wanted to keep me safe, even after everything. Even when I’d made it so damn hard to love me. “I’d just bust out.”
He huffed a half laugh, and for a heartbeat, we were in sync in a way we hadn’t been since before Mom died my freshman year.
We didn’t do deep. We never really had, but especially not since I left Star Falls at eighteen after my dad and I had an epic fight in a long string of epic fights. It hadn’t been just that to make me run. Lots of things had contributed to it, and I hated to think about it.
Since I’d been back, we’d kept things surface level. A polite waltz, both of us carefully avoiding old bruises, but I could feel his expectations, his hopes and dreams hovering over me like I could feel the air pressure change with an incoming storm.
He scrubbed a hand down his face. His coppery beard was grayer now but still matched my hair. He was built like a spark plug, Ryder always said. But even spark plugs burned out. After his heart attack, he’d been forced to dial it back. I knew the adjustment hadn’t been easy, and I softened.
“You need to think about yourself more.” I nodded at the heart monitor he wore around his wrist like a watch. “You’re still working too many hours and eating like a teenager.”
“Only when you’re not looking,” he said with a slight smile.
“Dad.”
“You might as well ask me to stop breathing.” He eyed my IV. “You in pain?”
“Just the pain of being separated from my phone.” It was going off in my jeans, hanging on a hook behind him as we spoke. “Can you hand it to me?”
“The nurse said to rest.”
“Never mind.” I tossed the blanket aside. “I’ll get it myself.”
He swore beneath his breath and fished my phone from my pocket. “You know where that stubborn streak comes from, right?”
“You.”
“Your mother,” he corrected. “She’s probably up there on a cloud right now, bossing around the angels, especially your guardian angel for letting you get hurt.”
That made me laugh, and for another heartbeat, we aligned. Then my phone buzzed for the millionth time.
Penny: You okay?
Emma: Need anything?
Kiera: DO NOT check socials unless you want to see yourself looking like a drowned rat in my brother’s arms.
The good news? I had friends.
The bad news? Star Falls still gossiped at the speed of light. I shut off my phone and flopped back against the pillow.
My dad frowned at my monitor. “You’re stressed.”
No kidding.
He studied me. “I know you need more jobs lined up. I’m working on it.”
“Dad, I’ve got it.” I’d inherited his love for woodworking. He was a foreman at Colburn Restorations, run by Tucker’s older brothers, Ryder and Caleb. Tucker was their project estimator around his firefighter shifts.
My plan was to do such a good job for them that they’d keep sending contracts my way.
“I want you to be happy here,” he said stubbornly, complete with a chin jut. “And I’ve got a plan.”
Cue my blood pressure. “Dad. No.”
“It’s a good one.”
“No.”
“I’m going to get Ryder to hire you full-time.”
“This is not your problem.”
“I’m your father; everything about you is my problem. And with the quality of work you put out, you deserve the contracts from Colburn Restorations. Ryder knows this.”
“That’s not the issue, and you know it.”
He grimaced because yeah, he knew. My dad and I clashed on a good day. We tried, but we were each other’s kryptonite. Mom had once made Ryder promise to keep us from killing each other and to never, ever let us work together.
Ryder, who had loved my mom, took that promise seriously. But more than this, he’d carefully built an incredible company with an impeccable reputation. He loved me like a sister, but the job he’d given me had been an emergency, or he never would’ve hired me.
“We’re older now,” Dad said. “Smarter. Wiser.”
Debatable. Especially since we hadn’t allowed ourselves to go any deeper than How was your day?
and Gee, the weather is nice. We’d tiptoed around everything else, including the elephant still firmly in the room.
“Ryder won’t break his promise to Mom just because you’re feeling optimistic,” I warned.
His face softened. We’d lost her years ago now, but she’d been our glue, the one who’d loved her people more than we’d ever been able to love ourselves. The grief had never faded.
Dad didn’t argue my point, just met my eyes. “You let me worry about Ryder.”
Oh boy. Ryder was the eldest Colburn sibling and took being in charge seriously. He always said he’d lost years of his life trying to rein in the much wilder Tucker. To this day, Tucker was the only one who could go toe-to-toe with Ryder and keep breathing.
My dad probably sympathized with Ryder in that he’d definitely lost years of his life to my youth.
“Today made me realize we have too much distance between us,” Dad said quietly.
“I mean…” I smiled, trying to tease. “You’re right here.”
He rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean, smart-ass.” He hesitated. “Maybe we can start meeting each other in the middle.”
“Maybe.” It would certainly be new.
“Okay, good.” He cleared his throat, smiled awkwardly. “I’d like to hug my daughter now. You have a problem with that?”
We hadn’t hugged in years. Maybe a decade. I knew that was on me. I hadn’t been a great daughter. Fact was, I’d never been great at anything. I’d tried really hard to grow up, but that deep-seated doubt, the one that said I’d never be enough, was still there. “I—”
He pulled me into a solid, warm bear hug.
“Okay…” I patted his back awkwardly. “So we’re doing this.”
“Don’t make it weird.”
I snorted and…hugged him back. He smelled like tool oil, and—“Dad. Did you eat bacon?”
“No.”
“Then why do you smell like bacon?”
“Well, there might have been bacon on my cheeseburger. It’s my cheat day.”
I pulled back to stare at him. “You’re not allowed cheat days!”
“Everyone needs one. Bacon makes me happy.”
His monitor beeped.
I raised my brows.
“Hey, it’s because I got to hug my daughter, that’s all.” He smiled, warm, relaxed, truly happy.
I sighed. “Your phone’s been going off too. I’m sure you’ve got work to get to.”
“You kicking me out?”
It was my turn to soften. “I know how we both feel about hospitals. I’m cutting you loose.”
“Be good,” he said.
“Right back at you.”
He kissed the top of my head and walked out, leaving behind the scent of bacon and maybe, just maybe, second chances.
The curtain swished shut behind him, and I leaned back, tired.
But it wasn’t the wasp I thought about. Or even my van.
I thought about Tucker.
About how he hadn’t said goodbye. About the night twelve years ago. He hadn’t said goodbye then either.
It wasn’t fair, how much real estate he took up in my mind, still.
We never talked about that night. We didn’t talk at all, not the way we needed to.
Probably safer that way.
Because if we ever did talk about it…
I wasn’t sure I could survive what he’d say.