Chapter Eighteen
~ Jackson ~
I woke to a cold bed and silence. The other side of the mattress was empty, sheets barely disturbed, as if Cruz had been careful not to leave evidence of his leaving. Only the slight indentation of his body remained, along with the faint trace of his scent fading from the pillow.
The folded note sat on the nightstand in the spot where the lube had been two nights ago—Cruz’s handwriting, four words: “I’ll be home soon.”
I read it twice, which was one more time than it took to understand it, then set it back down and swung my legs over the edge of the bed. The floor was cold under my bare feet—the kind of cold that would have had Cruz frowning and reaching for the pair of slippers he’d left by the bedroom door.
I’d told him those things were ridiculous. Had told him that men who jumped out of planes in the dark shouldn’t wear slippers, period, end of sentence. He’d worn them anyway, moving through the house in them for weeks until it seemed like they’d always been there.
Now they were gone—along with his tactical jacket and his weapons case and the smell that was just him.
I pulled on jeans with mechanical efficiency—left leg, right leg, ties. A clean shirt from the drawer. Socks from the basket beside the dresser. Boots from the mudroom.
The coffee maker gurgled through its cycle while I stood at the kitchen window watching the gravel drive disappear into the tree line. Same drive I’d watched Cruz pull up on months ago, except now the direction was wrong.
The trees swallowed his taillights at 5:17 that morning—I’d checked the clock without meaning to—and I’d stayed at the window for another twenty minutes after that, watching the empty road where his truck had been.
I held the mug with both hands now and didn’t drink it for a while.
The kitchen was quiet around me—just the soft tick of the heating system, the clock, and the sound of my own breathing, still working its way back to normal after the hundred-yard sprint that was getting dressed in a house with only one occupant.
Three weeks. Twenty-one days. The kind of calculation that had kept me alive through situations where the margin for error was measured in seconds, not minutes.
By eight, I was outside in the cold air, my breath visible in front of my face, making the rounds of the greenhouse.
The two brothers were already working the far end of the property, their breath visible in the cold air, their voices carrying faint and indistinct across the yard.
The taller one was pulling irrigation line from the back of the ranch truck. The shorter one was uncoiling it.
I nodded to them from the greenhouse path and got nods back—courteous, professional, the kind of exchange that required nothing but simple presence.
Two men just doing their jobs, and I registered a quiet, unguarded gratitude for that normalcy that I wouldn’t have recognized in myself six months ago.
I moved through greenhouse 1 with practiced attention—checked the temperature gauges, the humidity levels, the drainage channels that ran under each row. The spring rootstock was coming in strong—healthy green growth showing at each node, no signs of the yellowing that meant nitrogen deficiency.
Greenhouse 2 got the same treatment—gauge check, drainage check, the catalog of healthy and not that had become its own kind of language. The starter trays along the east wall were doing well—seedlings still small but strong, the kind that would transplant without shock when the time came.
In greenhouse 3, I paused at the middle row to check a vine that had been struggling last week—leaves curled, growth stunted, the pattern that meant magnesium deficiency rather than disease.
I’d treated it with Epsom salt solution on Tuesday—a trick my grandfather had taught me years ago, back when the family farm was still standing and I was still learning what it meant to be an alpha.
Now the family farm was gone—sold to developers three years after my grandfather’s funeral—and I wasn’t an alpha at all. Just another man with the wrong designation and a property that wouldn’t fit anyone’s narrative, including mine.
The vine was improving—leaves uncurling, color returning, the kind of recovery that meant the treatment was working. I made a note on the clipboard that hung from the end post, then moved on to greenhouse 4, where the problems had been worst before Cruz helped fix them.
The drainage channel ran along the north wall, sealed now with the compound Cruz had mixed three parts to one—not the stuff from the hardware store, which would have worked for maybe a season, but the professional-grade sealant he’d brought back from Sterling’s supply cache.
I crouched to run my hand along the base of the channel, feeling for the softness that meant the seal was failing. Nothing gave—just the firm press of properly cured epoxy, the kind of solution that would last through ten Montana winters without cracking.
I stood and moved to the timer panel Cruz had rewired—the one that had been giving me problems since the day I’d installed it. He’d spent an afternoon with it, stripped the whole thing down, rebuilt it from the circuit board up, and put it back together.
It hadn’t given me a single problem since.
I stood there a beat longer than necessary, hand resting on the timer panel, jaw tight. The metal was cold under my palm—the kind of cold that would have had Cruz frowning and reaching for his gloves.
I adjusted the timer by three minutes—not because it needed it, but because standing still had suddenly become impossible—then moved on to check the grape rootstock in the south corner of the house.
The plants were healthy—strong new growth coming in at each node, leaves the dark green that meant they were getting exactly what they needed.
I crouched to check the soil at the base of the strongest vine, working my fingers into the dirt to feel for the firmness that meant healthy roots rather than rot.
That’s when it happened—in the middle of the second greenhouse, halfway down the grape row, with the grow lights humming overhead and no one around to say a word to about it.
A heel—or maybe an elbow—tracked a slow, deliberate arc across my ribs, specific and intentional in a way that still caught me off guard every time.
Not the random flutter of eight weeks ago or the occasional pressure of twelve, but a clear, unmistakable movement that could only mean one thing: something was happening inside me, and it had its own agenda.
I pressed my palm flat against my side and held still, waiting. The baby had been quiet since yesterday’s excitement—had settled somewhere low and central after the morning’s activity, the feeling of it both strange and familiar against the inside of my skin.
The movement happened again—another roll, stronger this time, the heel-or-elbow tracking the same path across my ribs with what felt like deliberate attention.
I stayed exactly where I was, one hand braced against the post and the other pressed to my side, and tried to make sense of what was happening.
I stayed there longer than was strictly necessary, hand pressed to my own ribs in the middle of a greenhouse row with the grow lights humming overhead and no one around to say a word to about it.
That last part—the no one—was a new kind of fact, and I stood with it for a moment before I went back to work.
The greenhouse timer clicked over at exactly 9:17, switching the lights from morning to midday settings with the efficiency that meant Cruz had rebuilt it properly.
I made a note on the clipboard about the magnesium treatment, checked the last three vines with careful attention, and moved on to greenhouse 4.
The day continued in that familiar rhythm—greenhouse to tool shed to house and back again, each task executed with the methodical precision that meant I’d done it a thousand times before.
By noon, the brothers were gone—back to the main ranch for lunch, probably, or to whatever other job Rawley had them doing that day. The property was quiet around me—just the soft tick of the greenhouse heaters and the sound of my own breathing.
Three weeks. Twenty-one days. I stood at the kitchen window with my second cup of coffee going cold between my palms and watched the valley go from morning to full day.
The baby moved again—another roll, the heel-or-elbow tracking the same path across my ribs with what felt like deliberate attention. I pressed my palm flat against my side and held still, waiting for whatever came next.
In the afternoon, I walked past the phone in the kitchen hallway and called my mother before I’d made a conscious decision to do it. My hand was already on the receiver when I registered what I was doing—reaching, dialing, listening to the ring with a choice I hadn’t fully processed making.
She answered on the third ring, her voice carrying the careful neutrality she used when she wasn’t sure what kind of conversation we were having.
“Jackson,” she said.. “I’ve been hoping you’d call.”
“I have a minute,” I said, the words coming out more clipped than I’d intended. “Just checking in.”
The conversation opened careful on both sides—the kind of careful of two people who said hard things recently and haven’t yet figured out what the new shape of things looks like. My mother’s voice was measured, asking about the farm, about the weather, circling.
“The greenhouse drainage is finally working,” I said, leaning against the wall with the phone pressed to my ear. “Had to replace the whole system along the east wall. Cruz helped me seal it properly with epoxy instead of the hardware store stuff.”
The name landed between us—not quite physical, but present enough that I could feel my mother recalibrating on the other end of the line.
“That’s good,” she said finally, her voice carefully neutral. “Your grandfather always said the east wall was the problem spot. The way the ground slopes there, water just runs straight down that hill.”