Chapter Twenty-One
~ Cruz ~
The greenhouse air was thick with morning moisture as I crouched over the drip lines, checking each connection for leaks. The soil under my boots had that perfect dampness—not enough to make mud, just enough to smell like good earth.
Morning light filtered pale through the glass panels, throwing long shadows down the neat rows of tomato plants I’d set in six weeks ago.
I’d been checking the system since sunrise, making sure the valves and timers were all running smooth before heading into town for the replacement parts.
That’s when I heard it—Jackson’s voice cutting through the morning quiet from the direction of the doorway. “Fernando Cruz, I’m going to fucking kill you.”
I straightened, knees protesting as I turned to see Jackson making his way down the row between the raised beds.
He was moving with the wide-legged waddle that had replaced his normal stride over the past few weeks, one hand braced hard against the frame of the greenhouse door, the other gripping the edge of the nearest bed.
His face was tight, jaw set, eyes narrowed. He looked pissed and in pain—a combination I’d learned to respect over the eight months we’d been together.
I moved toward him immediately. “Jackson? What’s—“
His fist connected with my cheek, solid and deliberate, staggering me back two full steps. The crack of impact echoed through the greenhouse. I raised a hand to my face, staring at him. I’d expected a lot of things from Jackson, but never this.
I hadn’t even processed the hit before he was already folding forward, both arms wrapped around his stomach. His face contorted in a way I’d seen only twice before—once when he’d been shot through the shoulder, and again when he’d tried to explain to his parents what he was to me.
“Jesus,” I said, reaching for him. “What the hell?”
He was cursing in English, then Spanish, his voice breaking with the effort. And then I heard it—water splashing onto the greenhouse floor, soaking through his joggers—and every thought in my head reorganized itself around a single, undeniable fact.
The baby was not due for another week.
“I’ve been timing them,” Jackson managed, still bent forward. “Started four hours ago. About twenty minutes apart.” His breath hitched. “Then—“
His knuckles whitened as another contraction hit.
My hand went to my earpiece before I’d consciously decided to move. I got my arm under Jackson’s shoulders and lifted, trying to find a balance between supporting him and giving him space. He was still swearing at me in Spanish, his voice rising with the pain.
“Red alert,” I said into the comm as I got my other arm under his knees. “Jackson’s in labor. Red alert.”
Sterling’s voice came back instantly. “Hospital logistics? Contraction timing?”
I looked down at Jackson, who had his teeth gritted against what must have been another wave. “I don’t know the timing,” I admitted. I barely got the question out before Jackson’s hand clamped down on mine with a force that made me genuinely uncertain whether my metacarpals were still intact.
“Less than two minutes apart,” I clicked back, keeping my voice level despite the vise grip around my hand. “He’s not going to make it to town.”
“Get him to Jasper’s infirmary,” Sterling said. “We’re activating.”
I was already moving, Jackson’s weight shifting in my arms as I made for the door. The greenhouse path that usually took thirty seconds to walk became a careful obstacle course—turn too fast and risk the greenhouse frame, too slow and we’d never make it through the door.
Jackson had his arms around my neck, his face pressed against my shoulder. “Put me down,” he said, the words coming out strangled. “I can walk.”
“Not a chance,” I told him, easing us through the doorway and onto the gravel drive. The cold morning air hit us both, Jackson still in the thin T-shirt he’d been sleeping in. “Jasper’s place is five minutes from here. We’re taking the truck.”
“We could walk,” Jackson said, then gasped as another contraction hit. His grip on my arm nearly cut off my circulation. “Fuck. Maybe not.”
I got him to the passenger side of the truck, which was where the careful part ended. I had to wait through the contraction before I could get the door open, Jackson’s knuckles white on the door frame, his breath going ragged and then controlled in turns.
He was working with his body the way a man does who has been through worse pain and knows the difference between fighting it and using it.
“Ready?” I asked when his breathing had settled.
He nodded, jaw still clenched.
I got him up into the passenger seat, the angle awkward with his size and the truck’s height. Jackson didn’t complain, which was probably the clearest sign of how far along things had progressed.
Jackson complained about everything. His absence of complaints was what had me climbing into the driver’s seat and starting the engine in a single motion.
“Buckle,” I said, already backing down the driveway. I heard the click, then Jackson’s hand found my thigh, gripping hard enough to leave bruises. I covered it with mine, waiting for his breathing to steady again before pulling out onto the gravel road that ran between our place and Jasper’s.
The five-minute walk down the road turned into a two-minute drive with the tires occasionally spinning on the gravel when I pushed too hard on the gas.
Jackson sat beside me, one hand braced against the dashboard, the other on my leg, his breathing coming in the pattern that was becoming familiar—long and slow and deliberate, then breaking into something sharper, then back to control.
I kept one hand on the wheel and the other on his thigh, my fingers pressed to the inside of his wrist where I could feel his pulse.
It was too fast, but steady. The truck bounced over the uneven surface of the road, and I watched Jackson’s face from the corner of my eye, looking for any sign things were getting worse.
Jasper was already on the porch when I pulled up to the house—he’d heard the comm—and had the front door open before I could get Jackson out of the truck.
The path from the driveway to the porch, normally a ten-second walk, suddenly seemed endless. I kept my arm locked around Jackson’s back, feeling the tension in his muscles as he fought to stay upright, the contraction building.
“Cruz,” he managed, his voice tight. “I can’t—“
“I’ve got you,” I told him, my voice coming out steadier than I felt. “Just a few more steps.”
I got him through the front door and followed Jasper down the hallway to the infirmary, Sterling’s voice already coming from inside, issuing instructions in that quiet, calm tone that never varied no matter what was happening.
The tight corridor opened into a clean, well-lit room with an exam bed positioned under a window, supply shelves along one wall, the familiar smell of antiseptic and fresh linen settling around us.
Sterling was already there—I didn’t ask how, Sterling was always already there—and directed me to lay Jackson on the exam bed.
“Contraction timing?” he asked, already pulling on gloves.
“Less than two minutes,” I said, moving to the head of the bed and taking Jackson’s hand. I stayed out of Sterling’s way—this wasn’t my area of expertise. My job was to be exactly where I was standing, with Jackson’s hand in mine and my voice steady when he needed to hear it.
“Jesus,” Jasper said, coming in with an armful of towels. “You couldn’t have given us a heads-up before you went into full labor, Jax?”
“I gave you six months,” Jackson shot back, the words tight through another wave. “That wasn’t enough?”
Sterling’s hands were steady and unhurried as he worked, the same calm he’d brought to the two previous deliveries on this property, and I found myself anchoring to that steadiness.
Jackson wasn’t quiet through any of it—he was focused and furious, cursing in two languages, and at one point told me with complete conviction that he was going to rip my dick off and feed it to me.
I accepted this without argument. I’d been told worse by better people.
I held Jackson’s hand through the worst of the contractions and talked to him in low, steady Spanish—not instructions, not coaching, just my voice, present and close, a continuous low murmur that had no agenda except to be there.
Jackson’s grip on my hand was the most honest thing I’d ever felt, all his control stripped away, just a man holding on through what was happening to him.
The truck was still running outside. The gravel I’d spun through on the way here was probably scattered halfway across the property. The greenhouse door was probably still open, the morning air turning the carefully maintained humidity into something else entirely.
None of it mattered.
Jackson’s face was running with sweat, his hair plastered to his forehead, his free hand gripping the edge of the exam bed with a force that had to be leaving marks.
At some point Sterling said “almost there” and I looked at Jackson’s face—sweat-damp, exhausted, jaw set with absolute determination—and felt something crack open in my chest that I did not have a name for in any language.
The baby’s cry filled the infirmary—a sound so much bigger than the tiny body producing it that for a second I couldn’t place it. It seemed to come from everywhere at once, loud and insistent, a sound I’d heard a hundred times before but had never been meant for me.
I stood frozen, Jackson’s hand still gripping mine with a force that had to be leaving marks, as Sterling lifted the tiny, red-faced bundle.
“Healthy boy,” Sterling announced, voice steady as always. “Good lungs.”
I heard him from a great distance because my eyes were fixed on the small, furious, red-faced person Sterling was wrapping in a receiving blanket.
The baby—our baby—had one fist clenched at his chest, mouth working in small, indignant movements. His other arm flailed as Sterling wrapped him, tiny fingers splayed like he was trying to catch something just out of reach.