Ember
FOUR
The wait at the medical center was short, which was a pleasant surprise. When they called Jack’s and Darby’s names, I nodded at them and stayed in my seat until they both re-emerged a short while later.
Darby looked a little green around the gills as she clutched her arm. Poor girl. I’d heard the rabies PEP shots were painful. Jack looked pale, but he gave me the same flirtatious grin he used when he was trying to annoy me.
And it was working.
Barely containing the urge to roll my eyes, I stood up and headed toward them.
Jack’s grin widened—he could tell he’d succeeded in irritating me—and he opened his mouth to say something. Unfortunately, nothing came out, because his eyes went all funny and his next step dragged, and then he was falling face-first toward the hard tile floor.
I gasped, lunging forward, and caught him around the chest to keep him upright.
Ha.
I’d never pegged myself as delusional, but I’d have to reassess, because the man was a six-foot-four pillar of brawn. There was no way I was holding up that much dead weight, and the moment I wrapped my arms around him, his momentum pitched us toward the floor once more.
Luckily for him, I softened his fall. Unluckily for me, I softened his fall.
He landed on top of me, expelling every single molecule of air from my lungs. Darby screamed. Footsteps told me nurses were coming running.
I, however, was stuck.
Jack stirred, mumbling something unintelligible. With his lips near my ear, I thought I heard, “You smell nice,” before he lifted his head and looked at me with a soft smile on his lips.
Ignoring the thrill his words sent arrowing through my stomach, I shoved at his shoulders. “Get off me. I can’t breathe.”
Jack’s gaze sharpened, dispelling all the softness. He lifted some of his weight off me, propping his upper body on his elbows on either side of my head. I inhaled sharply, glaring when he didn’t move.
“What if I like it here?” he replied in a voice so low no one else could hear it.
It was a lie. He was only saying it to get a rise out of me.
“I’m still feeling a little lightheaded,” he went on, hips pressing against mine. “I don’t think it’s safe for me to move.”
“In a minute, it’ll be a lot less safe for you to stay,” I shot back, baring my teeth. I needed him off me. Not because I hated the way it felt to have his weight on top of me, but because I liked it a little too much.
That was a first.
“Jack? Ma’am?”
Jack rolled off me, but he didn’t go far. He lay on his side, pressed up against me, and smiled at the nurse in the floral scrubs. “What did you put in that shot, Doris? And have you got another one?”
“Oh, Jack,” the older woman clucked, flapping her hands at him. “You went down like a cut tree. My God. Are you okay?” This, she asked me, quickly following up with, “Did you hit your head?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Stay right there. Jack, give her some room. Here, Ron will help you into a chair. Darby, sit beside your father.”
There was a bustle of activity while Jack was checked over and I was assessed. “Good save,” Nurse Doris murmured to me while she checked my head for lumps. “But next time two hundred pounds of dead weight is falling toward you, I would suggest moving out of the way.”
I grumbled at her, and she laughed.
“You must be one of Etta’s brides,” she said, strapping a blood pressure cuff on my arm.
I grunted.
“Well, I’m sure you’ll have your hands full, but Jack’s a good man, and that’s a wonderful daughter he’s got,” she continued, then angled her body to include Jack in the conversation.
“I have to say, Jack, I’m surprised you agreed to your grandmother’s schemes.
Of all people, I never thought you’d give up the bachelor life.
” She smiled at Darby. “How do you like your new stepmom? Gotta say, she’s made a good first impression on me.
” She winked at me while I stared at her, horrified.
Darby’s gaze flicked from Doris to me to Jack. She frowned. “Wait. You guys are married?”
My eyelids slid shut. Crap.
“We’ll talk about it at home,” Jack growled.
Doris went wide-eyed. “Oh, my. I’m so sorry. I thought…”
“You’ve said enough. Ember, ready to go?”
“Yep!” I ripped the cuff off, tossed it at Doris, and hightailed it out of there.
Darby stomped beside us, her brows tugged so low there was barely any space between them.
She slammed the car door once she was inside, and Jack and I exchanged a long glance where we stood in front of the hood of the car.
“This is your fault,” he growled.
Oh, that was rich. “How do you figure?”
“If you hadn’t made us get these stupid shots, none of this would have happened.”
“You’d rather die?”
“Right now? Hell, yeah!”
“You are the most ridiculous man I’ve ever met,” I snapped. “God forbid you have to have a tough conversation with your teenage daughter.”
That struck a nerve. He stepped up to me, anger pouring off him in noxious waves. I stood my ground, but my legs shook and I had to curl my hands into fists to stop them from trembling.
“Don’t you ever talk about my parenting again,” he said, fury making his voice rasp. “You understand?”
“Then don’t blame me for things that aren’t my fault,” I snapped back. “Blame Doris. Hell, blame the raccoon. I’m not the one who caused any of this, and it’s not fair for you to speak to me this way.”
My entire body shook. I hated confrontation. I’d hated it since I was little, since my father had berated me for every tiny mistake, every inconvenience that may or may not have been my fault. His resentment had been a weight around my neck from the moment I was born.
Usually, I retreated. I avoided conflict. I relied on logic.
But right now, there were bigger things at stake. My future. Stability. Options. I would not let this man bowl me over and make me feel small for trying to do the right thing.
He gritted his teeth, gaze circling my face before tearing away. He shoved a hand in his rich brown hair, tugged, then gusted out a harsh breath. “Let’s just go home,” he grumbled.
I got into the car and stole a glance at Darby in the back seat.
She had headphones in and was staring pointedly out the window.
Sighing, I turned forward again and was quiet until we parked in Jack’s garage once more.
My suitcase was still sitting on the asphalt behind my car, and the kitchen window remained smashed.
There was a lot of work to do before any of us could relax for the evening.
Darby stomped out of the car and disappeared inside. Jack watched her go, his shoulders dropping, then moved to grab my suitcase.
I stopped him with a hand on his forearm. “I’ll get this. You should go to her.”
For the first time since Doris had spilled the beans, Jack looked at me with something other than anger.
His expression was a little grateful, but mostly exhausted.
He dipped his chin and said, “Your room’s up the stairs.
Just keep going up and you’ll know you’ve found it when you run out of steps. ”
“All right.”
He paused, staring at the house. Gulped. “I’m sorry. I—Darby’s all I’ve got. But you’re right; this wasn’t your fault. It was mine for not pulling her aside and telling her what was happening right away.”
Another hint of the true Jack. Intensely protective of his daughter, but willing to admit when he was wrong. My ribs constricted, and I dipped my chin. “Thank you.”
I watched him stalk off toward the house, feeling wrung out and raw. With a sigh, I hauled my bag inside and tromped up the steps. I heard low voices in one of the bedrooms on my way past, but I didn’t linger.
The upstairs room had an angled ceiling and three dormer windows.
A double bed was pushed up against the far wall, and an old dresser stood beside the door.
The angled portions of the room were mostly empty other than a couple of boxes of Christmas decorations tucked into the corner and a desk shoved to my left.
It was good enough for one night. I wasn’t expecting my stay to last much longer after everything that had happened.
I dropped my bags and didn’t bother unpacking anything.
Instead, I headed back downstairs and made my way to the kitchen.
It was still a disaster zone, and cleaning had always been something that brought me peace.
My condo in Chicago was a Type-A’s dream.
Everything in its place, everything labeled, everything exactly as I wanted it.
Nothing like this home, with its stacks of old books and rumpled throw blankets on every sofa and chair.
Even beyond the disaster in the kitchen, I could tell that the mugs and fruit bowl and coffee implements lived on the countertop, and the stack of bills had been stored on the far edge of the cabinets.
The walls were covered in Darby’s childhood drawings, with a big corkboard taking up one of the kitchen walls.
On it, there were to-do lists and polaroids of their life.
There were faded birthday cards proclaiming Jack the “Best Dad Ever” and a few stray receipts.
It was messy and lived in. I could see the love Darby and Jack had for each other in every corner. It made my heart ache, and I wasn’t exactly sure why.
My childhood home had been sterile, and I’d had to tiptoe through every room but my own. And even my own room had to be kept tidy and free of all the clutter children usually accumulated. My father hadn’t liked reminders that I was a child and that I lived there too.
I grabbed the broom and got to work. Once everything was tidied, I looked in the refrigerator and pantry and found the ingredients to make a decent pasta sauce. Not wanting to go back upstairs and hide in my bedroom, I started cooking.
The smell drew them out just as the sauce had reduced to the perfect consistency. I fished out the bay leaves from the bubbling tomato goodness and checked the pasta, glancing over my shoulder to nod in greeting when I heard footsteps.