by Lena Hart
“What, damn it?”
Truth was so surprised by the low, angry growl that filled her speakers, she nearly dropped the phone. “Jackson?”
“Who’s this?”
There was a slur in his words that Truth couldn’t pinpoint. He could have been asleep or drinking, though either scenario were preposterous since it was two o’clock in the afternoon.
“Jackson, it’s me. Truth.” There was a long pause and for a moment she thought the connection was lost. “Hello?”
“What do you want, Truth?”
She jerked in surprise by the abrupt, emotionless question. “I just wanted to check in on you. I got your…message the other night. You didn’t sound like yourself and I was…worried.”
“Well, I’m still alive so no need to concern yourself.”
She pursed her lips. Sure, he was physically all right, but she couldn’t be certain how he was doing emotionally or mentally? From his obscure voice message, he didn’t sound like he was coping very well at all.
“Jackson, where are you right now?”
“In bed. Why? Wanna join me?”
“Stop being an ass,” she snapped. “I’m trying to have a civil conversation with you.”
He mumbled something, and she decided to take it as an apology.
“If you’re home right now, why didn’t you answer the door?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’ve been knocking on the front door for about five minutes now. Why didn’t you answer?”
“You’re here?”
She looked up at the house again. “Yes, I’m standing right outside.”
He cursed then suddenly the call was disconnected. Truth stared down at her phone, confused. She waited a few seconds for him to call her back. When he didn’t, she pushed away from her car and started toward the house.
Before she could reach the first step of the porch, loud barking came from inside. It was loud and deep and vibrated around her. She froze and stared at the door, horrified by the booming sounds coming from behind it.
As the noise grew closer, Truth began to inch away, barely registering the bag that had slipped from her shoulders. She didn’t stop until she was once again pressed against the hood of her car.
Suddenly, the front door swung open and a massive dog bolted out. Truth shrieked as it came charging toward her, and she scrambled on top of the hood of her car. She stared in dismay as the large fawn colored dog planted its enormous paws on the edge of the car and continued to bark at her. The car bounced violently on its tires and Truth held on for dear life as the dog continued shaking the air around her with its loud barks.
“Daisy! Get back here!”
It took Truth a moment to register Jackson’s harsh command, but when she did she realized he was calling out to the giant dog.
Daisy?
Truth’s gaze remained fixated on the large animal barking voraciously at her. This beast was a far cry from a delicate flower.
“She’s harmless. I promise.” Jackson released an ear-piercing whistle and Daisy instantly quieted.
Truth tore her gaze away from the dog and brought them up to Jackson’s. He stood on the porch, supporting himself on a pair of crutches. Besides the sunken fatigue around his eyes and his unusual pallor, he was as big as she remembered, yet looked more wild and feral than the dog trying to climb on top of the car with her. He was shirtless with only dark gray boxers on and was in desperate need of a shave and haircut. But what really drew her attention was his left leg and the thick white cast that started from his knee and stopped just above his toes.
“Come here, Daisy.” The dog turned and bounded up the stair to where Jackson stood. “Good girl. Stay.”
Truth watched with fascination as the dog sat back on her haunches. Jackson was already a tall man, yet the dog’s broad head nearly cleared his chest.
“You can come down now,” Jackson said. “She won’t bite. She’s just excited to see you again.”
“Again?” Truth stared at the dog, incredulous. “I’ve never seen that dog in my life!”
His lips curved slightly with amusement. “I think you just hurt her feelings. My sweet girl isn’t that forgettable, is she?”
Truth frowned at him then glanced back down at the dog. Her wide pink tongue hung out of her mouth and a fat drool splattered on the porch. Suddenly, realization hit her, and her mouth fell open.
“Little Monster?”
“She goes by Daisy now.” Jackson smiled down at the dog and scratched behind her ears. “She’s not so little anymore, but she still has a little bit of monster in her.”
Truth continued to stare at the dog she remembered holding in her arms. As she scrambled down from on top of the car, Daisy’s ear’s perked up. Truth gingerly made her way to the pair, still bemused. She was nearly the same height as Daisy.
“What happened to her?”
“She grew up.”
“But it’s only been a year… How is it possible she grew five extra feet in one year?”
Jackson shrugged. “She’s an English mastiff. That’s what they do. They get big.”
Truth reached out to pet her, but Daisy licked her hand before she could. Truth laughed and shook away the excess moisture.
“Hello to you too, sweetie.”
“Looks like she really missed you.”
“I missed her too.”
She glanced up at Jackson then and found his dark, penetrating gaze unnerving. She wanted to know just how much he had missed her. But then that would be foolish of her to think that he even had.
Truth brought her gaze down to him injured leg and stared pointedly at it. “And what happened to you?”
“I got hit by a car.”
Truth head snapped up and once again her mouth fell open. “What? When?”
“About two months ago. It’s no big deal.”
“No big deal? Are you crazy? You could have been killed! Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Why would I?”
“Because we’re family now and—”
“Truth, we barely know each other and the one person we both cared about is…” The muscles in his jaw flexed. “You don’t have to feel obligated to keep in touch with me, and you certainly don’t have to check up on me.”
His easy dismissal hurt, but Truth simply stared at him, letting the awkward silence fill the space between them. It was true that they didn’t really know each other, but that didn’t change the fact that he was her husband’s brother and in need of someone to be here with him. She may not be the person he wanted around, but from what she can tell, she was all he had.
They were both all each other had.
“Whatever you might think, Jackson, I didn’t come all this way out of some sense of obligation. I was genuinely concerned about you and now I can see just how right I was to be.”
“Well, I’ve been managing just fine without you, so thanks for dropping by but I don’t need you here.”
Truth lips tightened with annoyance. He was barely taking care of himself, much less his home. He may not want her here, but he certainly needed her.
“All right.” She stooped down and picked up her bag where she’d dropped it. Digging into her purse, she pulled out the large stack of letters and handed it to him. “Well, I picked up your mail for you.”
Jackson shifted his weight to one side and reached for the letters. Before he could take them, she let the letters fall from her hand.
“Oops. Sorry.”
For the first time, she saw genuine surprise in his dark eyes as he stared down at the letters before he brought his gaze up to hers. When she made no move to retrieve them, his expression hardened.
“Aren’t you going to pick those up?”
She cocked a brow. “I thought you could manage without me.”
Six
She came back.
Jackson’s gaze followed Truth around the bedroom as she picked up the scattered clothes and empty food cartons.
She hadn’t changed much in the past year she’d been away. She was still as beautiful as he remembered.
Then again, there was nothing to remember because he had never stopped thinking about her. It had been hard not to think about her while she had been hundreds of miles away, he didn’t know how he was supposed to suppress his feelings for her while she was under the same roof with him again.
“I’m sorry about the mail earlier,” she said, placing the stack of letters on a neat pile on his nightstand. “But I had to prove my point and you left me no choice.”
He grunted. “Yeah, that was a shitty thing to do.”
Guilt flashed across her face, and he instantly regretted his harsh tone. If it hadn’t been for the pain medicine making him loopy, he would have pushed back more on her decision to stay and play nurse-maid to him.
Though, the more he tried to do on his own, the more pain he brought on himself. From the constant growing pain in his leg, he knew he was overextending himself too soon and as his pain grew, so did his need for pain killers. And he didn’t want to depend on another substance to dull his pain.
Maybe it wouldn’t be the end of the world if he allowed Truth to help him out a bit. Though, it didn’t look like he had much of a choice.
“Won’t your job miss you if you stay away too long?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m technically unemployed.”
He frowned. Was that why she was really back? She had no place else to go? Or had she…
“Don’t tell me you quit your job to come back here.”
She looked over at him in surprise then. “No, of course not. I signed on with a travel nursing agency and was working at a hospital in Connecticut for three months. My contract ended there, and I could have picked up another assignment, but I decided to come here instead.”
Jackson relaxed a bit. As much as he’d dreamed about this moment when she’d be back, he didn’t want to ever be the cause of her putting her career—or anything else, for that matter—on hold.
“When are you heading back?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know yet. I think I had enough of the north for a while.”
“Where were you before Connecticut?”
“Chicago and then New York. I thought I would enjoy the city life, but that didn’t happen. Add in the frigid winters and coming back here was a no brainer.”
He studied her. So she was here to stay. He didn’t know for how long, but he was relieved to know he hadn’t completely scared her off.
You should have mine.
He groaned internally at his stupidity for confessing those words not once but twice. The first being last year when he’d gotten drunk and done things he hadn’t. The second, had been just a few days when he’d been high on pain killers. In his stupor, he’d been trapped in a deep dream with her in bed with him. She’d been looking at him with those beautiful, soft dark eyes of hers and all he could think about was how much he wanted to be inside her.
Eventually, he’d awaken to find his phone in his hands and his last call had been to her. It wasn’t until he’d heard her voice messages that he realized it had been more than a dream.
Those were the words he remembered speaking had spoken to her. When he’d awaken, he’d found his phone his hands and the last call had been to her. He knew what his message had probably consisted of and not only did he regret the words, he was embarrassed by them.
She’s not yours.
He needed to remember that. No matter how badly he wanted it otherwise.
Truth went to his closet to tuck away his scattered tennis shoes and boots that had been spewed around the room before the accident. He started to tell her that he preferred it if they were lined up outside his closet but was distracted by the view of her figure from behind.
Despite her petite frame, she had a curvy frame that was evident from her tank top and fitted jeans. He could make out the outline of her lush thighs, and he let his gaze wander down the length of her. In one swoop, his imagination began to conjure up other thoughts, like how her shapely legs would look wrapped around his—
Jackson instantly tore his gaze away from her.
“Did you have lunch already?”
“No, but I’m not really hungry.”
“You should still eat something anyway, Jackson.” She turned away from the closet and started toward the door. “I’ll go fix you something fast.”
“Truth…”
But she was out of the room before he could protest further.
Jackson sighed and propped himself up higher against the headboard. He reached for the stack of letters on his nightstand and began sorting them, many of which were overdue bills. He sighed and tried not to let the stress of it all discourage him from his plans.
Suddenly Daisy burst into the room and climbed into the bed beside him. Jackson grimaced as the mattress took a sharp dip and the springs groaned loudly under her weight.
“Sooner or later, this bed won’t be able to support both our weights.”
Daisy grumbled low in her throat in response before settling into her spot and resting her head on her paws. Jackson rubbed behind her ears.
“Okay, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
He sifted through each envelope, until he had pulled out the most important three. Setting aside the rest, he tore open the first letter. He skimmed through it, but he didn’t need to get far to know this would be yet another let down.
He threw the letter aside and ripped opened the next one. It started the same way.
Dear Jackson Matoa: Thank you for your recent loan application for your small business, but we regret to inform you…
In frustration, he crumbled the letter in his fist and threw it across the room. Daisy’s ears perked up, but she didn’t lift her head. That made it his forth rejection. Hopes of getting his woodworking business up and running was quickly fading away and he had no one to blame but himself. He was the one who had drowned his grief at the bottom of a bottle for a year and had completely abandoned his original plans to start his business.
Jackson looked down at the last envelope on his lap and, without hesitation, ripped it in half. Just more depressing news, he was sure. Just as he was about to toss the pieces across the room, Truth came back carrying a tray topped with a large bowl, a glass of water, a half sleeve of crackers, and a sliced peach.
When had he gotten peaches?
“I hope you don’t have a big appetite,” Truth said as she carried the tray over to him. “You didn’t have a lot for me to choose from.”
Jackson stared at the tray, his mouth watering. “I’m not really hungry,” he lied.
She placed the tray on the bed beside him and he immediately reached for the steaming bowl of chucky beef stew. He ignored the heat burning his fingertips through the porcelain and brought the bowl to his lips. His tongue suffered a few blisters, but his stomach was elated. He managed to get down half the bowl before he reached for the pack of crackers and wolfed down a handful of them.
When he glanced up, he found Truth staring at him, her eyes wide with amazement. Jackson wiped a hand across his mouth and rested the bowl down on the tray.
“Okay, maybe I was a little hungry.”
“I can see that. When was the last time you ate?”
He shrugged. “Yesterday, I think.”
She frowned disapprovingly. “I really wished you had called me sooner, Jackson. How long have you been managing on your own like this?”
“I was released from the hospital a few weeks ago.”
He didn’t mention it was his lack of health insurance that had forced him home sooner. The hospital had tried to arrange a patient care assistant to come every other day to help him around, but that was just another bill he could afford to do without.
Truth sat on the edge of the bed and Daisy immediately shifted to rest her head on her lap. Truth sat tense for a moment before she gingerly began to run a hand down Daisy’s
back. A warmth he couldn’t explain spread through him as Jackson watched the two most important ladies in his life develop their own special bond.
“So, are you going to tell me what happened to your leg?”
Jackson returned his attention to his food, specifically the sliced peaches. “I told you I was hit by a car.”
“I know, but where did this happen? And how?”
He swallowed the last bite of his peach and leaned against the headboard with a sigh of contentment before he told her everything.
“I had just left a bar and was walking along Route 85. It was night and pretty dark, from what I remember. I must have been walking too far out on the road, because next thing I knew I was waking up in the hospital in a shit ton of pain.”
Truth’s hand stilled above Daisy and her dark eyes eclipsed her slender face. “Oh my god, Jackson. You really could have been killed.”
Suddenly, her eyes became glassy and her gaze took on a faraway look. Jackson knew she was thinking about Danny and his untimely death. He knew she was because his brother was never far from his mind. And after the accident, Jackson had his cast and the occasional pain to serve as a reminder of how short and unpredictable life was.
“Well, I wasn’t as you can see,” he said bluntly. “I just ended up with a broken leg, and once this cast is off, things will finally return back to normal.”
Then she would be gone.
As much as he knew it was for the best, he resented the idea. Jackson shook his head at himself and forced some common sense back into his head. She had only been back for a few hours and already he was getting too attached.
“When will the cast be removed?”
“Next week.”
“The man who ran into you, was he arrested?”
Jackson slowly shook his head, deciding not to correct her. It wasn’t important who had hit him. The deed had been done and he was grateful for it.
“No, there was no point to it. The driver wasn’t intoxicated. I was. And in my condition, I had no business walking out there in the dark.”
She chewed her lip for a moment, staring at him with concern. “About the drinking…you haven’t had any since you left the hospital, have you? Because the mixing it with the medication—”