“It’s just…um…” Her eyes flew around the space. “Hay dust.”
Everything shut down.
How many times had I heard such lies?
Don’t worry, Wild One, it’s just allergies.
That cough? Oh, it’s nothing, just pollen.
Sore throat, that’s all, kiddo.
Stop fretting, it’s just a cold.
Lies.
Lies.
Lies.
“Jacob. Don’t. It’s nothing. I promise.” Hope came toward me, placing soft fingers on my forearm. “Please.”
I shook her off. “Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not. Truly.” Her green gaze glittered.
Was it from fever? Was that why her cheeks were redder than normal and her voice scratchy?
I narrowed my eyes. “You’re hiding something.”
“No.” She crossed her arms. “You’re just projecting onto me.” She sighed. “Look…can we talk about this? Talk about what happened here? Discuss everything when you’re not drunk?”
“I’m not drunk.”
She sneered. “I’m drunk just from kissing you with the whiskey on your lips.”
I stiffened. “I didn’t ask for company.”
“And I didn’t ask to be attacked.”
We glowered at each other.
Slowly, her spine relaxed, and she spread her hands in surrender. “I’m your friend, Jacob. You asked for one, remember? And I wouldn’t be your friend if I didn’t offer a shoulder to cry on.”
“I’ve always hated that figure of expression.”
“Okay then…a sounding board. A—”
“Therapist?”
She squirmed. “If that’s what you want.” Another tiny cough escaped her. She flinched as I automatically shifted toward the exit. I was powerless against that trigger.
A cough equalled running.
The override button was missing.
“I don’t need a therapist.” I forced myself to stay in the stable, begging her not to cough again so I didn’t embarrass myself further. My argument about not needing therapy wasn’t holding up with the way I currently acted.
God, I wanted more whiskey.
“Tomorrow.” She came slowly toward me, her boots gathering pieces of hay on her journey. “Please? If you don’t want to talk, then perhaps we can try kissing again. Next time, maybe we’ll be a bit more controlled, unlike the past two attempts.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose, the world swimming. “There won’t be a next time. This was another mistake.”
She sucked in a breath but nodded. “Okay. But at least…we’re still friends. And friends talk. I’m willing to listen to whatever you want.” Moving toward the exit, she opened it before turning to face me. “I’m sorry, Jacob. Sorry for coughing and ruining tonight. I won’t do it again.”
I wanted to be normal.
To laugh at my idiosyncrasies and apologise for my behaviour, not hers.
She had nothing to apologise for.
Coughing was a part of life—just like so many elements I couldn’t seem to handle.
But she slinked from the stable before I could find my tongue.
And I was back to being miserable and alone.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Hope
* * * * * *
I LIED TO Jacob yesterday.
I stared directly into his eyes and lied.
He’d sprung me with a kiss. He’d taken my heart and left me ruined.
And in return, I’d probably given him the same virus currently taking over my immune system.
The flu.
I didn’t know if sleeping outside when camping had chipped away at my defences or if the early morning starts had drained me, but yesterday, I’d woken with a stuffy head and scratchy throat, and today, I fought a fever with an ever-growing chesty cough.
I’d gone looking for Jacob last night to say I needed a couple of days off before I got worse.
I wasn’t going to tell him I was sick…just that I needed to catch up on my studies with Keeko.
But that was before I’d found him drunk and drowning, and I couldn’t keep my distance. I’d known the risk that I might cough. I’d battled the aches and fever as I’d done my best to talk. I’d tensed each time he studied me too closely and tried not to sniff back the sickness swiftly taking over my control.
And then what had I done?
In a moment of kissing insanity, I’d coughed and then requested we talk. I’d badgered him into accepting a date. With me. Today.
A date, or more like a counselling session, that I couldn’t attend because I was so, so much sicker than before.
I’d woken this morning with congested sinuses, heaving coughs, and a temperature that made every muscle beg for relief.
Della had kindly given me some cold and flu meds, made me gargle with salt water, plied me with lozenges, then put me back to bed. She said she’d tell Jacob I wouldn’t be working today and stood in my doorway with the saddest expression. “You know you can’t be around him sounding like that, don’t you?”
My shoulders rolled, slouching into the pillows. “I know.”
“He won’t react well.”
I nodded.
I’d seen how he reacted in the diner.
I’d watched The Boy & His Ribbon and understood a cough was not just a cough to Jacob.
I covered my mouth as I hacked, wet and long. “I probably made him sick.”
“I doubt it. He has a robust immune system.” Della smiled.
My cheeks heated for other reasons than fever. “I, eh…he kissed me last night.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Did you kiss him back?”
I bit my lip, nodding. “I asked to see him tonight. To talk about…what happened.”
She pushed off the doorframe, coming to sit on the edge of my bed—of her son’s bed. “You won’t be better by tonight, Hope.”
“I know.”
“You’ll have to stay away until you are. Otherwise, whatever progress you’ve made this summer will be for nothing.” Patting my hand, she sighed. “I can’t tell you what it means to me that he’s accepted you as a friend. I’ve always wanted him to have someone. And I’m glad it’s you. Glad he has someone looking after him when I’m not able to. It gives me peace knowing you’re there for him.”
My eyes watered, and I blew my nose.
She stood, brushing a piece of lint from her jeans. “Now, get some rest. Heal fast, so he doesn’t have to know.”
“Okay.”
Waving, she left the room, leaving me to a head full of cotton and a throat full of knives.
Staring at the ceiling, I made a request to whatever all-seeing power was out there.
Please, please keep Jacob away until I’m better.
Don’t let him realise I’m not immortal like he needs.
Closing my eyes, I wished and prayed that Jacob would hate me enough from the kiss to stay away for a few days. Because if he didn’t. If he heard me…I had a bone-chilling knowledge that everything between us would end.
That our friendship would be over.
Our connection destroyed.
He’d cut me out.
He’d send me away.
For good.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Jacob
* * * * * *
“JACOB? YOU IN here?”
I looked up, shielding my eyes from the sun’s glare as Mom strode into the greenhouse where I’d planted some apple seedlings. I was deadly serious about dabbling in orchard growing.
There was money to be made in stone fruits, as well as berries—if I could figure out a way to grow them consistently.
“Yeah.” I used the rag from my pocket to wipe the sweat from my forehead.
I wasn’t in a good mood. Hell, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been in a good mood. Once again, it was Hope’s fault.
That kiss.
That goddamn kiss would forever be linked to the fiery
taste of whiskey.
And that cough that echoed in my nightmares.
At least she’d kept her distance. Mom had delivered Hope’s excuses about needing to study with her tutor via Skype, but I reckoned she’d finally realised that kissing me was a mistake and was as pissed off about it as I was.
She needed space, just like me.
Thank God.
“Jacob…are you listening to me?”
I focused on Mom. “Sorry. Yeah. What did you say?”
“I said I’ve been looking all over for you.”
“Well, you found me.” I didn’t have time for this. I wanted to be left alone.
Brushing past her, I grabbed a tray of baby peaches and carried them toward the potting table.
“You know, your father and I lived on an orchard for a couple of months as fruit pickers.” Mom followed me, stroking the leaves of an infant plant with a wistful smile. “We stayed in a shack and worked every hour possible, but it was one of the happiest times of our lives.”
It wasn’t often Mom brought him up this nonchalantly, and my heart definitely wasn’t strong enough for her tales today.
Clearing my throat, I said, “Don’t you have more rescues to pick up?”
She narrowed her eyes, reading me too well. “I do. But not for another hour or so.”
“Ah.”
I wouldn’t be getting rid of her anytime soon then.
Silence fell as I pulled a seedling from its tray and placed it into a bigger pot. Mom watched me work, her presence not nearly as annoying as Hope’s.
After I’d transferred four plants and bedded them in with new dirt, she moved. Her hand went into her back pocket before slipping forward to place a small box on the earth covered bench before me.
The second I saw at it, I knew. “What the hell are you doing?”
The package was identical to the one she’d given me on my graduation in the diner.
Green wrapping.
Purchased by a ghost and given by a dead man.
“I don’t want it.” I backed up, slamming into a trestle with yet more baby fruit trees.
Mom bowed her head, staring at the gift. “I’ve been wondering when the right time would be to give you this. I’ve been watching you and Hope. Not knowing if I could. If she was the one for you. But…she told me you kissed her yesterday. And…I just had to.”
“She told you?”
What the fuck?
Nudging the box toward the edge of the table, she murmured, “Ren told me to give this to you when you found the girl you were going to marry. I don’t know if you’ll end up marrying Hope, but in my opinion, she’s the most important girl who will come into your life. You guys might break up, you might settle with different people, but without Hope, you wouldn’t be ready to love anyone. And that is why I’m giving this to you now.”
Our eyes met.
Mine frantic, hers resolute in grief. “Open it, Wild One.”
“I-I can’t.”
“You have to.”
“He wouldn’t want me to have it yet. I don’t deserve it.”
“You do, and he would because he would’ve loved Hope, and you know it.”
I clenched my jaw.
Goddammit, why did he have to do this? Why did he have to give Mom the same number of packages he gave me? Why did he keep making life so fucking hard?
“I’ll go. Open it on your own.” Skirting scattered soil, she came toward me. Standing on tiptoes, she dared kiss my cheek. “I love you. And I think she does too. Don’t be afraid of that. Never be afraid of that.”
I didn’t say a word as she left. The greenhouse door squeaked as she opened and closed it behind her, leaving me in sweltering soup.
My eyes zeroed in on the green wrapping. It blended so well in here with bright leaves and glowing sunshine. It almost looked alive, as if it shimmered with Dad’s energy, granting him a small portal in which to interact.
“You’re a pain in the ass,” I muttered. “Why can’t you leave me alone?”
No reply.
No air to circulate. No trees to rustle.
Just hot, sticky oxygen.
Gritting my teeth, I snatched the box. It wasn’t big. Barely palm size. It only took a second to tear at the paper and lift the lid.
I’d expected another tool. Something in the theme of a Swiss Army knife or compass.
Instead, I found something that stole the strength from my knees and buckled me against the table.
A note fluttered to the dirty concrete.
My hands shook as I ducked and unfolded it, recognising my father’s scrawl.
Hi Jacob,
By now, the girl you’ve fallen in love with will be jealous of Della’s blue ribbon. Any pretty girl should wear a ribbon. So give this to yours. Tell her it’s from someone who’s incredibly grateful she’s fallen in love with his son. Tell her I know she’s chosen well because once she’s claimed the heart of a Wild, she’ll never be alone again.
Love you, Wild One.
Dad.
Tipping the box, I glowered as a lacy cream ribbon unspooled. Elegant and old-worldly, the gift was as intricate and delicate as the lace Hope kept tucked tight in her locket.
Out of all the things.
Out of all the ribbons.
He had to buy a piece of lace for the girl nicknamed after it.
Chills scattered down my back. Was there no divide between this world and the next?
There couldn’t be because in that terrifying moment, I stood on the edge of its never-ending vastness.
I heard my goddamn father chuckle for shocking me so completely.
I couldn’t deal with this right now.
If he intended to make me slip further into crazy, it’d worked.
Plucking the ribbon from the floor, I shook the filigree fabric free from soil and snaked it back into the box.
The lid went on.
The presence of my father vanished.
And I stormed from the greenhouse for fresh air and sanity.
Forrest was waiting for me.
He understood.
And together, we flew away where no ghost or human could find us.
* * * * *
I was alone.
I’d always been alone.
A single entity in a big, black forever.
But slowly, a pinprick of light appeared, then another and another and another, spreading out like a giant clock and I was the centre dial.
Faces appeared.
Dad.
Patricia.
John.
Mom.
Nina.
Chip.
Hope.
Everyone I had ever loved or known morphed into being. Spotlights on all of them, faces shining but bodies barely visible.
I wanted to go to someone.
But who?
They were all spread out, scattered on the timepiece of life, separate and alone.
A compass appeared in my hand.
A compass given to me with an inscription in the metal telling me to find my true path. I clutched it tight, begging it to show me the way.
But it started spinning.
Faster and faster, blurring the outside world.
The faces were no more, just a blend of features as they spun like a vortex around me.
I grew dizzy.
I closed my eyes.
The compass whirred like a living thing in my hand.
It stopped.
I opened my eyes.
Everyone was gone.
Only a single figure stood before me.
The compass needle honed directly on her.
A girl bathed in a spider-web of light.
A lace-loving girl with hope in her eyes and love in her heart.
The compass warmed, nudging me that this was the right choice. This was my correct and chosen path.
I trusted it.
I stepped toward her.
But then, in a bang as deafening as a gunshot, she fell.
Her eyes closed.
Her body crumpled.
And all that was left was my compass pointing at a corpse.
I woke up drenched in panic.
My hands fumbled as I shot from my wet sheets and struggled to turn on my bedside light. I needed illumination. I needed to delete the sight of Hope dead on the floor by my feet.
The second the light clicked on, I launched out of bed.
Nausea bubbled. Dizziness made me stumble. I grappled with the wall as I tripped into my walk-in wardrobe and fell to my knees where I’d hidden Dad’s gifts.
I tipped the plastic bag upside down and counted the tiny parcels.
One, two, three.
Three more to give to my mother.
Three more requests from my dead father.
All of them centred around the girl I was destined to fall in love with. Marry. Have children with.
Things that would never be feasible.
I didn’t want those things.
I couldn’t have those things.
Therefore, none of those events would come to pass.
Which meant Mom would never have the gifts selected for her by her deceased husband.
They’d rot in their pretty wrapping, never to be given.
No.
It couldn’t happen.
I wouldn’t be the cause of such tragedy.
I no longer wanted the obligation of being custodian.
I wanted them gone.
They were Mom’s.
They were Dad’s.
It was time she had them.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Jacob
* * * * * *
“HAVE YOU SEEN Mom?” I asked Aunt Cassie as she carried a bucket of feed toward her chosen riding horse of the day. A cute dapple called Romy.
“Nope. Not since yesterday when we collected the two rescues.” Her face fell, the cloudy sky softening the darkness of her brown hair. “God, Jacob. That place? Those poor things were chained to a tree with no food or water. They’re all skin and bone. I officially hate people.”
I jammed one hand into my jeans pocket while the other clutched the plastic bag holding Dad’s gifts. “Glad you guys saved them.”
“It’s gonna take a long time to get their trust, poor things. Any sudden moves and they’re explosive.”
The Son & His Hope Page 35