by Kendra Mase
“I will stab you,” she warned.
“Aw, but then you will have to stitch me back up, sweetheart,” Jack said, leaning forward once more. “And we are obviously not ready for those kinds of games yet.”
“My god, are you going to take forever?” Jace snapped, looking away from where the needle punctured his skin.
Oh, right.
“Just take another sip of the whiskey and let Jack’s girl do her work, will you?” Brian said. His eyes quickly adjusted and he looked in Katherine and Jack’s direction. “I don’t think you want to be taunting the lady with the needle about to go into your leg.”
“You really don’t have to do this, Kit.”
It was just like fabric. Very thick, moving fabric.
“Everyone needs to shut up right now and get back,” she snapped. Her voice even sounded stern to her. But they were too close. Everyone was too close, watching her. “If I’m doing this, I need space.”
After a short moment of silence, Brian took lead once more. “Well, you heard the lady. Give her some room before Jace bleeds out on our favorite campsite, yeah?”
Well, there was no turning back now.
Staring back down at the wound again, trying to imagine it like a blank canvas, precut fabric.
Gritting his teeth, Jace swore a few more times as she got to work, not warning him this time.
His jaw locked. He looked at her from her knees to the top of her head, where she was sure there was a rat’s nest after a long day of work and passing out in Jack’s Jeep. “You’re my brother’s girlfriend?”
“Um.” Katherine swallowed, focusing on what she was doing. It wasn’t so bad once she got started. “Not exactly.”
“Where did you meet him?”
“I met him at work.”
“Work?”
Katherine nodded. “I’m an apprentice for my aunt. I met him and some friends at one of my stops. Jack helped me out.”
Jace’s smile was as focused as his gaze. “Bet he did.”
Glancing up at him, Katherine gave the thread an extra little tug.
He grunted with pain. “What the hell?”
Katherine didn’t answer. She only shrugged.
“So, who are you then?”
“What do you mean?”
Jace’s jaw was tight, eyes looking to the point of tears as he held them back. “You know what I mean.”
“I am just a friend.”
“Is that what we are calling it now?” Jace asked with a snort. “Or are we blind?”
Katherine looked up and glared at him. Need she remind him she had his bloody leg and a needle at her disposal right now? Her hand could easily just—slip.
“Obviously not. In case you haven’t noticed, I am sewing your leg back together.”
He made a low muttering sound.
“What’s your problem?”
“Besides the fact that some chick is sewing up my leg in the middle of the woods?”
That was what she was going for. She sure didn’t want to talk about how his blood was staining her fingernails. “Jack said that you were close once out of the rest of them. It doesn’t seem like it.”
“He said that?”
Again, she nodded.
“Jack’s a liar.” Jace let out a hiss of breath as Katherine paused.
Turning to look back down, she squinted and shoved the needle back through again. He only needed one more, just to be sure.
“My god—could you at least try to be a little nicer about that?”
“Sorry,” Katherine apologized. Still, she might even say that her stitches were looking rather nice. If only Emilie could see her now.
“How old are you anyway?”
“I’m twenty.”
“Twenty,” Jace repeated. His eyes stayed on hers before she made them turn back down to her work there. She needed to focus. “I’m eighteen.”
“You graduate this year then?”
“Nope. Graduated last spring.”
So had Katherine.
Sucking on the inside of her cheek, Katherine cupped his leg, trying to get a better light as she made her way up the cut.
“He was nervous to come back.”
“He should’ve been nervous,” Jace choked back. “He doesn’t even care.”
“He cares.”
“Man, give that guy an award.” Jace gave a single clap.
Lifting Jace’s pant leg up a little farther to ensure she didn’t miss anything, Katherine noticed the stark lines and dark swirls of a tattoo coating his thigh.
He jerked his leg away, wincing. “It’s just marker.”
“It’s really good.”
Jace said nothing. He only looked at her, less angry, more unsure.
“Is your hand okay?” Katherine asked. “I saw you looking at it before. I know how careful you probably are about your hands as an artist—”
“I’m not an artist,” Jace snapped. Only this time, his voice was less angry, more unsure.
Katherine leaned back to her kit on the edge of her bag. She found the small embroidery scissors she bought herself the other week. She hadn’t thought the first time she’d be using them would be for this. Birth by blood. She clipped the extra thread.
“All done.”
Jace only looked at her, not even glancing at his leg.
“Can we come back now?”
Katherine turned toward Jed’s voice. On the other side of the site, she also noticed Jeremy again. His head was propped up on a cushion of leaves, sleeping.
“Finished,” she confirmed as they drew closer.
“Here,” Jack said, getting to her first, helping her up. He tilted a bottle of water, so it ran over her hands. She scrubbed them together until she saw the darkness begin to fade, like shadows running back into the night surrounding them.
“Thanks.”
“Hello there,” a voice cut between them. Turning, Katherine met a pair of round, honey-shaded eyes. A family trait, then. “I’m Brian.”
Katherine blinked twice. “Kit.”
“Kit,” he repeated with a nod. He glanced back at Jack with a twitch of his lips before turning away again, focusing on her.
“You stitch my youngest up good?” Brian gave a crooked smile at her work. There was no doubt looking at it now that it was a little haphazard, sure to produce a decent scar.
Still, Katherine tried to imitate the well-meaning smirk. “Good as he’s going to get.”
Brian’s mouth pressed back together, a laugh at the corner of his lips before he settled with a simple nod. “Nice to meet you, sweetheart. Sorry this had to happen so soon after your arrival, but hell, sure tells me a lot about you.”
Shutting her eyes, Katherine shook her head.
Jace, finally, was silent behind them, looking at the fire and up at the stars.
“You okay, Kitten?” a deep voice interrupted. The tone was so low she was sure only she could hear.
Jack’s one hand came around the back of her neck, pressing lightly.
It felt good. Almost like a massage, but not at all the massage she needed as tension only began to dissipate down her spine. It felt like something had fallen off of her shoulders in only the last few minutes.
“You good?” he asked, close as if only for her to hear.
“Perfect. I’m basically ready for med school now.”
“Impressive.”
“Well, now that we got this mess sorted and Jeremy is already half in his grave, we all best get some sleep or else your mother will have my head,” Brian said, looking over to Jed.
Jack cleared his throat. “We’ll head back to the house, then.”
“It’s too dark to walk back now,” Jed said.
Katherine didn’t really see how the darkness now was different from a half hour ago, but she looked around nonetheless.
“We’ll be fine,” Jack argued.
“No, your brother is right,” Brian said as he poked at the fire with another stick. He didn’t look
back up toward Jack. “You two will stay here for the night. We don’t want another incident.”
“We can walk—”
“Two to a tent,” Brian directed. “Jed, stay with Jer to make sure he doesn’t get sick on himself. Jace?”
The youngest finally looked back up. “What?”
“You’ll bunk with me and give Kit and your brother the tent you set up. I’ll keep an eye on that leg.”
Jace shrugged. It looked like he, too, was now focused on not looking in Jack’s direction.
He tensed beside her. Still, he didn’t argue. Helping Jed again to haul Jeremy into a tent, murmuring to themselves. Brian, doing the same with Jace. Katherine walked over to the green canvas tent on the end.
Unzipping the front flap, inside was a single sleeping bag and blanket.
“You sure you’re okay, Kit?” Jack appeared behind her.
She nodded, kicking off her shoes that were speckled in a healthy coating of mud and blood. Katherine crawled inside. Sitting down, she watched as Jack did the same.
He zipped the flap up behind him. “This okay? We can still head back to the house if you want.”
“It’s fine,” she assured him. It was no different than sleeping on the same couch, really.
“Scooch over then, let’s figure this out.” In a simple motion, Jack unzipped the sleeping bag, opening it up, so it spread over the canvas floor. Grabbing the quilt next, he shook it out until it fell over the top. Glancing up at Katherine as he worked, a strange smile crossed his face. “You look like you’ve come from war.”
Looking down at her legs, smeared in earth, she couldn’t imagine the rest of her looked much better. She crossed her arms over one another. “I think you should be thanking me.”
“Oh, I know.” He gave a reassuring smile.
With a wave, he motioned for her to get under the blanket. The cold, now that she had finished her task tonight and stopped walking, started to seep into her bones.
“I’m going to get them all dirty.”
“They’ll wash. Me, on the other hand.” He wagged his eyebrows.
Katherine swatted him as she crawled under the blanket. It was still cold, but less so as she wrapped the soft flannel around her. “You know, I’ve never been camping.”
“What a great way to start.”
She only shrugged. Brian was right, after all. It sure told everyone a lot about her. Told her something too. “How are you?”
“What do you mean?”
Katherine only stared at him. They both knew what she meant.
He motioned for her to move over as he got situated. Reaching for the battery-powered lantern, he flicked the button, cascading them back into darkness. On her back, she looked up toward the tent ceiling, listening as he shuffled to get comfortable.
With a huff, he turned toward her.
Still, Katherine didn’t move. If she did, she was pretty sure she’d startle him.
“I didn’t expect much coming back,” Jack said. “I mean, I know it could’ve all gone so much worse already.”
“What did you picture? Your dad screaming at you? Telling you not to come back?”
Jack didn’t answer.
That must’ve been exactly what he pictured. “Jack, from what I see, your family missed you. Maybe they are a little mad, like Jace.”
“Jace?”
She nodded before she realized that he couldn’t see her. “Jace seems to have you at the top of some sort of list. Out of everyone, it’s him I’d watch for.”
Jack chuckled.
“Your mom looks like she would’ve run to Ashton to find you sooner if she knew that you wanted her to,” Katherine went on. “And your dad… your dad wants to forgive you.”
“You think?”
“I think it’s the forgetting he is having problems with,” Katherine added. “And Jeremy, well, who knows if he even realizes you’re here yet.”
Another laugh escaped. A small smile curved her own lips at the sound. “What did happen, though?”
“I thought I told you how I left.”
“You did, I just mean—Jace. He seems more than a little angry.”
“Right.” Jack took a deep breath. “Jace thinks that I left him behind, and I did in a way. I left them all, but to him, I left him.”
“What do you mean?”
“I told you before that out of all the brothers, I was closest with Jace.”
Again, Katherine nodded to herself.
“When I was in high school and the idea of running off to the city formed in my head, I told him about it. We’d make these grand plans together about what we would do and what Ashton would be like.”
“Like you make plans about traveling with your photography.”
Jack paused. “Right. Anyway, eventually, after a few years of fighting with my dad about what I thought I was doing with my life, I did leave. I left early one morning to catch the bus, and I stopped by his bedroom before I left to tell him where I was going. He nearly started yelling loud enough to out me before I reached the front door. I told him I wouldn’t be gone forever. I’d come back.”
Something in Katherine’s chest stopped beating at the admission. “But you didn’t.”
“I didn’t.”
He left him. He left them all, just like that, and he didn’t look back. At least, to them, it didn’t look it.
Katherine thought about her mother on the day she left, birthday candles melting on the pink frosting flowers. She thought about her father, who barely exchanged much of a conversation near the end. She wasn’t sure she would let them back in.
But then again, they were never really hers.
Jack let loose a heavy sigh. “It feels crazy being back here.”
“In a tent?”
“Yeah, Kit, in a tent.” He nudged her with his foot.
She nudged his back. “It’ll be okay.”
“How do you know?”
“Because they love you.”
The tent went quiet again at the simple truth without the threat of a single dare. They didn’t need it now. They just were, and it was getting easier.
Katherine curled herself, bringing the blanket with her when she closed her eyes. Her lids were so heavy, she couldn’t keep them open even after her nap in Jack’s Jeep.
“Stars, you’re shaking the tent.”
“Sorry.”
“Come here.” Jack’s arms reached out and before Katherine could realize what he was doing, Jack pulled her tighter against him. Twisting around, she could still smell the remnants of his soap. “Better?”
Her heart hammered in her chest. “Better.”
After another moment, Katherine let some of the tension of being so close to him, held by him, leach out of her. She relaxed against him. Her head in the crook of his arm, it was oddly comfortable, how they fit.
“Hey, Jack?” Katherine whispered.
“Yeah?”
“Why did you invite me to come home with you?”
“You offered.”
She did.
“And, I wanted you here,” Jack whispered as if only talking to himself. “I always want you here.”
Slowly, as if only grazing her skin, Jack’s hand swept up the side of her leg. Starting at her knee, his fingertips traced up over her exposed thigh.
Keeping her breath steady, Katherine’s hand, that remained flat against his chest, gently moved. Sliding it upward, she felt the way his muscles tensed, just enough, as she positioned her palm on his shoulder. Her thumb traced a small circle on his neck.
His fingers trailed over her hip, making the same circular motion as they said nothing in the silence. The back of his nails brushed against her ribs. The feeling, even through her shirt, sent shivers throughout her body.
The reaction only made him bring her closer.
She never imagined Jack to be soft, careful. From the first time she saw him, all she saw was a man that wanted something and went for it, only now, here she was.
&n
bsp; Jack had her.
They fell asleep like that, carefully taking turns in the darkness. Eyes closed, they touched and grazed hands against skin, like no one was watching, not even them. They touched as if one wrong move would cause the tether between awake and sleep to snap. There, they drifted off asleep without noticing where their simple touches, tangled in each other, ended.
Chapter Twenty-Six
For sleeping on the ground, Katherine was surprisingly comfortable when she woke up. Stretching, she felt another leg between hers, and her head curled against a chest.
Jack’s chest, that she could now very clearly see herself literally drooling over in the morning sunlight.
Shifting, Jack blinked a few times as if he, too, was shocked at the position they were in. Recovering just as quickly, his arm rounded her shoulders with a squeeze. “Morning.”
What was happening?
Not willing to risk asking, Katherine slowly peeled herself away, the cool air a stark contrast to Jack’s skin. His hair stuck up in different directions on either side. She smoothed down one side before her eyes widened.
What was she doing?
He didn’t seem to notice before her hand snapped back into its own personal space. Sitting up alongside her, she heard shuffling. Jack reached forward to unzip the front of the tent. The dreary sunlight poured in on them.
“Finally.” Jed was on the other side. “Come on, we are packing up to get Jace back and help set up for the party later.”
Slipping out from the tent, Katherine adjusted her clothes while Jack stretched his arms up toward the sky. The hem of his shirt raised, exposing a slice of his stomach.
“Hey, Jack.”
“Hey, Jer.” Jack smiled. “How are you doing?”
“Besides the fact I feel like I just got ran over by a truck?” Jeremy asked. His eyes skittered toward Katherine. “Who’s this?”
“Man, you really remember nothing from last night, do you?” Jed said, shoving things into bags. Most of the camp was already cleaned up, looking very different than it did in the darkness.
Jeremy only shrugged, a hand still at his forehead.
“This is Kit,” Jack introduced.
“We ready to make our way home?” Brian asked from the other side of the fire pit. Jace was there too, propping himself up against a tree.