by A Parker
She nodded and spoke matter-of-factly. “He inhaled a lot of smoke, which can be quite dangerous. The oxygen supply he’s on now will help him a great deal. Trust me, he’s in good hands. We’re going to do everything we can to help him. I can’t make any guarantees, but I think he was lucky to get out when he did. Another minute or two in there and we might have been too late.”
Brody have my hand a squeeze. “We have to let them do their jobs, Sam. Come. Let’s get you sitting down. You’re no help to him like this.”
No help to him.
Of course, I was no help to him! It was because of me that he was in this condition. If not for me, he never would have charged headlong into the fire. If not for me, he wouldn’t be lying here on his back, unmoving, looking so unlike the Jackson I knew and loved.
Loved.
Shit. What a terrible time to realize you were in love with someone—while he’s unconscious and half dead.
I broke.
Mason and Brody guided me away from Jackson and the paramedics as I began to sob, and soon Brody was kneeling in front of me and guiding me through some deep breaths to help me calm down. He warned me that I needed to stay calm. My lungs were in bad shape and didn’t need any extra effort on them right now. Once he had me stable, he sat down with me and rubbed my back in slow circles.
For some reason it calmed me.
“Jackson has been to hell and back a dozen times over,” Brody told me. “This? This won’t kill him. Bates shouldn’t have played games. If he wanted Jackson dead so bad, he should have shot him just like he shot William.”
“I can’t talk about this,” I said.
His hand stilled on my back. “I’m sorry.”
“Where did he go? Bates?”
“He rode off when we pulled into the lot.”
“And Jim?”
Brody studied me for a moment, and I was pretty sure he considered lying to me. “Jim is dead.”
I nodded.
Good.
Grant walked over to us carrying something in his arms that he’d wrapped up in his jacket. He sat down in front of me and stretched his long legs out in front of him before setting his bundled jacket between his thighs.
My eyes flicked from the jacket to his face.
Grant smiled. “I found this behind the building. I had a feeling you would want it back.”
Slowly, he peeled back pieces of his jacket, one sleeve at a time, until it revealed a tuft of orange fur.
My heart leapt into my throat.
There, curled in on himself, was my precious Toes.
My crying started all over again.
“Damn it, Grant,” Brody muttered.
I rocked forward onto my knees and gathered my cat up in my arms. He nuzzled into my shoulder and meowed. His little body shook with fear and his claws pressed gently into my skin, but I didn’t mind. I kissed his face and buried my face in his fur, which still smelled like smoke.
Tearfully, I looked up at Grant. “Thank you.”
Chapter 34
Jackson
“He looks like shit.”
“Yeah well, at least he smells better than he did when we pulled him out.”
“Smells better than Hogey.”
Laughter. Subdued but laughter nonetheless.
I was lying down on my back in a comfortably cool room that smelled like a dental office. It didn’t take long for me to deduce that I was in a hospital bed, and the voices all around me were that of my men.
My Devil’s Luck.
Just like luck, they’d pulled through and saved my ass.
“Where the hell is Hogey anyway?”
“Who cares?”
“Probably back at Grant’s.”
“He’d better not be.” Grant’s voice was distinct and clipped with irritation. “I don’t trust that fucker. He’ll take whatever he can get his little rat hands on.”
Susan sighed. “He’s back at the storage facility. I sent him off when you called about the fire, Mason. I didn’t think it would be a good idea for him to be anywhere near us with all this going on. Jackson wants to keep him in our back pocket, so that’s what we should do. I told him we’d call him when things settle down.”
“Wiser than your years as always,” Mason said.
“Kiss ass,” one of the men joked. I was pretty sure it was Brody.
“Piss off,” Mason said.
“Boys,” Susan said after a click of her tongue. “Leave it alone. He’s waking up.”
They crowded my bed as I forced my eyes open. I blinked up at a white sterile ceiling and their faces and was reminded of the last time I came to with them all around me. That night felt like days and years ago all at once.
Susan tucked blonde hair behind her ears and winced. “How do you feel, Jack?”
“Like a burnt piece of bread.”
Mason cracked a smile. “You look like one too.”
Susan scowled at him and he retreated from the bed. With a roll of her eyes, she turned back to me. “What do you need?”
“Water,” I croaked.
She fetched me a cup of water from a table beside my bed and held it to my lips. Not interested in being baby-fed, I tried to push her away and take the cup from her, but I realized my hands were bandaged. I looked back and forth between them and frowned.
Susan bit her bottom lip. “The burns are pretty bad, Jack. It’s going to take some time for you to fully heal. Weeks probably.”
I could do weeks.
I let my sister slowly pour little sips of water into my mouth. It soothed my aching throat and dry tongue, and once the cup was empty, I made myself comfortable by raising the back of the bed so I was in a sitting position.
My men and little sister watched every move I made like I was a tower of matches ready to fall apart at any second.
“Sam,” I said softly. “Someone tell me. Is she all right?”
Brody spoke up for the group. “She’s fine. She’s just down the hall in her own room. A bunch of her employees from the Well are with her now. She won’t stop asking about you.”
“It’s been kind of annoying actually,” Susan said.
“Give the girl a break.” Knox folded his arms over his chest. “She’s had a rough night and last she saw Jack he was covered in soot and looked dead.”
Susan shrugged. “I was just saying.”
“She’s a badass,” Brody said. “Quick thinker, too. If she hadn’t wrapped herself up in those wet towels she never would have survived.”
I grimaced as I tried to get comfortable again. After only being awake for less than five minutes my body was already beginning to protest. I felt heavy, like the weight of the air was too much to carry, and everything pressed down on me. Movement that should have been easy cost more than it ever had. Just shifting my weight in the bed had me out of breath.
Brody seemed to notice my discomfort. “The smoke inhalation was pretty bad, Jack. Your lungs are going to take some time to heal. You’re lucky, man. Really fucking lucky. When we first pulled you out…” He trailed off and shook his head. “We didn’t think you were going to make it.”
I didn’t think I was going to make it either.
Jameson nodded. “It was bad, Jack. Really bad.”
Susan shifted uncomfortably in her chair beside my bed.
Mason seemed to notice her unease and changed the subject. “The police questioned Sam when she woke up, but they didn’t seem all that concerned about foul play. They’re suspecting a busted gas line or some shit. Looks like Bates has them in his pocket after all.”
“We knew that,” I said. “What about Jim?”
“What about him?” Mason asked innocently.
“Did they ask her about him? His body was right below her window. They’d assume she saw something and if they are on Bates’s payroll they’ll be looking to pin his death on someone.”
Mason shrugged. “Beats the shit out of me. There wasn’t any body there when we rolled up.”
; I frowned. “Yes there was.”
“I didn’t see one,” Brody added.
Everyone else agreed, and I looked around at them all as I realized what they were saying. They’d done the dirty work and gotten rid of the body.
“And Clyde?” I asked.
“Somewhere Bates can’t get a hold of him,” Grant said with a smirk.
“Good,” I said, shifting once more to try to relieve some of the pressure on my ribs. Fuck, my whole body sang with pain. I’d taken some hits before, but Jim really did a number on me, and his beating on top of the smoke inhalation must have been too much.
Susan got to her feet, and for the first time, I noticed she was wearing pajamas. What time was it? Had she been in bed when she got the call that I was in the hospital? Had any of them slept?
“We should let you sleep,” Susan said.
“What time is it?” I asked.
“Seven,” Brody said. By the light trying to break through the blinds, I knew he meant morning.
“I don’t want to sleep,” I grumbled. We still had way too much shit to do.
Bates, curse him, still had free rein out on the streets, and there was no telling what he was up to now that I was stuck in this damn bed. We needed to make plans. We needed a course of action. We needed to make sure we weren’t playing defense when he was already working on his offense strategy.
“Ever since I got back to town, he’s been several steps ahead of us,” I growled as I stared at the bandages on my hands. “I’m done with that shit. I’m not going to sit on my ass while he plots against us.”
Susan arched an eyebrow and stared down at me. “Uh, excuse the hell out of me, but that is exactly what you’re going to do. You’re going to sit on your ass until you’re healed, and you’re going to let us do our part in the meantime. No more solo death-wish fights, do you hear me, Jack?”
“I don’t have a death wish.”
“Regardless,” she seethed, leaning forward to rest her hands on my mattress and look me in the eyes, “you’re not going to do a damn thing besides get better. Right, gentlemen?”
None of them said a word.
She shot a furious look over her shoulder at them. “I asked you a fucking question.”
“Right,” Brody muttered.
“Of course,” Grant and Gabriel said in unison.
“You’ve got it, Suzie,” Mason said.
Jameson nodded. “Sounds good, boss.”
“Hear you loud and clear,” Abel said.
Knox chuckled. “Don’t look at me. I wouldn’t cross you for a million dollars, Suzie.”
She straightened and smiled approvingly. “That’s what I thought.”
I glowered at them. “You’re a bunch of pussies.”
“Don’t be like that, Jack,” Mason teased.
Brody moved toward the door. “Would it make you feel better if we brought Sam in here? It’s been more than ten minutes since she checked in last, so I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before she tries again.”
I sat up a little straighter.
Brody chuckled and pointed his chin to the door. “All right, everyone out. Romeo here needs his privacy with the lady Juliet.”
Susan rolled her eyes as she strode past him out into the hall, but the other men gave me thumbs-ups and big grins, and my stomach rolled with anticipation at the thought of seeing Sam’s face.
The last time I’d seen her I thought we were both going to die. I needed a new memory to replace that one.
Chapter 35
Samantha
Susan leaned against the wall outside Jackson’s hospital room. Her arms were crossed and the sole of one shoe—a slipper I realized—rested against the wall. She wore a pair of mismatched pajamas and her hair looked unruly. When she got the call that Jackson had been taken to the hospital she’d probably been cozy in bed.
When she heard me coming down the hall she looked up from the glossy linoleum floors. Her expression remained passive, but her stare was sharp and intense and full of judgment.
I chewed the inside of my cheek as I drew closer and hoped she didn’t say anything to me. I already knew all of this had been my fault. The last thing I needed was to be reminded by Jackson’s sister that I’d almost cost her the only brother she had left.
Mason stood on the other side of the door but he was speaking on his phone in hushed tones. I heard Hogey’s name pass between his lips, and when I got closer, he turned his back to me and wandered off down the hall in the opposite direction, where the rest of the MC had congregated amongst a cluster of chairs by a vending machine.
“Don’t keep him up too long,” Susan said when I walked past her.
Damn it.
I’d almost made it without having to speak a word.
I swallowed. “I won’t.”
My throat still hurt from the heat and the smoke, but talking wasn’t as hard now as it had been when I first came to out on the lawn with Brody. I’d been hooked up to a supply of oxygen for the last six hours, which helped, and my doctor had informed me that I had to spend the next twenty-four hours here to be monitored. Apparently heart attacks and other complications were a high risk for those who experienced the kind of inhalation I had, and they wanted to walk on the safe side.
Nobody would confirm with me, but I suspected Jackson might have to stay a day or two longer than me.
“He needs rest more than anything else.” Susan had her big brother’s back. She wasn’t going to let me off the hook that easily.
I nodded. “I know.”
Susan pushed off the wall with a tired sigh. “I’m glad you’re okay, Sam.”
Blinking, I tried to find my words. She was glad? Did she mean that?
Susan raked her fingers through her messy hair. “I’ll stay out here and won’t let anyone else in so you guys can have your time.”
My throat ached but not because of the smoke. I swallowed past the lump and licked my lips. “Thank you, Suzie. I really appreciate that.”
“He cares a lot about you, you know.”
He’d run into a burning building to save me. Obviously he cared about me.
“I know,” I said softly. “I care a lot about him, too.”
“I hope so,” Susan said. “My brother is a strong man. He’s been through a hell of a lot, and even this won’t slow him down, but when he gives himself to someone… well, he gives everything he has. Don’t fuck him up, Samantha. I mean it.”
There’s the Susan I know.
“I have no intention of ever hurting him,” I told her.
She nodded for me to go ahead and into his room. “Good.”
“Good,” I echoed because I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I took my opportunity and brushed past her into the room.
I wasn’t ready to see him.
Jackson lay on his bed with his eyes closed. His face was half turned away from me, like he’d been looking out his window at the view of the casino three blocks away from the hospital. A jet plane had left a white streak in the blue sky above and I watched it grow for a moment while I listened to the sounds of his monitor beeping.
The door closed quietly behind me.
Jackson’s eyes fluttered open. He lifted a hand to rub them and hesitated, remembering his hands were bandaged. He had no idea I was standing there, and for a moment I wasn’t sure I wanted him to see me because as soon as he looked at me I knew I was going to fall to pieces.
So I held my breath and sat in the moment for as long as I could.
Jackson cursed quietly and let his hand fall to his side. His head sank deeper into his pillow and he closed his eyes once more as he drew a slow, deep breath. He exhaled, full of control and precision, and I wondered if he was meditating.
No, I thought, deciding the idea was silly as soon as it hit me. Jackson isn’t the kind of man who meditates.
And yet he looked so incredibly peaceful lying upon the bed, minus the bandages on his hands and around his neck, of course, and all the
bruises and swelling Jim’s fists had left on his face. Both of Jackson’s eyes were bruised dark purple, and he had a split lip as well as a gash through his right eyebrow that looked like it had required a couple of stitches.
All of this pain could have been avoided if I’d been smart enough to look through the peephole on my door when Bates came knocking. I could have called Jackson to warn him. I could have hidden. I could have done anything other than just let them do what they’d had planned from the start.
Jackson grimaced as he tried to get comfortable on the bed. Seeing him in pain hurt my soul.
All of this was my fault. All his pain was on my head.
I hung my head and sniffled.
“Sam?”
Holding the tears at bay, I forced myself to look up at him.
Jackson smiled. He actually smiled. How could he manage to smile at a time like this when he was so busted up?
“Hey pretty girl.” He patted the side of the mattress, where there was just enough room for me to sit down. “Come here.”
I lurched forward and nearly tripped over my own feet before crawling onto the bed beside him and letting him wrap an arm around me. There seemed to be no good place to put my hands because I was so terrified of hurting him, but Jackson put a hand on my head and guided my cheek down to his chest. I rested upon him and closed my eyes as he ran his fingers through my hair.
“How are you?” he asked.
“Better now.”
“They’ve taken care of you here?”
“Yes. I’m fine, Jackson. Completely fine. But you’re…”
“Also going to be completely fine.”
My resolve shattered. My tears soaked through the thin fabric of his hospital gown in mere seconds. He continued stroking my hair while cooing softly to me, whispering to me over and over that we were both okay.
Through tear-filled eyes, I looked up at him. “I thought I was going to have to watch you die.”
Jackson’s brow furrowed with what could have either been pain or anguish; I wasn’t sure. “And I thought you were dead,” he said. “When I found you on the floor in your living room—fuck Sam. You saved your own life with those wet towels. I don’t know what I would have done if…” He trailed off.