Page 89 of Carry Me Home
“I know you don’t remember this, but twenty years ago we met by the river. My dad had bailed, Essie was upset, and I didn’t know how to fix any of it. You gave me your candy for Essie. You didn’t even know me, but you helped me anyway.”
“I remember. I thought you didn’t remember.” My whole world was tilting upside down.
He laughed. “I told you, Janie. I never lose track of anyone, but especially not you. We’ve always been a team. Fuckingalways.Even at ten years old, you were someone I could count on. I’ve never forgotten that. I trust you, Janie. I trust you with your life and I trust you with mine.”
I blinked rapidly, my lips parting.
“Both of us are a little disoriented right now, but so what? We’ll work it out together. I’ve learned my lesson, I promise. I’m not going to fix anything for you. I’ll fix itwithyou. You do that for me, too.”
I sniffled. “Really?”
The look he gave me was pure Jack. Exasperation and tenderness in equal measure. “Don’t you get it? You’re my ace. As long as I have you, I can’t lose.”
My heart. Myheart. It was full to bursting.
“I don’t have my life where I want it to be. I don’t have a plan, and yeah, I’m never going to be comfortable with that. But I’ll get through it.” He cupped my face in his palms, his eyesboring into mine with so much love that it stole my breath. “I’m not lost, Janie. I know the direction home. I’m looking right at her.”
My eyes swam with happy tears. “I love you, Jack,” I choked out.
“I love you, too.”
He kissed me. Muffled whoops from inside the bar made us break apart, laughing.
“I have to go back in before they rob me blind,” he said. “Are you heading to the library to pick up Maya?”
I nodded. “See you at home, soldier.”
37
JACK
“This party gets bigger every year,”Ted Hale mused. He had a can of Coke in one hand and a spatula in the other. He didn’t drink alcohol since he’d taken to it a little too well after his wife passed away from cancer several years ago.
It was the fourth annual end-of-summer bash at Lodestar Ranch. Adam’s son, Ben, had started it right around the time James had started working at the ranch and it had been a tradition ever since. There was always good friends and good food—and an excessive amount of watermelon, courtesy of Ben’s garden.
Right now, Ted and I were on grill duty. Ted had the burgers and I had the brats. Ben was showing Maya his garden. James had her eye on them while she chopped watermelon, but Ben was a teenager now and probably one of the most responsible kids I’d ever met. He’d keep Maya safe. Steven had Grayson strapped to his chest again and was setting up a game of cornhole with Adam. Janie, Essie, Chloe, and Brax were making watermelon margaritas, and Zack was pushing Hannah on the old rope swing.
“We keep adding new people to the family.” Ted pointed his Coke at the yard. “This year, that’s you. Seems strange that this is your first time. You’ve always been family, Jack. You and Cat and Essie. But I suppose you were off being a hero. Anyway, we’re glad you’re here now. There was a time when some of us worried that maybe you wouldn’t ever be.” He said it lightly enough, but I heard the real emotion in the words.
“I sometimes worried about that myself,” I confessed.
Not that I had ever really thought much about dying. With the work I did, death was an ever-present threat. At some point, I tuned it out and stopped worrying about it.
But beinghere. Love and laughter andfucking feelingsright on the surface where I didn’t have to go digging for them? I hadn’t thought it was possible. I’d had to shut all that off to do my job because worrying about all the hearts you’d break if you died was a surefire way to cause second-guessing, and second-guessing led to mistakes, and mistakes led to death, which led to the broken hearts you were trying to avoid in the first place.
I remembered the day I met Maya, how it seemed like I might never feel again. Like I was a mountain, and people were nothing more than ants. I wasn’t a mountain anymore. I had finally zoomed back in.
I felt it all now. The good, the bad. All of it. And I was fucking grateful.
Ted lifted a burger slightly to check its char, then flipped it over completely. “I’m always a little sad when summer ends and Ben goes back to school. I suppose you’ll be going through that yourself with Maya. What’s next for you?”
That question would have made me spiral six months ago. Now I shrugged. “I’m looking at a few options. I want to keep the first few weeks of school flexible for whatever Maya needs. Janie tells me those weeks can be pretty hectic. After that…” My gaze went to the mountains. “I have a job offer with a search andrescue team. I volunteered on a rescue a couple weeks ago and I think it could be the right fit for me.”
Ted hooted. “Back on your hero shit, eh?” He clapped my shoulder, and then his large, gnarled hand lingered there in a paternal squeeze. “I’m proud of you, son. I know Cat is, too. Hell, we all are.”
I shifted from one foot to the other. That kind of talk still made me want to crawl into a hole and hide. Some things never changed, I guessed. “Thanks,” I said gruffly, sipping my beer to hide my red face.
“Yep.” Ted nodded briskly. “Hard to believe how much things have changed around here in the past four years. Two of my boys married, and Zack is engaged. I have the feeling Chloe is giving the whole lot of them baby fever.”
