Page 24

Her words ring in his head and summon nothing but shame.

I don’t deserve to be a Jackson.

Fuck.

My brother’s grinning face hangs out the driver’s side window of his truck as I trudge down the porch steps, balancing a toddler and what feels like all his earthly belongings.

“You survived,” he playfully croons at his son, twisting to reach behind him and open the back door closest to me.

Slipping Izzy into his car seat, I click his straps into place, tugging about a hundred times to make sure he’s secure before situating myself in the passenger seat. “I can keep a tiny human alive for twelve hours, thank you very much.”

“I was talking to you, sunshine.” When I fail to do so, Jackson reaches over to yank my seatbelt into place. “You look tired. He sleep?”

“Uh-huh.” He did. I didn’t. I was up all night thinking and moping and wishing there really was a bottle of wine hidden in my underwear drawer. But I don’t wanna talk about that. “Is that specialist guy coming back today?”

Jackson nods, and I grimace.

“You don’t like him?”

“You do?”

His face says it all.

“I hired him for three sessions,” he admits. “We just gotta let him finish them out.”

Makes sense, unfortunately. I can handle two more days of his presence.

Probably.

When we pull up outside the main house, I’m planning on slipping away to the barn like I do every morning, but a firm hand on my shoulder stops that from happening. “We’re having breakfast.”

I’m not hungry , I’m about to claim, except my stomach picks the perfect time to make a loud, rumbling interjection.

Jackson smirks, letting go of me for the ten seconds it takes him to maneuver his son out of the backseat, and then he hauls me up the porch steps and practically kicks my ass through the front door.

I’m mid-throwing a scowl over my shoulder when a slightly shorter, slender body knocks the breath out of me. “For fuck’s sake, Eliza.”

Clutching my torso like I didn’t just see her yesterday, my little sister boops me on the fucking nose. “I missed you.”

“I see you every day.”

“But you’ve been skulking.”

“I have not.” I totally have. Almost a fortnight of being here and I still feel like an intruder—skulking is only natural.

Lingering awkwardly in the doorway, I watch my sisters and my brother and my nephews and my sister-in-law waltz around the kitchen in weird, routine harmony.

Like they do this every day. Which they probably do.

With Isaac on his hip, Jackson nudges me towards the table that’s set for five adults, a baby, and a toddler.

As I slide into a chair and stare at a plate that’s already piled high with food—somehow, I know the stack of blueberry pancakes is the exact same recipe I used to beg Lux to make when I was a kid—something about the situation starts to feel a little suspicious. “Is this an intervention?”

“Didn’t Lux already do one of those?” Luna winks, knocking away the knuckles my older sister aims at her clavicle.

Stealing her son from her husband-to-be, she flops onto the chair opposite me, nursing the boy while she snags a piece of toast from the platter in the middle of the table. “It’s just breakfast, chaos girl. Eat.”

I do, if only because the wrath of a breastfeeding lady is not something I want to agitate.

And then I keep eating and eating and eating because everyone was right—Eliza really is a good cook.

I knew that already, I’ve known for over a week now, yet it still surprises me.

So good that when she, in all her affectionate glory, stations herself behind my seat, arms hooking around my neck and her chin digging into the top of my head, I let her stay like that.

I even reach up and give her forearm a squeeze.

“Is your ankle okay to ride?”

I swear Lux’s neck cracks with how furiously her head whips in my direction. “Why wouldn’t your ankle be okay to ride? I thought it was fine.”

“It is fine,” I insist before throwing Jackson the stink eye. Rat . “Why?”

He stink-eyes me right back. “Got a couple of new horses for trail rides. I thought you and Yasmin could take them out for a test drive.”

“I can go alone.”

“You can go with Yasmin or I can send Yasmin with someone else.”

I purse my lips as I think about it—only for a second though. I haven’t ridden since I got back here, and I can’t deny that I’m itching to. So I relent with a jerky nod, and through a mouthful of pancakes, I ask, “Can I go check on Ruin first?”

The second Jackson nods, I’m on my feet, snagging a handful of sugar cubes from the bowl on the table, halfway out the door before Lux stands too, making me pause. “I’ll come with you.”

Another little voice chimes in. “Can I come?”

Lux shoots her son a look. “You know the rule.”

Alex pouts, but he doesn’t protest other than dodging his mother’s hand when she goes to ruffle his hair and—God, I can’t believe I’m admitting this—looking remarkably like me as he sulks.

“What’s the rule?” I ask Lux as we head outside. I don’t miss the quick glances she keeps shooting my ankle, so I make a point of rushing across the yard, making it to the barn in record time.

“He’s not allowed near the new horses. ‘Specially ones like Ruin.”

An instinctual sense of protectiveness, defensiveness , makes me frown. “He’s not that bad.”

Almost on cue, there’s a thud and a pissed off whine from the very back of the barn, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d swear the stallion did it on purpose.

You were saying? the look my sister shoots me says.

“He’s just kidding.” Once we reach the right stall, I click my tongue at the occupant, smiling tightly. “Right, buddy?”

Tossing his mane, Ruin eyes me warily. I cluck again and he huffs, but he sidles a little closer. Close enough to snuffle the palm I extend towards him, a haughty tilt to that majestic head as he blows out an indignant noise when he doesn’t find anything.

Laughing quietly, I reach into my back pocket for the treat he’s looking for. “See?” I glance at Lux, finding her watching us with a weird look on her face. “He’s a big softie, really.”

A huffed, amused exhale leaves her as a slow smile curls her lips. “Chaos and Ruin. How about that?”

By the time the other hands mosey into the barn, I’m already hoisting myself onto the back of a gray Quarter Horse and praying my mount doesn’t look as unpracticed as it feels.

Although, I doubt my lack of grace is what brings their jovial conversation to an abrupt halt—I guess my simple presence does that all on its own.

And as much as that might make me want to throw myself beneath a stampede trampling hooves, it doesn’t quite hit as harsh as I imagine it would if I were standing on my own two feet. If I wasn’t sitting firmly in my comfort zone.

It’s like a switch flicks in my brain as I grasp the reins, my spine straightening, my hips rolling in unison with the unnamed gelding who I gently urge forward.

Something inside of me sighs contentedly before settling, not even the watchful, obsidian eyes burning a hole in the side of my face capable of disturbing me.

I don’t say anything as I trot outside, assuming Yasmin already knows the plan—and rightly so, considering only a few minutes later, she appears, riding the newest of one of the many Apaloosas that call this place home.

“Ready?” she asks, flashing one of those pretty, wide smiles when I nod. “Where’re we going?”

Immediately, my favorite route comes to mind.

When I suggest we take the long way to the creek that runs along the edge of Serenity, Yasmin nods excitedly, knowingly , and that makes me feel a little…

weird. Jealous. No, I think territorial is the better word.

Because I imagine her going there, to what I remember considering the safest, most peaceful place in the world, with her friends, with my family.

And I’m a little shit, I know I am, but I don’t like it.

For the longest time, it was our place. Just ours, the five of us. A hiding spot and a break from life and some serenity within Serenity. Somewhere I don’t even think our grandparents knew existed.

And then, Jackson started bringing his friends from college there. And Luna became a permanent fixture. So did Hunter and his now-girlfriend, who back then was just my brother’s ex, and I guess it all spiraled after that. It became a communal gathering place.

Which is fine. Or it should be fine. It’s just a creek.

It doesn't really matter.

And yet when Yasmin, a veritable stranger, some employee who’s only lived here for less than a year, leads the way there, it doesn’t feel all that fine to me.

But at least it’s Yasmin, I find myself thinking.

Not Theo, who I’m pretty sure hates me, or Finn, who I know at least doesn’t like me, or Adam, who doesn’t seem to feel any particular way about me at all.

It would be awkward with them, but Yasmin?

She’s the antithesis of awkward. She’s allergic to it.

She scares it. Fuck, she scares me a little, but I think…

I think that what I said to Finn about not being The Grinch, about liking some people, if that was the truth and not just a defense, which I’m not really sure of either way, then I would like Yasmin.

I must like her a little because I feel pretty fucking bad for her right now.

Stuck with me in the middle of nowhere, all but yapping to herself because I don’t know what to say.

How to respond to her. How to talk to her at all.

I’m scared if I open my mouth, something mean will come out on instinct.

“Sorry you got stuck with me,” is what I eventually manage to piece together, cutting her off mid-rant about… fuck. I don’t know. I wasn’t listening. “I know you would’ve preferred to be with Theo or someone else.”

Yasmin eyes me sideways, a quiet laugh leaving parted lips. “Oh, you know that, do you?”

“I mean… I assume, yeah.”

She seems to think on that for a moment before humming thoughtfully.

“You’re the one stuck with me,” she counters, not bitter or resentful like those words could be, like they would sound coming out of my mouth.

Just… plain. Matter-of-fact. The same way she says, “You’re the one who doesn’t like me. ”

Discomfort making my skin itch, I frown at the reins clutched between my hands. “I don’t not like you.”

Yasmin arches a thick brow. “No?”

“I’m just not…”

Her upper lip curls. “A girl’s girl?”

“An anyone girl,” I correct, flushing a little, fucking embarassed to basically admit that I have no friends and I kind of never have. Not any good ones, at least. “It’s not personal, that’s all I mean.”

Another thoughtful noise drifts through the air before a sigh sounds. “Listen, I’m not gonna force you to be friends with me, but I would like to be. I’ve been dying to have another girl around. I love the guys, don’t get me wrong, but at the end of the day, a man is a man, y’know?”

That makes me laugh. “Oh, I know.”

Yasmin slants me a look. “You got one?”

I snort. “Nope.”

“Sounds like there’s more to that than just nope .”

I pause. I sigh. I channel the spirit of fucking flourishing female friendship or whatever.

“I was seeing this guy for a while. Not a boyfriend, but… yeah. Anyway, we got in a car crash, he got out and left me there, and now I hope the next girl he tricks into fucking him gives him a really nasty case of the clap.”

With my eyes firmly fixed on the saddle’s pommel as I mumble my way through that confession, I don’t realize my riding partner has suddenly stopped until a screech comes from behind me. “He what ?”

Glancing over my shoulder, the corner of my mouth quirks at an expression that can only be described as gobsmacked. “A real keeper, right?”

“A real fuckhead.” Yasmin kisses her teeth as she urges the Appaloosa forward once more. “Was he driving?”

“His brother was.”

“And they both just left?”

I nod.

Disgust—that’s what contorts Yasmin’s pretty face. “ Men .”

I don’t mention Vic or her own speedy escape. I just agree, “Men.”

“In the interest of full transparency,” she says once she’s caught up with me. “I knew about the crash. And the arrest. I was there when Lux found out.”

I make a face. “She’s scary when she’s angry, right?”

“She wasn’t angry. I thought someone had died or something, she was crying so hard.

” Yasmin pauses just long enough to let that sink in—and sink it does, like a goddamn rock in my stomach—before adding, “We didn’t know about you.

Well, Finn did, I think, but he’s been around longer than the rest of us.

But now that we do know, it makes sense. ”

“What does?”

“It always felt like there was… I don’t know, a gap, I guess. Maybe it’s because I have siblings too, but I could tell something, someone , was missing, y’know?”

God, do I grasp at that chance for a subject change with both hands. “You have siblings?”

Yasmin looks at me like she knows exactly what I’m doing, but she lets me do it anyway. “A sister and a brother.”

“Are they all back in…”

“New Jersey,” she fills in the blank with a little smirk, not at all offended that I didn't have the slightest clue where she’s from.

“Nah. Reem lives in Canada with her husband and their kids, and Younes is in… India right now, I think. Backpacking .” She makes a face that says exactly how she feels about roaming the world, staying in hostels and carrying all your earthly belongings on your back. “He’s your age.”

“And you’re not?”

Yasmin barks a laugh that makes our horses’ ears twitch. “I’m thirty-two. So is Theo. Adam turned thirty last summer, and Finn’s the baby.”

“And by baby, you mean…”

“Twenty-six.”

“Ah.” I thought maybe he was older. Guess that air of superiority ages him.

“Although, I guess you’re the baby now.”

“ For now,” I correct. “You only have to put up with me for a few months and then it’ll be back to normal.”

My promise doesn’t earn the response I thought it would. Not even a sarcastic phew . It doesn’t earn any response at all. Not an immediate one, at least. Yasmin lets that natural silence resume as she assesses me with an indistinguishable look on her face.

And just as I’m about to ask what the hell she’s staring at, she declares, “I changed my mind. I am gonna force you to be friends with me.”

“Sounds painful,” my mouth protests even as something else, something buried deep and long dormant hums a quiet, jovial tune. “And ill-advised.”

Yasmin just grins. “Consider me warned.”