Page 21

Jack thought he heard a baby crying. Where had a baby come from? It was nighttime. Somewhere. Where was he?

Cave. Cave? The cave and— Chloe. He tried to say her name, but nothing came out of his mouth except a raspy kind of noise. He couldn’t seem to open his eyes. Heavy, too heavy. After the spurt of panic, he told himself to breathe, to count, to settle. He couldn’t protect anyone if he couldn’t open his eyes.

He started to become aware of things. The beep of machines, the feel of something on his arm. The sound of people shuffling. He managed to open his eyes to bright, blinding white. Hospital.

Well, he was here, so he had to be alive, he supposed. But then he caught sight of a woman. A woman with dark hair and soft eyes. Maybe he was dead after all. “Mom?”

But it only took a second or two to realize it wasn’t his mother. It was Mary. “Sorry,” he rasped.

Her smile was a little strange, definitely teary. He tried to get his brain to engage as he looked at her standing there next to his hospital bed. She looked different. She had a little bundle in her arms. Even with his brain fuzzy, that all made sense to him. “Mary.”

“Sorry Walker couldn’t help you guys. We were a little busy.”

“You had the baby.” A baby. He’d been fighting for his life, and she’d been giving birth. What a strange, strange life.

Both his sisters had babies . He remembered them being babies, and now they were mothers. His brain was too fuzzy to fully comprehend all this. He wanted to sit up. He wanted to ask a million questions.

“You’re going to have to hurry up and get better so you can hold him,” she said. She didn’t cry, but he could hear the pain and fear in her voice.

“I’m okay.” Of course, he had no idea if that was true. He’d been shot. Twice, if he remembered correctly. He tried to move, but he couldn’t quite manage and the pain was starting to flutter above the fuzzy feeling.

“You will be. We’ll all baby you till you are.”

“I can’t sit up. Let me see him, huh?”

She tilted the bundle until he could see the scrunched up little face of a sleeping newborn with a shock of dark hair.

“The problem is, I married a man whose last name is Daniels.”

Jack didn’t quite follow. “Why is that a problem?”

“I could hardly name my son Jack Daniels,” Mary replied, looking lovingly down at the newborn in her arms.

“Why would...” He wanted to shift uncomfortably. “You don’t have to name anyone after me.”

Her eyes were full of tears. “Of course I don’t have to. But I wanted to—Walker and I wanted to name our son after the best men we knew. You’re at the top of that list, for both of us. I want that legacy for my son. I wanted him to have someone he knew, someone he’d spend his life looking up to. So he always knew what was right. Because his namesake would be right there, showing him.”

Jack was completely and utterly speechless. “Well.” But he remembered Chloe talking about legacies, and ghosts and how being sad is not all that bad. It felt like a million years ago.

“So, we did the best we could, all things considered,” Mary said with a little sniff. She used her shoulder to wipe a tear off her cheek. “This is Jackson Dean Daniels. If we end up shortening it, he can go by JD. But it’s after you, it’s because of you. His name. Who we all are.” She started crying again, tears rolling down her cheeks. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

Okay. That cave. Today. This whole thing. “Chloe? Ry? I... I don’t remember exactly...” Chloe had been okay. She had been. Had to be.

“They’re both fine. Carlyle and Zeke got to you guys just in time. Jen Rogers and her two accomplices have been charged with the murder of Mark Brink and our parents. I knew you’d want the details, and they’re still wading through them all. But everything with the bones, with the snake and Detective Hart, it was all part of planning to murder Mark without Chloe getting any wind of it.”

Jack closed his eyes. His mind was whirling in too many directions. He wanted to see Chloe. Wanted to see for himself she was okay, but she wasn’t here. Mary was and...

And after sixteen years, they finally knew. “We’ve got answers now, Mary. Who killed Mom and Dad. Why... If you can call it a why. Everything we tried to find all these years.”

“It’s so strange,” she said, her voice a creaky whisper. “I just don’t care.”

He managed to open his eyes, and she was gazing down at her son, those tears still on her cheeks. She kept talking. “You’re okay, and I have him. We all have...so much. It’s a tragedy to have lost them. It’ll always be a tragedy. But answers didn’t change anything. Us all living our lives on the foundations they gave us. That’s the only thing that matters.”

It was such a strange thing, to agree. After years of thinking having answers would change something in his life, he now had those answers and nothing changed. Not really.

“Mary, where’s Chloe?”

“She’s fine.”

“That isn’t what I asked.”

“She... We aren’t sure where she went. She got checked out by doctors, answered all the police’s questions, but we kind of lost her in the fray. It’s okay. Carlyle and Anna are out trying to track her down, but we know she’s okay.”

He tried to sit up, but he couldn’t. He cursed his own weaknesses. Cursed everything. “She’s going to blame herself. She can’t seem to help it. I just—”

“Don’t worry, Jack. We’ll find her, and we’re all going to make sure she knows just where she belongs.”

Here . She belonged right here .

C HLOE KNEW SHE couldn’t just sit in the hospital parking lot forever. She had to act. She had to... She didn’t want to see him, and she didn’t think she’d ever be able to breathe again if she didn’t see with her own two eyes that he was okay.

He wouldn’t blame her. He’d be irritated she blamed herself. She understood all these things rationally, but she could not seem to move past all the swirling things she knew about Jack and who he was and the horrible things she felt about herself.

Hey, this is why we go to therapy . Well, she’d have a doozy of a session at her next appointment.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

Chloe looked up to see Carlyle stalking up to her, Anna not far behind.

“We’ve been looking all over for you,” Anna said.

Chloe shook her head. “You should be with Jack. You should—”

“And who do you think Jack wants to see?” Anna returned. “Come on. Get up. Let’s go.”

They stood on either side of her, taking her by the arms and hauling her to her feet. But she didn’t let them pull her to the door.

“I can’t go in. I wanted to. I just...”

They didn’t let her go, but they did stop trying to pull her.

“Chloe, you’ve had a day,” Anna said, as gently as Chloe had ever heard her say anything. “But neither you nor Jack are going to rest until you see each other. Trust me. I know.” Because her husband had been shot last year, and she’d been hurt too. So maybe she was right, but...

“My mother killed your parents, Anna.”

“Yeah. Hell of a thing.”

Like it was that simple. “My brother made it worse. Everything...it all connects to me .”

“Self-centered much?” Carlyle said under her breath, making Anna snort out a laugh.

“I just want to curl up and die.” Which was not something she would have ever admitted to out loud if she wasn’t having a day , she supposed. And she didn’t really want to die. She just wanted...

“Wow, that’s super melodramatic,” Carlyle said, and she was gently tugging her forward.

“I’m impressed. I didn’t think you had it in you,” Anna added, also applying pressure to move her forward.

“You guys...”

“Chloe, we know you. All of us. I get it, better than most, how having a parent with that kind of evil in them can mess you up, but you’re too well loved to let what other people have chosen ruin your life.”

Too well loved. Ouch.

“ And Jack loves you. He needs to see you. And since you love him, you’re going to get over yourself and go see him.” Anna gave her yet another tug.

Chloe didn’t know how to argue with that, so she was somehow being pulled down hospital corridors and to a hospital-room door. Anna shoved it open. “Go on, now.” Then Anna and Carlyle stood shoulder to shoulder like they were blocking any potential exit.

So Chloe had to step in. Had to look.

Jack was in a hospital bed. Hooked up to all sorts of awful things. But his eyes were open, and he was talking to Mary.

Chloe must have made a noise, because Mary turned, and Jack looked over at her. She would have kept looking at Jack, but Mary was holding something. She was... “Mary... You... You had the baby.”

In the middle of all this awful , a baby had been born.

Mary smiled at her and took a few steps closer, holding the baby so Chloe could see his face. “Meet Jackson Dean Daniels.”

Chloe looked at the little newborn. She’d never been around babies much. The little bundle seemed like an alien lifeform to her. And still...

“He’s perfect.” She couldn’t help but smile down at the baby, especially when he blinked open his deep blue eyes and seemed to be squinting at her in suspicion. “Perfect.” Jackson . After Jack, no doubt.

It made her want to cry all over again.

“I think so,” Mary agreed. Then she looked at the doorway. Chloe looked over her shoulder to see Walker standing there.

“Good to see you both in one piece,” he offered, presumably to Chloe and Jack. But he didn’t tear his gaze away from Mary or the bundle in her arms. “Time’s up, honey. You need to rest.”

Mary nodded, but as she passed Chloe, she leaned close. “Stay with him until someone else comes, okay? I don’t want him alone.”

Chloe wanted to argue. She wanted to run away. But that was just childish and probably her exhaustion talking. She nodded at Mary, then hesitantly moved closer to Jack in the bed.

He looked too big for it. Too vital. He’d been shot twice. Gone through surgery. And still he seemed just like himself. When she felt like a bag of broken, rusty, disparate parts.

“Hi,” she offered.

“Hi,” he returned. And said nothing else. Just kept that steady gaze on hers.

Everything inside her felt bruised. He didn’t say anything, just looked at her with dark eyes. But she had seen that expression on his face for a while now. In every smile, in every secret goodbye in the dark, in the way he protected her. In the way he let her in when he let no one else in.

And still, all the ways today connected to her felt like a wall she couldn’t cross. So she fell back on what she usually used as a shield. That cop persona she’d developed.

“The police arrested everyone, including Ry. They’re all turning on each other, so sentencing should be straightforward once they get that far. There are still some questions. The scrapbook is missing, and no one will spill on why it’s so important. So there’s work to be done. Bent County will handle it, though.”

He gave a little nod but still didn’t speak.

“Jack, I—”

“I need you to do me a favor,” he said, cutting her off, even though his voice was weak and raspy.

And because it was, she immediately swallowed the apology. She’d do anything for him. Always. “Okay.”

“I need you to never, ever, for the rest of our lives, say you’re sorry to me about this.”

She should have known. “Jack—”

“Listen to me. It hurts. It hurts to watch you blame yourself when you dug your way out of all that trauma, all that awful, and made yourself into a smart, honorable , wonderful person. I don’t look at you and see them. Never did. Never will. And I know you can’t magically wipe away any feelings you have on the matter. I get that they’re complicated and messy, but I love you no matter what. So I can’t take any apologies when you have nothing to apologize for. Okay?”

She knew he was right, but she hadn’t felt it. Until he said it. Then it was like... God, she could breathe again, even as tears filled her eyes. She took the rest of the steps so she stood next to the bed now. She wiped at her eyes with the backs of her hands. She wanted to touch him, hold him, but... “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Then stop crying, Chloe.” He held out his hand at kind of an awkward angle, she supposed because that was the only way he could manage it. She took his hand, and he squeezed.

Him, lying in a hospital bed, trying to make her feel better. She grabbed the chair that was situated a ways away from the bed and drew it closer so she could sit next to him. So she could press her forehead to his hand. She couldn’t quite stop crying, but she tried.

“I’m not sure I would have... I’m glad you’re okay. I’m...” She looked up. Met his gaze. Pain was in his expression. Physical. Emotional. The whole gamut. “How about we leave it at, I love you and I’m glad you’re here.”

He smiled a little, but he didn’t say anything at first. Just kept looking at her in a way that made her want to fidget.

“What do you say we get married?”

Her mouth dropped open because what ? “What?”

“We’ve been together for about a year now. Why not?”

“Because a million reasons. And we have not been together. Sneaking around to have sex is not being together. What kind of meds are you on?”

“Okay.” He yawned, winced a little. “We can wait.”

She didn’t know why that made her feel deflated. She clearly just needed sleep. But he just lay there in the bed, holding her hand, starting to look sleepy and...

“I put in an application to Bent County.” She hadn’t been going to tell him. Not until she got the job— if she got the job. But it just seemed right, somehow.

It was his turn to be surprised. “What?”

“They’re starting a K-9 unit, and I wanted to be a part of it.”

“I thought the applications on that closed a few months back?”

“They did, but one of the people fell through, so they’ve got one position. I... I didn’t do it originally because I didn’t want anyone to think I was doing it for you. To have you.” She swallowed, looked down at their entwined hands. “I didn’t want you to think that, or maybe I was afraid that... I don’t know. Afraid. Period. Always. I just... The past few days have been a mess, but it was a mess you were there through. No matter what. You didn’t leave my side. Even when it hurt. Even when it got you shot. You were there and...”

She looked up at him.

“Chloe, marry me. Please. Because no matter what, I’m always going to be there.”

She wanted to laugh. And cry. And...agree. Most of all, agree. Not try to think it through, not try to worry it out. She just wanted him. “Okay,” she managed.

“What changed your mind?”

“Seemed wrong to say no twice to a guy who was shot twice by my own mother,” she said, sniffling as tears kept falling over her cheeks.

“Yeah, that is a bit much.”

But it wasn’t the truth. There were so many truths, but the main one had hit her over the head when she’d first come in. “You look at me the way Walker looks at Mary.”

“I believe that’s called lovesick .”

“I’ll take it. Because I’ve never had... No one’s ever cared. Not the way you do. And you’re not perfect. I want to punch you half the time, but you are the best man I know, Jack Hudson.”

“That’s mighty handy, because I happen to believe you deserve some best, Chloe Brink. And I plan on giving it to you.”

And Jack Hudson always came through on plans.