The teen shoved his hand through his black hair, causing it to stick up all over the place, and blew out a breath.
“It’s not my place to say, but I don’t know what to do.” He rubbed both hands down his face and then dropped them to his lap.
I’d never see him like this. Moody sure, Ruby had been right about that, quite a lot of the time also, but I’d never seen him look mad, out of control, and tormented.
Or lost.
“Does this have something to do with Patience?”
His gaze snapped to mine. “How did you know?”
“Honestly, I didn’t. But the two of you are close, that’s easy to see and as worked up as you are right now it seemed the most logical guess.”
Jett looked back down at his clenched hands, breaking eye contact.
“I don’t want to betray her trust. Too many people have done that already.” He flexed his hands and then balled them up again.
The kid was angry, something else I hadn’t witnessed. Moody before, yes, but not angry. I wanted to help him and it was obvious he needed it, along with Patience.
“Sometimes getting someone the help they need isn’t betraying them. It may feel like that, but you care enough to find the help they may need.” I laid my hand on his back. “Let me help you, Jett.”
He blew out a sigh and opened his mouth but before he could say anything, Ruby spoke.
“Help him do what?” I looked over into her concerned and curious gaze.
Our phones chose that moment to chime alerting us to someone being on their property and we all reached for our cells. I saw a car pull in and park next to the shop but didn’t recognize it. I looked at Jett and he met my eyes.
“I didn’t know where else to tell her to go. I gave her a key to the shop and the code to turn off the alarm if there was an emergency. I’m sorry.”
The worry in his voice killed me. He thought he was not only betraying Patience in some way if he talked but that he’d also betrayed his family.
Ruby’s tone was gentle when she spoke and I could tell she wasn’t angry but more concerned herself about what was going on. “Why would she need to go there, Jett?”
When he didn’t answer, I looked back over at Ruby who was looking down at the phone in her hand and she gasped. So I took a peek again at mine.
The car had driven off leaving Patience standing in the cold night, the shop light shining down on her.
But she wasn’t alone.
“We have to help them,” Jett said with a broken tone. “Nobody else is going to do it and I won’t walk away like everyone else has in her life and not help her.”
A determined look settled in Ruby’s eyes. She had so much on her plate right now between the worry of a possible stalker, her mom dying, and Autumn. Yet, everything in her eyes as I watched her said she was about to take something else on no matter if it added to her already full plate.
But she didn’t have to do any of it by herself.
Because she had me.
I looked back at the phone and the tiny bundle wrapped in Patience’s arms just as Ruby spoke again.
“Is that her baby, Jett?”
We both knew the answer but it had to be asked. And there were a lot more questions that would follow.
Looking back toward Jett, he nodded. Then he answered a question I was sure his sister wanted to know.
He and Ruby’s eyes locked. “It’s not mine.”
I was looking at Ruby so I could see the air visibly leave her lungs. If it was she would handle it, I knew that, but I also knew that if Jett had kept it from her from the beginning that would have hurt her.
