“Danny told her that he’d kill her if she ever hit Jude again.” Jack huffed. “They weren’t quite ten.”
“Did she?”
“No. But she realized she’d fucked up and started to drink even more. I hated having to leave the twins home to drive to town to try and find her, but I did that a lot toward the end. Didn’t have a license either, not that it mattered at that point.”
“But you have one now?”
He grinned down at me. “Yeah, they don’t let you drive vehicles in the Army unless you get a license.”
“Huh, makes sense.”
“I’d been doing night shifts at the only diner in a twenty-five miles radius and I’d told her to stay home with the boys. They could be left alone, sure, but also they were kids so they shouldn’t have to, right?” At my nod, he continued. “But of course she left them there and while they were playing, Danny fell from a tree and broke his leg. Compound fracture and all.”
“During your night shift?”
“Yep. They couldn’t sleep and it was summertime, so they could see outside so they went for ‘an adventure—’” he made the air quotes, “—and then Danny fell. Now, we had a landline phone, so Jude had to make the decision to either drag his twin into the house which wasn’t close, or to run back and call for help. It was a whole mess, really, especially when he couldn’t remember where they’d been when the help got there.”
“Holy crap.”
“Yup. Anyway, long story short, child services realized something was wrong and Mom showed up drunk to a couple of meetings and the rest was history.”
I pulled away enough to be able to sneak my arm behind him when he kindly leaned forward, and then I hugged him. Hard.
He wheezed out a theatrical laugh, then squeezed me back. “Thank you.”
I took in a deep breath, inhaling the scent of mint and whatever else made the scent that was Jack, and tried to keep my heart from falling any further.
“My name is Sawyer,” I whispered.
“What?” He looked down at me.
“Nobody else here knows,” I said a bit louder. “But my first name is Sawyer.”
He smiled. “Thank you for sharing that with me.” Then he grinned. “Nifty trick with the name though, asking to be called Rey.”
I smiled back. “My mom gave me the name, so I wanted…I don’t know. Not get completely rid of it, I guess.”
“So you kept the last syllable.” Smiling, he promised, “I won’t tell anyone. It’s your name and your story, and none of it is mine to tell.”
“I know.” I leaned back into his side and sighed at the same time with Bucky. I giggled, and Jack snorted.
“Do me a favor and don’t let me fall asleep here,” he said after a while.
“Okay.” I would totally let him fall asleep.
I closed my eyes and let the rest of the tension from the incident flow out of my body.
Chapter 12
Jack
I woke up when Bucky softlyboofed and got off the couch to go to the door.
Rey was still against my side, fast asleep. Adrenaline rush did that to you once the situation was resolved one way or another. I’d been there and done that much more often than I’d like to think.
Theo walked in ahead of Lake, and as soon as he was able to look into the living room, he stopped, turned around and gestured for Lake to be quiet.
Lake came around him and raised a brow at me.
