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I swallowed hard. "Did he not tell you what happened?" I gestured at his side. "The reason he's in that bed?"

"He said he got a little too close to an angry bear," Zane said, glancing at his son, confused. "Is that not the truth?"

"It's a version of the truth,” I said, “and only part of it."

"Tea, it's not important," Jax said.

"It is to me," I snapped, and then shut my eyes as I mentally pulled back on the attitude. "It's important to me," I said again, keeping my tone soft and quiet. "Your family, your dad in particular, deserves to know the truth of what you did."

"So tell me, Tea," Zane said. “Please.”

"I was attacked by the bear. That's what happened. I was using the facili-trees, and somehow this giant mama bear didn't notice me. She got startled, and because she had her cubs with her, she came at me. Your son charged the bear, stood over me, and fought it off with a tree branch and a rock. We're both alive because of his courage."

Jax rolled his eyes and sighed heavily. "It wasn't—I was just—"

I covered his mouth with a hand. "Hush, bubbie."

"Mmm. 'Kay," he mumbled into my palm, and then kissed it. He tugged my hand down. "And we wouldn't have been alive to even be attacked by a bear in the first place had you not managed to get us down alive after that fuckin’ goose attack.”

Zane eyed his son. "Those were some important details to leave out, kiddo.”

Jax snorted. "What? I'm gonna be all like, 'I'm a hero!'" he adopted a nasal, obnoxious, Poindexter voice. "As fucking if, Dad."

Zane chuckled. "Guess not." He looked at me, then. "Well, thanks for clearing it up. But you do deserve credit. Especially for caring for him after he was injured. The fact that he's not half-dead from an infection is due to you. Plus the whole, you know, crash-landing." He squeezed my ankle. "Colonel Parker Landry is a good friend of mine from the teams. He may have briefed me on your final op."

"You served with the Colonel?" I said. “Colonel Landry was my X-O on the SAR unit, and a damn fine officer, someone I respected immensely.

"I did." He squeezed my ankle hard enough that it was a pointed gesture. "Are you okay?"

He wasn't asking about physically. This was a man who knew.

I nodded. "Yes, I am." I looked at Jax, then back to Zane. "To be perfectly frank, Zane, I wouldn't be if not for him. He helped me keep it together when I was on the verge of losing it."

“I’m right here," Jax complained.

Zane patted his son's thigh. "We know."

Mara came back in then with a green Jell-O cup and plastic spoon; she peeled the lid off, stabbed the spoon into the Jell-O, and handed it to Jax. "Here. Eat."

"Green Jell-O?" Jax exclaimed, sounding genuinely excited. "Hell yes. Thanks, Mom!'

I covered my mouth, but couldn’t stop a splutter of laughter, and I knew the look on my face as I watched the grown-ass man gobble the treat down like a toddler had to have been…squishy.

He stopped mid-chew and looked at me. "Whah?” he mumbled, baffled.

In for a penny, in for a pound, right? I kissed his cheek. "Nothing. You're just adorable."

"I like green Jell-O." He sounded petulant. "When was the last time you had Jell-O?"

I frowned, blinking and thinking. "Um. I couldn't even say. Sugar wasn't really a thing in my house."

Jax groaned. "My god. Along with joy, fun, excitement, or any other kind of human pleasure."

"I may have given you a slightly unfavorable impression of my father," I said. "He's not a bad man. He was lost when my mom passed, and he did his best. He was…strict, but he meant well."

Jax sighed. "If you can defend him after everything you've told me, then he can't be all that bad."

“He's really, really not. Things are easier between us now that I'm an adult. I think he just didn’t know what to do with kids. I think he was sort of subconsciously expecting Mom to do most of the parenting, since he was active-duty Navy. I was just a teenager when Mom died, and he was suddenly the sole caregiver to two teenage girls on top of his own grief. He was far from perfect, but it was never malicious or cruel. It may have felt that way at times, but I've come to understand him better."