A Powerless World | Book 3 | Defend The Homestead Hunt, Jack (read my book TXT) 📖

bone, dripping water everywhere. His skin was cold to the touch, and he was shivering hard.

“Stay here.” She lowered the window and headed out to get a couple of towels. She returned and tossed one at him and he ran it over his head. “Well, you better strip out of those clothes.” He stared back at her and she gestured with a hand for him to hurry up. “C’mon. You’ll freeze to death.”

He unbuttoned his shirt, peeled it off, removed his pants and underpants, and wrapped one of the towels around his waist while he used the other to dry his body. As soon as he was done, she told him to get into bed to warm up. She stayed a short distance away, looking at him from the end of the bed where she perched her butt. “What’s happened? Why are you out in this?”

Tears welled up in his eyes and he brought a hand to his face.

In all the years she’d known him, she’d never seen him cry. It wasn’t his way. He put on this hard exterior and always did what was expected of him. Tears were a weakness to his family. “Hey, hey… what’s up?” she said, touching his hand.

“Lincoln.” He could barely get the words out. “He’s gone.”

He and Lincoln were like two peas in a pod. They had fought like cats and dogs over the years, but they’d never let an argument get between them. Nina shuffled in close and wrapped an arm around him and placed his head into her lap. He sobbed hard for the first time. It was so out of character. She figured it was more than losing his brother as his response to the death of his father, who he adored, was far less than this.

For at least an hour she didn’t say anything. She just ran her fingers across his scalp.

At some point, he fell asleep and she covered him with blankets and stood by the bedside looking at him. Everything in her wanted to be angry but she couldn’t. She loved him. She considered going into the other room to sleep in Helen’s bed but opted to climb in beside him.

When morning came, she awoke to find Jessie gone.

The blankets were pushed back, his clothes and boots removed from where she’d placed them. She lay there, a hollow feeling forming in the pit of her stomach. Once again, she’d opened up to him and he’d used her. Why did she allow him to do that? Staring at the ceiling, she sniffed a few times and heard what sounded like water boiling. Nina got out of bed and donned a bathrobe and tucked her feet into slippers before making her way down the corridor.

In the kitchen, Jessie was pouring out water. Steam swirled up around his face. He glanced at her and smiled. “Oh, hey, I didn’t want to wake you. I hope you don’t mind. I was going to bring it to you but now that you’re up…” he said, crossing the room and handing her instant coffee with a spoon in it. He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek before turning to collect his. “Um. Nina. About last night.”

“It’s okay. I won’t tell anyone.”

His lip curled. “Thanks. I just… well, it’s been hard. I’m sorry for just showing up.”

“It’s all right. I don’t mind.”

She nursed the cup with both hands and took a seat at a round kitchen table. There were a few books stacked on it, old dog-eared novels she figured she’d get around to reading at some point. “How did it happen?”

Over breakfast that morning he brought her up to speed on their trip into Trinity County. The attack. The bodies that had been scalped. His argument with his mother. When he was done, instead of waiting to hear what she thought of it all, he asked, “So where’s Helen?”

“She headed up to the farm. Hank wants all the family there. Says it’s to protect them all and…”

He nodded. “Sounds like my mother.”

“How did you know I was here, Jessie?”

He took a sip of his drink, looking off around the room and acting as if he wasn’t listening. “Hmm?”

“How did you know I moved in here?”

“You told me.”

“No, I moved in a few days ago. We haven’t talked in almost a month.”

“Huh.” His brow went up, a smile lingered.

There was a pregnant pause.

“Have you been following me?”

He peered over his cup, trying not to look her in the eye.

“I knew it. I knew that was you I saw. When?”

He shrugged. “Once a day.”

She smiled. Deep down she knew what he’d said outside Alby’s home wasn’t him speaking, it was his mother. It was what every Riker who had come before him would have said — that the Stricklands and Rikers wouldn’t ever be anything more than enemies. “Why?”

“To make sure you were safe.”

She placed a hand on him and he placed his other hand on top of hers.

He quickly shifted the conversation.

“So, have you decided which room you’ll use for the baby?”

“She’ll stay in…”

“She? It’s a girl?”

“I’m not sure but that’s what a friend of mine says it will be. It’s too early to find out yet but she dangled a ring over my belly and said that’s what it’s going to be.”

He laughed. “And you believe her?”

“She hasn’t been wrong.”

“Yet.”

Nina judged him. She wasn’t sure how he would take hearing it was a girl. There was a chance it was a boy but her friend had always had this knack of determining the gender of a baby with a ring. If it moved back and forth it was a boy, if it went in a circle, a girl.

“Well, if it is a girl, have you thought of a name?” he asked.

“I’ve always liked Gemma.”

“That’s a good name. Strong. Though I was thinking something like Mary Jane.”

“What?”

“You know, with your family business and mine dealing in weed.”

“That’s a nickname for weed, Jessie.”

“And a nice one at that.” He smiled broadly.