When They Just Know

by M. L. Buchman

  We’re keeping you overnight,” the civilian doctor actually tried to sound soothing which was better than most Army docs managed. “Gave yourself a hell of a whack there and a moderate concussion.”

  Not being a stupid doctor, he also retreated before Jana could manage more than a feeble protest. They’d given her a prescription strength Tylenol, but it didn’t seem to be doing anything for the steady thud of the headache emanating from the lump on the back of her head.

  Maggie and Stacy came up to either side of her bed the moment the doctor cleared out.

  “It sounds good,” Stacy had been hanging out with her brother too much. She had become almost as matter-of-fact as Curt. Or had she been that way from the beginning?

  “Good?” Jana protested.

  “You aren’t dead, honey,” Maggie brushed Jana’s hair away from her face.

  “A blessing of small favors,” she closed her eyes. She was glad she was mostly uninjured. The only part of her that she wished was dead at the moment was the part that had told Jasper to go to hell for being nice to her.

  “What?” Stacy took her hand and held it. That made her aware that her other hand had been removed and was sitting on the side table. It took her a couple of tries, and some embarrassing help from Maggie, to get her stump out of sight beneath the sheet. Even that grated at her, though it was a simple kindness. Had she so isolated herself from everyone?

  “I said awful things to Jasper. Things he didn’t deserve. At least I don’t think so. It’s all muddled up. Anyway, I totally screwed up everything, as usual.”

  “You’re not the only one,” Stacy’s voice was laced with enough chagrin to make Jana open her eyes once more. Stacy seemed to take a sudden interest in a heart monitor that wasn’t showing anything, because the doctor hadn’t turned it on. The only sound in the room was the air conditioning and the quiet chatter of a couple nurses at their station down the hall.

  “Spill it.”

  “Uh…”

  Jana risked moving her head to check on Maggie, but she was watching Stacy with wide eyes. Curiosity…or not believing that Stacy was about to reveal some dark secret? Jana couldn’t tell.

  “Stacy?”

  “I…might have…said something. Something that maybe I shouldn’t.”

  “What? To who?”

  “To Curt.”

  “What did you say to my brother?”

  “That…” Now Stacy was taking an interest in the ceiling tiles. When she went to step away, Jana held her hand tighter, even giving it a slight yank to make Stacy look at her. The gesture was a mistake, as at the moment everything in her body seemed to be connected to the throbbing lump on the back of her head.

  “Stacy…”

  Stacy blushed bright pink to the ears.

  “I said—”

  “There she is! Hey, Sis,” Curt’s voice boomed into the room, almost splitting Jana’s head in two.

  She winced until the pressure wave of the sound blast stopped echoing inside her head. When her eyes were able to refocus, she saw that someone was hiding behind Curt.

  It wasn’t working.

  Her brother might be six-foot tall and have broad shoulders that Stacy couldn’t help gushing about. But the lean man hiding behind him was six-foot-three and was topped by another several inches of cowboy hat.

  “Get out!” Now her own voice was hurting her head.

  The visible part of the cowboy hat turned for the door.

  “No! Not you, Jasper. Everyone else, out. Now.”

  “But…” Stacy held onto her hand.

  Jana squeezed it briefly, then let go. “Shoo,” she whispered it softly.

  “Buddy!” Curt slapped Jasper on the shoulder hard enough to send him stumbling into a wall. He turned to Jana, “You wouldn’t believe what he said about—”

  Jasper grabbed him by the wrist, flipped it up behind Curt’s back hard enough to make him squeak in pain, before Jasper shoved him out the door hard enough that he almost hit the wall on the other side of the hall.

  It took some cajoling to get the women to leave. Enough that Jana was beginning to wonder just how blind she’d been about Maggie’s and Stacy’s loyalty to her. They kept trying to hover, even when she didn’t want them to. She apparently had real friends, despite how she brushed people off.

  Stacy patted Jasper on the shoulder as she left. Maggie, who was over a foot shorter, pulled him down to kiss him on the cheek.

  As the room cleared, she wondered how in the world she was going to take back the things she’d said to Jasper. She’d meant…some of it. But not all. She could feel a whirling mix of fear that Jasper would decide to leave the Firebirds and joy that he was here in her hospital room. The two combined to leave her feeling rather nauseated despite the drugs the doctor had given her for just that.

  At last it was just them, though she could hear the others clustered outside the door having a whispered conversation.

  At her signal, Jasper closed the door.

  “Jasper, I…” No, she was being a coward, staring at the white ceiling. She turned to look directly at him. “Jasper, I… What the hell happened to your face?” One cheek and eye were purpling badly and the eye was half swollen shut.

  “Your brother,” he spoke barely above a mumble.

  “Curt punched you?”

  “I suppose that for a moment he thought I was the one who’d knocked you out. He’s even more protective of you than I am. You hit the ground hard. Scared me halfway back to Texas. Guess you scared him worse and he saw me kneeling over you with my hand at your throat.”

  “At my throat?” Jana swallowed her throat suddenly felt dry.

  “I was trying to make sure you had a pulse.”

  “A pulse?”

  Jasper nodded.

  “And that prompted the longest sentence you’ve ever spoken to me.”

  Jasper shrugged.

  “Why do you hate me so much?”

  “I don’t.”

  And he was right. A man who hated her wouldn’t rescue her by taking her out running. A man who hated her wouldn’t think up something as elegant as the Firebirds to give her a purpose when her parents were gone and she’d needed one so desperately.

  “Okay…” She thought about it a minute. “Then why don’t you ever speak to me?”

  8

  Because I…” Jasper desperately wanted to admit to being an idiot and then walk away while he still could. But that sounded even lamer than the truth.

  Jana waited for him.

  To buy himself a moment, he poured her a paper cup of water from a small carafe. But there was no straw for her to drink it while she was lying down, so he drank it himself. Then tried to figure out what to do with the little cup. Not the sharps bin. Not…

  He set it on the white steel table by the carafe and her disconnected arm. It was strange seeing the hooks without her attached.

  Forcing himself, he turned to her. By her perfect stillness it was obvious how much she was hurting. He could also see by the lines of the thin white sheet that she wore nothing other than an even thinner hospital gown beneath that. There was an extra bit of flatness along her right side where the hooks should be.

  Over the years he’d seen Jana looking elegant in a prom dress or hot in a swimsuit—thankfully she’d favored one-pieces over bikinis or it might have killed him. In full military dress, she’d been imposing. In casual camp gear, she’d been a treat.

  But lying here, he was forced to take a step closer.

  “Is it hard being back in a hospital?”

  Her darting look away told him just how hard. She actually shivered.

  He took the blanket from the foot of her bed and spread it over her. He pulled up a chair by her bedside and waited her out.

  She finally nodded, but still didn’t look at him.

  “I’m sorry I made you so angry.”

  “Maybe…I shouldn’t have been,” she stayed focused on the far wall.

  “Would it have hel
ped if I’d told you the things I was planning back when I was planning them?”

  “Duh,” and she moved enough to stare at the white fluorescent ceiling fixture for a while. At length, she finally looked at him. “Though to be honest, maybe not. If you’d told me you were taking me out running because I was busy making myself even more depressed with each passing day, I might have force fed you my sneakers.”

  “And the Firebirds?”

  “I don’t know. It was so elegant. It saved me. It saved both of us. It got Curt in charge of his own company, which he always wanted. It got him Stacy which is a gift beyond any he ever dreamed of.”

  Jasper knew that. He’d seen his best friend come to life from the moment they met. He knew what that felt like, deep inside. Every time Jana brushed against his life—even just a quick overseas text to Curt that was mentioned in passing—had breathed life into him.

  “If you’d told me, would I have believed in it any less? Would I have worked any less hard to make it happen? I don’t know.”

  “You liked that it was for your family. For you and Curt.”

  “I did,” Jana nodded, with only a small wince of pain this time.

  Jasper had known that about her. However much she’d complained about her little brother while they were growing up, the love was there like a shining streak of sunlight.

  “I’d lost all hope after I did this,” she raised her right arm and it slipped clear of the sheets. “You found a way to give that back to me.”

  He’d never seen her stump before. Jana Williams was never in public without her arm on. Even in the early days, when he knew it was hurting her, she wouldn’t take it off.

  He’d almost expected something hideous with how she hid it so carefully. But it looked as natural as could be. He couldn’t even see any scars at the end. Her arm simply tapered to a stubby point, a little wider than the bone that still remained within.

  She saw where he was looking and tried to tuck it back out of sight.

  Before she could, he simply lay his hand on the remaining upper part of her forearm, to show her it was okay.

  9

  Jana’s breath caught in her throat.

  No one touched her arm. The last person had been an Army physical therapist three years ago.

  But Jasper’s hand lay upon her skin as calmly as if it was the most normal thing in the world. She could feel herself switch from frozen stiff to blind panic.

  “Easy, Jana. Just breathe. Okay? Just breathe.”

  And somehow, his hand, lying so casually upon her hideous stub, let her do that. Let her breathe.

  Jasper sighed. “The reason I don’t talk to you?”

  She nodded, welcoming any distraction. His fingers began tracing lightly over her skin. Small movements, so tiny they probably weren’t conscious. But they stroked the skin by her elbow as if it was just…skin. Such a strange feeling.

  “You were always so out of reach. Too old when I was kid. Then married to your job and engaged to Captain What’s His Name.”

  Captain What’s His Name had never been her fiancé. He was gay as could be. But they’d become super close friends. She’d been his excuse to avoid the harassment that still existed in so many places, including his own family so he’d taken his leaves with her instead of going home. He’d been her shield against unwelcome advances. He’d kept promising to come visit her—she was the one who’d told him no and shut him out. Apparently he had also been a signal to Jasper to steer clear.

  “Once you were injured and he dropped you…” She could hear the fury in Jasper’s voice.

  “He didn’t.”

  “You’re still engaged?” Jasper jerked his hand away from her arm. She missed it. And she liked that he would never even touch another man’s woman, but it was clear that he wanted to touch her. Quite why was beyond her—did he really not see what a crippled wreck she was? But she wasn’t going to be chasing him off anymore either.

  “We never were. Different story for a different time.”

  Jasper looked thoughtful for a long moment, then slowly returned his hand to rest on her skin. This time, she was pretty sure that the gentle brushing of his fingertips was conscious.

  “Once you got back, you were so…”

  “I was so totally fucked up,” Jana knew what she’d been.

  “…down,” Jasper concluded. “I wanted to help.”

  “Then what was with the silence thing?”

  Jasper’s fingers stopped and he looked down, his cowboy hat hiding his eyes.

  “Jasper?” The silence stretched until she thought her head was going to crack.

  “You already gave me your answer.” He took his hand away and struggled to his feet. He turned for the door without looking at her.

  “Jasper!”

  He kept going.

  “You turn around and set your ass right back in that chair. We’re going to have this out now!” She’d sat up halfway, making the room spin. She flopped back down on the pillow and the pain bloomed to life—straight through the drugs. “Uh!” Jana could only grunt and squeeze her eyes shut while waiting for the spins and the pain to subside.

  No hand returned to her arm, but after a long, whirling silence, she heard the slight scrape of the chair as Jasper settled back into it.

  What was it that nobody wanted to tell her? Not Jasper. Not Maggie. Her brother had tried. Stacy had also tried—tried and failed. Something the doctor had told the others? But that didn’t fit. She wiggled her toes and the fingers of her good hand to be sure. All accounted for.

  She kept her eyes closed, the spins weren’t quite gone yet.

  “What did Stacy say to my brother?”

  “She said that I loved you.” Jasper said it flat out. No grumble or complaint. No sigh or hesitation.

  Jana opened one eye and looked at him.

  He was watching her from deep under the shadow of the cowboy hat’s brim.

  “And that meant that you’d never speak to me again?”

  “I never spoke to you in the first place.”

  “Jasper!”

  He groaned. “I was always scared shitless that you’d say ‘no.’ And then you did.”

  She had, hadn’t she. “I was angry.”

  “So angry that you fell out of a parked helicopter and knocked yourself out cold.” And Jasper’s smile came out. She’d seen it with Curt or when he was with the other guys. It had never been aimed at her before and it was a damned nice smile—even if he was teasing her. He was teasing her. That too was new.

  “But—” Jana twitched her half-arm beneath his lingering hand. She was less than whole in so many ways.

  “That doesn’t have shit to do with who you are, Jana. I’m not that shallow. To my eyes, you’re the most beautiful woman there is. If you think this changed that…” Jasper just shook his head sadly as he wrapped his fingers more tightly around the stub of her arm until he was holding it in a solid, intimate grip.

  Jana had asked Curt once how he knew that Stacy was right for him. Even when pushed, his best answer had been that he “just knew.”

  Jana had never “just known” anything in her life.

  Except maybe this one time she did.

  Her phantom hand had gone quiet. No need to twitch her shoulder, click her hooks, or fool with her hair. Somehow, her missing hand was finally where it belonged—safe beneath Jasper’s.

  She slowly bent her half-arm toward herself. Jasper’s grip held tight and he let the tension slowly draw him forward until his face was close by hers, under the shade of his cowboy hat.

  He hesitated half an inch out, and she raised herself up just enough to kiss him. It wasn’t some mild, gentle, hesitant kiss.

  Jasper knew who she really was. Apparently better than she did. And he made it abundantly clear that he wanted her exactly as she was. His kiss built like a wave under her skin until it flushed with imagination of what would happen as soon as she was out of this bed and in another one.

  She’d been
kissed plenty before…well, before. She’d let no man kiss her since the accident. Why would anyone want to? But amazingly one man did.

  And maybe that one man was all she needed.

  After he finally returned to the chair…

  When her head stopped spinning from a hundred good reasons instead of one bad one…

  While his hand still wrapped lightly about the stub of her arm more intimately than if they were holding hands…

  Sleep began to slide over her. The emotional day, the concussion, everything. But there was one more question that had always bothered her.

  “Jasper.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What’s with the cowboy hat? You’ve been in Oregon since you were four.”

  “Six,” but he chuckled. “Do you remember the first words you ever said to me?”

  She tried to concentrate, but his kiss had left her in such a floaty, dreamy state that she couldn’t seem to.

  “It was on the day we moved in next door. First time I ever saw you, Jana.”

  “Sorry, I don’t. Is that bad?”

  “No. Not bad. It probably meant nothing to you. It changed my entire world.”

  “What was it?” Her eyes drifted shut, she couldn’t fight off the sleep that overwhelmed her. It wasn’t just the day and knocking herself out. It was also learning that this special man could love her just as she was—impossibly he saw her as whole. And now that he did, nothing else mattered. So many fears left behind. Without them she could see something she’d long forgotten—that the future was a place of hope. Even from that single kiss, some part of her knew that she’d walk beside this man for as long as they both should live. What girl didn’t dream of that?

  His lips brushed over hers once more, then he leaned in to whisper in her ear.

  “You looked me square in the eye—you have such beautiful eyes, Jana—and you said, ‘Nice hat.’ I’ve worn one ever since just for you. I did all of it just for you.”

  Wildfire at Dawn (excerpt)

  If you liked this, you’ll love the smokejumper novels!

  Wildfire at Dawn