Breathe the Sky

by Michelle Hazen

29

  The Call

  Jack didn’t sleep much that night. For hours, he could hear Mari crying through the wall. Every sniffle, every scrape of a sob tore at his insides like a steel-toothed brush. He’d done that. To her.

  His brother warned him that he had a talent for disappointing people, but this was worse than that. Through the wall, it sounded like despair. She’d had such a bad run of it with men, and after this, he doubted she’d ever have the heart to try again. Nobody would get to see her slow smile, or the twinkle she got in her eye when she wanted to make a dirty joke. He’d ruined that not just for himself, but for every other man in the world.

  The shitty part of it was, he couldn’t see a way to do it differently. Every time he thought about ignoring his instinct to protect her and just leaving her to face Rod on her own, he came up against a flat refusal, like a dog hitting the end of its leash and a concrete wall at the same time.

  He. Could. Not.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t trust her. He’d match Mari’s brain against Rod’s and bet every cent he’d ever seen that she could outthink that old buzzard before she’d even had her coffee in the morning. And she was a flawless biologist. No way could Rod catch her in a mistake, because she never really made any.

  But Rod was meaner than her, in a way he doubted Mari could fathom. Rod was like a varmint that got into your garden. You could put chicken wire three feet underground, build the fences up to the sky, electrify those fences and line them with traps . . . and Varmint Rod would sneak in your bedroom window just to piss on your pillow. It wouldn’t win him a single vegetable to eat, but he’d do it anyway, out of sheer cussedness.

  Jack couldn’t abandon her to whatever Rod might do to her. Not even after she asked him to. Not even if she wouldn’t speak to him again.

  He understood that she didn’t want to be watched or be told what to do. He probably should pull Gideon back off Junior’s crew. Mari was right—Gideon couldn’t save her from Rod’s wrath. Mari could deal with off-color remarks, and if somebody got handsy, he bet she could kick their asses the old-fashioned way. With so many witnesses, it wouldn’t go further than that.

  Maybe she would let him apologize for being bossy. He really hadn’t meant to take her choices from her, and after her ex-husband, he could see why she’d be fully fed up with that sort of thing. He thought maybe there was still a chance she liked him enough that they could work it out.

  But every time he heard her take a ragged breath, doubt sank its teeth deeper into him. He’d heard crying his whole life, through cheap walls and doors, muffled into thin pillows and sometimes dirty laundry when there wasn’t anything else.

  His brother had taken him from his dad so they could have a fresh start, but it didn’t turn out all that fresh. It still smelled of Bud Light and dust and a little mildew. He still got yelled at, still caught the occasional fist. After they left, he never felt the cut of a belt again, but he wasn’t entirely sure that was an improvement.

  He loved Leroy more than he loved his dad, so it hurt more when he yelled. As a kid, Jack would have preferred the belt to disappointing his big brother.

  Jack flipped onto his side and balled a fist in the rough sheets, yanking them up over his head to try to block the sound. They carried the reek of heavy bleach in an attempt to hide their stains, and there was little comfort to be found there.

  They’d left their dad to try to have a different life, and fucked it up. He’d left his brother to try to be better, and fucked that up just as bad. Maybe lineman work paid a little better than the shit they’d done back home, but he’d still landed in a motel with half its neon sign burnt out, listening to a woman’s grief over his poor choices.

  When Mari hiccupped, it broke what was left of his heart.

  He wanted to do what she asked, but with Rod, and any other danger she might run into . . . how could he not try to protect her? The problem chewed on him even after her crying quieted. He lay there for hours, staring at the wall between their rooms and wishing he were a different kind of man. He didn’t even realize he’d fallen asleep until the trilling of his phone woke him up.

  It jolted him out of a restless dream of searching the Alabama woods behind his old trailer. Leroy had hidden something back there, and Jack wanted it worse than he’d ever wanted anything. But he couldn’t find it and there wasn’t a track in the woods for him to follow. Not a deer, not a rabbit, or even a rat-faced possum. The forest was eerily empty, like he was the only man left alive.

  His ringtone blasted out again, shaking him out of the dream forest and back into his desert motel room. He yanked his phone out of his jeans pocket, jerking it back to his face.

  “This is a collect call from Lancaster County Correction Center, from Inmate—”

  The recording broke off for a confusingly long pause, and then Leroy’s voice burst jovially onto the line: “Your smarter, better-looking big brother! Pick up, you dumb—”

  “Do you accept the charges?” the recording interrupted again.

  Jack fumbled for the button to accept the charges and sat up.

  “Morning, you dickless wonder!” Leroy sounded damn cheery for somebody who was sitting in jail. That wasn’t a good sign. The worse things went, the harder Leroy tried to prove how little he cared. Now, if he’d been pissed off, that’d mean things were running just about normal. “It’s been a coon’s age, hasn’t it? How the hell are you?”

  “Where you at?” Jack groped for the switch on the lamp. “There ain’t no Lancaster County in Alabama.”

  “I’m not in Alabama. I’m residing in the great state of Nebraska. Listen, I need some bail money, and don’t even try to tell me that cushy lineman job of yours ain’t paying enough to cover it.”

  He grunted. It had been months since he’d heard from his brother. He’d half wondered if Leroy had one drunken car crash too many. But no, of course he was fine and just wanting money.

  “Yeah, let me get a pen. I’ll find a bond place over there and call them on my way to work. You better fucking pay me back this time.”

  “Now is that any way to talk to your only kin? You ought to at least come pick me up. You really going to make me take the bus like some trash?”

  “Leroy, you’re in Nebraska.” Jack staggered to his feet, jerking up the twisted waist of his pants as he squinted around his room in search of a pen. “I’m in California. I know you weren’t hot on school and shit, but they ain’t exactly neighbors.”

  Any other time, he would have just quit the job and gone. But that was before he met Mari.

  “Yeah, see, here’s the rub.” Leroy dropped his voice. “I can’t just make bail and walk on outta here. I’m in just . . . well, just a wee tiny bit of trouble. Some assholes got it in for me, and if I buy a plane or a bus ticket, they’ll find me. I need a ride, little brother. Something they can’t trace to somewhere they can’t trace.”

  “Leroy, you can’t skip town, or we don’t get our bail back. Collateral and fee’s one thing, but I ain’t got five grand or so to spend on keeping you from getting your ass kicked by some guys who are probably kicking it because you rightfully owe them money. Just like you owe me.” He scoffed. “Hell, you probably owe me more than you owe them.”

  “Come on, now, has your big brother ever let you down? I’ll come back for my court date! Just need to lay low until then. Let them forget all about me. Then you’ll get your bail back, no problem.”

  “Uh-huh. When’s your court date?”

  “Two weeks.”

  Jack nearly choked. Two weeks? The job would be over in two weeks. He couldn’t babysit his stupid brother to make sure he showed up for his trial. Mari wasn’t even speaking to him right now, and they hadn’t made any plans for after the job, even before their fight. He couldn’t disappear now, or—

  He couldn’t even stand putting the possibility into words.

  “
You really gotta think it over? You owe me, kid. I pulled you outta that hellhole and raised you up myself, when I could have left you to take Dad’s shit all the way to eighteen, just like I had to.”

  The words were so familiar Jack could have recited them from memory. It was Leroy’s trump card, worn around the edges from being played so often. And maybe it was true. The worst scars that ripped up his hide were from his daddy, not his brother.

  Maybe it had been better to walk to school hiding bruises instead of blood. His brother always said he’d saved him, and Jack figured there was a whole world of worse past catching the occasional punch.

  But sometimes he thought Leroy had just wanted to live someplace where everybody had to walk on eggshells around him, not vice versa. Because once they’d moved out, Jack still had to keep his mouth shut. Do his homework outside because the sight of schoolbooks always seemed to piss Leroy off, especially if he was coming off a bender. Said if he didn’t need to finish school to get by, neither did his brother.

  Leroy interrupted his thoughts, his voice dropping even lower. “Listen, Jack, I ain’t asking. They busted my arm, I’m in a cast. I can’t defend myself in here, much less out there. I need you, brother. Got nobody else I trust right now, with the kinda guys that are after me.”

  “Shit.” Jack’s breath hissed out as he grabbed clean clothes out of his suitcase. “I’m coming. You fucking owe me, asshole.” He hung up.

  He threw clothes into his suitcase, nabbed his French press and his toothbrush. He’d only meant he’d go pick his brother up, not that he’d stay with him. But as soon as he heard himself saying he’d go, he knew this might be the only thing that saved his chances with Mari.

  It was too early to call her, but he didn’t dare go over there in person. If he saw her pretty eyes all red and swollen from crying, he’d hate himself so much he wouldn’t have the guts to ask her to take a chance on him, no matter what he tried to change about himself. Jack’s stomach lurched at the thought of what he was going to do, but he snatched up his phone anyway. The alternative was never seeing her again, and he was too much of a coward to face that.

  He heard it ring in his ear and through the wall. Once. Twice. Was she staring at the screen, hating the sight of his name? What if she—

  “Hello?”

  “Mari.” He exhaled it like a prayer, his chest expanding in a way he couldn’t describe, just at the sound of her voice.

  “Jack, I don’t want to talk to you. Not yet and certainly not at four thirty in the morning.”

  Her voice sounded crisp and certain, not the least bit sleepy.

  “And while I’m telling you how things are going to be, let me add one more tip. The whole persistence song and dance, where you call and send flowers and follow me everywhere I go until I give you another chance? I don’t care what movies you’ve seen it on, because Brad saw all the same ones. That is the opposite of romance, in my opinion. If there is going to even be a chance of me forgiving you—and I’m not saying there is—but if you even want a chance, then you’d better back off by about a mile and give me the respect of waiting for me to make my own choices. About you, about Rod, about everything. I’m a grown fucking woman, and if you can’t treat me accordingly, you have no place in my life.”

  Hearing Mari swear made something hurt behind his eyes, like he needed to cough or sneeze, or possibly something far more embarrassing.

  “I understand, and I will. Shit, Mari, I’m so sorry you even have to say that to me. I just, I needed you to know that I lo—”

  The words came pouring out of him, and the only reason he stopped in time was that his throat caught. He hadn’t meant to tell her how he felt. He’d been keeping that locked way deep down for a while now so he wouldn’t pressure her or scare her or come across as one of those guys who fell too fast.

  Except that he had. Fallen so fast and hard he was all but picking chunks of sidewalk out of his teeth. But he couldn’t tell her like this, when she was angry at him. She’d think he was trying to soften her up.

  He took a breath and switched gears back to facts, not emotions. “The only reason I’m calling is—”

  “Is to show me you’ll promise one thing and immediately do the other?” Her voice was so sharp he could have cut himself on it. “If you respect my ability to make my own choices, then prove it. Back the hell off and let me make them.”

  She hung up.

  He hadn’t told her about his brother or that he had to leave. He hadn’t even gotten out a decent apology. But there was one thing he could do: exactly what she asked. Leaving would prove to her that he would give her space and respect her choices. The idea of leaving her to face off with Rod alone made him physically ill, and more than a little dizzy.

  But maybe being halfway across the country was his best bet at not sticking his fucking nose into it and pissing her off again. She could handle Rod. Mari was tough, and she was asking him to believe in her. If she’d forgive him, he’d do anything, no matter how much he hated it.

  He grabbed his stuff and let himself out, a pang going through him at giving up the room next to hers. He’d call her later when she was busy at work and leave a voicemail so she knew where he’d gone and that he was available by phone, when—if—she felt like talking.

  The suitcase went into the truck and he yanked out his ramp to load his bike. He couldn’t think about all the terrible what-ifs. Right now, he needed to get his ass to Nebraska before his temporarily crippled brother got himself killed.

  30

  A Little Help from Friends

  When she arrived at work, Mari was still so upset that she didn’t even react when Marcus told her she’d been transferred from Junior’s crew back to Jack’s. She wasn’t surprised, since she definitely hadn’t been looking the other way on his son’s transgressions, like Rod had implied she should. Hopefully, now he’d realize he was out of options and was going to have to get his jerk of a progeny to follow the rules like everyone else.

  At the moment, she didn’t much care what Rod did, except that today was clearly not the best day for her and Jack to be stuck on the same construction site. When she left the morning meeting for Junior’s crew and headed across the construction yard to Jack’s crew, Gideon went with her, even though Marcus didn’t have the authority to reassign him. She glanced over.

  “Aren’t you going to get in trouble for changing crews without orders?”

  “Nobody on Junior’s crew likes me enough to care,” he told her with a wry smile and a quick shoulder squeeze. “Besides, Wyatt’s going to need me to catch their productivity back up to quota.”

  Except, of course, Jack wasn’t running his crew that day.

  His truck was already gone when she’d left for work, so he couldn’t be late. Either he was avoiding her after their fight—which was pretty immature, in her opinion—or it had something to do with Rod. His company was paying thousands of dollars in environmental impact fines, and if her second hasty transfer in a week was any indication, Rod wasn’t happy about it. The last time he hadn’t been happy, Jack was home all day with only Jack Daniel’s for company.

  Where was he this time?

  What made it all even worse was that when she caught a glimpse of Rod at the construction yard this morning, he hadn’t looked upset. He’d been . . . smiling. That couldn’t be good.

  When she got back to her truck and checked her phone, she got her answer, in the form of a voicemail from Jack. She gritted her teeth. “Seriously?” They had one fight and not only did he skip work, but he called her again when she’d explicitly told him not to. He wasn’t acting anything like the man she’d thought he was.

  “Lesson learned. Again,” she whispered fiercely to herself, as if that would make the knowledge stick better this time.

  But she still pushed the button to listen to the voicemail. Just in case this had something to do with her crew transf
er, or with Rod being passive-aggressive because he’d lost his corrupt little gambit to cover up his son’s crimes.

  It was only a few words, Jack’s gruff yet uncertain voice telling her he had to deal with a family emergency. Wasn’t sure how long it would take. Might not be back for a little while, but she could call him anytime she wanted.

  Right. She hung up and nearly flung the phone across the truck cab. Jack didn’t have any family. He’d told her what his dad had been like, that his brother wasn’t much better and he didn’t even know where Leroy was these days. The only “emergency” he had was not wanting to face her.

  She jumped out to check under her tires, then cranked the ignition to head out to the site. You could learn a lot about a man by how he reacted when you were mad at him. Brad would turn it around on her, make everything her fault and get loud and mean. Jack, apparently, ran away. But then, the two men had always been opposites. Brad tore her down and Jack put her up on a pedestal like she was better than him when she wasn’t hardly, tried to protect her like she’d never had to deal with jerk bosses at work before. She wasn’t sure either approach was healthy.

  Pulling into that day’s construction site, she squinted against the rising sun to make sure the dirt was clear where she wanted to park. Though, at least she knew from their fight that even when Jack was deeply frustrated with her, he wasn’t the least bit violent. She hopped out of her truck to check the site before the crew got there, scanning the ground absently as her thoughts tumbled and twisted inside her head.

  Maybe he hadn’t come to work because he was giving her the space she’d asked for, and then some. It would bug him all day, knowing his crew was working without direction and potentially screwing up whatever plan he had for this tower. For a man like Jack, who took such pride in his work, taking a sick day would be nothing short of excruciating.

  She caught a frisson of warmth rising in her and pushed it aside. There was nothing cute about what he’d done, bossing her around that way and talking about interfering in her job. Nothing a man did in apology was as important as what he was apologizing for, she reminded herself. It was one of the lines she’d underlined in chapter seven. Of the book Jack bought her.