Page 5 of Outlawed

Jackie turns to look at me, her face flushed.

“Ooh, I’m sensing a story there.”

“Hush now. There is no story.”

“Hmm…if you say so.”

She huffs as she carries our glasses over to us and places them on the table. “Fine. I met a very nice man at the hospital, a doctor actually, who is on loan from a fancy hospital in Chicago.”

“Wait, why were you in the hospital?” I ask in concern, feeling a little pissed at myself that I lost sight of my friends while I was caught up in my grief.

She reaches over and pats my hand. “I accompanied Bettie. She caught the flu, which quickly turned into pneumonia, but she’s doing much better now. She’s due to be released next week.”

I cover my mouth with my hands. “But I’ve seen Christian at the ranch. Why the heck is he working? He doesn’t have to when his wife needs him. He knows that, right?”

“He knows,” Riggs assures me. “He’s there because keeping busy is the only thing that’s stopping him from falling apart.”

I look to Jackie, who has glassy eyes as she nods in agreement. “Bettie doesn’t remember him at all. She’s violent toward him because, in her mind, he’s a strange man invading her home. When he tried visiting the hospital, she reacted so badly that the staff had to ask him to leave while they sedated her.”

I let my eyes slip closed, feeling Christian’s pain as if it were my own. “Oh, that poor man.”

“The only reason she lets me close is because she thinks I’m her little sister. I haven’t got the heart to tell her that her sister died years ago. I don’t know how Christian does it,” Jackie admits.

“He does it because even though his wife has forgotten him, he’ll never forget her. Right now, he’s carrying every smile, every laugh, every tear they shared. Because if he forgets too, it will be like the life they led never existed,” Riggs says softly. The lump in my throat feels impossible to swallow.

Jackie sniffs, dabbing at her eyes with one of the floral hankies she always seems to have handy. “The doctors discussed her moving into a facility, but Christian refuses to hear it. Says she’s happy in her home. I think he’s worried if she loses that one connection she has left to this world, he’ll lose her completely. But what about him?”

“Christian can move into the ranch. I’ll make sure Bettie has around-the-clock care— the best money can buy. He can visit on the days when she’s lucid. I don’t care if we have to cover for him or not. He can drop whatever he’s doing and head over, but on the days when he needs to stay away, I don’t want him to feel alone. Not when he has us.”

Riggs tugs me around the neck and kisses my temple. “Fuck, I love you. Excuse my language, Miss Jackie.”

She waves him off with a watery grin. “I fucking love her too.”

A startled laugh escapes me, and Jackie and Riggs join in.

“I’ll talk to him,” Riggs offers.

I nod. “But if he argues, send him my way.”

“You got it.”

The phone rings, so we stop talking as Jackie gets to her feet and hurries over to the wall to grab it. Riggs looks at me in amusement, likely at the fact that she still has a landline.

She puts the phone to her ear and greets the caller a second before the smile slips from her face. “I don’t want to hear it. Don’t call back here again.” She hangs up the phone with a satisfying slam you can’t get with a cell phone.

“Everything okay?”

“That was Derek.”

I swallow as Riggs leans forward, his elbows resting on the table. I hadn’t given him much thought since Austin detonated my life. Hiding out at the ranch means I haven’t seen him or Porter, though I know Porter still comes to the ranch.

Jackie pulls her shoulders back and raises her head. “I don’t know where I went wrong with that boy, but I won’t be one of those women who enable him, especially as he has such a negative view of women anyway. And he has the audacity to ask for help while he hides out in his father’s old hunting cabin like a coward.” She shakes her head, her expression one of disappointment as she takes her seat once more.

“What he did to you and poor Sarah is unforgivable. I don’t know who that man is, but it’s not the little boy I nursed or held when he was sick.”

“None of this is your fault, Jackie,” Riggs assures her.

“Logically, I know that. But the part of me that will love that boy until my last breath can’t help but look back and try to figure out where I went wrong.”