Page 118 of Broken Skulls

I close the door and jog down the stairs. Jacob groans when he hears me. I hear him say “fuck,” but I ignore it. I’m in charge right now. When one of us is down, the other has to be strong enough to hold us both up.

When the music starts to play, he gets angry.

“Elizabeth,” he warns, but I don’t wait around to listen to his complaints. I run back up the stairs. I’ve got work to do.

Everyone is already working when I get outside.

“I’ve got a shit ton of food in the back of the truck. I’m going to set up in your kitchen,” Jesse says, lugging a crockpot by me. “The men get hangry when you don’t feed them.”

I hurry to hold the door open for her. “I’ll help you,” I say.

“No. You go do your thing with Willow.”

“You sure?”

“Yep. I don’t have a green thumb to save my ass. Go on.” She whips a dish towel at me.

I laugh and run outside.

Willow is set up in the grass near the plants I’ve been babying all week. “JD’s plants are doing so good!” she exclaims.

“Thanks to you. I couldn’t have done this by myself.” I hug her tightly. “Thank you so much.”

She’s crying when I pull away from her. “Just when I think I’m used to being here, I’m hit by how incredibly lucky I am to have found this place.”

I shade my eyes, watching the men work. “Yeah. It’s pretty amazing.”

She nods, wiping her face. “Let’s get to work. At the rate the guys are working they’ll have the greenhouse up before we get everything potted.”

“Everything is so beautiful.” I run my fingers over a bright orange petal on the new flowers she’s brought.

“Grandma Maggie helped me pick them out. I brought some vegetable seeds, too.” She stomps her feet in the grass like alittle kid. “I’m so excited for you. You’re going to have a whole freaking greenhouse!”

Jackson overhears her. He points at me. “See what you started? Now I’m going to have to build her one of these things.”

We both laugh, digging our hands into the dirt.

“He’s right, you know.” She leans over and bumps her shoulder against mine. “Grandma Maggie is coming over with some trees. We thought you might like to plant a few in the front yard.” Her gaze roams over the landscape. “I mean, I know it’s a junkyard, but it’s also your home.”

“I would love that.”

“Do you think JD will be mad?” she asks hesitantly.

“Nope,” I say, popping the p loudly. “He told me I could plant flowers out here. Trees are just big flowers, right?”

She laughs. “Not exactly, but that does sound like a good argument.”

Lily pulls up beside us. “Wow,” she says as she gets out of her truck. “The guys aren’t messing around, are they?” She waves Jackson over to us. “Hey, I thought we could use the last of these old windows from my house.”

He smiles wide. “I remember these! They’re just like the ones we painted when I was a kid. Fuck yeah, they’re perfect.”

I stand up to join them. He looks at me. “If we put these in, you’ll be able to open them and get some outside air, if you want.”

“They’re beautiful. Are you sure you want to part with them?”

Lily nods, tears already spilling down her face. “I’ve held onto them for something special. This is something special. It was a wonderful idea, Elizabeth. He’s going to love it.”

I sigh, kicking a rock. “I hope so.”

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