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PROLOGUE
“Does it hurt, Jack?” The whispered question had fourteen-year-old Jack looking up from the arm he was cradling as he tried to breathe with shallow breaths to keep his ribs from hurting so bad.
He looked straight into the pretty summer green eyes of seven-year-old Poppy Porter as she stood outside her parents’ back gate watching him with concern.
Dressed in a warm coat and winter boots that he envied, her red hair covered by a green wool cap, she looked like a cheerful winter elf that he’d seen in a book when he’d gone to school.
She stepped closer, placed the small bag of trash she carried next to the dumpster he was hiding behind, and tilted her head to the side. No doubt to see the bruises and cut lip on the other side of his face.
“Get out of here, kid,” he muttered, feeling as though he were freezing from the inside out as he huddled amid the snow and cold against the dented dumpster, out of sight of the narrow road on the other side. “And don’t be so fu—” He cut off the explicit word as her eyes widened. “Stop being nosy.”
She bit her lip, her gaze going from his thin short-sleeved shirt and ragged jeans to the sneakers he wore without socks.
“You can have my gloves.” She extended her small hands. “I don’t think my coat would fit you, though.”
He was a big boy, and not just for his age. Easily three times larger than little Poppy. He wanted to roll his eyes at her offer.
He started to speak, but he heard a familiar truck motor as it turned up the alley, the sound rough, sputtering a bit, and closed his eyes in resignation as it stopped on the other side of the dumpster.
No way would a seven-year-old know how to lie to Toby Bridger, Jack’s father.
“Hey, kid, you seen that brat of mine? Jack?” Toby’s coarse tone had Jack’s teeth gritting in hatred.
She blinked back at the adult’s harsh tone.
“A little while ago,” Poppy answered guilelessly, a bit hesitant. “He was over by the market walking down the street.”
Jack stared at her in shock. Hell, he almost believed her himself.
“What the hell was he doing there?” Toby snarled as though she should know.
Poppy shrugged, but retreated a step toward the still opened gate to her backyard, her expression uncertain.
“He was walking. He looked like he’d been fighting again,” she said, as childlike and innocent as possible. “I can get my daddy…”
“Fuck it!” Toby snapped at her before gunning the truck’s motor and quickly driving away.
No more than a second or two later, Jack heard the motor grinding and accelerating away from the alley and into the next one.
“Get in here!” Poppy demanded, glaring at him as she stepped to the gate and held it open. “My daddy says I can’t lie worth nothin’, so he might be right back here.” She frowned as he hesitated, stepped to him, and tugged at the front of his shirt. “Right now, Jack Bridger, or I’ll go get my momma and she’ll scold you for staying out in the cold like a ninny.”
Why he followed her, he didn’t have a clue. But he did. Like a dumbass dog desperate for kindness, he limped along in her wake. Across the yard, up the steps to the porch, and into a kitchen so warm and fragrant he was certain he’d died and gone to heaven.
The first person he saw was Poppy’s father. A tall, soft-spoken man who stared at Jack with an implacable expression for only a moment before he turned his gaze to his daughter.
His expression softened then, gentled.
Before he could speak, Poppy’s mother stepped into the kitchen. A redhead like Poppy, freckles scattered across the tops of her cheeks, wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and socks, Melissa Porter instantly moved to Jack.
“Cole, get the first aid kit,” she ordered Poppy’s father, her voice soft, soothing. “Let’s see how bad this young man has been hurt.” She smiled at him. “Have a seat, Jack; we’ll check you out before you join us for lunch. I have a pot of soup nearly ready.”
He sat still beneath Mrs. Porter’s gentle hands as she checked his arm, his bruised ribs, while Poppy watched, intent. Why a seven-year-old cared, he wasn’t certain.
Once Mrs. Porter satisfied herself that there were no broken bones, she cleaned up the cuts, letting Poppy watch, as though she were teaching the girl early how to care for others. Who did that? he wondered. Then antibiotic salve was placed on the cuts, with several Band-Aids applied to the worst. Around his lower arm she placed an elastic wrap to ease what she thought might be a bad sprain.
He didn’t tell her he knew the arm had been fractured. Been there, done that. The elastic helped with the pain. He wasn’t about to leave the warm house before he absolutely had to.
And Jack could smell that soup. A scent that had his empty stomach aching to be filled. It surprised him, though, that she knew who he was, even more that she seemed to give a damn.
