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His brothers waved and walked out together before his mother walked over to the bed and placed her hand on Cash’s arm. “I’m going too and… I probably won’t be back,” she said quietly and Jackson stood to leave the room to give them privacy.
Neither stopped him, and the last thing he heard his father say was, “You were the greatest love of my life, Gracie…”
Shit.
This was it.
This was a last goodbye.
Frantically, he looked down the hall to see if he could flag his brothers because he didn’t want to be the one to handle this alone. Who was he supposed to comfort? His mother? His father?
Shit, shit, shit…
Unfortunately, no one was around and he had nothing to do except…wait.
Savannah had left earlier to help Parker out with a client, and he seriously wished she was here right now. There was just something about her that made him relax—especially since he had come to grips with his emotions regarding this particular situation.
Since their conversation the other morning, he couldn’t say with great certainty that things had changed, but…she wasn’t nearly as skittish as she’d been and there was an ease between them now that wasn’t there before.
He liked it.
Hell, he loved it, needed it.
And right now, he really needed her.
With nothing to do, he paced and tried not to think about what was being said between his parents. There was no way it was an easy conversation, and it made him think about what he was going to do when it was his turn to say goodbye.
Would he know? Would either of them know when it was…the time?
Groaning, he raked a hand through his hair and nearly jumped out of his skin when someone put a hand on his shoulder.
Turning, he found his mother and the look of utter sorrow on her face was almost more than he could bear. “Mom…” He hugged her and expected her to cry, but she didn’t.
But she held on tightly to him for several long moments.
Pulling back, Grace looked up at him. “I want you to go in there and be with him. I hate to think of him being alone.”
“Okay, but…I also don’t like the thought of you being alone. I should walk you down to your car and…”
“No,” she quickly interrupted. “I really need to be by myself for a few minutes. Then, I’m going to pick up Savannah and take her to pick up her car.”
“Oh, um…I can do that, Mom. If you’d rather go home…”
“It’s okay. I’m actually looking forward to having some time alone with her before we go to the shop. Dom’s going to make me dinner tonight and…it’s going to be okay.”
He wasn’t sure if she said that for him or for herself, but he pulled her in and hugged her again.
Kissing him on the cheek, she whispered, “Go. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
Jackson stood and watched her walk away and took a minute for himself because he wasn’t sure if he should go in and talk about what just happened or pretend he didn’t know. With a sigh of resignation, he decided to simply take his cues from Cash.
“Did you draw the short straw?” Cash asked when he walked back into the room.
“Excuse me?”
“You know, you all drew straws to see who had to stay with me and you got the short one.”
Chuckling, he sat down in the chair beside the bed. “Nah. I’m just the only one without a life right now, so…”
