Behind Griff, Nan started dragging Aurelia out of the way.
Hitch reacted without thinking, his own hand darting out to clench Griff’s wrist. Every muscle in his body hummed. With the last ounce of will left, he held himself in.
He’d never seen Griff like this. Griff was the quiet one—the controlled one. Griff didn’t start fights, and he was more likely to stop a brawl than finish one.
Hitch pulled Griff’s hand free of his shirt and pushed him away. “Back off.”
Griff threw a wide roundhouse that crashed into the side of Hitch’s jaw.
Hitch staggered back. Blood thundered through his head, and his vision went black and then red. Even before he could make sense of what had just happened, he came up swinging. He clipped Griff’s chin, but his brother had dived after him and was already raining blows. A punch caught Hitch in the cheek, then Griff started slamming Hitch’s ribs and stomach.
Hitch scrambled upright. He got his feet under him and pretended the world wasn’t tilting crazily. He closed with Griff and closed hard.
He had maybe an inch on his brother, but not much, if any, poundage. And Griff was right. This wasn’t like when they were kids. Back then, Hitch could beat the tar out of Griff and they both knew it. Now Griff was big and strong and full-on mad enough to give Hitch a run for his money and then some.
Hitch hit hard and low. His fist connected beneath Griff’s sternum, and Griff doubled over with a whuff.
Hitch stepped back and saw them all, frozen as if in a photograph. Himself, bleeding and dizzy. Byron and the Berringers, moving in to stop the fight. Nan with her arm still around Aurelia, shouting at them both. Walter staring on, wide-eyed. Jael, the lines between her eyebrows furrowing deeper than ever.
And Griff. His brother rose slowly, blue eyes coming up to glare right back at him. Griff wasn’t done with this fight. He wouldn’t be done until one or both of them were too woozy to climb up out of the mud. He was that mad.
That hurt.
Hitch had hurt him that bad. That’s what this was really all about.
Something inside of him shuddered. Of course it couldn’t be fixed in a few days. The kind of hurt that stuck around for nine years didn’t go away just because the person who’d caused it wanted it to. Durn his ignorant, idiotic hide.
He pulled his punch in mid-swing and backed up, hands in front of him. “Wait—”
Griff hit him anyway, another ear-ringing blow right across his jaw.
“Hold up there, son!” Matthew said. He and Byron caught Griff’s arms.
J.W., looking a little uncomfortable, stopped at Hitch’s side.
Hitch righted himself, one hand on the thundering ache in his molars.
He blinked several times and found his brother’s gaze. “Listen to me. What happened was never meant to be about you. I never once thought it would hurt you like it did. And I’m sorry.”
Griff stopped straining against Matthew and Byron. The fury in his face flickered, for a bare second.
Then he shook his head. “You’re sorry. Why shouldn’t you be? You’ve got Campbell stuck on your tail for the rest of his life. I hear you practically lost your machine to that charlatan Livingstone. You got nobody left to call family in all this world. And you brought pirates right in on your hometown. You are sorry, Hitch. You’re a sorry excuse for a man. And God knows why I ever looked up to you.”
Matthew shook Griff’s arm. “C’mon, son, you don’t want to be lying awake tonight regretting all this stuff you’re saying. Your brother’s telling you he’s sorry. Take his hand and put this all in back of you.”
Griff drew in a breath so deep his shoulders lifted a full two inches. Then he dropped his gaze away from Hitch’s and shook his head again. He pulled free of Matthew and Byron, picked his hat out of the mud, and limped across the yard to where his Chevrolet was parked.
And that, right there, was the end of Hitch’s luck. He watched Griff leave, and, inside his chest, something broke open.
A hand slid around his waist.
Slowly, he looked to find Jael beside him.
Her face was carefully passive. She slipped her shoulders under his arm. “Come.”
He tongued the blood from the corner of his mouth and looked up at the tableau he’d help create.
They all stood, frozen. They stared, not at Griff, but at Hitch. The eyes were wide and shocked and—almost sympathetic. Why? Because they thought Griff had been wrong in throwing that first punch at him? Or because they knew Hitch had just lost his last reason for staying?
With a gentle hand, Jael guided him away.
He started to turn with her and, from the very corner of his eye, saw Walter standing alone, off to the side. The boy stared with big eyes. This was probably exactly what Nan wanted to protect him from. Hitch couldn’t blame her. But it was as it was at this point.
He didn’t look the boy in the eye. Instead, he looked down at Jael.
She raised her face, briefly. Her eyebrows were creased, partly with pain probably, but also with concern, chagrin even. She had no family—and she wanted one. Seemed like she shouldn’t be too understanding of what had just happened here.
“Come.” That was all she said. “I will be helping you.”
He could only nod.
Together, they turned around, both of them hobbling. He left without looking back. Why not? Leaving was what he was so good at.
Thirty-Three
IN THE GLIMMER of a lantern, Hitch sat beneath the canvas tarp they’d stretched between the Jenny’s upper wing and two poles driven into the ground. The rain had slacked off considerably, but every few seconds, a raindrop still plunked against the tarp. Beyond, the encroaching darkness of night billowed with incoming fog. Nobody’d be flying tonight.
He felt the raw corner of his lip with his tongue and stared into nothing.
“Stop.” Jael tapped his chin, barely avoiding the bruised spot where Griff’s fist had slammed him twice. She scooted in closer, on her knees, and raised a damp cloth to the cut.
The warm wetness stung. He flinched away, then exhaled. He dragged his gaze over to meet hers. She’d seen him down to his core now—for real this time, and not just with that wondering stare she sometimes aimed in his direction.
But all she did was keep dabbing at his mouth. She looked at his face critically, then turned to re-dunk the cloth in the skillet full of water.
“C’mon,” he grumbled, “just say what you’re thinking.”
Maybe she’d say it was all okay. That he wasn’t such a jerk after all—which would be nice to hear even if it wasn’t true. Or maybe she’d tell him to his face he was a no-account fool, and at least then he could lean into the pain.
She furrowed her brow and cocked her mouth to the side, as if cleaning up his face required a lot of thought. She didn’t meet his eye.
“Reckon that all looked pretty horrible this afternoon, didn’t it?” he ventured.
“All people are horrible some of times. Now, hold still.” She finished off with a last dab, then wrung the cloth into the skillet. She turned back with a tin cup of hand-hot coffee. “Drink this.”
He sighed again and took the cup without drinking. “It’s over between me and Griff.” He looked back out into the darkness.