Jesse’s entire body tensed, but he managed to rub my arms and keep the rage I felt brewing beneath his surface contained. I started crying. “Shhh, I’m here. You’re safe now. He can’t hurt you, Rowen. I won’t let him ever touch you again. It’s all right.” He kept repeating those words into my ear. Over and over until they started repeating in my head on their own.
After a minute of Jesse holding me and saying those words, I started to feel those words. I was safe. He wouldn’t ever touch me again. It was all right.
I was just about to the point I could hold my own weight if Jesse’s hold loosened when the screen door screeched open.
“Jesse?” Lily’s voice was small and unsure. “What’s going on?”
“Lily, I need you to do me a huge favor,” he said, setting me down onto the steps. “Grab one of those blankets up there and come hang out with Rowen for a few minutes, will you?”
I didn’t want him to leave me, but he’d given me just enough of a boost to know I could manage without him. He’d talked me back from the cliff, and I could keep backing away from it on my own.
Lily walked down the steps and sat beside me after handing a blanket to Jesse. Her face was full of concern when she looked at me. “Is everything all right?”
I wiped my eyes and tried on a smile for her as Jesse wrapped the blanket tightly around me. “It’s all right,” I assured her.
Jesse grabbed my face in his hands, kissed my forehead, then bounded up the stairs. “It’s about to be all right.”
The tone of his voice put me on high alert. “Jesse?” I called after him as he stormed through the screen door. “What are you doing?”
“Putting a piece of shit in his place,” he said, his voice murderous. “Lily, keep Rowen out here.”
Oh, crap. I tried standing up, but Lily clamped her hands down on my shoulders and kept me where I was. For a sweet, little thing, she had some serious strength. She shook her head when I looked at her with exasperation. “I don’t know what’s going on, but let Jesse take care of it. He usually knows what’s best.”
“And that ‘usually’ part is supposed to reassure me?”
Lily wrapped an arm around me and looked like she was about to say something else when the sound of a familiar voice caught both of our attentions.
“Get out,” Jesse demanded, his voice so loud it sounded like he was just a few feet away, not back in the kitchen. A few seconds of silence passed. “Get out of our f**king house!”
I heard a few Jesses called out from Neil and Rose before the sound of a serious brawl came through the open kitchen window.
I tried shooting up in my seat again. Lily caught me and pulled me back down. “Lily!” I said frantically. “Let me go. I’m not going to let Jesse get hurt over me when I could go break this up.”
The sounds of glass breaking and things clattering to the floor, interlaced with the sounds of punches being thrown and followed by loud grunts, came next.
It sounded like everyone was shouting in the kitchen. Even Mom and the two youngest girls.
“Trust me. You don’t have to worry about Jesse in a fight,” she said, wincing when a particularly loud shattering sound came from the window. “I’d worry about the other guy.”
I could never find one scrap of worry for the other guy. Not in this lifetime.
The clattering and shattering came to a sudden stop right before the back door off the kitchen busted open. Jesse had Pierce by the hair and arm, dragged him down the steps, and down the driveway. Neil and Rose charged out the door right after, followed by Mom and the girls. All Pierce could do was stumble along and try to stay upright. His suit was rumpled, his dress shirt stained with food and blood, and he’d be sporting a couple of black eyes for the next few weeks.
Other than enraged, Jesse didn’t look like he’d just been in a fist fight. As they passed us, Jesse stopped and lifted Pierce’s head so he looked my direction. “I want you to look her in the eyes. And I want you to apologize.”
Pierce was scared. Frightened. Like he was the one who’d been thrown to the ground and hovered over. “I’m sorry.”
I didn’t say anything. I forced myself to look at him so I’d remember him that way: scared, beaten, and repentant.
“I want you to swear that you will never, ever come anywhere around her again,” Jesse seethed. “Ever! Because if you thought the beating you took tonight was bad, just you come within a state of her again and I’ll show you bad.”
When Pierce stalled, Jesse drove a fist into his side. Lily and I covered our mouths. Neil moved closer, lifting his hands. “Easy, son. You’ve taught him a lesson. It doesn’t need to go any further.”
“It’s going to go plenty further if he doesn’t swear he’ll never show his face around Rowen again!” Jesse shouted.
“I swear it,” Pierce said instantly. “I swear I’ll stay away from her. She’ll never see my face again.”
Jesse released him and shoved him down the driveway. “Now get the hell off of our ranch.”
Once Pierce lifted himself from the ground, he fumbled in his pocket for the keys and hurried for the car. Mom broke away from Rose and the girls and marched up to Jesse like she was about to slap him.
That got me off of the steps. Lunging toward Jesse, I pivoted in front of Mom and caught her hand mid-air. Instead, she lifted her other hand and slapped me hard across the cheek. I whimpered, and Jesse pulled me out of reach and threw himself in front of me.