When Jack came to Salem, he was seeking treatment for Hodgkin's disease. His father, Harper Deveraux hired Kayla Brady to be Jack's nurse, and when Steve "Patch" Johnson rejected her, she agreed to marry him. Unfortunately, the match was doomed. Kayla soon began cheating on Jack with Steve, and when he found out (from the newspaper, of all things), he raped her, and had Steve beaten up. A confrontation resulted in a fall off a roof, and Jack wound up needing a kidney. Unfortunately, the only viable donor was his birth brother, who just happened to be Steve (who only donated the kidney when their mother, Jo, asked him to). Kayla pressed charges (which were later dropped) and filed for divorce.