by Emily March
Jackson gave his cousin a sidelong look. In their youth, Tucker had been the most outgoing of the three cousins. Their grandfather used to say that Tucker had never met a stranger. That had certainly changed. Today’s Tucker had walls high as mountains. Frosty walls, at that. Wonder what happened to you, cuz?
His musings were interrupted when Caroline’s brother-in-law wandered into the kitchen carrying a dessert plate and wearing a mildly sheepish look. “Y’all are making me look bad. Better give me a dish towel, or I’ll be hearing about it all the way back to Austin.”
Jackson nodded toward the drawer where Caroline kept her clean towels. “Second from the bottom. Glad to have the help.”
They talked college football as they worked their way through the china. Before long, the other two male members of the dinner party joined them, and they finished the dishes—and two more bottles of wine—in rapid order. The other guys had picked up on the drinking game and wanted in.
By the time they all hung up their dishtowels and rejoined the felines—females—Jackson had received commiserating back pats from all the guys. He didn’t know whether that made him feel better or worse.
As Caroline’s neighbors and friends from the bookstore said their goodbyes, Jackson’s gaze shifted between the women in his life. He didn’t know what the hell he was going to do. He felt like the wishbone from the carcass of ol’ Tom, the star of today’s show. Caroline and Sharon could each take an end and Bless His Heart until they split him in two and one of them got the big end and declared herself the winner.
“Daddy?”
Haley slid her hand inside of his. Immediately, Jackson felt better. “Yes, Little Bit?”
“Could we go to the park?”
Escape! “Sure. I could use some exercise.” The neighborhood park was a block away and had old-fashioned playground equipment—a slide, swings, a merry-go-round, a teeter-totter, and a jungle gym.
“I’ll tag along,” Sharon said.
Of course you will. Jackson stifled a sigh. “Caroline, join us?”
She shook her head and gave him a brittle smile. “No. I have guests.”
“Go!” said Elizabeth. “Don’t stay on our account. George and I were just about to head out ourselves.”
“We were?” George murmured.
Elizabeth elbowed him in the side and continued, “Traffic into Austin will be a nightmare if we wait much later.”
They went around the room speaking to everyone, saving Caroline for last. “Thank you so much for inviting us. It meant the world to me. It’s been a lovely day.”
“Yes, it has. I’m so glad you came, Elizabeth. I needed my family with me.”
Moisture glistened in the older woman’s eyes. She squeezed Caroline’s hand. “I’ll see you in two weeks for the lunch we’ve planned.”
“Yes.”
As soon as the car pulled away from the curb, Haley tugged on Jackson’s shirt. “Now can we go, Daddy?”
Before he could open his mouth, the women who remained at Caroline’s all chimed in.
“Run along,” said Celeste.
“I’m no guest,” Maisy said. “Go to the park, Caroline. I’m watching football.”
“Me too.” Angelica made a shooing motion with her hand. “Celeste and I have a bet riding on the Cowboys.”
“Well, I guess a little fresh air might do me good,” Caroline said, reaching around to untie her apron.
Angelica said, “You deserve it. Why, you’ve worked your fingers to the bone providing this delicious meal. The pies especially were”—she kissed her fingertips and saluted—“magnifique! And all from scratch!”
Sharon shoved to her feet. Her chin came up, her eyes blazed, and in full Coco, she snapped, “You people. You small-town people. This is ridiculous. I’m just about tired of being made to feel like an outsider. Jackson—”
“Enough!” he snapped.
“I just want to go down the slide,” Haley said in a little voice. “There were some other kids playing there earlier.”
Jackson wanted to scream at the sky. Instead, he smiled at Haley, but spoke to Caroline. “Caroline, honey, would you mind taking Haley on to the park? Sharon and I will join you in a bit. We need to make a run to the store first.”
“A run to the store!” Sharon turned her diva glare on him. “What for?”
“A can of fake snow,” Jackson drawled.
Tucker snorted. It was a McBride family putdown about family. Sharon knew it and she obviously remembered it because her eyes narrowed. Tucker’s lips twitched. He lifted the beer he’d switched to when he’d started watching football and said, “Bless your heart.”
“Can we go, Caroline?” Haley said, oblivious to the undercurrents. “Please?”
Caroline gave Jackson a long look, and then said, “Sure, honey.”
After Caroline and his daughter went out the front door, Jackson hauled Sharon out the back. “Jackson, what are you doing?” she demanded. “We’re not really going to the store. What is this all about?”
“Actually, I think we will go to a store. You and I need to talk, and we need some privacy to do it. The shop is closed today. We can go there. We’ll walk.”
“What shop?”
“The Next Chapter.”
“Caroline’s bookstore?
“Yes.”
“You’ll take me to her bookstore?”
“Yes. It’s the perfect place. You and I need to figure out our next chapter. It’s time. The right time. The right place. Redemption, Texas.”
“Redemption,” she repeated in a murmur. “I could use some of that.” Then to his surprise, she went quiet.
As they walked the short distance to the bookstore, the feisty spirit she’d put on display today seemed to drain from her. He sensed that she was once again reverting to the needy woman she’d been ever since the crash. He led her to the alley behind the shop and used the key Caroline had given him to unlock the door. He walked inside, flipped on the lights in the storeroom, and then gestured for his ex-wife to take a seat at the workbench.
He took a seat across from her and said, “Sharon, we have to figure this out. This situation is not going to work.”
“It’s not fair of you to rush me. We’ve only been back two days.”
“You can take all the time you need. I’m not trying to chase you out of the inn. I wasn’t kidding about the canyon. I think there is something special about the place, and I think it might just work its magic on you. It’s a good thing that you and I are getting along again. Seriously, I’m really happy about it, but I can’t—I won’t—have you thinking there’s gonna be a do-over. We are not turning back the clock. You and I are not getting back together. Ever. That ship has sailed.”
“Yes!” she agreed, surprising him. “Around the globe. In a circle.”
Oh, hell.
“It’s our circle. Our Circle of Fifths. Our circle—”
“Broke. It’s broken. Our knot slipped or the rope frayed or it wasn’t a circle to begin with. I think life is more of a road than a circle, Sharon. You and I traveled it together for a while, but we’re on different routes right now.”
She shook her head, denying his words. “The songs we wrote, Jackson. They’re good.”
“Yes, they are. But—”
She reached for his hand and grasped it hard. “You’ve always been a great songwriter. The songs in the past … you put my name on them, but they were yours. I admit it. I’ll tell the lawyers and give you the royalties. But Poppins’ ballad and the songs up in the mountains are ours. I helped you. I contributed. Those are our songs and they’re fabulous. They’re going to be big hits.”
Jackson was damn near speechless. Once upon a time, he’d have given a limb to hear her admit what she’d just admitted. Funny how priorities change.
“I think you’re wrong about the circle, Jackson. We’re not broken. This is how it was meant to be. We are better than we were. You can manage the band. Help us find replacements. I hat
e to think about it, but it has to be done. You are the perfect person to do it.”
I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to manage the band again.
“It could be so good again. Remember? It was good. We were good back then. The circle doesn’t have to be broken. We need you, Jackson. I need you.” Entreaty glistened in the tears in her eyes. “I can’t do this without you. Please, we can be a family again. The three of us. It’s the way it’s supposed to be. I know it is. This mountain album is the best work we’ve ever done.”
Oh, Sharon. “Just because we can work together again doesn’t mean we should live together.”
“Why not!” She shoved to her feet and braced her hands on the table and leaned toward him. “Why not, Jackson? Why not! Haley would love it. Don’t you want to do what’s best for Haley?”
“You know I do.” He stood, too. Leaned inward, too. He had to reach her. She had to hear him. For once, they had to communicate. “And here’s something I’ve come to realize in the past month, something I didn’t clearly see before now. So do you, Sharon. You want what’s best for Haley, too.”
Tears pooled in her eyes. “I love her.”
“I know you do.” He came around the table and placed his hands on her shoulders. Softly, honestly, he said, “You love Haley, Sharon, but you don’t love me.”
“I do love you!”
“No.”
“I do! You were my first! You know me, the heart of me. We share the same roots and grew in the same soil side by side. You support me, Jackson. You’re my strength. You anchor me to my bedrock. I do love you. I need you. Please, Jackson.”
“Sharon.” He gave her shoulders a gentle little shake. “Don’t do this. You’re scared. That’s what this is. That’s all this is. You’re scared, because the ground has been ripped out from underneath you. I’m the devil you know, so I’m safe. That’s understandable. But you don’t love me, and Sharon, I don’t love you. Not the way we’d need to love each other to be married.”
She blinked rapidly. Her tears spilled and slid slowly down her cheeks. “Not the way you love Caroline?”
He felt like she was asking him to drive a stake through her heart. Sharon was beautiful, one of the most talented people on the planet. She was one of the wealthiest people on the planet. How can a person with so much going for her be so insecure? So pitiful? So fragile?
Caroline could teach her a thing or two.
He didn’t want to hurt Sharon, but she needed to accept reality. “Not the way I love Caroline.”
“Are you going to marry her?”
Well, I’m not going to tell you before I ask her, that’s for damn sure.
He let his avoidance of the question answer it. “Let’s sit down, and let’s talk about Haley.”
He guided her down to her seat and pulled his chair around so that he’d be seated to her side rather than across from her. He took her hand. “I’ve had an idea. I’ll admit I haven’t given it a lot of thought—in fact, it’s only just occurred to me—but maybe we can talk it through together, and decide if it will work for us. The three of us.”
“Don’t you mean the four of us?” she asked with just enough snide to her tone that he had to swallow a sharp retort.
“We need to do something about Haley’s education.”
“She’s way ahead, Jackson.” Sharon swiped away the wetness from her cheeks. “We have time to find a new nanny.”
“What if we didn’t try? Not right away, anyway. Finding the right someone to follow Mary is going to be an almost impossible job. Haley will resist anyone trying to fill Poppins’ shoes.”
“I know. She needs time to heal. That’s why you brought us here.”
“What if we filled that healing time in a different way? You heard her earlier. She wanted to play with other kids in the park. That was the appeal. Let’s send her to school, Sharon. Here in Redemption. Let her be around other children. I think it would be really good for her.”
Sharon pulled her hand free of his, sat back in her chair, and crossed her arms. She sat without speaking for a full half minute before asking, “You’d send her to public school?”
“Sure. The school system here is highly rated.”
“But what about security? You know I don’t take her out in public without private security.”
“Redemption isn’t Nashville, thank God. It’s a small town where people keep an eye out for one another. I think she’d be just fine. In fact, I think it’d be the best thing we could do for her. Give her normal for a time, Sharon. Let her be a small-town little girl who walks to school and plays in the park and takes piano lessons on Wednesdays.”
“Jackson, she’s been taking piano lessons for three years already. She’s probably more accomplished than you on the instrument at this point.”
“Really?” Now was not the time to be annoyed that he hadn’t known that. He plowed ahead. “Get a house in town, Sharon. Send Haley to school here for the rest of the year.”
“I can’t live without private security.”
“You can in Redemption.”
“You won’t be there to protect us. Will you? You’re not planning to live with us?”
“No. But I’ll be nearby. Give yourself normal for a time. I think it would be good for both of you.”
She wrinkled her nose. “It’s a small town in Texas. Don’t you remember how hard I fought to get out of a small town in Texas?”
“I do.” He nodded, and then shrugged. “But maybe you should think about your circle, Sharon. Maybe it’s bringing you back for a reason.”
“I thought you said it broke.”
“Our circle broke. Not yours.”
Sharon stood up and began pacing the storeroom. Pausing beside Caroline’s desk, she picked up a pen imprinted with The Next Chapter logo and clicked it open, shut, open, shut. “I thought you said we needed to be inside the canyon for the enchantment to work.”
“It’s a ten-minute drive. You can spend plenty of time there. Stay weekends at the Fallen Angel.”
“So Angelica would only think she’d gotten rid of me?” she asked innocently.
Jackson couldn’t help but laugh. “You two don’t exactly rub well together.”
“I’ll not nominate her for innkeeper of the year.”
Click. Click. Click. “What about the band?”
“The band?”
“Will you manage?”
She’s negotiating. His heartbeat sped up. “I will help you, but I’m not the right person for the job. Just with the changes in technology, the business is changing at a breakneck pace. I haven’t kept up with it. You were right to hire Ray-Walker when you did. You need an R-W two-point-oh now. That ain’t me.”
He didn’t miss the mulish look on her face, so he was quick to continue. “Now, musicians are something else entirely. I can find you musicians, Sharon. I will find them. We’ll want the right guys to record the mountain album.”
“Guys and gals,” she corrected. “You know I want women in my band.”
“Guys and gals. My bad.”
Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. “I don’t know, Jackson. I’ll have to think about this. This isn’t what you said when you convinced me to come to Texas. It feels a bit like bait and switch. We were all going to live together at the inn like a family, and now you want to split us up and make me live by myself.”
“No,” he said, summoning his patience. “I want to send Haley to school. The house was only a suggestion because I think it’d work out better for everyone and you’d be happier in a house in the long run. But if you want to stay at the inn and butt heads with Angelica, fine.”
She lifted her chin and challenged him. “You’re not going to be there.”
She’s still negotiating. You know that tone. “No. I’m going to be with Caroline.”
“You’re choosing her over Haley.”
“No, that’s not what I’m doing, and I’m not letting you write that narrative. Get back on point. I want to
send Haley to school in Redemption through the end of this school year. I’ll help you hire a new manager. I’ll help you find musicians who fit. What else do you want?”
It caught him off guard when she burst into tears. “I want Ray-Walker. And Poppins. And Bobby and Shane and Liz and Randy and Wayne. I want the crash to never have happened. I want to have stayed in L.A. for another day like they wanted.”
“I know. I know. I’m sorry.” He took her in his arms and held her. “I’m sorry. I wish that was in my power to give, Sharon. I really do.”
She cried and cried and cried, sobbed like he hadn’t seen her sob since those first few days following the crash. Jackson was at a loss. Was it good that she was letting this emotion out? Or was it a bad thing?
At least she wasn’t all drugged up. He knew that. That was part of the reason why he’d agreed to go to the mountains with her in the first place. Drugs scared him. He’d seen too many lives ruined—too much talent wasted—and it haunted him. Ironically, drug abuse had been one thing that he and Sharon agreed on until the end. It simply wasn’t allowed in their band.
But she’d been vulnerable in the wake of the crash, and she’d taken the drugs doctors had prescribed. He couldn’t blame her, but he’d feared it becoming a problem for her.
So he’d made sure the pill bottles got left behind when they headed for the hills, then he distracted her by working her ass hard in a place where she didn’t have easy access to refills. But dammit, had he screwed up? He wasn’t a doctor. He was just a concerned ex-husband. A worried father.
“What can I do, Sharon?”
“You’ll have to pick her up in the mornings and take her to school. I don’t want her walking. Even in Redemption.”
He went still. Yes? She’s saying yes? Jackson cleared his throat. “Okay.”
Speaking against his shoulder, she said, “And I’m not sure about the house. I may want to stay at the inn, and if I do, you’ll still have to come pick Haley up and probably bring her home. I don’t know what I’ll do about staff. If it’s not the three of us … I just don’t know, Jackson. I’m not committing to anything beyond school.”
