Aja couldn’t help but laugh at Brooklyn’s description of the event.
“I promised the two of you we would celebrate every milestone. This definitely qualifies. I need to know what you want on the menu and if you have anyone to add to our usual guest list.”
She grabbed a pen and notepad from the desk in the corner and waved them back to the counter. “Come on, ladies. Let’s get these plans underway.”
* * *
Jackson sat behind his desk, trying to shake the general funk he couldn’t seem to get rid of. Of all days, today should’ve brought him a sense of professional pride. He’d sat in a courtroom galley, watching as Eli Bennett allocuted to the crimes he’d committed against Aja and Restoration Ranch.
The case was over, Aja was safe, and Eli Bennett was taken into custody immediately following his allocution. His team hadn’t even had to work hard to get Bennett’s confession. As soon as Gleason and Jennings presented him with the evidence against him, Bennett told his fancy mouthpiece to stop fighting and cut a deal. Everything was wrapped up in a nice, neat bow. Just the way he liked it. He should be thrilled. Yet looking around the courtroom and not seeing Aja there had somehow dampened his satisfaction of the way things concluded.
He stopped John Ross after the proceedings were over to ask where Aja was. She was the victim in all of this. She had a right to see justice done.
The prosecutor’s mouth straightened into a flat line. “When I spoke to her yesterday, she said she’d seen enough allocutions to last her a lifetime. To call her if anything went wrong, but other than that, she was moving on.”
Jackson’s mood had tanked right then and there. Having her so easily moving on, especially without him, rankled something in him. Certain he wasn’t fit to be in public spaces after that, he hurried to his office to find a sanctuary where he could do something monotonous like file paperwork and hopefully stay out of the path of people.
He was cracking open the first of a stack of files sitting on his desk when he heard a knock at his door.
“Come in.”
A short man with a tall hat stepped into the room, and Jackson tensed up. It was his boss, Major Edward Hargrove.
“What’s happened now?”
The major laughed, his shoulders shaking with each chuckle. “Why do you always assume I’m here to deliver bad news?”
“Because that’s all you do.” Jackson stood from his desk and offered the man his hand. “What can I do for you, sir?”
“I’ve been going over personnel files for HR’s annual audit. It seems you’ve been slacking on taking your mandatory time off.”
Jackson sat back down in his chair, tapping his fingers on the desk. “Oh, is that all? I’ll sit down soon and schedule time off.”
The major shook his head. “Nope. You’ve had four back-to-back undercover operations. The rules are very clear. You either take some time off, or I make you go sit with the department shrink to make sure you aren’t a danger to yourself or others. Which do you prefer?”
Jackson ground his teeth. He didn’t want to take any time off right now. Sitting at home with nothing but his thoughts of Aja would drive him up a wall.
Major Hargrove walked back to Jackson’s door and tipped his hat. “Let me know your decision by the end of the day. Four weeks, or I make the appointment for you with the shrink.”
Jackson sat for a moment, trying to get himself together before he picked up the phone on his desk. His fingers punched in the number by rote, and he waited until he heard a familiar “Hello” on the other end.
“Afternoon, Daddy.”
“Hey, Son, to what do I owe the pleasure of a call from you in the middle of a workday?”
“Well, I was thinking I would come spend some time with you at the house. Can you put me up, or are you too busy with work right now?”
“As a matter of fact, I just finished the Everett job yesterday, so I have a few days on my hand before I have another install scheduled.”
Relief bled through Jackson. If he couldn’t work, at least he’d get to spend time with his family. “All right. I should be there by supper tonight.”
“Great, I’ll tell your brother. Love you, Son.”
“Love you, Daddy.”
His plans settled, Jackson stood and packed his things away in his bag. A few days at home with his family were what he needed to get his head right. Hopefully, four weeks would be enough to fix his heart too.
Chapter 33
“Look who the cat dragged in. It’s the prodigal son.”
Jackson rolled his eyes and handed his brother one of his bags. “Either help me with one of these or move, Kip.”
His brother grabbed the large duffel, reached for the shoulder bag, too, and ushered Jackson in. “Damn, how long you staying?”
Jackson pursed his lips. “Why, you got something better to do than hang with your big brother?”
Kip didn’t even bat an eye. “Of course I do.”
“And this is exactly why I should’ve been an only child.”
His brother put Jackson’s bags down by the stairs that led to the bedrooms and grabbed him in a bear hug. “You know you love me,” Kip teased as he placed an exaggerated kiss on Jackson’s cheek that made a loud smacking noise. “You wouldn’t know what to do without me.”
Jackson chuckled. Kip’s antics might get on his nerves all the time, but he wouldn’t trade his baby brother for all the money in the world.
They moved farther down the hall until they were standing in the middle of a wide, sunken living room. Jackson looked around, the old wood paneling on the walls making him smile. He’d bet those panels were older than his forty years.
He didn’t mind them, though. His father had built this home with his bare hands, and every time Jackson stepped inside, comfort bled through him, each cell in his body soaking up the love and protection he couldn’t get anywhere else except home.
“Daddy outside grilling?”
Kip jammed his hands into his pocket. “His big son is home. You know he’s been looking for the perfect slice of animal carcass to throw on the coals since you called him.”
Jackson noted the curled lip and general look of disgust on Kip’s face. Just to needle him, Jackson rubbed his belly and moaned. “One of Daddy’s steaks would hit the spot right now.”
Kip made an audible gagging noise and grumbled something about caveman meat-eaters and walked from the living room through the kitchen and out onto the back porch with Jackson on his heels. “I don’t know how you people can eat that stuff. It’s so gross.”
Jackson slapped a hand on Kip’s shoulder and shook his head. “Is there anything sadder than a vegetarian Texan?”
Kip shrugged Jackson’s hand off his shoulder. “Yeah, a carnivorous Texan dying of heart disease. Speaking of, when was the last time you had your cholesterol checked, Big Brother?”
Jackson groaned. He was due for a physical within the next month. Although he was certain he was fine, he didn’t need that particular seed of doubt being planted so close to his next visit.
He spotted his father standing at his old smoker. The thing looked liked something out of a steampunk novel with all the smoke billowing out through the exhaust arm. His father had to be breaking all sorts of air pollution laws, but Jackson knew from experience that the taste of the barbecue coming out of the smoker would be well worth it.
Even his brother couldn’t deny their father’s ability on the grill. When Kip would have no part of their meat indulgence, their father learned delicious ways to cook vegetables on an open fire that had anyone with taste buds licking their chops.
“All right, old man,” Jackson called out as he walked toward his father. “Don’t you mess around and burn my steak.”
Jacob closed the smoker and turned around with a big grin. He pointed his finger at Jackson in that lov
ing no-nonsense way he always had about him. “I done told you ’bout calling me ‘old man.’ You ain’t too old for me to tan your hide.”
“You’d have to catch me first.”
His father shook his head. “You know what comes with age, Jackson? Wisdom. I’m too smart to be out here chasing you. All I gotta do is wave a plate of this here barbecue in the air, and you’ll come running to me.”
Jackson winked and clapped his hand over his father’s shoulder. “Never been truer words spoken, Daddy.”
His father encircled him in his arms, and Jackson felt some of the tension in his shoulders drift away, as if someone were removing one iron brick at a time.
Perhaps this forced vacation was a blessing in disguise. Because standing in his father’s embrace for all of two minutes did more to better his mood than any of the paperwork waiting for him back in the office. Maybe if he stayed long enough, he could cure himself of all that ailed him.
He was about to let that thought take further hold when he heard a distant knock coming from the back doorway.
“Sorry I’m late; these apple turnovers took a little longer than expected to finish.”
Jackson looked over his shoulder to see a familiar face. “Mrs. Eames?” He hadn’t seen his widowed neighbor in what seemed like years.
He watched her hug Kip after he took the platter of turnovers from her and then walked over to him and stretched out her arms wide. “Jackson Dean, it’s so good to see you again.”
He took a moment to marvel at her. She had to be in her sixties if not older, but the gleaming brown skin and the short pixie haircut concealed those years well. He didn’t know what magic fairy dust she was sprinkling on herself, but she certainly had a fountain of youth somewhere if she still looked the same as when he was in high school.
He pulled her into his embrace and hugged her close to him. He smiled as the faint scent of candied melon teased his nose. Even her perfume hadn’t changed in all this time.
When she stepped out of the circle of his arms, he stood there smiling and shaking his head. “Mrs. Eames, you still look amazing. What kind of sorcery are you using to still be looking like a beauty queen?”
She swatted her hand at him. “Chile, hush. I think that’s what the young folks would call some of that Black girl magic. We get better with time.”
“You certainly have.”
She smiled and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “I’m so glad to see you again. Now, let me go over here and check on your daddy.”
Jackson stepped aside and walked back over to the porch where Kip was sitting, sipping on a longneck. He pulled one out for himself, twisted the top, and took a large gulp. His eyes glanced over to Mrs. Eames and his father. There was something about the two of them together that registered as odd to him.
They’d always been friendly. Mrs. Eames often babysat Jackson and Kip when his dad had to work late when they were kids. She and her son, Holden, spent enough time at their house that Jackson owed a good bit of his culinary skill to her. So his father standing close to her and smiling shouldn’t have tripped any alarms for him.
But the smiles they were sharing, the heated glances, and the familiar way she laid a hand on his father’s upper arm seemed like a different kind of close in Jackson’s eyes.
He looked at Kip sitting next to him, his eyes bright with amusement as if he knew a secret that Jackson was unaware of. “Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing?”
Kip glanced down at the sweating bottle in his hand before taking another sip of his beer. “Not sure I know what you’re talking about.”
Jackson looked on the other side of him again. This time, his daddy and Mrs. Eames were bumping shoulders and laughing at some private joke.
“The hell you don’t, Kip. Is Mrs. Eames the ‘lady friend’ Daddy wants to marry?”
Kip slapped him on his back and gave him a conspiratorial smile. Jackson turned and watched his father and Mrs. Eames again and saw his father snake an arm around her waist and pull her to his side, pressing what looked to be a sweet kiss on the side of her cheek. The move still seemed like another friendly gesture, except his father never removed his hand from Mrs. Eames’s waist. He kept it there, kept her there as if she was someone important. Someone he couldn’t let get away.
“Dammit all to hell.”
“Uh-uh. You will not ruin this for them. Those two are happy. And even if your cold heart can’t find a use for love, they have. They are gonna announce their engagement tonight. And after all they’ve both done for the two of us, you are gonna smile and give them your blessing. You hear me, Brother?”
Jackson had a smart-ass comment waiting on the tip of his tongue. Who the hell did Kip think he was in the first place, trying to push him around? He was the older brother; it was his God-given right to be the bossy one. But when he turned around and saw the intense glare, Jackson realized Kip was serious.
“I don’t want him to get hurt again,” Jackson said. “Her either. She’s been good to us. More of a mother than the one that ran out on us.”
Kip’s jaw relaxed, and he sat back into the cushions of his seat. “We don’t get to make this decision for them, Jackson. It’s on them. All we can do is support them.”
Jackson hated this. Not the youthful giddiness he saw in the pair as they continued to talk and tease each other in front of his father’s grill. Even he had to admit that was kind of nice. But he hated the worrisome hole he could feel boring into his gut, warning him to protect his father from being hurt again.
He sat back, stretching his legs out, trying to come to terms with the way his father’s life would change, knowing there was nothing he could do to stop him or protect him. Because if Jackson could protect any man from allowing a woman to get under his skin, it would’ve been himself. And since he hadn’t stopped thinking about Aja since he’d left her over a week ago, he figured he may as well sit back and do what his brother asked. If he couldn’t allow his own happiness, no need to destroy everyone else’s.
* * *
Jackson sat on the back porch with a hot cup of coffee and a heavy blanket draped over his shoulders to chase away the morning chill. It was still early, but that had never stopped him from coming out here before dawn.
He’d spent countless moments like this one in his past. Staring up at the moon for the answers the brightness of day would never bring.
When his mother left and after his marriage fell apart and his life crumbled around him, he’d stood in this very spot night after night until he could sleep without seeing the carnage of crushed metal and glass that his wife and her drinking had left behind.
And now, when his head and heart were confused by thoughts of Aja mixed in with his worries about his father’s future, Jackson was here again.
He glanced down at the box he’d pulled from his truck before he’d settled in this sacred spot. Open it when you need a little happy. A quiet snicker escaped his lips. “Now would be a time for some of that.”
He put his coffee cup to the side and stood, walking toward the door to turn on the porch light. Once it was on, he rushed back to his station on the stairs.
He lifted the lid on the top. When he looked inside, there was a folded note atop the tissue paper concealing the contents of the box.
He gently removed it as if it were something precious, protecting it from any harm. He carefully opened it to see Aja’s neat and curvy cursive across the page.
Dear Jackson,
There was something so beautiful about watching you create your art in front of me. I’ve never seen a man look more at peace or more natural as when I watched you put pencil to paper. I still have your rendering of me put away for safekeeping. I thought I would have it made into a larger piece to display in the great room. But then I realized I didn’t want to share the small piece of you that you allowed me to see with anyone else.
&nbs
p; My wish for you is that you should always look as serene as you did that day, sitting at my kitchen table, doodling on a paper. Whatever troubles find you today, may you lose them in a moment of your own creativity.
Be happy.
—A
Jackson let his thumb trace over the last word of the letter, so touched by Aja’s words he almost forgot to open his gift. He folded the note, placing it inside the lid next to him, and peeled back the tissue paper inside the box.
The breath caught in his chest when he realized what was inside. There was a high-quality charcoal pencil set and three sketchbooks of varying sizes all filled with textured, toned tan paper inside.
He opened the medium-size book, his hand shaking as he slid his fingertips across the blank canvas, and marveled at Aja’s ability to always know how to take care of the people around her.
He didn’t know how she knew this was exactly what he needed—the feeling of the pad in his left hand and the weight of the pencil in his right were more soothing than any balm he’d ever had.
He sketched on the dimly lit porch. He didn’t need a subject in front of him, his muse guiding his hand with each instinctive stroke. A few moments in and he already recognized the soft shape of her eyes and the gentle slant of her chin. His pencil whirled over the paper until a face that was unmistakably Aja’s stared back him.
He’d spent years with his wife, and she’d never been able to appreciate his need to let his thoughts wander while paper and pencil took him to places and people he’d never seen. Yet in a matter of days, Aja had seen through to the very center of him, and if her thoughtful gift was any sign, she didn’t have a problem with what she saw.
“I never could understand your fixation with the night sky.” His father’s deep baritone cut through the chill and wrapped around him like the warmth of an open fire. “Even after I bought you that telescope and put it on a tripod by your bedroom window, it still wasn’t enough to keep your butt inside the house at night. I’d still find you curled up in a blanket on that chair. What troubles you this morning, Son?”
Jackson Page 23
