by Sherry Lewis
“I know.” She trailed one finger along the buttons of his shirt, wanting to hold on to this moment forever. Another bolt of lightning lit the sky and a clap of thunder made her glad she was safe inside the car, cradled in his embrace.
“Just talk to her. See what she has to say. Tell her how you feel.”
“I don’t know how to say it.”
“Practice on me.”
She laughed and shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“Why not? It’s important to you, isn’t it?”
“It’s very important,” she admitted, sobering. “But I can’t let myself grow too reliant on you, Jackson, and I’m afraid that’s exactly what I’m doing.”
“Reliant? You?” His chuckle filled the space between them. “Becoming dependent on anyone else will never be a problem for you. And what’s wrong with relying on someone else once in a while? Nobody gets to be in charge all the time.”
“You do.”
“Me?” He brushed a kiss to the tip of her nose and shook his head. “I haven’t been in charge for one minute since I came to Houston. It’s been hell, having to wait and letting someone else call the shots. It helped that you’re a great person with a level head, but it was still hell.”
“You had your moments,” she reminded him.
“And got chewed out for them every time.” He grinned and drew her close again. “All I’m saying is, if the friendships are important enough to you, maybe you should let go a little. Take a chance. Do something different and see what happens. It’s pretty clear that what you’ve been doing isn’t working.”
And that was the problem in every area of her life. What she’d been doing wasn’t working. Not even a little.
He caressed her shoulders gently and sent delicious shivers of anticipation through her. “Are you coming inside?”
Every cell in her body urged her to say yes, but if she stayed, she wouldn’t sleep alone, and being with Jackson tonight would only add another layer of complications neither of them needed right now. She leaned up and kissed him, putting everything she couldn’t say into the contact. “Not tonight. I think I’ll stop by Risa’s on my way home.”
“Do you want me to go with you?”
“More than anything in the world, but I think this is something I need to do on my own. Can I call you later if I need to?”
“You know you can. I’ll stay up until I hear from you.”
One more kiss, and he let himself out into the night. She watched him pound up the sidewalk and let himself in the door before she drove away. It was a monumental step she was considering. She just hoped she had the strength to go through with it.
LUCY COULD HARDLY BREATHE as she made the long walk from the street to Risa’s door. The rain had let up for the moment, but puddles lined the sidewalks and the lights shimmered in the moist air. Her heart hammered in her chest, and a thousand thoughts raced through her mind. What should she say? Would Risa be glad to see her, or would she turn her away?
Maybe she should wait until tomorrow. Maybe she should call first. But if she didn’t knock on that door now, she might never find the courage to do it at all.
Her stomach lurched as she climbed the steps, and she could have sworn her heart stopped beating entirely as she pressed the doorbell.
It wasn’t too late to change her mind. She could turn around and run away. But the past rose up every day to haunt her, and ignoring it wouldn’t make it go away.
After only a few seconds, the door opened and Risa stood in front of her. Right away, Lucy noticed subtle differences in Risa—small changes, as there had been in Crista and Mei. Her hard edge had been blurred, either by her ordeal after Luke’s death, or her relationship with Grady. Whatever had caused it, the change wasn’t a bad one.
She was obviously stunned to see Lucy standing there, and neither of them could find their voice for a long time. Finally, Lucy regained control.
“I hope I’m not interrupting,” Lucy finally managed to get out. “I just came to apologize.”
Risa’s eyes narrowed. “I thought we’d been over that.”
“We have, but this is different. This time, I’m not here to convince you I was right. I was wrong to ever doubt you. I should have stood by you, and I was wrong.”
“There was a ton of evidence against me,” Risa said, but she’d always been good at playing devil’s advocate.
“Yeah, but you were my friend. My best friend. I should have trusted you. There’s no excuse for what I did, and I’m not here to offer one. I’m not even here to ask for your forgiveness. I just needed to tell you that I was wrong.”
It was the hardest thing she’d ever said, and getting the words out left her feeling used up and exhausted. She didn’t have the energy or the desire to prolong the encounter, so she turned away.
“Lucy?”
“Yeah?” She turned back to find the door standing wide open and Risa on the porch.
“Do you want to come in? You haven’t really met Grady, and I think it would be nice if you two could become friends, too.”
Friends? Lucy’s lungs burned and her vision blurred. She gasped once, trying to get some air, but that only opened the valve on the tears she’d been trying to hold back.
Risa grabbed her hand and pulled her onto the porch, out of the last bits of the storm. “I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you, too.” Lucy was an emotional wreck, but she didn’t care.
“Come on,” Risa said, but when they stepped into the porch light, she stopped walking and stared at Lucy as if she’d never seen her before. “What is that on your cheek?” She reached out to touch it and drew her hand back with a shout of laughter. “You’re wearing mascara?”
“A little.”
“Lucy Montalvo, get your butt in the house this minute and tell me everything.”
JACKSON SEARCHED FOR an hour the next morning before he finally found his mother’s photo albums lodged high in the back of the coat closet behind lightbulbs and an iron he’d bet she hadn’t touched in years. There were just three books, but he would have recognized them anywhere. The remnants of their life together, the memories of his childhood.
Suddenly almost afraid to touch them, he drew his hand away and stared at the cracked leather bindings. Maybe he should call Rush and have him find a picture at the ranch. It would be easier than leafing through the yellowed pages of these scrapbooks on his own.
He turned away, fully intending to call Rush, then caught himself and turned back. Those pictures were from long ago. Another lifetime. One he’d successfully put behind him—almost. Looking at a few pictures wasn’t going to hurt him, and they’d have a better chance of finding Holden if they had the originals instead of faxed copies.
Still, it took courage to lift down the scrapbooks and carry them to the table. And he had to fortify himself with a beer—just one—before he could open the cover on the first book.
It was the wrong one. He could see that immediately. Pictures of his mother in her wedding dress leaped out at him, but he couldn’t let himself look at the man beside her. He closed the book, shut his eyes, buried his face in his hands. It seemed that where family was concerned, he had just two emotions—fear and anger. How could it still hurt so much after all this time? Why did the memories still have the power to haunt him? He’d lived almost as long without the abuse as he had lived with it, and he was so tired of it hounding his every move. Gritting his teeth, he flipped open the book again and took a good long look at the man who’d been his father. Tall, blond and handsome. Charming enough to sweep his mother off her feet in the beginning. Holden looked a lot like him. Hell, he looked a lot like him, too.
But that’s where the resemblance ended.
Jackson would probably never know what had driven his father’s rages. It couldn’t just have been the booze. The whiskey had been the fuel, but the fire had already been lit. Wiley had never seemed to know what demons had haunted his son, but maybe Wiley just wasn’t ta
lking. Or maybe Wiley had never understood, either.
Jackson pushed aside his half-empty beer bottle and turned the pages, one by one. He saw his mother’s spirit die in front of his eyes. Saw the birth of Holden’s anger and the beginning of his own resigned acceptance of life. He watched his grandmother grow old, and he teared up at the pictures of that first Christmas without her.
Suddenly, amid the painful memories, he found a picture he remembered fondly. Jackson and his brother stood on either side of Holden’s first horse, a gift from Wiley on Holden’s twelfth birthday—before the trouble had started.
Holden looked at the camera wearing a wide, toothy grin filled with hope and promise. Smiling, Jackson trailed a finger over their faces and felt years of anger and resentment drop away. He might never be able to trust his brother, but he would always love him.
Slowly but surely he worked through all three albums and carefully chose a couple of pictures they could work with. One taken on Holden’s last visit to the ranch before the money disappeared. One taken a few years before that, and one of Holden holding Angelina shortly after her birth.
Just as he picked up the albums to put them away, the phone rang. He dropped the books and grabbed the phone as he had a hundred times over the past three weeks. Always hoping for good news. Always disappointed.
“Jackson Davis.”
“That you, boy?”
“It’s me, Wiley. How are you feeling?”
“Like somebody ran over me with a mule. Twice.”
Jackson laughed and sank back into the chair he’d just vacated. “Nobody has a mule that brave.”
“Well, they used something on me. I’m a mess.”
“You’ll get better.”
“The Good Lord willing. I can’t see a damn thing out of this eye.”
Jackson’s heart dropped. “Nothing?”
“Not a blamed thing. Doctor doesn’t hold out much hope, either. Too much damage, I guess. I don’t know. You’ll have to talk to him. I don’t follow a blasted thing he’s saying. I only know I ain’t gonna be much use on the ranch after this.”
“So we’ll adjust.” Jackson turned the bottle he’d left on the table in circles, watching the pattern the condensation left. “We’ve adjusted before. We’ll just do it again.”
Wiley made a noise low in his throat. “Dagnabit, boy, I don’t want to adjust. I’m old. I’m tired. I’ve done this for too long, and I don’t have the heart to keep on.”
Jackson’s hand froze. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying, I’m through. This has finally beat me.”
“You just had surgery,” Jackson reminded him. “This isn’t the time to be making big decisions like that.”
“Doesn’t seem like there’s a much better time to me.”
“Just give yourself a chance to rest. You’ll feel better, I’m sure.”
“You’re not listening to me, boy. I’ve held on as long as I could. I know how much you love the ranch, and I’ve tried to keep it running for you, but I don’t know anymore. We’re flat broke, and we’d have to renovate up the yazoo to get much business.”
Jackson’s heart began to beat faster. “Are you saying you want to sell the ranch?”
“Now, don’t go getting upset with me. I’m an old man, and I’ve had doctors messing around in my eye. But yes, that’s what I’m saying.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’d sign the damned thing over to you right this minute, but it’s not worth as much as we owe. A stack of bills isn’t the inheritance I wanted to leave you, that’s for sure, and the truth is, I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. I just didn’t know how to tell you.”
Jackson laughed. “Are you kidding me?”
“No, and I’m real sorry, boy. I know you love the place, but frankly it’s been a burr under my saddle for years.”
Leaning back in his chair, Jackson grinned up at the ceiling. Maybe miracles did still happen. “You know what, Wiley? I don’t want you to worry about it for one more minute. If you want to get rid of the place, then that’s what we’ll do. We can talk it all out when I get home again. You just be thinking about where you’d like to live instead.”
“Someplace that don’t have horseshit, that’s all I know.”
Jackson closed his eyes and slid down in the chair. He felt sixteen again. As if his whole life stretched out before him and the possibilities were endless. His heart felt lighter than it had since he was a boy, and love for his grandfather almost overwhelmed him. “So what do you think about Houston?”
“What’s in Houston?”
“The future, Grandpa. The great big beautiful future.”
Chapter Seventeen
LUCY TOOK HER TIME showering the next morning and decided at the last minute to leave her hair loose. It had been a while since she’d done anything different with her appearance—but maybe it was time to shake things up and try something new.
She’d made only small changes, and they were more symbolic than anything else, but they felt monumental to her. The absence of a hair elastic. The addition of some soft eye shadow and mascara. One quick brush of color on her cheeks. She looked exactly the same, and completely different at the same time, but inside she was shaking like a leaf.
Until recently, she’d never deliberately made herself vulnerable to another human being. Now it was becoming a habit.
Jackson was watching for her when she pulled up in front of the condo, and she indulged her senses as he walked toward the car. His long legs ate up the distance and she realized how familiar everything about him had become in the past few weeks. His smile, the sound of his laugh, the restless energy that filled the car when he was with her. She would miss everything about him when he went back to Nacogdoches.
Determined not to become melancholy and ruin their time together, she pasted on a smile as he opened the car door. He slid in beside her and seemed to notice the change immediately. Slowly, he picked up a lock of hair that fell on her shoulder. He rubbed it between his fingers and his eyes met hers, but there was no question in them, only a quiet knowledge and the kind of acceptance she had hoped for.
“You’re beautiful,” he said an instant before he brushed a kiss across her cheek. “I think I’m in love with you.”
“You think?”
He grinned. “I’m playing hard to get. Waiting for you to say it first.”
“You’re chipper this morning.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Are you going to tell me why?”
“Not yet. But I will soon.”
Smiling uncertainly, she turned the key in the ignition and put the car in Reverse. “Did something good happen?”
“Yep.”
“But you’re not going to tell me?”
“Not until I’m one-hundred-percent sure that it’s official.”
“You realize that’s not fair.”
“Yes, ma’am, I do.” He grinned again and winked. Winked!
Completely dumbfounded, Lucy pulled into traffic. She’d never seen this teasing, flirtatious side before, but she couldn’t say she didn’t like it. “All right, then. If you won’t talk about your night, we’ll just have to talk about mine. I went to see Risa.”
He sat up quickly and his teasing grin faded. “Things went well, apparently.”
“Very well. Things aren’t back to normal yet, but I think we’re going to be all right. How was your night? Were you able to reach Wiley?”
“I talked to him.”
“And?”
“And we worked some things out.”
“You did? Oh, Jackson, that’s wonderful.”
“He’s changed a bit since this surgery. He said a few things that surprised me.”
“You’ll need to get back to him soon, won’t you?” It was inevitable. She might as well start preparing herself for it now.
Jackson shook his head slowly. “Not yet. Rush and Annette are with him. Angelina still needs me more.”
“We’ll find her,” she said, but she wasn’t sure whether she was trying to reassure him or herself. “Holden can’t stay holed up forever. One of these days he’ll make a move.”
With the return of reality, some of Jackson’s good humor seemed to fade. “Yeah? But when? And where? He could be across the country by now.”
“He could be, but I have a feeling he’s still nearby. I was thinking about it on the way over here, so tell me what you think about my logic. First, if he came here to meet Angelina, there has to be a reason. We all agree on that, right?”
“Right. We’re pretty sure he didn’t come after her so he could suddenly start buying school clothes and attending PTA meetings.”
“Okay. So if he’s using Angelina to get something, it’s a safe bet that the person who can give whatever it is to him is someone who also values Angel. That means you, Wiley, or Patrice. Now, why would he run across country if he wants to use Angelina to manipulate one of you?”
Jackson nodded almost grudgingly. “I guess he wouldn’t.”
“Right. On the other hand, if he did want something from one of you, chances are he would have made contact by now.”
He frowned thoughtfully. “So you really think he came just to meet Angel?”
She shrugged. “Even the most unlikely people can occasionally act like a parent. And it might not be money he’s after. It might be something else.”
“Such as?”
“I don’t know. Maybe a shot at impressing another person. A chance to feel good about himself. The chance to have someone look up to him, even for a little while. Holden doesn’t see himself the way you see him. He probably thinks he’s done the best he can do. I’ll bet dinner at the noodle house that he sees himself as a victim—of his past, of his childhood, of his circumstances, of rotten luck. You name it, he’s probably a victim of it. Am I right?”
Jackson’s mouth thinned. “You’re right on the money.”
“So maybe he’s just here to get a little sympathy from someone who needs him. If Angel tracked him down and started asking questions, maybe the appeal of looking like the good guy for the first time in his life was too strong to ignore.”
