“Sweetheart…”
“Don’t you sweetheart me, you idiot! You’ve missed him every day for seventeen years—what are you doing?”
Jackson sat up beside him. The two men traded glances. Behind Scarlett, Penny’s face was stricken.
What had he done? How had he not realized the impact of vanishing on those he’d left behind? He’d been so caught up in fear and guilt and self-loathing those first months…and then he hadn’t had a clue how to reach out. What he would say.
He ranged his arms over his bent knees. Looked over at Ian. “I missed you, too, butthead.”
Ian snorted, rose and held out a hand. “Ditto, jerk.”
Scarlett rolled her eyes.
Penny shook her head and turned away.
“Wait, Penny.”
She stilled but didn’t turn.
“I owe you both an apology. I didn’t start out to disappear, I just…I had twenty-three dollars and the clothes on my back when he beat the hell out of me and threw me out. I didn’t know what to do or where to go, so I just started walking, and then I hitched, and then…” He rose and willed her to turn around. Cast a glance at his best friend. “You had already done all you could to help me. We were kids, and we had no power. And I knew I couldn’t stay. I didn’t belong here.” The stiffness of his sister’s shoulders told him that wasn’t enough. “I’m sorry, Penny.”
He forced himself to dredge up more. “Sometimes I missed you so much—both of you—I thought I’d die.” He glanced at Ian, hoping his buddy would understand. “So I just had to stop. I had to let this place go. And then over time, I buried it completely.” His throat tightened. “Because I didn’t know how you’d ever forgive me, I realize now.” He exhaled. “I still don’t. I am an asshole.”
Penny turned. “That doesn’t make me not mad at you.”
“I understand. You should be angry. But…” Man, this was hard. “But you’re still part of me, Penny. You’re still the first heartbeat I ever heard, the person I learned everything with. So you take your time, and if you don’t forgive me, well, that’s on me, but—”
Abruptly his arms were filled. And she clung to him.
He clung right back, closing his eyes as she sobbed and his own eyes burned. “I’m really sorry.”
She trembled in his arms, but gradually she calmed, then let him set her on her feet.
She wiped her eyes. “I needed you.”
His heart sank. “I know. I needed you.”
“You can’t ever do this again. When you leave, I’m going home with you. You’re going to show me your life, every inch of it, until we re-braid that cord.”
“Don’t you have a job to return to?”
She looked away. “I don’t know.”
He frowned and glanced at Ian and Scarlett. Both shrugged.
He gathered her in. “That’s okay. I’ll take care of you.”
Then the haughty girl he remembered narrowed her eyes at him, sparks flashing. “I don’t think so. What you will do is treat me like the princess I am.”
Ian chuckled. “There she is, that’s the Prima Donna Penny I remember. Where you been, Princess?”
And at last her eyes twinkled. She tucked her arm through Jackson’s and turned. “Learning at the feet of the woman you do not deserve, cowboy.”
His usual humor restored, Ian shrugged. “Only the truth, but you’re not supposed to tell her. I need every advantage I can scrape up with New York here.” He glanced at Jackson. “So…you get it now? You belong to us, big shot billionaire, and there’s not one damn thing you can do about it.”
“I guess not.” He was surprised that the notion didn’t bother him the way he would have thought. “But I have to teach you to throw a real punch, not one of those fake jabs Mackey uses on a film set.”
“I held back,” Ian protested.
“Uh-huh,” Jackson jibed, even though his jaw was already stiffening and would bear a hell of a bruise come morning.
“Come taste what I made,” Penny urged him.
“You used to like to help Mom in the kitchen.”
“That was a long time ago.” Her expression was sad, and he couldn’t have that.
He halted her as Scarlett and Ian entered the kitchen. “Tell me what hurts. I wish I just…knew, but…”
Her eyes, the startling blue he saw in the mirror, lifted to his. “Will we get it back?”
He gathered her in. “I sure as hell hope so.”
“You’re troubled, too,” she said into his shoulder.
“No, I’m—” The bond went both ways, though. He relented. “Yeah.”
“Is Veronica who you went to, all those nights you’d sneak in late?”
“Didn’t fool you, huh?”
“You never could. Did you love her?”
He rested his cheek against her hair. “I thought—yes,” he corrected. Whether or not she had loved him, he’d lost his heart. “I did.”
“And how is it now?”
He sighed. “Confusing. And I’m never confused.” He pulled back so he could see her. “But we’re getting off the topic. What’s happened with you? Why are you hiding here? I’ve kept up with your career, and your star is shining brightly, not that I’m surprised. Never expected you to be a lawyer, but you’re brilliant as well as beautiful, so it’s no surprise you’d be a success at whatever you tried.”
Her eyes welled again.
He brushed at the tears that fell. “Tell me. Let me help.”
Gratitude shone. “Don’t you have enough to deal with?”
“Never too much when it comes to you. Besides, I owe you and Rissa big-time for not being there when you needed me.”
“This is true.” Her smile was shaky but there. “And it will take much groveling for you to make it up to us. At least fifty years’ worth, at a guess.”
“I throw myself on the mercy of the court. Now tell me what’s wrong.”
“I…” She swallowed. “I will, I promise, just…not quite yet. I have some thinking to do.”
“Want to come back to Seattle with me while you think?”
Alarm leaped. “You’re leaving? Already?”
He thought of Veronica’s words. Help me by leaving. “Yeah. I shouldn’t have stayed this long. I was trying to help, but…I seem to have overstayed my welcome.”
“She doesn’t have to be the reason you stay—don’t go, Jackson. Please.”
“I don’t have any choice.” But if he couldn’t trust his twin, who could he trust? “I think I may have a traitor in my company trying to sabotage the rollout of the new game we’ve gambled a whole lot of the company’s resources on.”
“Oh, no. What can I do?”
“Nothing.”
Anxiety and despair crept back into her features.
“That’s not true,” he amended. “Let’s go taste what you made, then I think I’d like to talk it through. Maybe it will help me put the pieces together.”
The first genuine smile he’d seen from her since his return glowed from her face. “Thank you.” She took his arm and squeezed it. “Oh, Jackson, I’m so glad you’re back. You can’t know how I’ve missed you.”
He looked down at the vulnerable, uncertain woman his I’m-special-and-you’d-better-not-forget-it sister had become. “Maybe as much as I’ve missed you, Princess.”
Jackson watched the others leave after more than two hours of fellowship and laughter. The heart that he’d thought had lost the need for this kind of connection was cracking open, and in some ways it scared the hell out of him. Building the casing around it had been a brutal necessity for him to survive the loneliness he’d thought would kill him.
But man…it was so easy to slip back into what had once felt normal. He’d taken all this for granted until life ripped it away from him, first with the loss of his mother, then the accident.
Whoa. He’d never called it by that term before.
The Mistake. The Colossal Failure. Never in his earlier life, filled with
accomplishments and glory, had he ever even approached the magnitude of what he’d done on that night he’d have sold his soul to take back.
Everything bad in his life stemmed from that moment, that fateful decision to drink and drive. That others saw it in a kinder light didn’t matter.
That he hadn’t been behind the wheel didn’t count, either. It was his car. His responsibility to stop Beth, whom he knew had only just learned to drive, from taking the wheel. He was the one who’d chosen to drink and fight and drink some more. He hadn’t argued when she’d insisted on taking the wheel after he’d duked it out with David over something ridiculous, pissing off all his friends before storming out the door.
Nowadays forensics would reveal that she’d been driving, but after he’d dragged her out of the burning vehicle…well, that was years ago and this was Sweetgrass, not some big city. He’d accepted blame—because he was to blame. Every event bore the stain of his decisions. Beth was a new driver, and he was too sunk in his misery to pay attention, to warn her about the curve.
It wasn’t hard at all to admit that he’d killed her…because he had.
Shock had rippled through the community, then they’d turned inward, caring for the bereaved family. He’d let them down, had been doing so for months, and they let him know it. He didn’t know what would have happened if he’d hung around, if he would have ever obtained forgiveness.
His father had made staying impossible.
He’d welcomed the beating. He’d egged his father on, said horrible things to him—he had to pay somehow for the life that he’d let slip from this world. Ian and Mackey and even David stood beside him, while Veronica tried over and over to comfort him…
Veronica. He could still taste her on his lips.
The kiss was different…yet achingly the same. His hands itched still to draw her near, to press her against his body, to wrap her up tight, to never, ever again have to leave her.
A trace of white floated by as he passed the clearing.
He halted. Blinked.
Don’t go. Don’t leave me alone again.
He squeezed his eyes shut. Shook foolish notions from his head.
You said you would come back for me, he thought he heard.
Slowly he opened his eyes again.
She stood there before him, a woman, ethereally beautiful and…sad. So sad. One pale tear rolled down her perfect cheek.
He swallowed. “I’ve lost my mind.” His voice came out rusty. “You’re not real.”
Pain chased over her features. Please. She needs you. I need you.
He took a step forward. “Who?” He reached for her.
She vanished.
But her voice lingered in his head. You said you would come back for me.
He stood there, staring…wondering.
Denying. No. No, you’re not—
An incoming email sounded, and he wanted to chuck the phone into the water.
But it was well after midnight in Seattle.
Quickly he scanned the message, as well as the header, immediately seeing that tracing it would do no good.
DOOM GALAXY will fail.
Damn it. He couldn’t postpone leaving again. He had to get to the bottom of this. There was only a week until the invitation-only tournament he’d suggested. He hoped to God it would help stem the ugly rumors that the game was flawed.
He punched the number for his pilot. “Stan, I’m sorry to wake you, but we have to leave in the morning.”
“For real this time, boss?”
“For real.” He thought about the goodbyes he needed to say. “File a plan to depart at ten. There are some things I have to take care of here first.”
“Roger that.”
Jackson began to make mental lists of loose ends to tie up before he returned to the world where he belonged.
As much as he belonged anywhere.
He cast one glance back toward the spring, but all he saw was water and trees and grass.
Still, his first few steps dragged until he stifled his prodigious imagination.
He created imaginary worlds.
He didn’t live in them.
Chapter Nine
First stop in the morning was the cafe, where he paused out front first, instead of entering by the back door. “Jeanette, do you have a minute?”
“For you, handsome? I’ll turn in my apron and order pad right now.”
He hadn’t expected to laugh this morning. “Well, uh…”
She winked. “Just a little early morning coffee humor. Pick your seat. Coffee and orange juice first?”
Ruby had spotted him already, and he knew better than to think she’d let him leave without breakfast. “Sure, but I need to ask you a favor when you have a minute.”
“Well, well…” She ran one finger down his shirt front. Then she laughed when he froze. “Boy, you are easy to rile. Be right back.” She glanced toward the door. “What are you looking at, Raymond? You know your breakfast is already cooking.”
“Uh, nothing, Jeanette,” said the man who was one of Ruby’s regulars.
In seconds she was back, but now Scarlett was watching him, too. He knew both she and Ruby wondered why he hadn’t come in the back way first, but he had an idea.
“You don’t cook, right?”
A roll of her eyes. “Not well enough for Miss I-Was-Trained-in-Paris. Why?”
“I don’t think either of those couples is ever going to take a honeymoon, at least not until they’re sure the cafe is covered.” He glanced toward Raymond Benefield and his table of regulars.
“You’re right about that. I could run this place just fine, whatever Fancypants might have tried to tell you.”
He’d gotten the impression that not all was sunshine and roses between Jeanette and Scarlett, but now wasn’t the time. “She’s said nothing, and having watched you over the last few mornings, I don’t doubt it. I could hire a chef to come in to substitute—”
A peal of laughter. “Oh, that will go over well.”
“You have any ideas?”
“Your cousin Maddie could do it, but she’s been away from her own diner a lot while all the wedding planning was going on. She has someone who can take over, if she feels like she can leave, but…” She tapped her pencil on her cheek. “Henry could do it.”
“The busboy?”
“Scarlett’s been teaching both him and Brenda to cook. She’s okay, but he’s really got the knack, I think.”
“Would he do it?”
“He’d lie down on hot coals for Ruby. Fancypants, too.”
“That would stretch you all thin, having both of them gone, wouldn’t it?”
“They wouldn’t both leave at the same time, bet you money.”
“What if I hired help to back up Henry? Better to have Brenda cook with him and hire a new waitress?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Nobody but Ruby gets away with sticking me with help I didn’t hire.”
Oo-kay. “Do you have anyone in mind?”
“Yeah, actually I might.”
The bell from the pass-through dinged insistently. Jeanette rolled her eyes. “As if I can’t time a meal prep in my sleep. That all?”
“For now it is. I appreciate the help.”
“I wouldn’t mind a vacation in Bali, myself.” She grinned.
He grinned back. “I’ll remember that.”
One item off his list.
After he finished his breakfast and left Jeanette a tip that would make her eyes pop, he took a deep breath and entered the kitchen.
“Ladies, I have to go back to Seattle this morning.”
Ruby turned to him. “How soon will you be back?”
He hesitated.
“You can’t desert that girl again.”
“She’s not a girl. And I’ve got a lot—”
“James Jackson Gallagher, you have unfinished business here.”
“I have employees back there counting on me. I’ve handled things from here as long as I can
afford to.”
“He has a problem back there, Nana,” Scarlett said. “A big one. You of all people know how it is when everything’s resting on your shoulders.”
He cast her a grateful nod. Why was it this one tiny old woman could make him feel like a five-year-old being dressed down, even now?
“Oh, don’t you look so relieved, cuz.” She swatted a spoon in his direction. “I wasn’t kidding when I said you’re ours now. I will hunt you down. Those weren’t just words.”
“Are you listening, young man?” Ruby asked.
He shook his head. “Yes, ma’am.” Then he went on the offensive. “So now you tell me when you’re going to take time for a honeymoon. Where have you always wanted to go? I’ll make it happen, Aunt Ruby. I owe you.”
“I’ll hear none of that. Family doesn’t keep a ledger.”
“Maybe not, but you haven’t answered my question. I could send you and Arnie to Tahiti or Paris or…anywhere. You name it.”
“Oh, honey, that’s real sweet, but Arnie is doing just right by me on that score. We’ll be going to Branson once we find the time.”
He thought about laying out his ideas for the cafe, but he didn’t want her shooting them down. He’d call Scarlett later and work out details, proposing Jeanette’s solutions and letting Scarlett decide. “Are all the women in Sweetgrass this hardheaded?”
“Honey, we come from sturdy stock. Pioneer women weren’t sissies. Now come here and give me a hug so I can get back to work.”
He took her in his arms, her tiny bird-boned frame capable of misleading those who didn’t know her. She might be dainty of stature, but she was a giant in her heart. “Thank you,” he murmured before letting her go. “Thank you for never giving up on me.”
She squeezed him one last time, then stepped back. “Are you glad I dragged you back?”
“Maybe.”
“Oh, pooh, you know you are. Now don’t give me any more hooey about not coming back. You go get your business squared away and get your behind back here where you belong. You are definitely not finished here.”
“If you mean my dad, that’s hopeless.”
“He’s part of what I mean, and you couldn’t be more wrong. Your father will come around.”
Texas Rebel Page 13
