“I won’t,” she answered him. She realized that Jackson was going into the stable to get a horse for her. She hoped she’d be able to ride as well as she thought she could. She didn’t want Jackson to think she was helpless, especially after the fiasco with Sam when he’d acted like she was too naïve to be trusted around animals.
Jackson soon emerged from the stable, leading two saddled horses behind him. He handed her the reins of the smaller one. “Want me to help you up?”
“That’s okay. Let’s see if I can do it myself.” Timidly, she mounted the horse. She sat for a moment, absorbing the power of the animal beneath her, her thighs warmed by the leather of the saddle, her fingers loosely grasping the reins, and she knew she was at home. Wherever she was from, there were horses there. She wondered whose horses she’d ridden. Or did she own one herself? She banished the questions about her past from her mind and smiled at Jackson.
“You okay?” Jackson asked, looking up at her.
“I’m great.”
“Come on, then. I want to show you something really beautiful.” He placed a foot in the stirrup and swung a powerful leg over the saddle, the muscles in his thighs tightening and pressing against his jeans as he seated himself.
They rode together through the back of the property, down the dirt road that wound around the fields. When they reached the edge of the forest, Jackson directed her to follow him down a path that led through the woods. They rode like that for a while, neither of them saying anything, just enjoying the quiet coolness of the forest.
After about a mile of traveling, the forest opened up and there emerged a pond that stretched as far as Kendall could see. The early sunlight timidly shone through the branches of tall pines and glistened upon the water. Glints of light seemed to dance and twinkle on the surface. The pond’s shore sloped up before them, the sand forming a tiny beach before it melded into the surrounding grass and fallen pine straw.
“Jackson, how long have you been hiding this back here?”
He emitted a small laugh. “It’s nice, isn’t it?”
“It’s gorgeous,” she said, completely in awe. Kendall dismounted and wrapped the horse’s reins around a nearby branch. She walked across the sand to a smooth, flat boulder and climbed on top. She looked back and caught her bottom lip between her teeth as she smiled at him.
Jackson remained atop his horse and watched her as she took off her shoes and dangled her feet in the water. She was like a kid, discovering something new for the first time. He dismounted and joined her on the boulder. He squatted down beside her and skimmed a pebble across the pond’s surface. “I used to come here all the time when I was a kid, to fish or swim or sometimes to just sit here and look at it and think.”
“You don’t anymore?” she asked him with an incredulous look.
“Once in a while, just not as often as I used to.”
“Well, if you’re ever having a rough day, this is certainly the place to come after it’s all over. I can’t think of a better way to de-stress.”
“Somehow, I thought you’d say that,” he said as he looked out across the water. He turned to look at her then as she contemplated the beauty around her. Her green eyes seemed to sparkle in the morning sunlight.
“Oh, Jackson, look!” She grabbed his thigh and pointed to a ripple of water left by a fish jumping for an insect hovering above the surface.
He looked down at her hand on his thigh and something seemed to catch in his throat. He wasn’t sure if it was because of the pleasure of watching her excitement or if it was because of the sensual tremor that ran to his groin. He swallowed and said, “We’ll have to come back with poles and see how good you are at catching that fish.”
“Oh, I’d love that.” She removed her hand from his thigh and leaned back, placing both palms on the rock’s surface behind her.
“Casey’s been dogging me to come here for a picnic for a while now, but things have been pretty hectic lately,” Jackson explained.
“All the more reason to come. Sometimes you just have to stop and smell the fish pond.” She looked up at him and laughed.
It was at that moment that he saw something in her face that he’d never seen before in any woman he’d ever known, except maybe for Casey Anne. It was the look of fondness for simplicity.
They sat quietly for a while, the only sounds those of the fish leaving little bubbles upon the water. Kendall turned and looked at Jackson. He sat looking introspectively at the water. There was almost a sadness to his expression.
“You miss her, don’t you?” Kendall asked in a hushed tone.
“What?” Jackson looked at her, unsure of what it was she wanted to know.
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to pry. I just thought you might want to talk. To talk about her.”
“My wife, you mean?” Jackson looked down and fiddled with a pebble. “There’s really not much to say. We were married for three years and she died.” He hesitated, then raised his head and looked out over the water again. “Melissa. She was a beautiful woman, very intense, very energetic.” He shook his head and chuckled. “She hated this place, though.”
“She hated this pond?” Kendall asked quietly.
“No, I mean the whole farm. She seemed to like it okay here in the beginning. But then she started trying to convince me to sell all the land and leave. She wanted us to move to Atlanta. We fought about it a lot.” Jackson turned and looked at Kendall. “Casey doesn’t know. I mean, I think she knows Melissa wasn’t real happy here toward the end, but she doesn’t know how desperately Melissa wanted to sell it all and leave.”
Kendall didn’t comment or ask any questions. She just sat quietly and let Jackson talk.
“But I couldn’t do it. Casey would have been completely uprooted and would have had to start her life over somewhere else. Oh, there would have been plenty of money to go around. But this place is just as important to Casey as it is to me. It’s her home, it’s her life, and she loves it.”
Kendall smiled at him. “You’re a good brother, Jackson.”
“Oh, I’m not all that magnanimous. I had very selfish reasons, too, for not leaving. I mainly wanted to stay for me. I can’t imagine ever being anywhere else. I love every single day I spend here. I want to die here. I want to fall down dead somewhere on this land, even if I collapse in a pile of horse manure.” He laughed lightly, then sighed and shook his head. “Even if there were no Casey, I would have been selfish enough to stay here and deny Melissa what she wanted.”
“That’s not being selfish, Jackson,” Kendall said softly. “Loving this land is who you are. We all have to eventually come to terms with ourselves and realize our lives should be lived in a way that accommodates who we are. Not the other way around. You’re lucky you realized that so early.” She laughed and added, “I don’t think there’s one thing about your life that frustrates you. Do you have any idea how many people probably go through life completely frustrated?”
Jackson didn’t want to tell her there was one thing in his life right now that certainly frustrated him. He sighed and threw another pebble into the water. “I don’t know. Melissa was frustrated and wanted to change her life, but I wouldn’t let her. She’d still be alive if I had done what she wanted.”
Kendall reached out and touched his arm. “You don’t know that. None of us knows from one day to the next what’s in store for us. Jackson, it wasn’t your fault. You can’t blame yourself for what happened. What if you and Melissa had moved to Atlanta and something bad had happened to her there? Would that have been your fault? Would you have blamed yourself because you gave in and took her there?”
Jackson looked away from her and said, “But she wanted something I could have given her, and I didn’t.”
“She could have given it to herself if she wanted it that badly. And what do you mean, you wouldn’t let her change her life? Jackson, we all have the power to make our own choices. Did you ever think that she chose to stay here because she loved you more than
she loved life anywhere else?”
Jackson looked out at the water. Kendall studied his profile, his tanned masculine features, the strong jaw-line, the way the muscles and veins in his neck twitched as he swallowed. She could see moisture building in the corner of his eye.
“That’s a nice thought.” He swallowed hard and said nothing else for a long time.
He didn’t want to tell Kendall that he didn’t believe it was true, unfortunately. He’d started to wonder in the first year of their marriage if Melissa had loved what his money could do for her more than she loved him. She’d even told him so one night during an argument. He had hoped that she’d just said it out of anger, didn’t really mean it. But it seemed evident in so many things she did and said. He had never shared that revelation with anyone, not even Casey. It was too painful and too shameful to admit something like that. He had loved Melissa, had always believed that in time she would come to realize it was he that she loved most of all. Sadly, her time ran out before that ever happened. He would always wonder if time would have changed things.
“Hey, there’s another fish jumping,” Kendall said and pointed, breaking the silence.
“Yeah,” he cleared this throat, “there’s an abundance of large-mouthed bass and bream in there. Next time we come, we’ll bring fishing poles. I could really go for some fried bream. It’s really bony fish, but it’s my favorite.”
Kendall stood up and brushed off the seat of her jeans. “Well, I guess I’d better get back and start breakfast.”
Jackson looked up at her and said, “I think Tom and Casey can fend for themselves.”
Kendall looked back at him and raised an eyebrow, a smile forming at the corner of her mouth.
“Oh, yeah. Right. What was I thinking?” He laughed and stood up. “Besides, it looks like it might rain. We’d better head on back.”
They mounted their horses again and rode through the wooded trail. They emerged from the forest and rode beside each other, talking easily about what the day ahead held for each of them. Just then, a light rain began to fall.
“Guess we’d better hurry,” Jackson announced.
Kendall looked over at him and grinned. “What’s the matter, Coley? You afraid of getting a little wet? You go on ahead. I think I’ll just enjoy it.” She leaned her head back and pointed her face at the sky as droplets of rain spattered and slid down her cheeks. She smiled, basking in the enjoyment of fresh rain on her face. “God, I love the rain,” she sighed.
Jackson continued to ride beside her, the rain falling lightly on both of them as the horses sauntered back to the house. He watched as the water collected on her lashes, dampened her hair against her neck, her skin glistening from the moisture. He would later think back on this day, would remember the look on her face, and he would be sure that this was the moment he fell in love with her. He would also regret that he had waited too long to admit that to her or to himself.
***
They returned to the stable, soaked to the skin. Kendall’s sneakers squished as she walked across the floor of hard-packed dirt. Jackson offered to take care of the horses so that Kendall could go on inside and get dried off, but she refused.
“It won’t take so long if we both do it,” she said.
And so they both stayed in the stable, standing in adjoining stalls, combing and brushing the stallions. Jackson had removed both of the saddles and carried them into the tack room, while Kendall had filled a bucket with oats and poured it into the feed bins.
They finished the brushing and left the stable only to find the rain still falling, pouring down more heavily now. It had turned into a typical southern thunderstorm. They looked at each other and laughed. Kendall said it was just her lucky day, and she meant it sincerely. They started the long walk across the yard toward the house. The rain was coming down in torrents, making their vision so poor they could hardly see their hands in front of their faces. Jackson grabbed hold of her hand to guide her, for fear she would get lost in the downpour and end up wandering around in circles, a dilemma he was sure she would find delightful.
Halfway across the yard, Kendall’s feet slipped out from under her and down she went, landing on her rear in a mud puddle. Jackson had lost his slippery grip on her and so he leaned down and extended his hand to help her up, the rain still falling in a deluge. Kendall could see him laughing at her through the gush of rain as she sat and soaked in a shower of muddy water.
She grabbed his wrist with both hands and pulled as hard as she could and Jackson came toppling down beside her. The momentum sent Kendall tumbling backward and she lay in the mud on her back. Jackson rolled toward her and raised himself up on his arms, leaning over her to shield her face from the rain. Sheets of rain pelted Jackson’s back and poured over him like a waterfall.
Kendall looked up at him. “Who’s laughing now, huh?” She wiped at her face with her hands, her hair swimming in the puddle around her, and laughed at him again.
He grabbed her wrists in each of his hands and held them down beside her head. He moved his body to the right so that the rain fell onto her face. She squealed and laughed, gulping in water. Jackson moved his body back over hers to shield her once again from the downpour and looked down at her. “Had enough rain yet?” he shouted through the noisy shower.
Kendall shook her head back and forth, muddy water splashing all around her. “No!” she laughed and shouted at him. “Never!”
“What?” Jackson bellowed, struggling to hear her in the torrential downpour. He leaned closer to her and repeated, “What’d you say?”
“Huh? I can’t hear you!” Kendall shouted back at him. She saw his mouth moving, but couldn’t make out what he was saying. She could hardly hear herself through the thunderous noise of rain now pelting the earth all around her.
Jackson leaned closer to her face. “What?”
She laughed at him then, watching the rain pour off his head. She imagined what they must look like, rolling around in a mud puddle in the middle of a thunderstorm, shouting at each other. And the mud puddle was getting deeper. She couldn’t stop laughing.
Jackson still held her by the wrists. He watched her for a moment as she lay in the water, laughing up at him, the rain soaking every inch of her skin. She blinked her eyes in an attempt to dispel some of the rain. She stopped laughing and looked at him quizzically for just an instant.
Jackson impulsively leaned down then and pressed his lips to hers and kissed her hungrily. He moved to her eyelids and kissed her there. He kissed her forehead, her cheek. He traced his lips along her neck, then returned to her mouth and kissed her deeply, his tongue probing and searching, as though he possessed a starving passion that he had not allowed himself to give in to for such a long time. He rose slightly and looked down at her.
“Do it again,” she whispered.
He had no idea what she said, but he read the look in her eyes and he kissed her again. Jackson let go of her wrists and held her face in his hands as he kissed her, his tongue exploring every inch of her mouth. Kendall wrapped her arms around his neck and held onto him tightly, grasping his wet hair. She kissed his neck, his ear, his jaw-line. Jackson’s mouth searched for hers again and found it. He thrust his tongue deep into her mouth as his lips moved eagerly with hers.
***
Tom stood at the kitchen window looking out into the gray haze of a July thunderstorm. He turned and looked down at Casey as she sat at the dining table folding napkins. “I think your brother’s trying to drown himself,” he said and grinned as he moved away from the window.
“What?” Casey cocked her head and gazed up at him inquisitively. She rose from her chair and went to the window. She looked out, searching for anything visible in the downpour. She finally saw them, the gray heap in the middle of the yard. She stood at the window for only a moment, then returned to the table and resumed folding napkins, smiling thoughtfully.
Chapter 12
>Jackson lay in bed and stared at the wall as the gray light
of dawn seeped through the window, slowly bringing the room, as well as his thoughts, into focus. His eyes moved down to the framed picture of Melissa that sat on his dresser. As it emerged from the darkness, her face seemed to take on an eerie expression of hidden knowledge.
He looked away and studied the wall again. What was he thinking, kissing Kendall like that yesterday? He had let go of his control when he needed to hang onto it the most. It had been hard getting through the rest of the day after he’d kissed her out there in the rain, rolling around in the mire. He’d realized his mistake while he was in the shower cleaning the mud off. He’d stayed in his room most of the day, going over the books and taking care of bills that needed his attention. He’d moved all of his paperwork from his desk in the den into his bedroom so he wouldn’t have to see her.
He’d come out only briefly for supper. He remembered the way she’d looked at him, sitting at the kitchen table, her eyes holding an expression of confusion and sadness. He hadn’t meant to hurt her feelings, but he hadn’t quite known what to say to her. He would have to offer her some explanation today. He couldn’t just go on ignoring her.
Kendall. He wondered what her real name was. She was a foreign entity in his life, an unknown, a ray of light that would skip through without leaving even a trace. She was a question seeking an answer, an answer that would deliver her to the life she so desperately sought. A life that was most likely far away from Jackson and the small world he seemed to live in.
If there was one thing he’d learned from Melissa, it was that you couldn’t count on love being enough to overcome all obstacles that stood in the way. He had learned love was not that powerful, but most especially, that it couldn’t be trusted. He was sick and tired of finding himself loving someone whose definition of it always seemed to be out of sync with his. It hadn’t been the same for Melissa, and it hadn’t been the same for Karen. Karen. What an idiot he’d been. Why was he so blinded when it came to women? Why had he discovered the truth too late?
Jones, Beverly R Page 13
