A Bride for Jackson Powers (Desire, 1273)

by Dixie Browning

  But there was no way he was going to walk away when his flight was called, leaving her here all alone. “Next time you might consider electronic ticketing,” he said dryly, and then had to explain what it was. His expression must have given him away, because she immediately turned defensive.

  “I might not know all there is to know about a few of the newer technological gadgets, but I do have a microwave. I have a VCR. I even know how to program it.”

  “Congratulations, I can still screw up on that.”

  “I seriously doubt that.”

  “Hey, I’m good but I’m not perfect,” he confessed, hoping to lure a smile from behind the shadows. He considered telling her about the Lizzie-Linda and his one crazy attempt to get in touch with his roots.

  And then he reconsidered.

  Silently they watched the board and waited for their flights to be posted. Hetty had thought things through and come up with a plan. She would wait until the crowd thinned out and then find someone in authority. If she explained about her stolen purse, and how it wouldn’t have happened if her flight hadn’t been cancelled, then she might eventually get a free flight back to Oklahoma City.

  She would demand it. She might not look it in her fancy cruise wear, but she was tough as ironwood. She’d faced adversity of one kind or another all her life without buckling under. It might take a few hours, or even another day, but if she persisted, sooner or later she would win. It was only fair.

  But just in case, she’d better hedge her bets, as her father would’ve said.

  She cleared her throat. “I’m not sure what you had in mind, but I might consider accepting a small loan if you’ll give me your address so I can pay you back when I get settled.”

  Jax tried and failed to suppress a grin. Even begging, the lady had class. “Consider it done.”

  “Yes, well, first I thought I might try the phone again. If I still can’t get through to the agency, I’ll call Jeannie. My stepdaughter? I told you about her, didn’t I?”

  She had. And about her husband, the late, great Gus, who had never raised his voice to her, much less a hand. A statement which had given rise to more questions than he cared to ask, or she would’ve cared to answer.

  “Sure, no problem. You can use my calling card. There’s still too much interference for my cell phone to work.”

  “Calling cards are like credit cards, right?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Then, no thank you, I’ll borrow some change instead if you don’t mind.”

  Jax dug out a handful of pocket change and added a few bills. “You do know how to use a change machine?”

  “I do know how to use a change machine,” she assured him. “I can also change a tire and change the oil in a pickup truck, as long as it’s not one of the newer models.”

  She tried for a haughty look, but the corner of her mouth was twitching. Scared or not, the lady had guts. And style. And class. The combination of too much pride and too little sophistication could be tough to handle, but he’d bet on her to come through this thing with flying colors.

  Especially if she went along with what he had to propose.

  “You’re sure I have time? Will you watch the board while I’m gone?”

  “Like a hawk. So far, the earliest flight scheduled to Atlanta is early afternoon.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s not even noon. No need to hurry.”

  Under several silky layers of knit, garnished by the bedraggled, well-chewed shawl, her shoulders squared. “I’m sure I can get on a flight back home if I explain things. Maybe not right away, but—do you suppose there’ll be food on board?”

  Ah, geez. He knew for a fact that all she’d had in the past twenty-four hours was water and a candy bar. Not a word of complaint, though. She had grit, he’d hand her that. Not for the first time he wondered about the woman who wore impractical, summer clothes in the middle of a winter storm, as if she’d stepped out of the pages of a travel magazine. The woman with the guileless eyes and the seductive walk. The woman who couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, but who could lull a fussy baby to sleep—and incidentally turn a man on—with a husky, off-key lullaby.

  He thought of the two women who’d had the greatest impact on his own life. Each of them had given away their own child. Breaking off the unproductive line of thought, he said, “While you’re out there, see if any of the other desks have opened up yet. I’ll keep an eye on ours.”

  His eyes remained on the nearby vacant console, but his mind was busy trying to come up with a way of getting Hetty booked on his own flight. There was no reason for her to go to Miami now; she’d missed too much of her cruise. Without her luggage, the rest wouldn’t be much fun. He had a feeling there was no real reason for her to go back to Oklahoma, either.

  On the other hand, he’d hate to get her hopes up prematurely. One way or another he intended to pull it off, but it might be tricky with all the conflicting demands.

  He’d been staring in the direction in which she’d disappeared for nearly ten minutes before he realized what he was doing. Swearing softly, he reached over the row of seats that formed one of the barriers and scooped up a discarded newspaper. It was three days old, but it might serve to get his mind back on track.

  He was actually dozing when she returned. Sensing her presence, he opened his eyes and stared up at her, seeing a beautiful woman in dirty, wrinkled clothes. A woman with shadows under her eyes, a tired droop to her mouth and a look of…what, compassion?

  Well, hell.

  “You’re exhausted. You were sleeping so soundly I hated to wake you up.”

  Not a word about his not watching the monitors. He’d almost rather she chewed him out. “Any luck?”

  She shook her head, braced her back against the wall and slid down beside him, drawing her knees up close to her body. “I finally got through to the agency, but wouldn’t you know it? My friend’s been out with the flu. The woman who answered was just filling in. She sounded as if she weren’t at all sure what she was doing. Anyway, she promised to call the airline and see if she can’t get me home again.”

  Along with a few hundred thousand others, he thought, but said nothing. He didn’t have to. “I called Jeannie next. Nicky answered. He’s Jeannie’s husband. We don’t really get along too well, and when I told him who I was, he said Jeannie was out and he was busy, and he hung up.” She sighed. “Here’s the rest of your change.”

  He took it. She had her pride. At the moment it was about all she did have.

  Purely as a diversion, he launched into a fresh topic of conversation. “Did I ever tell you about my great-great-grandfather?”

  “Your what?” She stared at him as if he’d finally cracked.

  “My father’s side of the family. I’d never heard about him until I was fifteen, and haven’t spent much time thinking about him since. But after Sunny’s appearance on the scene, I’ve been struck by an odd coincidence.”

  If he’d wanted to distract her, to break through that tricky combination of pride, panic and vulnerability, he’d succeeded.

  “What coincidence?” she asked suspiciously. “Where does Sunny fit into your great-great-grandfather’s coincidence?”

  “First you have to know that I was adopted at age six by an elderly relative after my mother dropped out of sight. I never heard from her again until one day, out of the blue, I got this package in the mail from a law firm in Missouri. My mother had died, and among her things was a bundle of letters from my dad, written when he was in Korea. I think they must have separated before he went. Years later I learned that he’d been killed there, but that’s not the story I set out to tell.”

  Hetty ached for the child who had grown up without a father and whose mother had abandoned him without a backward look. At least she had memories, even though not all of them were good.

  “There was a diary—more of a log book, actually—that had been packed away all these years along with my father’s things. Thank God my mother didn’t toss it
all out, the way she did—”

  He broke off, and Hetty wondered what all this had to do with anything. Wondered even more why he was telling her now, just as they were about to go their separate ways. They’d talked about everything under the sun just to pass the time, but nothing really personal.

  Well, she might have mentioned something about her own family. After all, what else did she have to talk about? But now that he was about to leave, she didn’t really want to know about his family. He was going to be hard enough to forget without being able to see him against a background.

  “I think you mentioned that one of your great-great-grandfathers was a sea captain,” she ventured.

  “That’s the one. Jackson Matthew Powers, the original. Back in the days of sail, he ran the West Indies route, hauling mostly rice, rum, sugar, molasses and lumber. There were a few yellowed old manifestos tucked between the pages of the ledger. The old guy wasn’t much of a bookkeeper.”

  “You said something about a coincidence?”

  “About the babies. You know, it’s the damnedest thing. I never thought much about it before—I mean, it was an interesting story, but I was more interested at fifteen in tales of storms weathered and waterfront brawls, and how the old man assured himself of a crew when he left port by jailing them all after the first night of hell raising, whether they deserved it or not.”

  “Mercy, he doesn’t sound like a pleasant character.”

  “Those were tough days. He might even have saved a few lives by preventing trouble before it broke out.”

  “Where does the baby come in?”

  “Okay, I’m not too clear on this, but as I understand it, for some unspecified reason he put his ship up for sale and settled on the Outer Banks at a place called Powers Point when he was still a relatively young man. Some of his crew settled there with him, in what started out to be an all-male household.”

  “There must have been at least one woman somewhere,” Hetty observed.

  Motorized carts were beeping past as passengers were transported to their respective gates. Jax glanced up at the monitor, then flexed his hands. Hetty stared at them, trying to forget how warm and strong they’d felt on her body.

  “Where was I? Oh, yeah…women. There were several, matter of fact, but the one that started the trouble was married to a fisherman from the nearest village. It seems the lady took a shine to my great-great-grandfather’s first mate. One day about a year after they’d settled ashore, the lady’s husband came to Powers Point. He was carrying a brand-new baby under one arm and a shotgun under the other. Seemed his wife had confessed to having an affair with the young seaman. Evidently, the fisherman wasn’t, uh—sufficiently productive—and he suspected the kid wasn’t his.”

  Sunny started to whimper in her sleep, and both Jax and Hetty reached out at the same time to comfort her. Their hands met on the baby’s stomach. She would’ve pulled hers back, but he captured her fingers and refused to release them.

  “Shh, don’t wake her up,” he murmured.

  He held on to her hand, and both of them watched the board because neither dared look at the other. There it was again, that shivery sense of being connected by a powerful, invisible bond.

  “What happened?” she whispered.

  “Happened? Oh, yeah, the baby. Well, as near as I can make out, something pretty bad happened that day that ended up with the old guy—my great-great-grandfather—of course he was younger then, becoming the official guardian of a newborn baby girl. Can you beat it?”

  “What happened next?”

  He shrugged. And then he dropped her hand and sat up straight. “Hey, what do you know, I think we just got lucky. Hang tight and let me see what I can work out, will you?”

  Strange, how lonely one could feel in the midst of thousands of people. Hetty watched until Jax disappeared into the crowd, then edged closer to Sunny’s carrier. She made up her mind to see them off with a smile if it killed her. Once they were gone she would put into effect her own plan, which so far consisted solely of demanding, insisting, whining and complaining. It had always worked for Jeannie.

  Except for a few sleepy sounds and some smacking of the gums, Sunny slept through it all. After a while Hetty lifted her from the carrier and cradled the warm body in her arms for no other reason than that she needed the comfort of holding someone close.

  She watched for Jax to reappear. Searched for a glimpse of his dark head, that proud, beard-shadowed face with the square jaw, the arched nose and the deep-set, dark-blue eyes.

  And then she saw him. He was standing at the service desk, speaking rapidly with a uniformed attendant. He smiled and nodded, and her heart sank.

  Forcing herself to concentrate on her own plan, she wondered which to try first. The woman at the console or the traveler’s aid lady. Traveler’s aid might be the best bet. They were probably used to dealing with stranded travelers, else the airports would all be filled with homeless wanderers.

  Jax had mentioned a proposition. That could mean most anything, but in a man-woman context, it usually had only one meaning. She hadn’t dared ask.

  But the answer was “no.” No way, under no circumstances. Not because she didn’t want to, but because she had better sense.

  Once before she had let herself be rescued from an impossible situation by a man. Gus had come along just as she was thinking of running away from home to escape her father. She had known Gus all her life, but only the way people in small towns knew other people by sight or reputation. He’d been a Vietnam veteran. A pilot, a hero, some said.

  He had certainly turned out to be a hero where she was concerned. She’d been seeing him for years in Olesen’s Hardware. She remembered thinking he was nice looking, for an older man. Then one day he drove out to deliver a barrel of heating oil, and he’d seen her with badly bruised arms, a black eye and a swollen lip. And he’d known, because Vern Reynolds’s temper and his drinking were no secret around town.

  So he’d taken her home to his mother, and a few days later they’d been married. She had spent the next eleven years as his wife, being treated with kindness and an affection that had helped her to heal. She had looked after his mother, who was frail and a little silly, but wonderfully kind. She had done her best with his young daughter, trying hard to overcome the child’s natural resentment. She had been as good a wife to Gus as any frightened, inexperienced young girl could be to a man more than twice her age.

  It had been a busy but safe and comfortable life. With her mother-in-law’s advice, she had learned to be a better cook, to sew, to deal with a rebellious teenager. She had watched her husband eat his supper in silence every night and then doze in front of TV in his work clothes and sock feet. On Friday nights they would go upstairs and make love quietly so as not to disturb either Sadie or Jeannie.

  It had been pleasant. Gus had always fallen asleep immediately afterward, but he’d never failed to thank her the next morning, which she thought was incredibly sweet.

  When he’d been killed, she’d held the family together. When Jeannie had started getting in trouble at school and staying out all night, she had dealt with it the best way she knew how.

  When Sadie had suffered the first of a series of strokes, she had dealt with that, as well, and when Jeannie had run away, she’d been torn between chasing after her and nursing Sadie.

  And then Jeannie had brought her Robert, and between Sadie and the baby, she had really had her hands full.

  She would go back, because it was the proper thing to do. And because she had nowhere else to go. And because family was important, and she missed Robert.

  But this time she would remain independent. Never again would she risk depending on anyone other than herself.

  Five

  “It’s all settled. You’ve got a seat on the flight that leaves at 3:10 for Norfolk.” Jax looked as smug as if he’d just pulled off a major coup.

  As indeed he probably had. It hadn’t taken long for Hetty to discover she could be here
for hours, if not days. Half the people around her were clamoring to change their itinerary, their original plans having been ruined by the delay. They’d been arguing the point ever since he’d come back to tell her what he’d done on her behalf.

  “I haven’t actually said I’d do it, not in so many words.”

  “Anyone ever call you stubborn?”

  “Stubborn can be a good trait.”

  “Not if it’s taken to unreasonable lengths. Hetty, you know it’s the right thing to do. Sunny needs you. She’s used to you. What the devil am I supposed to do for the next few days until I can make other arrangements? Take her to the office with me? Sneak her into an adults-only apartment complex? Bring in a baby-sitter I don’t know from Adam and entrust her with my child?”

  She couldn’t answer his question, and so she asked one of her own. “Why would anyone want to live in a place that doesn’t allow children?”

  He closed his eyes momentarily. Hetty knew his head still ached, by now she recognized the signs. She also knew she gave new definition to the word pig-headed, because she’d been told as much on more than a few occasions by both her father and her stepdaughter.

  But it was important to learn all she could before she agreed to anything, because the last time she’d acted on impulse it had turned into a major fiasco. Which was why she was here in the first place.

  “Well?” she persisted. “I know all about condos and apartments full of swinging singles—my mother-in-law used to watch daytime TV. I don’t really think you’re that kind of man, but all the same, if I’m going to do this thing I need to know everything there is to know about what I’m letting myself in for.”

  He shook his head slowly. The look on his face said, I can’t believe I’m having this conversation.

  But then, neither could she.

  “Because I needed a place to live,” he said tiredly. “Because it’s conveniently located. Hell, how do I know? I’ve never had to explain my choices before. Now, are you going to help us out, or are you going to take up permanent residence in Chicago?”