Forgiving Jackson

by Alicia Hunter Pace

  “One month off your severance pay for threatening me.”

  “I wasn’t threatening you. I was predicting what will happen if you end this party that’s going to be over in less than two hours anyway.”

  “Another month for arguing. Keep it up and you’ll owe me money.”

  Suddenly, he looked very tired and she remembered what he’d been through the last two weeks. And his stomach growled—audibly.

  “Look, Jackson. You’re exhausted. That’s clear. I’m sorry about all this. I really am. And I’m sorry about what happened in California.”

  He swiped his hand over his face. “Yeah. Me too.”

  “Why don’t you just go to your rooms? There’s beer in your refrigerator. I saw it when I checked the family wing after the cleaning service was here last week. There’s filet mignon left from the wedding dinner. I’ll have you a plate sent up. These people will be out of here before midnight. We can settle this in the morning.”

  He looked torn but worn out. Finally, he sighed. “All right. As long as you understand there’s nothing to settle and nothing is going to change.”

  “Now go before someone catches sight of you. I’m pretty sure you don’t want that.”

  “No. I don’t. Give me your key. I don’t have mine.”

  “I can’t give you my key. It’s a master key and I need it to shut this party down. But come on. I’ll walk with you and let you in.”

  “Joy. More moments with you.”

  “Or you can go get the extra keys to your suite from the cabinet in the pantry. I can give you the combination to the lock. You’ll have to work your way through that army of college girls Gwen hired to work this party. See if you can get out of that with your pants in one piece.”

  “All right. Come on.”

  • • •

  Hell’s bells and damnation! Could not one frigging thing go like it was supposed to today? Did ownership and being the boss mean nothing? Jackson had been forced to park his truck at the house and skulk around on the edge of the hedges on his own property only to find out this little slip of a girl had told him what he expected to hear and then done exactly as she pleased.

  And she’d just stood there lying with those pink cheeks and loose, white-blond curls falling around her face, like she was caught between a fairy tale and a dream.

  Caught between a fairy tale and a dream. That would be the first grain of an idea for a song if he were still writing songs, which he was not.

  Never mind. As to the lying, she knew the whole time he didn’t believe her; she didn’t even intend for him to. She was stalling, trying to figure out her next move, all big, round, china-blue eyes and a rosy mouth that hadn’t had much help from lipstick.

  Now, she moved ahead of him purposely with the full skirt of her dress dancing around the middle of her knees. That dress had little tulips printed all over it. No glitter. No spangles. Not at all what he was used to. He noticed these things, not because he was attracted to her, but because he was a people watcher.

  Still, the little sway of her hips might be inclined to tempt man if a man was looking to be tempted. She wasn’t much more than five feet tall with a compact but lush little body. His women had always been tall and razor-thin—the kind who could wear a tube of a glittery dress that measured no more than a yard from boobs to butt. Those dresses said Come and get me. The one Emory wore said I’m going to Sunday school and I’m going to be appropriate about it. I’ve probably got a linen handkerchief in my pocketbook. It was a dress that Aunt Amelia would have approved of but as far as Jackson was concerned, appropriateness was overrated. Still, he wondered why he didn’t remember Emory from before. According to Aunt Amelia, she’d gone to charm school one summer and then volunteered at Around the Bend for several years. But during that time there had been a lot of people coming through, and soon after, he’d been gone. He did have a vague impression of her from when he’d been here for the funeral. Maybe he didn’t remember more because she’d been clad in black and they’d both been flat with grief.

  Not that it mattered. She wasn’t moving fast enough for him but he let her continue to lead. If he let her out of his sight, she might cut and run. Wouldn’t surprise him. But if she didn’t hurry up, he might pick her up and throw her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. It wouldn’t be hard.

  “Why don’t you have your keys?” she asked over her shoulder.

  “I don’t know.” But he did know. He didn’t have his keys because he had no idea where they were. That’s what happened when you let somebody else anticipate your needs and hand you want you wanted. He felt in his pocket to make sure his new truck key was still there.

  “I take it you don’t want anyone to know you’re here,” Emory said.

  She had already asked him that once. She must be nervous, as she should be.

  “Correct. Just Dirk and Gwen. And the new guy in the guardhouse knows but that couldn’t be helped.”

  “Brett. He would gleefully submit to Chinese water torture and never tell. Okay. I’ll get your dinner and bring it myself so we don’t have a leak that you’re here. Our employees wouldn’t say anything but there are a lot of temps around tonight. Do you want vegetables? There was asparagus and Caesar salad. Wild rice with mushrooms.”

  “Yes. Sure. Anything. All of that.” He hesitated. “Thank you.” And he was thankful. He was starving. He had lost his appetite at breakfast and hadn’t had lunch either. After picking up the truck, he’d driven to Trace Crawford’s house and parked around the corner for three hours. He wanted to go in and see Audrey and the kids. He intended to. But he’d frozen up and could not make himself get out of his truck. So he’d tried to convince himself that seeing to it that they would never have to want for anything was enough; then, he’d driven here expecting solitude.

  Though he was about to get that. They approached the back entrance to the family wing.

  Emory fitted her key in the lock but stopped short. “Hmmm,” she muttered. “Odd.”

  What now? Might as well ask. “What now?”

  “The door’s unlocked.” She pushed it open. “It’s never unlocked. No one comes here except the cleaning service, Dirk, security, and me.”

  “Maybe you left it unlocked.”

  “Not likely.”

  It was entirely likely, almost a certainty. Still, he stepped in front of her. “Let me go first. It could be an intruder.”

  “Like anyone could get in here. It’s like Fort Knox around here.”

  He stepped inside. “Could be a rabid squirrel. He’d snap you like a Tinkertoy.”

  “I’m tougher than I look.”

  “I doubt that.” Maybe Dirk had come in this way to go around to his office or the exercise room.

  Emory looked around the foyer and stepped into the family room. “Everything looks fine. Electronics haven’t been bothered.” He hadn’t realized she’d been tense until she relaxed. “Just one of those things, I guess.” She turned toward the staircase. “Let me unlock your door and I’ll go get your food. Then you can have some quiet time.”

  Finally. Emory gracefully scampered up the stairs in front of him without touching the rail and turned down the hall toward his rooms. She had her key out and ready. Relief was in sight. He could already see himself on the sofa with a beer and a movie on the big flat screen—something that wasn’t about the music business and good people dying.

  Then he heard the noise. Laughter. And unless he missed his guess, not just any laughter, drunken laughter. And the door to his apartment was ajar.

  “Oh, no!” Emory rushed toward the door.

  “Stop it!” Panic lit up Jackson’s insides like lightning on a wet cat. He could not be responsible for someone else getting hurt. He grabbed Emory’s arm and slung her away from the door. “You get out of here! Go get Dirk.”

  But before she could leave, before Jackson could rush in to defend his territory and the good people of Beauford Bend, the door flew wide open and a kid in an Arou
nd the Bend shirt rushed out.

  “Thank God! Emory! I was coming to get you! I can’t get them to leave! And two of them are in Mr. Beauford’s bed!” He stopped. All of his attention had been on Emory but now his eyes shifted. If possible, he went paler. “I am so fired.”

  “Wait!” Emory said. “Sammy! Who? What people?”

  “The ones you said to let in to see Mr. Beauford’s apartment!”

  “What? Noooooo.” And she took off running through the door.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  How did this happen? Sammy might not be brightest crystal on the chandelier but he was sweet, dependable, loyal, and pretty competent—once you gave him precise instructions. As she passed through the media room, Emory noted an overturned bottle of Champagne and several pairs of party shoes scattered about but she didn’t stop until she got to the bedroom.

  Dear Dionysus, it was worse than she imagined. There were empty Samuel Adams bottles everywhere, which was Jackson’s beer of choice, which meant they had raided his refrigerator because that brand wasn’t being served at the reception. Two groomsmen were passing back and forth between them a previously unopened fifteen-year-old bottle of Wild Turkey Tradition that, according to Amelia, Willie Nelson had given Jackson upon his induction into the Grand Ole Opry. A girl lay across their laps and one of the boys had his hand on her breast. Ah, and there was the crowning glory of the moment: the best man was in Jackson’s bed with the maid of honor—though they seemed to be clothed and more interested in taking selfies than having sex.

  Emory kicked a pile of tuxedo jackets and bow ties into a pile and said, “Everybody out. Right now.” She locked eyes with the idiot with his hand on the girl’s breast. “Get your hands off her. She’s too drunk to know where she is.”

  But they all just laughed and continued to drink, grope, and take pictures of each other. This was a nightmare of such magnitude that she couldn’t think which part was worst. First things first. She stomped over, took the drunk girl by the arm, and tried—and failed—to haul her up. But at least she dislodged her from the groper.

  “Hey, stop!” the girl said. “I was having fun.”

  “You’re done having fun here. And that goes for all of you.”

  “Hey!” the maid of honor said from the bed. “It’s Jack Beauford!”

  Emory turned. Indeed, it was. Jackson stood silent and paralyzed. His eyes flicked to Emory, around the room, and back to Emory again.

  Five phones came out and the picture-taking and video-making commenced.

  Jackson raised his hands and opened his mouth.

  “Jackson, don’t speak!” Emory said. “Don’t do anything. Get out of here and let me handle this. They’re recording this.”

  He gave her an incredulous look and moved toward his bed. Unless she was very, very wrong, he was about to throw some young men into the yard. It would be taken out of context and go viral in seconds.

  But then he stopped. What was that sound? Saint Peter, deliver me. It was the strumming of guitars, though it couldn’t be called music. Jackson did not run from the room but he moved like a tornado more intent on destruction than speed and Emory kept to his heels. What she needed was a Taser though she wasn’t sure who she’d use it on first—maybe herself.

  The music room was all rich honey wood and polished brass. It held a comfortable seating area, the best recording equipment known to man, and a baby grand piano that Jackson could play almost as well as he played guitar. There were other instruments, amplifiers, and the like, but the crowning glory was the custom-made glass and mahogany cabinets that lined the walls and held Jackson’s guitar collection. According to Amelia, it had taken renowned woodworker Will Garrett two years to design and build the cabinets. Emory couldn’t read music but the scores carved into the mahogany were supposed to be songs Jackson had written. The room put one in mind of a cathedral that had been consecrated in the name of sweet harmony.

  But if it had been a sacred place, it had been defiled. There were beer bottles on the piano, overturned plates of food on the leather sofas, and someone had been smoking.

  And right in the middle of it all, three bridesmaids clapped and squealed as two drunk groomsmen strummed guitars. Emory’s eyes quickly scanned the walls for the ones missing from their places. Gretsch 6120—Owned by Chet Atkins, the plaque said. And if that wasn’t bad enough, 1968 Fender Stratocaster—Owned by Jimi Hendrix.

  Jackson was not only going to kill her and everybody in this room, he would burn her, mix the ashes with manure, and fertilize the grounds of Beauford Bend. She had to do something but she couldn’t think what. She’d been ineffectual in the other room. The other room. There were drunk girls in there—girls who might make bad decisions. But there were drunk girls in here, too—two of which ran to flank Jackson and start taking selfies.

  Dirk. How stupid could she be to have forgotten she had a walkie-talkie and a security staff at her disposal? She reached for the button on her headset.

  But then, Jackson stepped quietly away from the bridesmaids onto his man-surfboard and rode a smooth wave of testosterone between the groomsmen. Either these people were not as drunk as the ones in the bedroom or they read the wrath on Jackson’s face. He simply took the guitars from their hands. Without any ado or saying a word, he inspected the instruments and walked over to the cabinets, where he tuned each one. Then he donned a pair of white gloves and wiped them down with a cloth before returning them to their niches.

  The room was completely quiet, though there was plenty of noise still coming from the bedroom. Emory met Jackson’s eyes but she couldn’t read them. Since the guitars had not been damaged, she might get to live, but there wasn’t a chance in hell that she was going to be able to save Around the Bend.

  Footsteps pounded down the hall—footsteps Emory recognized. Relief moved in as Dirk entered the room, followed by two of his staff and poor Sammy.

  Never had she been so glad to see anyone. Dirk glanced at Jackson before surveying the room. He gave a half laugh and shook his head like he’d found a bunch of toddlers with an open jar of molasses and no eating utensils except their hands.

  As Dirk moved from person to person, confiscating cell phones, he said over his shoulder, “Mike, start taking care of that situation in the bedroom. I’ll be right there.”

  “Hey, man!” one of the groomsmen said. “You can’t take my smartphone!”

  In answer, Dirk held up the phone to illustrate that he already had. Emory wasn’t sure exactly what Dirk had done when he’d been a Special Forces soldier but she was certain it involved more than taking phones away from drunks.

  “Ladies and gentlemen. Your property will be returned to you in the morning, once you are sober and I have removed anything that I deem as an infringement on the privacy of the Beauford family. For now, you are going to go to my office where you will get sober before you are returned to Firefly Hall. If I find that you have posted anything on the Internet that I deem none of your business, your phones will not be returned to you until every bit of it disappears.”

  “But, dude! We couldn’t take it down without our phones!” one of the girls said.

  “That is a personal problem and not mine. Now, file out and follow Tom here. On the way out you will apologize to Sammy for lying to him and you will apologize to Ms. Lowell for lying about her. You will not apologize to Mr. Beauford, nor will you speak to him, or look at him.”

  See, Jackson? They lied about me. I did not tell Sammy to let them in here. Dirk knows it.

  Dirk smiled at the trespassers as they moved toward the door. “In the unlikely event that one of you has another cell phone or a camera on you, if you take another picture, I will break your legs.”

  After the others had left, Sammy paused before Emory. “Emory, I’m sorry. It seemed odd, but they said … ”

  She put her hand on his. “I know, Sammy. I know. Next time ask me.” Except there probably wouldn’t be a next time for any of them.

  “I should have kno
wn you’d never authorize something like that. But I didn’t know they would go wild. I’ll get this mess cleaned up,” Sammy said. “I’ll start with the bedroom.”

  “That would be great, Sammy.” When he was almost out the door, she held out her hand. “Sammy? Master key?”

  “Uh, yeah.” He put it in her hand and left her alone with Jackson.

  She turned. “I need to tell the parents of the bride what happened and coordinate shutting down the event. All the rooms in this wing are kept ready—the family suites and the guest rooms. If I can—”

  Jackson waved her off without looking up. “I can find a place to sleep in my own house, Emory.”

  “Yes. Of course.” She hesitated. “Jackson, I’m sorry.”

  He nodded and turned to look at the Jimi Hendrix guitar. Just when she thought he would never acknowledge her existence again, Jackson spoke. “Emory. I’ll have that key. Leave it on the table.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Jackson chose Gabe’s suite to squat in because it was the one closest to his and he didn’t have the energy to go any farther. He’d showered and put on a pair of flannel pants and a San Antonio Wranglers t-shirt he found in Gabe’s drawer.

  He opened the refrigerator only to find an entire case of some brand of cream stout that Jackson had never heard of—further proof that Gabe would eat or drink anything. The only food was a box of Velveeta, a jar of Thai red chili sauce, and a pack of beef jerky, all of which likely had a shelf life of ten years. Gabe would probably mix all that together and pronounce it a fine meal.

  Hoping for the best, Jackson opened one of the cream stouts and took a sip. He did not get the best. How did Gabe drink this stuff? Did he even taste it or did he just empty it down his throat? Jackson poured it down the sink and was about to help himself to Gabe’s soft drink of choice, Dr. Pepper, when there was a knock on the door.

  What could she possibly want now? To set up a permanent circus on the property? Why not get a reptile zoo, too? Let a bunch of drunks play keep away with Gabe’s Heisman Trophy? Book the next Summer Olympics at Beauford Bend?