Forgiving Jackson

by Alicia Hunter Pace

  Good point.

  “And you can tell Dirk I’m mad at him,” Missy went on. “I’ve been calling him for two weeks. Every time, he tells me he hasn’t seen you.”

  Points for Dirk.

  “I haven’t been here long. I’m fine. I have a few stitches in my arm but it’s nearly well.”

  “I doubt that. And I wasn’t talking about your arm. But you need to call the twins. If you don’t, I am coming up there. I might bring the kids and stay a week.”

  “Do not come here. I’m not ready for you.” He swallowed. “Has anybody heard from Beau?”

  “Not that I know of. I’m going to call Gabe and Rafe in the morning. If they haven’t heard from you, go ahead and tell Gwen to make me some chicken salad because I’ll be there by lunchtime.”

  “I will alert security to have you arrested.”

  “I’ll climb the fence. And I like grapes in my chicken salad.”

  “Not happening.”

  “You wound me.” She hesitated. “Okay. I need to go. I love you, Jacky.”

  He went a little soft. “I love you, too.”

  He clicked off and looked up to see Emory standing there.

  CHAPTER NINE

  So he loved someone, did he? Maybe somebody ought to tell him you don’t going around kissing other people if you love someone. Or maybe they both went around kissing other people. Good for him and who cared? Maybe it would get him out of here sooner.

  Emory had decided she was tired of pretending like he wasn’t here. So what if he kissed her and got mad when she ran off? So what if he wrote a nasty little song about her? Most people didn’t get to be in a Jackson Beauford song. Let him record it and put her right in the video. She’d do it. But for now, she needed something from him.

  “Is your truck an automatic?” she asked.

  He furrowed his brow and laid his cell phone on the table. “Yes. Why?”

  “Because I need to borrow it and I can’t drive stick.”

  “No. You have a fine new van at your disposal that I bought less than a year ago. Drive that.”

  “Gwen and Sammy have taken it to Garnett Farms to buy vegetables and dairy for the quilters.”

  “Doesn’t the Piggly Wiggly in town have that stuff? I would think, with you being so Beauford-minded, you’d want to buy locally.”

  “I do. We do. But Gwen likes her butter to come from a cow she has a personal relationship with. And she’s picky about her vegetables. They’re picking their own strawberries and won’t be back for hours.”

  “Then take your own car. If your trip is business related you can charge mileage to Around the Bend. Or you can deduct it from your taxes.”

  So now he was going to tell her about tax laws. Great. “It is business related and I don’t have a car.”

  His eyebrows went up. “You don’t have a car? Everybody has a car.”

  “No. Everybody doesn’t.”

  “Oh, that’s right! You lived in New York. New Yorkers don’t have cars.”

  What? “How do you know I lived in New York?”

  “Dirk told me.”

  She stared at him.

  “He does background checks on everyone who works for Beauford Bend Plantation, you know.” He smiled. “You have an MBA from Harvard and worked as a financial analyst on Wall Street. Though I cannot for the life of me figure out why you’d give all that up to come work here.”

  She didn’t have time for this. “Jackson, please. I need to take a quilt to Noel in town. I was going to use Gwen’s SUV but it won’t crank. Dirk’s truck is a stick shift. Noel needs the quilt this morning so she’ll have time to cut out the pieces for the quilting classes this week.”

  “Seems like if there’s going be a class, those women would cut out their own pieces. Why is this Noel doing it, anyway?”

  “I don’t know, Jackson. I’m not a quilter. I’m not a quilt teacher. I’m only trying to do what I’m asked to do to make things run smoothly. But I’ll tell you what. I’ll call Noel and ask her if she can find someone to watch her shop so she can come get it. Because that’s an entirely reasonable thing to do when the owner of Around the Bend has a perfectly good vehicle that’s not being used.”

  She turned to go. She would’ve flounced if she knew how.

  “Wait.” He stood up. “I’ll take you.”

  She stopped short. “You’ll take me?”

  “Why not? Twang Magazine has outted me. Besides, the good people of Beauford have ceased to be impressed with me—wait. They never were.” He shrugged. “Maybe it’s a light tourist day. Besides, I need to go to the bank. I don’t have any money. First I need to change my clothes.”

  • • •

  Jackson rambled around in his closet looking for something that he wouldn’t ordinarily wear. Khaki shorts. Good enough.

  Ginger had told him he needed therapy. Now, he almost believed her. What was he thinking? Kissing Emory. Now, agreeing—no offering—to take her to town. What was wrong with him? Was he really that bored?

  Yeah. He really was.

  Where had that Hawaiian shirt even come from? Oh, right. Gabe had brought it to him from his last vacation there. He threw his t-shirt on the floor and put the Hawaiian shirt on. Now for a cap. That University of Tennessee one would do. He didn’t want to go to town but he couldn’t back down now. Besides, he really did need money. After buying Cokes at the airport for himself and that damned reporter who’d told the world his whereabouts, he had forty-two cents. A man shouldn’t walk around without money in his pocket even if he was at home. Jackson jammed his feet into docksiders that had seen better days and tramped down the stairs, where Emory was waiting.

  “Are you ready to go?”

  Emory rose from the sofa, turned to face him, and dissolved into laughter. “Are you going to a luau?”

  It had been a long time since he’d met someone who laughed at him when he hadn’t told a joke.

  “I’m surprised you don’t have one lined up right outside my door.” He put his sunglasses on and tuned his cap backwards.

  “Now, that improves your look.”

  “Do you want to go to that quilt store or not? Because I am about out of the notion to take you.”

  “Good. Give me your keys. I’ll take myself.”

  Oh, she’d like that, wouldn’t she? “Where’s that quilt?”

  “I’ve already put it in your truck. You should lock your doors.”

  “Why?” He moved toward the door. “Locked doors don’t count for much around here. Anyway, you were pretty sure of yourself, weren’t you?”

  She shrugged and walked out the door in front of him. “Thank you, Lord of the Manor, for driving me to town today.”

  “That’s more like it.” He opened the passenger door and moved the quilt box to the rear seat. Then he turned to her. “Unless you’d rather sit in the back. We could play a game. I could be the chauffeur. You could be my boss. Except that’s not so much a game as how things are working out.”

  She grasped the grab handle to haul herself into the truck and stepped on the running board. Just as he put a hand on her forearm and another on her waist to help her, she turned and said, “Or you could be the cabbie and I could be the fare.”

  And she smiled.

  He hadn’t seen that smile before. Had he? No, or he would have remembered. His hands on her warmed as the smile reached her eyes.

  He was struck speechless. That was a smile that lit up the world with promises. He could write a song about that smile. Except he wasn’t writing songs anymore—well, except a little. It’s not like anyone else would hear them. God help him, he wanted to taste that smile, wanted to drink it in, wanted to receive what it promised.

  He shook it off. “Up you go.” He settled her in the passenger seat and closed the door. Good. Metal and glass between them was what he needed. Maybe he should have put her in the back seat. And now he was trapped in a small space with that smell of hers.

  He turned on the air conditione
r.

  “Is there anything you need?” she asked.

  “Like peace and quiet and my home back?” He cut his eyes at her. She had on some kind of little skirt. It had ridden up enough to show her knees.

  She tugged it down. He’d have to remember not to look at her knees. “No, like cereal, milk, yogurt, fruit, sandwich makings. Groceries. Or maybe soap and deodorant.”

  “Do I stink?”

  “No, but you will if you run out of toiletries.”

  “I’m good.” But was he? That stuff just appeared. Or it used to. Gwen had been sending him food but he realized now it was coming from her own family’s meals and she was just doing it to be nice. “How would I get that stuff?” he asked. “I mean without actually going to the Piggly Wiggly myself?”

  “Give me a list and I’ll order it with the Around the Bend supplies. Or you can send Sammy to town anytime.”

  “Now that would be productive. He’d probably bring back a busload of people to pee on my furniture and burn my piano.”

  “It wasn’t that bad. And you need to let that go. Sammy is very sorry. He’s afraid of getting fired.”

  “He should be afraid. So should you.”

  “I’m not afraid of anything.” Her face tightened and she looked out the window. He’d made her mad. Good.

  When he turned on the radio, his own voice belted out. He turned it off again.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Emory could take barbed-wire Jackson; she might even like sweet Jackson. What she couldn’t stand was the ping-ponging back and forth between the two. It was going to be a long time until September first—or until Jackson Beauford went back to wherever he came from—whichever came first. That is, if he didn’t fire her today. There was no ease at all in this man’s presence.

  “Can you drive?” he demanded.

  “Of course I can drive. Everyone can drive.” She knew this ploy. He was asking a question that he knew the answer to in order to lead her into another subject. “Do you think I would have asked to borrow your truck if I couldn’t?”

  “You might. You might have decided to learn on my new truck. And it’s not true that everyone can drive,” he said merrily, as though he liked the sound of his own voice, which he probably did and she couldn’t blame him for. It was a beautiful voice. “Children can’t drive. Saudi Arabian women can’t drive. Blind people. New Yorkers. “But I’m not any of those things, am I? So I can drive.”

  “I thought you were a New Yorker.”

  “You thought wrong. Besides, people who live in New York can drive. It’s just that public transportation is so good that they don’t have to.”

  “But you lived there.”

  “I did for a time.”

  “Where are your people? Where are you from?”

  “My mother died when I was a baby. I don’t remember her. My father, stepmother, and their children live in Dallas. I don’t see them much.”

  “So their children—they would be your siblings?”

  That took her aback. Of course, they were—half, anyway. She knew that but she didn’t feel it. She hardly knew them.

  “We aren’t close. They’re much younger.”

  “You don’t sound like Texas.”

  “Don’t I? I guess I’ve lost it. I went to boarding school in the East.”

  “So you must have been a privileged little princess or you wouldn’t have gone to boarding school or been at Aunt Amelia’s charm school all those years ago.”

  “Not really.” She certainly hadn’t been anyone’s princess. “I guess we were a little nouveau riche at the time, though more nouveau than riche. But my stepmother is better at spending money than my dad is at making it so I’m not sure they’re doing much more than keeping up appearances anymore.”

  “If that’s so, how did they afford all that fancy schooling?”

  “My grandmother left a trust for her grandchildren but it was very specific. It could only be used for education. I was smart enough to get into good schools. The money was there. I’m sure it galled Jolie that she couldn’t use the money to buy animal print upholstery, but the upside was she got to be rid of me.” She stopped abruptly. “Why am I telling you this?”

  “I asked. And, as a loyal disciple of Amelia’s Fortnight of Refinement and Training for Young Ladies, you’re polite. My aunt saw to it, in spite of your money-grubbing stepmother.”

  “I didn’t say she was money-grubbing.”

  “You kind of did.”

  “Yeah, well. If the Manolo Blahnik fits … ”

  “Who?”

  “It’s a high-end shoe brand. I’m surprised you don’t know about it.”

  “Yeah, because I am all about some high-end shoes.”

  “I would have thought you might have bought some for a woman or ten.”

  “High priestess of correct behavior that you are, I figured you’d know it’s not proper for a man to buy a woman personal items unless she’s his wife.”

  “I do know. I just didn’t think you’d care. What do you buy for your women?”

  “I don’t have any women.” He looked uncomfortable, probably because he was lying. Finally, some fun.

  “You have in the past. I’ve seen pictures. I know you’ve given them presents. I want to know what they are.”

  “Autographed pictures of myself. That would only be for birthdays and Christmas. I send a CD for the breakup gift.”

  “Breakup gift?”

  “The thing that softens the blow when you have to say, ‘It’s not me, it’s you.’”

  “Don’t you mean, ‘It’s not you, it’s me’?”

  “Nope.” He turned the truck down Main Street. “It’s never me. They get a CD. I get the hell out. Everybody’s happy.”

  “What a prince you are.”

  “Hey. I sign it. My brother Gabe gives jewelry. Maybe you’d like that better.”

  “No.”

  “Oh? What would you want for a kiss-off gift? I might consider it since you don’t think CDs are the way to go.”

  “I wouldn’t want anything. I would just want an honest goodbye.”

  “That might take too long. Come on. Don’t tell me you’ve never gotten a kiss-off gift.”

  “Never.”

  “Never?” He looked at her, widened his eyes, and pretended to look shocked. “You’re not letting the right guys break up with you.”

  “Maybe I’ve always done the breaking up.”

  “You should date my brother and get him to break up with you. You’d get something nice.”

  “I’ll get right on that. Maybe I can become a San Antonio Wrangler cheerleader. I’ll tell you this: if there had to be a gift, a piece of jewelry is better than a CD.”

  “Yeah?” He gave her a flirty little smile. “If I had you, I might not break up with you. I might keep you and buy you personal items. No Manila Black Nick shoes though. They sound tall and expensive—though I could get on board with the tall.”

  He certainly had meaningless flirting down to a fine art.

  “Cut it out. Don’t mistake me for a woman standing in front of your stage hoping you’ll touch my hand.”

  “I’ll give you a CD when I fire you. Maybe two.”

  Suddenly, this wasn’t fun anymore. “If you’re going to fire me, I wish you’d just go ahead and do it. I’m tired of being threatened.”

  He turned to her, puzzled. “Emory, I am not going to fire you. I’m going to close the business. There’s a difference.”

  “Every five minutes, you say you’re going to fire me, like you’re going to throw me out any minute.”

  “I’m not going to do that.” He looked up and down the street. “Where is this place?”

  “Next to the drugstore on the next block.”

  “I know where the drugstore is,” he said defensively.

  The crowd was thin today and Jackson pulled into a space right in front of Piece by Piece.

  Emory reached for the door handle. “I’ll be right back.”
<
br />   “Wait.” Jackson switched off the motor and turned to her. “I’m a man of my word. I’m not throwing you off of Beauford Bend. I’m going to help you get set up at Firefly Hall just like I said I would.”

  “Then you keep threatening me just to remind me that you can fire me at any time?”

  “No. I don’t think I need to remind you of that. We both know it. But I won’t. I was kidding you.”

  “Forgive me if I don’t think losing my livelihood and home with no notice is funny.”

  He nodded. “That’s fair. But keep this in mind: I can’t fire you—not unless I want to run a quilting bee and teach charm school.” He bit his lip and smiled. “Because I have no doubt those people are showing up no matter what.”

  She believed him. A weight lifted. “All right. So you’re going to stop threatening me?”

  “No, probably not. But I won’t do it.”

  “Good enough. I won’t be long.”

  He turned his cap around and pulled the bill low. “I’m coming with you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I choose to. I might want to commission a quilt with my guitars on it. It would be a good memory for when Sammy lets somebody destroy them all.” He had her door open before she got the chance. “Here.” He took her arm to help her down and she waited for the panic to set in like it usually did when a man touched her. But it didn’t. It hadn’t when he’d helped her into the truck and it hadn’t at first when he’d kissed her.

  He retrieved the quilt box and then he touched her again—placed his hand lightly on the small of her back, no doubt just like Amelia had taught him was the correct way for a gentleman to escort a lady. Maybe that’s why she didn’t panic. Amelia had been Jackson’s surrogate mother and Amelia had been her safe place.

  Or maybe it was because all of her girlhood crush hadn’t turned to fandom. Maybe there was a little of it left dancing around in a little corner of her heart. She’d do well to remember she wasn’t that girl anymore and that he had told another woman he loved her not an hour ago.

  She let him guide her through the door of Noel’s shop.