Forgiving Jackson

by Alicia Hunter Pace

“You know, don’t you?” she whispered.

  “Know what?” A sick feeling came over him. He’d said too much.

  “You know I wasn’t forced, don’t you? Not exactly, anyway?”

  • • •

  Emory wanted to cry. Being held and kissed had been so nice. It had been so long since she’d felt the things she’d felt. And now, it was over.

  Jackson shook his head.

  “Emory, not exactly being raped is like being a little bit pregnant. It doesn’t work that way.” He sighed and briefly covered his eyes with his hand. “Look. I do know you lied to me but it wasn’t about anything important. You told me the only truth you could stand to tell. I sent Dirk to New York to track down the son of a bitch who attacked you but he came up empty.”

  “What?” Her voice came out in a near scream.

  “Shh.” He looked around.

  “You had no right to do that!” How had she gone from melting in his arms to livid in a matter of seconds? So Dirk had found out that she had never called the police.

  “Let’s go inside,” Jackson said.

  For all his talk about her power, it didn’t seem like he was thinking about that much right now. He took her arm and steered her toward the front door. When he found that it was locked he grimaced and pulled a key out of his pocket—the master key that opened every door on this property.

  But to be fair, she didn’t have to go in there with him. Yet she went. She’d left a lamp on but he turned on another and pointed to the club chair across from the sofa.

  “Sit there. I’m going to sit over here so I can think straight.”

  He waited until she sat down to let himself down on the sofa. She didn’t know what to say; she had no defense. But apparently, he wasn’t expecting her to say anything. He leaned forward and placed his forearms on his knees.

  “Emory, you haven’t done anything wrong—well, apart from the lie about filing a police report. But that’s small potatoes. What happened was not your fault.”

  Oh, God. He still didn’t know. He was going to hate her.

  “You don’t understand,” she said.

  He nodded. “I think I do. I think you were date raped. I think you know exactly who hurt you but, for reasons I don’t understand, you wouldn’t tell.”

  “It wasn’t even a date! I met him at that party I told you about!” she exploded. “I let him walk me home. I’d been drinking. I invited him up to my apartment. I let him kiss me!”

  “And?” Jackson said. “So what? Did you want to have sex with him? Did you tell him you did?”

  “No! I would never sleep with someone I had just met. But it was how I acted.” The scene came rushing back to her. “I wore a short skirt … I liked him … I thought maybe he’d ask me out … and then—” She struggled to get her breath. “I let him kiss me. I kissed him back. But when I said no—”

  Jackson put up a hand. “Stop, Emory. Listen to yourself. You said no. You get to say no.”

  Her breath and words came in fast bursts as her heart rushed to keep up.

  “He put on a condom. I’ve gone over and over it a hundred times. I should have been able to get away while he opened a condom and put it on!”

  “And where were you when this was going on?” He asked like he already knew.

  “On the floor. He had pushed me to the floor. He had me pinned down with his leg and—” She stopped because she sounded like she was making excuses.

  Jackson rose and tentatively crossed to where she sat. He knelt down in front of her and held out his hands.

  “Will you take my hands, Emory?” he asked gently. “Please?”

  She almost didn’t. But he implored her with his eyes.

  “Good.” He squeezed her hands. “I want you to listen to me. Even if you had told him you would sleep with him, even if you had been in bed with him wearing nothing but a thong and that amazing smile of yours, you still would have had the right to say no.”

  “I didn’t do that! Do you think I did that?”

  He shook his head. “No. I think you met someone at a party and the two of you flirted. I think you thought he might turn out to be someone you might like to explore further. That’s normal. That’s what single people do. Because, really, no matter how much we might deny it, we’re all looking for a mate.”

  “Even you?”

  He tossed his head a little from side to side and a charming little expression bloomed on his face.

  “Even me, but I’m not a mate worth having. And we’re not talking about me. I think after he walked you home, you invited him upstairs with no intention of doing anything with him, except maybe a little necking.”

  He paused and she looked down at their entwined hands.

  “Am I right?” He drew her back into his gaze with the magnetism in his eyes and the gentleness in his voice.

  She nodded. “That’s right.”

  “And you never changed your mind about that, did you? And you were no more physical with him than you’ve been with me.”

  “That’s how it started out. I gave mixed signals.”

  He released one of her hands and brought his palm to her cheek.

  “I don’t believe you did. But even if there was some misunderstanding, a decent man doesn’t beat the hell out of a woman and pin her down and force himself on her. Only a sick, demented, evil bastard does that.”

  He sounded so sure. Could it be true? If it was, then why did she feel such shame?

  “I wish—” she began, but she didn’t know what to wish for.

  “That it had never happened? Me too, honey. But you know what?” He turned her palm upward and studied it like he was a gypsy in a carnival tent. “You’re strong.”

  She let go of a little staccato sound that might have been construed as a laugh had it not been so wracked with pain. “No. I’m not strong. I used to be.”

  He turned his eyes to hers. “No such thing as ‘used to be.’ Strong lasts forever. Strong lets you do what you have to.”

  “If I’d been strong, I wouldn’t have run.”

  “What’s wrong with running?” Jackson asked. “If that’s what you need?”

  All of a sudden she got the feeling he wasn’t talking about just her anymore.

  “Is that what you’ve done?” she asked. “Is that what you’re doing by refusing to do Camille’s memorial concert?”

  “Maybe,” he said evenly.

  “Do you think that’s what’s best for you?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know and I don’t care. I think it’s what’s best for everyone else.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  He shook his head, making it clear that he was shaking her question into outer space.

  “Emory, do you believe you were raped? I know you were, but have you accepted it?”

  “Yes.” And amazingly, it was true. The weight of it was still there but she could breathe a little easier.

  “Good. I get why you didn’t go to the police before, since you thought it was your fault. But now—”

  She should have seen that coming!

  “No!”

  “Emory—”

  “No, Jackson. I mean it. Listen, I thank you for believing in me. I thank you for helping me see this. It’s incredible and you’ve been amazing. But I cannot. I have to be done with this. You’ve told me over and over that you won’t try to force me to do anything, that the power is mine. Don’t make me have to remind you of that.”

  He looked at her for a long moment and then nodded. “All right. But this is all new. I’ll let it rest. But will you promise me you’ll think about it?”

  “If you promise me you’ll think about doing the concert. And I only ask because I do think it would be best for you.”

  He nodded. “All right. I’ll think about it. We both have some thinking to do.”

  She stood up. “Then maybe you ought to go think and I ought to go see how the party’s going.”

  But he stepped forward and pu
t his arms around her. “No thinking tonight, please. We’re both worn out from thinking.”

  She stayed in his arms; it felt good there.

  “What then?”

  “I want you go change into a pair of those absurdly too big shorts of yours and curl up on this couch with me to watch a movie or three. I swear, what I promised holds true. I’d love to make love to you but I won’t until you ask me.” He gave her a sidelong look. “But I won’t promise I won’t try to kiss you.”

  “Three movies?” she said, because that was the only part she was willing to respond to. “It’s getting pretty late.”

  “I don’t sleep nights,” he said with a wry little smile and a shrug. “I never sleep before daylight.”

  Though she was more than sure he hadn’t intended to give anything away, something in his expression broke her heart. Did he stay awake when everyone else was asleep, listening for things that might hurt the people around him? Was this new since L.A.?

  She couldn’t ask those questions so she said simply, “The remote’s in the side table drawer. The password for the On Demand is bender3819.”

  When she returned from changing clothes, he said, “I got Iron Man. You’ll love it.”

  It seemed natural to go into his arms, but he never did kiss her again.

  He was sound asleep in three minutes.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Jackson woke abruptly—though he didn’t open his eyes. Whether the culprit that ended his sleep was the ringing doorbell or the warm body that sprung away from his and landed on the floor with a thud, he could not have said.

  Where the hell was he? In some hotel on the road?

  Then he caught her scent and remembered.

  “Shit!” He’d never heard that word come out of Emory’s sweet little mouth before and even now, she uttered it in an apologetic little whisper.

  Shit, indeed. He’d sworn to himself he’d be careful with her.

  He kept his eyes closed. With any luck, she’d think he was asleep until he figured out what the hell had happened. Then it began to come back and he realized the only sex they’d had had been in his dreams—and those had been his only dreams. No burning bodies …

  The bell rang again, followed by the sound of bare feet pounding across the floor and the door being opened.

  “Good morning.” That would be Gwen’s voice. Maybe she wouldn’t come all the way in; maybe she wouldn’t see him. “I thought you’d be up by now since you didn’t close down the party.”

  “Yeah, well, I … ”

  “Never mind that. Do you know where Jackson is? I’ve looked high and—Well, well, well.”

  She was in; she’d seen him.

  “Shhh!” Emory whispered. “He’s asleep. He doesn’t sleep much.”

  “He sleeps plenty—just not when the rest of us do.” Not only was she making no attempt to be quiet, her voice was getting closer. “Jackson Beauford! Get your lazy butt up!”

  There was no pretending like he could sleep through that. He opened his eyes, yawned, and looked around. Both he and Emory still had all their clothes on but somewhere along the way, someone—probably him—had thrown all the back cushions off the couch, presumably to make more room.

  He pulled himself into a sitting position and groaned—which he did not have to manufacture. His neck and shoulder hurt and his legs were stiff. Couch sleeping would do that for you—especially when entwined with another person.

  “Hey, Gwen,” he said like this was the most natural thing in the world for her to run up on. “Did you sleep well?”

  “I did,” she said, “and thanks for asking. Now, get up and go take a shower. You’re going to church and you and I need to leave as soon as possible. Charles Thomas Ledlow was going to sing the solo part for the choir anthem this morning but he’s lost his voice. So you’re going to do it. We need to get over there so you can go over it with us.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” He put his hands up to ward off her orders. “No. Just no. I can’t.”

  “And why not?” Gwen put her hand on her hip. “Just why can you not come and sing one little song in the church you grew up in? The place where you first sang and played piano in public?”

  “You know what happened the last time I went to church three years ago. There were so many news vans in the parking lot, there was no room for anybody else.”

  “Yes, and I know why. Three days before Christmas you did a radio interview and told the world you were going home for Christmas where you would be eating turkey, opening presents, watching football, and going to the midnight Christmas Eve service. Nobody knows you’re coming this morning except the choir.”

  “They don’t know it. If they think they do, it’s because they’ve been given misinformation.”

  “And they got that information from me. I’d like to remind you that I’ve kept you fed when I didn’t have to these past few weeks. And I had to work and manage a baby and an out-of-control toddler without any help for almost a week while my husband was off doing God only knows what for you, because I don’t.”

  That was the thing with Gwen; she might do you a good turn but she always called it in.

  Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. He’d made an empty promise to Emory that he would think about doing Camille’s memorial benefit but maybe if he could do this—could perform without smelling the smoke and feeling the heat from the flames—he really could consider it.

  He rubbed his eyes. “What are you singing?” The words came out in a defeated sigh.

  “‘Because of Love.’ You can’t very well say you don’t know it.”

  True. He’d written and recorded the song a few years ago as part of a fundraising CD made by the First United Methodist Choir of Beauford. He had heard that people referred to the new prayer chapel as The House that Jack Built.

  He stood up. “All right. But I’m only doing this because Dirk gets ornery when you don’t get your way and he’ll take it out on me.”

  “I don’t care what your reason is as long as you do it,” Gwen said. “Text me when you’re ready and I’ll pick you up at the big house.”

  “I’ll drive myself.” He wanted his own vehicle in case he needed to bolt.

  “I’ll wait in the family wing and ride with you.”

  “You don’t trust me.”

  “I promised to deliver you and that’s what I’m going to do. Be quick about your primping.” She moved toward the door. “I’m going to get my purse and walk up to the big house. See you at church, Emory.”

  When Gwen left, Jackson let his eyes slide over to Emory, who hadn’t moved since she’d let Gwen in.

  “I didn’t mean—” he said.

  And at the same time she said, “It was an accident that I—”

  They looked at each other for a second.

  “You first,” she said.

  “I didn’t mean to fall asleep,” he said. And that was the truth. He’d tried night after night to go to sleep at a normal hour but it hadn’t happened—until last night. This was the first day he’d felt rested since the fire—and that was in spite of sleeping on a sofa, in his clothes, sharing the space. “I didn’t even know I could sleep before daybreak anymore.”

  “I know.” She nodded. “And I was only going to let you sleep for a little while. Then I started watching that movie and the next thing I knew, the doorbell woke me up. I wouldn’t have you think … ” She looked at the floor and her voice trailed off.

  “I don’t.” He put his hands on her shoulders. “Whatever you were about to say, I don’t think anything except that you fell asleep—just like I did.”

  She looked up and nodded.

  “If this were a movie, I’d kiss you because they don’t have morning mouth in movies.”

  That got a smile out of her—that amazing smile. “Then maybe you’d better go back over to the family wing and pursue a little oral hygiene before singing for the good people of the First United Methodist Church.”

  “Yeah, that. Gwen sa
id she’d see you there. Are you really going?” Suddenly, it was very important to him that she be there.

  “Sure. I usually go.”

  “Should I pick you up?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “Christian is picking me up. We always go together.”

  One out of two wasn’t bad.

  • • •

  “So,” Christian said as soon as Emory climbed into the front seat with her. “I picked up a little gossip from the Neills this morning.”

  There was something in Christian’s tone that gave Emory a very good idea what that gossip was.

  “Really?”

  “Yes!” Christian drove down the long driveway and turned toward town. “They were talking at breakfast. The daughter was complaining that you left before the party was over. The parents said so long as nothing went wrong, what difference did it make? But, Emory, I’ve never known you to go home until every spoon was clean and every piece of equipment was put away.”

  “I did last night.”

  Christian nodded. “I understand you were last seen dancing with Jack Beauford’s cousin, who looked remarkably like him. Thing is, I’ve known the Beaufords all my life and I don’t know of any cousin who looks like Jackson—or one who works at Around the Bend. Seems like I would have run into him.”

  “Hmm.”

  Christian started to laugh. “I’m not going to give you any trouble about this, Emory. It’s been way too long since you’ve had a date.”

  “It wasn’t a date, Christian. It was a dance. And we watched a movie.” And had an emotional upheaval unlike any she had ever imagined. Still, she might be better for it.

  “Sounds like a date to me,” Christian said.

  “How would you know? It’s not like you’re giving the poor men of Beauford a chance.”

  “A Beauford man will break your heart if you don’t watch it,” Christian said lightly.

  “Beauford man, as in a man who lives in Beauford or one named Beauford?”

  “A is a subset of B but B is not necessarily a subset of A.”

  “That’s for sure,” Emory said because it made as little sense as anything.

  “Anyway, I think it’s very romantic—Jackson dressing up like an Around the Bend waiter and pretending to be his cousin so he could dance with you.”