by Jamie Beck
“I want to see my grandson!” She resisted, backing up.
“Surely you don’t want Luc and these kids to see me take you out in cuffs.” Noah’s voice had gone cold.
Jackson noticed tears in Gabby’s eyes and reached out to comfort her. She shrugged away and ran toward the house. Jon cut through his peripheral vision, carrying Luc across the yard to meet up with his daughter. Seconds later, they all disappeared into the back of the house.
“Come on, now. Show’s over.” Noah gestured toward his squad car. “Time to go.”
Marie remained rooted to her spot, her body tremors visible. “Why can he stay, but I can’t?”
“Trust me, Mrs. Bouchard, I’ll get to the bottom of any trouble where my son is concerned. Don’t you worry.” Noah shot Jackson another hard-boiled look.
Defiant anger brewed in Jackson, mixed with a touch of alarm. Marie had just opened a can of worms, and Noah now had another reason to meddle in Gabby’s and Jackson’s lives.
Noah’s authoritative voice commanded, “Now hand your keys to Jackson so we can get you out of here without causing more trouble.”
“You should’ve helped me. Now you’ll see how it feels to be judged unfit,” Marie muttered as she handed Jackson her keys.
Jackson had no doubt Noah would exploit her grossly exaggerated characterization of his situation and plant all kinds of doubts about him in Gabby’s mind. Doubts Gabby already nursed on some level.
Ten minutes later, Jackson parked Mrs. Bouchard’s car in front of her motel room and waited outside while Noah escorted her to her room. When Noah returned, he pointed at his car. Dread encased Jackson’s feet in lead slippers for the duration of the walk to Noah’s squad car.
Bracing himself for a slew of sarcasm and an interrogation, he climbed in beside Noah in the front seat.
Surprisingly, Noah didn’t speak at all. When they pulled onto the Bouchards’ road, he finally said, “I’ve got some things to take care of now. Tell Gabby I’ll be speaking with her soon.”
The cool tone of Noah’s voice chased a chill up Jackson’s spine. The man had been far too controlled for the occasion, which could only mean he’d been formulating some plan. As Jackson guessed the first time they’d met, Noah was slick, and now armed with a boatload of suspicion.
“Maybe you should come say good-bye to Luc. We left in a hurry, and I doubt you want him to think he did something wrong.”
“Don’t worry about what I should or shouldn’t do with my son.” Noah shot him another cool glance, but put the car in park and killed the engine.
When they rejoined the party, Jon and some of the other parents had the kids engaged in a game of musical chairs. Jackson headed inside to search for Gabby without another word to Noah.
He found her in the kitchen scrubbing the party trays. She glanced over her shoulder when she heard him. “You’re back already.”
“Yes.” He waited, unsure of what to say.
“I can’t believe she showed up here.” She kept scrubbing, her hands moving at a frenzied pace. “Drunk, no less.”
Jackson shrugged. “What can I do to help?”
“I should’ve listened to my dad and ignored her letter.” She placed the last tray on the drying rack and faced him. “What happened today is worse than any regret I might’ve had from not knowing.”
Although she hadn’t blamed him for the fiasco, she’d basically inferred that he’d given her shitty advice. He couldn’t blame her. Jon had been right, and all Gabby’s worst fears had come true. He stood, frozen, unable to make it better.
“Today sucked. I’m sorry your mom showed up, and showed up drunk. Maybe she lied the other day. Maybe she hasn’t been as sober as she’d led you to believe. But that’s her problem. You can’t worry about her or feel responsible for her choices. Damn, I wish I hadn’t encouraged you to meet her.” Then he reconsidered, because if he’d been learning anything this past month, it was that peace of mind required courage and honesty. “Or maybe you’re better off having seen her and talked to her. Now you know for sure your dad is right. Had you not seen her for yourself, you couldn’t have been certain.”
Gabby heaved a sigh, unwilling to agree, but clearly too upset to argue. “Doesn’t matter. All that matters is Luc. I can’t keep making selfish decisions without thinking about how the fallout could hurt him.”
Jackson didn’t particularly like the implication of that statement. Had she lumped him in with her mother now? “You’d never do anything that would hurt your son.”
“I think we both know that’s not exactly true.” She glanced at the ground.
“Are you still talking about your mom, or does that statement include me, too?” He crossed his arms.
Her brow pinched, but she didn’t answer. He stood there, heart sinking to his toes, waiting for her to say more, but all she muttered was, “I need to get back outside.”
“Guess we’ll talk later.” He gestured toward the door, but then stayed behind after she went outside.
Rationally, he knew things weren’t looking good and he needed to regroup. Normally he’d reach for a bottle now, but he’d be damned if people like Marie and Noah torpedoed his recovery at this point.
Jackson strode through the house and exited through the front door so no one would see him slip away. He left his Jeep by the garage and started walking, with no destination in mind.
Gabby breathed a huge sigh of relief when the last of the guests pulled out of the driveway. The wonderful day she’d planned had ended in near disaster. Fortunately, Luc remained oblivious to everything other than Jackson’s disappearance. That mystery had her concerned, too, which she kind of resented.
He’d known she’d already had her mind blown once, so him leaving without a word seemed insensitive. Of course, she’d pushed away any effort he’d made to comfort her, so maybe she owed him the apology. In either case, the fact that she and Luc both already missed him underscored how difficult it would be when he returned to Connecticut.
“Luc’s tuckered out,” her father said. “I think he’ll fall asleep as soon as you give him a bath.”
Gabby glanced across the living room. Luc had wedged himself into the corner of the sofa to suck his thumb and gaze into space.
“I’m exhausted, too.” Then, because she hadn’t had a chance to say so sooner, she admitted, “Dad, you were right. Contacting Mom was a huge mistake. I don’t know why I couldn’t stop myself. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you.”
Her dad opened his arms for a hug, which she gladly accepted. Then he shocked her by saying, “I suppose this was one of those things you needed to find out on your own before you could accept the truth. I’ve always wanted to keep you safe from any more disappointment. But you’re an adult now, and you have the right to make these decisions for yourself.”
The fact he’d basically echoed Jackson’s earlier sentiments struck her as funny. Not that anything about the situation held a trace of humor.
“I’d better bathe Luc before he falls asleep.” She eased away from her dad and fetched her son. As they climbed the stairs, she couldn’t help but wonder where Jackson had gone and what he was thinking.
Forty minutes later, when a light shining through his window informed her of his return, she decided to find out. Grabbing a fleece, she made her way to the apartment and rapped on its door.
“Come in.” Jackson drew a deep breath to steel himself for a confrontation. His walk hadn’t shaken off his funk, but weariness made him too tired to argue. He remained on the recliner with a book across his lap.
“Hi.” Gabby stood near the door, hands clasped together, thumbs twiddling.
“Hi.” He didn’t smile or tease or make any move to touch her. He wanted to keep her close, but today he’d felt her pulling away, and he wouldn’t risk another rejection.
“Where’d you go today?” Although tentative, the question sounded like another accusation in his ears.
“Why? You worried I’m drunk?”
He noticed her wince at the bite in his tone.
“No.” She crossed the room to him and, in her typical manner, kicked the hornet’s nest of his foul mood. “Are you mad at me?”
“I’m not mad.” He closed the book and set it aside. “I’m hurt.”
“Why are you hurt?” She crossed her arms, donning a puzzled expression.
Jackson knew she’d had a lousy afternoon, but so had he. “Because you keep lumping me in with your mom.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Yeah, you kinda do, Gabby. You keep asking me what she’s thinking or feeling, as if I, with my moderate issue, have anything in common with a full-blown drug addict who left her only child. And you keep suggesting that I’m going to end up hurting you and Luc.”
“I don’t think you’d hurt us on purpose.” She slumped onto the sofa. “But you can’t deny we’ll miss you when you leave.”
“As I’ll miss you both. Which is sort of my point, Gabby. You keep thinking about what you and Luc stand to lose, but you never think about how trusting you might end up hurting me.”
“How could I possibly hurt you?” She looked utterly incredulous with her wide eyes and slack jaw. “When you leave, you’ll return to your family and business feeling better than you have in a long time. I can only imagine all the women there who’ll be happy for your return. By New Year’s, I’ll be a blip in the rearview mirror. Meanwhile, I’m stuck here with a toddler and a dead-end kind of life. So excuse me if I don’t see us as being equal in the ‘whose heart is going to take the bigger hit’ contest.”
He knew she hadn’t meant to insult him, but his heart registered the insult anyway. “If you honestly believe that, then you don’t understand me the way I thought you did.”
His quiet tone appeared to catch her attention.
Her defensive expression eased into something curious as she sat forward. “Then enlighten me.”
When he’d stormed away from the party this afternoon, he’d dumped the costume by the road and walked for ninety minutes thinking through all the decisions that had led him to needing to have this conversation. He’d grappled vanity, doubts, and his fear of vulnerability. Ultimately, he’d vowed not to run away from his feelings.
Although he’d considered all the ways he might articulate the fucked-up mess of emotions that had hijacked his life these past years, it wasn’t until this moment that he’d known how to start the conversation.
“Has it never occurred to you that, if my life back home were so great, I wouldn’t have ended up here in the first place?”
“No, because you’ve never shared more than vague details with me.” She chewed on her lip. “Why did things get so bad this seemed the only option?”
“Because when everyone I loved let me down, I gave up. It always seemed that no matter how much I’d been willing to give, it never mattered. People kept taking more and more without giving much back. So, I pulled away, kept to myself, and started drinking a little bit more each month.” Jackson blocked out Doc’s recent attempt to get him to see how he might be a little hypocritical with his opinions.
She edged closer, but didn’t touch him, as if she sensed that he needed a little distance to finish this conversation. “How, exactly, did people take from you or let you down?”
“All kinds of ways.” He rubbed his hands on his thighs to buy time. “My mom was the heart of our family. I thought nothing could be colder or darker than those weeks leading up to her death, but then the permanent, profound loss struck even harder. Even now, that doesn’t fade.”
He paused, allowing the memory of his mom’s smile to linger. “David left the country without any warning three days after my mom’s funeral. He and my dad had a falling-out, which neither will tell us about. Whatever caused it had to be major, because David not only moved around the world, but also barely spoke with Cat and me for more than a year. He finally came home, but the distance between us is still there. He and my dad are talking now, but there’s tension there, too. David won’t share whatever the hell the big secret falling-out was all about. I’ve tried to overlook it, but the truth is, I can’t. I’d always thought we were close, but the way he left me and still won’t trust me with the truth makes me doubt everything I thought I knew about us.”
“Maybe it’s not his secret to share?” Gabby interrupted.
Apparently she shared his sister’s opinion, but Jackson disagreed. “Except I’m pretty sure he told his wife. And anyway, there’s more to my story. A couple of months after David first left, my then girlfriend got pregnant. I was psyched. I’d always wanted a family, and since mine had starting falling apart, I thought fate had thrown me a bone.”
He leaned forward a bit, staring into space. “Maybe it’s crazy, but at one point I thought my mom manipulated things from heaven to give me the family I missed. Alison didn’t agree. She didn’t want to be a mother or my wife, so she aborted our child without considering any options. That’s when I really began drinking more regularly. Finally, my sister stole my best employee—and friend—to start up some new business. Honestly, Gabby, I’d about given up on people until I met you.”
That admission set off a wave of panic that bunched up in his shoulders, but he forced his way past the emotion before it stopped him from finishing what needed to be said.
“You and the way you greet each day with a smile. The way you never take the easy road, whether it means being a single mom, accepting your mom’s abandonment, or facing her down twice this week without falling apart. You inspire me. You give me hope that there are people who are worth the effort. But then, when you imply I’m some hookup who’s only out for what I can take for myself, that feels like a bomb going off in my heart. Makes me think my faith in you is misplaced. Like what seems worth the risk of letting you in here,” he tapped his chest, “isn’t anything special at all. That maybe you’re just another Alison in disguise, and I’m still as gullible as I ever was when it comes to people I care about.”
Now that he’d spilled his guts, he could barely make eye contact with Gabby. His heart raced, and his skin prickled from overexposure, like he’d been standing next to the sun.
“I’m sorry.” Gabby tentatively reached for his hand. “I guess I let my insecurities take over. I do know who you are, Jackson.”
His body stiffened at first, determined to reject any overture as pity. But at the moment of contact, he found himself gripping her hand and tugging her onto his lap. She curled against him like a child, resting her head on his shoulder and wrapping one hand around his neck.
He enveloped her in his arms and buried his face in the crook of her neck. They sat intertwined in a silent embrace until his heart returned to its natural rhythm. A warm rush of contentment replaced the shame and discomfort that had consumed him minutes earlier.
“Thank you for sharing all of that.” She grinned against his neck. “And for all the flattery. I’m sure I’ve never ‘inspired’ anyone else to do much more than roll their eyes.”
He kissed the top of her head and looped a chunk of her hair around his finger. “I meant every word. You do inspire me. So stop assuming that, the minute I go home, you and Luc will be nothing more than a faint memory. That’s not what I see happening at all.”
She kissed his cheek. “I’m sure you’ll never be a distant memory for me, Jackson.”
He tipped her face up to force her to look him in the eye. “Maybe the odds are against us, but if I’m going to get more invested, I need to know that you aren’t using me because I’m convenient and helpful.”
“No! I’m using you for the great sex.” She stared at him—straight-faced—and then grinned. “Sorry, but you walked right into that one.”
“Don’t be sorry. I’m about to make good on that great sex—right now.” He kissed her mouth this time with a playful growl, but then gentled his hold. “I’m glad you came over tonight.”
He eased her off his lap and stood, then immediately lifted her and carried her to his b
ed. His body thrummed with anticipation as he slowly undressed her. He wanted to savor the little moments—the feel of her skin beneath his fingers, the catch of her breath, the sparkle in her eye—hoping she shared his sense of preciousness about the moment.
Once he’d removed her clothes, he quickly discarded his own and crawled on top of her, pinning her hands to the mattress while nuzzling her neck and slowly showering her shoulder and breasts with lingering kisses. As her scent swirled around him, he knew he’d never see or smell a pear again without thinking of her.
She arched in response to each lick of his tongue, seeking him out yet unable to pull him close. “Jackson, let me touch you.”
He released her hands and lowered himself so that they were skin to skin. The friction of their bodies created heat until, in the frenzy of caresses and kisses, their skin turned slick.
Jackson’s body broke out in goose bumps wherever her fingers traced his skin. For the first time in years, he’d bared his soul. It seemed impossible to feel simultaneously lost and safe, yet the intense intimacy of it all tossed him about like a ship in a storm.
His need for her affection overwhelmed him. If he hadn’t been so hungry for her, it might’ve terrified him. But with each kiss, the fear ebbed, giving way to a deepening sense of belonging. Like invisible ink, the tie between them seemed as if it had been there all along, waiting to be discovered.
He cupped her breasts, then stroked the inside of her thigh until she opened her legs. Her face lit with pleasure, evidenced further by her sexy moan, as his fingers explored her center. Seeing her so utterly undone by him filled him with longing and tenderness.
She opened her eyes and threaded her fingers through his hair. “I want you. Don’t wait.”
“I won’t,” he murmured in her ear as he thrust himself inside of her. Once fully seated between her legs, he forced himself to slow down and to hold her gaze. To see her and, more importantly, be seen by her. His heart filled with passion and warmth as their bodies took over and meted out a rhythm that alternated between smooth, slow thrusts and quick, ravenous ones.
