Surprise flickered through him. “Care to tell me what is?”
She wrapped her slender fingers around her paper cup, seemingly considering his question, but something ultimately held her back from confiding in him. “No. I’d rather not.”
“Fair enough.” Was he disappointed not to discover why she believed she shouldn’t be here with him? Absolutely, but he wasn’t one to push or pry, and what he wanted more than anything was to get them back to that place where they were both comfortable with one another. “Then how about you tell me how long you’ve been working for Clay?”
She latched onto the safer topic and smiled. “It’s been about six years. I started at Kincaid’s as a cocktail waitress, and he eventually trained me as a bartender while I went to school part-time for a business degree.”
Jackson recalled their conversation from last week, when she’d told him that she’d been one of those employees Clay had hired because she’d been down on her luck. More questions rose to the surface, but he decided to let her reveal what she wanted, in her own time. Now that they’d established more than just a casual acquaintance, he didn’t want to give her an opportunity to pull away, which would be too easy for her to do since she’d just expressed doubts about him.
“Now that I’ve finally graduated and have my business degree, Clay promoted me to manager of Kincaid’s,” she went on, picking another piece of fried dough off her fritter. “With me in charge and handling the main operation of the bar, it allows him to be home with Samantha a lot more, especially now that she’s pregnant.”
An unexpected pang of envy struck Jackson, and he resisted the urge to rub at the slice of pain in his chest. “He’s a lucky man.” It seemed his brother had the kind of perfect life Jackson himself once believed he’d had, as well. Getting married, having a devoted wife, envisioning a future with a family of his own. Yeah, Jackson had once thought he’d had everything he’d wanted since he was a young boy—unconditional love, a sense of security, and someone to create a solid life with—until he’d been blindsided by yet another betrayal by the one person he should have been able to trust the most. Unfortunately, his wife had been more interested in fucking one of his colleagues than being faithful to him and had ultimately chosen that same guy to marry once the ink was barely dry on their divorce papers. She’d gone on to have a kid with him, further twisting that knife she’d stabbed into Jackson’s heart, since he’d thought they’d been trying to conceive at the time.
Collette was yet another person who’d not only deceived him but made him feel as though he wasn’t good enough. Was it any wonder he had issues when it came to trusting people with his emotional well-being? His entire life had been a farce and filled with rejection, and his marriage had been a complete sham. His track record sucked.
He pushed thoughts of his ex-wife from his mind, far more interested in Tara’s story. “Now that you have a degree, are you going to find another job, in a different field?”
“No.” She hesitated, fiddling with the corner of her napkin, then seemingly decided to explain why. “I wanted a degree because . . . well, it helped me focus on something positive at a time in my life when I desperately needed a direction. I’m perfectly content where I am, and Clay is incredibly generous when it comes to my salary. Not only do I enjoy working at Kincaid’s, a part of me owes Clay for . . .” She shook her head and glanced away. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”
She pretended interest in drinking her coffee, and he was beginning to realize that this woman was full of deep, difficult secrets. He wanted to know what she’d been about to say, because the pain he’d momentarily glimpsed in her eyes did matter to him. But again, he traded in one topic for another.
“Does your family live around here?” he asked, hoping that was an easier subject for her to talk about.
Another strained smile told him he’d missed the mark. “No. My father is an army sergeant at Camp Butler in Springfield, which is about two hundred miles away from here. My parents have lived there for about ten years now and I don’t see them much. My brother is also career military and is currently stationed in Germany.”
He tipped his head, curious to know why she’d live so far away from her family. “So what brought you to Chicago?”
“I needed a change.” She shrugged, her reply just as vague as the rest of their exchange. “What about you? What is your family like?”
Now that he was in the hot seat, he understood Tara’s reluctance to delve into parts of her life that were less than perfect or ideal. He finished his coffee, debating where to best start to describe the people who’d raised him.
“I’ll admit I’m curious to hear how you were adopted,” she went on when he remained quiet for too long, more relaxed now that she wasn’t the focus of their discussion. “Clay said his mother sold you to the woman who raised you for three grand . . .” Her voice trailed off, a sudden apologetic look passing across her expression. “I’m sorry. If you’d rather not talk about it, I completely understand.”
“No, it’s okay,” he assured her.
Since learning the truth from his aunt, the only three people he’d told about the illegal adoption were Clay, Mason, and Levi. Up until this point, he’d kept everything to himself because the situation was so fucked up, and honestly, he was still trying to come to terms with his true identity—as a Kincaid and not a Stone as he’d believed his entire life.
“It’s true,” he confirmed of his birth mother’s actions, and told the story as he’d heard it from his Aunt Becca a few weeks ago. “My mother, Leila, didn’t think she could have kids. My father and she tried for years, and when she couldn’t get pregnant, they went to a specialist who confirmed she had endometriosis, and even though she underwent surgery, the doctor told her that, without fertility treatments, the likelihood of her conceiving were slim to none. At the time, my father was just getting his construction business started, and they couldn’t afford the cost of in vitro fertilization, but my mother was desperate for a baby.”
Tara sat back in her chair, her eyes soft and compassionate as she listened intently. He had to admit that it felt good to really talk about what had happened with someone who was sincerely interested in hearing the details, unlike his brothers, who’d only heard the bare facts and had barely believed those as it was.
He exhaled and continued on. “Someone at the diner where my mother worked told her they knew a way she could get a newborn. They set her up with a guy who was a go-between for my birth mom, who was a junkie looking to sell one of her twins for money to buy more drugs. Three thousand dollars in cash later, my mother had the baby she thought she’d never have.”
“She must have wanted you very badly to go to such extremes.”
“I’m sure she did,” he agreed, though he couldn’t stop the bitterness that rose to the surface. “My father, though? Not so much. From the moment Leila brought me home and he found out she’d bought me from a crack whore and prostitute, he didn’t want to have anything to do with me. But he also realized that they were stuck with a baby she’d essentially bought on the black market, along with the lies my mother told people about how they’d adopted me through legal channels. I felt his resentment every day of my life.”
He hadn’t realized he’d clenched his fist on the table until she reached a hand across the space separating them and placed her cool fingers on his tense arm. He looked into her deep blue eyes, and the kindness and caring radiating from them made the tight feeling in his chest start to ease.
“Who you were born to wasn’t your fault,” she said emphatically.
He heard the trace of anger in her voice, all on his behalf, and it made him feel lighter somehow, knowing finally someone cared about what had been done to him.
He pressed his fingers against the table before answering. “That would be a logical person’s thought process, but according to my Aunt Becca, my father couldn’t get over where I’d come from. When I was little, I remember wanting my father’s a
ttention so badly, and I couldn’t understand why he ignored me and treated me like I was a leper. And when my mother got pregnant five years later and had my brother, Oliver, the fact that he was that miracle baby they never thought they’d have—and now I realize their legitimate child—made that separation between me and my father even worse.”
He paused and drew a deep breath. “It was like I didn’t even exist for him, and when he did acknowledge me, it was usually to point out some kind of failure or to put me down. But it was never that way with my brother. As Oliver got older, he’d take him fishing and leave me at home. He coached Oliver’s soccer team and never bothered to come to any of my baseball games, and because my brother watched the disdainful way my father acted toward me, he did the same thing.”
Tara winced but Jackson was more lost in his own thoughts. Now that everything was out in the open, he couldn’t seem to stop the flood of memories from escaping. It was like a vein had burst open and all the toxic poison he’d been carrying around was finally spilling out, purging him of all the pain he’d kept buried for so long.
And Tara was there, listening, comforting him with her understanding silence.
“My mother died of breast cancer when I was ten, and after that, I swear I never felt so abandoned and alone and confused. I couldn’t understand why my father treated me the way he did, and I spent years trying to be a good kid, doing everything I could to please him, to earn even an ounce of the attention he gave to Oliver, but it never made a difference.” Looking back, Jackson could only imagine how pathetic his father thought he’d been in his attempts to gain his approval. His affection.
“Jackson . . . ” Tara’s husky voice was filled with heartache for him. “I’m so sorry.”
A sharp exhale escaped him as he scrubbed a hand along his jaw. He forced an indifferent smile, trying to eliminate the oppressive mood that hung in the air now that he’d tainted it with his depressing backstory. “It is what it is, right?”
She nodded, but the warmth and caring never left her gaze. “Now that you know about where you came from, have you tried talking to your father?”
“No.” The word came out harsh and unyielding. “We’ve been estranged for years. That relationship is irreparable.” Initially, he’d thought about confronting his father about the past, but Jackson knew there was nothing Paul Stone could say or do that would allow Jackson to forgive him for the emotional and mental abuse his father had put him through. There was no remorse on his father’s end, so what would it resolve?
“I get it,” she said, her reply giving him the impression that she’d had challenging relationships of her own that hadn’t ended well, either. He hoped that someday she’d trust him enough to confide in him as he’d done with her.
“Some things . . . some people, won’t ever change,” she murmured. “Sometimes, it’s for the best to just move on.”
Jackson would like to believe he had moved on from his father’s narrow-minded ignorance. And now he was more than ready to move on from this dismal conversation.
He crumpled his napkin and stuffed it into the empty paper bag. “Jesus, for a first date, that was way too depressing,” he joked.
“No, it wasn’t.” She smiled at him as she added her napkin to the trash, too. “I’m glad you told me. Your brothers should know how you grew up, that it wasn’t as easy or perfect as they might think.”
He shook his head and sighed. “I don’t think they want to hear the truth.”
“Maybe they’re not ready to hear it yet,” she qualified. “They’re not going to ignore you forever, and I think they just need some time to come around.”
She sounded so optimistic that he decided to remain hopeful, as well. He had nothing left to lose. “I suppose time is the one thing I have plenty of.”
“Exactly,” she agreed with a bright smile as she stood, then looked down at her hands with a grimace. “I need to wash my sticky fingers before we go.”
He watched her walk down a short hallway, his gaze drawn to the sensual sway of her hips and that pert ass he knew would be a distinct part of his fantasies when he went to bed tonight. Once she disappeared into a side door, he collected their empty paper cups and threw all of their trash away, then waited for her to return.
As he stood there, he realized that over the course of their conversation, that constricting feeling in his chest that he’d been carrying around the past few weeks, since he’d learned of his illegal adoption, had decreased. It no longer felt like a crushing weight, and even some of his anger toward the situation had abated. He wasn’t a guy who was big on spilling his guts and airing dirty laundry, but then again, he’d never had someone who’d been so focused on him and genuinely interested in what he had to say that wasn’t work-related.
In an hour’s time in Tara’s company, he’d given her more insight into his past, had revealed insecurities he’d carried around with him for most of his life, and laid out the entire foundation of his not-so-great childhood. Trusting someone didn’t come quickly or easily for him, yet he’d let his barriers slip with her, had shared deeply emotional things with Tara that he’d never even told his ex-wife because she’d never asked. And he’d never offered because a part of him feared she’d find him lacking, just as his father had.
And fuck if that hadn’t happened anyway. In the end, he’d realized that Collette had her own agenda when it came to their marriage. She’d been enamored with his wealth, his success, and his social connections in Chicago. After two short years of marriage, everything had lost its luster, including him.
But there was something about Tara that got him, in a way that no one else ever had. Maybe it was her connection to the Kincaid brothers and being privy to their turbulent past that made it easy for her to understand all the pain and grief their birth mother had caused, for his siblings, and for him, each in different ways. Or maybe it was those secrets of her own that he’d glimpsed that allowed Tara to relate so well to his predicament.
Whatever the reason, he wasn’t ready to let her go just yet.
Chapter Five
Tara let the cool water rush over her hands as she glanced up at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, thinking how so much of what Jackson had revealed about himself had resonated with her. She might not have been illegally adopted, but her childhood had been equally rocky, and it had led to an addiction to drugs as a way to escape the pain of never being able to live up to her parents’—her father’s especially—expectations. Learning of their daughter’s substance abuse had only compounded their disgrace and shame and condemnation, which in turn had given Tara even more of a reason to keep those opiates in her system to numb her upheaval of emotions.
Instead of getting her the help she desperately needed, they’d kicked her out of the house and cut her off completely, because her strict, hard-ass of a father had zero tolerance for disobedience and no patience for mistakes or a lapse in judgment. And her mother . . . well, she’d been too timid and meek to contradict her husband’s orders. Even when Tara and her boyfriend at the time had ended up in the hospital for an overdose, and Michael had died of cardiac arrest that morning as a result of their excessive bingeing, her parents had never acknowledged her near-death experience.
There had been no one to console her through the devastation of losing someone she’d cared deeply for. No family to help her through her overwhelming grief and survivor’s guilt she’d struggled with. Even Michael’s wealthy family had blamed Tara for his death, and his sister, Brynn, had spewed such hate-filled words the last time Tara had seen her that Tara had wanted to curl up and die herself.
It had been the darkest, most terrifying time of her life, and she’d never felt so isolated and afraid. Or abandoned.
Clay Kincaid had changed all that. Once she’d left rehab clean and sober, he’d offered her a job and a chance to get it right. From the moment she started working for him, she’d felt the support of his brothers and the rest of the employees at Kincaid’s. They were all
like family to each other, including Katrina, Samantha, and Sarah—the amazing women who were now a part of each brother’s life.
Other than that small circle of people, Tara was a loner. She’d spent the past six years focused on her job, going to school, studying, and working through the guilt of Michael’s death with a therapist. She knew the self-blame would never go away completely, that sense of loss, but at least she’d learned to deal with the pain without reverting to those prescription drugs that had dulled her senses.
She exhaled a sigh and glanced away from her image in the mirror as she lathered up a dollop of liquid soap over her hands. Everything about that time in her life had left her cautious, careful, and guarded. A part of her was afraid of letting go again, of allowing herself to feel deeply for someone, especially a man. She held herself back out of fear of not being good enough, of being tainted by a past filled with disgrace and shame, and therefore she was alone . . . and lonely. And that solitude was most evident when she witnessed the intimate, loving relationships that Clay, Mason, and Levi had managed to find for themselves. With them all paired off, she sometimes felt like the odd woman out.
She’d dated a few times over the years since leaving rehab, but nothing had ever panned out. There had never been any sparks worth pursuing, and while the guys she’d gone out with had been more than eager to make it all about a casual hookup, it had never felt right for her. Therefore, she’d been deliberately celibate for the past six years. She and her battery-operated boyfriend were on really good terms. He gave her as many orgasms as she wanted and expected nothing in return.
It had been the perfect arrangement without any emotional complications, until Jackson had walked into Kincaid’s a week ago and ignited a desire that only burned hotter and brighter each time she saw him. It was as though he’d flipped a switch inside her and had awakened all those erogenous zones that had lain dormant for so long. And the few times he’d touched her, she’d experienced a jolt of need that made her crave more of him.
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