Jackson: The McBrides of Texas

by Emily March

  “Daddy?”

  The sweet word was balm for his troubled soul. Need to get back to Enchanted Canyon ASAP. Haley, too, had been napping in the row of seats across the aisle from him, but now she was sitting up and rubbing her eyes. “Yeah, baby?”

  “Would you play the guitar for me?”

  “I don’t have my guitar with me, sweetheart.”

  “Austin has his.” Before he framed a response, she’d scrambled out of her seat and up the aisle four rows to where the band’s lead guitarist sat. “Austin, can my daddy use your guitar?”

  Jackson couldn’t help but wince. Austin Tyree simply didn’t share his Martin. “Sure, little lady.”

  Well, the world has changed in the past couple of days, hasn’t it?

  “Thanks,” Jackson said moments later as Tyree handed over his instrument. He spent a few minutes tuning it, and then looked at Haley who had returned to her seat and now sat cross-legged watching him closely, her eyes big and sad and solemn. “What song would you like to hear?”

  “The angel song.”

  “Angel song?”

  “The one that Poppins liked for you to play for her. We sing it in church? It’s her favorite song.”

  “Ahh.” The angel song was “Amazing Grace.”

  He took just a moment and did a couple of warm-up riffs, testing both the instrument and his own resolve, because the memory of playing the hymn for Haley’s Poppins was so alive that he wasn’t sure he could pull this off. Once he felt ready, he segued into the first verse, keeping his concentration keen on his daughter. Would she find comfort in the hymn? Or would it cut her to the core and make her grief worse? He could see it going either way.

  He’d rather pitch Austin Tyree’s prized possession out onto the blacktop rather than make this situation any worse for Haley. But it was okay, because she clasped her hands together, closed her eyes, and smiled. It was almost as if she could hear her beloved angel singing.

  And then Jackson realized that’s exactly what she was hearing.

  Her mother was standing in the aisle two rows away. The heavenly voice of the incomparable Coco sang,

  “… And grace my fears relieved;

  How precious did that grace appear

  The hour I first believed.

  Through many dangers, toils and snares,

  I have already come;

  ’Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,

  And grace will lead me home.”

  Jackson closed his eyes and was lost. In the song, in the sound. Her sound. Their sound. It pulsed through him like a heartbeat that had been shocked back to life after having lain silent and dead.

  “The Lord has promised good to me,

  His Word my hope secures;

  He will my Shield and Portion be,

  As long as life endures.

  Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail,

  And mortal life shall cease,

  I shall possess, within the veil,

  A life of joy and peace.

  The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,

  The sun forbear to shine;

  But God, who called me here below,

  Will be forever mine.

  When we’ve been there ten thousand years,

  Bright shining as the sun,

  We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise

  Than when we’d first begun.”

  He played the complicated bridge pattern that followed the last verse without skipping a beat, and opened his eyes to see Sharon kneeling beside their daughter, holding Haley’s hand, watching him, and imploring him to join her.

  Together, Jackson and Sharon sang,

  “Amazing grace! How sweet the sound

  That saved a wretch like me!

  I once was lost, but now am found;

  Was blind, but now I see.”

  Haley watched with her hands clasped prayerfully in front of her mouth. When the final note died, rapidly blinking back tears, she beamed at her parents and declared, “That was wonderful. So wonderful! I never heard you sing together before and that was one of my special wishes. I didn’t think it would ever come true, but it did! I’ll have to tell Caroline.”

  Caroline.

  Her name jolted Jackson back to the reality of the here and now. He blinked, gave his head a little shake, and stared at his daughter as she continued to bubble.

  “It was actually one of her special dented-angel wishes that she was saving for a special occasion, but she gave it to me to use because I had a penny that I got when I bought Poppins a surprise ice-cream cone so that was a love penny. Love pennies have more power anyway so it was already starting out extra good. When I told Caroline what my wish would be, she said she wanted to give her wish to me to use for it because you were part of it, Daddy. And she’s your special friend and now I’m her friend and Mommy, she said you sing like an angel and Poppins is an angel and a lady named Angel told her about the special wish so it all just seemed perfect. Even though she warned me that the Angel lady said it might take a really long time for the bent wishes to come true.”

  A lady named Angel, Jackson thought. Angelica. Dented angel, Fallen Angel. Okay, now this was making some sense.

  Haley continued. “So, Caroline squeezed my hand and gave me her wish and I held my love penny and made my wish and threw it into the wish fountain and now it’s come true! Really, really fast!” Haley took hold of one of her father’s hands and one of her mother’s hands. “Isn’t that wonderful?”

  “I think it’s fabulous,” Sharon declared, smiling tenderly at Haley. Both females looked expectantly toward Jackson.

  He had the sensation that he’d just stepped onto a meadow riddled with buried land mines. “Wonderful.”

  Sharon reached over and gave his knee a squeeze. “It’s the Circle of Fifths, Jackson. Our circle of life.” Then she closed her eyes and swayed, began to hum an unfamiliar melody. “Mmmm … mmm … mmm. Mmm … mmm … mmm. Mmmm … mmm … mmm. Wishes for my angel. New star in the sky. Da … da … da … da. Da! Da! Go with me here, Jackson. Something something. See you tonight.”

  They worked it through. In less than an hour, they’d finished the song. Four complete verses, a chorus, and a bridge. She stood as she sang it from the top, a lament of loss and pain that everyone on that bus had experienced. The music was mostly his, the words theirs. She sang for every single person on that bus, and she sang from their collective hearts, from their collective souls.

  “I wish I wish I wish …

  I could hold you again … tonight.”

  As the final line faded away, the bus was silent. The song was beautiful. It was powerful. It was perfect.

  The bus erupted in applause.

  Jackson knew they’d just written a hit.

  Sharon—Coco—beamed at him and said, “Jackson, we’re back!”

  He closed his eyes. Ah, hell, Caroline. What have I just done?

  Chapter Eighteen

  On the fifteenth of November, Caroline stared at her silent phone in her silent cottage and said aloud to Jackson’s silently sleeping dog, “Well, River dog, it “is my next chapter.”

  And her next chapter be hanged if she’d spend Thanksgiving Day alone again this year. She had a fence she’d like to mend and this was as good a time as any to take a first stab at that. She picked up the phone and made a next-chapter gesture by reaching out to her past. “Hello, Elizabeth,” she said when her former sister-in-law answered. “It’s Caroline. I know it’s late notice, but I’m calling to invite you and George to join me in Redemption for Thanksgiving dinner. I’d love to have you join me. I believe it’s my turn to cook.”

  “Oh,” Robert’s sister said. “Oh, Caroline! Well, yes. Yes, I would like that. George and I would like that very much.”

  Caroline heard the tears in Elizabeth’s voice, and that triggered tears to pool in her own eyes. Thanksgiving always had been a special holiday for Robert and his sister filled with traditions from their childhood that the
two had taken care to continue. Caroline was certain that last year had been terribly difficult for Elizabeth. Her own effort to run from the holiday by spending the day hiking in Peru had been an abject failure. Physical exertion hadn’t stopped the physical ache of her grief, an ache she believed would have been lessened had it been acknowledged and shared that day.

  “What would you like me to bring?” Elizabeth asked.

  Caroline blinked away her tears. “Well, it’s not Thanksgiving without your sweet potato pie. I’d love for you to bring that.”

  “I’ll be happy to do so. Thrilled, in fact. Caroline, I—” Elizabeth’s voice choked up.

  Caroline waited, her own throat tight.

  Finally, Elizabeth said, “I’ve been meaning to call you. Honestly, I’ve been trying to work up the nerve. I owe you an apology. During my brother’s illness, I took out my fear and grief on you. I treated you badly, and you didn’t deserve it. I’m sorry. I hope you will forgive me.”

  “Of course,” Caroline said. “It was a hard time for everyone, Elizabeth, and heaven knows I could have been kinder to you, too.”

  “You were an excellent wife to Robert. He loved you very much and I know you loved him and did your best for him.”

  Caroline closed her eyes. These were words she’d needed to hear, and they healed a wounded place inside her.

  The conversation continued for a few more minutes, and Caroline ended the call glad that she’d made it. Next, she placed calls to Angelica, Maisy, two of her employees, and her next-door neighbor. By noon, she had a guest list of ten—a comfortable number for her little cottage, she decided.

  She spent the afternoon pondering her menu and making a point of not brooding about the dearth of phone calls coming from Tennessee. Okay, maybe she did brood some, but she didn’t spend all her time staring at the phone, waiting for it to ring. Willing it to ring. It never rang.

  In all fairness, he had warned her not to expect to hear from him when he’d called to tell her that he was headed up to the Smokey Mountains to do some songwriting.

  With Sharon.

  They were in the midst of a creative storm born out of the shared tragedy of the plane crash.

  Okay.

  Caroline had watched the memorial service so she’d witnessed the truth of that. They’d ended the program with a song that Coco and Jackson had written for Haley’s nanny, one that Coco had announced to world had been inspired by the kindness shown to Haley in the wake of the tragedy by a friend of theirs named Caroline. She’d dedicated the song to angels everywhere.

  Haley had joined her parents onstage for the song, sitting at their feet while they performed. The song was hauntingly beautiful and had touched Caroline deeply. Then, when Jackson added his vocals to Coco’s and they sang “Amazing Grace” to end the program, Caroline hadn’t been able to hold back the tears. The hymn … the occasion … and yes, the picture of a reunited family caused her stomach to sink.

  She loved Jackson. She trusted Jackson. She wasn’t a jealous woman. But she’d be a fool not to recognize that their situation had changed. She had every right to be a little concerned. When she confessed as much to Gillian and Maisy at their next girl’s night out, her friends who had also watched the memorial show agreed that she’d be crazy not to be just a little uneasy.

  And that had been before he’d called to tell about his and Coco’s imminent departure on a creative getaway to the singer’s mountain retreat. Her isolated mountain retreat, where apparently as part of her back-to-nature worldview she’d removed both cell and Internet service.

  That had been seven days ago. Seven days of silence. A week of total blackout. And with every day that passed, Caroline’s uneasiness grew, her thoughts became more unsettled, her imaginings more bleak and sometimes, slipping into ugly.

  She loved him. She trusted him.

  She decided to cook Thanksgiving dinner.

  And she spent the next five phone-call-free days spinning in a similar vicious circle. Trust to suspicion. Patience to what her grandmother used to call blue funk. What was that music term Jackson said that Coco was using as her talisman? Circle of Fifths?

  Well, for Caroline it was a Circle of Blue Funk. Blue headed toward black. The circle was obviously shaped like a vortex and Caroline was a nickel spinning around and around rolling inexorably toward the center, the black hole of suspicion and doubt and ugly imaginings.

  Was he ghosting her? Would she never hear from him again?

  No. Jackson wouldn’t do that. He’d at least send her a text to dump her.

  “Stop it,” she said in the grocery store on the Tuesday evening before Thanksgiving as she marked off carrots on her shopping list, then scanned the produce aisle for the green beans. She’d already had a long day, having worked late at the shop getting everything ready for the anticipated Black Friday rush, but she wasn’t in any hurry to go home, so she dawdled. She bought two packages of butter shaped like turkeys and put a ridiculous amount of thought into her choices of cheese for the cheese tray she planned to set out before dinner.

  And the wine. What wine to serve?

  She settled on “lots.”

  She didn’t arrive home until well after ten. She let River out into the backyard, and then went to work unloading her car. It was almost ten thirty before she put the last of the groceries away, and River still hadn’t scratched at the back door indicating that he was ready to come back in.

  “You better not be messing with your old friend again,” she murmured as she opened the door to call him. He’d tangled with a skunk four days ago and while the dishwashing detergent-hydrogen peroxide bath she’d given him had helped, she still caught whiffs of the stink. “River? River! Come on back in.”

  He sprinted around the side of the house and bounded up the steps, all but knocking her down as he rushed inside. “Careful!” she scolded, scowling after him. Instead of heading directly toward his water bowl like he normally did following a trip outside, he disappeared into the front of the house. Caroline sighed, expecting she’d find him at the front window. She’d have to remember to clean the slobber off of it before Thursday.

  She took one last look around her kitchen to make sure she hadn’t missed putting anything away, then pulled the stopper from the bottle of wine she’d opened last night and poured herself a glass. She’d take it and the novel she’d started to the bathroom and enjoy a nice, relaxing, distracting soak. She’d lose herself in ancient Rome and not think about the Smokey Mountains at all.

  At least not until she pulled the plug on her bath and the water began circling the drain. Like a vortex. Circle of Dirty Water. Of Blue Funk. Of—

  “Arf … arf … arf … arf … arf … arf.” Crash!

  Caroline sighed. Had that dog just knocked over her lamp?

  * * *

  As Jackson turned the corner onto Caroline’s street, the glow of lamplight in her windows drew him like a magnet. She was home. Thank goodness. And by all appearances, still awake. Even better. Not that he wouldn’t have awakened her, but he didn’t want to scare her, just surprise her.

  She’d be happy to see him. He’d brought flowers and everything.

  Then why was he nervous?

  Oh, gee. Maybe because he hadn’t called her? Because if he’d called her, he would have had to tell her his news? And he didn’t want to tell her? Not over the phone, anyway. Hell, McBride. You are deep in the cow patties now, and you know it.

  True, that. No getting around it. Even a woman as wonderful and generous and understanding as Caroline wasn’t going to be happy about the new developments in his life.

  Pulling his truck into her drive, he shifted into park and shut off the engine. He wanted to leap from the truck and run to her door and burst inside yelling her name. He imagined sweeping her into his arms and kissing her senseless and carrying her off to bed. Then after they made sweet, sweaty love he could say, “By the way, sweetheart…”

  He dragged his hand down his face, blew out a heavy
sigh, picked up the two-dozen red roses he’d purchased at the grocery store ten minutes ago, and exited his truck. At the sound of River’s excited barking, a smidgen of his tension eased. No matter what else happened, he’d still have the love of man’s best friend.

  Except that River was a really smart dog, and he’d been living with Caroline for a while now. She’s been the hand feeding him, not you.

  Should have bought a box of dog treats when he picked up the flowers.

  He heard a crash from inside as he rang the doorbell to give her a head’s up just before he slipped his key in the lock, opened the door, and stepped inside.

  She stood in the threshold between the kitchen and the living room wearing jeans and a sweater and an expression he couldn’t read. Caroline. Beautiful, beautiful Caroline. Their gazes locked. In that instant, everything else faded from his consciousness.

  Home. I’m home.

  River raced around the room yapping and jumping and crashing into things. Jackson absently reached down and grabbed the dog, held him, scratched him behind the ears and murmured some sort of greeting as that unique scent of Caroline Carruthers’ home swirled around him—cinnamon and sunshine.

  Home. I’m home.

  Finally, he released River and held out his arms and smiled. “Surprise!”

  He wanted her to rush across the room and jump into his arms and wrap her legs around his waist and plant a big old wet one on his lips. She stayed right where she was and folded her arms. Okay, then.

  “This is definitely a surprise,” she said, her tone flat.

  “A good one, I hope.” He gave her an encouraging smile.

  She tapped her foot. “I guess you lost your phone?”

  “I told you Sharon doesn’t have service in the mountains.”

  She glanced away. Shrugged.

  Jackson sighed. He lifted his right boot, shoved River out of his way, and walked slowly toward her. “I couldn’t have reached you before about one o’clock this afternoon. I honestly thought you’d like to be surprised.”

  “Why the roses?”