Texas Wishes: The Complete Series

by Kristina Knight

  “That’s partly why I’m here now, Kath-”

  “We’ve been over this part before and it hasn’t changed.” She took a breath and held up a hand when he would have interrupted. She wasn’t about to let him sidetrack her into some other conversation. “My family connections aren’t going anywhere and neither will your lack of family connections — until you decide to move on with your life and put the past to rest.’

  “This isn’t going well,” he said, shoving his hands deeper into his pockets.

  “Ya think?” Kathleen said sarcastically. What did he want? And why now? Why not three weeks ago? Three days ago? Even three hours ago would have been a better time to have this conversation.

  “I’m not here for your birthday or because of that last fight. I wanted to tell you that-”

  Just then Mitchum walked into the hallway, and motioned Kathleen back into the drawing room.

  “It’s time for the birthday…ah, but I’ll just give you two a few more minutes,” he said when he spotted Jackson at the door. “Good to see you, Jackson, I wasn’t sure you’d make it.”

  “I wasn’t sure either, Mitchum, but I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

  Grandfather had invited Jackson? Kathleen was more confused than ever. Mitchum invited Jackson, who two minutes ago didn’t seem to want to be there but now was saying how he wouldn’t miss it? Kathleen couldn’t keep up with the mixed signals he was sending but she understood one thing: Jackson wasn’t here for good. He was making good on his promise in Puerto Vallarta to be at the ranch for her birthday. She’d gotten it all wrong. Again.

  “Don’t worry about it Grandfather. Jackson was just leaving.” She gave Mitchum a bright smile and when he left the hallway said, “Again.”

  She turned to Jackson, determined to push him away as he had pushed her, if only to save a little face this time around. “Why are you here, Jackson?” she demanded.

  He shrugged, obviously uncomfortable. “It’s your birthday.”

  “I’m aware.”

  The clank of silver against glass came from the drawing room. Mitchum’s coffee-smooth voice began talking as the crowd hushed. Jackson shifted from one foot to the other.

  “Oh, hell,” he said and took two quick strides across the hallway. He pulled her body to him fiercely and said, “I wanted to give you a present.”

  The next instant, his mouth descended on hers, taking her quickly from fire-breathing mad to oh-don’t-stop ecstasy. His mouth devoured hers, as if he’d been starving the past few weeks without her. His hands cupped either side of her head, holding her still before him so that his mouth had easy access. She tasted Dr. Pepper on his tongue and wondered if she would ever be able to disassociate the drink from him. And then all thought stopped as his tongue invaded her mouth, sparring with her own for a long moment. She’d missed this. The passion, the closeness.

  The love. She was still, and probably always would be, hopelessly in love with Jackson Taylor. She couldn’t not touch him.

  One minute her arms were relaxed at her sides and then they were curving over his shoulders and around his neck to play with the hair at his nape. To press his head more firmly to her, as if she would never let him go. As if, by kiss alone, he might finally realize everything and everyone waiting in Texas for him. For the first time Jackson kissed her back in exactly the same way.

  Maybe she didn’t need him to say the words. Maybe she didn’t need a traditional marriage, to live with him day in and day out. Maybe his quick trips to San Antonio would be enough.

  “Happy birthday, dear Kathleen,” the last strains of the traditional birthday song finally penetrated her foggy brain and Kathleen jerked away from Jackson. She was doing it again. Letting her imagination run riot over her common sense. That was supposed to be a birthday kiss and she’d overblown it into more than Jackson ever meant.

  “We can’t do this. Not here,” she said. What was she doing? Making out with him in the corridor was ridiculous.

  “Where would you suggest?” came his wicked reply. Where indeed. Somewhere private with a soft bed and hours upon hours of time to explore one another.

  But that was just her dream talking, not reality.

  Her hand went to her head and she realized her hair was irreparably damaged. Turning, she saw her reflection in the mirror and sighed. She looked like a woman well and truly kissed. That wouldn’t be so bad if she wasn’t expected to make a birthday speech in about ten seconds to a room filled with people who didn’t know she was dating anyone, much less married. She quickly released the pins holding the once-elegant French twist in place, ran her fingers through her hair, and tried to quickly arrange some semblance of order. It wasn’t the best ‘do she’d ever had but at least her hair looked purposely messed up rather than accidentally. Now if she only had a compact and lip stain she’d be set. But neither of those things was available.

  Jackson watched her intently in the mirror but his expression was impossible to decipher. Did he regret traveling two thousand miles to deliver a kiss? Or was he hungry for more, just like her?

  “Happy birthday, Kathleen,” he said and turned away.

  Her heart stuttered. Where was he going now?

  “Go have fun with your guests, we have all night to finish unwrapping that gift,” he said, pushing the courtyard door open and disappearing into the side yard. What did that mean?

  “Speech, speech!” came several cries from the ballroom and before Kathleen could duck out of the hall to follow Jackson, her father was there pulling her into the crowd of well-wishers.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The last of the party guests disappeared down the long ranch driveway a little after two in the morning. Exhausted, Kathleen pulled of Monica’s deadly heels and leaned against the wall.

  Monica and Vanessa had disappeared a few minutes before. Mitchum retired to his rooms shortly after leading the guests in singing to her and she hadn’t seen her father since the birthday toasts. He had probably gone to the Soddy to be alone, avoiding the temptation of alcohol by avoiding the party in general. For the first time, she didn’t care where her sisters or her father were. She wanted to escape to her room, cry in her pillow, and figure out how to go on without Jackson in her life because hot kiss or not, their attraction to each other didn’t solve a darn thing.

  After disappearing as Mitchum called her in to make her birthday speech, she hadn’t seen him. He’d gone, just like before. Without a word. Without an explanation. Just kissed her like she was the only woman in the world and then left. For what?

  Eyes scanning the drive she saw only ranch vehicles, Monica’s hybrid SUV, and Vanessa’s low-slung Porsche. Sighing, she dropped Monica’s shoes to the floor and turned toward the staircase, stumbling over an ice bucket in the foyer. Where had he gone? New York? Some perfect tropical island where swimsuit models offered him everything he could ever want? No strings sex and no commitments. Was he back on that sad street in San Antonio?

  Too tired to bend down to retrieve the ice bucket or her shoes, she simply pushed them against the wall with her foot and continued to the stairs. She heard the wait staff clunking around in the kitchen, cleaning up the last of the mess. They would be finished soon and Guillermo would lock up the house. She could forget about Jackson and everything would go back to normal.

  No, things wouldn’t return to normal. Because she couldn’t forget Jackson. Not because she wanted to fix him but because he fixed her. He’d shown her in a million little ways that she was strong enough, talented enough to turn the ranch into a top-notch training and rehab center. He made her realize that she did want a partner in her life. Someone to lean on. Someone who would lean on her in return.

  She was not going to let Jackson leave her again. She was not going to be the simpering woman who complained that her man left. She was going to find him and together th
ey would figure out how to move forward. Just as soon as she got fifteen minutes of sleep, she promised, anger at Jackson warring with sadness.

  Because if he really meant that kiss, he wouldn’t have left the ranch as he so clearly had. She might be fighting a losing battle but she was going to keep fighting. She wouldn’t run this time. Wouldn’t let those old fears take hold again.

  She climbed the familiar staircase in the near dark, pausing outside her door for a moment to lay her head against the cool mahogany. Tried to clear her mind of all Jackson thoughts and images so she could get some rest. It didn’t work. Pushing him out of her thoughts was proving to be as difficult as trying to pull him into her life had been. She would be better off to sleep in one of the guest rooms for the night, but she wouldn’t allow that. Sleeping alone in the room she shared with Jackson might be torture but she had to face it.

  She opened the door and stopped short. Rose petals were strewn across the floor, leading into her bedroom. Soft music played on the speakers and soft snoring came from the vicinity of her bed. Her heart leapt at the possibility but she ruthlessly ordered herself not to hope. The snoring probably came from a party guest.

  Cautiously, she stepped through the sitting room and into the bedroom, closed her eyes, and clenched her hands into fists. Jackson was here. Sleeping comfortably in her room. In her bed. Furiously, she wiped the tears from her eyes. He hadn’t left. He was still here. That had to mean something, didn’t it?

  She looked more closely around the room and saw that stupid pile of blankets back on the floor near the sliding doors. She sniffled.

  Jackson’s eyes opened at the sound and he stretched, lengthening each muscle in his body before relaxing back onto the bed and smiling at her.

  “I thought you’d never toss out those last few stragglers,” he said.

  Kathleen gave up trying to stem the flow of tears. Arms hanging limply at her sides she asked, “What are you doing here?”

  “We never finished our conversation,” he said, clasping his hands behind his head, “or that kiss.” Long legs crossed at his ankles, he looked perfectly comfortable in her bed. In her life. But why had he disappeared so abruptly before?

  Her face flushed. “I don’t mean here, this bedroom, I mean here in general. I thought you’d gone — ”

  He shook his head. “Not a chance. I just thought it might be easier not to explain my presence at all than to explain about Puerto Vallarta, the wedding, my leaving and then coming back. That’s a big story, even for a twenty-eight year old playgirl heiress, not necessarily the thing that would scream security to potential investors. You didn’t need that kind of pressure on a night that should relieve all the pressures you’ve ever had.”

  “Not all the pressures,” she said, crossing the room to sit on the opposite side of the bed. Brutal honesty was called for at this point, she decided. No holding back. No prettily painted words, just brutal honesty. If Jackson were really back, for good, he needed to know where she stood. “Not the pressure of finding you and losing you like that,” she said, snapping her fingers.

  “You didn’t lose me. I just had to see, for myself, that I was ready to stop playing at being the successful, aloof, uncaring man I’ve been and start living a real life. The kind of life that, until I met you, I thought I was already living. I knew within a few hours of being back in New York that the city isn’t where I belong any longer.”

  “Then why didn’t you come home?”

  He reached across the quilt to take her hand. “Because I also wasn’t certain Texas was the right place. I love you, Kathleen, but I wasn’t at all sure I could have the big, full life without messing it up.”

  Her heart thrilled at the words ‘I love you’ but she knew there was more to come. Words that might still push her out of his life. “So you did come here to talk. To really talk,” she said. He nodded. “Well?” she asked when he said nothing more.

  “Talking can wait just a little while longer,” he said and pulled her bodily against him. Kathleen pressed her hand against his chest.

  “Uh-uh. This,” she said, finger circling over his chest, “is on hold until we talk this all out. Sex has never been our problem, it’s the other stuff that we seem to ignore. So, come on Cowboy, what’s different now than three weeks ago?”

  “Everything,” he said, gently tracing his index finger from her temple to her chin, “and absolutely nothing. I haven’t found Maria, in fact I’ve called off the search entirely for a while. Being an unwanted child still matters to me but I’m through making it the center of my life. The truth is, I’ve always pushed people away so they couldn’t push me away first.” He paused, tilted her chin up so they could stare into one another’s eyes. “I still don’t understand how these family connections of yours work — and I’m still not sure I really want to — but over the past few weeks I’ve discovered that I don’t want to be the unattached man I’ve been showing the world for the past ten years. That man was only ever a figment of my imagination, carrying around so much baggage it was a miracle I didn’t sink into the abyss.”

  Kathleen leaned her head against his chest as he spoke, caressing one of his hands in her own. Twining their fingers together. “Why?”

  He understood the full question without her saying more. “Because it suited my purposes. Playing the aloof, partying playboy kept anyone from asking about my past and reminded me every day why I needed to keep people at a distance. For a long time I was convinced that being abandoned was my fault. That allowing anyone close to me would prove Maria right — that I was nothing but trouble. Unlovable. Plus, the fashion industry is all about image. If they’d known about my past, the foster homes, the lack of family from the beginning it wouldn’t have mattered. But that first lie of omission sealed my fate. I couldn’t let anyone know the truth about my past. The more I told myself that the more I believed it.”

  “But you were aloof even in school. There was always a hint of sadness in your expression, unless I happened to catch you in the middle of capturing something with your camera. Taking pictures seemed to me to be the one activity that lifted that cloud of sadness from you. I loved to watch you work back then.”

  He shifted, bringing them face to face. “That was the real revelation when I went back to New York. I’d started building the façade before I’d finished high school. The tough boy, the silent artist. There was a part of me that begged to be misunderstood because misunderstood was better than the alternative of everyone knowing I’d spent most of my life in and out of more homes than I could count. But two things happened: the art show and finding you on the Malecon. Working on the showing I realized that hiding in fashion wasn’t an option any longer. I’m tired of photographing beautiful people in beautiful surroundings. I want to show real life.”

  “You’ll give up fashion?”

  He snorted. “Not entirely, the money is altogether too good. The agency will still focus on fashion shoots, but I’m turning that portion over to one of my partners so I can focus on other opportunities. Art showings, editorial photography. I was about to pack my bags for a desert island someplace when your birthday invitation arrived from Mitchum and I realized if I kept running I’d be an old man, alone and lonely before I turned thirty-five.” He paused but Kathleen only waited. “I’ll always wonder why she did it, but the wondering isn’t as powerful as my need to have a life, a real life, at last. And I’m hoping that real life will begin and end with you, my love. I do love you, Kath, more than anything.”

  Kathleen sucked in a breath.

  “I don’t come with a pedigree like one of your horses. I don’t even know what a real marriage is,” he said and slid off the bed. Bending on one knee he said, “But if you’ll stand by me, I’ll figure out what a husband should be. Will you marry me, Kathleen, without the haze of alcohol this time?” He pulled a small blue box from his pocket, opened it to reveal the
diamond and ruby ring inside. He smiled, winking his left eye at her. “I have a real ring this time around.”

  Kathleen held up her hand, showing him the cheap wedding band still encircling her ring finger. “This is the only wedding band I need,” she said. And then snatched the box from his hands. “But I’ll take this one, too. The simple band to remind us how we started and this amazing ring so we’ll never forget the beginning of our real relationship.” She threw her arms around him. “I love you, Jackson Taylor. I think I’ve loved you since that first day you looked through me on the quad at UTEP. I was trying to fix your problems to avoid my own for a while, and that’s a hard habit to break. But now that I’m actually listening to the people around me, Miss Fix-It’s gone into hiding.” She kissed him, putting all the love and hunger she could into the touch of her lips against hers. “I can’t swear that I’ll be able to stop meddling, but I do promise to listen more than I talk.”

  “Aah, sweetheart, don’t make promises you can’t keep,” he teased. “You’ll always be Miss Fix-It and the girl talking in the back of the classroom. Just promise you’ll try fixing one problem at a time, okay?”

  “Promise,” she said, resting her forehead against his.

  Jackson drew back. “I’ll tell you one last secret, Kath, looking through you in school was just an act. Another wall I needed to hide behind because I was desperate to stay far away from anything resembling family. You were the embodiment of family — from your clothes to the visits home every month. I had to keep my distance back then, for my own sanity.”

  “You liked me back then!” she said, surprised.

  Jackson’s smile twisted into chagrined acceptance. “I was half-way in love with you from the minute you knocked over my tripod on the quad.”

  “And now?”

  “I think you know how I feel.”

  “Tell me again,” she said, pulling him to the bed with her.

  “I love you, Kathleen Witte Taylor,” he smiled, nipping kisses along her jaw. “With all my heart.” Another nip, just under her earlobe. “Forever.”