Ben was already in front of the game console, setting everything up. “Dream on, old man.”
“Benjamin Butler!” Veronica gasped.
Jackson didn’t look at her as he sauntered over. “Son, your alligator mouth is gonna overload your hummingbird behind.”
Ben snickered.
Making a mental note to send the boy the prototype console he’d been given to test out, Jackson settled on the shabby sofa and grabbed his controller. “Say goodbye to your pride, boy,” he challenged.
“Oh, yeah,” Ben crowed. “You are so going down.”
She didn’t want him in her home. She’d seen the way his glance took in everything and exposed her true situation. She didn’t know when she’d last found time to dust. She kept the clutter manageable, but barely. Three active children and a dog ensured that there was always a jumble of toys left out, games half-played and abandoned, craft projects begun. When David was alive, she’d been able to keep the inside clean and bright and maintain some sense of order, but these days, a Sunday afternoon or a late night spent shoveling out the chaos was about all she could manage.
The kids didn’t care.
Neither did she. House Beautiful was so far down on her list of priorities it got lost in the rubble.
But Jackson’s eyes made her notice the dripping faucet, the threadbare upholstery, the drapes that desperately needed taking down and cleaning.
The bathrooms and kitchen were clean because she was not going to have any of them dying from some infection that bred while she was in the fields.
But she hadn’t vacuumed in three weeks, and dusting had been before that.
Anger rose. He’d barged his way into her life and made her ashamed.
He was a ruler of the universe—with his own blasted plan—and she was…a mess. Hanging on by her fingernails.
She couldn’t forgive him for making her see the contrast—him with his handcrafted boots and the jeans with a price tag that would have fed her family for a month, the shirt that seemed tailored especially to him, the haircut that probably cost more than her electric bill.
“What’s wrong, Mommy?” Beth asked softly. “You look mad.”
She shook off her irritation and found a smile for her shy daughter. “I’m not at all. So are you ready to do the spelling challenge?” Multitasking was essential, so she checked their spelling homework while they bathed most evenings.
“I go first!” Abby crowed, sticking her hand up in the air with a splash.
“Weren’t you first last night?” Veronica asked gently.
“Oh, yeah. Go, Beebee.” Her babyhood name for her twin.
“School,” Beth said. “S-c-h-o-o-l. School.”
“Perfect. Abby?”
“I can do one that’s not on the list, right? One?”
She couldn’t stem their eagerness. They both had bright minds that reached further than their school was prepared for at times. “You bet.”
“Wedding,” Abby said. “W-e-d-d-i-n-g. Wedding.” She couldn’t contain herself. “Scarlett was so beautiful, and Ruby too. I bet you were a beautiful bride, Mommy. Weren’t you? How come we don’t have any pictures? Was your dress beautiful?”
She’d worn a simple sundress, and there were no photos. “We should have taken pictures, shouldn’t we?” She was thrown back to that day when two scared kids leaped into a future they couldn’t see, and she was mostly escaping a past she couldn’t bear to think about.
What had David been thinking? How had he felt?
I always wanted you, he’d said before he kissed her carefully, too aware of the heartache that had her fast in its grip. I always wanted it to be me you married.
Tears pricked. Had she loved him enough to make up for their rocky beginning? For the fact that he knew he was second choice?
“Why are you so sad, Mommy?” Beth asked. “Because you don’t have any pictures?”
“No, sweetheart. I just…I miss Daddy.” She did, and she couldn’t bear it that the man downstairs claimed so much of her attention.
He didn’t deserve her. You left me, Jackson.
“We miss him too,” Abby said. “Do we need a group hug?” She rose from the water and clasped her mother hard around her neck. Beth followed suit.
Veronica gripped them tightly, not minding that her clothes got damp and instead relished the comfort of the love they shared in abundance. This was what mattered. Her children and the future she could create for them.
Jackson was leaving.
And she was glad.
His simple presence demanded too much from her. Made her feel things she could not afford to remember.
Jackson emerged from the girls’ room after finishing the story.
Veronica had work gloves hanging from her back pocket.
“You’re going back to work?”
“I am.” Her chin jutted. “As soon as I tell them good night. Ben will be a couple of hours doing homework.”
“Hope I didn’t take up too much time. I just—” He held out his palms. “He wanted to play and—”
“It’s fine. One night won’t kill him.”
“They’re amazing kids, Veronica. They’re lucky to have you for a mom.”
“Thanks.” She hesitated. “It was…good to see you, Jackson.”
Her eyes told the lie.
Hell. He hadn’t understood how hard this would be. If he’d ever imagined seeing her again, he wasn’t sure what he’d expected.
Not this brittle woman who obviously couldn’t wait for him to go.
“Veronica…” He stepped closer.
She stepped back.
Okay. All right. She was looking at him as if he was a rattlesnake coiled in her path, wary and afraid but determined not to show her fear.
“Let me help you finish up.”
“You have a plane to catch first thing.”
“I can sleep on the plane.”
“You think one night of pitching in will make a difference?” she spat. Visibly she composed herself. “That was unkind. I thank you for the offer, but this is my life, and I’m handling it.” Pride prickled from every pore.
He couldn’t help glancing around, and fury rose. “You are not handling it. You’re drowning, Veronica. I didn’t need anyone to tell me you’re in trouble here—it’s everywhere I look.”
“Get the hell out of my house,” she growled. “Now.”
“No.”
Her eyes sparked.
“Wait—I’m sorry. I—that insulted you and I didn’t mean it. I just—Vee, you’re so thin and exhausted you could blow away in a stiff wind. You can’t keep going on like this. Let me help you.”
“Now? You want to help me now—” She clamped her mouth shut, but her eyes told a different story.
“What is that supposed to mean?” He shook his head. “Look, you’re the one who—”
“The one who what?” Her voice went shrill.
Ben came down the stairs. “Mom? Everything okay?”
She turned off her emotions so fast it gave him whiplash.
“Jackson, what’s going on?” In the boy’s voice he heard the man he would become.
“We’re fine, honey. Mr. Gallagher was just leaving.” She pinned him with a glare that would bore through lead. “Weren’t you?”
He put up his hands then turned to face her son. “I think your mom’s working too hard. She doesn’t agree.”
A gust of anger sounded behind him. “That is none of your business—” she began.
“You’re right, she is,” Ben admitted. “I help as much as I can, but—”
“You do more than any ten of your classmates, Ben. Now you don’t worry about this and go on up to finish your homework,” Veronica said firmly.
Ben hesitated and met Jackson’s gaze, a question in his.
Jackson nodded back at him. Yes. I’ll help her, he said with his eyes. “Go on. Get your homework done. Good game, by the way.”
The diversion worked. Ben’s fac
e brightened. “You’re good…for an old man. Too bad I would have hammered you if we’d had more time.” A grin flashed.
“You just keep telling yourself that,” Jackson taunted.
Ben glanced back at his mother, the worry diminished. “I’ll come say goodnight when I’m done, Mom.”
“You know where to find me.”
She whirled toward the door as Ben clattered back up the stairs, stuffing her cell in her pocket and donning her gloves. “I’ll thank you to stay out of my business,” she said stiffly.
He followed her out the door she was so eager to get him through. Once they were clear of the house, he halted. “I want to give you some money to hire help.”
She wheeled around. “Give me some money? Are you serious?”
“I have plenty, Veronica. It’s obscene how much money I have. Please…you need some help. Let me do this.”
“I don’t want your money. Get the hell off my ranch.”
Wow. He’d never heard her swear before. “Please take it.”
She halted in her stomping toward the flower shed. “Why, so you can feel better about deserting me and never—” She pressed her lips shut. “I don’t have time for this. Take your money and your rich boy leather jacket and your handmade boots and go back where you belong, Jackson. Good night.” She marched toward the shed.
“All right, I’ll make it a loan, then.” He didn’t like it, and he had no intention of letting her repay it, but she didn’t need to know that right now.
“Go to hell.”
“Veronica, wait—”
“You’re going to wake my children. I want you to go.” She was practically quivering with anger, and she looked ready to break.
“I’m sorry. I’m not trying to offend you. I want to help you, but I don’t know what—”
“Help me by leaving.” Her voice was low and shaking. “That’s all I want.” She hesitated. “Do I have to beg?”
“No—God, no. I don’t want to hurt you.”
But he had. Just as she’d hurt him by marrying David. What had he thought would happen when they saw one another again? That she’d fall into his arms, and they’d walk off into the sunset?
Life didn’t work that way. Especially not for him.
But he was not done with her. For the sake of the love they’d shared, the love that had been his lifeline, he would find an answer.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll go. But this isn’t the end.”
“The end happened a long time ago, Jackson.” She walked into the shed and shut the door.
He stood in the dirt road for a long time, feeling helpless in a way that he hadn’t experienced since he was first out in the world, homeless and with no hope.
Chapter Seven
At two-thirty, Jackson shoved from the bed and prowled the room, still unable to sleep.
Desperate for distraction, he pulled out his phone to check for messages, but even in Seattle, most people were sleeping. None of his Asian contacts had business pending right now, so though their work day was in full swing, work was out of the question. Any business he wanted to do was just his bad luck.
In the cities he frequented, there would be options. Night life to serve as a distraction.
Here he was squarely in the back of beyond. He wondered if Penny—Pen, he was trying to remember to call her—was finding things as maddeningly backward as he did, since she was from a big city, too.
But his twin had more on her mind than night life, it seemed. He wondered what had happened. If she’d trust him enough to tell him what hurt.
His mouth twisted. Once he would have simply…known, no words needed. Their twin bond had been powerful, and now that they were back in proximity, the loss of it felt like a phantom limb.
Unbidden, Veronica’s face rose, hollow and haunted. The end happened a long time ago.
He’d thought so, too. Was it only days before that he’d had a naked Steph in his bedroom, and he’d thought about Veronica—but not this Veronica, the fragile, downtrodden one? He’d been recalling the young girl whose eyes had sparkled as they’d dreamed of their future, who’d quivered with excitement over the bright tomorrows they would share?
Who’d trembled in his arms as they’d approached that final connection after months of petting and going as close to all the way as possible?
He remembered the day they’d crossed over as if it was five minutes ago.
She’d trembled, yes, but so had he, with the power of his emotions. She was every bright hope he’d ever imagined, every ray of sunshine his embattled soul craved. She’d seemed the answer to questions he’d never thought to ask, the candle in the window at the end of the long road.
It had been his first time, too—in all the ways that mattered. He had a little experience, but nothing that counted. His heart had been as virginal as her body.
Veronica had mattered. She’d been his life. His whole world.
They’d gone to a meadow at the far reaches of Ian’s land. Jackson hadn’t been willing to risk being on his father’s land or hers, somehow instinctively knowing that proximity to either would cause nerves to erupt. They could never relax as long as discovery by one father or the other threatened.
If Ian’s dad had found them, he might have delivered a lecture, but he’d have been gentle about it. He was a dad who knew how to love, the kind of dad Jackson would want to be if he ever had children.
The grown Jackson doubted that day would ever come.
Because, curse his soul, no one had ever matched Veronica. No one had spoken to his soul the way she had.
She’d lain there on the blanket he’d brought, silvered in moonlight, and something inside him had fallen silent with reverence. Had known that they’d be forever changed if they took this step.
He’d been nervous about that.
But he’d been more frightened of life without her. She alone knew his heart. Even his sister of the soul, his twin, didn’t speak to this one special place he now knew had always and ever been reserved for her. Veronica. The love of his life.
So with shaking hands he’d bared her body, had worshipped hers with his own. Had found more in himself than a randy boy. She’d believed in him, and she’d made him believe in himself and his dreams.
And when they’d become one, they’d both wept.
His tears had embarrassed him as unmanly, but she’d kissed them dry, had gathered him close and given him the home he’d been seeking ever since the day his mother died.
Help me by leaving. Do I have to beg?
The disparity, then to now, was unmistakable. He wanted some way to close up the heart that was vulnerable to her, regardless of all that had happened in the years since. She still had the power to hurt him in ways no one else on earth could.
She’d married his friend.
But his friend was gone.
She’d betrayed their love.
But the seeds of it still lived in his heart.
Yet all she wanted from him was for him to be gone.
The company needs your full attention.
Jackson pinched the bridge of his nose. Shook his head violently, as if he could shake sense back into himself. No matter what he tried to focus on, however, the image he couldn’t dispel was that fragile, valiant woman fighting everything Fate had thrown at her. She wouldn’t give up until she went down hard. What would become of those beautiful children if she fell?
He grabbed his hair at the roots and yanked as if he could pluck thoughts of her and her family out.
He had to get out of this room.
Had to get out of this town before he lost his mind.
Everywhere he looked, there were problems he needed to solve.
Problems in Seattle, too.
He yanked his running shoes out of his suitcase. Donned running gear and a jacket and made a quiet descent down the stairs.
But at the bottom of the staircase, he a saw the kitchen lights on and checked his dive watch. Three-thirty? Who was up
?
He entered the kitchen, and Aunt Ruby turned.
“Can’t sleep?”
He shook his head. “You either?”
“I don’t sleep that much anymore.” She shrugged. “I have to be making biscuits in an hour anyway.”
“You’re amazing, Aunt Ruby. Most people would be retired by now.”
“That’s for old folks,” she scoffed, then winked. “And I might be getting up there in years, but old is a different matter. You’re only in trouble when you’re old in your mind. Me, I’m still twenty-five up there.”
He smiled. “Younger than me.”
“Smarter, too,” she said. “If you think you’re escaping anything by running away.”
“I’m not running away. I have responsibilities.”
“You do,” she agreed. “As many here as there, I’d bet. Your sister’s in trouble, you get that, right?”
“Rissa seems happy with Mackey.”
“Don’t be dense.”
“Okay, yes, I can tell Penny’s troubled, but she doesn’t seem ready to talk. All she will tell me is that it’s a long story.”
“I don’t know either, I’m sorry to say. She got here just as the wedding plans were coming to a head, along with the community workday to finish up the first floor of the courthouse, and I’m ashamed to say I got too caught up in all that to pin her down.” She peered at him. “So what’s your excuse? You two could once finish each other’s sentences.”
“Look…” he began.
“No, you look. Your sister needs you—both of them do. Scarlett and Ian could use an investor, though they would never admit that.”
“I’d be happy to invest. I’ve already told both of them.”
“Of course you would. Throwing money at things is so much easier than involving your heart, isn’t it?”
That stung. “Aunt Ruby…”
“I’m not done, young man. And then there’s Veronica.” Her blue eyes were fierce. “Surely you see how much trouble she’s in.”
“I already offered,” he snapped.
One eyebrow rose. “Offered what? Money?” Her tone made it clear that was the wrong answer.
“She doesn’t want me anywhere around. She asked me to leave.”
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