by Annie Walker
Jackson tried to look displeased at all this, but I could tell he was secretly looking forward to our little hometown holiday celebration.
We planned to spend the whole week of Christmas at my grandmother’s house. Jackson told me his office was empty during this time of year. Just about everyone used whatever vacation time they had left at the end of the year. He told me he pretty much had months of the stuff accumulated. He hadn’t taken a real vacation in years.
“And you think I’m odd because I’ve never been to the ocean? You need to relax more, Mr. Riley, before that old ticker of yours wears out.”
That little remark had landed me back in bed where he proved to me just how healthy he really was.
“I think I can still keep up with you, Mary Margaret, so don’t you worry about me.”
****
The day Jackson and I left for Santa Anna reminded me of the time we’d gone to Paris. We rushed like crazy trying to remember everything. Jackson almost forgot his little laptop that had become an extension of his body most days. He took it wherever he went.
“I should just leave it at home…after all, no one’s going to be around the office and Amy knows to call me if anything urgent comes up.”
He looked at me as if asking for permission. “You’ll never do it.” I threw out the challenge, hoping he would take me up on it. “You couldn’t survive one day without that thing.”
“Oh please…I can quit anytime.” We stood next to the car, our bags stowed in the trunk and Sidney in my arms, looking at each other over the top of his car.
“Really? Well I dare you.” I grinned mischievously at him. He came around to my side, opened my door in that old-fashioned way of his before getting in as well.
I laughed at his determination. I was so happy. Yet I couldn’t give myself over completely to the euphoria. Something inside warned me not to get too comfortable with Jackson. Not to be too happy. My past had taught me nothing, especially not this kind of happiness was permanent.
The second we arrived at my grandmother’s house she was out the door with Lee at her side, bustling us inside, fussing over Jackson and me as well as Sidney. It was like being descended upon by the welcome wagon lady on steroids.
And she was crying. I stopped dead in my tracks and almost plowed into Jackson when I spotted her tears.
"Gran, what's wrong?"
“Why, nothing, Maggie. I’m just so happy to see you both.” Her answer shocked me even more. My grandmother was solid as a rock and never prone to showing her tender side. I’d inherited those things from her.
I turned to Lee. "What have you done to her?"
“I haven't done anything. She just happy.”
They left Jackson and me alone to get settled into our respected rooms, but I couldn’t really concentrate on unpacking because I was worried about Gran. I wasn’t buying all of that happy stuff.
Before leaving Austin, I’d laid the law down to Jackson. We might appear to be sleeping in separate rooms for my grandmother’s benefit, but we were not sleeping in separate rooms. He’d shaken his head while trying to pretend that my morals, or lack of them, shocked him.
I left Jackson at the door of the guest room to unpack, which apparently he was able to do in record time. When he found me, I was only just beginning.
“What’s up with my grandmother?” I asked as he wandered around my tiny bedroom.
“You ever think maybe she’s just happy. You’re so busy looking from one problem to the next and expecting the worst, when maybe there isn’t anything wrong.”
I snorted at his answer. “No, that’s not the case.” I dismissed his innocent assessment without even considering it. “My grandmother never cries. I’m telling you, something’s up with her.”
He stopped behind me and pulled me back against him. “You are so afraid something is going to wreck your world aren’t you, little bit?” I relaxed against him, not willing to admit just how close to the truth he'd guessed.
He kissed my neck and held me tighter when I would have put some distance between us. “Will you show me that little hiding spot of yours later on?”
To any other man, I’d probably look like some sort of freak. A woman afraid to let anyone get too close to her, but to Jackson, well, he took each of my little oddities and accepted them. He understood me and I didn’t know what to make of that. I’d never met anyone before who got me this good, not my grandmother, not Lee and certainly not any other man.
“Maybe if you’re really nice to me.”
He turned me to face him then. “I can be really nice when I want to. Even for a slightly prickly woman like yourself."
Jackson waited while I finished unpacking and I tried to see the good in that statement. Oh sure, he’d pretty much summed me up completely in that one little word, but what woman wanted to be seen as prickly in the eyes of the man she loved.
Back downstairs, it hit me that I’d been right—something was wrong. I glanced around my grandmother’s living room and figured it out. She had her Christmas tree up already.
“You’ve got your tree already?” This was not our normal routine. Gran always waited until I got home, even if it ended up being the day before Christmas. We’d go together to find the perfect tree to decorate. But this year, well this was only one more little bit of proof that something was definitely wrong with my grandmother.
“Lee helped me put it up.” Was it just my imagination or was my grandmother actually blushing at the mention of Lee’s name. I leveled her with a look that told her just how out of character she was behaving and my dear grandmother couldn’t hold my gaze.
Lee came over to where she was fidgeting, (another sign) and sat next to her, patting her hand with a lingering touch. I looked at Jackson who only smiled at me, raising his eyebrows as if to say, ‘beats me’.
“Well, I don’t know about you two, but Lee and I still have some shopping left to do so we were thinking we’d go into the city to finish up and maybe have dinner tonight. Are you two too tired to tag along?”
The city as my grandmother called it was Brownwood, the closest big city around. A town of about thirty thousand that was not exactly equipped with all the best shopping, but they did have a mall which was usually crowded, especially around Christmas time.
During our afternoon shopping spree, I took the opportunity to ‘watch’ my grandmother and Lee’s behavior toward each other. Jackson and I walked a little behind them. I could tell he knew what I was doing.
“You’re spying on your grandmother? You know I think that could get you a ticket straight to—” He didn’t say the word. He simply pointed down at our feet and made me laugh.
“I’m not spying,” I corrected him. “I’m just concerned. There’s a difference, you know. Something’s definitely up with those two. I intend to find out what it is.”
“You already know Lee’s crazy about her. You told me that yourself, so what’s the big deal.” Jackson asked when I spotted Lee staring at something in the jeweler’s window.
“It’s not a big deal. I’m only curious.” I tried to sound uncaring, but I think he knew I wasn’t exactly telling the truth. I don’t know why all of the sudden the thought of my grandmother and Lee together as more than just friends had the ability to, well unsettle me just a little. After all, as Jackson pointed out, Lee had told me that he was in love with my grandmother and wanted to marry her, but I always believed my steadfast stubborn Gran would never allow such weaknesses. She, too, seemed to be changing. If Gran could find happiness with a man, what did that do for Miss Doubtful here?
Jackson knew all of this and he did something that he rarely did with me because it was something I rarely allowed him to do. He reached for my hand and held it. Right there in front of my grandmother, Lee and everyone in the mall, he held my hand and wasn’t even thinking about letting it go. Me, well I was only too confused and, yes, more than a little too happy to think of pulling away from him.
“Maggie, you think Ser
ena would like this?” My grandmother held up a sweater that was not too colorful and not too frilly and smiled. She knew Serena, was not the frilly kind of girl.
“I think she would love it." I looked around and realized dear old Lee had motioned Jackson away. He reluctantly let go of my hand, looking back at me with a very confused expression on his face before they left the store together.
“Gran, what’s up with Lee?” She glanced around as if she hadn’t realized they were gone, which I knew was just an act. Of course, she knew. Gran knew everything. Besides, she'd been making goo-goo eyes at the man all night.
“Oh, who knows what that man is up to? I think he’s getting senile in his old age.” I didn’t have the heart to tell her he was only a few years older than she was, and he certainly wasn’t the only one acting crazy lately.
Lee and Jackson were gone for so long that I was beginning to wonder if they’d left us to our devices. By the time, my grandmother decided on the right perfume for Genna, and something a little less powerful as she put it for her oldest and dearest friend in the world Callie Maguire, I was no closer to getting the goods from her than I’d been in the beginning.
Whatever it was that going on, she was doing her best to avoid discussing it with me.
After we’d left the mall, we had dinner at one of the nicer restaurants in town, a barbeque joint that had been around for as long as I could remember.
I almost felt sorry for Jackson. Poor guy, since meeting me he’d gotten into the bad habit of eating pizza at least once a week, not to mention that favorite fast food place I’d drug him to which I don’t think he’d ever even heard of before I took him there. He was so rich and so refined that fast food wasn’t even part of his vocabulary until he met me. Now here he sat in what by his past standards would probably be classified as little more than a fast food barbeque joint in itself with two elderly people and a woman who had a secret hiding place. I bet the poor slup was wondering what he’d ever done wrong to get himself into this kind of a situation.
Something of my amusement must have shown on my face because again those raised eyebrows. When we left the restaurant, still walking a little behind my grandmother and Lee, he asked me what was so amusing.
“Oh, I was just wondering how you ever managed to get lucky enough to land in this kind of predicament. I mean if you weren’t with me, you’d probably what? In Paris with Ben—definitely with one of those other more sophisticated women of yours. Instead, here you are with one screwed up woman and two old people that seem to be in love. Pretty pitiful situation for such a suave guy like yourself to be faced with.”
He’d stopped walking and since he still held my hand, I stopped walking as well. I turned to look at him, expecting him to share in my amusement. He wasn’t. Jackson wasn’t laughing. He wasn’t amused. He was dead serious. He let the others get a little ahead of us before speaking.
“There’s no place I’d rather be right now. You know that, don’t you? I want to be here with you and with your grandmother and Lee. For me, this is probably the first year that’s felt like Christmas in longer than I can remember. So don’t ever think that I’m missing out on something, because I have everything I want right here in you.”
I had to look away from the sincerity in those blue eyes. I wasn’t fooling him one little bit. He knew he’d shaken my belief system to the core. Men weren’t supposed to be this nice. They used you and left you alone. Wasn’t that what I’d learned from early age? Jackson was an anomaly to me. He was the one in a million. I couldn’t believe I was lucky enough to find him or to have him choose me. I prayed that I didn’t do anything to screw this up. I knew I was difficult to deal with. I came with some very heavy baggage for any man to overcome. How much longer would he be willing to look beyond my flaws and insecurities and see something worth keeping? How much longer would he be willing to put up with me and all my little idiosyncrasies? I could only hope forever.
After Lee left and my grandmother went to bed, Jackson and I sat in her living room watching the Christmas tree lights, talking.
“So, where did you and Lee disappear to tonight?” I asked from my spot in front of the tree on the floor. I was an on the floor, no shoes kind of gal.
For a minute, he was silent and I was just beginning to wonder if he was going to tell me when he came and joined me on the floor. “You promise not to say anything to your Grandmother?” he asked as he took me in his arms.
That had my full attention. Something was up and I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear what it was.
“Lee’s going to ask your grandmother to marry him. He’s been walking her by that same jeweler’s shop for weeks now, and apparently, each time she stops to eye one particular ring. He's going to pop the question to her on Christmas Eve, little bit, so we have to make ourselves scarce then. What do you think about that?” I knew he’d guessed it already—after all, this man was good. He knew what I felt even if I couldn’t tell him.
“She’ll never say yes…he’s going to get hurt.” even as I said those words, I wasn't so sure. My grandmother was different. I’d seen it, just as Jackson. She was softer, like a woman in love and I should certainly know a woman in love when I spotted one because I was one of them.
“Maggie, she’s crazy about him and you know it. Whatever reasons Sarah might have had in the past for refusing him aren’t there anymore and you know it. I think she’s ready. The question is, are you ready to accept it?”
What did he think? That I was some jealous monster. That thought had me pulling away from him. Was I jealous? Of my sweet grandmother, for at last finding happiness in love. She certainly deserved it. After all, she’d been so busy working two jobs trying to raise me right that she’d all but given up on any private life of her own. She always told me that she would never love another man other than my grandfather, but now I wondered if maybe she was just using that excuse to keep me from questioning why she never remarried. Maybe she didn’t want me to know the depth of her sacrifices for me.
“Of course I can accept it, if that’s what Gran wants. I only want her to be happy, Jackson.”
I don’t think he believed me. Not that I blamed him, because I wasn’t sure I believed me. He stood and picked me up in his arms, carrying me up the creaky stairs of my grandmother’s house while I tried not to laugh when he almost dropped me on the narrow stairwell.
Something was different about him tonight as well. It was there in his touch, in the way he took his time with me, driving me crazy. I don’t know if it was just the house or the season, but I could almost believe Jackson cared about me in almost the same way that I cared about him.
When I woke the following morning, Jackson had beaten me up. I found him with my grandmother, sitting together in her kitchen drinking coffee.
His eyes went over me, slowly reminding me of the way he’d loved me the night before and it was all that I could do not to blush. If my grandmother suspected any of this, she didn’t say a word. She smiled at me and watched while Jackson kissed me good morning and I tried not to show her how much he affected my concentration.
“I was telling Jackson here that there’s a candlelight service at the church on Christmas Eve. I hope you both will come.” I poured myself some coffee and sat down next to her, patting her hand.
“Sounds nice. So what’s on the agenda today? Do you still have lots of baking left to do?”
Baking was another one of my grandmother’s traditions. She started with cookies and candy about a month before the season actually kicked off and spent just about every single week in the kitchen making something. She baked something for her friends, usually cookies, and then there were her children, as she called the kids at the Christian school where she still taught. Then there were people at her church and the pastor and the other folks around town that she knew and loved. My grandmother was a friend to just about everyone around the area.
“I’m almost done, but there are still the pies and of course you know how much Lee l
ikes my fudge. Are you going to help me bake this year?”
The image of me baking anything and having it turn out right had Jackson just about rolling on the floor and me glaring at him. Even my grandmother had to smile.
“Don’t I know it? She never really got the hang of it, although I did try.”
“Tell me about it. I think I gave up the first week and decided if we were ever eating again I was either going to have to cook or we were going out.”
“Oh, very funny.” I turned to my grandmother in an attempt to ignore him completely. “I’m not that bad, so don’t let him kid you. All of your training didn’t go to waste. I can cook—a little.”
Again that laughter that told me I was only kidding myself. “Well, okay, so maybe I’m not very good at it. I’m sorry, Gran, I guess I failed you there.”
“Never you mind, child. You have someone who can cook in the family, so I know you won’t starve. Jackson, you want to help me make my pies?”
At that innocent comment from my grandmother, Jackson laughed so hard that he almost spilled the coffee he was drinking.
That was how it went for the rest of the week. Jackson and my grandmother were co-conspirators. Buddies enjoying their time together, and I was almost the outsider. Not that I really minded. I wanted them to be friends.
The day before Christmas Eve, Lee came to collect me for a little drive, as he put it, which left Jackson and his new buddy Gran alone to gossip. I’m sure I was to be the main topic of their conversation.
Lee took me to his office, the one that I’d spent so many happy hours working alongside him, and I sat across from him tidying his messy desk. That was one thing that Lee and I were worlds apart on. He was messy. I’d finally managed, over the course of an entire summer, to get his office organized for him only to find that it was right back to the way it had been and the way he apparently liked it to be the following week.