Suddenly he loosened his grip on her and stood back, placing the crutches upright between them. “What is it?” he asked as he looked away.
“Just goodnight,” she stammered. “And thank you for being so understanding.” She took the crutches from him and positioned them under her arms.
“Sure,” he responded, then forced a smile. “Everything’s going to work out just fine. It’ll come to you when you’re ready.”
She nodded her head and smiled back at him as she turned to leave.
He stood and watched her as she shuffled out of the kitchen on her crutches.
***On Monday morning as planned, Casey drove Kendall to Athens for both of her doctor’s appointments. At ten o’clock the cast came off. After staying a while longer to speak with Dr. Morrison, Kendall joined Casey in the waiting room and they headed out for lunch shortly before noon. After a delicious meal of blackened salmon at a nearby restaurant, they drove over to Dr. Adams’s office.
Kendall was decidedly nervous, yet she greeted Dr. Adams with well-disguised enthusiasm. The meeting turned out to be much less agonizing than Kendall had anticipated. It was really no more than a ‘get-to-know-you’ session. Dr. Adams assured her that her condition, known as retrograde amnesia, was only temporary, and memories usually returned in a matter of days or weeks in most cases. If, for some reason, Kendall’s condition continued longer than that, they would delve into deeper things as time went on, perhaps hypnosis if necessary.
Though Kendall’s emotions were mixed with fear of the unknown and the fear of not knowing, she was still relieved that this first session with Dr. Adams had been an easy one. Dr. Sheila Adams possessed a kind, relaxed nature that calmed Kendall and left her with a feeling of hope for the future and an appreciation for her present situation. The doctor also assured Kendall that there was every chance her memories would soon begin to return to her unaided. There was no physical reason to prevent that. Trauma-induced amnesia still held a lot of mystery, the doctor had explained, but there was every chance Kendall’s memory would be completely restored. There was also a chance her memory would only be partially restored, that some things in Kendall’s past she may never remember. It was a matter of wait-and-see.
As they were driving out of Athens after the visit with Dr. Adams, Casey pulled into the parking lot of a boutique. She stopped the car at a space near the shop’s entrance and turned off the ignition. “Come on,” Casey said to Kendall, “let’s go shopping!”
Eager to walk as much as she could now that she was free of her crutches, Kendall thought it would be fun to look around while Casey did her shopping. Once inside the boutique, however, Kendall learned that it was Casey’s intention to purchase clothes for Kendall. Kendall immediately refused the offer. She simply couldn’t allow Casey to spend any more money on her than she already had. She tried to explain that she was very grateful for everything Casey had done for her and that the clothes she had purchased for Kendall when she was discharged from the hospital were more than adequate. Casey begged Kendall to at least allow her to purchase a few things for her: jeans, shirts, lingerie, the basics.
Finally Kendall relented, but would only accept one pair of jeans and a few pieces of lingerie.
Once back at the farm, after taking her new clothes to her room, Kendall headed directly to the kitchen to start supper. It was nearly four-thirty, and Jackson and Tom would be in soon, eager for a meal. Casey set the table as Kendall stood at the stove frying chicken.
Kendall was surprised to realize how much she loved cooking. She had tried out various recipes on everyone, most of which she had found in Casey’s seldom-used cookbooks. Kendall’s meals ran the gamut from exotic dishes to casseroles made from leftovers. Though everyone seemed to genuinely enjoy everything Kendall prepared, she soon realized that Jackson and Tom had a preference for any meal that simply contained meat and potatoes. So she interspersed her menus often with steak, pork chops and fried chicken. The vegetables were abundant, most having been grown right here on the farm, and Kendall was pleased to see that the men also enjoyed vegetables along with their cholesterol-ridden fried meats. It made Kendall happy to watch the three of them eat and it gave her a sense that she was at least contributing something. Casey oohed and aahed over each new dish Kendall attempted. Tom and Jackson simply ate everything in sight.
The men returned to the house shortly before six that evening, dirty and tired. They headed directly for the showers while Kendall and Casey put supper on the table. Later, after everyone had finished eating, Kendall stood and began clearing the dishes.
“Oh, no,” Casey objected, “let me do that.”
“Oh, but I want to. It feels wonderful to be able to walk without that awful cast. I’ve sat around long enough,” Kendall said. “And tomorrow I’m going to start helping you out more around here. I’ll gather the eggs in the morning, then after breakfast I’ll help you clean out the stables and rewire that section of fence around the chicken coop like you said you were going to do. And anything else you need me to do. I’m all yours.” She beamed at Casey.
“Whoa.” Casey laughed. “You just got your cast off today, you know.”
“I know,” Kendall said, “but my leg feels good and strong, and I can’t wait to get outside and actually do something. Not to mention the chores I can take care of inside the house now. You’ll never have to clean house again, Casey. I’ll take care of all of it.”
Tom and Jackson exchanged bemused glances. “Hey, can you raise a barn?” Jackson asked. Casey rolled her eyes at him.
“Do you know anything about truck engines?” Jackson added. “See, I’ve got this old—”
Casey kicked Jackson under the table.
“Seriously,” Kendall continued, “as long as I’m going to stay here, I want to earn my keep as best I can. I’m happy to do it.”
“Well,” Casey said, “let’s just take this one day at a time. While the prospect of my being a lady
of leisure is an interesting one, I say we take care of things around here together. How about that?” “Deal,” Kendall answered. “As long as you let me put in a full day’s work.” Casey helped Kendall carry the dishes over to the sink. Tom and Jackson thanked them for the
meal, expressed to Kendall once again how much they enjoyed her cooking and left the kitchen. After the table was cleared, Casey left Kendall at the kitchen sink and went in search of Jackson. She found him in the den, sitting at his desk, reconciling bills and poring over contracts.
“Jackson,” Casey interrupted him. “I need to talk to you.” “Sure, what is it?” Jackson put down the paperwork and leaned back in his chair. “It’s about Kendall.” Casey relayed the day’s events, starting with the visits to the doctors’ offices
and ending with their brief stop at the boutique.
“She wouldn’t let me buy her a thing but one pair of jeans and some lingerie,” Casey continued. “She simply cannot make do with that, but I couldn’t persuade her otherwise. What am I going to do? She feels like she’s accepted too much from us already, but no matter how much I try to explain to her that it is quite far from any hardship on us, she won’t listen. I finally told her we were filthy rich, to put it bluntly, but she still wouldn’t budge.”
“You say you bought her a pair of jeans and some lingerie?” Jackson asked her.
“Yes, and those shorts and shirts when she left the hospital, but that’s all she has. It’s just not enough. Lord, she’ll be washing those things every time she turns around.” Casey put her hands on her hips in exasperation.
“Uh, Casey, if you bought her those things, then you know what size she wears.” “Oh.” A knowing expression dawned on her face. “Give me her size and I’ll take care of it. I have to go into Athens on Wednesday, anyway. And
I’ll take care of the rest of it, too.” “The rest of it?” Casey asked. “Yes, her cooking and housework and everything else. I won’t let her do all that for nothing. If
she feels like she’
s taking too much from us, I intend to set her straight about that.” Casey leaned down, smiled and kissed Jackson on the cheek. “Thanks. I knew you were good for something.”
Chapter 8
>On Wednesday afternoon Kendall and Casey were outside repairing the wire fencing of the chicken coop when Jackson left for his trip to Athens. He had come out of the house and headed for his truck when he saw them in the distance. Casey squatted on the ground with wire cutters in her hand clipping away at the corroded section, while Kendall rolled out the fencing.
Jackson couldn’t help but notice the way Kendall bent over the fencing, her long legs moving smoothly as she unfurled the roll. Although this was not the first time he’d seen her in jeans since her cast had come off, the sight of her still captured his attention. After witnessing her awkward gait with the cast for so long, she now moved with more grace than he ever would have imagined. Her body was long and lean and the jeans fit her snugly. She wore a tee shirt tied in a knot beneath her breasts to assuage the heat. Her dark auburn hair was swept up and held by a large clip at the back of her head.
God, but she was beautiful, Jackson thought as he watched her move. He continued walking toward the truck and looked away, shaking the thought from his head. As he started the engine, he looked again and saw that Casey and Kendall both stood facing him, waving goodbye. He waved back and drove away.
Watching Jackson drive off, Casey fretted about the decision to let him purchase clothes for Kendall. She worried about his abilities to choose wisely. Lord knows what he might come back with. Oh, well, if they weren’t the right style, they could always exchange them.
Kendall interrupted Casey’s thoughts. “Why is that horse always over there by itself?”
“What?” Casey looked in the direction of Kendall’s gaze. “Oh, that’s Sam. Beautiful horse, isn’t he?”
“Yes, but I never see anyone riding him. He seems to have a lot of pent-up energy.”
As if on cue, Sam shook his head, snorted derisively and began trotting around the perimeter of the corral.
“Jackson lets him out of the stables each day into the corral or out in the pasture to graze, but that’s about all the exercise Sam gets. It’s a shame, really, but there’s no changing Jackson’s mind. And he won’t let anyone get near the horse but him. I am absolutely forbidden to ride that horse.”
“But, why?” Kendall asked, confused.
“Jackson thinks Sam’s a dangerous animal, but I know better, though I’d never tell him that. Jackson wanted to put him down six years ago, but in the end he didn’t have the heart to do it. So he just takes care of Sam and lets him run the corral each day and keeps him away from everybody and
everything.”
“Why did he want to put Sam to sleep? That horse doesn’t appear to be so incorrigible.”
Casey wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand and looked from the horse to Kendall. “Sam was Melissa’s horse,” she said. “That’s how she died. Sam threw her and it broke her neck. It was awful. She had gone out riding by herself that day. Jackson found her later. Sam was just grazing nearby, as if nothing were wrong. I think Jackson hates that horse, but he loves animals too much to harm Sam. He doesn’t realize the harm he’s causing that horse anyway, but I don’t even try to reason with him anymore.
“Funny thing, though, that Jackson wouldn’t sell the horse,” Casey continued. “He insists on keeping Sam for some reason, as if it’s a testament to Melissa’s life. Either that or he doesn’t trust that anyone else would be safe riding Sam, either. He probably figures Sam is better off, and so is everybody else, if that horse just continues to exist in the stable and corral. Better than putting him down, I guess.”
“He really loved her, didn’t he?” Kendall said as she continued to stare at the horse.
“Melissa? Yeah. They were only married for three years when she died. That was six years ago. Too young to be a widower, but much too young to just give up the way he has.”
“Give up? What do you mean?” Kendall asked.
“With women,” Casey replied.
“But that doesn’t make any sense. There’s Cynthia.”
Casey laughed. “Yeah, that’s what I mean. He gave up. Jackson doesn’t trust most women as far as he could throw them. He’s been burnt one time too many. He says he’s sworn off serious relationships.” Casey scrunched up her face in displeasure as she added, “So he does whatever he does with Cynthia and pretends he’s satisfied with that.”
Casey resumed her work with the fencing, bending down with the wire cutters to remove the new section from the roll. Kendall knelt to help, her thoughts wandering again to Jackson. She had just learned a side of him that she had not realized existed. He must have been in a lot of pain when his wife was killed. Still, that was six years ago. And he seemed to have moved on with Cynthia. Perhaps Casey was wrong about his relationship with Cynthia. Maybe there was more to it than Casey knew or wanted to admit.
But still, the thought haunted Kendall that she, herself, had been surprised upon meeting Cynthia for the first time. She was the exact opposite of Jackson in nature and character. Cynthia had not seemed like the type of woman who could truly love Jackson, nor did it seem Jackson could feel the same way about a woman like Cynthia. Jackson appeared to be the kind of man who would love deeply and one who possessed a need to be loved deeply in return. Oh, well, Kendall thought, they say opposites attract. And what business is it of mine, anyway? How many times had she admonished herself this way every time Jackson and Cynthia came to her mind?
Kendall shook all thoughts of Jackson from her head and concentrated on the fence repair, but not before that, one last thought crept into her mind and squeezed at her heart. It was of Jackson comforting her that night in the kitchen and then holding her as he reached for her crutches. Kendall shivered at the memory of his nearness, and suddenly she wished she could see him again.
*** Jackson returned to the farm shortly before six that evening. Casey cornered him the first chance she got. “I didn’t expect you back so soon,” she whispered to him. “You’ve hardly had time to tend to
business and go shopping, too. Didn’t you get her anything?”
“Of course I did,” Jackson answered her.
“Well, where is it?”
“It’s being delivered in the morning.”
“Delivered?”
“Yes. I went to the same boutique you told me about. But that place was just too large for me to look through all that stuff. And I’m not any good at that sort of thing, anyway. So I told the salesclerk to just give me one of everything in the store in Kendall’s size. Except for the lingerie, of course. I got six of each one of those.”
Casey burst out laughing.
“What’s so funny? Did I do something wrong? Should I have gotten two of everything?” Jackson looked at her, sure that he had done something stupid.
“Oh, no, you did nothing wrong,” Casey patted him on the face, smiling brightly. “You’re marvelous. Just marvelous.”
Jackson lay in the dark, unable to sleep. He glanced at the clock beside his bed and saw that the bright red numbers glowed a depressing one a.m. Didn’t get in a full day’s work today, that’s what the problem is. I’m not tired enough to sleep, he thought to himself.
He remembered his trip to Athens that day and the shopping he’d done for Kendall. He hoped when the things were delivered in the morning, she would have no problem accepting them. He knew how stubborn she could be. Well, she would just have to accept them, whether she liked it or not. He wasn’t going to have her staying in this house and living like a pauper. She was entitled to the clothes and more. She cooked every single meal, cleaned the house and worked on this farm right along with Casey, never asking for a thing.
Jackson rolled to the other side of the bed and tried to get more comfortable by punching his pillow and wadding it underneath his head. Five-thirty was going to come awfully early and he needed some sleep.
He was considering getting up and plundering the bathroom cabinet for something to help him sleep when he heard the scream. His heart lurched as he sat up in the dark. A second scream quickly followed the first. It was Kendall, in her bedroom across the hall. Jackson sprang from the bed, pulled on a pair of sweat pants and headed out of his room. Her door was shut, but he could hear her crying. He knocked gently and opened the door slightly.
“Kendall?” he called as he stuck his head just inside the door. He saw her in the dark, sitting up on the bed, her knees bent. Her forehead rested on her knees as she sobbed, her body wrenching with the agony that seemed to overwhelm her. “Kendall,” he called again. She hadn’t heard him.
He walked into the room toward the bed, calling her name as he approached her, not wanting to frighten her by his sudden appearance. The moonlight shone through the windows and he could see the glint of it on her hair.
As he got nearer, she raised her head and looked up at him, her face contorted with fear, tears spilling out of those lovely green eyes. He sat on the bed next to her. Without a word, Jackson put his arms around her and she collapsed into his embrace. She cried like that for a while, Jackson holding her and smoothing her hair. “It’s okay. It was just a bad dream,” he said as he held her tighter.
“I-I saw him. I saw what he was doing,” Kendall choked out. “He’s going to kill me.”
“It was just a nightmare. You’re safe here. No one is going to hurt you.”
Kendall’s face was pressed against Jackson’s chest, her tears wetting his bare skin. “But it was so real, Jackson. He’s real. He’s a horrible man.”
“You’ve probably had a memory of that day, of the man that attacked you out on the highway. Only it was in the form of a nightmare. He can’t hurt you anymore, Kendall. Besides, I’m sure he’s long gone by now, probably ditched your car and stole another one.” He pulled her hair away from her face and placed his palm on her cheek. He turned her face up to look at him. There in the dark, with the dim glow of moonlight bathing her face, she was so beautiful, her expressive eyes filled with tears, yearning for some understanding as she looked back at him. God, he wanted to kiss her. He was hungry to feel her lips against his. He wanted to hold her like this forever and never stop kissing her.
Jones, Beverly R Page 9