Erma twisted in her seat and gave him the evil eye. “We don’t have to speak of that time again. But none of that, then or now, precludes you from opening your heart and your life to another woman. It’s time, Mackenzie.”
“What if I don’t want to?” he flared.
She all but cackled at the notion as she pulled the specialist’s card from her pocket and dialed the weekend number. “Lie to yourself if you want. One thing about your eyes, they’ve always shown your true feelings. So don’t look at Jill while you’re spouting such nonsense.” Erma turned and spoke to whoever had answered her call, and Mack hastily withdrew.
Erma had needled him before, but this time what really got to him was when she’d said that he had a right to happiness—happiness that included having a woman in his life. It was true that for the past few years Erma had pushed him to find a wife, pointing out that she was getting older and that chores piled up faster than she could get to them. Or she’d say Zoey would benefit from having a younger woman around. Not once in his recollection had she made it about his needs.
He hadn’t been a monk over the past thirteen years. But he’d been very, very discreet in choosing women to take out to dinner or a movie. None lived in La Mesa, and he’d never strung any of them along. He made it clear up front that he wasn’t looking for a long-term relationship. The lawsuit Bode Adams and his wife had lodged against him when Zoey was six months old had terrified him—what if they portrayed him as a womanizer who was a bad influence on his daughter? He couldn’t risk losing her, so it had taken a long time for him to look twice at any woman. Added to that stress, the lawsuit had nearly bankrupted him when he’d still been trying to get the hang of running the ranch without his dad. Benny had pulled his fat out of the fire and taught him how to be a responsible rancher. Otherwise, Turkey Creek Ranch might have gone under. Only Benny and the banker in town, who knew and respected Mack’s father, were aware of how close he’d come to losing everything. His love life had never been a high priority.
Until he walked into that library, saw Jill and was tossed into a sea of memories. Sweet memories of a carefree time before one bad thing after another had struck.
So why had he come away from the library feeling so angry? He’d been nothing but cantankerous since—far from how he felt inside anytime he ran into Jill. Like the night on the patio when he couldn’t help but kiss her.
And not ten minutes ago Erma had caught him salivating over the idea of hauling Jill off to his bedroom. He adjusted the loose-fitting cargo shorts he’d thrown on after his shower. Come to think of it, where were all his blue jeans? There hadn’t been any in his closet.
As he waited for Erma to finish her call, the front door opened and he heard a melding of girlish and womanly laughter. Zoey and Jill came down the hall. They were both weighed down by piles of stuff.
“Hey, do either of you need help?” he called, then was sorry to acknowledge how quickly their laughter died.
“We’re bringing back everything we dragged out to your pickup,” Jill said.
“Oh, I see you have some things from my closet.” He untangled eight or so hangers from Jill’s left arm. “And you have the bedspread my mother crocheted. It was one of my dad’s most prized possessions, but he never used it on his bed.”
Jill handed it to him and smiled. “I only knew it was handmade, old and irreplaceable. When Erma saw me with it, she said it was one of the few things you have of your mom’s.”
Erma wheeled into the hall. “It’s something you’ll want to put in Zoey’s hope chest, Mackenzie.”
“What’s a hope chest?” Zoey asked. She had one foot on the stairs that led to the second story. Turning back to face the others, she dropped a pillow and a stuffed lamb that had been perched atop the photo albums and frames she carried.
“Most kids don’t have them anymore,” Jill said, shaking her bangs out of her eyes.
Erma looked up at Zoey. “In my day when a girl became a teen, her family would fill a cedar box with special things a new bride would need, like hand-sewn or embroidered linens, maybe silverware or china. Mothers and grandmothers taught the girls how to make handcrafts, and they all spent time sewing pretty things. Because the girls dreamed of getting married, the boxes became known as hope chests.”
Mack and Zoey looked at Erma with doubt.
“What? Neither of you has heard of hope chests?”
“Do you have one, J.J.?” Zoey asked.
“No. Even if moms did that in the ’90s, my mother wasn’t into handcrafts, which is why I find it odd that she’s now immersed in a ceramics course. She dreamed of traveling, so she bought me suitcases for my high school graduation. It’s just as well since mine would be more like a hopeless chest.”
“Hopeless, why?” Zoey tried to peer around her dad, who had picked up the pillow and the lamb.
Mack glanced at Jill and saw sadness in her eyes before she lowered her lashes.
“If I got a dime every time you asked why, Ms. Nosybody, we’d be zillionaires,” Mack said. “Upstairs with you, monkey, before you lose any more of your treasures. And go slow so you don’t trip and fall,” he said, nudging her upward with his elbow.
“Aw, it must have something to do with love,” Zoey groused, plodding up a few steps. “I told Brandy nobody ever explains anything if it has to do with love.”
“My job keeps me traveling around the world,” Jill added, “it’s why people would say there’s no hope left.”
Zoey had reached the landing and stopped. “Well, I think you can still get married if you want to, J.J.” She disappeared around the bend and on into her room, leaving Mack and J.J. standing awkwardly below with Erma, who didn’t try to hide her sly grin.
Jill flushed. “Um, I...had better put these things back where I found them. Then I’ll help Erma make supper.”
“Zoey tends not to filter what comes out of her mouth,” Mack said. “I’m sure it never occurred to her that you could be dating someone in New York.”
“I’m not.”
He ought to let that go. “No surprise. What man could pry you away from the career and the city that’s more important to you than anything else?”
“Not true. If I didn’t need health benefits I could set my own hours freelancing, and I wouldn’t need to work in New York City.” Jill nipped in her lower lip. “But maybe that isn’t what you were getting at. What were you asking, Mack?”
Standing here, face-to-face, offered the perfect opportunity to ask the question that had plagued him for so many years. But, with Erma looking on, Mack got cold feet. If the big city wasn’t what drove her, then she must have left because he’d failed her somehow. “You fit in here,” he said instead. “But La Mesa and Turkey Creek are a far cry from life in New York City.”
“I love it here!”
“Do you?” Mack’s heart sped up, even as he was bombarded with snippets of another time, when, during their college breaks, they’d stolen away to the creek to make love under a canopy of stars. At one point as they kissed, she’d leaned back and declared, I love it here. She’d followed up that statement with: I love you, too, and I always will.
Erma said, “Wasting a whole day driving me to Lubbock’ll ruin your plan to go with Jill and get photos of you with the herd, Mackenzie.”
“Don’t worry, Erma,” Jill said. “The magazine will love a close-up of Mack with one horse and another with the single cow and her calf. I wanted to impress readers with the size of his herd, but...”
“Why would readers of a women’s magazine care about the size of my herd?”
Jill shot him an expression as if he’d sprouted two heads. “Readers care about that kind of detail. But my article will cover what you do as a rancher—the number of acres you own and how much land you lease for grazing. I can also say how many head of cattle you generally run ea
ch year.”
Mack shifted the clothes he held. “We still have a couple of days before you leave. We could ride out to my summer range midweek. And you said your article will include my charity work. My first meeting with the steak-fry committee chairs is coming up. You can come along if you’d like.”
“I’d love to. It’ll be great for the article. And when we’re in Lubbock, I’d like to go to a photography shop for good photo paper and frames. Zoey wants copies of the pictures I took and I know she wants to frame at least one. Barring any other unforeseen disasters like we had today, there’s no reason I can’t wind everything up and still find time to get her pictures ready.”
Mack didn’t want to think about Jill leaving. With her here, he was reminded of so many things he missed about her. She could fill the lonely times in his life—if he could trust her. But the last thing he needed was to get involved with her again. She’d ripped out his heart before, and she wasn’t thinking like him now. She seemed anxious to leave, with all her focus on photography.
“Speaking of pictures, those wooden frames you’re holding are heavy,” he said, suddenly ready to be on his way and have her be on hers.
Above them a door crashed open and Zoey burst out of her room. She hung over the banister. “Are you two still holding all the junk we brought out of the pickup?”
“We’ve been talking,” Mack said.
“About what? I put away everything I took up to my room.”
“Scheduling,” Jill said. “Like the trip to Lubbock.”
Zoey brightened and skipped down the stairs. “So, Daddy, can J.J. please take me shopping for some school clothes? I only have a half day at school tomorrow and then I’m out till seventh grade.”
Mack sucked in a breath. “Jill mentioned going to a special store to buy paper to print your photos. And she said you wanted frames. They have those at the general store, you know. How do you know what size you need for a photo you haven’t even seen? And what if none Jill took are good?”
“Daddy!” Zoey sounded annoyed. “J.J. is world-famous. Of course they’ll be good.”
“Excuse me.” Now he answered in a tone that was dust dry. “I forgot we’ve been graced by such a grand and exalted photographer.”
“World-famous,” Zoey repeated.
Jill flushed. “Knock it off. We were having a civilized conversation for a change. Maybe you’d like to tell me what about my work needles you, Mack. As I recall, you used to be proud of me. Well, of my skill as a photographer, I mean.”
Mack saw Zoey’s head swivel between him and Jill. She was far too interested in the exchange—as was Erma. He was only too aware of how attached they’d both gotten to Jill in a few short days. Since Jill dropped into their lives, it was clear that from Zoey’s perspective Jill could give the kind of attention his daughter craved. He knew from experience the pain that followed when Jill walked away, cutting off the warmth and love she so freely lavished.
“Zoey, help Jill hang the pictures in the hall. I’m taking these things to my room and then I’ll find Benny and make sure that there are no hot spots left along the fire line before it gets dark.”
He disappeared so fast, J.J. had to blink. She handed Zoey two old photo albums to put on the shelf in the living room, then rehung the wedding photos of Mack’s family in their proper order along the hall. She wished she had asked about the absence of his wedding pictures while he’d been in a good mood. Maybe their pictures had been terrible. Was that why he had it in for her occupation? She’d known wedding disasters to happen. Not to her, but a few times she’d been asked to salvage botched takes of the most important event in a couple’s life. Did that describe Mack’s wedding? Botched?
No, that was mean. Just because she and Mack had planned to have their simple wedding right here at the ranch didn’t give her the right to think badly of the wedding he’d had with Faith instead. So often she’d imagined herself walking down—no, floating down—that lovely old staircase. But she had planned to float down in the beautiful, long gown she’d bought after he proposed—and straight into Mack’s arms. Her mother, at her authorization, had sold that gown in a garage sale after Rex died. J.J. would have never worn the dress to marry anyone but Mack.
J.J. straightened the frame that held the photo of Mack’s mom and dad. He was blessed with a lot of his mother’s fine features. Scanning the other photos, J.J. saw bits of Mack in all of them. But nothing of Zoey. The shape of her face, the color of her hair and eyes were...different. Obviously Faith’s family genes had overridden the Bannermans’ most prominent hallmarks. Shrugging, she turned to Erma, who was waiting in the hall. “Okay, let’s go see what we can throw together for the evening meal.”
Chapter Nine
Tuesday morning, a hot sun splashed across the shiny ribbon of asphalt that led to Lubbock, and heat devils shimmered above dry cotton fields that flanked the highway. Mack and Erma sat in the front of the pickup. Before they left the ranch Erma tried to get Jill to sit up front. She refused politely, instead sharing the backseat with Zoey, who filled the cab with chatter. “I wish Brandy could have come today, but she’s helping her mom at the produce stand. J.J., do you think any of the mall stores will have a jacket like the one you let me wear for my photographs?”
Her dad broke in, “Zoey, why don’t you call her Jill? It’s her name. And it sounds a lot prettier.”
She made a face at him in his mirror. “J.J. is different. Classier,” Zoey went on as if her dad hadn’t chided her. “Do you think I can find a hat kinda like yours? It’s so cool. Brandy said hats are totally in right now, and everyone will be wearing them when school starts. Do you want me to call you, Jill? You introduced yourself to Brandy and me as J.J. We think using initials is way...chic.”
“Zoey!” This time there was no mistaking the firmness in Mack’s warning.
J.J. laughed. “It’s okay, Mack. I answer to either. A dozen years ago when I started shopping my portfolio around, going by initials was in vogue and a lot of women did it.”
“When I was little,” Erma said, “most women could only be teachers or nurses if they wanted a career. A handful became doctors or lawyers. They didn’t have it easy, because those jobs were considered men’s domain. Careers for women are wide-open today.”
“Yep,” Zoey said. “My teachers say girls can have any career we choose. Some even want us to know what we want to be right now! How can we? Brandy changes her mind a lot, and gosh, college is a long way off.”
J.J. smiled at Zoey. “It’s good you’re planning on college.”
“I have to. My dad set me up a college fund at Texas Tech.”
“Ah, a prepaid tuition plan. That’s smart. But you don’t sound too happy,” J.J. said, catching and holding Mack’s gaze for a moment in his rearview mirror.
“Brandy said maybe I’ll want to go to some other college. She wants to go to the university her mom and dad went to in Utah. And we kinda want to go together.”
Mack glanced back at her. “Tell Brandy you’ll graduate without college debt hanging over your head. I started this 529 fund when you were five, Zoey. I locked in the rate of tuition for that year. Do you have any idea how much tuition climbs each year?”
She shook her head.
“A lot,” J.J. said. “Believe me, you’ll appreciate your father’s foresight when your friends are saddled with debt. I had scholarships and a discount because my stepdad taught at Tech. But I had to borrow to pay room and board in Paris for my postgraduate work. It was pricy and I only paid off my loans a couple of years ago.”
Zoey propped her elbows on her knees and set her chin in her hands. “All I’m thinking about now is getting through junior high.”
The three adults in the vehicle burst out laughing. Mack winked at J.J., and for a split second his gaze in the mirror settled on her mouth. She was surprised by the sudd
en heat that rose inside her. Like old times she felt drawn to him. Then a gust of wind kicked up dust across the highway, and Mack returned his attention to the road.
But J.J. knew he’d felt it, too, by the way he cleared his throat and the catch in his voice. “What time is your mom expecting you, Jilly?”
Jilly. That gave her goose bumps. “I didn’t set a time. I figured we’d see how long they think Erma will be at her appointment. Then I’ll take a cab to the retirement center.”
“Take a cab?” Mack drawled. “This is Lubbock, remember. Don’t they only have cabs at the airport?”
“How long since you’ve been up here?” J.J. asked. “Lubbock’s grown. They even have great internet and digital cell service now.”
“I’ll be a while,” Erma said. “I have to see the orthopedic doctor and have X-rays. The nurse said the doctor wants me to wait while he has someone read the films, since we’re from out of town.”
Mack checked his watch. “Your appointment’s at nine. You’ll probably be tied up until lunch at least. Jill, are you going for a quick visit or spending the day with Bonnie? Zoey and I can drive you there and wait.”
“Don’t be silly. Come in with me and say hello. I wasn’t planning to stay long. For one thing she hasn’t jumped for joy at the prospect of seeing me this visit. When I came to help her move she was so depressed and needy. I should be glad she’s gotten active, but...” Her voice trailed off, and she found Mack studying her again in the mirror. Mack Bannerman had the most expressive eyes of any person J.J. had ever met—and she worked with models who used every asset to express emotion to her camera. But his gaze now made her feel compelled to add, “I’m happy for her, though. Her world used to revolve around Rex.”
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