Box of Hearts (The Connor's Series Book 1)

by Nikki Ashton

  “Mom,” Jesse said and moved over to stand behind Addy. “Morning Addy, honey,” he said.

  All of us stopped what we were doing and turned our heads in unison to see Jesse run a hand down his daughter’s long hair. Addy stopped coloring and turned a bright smile on her father.

  “Morning, Daddy. Do you like my picture?”

  “Yeah, it’s pretty.”

  There was no mistaking the look of regret in Jesse’s eyes as his gaze raked over his daughter’s face. While he stared at her, it felt as though we were all holding our breath, not wanting to break the spell. Even I, as a newcomer, could see that this interaction was huge for Jesse. Addy, being the open hearted little beauty that she was, didn’t hesitate to climb onto her knees and throw her arms around Jesse’s waist.

  “Thank you, Daddy.”

  Jesse raised his hand, looking as though he was going to stroke her hair again, but he allowed it to hang for a few seconds before dropping it to his side.

  “I need to go,” he said and pulled away from Addy.

  “Bye, Daddy,” Addy sing-songed, totally unaware that her father was struggling with the closeness of her.

  “Bye, honey,” Bonnie called with a break in her voice.

  As he strode to the door, Jesse said nothing but held a hand in the air to indicate goodbye.

  “Shit,” Garratt said softly as the door slammed. “Do you think he’s finally got his head out of his a-hole?”

  Bonnie shrugged and Addy went back to her coloring. I reached across the table and gave her forearm a little squeeze.

  “That’s really good, Addy,” I said as she looked up at me.

  “I know.” She grinned. “Daddy said.”

  “Excuse me,” Bonnie croaked as she wiped her hands and practically ran through to the lounge.

  “Is she okay?” I asked Garratt quietly.

  “She’ll be good. It’s just since the accident he’s been a total douche to everyone, especially her.” Garratt pointed at Addy who was still busy. “That’s the first time he’s touched her in…well a long damn time.”

  “Maybe he’s realized what he’s missing out on,” I said, affording Addy another glance.

  “I hope so, Millie, I really do, because if he doesn’t change soon he may just lose her forever.”

  Later in the day, the heat had intensified and we were all flagging, even the Connors’.

  “It’s real hot today, hey?” Ted said to me as he appeared from his office. “Haven’t known it to get this hot for a long time, ‘specially this time of year.”

  “I know,” I replied, fanning myself with a magazine that I’d bought at the airport. “I’ve been to the Bahamas on holiday and it wasn’t this hot.”

  “You could always put on that itty bitty bikini of yours,” Garratt laughed as he stood in front of me in thigh length swimming shorts. “I’m setting the hose up for Addy.”

  Addy had already stripped down to her swimsuit an hour before and, slathered in sunscreen and wearing a hat, had been helping Bonnie in the garden.

  “It’s not ‘itty bitty’ as you call it,” I replied. “With the size of my boobs and bum, there is not a chance of me wearing anything remotely ‘itty bitty’,” I joked.

  “It’s tits and ass, honey,” Garratt said with an exaggerated twang. “But whatever size it is, you need to get your swim suit on and come outside. Even Mom is thinking of stripping down.”

  “She is?” Ted asked, his attention suddenly elsewhere and his eyes shining with excitement.

  “Ugh, Dad, really?”

  “What? We might be older than you son, but we ain’t old. These days, men in their early fifties are in their prime.” Ted actually flexed his muscles and sucked in his stomach a little – not that he was in bad shape, because he wasn’t. Years of working on the ranch had done wonders for his muscle tone, and it wasn’t difficult to see where his sons got their looks from.

  “Seriously, Dad. If you keep talking like that, Millie will be on the next plane home. It’s making me feel sick, and I’ve lived with you for almost twenty-one years.”

  “Okay,” I interjected with a giggle. “I’ll come out and play with you, as long as you stop picking on your dad.”

  “Why thank you, Millie, I appreciate it. It’s nice to have someone respect me for a change.” Ted’s eyes shone with humor and it was great to see. Between his two sons and their troubles, Ted Connor still had a lightness about him.

  “I respect you, Dad.” Garratt’s words were said with sincerity and a huge smile on his face.

  “Yeah I know, Garratt.” Ted smiled back and then disappeared into the garden, presumably to find Bonnie.

  “I disappoint him so much,” Garratt sighed.

  His hands were hanging off the back of his neck and he was staring in the direction that his father went.

  “I’m sure you don’t,” I replied. “He’s maybe a little mad with you at the moment, but I doubt whether you disappoint him. Has he said much to you about the college thing?”

  “I got a lecture from him and Mom. He told me that I get a week to decide what I want to do after summer break. Either try to find another college, which will probably mean me having to go to some godforsaken place that no one in their right mind would attend, get myself a job, or, the icing on my cherry pop tart, work on the ranch.”

  “You don’t want to work on the ranch?” I asked, wondering whether it had anything to do with working with Jesse, or even Brandon.

  Garratt shrugged. “I love this place, I really do, and I’m not scared of the work, but I just don’t see myself staying here my whole life. Now Jesse, he’s different. Working the ranch was all he ever wanted to do. That and raise a family with Melody.”

  The way he said ‘Melody’ caused me to sit up straight. There was a harshness to his tone. It wasn’t my place to ask, but I wondered whether he actually liked Melody, because it didn’t sound as though he did. Then surprisingly, Garratt gave me the answer.

  “Just so you know, Melody and I didn’t get along too well. We did when she first started dating Jesse, when they were seventeen. I was twelve and my hormones were bouncing and Melody was hot, she was a cheer leader, you know what I’m saying? So, I thought that she was amazing.”

  Garratt smiled and shook his head, memories evidently coming back to him.

  “So what changed?”

  “Melody changed. They got married just after Jesse’s twenty-first birthday, because she was pregnant with Addy, and Jesse wanted to do the right thing. Plus he loved her. He adored her so much that he put her on a pedestal so damn high even he couldn’t reach her.” Garratt sat down on the edge of the reclining chair, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.

  “After Addy was born, Melody changed a whole lot. She started taking off for the day, going shopping in the city with her friends, or spending money on days at a Spa at the hotel in Knightingale, the next town along, or sometimes in the city. Mom wondered if she was suffering from post-partum depression, but when Jesse made her go to the doctor to get it checked out, he told them both she was perfectly fine.”

  “That doesn’t mean she wasn’t,” I replied. “She may have hidden it well.”

  “Maybe, but it wasn’t just that, she started to get ideas above her station. Her parents were both dead, so she’d pretty much lived with us since she and Jesse got together. She lived with her uncle, officially, but he was always down at Rowdy’s getting drunk and didn’t care about Melody one bit, so she’d always been grateful to Mom and Dad, but after she had Addy, she thought she deserved better even though she’d never been to college and only every worked helping Mom doing the cooking and cleaning here. She kept going on at Jesse about the house, how it was dated and too small and that the truck needed replacing, or her clothes were too old. Stuff like that, all the time, and Jesse being Jesse wanted to give her everything she wanted, and worked his ass off to do it. As well as working the ranch, he started to take horses, too, breaking them in for people, and
they paid a high price for his services because he was good at it, really good. He ended up working fifteen and sixteen hour days, just so Melody got the latest purse or fashion.”

  “Jesse loved her, though, so if he wanted her to have those things, it was up to him how hard he worked, surely?”

  “I know, and that’s exactly what he said, but I didn’t agree with it.”

  “And so you didn’t like Melody because of it?”

  Garratt stared at me for a few seconds and then stood up from the chair. “That was one of the reasons that I didn’t like Melody, yeah. I just couldn’t stand what she was doing to my brother, what she’s still doing to my brother. The man’s in love with a fucking ghost and it’s killing me to see it.”

  At that moment, Addy came running into the house, screeching excitedly. “Uncle Garratt, come quick. Grandpa is chasing me with a bucket of water, we need to get the hose and get him back.”

  Garratt’s sombre expression lightened at the sight of his niece with her gleaming smile.

  “Okay, beautiful, I’m coming.”

  “You, too, Millie,” she called over her shoulder.

  “Yeah,” Garratt said on a grin. “Go and get your swim suit on, Millie, otherwise we might have to get your clothes wet.”

  “Okay,” I sighed. “I’ll see you out there.”

  As I made my way to my room, I thought about everything that Garratt had told me and my heart broke just a little bit more for the Connor family because of what Melody’s death had done to them.

  Jesse

  As I rounded the corner to the back of the house, I saw them all. Garratt, Addy, Mom, Dad, and Millie, all of them having water fights and screaming as if they were all Addy’s age. I pulled up short, not willing to take another step.

  I’m working my fucking nut sack off to keep this ranch running and they’re all having fun. Well hoo-fucking-rah for them. And what the hell does she have on? That’s not a swim suit, it’s damn underwear!

  Millie

  “Millie, honey,” Bonnie cried from the porch steps. “I think all your stuff is here.”

  Addy had gone out for the day with her friend Elizabeth, who lived in town, and Elizabeth’s mother was taking them for ice cream and then to the cinema in Knightingale, therefore I’d been helping Bonnie bake some pies for the ranchers. I say help, but she’d actually been teaching me, as I was not known for my culinary skills at the best of times and pies were way out of my comfort zone.

  We’d heard a vehicle beeping as it came up the track, so Bonnie had gone to investigate and seemingly it was all my belongings.

  The two men in the truck helped me in with the boxes and piled them in the lounge, then after declining a cold drink and a piece of lemon cake, left with another beep of the horn.

  “Is this everything you own?” Bonnie asked.

  I shook my head. “Not all of it, just things I thought I’d need for a year on a ranch.”

  I held up the pair of red stiletto shoes that I had pulled from the first box that I had opened. “Although, not sure I’ll need these.”

  We both giggled as I examined the four inch heels before throwing them back into the box.

  “Well, if you leave them there I’ll get Ted to help you up with them when he gets back.”

  Garratt and Ted had gone to see a guidance counsellor friend of Ted’s, to find out what Garratt’s educational options were, although I had a feeling that Garratt had already decided that college was not for him. After that meeting, Ted was dropping Garratt and a couple of his friends into Knightingale. Today was Garratt’s 21st birthday and he couldn’t wait to buy his first legal beer. Bonnie had wanted to throw a party, but Garratt didn’t want one. Most of his friends were away at college, where he had expected to be, so he didn’t fancy ‘a fucking tea party with Mom, Dad and Addy playing musical fucking chairs’. Knightingale it was then!

  “Okay, thanks Bonnie,” I replied. “But I’ll just check what’s in each one first. I left in such a hurry I have no idea what I shipped over.”

  “No problem, honey. I’ll put the last of those pies in the oven then I’ll go over to the bunk house, see what supplies they need.”

  “Do you need me to come and help?” I asked.

  “No honey,” she replied, waving a dismissive hand at me. “It’s just checking the cupboards, that’s all. No, you stay and sort through your boxes.”

  I sighed contentedly as Bonnie disappeared. She was such a lovely woman and she had made it so easy for me to fit in on the ranch. Everyone had, to be honest. Well, everyone except Jesse, he was like a grizzly old bear that hated to be disturbed.

  For the next hour or so, I searched through the boxes and made a pile of anything that I realized that I wouldn’t need. I was going to put them in another box and ask Ted if he’d store it somewhere for me for the year that I would be here. I had just pulled out a framed photograph of Dean and me, when Jesse stormed into the house. My pulse quickened and if I hadn’t already been sitting, I think my legs would have gone to jelly.

  “Oh hey,” I said, looking up at him from my cross-legged position on the floor. “Your mum is over at the bunk house and your dad is with Garratt in town.”

  “And Addy?” he asked, scratching the top of his head. “Where’s she?”

  My heart jumped a little. Had he come to the house to see Addy? Was Garratt right, was Jesse finally extracting his head from his a-hole?

  “She’s on a play date with a friend. They’ve gone to the cinema, sorry, the movies. I’m trying to remember to use the correct lingo,” I babbled. “But I keep forgetting.”

  Jesse gave me a hint of a smile.

  “Well if you are, for the record it’s my Mom, not my Mum.”

  The way he said Mum made me giggle, he seemed to struggle to get his tongue around the word. Then as soon as I thought of the word tongue, that was it, my mind started to conjure up other visions of Jesse and what he could do with his tongue. To hide my embarrassment, I looked down at the picture in my hands.

  “What’s that you’ve got there?” he asked, lowering his six feet plus frame to crouch next to me.

  “Oh, just a photograph. My stuff from home arrived.”

  Without any warning, he took it from me and examined it. His eyes came up to meet mine and then went back to the photograph.

  “Boyfriend?”

  “No, not anymore.”

  “He’s not waiting for you?” he asked, handing the photograph back.

  I shook my head. “Let’s just say we didn’t end on a positive note.”

  “That why you answered Mom’s ad’ for the job-to get away from him?”

  I expected Jesse to stand, but he stayed in the crouched position, with one arm resting on his knee while the other hung between his legs. I could feel my skin start to heat up as the smell of him invaded my nostrils. He smelled of leather and musk and hard work and it was absolutely intoxicating. Putting the photograph in the box, I turned to look at him and felt my heart flutter again; I was going to need a pacemaker at this rate. He looked amazing, despite the dirt smeared across his cheek and the greyness under his bright blue eyes.

  “So what happened, you fall out of love with him?”

  Jesse’s gaze on me was as intense as his questioning. I’d been here eight days and this was the most he’d spoken to me. I had been pretty much invisible to him before now.

  “He cheated on me,” I said without thinking, Jesse’s eyes hypnotizing me into laying myself bare. “In fact, he more or less dumped me at the altar. Well, he did dump me at the altar, no more or less about it.”

  Jesse’s eyes widened. “Fuck me, who’d he leave you for, a Victoria’s Secret model?”

  I started to laugh. “How do you know about Victoria’s Secret models?”

  “I may work long hours Millie, but I ain’t dead from the waist down and we do actually have the TV, newspapers, the internet, running water and all that shit out here.”

  I thought I’d offended him, but
the corner of his mouth lifted into a small smile.

  “Okay, point taken,” I giggled. “And no, he was not a Victoria’s Secret model.”

  “Say that again.” Jesse’s mouth dropped open as he tilted his head closer to me. “Did you say he?”

  I nodded as the shame hit me in the chest like a lead weight. Jesse’s finger came under my chin, and lifted my gaze to his.

  “That’s not on you, Millie,” he said softly. “If a man likes other men, there isn’t a lot you can do about that. You really don’t have the equipment to change his mind.”

  I gasped at Jesse making a joke and started to laugh. Jesse didn’t laugh but he gave me a smile that crinkled his eyes, then he stood up and started to walk towards the door.

  “Fucking dick head, though, if you ask me,” he said with his hand on the door handle. “It’s like having prime beef at home and going out for McDonald’s every night.”

  With that he was gone, as was my heart. Jesse Connor was going to be my downfall, I just knew it.

  Jesse

  The idiot liked guys. Well hell, if that’s his choice then that’s his choice, but to choose a guy over that woman – fucking dick!

  Millie

  The days turned into weeks, and before I knew it, I’d been at the ranch for almost a month. Jesse and I hadn’t really spoken again since the day we’d discussed Dean, but he had been a little less grumpy and did actually say hello and goodbye without sounding like a condemned man when he did it. Nothing had changed as far as my heart was concerned though. My crush seemed to be intensifying and I knew that my cheeks colored each time I saw him.

  Garratt had decided that after the summer he was going to get a job and was spending a lot of his spare time writing to businesses in the city, to see whether they would give him a job without a degree. He did reveal to me that the success of his escort agency had given him an idea to set up a dating website for college students which meant that any job he got would simply be a means to an end. I was sure he hadn’t mentioned anything about the dating service to his parents, because they were both extremely chirpy about the fact that he was finally sorting his head out. In the meantime, Garratt was working on the ranch. He seemed okay about it, but I had heard him say to Jesse that in no way was he working with Brandon. Jesse argued with him, wanting to know what his problem was with Brandon, but Garratt declined to answer and simply stormed out to the porch.