She needed stability. He, at best, could offer a life lived out of a suitcase. Sure, he’d try to change if there was a baby in the picture. But three weeks after their unprotected sex episode he was feeling better about the chances of there not being a baby. A few more days and he would know for sure; once he could be certain he would walk away.
Except, if leaving was still what he wanted why was he chasing after Kathleen now? Why wasn’t he already back in New York? Why did he care that she thought he was in pain?
The barn came into view moments before he saw Kathleen disappear inside one of the big doors and he pushed the questions out of his mind. Just as well. They needed to talk and she wouldn’t want to have this conversation in the house where Mitchum could overhear.
Jackson parked the Jeep and set the picnic basket on the hood before following Kathleen through the door. He waited a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dimness of the interior. Although the ranch was state of the art in every other area, the lighting inside the barn left a lot to be desired. He found her inside Jester’s stall, combing the horse as if her life depended on it. Still sniffling. Had she cried all the way back? He shook his head and stepped into the stall.
She stiffened when he would have touched her so Jackson took a few steps back until his shoulders touched the opposite wall. In a lot of ways Kathleen was like her horses and he needed her to stay calm so they could talk. Finally.
“I’m sorry.”
She shrugged. This was not going to go well if she wouldn’t even accept his apology. He tried again.
“I didn’t mean to push so hard.”
Kathleen spared him an eye-rolling glance before looping the curry comb around the stall door. “Would you stop turning this around on me? Our problems are about you and the past, not about me.”
She might as well be an ostrich, Jackson thought, as opposed to self-examination as she acted. He felt his temper slip. She needed to wake up before the life she dreamed of passed her by.
“This has everything to do with you. It’s your secret we’re keeping. You’re the one who came up with the plan to stay married until your birthday — ”
She waved her hands, cutting him off. “I’m not talking about our deal, I’m talking about the fact that you won’t talk to me. You don’t tell me anything. We can’t have a relationship like that.” The last words were barely a whisper.
Jackson crossed his arms over his chest. They’d tackle the relationship aspect later. “Fine, what do you want to know?”
“Why haven’t you called your family once since you’ve been here?”
“Because there’s no one to call.”
She narrowed her eyes and plastered a fake smile on her face. “Another lie. Boy, for a man who wanted to be honest about our wedding from the start you’re sure not shy about lying about everything else in your life.” She took a step forward, pointing at his chest. “You escape into San Antonio every day and when I ask why you start in on my family and their problems. My father’s drinking, my sister’s marriage, my grandfather’s ultimatum. None of that holds a candle to you. You know everything about me. Your parents might be dead but Janice and Tyler are right down the road. Yet you’d rather sit outside a vacant, decrepit building than go see your family.”
“They aren’t my family. And you know everything that matters,” he insisted stubbornly.
“I don’t know anything that matters. Why did you stare at that building for so long today?”
He clenched his jaw but said nothing.
“Why did you photograph that boy?” Again he was silent. “Why did you lie about taking tourist photos? Why not tell me you were working on another project?”
“I’m not used to reporting my movements to a family of four. My mistake, it won’t happen again. Tomorrow morning I’ll skip San Antonio and take that tour with Mitchum.” He kept his voice as flat as a stone from the creek bed.
“That isn’t what I want. If you need to be in the city, go. But stop lying about what you’re doing. Families don’t do that to one another.” Frustrated, she pushed her hands into her thick mane of hair. She opened her mouth but then snapped her jaw closed and hurried away from Jester’s stall. Jackson caught up quickly.
“How do I know what families do, Kathleen? Hugh Henderson might have donated the sperm that made me, but he kicked my mother out of his life before I was born. When I was seven she left for cigarettes or the proverbial loaf of bread maybe just because she wanted to and never came back.” He wanted to stop when the color drained from her face, but couldn’t. It was time she faced the truth about him - that he not only didn’t belong on her ranch, he was incapable of being the man she’d created in her mind. He wasn’t some artsy photographer who saw the world differently. He saw the world exactly as it was. Broken. Just like him. So instead of stopping, instead of giving her the space she obviously needed he pressed on.
“When they eventually served him with the paternity papers that proved I was his biological son I’d been in the foster care system for nearly a year. Janice not only didn’t want reminders of the cad my father had been before he married her, she didn’t want some foster care reject influencing her precious Ty.” It was his turn to shove his hands through his hair. “I didn’t choose boarding school, it was foisted on me and any time I showed my face around here it was made perfectly clear I wasn’t wanted. That fact was underlined when not only didn’t Hugh show up for graduation at UTEP — not that I expected him to — but that the very next day I received a ten-thousand-dollar check and a request to never come to Lockhardt again.”
Kathleen reached a hand toward him but then dropped it before she could touch him. Funny how the truth changed people, Jackson thought as he shoved his hands in his pockets.
“Families don’t lie? Your father is playing chess at the bar all day, every day, and drinking sweet tea. No alcohol. He’s lying about being a drunk. Why would anyone do that?” Jackson stared into her eyes until Kathleen glanced away. “If Mitchum really wanted to sell, he’d have done it. He’s using his lie to make you bend to his will. And we’ve been living the biggest lie of all of them since that night we got drunk and married in Puerto Vallarta. We aren’t a family, Kath, we’ve never been a family. I should know. I was raised without a family. Shipped here, there, and anywhere there was an empty bed and a bowl of cereal in the morning.” The words he flung at her threatened to topple her, but somehow she remained upright. Then, he said the words he was certain would kill any remaining interest in him. “I didn’t accept your terms out of the goodness of my heart, I did it because you could be pregnant. I might not know anything about family, but if you are pregnant I’m not going to leave my child behind the way I was.”
• • •
“You’re here because you think I might be pregnant?” The words were barely a whisper and Kathleen hated that. She needed to be strong now that her world — the world she’d apparently, crazily invented over the past couple of weeks — was well and truly imploding.
“You asked.”
“Hugh wouldn’t turn his child away.”
“Yeah, right.”
“But things would be different now. You’re a huge success. Ty brags about everything. Why wouldn’t he want to brag about his older brother the photographer?” Kathleen wanted her image of Jackson to remain perfectly vague and bland. Reason number four-hundred-twenty-four she should have stopped herself from wondering about him, following him into the city, and using that stupid picnic idea to make him tell her about his life. His vague and bland life got her into this mess in the first place. That first night in Puerto Vallarta she fell back under his mysterious spell. The artistic, quiet, handsome boy from college was still artistic and quiet and drop dead gorgeous. So she had pushed and prodded, looking for his weakness. Looking for anything that would keep her school-girl crush under control. Only now she feare
d it wasn’t just a crush.
Had she been in love with Jackson all this time? Was he the reason she was a serial dater with no inclination to settle down? Had she unconsciously been waiting for him to show up in her life? And now that he had she had no more illusions. He didn’t just dislike her. He felt pity for her and responsibility for a child that very likely didn’t exist.
“You can’t be that naive. Me being here means Ty has to share the family fortune. That he and Janice have to acknowledge the existence of a stripper’s kid. My mother, Maria, left our apartment when I was seven. Five days later one of our neighbors heard my cries for help.” He paused, clenched his jaw and then continued. Kathleen’s heart broke for him, emotion she knew was wasted on his hardened heart. “I was locked inside the apartment. No lights, no heat, no food. My so-called family couldn’t have cared less. I’ve made a good life for myself and none of this matters. Stop trying to fix me like you fix your horses. I’m not broken.”
“Oh, Jackson,” she said. This was so much worse than she had expected and not at all the way to break his hold on her. If anything, knowing his past made her want to hold on to him. To show him what life could be like if he would open his heart again. But Jackson didn’t want to open his heart. That was clear from the way he looked at her now, eyes filled with contempt.
“You can’t help yourself, can you? You’d rather fix every problem in the world and ignore your own. What happens to you, to your horses when your birthday comes around and Mitchum comes up with another reason to withhold control of the ranch?”
Kathleen stiffened her spine. “He won’t do that.” He couldn’t. Could he?
“Really? You’re certain that he’ll take everything from you if we aren’t the happy newlyweds now, but in three weeks when I leave you really believe that he’ll still give you control?”
“He might have,” said a venomous voice from the corner. “But he won’t after I tell him what you two have been plotting.” Vanessa strutted into the light in another pair of designer high heels hatred brimming in her eyes. She slapped the shaft of her leather riding boots together like a whip. Kathleen’s body jerked at the sound. “Poor, innocent Kathleen. Grandfather’s favorite and married to her kiddie crush. Only she’s really planning a divorce that will be even faster than her drunken I Do’s. I wonder what good, old, Mitchum will think of that? You might have wanted to stay in the hayloft with another stable boy, sis.”
“Van, please.” Kathleen’s voice was barely a whisper.
“What do you want?” Jackson asked.
“I want my money.” Greed gleamed in her eyes. “Now that I don’t have a rich husband to fall back on I need a home, vacations, and meals in all the right restaurants. All of that costs money — until the next rich husband comes along.” She slapped the leather boots together and smiled. “Once Grandfather sells, we split one-fifth of the estate. That’s a cool fifteen million for me.” She stepped closer to Jackson, drawing tiny circles on his chest. “I don’t think you can beat that offer, Brother, so don’t even try.”
• • •
“Go after her,” Jackson said.
Kathleen knew she should run after Vanessa to try to stop her, but couldn’t move her feet. If this was it, this was it. Grandfather could take her dreams for the ranch and she would start over. She was a smart girl and a great trainer. She had connections she had never thought about using on her own. This might be the time to do that. For now, she needed to talk to Jackson. Because he was right.
There was a part of her, a big part she was finally ready to admit, that needed to fix the people around her. Not because their problems made hers smaller but because at heart she was a nurturer. She wasn’t a hard-nosed rancher and would never be. The rescue horses pointed that out clearly, but she had never seen it so clearly.
So her family could wait because at this moment Jackson was the most important person in her life. He might not want to admit to the emotional scars and baggage he carried from his mother’s abandonment, but Kathleen could see them clearly now. She wanted Jackson to leave the ranch whole, to have a chance at a happy life even if that life didn’t include her.
“No. I’m done chasing after Vanessa and you’re right. Grandfather is going to do whatever he wants despite my best excuses or pleas. I should have realized that a long time ago.” She walked to him and reached out to touch his chest. “I think we need to talk about you and the invisible suitcase filled with baggage from your childhood.”
“So you’re still hiding behind my problems so you won’t have to face yours?” He said sarcastically. “I don’t think so.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her along behind him to the ranch house.
Down the long main hallway and straight into Mitchum’s office where Vanessa stood over Mitchum, yelling.
“What do you mean you don’t care? You said this place needed a man to run it, so she shows up with a man but it’s all a lie. Don’t you care about that?” She said, her voice rising as every word seemed to go straight over Mitchum’s head.
Mitchum clicked his pen several times before saying, “Not nearly as much as you do, Van. Hello Kathy-bean. I figured you wouldn’t be far behind.”
He seemed tired. Tired of the fighting or was it something more? He was an old man, Kathleen realized. Old and probably ready to think about pleasure rides, not about the future of the ranch. Was this the real impetus behind his veiled threats? Because he really did want to relinquish control of the ranch? If so, why hadn’t he just told her that?
“I’ll just — ”
“You’re not going anywhere,” Jackson interrupted. When Vanessa tried to push by him, he grabbed her with his free hand and pushed her into one of the wing backed chairs across from Mitchum.
“I don’t need you to fight my battles for me.”
“Well, someone’s got to fight them, sweetheart, because from where I’ve been sitting you’re not fighting. You’re waiting.”
“I’m focusing on the work, Jackson, something you wouldn’t know anything about since your workday includes about five minutes of actual time and twelve hours of waiting for the right light.” Where had that come from? She didn’t mean that. She had seen Jackson’s photographs and they were wonderful.
His eyes glittered. “Really? Maybe I just like the scenery a little too much to rush anything.”
Scenery. As in the models? Kathleen clenched her teeth, crossed her arms over her chest, and turned away from Jackson.
“This certainly is a switch,” Grandfather said, watching them intently. “Just what do you think Kathy-bean needs to fight for, Jackson.”
“Her inheritance. This ranch,” he said. “You don’t seem to believe she can handle it on her own. She can. And her ideas to improve it and make the operations even more profitable are solid. I’ve done some checking. Jester’s times are faster than the times put in at the Worlds last year. So why are you so against her training him in addition to the Quarters?”
“Never said I was against it,” Mitchum said, leaning back in his chair and threading his hands together over his chest. “I just said I didn’t understand it.”
Kathleen focused on Mitchum’s words. “You said more than that. You said this place needed a man’s hand to keep everything moving along.”
He shrugged. “Sue me. I’m an old man. Women didn’t run ranches then and not many do now. If there was a man running everything else, you could focus on the training.”
Love bloomed in her chest for her grandfather. He believed in her. “All those times you mentioned a grandson-in-law, you didn’t mean that I couldn’t handle it.”
“Of course not. You’re the heart of this place, Kathy-bean. Always have been. But now you’ve got your man here, so what’s all the fuss about?”
Kathleen looked up into the stony face of Jackson. He wasn’t her man, at least not in his own eyes.
“Vanessa was right about that. We did meet up in Puerto Vallarta and we did get married, but neither of us remembered anything at first.” She took a deep breath. “And I begged Jackson not to get a quickie annulment, convinced him to come here and pretend.”
Mitchum chewed his lower lip.
“But don’t blame him. It was my fault. I’m the one who proposed and I’m still not sure why — ”
“No, you didn’t. I did.”
Kathleen swung her head to look at Jackson. “No. I proposed on the beach. I said, ‘Why don’t we get married.’ And then we had a little more tequila…or something,” she said, glancing quickly at Mitchum who laughed.
“That was after I proposed, the night before. But you didn’t remember in the morning and I didn’t bring it up because I…didn’t mean it.” He had the grace to look uncomfortable as he broke Kathleen’s heart into so many more pieces than they’d broken into in school.
“Nice story, Jackson, but I don’t care about who proposed to whom. You’re leaving in a few days.” Vanessa turned back to Mitchum. “What about my money?”
“Once Kath takes over after her birthday, you’ll get your quarterly stipends, just like always,” Mitchum said evenly. “But, Vanessa, this place should be more to you than a paycheck.”
“I. Don’t. Want. Stipends.”
The door to the office closed quietly and Kathleen realized that Jackson was gone. She had to find him.
Vanessa threw a pillow from her chair across the room. “I want my money!”
Kathleen left Grandfather to deal with Vanessa and hurried upstairs to find Jackson.
Chapter Fourteen
Jackson was in their room, tossing tee-shirts, jeans, and boxers into his big, black suitcase. Kathleen stopped short, watching him for a few minutes. Was he angry with her? No matter what he said or what he thought he remembered from that night on the beach she was the one who proposed, she convinced him to come here. Followed him around San Antonio like a stalker. And it was all for nothing because Mitchum never meant his threats as threats.
Texas Temptation Page 33