Leslie LaFoy

by Jacksons Way

  “All right, Jack,” she agreed, stifling a hard yawn with the back of her hand. With a slow, almost feline wiggle, she settled her body into the mattress and her head deeper into the pillow. Her eyelids drifted closed.

  Jackson stood there marveling at her strength and beauty as his impulses and his common sense engaged in a pitched battle. In the center of it were his memories of awakening aboard ship and always finding himself wrapped in the comfort of Lindsay's arms. And each time he'd drifted back off to sleep, his last conscious thought had been a promise to himself that he was going to hold her the minute he had the strength to do so.

  His impulses urged him to lie down beside her and honor his promise to himself. His common sense held that he had things to do and that Lindsay would be there when he returned. To his frustration, it also reminded him just how easily holding Lindsay could get out of hand. His pulse warmed and skittered at the prospect.

  Jackson clenched his teeth and made yet another decision, this one infinitely more difficult than the one to insist Lindsay get some sleep. It was a compromise that pleased neither side of him all that much, but it was the only hope he had of moving off the spot of carpet where he stood.

  “Sweet dreams,” he whispered, leaning down and brushing his lips lightly over hers. “I'll be here when you wake up.”

  A soft smile lifted the corners of her mouth. Her voice came on a dreamy sigh. “I know.”

  It occurred to him, as he resolutely turned on his heel and walked away, that all he'd managed to accomplish was to delay yet another contest between his desire and his sense of good judgment. The latter had won this particular contest as it ultimately had all the others, but Jackson couldn't help wondering just how much more frustration his impulses were going to be able to take.

  THE STREETS WERE OLD and cobbled and crowded with noisy vendors and women with shopping baskets hanging from their arms. He threaded his way among the throngs and eventually threw himself on the mercy of a pretty young woman selling eggs. She'd been kind and given him precise directions. Two blocks west of the central market area, he turned north onto the street where Little, Bates and Company was supposed to be found. One look and he knew it wasn't there. Each side of the narrow cobbled street was lined with three-storied structures, some brick, but the majority clapboard in desperate need of paint. There were small businesses on the first level of some; a dry-goods store, a millinery, a less than prosperous-looking chandler's shop. The vast majority of the businesses had called it quits and boarded their windows. People moved up and down the walkways on either side, most seemingly intent on leaving the area as quickly as possible. Jackson noted the few numbers he could find on the buildings and moved in the direction they indicated he should.

  As he neared the place where he knew he wasn't going to find the offices of Percival Little, he met the gaze of a wide-shouldered young man seated on the stone steps beneath a sign that proclaimed the building to be O'Brien's Boardinghouse. The address was there on the sign and it was the same as the one Percy used.

  “Hi!” the young man called, waving his hand as he smiled brightly and warmly. “Hi, mister!”

  Jackson smiled, recognizing the pure happiness of a simple soul. “Well, hi there, yourself,” Jackson offered in greeting as he stopped in front of the large man-child. “I'll bet they call you Tiny, don't they?”

  He beamed and his green eyes lit up. “Do you know them?”

  “Nah,” Jackson admitted. “But people aren't all that much different no matter where you're from.”

  “I'm different,” Tiny said sadly as his gaze dropped to the scuffed toes of his well-worn shoes.

  Jackson felt for him and silently railed at the cruelty Tiny had no doubt endured his entire life. “I can see that,” Jack offered brightly. “You're one of the good guys.”

  Tiny's head came up and his grin went from ear to ear. “I have a top. Wanna see it?”

  “Sure,” Jackson said, sitting down beside him on the steps as Tiny leaned to one side and extracted a wooden top and a long dirty piece of string from his pocket. The paint on the top was almost worn away. Jackson nodded appreciatively as Tiny held out the toy for inspection. “Well, hey, that's a mighty fine top, Tiny. Looks like it's had a lot of spins.”

  “I'm good at making it go a long time.” Straightening the string, he asked, “What's your name?”

  “I'm Jack, and I'm glad to meet you, Tiny.” At the man's wide smile, Jack nodded toward the top and said, “Would you show me how you make it go?”

  “You have to wind it just right, you know. The string has to go around like this, see?” he said, showing Jack as he wound the string tightly, neatly. “It can't be on top of itself or it won't go right when you pull it.”

  “Top spinning's a fine art,” Jack observed.

  “I'll teach you if you want to learn.”

  The enthusiasm of the offer was touching and Jack instantly knew the course to take. Lying was sometimes the kindest thing a person could do for another. “Why, Tiny, that's real kind of you. But you gotta be nice to me if I do it wrong. I've never been very good at it.”

  “If I'm not nice to you, you'll go away, and I don't want that to happen.” He went back to winding the string as he added, “It's nice to have someone to talk to while I sit here and wait.”

  “What are you sitting here waiting for?”

  “The mailman.”

  Jack blinked, hardly believing his incredibly good fortune. “Oh, yeah? Does he bring you letters very often?”

  “Every week. He brings me my rent money. I take it straight to Mrs. O'Brien so nothing happens to it. There's extra money, too. Mrs. O'Brien keeps it for me so I can have clothes and other things when I need them.”

  “That's good,” Jack offered, thinking that Mrs. O'Brien was a kind woman. “A fella doesn't want to find himself without shoes and with nowhere to live.”

  “And I have to live here or I won't be able to do my job.”

  “You have a job? What do you do?”

  “I wait for the mail.”

  Jack grinned. “That's a pretty good job. How'd you get it?”

  “I've had it since I was a little boy. A man came and talked to my mama. She's gone to be with God, you know.”

  “So's my mother,” Jack supplied.

  Tiny paused in his meticulous winding to look up at Jack. “Do you think my mama and your mama know each other?”

  “I'll bet they do. Bet God really likes them, too.”

  “Hey, you made a rhyme!”

  “Only accidentally.”

  Tiny laughed and went back to his task. Jack considered what Tiny had told him and formed his line of questioning carefully. “So tell me about this man who came to see your mama and gave you the job of waiting for the mail. He must have been nice.”

  “I never met him. Mama said she didn't like the way he wrinkled his nose the whole time he was talking to her, but she said his money was good and came regular like he said it would, so she'd forgive him.”

  “How long have you been waiting for the mailman?” Fifteen years, Tiny?

  “Oh, if he's gonna come to see me,” Tiny answered, “he's here after he eats lunch.”

  “That's good,” Jack observed, reining in his grin and reminding himself that the questions had to be very specific. “At least you don't have to sit here the whole day.”

  “I don't have anywhere else to go, so I do anyway. I just play with my top and wave to people who walk by.”

  Which explained why Jack had come upon just the person he needed to find. There really wasn't all that much luck involved in the encounter. “So how many years have you had this job, Tiny?”

  “Oh, lots. Too many to count.”

  “What do you do when you get the mail? Take it to the people in the boardinghouse?”

  “It's not their mail. It would be wrong to give it to someone it didn't belong to. Mama showed me how to do it a long time ago so that I'd do it right without her being with me.”

>   “Oh, yeah?” Jack ventured, hoping. “How do you do it?”

  “The mailman gives me the letter.” Tiny stopped working with the string and met Jack's gaze as he solemnly continued, “It's always a big packet and he waits while I open it up. Inside is two pennies and another letter. I give the mailman the two pennies and the letter and he takes it away. Then I go inside and put the big packet in the stove in the kitchen. That's my job. That's how I earn my rent money.”

  Jack nodded, seeing how Tiny's task fit into the larger picture. “So who sends you these letters with the pennies inside?”

  “I dunno,” he said with a huge shrug before turning his attention back to the string and top. “I can't read, Jack. But I am real good making my top go. Watch.”

  “You sure are,” Jack said sincerely as they both watched the top spin furiously two steps down. When it finally wobbled and then fell to its side, Tiny rose from his seat, bent down, and scooped it up.

  “May I take a try at it?” Jack asked as Tiny sat down again.

  There was a moment of hesitation and then the toy was handed over as Tiny said with great seriousness, “You gotta wind it just right, remember.”

  Jack nodded and began to wind the string. “Who sends you your rent money, Tiny?” he asked as he worked.

  “The man with the wrinkly nose.”

  “Is he the same man who sends the letters with the pennies inside?”

  “I dunno. You're getting the string wrong, Jack. You gotta start all over again now.”

  “All right,” Jack said, pulling the string off and beginning anew. “So, tell me, Tiny … Have you gotten any of the letters with the pennies inside lately?”

  “I got one when Mrs. O'Brien broke her toe on her sideboard.”

  “Was that in the last couple of days?”

  “Nah, longer than that. She's walking with just a little limp now.”

  Timing-wise, it sounded as though Mrs. O'Brien had broken her toe around the time the original offer on the St. Louis property had been made. At any rate, the fact that Tiny hadn't gotten one in the last day or so said that the reply to Percival Little's offer hadn't yet arrived. “Do you suppose I could wait here with you and watch you do your job?”

  “The mailman doesn't bring the pennies all the time, Jack,” Tiny pointed out rather sadly. He brightened, however, to add, “But you could see me get my rent money. It comes every week.”

  “Well, that would be interesting to see, too,” Jack admitted, knowing that whoever was sending Tiny rent money was the same person posing as Little, Bates and Company. “Would you mind if I brought a friend of mine along? She's very nice.”

  “Is she your girlfriend, Jack?”

  Tiny clearly thought the possibility of such a relationship was both very special and bordering on forbidden. Which, now that Jack thought about it, pretty accurately summed up his relationship with Billy's youngest daughter. “Well, I guess she is in a way. Her name's Lindsay.”

  “Does Lindsay know how to play hopscotch?”

  “I'm sure she does.”

  “I can draw the boxes, but I don't know how to put the writing inside them. Do you think she knows how to do that?”

  “Yep. And I'll bet she'd be happy to teach you how.” Knowing Lindsay, she'd try to teach him letters as well.

  Tiny nodded, but his attention was fully on the toy in Jack's hands. “Jack, you're terrible at winding the string,” he said, gently taking it all away from him “Maybe you should watch me do it again.”

  “I think you're right,” Jack agreed, settling in and watching Tiny carefully undo all the wrapping he had accomplished.

  “Is Lindsay pretty?”

  “She's beautiful. She has blonde hair and big blue eyes.” Jack paused as he understood that there was a much deeper truth to be shared. “But you know what, Tiny? It isn't how a person looks that matters. It's what's inside them that counts. Lindsay is a good person who cares about people. You'll like her.”

  “Do you think she'll like me?”

  “Oh, yeah. She'll like you a lot, Tiny. She'll probably want to take you home with her.”

  “I can't go. I have my job. It's important.”

  “It is indeed,” Jack assured him. “And I'm sure she'll understand that.” In a million years.

  “Her feelings won't be hurt, will they? I don't like hurting people's feelings.”

  “She'll be fine, Tiny.” She'll just worry about you for the rest of her life.

  “Good. Wanna see me throw this again?”

  “Fire away,” Jack replied, wondering what kind of work Lindsay was going to find in her household for this simple and needy soul. By the time the toy toppled over, he'd decided that the odds were good that Mrs. Beechum was going to end up with a dutiful, devoted, hulking assistant.

  The sun was beginning to set when Mrs. O'Brien came to the front door of her house and told Tiny that it was time for him to come in and wash his hands for supper. Tiny had introduced Jack to his landlady as his ‘new friend,’ and Jack had understood the suspicious look in her eyes. After Tiny had twisted past her and gone to do as he was told, Jack had assured the woman that he had no intentions of harming or using the young man. Mrs. O'Brien hadn't believed him. And he couldn't blame her.

  She'd closed the door on him and he'd slowly walked away, knowing that if it all turned out as he thought it would, everyone was going to be hurt. Because everyone had been used—and used for years. Especially Lindsay. She'd only thought her world had been upended the day he'd walked into her life. When the game finally came to an end and all the dust settled, she was going to be not only impoverished, but deeply and forever wounded by the blackness of the betrayal. The way she looked at the world was never going to be the same again.

  Something deep inside him twisted painfully. With the sensation came a sudden and desperate need to get back to the hotel room, back to Lindsay. He lengthened his stride, covering ground quickly and knowing that he was acting on pure instinct, that he was about to cross a line and that he should care, but didn't.

  A WHISPER ACROSS HER LIPS drew her gently from the edge of sleep. It came again, lingering longer, soft and warm. Jack. She smiled, contented, and opened her eyes to find him lying on his side beside her, his head propped in his hand, his eyes bright and his smile roguish. Was there a more handsome man on earth? She must have done something very, very good in her life to have earned his attentions.

  “Anyone ever tell you how delicious you look when you're sleeping?” he asked.

  “Not that I can recall,” she answered, her pulse racing, her heart hammering with hope. She didn't know what had happened to bring him to her bed and she wasn't going to ask. He was there and that was all that mattered. In that instant she knew that she'd been a dithering fool to ever doubt the rightness of courting Jack's advances.

  His gaze holding hers, he lifted his free hand and trailed a fingertip over her lower lip. Then, slowly, deliberately, he drew a line downward, over her chin and along the length of her throat, saying softly, “Then I don't suppose they've ever told you how good you taste, either, huh?”

  “No, they haven't,” Lindsay replied, her breath catching as Jack trailed his finger lower, into the valley between her breasts.

  “Let's keep it our secret,” he suggested, his voice husky, his finger gently hooking the edge of her dressing gown and slowly drawing it back to bare her breast.

  “Selfish man,” she managed to say, anticipation surging through her.

  His smile quirked and he winked. “Yep,” he whispered in agreement, leaning forward and down.

  Lindsay gasped as his mouth closed over the peak of her breast. An exquisite bolt of sensation arrowed into the core of her and set her body wondrously afire, delightfully free. Threading her fingers through the hair at his nape, she arched up to meet his tongue's caress and moaned in delight when he deepened his possession. Sensation came upon sensation, each flitting ever so briefly across her awareness—the feel of silk sliding over
her other breast, the warmth of Jack's hand as he cupped her and traced his thumb across the nubbed peak, the heat and strength of his body pressed close to hers.

  With a long, slow pull, he released his claim to her breast. Lindsay softly sighed in regret and sank back into the mattress. His hands on either side of her shoulders, he gazed down at her, his breathing winded and his expression somber as he studied her face intently.

  “What is it?” she asked, her hands slipping to his chest. His heartbeat thundered into her palms.

  “I don't want you to get hurt, Lindsay,” he answered softly. “I'd rather die of wanting than have you look back and think poorly of me.”

  “I don't think that's possible,” she assured him, knowing to the center of her soul that no other man on earth would have cared as much for her feelings as he did. “I'm always going to remember Jackson Stennett as the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  “Are you sure? Are you sure you want to do this?”

  “Yes,” she answered without hesitation. He continued to search her gaze, obviously unconvinced. “Jack?” she said softly, twining her arms around his neck. She waited until he cocked a brow in silent question before saying, “I'm sorry.”

  His brows knitted. “For what?”

  “Nothing,” she answered, smiling up at him. “I'm just terribly, terribly sorry.”

  He blinked and then a slow smile spread across his features. His eyes sparkled with devilment. “You've asked for it, Lindsay MacPhaull.”

  “Oh, indeed I have. Am I going to get it?”

  Jackson gave her a quick kiss, then winked and rolled off the bed and onto his feet.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  LINDSAY, HER JAW SLACK IN DISBELIEF, watched him go. “But…” she sputtered, as disappointment niggled at her hopes.

  “But what? I kissed you,” he said blithely, pulling his shirt from the waistband of his trousers, his expression innocent.