Forgiving Jackson

by Alicia Hunter Pace

  “Whatever. Anyway, we only have two more days with them. The dance is the last night and Emory had that all planned so we’re good to go. The problem is tomorrow night. She was going to teach them about storytelling and tell ghost stories.”

  No doubt about the Beauford Bend ghost she’d invented. Hard to believe he’d been so mad about that.

  “Christian and I are no good at that. Instead, we’d like to do a little presentation on how to conduct yourself at a concert—”

  “A lot of people could use that.”

  “—and we’d like you to sing a few songs for them.”

  He should have stipulated what anything did not cover.

  “No band, Jackson. No big venue. No hundreds of people. Just you, Christian, and me—plus twenty teenage girls. And they would be excited beyond belief. It would make up for anything where we might have shortchanged them. We could do it up in the ballroom.”

  There was no way out, just like there had been no way out when Audrey asked him to call the band.

  “Okay. But not the ballroom. We’ll do it in my music room.” That way, if he couldn’t play guitar without watching adolescent girls go up in flames he might be able to play the piano. No way was he playing that piano in the Rose Parlor for an audience bigger than two or older than three. He might be washed up but he still had his pride. “They’ll all fit in there easy enough.”

  Gwen gave a nod. “They’ll love it. For the record, I wouldn’t have asked for that.”

  “How’s Emory?” Maybe this time he’d get some kind of answer.

  “She’s asking the same question about you. Now, get out of here unless you want to find yourself in the middle of an embroidery class. Allison from Eye of the Needle is bringing her things in and the girls are washing their hands.”

  • • •

  The impromptu mini concert ended up being for a few more than Gwen had said. Sammy came and Dirk, Jackson supposed, just in case one of the girls decided to try to take him out with an earring. When Gwen told him that the kitchen duo would really like to come, he’d said yes. If he couldn’t hold it together what did it matter if two more lay witness to it?

  Christian and Gwen did their little class, covering different levels of acceptable behavior depending on the type of concert. When they asked if he had anything to add, he considered telling the girls not to throw their underwear on stage but thought better of it. He didn’t want to lose what ground he’d gained with Gwen.

  He had decided not to chance the guitar but sat at the piano and sang for about thirty minutes—and it was fine, so fine that he got Sammy to wire him up and, for his last number, he did “Habit Not Worth Breaking.”

  No smoke. No flames. But he knew better than to think he was okay.

  Still, after the girls got autographs and left to go back to Firefly Hall for the night, he picked up his guitar to finish writing a song. He wrote it the way he wished things could have turned out.

  He’d never get to sing it for her, though—even if she came back.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  It had been two weeks since charm school ended and the first week of August was behind them. If Christian and Gwen were still mad at him, Jackson couldn’t tell. Still, they were giving no information about Emory.

  Once, very late at night, he’d tried to call her and found that her cell phone number had changed. He could have found her work number but if she’d wanted to talk to him, she would have kept the same cell number.

  But there were some positives floating around.

  Beau had called again and was gone again.

  Gabe had come off the mountain in one piece and was at training camp.

  Rafe was riding bulls and happy to be doing it.

  Ginger was better.

  He had no idea what was going to happen at the end of August. He supposed he’d have to ask Christian and Gwen eventually.

  But not today. He ran through the shower and started down the hill toward the carriage house. He didn’t need to go but he’d left his phone charger down there.

  He stopped abruptly to verify what he thought he’d seen. Yes. He began to run. The front door was open and the blinds were up. She had come back! He’d known she would all along. He might not have fully admitted it to himself but he’d known. Even though he was so bad for her that they couldn’t be together, she belonged here. He took the steps up to the porch two at a time and burst through the door.

  “Emory!”

  “What?” a voice answered from the kitchen—a familiar voice, but not Emory’s.

  His feet turned to stone but he took them through the kitchen door anyway.

  A puzzled Sammy stood on a stepladder with a coffee mug in one hand and a piece of bubble wrap in the other.

  “What are you doing?” Jackson asked.

  Sammy looked pained. “I’m packing up Emory’s things.”

  Jackson knew Sammy was waiting for a response but he didn’t have one to give.

  “See?” Sammy picked up a sheaf of papers. “I have these lists. One is what I’m supposed to ship to her now and one is what I’m supposed to store in the basement until she gets her own place.”

  “She’s not coming back,” Jackson said, more for his own benefit than Sammy’s.

  “I wish she would,” Sammy said sadly.

  “Me too.”

  “I know.” Sammy came down off the ladder. “But the difference is, if I asked her it wouldn’t matter. But if you did, she would.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?” Sammy straddled a kitchen chair backwards and rested his forearms on the back.

  There were boxes sitting on all the other chairs so Jackson slid to the floor and leaned against a cabinet.

  “The only way I could ask her to come back would be if I was willing to give her something I can’t.”

  “So you don’t love her?”

  Jackson’s head snapped up in surprise.

  “Yeah. It always surprises people when I know stuff. Though, honestly, a dog could have figured that out.”

  “I’m not surprised when you know stuff, Sammy.”

  “You were surprised that I knew that.”

  “I never said I loved her.”

  “That’s stupid.”

  “It’s complicated,” Jackson said.

  “It’s complicated, it’s complicated,” Sammy said in a mocking voice and rolled his eyes.

  “You did not just roll your eyes at me!” Jackson was incensed.

  “Not especially at you. I roll my eyes at the world. Do you know how tired I get of hearing people say, ‘it’s complicated’ when all that means is they don’t want to? It wears me out.”

  “I didn’t know anything wore you out, Sammy.”

  “You’d be surprised. Though, you don’t wear on me, generally. You didn’t fire me when I should have been fired, when I would have fired me. I won’t soon forget it.”

  “You’ll always have a job as long as I live, Sammy.”

  He shrugged. “Christian said I could work at Firefly Hall if it turns out there’s no Around the Bend.”

  What? If Sammy left, he really would be alone—just him, with Dirk sneaking around behind him.

  “Do you know what Christian and Gwen are thinking about Around the Bend?” Jackson asked.

  Sammy cocked his head to the side and sighed. “They’re still debating. They haven’t said it to me, but I think they’re still waiting to see if you’ll do the right thing.”

  “Which, to their minds, is?”

  “The thing you want to do, anyway. Go get Emory and leave Around the Bend like it’s supposed to be.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Yeah, you said. Now, why is that again?”

  “I hurt people, Sammy.”

  “We all hurt people. I hurt Liza Proctor when I couldn’t love her back like she wanted. I didn’t want to, but I did. But you do love Emory.”

  “I’m not good for people.”

  “Seems like you
were good for Emory. I’ve worked close with her for two years. She was never very happy until lately. You treated her great. And you made sure that bastard that hurt her went to jail.”

  “Sammy, I’m broken. I can’t do concerts anymore. All of those people in Los Angeles died because of me.” He swallowed hard. He’d never said this before. “And it was my fault that my parents and little sister died.”

  A frown settled on Sammy’s face. “How do you figure that? The last part I mean?”

  “The twins and I were camped out. I was supposed to check to make sure the campfire was out. I didn’t. I told Rafe to do it and then I didn’t check behind him.”

  “No. That’s not right,” Sammy said.

  “I knew if I ever told anybody, they’d say that—that I was just a kid and it wasn’t my fault.”

  “No. I don’t know about all that. But that campfire didn’t cause that beach house to burn. It was out.”

  “Yeah, right. So now you were there?”

  “No. I wasn’t there. I was barely born. I know because Miss Amelia told me.”

  “She wasn’t there either. She hated the beach.”

  “But she talked to your mother that night. They talked after y’all had gone in the tent while your daddy went to check and make sure the fire was out.”

  “What?” Pin prickles covered Jackson’s scalp and worked their way to the soles of his feet.

  “Yeah.” Sammy nodded. “Whenever y’all camped at the beach, your daddy helped you build a fire. Then he sat on the balcony and watched over y’all until he was sure you were asleep. Then he would go make sure the campfire was out.”

  “But he told me to do it.”

  “Yeah. But he always checked.”

  “So he didn’t trust me.”

  “Sounds like with good reason—at least that time.”

  That was hard to argue with. “And you’re sure about this?”

  “Miss Amelia loved to tell her stories and I loved to hear them. She told that one more than once. You’re probably surprised that I remember it, when sometimes it seems like I don’t remember where the garbage goes. I know I don’t catch on as quick as I could but I’m smart enough to file away what’s really important.” He tapped his temple. “I didn’t know your daddy, but a lot of people around here thought a whole lot of him. When Miss Amelia told that story, I thought that was the right way to go about things if you were raising boys—or girls. Give them responsibility but if it’s something that might hurt them, check up on them to make sure they did it. I thought that’s how I’d want to do things, if I had kids.”

  “I can’t believe it.” But what if it was true, that he was innocent of that, at least?

  Sammy took that literally. “Did your daddy seem like the kind of man who would go to bed while his kids were sitting outside awake, around a live fire?”

  The truth in that shook Jackson to his core.

  “No, Sammy. He wasn’t that kind of man.”

  “See, what you call complicated was really pretty simple to figure out.”

  “I wonder why Aunt Amelia never told me.” What a difference it would have made.

  “I expect she would have if she’d known you had such a fool idea. Did you tell her?”

  “No, I never did.”

  “See?” Sammy got up and put one foot on the bottom rung of the stepladder. “I don’t know about all that stuff with you not being able to sing or about what happened in L.A. Seems to me you must think you’re a whole lot more special than you are if you think you caused all that or could have stopped it. That is, unless you’re somebody like The Flash who can be everywhere at the same time and you just decided to be lazy.”

  “No. I’m not The Flash.”

  “Few are,” Sammy said. “Just Dirk. I’m guessing if you’ll take what you know and try to think of it in a simple way instead of complicated, you’ll figure out the rest of it, too.”

  “Sammy, do you know how wise you are?”

  Sammy wrapped the mug he’d been holding before and put it in a box. “Maybe you ought to call me Solomon.”

  “No. Is that answer simple enough for you?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  The date at the top of the report Emory printed out told her it was October 1. She sighed. She’d needed a coat this morning but at home it would be a beautiful autumn day, at least ten degrees warmer. Home. She had to stop that.

  She started to read over the report again, though there was no need. She understood it all perfectly and was ready for her meeting. It had taken her a little time to get back up to speed, but this still came easy to her—not like calming a bride who had suddenly decided her dress made her look fat or moving a debutante party inside in fifteen minutes when the skies opened up and delivered an unpredicted flood. But nothing would top the engagement party where the mother of the bride opened a closet door and found her husband with her daughter’s fiancé.

  What a night. And oddly enough, it seemed there would be more of those nights at Beauford Bend. Jackson had relented about closing Around the Bend. Gwen and Christian had scheduled a few small events—though they seemed to be coping rather than thriving on the work. When she’d asked why they hadn’t hired someone to manage the business, they’d been evasive.

  But not her problem, not her job.

  Worrying for Jackson wasn’t her job either but she still did. No matter what, she would always be grateful to him for helping her find her way back from her deep pit of fear. Some of that fear had returned when she’d returned to New York but the counseling and the support group were helping.

  Jackson’s retirement announcement had caused a huge stir in the press but she hadn’t heard anything recently. As always, something else had come along.

  Gwen and Christian insisted he was fine when she asked but would say little else. She didn’t press them. They wouldn’t know the things she wanted to know anyway: Was he sleeping? Was he writing and playing, even if it was just for himself? Had he found any peace?

  She turned over the report on her desk and did what she always did when she couldn’t stop thinking about him—she started planning a party.

  This would be a wedding. The bride would be a former University of Tennessee cheerleader who was now an interior designer and the groom would be a football coach. Wait. No. They would never get married during football season. But it could be their engagement party, held on a Saturday night when UT played in the afternoon. The party would be fun and casual. Orange and white checked tablecloths, of course. They might even have some televisions scattered about so guests could watch other games. How many televisions were there at Beauford Bend? But wait. This was a fantasy and she could have as many televisions as she pleased.

  Her desk phone buzzed. “Yes, Reuben?”

  “Ms. Lowell, there’s a gentleman in the lobby to see you. He says it’s personal.”

  What now? She had made clear to that tax lawyer she’d met in line at Starbucks that she didn’t want to go out with him. Might as well go tell him in person, again.

  “Tell him I’ll be right down.”

  She had eighteen minutes until her ten o’clock meeting. She hurried to the elevator bank and, mercifully, one came right away.

  To Emory’s surprise, the lobby was working alive with people. What was going on? And where was Mr. Starbucks? She needed to get this done and get back upstairs.

  “I don’t know,” she heard someone say. “He just walked in with an amplifier in one hand and a guitar case in the other. No one seems to know why.”

  What? It couldn’t be. Stop it!

  She had to stop connecting everything she heard back to Jackson. There’s a movie poster. Poster starts with p, just like pig. Pig makes pork and there’s pork in bologna. Jackson likes bologna so that movie poster is all about Jackson.

  She was pitiful.

  “Surely it’s not really him,” another voice answered the first one. “I read that he announced his retirement in Nashville back in the summer
.”

  Emory froze. Then she heard the strum of a guitar and she followed the sound, pushing people out of the way and elbowing her way through until she got to the center of the room where the huge modern sculpture stood. She’d never liked that sculpture.

  But she liked what stood beside it.

  His hair was a little longer but not as long as before the fire. He looked healthy and tanned. She hoped that meant he was sleeping nights and seeing the light of day. She badly wanted to kiss the back of his neck.

  “There she is.” He was miked! “I knew she’d find me. You doing okay, Emory? Nobody will tell me how you’re doing.”

  She nodded but she had no idea if she was telling the truth.

  “Do you remember that song I was playing the night we danced on the porch together? The one you wanted me to sing and I wouldn’t? I said it wasn’t finished. I’ve finished it now. And I’ve come to sing it for you. Is that okay?”

  “Yes.” Unlike his, her voice couldn’t be heard in every corner of this space.

  But he heard her and that’s all that mattered.

  “Folks, y’all are welcome to stay. I’m delivering a singing telegram to my girl. You’ll be the first to hear this song. It’s all about how I hope things can end up for us.”

  My girl.

  When he started to play, all the background chatter stopped. They knew they were hearing something fine and special. Then it got even finer and more special when he started to sing.

  I can write a love song

  That will make the angels cry.

  I can sing about joy gone wrong

  Till I make a hard heart sigh.

  I can spin a melody

  Like it came with magic from above.

  My words rang with sincerity

  But I’d never been in love.

  But then she smiled at me

  And she didn’t speak a word.

  When she offered love with a guarantee

  Her smile was all I heard.

  When she swore she’d always be mine

  It was with silence in perfect rhyme.

  Because she’s got a promise kind of smile.

  My Emory’s got a promise kind of smile.