by Alisha Rai
The whir of the power chair had his gaze shooting to the door of the library. An elderly man entered.
John Chandler was older and seemed smaller than he had when Jackson was young and the man had taught him how to bake his grandpa Sam’s famous chocolate chip cookies—so famous, that the cookie had been called Sam’s Cookies at the old C&O. Who knew what the Chandler’s called them now. Probably something boring. Like cookies.
He wore casual clothes, which wasn’t new—John had always eschewed suits and ties for more informal plaid shirts and jeans, a quirk that had endeared the rich man to the locals.
John came closer, and Jackson could make out the lines and differences ten years had added. Jackson’s heart was beating so loud he could hear it in his ears. This man had been a surrogate grandfather to him, but more importantly, he’d been a friend.
Jackson hadn’t had many of those. Livvy, Sadia, and this elderly man who had let him be himself even when his own father had no patience with him.
The older man stared at him for a long moment, before a sad smile cracked his face. “Look at you. You grew up.”
Jackson ran his hands over his jeans. “So did you.”
John’s laugh turned into a cough, and Jackson took a step before he could stop himself. His words had been glib, but he was rattled by how small John seemed. Fragile. The man had once been larger than life, though Jackson had shot past him in height in middle school.
“Grandpa,” Eve exclaimed, and came to stand next to his chair. She rubbed his back. “Are you okay? Do you want me to get some water?”
John glared at her, but patted her hand. “I’m not dying. I just inhaled wrong.”
“Oh.” Eve’s shoulders relaxed.
“Give us some time alone, will you, Evie? I’ll let you visit with your old friend Jackson here later.”
He and Eve gave each other wary, measuring looks. They hadn’t been friends when he’d left, not really, and there were slim odds they would be now when they were on opposite sides of the Livvy and Nicholas war.
The door closed quietly behind Eve, and John sat back in his seat. “It’s good to see you, son.”
It hurt to breathe. Funny how a simple word could take the air out of you, leave you starving for oxygen. Son. No one had called him a son in a very long time, and not with that air of paternal pride. He struggled with what to say. “You . . . too.”
“You don’t want to see me,” John said gently. “I understand that.”
“I didn’t say that. I’m not good at talking.”
John’s eyes were shrewd but kind. “You never had a problem talking to me when you were young.”
Because John hadn’t minded him being quiet when he needed to be. While Livvy and Paul and Nicholas chattered at John, John would hand him a book or a cutting knife and fruit and set him to work on some solitary activity where he could be happy and quiet.
His mother had been much the same way. Unlike his dad, she’d never treated his lack of charm as a disappointment. “Things have changed.”
“You look like your father.”
He found his voice. “I know.”
“Your grandfather, too. Around the eyes. The shape of your face.” John ran his hand over the arm of his chair. “I’d ask for a hug, but you never liked being touched much.”
Only from people he wanted to be touched by. Why did it have to be a strict either/or thing?
Jackson lifted the book in his hand. “I came about this. You gave this to Sadia.”
“I did.”
He pulled out Paul’s letter. “You gave this to Sadia.”
“Well, yes. I assumed you wouldn’t want to see me, and I wanted to make sure you had it.”
His earlier fear and anger came rushing back. “Sadia could have read it.”
“Why don’t you sit down?” Without waiting for Jackson to respond, he wheeled himself to the couch. “Over here. You always liked this couch, didn’t you?”
He had liked that couch. Reluctantly, he walked over and sat down, unable to resist a direct request from his surrogate grandfather.
John ran his hand over his bushy white hair. “Where were we? Ah, yes. I knew Sadia wouldn’t open the package.”
“How did you know that?”
“I asked her not to.”
Jackson’s mouth dropped open. “That’s it? That was your safeguard?”
“Sadia always was an obedient child. I was stunned when she eloped with your brother. Out of character for her.” John shrugged. “I was fairly certain if I asked her not to look at it, she wouldn’t.”
Actually . . . that was probably a decent bet. Sadia did have a lot of respect for elders, and if John had told her not to open the bag, she probably wouldn’t have.
There were a million ways she could have still seen it, but Jackson would try not to think about those. He couldn’t handle the stress. “John . . .”
“I know. I know. It was risky. But I had to give it to you. I’m trying to get rid of stuff before I go instead of later. Have some more control over things this way.” He nodded at the picture on the wall. “I was saving that for you and Livvy. I have a copy for each of you. One for Kareem, too.”
His first instinct was to grab the photo and run, but then common sense prevailed. “I travel a lot. I don’t usually carry things.”
“Your sister said the same thing. You should consider settling down a little. It’s nice to have a base.”
“I can’t make this my base.” He thought of the café, and how nice it had felt to slide his hands over an oven he was intimately familiar with. “I have to . . . I can’t stay here.”
“Hmm. Why not?”
“Everyone thinks I burned down your store, for one.” Harriet’s reaction hadn’t been repeated, but it could be.
“It was our store, and we both know you didn’t.” John nodded at the letter.
Jackson stared at John’s placid face. “How can you be so calm about it?”
“Insurance paid for everything. And it was an accident.”
Jackson shook his head. Paul hadn’t intended that level of destruction, but he’d deliberately thrown that cocktail through the grocery store’s window. “It wasn’t.”
“Listen, Jackson. You and I, we’re going to talk about that letter exactly once, right now, and then we’re never going to discuss it again. Yes, your brother burned down our store. Yes, I understand he persuaded you to go along with the police. Yes, I understand he did something terrible. I also understand that you were both barely old enough to vote and reeling from the death of your father and your world turning upside down. Sometimes, people do dumb things, and they should be forgiven for those things. I forgive Paul, forgave him a long time ago, but it’s not my job to forgive Paul for you. It’s your decision, what you want to do with that confession. Use it to clear your name, shout it from the rooftops, let everyone in your family read it, whatever.”
“What would you do with it?”
John’s eyes gleamed. “Burn it. But again, that’s not my call.” He sat back in his seat.
Jackson glanced around the empty room. “Did you pay off that witness?”
“No. I did not.”
There was a finality in John’s voice that made Jackson believe the other man. He nodded.
“Can I ask you, son? Since this is the last time we’ll talk about this. What made you do it? Did he only have to ask?”
Jackson swallowed, and he was back in his mother’s bedroom, a scared nineteen-year-old kid. “Yes. But then he made sure I couldn’t say no.”
“How did he do that?”
Jackson looked into John’s kindly blue eyes, the secret bubbling up. The secret only he, Paul, and their mother had known. The secret Sadia could truly never know. “I can’t tell you.”
“Fair enough. What’s the other reason?”
Jackson rubbed his forehead, the conversation moving too quickly. “What?”
“What’s the other reason you can’t stay here?”
>
“I—I just can’t.”
“Then why are you here at all?”
He pressed his lips together tightly. “I came for Livvy. That’s all.”
“She’s not here.”
“I’m helping Sadia until Livvy comes back and I can make sure—” He remembered at the last minute that Nicholas was this man’s beloved grandson, and out of respect, cut himself off. “Uh, make sure she’s okay.”
“That’s the only reason you’re here? Out of obligation?” John shook his head. “Do you know who you remind me of?”
“My father.”
“Oh, no. Not your father or your grandfather, actually. Your grandmother’s older brother.”
Jackson had never met Sam’s wife, Lea. His grandmother had died when Tani was young. “I didn’t know she had an older brother.”
“She didn’t like to talk about him much. And I’m afraid I was always so busy telling you kids about Sam that I didn’t give Lea enough screen time. I should have.”
Jackson settled deeper into the sofa. When he was young, there had been nothing he’d loved more than listening to John’s stories.
“When Sam was in that internment camp in Utah, Lea and her brother were sent to a place in Arizona. Michael was a quiet boy, like you. A baker, as well. Sam learned that cookie recipe from him.” John’s lips turned down. “Michael didn’t think they’d have to be held there for long, that everything would get sorted out. It didn’t. So he grew convinced he only had to prove his loyalty to the government. He signed up for the army as soon as it was permitted.”
Jackson placed the journal in his lap, hating that he knew where this was going. “He died overseas.”
“No. No. Took a bullet in the leg and came back home.” John’s frown deepened. “But he was different. Disillusioned. He shut down. Isolated himself. And eventually, he killed himself.”
Jackson had to swallow. “I never went to war, and I’m not suicidal.”
“Oh, of course not. I don’t mean to minimize either of those things, either. But you were hurt, weren’t you? Deeply hurt. So you powered yourself down so you wouldn’t be hurt anymore by the people you love.”
Jackson stared at him. He couldn’t speak.
John nodded, like he knew. “It’s worth it to power yourself back on, Jackson. Trust me.”
Those colors in his heart, flickering to life one by one. How good it had felt to tell Maile he loved her. “I can’t—”
John raised his hand. “You know, I used to use that word a lot. Can’t. Your grandfather broke me of the habit. He used to say, ‘Can’t or won’t, John?’ And the answer was almost always won’t.”
Jackson closed his mouth. He’d heard this saying before, of course, but it rang true suddenly in a way it hadn’t before. Nothing’s over ’til you quit.
“Won’t,” he admitted softly.
“Because you’re scared. Nothing wrong with protecting yourself, son, unless you get to a point where you’re actually hurting yourself.”
The room had grown steadily darker, but they hadn’t turned on the lights. Maybe it was the gathering dusk, or the comfort of sitting in this room again, with this man, but Jackson confessed his deepest fear. “I don’t think I know how to love anyone. Not anymore.”
“You haven’t loved anyone since you left here?”
He was about to say no, but then he thought about Ariel. The team he protected, who protected him. He couldn’t deny that he felt something for them. “Not like I did before,” he finally responded.
“Well, son. You don’t just decide to love and suddenly everything is fine. Love takes practice. Love isn’t passive, it’s active. A verb.” His hand pressed over Jackson’s on top of the journal. “Your past is scary. I understand you were hurt. Facing it is painful, but it could be worth it. For you and for the people you love.”
“This is all a . . . lot.” And he’d grown used to shoving things aside so he wouldn’t have to think about them too deeply. He’d lived in the present. Gotten through each day one at a time, never daring to look back.
John released him. “Go on then. Go home and think about things for a bit. Maybe you could come back and we could talk some more.”
His tone was so hopeful, Jackson didn’t have the heart to disappoint him. All of these people wanting to see him again. It was so weird. “Maybe.”
“You heard Livvy and Nicholas are coming back tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
John’s smile was faint. “You don’t sound happy about it.”
“I’m happy Livvy will be home.”
“I understand your animosity toward Nicholas. But you know his father put some pressure on him back then to end the relationship, right?”
“He was a grown man. He could have resisted the pressure.”
“He could have. But at the time, despite his faults, Nicholas trusted his father. He believed the man would harm his sister. He is and always has been a protective brother.”
Jackson shifted, not liking to think he and Nicholas had a single damn thing in common.
“Can you imagine that Jackson? Can you imagine doing something that hurts you to your very core because you care about another person so much?”
His eye twitched. “Well played.”
“Nicholas has changed. So have the circumstances. I believe he adores your sister. I think this is the healing step we need. As a family.”
“We’re not a family.”
It was the cruelest thing he could say to John, but the man kept that tiny smile on his face. “We haven’t been, in a long time. But if your sister and Nicholas can make things work this time around, we could be.”
“That was always your dream, wasn’t it? No one was happier when the two of them started dating all those years ago.”
John shrugged. “Can you blame me? Uniting the families would take care of a great deal of problems.”
“Except there’s no families to unite anymore.”
John’s eyes were sad. “That doesn’t have to be the case.”
Love is active.
Goddamn it. “I’ll try not to punch him in the face when I see him.” Again.
“Can’t ask for more than that.”
Chapter 13
He was back.
Tucked away in another booth at O’Killian’s, with his baseball cap pulled low, big body hunched over like there was a chance in hell he could be invisible. This shouldn’t be like it was two weeks ago. Knowledge of his identity should dampen Sadia’s desire, but that wasn’t what was happening.
She might not be sex-starved, but could she be Jackson-starved?
Her brain immediately shied away from that thought. It implied she’d held some sort of seething desire for Jackson. Which was ridiculous. She was quite capable of being friends with someone and not wanting to have sex with them. Hell, Livvy was gorgeous, and she’d never entertained the thought of kissing her.
Once, only once had she considered Jackson in a non-platonic way, and it had been the night he’d taken her as a pity date to their junior prom. She’d been so swoony over how romantic and handsome he’d looked in his perfectly tailored tux and the red rose corsage he’d gotten her, she’d kissed him on his cheek when he dropped her off at home.
But nothing had ever come of those silly stirrings, and not long after, she’d fallen hard and fast for Paul.
Right now, though, her heart was accelerating, her palms growing damp. She wanted nothing more than to walk over there and not know who he was and hand him a drink. Flirt. Take him to a hotel.
Right place, right time. Wrong man.
“Is something wrong?”
She smiled automatically at the blonde in front of her. She’d had a one-night stand with the pretty woman a few weeks ago. The girl traveled a lot for work, and she wasn’t from here. “Nope.”
The woman leaned forward, her breasts plumping up. Sadia would have normally spared a glance. “You look preoccupied.” She tipped her head. “Stressful day?”
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Sadia knew the woman was saying that as a precursor to offering to relieve that stress, but she couldn’t work up the interest right now.
Argh. Mentally, she kissed her chances of getting laid tonight goodbye. There was no way she’d be able to find anyone else attractive when her brain was so terribly focused on Jackson.
She finished assembling the drink and placed it in front of the woman with a kind smile. “I’m fine, thanks. Hope you have a great night.”
The woman accepted the drink and the gentle decline of companionship with a rueful wink. “You too.”
Sadia wiped down the bar to give herself something to do. Monday nights were rarely very busy, unfortunately.
Her body felt tingly, like every nerve ending was exposed and alive. She knew he was watching her, but every time she glanced up, his head was averted.
He wasn’t imagining her naked or thinking about the fact that he’d tucked her into bed last night. He hadn’t relived their kiss a million times in the past week.
Except he had returned that kiss.
The little devil on her shoulder cackled. That means he’s interested in you, you should probably have lots of sex with him. Lots of it. Until you’re weak and can’t move and sweat’s dripping down your body and maybe you’re aching in all those secret, dirty places.
She blew out a breath. Nope.
She’d go say hi, and that was that. Jackson being here was no different than him being in her home. Either way, he was utterly unsuitable for her short-term needs.
She contemplated her liquors. Finally she settled on a bottle of gin.
Her heart beat was so loud when she approached him, she feared he could hear it. His head lifted slowly.
She placed the drink in front of him. “This was created by one of the first woman bartenders in the country, pre-Prohibition.” Sadia wiped her hands on her apron.
“What’s it called?”
She could feel her cheeks turning red. “Hanky Panky. They, um, had interesting names for drinks back then.”