If her mother approved of Jax she’d have the wedding guest list made out by the end of the day. It would really be easier if she didn’t approve. Then there wouldn’t be so much explaining to do when he left. And yet she couldn’t bring herself to hope her mother wouldn’t like Jax, even if she was in for a big disappointment.
And there wasn’t a thing she could say that wouldn’t make the whole thing worse, either now or later. She sighed as she made a minute adjustment to the walnut-framed mirror over the mantel.
She felt Jax’s heat behind her even before he fingered the fine, silky curls at the nape of her neck that had already escaped the tortoiseshell clasp.
“Is having your family come such an ordeal for you?” he asked softly.
Pickett shook her head, a motion that made the warm finger trail back and forth on the sensitive skin.
“I love my family. They’re really good to me. But I’m the baby, and no matter what I do, I can’t ever seem to grow up in their eyes. They don’t think I can do anything right. Not exactly right, if you know what I mean.”
“Pickett darling.” Pickett jumped away from Jax. Good thing her mother had a habit of beginning to talk before she entered a room. “Don’t you want to go fix your hair before Gracie and Jensen get here? You don’t want Jensen to see your hair like that,” she added kindly.
Why did her mother always do that? Why didn’t she say, “I don’t like the way you fixed your hair”? If she did, it would be possible to argue with her. Well, duh, her mother wasn’t going to let an argument, for God’s sake, get started. Oh no. Deflect the opinion onto someone absent. Then Pickett could know she didn’t have her mother’s approval and wonder if the brother-in-law she loved was secretly disapproving at the same time.
So what was new? It was just another of her mother’s little confidence-destroying ploys. Okay. The important thing was not to get hooked into defending herself.
“You don’t like my hair, Mother?”
“It’s not that I don’t like it. And you can’t help it if this salt air makes hair as curly as yours just go wild.”
Mary Cole patted her own discretely tinted waves. The short, sophisticated style suited her perfectly, and every hair was always in place. A good cut was all it needed to be perfectly obedient.
Did her hair look as bad as her mother said? Pickett stole a glance in the mantel mirror. In it she could see Jax leaning against the door jamb, arms crossed over his broad chest. He caught her eye in the mirror and sent her a look so heated, so full of sexual innuendo, that Pickett felt the back of her neck grow warm.
With a wicked grin he tilted his head and canted one eyebrow. “Wild thing,” he mouthed.
Pickett stifled a giggle. She pulled the clasp from her hair and finger-combed it until her curls flew in golden exuberance. She laughed aloud.
“You know, Mom, you are absolutely right. My hair is wild looking. I’ve decided that’s a Good Thing.”
Mary Cole’s lips tightened fractionally. “Well, of course, dear, if that’s how you really want to look.”
Pickett should have known that asserting her own preference wouldn’t make her mother back off. In fact, she would probably start a discussion of Pickett’s hair at the dinner table. Her sisters would give lots of kindly advice about how to subdue her impossible hair. Her brothers-in-law would look embarrassed or bored. And Pickett would sit there feeling unkempt and inept.
Her confidence was already sinking like a balloon losing helium. She could hear the rest of the party coming in the back door. Once again she reminded herself that all she had to do was get through the afternoon.
“Pickett.” Pickett was enveloped in her oldest sister Gracie’s hug. “You look so well! But you’ve lost more weight.” Pickett’s weight had been stable for two years. “You’re not letting yourself get too thin, are you?”
Without responding, Pickett turned to welcome Gracie’s husband, Jensen. He hugged her, then bent his six-foot-four-inch frame to kiss her cheek. “Hey, Little Bit. You look great,” he whispered, “and don’t let anybody tell you different.” He flicked one of her golden curls and winked. “Cute curls,” he added loudly enough for everyone to hear.
Pickett gave Jensen an extra squeeze. What would she do without his steady encouragement? It was he who had silenced her family’s objections to her taking over the Snead’s Ferry property. Without his support she would never have heard the last of why her moving to Snead’s Ferry was a bad idea. Though to be fair, once the decision was made, everyone had contributed some sweat to restoring the Victorian-era farmhouse.
“Looking go-ood!” Pickett’s other brother-in-law, Bobby, hugged her a little closer than was strictly necessary. He didn’t mean anything by it, and Pickett had perfected getting an arm caught between their bodies years ago; nevertheless she was always glad when it was over. His wife, Sarah Bea, eyed Pickett’s figure-hugging, scoop-neck coral tee and shell-pink jeans. A tomato-red belt drew attention to her tiny waist. Her expression made it clear that whatever she thought, she wasn’t going to say anything … now.
Jax didn’t like the over-hearty tone with its crude innuendo of the guy who had just come in. He also didn’t like the way the man had grabbed Pickett. She wasn’t liking it much either. Jax didn’t know what to make of some of Pickett’s reactions to her family, but he was sure of his opinion of this joker who was trying to cop a feel.
Jax eyed the new arrivals. Pickett’s sisters strongly resembled their mother and each other. All three women were several inches taller than Pickett, slender and long limbed. Both sisters had an elegant refinement they clearly got from their mother. Sarah Bea’s hair was dark blonde, streaked with highlights, Gracie’s was lighter. All had the family blue eyes.
Somehow, to Jax’s eyes, even though Pickett was shorter than her sisters, almost tiny, she was more. Her coloring was more vivid with the bright gold hair, sparkling ocean-blue eyes, pure peaches-and-cream skin. Her shape was curvier, more intensely feminine. Her voice was warmer.
“I brought soft drinks,” announced Sarah Bea gaily. “I knew Pickett wouldn’t have any, and I also brought hamburger buns everybody could eat.”
Jax idly picked up the package Sarah Bea placed on the kitchen counter and read the ingredients. Wheat flour. Hamburger buns everybody but Pickett could eat. He coolly raised an eyebrow at the second-oldest sister. Had she meant to imply that ‘everybody’ didn’t include Pickett?
Sarah Bea intercepted his look and colored. “I meant, enough hamburger buns for everyone to eat.” Not good enough. He hardened his gaze. “Well, what with us descending on her with no warning, I knew she wouldn’t have enough.” So, she at least acknowledged that they had come uninvited. Jax was considering whether to let up on her when she added, “That’s what I meant about the soft drinks, too. My goodness, who keeps enough food on hand for ten people?”
“Nobody, that’s who.” Gracie efficiently swept up the conversation and began to organize the contents of plastic bags. “That’s why we all brought stuff.
“I also brought paper plates and napkins, since Pickett doesn’t have a dishwasher.” She put a head of lettuce in the refrigerator. “How can you stand this refrigerator, Pickett? It was old when I was young. When are you going to remodel this kitchen?”
“When I have the money.” Pickett’s voice was carefully expressionless.
“I’ve offered Pickett the money for new appliances several times,” said Mary Cole, coming in time to hear Gracie’s question. “I hate to see her having to live like this.”
“You never offered to buy me new appliances.” The arch tone Sarah Bea tried for didn’t really disguise the edge in her voice.
“You have a husband.”
Jax had heard enough. He struggled to keep his rising ire from showing in his voice. “I think I’ll start the grill and check on Tyler.” He put a hand on Pickett’s stiff shoulder. There was a tiny flinch under his hand that told him her calm demeanor was a façade. He slid his arm arou
nd her and pulled her to him. None of the group assembled in the kitchen missed the gesture. Good. “Come out to the garage with me. You can show me where everything is.”
“You know where everything is. Why did you really get me out here?” Pickett’s eyes sparkled with a rogue-ish invitation, as Jax pulled open the door of the shed at the back of the garage. Jax wasn’t fooled. Even with him she was pretending she could ignore her family’s harping.
Still, he wasn’t going to let slip an opportunity to kiss her. Jax leaned against the workbench, widened his stance, and pulled Pickett between his legs. “So I could do this.” He nibbled her bottom lip.
“That’s exactly what they think we’re doing,” she said against his mouth.
“Mm-hmm.” He angled his head to deepen the kiss.
After a few moments she broke the kiss and tucked her head under his chin with a sigh. The weariness of the gesture made Jax’s arms tighten around her. “Why do you let your family treat you like that? You let them put you down and criticize you with every sentence. You wouldn’t put up with that from me.”
Pickett shoved at his shoulders. Though he loosened his hold, Jax refused to let her go.
Pickett leaned back so she could meet his eyes. “So now you’ve joined the millions who know better than I do how to live my life?”
Her snapping with so little provocation indicated how upset she was, but it made his point for him. “That’s what I mean. If I step out of line, you let me know it in a heartbeat. You don’t allow me or other people not to treat you with respect.”
“So what am I supposed to do? No matter what I say in reply to their little digs, I’m wrong. And then I’m wrong for not knowing how wrong I am. The best thing I can do is just ignore it.”
Jax tightened his hold again, nestling her head against his chest. She was so little, so soft. He was furious all over again at how her family wounded this gentle, sweet, kind woman with tiny cuts and sly slights. He couldn’t recall ever feeling so protective of anyone. He’d like to throw the lot of them off the property. He’d like to keep her next to him and never let any of them near her.
Unfortunately that wasn’t going to happen. This wasn’t his property and he wouldn’t be staying. He absentmindedly rubbed the small of her back in little circles, dropping kisses on her hair.
“That’s the trouble, love. Ignoring it isn’t the best thing. If you let them get away with it, they’ll just do it again, and again.”
Pickett pushed out of his arms. This time he let her go. She pulled the grill from its corner and began to brush cobwebs away with a cloth from the workbench. “So what am I supposed to do? Defending myself doesn’t work. You say ignoring doesn’t work—and I admit you’re right. What do I do?” She lifted the cover of the grill exposing a network of clinging webs and several daddy-longlegs spiders. “Yeeech!”
Jax took the grill cover away from her. He knocked the spiders away then ran the cloth around the dome. “Demand respect. Do that Queen Pickett thing.”
“Queen Pickett thing?”
“Yeah, that thing you do with your head. Then give them that look that says ‘I am going to think over what you just said,’” he lowered his voice in solemn portent, “‘and then I am going to grade it.’”
Pickett gurgled with surprised laughter. “Am I that intimidating?”
“You are, and you demand respect for your expertise. It’s time you used a little intimidation on your sisters.”
Pickett dragged a can of lighter fluid and a bag of charcoal from the shoulder-high shelf. “Do you think this charcoal has absorbed too much moisture to light?”
“Pickett, are you thinking over what I said?”
“Yes, it’s just … they do love me, you know.”
“Only you can put a stop to it. But I’ll have your back. You won’t be alone.” He smiled and winked with charming menace. “One SEAL constitutes a majority.”
Pickett pulled the plastic wrap from Gracie’s contribution of beautiful paper plates printed with autumn leaves and matching napkins, and chuckled inwardly. That was Gracie. If she had to eat off paper plates, they would be paper plates with style.
There wasn’t enough room to spread everything out on the ancient Formica countertop, so she unplugged the coffee maker and moved it to a lower cabinet.
“Don’t put away the coffee maker,” Gracie directed from the sink where she was washing lettuce. “We’ll need it for later.”
“Then I’ll just have to get it out later, because right now I need the counter space.”
To make room in the cabinet for the coffee maker, Pickett nested two pots and put their lids on a lower shelf. In this kitchen you never moved just one thing.
Gracie shut off the water and turned, holding her dripping hands well away from her oatmeal-colored silk slacks and matching silk sweater combination. A tiny pleat formed above her light-blue eyes as she considered the problem. She sighed.
“This house is impossible to entertain in. If you had a dining room table we could make it work, but no, you had to make the dining room into an office.”
Pickett needed a dining room table so that she could entertain graciously about as much as a pig needed roller skates. She was pulling her head out of the cabinet to say so when Jax bumped against her. When she grabbed for the cabinet door to steady herself, he bumped her again, almost knocking her over. What was with him? Jax was never clumsy. Underscoring the thought he placed two hands on her waist and smoothly lifted her to her feet. “Now,” the word hardly more than a moist puff against her ear. “Sorry,” he said aloud.
Now? Huh? Pickett replayed all that had just happened. Oh. He thought it was time to demand respect. Her heart executed a triple axel. He had taken his hands away, but she could still feel him there. Okay, she could do this.
“Gracie, this is my house. Don’t criticize it. I don’t criticize your house.” Not bad. Her voice was a little softer than she would have liked for maximum effect, but still.
“Oh, I wasn’t criticizing. You’re just too sensitive.”
Damn. That’s what always happened. No matter what she said, they found a way to make her wrong.
Jax’s hand covered her shoulder. Pickett wondered if he could feel how hard her heart was beating. Maybe he could because he added a little squeeze.
“It sounded like criticism to me,” he told Gracie.
Gracie’s eyes, wide with surprise, flew between Jax’s and Pickett’s. Would she back off, or fire another round? The moment lengthened. The phone rang once then abruptly stopped when it was picked up in the other room. Everyone was watching them now.
Pickett’s heart beat in great body-shaking thuds, but she could feel the warmth of Jax’s body along her back. It was strength she literally could draw on. She felt her neck lengthen and her head come up. Oh, that must be the gesture Jax called her “queen thing.” In that moment she determined that if they had to stare at each other the rest of the night, Gracie would be the first one to blink.
Flustered spots of color appeared in Gracie’s cheeks as it dawned on her that she had, indeed, been rude. “Well, I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I didn’t mean … what I meant was …” Gracie saw there was no way to save her remark, so she went back on the offensive. “But if you’re going to take that as criticism, I really don’t know what it’s okay to say, anymore.”
Longing to let it go, to make everything pleasant, tempted Pickett more than a down comforter on a cold night. Gracie had apologized—sort of. Their mother would say making a guest uncomfortable was just as bad as being a rude guest. Pickett felt Jax shift infinitesimally closer. No. The tiny nips at her autonomy would never stop if she let Gracie make her embarrassment at her own misbehavior Pickett’s fault.
“I’m sure, after a while,” Pickett’s measured tone underlined the words, “you’ll figure it out.”
She held Gracie’s gaze one beat longer until she felt her sister’s acknowledgment that the rules had changed for good.
; Pickett’s kind heart made her offer a salve for Gracie’s ego. “You have such infallible taste, Grace, that any compliment you give me is treasured.”
“Now that’s the truth!” Sarah Bea rushed to pick up the conversational ball. “She’s such a perfectionist, if Gracie says something is okay, you know anybody else would call it fabulous.”
Sarah Bea counted the hamburgers she had patted out. “How many will you and Tyler eat, Jax?”
“Hey, Jax.” Sarah Bea’s husband, Bobby, stuck his head around the kitchen door. “The phone’s for you. You might want to take it in another room.” His grin came down just this side of malicious. “It’s a woman. I couldn’t catch everything she said ’cause she sounds like she’s been drinking. But she wants to speak to ‘the sonovabitch who’s stolen my grandson.’”
The leathery leaves of the huge old live oak that reigned over the back of the property were bronzed by the setting sun by the time the caravan containing Pickett’s family pulled out of the drive.
Jax stood, brown arm draped with casual possessiveness across Pickett’s shoulders, his hand almost touching her breast. Tyler was on her other side, leaning against her leg, one arm encircling her thigh. Patterson and Lucy sat at their feet, while Hobo Joe stood off to one side where he could keep the whole party in view.
Pickett tried not to think about the effect of the happily domestic picture they presented to the departing cars, but the misty smile on her mother’s face as she turned around to wave said it all. Pure Norman Rockwell.
Well, when no marriage was forthcoming, her mother and sisters would just have to deal with it, whether they approved or not. Pickett’s choices, and even her mistakes, were her own. Today she had drawn some new boundary lines and from now on, she would enforce them.
“Wave good-bye, Tyler,” Pickett coaxed, as the last car pulled onto the blacktop.
Tyler rubbed his face against her leg in a negative motion. “Don’t want to,” he whined.
“I think somebody hasn’t quite given up naps, and had a long afternoon.” Pickett touched the sweaty dark hair. “I also think somebody needs a bath.”
Mary Margret Daughtridge SEALed Bundle Page 20