“You’d had an accident in your bed. Shouldn’t have been a big deal, but I almost hit you. You were barely four. I packed a bag, told Ford to look after all of you until Hobart was done working, and left.”
He racked his memory, but came up with nothing. He didn’t remember the day she’d left, just a gradual fading of before into after. “I don’t remember any of that.”
“I regret leaving, but I would have regretted hurting any of you boys even more. I missed you all terribly, but I thought I was doing the right thing by staying away. It took therapy and going on medication before I got myself together. By then, your father wanted nothing to do with me.”
“You contacted him?”
She nodded. “Many times over the years, but he stonewalled me. Finally, I went to your aunts.”
“When did Ford find you? Or did you find him?”
“He called me a few months ago.” Her gaze skated off to the side, but a hint of strain pulled lines out of her forehead. For the first time her youthful face betrayed her age.
“He wanted money?” His gut knew the answer to the question.
She gave a brusque nod and didn’t look over at him.
“Did you give what he asked for?”
“I gave him everything I could afford.”
The kid in him that had heard his pop rail against her selfishness countless times decided she deserved it. The grown-up part of him recognized she didn’t. Like Willa, she was trying to atone for her mistakes.
“Ford’s taking advantage of you,” he finally said.
She swept her gaze to his. Her sadness sped through him. “I know, but I would do anything to make up the past to you. To all of you.”
“Did he tell you what the money was for?”
“He said the garage was in financial trouble.”
Jackson rubbed a hand over his jaw to stem a curse. “The garage is fine. Ford’s dug a hole with a bookie down in Baton Rouge.”
“Gambling.” His mother laid a hand over her chest, shock flittering over her face before her expression steeled itself. “I would have still given him the money.”
“Don’t give him any more. I’ll cover his debts.” His offer pulled a soft gasp from Willa.
The sound of the front door rattling sent all three of them to their feet. “That’s him,” his mother whispered.
Jackson waited. Ford would have recognized the Mustang, of course.
“If it isn’t my little brother.” Ford propped himself in the doorway, his cheeks reddened, his eyes bloodshot. The smell of bar smoke and whiskey soured the room. He looked like shit.
“We need to talk,” Jackson said softly.
“Catching up on the past twenty-five years with our mother?” He weaved his way to the couch, his eyes fixed on Willa, whistling softly. “If I had known what you were hiding under those coveralls, I might have made a move.”
Jackson took a step forward to lay into Ford but stopped short. If he hadn’t been watching Ford so closely, he might have missed the flash of self-disgust. Was Ford trying piss Jackson off on purpose?
“She’s off the market.” Jackson forced his voice calm.
“I’m not a car, boys,” Willa muttered.
A shot of humor cooled Jackson’s burn of anger, and he sat. Willa sank down on the edge of the cushion to his left, and Ford sprawled across a love seat on the other side of the coffee table. Their mother was a gray-faced statue in the rocking chair. Anxiety zinged around the room like a pinball machine.
Jackson picked up his hot chocolate and took a sip. “Your bookie came by the shop.”
“Which one?”
Abandoning his mock casualness, Jackson set his mug down with a thump, his stomach souring. “What the fuck do you mean, ‘which one’? How many people do you owe money to? And how much?”
“None of your business.” Ford’s gaze flicked to their mother.
Ford was not their mother’s problem. As much as the brothers cursed and railed against him, Ford was their problem. He could pay their mother back with the money Jackson planned to offer to get him out of trouble.
“How much did she give you?” Jackson nudged his chin toward their mother, but didn’t take his eyes off Ford.
Ford took a check out of his shirt pocket and held it out long enough for Jackson to see their mother’s name scrawled at the bottom. Belinda Abbott. The fact she hadn’t shed their name was like a bloodletting.
“Didn’t cash it.” Ford ripped the check into tiny pieces. “It would have only been a Band-Aid. I need a chunk of big money fast, so I’m selling my stake. The deal is in progress.”
A numb acceptance came over him. It was the outcome he’d been dreading, yet he wasn’t surprised. “Why didn’t you come to us? We would have paid off your debts without you having to sell out.”
“And then what? Mack would have rubbed it in at every turn. Anyway, I don’t want to work at the shop. Never did.” A sadness cloaked Ford’s bravado, making him appear smaller and less sure of himself. “I couldn’t be the man Pop wanted. It was always Mack even if Pop couldn’t see it.”
“Any chance you could cancel the deal?”
“Too late.” Ford rubbed his hands together, his gaze down. “I’ll pay my debt and have enough left over to make a life somewhere else. I’m headed to Memphis.”
“What’s going to happen if you gamble your way into debt again?”
Ford’s half-shouldered shrug wasn’t reassuring. “I won’t. I’m going to make something of myself without being compared to Mack every hour of every day.”
More than the garage had trapped Ford. Jackson worried his brother’s feelings of inadequacy would be an even stronger cage, but what could he do at this point except damage control?
“Who’d you sell to?”
“Can’t say until the papers are signed. Mack would try to stop it.” Ford’s voice was devoid of emotion. “But some fresh blood might do the shop some good.”
Fury rolled through Jackson like a thunderstorm. The garage should only be owned by Abbotts. It was their pop’s legacy. He squeezed his hand into a tight fist, ready to let loose. His focus narrowed on Ford, the accumulations of past and present suffocating. A soft touch dissipated the storm. Time and space widened, and he forced his hand to open if not exactly relax. Willa’s touch restored a sense of order in the chaos.
“I can’t do this.” Jackson stood and skirted around the coffee table. With his hand clamped around Willa’s, she was forced to follow him.
He stopped in the doorway of the den and looked back at his brother. Ford was leaning over, elbows on knees, his head in his hands. Ford had taught him how to swim in the river and where the best places were to catch a fish. He wasn’t a bad man, just a lost one.
“Ford.” Jackson barked his name and waited until Ford shifted to meet his gaze. “You’re my brother and I love you, dammit. If you need help, you call and I’ll answer.”
He was sure he wasn’t imagining the tears in Ford’s eyes when he nodded. Jackson held his stare a moment longer before hitting the front door. His mother followed them out onto the porch.
“Please don’t go.” Her voice was pinched in a squeak of emotion. “I can make dinner.”
Night fell like a blanket over them, clouds blocking the rising moon. Jackson faced his mother. It was bizarre that the momentous occasion of reconnecting with his long-lost mother had been overshadowed by Ford. “I can’t stay.”
“Can I see you again? Or can we talk? Your brothers…?” She held her throat as if the question hurt. Or maybe it was the answer she dreaded.
Wyatt would see her. He was the one who had been feeling the family out after discovering Aunt Hazel had been in contact with her. He wasn’t so sure about Mack. He had been older and wrestled with memories of her that he and Wyatt had been too young to form.
“They don’t know I came up here today. Let me talk to Wyatt first. Pretty sure he’d like to see you.” She looked so starved for information, he added, “He g
ot engaged over Christmas.”
“Did he? To a nice girl?” Her smile was tremulous and her eyes watery.
“Very nice. From the Mississippi side of Cottonbloom.”
“I’m glad.” She looked away and swallowed, but when she spoke again, her voice was teary. “I wasn’t a mother to you boys, but I’m begging for a chance to be forgiven. I’ll be in your lives as much or little as you’ll allow.”
Sincerity was all he sensed. The most he could offer at the moment was a nod and a warning. “Don’t let Ford take advantage of your guilt, because he will. He already has.”
“He’s my son, and he needs me.” The simplicity shattered Jackson’s false sense of calm.
His heart bled a little more for what they’d lost as children, and he tightened his hand on Willa’s. Instead of doing something foolish like giving his mom a hug, he dug out one of his cards and handed it to her.
“Call me if you need help with him. Or to talk or whatever.”
She ran a finger over the embossed logo and numbers, her eyes downcast. “Hobart did real good with you boys. He’d be proud. I was so terribly sad to hear of his passing last year. I loved him.”
Loss was a strange thing. Some days the pain of not having his pop around was like a room he could close off and ignore. But, in this moment, even though it had been more than a year, his pop’s death crashed through the walls that had formed around his emotions like a wrecking ball. The pain felt as fresh and eviscerating as if his pop had died yesterday.
His pop’s feelings about his former wife hadn’t mellowed over the years, and Jackson had a pretty good guess as to what he would have said about this meeting and the tentative connections forming. But his pop hadn’t been infallible. He’d been blind to Ford’s unhappiness and Mack’s potential.
“I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?” He reached out and covered her hands with his own and gave a brief squeeze. Hers were cool but smooth. What had she done all these years? All of a sudden, he wanted to stay and find out.
Instead, he turned and walked away, not looking back. Willa was at his side, saying nothing, but the worry in her face didn’t go unnoticed. Only when they were back in the Mustang and out of town did he speak. “Did I break your hand?”
“Only a momentary cutoff in my circulation.”
“Thanks for … well, everything.”
“All I did was stand—or sit—next to you.”
“Exactly.” At his side was where she belonged.
“This is bad, isn’t it?” Her hands were tucked between her legs and her shoulders were hunched forward.
“It’s not good.” He eased his foot off the accelerator when it crept up to eighty. Getting pulled over would be the crap topping on an already shitty day. “Any guesses who he might have sold to?”
“Best-case scenario, he sold to another mechanic looking to expand or play a silent-investor role. Worst-case, he sold to someone who has it in for the garage, but it’s not like you boys have any enemies, right?”
“True.” Superficially, her answer seemed correct, but as he ruminated on it, names popped into his head. “Ah, hell.”
“What?”
“Don could probably afford to buy Ford’s shares.”
“Who’s that?”
“The driver who was at the track.”
“The one you punched?”
He grimaced. A wreck on the track was one thing, humiliation in the pits was another altogether. For the most part, racing was still a man’s sport at the local dirt tracks which meant testosterone rose to obnoxious levels more often than not.
“And Sutton’s ex would love to stick it to Wyatt.” Jackson banged his skull against the headrest hard enough to add to his headache. Andrew Tarwater not only had the money but a strong motive. Granted, Tarwater had been caught cheating with Sutton’s best friend, but the man hated Wyatt for taking advantage of his stupidity.
“And what about Mack? Any disgruntled customers with means?” she asked.
“Anything is possible. He’s been keeping things to himself the last few months.” Jackson muttered a curse. “Tarwater is the most likely buyer.”
She turned toward him. “Three-quarters of the business is still under your control. What can he really do?”
“Make our lives a living hell? Blackmail the bank into calling our loan?”
She fell silent. The Mustang ate up the miles, his anxiety growing the closer they got to Cottonbloom. Not only would he have to break the news about Ford finding a buyer, but he had to handle the delicate task of discussing their mother.
He glanced over at Willa. Without her calming presence, he might not have been able to keep from jumping Ford. Truth be told, he might have turned the Mustang around before he’d made it over the Mississippi.
“Thanks for coming with me,” he said.
“Anytime you need a wingman—er, girl—I’ll be there.” Her smile was a little sad, a little knowing, and a lot beautiful.
He took her hand and pressed his lips against the pulse point of her wrist. Was it his imagination or did it jump?
He pulled into the garage’s parking lot and stared out the windshield, the silence eerie after the hours spent with the engine growling. The moon was haloed by clouds, giving it a yellow cast.
“You guys have lots to discuss. I’ll head home.”
“No.” The word came out harsh. “I want you to stay.”
“Why?”
Because you’re as good as family, he wanted to say but didn’t. He wasn’t sure she would appreciate the sentiment. “The business of the garage affects you as much as it does us.”
Her eyes narrowed on him. “I don’t own a stake.”
“You’re our only employee. That must count for something.” When she didn’t respond, he tried to keep the begging out of his voice. “Please, Willa.”
“If you need me, I’ll stay.” She pushed the car door open.
No lights shone from Mack’s house, but his truck and Wyatt’s car were out front. He led Willa around the side of the garage to the barn. His twin’s laugh traveled through the space, and his step stuttered. Willa gave him a nudge in the small of his back.
Mack saw him first. “Did you two find anything worth the effort?” He headed to the fridge without waiting for an answer and held out two cold cans of beer. Willa waved him off, but Jackson popped the top and took a swig, hoping it would give him courage.
“I lied.” His soft words launched like a grenade. Everyone stilled for the explosion.
Wyatt shifted forward on the couch. “I had a feeling something was up. Did you find Ford?”
Jackson wasn’t surprised Wyatt cut to the heart. “I found him.”
“Good or bad?” Mack asked.
Jackson hesitated, not sure how to frame the complications of the day. Mack popped the top of the beer Willa had rejected and drank half in one go.
“You’d better tell us everything,” Mack said when he came up for air.
Willa gave Jackson a nod and tight smile. It was enough.
“I tracked Ford down at our mother’s house in Oak Grove.”
Mack opened his mouth then clamped it shut and looked off to the side. Wyatt’s eyes sparked and energy released through his tapping heel. “What was she like?”
“Nice. Normal. Still pretty and young-looking. You look a lot like her, Wyatt.”
“Nice? She abandoned us. Have you forgotten that?” Mack crumpled the beer can against his leg and tossed it toward the bin. The discordant clang upped the tension.
“I’m not saying we have to invite her over for the holidays, but she seemed sorry and sincere and wants to mend things.”
“There’s no mending what she did.” The bitterness in Mack’s voice poisoned the air.
Jackson exchanged a telling look with his twin. “We can discuss our mother later. It’s Ford that’s the more immediate problem.” He took a deep breath. “He’s in the process of selling his stake.”
Mack closed his eyes, h
is head falling back and his lips mouthing something—a prayer, a curse, either would be understandable. “To who?” he finally asked aloud.
“He wouldn’t tell me; afraid if he did, you’d try to kill the deal, but the obvious person would be Tarwater.” Jackson kept any blame out of his voice. Even though it wasn’t Wyatt’s fault, he would beat himself up anyway.
Wyatt groaned and ran both hands through his hair, linking them at his nape. “What a d-bag.”
Jackson wasn’t sure if he was referring to their brother or Tarwater. “Ford’s taking the money to pay off his bookies. The hole was way deep. He plans to make a clean start in Memphis.”
“Any of us really think Ford can give up gambling?” Mack paced.
Their collective silence could fill an old-school encyclopedia.
“If it means anything, Ford seemed … broken. Trying to live up to Pop’s expectations when it was never what he wanted got to him. Said you should have been Pop’s favorite, not him.” Jackson punched Mack lightly on the arm.
“Is Tarwater going to be at the New Year’s party at Sutton’s?” Willa asked.
Mack stopped and stared as if he’d forgotten she was there.
“Hell, no,” Wyatt said. “Her parents blacklisted him.”
“Get him invited. If he’s sworn Ford to secrecy, then he wants the upper hand. You should confront him and put him on the defensive.” Willa picked at her fingernails but she was looking at them from under her lashes. “He’s a butt kisser, right? He’ll be on his best behavior with Sutton’s daddy around. In fact, can her daddy apply pressure to get him to sell it back?”
Mack’s focus bounced to Wyatt. “You think the judge could work a deal?”
“He and Pop were friends, and I’m engaged to his daughter. I don’t see why he wouldn’t help. Tarwater’s made no secret about the fact he wants to run for Mize’s judgeship as soon as he retires. Or before. Let me grease some wheels.” Wyatt rose, pulled out his phone, and retreated to the back of the barn.
“Good idea, Willa,” Mack said.
Jackson smiled at her. He expected her to be preening from Mack’s rare compliment, but instead her face was serious, reflecting troubles he couldn’t identify.
“Listen, you guys have lots to discuss. I’m going to head back to my place.” She tucked her hands into her back pockets and shuffled toward the door. Something in her face stopped Jackson’s protest even though he didn’t want her to go. The squeak of the back door on her exit expanded the fissure in his chest.
When the Stars Come Out--A Cottonbloom Novel Page 21