The Lady Who Drew Me In

by Thomasine Rappold

  Jackson swallowed hard. Dannion didn’t despise him. The weight of a burden Jackson had carried for years fell away. He’d never felt closer to his brother than he did in this moment.

  They both turned to the sound of footsteps in the hall. Tessa entered the room, failing miserably in her attempt to appear chipper. “May I join you for a brandy?” she asked.

  Dannion poured her a drink, and she thanked him with a tender kiss. “She’s sound asleep,” Tessa said.

  Jackson worried Daisy was sleeping too much. She needed laudanum, he knew, but he feared the effect of the drug just the same. Tessa must have sensed his concern.

  “Doctor Gregory said she needs to rest. She’s been through a terrible trauma, but she will mend.”

  Jackson nodded. “Thank you for coming, Tessa,” he said. He turned to Dannion. “You, as well.”

  Dannion lifted his drink. “That’s what families are for.”

  Jackson smiled. So this is what it took for him to finally realize how much his brother cared? Years of Dannion’s nagging for him to grow up suddenly seemed quite justified.

  “Tessa and I will postpone our trip to Saratoga. I’ll do whatever I can to help with this mess,” Dannion said. “Just name it.”

  Jackson shook his head. “Thank you, Brother, but no. This is one mess I will clean up on my own. I owe it to Daisy.”

  Tessa smiled, and then kissed Jackson’s cheek. “You’re taking wonderful care of her, Jax. And you’re proving to be one jewel of a husband.”

  He returned her smile in spite of the sick feeling in the pit of his gut. The compliment had the opposite effect and brought him no comfort. Jackson could never be good enough for Daisy. This incident proved it. Tessa would sing a different tune when she discovered his intentions for St. Louis. And then there’d be Dannion’s reaction.

  Jackson took another swallow of whiskey to drown out thoughts of anything other than Daisy’s recovery and finding the son-of-a-bitch who’d shot her.

  Chapter 17

  Daisy watched Jackson as he studied the checkerboard between them, contemplating his next move. Despite being confined to her bed, the four days since the shooting had breezed by. Each morning Jackson brought their breakfast upstairs, and they’d eaten supper together too.

  The laudanum made her drowsy, and she’d often drifted to sleep as he read aloud from books and newspapers. They played checkers and dominoes and even poker.

  Having the use of only one arm restricted Daisy from performing the simplest tasks. Jackson cut her meat at meals, brushed her hair, and even helped her bathe.

  In fact, Jackson barely left her side. He sat in the chair next to her bed, keeping her company and tending to her shoulder. Doctor Gregory had shown him how to change the dressing on the wound, which was healing so well it was no longer necessary for the doctor to make daily visits.

  Daisy had never been the object of such devotion. Usually, it was she who cared for others. Lawry had suffered from a variety of maladies, and this change in circumstance was pleasant, indeed. Not that she’d enjoyed being shot, but she had to admit, she was enjoying certain aspects of her recovery. Spending so much time alone with Jackson was almost worth the ordeal of having a bullet ripped through her flesh.

  Her thoughts drifted back to last night and the bath. He’d treated her with kid gloves as he’d helped her slip into the warm, rose-scented water. With great care, he’d ensured the bandaged wound on her shoulder remained dry while he sponged her body with lingering caresses, cleansing and soothing every inch of her. Then he’d toweled her off in front of the fire.

  With no expectation of making love, he’d patted the towel to her wet skin, her breasts and stomach. Turning her around, he’d dried her bottom, her thighs, and between her legs. Even with the acute pain in her shoulder, it was the most erotic, intimate encounter she’d ever shared.

  The memory was a pleasant diversion from her current worries. While she knew Jackson blamed himself for her injury, she knew he cared for her as well. Caring paled in comparison to her affection for him, though. Perhaps it was the temporary status of their union that drove her burgeoning feelings, but she could not seem to stop them.

  Her chest tightened with sorrow. She’d lived her entire life without passion, and she’d accepted that. Until Jackson had introduced her to everything she’d been missing. Now that she’d experienced these wonderful feelings, she didn’t want to live without them. Without him.

  She loved him. She supposed she’d known this for some time, she just wouldn’t allow herself to believe it. She couldn’t. She loved a man who was incapable of committing to marriage, and the admission was difficult to bear.

  Jackson needed more than the tedium her world would provide. A one-woman-man he was not. Variety was the spice of his life, and it wouldn’t be long before he found Daisy bland.

  She stiffened against the thought of his prior conquests, but it was the thought of his future in St. Louis that wrenched through her soul. That he would touch other women as he had touched her.

  Shaking off the sting of jealousy, she lifted her chin. She could never let Jackson know how she felt about him. She’d suffered the pain of betrayal before, the despair of being unwanted. But the agony of Jackson’s rejection would crush her to pieces. She had to save herself, preserve what remained of the independent woman she’d strived so hard to become.

  She’d enjoy the time she and Jackson had left, and then she would set him free. She only prayed for his safety until then. Whoever had shot her had been aiming for Jackson; she didn’t doubt it for a moment.

  “It’s your move,” Jackson said.

  “Hmm.” Daisy studied the board. Jackson had set up his checkers quite nicely, and it appeared he would win again. “Someone taught you well.”

  “My father enjoyed the challenge of teaching me.” He smiled. “Until the first time I bested him.”

  Daisy smiled too.

  “My mother, on the other hand, always let me win.” His smile faded as his weary eyes filled with distant memories of the past.

  “When did she die?” Daisy asked.

  “Several years ago. My father died soon after.”

  “A broken heart?”

  “His heart broke long before that,” he mumbled.

  She stared, puzzled by the comment.

  “My parents had an unhappy marriage,” he said.

  “I’m sorry, Jackson.” She lowered her gaze. Several moments passed before she spoke again. “I like to imagine my parents were madly in love.” She smiled. “I know it’s silly, but one acquires an active imagination when one grows up in ignorance of who they are and where they came from.” She shrugged. “It’s the one small perk of knowing nothing about them. I can pretend they were perfect.”

  “Some people would envy you that.” He smiled. “But it’s strange.”

  “What is?”

  “I was raised by my parents. Yet during those years beneath their roof, I never knew them for who they were.”

  “But still you loved them,” she said. “And they loved you.”

  “Yes.”

  She smiled a sad smile. Perhaps it was the effect of the laudanum, but she felt so blue—so pitifully melancholy. “I never stop wondering why my parents didn’t want me.” By rote she held back her tears, staring down at the checkerboard. “What I did to make them not want me.”

  Jackson reached for her hand. “You did nothing, Daise. And I’m certain they wanted you. Sometimes circumstances force people to do things they don’t want to do.”

  Like you were forced to marry me. The thought barged into her head, an unwelcome intrusion she could not deter.

  Releasing her hand, he leaned back in the chair. “Perhaps they wanted better for you than they could provide.”

  She smiled, despite the solemn look in his eyes. “Thank you for that.” She added his kind words about her parents to the growing list of things she’d remember always. Sweet me
mories of their night on the beach, the first time he’d touched her.

  Jackson’s efforts at consolation seldom failed. Her thoughts returned to the horrible day of the fire at the Rhodes’s house, when Andy was missing. Jackson had taken Daisy in his arms, and like glue, his words of reassurance had held her together.

  “All a child truly needs is love.”

  He nodded. “Hence your hope for one of your own.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Lawry promised me children from the day we met, but had little interest in partaking in the activity required to get them.”

  He shook his head. “Unfathomable.”

  Her heart melted in his meaning and the blue of his eyes. “Lawry promised me the day home as well.”

  “He did?”

  “He did.” She sighed, and the anger of betrayal was tempered by sorrow. “A few years after we married, it became apparent we might never have children. I approached him with my idea for a children’s day home in Misty Lake. He refused to allow me to pursue the project, but promised to earmark funds for the future. He needed a wife to take care of him until he was gone, and then the money would be mine.”

  “He lied,” Jackson said.

  “For years he led me to believe I’d have my day home someday. He’d often remind me of it to keep me content, I suppose.” She shrugged. “But who knows. I never knew what he was thinking.” She grinned. “I was often tempted to use my entranced drawing on him while he slept, just for some clue.”

  He smiled. “Have you ever been tempted to draw my thoughts?”

  “There’s no need,” she teased. “I always know what you’re thinking.”

  “Are you suggesting I’m shallow?”

  “Of course not,” she said with a smile. “You’re just not very deep.”

  He laughed, and she laughed too.

  “So then you know what I’m thinking about right now?” He leaned back, crossing his arms as he gazed at her.

  “I believe that I do,” she said.

  He wiggled his fingers, urging her on. “By all means, tell me.”

  Humor gleamed in his eyes, softening his handsome face. The appealing pose surmised him perfectly. The slackened shoulders, the strong arms beneath his rolled sleeves, the long legs stretched casually in front of him. A tug of longing stirred inside her, drawing her toward him. She leaned forward.

  “I’d much prefer to show you,” she uttered in a voice she barely recognized.

  His lips parted as he sucked in a breath, and she reveled in that look in his eyes. His throat moved as he swallowed. “If you weren’t injured, I would let you.” He blew out a long breath, sitting upright. “It’s your move,” he reminded her with a nod at the checkerboard.

  Releasing a breath of her own, she took her turn on the board.

  “Will you still proceed with the day home?” he asked. “If things go according to plan?”

  She knew what he meant, though he didn’t say it outright. But as much as she hated to think about her life without Jackson, she was hopeful she wouldn’t be left totally alone. She’d have his child, and that would have to be enough.

  “Absolutely,” she said. “Once things settle down.”

  His gaze dropped to the board between them. He blamed himself for her being shot, and his distress broke her heart. She lived with guilt every day. Carried the ghosts of her past on her shoulders, felt the stress of it in her bones. She did not want that kind of torment for him.

  “This wasn’t your fault,” she said. “You did not fire that shot.”

  He glanced up in surrender. “I guess I’m not very deep.”

  She smiled against the sorrow in his eyes. “Please don’t blame yourself. I couldn’t bear being the cause of that.” She fidgeted with her hands. “Guilt will eat you alive.”

  He tilted his head. “Nothing in your past was your fault,” he said. You did nothing wrong. The Taylor’s marriage was destroyed long before they met you. And you’ve more than made it up to the Palmers.”

  While she appreciated his reassurance, she didn’t deserve it.

  “But not for what I did to the Blackstones.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean?”

  The ache inside her spread outward as she voiced the fear she’d never spoken aloud. “I may have caused the fire.”

  Blinking hard, he leaned back in his seat.

  Daisy cleared the lump from her throat. “Mr. Blackstone and I were painting that morning. I’d spilled turpentine on the rug. The fumes were so strong, and it’s a flammable substance. A spark from the stove could have—”

  “Stop.” He shook his head. “You can’t know if that had anything to do with the cause of the fire. And you can’t torture yourself for what you don’t know. For things that weren’t your doing.”

  She nodded, and his fingers tightened around hers. “You are not guilty for surviving what they didn’t.”

  Oh, how she wanted to believe that. How she wanted to unchain herself from the pain of the past and set herself free.

  “You deserve to be happy.” He gave a firm nod. “Just let it all go.”

  She stared into his face, lost for words. The persuasive regard in his eyes shifted something inside her. The dark clouds that had shaded her for so long seemed to part as she opened her mind to his simple advice. Hope flourished inside her, sprouting up through the bramble of weeds toward the sun, that there might be a chance the broken pieces inside her could fall back into place.

  Chapter 18

  Jackson and Daisy ate breakfast in their room as usual, but everything seemed different. She was different.

  Falling in love was the one obstacle she’d never considered. She’d sidestepped a ruined reputation, financial woes, the destruction of her dream for a day home, but she could not maneuver her way past her love for her husband. After he left, she’d have everything she ever wanted—even more so, if he left her with a child.

  But she would not have him.

  She lifted her chin against how much she would miss him. How much she wished things could be different. But Jackson was a free spirit. A wanderer. Just let it all go. Until summer’s end, she’d enjoy her time with him for the man he was—not the man she’d hoped he could be. Jackson was born to have fun. He’d been raised on it. Unpredictable, to the point of recklessness, he drank in the pleasures of life and apologized to no one for his insatiable thirst. She envied him that. And she was drawn to him, seduced by the liberation she felt in his presence.

  He was spontaneous and wild, like an invigorating breeze to be savored before it sailed on to touch someone else. The very traits she loved about him were the ones that would hurt her most.

  She brushed off her self-pity. She had to remember the reason he’d come to Misty Lake. To clear Morgan’s name and uncover a killer. Andy was an orphan and could be in danger, and Daisy had become so engrossed in her feelings for Jackson she had almost forgotten her promise to Andy—the boy who’d brought her and Jackson together. Perhaps, after Jackson was gone, Curtis would allow her to take the boy in. To raise him and love him.

  “Are you going to Troy today?” she asked. The sooner the case was solved, the sooner she could move on with the plans she’d set for herself. Jackson was getting closer to solving this case, and she’d do everything she could to help him.

  “Not today,” he uttered, glancing up from the papers.

  During the week since the shooting, he’d refrained from discussing the case, but still she could see his distraction. He carried on as usual as he nursed her, but the weight of all that had happened was etched in the dark shadows beneath his tired eyes.

  “But what about the case?”

  The knock on the door interrupted his answer.

  “Come in, Kotterman,” Jackson said.

  Kotterman entered the room with another delivery of visiting cards. “These arrived this morning,” he said.

  “Did you send our regrets for the Wes
tcott Ball?” Daisy asked Kotterman as he placed the tray of cards on the table.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Thank you, Kotterman,” she said as he left. She sank back into the pillows, disappointed she’d miss the ball once again.

  “You will attend next time,” Jackson said as though reading her thoughts.

  Brushing off the sting of his lack of the word “we,” she straightened against the pillows. Reaching for the cards, she said, “I haven’t had this many visitors since I first arrived in Misty Lake.” She shuffled through the cards. “Tom and Nadine Wyman, the Elmsworths, even Felice Pettington.”

  “Cuffy stopped by as well,” Jackson added. “Although he was fresh out of cards.”

  She smiled at his quip about the simple lumberman. “Suddenly it seems I’ve become quite popular.”

  “Too popular. Kotterman has been turning away visitors for days.”

  After the cool treatment she and Jackson had received at the race track, this news was a nice surprise. She warmed in a glow of pleasure but kept her illusions in check. “I suppose being shot has summoned some curiosity, but I’d prefer to believe people are concerned for my welfare.”

  “They should spare some of that concern for themselves. There’s a lunatic with a gun out there, but they’re too pigheaded to see they might be in danger.”

  “I agree. But they’re—”

  “They’re a bunch of busybodies,” Jackson snapped. “You need to rest, not provide fodder for their gossip.” He closed the papers. “Everyone’s heard about your enhanced drawing.”

  She wasn’t truly surprised. The ability she’d denied all these years had returned from her past and had the town buzzing. “Corine?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “She told someone. And someone told Curtis.”

  “People were bound to find out eventually, I suppose. It’s a small town.”

  “I’m surprised your name hasn’t already made the papers,” he muttered, before tossing them aside. “I won’t have you bombarded by curious visitors.”