by Candis Terry
“Whoa. Wait a minute.” Jackson’s heart backed up into his throat. “Rich divorced you because you wanted a baby?”
“Yes. But I’m sure that was just the final straw. After all, he constantly had to remind me to watch my weight. Or how I needed Botox even though I was only in my twenties. Or . . .”
The rest of what she said rolled over him in spurts of words he barely heard.
Her husband had divorced her because she’d wanted a baby?
Hell, he’d have given her a hundred babies if she’d been his wife.
He’d never have told her she was fat.
He’d loved her curves.
He’d never look at her beautiful face and think she needed Botox. Not even if she was eighty.
He’d always loved her just the way she was. Or at least the way she’d been before some arrogant, selfish asshole who’d never loved her had gotten hold of her.
He pulled her into his arms and held her while she trembled.
He’d always loved her.
Reality clanged in his head as loud as the fire bell at the station on a three-alarm call.
He’d always loved her.
Ironically, now they were barely friends.
Suffocating heat. Choking dust. Blinding flashes of light. Earsplitting explosions. The metallic odor of blood.
“Daddy?”
Jackson broke from the nightmare and leaped to his feet in a crouching position. Body soaked in sweat. Heart pummeling into his ribs.
“Daddy?”
He blinked once.
Twice.
Ran the back of his hand across his eyes.
A sweet, petrified little face came into view, with big blue eyes wide and full of tears.
“Oh, Jesus.” Jackson swallowed hard and grabbed for his little girl. He pulled her against his pounding heart and buried his face in her sweet-smelling baby-fine curls. “I’m sorry, Iz.”
The nightmares came less often. But they were no less intense. Stress increased the instances, as did certain times of the year. Certain occasions.
He’d done the time in counseling.
Continued to fight the battle.
But his brother had paid the ultimate price.
He held Izzy close until the trembles in her tiny little body ceased. He kissed her hair. Kissed her cheek. “Daddy’s so sorry.”
He’d scared his little girl. Frightened her to tears. He was a horrible daddy.
Izzy moved from his embrace, leaned back, and looked at him with a little furrow between her eyes. “Bad dweam?”
He nodded. “Very bad.”
She cupped his face in her chubby little hands. I wub you, Daddy. I pwotec you.”
Ah, hell. His heart shattered. “I love you, baby girl. But it’s Daddy’s job to protect you.”
And he would.
Even if it was from himself.
Chapter 6
When dawn broke, Abby woke feeling fresh.
Like a weight had been lifted from her nightmare.
She didn’t know whether it was from the glass of wine she’d consumed before she’d gone to bed or that she’d opened up to Jackson and told him the truth of her sham marriage.
Whatever the reason, she’d slept the best she had since Mark Rich had put a ring on her finger, then taken it back. Her fears and apprehensions about returning to Sweet had dissipated like morning fog.
She felt new again and ready to take on anything.
She stepped from the shower, folded the towel around her body, and tucked the tail between her breasts. As she brushed her teeth, she looked in the mirror and didn’t recognize herself. She had color in her face and brightness in her eyes, where for months she’d had dark circles and looked haggard and pale.
Her fault. She’d allowed herself to be a puppet. Allowed herself to be bought. Sold. And shipped off.
Well, she wasn’t for sale anymore.
From now on, she’d write her own one-way ticket to happiness.
Any other day, she would have blow-dried her freshly washed hair, then forced it into submission with a flat iron. Today, freedom rang, and she let the natural curls take shape. They bounced up into loose ringlets like they were happy to be free.
Barefoot, she padded to the bedroom and kicked aside the expensive high heels lined up in front of the closet door. The closet itself was overflowing with the clothes she’d left behind and just yesterday pulled from boxes and rehung to sort through. There were dresses, and blouses, and boots, and an assortment of fun outfits that reflected the personality of her former self. Ignoring the outfit she’d first laid out on the bed, she pulled out a white cotton wrap dress she’d always loved and paired it with a wide brown leather belt.
Her initial thought looking at the ensemble was how—back in the day—Jackson had always appreciated the originality with which she’d dressed. Even if some of her former boyfriends hadn’t been as appreciative.
She was glad she’d told him the truth about her marriage. She didn’t feel he’d judged her. And though the words had danced at the tip of her tongue, she’d managed to keep the real reason she’d left Sweet and married Mark to herself. Only she knew the truth behind the reason she’d made such an error in judgment—she’d tried to find a replacement for Jackson.
From the floor of the closet, she pulled out her old blue-and-tan Tony Llama boots, shoved her feet inside, and wiggled her toes. They still fit. Still felt as comfortable as they had years ago. She traded her YSL clutch for a no-name Boho bag she found at the bottom of a storage box. Vanity, however, would not allow her to leave the house without at least a quick cover of foundation and some mascara.
Her boots made a tap-tap sound as she dashed downstairs and opened the front door to run some errands before she tackled more organizing. Surprise took her back when she discovered a calico kitten sitting on the doormat.
“Well, hello.” She knelt. “Aren’t you adorable?”
The multicolored kitten appeared to be only a couple months old. It looked up at her with big green eyes and gave her a squeaky little meow. Abby stroked her fingers across soft fur, which the kitten took as an invitation to climb up onto her lap. The more she petted, the more it purred.
Well, darn. Now she was in a bind. She didn’t have the heart to push it aside and just leave. It was too little. Too helpless. Too cute. She needed to find out who it belonged to before she climbed into her car and took off.
The kitten used her arm as leverage and climbed up to her shoulder. It snuggled beneath her hair and purred in her ear.
“You sure know how to make friends quick.” She extracted tiny needle claws and drew the kitten down into her arms. “Maybe I should ask the neighbors who you belong to. It should only take a minute, right?” She lifted the delightful little meower and touched its little pink nose to hers.
Decision made, she tossed her bag on a nearby chair, closed the door, and headed next door to Arlene Potter’s little rock bungalow. A few days ago, the elderly woman’s gossipy lifestyle would have terrified Abby into keeping her distance—like a twenty-mile radius. But with her new attitude, she wasn’t about to let anything get in her way. And finding the kitten’s home was important.
A quick rap on the door brought the elderly tattletale and her silvery blue hair running.
“Abby!” She leaned back and folded her arms across an ample bosom. “I was wondering when you’d make an appearance at my door.”
I’ll bet you were. Abby held out the arm that wasn’t holding the kitten. “Here I am.”
Arlene flashed a “gotcha” grin. Abby suddenly remembered that once Mrs. Potter got you inside her house, you were doomed to stay until either the chitchat or the coffeepot ran dry.
“Well, get on in here.” Mrs. Potter stood back and waved her through. “I got a fresh pot brewing. The old-fashioned way.” She gave Abby a nudge with a sharp elbow. “Don’t have no use for those fancy schmantzy single-cup jobbers.”
“I . . .” Abby scanned the living room
and wondered just how many crocheted doilies one person really needed. “I really can’t stay. I just came to ask if you knew whose kitten this is.”
Arlene turned, and her hazel eyes widened as if she’d noticed the kitten for the first time. “Oh. That’s probably one of the Cruise cats. Those people refuse to have their animals fixed, and they’re always having litters they can’t find homes for. I don’t want to know what happens to those poor little things. Just ticks me off anyone is that irresponsible. They don’t watch their kids, either. Let ’em run wild like coyotes.”
Unbeknownst to her, Mrs. Potter had just delivered an answer embedded within a bit of gossip.
“Cute little thing.” Mrs. Potter gave the kitten a gentle stroke. “Lucky too. Looks like it found a new home.”
“Oh. No.” Abby looked down into the big green eyes. “I can’t keep it.”
Mrs. Potter’s pleasant expression turned into the big hairy eyeball. “So you’d just let that poor little innocent thing disappear with all the other Cruise cats?”
Horrors unimagined flew through Abby’s mind, and she snuggled the kitten a little closer. “Of course not.”
“Then she’s yours.”
“She?” Abby looked down into the kitten’s sweet little face and melted just a little more. She’d make it a point to scour the neighborhood to see if the kitten belonged to anyone who would actually claim or want it, but she knew she’d already fallen in love. And anyone who wanted to treat it poorly could, well, they could just suck rotten eggs.
“Most calicos are female,” Arlene informed her. “Something to do with the chromosomes. If it’s a male, it’s usually sterile.”
“Wow. Aren’t you a fountain of cat facts.”
“Got that one from the Wiki.” Mrs. Potter grinned as she pulled down two cups from a kitchen cupboard that could use a fresh coat of white paint and filled them with steaming coffee.”
“The Wiki?”
“Pedia. I’ve got facts on just about everything in this town that walks on two legs or four. And even a few that slither around, like that George Crosby.”
The residents of Sweet were on Wikipedia? Dear God, she’d better Google her own name.
“Did you know he was flirting out in public with Madge Peterson at church last Sunday?” Mrs. Potter huffed.
“Who?”
“George Crosby,” she said, as though Abby was a wee bit on the dense side. “Imagine. Married to poor old Rose for fifty years and her barely being in the ground for a month before he starts flippin’ his lashes at another woman. Yep. I got a lot of underground info on this town.”
Frightening.
Arlene set a coffee cup in front of Abby, pushed the sugar and creamer closer, and gave a wink. “What I don’t know yet is didja ever sneak into the Stallions locker room at naked time and what’s going on with you and that hunkalicious Jackson Wilder.”
If he’d thought his days of running a shift at the hardware and feed store to cover his brother’s missing ass were over, Jackson would have been wrong.
While Reno and his fiancée slept in and enjoyed an extended vacay, he was stuck restocking shelves and listening to Chester Banks complain about the lack of single ladies under sixty in the neighborhood. Jackson hated to disappoint the man and make him face the reality that he was past eighty and really, how well did the old equipment work when you got to that age?
Jackson shuddered.
Maybe he was just cranky from lack of sleep, but he’d almost pay the old cowboy to go complain to someone over at Bud’s Diner. Or maybe he was worrying about how long his own equipment would function without a little workout once in a while. His dry spell had lasted way too long.
Which was not why he’d been thinking of Abby all night.
Last night, she’d filled his thoughts with concern—a need to take care of her the way he had when Jimmy Barton had thrown sand in her face, or when Levi Wittholm had spread rumors that he’d put some time between the sheets with her.
When she’d told him that her marriage had been a total sham, he’d been selfishly relieved. But when she’d revealed why her son of a bitch husband had treated her like trash and divorced her, his knees had nearly buckled. An overwhelming need to plant his fist in Mark Rich’s face had kept him awake all night and made him wonder just how fast he could drive to Houston to deliver the punch.
When the little bell over the shop door ding-a-linged, he glanced up from refilling the barrel of Granny Vee’s all-natural doggie donuts.
In walked the Abby he used to know.
Her hair fell in a cloud of soft curls over her shoulders. She’d wrapped her curvy body in a white dress that hugged her breasts, then fell slightly open only to be cinched in to her narrow waist by a wide brown belt. The dress drifted over her hips and thighs and came to a stop just above her knees. The boots on her feet she’d worn to school dances, and he’d watched her twirl around the floor, laughing until the dimples in her cheeks popped.
She looked amazing, and as she came toward him, a frisson of electricity tingled in his hands. Below his waist, there was a whole lot of hell yeah going on.
She smiled, and his gaze snapped to her full, glossy mouth.
He wanted to kiss her.
Wrap his arms around her and slide his tongue against hers.
He wanted to taste and tease.
Linger and play.
Stroke and promise.
He swallowed. Man, he had to get a handle on himself. “Wow. You look . . .”
“Awful?” Her top teeth sank into her supple bottom lip.
“No!” He gathered his wits and dumped them back into the bucket that was his head. “You look great. Really great. Different.” His eyes took another slow cruise down the front of her revealing dress. “And you’re holding a cat.”
“Isn’t she adorable?” Abby lifted the tiny kitten and rubbed noses.
“Did you steal that one too?”
Her eyes lit up and he knew she remembered the time they’d both nearly gone to jail. When they’d broken in and stolen the mistreated animals from the pet shop where she’d worked.
“Not this time.” A laugh bubbled up. “This morning, I opened the front door, and there she was, looking up at me all helpless and scared.”
“What are you going to do with it?”
“I’m going to keep her.”
Jackson tilted his head. Keeping a pet showed signs of permanency. Of putting down roots. He wondered if Abby had thought that far ahead, or if she was just jumping in with both feet as usual. “Pets are a lot of responsibility, you know. They ground you so you can’t just take off whenever the mood arises.”
She looked up at him and hit him with a smile that took a tumble in his chest.
“Are you worried about me or the cat?”
“If you’re taking care of the cat, I know it will be fine.”
She came close enough to where he could hear the kitten’s little motor running.
“So you’re worried about me.” Her hand came up, and her soft fingers gently touched his cheek.
“Don’t be,” she said. “I may not have everything figured out at the moment, but I’ll get there.”
And that’s what worried him. She’d get things figured out, then she’d hightail it out of his life again before he had things figured out. “So what’s her name?”
The multicolored kitten snuggled between her breasts.
Lucky cat.
“I thought maybe something like . . . Sweetums.”
“What? That’s a wussy name. She’d totally get her ass kicked by all the other neighborhood cats. You can’t call her . . . that. See I can’t even say it. It’s too ridiculous.”
Abby chuckled, and the sound drifted over him like a warm breeze.
“I suppose you want me to call her Rowdy, or Bullet, or Chainsaw,” she said.
“Those aren’t bad.” He liked it when she teased him. “Maybe you could name her something like Flash, or Blaze, or Storm.”
“Oh my God.” He slapped his forehead. “You’re killing me. You’d be better off sticking with Sweetums.”
“Ha!” She pointed her finger at him. “You said it.”
Before he could wrap his hand around that finger and pull her against him, he gave the kitten—who purred contentedly between Abby’s breasts—a rub between its ears.
Lucky damn cat.
“I’ll think of something,” she said. “And when I do, it will fit her as well as Jackson Wilder fits you.”
He smiled at the cheerful animation that lit up her big blue eyes.
She fit him.
Whoa. Back the truck up. Where had that come from?
“So what brings you and . . . Fireball in today?”
“I’m not going to name her Fireball. But I do need supplies. Kitten food, litter, a cat box, some toys . . . you don’t have a kitten starter kit do you?”
He chuckled. “No, but I’m pretty sure I’ve got everything you need.” And with that innuendo left hanging, he escorted her to the pet-supplies aisle.
An hour later, he bagged up all her purchases and rang up the charges on her credit card. Lucky damn cat for showing up at Abby’s door. She’d bought a little of everything, and everything had been top-of-the-line. She couldn’t just have the apartment-sized cat condo. No, she had to have the multilevel palace, which included seven scratching posts, four punching bags, a tunnel, and a bed in the penthouse. He knew she was being careful about the money she spent, but apparently when it came to rescued cats, there was no limit.
“Would you mind carrying everything to my car?” she asked.
“I’m not sure it will all fit,” he said, thinking about the small two-seater.
“It’ll fit.”
The paint cans hadn’t fit, so what made her think a gigantic cat house would? “If you say so.” He picked up her purchases and motioned for her to go first.
And yeah, she probably thought he was being a gentleman when all he really wanted was to watch her walk. He could watch her all damned day. The way she could look all casual and have such a sexy swagger at the same time just boggled his mind. But he was man enough to appreciate the hell out of it.