by Jade Taylor
“I wasn’t scared,” Jackson said, the lie as plain as daylight on his face.
Will chuckled, a dry raspy sound. “Sure you were. I never stopped being scared of my father until the day they put him in his grave. That’s when I finally understood that it wasn’t fear, but respect. I loved Daddy too much to be afraid of him, but I respected the hell out of him. Especially when I’d done something I shouldn’t and had to tell him.”
Jackson met his eyes. “Well, maybe it’s respect for you, but, I’ve been plain scared to come over here and tell you how badly I messed up.”
Will nodded. “Have you forgiven Cat for not telling you? Has Cat forgiven you?”
“Cat doesn’t need my forgiveness. For what its worth, she has it, but I understand why she didn’t tell me. She did what she thought best at the time. Second-guessing an eight-year-old decision won’t get us anywhere. She forgave me, but I still haven’t forgiven myself.”
“What are your plans now?”
“I want to marry Cat. That means settling down here in Engerville for good. I guess I can do that.”
Will stood. He walked over to the coffeepot and poured more of the hot black liquid into the dregs in his cup. He couldn’t solve this problem for Jackson, but he hated watching his son make the biggest mistake of his life. He turned to look at him with pitying eyes. “Don’t even try, son. You’re not a slow learner. That was me pushing for real answers when I said you were, but you ought to think about this some more. Even if the woman you love and your child are there with you, you’ll never be happy on a farm.”
“Cat said the same thing, but it’s not true. I can’t be happy anywhere else than with her.”
“If Cat said the same, then maybe you ought to give it some thought, instead of charging ahead with no regard to how your feelings might change. That could do more harm to Cat and Joey than if you’d never come back.”
“I know my own mind, Pop.”
“You know how you feel now. You don’t know how you’ll feel ten years from now.”
“I know how I’ll feel a thousand years from now! This isn’t a bad cold. I’m not going to get over it after a few weeks. I really, truly love her. Don’t you understand?”
Will nodded. He set his cup down and went over to his son. He put his arms around him. Sometimes that was all a parent could do.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THE NEXT WEEK PASSED in a blur. Time flew so quickly that Jackson felt as if he were on a carousel, circling past friends, the familiar Engerville farms, the town he grew up in, his father, Cat and Joey, not just once, but a thousand times. Each time he reached out, trying to catch them, the carousel moved faster. He’d be past them and looking back when they came around again. He’d never bring them on board the carousel and he couldn’t get off.
Twice he begged Cat to let him stay, and each time his heart shattered when she refused. Green eyes, he thought, swollen from too many tears and so unhappy his begging words stuck in his throat, would be his defining memory of Engerville. Resisting the inevitable is futile, he thought, but I can’t give up. I can’t.
His last evening arrived with shocking suddenness. He sat on the front porch with a strangely silent Joey and Cat so restless he wanted to yell at her to, for God’s sake, please let him stay. Knowing what her answer would be, he choked back his final desperate plea.
Cat had agreed to let him break the news to Joey. She nodded at him. “I’ll get us another glass of Kool-Aid. Back in a minute.” She paused at the screen door and cast him an uncertain look of entreaty. Her unspoken words were as plain as the setting sun. Don’t break my daughter’s heart.
“Short Stuff, I’ve got to tell you something important.”
She stood up. “I’m going to the barn. You can tell me later.”
Joey was so much like him. Running away instead of facing the truth. This time, he couldn’t allow it. It was his last chance to explain to her. “No, Joey. Sit here a while longer. I won’t get the chance to talk to you again.”
His little daughter stood, her T-shirt stained where she’d spilled drops from her glass of grape Kool-Aid, her yellow shorts wrinkled from sitting on the porch steps. She cast him an angry glare, shook her head with a sudden, agitated motion and strode off toward the barn.
Jackson stood. His heart twisted with pain as he watched her determined back, as stiff and straight as his own, march toward the barn. An unhappy smile barely reached his lips. Maybe she thought her favorite horse would offer her more comfort than the adults in her life. Maybe she was right.
He expected to find her standing in front of Moonshot’s stall, petting the filly, but when he opened the barn door, Joey was nowhere in sight. The single light bulb hanging from the rafter cast a raw glow down the concrete runway between the two rows of stalls. Where was she hiding? The tack room door stood slightly ajar. He couldn’t think why she’d chosen that spot to hide, but when he opened the door, she was sitting on his bunk crying, her face a mirror of Cat’s. Eyes blurred by tears, hair hanging like a curtain, shadowing the soft, little girl cheeks. Lips so sweetly curved he knew he’d remember her like this until the day he died. He’d already broken her heart. Too late, Cat, he thought.
“Don’t cry, Joey. Please.”
“You’re going away.” It was a statement, not a question.
He couldn’t lie and the hardness of his reply choked him. “I have to.”
“No, you don’t. You don’t love me.”
He sat down beside her and draped an arm across her narrow shoulders. “I love you more than life itself, little girl. I don’t want to leave, but I have to.”
She glared through the tears. “You don’t love me! I know you don’t. If you really, really loved me, you’d stay here with Mommy and me.”
“I can’t. It’s not that simple, Short Stuff.”
Her lower lip stuck out in rebellion, she retorted, “I think it is. I think you hate me.”
He pulled her trembling, resisting body into his side. Leaning down, he kissed the top of her head. “Hush, baby! Don’t think it. Don’t say it. I do love you and you know it. I don’t love anybody in the whole world as much as I love you.”
Suddenly, she thrust both her skinny arms around his waist and held on like a prickly burr. “Don’t leave, Daddy! Please don’t leave.” Her shoulders heaved with her sobs.
He pulled her onto his lap and held her in the shelter of his arms, rocking her back and forth until the sobs quieted. “Don’t doubt my love, Joey. I know you don’t want me to go and I want to stay, but there are reasons I can’t.” Your mother won’t let me, but he couldn’t betray Cat with those accusing words.
“Can you take me with you? I want to go with you.”
“And leave your mother? Do you want to do that?”
A miserable little face signaled a reluctant negative. “Will you come back?” She whispered her next question, then hurriedly burrowed into his chest without waiting for his answer.
Afraid, he thought. Too afraid of what she’ll hear me say. His tough Marine’s heart cracked wide open. How easily she penetrated his defenses. “As often as I can. And always on Christmas. I promise you, I’ll never miss a Christmas with you, Short Stuff.”
She turned her head left and right, wiping her runny nose on his T-shirt. “Promise?” she asked, her words muffled against his chest.
“I promise.” She was such a warm little bundle in his arms. How could he leave her? How could he leave her mother? God, why are you doing this to me? I can’t stand it.
BERTIE LOOKED unusually lovely tonight, Will Gray thought. Her blond hair had some gray mixed in. Not enough to matter, but enough to signal that life seemed bent on passing them both by. Maybe he should tell her what was on his mind. Helen had been gone long enough. It sure wouldn’t disgrace her memory for him to love somebody else. She’d be the last person to want him to spend his life alone.
Cass was in Minneapolis and Jackson would be gone tomorrow. This place wasn’t going t
o be much fun after Bertie left for Florida. Only four more months to enjoy her caustic essays on Engerville’s inhabitants. His stomach flipped over and his throat tightened uncomfortably.
For a man who hated gossip, he sure did appreciate her acid asides about the misdeeds of her neighbors. He’d miss her, for sure. Will had just opened his mouth to tell her as much when his son’s footsteps on the porch stopped him. Damn, he thought. That boy can be a regular pain.
He took his gaze off Bertie, standing at the stove, to glower at his son.
“Evening, Pop. Bertie.”
“Isn’t it a little late to come calling?”
“You cease to amaze me, Pop. I’m leaving on a Greyhound bus very early tomorrow morning. I thought you might want to say goodbye.”
Will shrugged in resignation. “Of course, I do. I’m glad you stopped by. We’d both be disappointed if you hadn’t. Right, Bertie?” She nodded. He continued, “Sit down, then. Bertie and I were just fixing to have a piece of her lemon cake. It’s not more’n ten minutes out of the oven. Makes my mouth water just to think about it. There’s a fresh jug of milk in the reefer. Why don’t you pour us a glass to go with?”
“I’m not hungry,” Jackson protested.
“Do it anyway,” Will ordered. He could tell by his son’s shadowed eyes that he was grieving over leaving. Life never seemed to get any easier for anybody.
Bertie sat down beside him and Jackson took the chair at the head of the table. Will forked a big piece of still-warm cake into his mouth. The flavor and sweetness mixed with the tart bits of lemon peel she had grated into it reminded him of her so much that, in a lightning-swift second of realization, he knew he’d have to figure out a way to convince her to stay in Engerville. He used to be a persuasive kind of guy with the ladies. He surely ought to be able to convince one sour old maid that love could be sweet again. Once more, his son interrupted his thoughts.
“Pop, do you think you could talk to Cat for me? She won’t believe me when I tell her I can be happy here.”
“Sounds like Cat is a bit brighter than you, boy. If everybody was meant to be a farmer, the world wouldn’t have so damn many used car salesmen.”
“I love her.”
“If you really love her, then things will work out.”
Jackson’s eyes shot blue flames at his father. “If I love her? Cat and Joey are my whole life! I can’t leave them. I just can’t.”
“You’re not the first man who ever loved a woman he couldn’t have.” Will glanced at Bertie who kept her head down, watching her plate like she thought the lemon cake might get up and walk out the door. “Can’t you talk her into going with you?”
“She won’t leave Engerville,” Jackson said, his words ragged as if torn from his throat. “She thinks…it would hurt Joey to uproot her from all her friends.”
“That daddy of Cat’s never settled down until he came to Engerville. I suppose that’s why she hates moving so much. Never met anybody that loved horses the way he did. I can’t think why he wasted so much of his life living in cities.”
“I don’t care about her father! I just care about Cat. And Joey.”
Will thought for a long, depressing moment. “Son, you have to think about her father, because Cat is part of him. Her life before she came to Engerville probably explains why she won’t leave. Just like your life on a farm explains why you have to leave.”
“Pop, I can’t stand it. I can’t.” Jackson’s voice broke. “I have to have her! I never wanted anything in my entire life as much as this. You have all the answers. Tell me how I can make this work.”
“Jackson…boy…if I knew how to solve all your problems, I would. I don’t know as much as you do about how to fix this particular problem. You’ve got to do this one by yourself. I can’t help you.”
“I know what he can do,” Bertha spoke up, her low voice startling Will and Jackson.
They looked at her as if she’d suddenly grown two heads. Will cleared his throat. “Ah, you do? Well, now.” He paused, then aware of the despair in his son’s gaze, he murmured, doubtfully, “Go ahead, then, Bertha. Tell the boy.”
THE MOON LIT UP the night so much that after Cat closed the door behind her, she didn’t bother to turn on her flashlight. She walked down to the corral, hoisted herself up to the top rail and leaned back against the old oak tree which didn’t have more than a dozen good limbs left and should long ago have been cut down.
Nostalgic memories insinuated themselves into her head. Insistent pictures of herself at fourteen, climbing the tree and finding a perch on a lower limb so she could look over the fields toward Jackson Gray’s home. One unforgettable vision of herself at eighteen, sitting under the tree late one evening and planning how she’d raise her child by herself. A happier picture of Joey at three, calling in a high, childish voice to “Go up, Mommy! Go up!”
She couldn’t bring herself to cut the old tree down. Cat shook her head in bemusement. What silly memories sustained her. If it weren’t so sad, she’d laugh at herself. Instead she looked at her wrist. The hands on her watch crawled with unbearable slowness toward midnight.
Tomorrow Jackson would leave and a day or two later, when Joey realized her father really wasn’t coming back, the knowledge would devastate her. Cat didn’t lie to herself. She was too practical for meaningless lies, especially to herself. Tonight might be her last chance to love Jackson, to make love to him. She wouldn’t take a chance on his misguided chivalry. It might cause him to go to his bunk in the barn instead of into her arms. If tonight was to be their last night together, then she planned on storing up enough memories to last her through a lot of cold winters.
As the moon climbed higher in the sky, she thought about his lips on hers, his arms holding her close, the strength of his desire. A fearful, restless urging raced over her. What if he decided to spend the night with his father? That would be reasonable, considering the long rift in their relationship. It would be natural for Will Gray to keep his son close on his last night in Engerville. Please, God, not tonight, she whispered to the breeze. Give me this one memory. Then she saw the dark shadow moving across the field toward her.
Slipping down from the fence, she kept her gaze on the shadow slowly taking shape. Eagerly, she started toward him. He saw her at the same time and increased the length of his strides. A moment later she was in his arms.
“Aren’t you up a little late?” he asked, brushing back a strand of hair from her face, his touch gentle.
His nearness caused her heart to pound. Her reply was nearly breathless. “I waited for you.”
Jackson grinned. “You’re sweet. I’m glad you did.”
He held her close against the heat from his body. She nestled into the warmth. His arms tightened, then suddenly released her.
His face unusually solemn, he said, “I had a long talk with Pop.”
“You did? I mean, of course you did. How is he?”
Jackson looked very relaxed, as if a weight had been removed from his shoulders. “Great! Really good. I don’t think he’ll have any problems running the place now. That’s one thing I won’t have to worry about when I’m in Seattle.”
“When you’re in Seattle? That sounds so final.”
“It’s what you wanted. Isn’t it?” he asked.
His words were unexpectedly cool. She stiffened her spine and forced out a reply that sounded like an excuse. “Not what I wanted, but the only answer for both of us.”
He stepped away from her, although his hand lingered on her waist. “You’ll be pleased to know Pop agrees with you. He said I was never cut out to be a farmer.”
She nodded, although the bitter taste of his casual words lingered. “It’s best this way.”
His lips brushed her ear. “Darling Cat. You’re practical, aren’t you?”
Reluctantly, she nodded. “I’ve had to be.”
He shrugged his shoulders as if dismissing the subject. “I won’t pretend I’m happy about it, but I’ve accepted
your decision. I can’t fight you and my father.”
Was this really what she wanted? And could she stand it when she got it? “You’ll be back to see us. It’s not forever.”
“Oh sure,” he said, squeezing her shoulder with a casual hand. “I’ll write, too. We’ll keep in touch.”
“And telephone calls. We can talk on the telephone.”
“Yes, but probably not as often. Long distance is expensive. I won’t be making much money the first year or two. Say, do you have a computer?”
“No, I don’t. Why do you ask?”
“We could e-mail. I used the one in the barracks a lot. Maybe you should think about getting an old computer. It doesn’t have to be much to access the Internet.”
He sounded almost cheerful, Cat thought, her heart sinking. “What a good idea,” she agreed, without much enthusiasm.
“I’m glad I thought of that.” He glanced at the night sky, where clouds were moving in from the west. “I’ll bet it rains before morning. That’ll be good, won’t it? Dad was hoping for rain. Bertie, too.” He smiled at her. “Morning isn’t too far away, is it? You’d better get to bed. I’m sleepy, too.” He stretched his mouth wide in an enormous, jaw-cracking yawn.
“I thought…nothing. You’re right. It’s late.”
He bent down and kissed her softly on the lips. “Good night, Cat. Don’t worry so much. You were right. Things will work out okay. Go on, now. I’ll wait until you get inside before I head out to the barn.”
He touched her lips with his finger, and grinned; a smoky shadow smile Cat didn’t understand at all. Where were the tears he’d barely been able to suppress for the last week? How could he be so casual? This was their last night together. Didn’t he understand that? Why did he act as if it meant nothing?
Maybe it didn’t mean anything to him. The shocking thought seared through her. Jackson intended to walk away from her with a smile on his face. He didn’t love her. Not the same way she loved him. He couldn’t love her and be this casual about leaving. Practical Cat tightened her grip on her emotions. This was the memory that would sustain her in the lonely years ahead. Jackson, all too casual about going away, leaving her behind to live with a broken heart. Again. A lump the size of Needlepoint Rock lodged in her throat. Bleak misery seeped through her soul.