Jackson’s jaw dropped. His quick glance showed his brother’s had the same reaction. Jesse’s was the worst. In practically slow motion they all turned toward the house. Emma Weldon, a mother with a bone to pick, stood with the garden hose in her hand.
“You all sure enough had to hear me call you to supper. I’ll put up with a lot, but when I make a meal for you, and your father and I haven’t had all four of you to the dinner table at the same time in a while, I expect to be heard.”
Before any of them could speak, she aimed the hose at them and let them have it. When they were soaked, she turned off the hose. “Dry up and get to the table. Dinner won’t keep a minute longer.”
All of Jackson’s intense, sweaty effort fizzled at his feet. The looks on his brothers’ faces rivaled Jackson’s sentiments. Well, hell.
“I won.” Jackson swiped water from his eyes.
“Bullshit,” said Jesse, marching toward him.
“I hear anybody arguing and they get KP duty. There are towels at the back door. If you all aren’t here in five minutes, nobody gets a piece of cherry pie.”
James and Jared started laughing.
“Makes you feel like a yard ape again,” Jesse said.
“Yeah, for a minute there I had to look down and make sure I wasn’t wearing a diaper.” James slapped the seat of his wet jeans.
“You need to,” Jackson said. “Hell, you’ve gone and pissed your pants.”
Jesse sniffed the air. “Smells like a skunk tangled with a pair of stink bugs.”
For a second Jackson exchanged glances with his brothers. That last snippet of conversation had been a running joke between them from a time when James and Jared had been in diapers and they’d trapped a skunk under a laundry basket. Curious brats that they were they’d put their faces right up to the lattice holes of the basket and had gotten a hefty dose of skunk perfume.
Jesse started to laugh and it spread like hot butter on biscuit. Jackson was the last to join, but he laughed until tears fell.
“Three minutes left.” His mother called out the door. Still laughing, Jackson ran for his shirt. “I get the pie,” he said racing for the door.
Jesse, James, and Jared tried to butt their way in before him. Jackson ended up rolling in the door with all three of his brothers on his back.
“One minute left,” Emma Weldon said, swatting at them with her dishrag.
Jackson parked his butt in his old chair and it wasn’t until his father said grace, that Jackson remembered that he was thirty-five and not fifteen. For a few minutes, he’d felt like the boy he’d used to be, and as the intervening years came crashing back down on him, he wished he’d never had those few minutes of fun. It made what was left of him hurt so much more for what he’d lost of himself.
He forced himself to eat, to smile, to answer a question that strayed his way, but he didn’t belong. He wasn’t the man his family remembered and never would be again.
“My company has an interesting job tomorrow night,” Jesse said.
Having first established his security company in Washington DC, where the world’s leaders and cherished darlings were known to tread, Jesse had gained worldwide respect. Occasionally, he himself still presided over really important events.
“A VIP coming into town?” John Weldon asked, sliding his empty pie plate toward the nearly gone cherry pie. He gave Emma a sweet smile. She cut him a tiny sliver and he looked as if she’d stolen his last dollar. She pointed at her stomach, indicating he was on the heavy side of plump.
“Nope.” Jesse stuck his plate up and received a bigger piece of pie than his father.
Jackson couldn’t help but grin as his father glared at Jesse’s slice of pie.
“Then what? James Bond moving in?” Jared asked.
Jesse rolled his eyes, and when he did, Jackson saw his dad switch pie plates with Jesse. Jackson had to hand it to his father. He was the fastest pie plate switcher in the world.
“Nope,” Jesse said, picking up his fork.
“Cameron Diaz?” James asked.
Jesse didn’t answer. He was glaring at his miniscule piece of pie.
“John Weldon, we’re walking two miles in the morning instead of one.”
John groaned. Apparently satisfied by Emma’s punishment, Jesse lit into his sliver of cherry and crust.
“Well,” Jackson muttered, compelled to get the lead out of the conversation. “What are you doing?”
“Providing security and transpo for a big yacht party in the bay. Then a team will trail the yacht for the weekend as it sails toward St. Simon’s Island. It’s a doctor at the hospital who’s putting on this big shindig, and wants to make sure no one bothers the yacht.”
Jackson tensed. Any mention of the hospital brought Nan immediately to mind.
“What’s so special about that?” Jared frowned.
Jesse shrugged. “Not much, just a different sort of security detail for around here. Funny thing, when I was at the hospital with Alexi and Jake earlier, Alexi mentioned that Nan was going.”
Hospital bigwigs, Jackson thought. Swanson. Nan was going yachting with Swanson and his buddies for the weekend. Well it didn’t take her long to put their “just sex” weekend behind her. Jackson had clenched his fist before he realized it. He forced himself to shrug. “Hope it doesn’t rain,” was all he said.
When he saw his brothers pitching in for KP duty, Jackson left. He drove his truck out into the middle of an empty cornfield, right out in the open where he could see the stars. Grabbing his guitar, he climbed into the bed of the truck and started strumming. Yeah, as long as he was singing he didn’t have to listen to the voice in his head calling him a fool.
But after awhile, even the music began calling him names. He didn’t know what time it was when he hopped into his truck and headed for town.
* * *
A pounding on Nan’s front door woke her up from her dreamless sleep. She rolled off the couch, stepped on Shakespeare’s tail, and stubbed her toe on the way to the door. She’d left every light in the house on trying to chase the shadows from her heart. And she hadn’t been able to sleep in her bed all week. Memories of Jackson were just too damn strong. She could handle the couch. They hadn’t made love on the couch. A glance through the peep told her two things. It was very dark outside and a disheveled Jackson stood on her doorstep.
She considered ignoring him, but the memory of his anguish over the death of his wife and unborn child was too fresh, too sharp in her mind to turn her back on him even though seeing him stabbed her own heart.
She cracked the door. “What do you want, Jack?”
“Is it true?”
“Is what true?”
“Are you yachting with Brad for the weekend?”
“This isn’t happening. We are not having this conversation. You are not here. Do you understand? You have no right to be here, Jack.” Nan shut the door in his face, sure that she must be having another nightmare. She didn’t have fantasies or dreams these days. Her “just sex” weekend had cured her of that, but had left her with a more incurable and twice as devastating—broken heart.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
She never went back to sleep after Jackson left last night. So if today, Friday, was the first day of the rest of her life--she was in big trouble. It rained hard all morning and when she headed to meet Brad, the roadsides were lakes.
She had a flat tire on the way to the restaurant. She had to pull into one of those lakes to change her tire while dressed in all her finery. The hem of her dress got wet and she had to take off her shoes to keep them from being ruined. It occurred to her that she wasn't too far from the ragtag, barefoot little girl after all.
She arrived late for her meeting with Brad, but that wasn't a problem. Brad wasn’t there yet either. He drove up behind her car in the valet line and suggested that they go on to the yacht.
So they sat in a private corner at the lavish party and Nan tried to tell Brad that she wouldn’t be seeing him an
ymore. He kept talking about his convention speech.
“Brad. I don’t see that there is any point in continuing to date. We don’t seem to be connecting.”
He frowned and replied in all seriousness. “What does connection have to do with anything? To have a future all you have to do is to make a plan. Emotions and feelings really don’t matter. They fall in line eventually.”
Did he think emotions were army recruits?
His cell phone rang. He glanced at the number. “It’s the hospital. “I’ve got to go, but I’ll put us at the top of my list, and we’ll get this worked out.”
“No. No lists Brad.”
“Nan. We’ll have to discuss this later.”
“Sorry, Brad. There isn’t a later.”
“Why? What happened?”
“I don’t know. Maybe when you set your mind on what an ideal partner would be, you miss seeing the real person in front of you.” Even as she said it, Nan wondered just how guilty she was of the same thing. Brad stared at her and she met his gaze. But they were so distant from each other that not even the truth drew them closer together.
Brad looked as if he meant to say something more, but then focused his gaze on his phone. “I really have to go.”
“I know.” Nan smiled, relieved. “I’ll see you around,” she said then turned away and wandered through the party. Steve Dennison came up to her, looking like a blond Tom Selleck dressed in Italian leisure clothes.
He handed her a glass. “I brought you some champagne.”
“Thanks.” She was glad she’d worn a conservative black sheath with touches of gold at her ears and neck. Anything more casual and she would have been out of place. Many of the women wore jewels and finery.
“I overheard your discussion with Brad. He works too much. Do you need a date for the evening?” he asked with a twinkle to his eyes.
Nan smiled. “Thanks, but I think I’m going to take a break from dating, maybe sign up for gourmet cooking classes.”
“You sure?”
“Positive.”
He handed her a business card. “Why don’t you give me a call when your classes are over. I love gourmet food.”
Nan took the card. “We’ll see.” Across the room, someone called Steve’s name and he left.
* * *
Jackson stared at the big ass fancy yacht from the lowly depths of his family's old rowboat that may have been in its prime before WWII. That was a big maybe. Any second he expected it to spring a leak and sink.
What in the hell was he doing out here? Nan was right when she'd slammed the door in his face last night. He'd had no business being there. Just like he had no damn business being here tonight. What was the purpose? All day long, as he rambled around the broken down cabin, making a list of everything that needed fixing, he hadn't been able to get her out of his mind. Hell, she'd been in his mind since Jesse married Alexi and he'd been Best Man when Nan had been the Maid of Honor.
Was he going off the deep end and crossing rational lines? Being out here staring at a damn boat because Nan was on it with another man was edging pretty damn close to irrational. It'd make sense if he had a bullhorn and had decided to ask her to forgive him. Selfish sense, but at least he'd have a purpose and a reason for being here.
Was he going to overtake the yacht like the pirate Black Jack had in Nan's fantasy and capture her? The memory of Nan Monday night as he played Black Jack to her captured heroine seared its way through his mind. Her breasts filling his hands as she arched her back with pleasure and squirmed against the light binding of his shirt. The leopard underwear. The mortified blush when she'd thought he'd read her secrets--hell, yes a part of him said. He'd love to capture Nan, put her in his bunk, and sail off as if the world didn't exist, as if he didn't have a care in the world--not even his own.
But you had her in your bunk and you kicked her out. You had her and you rejected her because you're a self-absorb, selfish bastard. Maybe a man exactly like her father had been? A man who'd make a wife and kid pay for something nobody had any control over? And there it was, plain as day, wavering on the sun sparkling water in front of him. The truth. All excuses aside, he'd deliberately gone after Nan, seduced her past her sensibilities, and the first bump in the road he hit, he walked out on her. He'd gone running, looking for that hellhole of a pit he'd existed in to swallow him back up. But he hadn't found it, because sometime over the past six months the pit had disappeared. Jackson slid the oars back into the water and gave them a hard pull. Nope, he had no business interfering in Nan's life. Not now. Maybe never.
* * *
Nan sighed. Maybe she wasn’t cultured enough, but she just couldn’t get into the swing of the party. Nursing her champagne, she tried to look busy and found herself remembering how much more fun she’d had on a blanket by the creek, counting out strawberries and chunks of cheese to trade Jackson for some champagne. Then came the motorcycle. Damn it. Nan mentally smacked herself. Her eyes stung with the threat of tears, and the yearning ache for Jackson that was never far from the surface erupted again.
A band started playing in the stateroom, its volume way too loud, and the lead singer’s voice was nowhere as smooth as Jackson’s. Nan left for the cool peace of the upper deck, but couldn’t escape the memory of Jackson.
A man grabbed her arm as she walked by the steering room. “I see Swanson deserted you again. I wouldn’t be so quick to answer if I were out with you.”
It was X-ray Eyes, the odious radiologist who had bothered her at the hospital party. Nan stepped back, tugging on her arm. “Let go.”
“Hold on. No reason to get upset. Just want to get to know you a little.”
He didn’t let go of her arm and Nan could smell a good deal more alcohol on the man’s breath than was in his aftershave.
“Let go of my arm, now.”
“In just a minute. Why don’t you come on in here with me and let me fix you a fresher drink. We'll get to know each other a lot better.” He leered at her as he tried to pull her into the empty room.
That was it. Nan didn’t care if she was overreacting or not. She swung around and planted her entire weight against the man. He stumbled forward, fell against railing, and amazingly went overboard.
He tried to save himself by grabbing onto her and she went over too, trying to help. As soon as she surfaced she heard all the commotion on the yacht. People tossed life preservers out into the water and Nan wanted to just drown herself. It seemed that between the hospital benefit and tonight, the only impression the hospital’s upper crust would have of her is of a drowned rat. Nan grabbed the flotation device and promptly untied the rope from around it. The boat lay anchored in the harbor, not too far from the shore and Nan just couldn’t face the people on it. She told the people at the rail that she would swim to the dock and go home.
A few yards from the yacht, a rowboat moved her way.
Jackson sat with a smug smile on his face. “Need a ride, sugar?”
Could her life sink any lower? She should have expected a fool stunt like this from him after he’d shown up banging on her door the other night. Nan pushed off towards the dock. “No, I don’t.”
“Why not? Where’s Swanson?”
She pushed her wet hair from her eyes. “Brad’s on call, permanently. And I don’t want a ride because I can swim and you’re obviously stalking me.”
“I’m what!”
“You heard me.”
“I was concerned. Brad Swanson isn’t the right man for you. He’s an ass.”
“Sounds familiar.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You heard me.”
“I’m not anything like him.”
“If you say so.”
“Nan, just get in the damn boat.”
“No.”
“Fine. I won’t tell you they sighted sharks in the harbor last week.”
“You’re lying.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” Jackson then went into a perfect renditi
on of the theme from Jaws.
Nan’s heart sped up and she started looking around in the murky water. The sun was about to set. She screeched in frustration and swam over to the rowboat. “I’m going to shoot you for this, damn it. Why can’t you just stay out of my life?”
Jackson leaned over and pulled her into the boat. She was a briny mess.
“I don’t know, Nan. I just don’t know.” He kissed her and tears sprang to her eyes. She pushed him away.
“We want different things in life, Jack. Sex isn’t going to change that. Go get a life. Go find someone who wants what you do, and is willing to leave your past alone. I’m not that someone. I want more than a good time when you’re in the mood.” Just hold on Nan told herself. She could keep it together until she made it to her car, made it home.
“I deserved that,” Jackson said, his voice quiet, tight, completely unlike his smooth talking self.
Nan blinked away more tears. “No. You deserve more than that. You just aren’t willing to let yourself have it. Take me to the dock. I want to go home.”
Jackson looked as if he was going to say something else, but he didn't. He just rowed the boat to shore, his strong muscles straining under his shirt, reminding her of how good they felt against her, over her, beneath her. Everywhere. His jeans clung to his long lean legs and a breeze ferried in from the ocean, making him look as if she'd just ran her fingers through his silky hair. She clenched her fist and stared at the dark water, refusing to look at him again.
Once at the dock, he helped her get out of the boat. His touch was as unwelcome and as painful as her stabbing memories of him. Everything was too fresh, too raw. She couldn't deal with this.
"Where's your car, Nan?"
"I'll find it myself." She patted the tiny satin purse slung securely over her neck and under her arm. "Go! Go, row your boat!" She just wanted to be away from him. Away from all of the reminders of how good his loving was.
Another minute and she'd start crying.
Smooth Irish (Book 2 of the Weldon Series) Page 19