She shook her head but tapped her cup to his. “I don’t know about everything, but I have been surprising myself with how good I feel when I’m with you.” Her eyes widened and her face turned red. “I meant in bed.” Puffing out a breath, she looked away. “Awkward.”
Jackson took her chin between his thumb and finger and turned her face back to his. “Darlin’, I’m a big fan of you saying what’s on your mind without holdin’ back.”
She smiled a little. “It’s one of those bad habits I may never get over.”
Staring into her eyes for long moments, he gave in to the urge to open up to her some. “Don’t try to. It’s what makes you special.” He kissed her, tasting the tang and sugar of her drink, then letting his tongue tickle the roof of her mouth.
When he ended the kiss, she breathed rapidly for a few moments.
He liked making this amazing woman lose her breath. Jackson slid an arm around her, watching the sun settle behind clouds on the horizon. “It’s gonna be a nice sunset.” He kissed her temple. “Fitting, since I saw the sunrise after driving you home this morning.”
“You’re going to wear me out, cowboy.”
“I’m doin’ my best, darlin’.” He took a long pull on his beer.
“What kept you at home this morning?” She liked to be direct, that was for sure.
“I found a box in Dusty’s safe.” Jackson knew he could trust her with the information, but did he trust himself not to get emotional about what he’d found?
Rori just looked at him, didn’t push.
“It seems my dad kept a scrapbook on each of his sons.” Once it was out, it didn’t seem so monumental.
“That’s great.” She licked her lips. “You looked at them?”
He nodded. “I looked at my brothers’ books. They started with baby pictures and went all the way up to current.”
“Hm.” She sipped her drink.
Throughout the day, Jackson’s thoughts had drifted back to those books, remembering small details about Dylan’s band, orKillian’s expertise with ropes, or Rogue’s skills at the poker table. All three were guys he’d like to know, under normal circumstances, but having to accept them as family still just didn’t set right.
“You haven’t looked at yours yet?” Her voice sounded small, tentative.
“Not yet.” He didn’t know when he’d be ready for that stroll down memory lane. Maybe not this trip to Red Creek. Or even the one after that. But maybe someday. Or maybe not. His dad’s death pulled his mood in one direction, while Dusty’s betrayal and his intentional isolation of his four sons shoved Jackson’s anger to the forefront of his ragged emotions.
“If you’d like, and I won’t be upset at all if you say no…” She swallowed. “I’d be glad to look at it with you.” Her brows knitted together.
He barely breathed. Her offer was so kind and sincere, he didn’t know how to answer, how to even decide.
“I mean…” She took a sip of her drink. “It’d make it more like you were showing a new friend the scrapbook of your life, instead of thinking of it as your father’s collection.” She tipped her head, her eyes looking worried. “Does that make any sense at all?”
He forced a small smile, then let it grow bigger as her idea grew on him, made a hell of a lot of sense, then felt so right that it surprised him. “Yeah, it does make sense, Rori. Thank you for thinking of it. I’m gonna take you up on that offer.”
Amazing woman. How was he going to stick to his plan and leave Red Creek Sunday morning without a backward glance?
Chapter Nine
Rori sat on the big leather couch in the two-story living room of Dusty Walker’s house, staring at the flat-stone fireplace that rose to the ceiling, the many-pointed buck head hanging above the mantel, the balcony that ran the length of the second floor, and the grand wooden staircase that connected the levels. The place was big and roomy, but cold and silent.
They’d eaten the killer cheese-stuffed hamburgers that Lou had prepped and Jackson had cooked on the little grill hanging over the edge of the pontoon. They’d watched the sunset, then headed back to the dock where, as if by magic, Lou and Marliss stood waiting to clean the pontoon, and had shooed away Jackson and Rori when they’d tried to help.
At the pool in back of the house, Rori had peeled off her shorts, accompanied by much whistling and suggestive language from Jackson, then they’d swum and floated on their backs, holding hands and looking at the stars until Jackson announced he was ready to tackle the scrapbook.
After showering off in the pool house, they came inside, and Jackson had gone to get the scrapbook and drinks.
Rori had almost rescinded her offer to look at the book with Jackson. She felt too invested in him already, especially for a five-day fling, which was all he was. Nothing more.
And if she kept telling herself that, she’d believe it sooner or later.
He padded into the room, barefoot, in sweatpants and a T-shirt, carrying a bottle of red wine and two glasses and the big scrapbook under one arm. “Wine okay? Otherwise Marliss has more of her margarita concoction in the refrigerator.”
“Wine sounds lovely.” She shivered. In the air conditioning, with her hair wet and just her shorts and tank top on, her skin goosebumped.
Jackson sat next to her and grabbed a remote. “Watch this.” He pointed it at the fireplace and flames filled the big opening. “Decadence is air conditioning and a fire on an eighty-degree night.”
She laughed. “We deserve it, just this once.”
“Agreed.” Pouring wine, he handed her a tall, stemmed glass and held his up. “Here’s to reliving the past and enjoying the hell out of the present.”
Rori tapped her glass on his and sipped, wishing there was a future, but knowing that was impossible.
He set down his glass and picked up the scrapbook, laying it on his thighs. “You ready?” His fingers traced the J embossed in the cover.
“Are you ready?” For him to share this with her had to be incredibly difficult.
He took a deep breath and opened the cover, letting it lay on her lap. A big eight-by-ten-inch picture of tiny Jackson filled the first page.
“Oh my gosh!” She laughed through the moisture that filled her eyes. “Look at you.” A full head of inch-long brown hair, serious blue eyes, and the strong jaw she’d come to adore kissing.
“Yeah, jeez, the damn picture is nearly life-size.” His voice was soft though, and his mouth curved up a tiny bit.
The outfit they’d put him in looked like a tiny sailor suit, leaving his chubby arms and legs bare.
“Big feet.” She snuggled closer to him, loving the closeness, the intimacy of this moment.
“You know what they say about guys with big feet.” He glanced at her, his eyes narrow.
A surge of desire raced through her. “I can vouch for the truth in that one.” She wagged her brows at him.
He chuckled, and turned the page. It was a picture of the three of them, baby Jackson in his mom’s arms and Dusty with his arm around her, the ocean in the background.
“She’s beautiful.” Petite and devoid of makeup, his mother’s long, curling brown hair shone in the sunshine, her deep blue eyes sparkled just like Jackson’s, and her smile could easily be seen from space. “She looks happy.”
“She was. She is. She misses him, though.”
“What does your mother think…” Rori tugged at her earlobe. “Never mind.” Thankfully, she was able to choke back that question before it flew from her mouth.
“No, ask me. It’s good to get stuff talked about.”
“Okay, but tell me if it’s too personal.” She sucked in a breath. “What does she think of Dusty having three other sons by three other women?”
He stared at the fire. “She didn’t seem all that surprised when I told her.” He worked his jaw. “I had to wonder if Dusty slipped up some, calling her by another name, or me by another name, maybe.” He shrugged. “She might have hired a private eye. I don’t
know. It was good that she had a week between finding out about Dusty passing and learning about his other families.”
Rori couldn’t imagine loving someone and knowing they were legally bound to another. Even worse, finding out that she wasn’t the only extramarital family he had. Jackson’s mother had to have been pretty deep in love with Dusty, and pretty darn strong.
He tapped the bottom of the picture. “Dad bought us this house just a block from the ocean, and it has this rooftop deck.”
“Oh wow, that’s your house?” She’d love to have a view like that from her place.
“Yeah. Dad met Mom—her name is Sapphire—when he came into her pottery shop in the downtown section of Bandon.” Jackson looked like his thoughts drifted west for a few moments.
“Is she still a potter?”
“She is, teaches classes and employs five people full-time now. But back then, it was just her in the shop, doing it all and living in an apartment above it.” He glanced at Rori. “Just like you.”
A snort escaped her. “Me, but with creativity.” Rori wished she had an ounce of artistic talent.
“You’re creative, darlin’. Don’t doubt it for a moment. The things you do with hardware and software, man, I’m so frickin’ impressed, I want to kneel at your feet and worship you.” He winked.
His words filled her with pride, but the vision of him down there clenched a sexy ache in her core. “Maybe later?”
“Definitely later.” He gave her a soft, quick kiss, then went back to the book.
Rori touched the corner of the page. “Dusty looks happy.” The man had a big grin, standing nearly a foot taller than Sapphire, his brown hair was cut short, but his brown eyes had the same happy gleam as Sapphire’s. “You resemble him when he was younger.”
Jackson just looked at the picture. On the next page, a dozen more baby pictures chronicled his growth, his rolling over, and finally, his sitting up. All of them showed him smiling.
He flipped pages, commenting on the boat rides pictured, swimming at the beach, catching his first crab, and his first day of preschool.
She held back her ooohs and awwws as much as she could, but her chest filled to capacity with the sweetness of the little man with the combed-back hair and shiny-clean face. “You were just an angel.”
“Ha.” He turned the page. “I was happy, mostly, and I dealt with the fact that the other kids had dads around all the time, but I didn’t.”
“I can’t imagine.” Her parents were her foundation, her father was her greatest supporter.
Jackson sat back, drinking his wine. “You see your parents a lot?”
“I do, when I’m in KC, and once in a while they make the trip to Red Creek.” She rolled her eyes. “The sightseeing here isn’t that great, so they don’t stay long, but I appreciate that they make the effort.”
“You said they’re teachers?”
“Yep. Mom teaches calculus and Dad biology at a private high school.” Rori shrugged. “They’ve been offered positions at colleges, but they’re not interested in making money. Instead, they feel kids at that age need a lot of guidance and encouragement, and they’ve both got minors in psychology.”
“Holy hell, that’s how you turned out so well.”
A laugh blasted out of her. “I was a social mess in high school, as you can imagine, with my propensity to say whatever thoughts pop into my mind.” She thought about her teen years, her awkwardness and book smarts, valedictorian, teachers’ pet. “I was a virgin until I was…” Oh hell, had she just said that aloud?
****
Jackson’s head jerked back of its own power and laughter roared out of him. This woman. What the heck kind of treasure had he stumbled upon? “Oh darlin’, you can’t just blurt out half of that sentence.” He laughed, setting down his wine glass to keep it from sloshing out.
Red flooded her cheeks and she sighed. “I’m not much of a mystery, am I.” She glanced at him, then away. “I was a sophomore in college before I had a boyfriend.”
Cupping his hand at the back of her neck, he massaged her warm, soft skin. “I like that you were old enough to make the right decision.”
She nodded. “You know me. I had to have all the facts and data lined up perfectly first.”
He laughed again, and when she didn’t say more, and sipped her wine a little quicker, he gave her a break and went back to flipping pages in the scrapbook.
“Is that you at a rodeo?” She pointed to a picture of Jackson looking downright giddy at age ten.
“Yeah, Dad would take me to the rodeo in Myrtle Creek every year, starting when I was about six. It was our thing, and I looked forward to it for months before the event.” His roomy bedroom had posters on the wall from each of the rodeos, and signatures of the cowboys and cowgirls procured for him by Dusty filled each poster.
The memories flooded him and a burning feeling collected behind his eyes, moistening them. “I’d sit on the front porch all morning in my boots and jeans and cowboy hat just waiting for Dad to pull up in his rental car.” Jackson could almost smell the salty spindrift from the ocean waves, and feel the warm June sun on his shoulders. “I saved up my allowance, did extra chores, so I’d have enough to buy Dad and me a hotdog and coke.” He’d been so proud to be able to pay, and Dad’s chest had always swelled when he’d told the hot dog vendor, “My son’s treating me today.”
The moisture swelled and he had to look away and blink, had to turn his memories from those sweet times to the year he turned fifteen. The anger flowed in, then. “It ended when I was fifteen. I woke that morning and Mom was sitting at the kitchen table, her eyes red as if she’d been crying.
Rori took his hand. He hadn’t realized his whole body had gone stiff as new rope.
Looking into her eyes, he saw real compassion, true interest.
“Dad wasn’t coming that weekend. He couldn’t get away.” Jackson had felt disappointed that day, but it wasn’t worth tears. “I sat and rubbed Sapphire’s arm, told her it was fine. But then she got angry, blurted that it wasn’t fair, that just because his wife wanted him to accompany her…”
At first, the word had gone in Jackson’s ear and directly out the other, as if she hadn’t just revealed a secret that would change his life.
“Then Mom’s eyes widened, and she froze.”
“I asked, her, ‘Wife? What are you talking about?’”
Rori’s hand tightened in his and her breathing sped up.
“Mom started crying and she covered her face with her hands. I remember her words as if she said them yesterday. ‘Oh honey, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for you to find out this way’.”
“Jackson, I’m sorry.” Rori’s eyes shone with moisture.
His chest hurt just reliving that day. “I remember standing up, but my head was spinning like I’d just gotten off a ride at the fair.” His world had changed with each passing second, with each recollection of the days, weeks, months that Dusty had spent away from them.
“I ran out of the house, in my boots and jeans and cowboy hat and belt buckle.” He glanced down, but he wasn’t wearing the one Dusty had given him when he’d turned ten. The same buckle his dad had given his three other sons. That wasn’t something he was ready to talk about. Not even with Rori.
She sniffed and wiped tears off her cheek with the back of her hand.
Jackson swallowed down his own emotion. “I ran and ran, just kept running. I ended up on the highway, and realized I was heading toward the rodeo.”
“Your mom must have been frantic.” Her voice shook.
“She was. I found out later she called Dad, and he got on his plane and flew out right then.” Jackson took in a few breaths, the drama of that day raising his blood pressure. “I hitched a ride that got me halfway there, then hitched again and got in a truck full of rodeo cowboys who were going to Myrtle Creek.”
“And so it began.” She smiled through her tears.
“Exactly. The hour I rode with them in that truck convi
nced me that it was the life I wanted to live.” No responsibilities except for getting to the rodeo on time, no emotional attachments, no roots.
“How much of that do you think was because of finding out about Dusty’s wife?” Rori looked too serious.
“There’s that psychologists’ daughter coming out.” He almost smiled, but knew he was deflecting her question. He’d asked himself the same thing a hundred times. “I’m just glad it wasn’t a circus Dad took me to every year. Can you imagine me in clown makeup?”
She chuckled, even though she looked upset. “I’m sorry, that was not something I should have said aloud.” When she tried to release his hand, he grasped hers a little tighter.
“No, it needed to be said. I’ve given it thought over the years, but it’d take a hell of a shrink and about ten thousand hours to figure out what went wrong with me.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you.” Rori’s declaration came out firm and sure. “You’ve lived your life the way you wanted. Not many people can honestly say that.”
She was right, he had done exactly what he’d wanted all these years, but was it still working for him? Or was he finally outgrowing his “running away to join the rodeo” phase?
“How did you get home?” She poured each of them a little more wine, then sipped hers, tucking her legs up under her and relaxing back into the cushions.
“Dad showed up about an hour into the rodeo. Just sat down next to me and handed me a hot dog and a coke.” Jackson remembered how his hands shook as he took them from Dusty, anger, disappointment, fear, all ricocheting around inside him, not knowing where to go, what to do.
“Dad said, ‘Son, we’ll talk on the way home,’ and for the first time, Dusty had looked old and frightened.”
Jackson flipped pages of the scrapbook, reading the headlines on articles about him winning a saddle at a rodeo, or visiting a children’s hospital, or wearing pink in October to support breast cancer research.
Rori sat silently, pressed against his side and looking at the book with him. Her silence was exactly what Jackson needed.
That talk, between Dad and him on the way home from the rodeo, had made him realize how fragile people were. How susceptible to being hurt by others. Like the way his mother had been hurt by Dusty. Jackson had vowed that day that he’d be nothing like his father. Instead, he’d find his happiness where he could, then move on before he got the chance to hurt anyone. The plan had worked for him, but it sure as fuck felt lonely.
Jackson: The Sons of Dusty Walker Page 9