He wasn’t sure if he should have made the offer. But he’d done it now, he would talk to her. He owed her that much. But he knew the whole truth could never be spoken, and that sent his head into a tailspin. Was there a way he could explain without telling her everything? Could he stop himself blurting out the truth when it came to it? Only time would tell, but for now there were windows that needed securing.
Not wanting to let go of her hands, he held on for a second longer, their eyes holding each other too. Jackson felt his face heat, and a familiar fire burned inside him. He felt, looking into her eyes, like he’d come home.
“Oh, my little Orange, I’ve missed you so much,” he blurted.
The words were out before he could stop them. He shut his mouth quickly, biting his lips to stop them re-opening. Silently cursing himself for being weak, he cleared his throat and dropped Clementine’s hands. He knew he was confusing her even further and hated himself for not being able to bite away the feelings that had risen in his chest.
“I need to go,” he said, turning abruptly without looking at her crestfallen face.
In the living room the wind hadn’t caused as much damage as he had first feared. The windows were still covered, though the wind flapped loudly through a small gap at the bottom of the large bay window at the front of the room. Jackson nailed the tarpaulin as firmly as he could without the help of Clementine. When it was sealed and safe, the adrenaline that had been pumping around his body dispersed. He dropped to his haunches, his head in his hands as he tried to make sense of the world around him.
Maybe that’s it. Maybe I’m thinking too large. I don’t need to make sense of the whole world around me, just the moment I’m in now.
The thought came to him as he rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. That was it. There was no need for him to try to repair ten years’ worth of hurt immediately, that was asking the impossible. What he needed to do was talk to Clementine, find out about her life, find out about her. If he did this, and if he opened up to her about his own life, maybe they could start to rebuild their friendship without delving too deep too soon. He had been asking too much of himself, not allowing either of them the space to just be around each other after such a long time.
Now he had an idea of how to start the conversation with Clementine, he couldn’t wait to get back to her. He stood, dropping the hammer and nails by the window in case he needed them later. The candles were still burning brightly around the farmhouse. He’d bought enough to last the few days he had been planning on staying, but the idea of reconnecting the electricity was now toying in his thoughts.
“I know I’ve already said this to you once today already,” he said, walking back to the kitchen. “But can we start over? I think I’ve been so blown away by seeing you that my brain has just been all over the place.”
The room was empty.
“Clementine?”
He pushed the kitchen door, checking to see if she was there. Nothing. He almost started opening the damp cupboards to see if Clementine had crawled inside and shut the doors behind her. An acidic bubble popped in his stomach at the only other explanation.
She’s gone.
A loud creak above his head made him duck instinctively. Dust drifted down from the ceiling and landed on the floor beside Jackson’s feet. He looked up, more dust stinging his eyes and rendering him sightless. He shook his head and wiped his watery eyes on the shoulder of his t-shirt. Fearing that the ceiling could be about to fall in on him, he made his way out to the hallway, eyes squeezed shut, hands outstretched so he didn’t bump in to anything sharp or hard.
“Jackson?”
Her voice lifted his head then sent icy fingers down his spine, the hairs on his neck shooting skywards as he realized she had gone upstairs.
“Clementine? Don’t move, stay exactly where you are. I’m coming up.”
11
The panic in Jackson’s voice sat like lead in Clementine’s stomach. She’d wandered up the stairs when he’d left for the living room, unable to sit still. Her limbs had felt twitchy and her head was light.
He said we can talk about anything.
She needed to go over in her mind what questions she wanted to ask him. What was the most important thing she needed to know? And she couldn’t do that sat in a small yard chair.
The stairs had creaked under her feet, but it had been barely noticeable past the sound of hammering from the front of the farmhouse. A few of the boards were disintegrating, darkness peeking through the gaps, and Clementine had been careful to step right over those. The candle she’d taken from the kitchen was in a makeshift candle holder fashioned from a jelly jar. The glass was warm in her hands, but it hadn’t given off a huge amount of light when she’d reached the second floor. It was almost as though the darkness was absorbing everything around it. She’d made her way to the one room she probably could have made her way to blindfolded.
The floorboards on the stairs creaked again.
“Clementine?” Jackson’s voice was getting nearer.
“In here,” she replied, not wanting to speak too loudly for fear of disturbing the darkness more than she had done already.
She was sitting on Jackson’s old bed. The mildew and damp tickled her nose as she spoke.
Why did he tell me not to move? What’s up here?
Fingers of fear crept up her spine as the darkness encroached. The light from her candle failed to reach the corners of the room.
“Hurry,” she said, panic bubbling in her voice.
“It’s okay, just keep very still, I’m nearly there,” Jackson said, his voice almost outside the room.
The door clicked open and seconds later Jackson’s head and torso appeared. She was sure the rest of his body was with him too, yet only the top half was illuminated by the candle he was holding. Wax dripped down onto his fingers, but he didn’t seem to notice the pain.
“Oh, Clemmie,” he puffed out a breath. “Thank goodness you’re okay.”
“What’s happened?” she said, her voice still low. “What’s wrong? I’m sorry I wandered off. I just couldn’t sit still.”
He walked over to where she sat and took a place next to her, the bed shifting under his weight, tilting her towards him.
“It’s okay, sorry to startle you. You kind of startled me!” he said, his free hand reaching over and taking hers. “It’s just, I’m not sure how safe it is up here, that’s all. Too many rotten floorboards. It’s a lottery whether you’d stand on one and end up back downstairs.”
Clementine let out a huge breath and felt her shoulders relax.
“Is that it?” she laughed. “I thought something really awful had happened. Trust you to be super careful.”
She felt him squeeze her hand, his body went tense beside her.
Jackson flinched at Clementine’s words. His skin crawled as images of his little brother climbing onto the old plough flashed in front of his eyes as if he was fourteen again.
I wasn’t careful though was I?
He shook his head, dragging himself back to the here and now, and to Clementine, who was looking at him quizzically.
“I’m sorry,” she said to him, her large eyes flickering in the candlelight. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
She looked down at their hands, still intertwined.
“Your mom would be onto us quicker than you were onto me if she knew we were holding hands in your bedroom! It’s a good job we left the bedroom door open.” She smiled sadly and shifted her position to face Jackson. “I was sorry to hear about your parents. I missed them, when you all left. I missed you all. I felt like a great big void had opened up in my life. Though I know I can’t have felt the loss as greatly as you all did.”
Jackson couldn’t speak past the lump in his throat.
“I’m so sorry about what your family had to go through. I missed Chase so much, he was like a younger brother to me. But I know he wasn’t my younger brother, he was yours. And I also know I can never tr
uly feel what you were feeling. I’m just sorry that I wasn’t able to be there for you. For you all.”
Jackson couldn’t look at Clementine, he knew he was the reason she couldn’t be there for him and his family. He hadn’t let her.
“I’m sorry I took that away from you too,” he whispered into the dark. “I’m sorry for everything I did. I’m back because I made my parents a promise. I promised that I would come back to Willingham when I could give Chase the headstone we weren’t able to give him before we left. That’s why I’m back here now. It’ll be ten years since he… since the accident and I felt it was time I granted their wishes.”
This time he did allow himself to turn his head in Clementine’s direction. Tears twinkled in her eyes. Jackson felt inexplicably drawn to her, despite the sirens claxoning in his head, warning him if he got too close she’d find out the truth about what happened.
Drawing his hands gently from hers, he ran his fingers through his hair, feeling the dust and dirt from the day’s work. All of a sudden a tiredness swept through his body like a tsunami. His shoulders slumped, drawing his head down with them. He felt Clementine move closer to him, the bed creaking under her, the floorboards creaking under the bed.
“Why don’t you come back to mine tonight? Don’t stay here on your own. It’s cold and damp, and you’ve got no electricity or heating, or proper lighting,” her face seemed to give off a light of its own. “I can’t guarantee my parents will be overly happy about it, but I think they’d rather see you with me than with Pete.”
Jackson’s brow crumpled.
“Pete?”
The side of Clementine’s mouth twitched in a small smile.
“Yep, Pete. He’s the ex-boyfriend who I was telling you about at the store. I left him because he wouldn’t take no for an answer when it came to… well, you know?”
Even in the dim light, Jackson noticed her cheeks pinken.
“I wanted to be married, to make a life, a proper partnership, but he was too interested in his businesses. He was very money orientated, which is why I can understand him making it difficult for me now. My parents didn’t like the way he pushed me to do things I didn’t want to, mostly with the business. I’m not interested in pushing profit margins to the max, I just wanted to make cakes that people loved. Anyway, I’m rabbiting. I’m sure it’ll be fine with Mom and Dad.”
Jackson shifted his weight, turning now so his whole body was facing Clementine. The floor groaned again under the weight of the bed. He picked up her hands in his, catching her gaze before it flickered to the floor.
“Not to be mean about another human who I’ve never even laid eyes on, but he sounds like a delight!” he said wryly. “But I don’t want to impose. I’m fine here.”
As he spoke he felt the bed move underneath him. It let out a groan like a bear with a sore head. The floorboards underneath answered with equal pain. Clementine’s eyes widened, the whites glowing brightly. Jackson felt his heart rate quicken and he shrugged it off as fear of landing down in the living room.
“Okay,” he admitted. “Maybe I’m not okay right here. But let’s get downstairs in one piece and I’ll be super.”
He stood, precariously balanced on his tiptoes, and held his hand out to Clementine. She took hold with a surprisingly strong grip and slowly rose next to him, the floor groaning with the movement. They walked as carefully as they could to the door of the bedroom and down the dark corridor toward the stairs. Jackson stopped at the door adjacent to his own, firmly shut tight, just as it had been when his family had left the farm house. He felt a tug in his heart. He wanted more than anything to open that door, to say hi to Chase, to feel close to his brother again, to apologize to him.
It’s too late for that.
Clementine pulled at his hand and Jackson followed her, glad of the reprieve. Halfway down the stairs he felt his hand being squeezed.
“Is that why you’re living like this now?” she asked. “Is that why the farm has gone to wrack and ruin?”
“I’m sorry, you’ve lost me?” he said.
“The headstone,” she said. “Have you been saving for it? I hear they’re crazy expensive. And if you promised your parents, well, is that why you’re having troubles with cash flow?”
They’d reached the bottom of the stairs and Jackson blinked away the strain his eyes were feeling from the darkness of the second floor. A few of the candles had burnt out, but it was still bright enough to see. He stood for a moment, trying to search his brain for an answer to Clementine’s question. He could tell her the truth, the almost truth; that he was a self-made billionaire with enough money to fix up the farm-house and buy a gravestone made of solid gold if he wanted to. But how could he tell her that without telling her why he didn’t want to fix up the farm? Besides, she’d already made it quite clear that money didn’t interest her in the slightest. In fact, quite the opposite. It would probably be best if he didn’t mention his wealth at the moment.
“It’s okay,” she smiled at him. “There’s no need to feel bad about it. It’s a noble reason to have no money. At least you’re not ruining people’s lives to make more than you’d ever know what to do with.”
She moved a step closer to him, so close he could smell the sweet scent of vanilla and coconut that was so familiar. His breath caught in his throat.
“It’s what your parents would have wanted, and I’m sure they are so proud of you.”
She bit her bottom lip and Jackson imagined how sweet it must taste.
Stop it, Jax!
“But they wouldn’t have wanted you suffering. You don’t deserve to suffer, not when there’s a warm, dry, clean farmhouse with a hot cocoa and sprinkles waiting for you just down the road.”
A gust of wind rattled the house. The flames of the candles flickered dangerously close to their wicks, just as the heavens opened and a leak in the roof dampened Jackson’s hair with surprising accuracy. He raised an eyebrow at Clementine, the drips growing faster.
“Well, when you put it like that. Let me just grab my jacket.”
12
“Your dad and I have got a plan,” Clementine’s mom sang at the breakfast table the next morning as she ladled maple syrup onto a steaming stack of pancakes.
Clementine stood in the doorway of the kitchen, enticed out of bed by the delicious smells. Her stomach churned but it had nothing to do with hunger.
“Um, Mom, Dad, I’ve got something to tell you,” she said, but her mom wasn’t listening.
“We put our heads together after the baking disaster yesterday and thought maybe you’d like to set up shop here for a while? Just until you’ve figured out what your next steps will be.”
Clementine went to speak but her mom held up her hand, complete with dripping ladle.
“It’s okay, don’t worry about the money. We know it’s tight for you at the moment, we’re happy to sub you until things settle. You can pay us back in baked goods. Just so long as you’re not baking them in my kitchen.”
“But Mom!”
Clementine looked to her dad for backup, but he just shrugged, a what are you gonna do look on his face as he tucked into his breakfast.
“We’ve spoken to the Carters, you remember them? Used to run the video store. They said they’d be happy to talk to you about their empty shop, about you taking it from them. They’re just glad the space will be useful again. It must be nearly three years that shop’s been empty. It’ll be good for the whole town, Clemmie. Our own bakery! We’re all going to look at the space after breakfast.”
“I’m not, I’ve got fields to see to!” her dad piped up, happy to intervene when it suited him.
Her mom flicked her dad around the ear.
“You and I are going to look at the shop after breakfast, love,” she said to Clementine. “I’m so excited. Eat up, you’ll need lots of energy for all the plans you’ll be making this afternoon.”
“Sounds to me like you’ve made them all for me, Mom,” Clementine replied,
not moving from the doorway.
“Sit down, I want to talk to you about last night before we go.” Her mom started to rise from the table, no doubt about to grab a plate and stack it with pancakes for Clementine. “I want to check you’re okay.”
“Mom! Please, just listen to me for a second.”
“Oh no, what happened?” Her mom slumped back in her dining chair. “I knew it was a bad idea you going to meet Jackson.”
Her dad coughed.
“I did,” her mom said pointedly. “He’s nothing but trouble. How can a good person let their family home turn into such a state? What did he do to you, honey?”
“Nothing, Mom! He’s broke. That’s why the farm looks like it does. He’s been working hard to save for a proper headstone for Chase’s grave, that’s why he doesn’t have any money to fix things. And it was uninhabitable, you should have seen it. The rain was coming in through the roof by the end of the evening so I…”
A pause filled the kitchen with as much thick air as the burnt cake had done.
“I’m sorry, love, I didn’t quite catch the end of that sentence,” her mom said, wringing her hands together.
Clementine cleared her throat.
“So I invited him to stay here, in the spare room, obviously,” she added quickly, seeing her mom’s eyes widen.
“Hello, Mrs. Harper. Mr. Harper.”
The three of them turned as Jackson appeared behind Clementine. Fearing the worst, Clementine screwed her eyes shut, waiting for the outburst that would inevitably spew from her mom or maybe even her dad, though he was more likely to just up and leave—hopefully not in the direction of his gun.
“Jackson,” her mom screamed.
Here we go.
“Look at you. Oh, love, how can I be angry with that face?”
What?
Clementine tentatively peeled open one eye. Her mom was up from her seat and halfway around the kitchen table to Jackson, her arms held out.
“Mrs. Harper!” Jackson replied, the relief in his voice was palpable.
My Forever Billionaire Page 6