“Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Only if you’re a locksmith,” Lainie muttered.
He chuckled, his chin lifting just enough to free his face from the cocoon his collar had formed around it. The warm sound of it drew her gaze upward until it came to rest on his face, one that had grown even more handsome with age. His chestnut hair was close-cropped under his well-worn cowboy hat, and he wore just a hint of sideburns alongside his clean-shaven face. “It just so happens I can help you out,” he replied with that lone-dimpled grin she had never forgotten as he held up a small brass house key. “Justin called to tell me that he’d forgotten to leave a key under the doormat for guests he had coming to stay with him and asked if I could run the spare he’d given me over to the house.”
Guests? Had her brother avoided telling Jackson that she was the guest he was referring to? Was he unsure his friend would be comfortable with the given task if he knew the whole truth?
“Long-term guests,” Lainie supplied with a troubled frown. “Lucas and I are going to be living with my brother until we can find a place of our own.”
His eyes widened in surprise. “You’re moving home?”
“Moved,” she corrected. “As of today.”
He nodded as if struggling to find a response to the clearly unexpected news. Lainie found herself wondering if the kiss they’d shared all those years ago still lingered in the back of his thoughts as it did in hers. And not in the way a first kiss shared between two people should.
“It’s been hard on Lucas dealing with life in Sacramento since his father’s passing,” she tried to explain without going into detail.
“I can imagine it would be,” Jackson said. Then his expression grew serious. “I never got to tell you how sorry I was to hear about your loss.”
“You sent us a card and those beautiful wind chimes,” she said with a grateful smile.
A frown pulled at his mouth now. “I really am sorry. I should have done more.”
She shook her head. “You thought about us and that meant a lot.” She reached for the key he was still holding in his hand, feeling the chill of the metal through the fingertips of her glove. “Thank you for going to the trouble of running this over to us in this weather.” She glanced past him. “And by horse, at that.”
“I can still ride,” he muttered. “Just not competitively.”
The guilt that filled her at his reminder was almost painful. He’d loved the rodeo and she had taken that from him. “I just meant that you could have driven the key over,” she hurried to explain. “It’s cold out.”
He shrugged, his broad shoulders lifting and dropping beneath his leather coat. “Cold’s never bothered me. And it’s wasn’t any trouble running this over to you. And, Lainie...” he said, their gazes meeting.
“Yes,” she replied, unable to look away, and her heart skittered, just as it used to do when she was a lovesick teenager. That thought brought Lainie immediately back to reality. She was not that same girl. She was a widowed mother of a very lost child, and Jackson was no longer that same boy she had once known. He was a grown man with responsibilities, part of which revolved around the very thing that had kept them apart—the rodeo.
He smiled down at her. “Welcome home.”
“Thank you.” She glanced in the direction Lucas had run off in. “I should go see to my son.” She just prayed he’d had time to calm down enough for them to be able to talk. She hated watching her precious little boy slip so far away from her emotionally. Hopefully, her brother would be able to help bring him back.
“If I can ever do anything...” He let the offer trail off.
“We’ll be fine,” she replied. “But thank you for offering.”
Jackson tipped his hat and then turned to leave.
Lainie watched him go, tears filling her eyes as she took in the change in the confident gait she remembered. That slight hitch to his step made her heart ache. Jackson could have died that day, and she would have had to live with that guilt for the rest of her life, just as she did with her husband’s death.
* * *
You take away everything! Even my dad. I hate you! Jackson flinched at the memory of those harshly spoken words. Words that had to have broken Lainie’s heart. Will had died in a car accident. Why would her son blame Lainie for that?
Lainie, he thought to himself as he parked his truck in front of the sheriff’s office, regret filling him. The girl he had cared so much about. The girl whose heart he’d broken. If he had the chance to do it all over again, would he have gone about things differently? He’d asked himself that question more times than he could count over the years, but he remained torn over the answer. Lainie had been his best friend’s little sister, which had made him keep his growing feelings for her to himself. It had seemed like a line he shouldn’t cross. But he had and kissing her at the town’s annual Old West Festival Dance that night had been both eye-opening and life changing.
Jackson stepped down from his truck, closed the door and headed for the nearby building. He let himself inside and made his way to Justin’s office. Shoving open the door, he stepped inside. “You might have told me,” he said, his words tight.
His friend, the town’s sheriff, glanced up from paperwork and then sat back in his chair. “Would you have gone over to my place if I had?” he asked matter-of-factly.
It bothered him that his friend had a point. If he had known that Lainie and her son were the “guests” Justin had been referring to when he’d called to ask his favor, he might very well have sent someone in his place to deliver the key. He hadn’t been prepared to see Lainie again. Had even prepared himself emotionally to never see her again. Truth was, he’d made his choice a long time ago and understood her reasons for making certain their paths never crossed. All he could do was respect her wishes. A part of him was grateful for her determined avoidance of him. It meant she hadn’t had to see him as he was now, after the accident, hobbling about instead of moving with the sure-footed grace he’d once had.
“Your silence speaks volumes,” Justin said, pushing away from his desk to stand. “But you need to get past whatever it was that happened between the two of you before Lainie went off to college, because Lainie’s going to be living here. You will be seeing her, like it or not.”
If only it were that simple. “Nothing happened,” Jackson replied with a frown. Only because he’d stopped it from going anywhere. When Lainie had kissed him that night after they’d stepped outside for some fresh air following a round of heel-kicking dances and then a long, slow dance, he’d been taken by surprise. He should have put an end to things right then and there, but he hadn’t. He’d kissed her back. And when the kiss ended, all the emotions she’d held back for so long spilled out of her. She loved him. Wanted to give up the full-ride academic scholarship she gotten to go to San Diego State University and stay in Bent Creek instead, so she could be with him. Lainie would have traded an opportunity very few were ever blessed with to be his girl. And someday, he knew, she would have resented him for it.
“All I know is that Lainie thought the world revolved around you. To the point I thought that maybe someday...” Justin shook his head. “And then she began dating Will, marrying him right out of college.”
It was when she’d called him with news of her engagement that he’d been taken down emotionally, causing him to lose focus that night during his last ride in the rodeo finals in Vegas, giving Lucky Shamrock the upper hand. The sixteen-hundred-pound bull had put an end to Jackson’s career with one good stomp on Jackson’s leg. In that one day, he lost the girl he’d loved enough to let go, and then his career as a professional bull rider.
“It doesn’t matter now,” Jackson told him. “The past is in the past.”
“That means you and Lainie should be able to mend whatever fences the two of you have that need mending.”
This
time Jackson didn’t try to deny what his friend had called him out on. He was just grateful he hadn’t pressed for details. That kiss he’d shared with Lainie all those years ago had meant something to Jackson. More than it should have. “You still should have told me she was coming,” he said with a troubled frown.
Justin settled a hip atop the corner of his desk and folded his arms. “So you could leave town?”
“Why would I do that?” he asked.
“You and I both know that you would have done everything in your power to avoid her, all because of that barely noticeable limp you have, and right now Lainie needs you.”
Barely noticeable? Did his friend truly not realize how his injury had affected him, not only physically but mentally? And Lainie had been the one doing the avoiding. He was so busy mentally defending himself that it took a moment for Justin’s last statement to sink in. Lainie needs you.
Jackson met his friend’s sober gaze. “What are you talking about?”
Justin stood and crossed the room to close his office door. Then he turned to face him. “What I’m about to tell you doesn’t leave this room. My sister will have my head if Mom and Dad get wind of this. Lainie’s hoping things will change and they’ll never need to know what’s been going on.”
He’d never seen his friend so serious. “It stays here,” Jackson promised with a nod.
Justin returned to his desk, sinking into the chair with a heavy sigh. “Lainie is moving home because she’s emotionally wrung out and needed to get away from Sacramento.”
“Understandable,” he replied, his heart going out to Lainie. “She was widowed at twenty-eight, left to raise a young son all on her own.”
“She wouldn’t have had to handle anything on her own if only she had come home after Will died,” Justin said, a hint of frustration lacing his words.
“Maybe Lainie needed to at least try to handle things on her own,” Jackson pointed out. “Know that she could stand on her own two feet. Whatever her reason may be, it’s safe to say the past couple of years, twenty months to be exact, couldn’t have been easy for her. Or for Lucas, for that matter,” he added, recalling the boy’s angry outburst.
“You know the exact number of months?”
“It happened to Lainie,” Jackson replied.
Justin nodded. “Sort of burns itself into one’s memory, doesn’t it? And you’re right. It hasn’t been easy for her. Granted, Lainie always tried to sound strong whenever we talked on the phone, but I could hear the strain of what she’s been through in her voice, having to cope with such a tragedy on her own. I know when we went out there for Will’s funeral Lucas was angry with God for taking his father. We all talked to him, trying to get him to see that his anger shouldn’t be directed at the Lord, but at the bad choices people sometimes make. Like the teenager who ran that red light that night, causing the accident. Lainie said Lucas had been coming around, but then eight months ago he suddenly began acting out again. Not only at home, but at school and church as well.”
“Sounds like his grief is finally surfacing,” Jackson said, his heart going out to the little boy, who’d lost his father so young, and to Lainie, whose husband had been taken from her so tragically.
“It needs to,” his friend said. “Grief tends to fester when it’s shoved aside. Look at how it affected Garrett.”
Not only had Jackson and his brothers lost a sister, but his older brother had also lost his high school sweetheart. It had taken Hannah, Garrett’s new wife, and her son, Austin, to bring joy fully back into his life.
“I don’t want to even think about Lucas holding in his grief for seventeen years like my brother did,” Jackson said with a frown.
“Lainie hopes their moving back to Bent Creek, where Lucas will also have his grandparents and myself to turn to when things are troubling him, might be what my nephew needs to pull him from this grief-driven anger he’s been experiencing.”
Jackson could tell there were issues going on between Lainie and her son but didn’t know to what extent. “From what I witnessed today, when I took the key over to your sister, Lainie isn’t overreacting where her son is concerned.”
Justin’s brows furrowed. “Why? What did you see?”
“It was more what I overheard. Their voices were raised, at least her son’s was, when I rode up to your porch,” Jackson explained. “Lucas was having a meltdown of sorts and then ran off. Lainie doesn’t know I overheard their exchange of words, and I’d appreciate it if things could stay that way. Sounds like she’s got enough on her plate already without adding embarrassment to all the other emotions she’s dealing with right now.”
“I appreciate that,” his friend said, concern creasing his brow. “I had intended to take the day off and be home waiting for them when they came, but they arrived a couple days ahead of schedule and I am tied up here at work for several more hours.”
An impatient tapping sounded at the office door.
“Excuse me,” Justin said apologetically as he stood and crossed the room to answer it.
“Sheriff,” Mrs. Baxter, the middle-aged receptionist who worked the front desk, said a bit breathlessly, a troubled frown marring her features. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but Kathy Culler just called. Todd—that is Deputy Culler—has had an accident.”
“How bad?” Justin pressed, his words pulling Jackson back to the present.
“Bad,” she said fretfully. “Apparently, Deputy Culler fell off his ladder while putting Christmas lights up on their roof and broke his hip. Kathy told me they’d just taken him back for emergency surgery.”
Justin dragged a hand back through his dark brown hair. “The break must have been a serious one.”
She nodded. “Kathy isn’t one to get too overwrought about things, but she was definitely in a panicked state when she called to let us know.”
Jackson said a silent prayer for the injured man, knowing firsthand how hard recovery could be for a badly broken hip. Especially for an older man. Deputy Culler was in his late fifties and had been employed by Bent Creek’s Sheriff’s Department for as long as Jackson could remember. Could probably even have been sheriff somewhere along the way if he hadn’t had such an aversion to all the extra paperwork and responsibility the position demanded, stressors of the job Justin handled with ease.
“I’ll head over to the hospital to sit with her for a while as soon as I finish up here,” Justin told his frazzled secretary. “In the meantime, call Deputy Mitchell and explain the situation. See if there’s any chance he could cut his vacation short to come back and take over Deputy Culler’s shift. Tell him we’ll make it up to him.”
“I doubt he’ll be able to,” she replied, her frown deepening. “He’s on a ship somewhere in Alaska.”
Justin sighed. “I forgot he was going to be seeing Alaska by cruise ship.”
She managed a slight smile. “Probably because his vacations usually include a remote cabin somewhere. Not a fancy hotel on the water. Besides, you’ve got a lot on your mind with your sister and her son coming home to live with you.”
Jackson’s brows knitted together. Justin had told his receptionist about Lainie moving home, but had chosen to keep the news from him? Sure, Jackson had mentioned knowing there were issues between him and Lainie. But it made Jackson wonder exactly what his friend did know. Had Lainie opened up to her brother about the heartbreak Jackson had caused her? About how he had crushed all of her girlhood dreams about true love?
“I could probably reach him through the cruise line’s main office,” Mrs. Baxter suggested. “He could probably catch a flight home from his next stop.”
“No,” Justin said, shaking his head with a sigh. “Deputy Vance and I can split Deputy Culler’s shifts between us.”
“Only two of you doing everything?” she said, growing wide-eyed beneath the rim of her rhinestone-lined cat’s-eye glasses.
&n
bsp; “It’ll only be for ten or so days,” he assured her. “Then Deputy Mitchell will be back and can take over his share of the extra workload. In the meantime, I’ll see if we can bring in additional help until we’re back to a full crew.”
She shrugged. “I suppose that’s all we can do for now. Thank the Lord above that Bent Creek is a peace-loving town or we would be in real trouble.”
Justin offered her a reassuring smile. “If that was an issue, I’d just deputize Jackson here to fill in. He’s good with a rope. Could lasso any criminal who dared to step foot in our little town.”
The older woman looked his way and Jackson smiled. “If it ever came down to it, I wouldn’t even wait for him to ask. I’d volunteer.” His gaze slid over to Justin. “Because that’s what friends are for. To help each other out in times of need.” And Justin had been there for him plenty of times over the years. Especially after Lucky Shamrock had sent Jackson to the hospital with a crushed leg and fractured hip. Justin was always checking in on him. He’d driven Jackson to countless physical therapy sessions and had picked Jackson up those times depression threatened to claim him.
“That’s good to know,” the older woman said, sounding a little less harried. Looking to Justin, she said, “I’ll call Kathy and let her know you’ll be stopping by.”
“Thank you,” Justin said, closing the door behind the older woman’s departing form. Then he turned to Jackson. “This couldn’t have happened at a worse time.”
“Not so sure Todd had much say-so over the timing,” Jackson pointed out with a small grin, hoping to ease some of his friend’s stress.
“Maybe not, but the fact remains I’m going to be spending most of my time working.”
“In other words, nothing’s changed,” he pointed out. His friend was very committed to the position he’d been appointed to and worked long hours already as it was.
His Christmas Redemption Page 19