Forgiving Jackson (13 page)

“I don’t care about any of that. I can’t go to Nashville.”

“Sure you can.” He kept driving. “See? There’s a sign right there that says we’re going the right way.”

“No, Jackson! I mean it. I thought we were going to Beauford.
I cannot go to Nashville
!” Her palms were sweating and her breath was coming fast.

Abruptly, he pulled to the side of the road. Relief washed over her. It was close enough to walk home. She loosened her seat belt and opened the door.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Jackson said.

But she wasn’t a horse and she didn’t have to stop. Her feet hit the ground, but she had taken no more than three steps before strong arms encircled her from behind.

It wasn’t reasonable that a modicum of calm passed through her. A man’s touch should have panicked her further but it didn’t. Still, she had to get away from him and any possibility of going to Nashville. It was huge and she didn’t know the streets or where she could run for help. She tried to break away but he gently pulled her more firmly against him.

“Shhh,” he whispered against her temple. “Calm down, Emory. I’m not going to hurt you and I’m not going to make you go to Nashville.”

She believed him and relaxed.

“I never thought you would hurt me.”

“I’m glad.” And he didn’t move or say anything else. But he didn’t let her go either. After a time he said, “Better?”

She nodded. “I just want to go home.”

“Do you?” He turned her to face him. “If you do, I’ll take you. I’ll never take you anywhere you don’t want to go. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I planned to go to Nashville. So you thought we were going to Beauford?”

“Yes. There was a time when I didn’t leave the plantation grounds, but I go to Beauford all the time now.”

“Then if you were okay with going to Beauford when we started out, maybe you can be now.”

“I’m not sure … ” She did not want to return to the days when she couldn’t go to Beauford but she wanted to go home, too.

He smiled that smile. “When I think of how Sammy slaved over these pants—merciful heaven! The putting up of the ironing board. The putting water in the iron. And he had to run down a can of starch.” He shook his head and closed his eyes. “All for naught.”

She laughed a weary little laugh. “That would be a shame.”

“Good.” He opened her door and helped her back inside.

As Jackson settled into the driver’s seat, Emory folded her hands into her lap.

“Thank you.” Though she was unsure what she was thankful for—the comfort or his willingness to change the plan.

He reached over and cupped her cheek. “Emory, you don’t have to be thankful for basic consideration—not from me.”

“Then thank you for that.”

And a gift from the universe came in that moment. They both laughed and the cloud of awkwardness lifted.

Jackson took her hand. “I want you to think about going to Nashville. Not tonight. I don’t mean that. But some time this summer. If you decide you would like to try to go, tell me. I’ll take you. And I promise you this: If we get halfway there and you change your mind, I’ll turn around. If we get all the way there and you don’t want to get out of the truck, I’ll turn around. I won’t ask you to explain. I won’t try to talk you into anything. You’ll have all the power.”

Something happened to her heart then, something wonderful, though she feared it wouldn’t serve her well in the future. Best not to think about that or try to label it.

“You really are the good guy of country music, aren’t you?”

“That’s what they say.” He started the truck and turned it toward town. “So what’s it going to be? Burgers at The Dairy Barn or pizza at The Crafty Pie? Or I like those grilled cheese sandwiches at the drugstore lunch counter—though not as much as I like sitting on those tall stools. And there’s The Café Down On The Corner, but I think they just have bar food at night.”

“You’re forgetting Miss Laura’s Tearoom and Gossip Parlor.”

“I didn’t forget. Unless she’s redecorated and added something that used to moo or oink to her menu, I can’t go there.”

“She’s not open tonight, anyway. You may not know about Mill Time. They renovated the old cotton mill a few years ago. It’s pretty nice.”

“Is that m-i-l-l or m-e-a-l?”

“What do you think?”

“Never let it be said that Beauford ever misses an opportunity for a good pun. Mill Time it is.”

When they drove down Main Street, Emory pointed to a tiny storefront next to The Pottery Wheel. “That’s Neyland MacKenzie’s new jewelry and silver shop—Sparkle.”

“MacKenzie?” Jackson said. “I don’t know her.”

“She’s the football coach’s daughter.”

“Right.” Jackson nodded. “My brothers played for him. I didn’t.”

“You didn’t want to?”

He shrugged. “Never gave it any thought. By then I knew what I was going to do.”

“Really?”

“Sure. And I’m willful. The town looks great.”

“I love that Buckles Hardware, which hasn’t changed in forty years, is sandwiched between the glassblowing studio and the basketmakers. I think it reminds everyone that this is a real town and real people live here. It’s not some kind of amusement park for craftsmen.”

“Is that a reminder to me that the fate of these people depends on Around the Bend?”

“No, Jackson. I don’t think you need reminding. I think you’re very intelligent and you only have to be told once.”

“Have you told the staff what’s going to happen?” They arrived at the old mill.

“How can I tell them what’s going to happen when I don’t know myself?”

“All right, then. Not going to argue with you tonight.”

• • •

Jackson was pleasantly surprised that, despite the name, Mill Time was a good-looking place with good-smelling food. Since it was Thursday night, there was a fairly light crowd.

A thin, blond woman at the hostess desk broke into a smile when she saw them and a bit of dread washed over him. He was expecting to have to morph into Jack Beauford, Superstar, but she barely gave him a look before embracing Emory.

They cooed over each other like women do and Emory said, “Abby, could we have an out-of-the-way table?”

“Sure thing.” She ushered them to a cushy, red leather booth in the corner.

“So you’re on hostess duty tonight?” Emory asked.

The woman wrinkled her nose. “Yes. Priscilla needed off. No tips when I hostess but I can always use the hours.”

When Jackson had worked events at Around the Bend, Aunt Amelia had forbidden him to say personal things to guests but Emory and this Abby seemed to be friends.

“Abby, this is Jackson Beauford,” Emory said and Jackson sprung to his feet. He did not offer his hand. Amelia’s voice drifted through his head.
A gentleman waits for a lady to offer her hand.
He sometimes worried women who didn’t know that would think he was being a snob. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to break the rule. “Jackson, this is Abby Whitman.”

“One of the Beauford brothers, then?” Abby laughed a little. “Dumb question. Though I suppose you could be a cousin.”

“No. I’m a brother. The oldest.” He smiled big. She smiled pleasantly but was visibly unimpressed.

“Pleased to meet you. I’ll send Conley right over to get your drinks.”

“Bring Phillip out to spend the day with me soon,” Emory said.

Jackson sat back down. “She pretended like she didn’t know who I am.”

“She wasn’t pretending.” Emory picked up her menu. “Abby moved here two years ago from Boston with her husband. He was a stained glass artist apprenticed to Heath Beckett at the Spectrum Factory. Abby was pregnant. Her husband had a caving accident and died. Now Abby has a one-year-old and works every second possible. We hire her for events when we can. Gwen and I watch her baby sometimes. She doesn’t have much time for pop culture.”

When you came right down to it, that’s all he was—pop culture. Pretty soon, he wouldn’t even be that.

“That’s really tough. Why doesn’t she go back to Boston? Assuming she has family there.”

“She doesn’t want to. She likes it here. A lot of people do.”

That again.

He opened his mouth to respond but caught movement out of the corner of his eye. A family of four came toward them—parents and a pair of teenage girls, twins from the look of them. Fans. He knew the look.

“Excuse me.” Jackson said to Emory as he got to his feet.

The father extended his hand. “Mr. Beauford.”

“Jack.” He shook the man’s hand and smiled at the mother and the girls, who giggled.

“Sorry to interrupt your dinner but my girls, Catherine and Cecily, really wanted to meet you.”

“Not at all. Are you folks visiting Beauford?”

“Yes,” the mother said. “We’re in town to pick up some boots we had custom-made for our daughters.”

He turned his attention to the teenagers. “So, twins?”

The girls laughed and nodded.

“I have twin brothers. Don’t do what they did. Once, they had an English test and an economics test the same day, so they each studied for one and swapped clothes between classes and pretended to be each other. Unfortunately, their handwriting wasn’t the same and they got the same questions wrong both times. It did not end well.”

“We should do that!” one of the girls said.

“Totally!”

“Promise me you won’t. Give me your address and I’ll fix you up with some signed CDs.”

The mother wrote the address and Emory found some paper for him to give out autographs. As the family faded away, he sat back down.

“You were very nice to them,” Emory said.

“They pay the bills.” He picked up his menu.

Emory’s phone rang. She frowned and looked at the screen.

“It’s Brett. I wonder why he’s calling me instead of Dirk.”

“Dirk had to go out of town. Go ahead and answer.”

“Hello, Brett,” she said. “I’m out for dinner. No. He’s with me. Really? No, I don’t know anything about that.” She met Jackson’s eyes and shook her head. “Take a picture and send it to me.”

“What’s that about?”

“Just a second.” She messed with her phone and studied the screen. “Who is this?” She handed him the phone.

What the hell?
“That’s Ginger. My personal assistant—former personal assistant. Where is she?”

“I thought so, though I just saw her that one time at the funeral. She’s at the guardhouse in a taxi.” She dialed the phone. “Brett. Let her in. We’ll be right home.”

His head began to pound.

Still, when Emory’s back was turned, he discreetly slipped two hundred-dollar bills under the edge of his bread plate. He was in the parking lot before he realized that, as hostess, Abby wouldn’t be getting the tip.

But he had bigger problems than that waiting at Beauford Bend.

Ginger had been at Beauford Bend for ten minutes and Emory had already had enough of her—or to be fair, her and Jackson together. They had started squabbling the second they saw each other and hadn’t let up yet. Emory poured a glass of Chardonnay and set it before Ginger at the Beauford Bend kitchen table.

“Do you want some wine?” Emory asked Jackson.

“Do I want some
wine?
Do I
look
like a wine drinker? Have you
seen
me wear a tutu?”

“Don’t talk to her like that!” Ginger said. “Plenty of manly men drink wine. Your brother, Gabe, drinks wine. I’ve seen him.”

“Gabe would drink Crisco oil and eat the bottle it came in. He’s no standard for anything.”

“You’re in an ill temper because you’re hungry.” Emory didn’t care for the tone of Ginger’s voice.

“I am not!” Jackson folded his arms over his chest.

“Yes, you are. I’d be able to tell a continent away.”

“Which is where you’re supposed to be.”

“As it happens, Aruba is located in North America, as is Tennessee and the surrounding areas.”

“That so?” Jackson rose from the table and got a beer from the refrigerator. “I didn’t go to Vandy or Harvard”—he cut his eyes at Emory—“for some fancy education. I had to go out and earn a living.”

He defiantly slammed himself back into the chair across from Ginger.

“I think they teach basic geography in elementary school.” Ginger winced and struggled to straighten her walking-cast-clad leg. Jackson jumped to his feet and helped her prop her foot on a chair.

“Is that better?” he asked gently.

“Yes. Thanks.” Ginger took a sip of her wine.

“You know what would be even better?” Mad Jackson was back. “If you were in damned Aruba in that beach house where I put you with that maid and cook!”

“I might be if you’d answer your phone and deal with your own business!”

“I told you to change your number and stop tending to my business.”

Emory put a hand up. “I’m going to say goodnight. Ginger, I’ll see about having a bed set up for you downstairs.” With any luck, Tom and Mike would be in the exercise room. They often came in before the late shift to work out. It wasn’t their job to move furniture but they’d do it for her. She could put Ginger in the small library off her office.

“That’s not necessary,” Ginger said. “It takes me a little time but I can navigate the stairs.”

“All right. All of the guest rooms are clean and ready. Take your pick.”

“I haven’t been here in a long time but Amelia always put me in a room with blue striped wallpaper.” Emory remembered that Ginger had done a turnaround trip on the day of Amelia’s funeral and hadn’t spent the night—and Jackson hadn’t stayed much longer. “Though I suppose it could have been changed.”

“Not much. It’s the second door on the left in the west wing. Goodnight.”

“Wait, hon,” Ginger said. “Would you ask the cook to come up and make Jackson something to eat? And frankly, I could use a little something, too.”

“Not happening,” Jackson said. “Gwen’s worked all day and she’s got two little kids. Plus, her husband’s out of town.” He turned to Emory. “Send Sammy in here.”

Emory shook her head and started pulling eggs, bacon, cheese, and butter out of the commercial refrigerator.

“Sammy doesn’t live on the premises.”

“I didn’t know that. He’s always here.”

“No, he’s not.” Though, to be fair, Sammy hung around a lot when he wasn’t on duty. He might even be around somewhere now, but if he was, that was his business and she wasn’t going to put him to work.