Chapter Twenty-One
Jenny
Willow and Jackson laugh as they hold hands with my granddaughter, the three of them spinning in a circle together.
It makes my heart soar and ache in equal parts.
I wish I could have seen Jackson grow up. My fingers trace over the scar on my left arm. There’s no way that could have happened. I couldn’t even get myself into the shower back then.
Today has been the best day of my entire life.
My little granddaughter lifts her face to the sun, and we both smile. Her energy is infectious. It’s pure light.
Jackson turns, and I notice the line of his jaw.
It reminds me of the senator. Somehow it looks different on my son.
Instead of angry, it looks strong. It’s not intimidating, it’s mischievous.
When it clenches, it means he’s deep in thought.
Not of dark things, but of light. Right now, he’s looking at the roof of my shed.
It’s about to fall in. I know he’s already formulating a plan to fix it.
It makes me chuckle. That’s where I see Raffe. I see him in his mannerisms and his disarming smile. I see it in the soft touches he gives his wife and daughter.
My heart twinges with longing.
The wind picks up, and an unfamiliar scent wafts over me. All day I’ve felt as if someone has been watching me. Now I’m certain of it.
I stand, my gaze scanning the trees.
“Hey, Mom, we’ve got to get going. Willow and Grandma will be up next week to help you with your canning.”
“I’m so excited!” my daughter-in-law says, jumping on the balls of her feet.
“Well, I appreciate the help. It will be nice to have some extra hands.”
Aspen wraps her arms around my legs, and I lower myself to her level. “Thank you for coming to play in my garden today. You kept my fairies very entertained,” I tell her.
She smiles at me like she understands every word. I give her a kiss on the forehead.
“I’ll be right behind you,” Jackson tells his wife as she chases Aspen down the path.
We watch as they disappear around the bend. He turns his attention back to me. “How are you feeling about all of this?” he asks, sincerity showing in his eyes.
“It feels right,” I tell him.
“Good,” he says, giving me a big hug.
As he pulls away from me, I decide to ask the question that’s been on my mind the entire day. “Did your dad come home?”
He sighs, looking away from me. “No.”
“Are you sure he’s okay?” I grab his arm, needing reassurance that my appearance hasn’t pushed him over the edge.
“I have eyes on him.”
That doesn’t tell me much, but then again, it’s not my business.
“I just need you to take care of yourself,” he tells me, tipping my chin, forcing me to look up at him. He taps the end of my nose just like my mother used to do, and I wonder how many times she’s done it to him.
He kisses my forehead like I did Aspen’s, and then he does a little dance before jumping off the porch.
“I’ll see you soon?” I ask, laughing at him.
He places his hand over his heart as if I wounded him. “Of course.”
We wave at each other one last time before he disappears from the path.
I wait a few minutes, and then I walk to the end of the porch. “You don’t have to hide.”
The man who steps from the shadows of the forest glares at me. “You didn’t either, but here we are.”
My gaze wanders over his tattoos, and I smile.
He growls.
It makes me laugh lightly. “I’m going to guess that you’re Dirk.”
“Proof you’re a witch,” he says, jumping the fence.
I shake my head, because I don’t take offense. Bill talked a lot about the man who fell in love with his daughter. “And you’re Raffe’s best friend.”
The wind chime in my yard distracts him, and for a moment the scowl leaves his face. His head falls. “I’m more than that.”
“I know,” I say quietly. “You saved his life.”
His gaze goes back to the wind chime. “How do you know all of this?”
I walk over to my door and hold it open. He stares at it for several long minutes before he decides to step through. His desperation for answers overrides his dislike for me.
His presence fills my space, but the darkness that swirls around him doesn’t intimidate me. I’ve stared evil in the face. It doesn’t reside inside him, despite his best effort to make it appear that way.
“Your sister sent her friend Bill to help me when I first arrived,” I tell him simply. He doesn’t seem like a man who wants more words than necessary. “He didn’t know who I was …” My voice fades at the look on his face.
“Bill knew?”
I swallow hard. “He guessed, but I never gave him any confirmation.”
One of his eyebrows slowly arches higher and higher. “He knew we’d been looking for you,” he says, his voice shaking with bottled up rage.
There’s only one way to diffuse this and that is with the truth. I push my sleeve up and hold my wrist out to him. “This is how I kept him from revealing my secret.”
He grabs my arm harshly, turning it in the light. His eyes meet mine. “You were that desperate to remain hidden?”
“Rachel made my dream for Raffe and Jackson a reality. If Bill had told everyone, that would have killed it. She was the wife and mother I could never be to them. They deserved the best.”
“It was all built on a lie, and she knew that. Rachel deserved the best. She deserved to have all of his love. You shorted her!” he yells, shoving my arm away in disgust.
“Is that how it works? Do you and your wife reserve all your love for one person?” I ask, taking a step back when he snarls at me, but that doesn’t stop me from continuing. “He loved her, Dirk. Don’t take that away from him. It’s all he has left of her.”
His fists clench as he thinks about what I’ve said.
I fall to the couch, suddenly exhausted by the emotions of the day. Eventually, he sits down in the chair across from me.
“I know you’re angry, but please don’t take it out on Raffe. He didn’t have anything to do with this, and you know it. I understand you think it should have been me and not her who died. I don’t disagree.”
“That’s not …” he begins to say.
I hold up my hand. “I don’t need you to sugarcoat your feelings about me, Dirk.” He drops his head, running his hand over the back of it. “I wanted her to live a long and full life with them. I would have willingly traded her places.”
“I don’t know why she’s revealing her hand now. She could have taken the secret of you with her.”
“Well, that makes two of us. I wish she would have left me a letter like she did everyone else.”
His head snaps my direction.
“She didn’t leave you one either?” I ask.
“No,” he answers, his jaw working back and forth. I can see it hurts him.
I stand up to get the contract his sister and I both signed. When I toss it at him, he catches it in one hand. He reads it quietly. His gaze meets mine after he finishes.
“Does Raffe need me?” I ask.
His nostrils flare. “He doesn’t need you.” Dirk’s eyes narrow as he spits the words at me like venom.
“Then I don’t know why she did this.” I lean forward, narrowing my own. I allow a little bit of my old self out. “But she did, and I’m not going to step away from Jackson just because it makes Raffe, or you, uncomfortable. I trusted Rachel to do what was best for my son. I’m not going to stop now.”
The timer goes off on my oven. “If you’ll excuse me, I have some baking to finish up.”
I leave him and head to the kitchen to pull out the bread I’ve just made.
He stands awkwardly before joining me. “So, is this what you’ve been up here doing all this time?” His gaze roams over my counter before going to the window overlooking my backyard.
I don’t answer him because I don’t owe him an explanation of what I’ve been doing.
“You looked natural with Jackson,” he continues.
It makes me sigh loudly and turn, resting my butt against the counter. “What do you want from me?” I ask, folding my arms over my chest.
He shrugs. “I guess I’m trying to figure out what it is about you that Raffe couldn’t let go.”
I know the answer to that question, so I answer it. “When they separated us, I could hear him yelling for me from the other room. He promised he wouldn’t rest until he found me.”
“Even when he thought you were six feet below him, he didn’t let go.”
I rub my temples. “We were fourteen. Up to that moment, we’d led a sheltered life. Our biggest concern was riding his dirt bike down to the river and skipping stones. Then suddenly we found ourselves in a world neither of us could ever have possibly conceived. He heard them raping me, Dirk.”
His jaw clenches, and his head falls. “I just wanted him to move on so badly. Not just for my sister, but for him too.”
“I’ve hoped for the same thing. If he felt anything for me after learning of my death, it was probably because of Jackson. He was never supposed to know the baby was mine.”
He stares at me for a long time before speaking. “He loved you before he knew you were Jackson’s mother. He loved you even more after.”
“I never intended to imprison his heart, Dirk.”
“But you did.” He straightens and walks toward the front door.
Suddenly feeling nauseous, I stumble to the bathroom. This day has been so emotional, and I haven’t slept well since Brody showed up outside my gate. I don’t know why Rachel thought any of this would be a good idea.
The room spins as I fall to the floor in front of the toilet just in time to be sick.
So much for thinking I’d healed myself by talking to a tree. Raffe yelling from the other room as I was being held down by the man I’d met at the mall plays over and over again in my mind.
A muffled cursing comes from behind me, and my hair is suddenly being pulled into a gentle fist. Dirk rubs my back as I empty my stomach. One minute he’s looking at me like I’m scum on the bottom of his shoe, and the next he’s holding my hair as I lose my guts.