Chapter Six
His body was a temple, well-fed, well-slept, well-exercised, but upon taking her hand a second time, he realized his heart had been sorely neglected.
—The Temptress of Pecan Lane, by Mae Daniels
Friday night, Jackson put his phone on silent, gave Radish a big old belly rub and a bowl of fresh water, then left the piles of boxes in his new house to deal with next week.
Lance and his old lady were having a Fourth of July cookout, and Jackson was curious enough about their friends to call Auburn and let the family know he wasn’t coming up until tomorrow.
His new place was closer to base than Lance and Kaci’s house.
Homier, too, in his opinion, but that was probably the Radish effect.
Still, he and Radish had appreciated a few meals in Lance’s mini-mansion while they were getting settled.
Made it easy to walk through the door, greet his hostess in the kitchen with a kiss on the cheek, and navigate through the growing crowd to head straight for the grill.
“Hey, Bubba,” Lance called from the man spot on the patio.
“Thumper.” Jackson snagged a cola out of a cooler and sauntered over to shake his buddy’s hand. “Big crowd.”
Easy to pick out Kaci’s friends from Lance’s. The Jim-Bob crowd all had long hair and were fanning themselves, while the Company Grade Officers Association folks were close-trimmed and dressed for the weather.
“Hey, if Kaci mentions redneck golf, tell her you pulled a hamstring or something.” Lance’s lovestruck moon-eyes ruined his shudder. “Girl can’t throw for shit. Takes forever to let her win.”
“Should’ve told me before I got here. Already promised her a game.”
“Hell, Bubba.”
Jackson grinned. “You pull a hamstring.”
“Not a bad idea. Probably get a rubdown out of it.”
“More power to you, man.”
Lance flipped the lid up on the grill and started poking at the burgers. “Still avoiding the war eagle crowd?” he asked.
“Heading up that way tomorrow.” Louisa’s birthday wasn’t until Sunday, but the girl did birthdays like New Orleans did Mardi Gras. Wouldn’t have surprised him to pull up to a parade. But it was her twenty-first, and he’d missed more of her birthdays than he’d made, so he owed her.
They stood there shooting the breeze and grilling until Kaci showed up with a plateful of cheese slices lined up so straight Momma’s Junior League friends would’ve been impressed. “You boys about done with the burgers? We got a hungry crowd.”
“First round’s coming off now,” Lance said. “Hey, Bubba, you mind grabbing the rest out of the fridge?”
“Oh!” Kaci spun at him so fast, the cheese almost flew right off the plate. She had a look in her eyes that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Like Miss Flo before she got to talking about her single granddaughter.
“Yes, ma’am?” Jackson ventured.
Kaci’s face went all innocent. “While you’re in there, go on and ask Anna for the hot dogs, would you, sugar?”
“Yes, ma’am.” No need wasting words asking who Anna was. She’d be the sweet one with questionable biscuits.
Probably he should tell Kaci about his thoughts on butter, but she was already gone, flitting about among her guests.
He strolled to the door, tossing his cola can in the recycling bin on the way.
The back door opened into the living room, which was one of the things he didn’t like so much about all these newer houses.
The kitchen was off to the right, partly open into the living room.
Two women were in there talking. Rather, one was talking.
The other was cutting the most uniform tomato slices he’d ever seen.
It wasn’t the tomatoes that stopped him.
It was the doe eyes.
So that’s who Anna was. He’d lay odds the cheese plate had been her doing too.
She looked like she could’ve used some fried chicken and biscuits to put some meat back in her cheeks, and her straight light hair was longer than when he saw her last time.
Prettier than he remembered, and he’d remembered her awful darn pretty.
There was that chuckle in his head again. Combined with the unusual thumping in his chest, he took a second to pull himself together.
“Thought you went home after Neil left,” the other one was saying. Jackson recognized her from outside. She had railroad tracks knitted on the shoulders of her blouse to match her CGOA president husband’s rank of captain.
If it weren’t for the way Anna’s nose wrinkled whenever one of her slices was thicker than the others, he wouldn’t have thought the first girl’s yammering bothered her. “Nope. Still here.” And she sounded as happy as if she were facing fire ants again.
He’d been raised better than to listen to two ladies gossip, but he reckoned this was the only way he’d ever find out anything about her.
Besides, it was entertaining.
“If it weren’t for Tom there’s no way I’d stay here.” The other woman gave a high-pitched giggle that made Jackson’s ears hurt. “Are you working or something?”
Tomato juice flew off the end of the knife. “I’ve always worked.”
“Oh, right, right. You’re a receptionist somewhere?”
“Analytical technical support.” She grabbed a paper towel and wiped the tomato juice off the counter, a big old fake smile shining away.
At least there weren’t any tears this time. He might work up some of his own if that other girl didn’t quit that shrill giggle though. “That’s all over my head,” she said. “So are you here with somebody tonight?”
Jackson cared about that answer more than he should’ve. That chuckling in his head and pounding in his chest got louder too.
“I’m with the school crowd.”
“Oh, good. An education is so important for a single woman these days. What are you studying?”
“Chemical engineering at James Robert.”
The other girl’s eyes went big as Jackson guessed his own were. He’d known she had some brains, but didn’t know she had that many. “Oh, wow. Wouldn’t it have been easier to take the alimony?”
Just when things were getting interesting, Anna stood up about fourteen feet tall and glared down her nose like she’d been born and bred a Southern lady herself.
“A friend of mine at school mentioned she got one of the scholarships the officers’ wives club sponsored this year.
She was really grateful. You’ll have to let me know when the next fundraiser is. If ex-wives can contribute, that is.”
Jackson didn’t know how the girl had missed that duck-and-cover sign.
It should’ve thwacked her upside the head a second time, it swung down so hard, but the girl kept on talking.
Good time to get those burgers and hot dogs.
“’Scuse me, ladies. Anna, Kaci’s wanting the rest of them burgers and those hot dogs for the kids. ”
Anna looked at him, then looked again, and her cheeks went all dark. Her jaw hung like a door with broken hinges, and her eyes darted this way and that as if avoiding him meant he wouldn’t be there.
But he kept on walking into the kitchen as if he didn’t notice. Partly because his momma had taught him better than to embarrass a lady, but more because he was glad she recognized him.
He’d never been good with being forgettable.
The back door opened, and the base commander’s wife walked in behind him.
Lance had pointed out the higher-ups, and Jackson was glad he had.
Lance had also told him Kaci and the commander’s missus were tight over their officers’ ex-wives club thing, the commander being his missus’s second husband, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to know Kaci was up to something.
Even if it did take a rocket scientist, he had that covered too.
“Wendy, there you are,” Sarah Sheridan said. “Do you have a minute? Rosa and I need a little help on a thrift store problem.”
“Absolutely, Mrs. Sheridan,” Wendy chirped. She gave Anna a bright, “See you around!” then smiled at Jackson on her way past.
Before the door shut behind them, Anna had herself buried in the fridge. When she finally pulled her head back out, her cheeks were pale again, and she almost made eye contact. She handed over a platter of hamburgers, then dove back into the fridge.
Good thing Mamie and Miss Flo weren’t here to see this. Might hurt his reputation.
Or get Anna in trouble for insulting their sugarplum.
She came back up with a bowl of hot dogs and some of that spine she’d shown Wendy the Windy. “That’s the last of it,” she said, and she even looked him straight on.
“Much obliged, ma’am.”
She must’ve gotten her fill of his pretty face, because she looked away right quick. Her gaze fell on the window, and her face went screwy.
Mrs. Sheridan and Wendy were on the other side.
“You handled her right good for a Yankee,” he said.
That earned him a hint of a smile, which earned him another big old wallop right about where his heart sat.
And because he wasn’t a fool about knowing what wanting to see a bigger smile out of her might mean, he took himself and the meat outside.
Anna could’ve used about half a lifetime to recover from the triple-whammy of signing her divorce papers yesterday, Wendy’s inquisition about her failures tonight, and the exterminator’s appearance in the middle of it, but the cookout had just started.
Before she could straighten the ceramic utensil crocks on the counter, Lance brought in the first batch of burgers.
Behind him, a crowd filtered inside looking for food and cooler temperatures.
When all the extra bodies made the house feel hotter than boiling oil, Anna ducked outside in search of a dark, quiet corner.
The sun hadn’t set, and too many people were still playing in the pool for her to succeed in either goal.
Instead, she settled for a semi-hidden spot near a fan where she could arrange the bin of pool toys by size and color.
If she’d known how many CGOA people would be here tonight, she would’ve bailed.
Which was probably why Kaci hadn’t mentioned it.
She wondered if the CGOA was the exterminator’s crowd.
Jackson, she reminded herself.