Chapter Eight
To his way of thinking, if a man had a good shotgun, football season, and a dog, he had all the love he needed.
—The Temptress of Pecan Lane, by Mae Daniels
Jackson hadn’t planned on staying late enough to help with the cleanup, but on his way through the kitchen to say good-night, Kaci shoved a piece of apple pie at him and offered him a second to take home if he made himself useful. He took one bite and offered to marry her instead.
Pretty safe bet considering she was already taken. But it earned him a smack upside the head, and not from Lance. “Anna made that pie.”
“She bake biscuits this good?”
He thought that was a safe question too, since Anna was outside gathering trash, but Kaci smacked him again. “Don’t you play games with her, you hear me?”
“She looking for number two?” If that was the case, he’d make himself scarce quick. Anna was some fun when she loosened up, but like Mamie said, he had some choices when it came to his biscuits.
“It’s not what she’s looking for that has me worried. It’s what she’s not looking for but still needs.”
Jackson looked to Lance for a translation, but his buddy gave a shrug. Man-speak for I don’t talk woman. You got her going. You figure it out.
Jackson took another bite of pie and waited.
Kaci checked Anna’s progress through the window, then hopped her backside onto the counter Lance had cleared. “Her ex didn’t treat her the way a man should.”
Now that was clearer, but still not straight enough. “He hit her?”
“Pshaw. Anna wouldn’t have stood for that.”
“Cheat on her?”
“Nope.”
Well what else was there? “Didn’t let her have new clothes and get her hair done?”
“No, sugar, he didn’t love her.”
Lance shook his head like Miss Flo and Mamie did whenever Miss Ophelia started yapping about her boyfriends leaving the toilet seat up.
It was always love, wasn’t it?
Man could work his rear end off, treat his woman right, respect her, give her everything she ever asked for, but if she decided she didn’t love him anymore, then he was done for.
Jackson never had made up his mind if his daddy was lucky he’d passed on before he figured out Momma was in love with his best friend, or if his life would’ve changed enough that he wouldn’t have been on that road that night.
If he would’ve moved out, stopped for dinner on his way home instead of heading for Momma’s cooking, anything to put him on a different street or milliseconds to one side or another of his drive home.
Mamie said a person’s time was a person’s time, and God would’ve gotten him anyway, but he still wondered.
Still, he was glad his lifestyle didn’t lend itself to settling down. Nobody to please but himself and Radish, and if he got run over by a truck tomorrow, nobody left waiting for the news that he wasn’t coming home.
Except Radish.
Poor pup.
He polished off his last bite. “Good pie. Y’all recycle?”
He didn’t avoid Anna and her picking up on purpose.
It was more of an on-purpose-accidental thing she was out in the backyard while he cleaned the living room.
He should’ve been thinking about getting home to let Radish out, but his brain kept puzzling over why sane folks bothered with love. His daddy and Lance and Kaci included.
He reckoned Mamie might be able to explain it to him, what with her writing all those books about love, but he made a point of not using the L-word in front of her.
Didn’t take him too long to put the living room to rights, so he went in to help dry dishes. The ladies were outside talking. Anna was laughing. The sound made something in his chest go all soft.
“Appreciate the help,” Lance said. He handed over the last of the grill tools for drying. “Know what’s good for you, you’ll knock off before the girls get back in.”
Right smart guy, Lance was. Would’ve made a good wingman except for the settling down part.
“Pass on my thanks to Kaci,” Jackson said.
But Lance got a grin a guy didn’t usually like to see on his wingman. “Anna’s gonna want your address.”
“Just a trick to get her to play.”
That chuckle didn’t go so good on a wingman either. “Girl likes to settle her bets.”
Smart thing to do was walk away and not look back. But a few minutes later, walking past her Civic, Jackson tucked his number and address under her wipers anyway.
He’d never met a woman who’d pay that bet. Wasn’t fair, and they all knew it.
Still, she’d had a look.
And she’d offered to write his momma a thank-you once upon a time.
Might be some perfection in this after all. Didn’t much matter to his kitchen one way or another if she paid up, but he liked watching her try to figure what to make of him.
Wouldn’t mind seeing if he could figure out what to make of her.
Paying up on a bet wasn’t usually so nerve-racking. There was nothing personal about forks and knives and mixing bowls, so why did the idea of organizing Jackson’s kitchen feel so intimate? She wouldn’t be rummaging through his underwear drawer or his toolbox.
There went that pesky heart again. She hadn’t had an adrenaline rush like this around a guy since, well, the first time she saw Neil. And all she’d done was think about Jackson’s tools.
And underwear.
Damn heart. This was only a dumb bet with a goofy guy who was friends with her friends, and that muscle in her chest could stay out of it. This was practice flirting.
Nothing real.
She adjusted her left hand on the wheel so it was at exactly ten, in line with her right hand’s two o’clock, and felt marginally better. She’d organize his kitchen, keep out of his more personal belongings, and scurry back home before she got any more ideas.
This was practice, and he was military. She had plans. Get her degree, combine that with her experience at RMC to find a good job back home, buy a cute little cottage, adopt a couple of kids, and live happily ever after.
That pang of regret that she couldn’t have her first choice in life would probably always be there, but she’d make the most of her life yet.
Jackson lived in a yellow-sided, two-story house in an older neighborhood a mile or so from her old home. An ancient Chevy truck sat in the driveway. The rear window featured two decals, an Alabama logo and Calvin peeing on a Ford logo.
Her heart gave another thump at the shadow passing in front of the door.
She wanted to give it a thump right back.
Instead, she climbed out of her car, armed with her purse, label maker inside, and headed up the driveway to the curved walkway.
She took the wooden stairs to the wide porch, then rang the doorbell. It echoed softly inside the house. She heard a muffled bark. A green lawn chair sat off to the side next to an upside-down moving box with a bottle of Bud in the middle of concentric water rings.
The door clicked open. Her heart ka-thudded a couple of times at the sight of another old Alabama T-shirt and board shorts. She didn’t want to know what it would do if she looked high enough to see if he’d shaved this morning.
Novelty, she told herself. She faked a bright, sunny smile, and risked a look at those dark-lashed eyes. “Good morning.”
Jackson stared at her for half a second like he couldn’t figure out why she’d be at his house, but then he gave her a pained smile.
And it was too late to pretend she was looking for directions.
An old spaniel poked her nose into Anna’s hand. Anna gave her head a little scratch, and she wagged her tail. “Hi, there, you sweet thing.” She knelt to gather her composure and love on the dog, who ate it up like she’d never had a belly scratch in her life. “Is this a bad time?”
Jackson’s relaxed grin came back in full force. “Shucks, Anna Grace, you’re starting to give Yankees a good name. Didn’t think you’d pay up.”
The way he said her name made her feel all warm and Southern inside. “Just Anna’s fine. If you didn’t want me to come, you wouldn’t have left your address. Your momma not up for the job?”
He coughed into his hand. No mistaking the laugh lines around his eyes. “Right sure it’d make her keel over with a heart attack.”
No mistaking the unrepentant grin he sent her either. The one that said I’d rather have you here than her anyway.
Or so she hoped.
She gave the dog a final love pat and stood. She could do this. She could handle being a single woman with a single man in his house with his dog. Doing domestic things. With no commitment.
Just…doing something. “Then it’s your lucky day. Or your momma’s lucky day.”
“You sure you got the time today? Don’t want to keep you from your studying.”
Some of her glow dimmed. “You’re not afraid of my label maker, are you?”
“No, ma’am. Just offering to be a gentleman.”
She pinned him with her best oh, please look.
He did that coughing thing again, but this time, he stepped back and held the door open for her. “C’mon in then.”
A tinny rendition of “Sweet Home Alabama” erupted from his pocket. His shoulders twitched, but he led her through the house as if he didn’t hear it.
She followed him through a small foyer and into a living room that made her palms itch.
She fought to keep walking behind him, his dog at her heels, as she took stock of the mess.
More paperbacks than she would’ve expected leaned in haphazard stacks about the room amid toppled piles of action-adventure and military DVDs.
Two pressed-wood bookcases stood at odd angles beyond a staircase, their shelves propped up against the wall.
The wide-screen television was dark. Anna would’ve bet her label maker it was hooked up and tweaked perfectly for the room though.
Mismatched orange and navy throw pillows decorated an L-shaped tan sofa.
Jackson’s phone continued to sing, but he didn’t reach for it.
“Aren’t you going to answer that?”
He shrugged and turned the corner. “If it’s important, they’ll call back.”
Anna followed him into the kitchen and instantly felt another zing at the glorious disaster.
They would be here for hours.