15. The Stone Is Gone
fifteen
The Stone Is Gone
Jax
Where the hell has she been?
I mutter the words into the rafters of the empty workshop, the sound of my own voice flat and heavy against the corrugated iron.
It has been two days. Forty-eight hours of uninterrupted silence from the cottage next door. Her Volvo hasn't kicked up gravel on the two-lane road.
She hasn't walked down to the tree line with those rolled-up architectural blueprints tucked under her arm. She hasn't even stood on her back porch to stare across the fence line at my scrap heaps.
I've heard nothing from her, and it's starting to grate on my nerves.
I pick up a heavy iron wrench, intending to tear down the alternator on a busted Chevy truck, but my hands don't move. My fingers just lock around the cold steel.
My mind keeps slipping back to two nights ago: the smell of the rain in her home, the way her eyes looked right before she broke, and the askew lid of that wooden box in her studio.
I know what I saw. The tiny newborn hospital bracelet. The unopened baby socks.
The thought of not knowing what it is about exactly is hard enough, and then there's Stanley Hargrove. The bastard is hunting her, circling the property like a coastal vulture, and now I wonder if that's why she's locked herself away inside that house where I can't see her.
Maybe something happened. Maybe he came back while my back was turned. Maybe she's sitting in the dark over there, drowning in whatever trauma she's trying to hide, unable to ask a man like me for help.
It's out of character for me to obsess like this. I don't chase people. I don't pry. But now, at dusk on the second day, I can't take it anymore.
I drop the wrench. It hits the concrete floor with a loud, ringing clang.
I walk out of the workshop, my boots sinking into the damp earth as I cross the property line. The evening air is thick and brackish, clinging to the skin of my neck.
I climb the old wooden steps of the Beckett porch, my chest tightening with every stride. I reach the front door. I raise a grease-stained hand to knock.
But then I freeze. My knuckles hover an inch from the faded paint.
What the hell am I doing? If she wanted me around, she'd be around. Maybe she's intentionally keeping her distance because I crossed a line by invading her space.
Seeking her out like this, pushing into her life when she's clearly drawn a boundary, might be the worst thing I could do. She's a city girl; she needs her space, her quiet. I'm just a local man who doesn't know how to mind his own business.
I'm still standing there like a fool, caught between taking a step back or striking the wood, when the latch clicks and the door is thrown open before I can make a choice.
I freeze, my hand dropping slowly to my side.
Standing in the doorway is her grandmother, Iris. It is the first time I have ever looked at the woman up close from my side of the fence. She is a tiny thing, her frame slight and slightly bent by the years, but there is nothing fragile about her.
She is wearing a faded floral apron over a heavy knit sweater, her silver hair twisted into a neat, tight bun at the nape of her neck. But it's her eyes that stop me.
They are a sharp, piercing blue; the exact same shade as Nora's, and they cut through the dusk like flint. She smells of old paper, starch, and sweet chicory tea.
I clear my throat, the sound rough and awkward in my chest. I force my face into what I hope looks like a polite smile, fumbling through my head for a lie to justify why I'm lurking on her porch at this time.
"I, uh... I just wanted to check…"
She doesn't let me finish. She looks up at me, her sharp eyes mapping the lines of my face, the width of my shoulders, and the dirt beneath my fingernails.
For a second, I think she's going to tell me to get off her land.
But then her lips soften into a tiny, knowing line.
The corner of her mouth twitches like she's already solved a problem neither of us has admitted exists.
She nods once. It might be the trick of the fading light, but I could swear I see a flicker of approval in her expression before she even opens her mouth.
"You must be here for Nora," she says. Her voice is surprisingly deep, carrying the slow, melodic tone of the old coast.
There is no point in denying it to a woman who looks like she can read a man's thoughts before he even has them. I simply nod. "Yes, ma'am."
"Wait here," she instructs quietly.
She turns and disappears into the warm, yellow light of the hallway, leaving the heavy wooden door standing slightly ajar.
I stand on the porch, the crickets beginning their low hum in the tall grass by the swamp line with my heart beating erratically. A few minutes drag by, each one feeling like an hour, until the door swings open fully.
Nora steps out onto the porch.
The breath leaves my lungs all at once. The yellow porch light catches her from behind, outlining her silhouette through the thin, oversized white cotton shirt she's wearing over a pair of soft gray lounge pants.
The fabric clings to the curves of her hips and drapes loosely over her shoulders. I can immediately tell that she isn't wearing a bra underneath.
In the cool evening air, the soft, dark peaks of her nipples are distinctly visible, pressing against the thin cotton of the shirt. The sight makes a sudden primal heat flare deep in my gut.
But beneath the physical pull, the mere sight of her face- the pale skin, the red hair falling loose around her cheeks- instantly soothes the frantic, looping chaos that's been roaring in my head for two days, and the vice around my chest loosens.
I stand there like an idiot, suddenly completely unable to voice a single thought. My jaw feels locked.
She looks up at me through her lashes, her fingers gripping the hem of her oversized shirt, and after a while, she speaks, breaking the silence.
"Hi," she says softly.
I clear my throat, shifting my weight from one heavy boot to the other. "Hi."
I look at her small bare feet on the porch boards, then back up to her face.
"You alright?" I ask, the words scraping out of my throat. "Haven't seen you around."
"I'm fine," she says. She swallows, her gaze drifting past my shoulder toward the dark silhouette of the salvage yard before coming back to lock onto mine. "I'm okay, Jax."
. The air feels charged, like the moments right before a lightning strike. Then, her shoulders drop, and she shocks me completely.
"I'm sorry," she whispers.
I stare at her, my eyebrows drawing together sharply. My hands instinctively twitch at my sides. "Sorry for what?"
"I went to see Rafe," she says, her voice steadying but carrying a raw, bleeding edge. "At his office."
I immediately fold my arms across my chest, my muscles locking tight. My guard goes up like a steel shutter. I look at her with suspicion, my jaw tightening until it aches. I can tell where this is heading.
"Did you?" I ask, my voice turning and dropping into a dangerously low register.
"Yes," Nora says, stepping a few inches closer to me, refusing to flinch away from my hardened posture. "And I'm so sorry, Jax. I've been so incredibly insensitive."
I keep my arms crossed, watching the way her mouth moves, waiting for the corporate angle, waiting for the catch. But the more I look, the more I realize there isn't one. Her eyes are wide, swimming with a deep, liquid sorrow that has nothing to do with her own problems.
"I understand now," she continues, her voice trembling slightly as she draws a breath into her lungs. "I understand why you can't sell that land to me. And I promise you, I will never ask you to sell it to me again. I won't force you. I won't pester you."
The anger in my chest deflates, replaced by a strange, hollow ache. I don't know how to feel about the fact that she knows about Margaret.
I've spent twenty years keeping that story locked in the dirt, away from the prying eyes of this town. Yet hearing it come from her lips doesn't feel like a violation. It feels... heavy. Shared.
"If it counts for anything," she whispers, her gaze holding mine. "I am so deeply sorry about how your mother passed away. Truly, Jax. It's horrible. And it just means that it's more important now than it ever was before. We have to keep Stanley off that ground."
Nobody says her name anymore. Twenty years later and hearing someone grieve her still cuts clean through me.
I look down at her, the sheer volume of emotion she's pushing into me causing a sudden, violent flood in my chest. I've carried the weight of my mother's death on my back for two decades, alone. To hear this small, fragile city girl use the word we... does something dangerous to my resolve.
"Nora..." I start, my voice cracking on her name.
"I'm making a trip to Houston," she cuts me off, her jaw setting into a stubborn line I'm beginning to recognize all too well.
"In the morning. I'm going to confront him on his own turf.
Hopefully, I can get Stanley to see reason, to realize that this isn't just some local land dispute he can win with a checkbook.
I'll make him understand that he needs to leave us alone.
He needs to never disturb this property again. "
I begin to shake my head, my arms unfolding as a sudden panic spikes through my veins. Houston is his territory. His father's lawyers, his security, his empire. "No. You aren't going down there. You don't know how those people play."
"My mind is made up, Jax," she says, her voice rising slightly, her blue eyes flashing with that fierce, unyielding grit. "It doesn't matter what you say. I'm going. I have to do this."
I stare at her, completely overwhelmed by the terrifying force of her determination. She's doing this for me. She's going into the viper's nest to protect my mother's clearing. The flood of emotion inside me breaks its banks.
I draw in a long, shuddering breath. I step forward, closing the distance between us until the heat radiating from her skin hits my chest.