3. Pippi
“Oh, goodness babe…that hair …” Jackson’s warm laugh greeted me as I shoved open the creaky old door to our rancher.
I winced and peered down the hall, where he waited for me in the kitchen, beaming as he held a delicate crystal wine glass—one of my better thrift store finds—in each hand.
Looking like every woman’s wet dream fantasy: tall and strapping, with soft dirty blond hair brushing the tops of his ears, and big sparkling cyan blue eyes.
“Is it that bad?” I asked, my skin prickling with unease as I imagined the worst. My red curls were boisterous on a good day, when they gave me a Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman kinda style.
On average, they had Merida from Brave vibes.
At worst…Medusa. Today, after running clammy hands over my curls one too many times and baking them with the heat radiating off my sweaty and stressed body, this was probably a Medusa day.
“Eh, it’s poofing, that’s for sure.” A smile curved Jackson’s lips. “Might be close to the shaggy mane you had when we first met, but I don’t think it tops it.”
I sighed a little, dreamily.
We’d met at a club three years ago. Jessa had dragged me there for a country line dancing night, and I’d seen him after I’d spent a solid hour sweating it up on the dance floor.
He’d looked so achingly lovely, sitting at the bar with his prim and fitted jeans and button-up shirt, both ruffled just enough to make him appear less cosmic, and more human. He’d been suckling a beer—one of the local IPAs—and staring around the bar with his lazy, half-lidded eyes.
I had never seen a man so breathtaking.
But it was his mournfulness that’d called to my heart, setting me across the room toward him. It radiated off him in big plumes—like an old heater coughing out ripples of warm air.
A striking, sorrowful angel. That thought had crossed my mind when I’d sidled up to the bar next to him, feeling grungy in my ruffled rainbow blouse and black jeans, knowing my curls were likely poofed into a bouncy frizz halo.
He hadn’t looked at me. Not until I’d leaned over, unstuck my tongue from where it’d glued itself to the roof of my mouth, and muttered, “You doing okay?”
His eyes had flown to mine.
“That’s not a pickup line,” I’d said hastily, burning with embarrassment. “I swear. It’d be a pretty dang boring one if it was, huh? But that wasn’t my intent. Honest. It’s just…you looked sad, is all. I thought maybe there was something I could do to cheer you up. But I’ll leave if…y’know…”
He had smiled at me then.
And stars above, that smile had done things to me.
Glee and awe and disbelief had cow-kicked me, stealing my next words. Those feelings still gave my gut a daily walloping every time I looked at him. Like now, even though his radiant smile was fading a bit.
“Judging by the wild mane, I’m guessing it was a rough day?
” he asked as I kicked my shoes off at the door, chucked my keys into the bowl on the side table we kept in the foyer (the “shit table,” we lovingly called it, since we dumped our shit on it when we came in), and walked down the hall into the kitchen.
“You can say that again.” I slung my purse onto the sleek granite top of our little kitchen island, and took the glass of wine he held toward me.
It was a chilled white—not my favorite (I was an oaky, dry-bodied red kinda gal), but it was crisp and refreshing and offered enough kick to burn some of the stress away.
I took two deep sips and then sighed again. “Thank you.”
“But of course.” He took a gulping swig of his wine, draining nearly half the glass in one go.
I cringed.
Jackson was a champion chugger. He gulped most things down. Water. Beer. Soda. Piping hot tea and coffee—I still didn’t understand how he hadn’t scalded his throat. The habit was left over from the time he’d been in the military, where he’d had to race the clock at mealtimes.
I always worried he’d choke himself or get indigestion. But he never did. He didn’t even have a belly pouch—his stomach was flat. Flat, flat, flat. Deliciously so.
If I ate and drank the way he did, I’d look pregnant. Such was the unfairness of being a woman.
“So…” Jackson reached over and ruffled my hair, beaming when the frazzled strands fluffed up under his hand. “Your rough day?”
“It was a flipping nightmare .”
“Ah, c’mon, babe, I’m sure it wasn’t that bad.”
“Production messed up a $500K order, and we’ve gotta eat the cost of it.”
Jackson pulled an “ouch” face and sucked a whistly bit of air through his teeth.
“And I got to deliver the bad news to our client.” I took a bigger sip of wine, craving the headiness of it. The way it seeped into my veins and pumped hazy and fuzzy feelings into my brain, hankering for the buzz more than the taste.
“Why did you do that?” Jackson chugged the last of his wine down and then reached across the island for the bottle, pouring himself another glass—and topping off mine. Bless him.
“Andy was”—I pressed the rim of the glass to my chin—“dealing with the fallout on the floor.”
Jackson humphed. “Oh boy, I’ll betcha that was a mess .
You probably got off easy, babe. Anyway”—he drummed his palms against the island, twisting his mouth into a slight pout, even as he brimmed with excited energy—“I was kinda hoping you’d be in a good mood for this news.
Not sure it’ll hit the same when you’re sour. ”
I frowned. I was a little frazzled, sure. But had I been grouchy?
Shoot. I had been, hadn’t I?
Probably pulled a proper bitch face when I’d walked in, huffing heavier than the wolf in the Three Little Pigs .
“All I needed was this.” I held up the glass in a mock toast. “And maybe a little of this.” I pressed my other hand to his chest as I stood on my tip, tip, tippytoes (Jackson was nearly a foot taller than me) and touched my mouth to his warm, soft lips. “And everything’s right in the world again.”
He nuzzled his nose to mine, gave my bum a playful swat and then scooted back, hefting his right bum cheek onto the island in the half sitting, half leaning, all sexy pose he did so well.
“We’re going on vacation, babe!” he exclaimed, jiggling the full glass of wine in his hand, making a liquid whirlpool slosh almost up to the brim.
“Oh?”
“Don’t jump for joy or anything.”
“I’m…I’m getting there. This is…Wow.” I pressed my hand to his knee, squeezing.
“I’m a little shocked, I think. Because I figured vacations were off the table until…
” I raised my wine glass, gesturing toward the spacious kitchen, with its big white cabinets, gleaming, grey marble countertops and sparkling appliances (gleaming and sparkling because I scrubbed them within an inch of their life every day).
And then I threw my arm a little wider, motioning to the whole of our spacious, three-bedroom home.
The 2,200 square feet of prime real estate we’d pinched and squeezed and barely extruded enough money to be able to afford.
Jackson waved his hand. “This trip’s barely gonna take a sip out of our savings. All we have to pay for is the airfare.”
“Airfare?” I squealed.
“Yup. But that’s it. Everything else I got covered. Mostly.” He tucked a hand into the pocket of his trousers. “There’s still food and extras and all, so we’ll say it’s about 80 percent covered. Enough to make this doable for us.”
A spark of excitement sizzled low in my belly as I leaned against the counter next to him.
Airfare.
I ran through all the places we’d talked about going to someday—that elusive someday we figured would never actually come, but that we still hoped for.
Paris—the city I wanted to visit more than anything .
London.
Tokyo.
Even states within our own country. California. Tennessee. Washington.
“Ahhhh”—Jackson pointed his wine glass at me—“there’s my happy girl!” He pulled his hand out of his pocket and brushed his thumb against my lips. “I thought we weren’t going to see her tonight.”
“Are you going to tell me where we’re going?” I tipped my tongue out, giving the pad of his thumb a lick. “Or are you gonna keep teasing me?”
“Niverwick Isle.” He tapped my lips.
I blinked. “I’m… Where ?”
“Oh c’mon, babe. It’s the hottest vacation destination. Everyone’s been talking about it for the last few years. You had to have heard of it.” His smile drooped.
Niverwick Isle.
I had heard of it. Sure, I had. Like he said, everyone was yapping about it. It took my brain a while to register it because it was so far down on the list of places we’d talked about visiting that it wasn’t even on the list.
Niverwick was an island—a remote island—so shrouded in magic, nothing worked there. No cars, TVs, cell phones…nada. Zilch. Anything made after the year 1900 or so would fail to operate.
That included boats. Visitors had to take a big ole fashioned sail ship to get to the island.
Here was where there was a tiny— teeny —smidgeon of a problem.
Ships sailed on the ocean. And this ship would drop people off at a slab of rock surrounded by ocean.
And y’know who was terrified of the ocean. Like, staring-at-waves-on-TV-too-long-caused-palpitations kind of terrified?
This girl.
And you know what made the ocean even scarier ?
The star attraction of Niverwick Isle.
“Supposedly spring is the best time to go too,” Jackson prattled on.
“Nessie’s supposed to be more active. A few of the guys at work reckon the beast gets horny come spring.
” He chuckled. “Suns out, dicks out. Y’know?
Probably true, I guess. There is only one Loch Ness Monster, so my man probably does start hankering for some pussy after pounding off to his own hand—er—claw—er— fin all winter. ”
Nessie.
The Loch Ness Monster.
The big, phallic-shaped sea dino who’d once been lobbed off as a prank. A hoax, staged by a bunch of drunk Standie Scotsmen trying to splash themselves on the front page, or fabricated by a drunk sailor who’d peeped Free Willy’s willy bobbing atop the sea and thought he’d discovered a new monster.