Chapter 14
T he weekend had been long and eerily reminiscent of my first few days home.
My parents hadn’t spoken more than a handful of words to me until dinner on Sunday...which had coincidentally been the first I’d seen and heard from Jackson since Friday. The three of them had spoken around me and for me, the way they’d always done, and had been quick to stop my every attempt at arguing against their plans, all while Wren and Aunt Ada had sat nearby, watching the show.
And I’d been eagerly counting down the hours until now.
I hurriedly shoved the rest of what I needed in my purse, my hands nearly shaking from all the excited energy buzzing through my veins at the knowledge that I would be seeing Kaia and Asher soon. With one last glance around my room to make sure I’d grabbed everything, I turned to leave and sucked in a startled breath when I bounced off Jackson.
“Just me,” he said as he steadied me, one of his large hands gently squeezing my arm. “Where you running off to?”
My lips parted only for a stifled breath to leave me as I looked between pale green eyes and the open doorway. The last thing I wanted right then, or ever, was to have this argument again.
“Work,” I finally said and watched as frustration stole across his face.
“Lainey—”
“I never agreed to quit.”
“You’ve made your point,” he ground out. “You wanted to show us you could do something else, and you’ve done that. But you’re needed here—especially today. You’re needed with me.”
“That isn’t what I’m doing,” I began and choked on the rest of my argument when he held a diamond ring between us. “What...”
“I’ve thought of asking you to marry me thousands of times,” he said, his head bobbing unsteadily. “I’ve thought of where and how, and not one of those times did it go like this. But you’re so set on proving something, that I’ll give up every one of those ideas and dreams and do whatever it takes to remind you of your place.”
A sharp, stunned breath fled from me. “My place,” I murmured, blinking slowly as his words slammed into me with startling force. I sluggishly pushed his free arm away when he grabbed for me again. “My place ?”
“Lainey, that isn’t?—”
“Who are you?” I demanded as I once again dodged his grasping hand. “The Jackson I knew—the Jackson I fell in love with—would’ve never said those words to me.”
“And you?” he shot back. “The Lainey I spent my life loving wouldn’t have lied to me for six years. She wouldn’t have left .”
My shoulders sagged and chest caved, but before that familiar shame could overwhelm my shock and pain, I asked, “What happened to you?” I held up a hand before he could respond, my head quickly shaking. “I went to college. I didn’t tell you what I was studying, I know. But people go to college all the time, Jackson. It might change them and their relationships, but it doesn’t turn their boyfriends into someone as unrecognizable as you are now.”
A telling mixture of guilt and worry briefly tore across his features as I spoke. If it hadn’t been for the stalling of my lungs or the suspicion twisting through me, I was sure I would’ve imagined it.
But I couldn’t get over that look or how it reminded me of Wren carefully and intentionally saying, “And maybe he grew apart from you too,” the other night.
“Jackson, do you even love me anymore?”
His expression shifted to incredulous anger in an instant. “You’re asking me...” A harsh breath burst from him and fueled his next shouted words. “After everything , Lainey, you’re gonna ask me that ?”
I flinched as the words bounced back at us from the walls of my room and hurriedly staggered back when he took a large step toward me.
“After everything I’ve done for you?” he sneered. “Everything I’ve given up?”
“What have you?—”
“It’s you and me,” he went on as he continued erasing the distance I tried placing between us. “There are plans set in place. We had plans. And you need to remember your place.”
A startled sound that bordered on an exasperated laugh burst from me at his use of those words again.
“Here. With me. Combining our companies.” He held the ring in front of me once I was pressed to the wall. “You got your way for six years. Now it’s time to grow up.”
Anger flared in my veins and clashed with the sadness threatening to buckle my knees from the obvious end of our relationship as I studied the man who had been my refuge for so long and was now a total stranger.
“Wanting a different career doesn’t mean I need to grow up .” I tried delivering the words with a hint of the malice he’d said his, but they fell from my lips with a well of sadness. “And even though I’ve wanted and, yes, planned to marry you for so long, I will never marry anyone who tells me to remember my place.”
Panic replaced his anger, but I was already pushing past him and heading for my door before he had a chance to take back anything he’d said.
“Lainey—”
“Goodbye, Jackson.”
“Your dad’s dying.”
Running into a brick wall would’ve had the same effect as his words because there was instant pain and confusion, and I stopped so abruptly, I rocked backward.
My head shook slowly before I looked over my shoulder at where Jackson stood just behind me, reaching for me. “No, he—what?”
Remorse and compassion shifted his features, making him look so much like the Jackson I’d known and loved before. “I’m sorry,” he began softly, and those hushed words had my shoulders sagging and my bag falling to the floor. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t wanna be the one to tell you.”
“Wait . . . just what ?”
“That’s partly why everyone’s so frustrated with this—with you,” he explained, then hurried to continue. “You were always meant to take over one day, Lainey. We were meant to take over and combine things. But with your dad being sick, everything’s being pushed up faster than we ever planned. They need you to take over now, and suddenly you want nothing to do with the farm.”
My head moved in quick, sharp jerks as denial and sadness sliced through me so slowly, so painfully. “What do you mean he’s sick ?”
Jackson quickly pulled me into his arms and hushed me when my words came out too loud. “Wren doesn’t know.”
“But you do?” I cried out before demanding, “Wait, how long have you known?”
He worked his jaw before admitting, “Last summer.”
His confession was nothing less than a hit to the gut, and even though I weakly pushed him away, he held me closer. “You’ve known my dad was sick—that he’s dying —for a year, and you never said a word? And you’ve been making me feel like the worst kind of person for not telling you what I was studying?” A choked sob escaped me. “Are you serious, Jackson?”
“I’m sorry. Lainey, I’m so sorry about your dad,” he said softly as if trying to remind me to lower my voice, then started pulling me from my room. “But let’s talk about this somewhere else.”
“No, I’m not going anywhere with you,” I said through the emotion clogging my throat. Ripping my arm from his grasp, I snatched my bag from the floor, then pointed at him with a shaky finger and seethed, “I would’ve never kept anything like this from you,” before stalking past him and through the house, nearly missing where my mom was watching me.
I slowly twisted to face where she was leaning against the entrance to the kitchen, tears slipping down her cheeks, and asked, “Was he telling the truth? Is Dad dying?”
Her eyes quickly bounced between the hall, Jackson, and me a few times, worry lining her face as she subtly nodded. “He isn’t ready for you girls to know yet.”
Bitterness bled from me on a laugh. “But Jackson can know for a year before telling me?”
“Lainey,” she murmured, the reprimand clear despite her overwhelming sadness. “Now you see,” she began when I started for the door again. “You see why that childish job and dream of yours was hurting the family so much. Your daddy’s waiting for you to take over so he can rest, and you weren’t helping anything—especially his condition—by refusing to.”
My eyes burned and vision blurred at her callous words. “That isn’t fair.”
“What’s fair about any of this?” she challenged, the words warped from her tears. “You were supposed to step up and take over, so step up.”
“I never wanted to,” I cried out, gesturing from my chest to the door. “What about Wren? Why does it have to be me?”
“Wren?” Dull amusement twisted my sister’s name. “That girl has never been committed to anything in her life; she wouldn’t be able to run this farm for more than an hour.”
“You don’t know that; she loves those fields more than I ever did.” When it looked like my mom was going to argue, I hurried to say, “Anyone. Anyone would be better than me because I don’t want this.”
“Stop being so selfish,” Mom snapped. “The farm and business have been in this family for generations, and they’re gonna stay that way. Now”—she gestured between Jackson and me—“once the two of you settle your business, go out to the fields and have a chat with your daddy.”
It only took a second to realize what business she meant, and it had me recoiling from both her and Jackson. I hated how the topic of my engagement had gone from something that’d been talked about with excitement and wonder to exactly that: a business transaction.
Seriously, when had I gone from their daughter—from Jackson’s adored girlfriend—to a pawn to all of them?
“Jackson and I no longer have business,” I muttered and ignored the way his expression fell at my implication. “And I’ll talk to Dad after I’ve had time to think.”
“Lainey Ray,” my mom snapped, horrified. “How can you be so cold and uncaring as to just leave your daddy when he needs you the most?”
“He didn’t tell me!” I yelled. “He didn’t want me to know—he still doesn’t . And if he can’t tell his daughters, then I deserve at least a day to come to terms with something I only know about because Jackson used it as a way to pressure me into marrying him.”
“Where are you going?” my mom demanded as I continued toward the front door.
“My childish job.”
I heard her call after me disapprovingly. I heard Jackson’s steps as he followed. But I didn’t stop until I was opening the door of my SUV, and Jackson was turning me into his arms.
“Lainey, think about what you’re doing,” he pleaded, those green eyes burning with an intensity I didn’t recognize. “You heard your mom. Your dad needs you here, and I need you with me.”
I tried swallowing past the knot of grief and indecision and felt like I might choke on it. Everything in me demanded I do exactly what they were telling me to—demanded I help my dad and family the way they needed. But my heart was pulling in another direction altogether.
“What’s wrong with him?” I finally asked.
Jackson hesitated before gently informing me, “Stomach cancer. It’s . . . it’s aggressive.”
My chin shook as I nodded, but just as he started curling his arms around me, I pulled away and climbed into my car.
“ Lainey .”
“I have someone else who needs me,” I began, the words thick and weak as they scraped up my throat. “And right now, I need to get to her.”
He grabbed my door before I could shut it. “You’re really gonna choose this job over your family? Over me ?”
“Over you? Absolutely. My family? I dunno,” I said honestly, my shoulders hitching. “I dunno what I’m gonna do with what I now know. But today, I’m choosing my commitment to that little girl. I’d choose anything over being near you and the other people trying to control my life in such a heartless way.”
“Heartless?” he echoed as he roughly grabbed my jaw and forced me closer despite my cry of pain. “They begged me not to tell you so you could focus on finishing school, but you? You willingly kept things from me for years, then tried throwing away the future we’d planned for so much longer. If either of us is heartless, it’s you.” He shifted his face even closer so his mouth just barely brushed mine when he seethed, “I have given up my life for you,” before shoving my head back and storming to his truck.
And I just sat there for long seconds, shaking and shaking as my jaw ached and throbbed where he’d been gripping me far too tight.
It wasn’t until Jackson’s truck was gone that I finally broke.
For the stranger I’d just encountered. For the news about my dad. For the battle that was raging even stronger than before. For the dreams that were fading with each day because I felt just as trapped in this life as I’d always been.