Chapter 12 Jackson
Jackson
The problem with boundaries once they started to crumble was that rebuilding them took twice the effort.
On Sunday, Jackson prepared the scuffed and grubby walls in the back hallway for painting, filling cracks and screw holes and removing rusted picture hooks.
Even on a bright day, the old color—a heavy mustard yellow—sucked all the light out of the enclosed area.
While he waited for the filler to dry, he shut off the power at the circuit board in the basement and swapped the single ceiling pendant for a five-bulb chandelier he’d ordered online, a flashlight held precariously between his teeth.
“Hey, Jackson.” Leah poked her head around the study door. “How many mystery writers does it take to change a light bulb?”
“Tell me,” he mumbled indistinctly, thighs astride the top of the stepladder.
“Two. One to screw it almost all the way in, and the other to give it a surprising twist at the end.” He could hear her snickering to herself all the way to the kitchen.
Jackson’s lopsided grin wobbled the flashlight between his lips.
He finished what he was doing and turned the power back on, satisfaction easing through his chest. When he sloped into the kitchen to grab a sandwich, Leah was mixing something light and fluffy in a bowl. The air smelled sweet and homely.
She wiped at a smudge on her sleeve and spoke over her shoulder. “Powdered sugar—the baking equivalent of glitter. It gets everywhere.”
Jackson raised one eyebrow toward the cake on the side.
“Carrot,” she told him, turning off the beaters. “Want a piece with your lunch?”
“Please.” He gathered what he needed for a peanut butter and banana sandwich—ignoring Leah’s fake gagging—and pulled out one of the stools at the breakfast bar. She began to frost the cake with more enthusiasm than precision. For a few minutes, the silence felt almost restful.
“Have you always liked doing home improvements?”
Jackson swallowed his mouthful. “Yes, but I rarely have the spare time to do much of it. I’m usually more likely to hire someone.”
Leah smoothed the frosting around the sides of the cake. “I always imagined fancy-schmancy boys like you were far too busy sipping cocktails at your beach houses to get your hands dirty.”
The easy teasing was light enough that he didn’t feel defensive. “Getting someone in to decorate doesn’t make me privileged.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But having a surname first name does.”
“A surname first name.”
“Yep.” She looked over. “Do people ever shorten it?”
“I’m sorry?”
Leah pressed on. “Do you have a nickname?” Her quick, clever eyes narrowed. “What do your friends call you? Jack. Jay. Haley. Jaxminster. Jaymeister.” She looked as if she could go on forever. “J-Man.”
For a single, long moment, he stared at her. “J-Man?”
Leah shrugged and held out one of the beaters she’d used for the cake mixture.
Shaking his head to remove her painful suggestions from his brain, he took it.
When she leaned against the countertop and began to lick the second beater, Jackson was glad he was sitting down.
Her lips were watermelon-pink and as plush as a pillow.
They looked velvet-soft. She wasn’t trying to be suggestive.
He could tell by Leah’s concentration the thought hadn’t crossed her mind.
But her nimble tongue flicking between the curves of metal set his own thoughts racing.
And they went places they had no business going. Jackson wrenched his eyes away.
“Best part about baking.” She waved the beater in his direction. “We weren’t allowed to do this in Home Ec. They said we’d catch salmonella from the raw eggs. It’s a grudge I’ll never let go of.”
Jackson grunted and took a taste, ambushed by a sudden memory of his grandmother offering the beaters to him and Dom on their last visit to this kitchen. Shaken, he spoke without thinking. “I tried to boil an egg in the microwave once when I was about eight. No water. Just the egg.”
“What happened?”
“The explosion scared the shit out of me. The mess was unbelievable. My brother thought it was hilarious, my parents not so much. He took the blame and said it was his idea, although it wasn’t.”
“I thought brothers spent all their time giving each other wedgies.”
“Not my brother.”
He didn’t want to talk about Dom anymore. Somehow Leah got him opening up before he was aware of it; he didn’t know how she did it. Jackson stuck his plate and the beater into the dishwasher but paused in the doorway.
“Leah?”
She looked around. “Yes?”
“I will never answer to J-Man, but we do have a beach house.” He wasn’t sure if he was being playful or setting the record straight. He was many things, but playful was rarely one of them.
She grinned. “I never doubted that for a minute. Is it right on the lakefront?”
“Yes.”
“I bet it’s beautiful there.”
“It is.” Jackson struggled to remember the last time he’d taken the time to go.
Repurposing some old curtains for dustsheets, it took him a couple of hours to cover the mustard paint in the back hall with a white undercoat, and even that was an instant improvement.
As he cut in along the picture rail, a spider scuttled out from the corner and headed on chaotic legs toward the wet paint.
What is it with the creatures this weekend?
“You don’t want to do that, buddy.” Jackson scooped it up in a careful fist and climbed down the ladder.
Flicking the spider onto a broad-leafed bush by the back door, he ran his eyes over the yard.
It was fairly neat, thanks to the regular efforts of his grandmother’s gardener.
The grass had been given a couple of cuts already this year and the shrubs were neatly pruned.
In contrast, the old wooden gazebo was in sorry order.
Octagonal in shape, ramshackle but charming, its three wide steps led up to an open front.
He remembered a spontaneous picnic inside, rain drumming on the wooden roof, sandwiches, juice, and his grandmother’s laughter.
It would be a shame if it deteriorated too much further.
Maybe whoever bought this place would fix it up.
Or maybe they would knock it down. It was of no odds to him, he reminded himself.
He turned back to the house and set about tidying everything away.
“Want a hand?” Leah offered. Her black hair, hanging loose, was a wavy curtain over one shoulder. She twisted it, casually, as she jerked her chin toward the dustsheets, paint cans, and roller tray.
“I’ve got it.” Jackson brushed her off. “Thanks.”
“Are you staying for dinner?”
“Yes, but I’ll sort myself out.” One shared meal was enough.
The last couple of weeks had given him a much-needed Leah detox; it would be a mistake to get too used to her company again.
“I’ll stop here for the night, put another coat on the walls early tomorrow, and head straight into the office after that. ”
“And when do you think you’ll be home again?”
“This isn’t home, Leah. My condo is home.” The words sounded harsher than he’d meant.
“Of course. I know that.”
When she went to turn away, he fumbled to make amends. “How did you meet my grandmother?” Jackson realized he’d never asked.
Leah looked surprised. “She rescued me in the library one day. Not Pine Springs. Kalamazoo.”
“Rescued?”
“I was having a bad day.” She spun the silver ring on her thumb. “Anyway, long story short, I had a bit of a meltdown and she took me to a café around the corner. Told me the answer to all of life’s problems is coffee and cake. It was good advice. I’ve followed it ever since.”
Jackson frowned, focusing on the middle section of her explanation. “What kind of a meltdown?”
“I was crying.” Leah tried to wave it off. “I was in a shitty relationship I needed to end but I was too scared to do it.”
“Why were you scared?”
This time, she hesitated. And Jackson realized the insensitivity of his question. He’d given Leah no reason to open up to him.
“You don’t have to tell me.”
“Maybe another time.” Her lips lifted but there was a heaviness behind her eyes that made his fingers clench. Jackson shoved his hands into his back pockets when she gestured vaguely at the mess by his feet. “I’ll let you finish up here.”
As Leah wandered silently away, fluffy socks masking the sound of her footsteps, he pushed the lid onto the paint can with more force than necessary.
He left by ten the next morning, swapping his scruffy, paint-covered jeans for a navy suit and white shirt, and feeling like two completely different people in the space of half an hour.
He was at his desk and dictating the agenda for that month’s board meeting when his father pushed open the office door.
“Your mother would tell you your hair needs a cut.”
“It’s a good job I’m thirty years old and she isn’t here, then.” Jackson glanced at his cell phone. He was tight for time between now and his next meeting. But, sadly, not quite tight enough to usher his dad out.
“What’s happening with your grandmother’s house?”
He wondered why his father rarely referred to Esther as his own mother. “It’s coming along,” he said noncommittally.
“Get your guy out there to take it on.” His dad nodded toward Oliver in the front office. “He can deal with the sale to save you wasting time going back and forth. One open house and it’ll be off your hands.”
“The guy’s name is Oliver—he’s been my PA for two years now, Dad.
And I don’t need him to deal with it. I’ve instructed a realtor, the work is ongoing, and the house will be listed soon.
It won’t reach the price we need if I put it on the market immediately.
” Jackson kept his voice even. “You know I have to keep going back and forth for now, because of Esther’s will. ”
His father shrugged him off. “That was only a request.”
“No, it’s legally binding, and it was what she wanted.”