Chapter 20 Jackson
Jackson
He hadn’t prepared himself for Leah’s loungewear. When she danced back into the bedroom ten minutes later, waving a book, he was still obsessing over the feel of her fingers curled around his own.
“Found it! Traces of Chalk. Clayborne Knight’s first outing. Prepare to be entertained.”
The jeans were gone. For a brief second, he thought nothing had replaced them as Leah’s smooth bare legs stretched below the hem of her sweatshirt, with just a fresh pair of woolen socks on her feet.
It was only as she crawled onto the bed beside him that Jackson saw she had jersey shorts under the baggy top and his heart stopped lurching like a drunkard.
Wedging the pillows into position behind her, she leaned back against them.
“Are you ready, or do you need anything before I start?”
Her concern hit him in the stomach. Had anyone ever asked him that? Had anyone ever even checked on him with a migraine or fetched him crackers or stroked his hair?
“I’m fine,” Jackson choked out, closing his eyes as Leah began to read, allowing her voice and scent to surround him.
As his breath became long and slow, every part of his body relaxed into the mattress.
He wanted to watch Leah’s expressive face as she read but it felt too intimate.
He didn’t have the nerve to open his eyes.
Strangely greedy for everything she was willing to give him, empty of anything to offer in return, Jackson let himself drift.
He stirred sometime during the evening when Leah’s hand landed on his chest, her fingers twitching against his skin.
Opening his eyelids reluctantly, he gathered scrambled senses and foggy memories together in a search for clarity.
Leah lay beside him, framed in a cloud of dark hair.
Eyes closed, tactile lips ever so slightly open.
He blinked stupidly and her fingers jerked again.
She’d started to shiver as the temperature dropped.
When she’d broken off reading to fetch a blanket, Jackson had merely lifted the top cover instead and thrown it over her legs, not wanting her to leave, even for a moment.
She’d read to him for hours. Every time she’d suggested stopping, he’d asked her to continue and she’d happily carried on.
Her melodic voice soothing his head, his chest, his heart.
He couldn’t help but smile at how restless she was, even in sleep, pushing at the comforter and bringing a knee up against his hip.
Jackson’s skin prickled with heat at the contact despite the sheets that lay between them.
His groin tightened and he held his breath.
Leah settled again, leaving her leg where it was.
It felt like a brand on his thigh and he fought the urge to close his fingers around her hand still curled on his chest, settling instead with reaching over to touch the end of one of her curls, satisfying his need to discover if it was as soft as it looked.
It was softer.
Her hair fascinated him; for weeks now he’d been desperate to thread his fingers through the strands.
The urge to do it was becoming an obsession.
Trying not to be a creeper, he attempted to fall asleep again but his eyes kept getting drawn back to her face.
He wondered why the faint creases on her cheekbone from the pillowcase were so appealing.
With Leah beside him, he felt like some of his jagged edges were smoothing from the inside out.
No one had been on his team since Dom had died, and he’d reacted by putting up barriers and keeping everyone at arm’s length.
It had seemed so much easier that way. But Leah had lost people, homes, a whole life, and her generosity of spirit was undimmed. Jackson didn’t know how she did it.
Settled by her breath in the dark and too comfortable to move, he tumbled back into the misty clouds of sleep, with Leah’s hand over his heart and her knee against his thigh.
When he was woken by the ringing of his phone, the room had lightened and it was morning; the space beside him was empty again. Automatically Jackson answered the call, the cramping of his stomach reminding him that two Ritz crackers was all the food he’d had in thirty-six hours.
“Yes?” He scraped the palm of his hand against the stubble on his chin. Damn, he needed a shower and a shave.
Natalia had a list of questions on some drawings he’d asked for.
Head heavy, thoughts dull, Jackson swung his legs over the edge of the mattress and pushed himself to standing.
He took a step toward the window, looking out over the vast backyard as he tried in vain to kickstart his business brain.
A dull thump flared in the base of his neck and his stomach roiled again. In the end, Jackson cut across her.
“Natalia, you’ll have to give me a minute. Can I call you back?” He hung up without waiting for an answer.
A movement in the doorway caught him by surprise. Leah’s dark eyes were fixed on his face, all-knowing and all-seeing.
“The water will be hot,” she said. “Do you think you can manage a shower?”
Jackson nodded, not entirely convinced but prepared to sell his soul to feel clean again.
“Why don’t you do that and I’ll make some breakfast? There’s fresh towels in the cupboard on the landing.”
He nodded again. It seemed his limited strength lay in silent communication this morning.
Bracing himself against the tiles with one arm, legs shaky, Jackson ducked his head under the warm torrent and washed the slick of sickness and sweat from his skin in quiet bliss.
A squeeze of shower gel was enough to soap up his hair and swipe under his arms before his stamina deserted him. He rinsed and shut off the water.
Get your act in gear, Jackson told himself as he brushed his teeth.
Pull yourself together, as he tugged on clean shorts and a fresh t-shirt, fragile as a day-old kitten.
Stop being pathetic. Just fucking get on with it.
Back in the bedroom, he saw Leah had stripped the bed and remade it with clean sheets.
He wanted to climb under the covers so much he could hardly breathe.
Instead, he sat down heavily on the edge of the mattress and buried his head in his hands, willing the jangling neurons in his brain to settle down.
Long minutes ticked by; he couldn’t bring himself to move.
“Hey, Jax.” Leah entered the room, carrying a tray so full he wondered how she’d gotten it up the stairs.
He struggled to his feet as she laid it on the dresser.
“Now, I’m gonna say this super-fast before the pancakes get cold.
I want you to listen and then you can shout at me later.
” He saw nerves in the look she flashed him but the lift of her chin was defiant. “I called your office—”
“You did what?” He was genuinely stunned.
“I spoke with Natalia. Who is absolutely lovely, by the way. You’re so lucky to have her on your team.
” Leah beamed, momentarily distracted. “Anyway, I explained how sick you were yesterday and I told her . . .” She swallowed.
“. . . you need to take one more day to recover and that you will be back in contact again tomorrow, if you feel up to it. Natalia says there’s nothing on the schedule today that’s too urgent for her to handle, Oliver is on top of everything in the office and he’ll speak to Rufus as well.
She’ll only call if something comes up that none of them can deal with. And she hopes you feel better soon.”
Leah’s eyes, as warm and dark as heated molasses, held his and she waited.
He should be furious. Jackson opened his mouth and closed it again.
Something in her face softened and Leah pulled back the covers. “Get in,” she told him. And he did. The relief was huge; the sheets smelled like heaven.
Leah brought the tray to the bed, laid it on his lap, and perched next to him.
“I brought enough for two so you have to share.” She removed an upturned bowl from a dinner plate to reveal a stack of warm pancakes.
“My specialty and my weakness. I didn’t know what you’d want so I brought toast and fruit, too.
Caffeine’s out for now, so there’s juice instead.
” Leah picked up one of the plump pancakes and bit into it.
“Don’t wait too long or you’ll miss out. ”
“You’re something else,” he told her.
“I know.” She reached across him to snag a slice of banana.
Jackson tore off a piece of pancake. “These are so good.”
“One of the only things I can make without a recipe—thanks to Esther and Hazel.” She chewed thoughtfully. “Tell me more about your family. Esther was full of stories about you and your brother when you were small. And Atherton, too. Your grandad sounded lovely.”
“I don’t remember him much. He died when I was very young.
But if I ever smell tomatoes, the proper warm smell of fresh-grown tomatoes under glass, I see his face in my mind.
He loved his greenhouse.” He smiled at the memory, then frowned.
“I guess Dad got his coloring more from my grandmother’s side of the family because they didn’t look alike. ”
“Who did your brother look like?”
Jackson’s eyes slid away from her, toward the window. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “He looked like me.”
“Some people have all the luck.” His chest rose and fell on a gruff laugh which held no humor. “Tell me about him,” Leah prompted.
Perhaps it was the “Bed of Truth” effect, perhaps it was just her, but Jackson found it easier to voice his memories of his brother with Leah than he ever had before.
“Dominic was the best. He was six years older than me and a million times smarter. He was funny, sociable, charismatic. Every girl had a crush on him. Guys wanted to be his buddy. And adults loved him.” He swallowed the lump in his throat.
“I adored my brother. He was easily my parents’ favorite and I never minded.
He aced every test in school without trying.
He wasn’t amazing at sports but he’d join any team that would have him.
There was nothing he wouldn’t have a go at. ”
“I hate him a little bit already.” Leah pulled a face.
“You wouldn’t if you’d known him. Dominic was insufferably appealing. Whereas I’m just insufferable.”
“Insufferable is far more interesting. Appealing people are so tedious to be around, with their charm and general goodness. Yuck.” She nudged him with her knee and mock-shuddered.
Jackson’s lips quirked. She still wore the sweatshirt and shorts she’d slept in, didn’t seem to have brushed her hair, and her skin was nude of makeup.
Fresh, natural, and unaffected, she warmed him like the sun.
“He was supposed to take over Hale Evolution—Dad had been priming him for years. It was all he ever talked about. How Dominic would take the company to the next level and they’d destroy the competition.
It was the reason Dom started a business degree at UChicago. I couldn’t make the grades to get in.”
“I didn’t go to college either. Think of all the money we’ve saved.” Leah gave him her complete attention, hands cupped around her near-empty glass. “Did your brother want to take over the company?”
Jackson was silent for a minute. “I don’t know. I never got the chance to ask him.”
“What happened?”
He looked at her open face and struggled for the words; he wondered if she already knew.
“He got drunk on a night out in his sophomore year and climbed onto the roof of an old warehouse. His friends said he did it for a dare. They tried to stop him but he was wasted and wouldn’t listen.
The roof collapsed. He fell twenty feet onto a concrete floor and died from head injuries. Just horseplay that went wrong.”
The baldly stated facts lay between them but it felt strangely calming to have someone to share them with.
“Oh, Jackson.” Leah’s eyes were huge. She put her drink to one side and scooted closer, leaning her head against his shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”
After a heartbeat’s pause, he curled his arm around her waist. Dropping his chin to the top of her head, he dragged a deep breath in through his nose.
“I was devastated. He disappeared out of my life and everything was worse.” Jackson considered the gaping hole in the middle of his family. “My parents were left with me. Second-best in every way. Less smart, less popular, less easygoing. Just less. They can’t forgive me for not being him.”
“No.” Leah pulled away, kneeling on the bed. “You don’t believe that.”
“I do believe it. They’ve told me a million times in different ways over the years what a disappointment I am. I will never live up to the memory of my brother. I’m OK with that.” What a lie.
Leah’s face drew into unfamiliar lines. There was a fierce light in her eyes.
“However hurt and broken they were, and I’m sure they still are, your parents are so lucky to have you.
It must have been horrendous to lose Dominic, but you are not second-best in anything.
You’re smart and loyal and unbelievably capable.
” She leaned in and took his face between her hands.
Her touch fizzed and crackled against his skin, the blood cells in his body sending arcs of electricity from one to another, shocking him in more ways than one. “Don’t you dare say you aren’t.”
Their noses were barely six inches apart.
She was so close he could see each individual eyelash framing her mocha-dark irises.
“Brown,” it would say on her vital statistics.
But brown wasn’t adequate. They were rich like chocolate, warm like coffee.
Alive with a force beyond description. She’d left her hair loose again and it curled in lush swathes way past her shoulders, held back only where she had tucked it behind her right ear.
Jackson itched to take a big handful of it and pull her closer.
Her fingers were soft against his jaw and warm. She smelled of maple syrup.
He turned his head until his cool lips met her palm and rested his mouth there for a long, endless minute.