Eight #2
By the time Beck rode back from Clint Varner’s place and into Jackie’s, Lonnie had returned to Mary Sue and their son for supper.
The late afternoon sun hung low and mellow, laying a honey-colored light over the yard.
It was his favorite time of year, when the weather struck that rare, easy balance between spring chill and summer heat, making it a pleasure to be outside.
But not so pleasant as to keep his thoughts from warring inside him, sitting heavy in his chest.
Land was at the heart of it. It troubled him how Archer land had turned into an ugly obsession by one man who’d determined in his own mind that it’d been denied him. Beck didn’t care who was at fault for that thinking. The reality is what mattered, and Jackie played a big part of it.
The time had come. She needed to know the truth.
The torn windsock stirred weakly on its bent frame, one ragged strip sashaying around the other.
It rankled that Clint had laid his hands on it, destroying it, rendering it useless when Jackie depended on it so much, although Beck conceded the damage could have been worse.
The windsock was fixable. Reordered, if nothing else. But it didn’t change Clint’s malice.
After opening the hangar’s doors in readiness for the Piper Cub’s return, saving Jackie from having to do it herself, Beck rode toward her house, dismounted the gelding, and looped the reins around the porch post. She’d put in a full day for the Forest Service and would be back within the hour, or so he hoped.
And hearing her fly in, knowing the Piper Cub’s wheels had touched ground, would be the relief he’d been waiting for all day.
Might be she’d appreciate supper waiting for her.
He loped up the porch stairs and went inside. It wasn’t often he helped himself to the privilege as though he had the right, but supper wasn’t going to cook itself. She kept a tidy house, freshened by open windows and a few new furnishings that made it a home, pleasant and welcoming.
He kept going into the kitchen, finding a package of ground beef wrapped in butcher paper, potatoes, onion, and a salad dish of lime Jell-O mixed with cottage cheese and pineapple already made in the icebox. He had his menu, then. Simple, hearty, and one of his favorites.
He shaped the hamburger patties, sliced the onion, set potatoes to boil for frying later, and carried what he needed out to the small grill by the house.
By the time the coals had taken hold and the first thread of smoke drifted into the late-day air, his mood had lifted, comforted from making a meal for Jackie and the prospect of sharing it with her.
The low hum reached him, then, steady in the sky. The Cub came in from the west, low against the evening light. Beck left the grill and followed the sound with long strides across the yard toward the airstrip.
She brought the Cub in clean as ever. Tail low, then lighter. The wheels touched earth with neat control as she taxied toward the hangar and rolled the Cub inside, and he was there before the propeller stopped turning.
Jackie pushed the door open and climbed down with the easy competence that always impressed him. She tugged off her goggles and stared straight past him to her bedraggled windsock.
“What happened?” she demanded, wide-eyed. “The windsock is ruined.”
“Clint Varner stirring up trouble,” Beck said.
“He didn’t deny it, but he’s trying to make life on this place rough enough to run you off.
” After he closed the hangar doors, they fell into step away from the hangar.
“I won’t have him making this place unsafe for you, Jackie.
I’ve already warned him. Lonnie was with me, so Clint knows there’s two Archers ready to fight him. ”
“Oh, Beck.” She shook her head. “I don’t want any of you fighting for me about anything.”
“Don’t underestimate him. Any man worth his salt will fight for land with all he’s got.”
Her eyes flashed stormy green, like thunderheads piling up on the horizon. “Well, he can fight all he wants, but this land is mine, and he’d best keep his boots off it. The coward.”
Her avowal struck him clean through, but he kept his mouth shut. His grandfather’s memorandum could wait. A man didn’t start that kind of conversation between them with supper on the grill and defiance still bright in her eyes.
Unexpectedly, though, she halted mid-step. “Why are you standing in my yard with a spatula in your hand?”
He glanced down at the long-handled turner he didn’t even realize he held. Amusement from his oversight brought on a grin, and he hooked a lazy arm around her shoulders, urging her forward, closer to the grill. “Need it to cook with.”
“You’re cooking for me?”
“Hamburgers. Helped myself to what you had in the icebox.” He tapped her nose with the spatula’s handle. “Hope that’s okay.”
Her entire expression lit up. The simple pleasure of it moved through his veins.
“Of course it is, and it smells wonderful. I’m starving,” she said softly.
He released her at the porch step. “Go on in and wash up, then set the picnic table. Nice night to eat outside.”
She snapped her heels and saluted. “Yes, sir!”
Laughing, she entered the house, leaving him chuckling, too, as he headed back to the grill. He ought to have been thinking about Clint, and land, and danger. About how close a bitter man might come to doing worse to a woman next time.
Part of him was, but he thought about Jackie inside the house more, a slim capable beauty who carried the sunlight in her hair with her. Fresh air, the scent of pine and just a touch of aviation fuel.
He finished the hamburgers, fried the potatoes crisp in a cast-iron skillet, and they ate outside at the picnic table, shaded by the house.
Jackie had changed into a cotton dress printed with small flowers and belted at her narrow waist. She’d loosened her hair from its usual twist at her neck, leaving the russet tresses hanging past her shoulders, each side pinned back with a barrette.
She looked softer somehow—less like the capable pilot who crossed his sky and more like the woman who had quietly taken hold of his heart.
After supper was finished, they munched on chocolate chip cookies for dessert. A gentle quiet settled between them. Comfortable, familiar, the kind of quiet that made a man want to keep it in his life.
After finishing, Jackie pushed her plate back, leaned forward, and propped her elbows on the picnic table’s top.
“Why would Clint think he’s entitled to my land, Beck? What if he’s right, and he is? What if the bank made a mistake somehow? Or Roy Kincaid did, and his estate was in error, and it should never have been sold to me?”
There was a frayed edge to her voice, like she was trying to stay practical while the doubts pressed in, refusing to go away. They must’ve been eating at her all during supper, but she’d done a darn good job of hiding them from him.
Until now.
He was done keeping the truth from her. His grandfather’s wishes, written in his own hand. The whole tangled inheritance of land, memory, and promises hidden away and left behind.
He set his empty plate on top of hers, stood, and stepped away from the table. He reached a hand toward her.
“We’ll clean up later. I have something to show you.”