Chapter Three

Jackson returned the following morning and found a piece of paper stuck under a jar filled with seashells on the small porch table. He slipped it free and smiled at what Clare had written.

Taking up the pen lying beside the note, he marked what he’d like for his lunch from the offerings she’d listed and added a thank you at the bottom.

Once he was on top of the barn, he grinned as she eased out of the house. He couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to make her so uneasy. Could be Morgan had put some pressure on her, or maybe she was just the shy type, but none of that mattered when she snatched up the note then lifted her gaze.

The distance between them shrank to nothing. He could see her clear as day, and what he saw set his heart racing. She was more than your average pretty, damn near beautiful, but there was something about how she looked at him and the memory of her voice that had his blood pumping fast through his veins.

She jerked her gaze away and hurried back into the house. He marveled at the fact that for the first time since Brittany dumped him, he was more than passingly attracted to a woman. Being neighborly might just turn out to be something more.

Rain snuck in around lunch time, but he’d gotten the job done. Running with his shirt in his hand toward the porch as the deluge began in earnest, he enjoyed the rush of being alive gave him. This is what he wanted, to find a reason to be happy again. And he knew it had to do with the mysterious woman in the neglected farmhouse.

He pulled on his shirt, with a chuckle rising in his throat, but it lodged there as he heard the door to the house open. Slowly, he pulled his shirt down from his head and looked at the woman standing in the doorway. She really was beautiful and shapely, and had a pixyish nose and big blue eyes, and he had the strangest feeling she was everything Brittany wasn’t.

“I, um, thought maybe you’d like to eat inside today,” she said. “What with the rain coming down sideways, the porch isn’t going to be dry for much longer, and it’s getting colder. I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned into snow before dark,” she said.

“I’d like that very much. Spring can be a bit fickle around here,” he said.

With a nod, she backed away and allowed him room to enter. After shutting the door, she motioned to the small table by the window, already set. She jerked when he reached behind her to pull out her chair but sank down into it with a small exhale.

“Thank you,” she murmured.

“You’re welcome.” He took his seat then put his napkin in his lap. He didn’t miss her watching his every move from beneath long dark lashes. Out of fear or just plain old curiosity, he didn’t know, but he figured he’d best leave that mystery alone…for now.

They began to eat, not a word passing between them, and somehow the silence was okay. It was soothing to share time and space with someone with only the sound of the rain filling the air. Nothing like dinner at his place. Not that his brother and his sister-in-law were chatty, but they had a hard time keeping their noses out of his business. So he relished this quiet moment in which he wasn’t alone.

The lunch was light, just a small salad with a roast beef sandwich on the side, so it didn’t take long to clean his plate. But with the last bite, his spirits fell, knowing that he would have to leave soon. No more food to eat, no more roof to fix, nothing to keep him there, and yet he didn’t move from his place at the table.

He sipped his tea and watched the rain splash off the porch steps. “Thank you for lunch.”

“You’re welcome.”

Silence fell between them again. He knew his stalling wouldn’t last much longer and turned to face her. It startled him to realize that he could sit and stare at her for hours. So unlike Brittany, whose looks had never left him with a feeling of awe and wonder. It was as if he were seeing the sunrise for the first time. He was more than attracted to Clare, and he wasn’t leaving until he knew more about her.

“It’s kind of funny we never met,” he said. “I mean with Mrs. Hampton being your grandmother and all, and my brother and I coming over for those cookies so often when we were kids.”

She lifted her gaze from her barely touched plate and pinned those deep blue eyes on him. “I didn’t get to visit much. I um, that is I—”

Jackson watched a dozen emotions flash across her face. She had a lot of baggage, but then so did he. Maybe they’d find a way to share the load a bit and become more than just neighbors, more than just friends…a lot more.

“Go on,” he said.

“Granny wasn’t really my grandmother,” she said, dropping her gaze back to her plate with a sigh.

“That explains why we never met. But your name is Clare Hampton, right?”

Her head snapped up, and he saw a blue flame light her eyes. “Of course it’s Hampton.” Her gaze lost some of its heat. “But it wasn’t always.”

She looked out the window at the rain, a softness falling over her features. “Grandpa found me on the road on a day much like this. I was thumbing my way to California. I was smart enough to be careful with whomever stopped to give me a lift, so I was naturally hesitant when he pulled up beside me. He asked if I had enough sense to get in out of the rain,” she said with a soft laugh.

“I figured he was safe enough, so I nodded. Then his mouth turned up in a crooked grin and he said, well then do it little gal. We ain’t got all day,” she said in a low blustery voice.

They both laughed at her sad impersonation.

She looked back at Jackson with a lingering smile. “So he brought me here, and after a few days, they asked me to stay.”

“And they adopted you?”

She shook her head. “No. There really didn’t seem to be a need. I was almost seventeen, and it would’ve cost them to go through all the lawyers and stuff. Just seemed a waste of money.”

“But what about your family, your parents? Weren’t they looking for you?”

A muscle in her jaw tensed as she cast her gaze back to the window.

“Clare, I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “Your past is none of my business.”

“No, it’s okay. I guess I just haven’t had anyone who wanted to know about me for a long time. It’s kind of hard to dig it all out.” She took a deep breath before continuing. “My parents died in a car accident when I was fifteen. Not that they were any good at being parents, but that left me on my own. I had trouble fitting in at the foster home, and no one wants to adopt a fifteen-year-old, so I ran away.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry for. It wasn’t your fault I had a crappy childhood. At least it was crappy until I met the Hamptons. They proved me wrong. There were people out there who wanted to adopt teenagers.”

“But we still never met.”

“Once I hit eighteen, I didn’t want to stick around and be a burden to them financially, and well, they kept trying to figure out a way to send me to college.” She shook her head. “I couldn’t let them do that, and I guess I still had a few stars in my eyes about California. So I convinced them that college wasn’t for me, and I left. I sent them money whenever I could and came back to visit from time to time. Last fall I came home for good.”

A thought popped into Jackson’s head. An unpleasant one. Was she really the legal owner of the Hampton ranch? Or had she taken advantage of a lonely old couple and just moved in? With that sort of background, anything was possible.

“Clare, I have to ask you something, and I don’t think you’re going to like it, but I have to know,” he said, bracing himself. “Are you the legal owner of the ranch? You say your name is Hampton, but if they didn’t adopt you…”

She sat back in her chair, her brow creased. “What?”

Jackson fidgeted with the edge of his napkin, not wanting to put a voice to his concerns, but he had no choice.

“You have to see it from my side of things,” he said. “I ride over here thinking of helping out my neighbor, whom I didn’t know had died, and find you here. Someone whom I didn’t even know existed. Then you tell me that the Hamptons had taken you in when you were a teenager and apparently left you their ranch.”

“You think I’m lying?” With a growl, she jumped to her feet and stomped toward the desk in the living room. He sure has hell hoped she wasn’t going for that rifle.

Rising from the table, he glanced to the door to make sure he had a clean escape route. “Look, all I’m saying is, it doesn’t look good. And now with Morgan trying to take over, well, I’m a bit concerned. You could really be in over your head here.”

She yanked open a drawer and rifled through some things, but he eased toward the door anyway. He didn’t want to test the theory of whether or not she’d shoot him.

She slammed the drawer shut then stomped back toward him, a stack of papers in her hand.

“Here,” she said, shoving them in his face. “Read it.”

He gingerly took them from her firm grip, and glanced over the words. She’d legally changed her last name when she was eighteen to Hampton and had been left the ranch in Mr. and Mrs. Hampton’s will. It was perfectly legal and binding, and he felt like an ass.

“I, um, I apologize. I was just afraid—that is, I thought that maybe—well, I’m sorry.”

Her shoulders sagged as she let out a long sigh. “No, you’re right. It does look a little odd to someone who knew my grandparents his whole life and didn’t know about me.”

“Well, I’ve been kind of out of touch with a lot of things the last couple of years.” He shook his head, as he handed her back the papers. “I’ll bet my brother knows, probably even told me, but I didn’t listen. And if I figure correctly, about the time you showed up I was probably in college, so it’s not surprising that I wouldn’t know about you. But I am sorry for jumping to conclusions.”

She flopped down on the worn out couch and rested her head back against the patchwork quilt draped across it. “Apology accepted. Even though they’re gone, you were just trying to protect their legacy. I can appreciate that.”

“So, um.” He cleared his throat and shot her a grin. “Are we friends again?”

She chuckled and lifted her head. “Is that what we are?”

He sat down beside her. “Sure, that is if you want to be.”

With a soft smile, she said, “Thanks, Jackson. It’s been a long time since I had a friend.”

“Glad to be of service.”

She cast him a crooked grin, her gaze narrowed. “So now you know my story, what’s yours? Since we’re friends and all.”

He shrugged. “Not much to tell you don’t already know.”

“Oh, I beg to differ. You said you’d been out of touch for a few years. That, my friend, sounds like a story.”

Now it was his turn to rest his head against the back of the couch and stare at the ceiling. “Yeah, a story.”

“Hey,” she said, with a touch to his arm that sent a tingle racing over his skin. “You don’t have to tell me.”

He rolled his head to the side and looked at her. This woman had just spilled out her life history, some of it, at least. There was a lot more to Clare’s past, but to give him an out after sharing some of hers, showed true compassion. Not that he’d doubted she had any, but it was still worth noting as one of the many things he was finding that he liked about Clare Hampton.

He cupped his hand over hers where it rested against his arm. “No, I owe you my story,” he said. “It’s only fair.”

She cast him a shy grin and eased her hand away. He noticed the way she trembled beneath his touch, hoping it was attraction and not fear. He had to be careful either way. He didn’t want her to boot him out the door if he moved too fast. Or perhaps decide to shoot him after all.

“Well, let’s see,” he said, forcing his thoughts back to the subject. “Her name was Brittany.”

He paused, waiting for the burn in his gut from the sound of her name, but it never came. That was a relief and another sure sign that his life was finally getting back on track.

“I have a feeling I’m not going to like her,” Clare said.

Jackson chuckled. “That makes two of us.”