Jackson woke long before the sun rose. Moonlight shaded the darkness. With her face smoothed in sleep, the toll worry and exhaustion had taken the past few weeks was evident. He hated to think he’d been the cause of any of it.
The revelations from the night before rolled around in his head. It was easy to picture a younger, less worldly version of Willa caught up in something beyond her control. He ached for her losses, both real, like Cynthia and her innocence, and self-imposed, like her father.
Whether or not she wanted to admit it, her tendency was to believe the best of people. Life’s experiences may have dented her natural optimism, but why else had she stuck around Cottonbloom for so long?
His arms tightened at the stab of worry. She would need to confront her past and make peace with it before any sort of future was possible. He wanted to help her. Protect her. He would move mountains for her if he could. But he had a feeling her past was a mountain she would have to summit alone.
With his thoughts and emotions in turmoil, his body was distracted by something more primal. Covered by a thin white cotton bra, her full breasts were pressed against his bare chest. Her pants rode below her belly button. The curves of her waist and hips should have danger signs posted.
The natural morning inclination of his body was stoked by the sight of her in his bed and the feel of her body close. Their brief exploration had only whetted his appetite for more. For everything.
But the night before had revealed fault lines in her defenses, and he didn’t want to take advantage. After all, he wasn’t after a one-night stand. Or one-morning stand as the case may be.
Sunlight crept across the room, lighting the corners and dissipating the mystery and intimacy of the night. Her eyes fluttered open and she blinked a few times.
“Good morning.” He kept his voice low so as not to spook her.
A blush suffused the exposed curves of her breasts and crept into her cheeks. She touched her hair and tucked a piece behind her ear.
“I should go,” she whispered.
“You don’t have to.”
“Do you want me to stay?”
He was used to bold, brash Willa in the garage. The woman in his bed radiated uncertainty. He ran a hand up her arm, and she shivered. His gaze dropped to see her nipples peak against the thin cotton. He wanted to answer in the basest way possible and take the point in his mouth.
He took a breath to control the urge. “I want you to stay. I might have to handle a thing or two in the garage, but you can hang out and stay warm. Watch TV or read. Relax.”
He trailed his fingers down the valley of her spine to the hollow of her lower back, pressing lightly. Like a choreographed dance, she arched her back and twisted her hips closer. Her slight intake of air signaled her awareness of his erection.
“Are you sure?” Her voice was breathless. Their gazes met and held, raw need on display in hers. The combination of bold and unsure was sexy as hell.
“No reason for you to freeze in your trailer. I’ve got plenty of room.”
Except there was hardly any room between them now. He smoothed his hand over her bottom and squeezed. Her moan crumbled his good intentions.
A dog’s bark and the scratch of nails on his door fractured the moment. Like she’d been given a shot of adrenaline straight to her heart, she scrambled away, grabbed her shirt off the floor and held it over her breasts. “River needs … I should…”
She disappeared and the door opened a second later followed by the patter of dog feet racing down the stairs. After she’d been gone for several minutes, it became clear she was using River as an excuse. He flopped onto his back and did his best to ignore his throbbing dick.
Hell, maybe it was for the best. The garage was officially closed until after Christmas, but afterward, they would still need to function as coworkers. How would having sex change their dynamic under a hood?
He dragged himself up and went to the window. The sun was already melting away any snow within its reach. River bounded through the scant patches under trees, but Willa wasn’t in sight. Finally, he gave up and headed for a cool shower. By the time he emerged, Willa and River were back. She had put out dog food, poured herself a bowl of cereal, and was talking to the dog.
“What’d you think of the snow?” A pause. “It’s going to melt soon, so you’d better enjoy it.”
“You always talk to her?” he asked.
She swiveled around to face him. “It’s slightly less weird to be talking to a dog than myself, right?”
The joke landed too close to his heart for comfort. She had suffered through her loneliness out of a mistaken sense of penance. A return smile was beyond him. “I need to talk to Mack and Wyatt about Ford. Make yourself at home.”
Without a car at her disposal, she was effectively trapped, which made him feel comfortable enough to leave her alone. The pocket of cold air at the top of the stairs was jolting even though the back doors of the barn were closed, leaving the interior dim.
He clomped down the steps, the cold still seeping through the sweatshirt he’d pulled on after his shower. Mack’s deep voice and Wyatt’s answering laughter drifted to him before his eyes had adjusted.
He followed the sound as if it were a beacon, his brothers coming into focus sharing the beat-up couch in the back.
“A family meeting and I wasn’t invited?” Jackson asked.
His brothers’ heads turned in synchronicity to greet him.
“Merry Christmas,” Wyatt said in a chirpy voice.
“River trotted over and dropped a deuce in my front yard, so I assumed you were busy—or getting busy—this morning.” Mack’s smile held an uncharacteristic tease. He’d shouldered more of the burden of the garage than any of them and it showed in the strain around his eyes and scarcity of smiles.
Which was one big reason Jackson’s knee-jerk refusal to contact their mother in order to find Ford was weighing heavily on him. But it was Willa’s story playing itself out over and over in his dreams that had highlighted his selfishness.
Ford was their brother and he was in trouble. One of them needed to extend a helping hand. If Ford chose not to take it, then at least his conscience would be appeased.
“You’re hiding Willa upstairs?” Wyatt’s feigned shock was ruined by the twinkle in his eye.
“Her trailer has a kerosene heater. She would have frozen last night.” Jackson grabbed a Coke from the fridge. “And nothing happened.” That was almost the truth.
“Well now, that’s disappointing,” Wyatt said with an eyebrow waggle.
Mack shoved Wyatt’s shoulder. “Are you going to tell him your news or what?”
Jackson’s gaze shot to Wyatt’s, and in a flash of intuition Jackson said, “You’re going to make an honest woman out of Sutton Mize, aren’t you?”
Mack muttered a curse. “How do you two do that?”
“Guess it’s the nine months we spent squished up together.” Wyatt grinned. “I asked her to marry me yesterday, and shockingly, she said yes.”
“She does know that she can do a sight better than you, right?” Jackson’s tease was all bluster. Truth was, Sutton was lucky to have Wyatt’s love and devotion.
“Don’t tell her until it’s official.” Wyatt stood up and hugged Jackson.
Jackson dropped his forehead to Wyatt’s shoulder for a moment before pulling back. “How was the ’Cuda?”
“Amazing. Perfect. I can’t thank you enough for helping Sutton. For being so good to us.”
Jackson tapped him once more on the back with his fist and stepped away. “Always, bro.”
“You know what this means, right?” Wyatt snapped his fingers. “The curse is broken.”
“Careful. You still have to make it legal,” Jackson said.
“But when I do, you’ll be next.” Wyatt’s lighthearted prediction didn’t feel so light in Jackson’s chest.
The three of them chatted a few minutes about the engagement and the reaction of her father, who was a well-off and well-connected judge in Cottonbloom, Mississippi.
“You’ll be the most useful relative that’s married into that family. Everyone needs a good car mechanic.” Mack stood up and clapped Wyatt on the shoulder. “I’m cold and need some coffee. Aunt Hazel is bringing the Crown Vic by in about an hour. I’ll take care of it since you have a visitor.”
“Let me handle it. I need to talk to Aunt Hazel anyway,” Jackson said.
“In that case, unless another emergency comes in, I’ll be at the house binge-watching all the Die Hard movies.”
Jackson held up a hand. “One more thing. I’ll do what I can to find Ford, including calling our mother.”
A few beats of surprised silence ticked off.
“Why the change of heart?” Mack asked.
“Something Willa told me last night got me thinking. As much as Ford gets under our skin, he’s our brother and in trouble.”
Wyatt pulled at his chin hair, a smile playing at his lips. “Weren’t you the one that suggested stripping him naked and dumping him out in the swamps when he threatened to sell his stake?”
“Yeah, well, not saying he doesn’t deserve a hundred mosquito bites where the sun don’t shine, but he’s got to be scared and panicked about some bookie shaking him down for that much money.”
Mack’s expression turned darker and inward. Mack’s relationship with Ford had been poisonous since Jackson could remember. Less than eighteen months separated them, and a competitive fire burned in them both, stoked unintentionally by their pop. It made for a messy dynamic.
“Let me know what you find out.” Mack walked away, his shoulders more tensed than they had been. Jackson muttered a curse. His goal of lightening Mack’s worries had backfired.
“You need to talk about anything else?” Wyatt pointed at the ceiling.
“If you mean Willa, then no.”
“Are things progressing?”
Jackson considered telling Wyatt to mind his own business. Wyatt would take his brush-off in stride, but the truth was Jackson felt unusually adrift and fearful of the changes looming both personally and for the garage.
“She finally told me more about how she ended up here and what she’s running from.”
Wyatt gave a low whistle. “Is it bad?”
“Yes and no. She’s not a criminal, but it’s a sad story.” It’s all Jackson could say without betraying her trust.
“Are you going to help her?”
Jackson grimaced. “If she’ll let me.”
“She’s a mite independent.” They exchanged dry smiles at the understatement.
“She had to learn real quick what it took to survive.” At twenty, without a degree and growing up relatively sheltered, Willa must have been terrified setting off on her own. It was a miracle she’d come through the past five years with her humor and heart intact.
“She trusts you now. Just don’t screw up.”
Jackson rolled a side-eye toward Wyatt. “No shit.”
“Go ask Dear Abby if you don’t like my advice. You’d better go open up the garage for Aunt Hazel.” Wyatt bumped his shoulder and shuffled backward, heading for the door. “If you don’t need help, I’m going to head over the river. Don’t forget, Sutton’s counting on you to come to her New Year’s party.”
“You know parties aren’t my thing.” He had zero desire to rub shoulders with the upper crust of Mississippi.
“If you really feel that way, I’ll send your regrets.” Wyatt’s smile signaled a kind of trouble that had baited Jackson into doing something stupid more times than he could count. “A shame though. I guess you’ll miss Willa’s big reveal.”
“Wait, what?” Jackson halved the distance between them. Close enough to see the puckish twinkle in his twin brother’s slate eyes.
“Sutton’s designing a dress for Willa to wear. Something super-sexy. She said Willa has a banging body and deserves a nice dress after wearing coveralls all day, every day. But you’re probably not interested in seeing Willa out of coveralls, are you? Or maybe you already have?”
Dammit, Wyatt was too good at navigating the rivers of emotion Jackson did his best to avoid. He narrowed his eyes, pointed a finger, and backed away. “I’ll be there.”
Wyatt’s laughter trailed after him and reverberated in Jackson’s head long after he’d left. Wyatt’s happiness was borderline nauseating, no matter how much Jackson liked Sutton.
Aunt Hazel turned into the parking lot, only the top half of her head visible over the steering wheel, just as he’d cleared out a bay. Every so often, he tried to talk his aunts into buying something smaller and with better gas mileage, but so far, neither had been willing to part with the Crown Victoria.
Even though Hazel was smaller and could barely see over the wheel, she was by far the more responsible driver. His aunt Hyacinth had gotten several speeding tickets over the years and considered them a point of pride. If car racing had been an acceptable pastime for women in Hyacinth’s youth, Jackson had no doubt that she would have smoked all comers.
Jackson motioned Hazel forward, and she edged into the bay in a series of starts and stops. He offered a hand out of the car. She looked up at him, a question in her eyes. The opening was there for him to ask about his mother, yet he bypassed it, knowing blasting through that door would leave painful marks.
“What seems to be the problem this time?” It was difficult to keep his sarcasm at bay when it came to the Crown Vic’s frequent trips into the garage. At some point there really would be something wrong, and they were likely to overlook it.
“A funny noise at idle.”
Jackson slipped around her to start the engine. Instead of retreating to the waiting room for coffee, Hazel followed him to the front where he found the latch and propped the hood up. Engine noise filled the space, yet an uncomfortable vibe had Jackson glancing over at his aunt.
“I’ll replace your air filter and see if that fixes things.”
She wasn’t looking into the engine compartment but at him. The questions he needed to ask her built like a pressure cooker until they were all he could focus on. He turned the ignition off and half sat on the front seat of the car. She followed him and waited, her eyes almost level with his.
“Wyatt said you know how to get in contact with our mother.” He put it out as a statement, but needed confirmation.
“I do.”
“Do you talk every Sunday or something?” Resentment seeped through his usually rock-solid defenses like river mud through a sieve.
“Nothing like that.” She shifted on her low-heeled sensible black shoes, the lines around her eyes deepening. “She contacted me about ten years ago.”
“Ten years?” An agitated energy popped him up and got him pacing beside the car.
He would have been graduating high school. The day he’d donned the cap and gown and walked the stage in front of his best friend-slash-brother, he’d scanned the crowd and wondered if she would show up. Every birthday and seminal event in his life, he’d done the same. It was an instinct or compulsion he’d never admitted to and couldn’t seem to stop.
Hazel didn’t answer him.
He stopped and faced her, feeling for a moment as if they were enemies instead of allies. “What did you tell her about us? What did she want?”
“She wanted to see you.”
“Then why didn’t she?”
“Your father, of course. Hobart was a good daddy to you boys, but the man was stubborn as all get out and held on to too much hate where your mama was concerned.”
That much was true. He’d gotten rid of any evidence their mother had existed—minus them, of course. Not a single picture remained to stoke even vague memories of her. “What’s she after? A cut of the garage? I’m surprised she didn’t roll up the day after Pop died with her hands out.”
“Have you never made a mistake, Jackson Elkanah Abbott?” Hazel shook her head, the use of his full name a sure sign of her disappointment. And, like when he was six and a Hot Wheels car had found its way into his pocket at the store, he felt it keenly.
Easier to avoid her grenade of a question. “She abandoned us by choice.”
“All right then, have you never done something you regretted?”
He glanced toward the barn as if he had X-ray vision and could see Willa. What was she doing? Wrestling with her own regrets?
“Regrets have a way of growing deeper roots every year,” Hazel said gently, as if sensing his softening.
“When’s the last time you talked with her?”
“Late this summer. I had hoped Wyatt would reach out to her, but he’s too wrapped up in Sutton.”
He would let Wyatt share the happy news with their aunts. “Does Ford know where she is?”
“I don’t know. Why?”
“We’re wondering if maybe he’s with her.”
Hazel made a throaty sound of surprise. “It’s possible, I suppose.” She opened her pocketbook and removed a folded piece of stationery. When he reached out, she pulled it away. “Are you only contacting her because of Ford?”
With his aunt staring at him with the same eyes that stared back at him from the mirror, he could only be truthful. “Yes.”
She gave a sharp nod. “Promise me you’ll hear her out and give her a chance.”
A chance to what? Reenter their lives and play a happy family after being gone for twenty-plus years? His resentment ebbed as quickly as it flared. Before Willa, he would have never given his mother a second chance. His black-and-white world view had been blurred to gray by Willa.
“I promise,” he said gruffly.
She extended the paper, and he took it. With fingers that felt too clumsy to even tighten a bolt, he unfolded the sheet. Belinda. Oak Grove, Louisiana. She hadn’t gone far. Oak Grove sat a few hours away, close to the Arkansas border.
Did he have a passel of half brothers or sisters running around? “Did she remarry? Have more kids?”
“Nope. She pined for you boys and Hobart too.”
He wasn’t sure how to reply, and Hazel’s knowing, too-wise eyes weren’t helping. He turned to the nearest supply bin. “Let me get a new air filter.”
When in doubt, he always changed the filter. The air circulation in the Crown Vic was the cleanest in Cottonbloom Parish. It took him a scant ten minutes to button everything up and drop the hood. He followed his aunt to the driver’s side.
She fired the car up and rolled down her window. “When are you going to call?”
“Soon.” After he had a chance to mull over every implication and write his playbook.
“I’ll see you at church and for Christmas Day lunch, won’t I?”
“Of course.” He bussed her cheek, and she rolled up her window, seemingly satisfied.
He waved her out of the garage, locked everything back up, and took the stairs to the loft two at a time, anxious to verify Willa hadn’t magically disappeared.
He slowed at the top and eased the door open. She was lying on the couch, her eyes closed and a book tented over her chest. River lifted her head from where she was curled at her feet, but otherwise seemed as loath to disturb Willa as he was.
He sat in the armchair close to her head and watched her sleep. Did she feel safe with him? He hoped so. Even more, he hoped she considered him as more than a protector or friend, although he wanted to be both those things for her too.
But if she woke up to find him staring at her like this, she might decide he was a creepy weirdo. He picked up the top book of the stack she’d brought from the trailer. The fact her most precious possessions included borrowed library books said a lot.
He turned to the first page. It was set in the Wild West. He read a page and then another and another, going slow and running his finger along each line until he was caught up in another time and place.
“Do you like it?”
His gaze shot off the page to meet hers. Her eyes were soft and sleepy and sexy in a way that made him want to take her back to bed. He nodded, unable to knit together letters to form coherent words.
She spun her legs to the floor and stretched her arms above her head. The thin cotton T-shirt emphasized the curves of her body. He swallowed and forced his gaze off her breasts and back to the pages of the book, but the black-and-white text ceased making sense.
“I should go.” Her voice lilted on the edge of a statement and question.
“No, you shouldn’t.” His voice emerged too harsh, and he forced a coaxing tone. “It’s not snowing anymore, but it’s still bitter cold out. You’d be miserable in your trailer.”
“I’ve survived worse.” The rawness of the admission had him closing his hands into fists to keep from grabbing her.
“I know,” he whispered. “But this isn’t about surviving, okay?”
“It’s Christmas Eve.”
“So?”
“Aren’t you going to spend it with your brothers?”
Christmas Eve had never been a huge holiday for the Abbotts even before his pop had died. It had been up to the boys to get down the artificial tree and decorate it. Eventually, they had outgrown the magic and had stopped celebrating it at all. Except, Hazel and Hyacinth made sure they went to church Christmas morning, followed by a big supper and a present apiece.
Jackson assumed that tonight Wyatt would be with Sutton, and Mack would be asleep before eight. “We’ll go over to the aunts’ house for Christmas Day supper, but I’ve got nothing going on tonight. Stay.”
When she didn’t answer right away or even look at him, he took her hand in his. She turned her hand and skimmed her fingers over his wrist. His heart thumped faster and harder against his ribs. He massaged his thumb down the middle of her palm. His body was asking a question he couldn’t verbalize.
He could back away now and pretend the sexual currents sizzling between them didn’t exist. Time and inattention would squash whatever struggled to break ground between them. He could go back to his tidy half-life. Or could he?
If she stayed the night, they would be burning bridges and altering their relationship forever. Change was bearing down on him like the sharp corner in a race he was sure to lose yet was determined to see to the finish line.
His hand tightened around hers and the words welled up from his chest. “Please stay.”