Forgiving Jackson (17 page)

Jackson winked at her. “I’m dancing with you! You have to sing with me!” In that moment, Emory had never seen a more beautiful man, with his laughing eyes and bright smile. He looked happy. And because he asked it of her and though she could hardly carry a tune, she joined in:

Emory pointed to him and stopped singing. She wanted to hear that beautiful voice without her own off-key tones mixed in. He poked his bottom lip out in a pretend pout but then smiled and sang the last verse, as she danced on.

He ended with an elaborate riff. Caught up in the moment, Emory jumped up and down and clapped her hands.

He put the guitar down and they hugged a little and laughed.

“So, what is it about that song?” he asked. “The brilliant lyrics? The deeply tragic emotional love story?”

“Catchy.” Emory ran her fingers through her hair and fanned her face with her hand.

“Catchy?” He covered his heart with his hand. “I’m wounded.”

“You could do worse than catchy.”

“Yeah?” There was something about the way he looked at her that let Emory know what was coming. He cradled her cheeks and brought his lips to hers, barely touching but moving his mouth just enough so that there was nothing brotherly in the kiss. She waited for him to pull her close in and press his body against hers but he didn’t. He just took his time with that chaste little kiss, with barely parted lips and a tongue that never came into play.

Emory could have kissed like this all night. It was so safe. But she shouldn’t so she pulled away.

“So, what would your girlfriend think of you kissing the help? Would it put her on the hurting side of love?”

He looked puzzled. “What magazine have you been reading? I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“I didn’t read it. I overheard you say ‘I love you’ to someone on the phone.”

She expected him to go on a rant and accuse her of spying on him but instead he squinted his eyes, like he was trying to remember.

“When?” he asked. He hadn’t taken his hands from her cheeks and his nose wasn’t that far from hers.

“The day we went to the quilt shop. When I came into the exercise room, you were just getting off the phone.”

He bit his bottom lip and cocked his head to the side. Then he nodded.

“Missy. My cousin—first cousin. The kind you can’t kiss unless you think incest is okay.”

She had no right to feel relieved but she did.

He smiled. “Now that we’ve cleared that up, I might be willing to trade a sandwich for another kiss.”

This had been a perfect night, the first one she’d had in a very long time—maybe ever. And she was afraid that another kiss might ruin it.

She laughed and stepped back. “I’m a woman of my word. I promised a sandwich and I’ll deliver a sandwich.”

“Yeah? Deliver? Right here on the porch?”

“That wasn’t what I meant, but why not? I wouldn’t want you to wear yourself out by walking all the way to the kitchen. After all, it takes a certain amount of energy to eat a sandwich.”

“Good deal.” He sat down on the settee and picked up his guitar again.

As she walked away, he called after her.

“Hey, Emory. Will you fry the bologna? But don’t toast the bread. I like soft bread.”

“Okay.”

“And bring me a beer?”

She laughed and nodded, though she was pretty sure he couldn’t see her anymore.

“And, Emory?”

“What is it now?” she called with exaggerated patience.

“You’re not the help.”

“Could have fooled me.” But she began to hum “The Hurting Side of Love.” And there might have been a little dance in her footsteps.

Gunshots startled Jackson, and the bad terminator’s cold eyes, as well as the business end of his gun, were pointed straight at Jackson.

Then he opened his eyes. It was daylight and he’d fallen asleep on the couch again. The gunshots weren’t gunshots after all, but someone pounding on his door.

He thought he’d turned a corner last night, thought music might be possible again, maybe even the benefit. But after Emory left, the same old ghosts had returned when he tried to play.

He stepped on the remote where he’d dropped it and tripped on the way to the door.

“What the hell?” he barked as he jerked the door open.

“What the hell yourself?” Dirk strolled past him and sat down in the best chair.

Jackson almost chastised him for the early hour but canceled that plan after catching sight of the clock. It was after eleven. He was up early today.

“When did you get back?” Jackson settled back in his still warm spot on the couch.

“A little while ago.” Dirk leaned forward and shuffled through the DVDs on the coffee table. “Did you have a
Die Hard
marathon last night?”

Jackson yawned. “
Terminator
.
Die Hard
was night before last. Thursday? Was that Thursday?”

Dirk frowned and nodded. “Yes. And today’s Saturday.”

“Right.” Thursday was the night he told Ginger he wasn’t doing the show.

“Tomorrow will be Sunday,” Dirk said.

“Thanks for that information. Now, tell me something I don’t know, like what I sent you to New York for—though I would like to point out I asked you to call me with that.”

“I decided against it. I need to tell you this in person.”

“Did you find the guy? I pray you did and you’ve got him with you.”

Dirk shook his head.

“I don’t believe it.” Dirk never failed.

“No police report was ever filed. And Emory never saw a doctor.”

That couldn’t be.

“Are you sure?” Stupid question. Dirk never said anything he wasn’t sure of.

“I’m sure. I’ve got an old army buddy who’s a detective for the NYPD. He owed me and he looked long and hard, every way possible. Emory never called the police. She never went to the ER.”

“There’s more than one hospital in New York.”

“Do you think I don’t know that, asshole? Do you think I didn’t check every single one, plus private practices? I also checked New Jersey. Nothing.”

“That can’t be so. Maybe they wouldn’t tell you. You know, what with all that HIPAA stuff.” Because if what Dirk was saying was true, that meant Emory was lying, lying to make him feel sorry for her so he wouldn’t shut down Around the Bend.

“Jackson, do you really think HIPAA could stop me?” Dirk rubbed the place between his eyes. “Do you think I just waltzed up to reception desks and asked for lists of rape victims?”

“Then how?”

“Never mind. That’s for me to know and you not to find out. Either you trust me or you don’t.”

And the hell of it was, he did trust Dirk—which meant he couldn’t trust Emory. And when and why had that become so important to him? He thought they’d made some kind of connection—what exactly, he wasn’t sure. But, for a little while, it had made him happy and happy wasn’t something that came along very often.

And now that happiness was gone and it wasn’t coming back.

Suddenly, a wave of anger hit him full force and carried him out to the Sea of No Turning Back. He got to his feet. He would fire her right now! No more parties, no more weddings, no more quilting bees. Best of all, no more lying Emory Lowell with her little-girl curls, big-girl scent, and smile that could bring him to his knees. He was done.

Done. Done. Done.

“So Emory was never raped at all!”

“I never said that. Sit down, Jackson,” Dirk said.

And he did. He hated himself for the small glimmer of hope that rose in him. He was a monster. What kind of man hoped a woman had been raped? But he
didn’t
hope that; he just wanted her not to have lied to him. He wanted her not to have betrayed every woman who’d ever been violated by a man.

Dirk shook his head. “I admit your reaction was also my first one. But I decided to think it through—something you might want to consider from time to time.”

“Okay.” Jackson closed his eyes but he couldn’t make out anything that made sense. Finally, he said, “I’m not coming up with anything.”

“At least you tried,” Dirk said. “Thirty seconds is better than nothing. Though, I admit I have some information you don’t.”

“Then get to it. I don’t have all day.”

“Debatable, but that’s a debate for another day.” Dirk leaned forward in his chair. “I started thinking about when Emory first came here. Miss Amelia announced she was coming and told me there was no need to do a background check, that she’d known her for years.”

“She had,” Jackson said. “I don’t really remember Emory from that time. I was on the road for most of it. But she came to charm school and then spent summers volunteering for several years. Aunt Amelia was fond of her and would mention her in passing.”

Dirk nodded. “Gwen knew her from those summers. Of course, I was in the military then so I was seldom home and when I was, apart from Gwen, I wasn’t studying who was working at Beauford Bend. But Gwen was excited that Emory was coming and kept assuring me I didn’t need to check up on her.”

“But you did.” It was a statement.

Dirk barked out a little laugh. “Of course I did. Do you think I’m crazy?”

“Yes. But that’s beside the point.”

“Look, buddy. I was working for you, not Amelia. And you told me to make sure everybody here was safe. So I made a few calls and found out exactly what I told you before. She went to Harvard. She made good grades, never got into any trouble except for her tendency to park where she wasn’t supposed to on campus. She wasn’t in debt. In New York, they liked her at Jennings-Caldwell and she was up for a promotion. They were baffled the day she called and said she wasn’t coming back. It seemed odd that she’d want to leave a job like that to come here, but I figured it was her business and put it out of my mind. And Gwen was glad she was coming. Finally, after about a week, I asked Amelia when she was coming and she said she was already here.”

“But you hadn’t seen her?”

“No.” Dirk shook his head. “Amelia said she wasn’t feeling well and was keeping to herself for a while. There was no sign of her, apart from Amelia sometimes asking Gwen to fix a tray of food. But she would never let Gwen take it upstairs.”

“And how long did this go on?” Jackson asked.

“A month. Maybe more. Though Amelia seemed as sharp as ever, she
was
getting on in years. Gwen and I began to worry that she was becoming delusional and that Emory wasn’t here at all, though that didn’t jive with her leaving her job. I was on the verge of calling you about the whole situation when, one day, Emory just appeared.”

“After a month?”

Dirk nodded. “I figured she’d been sick like Amelia had said. Frankly, I was so relieved Amelia hadn’t gone crazy that I didn’t give it much thought. But looking back … ”

“What?”

“Emory had some faint bruises. I’d forgotten it, but I noticed one day and thought she must have had an accident and that was why she quit work suddenly.” A disgusted look passed over Dirk’s face. “I should have given it more thought. But Julie was teething and Emory was no threat to anybody, so I was done.”

“So what makes you think she was raped and didn’t just fall down some stairs or have a fender bender?”

Dirk shook his head. “I don’t know. Again, it wasn’t my business, but she didn’t leave the grounds for months. I only remember because Miss Amelia was always running this errand or that and I thought she ought to send Emory. But finally Emory did start going to town.”

“Beauford?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you ever know her to go to Nashville?”

Dirk shook his head. “That doesn’t mean she didn’t. I didn’t monitor her comings and goings. But come to think of it, there were a few times that Gwen and Christian went shopping in Nashville and Emory kept Julie. I’m sure they would have asked her to go.”

Jackson looked out the window. “That fits. I tried to take her to Nashville for dinner and she had a come apart—jumped out of the truck and was going to walk back here. Doesn’t make any sense. She could be hurt anywhere.”

“I don’t know that a woman who has been so brutalized that she has to hide for a month has to make sense.”

“So you think she was raped—like she said—and didn’t report it?” Jackson said.

“I’m no mind reader,” Dirk said. “But looking at the facts, yeah, I believe she was raped. I don’t think it happened like she said though. I think she was date raped and knows exactly who did it.”

“Then why would she lie to me?”

Dirk gave a grim little shrug. “I’m not good at
why
but I can guess. She’s probably ashamed. Blames herself.”

“She has nothing to be ashamed of!” Jackson exploded.

“Don’t jump on my ass. I know that. But I did some reading on this. It’s not uncommon for rape victims to blame themselves. And date rape victims often convince themselves they led the guy on.”

“Aunt Amelia never talked to us much about sex, but she always did tell us that
no
means
no
, even if it was yes the minute before.”

“Too bad Emory’s attacker didn’t have a Miss Amelia. I expect another reason Emory lied to you was because you were pressuring her and she wanted to get you off her back. She didn’t imagine you’d send me on a manhunt.”