The Shocking Truth About Ramsey (10 page)

“Thank you, son.   You’ve made me proud. I wish I could live long enough to see everything you will do with your life.  I won’t though, but I know you will make good decisions. I have always had confidence in you.”

Just like that, the passage of something important and necessary happened between them.  Jackson stood taller and felt ready for something.  He wasn’t for sure what it was, but he knew that the bases of his strength was being loved and being believed in.  It was just as important as the blood flowing through his vein.  It gave him life just as the air he breathed did.  

They didn’t talk much more as Jackson helped Maximus bathe and get dressed.  Jackson obeyed his grandad and got the house clean.  He also spent some time cleaning himself up.  By noon, they were ready for the nurse.  The knock on the door was right on time.  Maximus was lying in bed watching television and nodding off at the same time.  Jackson left him to go answer the door. 

Ramsey had talked herself out of going out to see Maximus five times.  Each time, she could hear his weak voice pleading with her to come to him.  He was so old and so weak.  She begged him to allow her to send a nurse, but he had said he wanted her.  He claimed the last nurse he had was an alcoholic and had stolen from him.  She had tried to reason with him that Jackson was here now and would never let anything like that happen while he was there.  

Then he had told her that Jackson might not be there when the nurse came because he was seeing some woman.  That had made Ramsey see colors of fire.  Red, orange, and yellow sparks blurred her vision.  She decided finally that she would be professional and honest.  Professionally, she was obligated to Maximus.  Honestly, she needed to see that whore monger, Jackson.  She was nowhere near finished with him.  It had been days since she had seen him and he still made her burn for it.  She wanted him and no one else would ever do while she was in the state she was in, but she was not going to chase in behind him and if he could step out with another woman this soon after what they shared, then she had better try to forget him.  She would do just that after she saw him this once more. She was woman enough to do it too. 

She’d made an unprofessional decision to wear her hip-hugging black slacks, her cleavage-showing silk blouse, musk perfume, and raspberry flavored lip gloss.  She turned all her new sexual prowess on and made her way to Maximus house.  

Even after the long drive, she was still revved up and ready to wage war.  She wanted Jackson and technically he was hers.  She’d suffered enough because of him to own him head to feet.  If she couldn’t have him, she would most definitely leave her mark on him.   

She parked her car close to the front steps, took her sexy time unbuckling her seatbelt and stepped out of her car.  She collected her doctor’s bag and keys, tossed her hair over her shoulders, licked her candy-sweet lips and climbed the two steps.   She knocked on the door and within seconds none other than the six feet two inches, man-sized dark chocolate phenomenon, called Jackson Steele stood before her.  To put it nicely, her lips parted, but in reality her mouth fell open. 

Jackson couldn’t believe his eyes.  He stared down at one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen.  He knew it was Ramsey, but she was different.  

“Ramsey,” he whispered. 

She felt it.  Her name was a caress instead of a sound.  It whispered along her skin and sent all her senses into overdrive and she couldn’t think straight.  Before she knew it, she was walking into his arms.  He instantly lifted her up against his body.  Her feet dangled above his. She wrapped her arms around his neck and the kiss began. 

It was carnal, hot, wet, and desperate.  She felt it when his back hit up against the wall and then something fell when she wrapped her legs around his waist.  They were moving, but she didn’t care. Her lips never left his. She was devouring him and he was letting her.  She couldn’t get enough of his breath.  Her mouth fastened over his.  He gave her his tongue.  She closed in on it and sucked hard.  The groan that rumbled through his chest came at the same time they hit the floor.  

This was even better.  He was beneath her, all of him; and she felt heady with power and arousal.  She tore at his shirt until her hands rubbed against his hot flesh.  She heard a deep sigh and was shocked to realize the sound came from her.  She felt Jackson’s big hands on her butt and she wiggled against them, wishing with all her heart that she was naked as the day she was born. She wanted those hands on her skin.   

“What the blue blazes!” 

It was not the voice of the weak old man she had talked to on the phone.  Jackson and Ramsey almost did each other bodily harm trying to get to their feet. 

“Yall done knocked my pictures off the wall and turned over my table.  Ramsey!  Your doctors bag and the stuff in it is scattered everywhere.  Jackson you standing there with your clothes ripped to shreds.  What in God’s name is wrong with you two!!?”

Ramsey was so embarrassed she couldn’t speak.  Jackson was too dazed and aroused to think.  Maximus was truly outraged and disgusted. 

He continued, “Ramsey!  I cannot believe you would let him touch you after I told you he was seeing another woman.” 

Jackson snapped to attention at this false accusation.  “Granddad, you know I have been right here in this house the whole time,” he yelled. 

“I know that, Jackson, but Ramsey didn’t know that.” 

Jackson and Ramsey stared at Maximus like he had gone senile.  Both were trying to be respectful, but it was clear they were upset. 

“Look, I’m just an old man, but I still got ears that hear and eyes that see.  Yall help me back to bed.  I thought you two were fighting and I come in here and see some x-rated stuff going on right in my living room, while I’m wide awake and in the middle of the day.  Lord have mercy, times done changed.  Ramsey, I just can’t believe you.” 

“Leave her alone, granddad,” Jackson said through gritted teeth.  It was clear that Ramsey was polarized with embarrassment.  She was stiff in her movements and all that sexual aura that had surrounded her when she knocked on the door was long gone.  She was gathering up her medical supplies and looking very upset.  Jackson had to diffuse the situation and he had no idea how to do that without getting rough with Maximus, which he was not about to do even though he deserved it.  Jackson should have known that Maximus would meddle.  He was secretly glad he did.  That kiss was one he would never forget.  Ramsey was hot.  He wanted her.  He needed her. 

“Uh, Ramsey.  I’m going to put granddad back in bed and then I will leave you alone to examine him and do whatever you need to do.  I will be in, uh, my room when you finish.  Just call me when you are ready to talk about him.”

“Thank you, Jackson.  I’ll call when I’m, uh, ready to talk about Mr. Maximus,” she said. 

Ramsey, even though embarrassed, could not stop the throbbing of her arousal.  Just the sight of Jackson was a distraction.  She stood in the doorway and waited for him to help Maximus into the bed.  She watched how gentle he was with his grandfather.  She couldn’t help but look at his hands.  They were big and well-manicured.  His nails were neat and clean and cut to the edge of his skin.  The front of his shirt was torn and her face burned with embarrassment when she looked at it.  Maximus had looked at them like they were animals. 

Ramsey saw Jackson coming towards her as he prepared to leave the room.  She flattened herself against the frame of the door so as not to touch him or even feel the warmth of his body.  He stopped right in front of her and practically leaned his whole body against hers.   His lips came down over hers and he kissed her open-mouthed, tongue and all right in front of Maximus.  

His lips slid to her right ear and he whispered, “I told you we weren’t done, didn’t I?  You and me, baby girl.  You and me.”  He pushed off the wall and left her with the heat of his body echoing against hers, his breath trailing along the recesses of her ear, and his words ricochetting along all the dumb-woman neurons of her brain. 

When her vision cleared, she stared right into Maximus face.  His eyes were wide, bright and attentive.  He stared right back at her and then he said, “What he say?” 

Ramsey laughed so hard, she thought she would choke.  When she got her composure she shook her head at him and then thought better of it and shook her finger at him. 

“Shame on you, you nosey old thang you.  I imagine there is nothing in the world wrong with you, but a grandson named Jackson.” 

“I don’t want you to make him happy.  I want you to marry him, girl.”

Ramsey laughed again, but her heart had just jumped into her throat.  She remembered her man-hating momma saying that a man would never pay for something he could get free and that a man would never marry a woman who he already had.

Ramsey stopped laughing and looked at Maximus again.  He raised his eyebrows and nodded his head as if he had just heard each and every one of her thoughts.   

#

Talmus didn’t know whether he was in hell or heaven.  His mother and father both were staying at his house and neither was in any hurry to leave.  Two nights ago Pam had shown up in the middle of the night with her eyes swollen from crying.  Herby had taken one look at her and taken her to his bedroom and they hadn’t come out until late the next day.  

Talmus noticed immediately that something was different when they finally came out to eat lunch.  Pam had changed.  She was not the woman he had grown up knowing as his mother.  She almost seemed like a broken doll.  Talmus was worried.  Herbert was obviously worried too, but he was doing an effective, if not somewhat clumsy, job of hiding it.  

Pam liked Talmus sunroom that faced south and was located at the back of the house.  It was a room of glass with glass walls and a glass ceiling.  It was state of the art and had cost Talmus a huge sum of money to have it built.  It was the room he loved most.  No matter what time of day he chose to relax in it, a welcoming and calming view met him.  In the mornings he would watch the sun rise with its reflection mirrored on the small lake in his backyard.  At night, he’d be seduced by the stars and the moon reflected on the lake as well.  The temperature in the room was modulated by heated floors in the winter and central air in the summer.  

The colors he had decorated the room in were warm colors of brown, dark greens, and ivory.  There was no need for pictures because the view of the outdoors was the best.  The only wood wall was the one that flanked the actual house and on either side of two glass doors were floor to ceiling shelves of books.  Brass lamps and thick and plush recliners of varying colors furnished the room.  

It was a naturalistic, manly, and intellectual sunroom.  His mother liked it and would be found there, if she wasn’t in bed asleep.  She would stand before the glass and just watch nature silently.  She didn’t have much to say to Herby or to Talmus.  She slept in Herby’s room every night. Talmus shrugged his shoulders.  His assumption was that the longest separation in history was over and done with.  They were together again.  

Talmus didn’t know how to feel about it.  He decided to wait until later to mull over it.  For right now, his main concern was his mother’s emotional state.  Something had happened that night she had come to his house.  He was tired of guessing when it came to his mom and he was not going to play detective anymore either.  He knew most of her secrets and had done some damage control for her, but he was done with all of that.  

Finding out the circumstances behind his father’s exit from their lives had enraged him and he would not be an enabler for his mother ever again.  He couldn’t help but worry, but worrying wasn’t doing any good.  He needed answers and if Herby wasn’t going to ask her any questions, well he would.  

Just as he thought, she was in the sunroom.  Talmus walked up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders.  She didn’t move. 

“Momma, tell me,” he said. 

“How did you find out about Cassandra,” she asked quietly. 

Talmus wasn’t surprised.  He had hoped this was what was upsetting her.  He was ready for this. 

“I went looking for my birth certificate and found Cassandra’s birth certificate stuck to Ramsey’s” he said simply. 

The shoulders beneath his hand stiffened.  

“I glued the edges together thinking to hide it in plain site and that as long as I kept up with Ramsey’s birth certificate, I would keep up with Cassandra’s” she whispered. 

“I hired a detective after that,” he confessed.

“Why,” she asked. 

“I needed to understand why you hated me.  I wanted to know why our lives had to be so dark and small.  The only way to find out was to know your past.  I knew you couldn’t have been born this way.  I…I just….I just had to know what was making you hurt so bad.” 

The room was so silent.  Talmus took his hands off her shoulders, but stayed close.  He could feel the warmth from her body.  His little bitty mother was so full of emotions.  She was so packed full of something terrible that she couldn’t do like other people, like normal people, and shift the hurtful emotions to make room for healthy emotions.  

Her voice came into the silence like a rusty nail breaking through rotted wood.  

“I don’t.  I don’t, Talmus.  I don’t hate you.  I love you with…..” her hands fluttered up and away from her side in desperation and then she dropped them back against her side, “with…..everything,” she continued.  

Talmus splintered.  She loved him.  He didn’t know how much he wanted to hear it until she said it.  

Pam couldn’t understand why everything was hurting her so badly.  To hear her grown son say that she, his own mother, hated him was a stunning blow that hurt badly.  She had to stop herself from bending over and keening with it.  It wasn’t just that it was not true, but the fact that her baby boy had felt like she didn't love him.  She had hurt him.  What could she do now?  How do you give love to a child who was no longer a child, but a grown man?  How do you convince him?  How do you make it right?

“What did you find out, Talmus?”