The Shocking Truth About Ramsey (3 page)

"Ramsey, tell the boy's family the truth and as for you, stop listening to your mother.  She's a liar.  You're a big believer in education.  So, educate yourself.  Take some sex education classes or get some books and do your research.  You got the sex thing all wrong.  Now, I gotta go.  Just do what I said do and you'll be fine.  Bye now." 

Ramsey opened her mouth to speak, but heard the dial tone.  He'd hung up on her.  She frowned and shrugged her shoulders.  "Now what was that all about," she said to herself.  At any rate, she felt much better.  She always did after talking to her father.  He had great advice every time.  Although she'd rather die than be caught attending a sex education class, she was not adverse to purchasing books on sex and educating herself in the privacy of her own home. Seeing Jackson again had stirred up feelings inside of her.  She was interesting in moving on with her life.  A little self-education wouldn’t hurt at all.

 She also felt a weight being lifted in knowing that she could make amends and free herself from the terrible guilt, by just telling Jackson's folks the truth.  

#

Jackson was not ordinarily a rule breaker, but he was loathed to go home to the little house in the woods without his grandfather.  Having lived in the bustling city of California, dark, lonely, country lanes were extremely unappealing and a little intimidating.  So, he pulled the curtain between his grandfather's bed and the vacant bed in the small hospital room.  Making sure his grandfather was fast asleep he slipped behind the curtain, fluffed the pillow, stretched out on the bed, and promptly fell asleep.   His last thought was of a cocoa-brown skinned woman with thick hips and thighs, a delectable mole beneath her bottom lip, and eyes filled with derision.  

So, when he heard her voice, he thought he was dreaming.  That is until he understood what she was saying. 

"Mr. Maximus, I don't know if you can understand me, but I just want you to know that Jackson did not rape me.  It was something that just happened between us.  I was crying and he tried to make me feel better.  If I had asked him to stop, he would have.  It was his first time too.  He didn't even know what he was doing.  It was so awful, but it wasn't rape," she whispered. 

Jackson listened in disbelief.  Did she think anyone cared about her confession of the truth after all these years?  Maximus and he had hashed the truth out a decade ago.  Maximus Steele was nobody's fool.  He had gotten the truth out of his grandson and he didn't need it from some snobbish little suburban raised doctor.   Jackson jumped out of bed and snatched the curtain open.  It made him happy to see the shock on her face.  Her mouth fell open and she clutched the chart in her hands to her chest. 

"He knows I didn't rape you.  Why do you feel the need to tell the truth now, Ramsey?  Nobody cares anymore.  The damage was done and I paid the price.  So, just do what you went to school to do and be a doctor.  Leave the past where it belongs," he snarled. 

Ramsey stood on shaky legs and faced Jackson.  She knew he was angry and he had every right to be.  

"I didn't know they knew, Jackson.  When I told momma you were in town, she started talking about what she'd done.  I…I never told anyone about what happened.  She said Talmus saw us and that he told her.  She never said a word to me back then.  I swear I never knew what happened to you until today." 

He believed her.  Her eyes and lips were swollen from crying and she was obviously upset by the whole thing.  Jackson didn't know what to do or what to think.  He ran his hand down his face and stared down into hers.  

"Ramsey, I don't understand how it's possible that your mother kept all the trouble she caused a secret from you, but knowing Pam, I can kinda see it.  It doesn't matter anymore.  It was probably best that I left to live with granddad after that anyway."  

His eyes left hers to wander fondly over his sleeping grandfather.  Maximus Steel had done more than save him, he had helped him become a good man, one that knew how to work hard and give as much respect as he wanted in return. 

"I would like to tell your parents the truth too," she whispered. 

Jackson felt his body stiffen.  It had been a very long time since he'd been in the presence of this kind of woman.  He wasn't going to kid himself. He knew what sort of woman she was.  Ramsey was the marrying kind of female.  She was wholesome, loyal to a fault, sensitive to other's needs, and all soft and silk beneath those professional clothes she was wearing.  She was just the kind of woman he'd spent all of his adult life running from.  

"Uh, that won't be necessary," he said briskly.  He reached to put a hand in the small of her back to escort her out of the room, but snatched it back just before touching her.  She faced him again and he could feel the heat of her body tipping into his personal space.  He stepped back. 

"No.  I have to tell them the truth."  Her lips trembled and he watched nervously as her eyes filled with tears. 

"Ramsey, please.  You're making too much out of this.  We're in our thirty's.  It doesn't matter anymore. Just let it go," he begged. 

"But you were just sixteen and they made you leave the cove and your parents. I remember why it happened.  I was crying and you were trying to console me," she said. 

"I was obviously trying to do more than that," he said honestly. 

Maximus began coughing and Jackson was relieved.  He suspected Maximus' timing was a little too good.  But at any rate, the teary-eyed woman disappeared and the doctor instantly reappeared.  She raised Maximus' bed and called for a nurse to check his vitals.  As Ramsey busied herself with Maximus, Jackson slipped out of the room.  He needed a moment to think about the implications of all she had said. 

He found the elevator and took it down to the first floor.  The lobby of the hospital was decked out with state of the art furniture.  Huge, plush black leather couches were scattered throughout a massive sitting area for family and patient's waiting for admission.  Coffee stations were here and there.  There was ample enough room for a person to find a private corner to think, which is exactly what Jackson did.  

He tumbled into a love seat facing a gigantic fireplace, rested his head against the back of the seat, and began to think.  Ramsey hadn't known he'd been accused of raping her.  She had no idea why he disappeared.  What must Pamela have been thinking?  She probably had done more damage to her own daughter than to him.  So, Ramsey had kept it to herself all this time; thinking no one knew what had happened between him and her.  No wonder she'd been angry when she first saw him.  She thought he'd just left without a word.   

Jackson sat very still and tried to put himself completely in her shoes.  This was something he was good at doing.  Maximus had hammered into his head the need for empathy not just for friends, but for enemies too.  Once a man knew, and more importantly understood, what drove another man he was in a better position to deal with him and even outwit him if need be. 

But when he finished meditating, he was thoroughly dissatisfied.  He needed to know why she kept the secret. He also needed to know what kind of freaking momma Pamela had been to her.  Something wasn't right about their daughter-mother relationship.  It wasn't his business, but before he allowed Ramsey to go making amends for some wrong she thought she'd done him, she was going to have to let him make some amends of his own.   

#

Herby took another swig of gin and got on his knees.  He dug around underneath his bed for a small wooden box with a lock on it.  After sifting through an unholy amount of dust, old work boots and books, he found it.  The combination to the lock had been long forgotten, which should have been a good symbol for him, but right now he needed to get the darn box open.  

He tucked it under his arm and grabbed his bottle of gin.  When he got to the kitchen he sat both items on the counter and looked around for a hammer.  Within seconds the wooden box was splintered open to reveal a long-forgotten wedding ring and the key to his house on Maple Cove.  He slipped the wedding ring on his left ring finger and put the key in his pocket.  

The conversation he'd just had with Ramsey had messed with his head and he wanted to get his hands on his wife so badly it shook him to the core.  He had no idea what he would do with her once he got his hands on her, but he'd worry about that when he got there.  That woman had been the end of what could have been a good life for him.  She and her cat eyes and small waist.  She'd chosen him and he had fallen into her arms like a horny little boy.  He remembered his disbelief that a woman so beautiful and so intelligent would choose little old him.  Hah! What a bunch of baloney.   She turned out to be a nightmare.  She was insanely jealous from the start.  He couldn't go to the corner market at night without being accused of sleeping with the cashier.  She was controlling to the point of causing him a nervous breakdown.  It was either whiskey or psychotic medicine and he'd chosen whiskey.  Then when they had the babies she'd gone from bad to worse.  When she accused him of fondling three-year-old Ramsey, he'd left.  That was the end of that.  He still hadn't forgiven her, but he understood.  Her own father had molested her.  She didn't know how to trust anyone.  Understanding still didn't stop the crushing pain that came with the accusation.   It had been a long road to recovery for him.  He had done the only thing he felt he could do in that situation.  He left.  Staying would have torn the family apart in the worst sort of way and in his mind he felt the children needed their mother more than him.  He wasn't so sure now.  

He got into his car and headed for the interstate.  Interstate forty was the quickest way to get to Southaven, Mississippi from Memphis and he needed to get there quickly before he lost his nerve.  

Ramsey found Jackson before he found her.  He had fallen asleep on the love seat.  His last thought had been to take a nap and talk to Ramsey the following day when she made her rounds.  Worn out and just plain exhausted from dealing with his sometimes demented and sometimes not so demented grandfather, Jackson succumbed to sleep and was softly snoring when she finally located him.  

Ramsey was glad he was asleep.  She wanted to look at him.  There was little resemblance left of the old Jackson.  Although with his face relaxed in sleep and his guard completely down, she could see shadows of the boy she used to know.  Her eyes roamed over his broad chest, thick arms and hands.  He was a big man with an athletic build.   He lay back in the corner of the love seat with one arm thrown up over his head and the other resting along his side.  His lean hips rested against the edge of the seat with one long leg swung loosely over the arm of the couch and the other out toward the fireplace.  He was a sight to see even to Ramsey's acutely non-libidinous gaze.  

Skin as dark as Hershey's chocolate and just as smooth graced his face.  Lips full and indecently moist drew her eyes and Ramsey felt herself growing warm and confused.  She looked away and was about to leave when he moved.  It was the first time she'd felt a full arousal.  It hit her in the center of her stomach and spread like wildfire throughout her limbs.  

She watched spellbound as Jackson shifted his hips further up on the couch and groaned deep within his chest.  He slowly lowered the hand over his head to his flat stomach and rubbed his shirt up.  Ramsey's eyes followed his movements and her lips parted at the sight of his stomach and the muscular V leading to the waistband of his scrubs.   His hips moved again and she was lost.  She could have sat on the floor and watched his innocent, but erotic, display all night.  In fact, she was so busy watching his nether regions; she was totally unaware that his eyes had opened and he was watching her too. 

Her gaze finally shifted and she met his stare.  His expression was an odd mixture of curiosity and heat.  Ramsey hid her embarrassment by speaking. 

"I was looking for you," she said.  She knew it wasn't the most creative thing to say to a man who had just awakened to find her ogling his private parts, but for the moment it was the best she could do. 

Jackson sat up and pulled his shirt down.  He stood and stretched like a cougar.  Ramsey was too far gone to look away. She watched his arms flex and stared as his chest expanded.  He let out a deep breath and then shook like a wet puppy.  Placing his hands on his hips, he turned and stared down into her face.  His eyes narrowed slightly and she knew she had put something on his mind.  

"Is granddad okay," he asked calmly.  

"Yes."

"So….what's up, Ramsey?  I saw you looking at my body.  What was that all about," he asked.  He wasn't going to let her indiscretion slide.  She had been looking at him like he was a piece of chocolate cake.  Blood had instantly begun pooling in his groin.  He felt overheated and slightly irritable.  As beautiful as she was, he knew there was no shortage of men in her life.   As a matter-of-fact he was sure, since she wasn't married, she had a boyfriend stashed away somewhere.  Her credentials were too long for her to be manless.  

"I'm a geriatric doctor.  I don't get to see fine bodies too often," she chose levity as her weapon.  

"Come on, girl, I know you got men knocking down your door," he said seriously. 

"Actually, I don't," she said quietly.  

"Ramsey, don't lie.  You're a beautiful woman with a beautiful body and you're a doctor.  What man could resist you," he said.  

Ramsey was mortified that the conversation had taken such a pitiful turn.  She'd never been exactly sure about her appeal.  She had spent an inordinate amount of effort focusing on staying clear of men's sexual prowess to be worried about how they viewed her.  But for some reason, hearing Jackson call her beautiful was doing funny things to her insides.  She had an overwhelming desire to blink her eyes and look coquettishly up at him.  She squelched it with an iron-like strength of will that only a woman her age could wield.

"It's not important. I'm too busy for romance anyway.  I'm sure you realize with taking care of your granddad that elderly people are by far the most demanding of the population," she laughed.