Her Perfect Match (11 page)

“Well, yeah.” He looked uncomfortable suddenly. “But none of them ever wanted to stay in Colorado or with me. I did find a love of history, though.”

So he’d been looking for love. Elizabeth definitely didn’t want to think about the women he’d tried to love. “Have you been to the historic sites in Philadelphia or in the surrounding counties? We had flourishing cities and towns here when no white man had ever walked in Colorado.”

“Ah. Progress.” It wasn’t hard to hear the sarcasm in his voice. She wondered what kept him at Laurel Glen if he longed so for home, but decided against asking. She wasn’t sure she was ready for his answer.

“Not necessarily progress,” she countered. “But certainly an older non-Native American culture than you’d find so far west unless you looked as far as California, anyway. And without those men and women who inhabited the original thirteen colonies, the revolution would never have happened.”

She glanced at her watch and smiled while snatching another piece of juicy apple. “And we’d be having tea right now—yummy. Little dry sandwiches and hot tea.” She took a sip of her cider, and the taste exploded in her mouth. “So why haven’t you been to see Old City if you love history?”

“Old City? I hadn’t heard of a city called old.”

“Oops, sorry. Local reference. There’s a section of center-city Philadelphia locals refer to as Old City. There are all sorts of historic houses and buildings in an area of several blocks. I think you’d enjoy it.”

Jack shook his head. “Those expressways into the city are a little daunting to a country boy.”

“Oh, knock off the cornpone routine. It might work with elitists like my parents, but you have a masters in history, for goodness’ sake. I’d be glad to go in with you and show you around, though.”

Jack smiled, and his brilliant blue eyes shone even in the shadow of his wide brimmed hat. “I’d like that just fine, Beth. I’m off next Saturday, if that would be good for you.”

The affection in his voice when he said Beth made Elizabeth’s breath catch. All she could do was nod and watch his smile broaden. He was coming to care for her and she for him. But would she ever find the
courage to trust him body and soul? And even if she did, would he turn from her once he learned the dark secret she had yet to find the courage to share with him?

Where did one find courage?

T
wo days later Elizabeth left Laurel House and started out for the stable where Jack’s office was located. She’d gone to the house to see Amelia Taggert and baby Laurel, who’d come home from the hospital the day before. Ross was to follow them home in a few days, but Amelia was a little down about his absence, so Elizabeth had spent an extra hour there.

She had promised to have lunch with Jack that day, after she worked with Glory, which she had yet to do. Faced with a choice between working in a dusty ring with an animal who would rather have a good run or eating lunch with Jack, there was no contest.

She’d be having lunch with Jack.

Whenever she thought of him a little thrill shot through her. Which was admittedly a first for her. She was pretty sure she was coming to love him, and it looked as if her attraction for him grew exponentially. She felt more for him than she’d ever felt for any
man but there were still dark shadows hovering at the edge of her life, dimming the future and its possibilities.

Over the years she’d developed a one-day-at-a-time life philosophy. While it hadn’t been a cure for her problems it had kept her going. So since there seemed to be nothing she could do to chase the shadows away, she decided to accept what happiness came to her while she was with Jack in the hope that joy would keep the shadows at bay. Lunch in Jack’s office might not thrill a lot of other women but to her it was a near miraculous chance to feel like a normal woman—for a little while, anyway.

In the stable she could hear the faint sound of Jack speaking over the quiet whinnies of the horses. She peeked around the corner into his office and found that he was on the phone.

His back was to her as he spoke while he gazed out the window behind his desk. “Look, Dad,” he said on what sounded like a tired sigh. “I told you before, you’re taking this all wrong. This is about more than that. I needed to get away, and moving into the cabin just wasn’t enough. I’m thirty-two years old, and you’re constantly second-guessing my every move at the ranch. Ross Taggert gives me more latitude at Laurel Glen than you ever did. If I have an idea, you assume it’s no good because it’s mine.”

Jack’s hand beat an impatient tattoo on his desk as he continued, “Well, that’s how it feels from my end and I figure my emotions should count for something
for a change. And Crystal’s, too! Yours have been dominating our family for years.”

Feeling as if she were an intruder, Elizabeth backed away, but she knocked over a stray pitchfork in the aisle. The heavy thud drew Jack’s attention. He swung around, and a look of surprise and something more settled on his face. “Hold on a minute, will you, Dad?” He covered the mouthpiece. “Beth. I, uh…”

“You’re talking to your father. I heard,” she said, surprised that he was so flustered. Thinking he might be embarrassed that she’d overheard his sharp words to his father, she smiled, hoping to put him at ease. If anyone should understand having disagreements with a parent, she should. “This is more important. I’ll just catch you for lunch another day.”

“No,” he protested. “Hold up there. I won’t be long. Lunch with you is more important than a years-old struggle with my father. We’re not going to settle anything. Believe me.”

He went back to his call. “Listen, Dad. I never said I’d be gone permanently. But I have to do this. I know you don’t understand why, and right now I can’t fully explain it, either. Just believe this is more about
me
than anything else. Okay?”

He listened for a long moment, his brow slightly furrowed. “No, I don’t like the sound of it, either. Get Crystal to call me. Maybe she’ll talk to me.” He paused again, listening. “Okay? Good. I’ll try, too,” he replied and then blinked and took the phone away from his ear and shot the receiver’s earpiece a quick look of disbelief before putting the phone back
against his head. “I love you too, Dad,” he said, sounding as confused as he looked. “Be talkin’ to you soon.”

He hung up the phone then, a faraway look of bewilderment still on his face.

“Is everything all right?” she asked, concerned because Jack was always so together.

“My dad said he loved me. He never says anything like that. You know it but you never hear it, you know?”

Elizabeth grimaced. “Not really,” she said automatically—truthfully. She instantly regretted her candor when he looked stricken. Not wanting to let anything overshadow her chance for a few uncomplicated moments with him, she quickly changed the subject. “I heard you mention someone named Crystal. I take it that’s your sister.”

He nodded. “She wasn’t home so I couldn’t talk to her. Apparently she and her pickup had a little disagreement with a tree and another car last night. Her truck lost so she’s out getting an estimate on the damage. Trouble is, it’s the second freak accident she’s had in a week, and Dad says she’s acting a little weird. I wish I was there but—” He stared at her, and Elizabeth found her gaze captured and held by his. “But I’m not about to leave here any time soon.”

Elizabeth took from his frank stare that she was the reason. “Oh,” she said and her face heated, sure she’d read him correctly.

Jack grinned and sat back in his chair, gazing across the expanse of his desk at her with a satisfied
look in his blue eyes. “Good. You’ve gotten that far, at least,” he said, then he pulled a small picnic hamper from behind his desk. “I asked Ross’s cook, Ruth Ann, if she knew what you’d like for lunch. She made lunch instead of just telling me what to fix. I confess I was hoping for something along those lines. My expertise doesn’t get past coffee, omelettes, three-minute eggs and egg salad.”

Elizabeth laughed. “Ruth Ann would say you make the egg salad when you forget to time the three-minute eggs.”

He winked. “Got it in one, sweetheart,” he said, Bogart style.

Her stomach flipped, and Elizabeth almost shot to her feet in an automatic flight response, but then she looked at Jack. Really looked at him. And understood. It was not fear she felt but desire.

Jackson watched Beth’s eyes widen and prayed she wouldn’t bolt. It was clear he’d done something that had made her suddenly aware of him as a man. He wasn’t sure what. So he quickly sent a prayer winging heavenward, asking God to give her calm. Then he added one for wisdom for himself and healing for her.

He’d done a lot of praying these last few days since coming to understand the unfathomable while knowing he didn’t understand at all. Someone had been so callous as to hurt her, and he couldn’t grasp how anyone could injure someone as kindhearted and intrinsically good as Beth.

What really frustrated him was, now that he had a
vague idea of the problem he faced where she was concerned, he still didn’t have a clue about exactly what had happened to turn her so skittish where men were concerned. Once again he wished he knew but he fought the urge to ask. While he needed desperately to know, he also knew the knowledge had to come voluntarily. Eventually she would tell him. He would earn her trust, and she would come to trust him, then she would tell him.

Jackson tore his gaze from hers and his thoughts from her problems and started pulling the food out of the basket. He wanted to enjoy this time with his Beth. Just a few minutes ago, when he’d seen her standing in the doorway, he’d thought he’d ruined everything. He’d been sure when he saw the look of distress on her face that she had overheard more than he was currently at liberty to divulge. More than he was comfortable with her learning by accident. But it was clear he’d been speaking to his father in general enough terms that the conversation had meant nothing to her. He knew he could settle back and enjoy these quiet moments.

“Ruth Ann said you like her chicken salad,” he said, arranging one of the sandwiches on a plate.

Beth moaned in pleasure. “Ruth Ann’s chicken salad is to die for. She toasts slivered almonds and puts them in it along with cut-up grapes.” Her eyes widened even more when she looked at her plate. “Oh, and she put it on her homemade croissants! Have you had these?” She smiled widely when he
shook his head. “You’re in for a treat. You must be pretty special to Ruth Ann.”

Jackson handed over her sandwich after putting the German potato salad and carrot sticks the cook had also sent along on the plate. Next he popped the top on a can of cola and handed it over the desk before making his own plate. “I have a feeling it was you she was treating, Beth,” he said casually.

“Me?”

“How come you find that so hard to believe?”

“I’ve rarely been special to anyone. So, tell me about Crystal. Do you two look alike?”

Jack again felt he was withholding the truth, though the truth of his parentage wouldn’t affect his relationship with her. “Not at all,” he said. Remembering the pictures in his wallet, he pulled the scarred leather billfold from his back pocket, then set the picnic basket on the floor next to him. “I have pictures.”

He showed her the one of Crystal she’d had taken for the paper when she was supposed to be getting engaged. She’d looked so happy. Her bright smile lit her dark eyes.

“Her hair is simply gorgeous,” Elizabeth said and, thankfully, didn’t comment on the lack of resemblance—but she would soon when she saw the rest.

His father’s picture was next in line. Someone else he didn’t look very much like. Not for the first time he wondered what it was about the human condition that they could explain away even the most startling evidence if there was something they didn’t want to see. He’d forgiven his father for the years of lies, but
not because he wanted to. Because he’d had to. Since then, he’d been waiting on the promise of the Lord to feel that forgiveness. When he’d heard his father say he loved him a few minutes ago, Jackson had realized he’d come to the place where he did indeed feel the forgiveness he’d granted weeks ago.

“Your father’s very handsome. A lot younger than I’d expected. Is he as tall as his son?”

“Almost. When I was little I thought he’d start to notice me if I could get as tall as him.” He pursed his lips and shrugged, telling himself it didn’t matter. “Then I was taller and I didn’t care anymore.” He braced himself as she flipped to the next.

“Grandmother,” he explained when she looked a little puzzled.

Though only half Cheyenne, his grandmother had been a traditional dresser. As a Christian she hadn’t practiced her Cheyenne religion, but she had been very proud of her Native American ancestry. She had told them the old stories the way Europeans tell the stories of Greek and Roman mythology. And she had spoken the language to them, though not as much in later years. Consequently he’d forgotten much of what he’d learned as a youngster.

“Now I understand your sister’s hair. Your grandmother is Native American.” She chuckled. “I guess you all are.” She tilted her head, considering him. “You don’t look at all like them. But you don’t take after your father, either. Sort of like me. Except I’m sure you were never an ugly duckling.”

“Growing up I decided I was a conglomeration of
several generations worth of recessive genes,” he said, not adding that in the last few months he’d come to understand that he’d been wrong. “And I wish you’d stop calling yourself names. All children are beautiful. I don’t understand your parents referring to you as an ugly duckling and thinking it was funny.”

“Tell me about your grandmother,” she said, clearly changing the subject.

“She was Mama’s mother. When Mama died she stayed to help raise us. Except she did most of the raising. She was tough. Fair. Meaner than a cornered snake if you got her riled. Wise. There was nothing that woman couldn’t think her way around. She worked right up until the hour she died. Fixed dinner and scrubbed the kitchen floor then she went and sat down in her chair in front of the fire. We figured for a short nap. Crystal and I found her there when we came in from the calving shed. Dinner was still warm.”

“Oh, that’s so sad. You had no warning.”

Jack shook his head. “No. It’s the way she’d have wanted it. She was doing what made her happy right up to the end—staying useful. She would have hated to be reduced to a rocking chair on the front porch. This way she never knew a sick day. She just stopped one day and went home to be with the Lord.”

“Whenever Meg talks about dying she says it the same way. Going home. Maggie, too.”

“Is that the same Maggie you mentioned that day you told me about how you got started with the women’s shelter?”

She smiled and nodded. “Maggie O’Neill. She was our housekeeper. She fell and broke her hip. She’s the reason I hate to see my father make a deal with that developer. If he sells the carriage house, I’ll have to move into the house with them.”

“That makes no sense.”

“Sure it does.”

“Beth, move out on your own.”

“I can’t. I use the money to support Maggie that I’d be spending on rent. Her hip was a severe break and she needs care. She lives in a managed-care facility that her Social Security would never cover. She was supposed to have a pension but my father made a mistake investing it in a losing venture-capital scheme.”

“And you’re picking up the slack for your father.” It wasn’t a question. He really had come to know her.

She’d taken a bite of her sandwich so she shook her head then washed down the food with her cola. “For Maggie. I do it for Maggie. She was our housekeeper from the time I was born but she took care of us like she was our nanny because she wanted to. She was more a mother to me than my mother was. Now it’s my turn to care for her. It’s just that it’s a hundred dollars a day and—”

“That’s three thousand dollars a month! How much of your salary are you shelling out?”

She shrugged as if dismissing her generosity. “Almost all of it. But I have a trust fund from my grandfather that pays my expenses.”

“Except if your father sells the carriage house,
you’ll have to move in with your parents. Beth, they’ll drive you nuts in a week at the outside.”

Her smile was wry, and she sighed. “I know. But I’m a lot tougher than I look.”

She’d have to be, because right then she looked like a marshmallow. Soft and sweet. He wanted desperately to circle the desk and kiss her but he knew that wasn’t a good idea.