The Best of Times: A Dicken's Inn Novel (13 page)

She sat there until the fire burned down, praying and pondering the situation. She finally came to the conclusion that she was tired, and this issue needed to be addressed once she’d had some sleep.

CHAPTER 9

Jackson came awake and recalled the conversation with Chas just before he’d come up the stairs. He groaned and wondered what he’d been thinking. If he was trying to convince her that he wasn’t good enough for her, he was doing a good job. But that’s not what he wanted, and he had to figure out a way to reverse it. He went out for his usual run, hoping that brisk air and exercise would help him find the answer. By the time he got back it was snowing hard, and the answer
had
come. He knew what to do as clearly as he’d ever known which person was guilty of a crime and needed to be arrested. When it was right, he just knew it. Still wearing his running clothes, he looked at the partially full bottle of expensive whiskey, and the other one that hadn’t been opened. It took him a minute to gather the courage, and then he just did it. He opened them both, dumped their contents down the drain, and threw the empty bottles into the waste basket. He’d told Chas she inspired him to be a better man. Whether or not he could ever measure up to a woman like Chas, he was surely capable of becoming a better man.

He showered and went down to breakfast, drinking coffee from the mug with his name on it, and reading
USA Yesterday
.

“Good morning,” he said to Chas when she appeared with the first part of his breakfast.

“Good morning,” she replied, sounding only mildly cool.

He tipped down the paper and looked at her. “Thank you for the mug. I love it. If I ever
do
go back to the office, it will be greatly coveted.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, seeming a little more relaxed. But she hadn’t gone back into the kitchen.

“Listen,” he said, needing to get it over with, “I behaved badly last night, and I’m sorry. It’ll never happen again.”

“Apology accepted,” she said.

“Are you going to join me?”

“If you like.”

“I would like that very much,” he said and set the paper aside.

“Did you miss me?” she asked as she sat down.

“I did. Did
you
miss
me?”

“I did.”

“What did you do, exactly?”

“I already know that Polly told you where I went.” She paused and studied his expression—and her feelings on the matter. She knew that now wasn’t the right time to bring up religion with him. In that regard she needed to move slowly and with caution, relying on the Spirit to guide her. Only the Lord would know when the right teaching moments might come up with this man who had lived a hard life and would likely not be impressed by someone even appearing to push religion on him. “I’ll tell you more about it some other time,” she concluded and started talking about the weather. A taut silence ensued, and she decided that she just had to clear the air. “Forgive me,” she began, “but I can’t skip over what happened last night. It’s really bugging me.”

“Are you saying that you can’t live with a man who drinks?”

“Whether or not we end up living together—only if we were married, of course,” she added with panic, not wanting him to get the wrong idea.

“Of course.”

“That issue is secondary to the fact that you’re drinking, and usually alone, and more when I’m not around.” Her voice softened. “I’m concerned, Jackson.”

He set down his fork and folded his arms. “Okay, why don’t you just say what you feel like you need to say and get it over with.”

“Okay, I will. I’d wager you’re dependent on alcohol and you just won’t admit it.” She ignored the way he glared at her. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of. With the way the world is today, a lot of people are dependent on liquor to get through a day.”

“So, you’re saying I can’t go without it?”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

“Okay,” Jackson said, “I’ll take you on. What’s your wager?”

Chas grinned like a Cheshire cat. “If you can go a week without drinking any liquor at all—not a drop—I will take you out to dinner at the finest restaurant in town and buy you a meal you will never forget.”

“And if I don’t make it?”

“You have to do the same for me.”

“I just see one problem with this,” Jackson said. “What makes you think I’ll be here another week?”

Instead of letting the question rattle her, Chas chose to sway in the direction of being positive. “Where else are you going to go? What motivation do you have to go out in this weather and get yourself to the airport where you can sit in a cold chair and wonder if your flight will get off the ground? You don’t want to leave, and I know it.” She saw him smile, that barest hint of a smile that rarely showed, even with short of bursts of laughter. And she couldn’t resist adding, “Sometimes you’re just a little more transparent than you think you are.”

“Fine,” he said, his smile going a little wider. On a scale of one to ten, he might have almost hit a three. “You’ve got yourself a deal, Mrs. Dickens. I assume this means you and I will be spending a lot more time together.”

“You’re assuming to the point of being presumptuous, Mr. Leeds.”

“What else am I going to do to distract me from my supposed alcoholism?”

“Read a book.”

“All day every day? Come on, this was your idea. You’ve got to help me out here. Consider me a charity case. I know how you feel about charity.”

“How
do you know how I feel about charity?”

He pointed to a stitched wall hanging to his right that read
Charity Never Faileth.

Chas chuckled. “You got me there. Okay, charity case, after breakfast you can go down to the cellar and bring up some potatoes and carrots, and then you can check on Granny.”

“Do you want me to read to her, too?”

“Wouldn’t hurt. They say charity is the best way to stop feeling sorry for yourself.”

“Is that what they say?” he asked and finished his breakfast.

Chas finished first and left him there while she hurried up to his room to make the bed and change the towels. On the nights when he was the only guest, she usually took care of it, and generally managed to do it while she knew he was busy elsewhere so he wouldn’t catch her at it. Not that it would matter, but part of the etiquette of cleaning rooms at an inn was to avoid the guests. She usually got it done when he was out for his run, but this morning she’d barely gotten started when the phone had rung and she’d had to leave. The only thing she’d actually learned about him from being in his room was that the computer bag he’d brought hadn’t held a computer, but books instead. Of course, she’d noticed the liquor, but they’d already addressed that issue. And that was the very reason she gasped when she saw two empty liquor bottles in the garbage. It took her a moment to assess the absolute indisputable evidence that he had emptied the bottles before he’d come down to breakfast. She’d been in the room earlier this morning, and there had been more than one and a half bottles left. He obviously hadn’t consumed it. He’d dumped it out! He’d dumped it out
before
their conversation over the breakfast table. She put a hand over her heart and felt a little teary. He really was a good man. The positive feelings she’d felt about him yesterday came back to her, and she was looking forward to spending as much time with Agent Jackson Tobias Leeds as she could possibly get away with.

The next few days were slow at the inn, and Polly was happy to get in some extra hours. Chas took Jackson on a special personalized tour of her hometown and the outlying areas. They talked and laughed and held hands. She was amazed at how thoroughly comfortable she had come to feel with him, and how utterly she had fallen in love with him. At times their conversations were silly and trivial, at others deep and poignant. When he asked some specific questions about her religion, she answered them matter-of-factly without getting pushy. She knew him well enough to know that if a man like this was to ever embrace religion, it had to be on his own terms and in his own time. She could live with manipulating him into going without liquor, but she would never do the same with religion. If he couldn’t come to it on his own, she could never make it an issue in their relationship.

Interspersed with their time out and about, she also got him to help her decorate the inn for Christmas. She had hired someone to put little lights all over the outside of the house and in the trees, and now that Thanksgiving was over they were always on after dark. In the house, she enjoyed doing the decorating on her own. But never had she enjoyed it so much as she did with Jackson helping her wind garlands on the stair rails, decorate every mantelpiece in the house, and put up a Christmas tree in the parlor. She started burning scented candles that filled the house with the smells of Christmas, and made sure that music of the season was often playing. She loved this time of year for the spirit that permeated her home. And having Jackson at the center of it just added to a sweetness surrounding her that she could never describe. She refused to even think about the possibility that Jackson might not actually be here for Christmas.

On Friday morning while Chas was cooking breakfast, she smiled to hear Jackson’s familiar footsteps coming down the stairs. “Hello, Jackson,” she said brightly when he entered the kitchen. “You’re a little early for breakfast. What can I do for you?” When he just stood there, she asked, “You want some coffee?” She kept her focus on the goblets that she was drying by hand.

“Nope. But thanks.”

“You hungry? I’ve got some—”

“Nope, I’m not hungry. Thanks.”

“Then what
do
you want?
Anything
for the FBI.”

“Anything?”

“Well,” she chuckled, “within reason.”

“Perhaps we should define your definition of reasonable.”

“Perhaps you should give me a category,” she said as if they were going to play charades.

“I’m not very good at this stuff, Chas. I’m just not a romantic guy, but . . .” Chas stopped at the word
romantic
and turned to look at him. Once they had established eye contact he added, “I want to kiss you, Chas. I’ve been thinking about it for so many days that I just had to say it.”

Chas set down the towel and the goblet and turned her back, if only to conceal how his declaration was affecting her. She closed her eyes and put a hand over her heart. Trying to keep this a matter of practicality—however hypocritical that felt—she spoke with a level voice. “Now you’ve said it. What did you think would happen now?”

“I have no idea. If I could have predicted your response, maybe I wouldn’t be so blasted . . . fascinated with you. I guess . . . the outcome . . . would depend entirely on . . . how you feel about . . .” His sentence drifted into silence.

“How I feel about . . . what?”

Jackson wanted to say
me.
Instead he said, “Being kissed . . . by me.” She said nothing, and the awkwardness was killing him. “Um . . . I know you have these strict boundaries about such things . . . no hanky panky without marriage, and all that stuff. I respect that, Chas. I do. I wish I had been more that way. I wish I had even bothered to think about something like that before now.” Hearing his own rambling he groaned and muttered, “I’m doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“Babbling like an idiot, analyzing the whole thing before there’s anything to analyze. I just want to kiss you, Chas. I’m asking your permission because I don’t want to do anything stupid. I don’t want anything to . . . change between us. I mean . . . I guess I do; I want it to be better, to be more. I want it to be meaningful. I care about you . . . a lot. And I believe you care about me. I think what we share . . . warrants a kiss, but . . . I don’t want to offend you, or upset you, or . . . oh, for heaven’s sake. I’m doing it
again!
Will you at least turn around and look at me? I have a hard enough time reading you when I can see your face, but this is impossible. Please.”

Chas turned slowly, and he let out a strained sigh. Her countenance was soft, her eyes warm. That was a good sign. But she said nothing.

“Talk to me,” he said.

“I haven’t been kissed in a very, very long time,” she said. “I’ve wondered sometimes if I even remember how. I loved Martin and he loved me. We were high-school sweethearts. There was never anyone else, not before . . . or since. I was never impressed enough with any man to actually believe that a kiss would be worth the possibility of tainting what I’d shared with Martin.”

When she put it that way, Jackson felt so utterly unworthy of her that he wanted to just say “never mind” and leave the room. He felt sure she was going to diplomatically tell him that for all their mutual attraction, he still fell into the category she’d just described. And he couldn’t blame her. His life had been less than exemplary in most respects. He’d never imagined putting so much value on a kiss, and marveled that this woman had changed his perspective on so many things. What was valuable and what wasn’t had been altered so many ways for him since he’d come here. He took a deep breath as their eyes connected. Eye contact was good. Whatever she had to say, at least she would be straight with him and do it with respect and kindness. That’s the way she was. That’s what he loved about her.

“So, what now?” she asked, and he wished that he could read her half as well as he’d been able to read most of the criminals he’d put behind bars.

“I’m just wondering if I should have never brought it up, or if I should have just skipped talking about it and gone with my gut instinct.”

“And what’s that?”

“That I should have just kissed you because I know you’re putting off vibes that you want me to, and I want to, and I—”

“Shut up,” she said, at the same time closing the distance between them. She put her face so close to his that he could see every fleck in her eyes, hear her breathing. “Just shut up and kiss me,” she whispered and closed her eyes, tilting her face more toward his. Jackson took another deep breath and closed his own eyes as he touched his lips to hers. Never had a kiss been so easy, or so hard. Their kiss was lengthy but meek, unassuming but full of meaning. He felt startled by the depth of its meaning. He’d expected it to be good, simply because he’d thought about it so much, and he knew how he felt about her. But he never could have predicted that a simple kiss could bathe his spirit with such perfect peace, or warm the ice crystals in his heart—that could be the only explanation for the heat in his eyes and the tightness in his throat.