Wild Child (39 page)

Jackson was ready to be the kind of man who deserved Monica.

“Here’s how this works,” Vanessa said. “We’re going to do a live pan of the event. Anne here,” Vanessa pointed to the reporter, “is going to do a quick recap. Jackson is going to give one last pitch to the American public about why they should vote for Bishop, and then we break. America has one hour to vote. In two hours the results
are revealed at the end of the show. We’ll have a reaction shot and should you win, some interviews. We good?” Vanessa asked.

Everyone dutifully nodded.

“Monica,” Jackson whispered, leaning toward her ear. “I really need to talk to you.”

“I think it can wait,” she said, giving him her best hairy eyeball.

“It can’t.” He touched her hand and he could tell she almost reached out to slap it away. She looked pointedly at the cameras.

“I don’t care about the cameras, Monica. I don’t care who is watching or what they think.” He didn’t bother to whisper, and his words pretty much guaranteed everyone was watching.

“Jackson … please.”

“I love you.”

“What?” Her purple eyes were wide and angry and beneath the anger … she was wounded.

“I love you.” He stood as naked as he could be in front of her. No smile, no charm. Just him and his faults and his promises and his beating heart.

“Is this … is this for the cameras?”

Oh, the hurt on her face. It destroyed him, destroyed him to know he’d caused it. He shook his head. “I’ve wasted so much time trying to be everything to everybody and dreaming about some future version of myself that I stopped caring about who I was. That’s over. I care about you. About Gwen. About … my family. And I know it’s late and I’ve messed up and I still don’t really understand how you can love me, what part of me I’ve shown you that’s worth the faith you’ve given me. But I love you. And I want to be the kind of man you can love.”

“Holy shit. Is that Dean?” Cora whispered and glanced back at Jackson.

“Where?”

Cora pointed toward the fountain where, yes, in fact Dean was walking across the grass toward them. “Does this mean …?” Cora’s smile was hopeful. Beautiful. Everyone began to murmur behind them, a whispering, gasping celebration gathering steam.

Vanessa, however, did not look celebratory. “What the hell is he doing here?” she asked.

“This isn’t planned?” Jackson asked, going razor sharp in a moment.

Shelby moaned and Monica put her arm around her friend. “What’s going on?” Monica whispered.

“He’s here for me,” Shelby said, and Jackson turned to face them.

“You?” he asked.

“We … had a thing.”

“Again, with the thing,” he muttered. He looked at Monica, the arm around Shelby’s back. His Island Girl, his lone wolf, had managed to gather quite a group of friends around herself. It took courage to reach out to people. And she’d found that courage, and he’d love her for no other reason but that she’d taught him to have that courage too.

For him, it was no risk to be what people thought he should be. The risk was being himself.

“You knew about this too?” he asked.

Monica nodded.

“Honestly, we’re going to have to have a discussion about all the secrets you were keeping for this town.”

Monica couldn’t say anything because Dean was right beside them, red-faced, his hands in fists at his sides. The frustrated lover was not an attractive role for the man.

“Dean,” Vanessa said, wide-eyed and impatient. “What the hell, man? We’re live in ninety seconds.”

“I know. I just … Shelby? Can I talk to you?”

“No.” Shelby shook her head. “You can’t. I said what I had to say.”

“Well, I haven’t.” Dean grabbed her arm and before Jackson could step in, Monica knocked Dean’s hand away.

“Don’t touch her,” Monica said.

“Dean!” Vanessa cried. “You will ruin the shot and the whole damn contest. Get out of here!”

“Please just go,” Shelby said.

“Not until you promise me we’ll talk.”

“Listen, Dean.” Jackson stepped in with his calming, cooling influence. “Why don’t you head on over to Cora’s booth and have some chili—”

“I don’t serve assholes who grab women,” Cora said, her arms crossed over her chest.

Jackson swore under his breath. “All right. There are four other chilis to try.”

“We’re live in five seconds!” Vanessa cried.

Jackson reached out and tried to back Dean away, but the man was digging in his heels, all the asshole nature Jackson had guessed at suddenly on full display.

“You had plenty to say last week,” Dean hissed at Shelby, the crowd behind them suddenly funeral quiet. You could hear a pin drop; Dean’s words echoed through the square.

“Dean, don’t,” Shelby whispered.

“Four!” Vanessa cried. “Three!”

“Honest to God, Dean, leave,” Jackson warned him, wrapping his hand in the guy’s shirt. Dean strained against him. Jackson shoved him, trying to get him out of the shot, but Dean was a rabid badger going after Shelby.

“Why don’t you tell them all what you said—” Dean cried.

“Two, and …” Vanessa groaned as the red light bloomed to life on the camera. “We’re live.”

“While I was fucking you like an animal. While you were sucking my dick.”

The crowd was so silent, Shelby’s sob sounded like a woman being torn in half.

Jackson punched Dean.

Hard as he could, right across the face.

That’s what a better man would do
.

Dean staggered back, the crowd parting around him.

“Ah!” Jackson cried, shaking out his screaming hand. “God, that hurts.”

“What the hell?” Dean whispered, touching the blood trickling from his nose, before falling back on his ass.

“I should have done that a long time ago,” Jackson said. And then, realizing the camera was still rolling, he turned to face it.

Oh. Shit
.

Monica followed suit, and so did Cora—everyone pasting wide smiles over their shocked faces. Except for Shelby, who ducked quietly out of the picture.

“Vote Bishop,” Jackson said.

Monica snorted with laughter. Cora’s shoulders started to shake. Jackson tried to hold onto his mayoral cool, but he couldn’t, and he started laughing too.

“And we’re out,” Vanessa said, and the camera turned off.

Chapter 26

“I don’t care how America votes,” Dean groaned, blood dripping down his chin onto his shirt. “You’ll never get this factory.”

“I don’t care.” Jackson stepped over the guy’s legs. “Someone take this trash out.”

Sean came forward, as well as some other guys from the bar, and grabbed Dean by the armpits. Dean struggled. “Don’t touch me!” He shook the hands loose and started walking away, but Sean followed.

“That was pretty awesome television,” Vanessa said.

“We lost the contest.”

“Undoubtedly.” Vanessa started to pack up the cameras.

Jackson sighed. He didn’t regret it, not for a minute, but the consequences sucked.

The entire town was staring at him. Shocked, some of them angry.

I can’t be what you expect anymore
, he thought.
I have to move on with my life
.

“I’m sorry,” he said, but people had already turned away from him to watch the drama of Sean kicking Dean out of town.

He felt Monica come to stand beside him and he wanted to grab her, lean against her, glean a little of her fiery strength. As it was, he felt better just having her there, a foot away, her purple eyes gazing up at him with equal parts laughter and worry.

“Boy, you weren’t kidding, you really don’t care about this contest anymore,” Monica joked.

“Bastard,” Jackson said, feeling the anger ripple up all over again. He hoped Sean was literally kicking that man out of town. “I can’t believe I brought that asshole here—”

“Hey,” she said, her hand slowly covering his fist. He winced when she touched the knuckles. “Oh, sorry,” she sighed.

“Something’s probably broken,” he said; his knuckles were already swelling. “He has a face like a rock.”

“You’re quite a hero,” she whispered.

He looked around him at the town, gathered, their hopes so high only to be crushed. He had to make the decision about the fire chief, the library. The schools would be next. Blowing it looked exactly like this.

“How can you say that? I ruined everything.”

“Some things can’t be fixed.”

He turned away from the people he’d disappointed and stared down at her, the most perfectly imperfect thing to ever grace his life. “Some things don’t need to be.” He stroked her face with his unbroken hand. “I should have punched him in the face the second he started talking about your underwear.”

“My underwear? Please, plenty of men talk about my under—”

“Stop.” His thumb touched her lip. “I know you’re making a joke. I know that’s how you deal with things, just like I deal with things by trying to keep everything under control. But I love you. And I won’t listen to anyone talk about the woman I love that way.”

The distance between them thrummed and throbbed, and he grew uncomfortable with her assessing silence. In the movies, this was the part where Monica would throw herself into his arms. But Monica was never very predictable.

“You used me.”

He nodded, knowing that was true. But determined that having come this far, he could still convince her. It might take some time—like twenty years—but the Wild Child would be his.

Someone shouted, and the knot of people around Sean and Dean shifted.

“I have to make sure they’re not killing him,” he told her.

“I’m going to check on Shelby.”

“We’ll talk later?” While he was painfully aware that she hadn’t returned his love, it didn’t stop him from loving her, and he realized standing there that he loved her despite how she felt. He was now the one courting disaster. It was a terrifying, heady feeling.

“We’ll talk later,” she agreed. And it had to be enough.

For now.

Chapter 27

Cora’s was full. Sean had brought over a cooler of beer and was handing out icy bottles. Cora was giving away pie, and the mood in the room swung from dejected to defiant and back again.

Shelby’s absence was conspicuous. Monica had followed her friend to the Art Barn, only to find her sitting, calm and dry-eyed, at her desk, staring at the wall of pictures kids had created for her over the years.

“Who is going to send their kids to me?” she’d asked.

“No one will believe what that asshole said,” Monica had assured her.

“Even if it was the truth?” Shelby asked, one eyebrow raised.

“You’ll see, Shelby. Your reputation cannot be tarnished.”

Shelby had declined Monica’s invitation to come back into town to this informal meeting. And Monica had finally left Shelby alone after getting her promise that she wouldn’t do anything drastic.

“Tourism is through the roof,” Sean said from his spot at the counter. “I mean, poker night was full this weekend. And the mayor knocking down that asshole on live TV is going to bring us a few more people coming to see the sights.”

“To the mayor knocking down that asshole,” Monica said, lifting her coffee cup in a toast.

People smiled, but no one joined her.

“Look.” Jackson took a deep breath and let it out
slowly. There was nothing like a loved one’s pain. She would take it all if she could. Even though he’d dished out his fair share. “We’ve got some hard decisions ahead of us. Without the factory, we’re going … we’re going to have to either close the library …”

People gasped.

“Or retire the fire chief.”

More gasps.

“What if we sell the house?” Gwen asked from the stool she was sharing with Jay. “And donate the money to the town.”

Jackson smiled at his sister with so much love in his eyes, Monica had to look away or start crying.

“That’s generous, Gwen,” Brian Andersen, the city treasurer and, as Jackson called him, the real salvation of Bishop, spoke up. “But it’s not what we really need to do.”

Before anyone could ask what they really needed to do, the bell over the door rang and Simone walked in and then stopped, as if surprised to see all the people.

Monica stood up. “What are you doing here?” she asked, unable to work up any heat behind the words, just surprise. She was still in the lovely dress from before, and Charles was with her.

“I … I watched the show,” she said, looking at Jackson. “You have a fine right hook.”

Jackson lifted his coffee cup, an ice pack wrapped to his knuckles.

“I understand that the factory will go to that town in Alaska,” Simone continued, “which leaves this town in a bit of a bind.”

“You need a factory?” Sean asked. “We’ll sell it cheap.”

“No, but I had planned to stop filming my reality show,
What Simone Wants
. But Charles, here, had a fabulous idea for one more season. Just one.” Simone glanced
toward Monica, as if gauging her reaction. “What if I returned to my hometown, to Bishop?”

The room perked up. Monica felt her heartbeat in her ears. Her mother was doing this for her. It was a gift she didn’t know how to accept.

“We would, of course, pay your ridiculous permit fees, but we would actually have to tape in the town.”

“You can tape here,” Cora said.

“My place, too,” Sean agreed.

Other people nodded along.

“Parts of it will be awful,” Simone said. “I mean … 
I
will be awful, to most of you. For whatever reason, the world likes that. But I think between the increased tourism, the small amount of industry the show brings with crew and staff, and of course, your permit fees, the town could make a bit of money.”

Jackson and Brian shared a look and, as if in answer, Jackson held out his hand to Brian, indicating the decision was his.

“We’ll need to discuss the details,” Brian said, sounding very mayoral.

“Of course,” Simone said. “That is what lawyers are for. But I thought it would be an interesting idea.”

“I’d watch it,” Sean said.

“You and my many millions of fans.” Simone took a step back, and Charles opened the door so they could leave.

“You want to stay for some pie?” Cora asked, offering a delicious olive branch. “It’s free today.”