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“I just hope Jay can forgive Donna and me both,” he muttered. And then he pushed away from the table. “I’d better go check on my wife. You call me if you need anything, you hear? I’ll come right back.”
He was trying so hard to hold the family together even in the face of this new crisis—whatever it was. Laurel couldn’t help but be touched by his efforts. If her own father had ever been around to offer help and encouragement, maybe it would be easier for her to turn to other people now.
“Jackson’s lucky to have you for a father,” she said, because Carl seemed to need to hear it.
But maybe that wasn’t what he needed to hear at all, because he looked even sadder than before when he patted her arm and let himself out.
Jackson finally showed up late that afternoon. Laurel had just put Tyler down for a nap and was preparing to pace and fret when she glanced up to find Jackson standing in a doorway, looking at her with no expression at all on his face.
“You startled me,” she said, placing a hand on her heart. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“You were upstairs. I heard you singing to Tyler.”
Tyler had requested his favorite song, “You Are My Sunshine.” He often begged her to sing it to him before he went to sleep.
“How’s he doing?” Jackson glanced at the stairway as he spoke.
“He’s fine. He still tires more easily than usual and he doesn’t protest when I put him down for naps.”
“Which only proves that he isn’t quite back to normal.”
She nodded. “It won’t be long before he screams at the very word nap again, I’m sure.”
Laurel hoped her own smile didn’t look as pathetic as Jackson’s. “Yeah,” he murmured. “I’m sure he will.”
So much for that conversation. They stood awkwardly in the center of the den, searching for something to say and deliberately not looking at each other.
She wanted to ask him where he’d been. She wanted to ask what was going on, and why he hadn’t already told her. Most of all, she wanted to ask if there was anyt
hing she could do to take the pain from his eyes. It was only her fear that he would turn away from her that kept her from asking any of those questions.
“Are you hungry?” she asked instead, seizing onto a safer topic. “I have some soup. And fresh banana cake.”
“I’m not hungry right now.”
“Coffee?”
“No, nothing, thanks.”
She pushed her hands down the sides of the black slacks she wore with an emerald shirt, nervously drying palms that hadn’t really been damp. “Would you like to sit down?”
As soon as the words left her mouth, she winced. She sounded ridiculously like a gracious hostess speaking to a guest in her home.
Jackson must have been thinking very much along the same lines. “Have I really been home that rarely?” he asked in a wry mutter, passing her as he moved toward the couch.
“You work hard. Your boss expects a lot from you.”
“And now you’re making excuses for me.” He sighed, settling wearily into the couch cushions. “I must really look like hell.”
“Yes,” she said, studying the deep lines around his eyes and mouth. “You do.”
He only nodded and shoved a hand through his hair.
She moved to perch on the other end of the couch, half turned to face him, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. She was trying not to ask the questions teeming inside her mind, but she was prepared to listen when he was ready to talk.
His head against the cushion, he closed his eyes, looking so tired and defeated that her heart ached for him. And then he drew a deep breath, sat up straighter, and squared his shoulders. This was his man-in-charge expression, she thought in resignation.
When he spoke, his voice was brisk, steady and unemotional. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking during the past couple of days.”
