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“Morgan was hoping she could go with you and DeeDee—I think she wants a woman’s point of view.”
“I’d be happy to take her with us.”
Jackson drank some of his coffee. “I appreciate it, but I have to admit the shopping was partly an excuse. I wanted to see you.”
Kayla gulped suddenly, adrenaline taking effect far more quickly than the caffeine in the coffee. “Oh?”
He reached over and picked up her hand. “Kayla, I love you. Being hundreds of miles apart, or all the time in the world, won’t change that. I should have asked before, but I will now... Do you love me?”
A tremor went through her body and she slowly brought it under control. “Yes,” she managed to say. “But that doesn’t mean it would work between us.”
She stared at Jackson’s fingers grasping hers gently yet firmly. She’d convinced herself that he must be relieved she had turned him down. It had been safer that way—safer, because she’d always wanted to be in love the way her mother had once been in love...and was afraid to be at the same time.
“It’s impossible to promise you perfection or a life without pain,” he murmured huskily. “But I can promise to love you forever and hang on to our marriage with all my strength.”
Kayla didn’t doubt Jackson’s sincerity. And since he’d had several days to think about it—not to mention more than fifteen hours of driving time for reflection—wanting to marry her couldn’t be dismissed as simply an impulse that he’d later regret.
“I’ve been thinking that we could try to find a way to split our time between Montana and Seattle,” he continued. “We both have good managers able to handle things when we aren’t there.”
“You’re talking about living in Seattle part of the year?” she asked incredulously.
Jackson nodded. “You were right about me thinking you should give up everything. In fact, I’m glad you turned me down the first time, because it made me face reality. I can’t promise I won’t slip into old habits, but I want you to pull me up short if I do. Because that’s not the way I want Morgan and DeeDee to see men and women. Hell, that’s not the model I want for Alex, either. Maybe he’ll be the president’s husband someday, and he should be proud of it.”
It wasn’t the sort of thing Kayla had expected to hear, but he was being straight with her. She doubted splitting time between Seattle and Schuyler would work; it might make more sense for her to run Smooth Billings long-distance with periodic trips to the city. But her mind was still bending around the fact that Jackson was willing to compromise, that he wasn’t expecting her to give up everything so they could be together. If they were both willing to compromise...all sorts of things were possible.
“Can we trust each other?” Jackson asked. “Could you take that leap of faith with me?”
“I’m not good at trust,” Kayla admitted, forcing her mind back to a second central issue. Perhaps Jackson wasn’t the one with the biggest problem in that department.
His eyes darkened. “And you’ve gotten hurt whenever you have tried to trust someone. Your ex-husband. Me. You have no idea how much I regret being such a stupid, selfish clod.”
“You were seventeen, Jackson.”
“That’s a rotten excuse.” He paused and seemed to be searching for words. “But I’ve been thinking—all the way to Seattle—that even if someone we love never lets us down, someday we’ll lose them, or they’ll lose us. So we’ll still get hurt eventually, but the cost is never having that person in our lives. That’s too high a price. Would you cut yourself off again from Hank and Elizabeth because someday they’ll be gone?”
“No.” An awful pain went through Kayla at the thought of losing her grandparents. But it would be even worse if they were in Schuyler and she was staying away out of emotional cowardice.
* * *
HOPE SURGED IN JACKSON. At least Kayla was talking to him. It was what they’d have to do if they got married—talk and keep talking.
“Sweetheart, you’re right about the way I’ve been for years. I haven’t trusted women, and to defend that attitude, I’ve adopted some stupid, outdated notions. And the craziest part is that I never loved Marcy—we got married for Morgan’s sake. I don’t know if Marcy would have become a nicer person if things had been different, but I shouldn’t have let her affect me like that. It was stupid and hurt the people I care about the most.”
Kayla smiled gently. “We don’t have to beat ourselves up about the past, do we?”
