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“Eleven,” she corrected. “And letmeguess. By the time you were ten, you’d already single-handedly designed and built the deck in your mother’s yard. Or did you build the house, too?”
His laughter filled the truck. “We didn’t even live here when I was ten, smartass.”
Carly’s grin slipped, her forehead creasing into a littleVover the bridge of her nose. “You weren’t born in Pine Mountain?”
Shit.Shit. Jackson swallowed hard, all traces of laughter erased by the rush of wind coming in through the open windows. “No. I was born in Harrisburg. It’s west of Philadelphia.” The vague memory of a small, cramped row house flickered through his mind, like a movie being run on one of those ancient reel-to-reel projectors.
“I’m sorry, I just assumed you’d always lived here.”
Carly’s curiosity was obvious, but Jackson didn’t move his gaze from the windshield. “We didn’t come to Pine Mountain until I was eleven.”
Well, they hadn’t moved so much as escaped, but he really wasn’t in the mood for semantics.
“Oh,” Carly said. She was probably waiting for him to talk about it, but there wasn’t anything he could say that would change things. Talking about it now was useless, and taking a trip down memory lane was as far from his wish-list as you could get.
“Parts of when I was a kid were a little…rough. I’d rather not talk about it.” It was as much as he’d ever volunteered about his childhood to anybody, but even the one-liner sounded heavy in his ears. Jackson braced for the questions she was surely working up anyway, the ones he’d have to evade because he sure as hell didn’t have the answers to them, and everything he did know, he wasn’t about to share.
Except Carly didn’t say anything else. The silence between them stretched out, and the tension churning through him lost its steam. He pulled off the main road, navigating the narrow lane leading back to his mother’s house just like he’d done a million times before. Carly probably thought he was an ass for tight-lipping it after she’d been so open about her own past, but nobody wanted to know the details behind those years he’d stuffed into the dark corners of his memory. Truly, he’d give anything to be able to forget them himself.
“Okay.”
The single word made his head snap up, and he stared at her in disbelief. “What?”
Carly lifted her sunglasses to look at him. “Remember what you said earlier, about helping me out while I was going through all of this stuff with Travis?”
Jackson nodded dumbly, and she continued, matter-of-fact. “Well, just because I felt like talking about it doesn’t mean everybody works that way. So, if I can return the favor and help you out bynottalking about things until you’re ready to do that, then that’s what I’ll do.”
Holy. Shit. For a second, Jackson thought he might be in love with her, until he realized he didn’t do that kind of thing.
“So, you don’t care that I don’t want to talk about it?”
“If youdidwant to talk about it, would you tell me?” Her eyes flashed in the bright sunlight pouring in through the window, like whiskey in the bottom of a crystal glass.
“Yeah.” The answer startled the hell out of him, but it was true. Carly was a no-bullshit kind of woman. If he was going to blab about his past, she wouldn’t give him a bunch of platitudes and sugared-up sympathy. She’d be a good listener, in theory. In practice, he was sure he wouldn’t find out, but still.Ifhe was going to go that route, he couldn’t think of anyone better to do it with.
The edges of her lips kicked into a smile, more kind than seductive, but it stirred a warmth in him all the same.
“Then, no. I don’t care. If you change your mind, you’ll tell me.”
Funny thing was, as he sat there all dumbfounded and amazed and slightly turned on, Jackson knew she was right.
18
As Carly followed Jackson along the winding path through the crepe myrtles, her brain spun like a blender going full speed. She’d always dreamed of a project like building an on-site garden, but the lack of resources to actually make it happen—not to mention the massive premiums on what little real estate was available in the city—had made it nothing more than a pipe dream. While using local resources to supply restaurants with everything from produce to protein was increasing in popularity, most places had to set a realistic radius in order to make it work. Sure, produce from a hundred miles away was fresh. But if she could get it from a hundred feet away? It would be priceless.
“So, there are three beds out here, right? Are they all the same size?” Carly’s brain whirred along, ticking off lists of vegetables in silent, rapid-fire succession.
“Yup. Fifteen by twelve. And then there are the two raised beds with blueberries and sugar snap peas and a few other things, depending on my mother’s mood each season.” Jackson grinned expectantly over the broad expanse of his shoulder, and Carly’s lips popped open in surprise.
“There are two other beds?” How on earth had she missed those?
Jackson’s grin turned wicked. “Over on the opposite side of the shed.”
Well, that explained why she hadn’t seen them last time. Her cheeks prickled, but the laugh swirling in her belly refused to stay put. “I see. So, those are over by the fence, then?”
The memory of thickly climbing clematis unfurled in Carly’s mind, like a lush canvas of sapphire and pink blooms floating on a dark green sea, and she forced herself to use it to blot out the image of Jackson pushing her against the shed, kissing her until she’d forgotten she had knees. As pretty as the climbing vines were in her mind’s eye, it was no easy task.
“Mmm hmm. They’re side by side, a lot closer together than the three bigger beds.” He pulled back a low branch, moving aside to usher her into the clearing. God, the space was just as gorgeous as it had been the first time, all verdant leaves and soft, inviting textures, and the fresh scent of foliage and sun-warmed earth hung in the air.
