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“Dio mio, Dominic! It sounds bland enough to put me to sleep. Who eats like that?” Her mother scowled, softening her expression slightly as she caught sight of Jackson.
“All of us, actually. If you have to eat well, then the least the rest of us can do is follow suit.” Dominic handed the sandwich over before starting to unwrap another one just like it for himself, and Carly’s eyebrows rose in surprise.
“That’s a great idea. When did you get so sweet, big brother?”
“I didn’t. It was Jackson’s idea.” Dominic’s lips twitched upward, and her mother’s eyes sparked with interest.
Carly cleared her throat for just a second too long. “Mama, this is Jackson Carter, a friend of mine from Pine Mountain.” The wordfriendsounded strange in Carly’s ears when she spoke it, like an ill-fitting shoe, but then Jackson was moving forward to greet her mother, saying how good it was to see her feeling better, and the moment was gone.
They shared a quick, pleasant lunch together full of talk about Dominic’s kids and Carly’s garden project, and although her mother tired out more quickly than Carly would’ve liked, the conversation had been their least stressful in recent memory. They switched off with Frankie and Vince, stopping off at the nurse’s station for a quick update, and for the first time since Carly had picked up the house phone at La Dolce Vita, she allowed herself a sigh of pure, unadulterated relief. She glanced at Jackson, who was laughing that easygoing, good-to-your-toes laugh at something Dominic had said, and her heart squeezed with possibility.
Maybe her happiness had arrived when she’d least expected it.
* * *
“Areyou sure you’re okay to drive? I really don’t mind.” Jackson eyed Carly warily, although he was starting to learn not to push his luck with her.
“Jackson, we slept for ten hours straight last night. Seriously, it’s fine.” The corners of her mouth hinted upward, and his gut flooded with relief at her happiness.
“Well, yeah, but you cooked for four hours before we fell asleep, and that was after spending the day getting your mother situated back at home,” Jackson said.
“Okay, so we did have a busy day. But now that my brothers and I have a plan in place to make sure my mother takes her medicine and gets to her doctor’s appointments like she’s supposed to, I feel much better. Plus, her freezer is so stocked with meals, I doubt she’ll have to cook for the rest of the year.”
“That’s a conservative estimate.” Cramming all that food into the freezer had been nothing short of miraculous.
Carly nodded. “And I’ll be back soon enough to replenish her supply. I’ve already worked out a deal with Adrian that’ll give me enough time off every couple of months to squeeze in a visit. It’s not ideal, but it’ll work.”
The unspokenfor nowhung in the air, and something turned over in Jackson’s chest. “It sounds like you’ve got it all figured out.”
His words came out strangely like an accusation, swirling over the weird unease that had been percolating through him ever since she’d broken down in her mother’s kitchen.
Feed her.
“I hope so,” Carly replied with a slow test of the water, her forehead pulling into aVof concern. “Are you okay?”
Jackson shook off both the uncharacteristic tension and the return of his weird inner voice. They’d been through a lot in the last couple of days.
“Yeah, sorry. I guess I’m still kind of beat.” He laced his fingers through hers and lifted them for a quick kiss, and the move seemed to reassure her.
“Maybe you should get some sleep. We’ve got another couple hours to go before we hit Pine Mountain.”
“Yeah, that’s not a bad idea. But wake me up if you get tired and want me to drive.”
He closed his eyes, willing himself to let go of the strange sensation that something wasn’t quite right. Surely, his inner voice had missed all the taste testing he and Carly had done last night. He’d gone to bed stuffed to the gills, which for him was really saying something, and he’d seen Carly eat plenty. When they got back, he could always make her a PB and J again. Maybe that would do the trick.
But as he drifted off, Jackson had the niggling feeling that all the sandwiches in the world weren’t going to send his inner voice packing this time.
24
Four days and forty-seven work hours later, Jackson felt like Night of the Living Dead. Finishing that lakefront kitchen remodel had thrown him every curveball imaginable, with everything from the custom built-ins in the pantry to the wildly expensive marble floor tiles giving him fits. Mercifully, the homeowner had loved every hard-wrought detail, and Jackson had been able to sign off on yet another job well done. Even if he was totally cooked.
Somewhere beneath the mound of scattered paperwork and discarded sweatshirts on the front seat of his truck, Jackson’s cell phone demanded attention. He reached for the dashboard, tapping the icon to take the incoming call.
“Hello?”
“Wow. You sound like shit.” Shane’s voice carried an equal mix of joking laughter and been-there sympathy. “I take it you finished that big kitchen job, since you’re actually answering your phone.”
“Signed, sealed, delivered. Thank God,” Jackson added. “What’re you up to?” With the week he’d just endured plus his unexpected trip to New York, it had been ages since he’d seen his buddy.
