Smooth Irish (Book 2 of the Weldon Series) (25 page)

Just before the door shut, his father stuck his head
back in. “Were you in or on the pickup truck?”

It took a few seconds for Jackson to figure out what
his father was talking about. “On,” he said without thinking.

“It’s in your blood. That’s where your mother and I
conceived you.”

“John!” Jackson heard his mother wail.

His father grinned then nodded at the pile of condom
wrappers on the table. “Looks like you found someone worth living
for.”

Jackson shook his head in wonder. He couldn’t quite
picture his mother and father on a pickup truck. Not like he and
Nan had been. Parents didn’t do those things.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

It took Nan until Thursday to be able to draw a deep
breath. No, he hadn’t promised more than just sex, but she had felt
so much more. More than she had ever felt with any one before. And
part of her carried the heavy burden of his anguish.

He hadn’t left her with any other choice but to
leave him in the dark void he’d chosen. After tossing and turning
all Tuesday night and not seeing Jackson at the construction site
when she arrived at work on Wednesday, she’d decided to call Jesse
and ask him to go see Jackson.

Her nights were restless, but not because of any
fantasies. She still yearned for him, ached for his touch, but the
ache was a bitter draught laced with sadness. She had nightmares
now. During the night she saw Jackson trying to save people in the
emergency room and couldn’t help them. She worked right beside him
and every failure left bloodstains on her hands.

After two nights she was ready to scream. Every
woman who came into her care at work, she double-checked her
assessment, their vital signs, and those of the unborn baby. She
was a nervous wreck that something might go wrong, could go wrong
at any minute.

By Thursday noon she was exhausted and still had
three more hours left to her shift. She turned into the nurse’s
station to log in her notes on her patient’s charts. Jackson wasn’t
at work, so no one gawked out the window. Still, Nan ran her gaze
over the construction site. They’d made a lot of progress in two
weeks. It wouldn’t be long until all of the outside work would be
completed. She told herself that this was a good thing.

“Nan.”

Nan looked up to see Brad enter the nursing station.
Dr. Dennison was at his side.

“Nancy, you remember Steve Dennison, right?”

Nan stood to shake his hand. “Of course.”

“Nice to see you again, Nancy.” He cupped her hand
and once again she found his smile warm and friendly.

Brad touched her arm and she turned to him. ”I’m
glad I caught you. I only have a minute. The hospital board has
asked me to attend their meeting tonight so I’m afraid I won’t get
to see you until tomorrow. What time are we supposed to be there,
Steve?”

“Around seven. Don’t worry about dinner, a buffet is
being catered.”

“I still don’t know about the whole weekend. I’m
trying to work out my on-call situation, but Nancy and I will be
there for the party Friday. Is it okay if I pick you up about
six-thirty?”

“Uh, well, I was going to talk to you about that
tonight,” Nan managed to say. Telling Brad she wasn’t going to go
with him in front of his colleague seemed pretty tacky; she
couldn’t do it.

“Oh, I’d forgotten. You prefer to drive when I’m on
call. Why don’t you meet me at the Sandpiper at six-thirty? It’s a
little pub on the dock. We can have a few minutes to talk
beforehand.”

“Fine.” At least driving herself made it seem less
like a real date and if she met Brad before the party, she’d be
able to tell him then. Brad left in a whirlwind hurry, and Nan
turned back to the charts, but couldn’t focus on the words. She
decided to take her lunch break first.

Since she had no appetite, she went to see
Alexi.

Nan heard Jake’s wail all the way from the end of
the hallway. She knocked and stuck her head in Alexi’s door. “It’s
me.”

“Be warned. You enter at your own risk.” Alexi was
trying to get her gown opened enough to feed Jake who squirmed and
kicked his little legs like a champion swimmer. He’d broken free of
his blanket.

“What happened here?” Alexi’s hospital room was a
wreck.

“Jesse and Jake that’s what.”

“Uh. Oh. This doesn’t sound good.”

Just as Alexi opened her gown and snuggled Jake up
to her breast, he gave one final kick. He hit a plastic vase made
to look like a diaper pail that was sitting on Alexi’s lap table.
The blue carnations and white roses went flying all over the floor.
The water poured into Alexi’s bed.

Alexi’s eyes boggled. “This morning it was my ice
water jug.” She pushed the nurse call button. Jake’s wail was
replaced by the gentle suckling sound of a baby nursing and Alexi
tucked him closer to her body. While waiting for the nurse to
respond, she pointed to two chairs stacked full of newspapers and
magazines jumbled together with miniature sports balls and baby
toys. “That’s Jesse’s.” Then she pointed to a big pile of baby
paraphernalia all over her bed. “That’s Jake’s. My stuff is in the
suitcase in the closet.”

Nan shook her head smiling. “I have to hand it to
you, I’m not sure I would be as calm as you are right now.”

Alexi brushed the cap of little black curls on
Jake’s head with her fingers. “I wouldn’t have it any other
way.”

The nurse stuck her head in the door.

“Jake scored another one. He nailed the vase of
flowers you just delivered. I need my bed changed.”

“I should have known better than to set those there.
That boy is destined to some sort of kicking greatness.”

“Don’t tell Jesse, he’ll have him playing soccer in
the crib before the week is out.”

“I’ll be back in a minute. It would be good for you
to take your walk in the hall then, too.”

Alexi groaned. “I thought once you had the baby the
worst part was over with.”

“Honey, it’s just started,” the nurse said grinning
as she left.

“They cut you open then they don’t let you sit a
minute,” Alexi grumbled.

“If you sat then you would be in worse shape and it
would be harder to move,” Nan advised.

Alexi narrowed her eyes. “I already have a nurse. I
need my best friend right now.”

Nan didn’t miss a beat. “Well, isn’t that just
awful. What do they think they are doing to you, making you get up
and walk? You didn’t sign up for ROTC. I need to go whip them with
my stethoscope.”

Alexi grinned. “Better. Much better.” She wrapped a
blanket around Jake and he broke his suction from her breast. “Why
don’t you burp him while I lumber out of this bed and we’ll wheel
him down to the nursery so I can take a nap?”

“Let me wash my hands and you have a deal.” Nan
hurried. Before taking the baby she placed a large cotton diaper
over her shoulder to protect the baby from any germs. The soft
scents of baby lotion and the feel of his warm little body snuggled
up next to her were indescribable. At thirty, she was more than
ready to have and love a child, but she wanted it all the old
fashioned way. She wanted a loving husband, a successful marriage,
and all the earmarks of a happy family that she’d missed as a
child. The prospects of that happening were dwindling every
year.

Alexi rolled out of the bed moaning and groaning.
Nan kept her mouth shut rather than tell Alexi that the more she
moved the easier it would be.

As Nan patted Jake’s little back she was rewarded
with a soft burp and a big sigh. When it came time to put Jake in
the rolling baby crib, Nan was reluctant to let him go. “I get
first dibs on babysitting.”

“Too late. Jesse’s mom has already staked them
out.”

“Then she’ll just have to share. If he starts
wailing again, it might take two of us to settle him.”

“You have a point.”

They took the baby to the nursery, and as they
headed back Nan glanced at her watch. “I’ve ten minutes left.”

“Good. Just enough time to tell me why you’ve got
dark circles under your eyes and you’re about as tense as a bride
marrying the wrong groom. I should know. Are you still going with
Brad tomorrow night? Did you and Jackson go out Friday after
Jesse’s birthday?”

Nan blinked. Her whole life had changed in the space
of a few days and she hadn’t even been able to tell Alexi about it.
What was there to say now? Nan sighed. “To make a short story even
shorter, Jackson and I lit up the world in seventy-two hours, and
then we crashed and burned. Brad still thinks I’m going with him
tomorrow night, but I’m not. I’m going to meet him at six-thirty at
the Sandpiper to tell him that I won’t be seeing him any more
either. I’m solo again.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. You mean you and Jackson
meshed?”

“We more than meshed. We mushed, mashed, and mated
like there was no tomorrow, which as it turns out, there
wasn’t.”

“Why?”

“He made a mistake. We both did.”

“But he made “the mistake” first? He said that to
you?”

“Yes, but—”

There was outraged fire in Alexi’s eyes. “He told
you that after the hours he’s pumped me for information about
you?”

“He did?”

“Hours. I’m going to string him up
by his
mistaker
.”

“Listen. It wasn’t like that, but it’s too
complicated to explain right now. I’ll have to tell you later.”

“I don’t care what it was like. You do me a favor.
You go to the yacht party and you have a great time, because you’re
a great person and you deserve it. Forget Jackson and forget Brad.
Find yourself some other man who isn’t on that edge we talked
about.”

“Maybe next time.”

“No, remember what you told me when my world fell
apart? Today is the first day of the rest of your life. Don’t do it
next time, Nan. You deserve today.”

Alexi’s words stuck in Nan’s head. They inspired
her. What she needed was a new plan for her life. She did deserve a
“today.”

* * *

Jackson stood outside the cabin he'd lived in for
the past four years and took a sobering look at it. Derelict and
trashy were two words that came to mind. The rest of the words he'd
just as soon not examine, because of what they might say about him.
He could see some of the holes in the roof from where he stood.

No wonder Nan had split when she'd awakened to the
rain last Sunday. Hell, had that been just four days ago?

Yeah. That his life had seesawed drastically in that
time didn't surprise him. He of all people knew how quick one of
fate's tornadoes could up and devastate a man's world, and then
disappear into the sky, leaving only traces of a life behind.

Nothing had changed since his family had tossed him
in the creek to knock the edge off his two-day drunk yesterday,
except for the fact that he was now sober. He didn't buy into their
view, his parents', his brothers', and Nan's. He'd never stop
believing that if he'd been driving that night, life might be
different. Amy and his child might have lived. The possibility
would always haunt him.

That and the truth Jesse had slammed into him. By
having his head held underwater until he'd thought he'd die,
Jackson realized without a doubt he didn't want to die. Since then,
the harsh wire brush of reality had scrubbed him raw.

Wanting to live was a whole damn step above merely
existing, and it pissed him off to have that muddy mask ripped
away. Leaving his thoughts and his scrutiny of the cabin's
sorry-assed condition, Jackson headed up the steps. He'd left his
guitar behind when he'd left yesterday. His Mom had him staying in
the room he'd shared with Jesse while growing up, and the memories
that kept cropping up from the memorabilia scattered about the room
was too disruptive. Jackson figured he’d drown the memories with
music. If he was singing, even to just himself, he didn’t have to
listen.

He grabbed his guitar from the messed up bed and
Nan’s image, naked, with her wild hair spilling onto his pillows
played in his mind. A half-full bottle of whiskey sat on the floor
next to the bed and he snatched it up, looking at how the sunlight
made the amber fluid glisten like honey, like Nan. Determined, he
marched to the sink and poured the whiskey, honey lights and all
down the drain.

It was done. Over. He and Nan had their sex now
they’d both go back to their lives. Walking out of the cabin, he
saw the plant Nan had given him sitting on the dinette table where
his mother had put it after watering it. Soon it would wither and
die and he’d have nothing but memories of sex to remind him of Nan.
Good, he thought, slamming the cabin door behind him. An action
that had little effect because the damn door popped back open,
reminding Jackson that the doorknob had fallen off and rolled to
Nan’s feet the last time he’d slammed the door. The lock itself had
to be stuck now.

Memories of his weekend with Nan chased him all the
way back to the family’s farmhouse. He drove up and had to park his
truck down the drive. His brothers, Jesse, James, and Jared were
going one on two at the basketball net.

Damn, he didn’t want to have to deal with anybody.
He just wanted to be left alone. Just as he knew it would, the
minute he stepped out of the truck the basketball came zinging his
way. Jackson caught the ball and thought hard about just dropping
the damn thing and walking on into the house, or hopping onto his
crotch rocket and taking off down the road. But then he remembered
the “ride” Nan had given him on his bike and he cursed. He hadn’t
ridden the damn bike since.

Jackson threw the ball to Jesse and stripped off his
shirt. What he needed was a mean game. The time to whip his younger
brothers’ asses had come.

He came at them hard, leaving no doubt in the
stubborn blue gazes glaring at him, that he had something to prove.
“Every man for himself.”