Close to You (29 page)

Thirty-Three

Four weeks later

A
LLIE HADN'T BEEN THIS TERRIFIED
since she defended her thesis. Twenty-eight hours from Auckland to Des Moines, via L.A. and Chicago. Then another three hours on the road to Pennington.

Driving in the wrong side of the car on the wrong side of the road with a brain that had completely given up on trying to compute miles instead of kilometers.

Her phone trilled on the seat beside her. Kat. She tried to flick on the indicator so she could pull onto the shoulder but turned on the wipers instead. They emitted a loud screeching sound as they swung back and forth over the dry windscreen.

Navigating the car onto the dusty side and slowing to a stop, she swiped on her phone. “Hey.” They'd last talked on her Chicago stopover when she'd bought a donut just for the brown bag to breathe into.

“So how's Iowa?”

Allie looked at all the fields lining the sides of the rural road.
Green stalks rose as far as the eye could see, a few perspicacious ones reaching taller than her car. “Corny.”

“You far away?”

“I think I'm about twenty minutes.”

“How are you doing?”

“I've been traveling for more than a day. I'm sticky and stinky and scared out of my senses. What am I doing, Kat? I've lost my mind.”

“Maybe a little. But it's the best thing that's happened to you in years. What's the worst that can happen?”

“That Jackson's told them all about me. That they hate me for what I did to him. That they won't tell me where to find him.”

“In which case you're no worse off than you are now. And at least you tried.”

A thought suddenly stuck her. “Oh my gosh, Kat. His mother has cancer. What if she's dying? What if she's
dead
? What if I show up and there's a hearse outside?”

“If there's a hearse outside, I'd say it's probably not the best moment to knock on the door.” Her friend's dry response forced her to dial the melodrama a bit lower.

Allie pressed the phone against her ear, leaning her head against the leather seat. “What if I'm not supposed to be doing this? What if I'm messing up God's plan?”

Kat laughed. “You can't mess up God's plan. He's a whole lot bigger than that. Look, you're following your heart. And you're doing it for a good reason. God's in that. I don't know what's going to happen, but He does. And He's got you. So stop stressing.”

“Okay. Thanks.” She blew out a big breath. “Here goes nothing.”

“Here goes everything.”

Dropping her phone onto the seat, she pulled back onto the road and navigated slowly back into her lane. Thank goodness traffic was light.

Twenty-five minutes later the sign
WELCOME TO PENNINGTON. POPULATION 9,649
passed on the road beside her.

Following the directions her phone dictated, she drove through a small but picturesque town center. Quaint shops encircled a town square. Flowers peeked out from hanging baskets, and crisp white frontages set off display windows.

Five minutes later she sat outside 12 Moray Avenue.

What if no one was home? What if there were lots of people there? Odds were slim on a Tuesday morning, but who knew? She hadn't really let herself think beyond finding their address. She'd rehearsed words on the off chance that she would, but they'd all fled, leaving her with a blank mind and a palpitating heart.

C'mon Allie. You didn't come all this way just to sit in your rental car and stare at their house.

Brushing the crumbs of a drive-through breakfast off her shorts, she exited the vehicle and closed the door.

She forced her legs to walk up the cobblestoned path, and up the stairs to the porch, where she knocked on the cheerful red door.

“Hello?” A slim woman, headscarf around her head, opened the door. Allie would have been able to spot her as Jackson's mother a mile away with her same stunning blue eyes, the feminine version of his face.

“Mrs. Gregory?” Not that she needed to ask. She just needed time.

The woman laughed. “Please, call me Steph. Mrs. Gregory was my mother-in-law.”

“I was wondering if you could tell me where to find Jackson.” Allie almost banged her head against the doorframe. That was not the speech she had practiced most of the way from Des Moines. Not the opening lines, anyway.

She looked up to see the woman smiling the kind of smile that takes over a person's whole face. “You're Allie.”

Allie just stared at her for a second, the ability to form words lost.

Steph laughed. “Oh, honey, that accent is from somewhere far away from here. And I've been praying for you since the first time he said your name.”

She what? Allie sagged against the porch, knees taken out by sheer surprise.

“Of course I can tell you where to find him.” Steph looked at her watch. “They're probably just about to break for lunch.”

“He's here?”

Steph studied her, smile softening. “Yes, he's here. He's been here ever since he got back from New Zealand.”

Allie opened her mouth but no words came. This was not what she had prepared for. Not in a million years. Him being in Pennington. Mere miles away. The possibility of seeing him today. She looked down at her travel-rumpled clothes and had a flashback of her weary face reflected in the rearview mirror. She couldn't see him looking like a hobo and smelling like a pair of two-day-old gym socks.

“Would you like to come in and freshen up before you go see my boy?”

“Yes.” Allie blinked back the tears that sprang to her eyes
in the face of such unexpected kindness from a woman who'd known who she was before she'd even said her name. “Please.”

* * *

I
t was going to break ninety today, Jackson was sure of it. Splashing some water on his face from the hose, he relished the cool liquid dripping down his neck.

Picking up the brush, he continued scrubbing down the new tractor that had just been delivered the week before. His father's new pride and joy. He'd never seen the man so happy. All the joy of working on the farm he loved, with none of the stress about cash flow. There was nothing Jackson would ever be able to do or say to thank Louis for the life he'd given back his parents. How ironic that in the middle of his mom's illness, he'd never seen the two of them with so much zest for life.

Movement sounded behind him. “Did you find it?” His father had gone on the hunt for a bigger brush.

“Jackson Gregory scrubbing a tractor. Can't say I ever imagined that.”

His hand froze. All of him stuck in his awkward half-crouched position.

It couldn't be. Not here. But it was. He would have known that voice anywhere. It was the same one that still saturated his thoughts and showed up in his dreams.

Finally managing to force his legs to move upward, he turned.

Allie stood there, the sun bouncing off her loose hair and shooting it through with copper threads. Blue T-shirt, black shorts, and flip-flops. Behind her he snatched a glimpse of his father retreating to the barn.

He tried to catch a breath. His mouth opened, but nothing came out.

“Nice tractor.”

“We just got it. It's a Massey Ferguson MF 8690. A red one.” His last sentence had him flushing the same color.

She laughed. It was the best sound he'd heard since, well, the last time he heard it. Jackson walked toward her, his rain boots sloshing through the puddle surrounding the tractor. “Hi.”

Her smile almost turned him into a puddle. “Hi.”

“Hi.” It was more of a croak than a word. He looked down, saw he was still holding the hose, its stream splashing down around his feet. He gestured at the water spraying across the ground. “Just let me go turn this off.”

“Sure.”

Jackson retreated back to where the spigot stood, unable to stop himself from checking over his shoulder to make sure she was really there. That she wasn't a mirage conjured up as a result of too many days staring at stalks of corn.

Turning the tap off, he dropped the hose on the ground and walked back to where she was standing. Her hands were in front of her, fingers twisting around themselves.

Allie. In Pennington. Here. His mind was misfiring trying to process it all. He shoved his hands in his pockets. He had no idea what to do with them. No idea what to do with the impulse to wrap his arms around her and bury his face in her hair to see if it smelled like he remembered.

He stopped a few feet in front of Allie and drank in her green eyes, the smattering of freckles across her pert nose, the way her bottom lip was now tucked under her top teeth. “What are you doing here?” His words came out hard.

She flinched as if she'd been hit with stones. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have come.” She stepped back.

He jolted. “No. No. Sorry. I just . . . I don't think I've been more surprised by anything in my whole life.” One of his hands was out of his pocket, reaching for her. He settled for grazing her arm. “Want to sit?” He gestured toward an old picnic table they occasionally used for lunch.

“Sure.”

They walked toward the table, feet in perfect rhythm.

She sat down on the bench seat; he sat beside her, unable to maintain distance. The wood creaked and sagged beneath them. Jackson curled his finger around the boards, the roughness grounding him.

His chest felt like it was going to crack open with all the words fighting to burst out.
I'm sorry. I miss you every second of every day. I love you.

Neither of them spoke for a few seconds, just sat and looked out across the vista of green fields and blue skies.
God, help.
Jackson managed to string the two words together in his mind. He'd had a plan. A crazy far-fetched plan of how he would know if God meant for them to have another chance. It was all in motion. It did not include Allie showing up here before he knew what the answer was.

“I'm not married.” Her voice was small, tentative.

“I know.” He looked sideways to see her mouth form an O. “Louis told me.”

She managed a wry smile. “Is there anything he doesn't know?”

“Apparently not.” His heart thundered in his chest. He leaned forward, clasping his hands to stop them from doing
what they were determined to do. Hold her hand. Run his fingers through her hair. Cup her chin.

“I have an interview at Oxford on Friday.”

“That's great. Congratulations.”

She smiled, her face lighting up. “Thanks. I'm excited. Super nervous, but excited.”

“So you might be going to England?”

“Maybe.” She shrugged. “Hopefully. Who knows? It's just to cover for someone on maternity leave for the next academic year. Nothing permanent.” Though she tried to feign nonchalance, he could feel the heady hope emanating off her.

“So what brings you to Pennington, Dr. Shire?” A whisper of wind picked up and blew a strand of hair across Allie's face. It took everything he had not to tuck it behind her ear.

Allie tilted her body so she could look right at him. “I needed to thank you.” She pursed her rosy lips.

Jackson forced his eyes away from them.
Look at anything but her lips.
Not that the deep green eyes he could fall into like a cold pond on a summer's day were much better.

Allie ran a finger across the small space of wood separating them. “When I met you I was so tired. Everything with Derek, my job, my family . . . I was just doing whatever it took to survive each day. You reminded me what it was like to really live again—to feel. You reminded me that you fight for what you love. I fell in love with Tolkien again because you forced me to remember why I've loved him so much and for so long. I know we left things badly and there's nothing I can ever say to make up for that. But you changed me. You helped me understand that God doesn't want me to live a life that's defined by my mistakes. And I'm so grateful for that.”

At some point during her words their fingers had become intertwined. They both looked at them for a second and then back up at the same instant. Their gazes locked, the electricity arching between them strong enough to power Vegas.

The desire to drop down to one knee, right there, in the dusty farmyard and propose with a blade of grass, a piece of string, anything, was almost overwhelming. Except a stronger force kept him pinned right where he was.

Allie didn't belong here. He was certain about that. Neither did he. He didn't know where he belonged, but she belonged at Oxford. He knew she would get the job with the same certainty he knew they were in for a bumper harvest.

Something flickered in Allie's eyes. “Can I ask a question?”

“Sure.”

“Your mom, she already knew who I was.”

He smiled. His mom had managed to wrangle bits and pieces of the story out of him over the last month. “She does. She loves you.”

“Why?” Another gust of wind. She grabbed her flyaway hair with her right hand and held it off her face.

“You changed me too. You got me back here. You helped me realize there are more important things in life than making money or climbing the corporate ladder.”

“Like what?”

“Like faith. Like family.” He turned and held her gaze. “Like love.”

Her eyes widened. “Jack—”

He put a finger against her lip, allowing it to linger. He bit back a groan, but a ragged sigh escaped instead. “Allie, I am totally crazy about you. I miss you every second of every day.
I was so hurt and I came here to lick my wounds and spend time with my family. I needed to recalibrate who I was and who I want to be. I would love nothing more than to sit here right now and say all the words that bubble up every time I'm around you.” His thumb roamed across her bottom lip and he leaned back slightly before he gave into the desire to kiss her senseless. “But I can't. It wouldn't be fair. You have this great opportunity at Oxford. I'm a farmhand trying to figure out what God wants him to do with his life. I can't—I won't—say things because they feel right when I can't make them right.”