Finding Gracie's Rainbow (14 page)

“
Are you talking about
Jackson?” Janet asked curiously before Gracie started laughing at
her.

“
No, the puppy; Bea
finally named it Beast after she watched
The Beauty and the Beast
.” Gracie
was still laughing. “Why would I want to know where Jackson
is?”

“
I've no idea.” Janet
answered. “I know where he is though.”

“
And I would want to know
this why?” Gracie picked out a piece of carrot.

“
Because he's at your
apartment with his friend and the trailer.” Janet saw the look on
Gracie’s face.

“
Funny, Mom.” Gracie
stopped smiling. “I don’t remember asking him to do that tonight. I
guess we should go then.”

“
What made you so happy
tonight?” Janet had noticed her daughter’s expression.

“
We signed a new author
today.” Gracie smiled happily as she answered. “I guess I'll see
you tomorrow then.” She had Bea tell her grandmother bye, and
Gracie drove over to the apartment where she saw Jackson bring down
a load of boxes and place them on the trailer. She propped against
her car and looked over at him curiously before Bea got out and
looked around. “How did you get into my apartment?” Gracie asked
after he stacked the boxes neatly and tied them down.

“
Kim let me borrow her
key.” Jackson smiled down at Bea. “Hello, what have you been up
to?”

“
Nothing, Uncle Jackson.
Where are you going with our stuff?” Bea asked curiously spotting
her name on some of the boxes.

“
To the house,” Jackson
looked back over at Gracie. “Should I have called
first?”

“
That might not have been
a bad idea.” Gracie started walking up to her apartment. “Annie?”
She asked as she remembered the name of Jackson’s date while they
were at Asahi.”

“
The same.” Annie smiled
down at Bea, “Are you the little Princess that Jackson is always
talking about?”

“
I am.” Bea smiled at her
as Gracie was silently thinking to herself.

“
Come along, Bea. I'm sure
Jackson is waiting on Annie.” Gracie walked into her apartment and
noticed that they had already loaded up all the boxes that she had
packed. She breathed a sigh of relief and started to take some
fresh vegetables out of the refrigerator.

Jackson came back up and
told Gracie they would be taking the trailer, since they were
finished loading it.

“
Thanks, Jackson.” She
watched him leave without asking about Annie. Why should she?
Jackson was a grown man, and she had already told him that she just
wanted to be friends. She smiled after Bea came into the room
carrying yet another movie. “Uncle Jackson has spoiled you
rotten.”

“
This one has both of our
names on it.” Bea smiled when Gracie looked at it.

“
The Princess and the
Frog
?” Gracie handed it back to her,
“Supper first.”

~

Annie looked over at
Jackson after they unloaded the boxes and placed them into their
specified rooms. “When are you going to tell her?”

Jackson looked up after
unboxing the television for Bea’s room. “Tell who what?”

Annie shook her head
wanting to laugh at him. “Tell Gracie that I'm your cousin and not
your girlfriend.” She sat down on the beanbag chair that he had
bought on a whim.

“
When it comes up.”
Jackson smiled as he placed a stack of DVDs on the stand. “Which
knowing her, it won’t.”

Annie stood. “Okay, Jackie
Boy, this is me that you're talking to. Every Friday for the past
month, I've watched you come back home looking like you could kill
someone because your ‘best friend’ has been setting Gracie up on
lame dates.” She walked over to him. “You won’t even look at
another woman and. . .” She waved her hand around the room. “You're
as crazy over Bea as you are Garrison.”

“
But nothing is going to
happen between me and Gracie.” Jackson glared at her before he
walked out of the room. “She only wants to be friends, and she has
another date tomorrow.”

“
And what are you going to
do?” Annie followed him out of the room. “I can tell you exactly
what you're going to do. You're going to spend the evening watching
a movie with Bea while you try not to think about Gracie, and then
you're going to wait there until she comes home to see if Steven
struck out again.”

“
What is wrong with that?”
Jackson washed his glass before turning around to study
her.

“
You're making yourself
miserable.” Annie watched him. “What if Steven doesn’t strike out,
and Gracie likes the guy she was set up with? Have you thought
about that remotely being a possibility?” She walked out the door
as Jackson just stood there. “You haven’t.”

“
Not exactly,” Jackson
frowned at her after he locked up. “But if that happens to be the
case, I'll just have to deal with it.”

“
You’re pathetic, Jackson
Carter.” She got in her truck and waited for him. “Let’s go pick up
Garrison from Kim’s house. It’s his bedtime.”

~

“
Why is Steven acting so
nervous?” Gracie asked as she looked over at Paige. “I thought he
‘knew’ all of his friends.”

“
He didn’t pick this one.
I did.” Paige laughed at the look on Gracie’s face. “He isn't
boring, fresh, or funny; he is actually really decent.”

Steven walked beside
Paige’s cousin and introduced him to Gracie. “This is
Dallas.”

“
Dallas?” Gracie looked
him over. He was cute with sandy, cropped hair and brown
eyes.

“
My father’s favorite
football team,” Dallas smiled as he sat down beside her.

Paige was relieved as she
watched them talk. Steven was very watchful too, and Paige elbowed
him as he openly scrutinized them.

Gracie listened to Dallas
as he talked about football, his job, and his family. Paige joined
into their conversation. All in all, Gracie marked it down as the
first decent blind date since Steven had started them.

At the end of date, Gracie
agreed to see Dallas again, and Paige started fighting herself
after she thought about how Jackson felt about Gracie.

Gracie looked over at Paige
after Dallas left. “You aren't happy?”

“
Sure, I'm happy.” Paige
smiled over at Steven. “I just wasn’t expecting you to want to see
him again.”

“
Why not?” Gracie looked
over at Steven then. “This might have been a double.” She laughed
when she saw the look come across Steven’s face. “I told you this
would be the last one.”

“
What about Jackson?”
Steven was the first one to ask and was surprised to see Gracie
laugh at him.

“
Jackson is dating Annie
again.” Gracie informed them before they walked away from the
table.

Gracie walked into Kim’s
house with a smile on her face, and her sister was the first one to
notice it. “You’re smiling.” Kim looked around to see if Jackson
had come back into the room. “I take it that you had a nice
time.”

“
Yep, and I'm going to see
him again next week.” Gracie sat down and looked at her. “Paige
picked this one out.”

“
And she got past Steven?”
Kim waited for an answer not knowing what else to say.

Gracie nodded as she told
Kim about Dallas, and Jackson walked in at the last of it. Kim was
watching him while he listened to Gracie.

Kim stood and walked into
the kitchen after Gracie left with Bea. “Okay, Jackson, the ball's
in your court.”

“
What am I supposed to do
with that?” Jackson looked at her sadly. “Gracie knows how I
feel.”

“
She saw Annie.” Kim
glared at him. “That isn't a game that you want to
play.”

“
I have no choice. Gracie
just wants to play it safe and stay friends.” Jackson left Kim
standing there as he walked out of the house.

He pulled up at the
apartment that he was sharing with Annie and her son. Annie was
reading a book when he walked in and glanced up noticing the
expression on his face. “You’re kidding.” She took one look at him
and decided that he looked like a whipped puppy. “Want to talk
about it?”

“
All I know is that his
name is Dallas, and she plans on seeing him again next week.”
Jackson picked up one of Garrison’s cars before sitting
down.

“
You know she probably
thinks that you're dating again and allowed herself to relax with
him.” Annie stood. “Why does the name ‘Dallas’ ring a
bell?”

“
I have no idea.” Jackson
just stared vacantly. He knew that his cousin was a social worker
and had dealt with a lot of names.

“
You need to change your
game plan.” Annie told him good night before walking off to her
room.

The next morning, Annie
walked into the living room and found Jackson sleeping where she
had left him. “Jackson?”

He mumbled to her before he
woke, “What?”

“
The puppies are
scratching at the door wanting to get out.” Annie listened as they
started to whine. “Do something with them.”

“
I’ll take them over to
the house.” He didn’t bother to change his clothes before he
grabbed the puppies and headed over to his parents’ house. He put
them both in the fence and watched them as he allowed his thoughts
to wander.

Gracie had dropped Bea off
at Kim’s house, so she could finish packing and since Kim lived
just up the court from where Gracie was moving, it was easy for
Sammie to spot him as they rode their bikes in the court.
“Jackson?” She called him a couple of times, and he never turned
around.

Bea rode her bike into the
driveway and watched him before she walked over to him. “Uncle
Jackson?”

“
Princess, you surprised
me.” He rubbed his eyes before he looked down at her. “Beast needed
some exercise.”

“
I’ll go ask Aunt Kim if I
can play with him.” She picked up her bike and walked to her Aunt’s
house.

Kim nodded her head to Bea
after she picked the phone up so the ringing wouldn't wake Robert.
“Annie?”

“
Can you talk?” Annie
asked her from the other end of the line.

“
No ears around,” Kim
watched as the two girls peddled their bikes to where Jackson was
standing.

“
Jackson is really down.”
Annie whispered so her own son wouldn't hear her talking. “Would
you by any chance know Dallas’s last name?”

“
I can find out. Why?” Kim
saw Jackson glance up at her house.

“
Just a hunch, but Dallas
isn’t a popular name, and it's ringing an alarm in my head.” Annie
gave her a cell phone number where she could be reached.

“
He is my sister-in-law’s
cousin, so I'll call you back as soon as possible.” Kim ended the
call and stepped into the house.

Robert was awake when Kim
walked back into the house and looked at the puzzled expression on
his wife’s face. “More drama?”

“
Possibly, I'm not sure
yet.” Kim started to fix Robert some breakfast, telling him about
Gracie’s date and Annie’s phone call.

“
Dallas?” Robert asked. “I
work with a guy named Dallas.”

“
You do?” Kim looked over
at him as she slid the plate down in front of him.

“
Dallas Young,” he picked
up his fork as Kim started dialing Paige’s cell phone.

After confirming that was
the last name from Paige, Kim turned to her husband. “What do you
know about him?”

“
All I know is that he's a
hard worker.” Robert pushed his empty plate away from him. “I don’t
know much else about him. I can ask around when I go in this
afternoon.”

Kim took the plate. “Let me
know what you find out.” She propped on the counter before she
turned back around to Robert. “Did you know that Annie is Jackson’s
cousin?”

“
Really?” Robert smiled at
her. “Why doesn’t your sister know this yet?”

“
Because Jackson told me
not to tell her.” Kim was troubled. “I know something that I really
should tell, and I feel guilty about it.”

“
And you should.” Robert
stood and hugged her. “Where is Sammie?”

“
Down at the house with
Bea playing with Beast,” Kim had forgotten to mention that Jackson
was at the house that Gracie was going to move into until then. “I
need to call Annie back, and afterwards, I'll walk down
there.”

Robert walked down to the
house with Kim, and Jackson took them inside so they could sit
down. “How are you holding up, Jackson?” Robert studied his
friend’s face as he asked. “You look like crap.”

“
I feel like it, too.”
Jackson tried to smile. “I fell asleep on my couch.”

Kim looked at him. “I hate
to run, but Gracie is going to be here in about fifteen minutes to
pick up Bea.”

“
Not cool,” Jackson
started dialing Annie’s number. “I was hoping to move some more of
her stuff without her around. Can you manage to find something for
Gracie to do for the next three hours?”