Jonquils for Jax: The Rousseaus #1 (The Blueberry Lane Series Book 12) (21 page)

“How high you willin’ to go, Gardener?”

“As high as it takes, sir. That house is mine.”

Flint nodded. “I hope she’s worth it.”

“She is, Flint,” he said, without a hint of doubt in his heart or mind. “She surely is.”

***

By Friday, the fourth morning of Gard’s absence, Jax started to feel uneasy about him. A night in New Orleans had turned into two, into three, and damn it, but she needed him. Her mother had sent a terse e-mail advising her that tomorrow the men were coming to turn off the water, electricity, and gas, and a moving company was scheduled to start moving the furniture to a storage unit near Philadelphia until Liliane could decide what was to be done with it.

Tonight was Skye Winslow’s party. Tomorrow morning, she’d move in with Mad.

But the longer she went without seeing Gard, the more disconnected she felt from him, and there were even moments when she wondered if he’d gotten what he wanted from her, had some fun, and now moved on. Her heart splintered to imagine that their exchanges of love hadn’t meant anything to him, and it didn’t feel right to even wonder about it. She’d looked into his eyes as they’d shared the most intimate connection two people could possibly share. He loved her. She was certain of it.

So what was he doing in Louisiana, and why was he being so cagey about it? When she asked what he was up to, all he’d say is “family business” and change the conversation back to her. It was making her crazy.

And sad.

Well, she was sad anyway. On Tuesday, her mother had fired the domestic staff with generous severances, and saying good-bye to Mrs. Jefferson on Tuesday afternoon had not been easy for Jax. In fact, none of this was easy for Jax. She just wished that she could have Gard’s arms around her as she fell asleep for the final time at Le Chateau tonight. She just wished he could hold her as she said her good-byes to the house she loved and cried her eyes out on the drive to Mad’s house tomorrow morning.

After a lonely breakfast, the front doorbell rang, and Jax answered it to find two men from Million-Dollar Movers on her front step.

“Here to make a final assessment for tomorrow’s job,” said one of the men, and Jax’s eyes filled with tears as they stepped inside with clipboards. She was due to help decorate for the party next door at noon, but she wondered about going early.

She took her phone out of her pocket to text Skye but found a message waiting:

GARD:
Business completed. Will be on the two o’clock flight. Home at six. Wait for me.

She took a deep, ragged breath and sighed, hot tears of relief brightening her eyes and making the words blur on the screen.

JAX:
Party starts at six. Do you want to meet me there?

GARD:
No. Meet me at home, cher. We need to talk.

Jax flinched at these words, which she’d only ever heard twice, in the context of boyfriends breaking up with her: once in high school when Cort Ambler had pulled the plug on their romance and once again in college.

She tried to stay calm.

JAX:
About what?

GARD:
It’s important.
We’ll talk in person. See you later, Duchess.

Her heart plummeted, and she sat down on the grand staircase, letting the phone drop to the red carpet by her thigh as tears coursed down her cheeks. He was breaking up with her. She’d bet her life on it. She couldn’t offer him a job managing Le Chateau. She was temporarily moving in with her sister. Her life was at sixes and sevens. Hell, since the moment he’d met her, her life probably looked like a train wreck. It was a good time for a clean break, she thought pathetically. And he was taking it.

“Uh, miss?”

She looked up to see one of the Million-Dollar Movers standing in front of her, his clipboard by his side.

She sniffled, swiping her tears away. “Yes?”

“We’ll be going now.”

“You’re finished already?”

The man shook his head, holding up his cell phone. “Nope. Job was just canceled. I guess you got a buyer for your house. Congratulations!”

“A buyer?” she repeated.

He nodded. “Yep. We were told not to move the furniture.”

“Why not?”

He shrugged. “Don’t know. Best guess is that the buyer wants it all. You have a good day, miss.”

She watched in stunned disbelief as he and his partner headed to the front door, closing it firmly behind them.

Not only had someone purchased her childhood home, but they’d purchased everything in it. Which meant that all the things that reminded her of her father and siblings would belong to someone else. All her mother’s stupid Parisian knickknacks, the grandfather clock in the ballroom, the desk where her father wrote checks, the gym where she fell in love. It would all belong to someone else.

Everything was ending or falling apart, and even for Jax, who was a relatively strong woman, it was too much. Placing her hand over her heart, she looked around the foyer, holding back her sobs for as long as she could, then letting them break forth as she walked up the stairs to the fleeting sanctuary of her bedroom.

***

Air travel is not a simple task when you’re legally blind
, thought Gard, who had no choice but to state his disability when he booked his tickets and arrange to have someone accompany him from the gate to the taxi stand at the Philadelphia International Airport. And while he still hated the feeling of being dependent on someone else, the reality was that with Jax’s help, he was coming to accept the hand he’d been dealt in life. She didn’t treat him like a disabled person. She didn’t patronize him or look down at him. In fact, it was her confidence in him had given him the courage to get on a plane in the first place. Her confidence in him and the fact that he wasn’t going to let Liliane-fucking-Rousseau, or anyone else, break his woman’s heart. No, sir. Her heart belonged to him, and he took care of what was his. Gard was learning that there were ways to keep someone safe and protect them that had nothing to do with being—as Jax had put it—a “Neanderthal goon with a club.” Sometimes keeping someone safe was about keeping their heart safe and making their life easier. Sometimes it was just about making sure that you stood as a buffer between them and any ugliness in the world, even if that ugliness issued from their own mother.

The negotiation hadn’t been simple. Liliane had asked for a ridiculous and astronomical eight million dollars. Gard had volleyed back with six point three. She had come back with seven. He had offered six point four. She had finally come back with six point six and they’d settled and the house had gone to contract. From his trust, he’d withdrawn three point three million dollars for a fifty percent down payment on Le Chateau, which was presently being held in escrow with the First Bank of Philadelphia. After disclosures and inspections, they’d close the escrow, the down payment would be made, and Gardener Thibodeaux would be the owner of Le Chateau, including a brand-new thirty-year mortgage with payments he’d never be able to make on his own. However, if Jax was still willing to offer him the job of estate manager, his salary would cover it.

I’ve learned a lot about faith over the past few days
, he thought as the taxi zoomed toward Haverford. He’d also learned a lot about the depth of his love for Jax and the hope he had for their future together. From the very beginning, he’d known she was different, singular. But until four days ago, he hadn’t yet learned the lengths to which his heart was willing to go to secure what belonged to him. He hadn’t known that falling in love with her meant that he’d do anything—beyond reason or common sense, beyond prudence—to make her happy. And since money didn’t mean a great deal to him but Le Chateau meant a great deal to her, it made sense to him to buy it for her, to keep it safe for her, to protect her heart, to make her happy. In fact, nothing—not anything in the whole world—could possibly make more sense to him than that.

As the taxi approached the gates of Le Chateau, they opened for him, and his heart leapt because it meant she was waiting for him as he’d requested. The contract was folded in his blazer pocket, and all that was left was to tell her this:

Le Chateau is yours.

***

Jax had already dressed for the party in a blue-and-white pinstriped sundress and white heeled sandals. She had a silver chain around her neck and a matching bracelet, and her hair was down, tumbling in waves around her shoulders. She’d checked herself in the mirror ten times, much good it would do her. If he’d decided that they were over, she refused to beg. In fact, she’d opened the gates so that she could step outside and meet him. Once the conversation started going south, it would be easier to tell him to leave if they were already outside.

Her hands trembled as she rose from her father’s desk. Her heart had broken this afternoon when she discovered Le Chateau had been sold, but she feared that losing Gard would shatter it into a million pulverized pieces that could never be put back together again. It had been hard to think of leaving Le Chateau, but with Gard by her side, it had been bearable. Now? She may as well return to LA. She couldn’t possibly be more miserable there than here without him.

Stepping outside, she walked to the top of the steps that led to the driveway and stood there with her hands clasped before her. As the taxi pulled up in front of the house, she blinked her eyes and held her breath, unprepared for the strong wave of pure, unadulterated love she felt for the man who exited from the backseat and stood before her as the car pulled away.

Tall and impossibly beautiful in jeans, a white button-down shirt, and a navy-blue blazer, his thick dark-blond hair was wavy and tousled, and a few days of beard growth covered his strong jaw. She braced herself to hear his voice—to hear the richness of his lightly accented baritone when he greeted her.

“Jax?” he said, looking up at her from several feet away.

“
C’est moi
,” she answered softly, thinking that her heart really
hadn’t
broken today after all. It still beat inside her chest, as strong and solid as ever. There was a difference between a sad heart and a broken one. Losing Le Chateau had made her sad. Losing Gard would break her.

In fact, if this was the end for them, she didn’t care about Le Chateau anymore. She didn’t care about
Philadelphia Vice
or staying near her family. If she never got to see him exit a car headed for her arms again, frankly, she didn’t care about anything. Everything—every last thing in her life—would feel meaningless if this was the end of her time with him.

She gulped, drawing her hands into fists by her sides. “How was your trip?”

“What’s between you and me?” he asked, letting his duffel bag slide from his shoulder onto the gravel of the driveway as he squinted to see.

She flinched, the double meaning of the question striking profoundly at her heart. “Umm…”

“
Cher
,” he said, “are you okay?”

“What do you want to talk to me about?” she asked in a rush.

“Let’s go inside and sit down,” he suggested.

She clenched her teeth together and closed her eyes. “No.”

“Why not?”

She worked hard not to sob. “Please. Please just say it.”

He squinted up at her again. “What’s between you and me?”

“Nothing. Some gravel. A few flagstones. Three steps.”

Carefully making his way from the driveway to where she stood, she could tell when she came into focus for him, because his eyes softened with such tenderness, it made her want to weep. And for the first time, she wondered if maybe he didn’t want to break up…if maybe there was something else on his mind.

He reached for her, drawing her into his strong arms and burying his face in her hair. “I missed you. I missed you. Lord, how I missed you,
cher
.”

And then, because she was so relieved, the dam broke loose, and all the tears she’d been swallowing started to fall as she threw her arms around his neck, clutching him to her, her fingers digging into the skin at the back of his neck. He found her lips with his, kissing her madly as he pulled her impossibly closer. When she was breathless and boneless, he leaned back and kissed her cheeks, her nose, and each eyelid.

“Don’t cry, Duchess.”

“It’s been a terrible week,” she said, leaning against the solid strength of his body. “How was your visit?”

“Next time, you come with me,” he said.

“Where?” she asked, smiling through her tears. “Nawlins?”

“Anywhere. Everywhere. Three nights was an eternity.”

Standing in his arms, she searched his face. “You scared me. I thought maybe—”

“What?” he asked, his forehead creasing.

“When you said we needed to talk, I thought you wanted to break up.”

His head jerked back and forth. “What? Why? Why would you think that?”

“Your sudden trip. It kept getting extended. You wouldn’t tell me what was going on.”

“Oh,
mon coeur
. I didn’t want to get your hopes up,” he said, reaching up to caress her face. “I didn’t want to say anythin’ until I was sure.”