“Yet.” He grinned as he took a step back. “Maybe I’d better walk you all the way to the porch, just in case you need someone to catch you if you fall again. They say the third time is the charm, and you might really break something the next time.”
“But I might get another hug if I did,” she flirted, even though she knew she shouldn’t.
He looped her arm in his, and the instant electricity between them was like nothing she’d ever experienced before. She reasoned that it was the result of her not having gone out with anyone in almost a year, but her heart told her it was something more than that. She’d been with men, both in a fairly serious relationship and on lots of platonic dates, but none of them had affected her like Jackson did.
It didn’t take long to cover the distance from the fork in the road to the porch since it was only about thirty yards. When they reached the bottom step, she pulled her arm free. “Thanks again,” she said as she leaned in to give him a kiss on the cheek for saving her twice.
The next few seconds became a blur, and yet everything felt as if it moved in slow motion. Tex came from the back of the house in a dead run and reared up on Jackson’s leg. Jackson turned to push him away at the same time Nessa leaned in to kiss Jackson on the cheek. Instead of landing where she intended, the kiss landed square on his lips. He wrapped her up in his arms for the third time and kissed her back—long and slow, sending tingles all the way to her toes.
When the kiss ended, she took a deep breath and said, “That’s to thank you for saving me, but I really only intended it to be a sweet kiss on the cheek.”
“I’m glad it was more,” he said. “I guess this was a date since I got a goodnight kiss at the door. Maybe we’ll go out again sometime.”
“You’ve got the number here at the O’Riley house.” She figured he was joking, but down deep inside she hoped he wasn’t.
“Night, Nessa.” He waved over his shoulder as he and Tex disappeared into the darkness.
Chapter Thirteen
April was watching a rerun of NCIS when Nessa came into the house. Her cousin had a glow about her that begged for answers, so April asked, “What have you been doing? You look like you just kissed a frog, and he turned into a prince.”
Flynn came down the hallway and stopped at the edge of the living room. “You’ve been with Jackson, haven’t you? He said he was going to the falls when we knocked off work today. You been out there making out with him? Don’t you dare lead him on and then dump him, Nessa. I like working for him, so don’t ruin it for me.”
“Are you judging our cousin by your own half bushel?” April asked.
“I’m not talking to you,” Flynn smarted off.
“You are now, and you didn’t answer my question,” April said.
“I saw him at the falls, and we talked,” Nessa admitted. “You really are thinking of yourself, aren’t you?”
Flynn raised a dark eyebrow. “Yes, I am. I’m a work in progress, and I really like my job. So fess up and tell us what happened.”
“I believe it was you who said you didn’t know us well enough to tell us all about your private life and past. Well, darlin’ cousin”—she dragged out the last two words—“I’m saying the same thing right back at you. I’m going to get a piece of chocolate cake. Anyone else want one?”
April followed her into the kitchen. “You’re changing the subject, so there’s more to this story.”
“We talked about our problems. There! Are you satisfied? You’ve pulled the big secret out of me.” Nessa lifted the glass dome off the cake stand and cut a wedge of cake for herself. “Either of you want to join me?”
“I’ll have a piece,” Flynn said. “I want milk with mine. How many glasses should I pour?”
April answered both questions. “I’ll have one, too. What problems did you talk about?”
She waved her arm around the kitchen. “Mine, his, ours, as in yours and mine.”
“What is my problem?” Flynn poured two tall glasses of milk and set them on the table.
April wondered if Flynn even knew the depths of his problems. She sure didn’t know just how far hers had gone, but she felt as if she was making progress—one baby step at a time.
Nessa pulled out her chair with her free hand and sat down, putting her cake right in front of her. “The same as mine and April’s, evidently. We all want to know why we are the way we are. How our parents could have had the same parents and turned out so different. Where did the genes actually come from? It’s easy to see that my daddy got Nanny Lucy’s love of God and religion, but where in the world did Uncle Matthew get his penchant for womanizing, and where did Rachel get her rebellion?”
“Rachel and April weren’t preachers’ kids like you, but with Nanny Lucy’s religious streak, they might just as well have been, and you know that preachers’ kids usually have a rebellious side, either when they’re young or later on in life,” Flynn answered.
“And why did Nanny Lucy love you both more than she did me?” April took her seat. “It was as if she saw something in me that just flat-out pissed her off every single day. No matter what I did or how hard I tried, nothing was right.”
“I don’t care where the genes came from. I just want to change the ones I got from my dad and replace them with Mama’s.” Flynn put the first bite of cake into his mouth.
“How on earth did your folks ever get together to begin with?” Nessa asked. “They were so different.”
“She got a job as a secretary at the oil company where he worked,” Flynn answered. “She fell in love with him, and I believe that even after he cheated on her and asked for a divorce, she loved him until she died.”
“I want to find peace, and to do that, I’ve got to be at peace with me. Somehow I don’t see either Nanny Lucy or Grandpa doing something immoral, but maybe our great-grandparents . . .” Nessa paused to take a bite of cake.
“April, did Nanny Lucy ever talk much about Grandpa?” Flynn asked. “He was dead before any of us were born, and I never heard her mention him, except to say that the green rocking chair was his.”
“He died before my mother was even born,” April answered. “Nanny seldom ever said anything about him, but she did tell me more than once that raising my mother and then me was what she got for trying to punish him. She never did tell me what he did that made her so mad.”
“Did she ever tell you how he died?” Nessa asked. “I’ve asked Daddy, but all he’ll say is that his father died on the job when he was a teenager and just before Rachel was born.”
“My dad says that Grandpa was away a lot and pretty much only came home on weekends. When he was home, he spent most of his time getting ready to leave again. He worked on the railroad, and Dad said that at the end of his life he was an engineer, but it wasn’t on a passenger train,” Flynn added.
“Freight trains?” Nessa asked. “Are there pictures of him anywhere?”
“Not that I’ve ever seen, but Nanny Lucy told me that he worked with freight trains, too. She said that she kept her memories in the hall closet and that I’d get in big trouble if I ever prowled around in there,” April said.