“Ah-ha! I knew it was you. Why’re you pretending to be Ms. Ezra?”
“I’m also here,” I said dryly, still laughing for some reason.
“Oh. Well, in that case, let me text y’all Sienna’s number.”
“Thank you,” Jackson ground out and then gestured that I should hang up. But then a few seconds later, he added thoughtfully, “He is being particularly ornery recently. He must be worried about something.”
Sienna’s number came through with a chime, and I immediately texted her. “Have you and Cletus been close for long?”
Jackson: Sienna, this is Rae. I’m on Jackson’s phone. Please call me.
“Only a few years. He used to not like me much.” Jackson flipped on his turn signal.
“Why didn’t he like you? Did you arrest him?”
This earned me a quizzical look. “No. I wasn’t very nice to his sister when we were in high school. All the Winston brothers disliked me because of it.”
“Ashley?”
“Yes. Ashley.”
I’d met Ashley at dinner last week when we’d all gone to The Front Porch. She’d been absolutely lovely. “What happened?”
He made a face of concentration, taking a curve in the road carefully. “It’s a long story, but here’s the short version: We were best friends growing up, I fell for her, she did not feel the same way, but we were each other’s firsts. I thought that meant we were going to get married. Upon hearing this, she panicked and admitted that my feelings weren’t reciprocated. She wanted to go back to being just friends.”
“Just friends, huh?”
That earned me a quick, narrowed look. He continued like I hadn’t spoken. “I was mad, hurt, so I told everyone our senior year that I’d slept with her and then dropped her. I spread the nasty rumor, trying to tear her down and make myself feel better about being unwanted. Instead, all I did was show everyone why I wasn’t good enough for her and why she was right not to want me.”
I felt my eyebrows inch higher as he spoke. “You—that wasn’t—what a dick move!”
“Correct. It was shameful and petty and small, and I learned my lesson.”
“What was the lesson? Don’t be an asshole?”
He nodded, flipping on his blinker again and taking a right turn. “That was certainly one of them. But there were others, such as: How you treat others defines you more than how others treat you. There’s no such thing as convincing someone to love you, you can’t push a person into reciprocating feelings. No one owes me anything I haven’t earned. Sometimes wanting a thing is bad for me, it makes me a worse person; no matter how much I want it, if it doesn’t make me better, I should let it go. And lastly, give grace when asked sincerely for forgiveness, even if the person’s behavior was shameful, petty, and small.”
I exhaled a long breath, frowning at the stark lines creasing his features. Just like during our drive late last night, when he’d said matter-of-factly that he didn’t have many innate talents, he’d recited the story and his list in a blunt, monotone voice. I got the sense he probably still beat himself up about decisions he’d made in high school.
“That’s a lot of lessons.”
“Yes.” He slowed the truck around a corner. “I’m just sorry I had to learn them at Ashley’s expense.”
“How old were you?”
“Seventeen. Old enough to know better because my parents had raised me better.”
The phone in my hand rang before I could process all of Jackson’s story. I stared at the screen of the cell, frowning. This isn’t my phone.
“Pick it up, that’s probably Sienna.”
“Oh!” I answered it, remembering why I’d been waiting for her call.
“Rae?”
“Yes. What is going on? Why are all those cars at the house?”
“You tell me.” She laughed, sounding more bemused than frustrated. “I woke up to this. I think your entire staff is here. We have a butler, a nutritionist, two physical trainers, a—”
“Dammit Sasha!” I whispered harshly.
“Yes. She is here too. And she brought some people for you to interview for her personal assistant? What? Why would your personal assistant need a personal assistant? Tom Low’s former PA had PAs, and it always seemed crazy to me. And why would she fly them out to Tennessee?”
I sighed heavily, anger swelling in my chest. Sienna’s questions were more than valid. Why would Sasha do this? Why would she bring everyone?
“They’re all inside the carriage house,” she continued. “Jethro turned off the alarm and made them some coffee. Charlotte left her kiddos here and went to Daisy’s to grab some doughnuts for everyone.”
“Thank you. That was nice of him and kind of Charlotte. I’m so sorry about this.”
“Don’t worry about it. Hey, don’t come in the front driveway off Moth Run Road, it’s blocked by the paps.”
I hazarded a peek at Jackson. His features were tense.
“Yes. We saw.” I rubbed my forehead. “Is there another way in? A different road we can take?”
“It’s kind of hard to explain. Ask Jackson if he knows about it.”
He’d been listening in, so he shook his head. “No. I don’t know what she’s talking about.”
“Can you meet Charlotte at Daisy’s? She knows the backroad behind the house.” I heard Sienna turn on a faucet and some dishes clink together; one of her sons asked for juice. “Just a minute, baby. Rae, listen, the family has it well camouflaged. If you don’t know it’s there, the road is impossible to see.”
My heart stuttered, and Jackson glanced down at me, saying in a voice just above a whisper, “We’re past the paparazzi. You can sit up now.”
I nodded, sitting up and feeling sad. And disappointed. And irritated. And helpless. I considered immediately evicting all of my employees from the carriage house and locking them out while Jackson and I spent quality time being friendly. Or asking Jackson to take me back to his place.
But I wasn’t that person. I couldn’t leave Sienna and Jethro and Charlotte to deal with my mess. If I’d called Sasha and talked to her directly instead of sending a message through Domino, then I wouldn’t be dealing with this circus now.
“I know you don’t have your phone, but Jackson knows how to get to Daisy’s. Call Charlotte and let her know you’re coming,” Sienna added, likely misinterpreting my silence as worry over locating Daisy’s.
“Okay. I’ll use Jackson’s phone to text Charlotte. See you soon.”
“Sure, sure. No problem. And don’t worry. It was honestly kind of funny waking up this morning to eight limos in the front yard. Why didn’t they just rent a passenger van?”
Good question.
I clicked off, swallowing thickly as I navigated to Charlotte’s contact information in Jackson’s phone. She wasn’t labeled as Girlfriend, or Ex-girlfriend, or My Love, or anything like that. He had her labeled simply as Charlotte Mitchell. Just her name.
I thought about looking for Ashley’s entry, to see if he had her contact information at all and what he’d called her, but immediately pushed the impulse from my mind. That would be an invasion of privacy.