“No mushy stuff, just open it.”
She was already tearing through the paper, revealing a leather-bound photo book with a picture of them on the cover. She ran her fingers over the image of him looking away from the camera. In the photo he was wearing a white button-down shirt with the top three buttons open. His eyes were serious, and the scruff on his chiseled jawline gave him the edgy look of a protector. Laney was draped over his shoulder from behind, her forehead leaning on the back of his head, her eyes closed. One arm hung over his chest, her thumb in his shirt. Her other hand was pressed to his right pecs, and his hand covered hers. The strap of her peach dress hung halfway down her arm. Her heart squeezed at the image. They looked like lovers in the intimate pose.
“This is one of my favorite pictures.” She looked up at him, and he was still gazing down at the picture. “Cooper took it the night after your father’s funeral, in your mother’s backyard.”
He cleared his throat, and his answer came out in a scratchy whisper. “Yeah.”
She set the cake aside and held his hand. Her eyes filled with tears as she touched her forehead to his, remembering his father, Bill Wild, and the way he used to call her darlin’ and treat her like a daughter. He’d been a big man with a generous and loving heart, like each of his four sons.
“I miss him.”
Jackson lifted his eyes to hers and nodded. “Me too.”
He flipped open the book, and she knew he didn’t want to relive that time of their lives. He and his brothers had each handled their parents’ attack differently. While Jackson internalized most of his anger, his older brother Logan, who had been out on a mission with the Navy SEALS when his parents were attacked, had gone on his own private mission when the police had stopped searching for their father’s killer and had hunted down the attacker—killing him as he tried to attack another woman. Heath, Jackson’s other older brother, worked through those agonizing weeks talking through his feelings, and Cooper, the youngest, had gone on a full-out rampage. He’d been a fury of rage, angry at everyone and everything, yelling, punching holes in walls, and ornery as hell, and then he seemed to accept their loss and move on just as quickly as he’d fallen apart, albeit a changed man, for sure. Cooper used to be the warm one, easy to get close to, but after his rage, he seemed to have gone numb. But the four brothers had banded together in the aftermath, joining forces in caring for Mary Lou, their mother. They shared in her caretaking, making sure that at least one of them stopped by on a daily basis, ran errands with her, and took her out, to ensure that her life remained full and surrounded by love. Every Sunday all of the boys gathered at her house for dinner, and Laney had joined them on many occasions.
She pushed away the sad memories and turned her attention to the pictures of their past, decoratively displayed by Jackson’s thoughtful and creative eye. She smiled at the images of her as a teenager, laughing with her head tilted back, her eyes closed with the force of her delight, another with her hand on her hip, scowling as Jackson took the picture. And a third, enlarged to take up the entire page, of Laney gazing out his bedroom window with a worried look on her face.
As she flipped through the pages, she found many pictures she didn’t remember him taking—even though it seemed that even as a teen Jackson was always taking pictures of her, or holding the camera at arm’s length to get a shot of both of them with their faces pressed together.
“That’s my favorite,” Jackson said when she turned the page to a picture of Laney lying on her back on the grass at night, moonlight streaming across her mouth and neck, her eyes closed. The edges of the picture were purposely blurred, making her body the full focus.
“Is this…?”
He smiled and nodded. “The first time we ever…”
He held her gaze as memories sailed through her mind with the impact of a gale-force wind. Her body remembered the weight of Jackson perched above her, his strong teenage body lean and tanned, and his eyes—his expressive, loving eyes, even then—gazing down at her protectively. You’re sure, Laney? I don’t want to hurt you. He’d been her first, but she hadn’t been his. He’d never said anything, but he was so confident, so virile and in control, that she knew he had to be far more experienced than she was. He’d wrapped his sinewy arms around her and held her until she’d stopped trembling before they went any further. He’d assured her that they didn’t need to do anything, that he’d always be there for her no matter what, and that she was special, then listed the ways. You’re brilliant and creative. You’re stubborn and sweet and make me crazy. You’re the only person I really truly trust outside of my family.
Laney was lost in the past, and when Jackson touched her cheek, it brought his face back into focus.