“Did you train him to do that?”
“No.” She laughed. “He loves me. It’s a given he misses me when I’m not around.” She returned her attention to the horse and gave his neck a few quick strokes before she waved her hand for Jackson to follow and stepped inside the tack room. She turned around to see if he’d followed her lead and slammed into a solid wall of broad, muscular chest.
Slightly disoriented by Jackson’s nearness, she stepped back before getting her footing. She felt herself falling until strong hands wrapped around her waist, keeping her upright. Goose bumps pebbled the skin on her arms at the firm press of his hands on her hips.
The sure way he held her against him, like he was always supposed to have a handful of her beneath his touch, made her tremble with a strange mix of apprehension and need. When she finally found the nerve to look up into his shining, dark-brown eyes, he gave her a playful wink and a smile that did little to dispel the nerves swirling in the bottom of her belly. “Looks like Shadow isn’t the only one you can trust to keep you from falling ’round here.”
Aja swallowed hard, trying to move the ball of tension sitting in the middle of her throat.Trustwasn’t the word she was thinking of right now. Nothing about the way he held her tightly against him made her trust him. But worse, the way her body instinctively wanted to press closer to his heat made her trust herself even less.
* * *
Jackson rode alongside Aja as she showed him her land, taking in the endless hills of vivid green grass bending to the slight breeze. It was early September. The scorching temperatures of August were giving way to eighty- and seventy-degree days. But soon winter would roll in, bringing chilly sixty- and fifty-degree temperatures, and it would hamper the ability to build on this land. Colder temperatures would make riding on horseback a little less pleasurable than it was now too.
Aja led them over a ridge to where a small hovel of a house sat. Its worn wooden planks desperately needed attention. Jackson was certain no one had lived there for at least half a century. Even out in these backwoods, building codes had to be adhered to. The house’s deep lean to the left wouldn’t pass the most basic building inspection.
The building was old. A fact that was reinforced as they dismounted and walked closer to it. The loud wail of the brittle wooden porch steps made Jackson skeptical the planks would hold his weight. He lifted a questioning brow as Aja watched him take careful steps to where she was standing outside the front door. “You sure this is safe?”
“Safe enough,” she answered. The cavalier tone of her voice didn’t bolster his confidence. But if she were willing to take the risk, he reasoned he could too.
“What is this place?”
“It’s the original homestead from when my family first purchased this land at the end of the nineteenth century.” He watched her run a light hand over a brittle wooden plank on the doorway. Her smooth, brown features settled into a soft, gentle smile, something too delicate to touch for fear of destroying its beauty. Something so powerful he had to fight the growing need in his chest to reach out and trace it with his fingertips. “Slavery was introduced to Texas in 1821 when Stephen F. Austin promised white settlers eighty acres of land for every enslaved person they brought with them.”
Jackson knew how the frontier of Texas was settled. It wasn’t something taught in public schools. But his father had insisted Jackson and his brother know where they came from and take pride in the history of their ancestors.
“During that migration,” she continued, “six generations ago, my great-great-great-great-grandfather Scipio was brought to Texas as one of the enslaved. He wasn’t more than a year old when he arrived here.
“He was probably near forty when the Civil War began. Up until that point, he thought he’d live and die in chains on this plantation. But once Texas joined the Confederacy, and his master left to join the Confederate ranks, he escaped and fled to Galveston to help with the Union naval blockade.”
She stepped toward the door and motioned for him to follow behind her. He wasn’t certain what to expect. If the front porch and the exterior were in such disrepair, he was sure the interior hadn’t fared much better. But when he stepped through the door, he was pleasantly surprised to see a simple one-room space filled with covered furniture and a beautiful brick fireplace that looked like it might have been the center attraction for those who called this place home.
It was daylight outside, but the windows were covered, so Aja turned on a small kerosene lamp on the mantel to bring a soft glow of light into the room.
“The Union didn’t allow Blacks, whether they were enslaved or free, to join the army at the start of the war. But Scipio was a blacksmith, so the commander allowed him to work shoeing horses and making and repairing weapons. It was the first time he realized something originally intended for bad could be used for good. He’d been taught his trade to fashion horseshoes, weapons, and other ironworks for his master to keep him enslaved. Now, he was using it to fight for his freedom.”
Jackson felt a chill pass through him as he thought of the pain and dehumanization Scipio and so many others like him would’ve experienced. He could feel the pain of that trauma as if it were a living thing cutting through the fibers of his flesh until it rooted itself in his soul.
“During the four years of that war, he saved every penny he made in Galveston.” He could see a smile blooming on her full lips and stepped closer just to get a better view. “He was there on Juneteenth when Union soldiers read Major General Gordon Granger’s order upholding and enforcing Lincoln’s Proclamation. So as a free man, he returned to this land and found it in disrepair. Bless all the angels in heaven that his wife and children hadn’t been sold off or worse. They were still enslaved on the ranch. Scipio informed them and the widow owner that they were now free.
“Family lore has it he told the widow she could keep the land and he would take his family and leave her broke with nothing, or she could leave the land and have his money. What he offered her was a small fortune for the deed. She turned over the deed quickly. He renamed it Restoration Ranch because the land that was once his condemnation to a brutal life became his redemption. When the former owner cleared out, Scipio tore down all the old structures. This one was the first one he built as the owner. He made it his home.”
Jackson noted the gleam of pride in her eye as she spoke of her ancestor. More than a century had passed since Scipio Henry had courageously secured this land for his family. Jackson couldn’t even imagine the strength it must have taken to endure fighting through the bonds of enslavement to freedom to make sure his people would always have something of their own. But watching his descendant six generations later as she told this story, Jackson understood where Aja’s unshakable resolve came from.
“For over a hundred years, this land has passed from parent to child. After my aunt and uncle, I’m the last direct descendent of Scipio. I’m the last one left to carry on Scipio’s legacy of restoring and rebuilding the land and our family’s name. It’s why I jumped at the chance to participate in Pathways. I knew Scipio and all my ancestors leading up to him would agree with my choice to help people like Seneca and Brooklyn. It’s why you’ve got to stop whoever’s trying to destroy it, and me. If they succeed, there will be no one left to carry on the legacy, and everything Scipio sacrificed for will be gone.”
Watching Aja caress this old shack like it were a palace as she recounted her family’s history eased something in Jackson he couldn’t quite identify. Why should he care that she took pride in where she came from? She was someone he’d been tasked to work with, nothing more. But knowing her past somehow made her seem planted in the land. Not merely an owner on paper but someone whose roots were deeply sewn into the fabric of the landscape.
Jackson walked his sight from the top of Aja’s braided hair down the deep, full curves of her body, to her work-boot-covered feet and back. She was confident and vibrant, qualities any man would be attracted to. But in that moment, he recognized Aja was more than her attractive parts. She was a woman committed to her family, loyal to the ancestors she’d never met.
In his experience, people weren’t made like this. Not anymore. They didn’t remain true to ideals and morals such as loyalty. It was all about individual success and happiness. Getting ahead the best way you could without worrying about anyone else. And yet here she was, a big, beautiful, and bright light, a beacon shining on him, showing him a better way, a better model of what he’d ached for all his life.
His silence must have pulled her out of her musings, because she turned to him, sharing a genuine smile, chipping away at his exterior. And as he stood there marveling in her glory, the singular thought to cross his mind was:Why couldn’t I have met you first?
Chapter 7
Jackson knocked twice and waited for one of his men to answer the door. Colton answered. Once Jackson was across the threshold and heard the lock click in place behind him, Colton jutted his chin in his direction. “You finished your date with the boss lady?”
Jackson gave the open room a single glance, spotting Storm sipping what looked to be a glass of juice on the nearby sofa. “I’m assuming you both took a look around already.” He knew Colton would’ve stopped him at the door if neither he nor Storm had swept for any obvious audio or video equipment in use in the cabin. But there was never any harm in double-checking his facts.
