“Won’t matter if he leaves me in a ditch with six babies,” Louisa called. “Russ and Jackson will take care of me.”
Anna wrenched herself out of Kaci’s grasp and spun back toward Louisa. “And forty years from now, do you want to be the person Russ and Jackson took care of, or do you want to be the person who left a mark on the world?”
“That’s enough.” The quiet warning in Jackson’s voice sent a chill down her spine. His eyes had gone completely dark, his disapproval directed square at her. The only message she got now wasget the hell out of my business.
Her eyes stung. “Apparently not. You’re not doing her any favors, you know.”
Anna wasn’t doing herself any favors either.
It tookLouisa near about three-point-two minutes to quit her hollering once Anna and Kaci were out of earshot. Lance had apparently gotten a boost of intelligence through getting hitched, because he’d tucked tail and followed the women.
Once Louisa finished with her say, she returned Jackson’s shirt and grabbed her fishing pole.
Which meant it was time for him to do something he wished he’d been smart enough to do over the summer.
He blocked her rod so she couldn’t cast. “I won’t,” he said.
She channeled Momma’s favorite disapproving blink. One long, two short, followed by another pointed long. “You won’t what?”
He had to swallow to get the words halfway out his mouth, because it went against everything his daddy had ever taught him, but he had to say it. “I won’t take care of you.”
Her lips parted. Her left eyebrow crinkled in the center. “What did you say?”
“I won’t take care of you,” he repeated. He felt like his lungs had turned into glaciers, freezing the air inside him, inching outward, crushing his other organs, but he channeledone of his own favorite parental expressions, the one his daddy had always used whenever Jackson disappointed him. “Only person in this world responsible for you is you. You want to fall back on Russ, you go right ahead. But until you start trying to make your life better for you, until you start taking school seriously and looking for a job, don’t expect me to come around and pick up the pieces.”
Her mouth formed a perfect O. Her shoulders went back, and she tried to do that fourteen-feet-tall thing Anna Grace had mastered. He widened his stance and narrowed his eyes.
She faltered. “Yeah, well, it’s easy for you.” She poked him in the chest, right on his tiger paw. “You had Daddy.”
His blood roared. He clenched his teeth against it. Yeah, he’d had Daddy. But she hadn’t been lacking in support. Killed him to admit it, what with all that Russ and Momma would’ve put Daddy through if he hadn’t been in that accident, but Russ had made sure Louisa didn’t want for anything. And it killed Jackson to admit maybe Momma had done something Anna Grace would’ve scoffed at—she’d gotten married to take care of her family when Daddy wasn’t there to provide anymore.
“Life’s what you make of it,” Jackson said. “What it looks like here, you’re making a mess of yours. Nobody to blame but yourself. You want to be a grown-up, we’ll hang out. You want to be a baby, go on home and get yourself a nursemaid.”
Tarnation. Not the tears.
And the chin wobble.
He yanked his T-shirt back on. He hated when girls cried.
Hated it worse when he made them, but he was pretty good at avoiding that.
Usually.
“You’ve never liked me,” she said.
He blew out a sigh. He’d asked for this. “That’s not true.”
“Then why didn’t you ever come home?”
He regarded her suspiciously. He felt like a worthless yahoo for making her cry, but she’d had a lot of years to perfect thepoor meact. He was a sucker for believing the trembling lip and big old teardrops, but she was the only sister he’d ever have. “Wasn’t about you.”
“And you always stay with Mamie and then rub it in my face that she likes you better than me.”
She’d crossed the line there. Mamie didn’t play favorites.
But he hadn’t heard tell of many times she’d taken Louisa out bowling with her like she’d done when Jackson was little.
“Momma and Russ did Daddy wrong, but y’all took it out on me,” Louisa said. She sniffled. “And now you’re back home, but you’re spending all your time withAnna. I could’ve been with Stone all weekend, but instead, I’m here. Maybe I wanted to go camping with you all by yourself. You ever think of that, you big lug-head?”
