“I owe you an apology,” Anna said. “I’m not from around here, but I’ve lived here long enough to know when I’ve crossed a line, and I’m sorry.”
Deb’s lips set in a thin line. Her chin wavered, and her gaze shifted away. “I wasn’t entirely fair to you.” She looked down at the dishrag she was twisting, folded it in thirds, and laid it across the sink. “Jackson’s never brought home a girlfriend.”
Anna tried to swallow, but it felt as if she had sawdust in her mouth. “Louisa invited me.”
“If he didn’t want you here, you wouldn’t be here.”
“Regardless, you don’t need to worry about me.”
Deb merely lifted a well-groomed and spectacularly colored eyebrow.
“I was married to the military once,” Anna said. “I have no intentions of doing it again.”
“My son knows this?”
She flashed a wry smile. “It’s why we get along so well.”
Deb turned and picked up her dishrag again. “Y’all go on and keep saying that, but when you realize you’re lying to yourselves, it’s going to hurt. And I don’t like seeing my children hurt.”
Of course Momma Deb wouldn’t. What mother would? But after the year Anna’d had, she did have some appreciation for what came out of the aftermath of hurting.
Not that she’d offer her opinion to Momma Deb.
She stepped back. “We met over an ant infestation in my car. Jackson wouldn’t let me help clean up my own mess, because he told me you’d have his hide if he left a lady in distress. Even a divorced, undereducated, mess of a lady.”
Deb’s face was turned, but Anna saw the plump of her cheek when her lips curved softly upward. “He’s a good man.”
“One of the best,” Anna agreed. “Thank you.” She left Deb in the kitchen, found the most comfortable looking spot on the rocks that were the living room furniture, pulled her school notes out of her purse, and sat down to wait for tailgating time.
Jackson foundLouisa digging a piggy bank out from under a loose floorboard in her old closet.
“I ain’t ready for you yet,” she said without turning around, the pout evident in her voice.
She’d moved out of the mansion when she started college, but Jackson hadn’t been around enough all the years before that to know if the butterflies fluttering around the walls and the lacy curtains were original to her time in the room, or if they’d been added as a special touch for overnights when Craig and Maura’s girls came. The Power Rangers bedspread, he knew, was all Louisa.
He made himself comfortable in the doorway and checked his watch to make sure he didn’t leave Anna Grace alone too long. She could handle herself, but that wasn’t the point. “Been thinking about some stuff.”
“So?”
“So got to reckoning you don’t do well in school because you don’t know what you want to be.”
“So?” Louisa’s shoulders bunched so high they blocked hereardrums.
But he kept talking anyway. “Soit’s my job to help LTs figure out their career path. Reckon I might be able to help you too.”
She tugged the piggy one last time. It sprang free, and sent her skidding back on her rump. She gave him the same suspicious eye Momma was probably aiming at Anna Grace right about now. She pulled herself up, dusted her jeans, hiked the piggy under her arm like a football, and crossed the room. “Yeah, well, I don’t want your help.” She shoved the pig at him. “Here. Now where’s my ticket?”
He ignored the pig. “How’s your engine running?”
“Slicker’n Momma’s gravy down your gullet. Where’s. My. Ticket?” She poked him in the chest with each word.
He went on and let her. “Craig said you’ve been filtering the oil yourself.”
“What, now girls can’t pump their own gas? New millennium, dummy. Girls can do anything they want.”
“You ever looked into Auburn’s environmental engineering program?”
Her eyes went wide. She punched him in the arm. “Shut up. You don’t get to walk around here like you’re somebody. You don’t get a say in my life. You don’t care about me.”
