Jackson had realized at that time that the only reason he had stayed was that he was hanging on to something in his past that he had known wouldn’t last forever.
And once she was gone, it had been time for him to move on too.
Anyway. His father was still barely dragging his ass out of bed and making it out to work on time.
Jackson didn’t mind having coffee alone.
He walked down the hall, taking note of each squeaking board as he went into the kitchen and started the pot of coffee. This was not the kind of coffee maker he was accustomed to. But in truth, he could make coffee anytime, anywhere. He could MacGyver coffee with nothing but a tin can, a cheesecloth and a campfire. He could do what needed to be done. He could make this little plastic job work. But he preferred his programmable machine at home. Which had everything waiting for him as soon as his feet hit the ground.
He might enjoy this hour of the day, but there was nothing wrong with wanting everything to be in its place, and as easy as possible. At least, not to his mind.
He thanked the good Lord that Cricket had coffee, and got it all started, his mood lifting immediately as the sound of the water beginning to heat filled the room, as the scent of the freshly ground beans hit him.
He really did love mornings.
He had a feeling Cricket didn’t. Because she wasn’t up. That actually suited him just fine.
He still couldn’t figure out what the hell she actually wanted.
For a woman who said she couldn’t wait to run a ranch, she really didn’t seem to have a concept of what it took. And then there had been the way she’d behaved last night.
Like you don’t know what it is?
Dammit. It really wasn’t worth examining. He had been sure that when she wasn’t in that dress, when she was back to being the Cricket he had known since she was awkward and had those buck teeth she’d been talking about earlier—which he did remember—those feelings of lust that he’d felt the night of the poker game would vanish.
But the problem was, now he’d seen the potential in Cricket. And he didn’t much like it.
He wasn’t a man for relationships. He had arrangements. Satisfying, adult relationships with women his age who, for whatever reason, didn’t want relationships either. Divorcées, single mothers, busy women who traveled through in a group of friends, or with a bachelorette party. City girls looking for flings with a cowboy.
Yeah, he was down for all that.
But not young, earnest looking girls who had roots in this valley as deep as it was possible to have, who had already been wounded by her father, and who clearly had issues. Daddy issues.
That made him grimace. He supposed being a bit more than a decade older than her put him squarely in the territory of daddy issues.
And what did that make him?
Just a man, he had a feeling. Men were basic. And while he prided himself on maybe not being as basic as some of them, the fact of the matter was… He wasn’t any different. He liked arrangements because he liked sex. And he didn’t go without.
Come to think of it, though, he’d been without for a while.
He’d had to increasingly spend more time at the vineyard. Their father hadn’t really gotten better since their mother had died, he’d only gotten worse. He was withdrawn. And he wasn’t functioning in quite the same way that he used to.
Which pissed off Jackson, since he wasn’t quite sure why his dad had fallen apart so much, all things considered. But the blowback was hitting the vineyard, and it was hitting Honey, and Jackson didn’t want that to happen.
He had no idea how to fix it. Not when he had never really reconciled his own grief, or the accompanying anger at his dad.
His mother had been the single most important person in his life.
She had been a strong woman. And she’d sacrificed everything for Jackson. Everything. He hadn’t realized just how much until he’d gotten older. And he’d never had the chance to repay her. He’d been planning on it.
But there hadn’t been enough time.
Grief about all that was always close at hand. But here in the silence of the morning, he could remember his mother as she’d been.
And he felt a little closer to her, instead of impossibly far.
He waited until he had his first sip of coffee. A smile touched his lips and he looked out into the yard. Everything was quiet. There were still stars in the sky. Then, once the caffeine had begun to do its work, he decided it was time to make his move. He went down the hall, doing nothing to modify the sound of his steps, and threw open the door to Cricket’s bedroom.
“Get up, princess. There’s chorin’ to do.”
“Mfffmmmmmgh.”
“What’s that?”
The indignant figure in the bed moved, then sat up. It was dark, but he could see that her pajamas consisted of a white T-shirt. And he wondered if there was anything else. Or if she was bare underneath that thing. Then he quickly turned his focus away from that.
“Go away!”
“It’s time to start doing work.”
“It’s…” She whipped her head around to look out the window. “It’s midnight.”
“It is 4:30.”
“Basically midnight.”
“Not in my world. And not in your world either. Not if you want to be a rancher. I thought this was in your blood?”
He couldn’t see her face. Obscured as it was by the fact that the light was off. And she was lucky. Because if he’d been in a really mean mood, he might have turned it on. But while he enjoyed harassing Cricket, there was no real reason to poke at her quite that much.
“I think sleep might be in my blood at this hour of the day.”
“Too bad. If you have animals, you’re going to have to get up and take care of them.”
“I…”
“Sorry. That’s how
