Hometown Christmas Gift. Kat Brookes

of his anywhere.

      “Lainie,” Jackson Wade greeted her, his voice so much deeper than it had been when he’d spent time at her house when they were growing up. Jackson had always been her brother’s best friend and also her heart’s greatest weakness.

      Her stomach felt as though she’d just taken a steep drop on a roller-coaster ride. The last time she’d seen Jackson had been in the hospital in Las Vegas after he’d been injured while bull riding at Nationals. Only Jackson hadn’t known she’d been there, because she’d not been able to step beyond the open door. Just seeing him lying there, eyes closed, machines surrounding him, had been more than she could take. Especially since she blamed herself for his being there. Had lived with the self-imposed guilt of it for years. Oh, why did their paths have to cross at that very moment?

      Lainie turned away, looking off into the direction her son had run, trying desperately to collect herself. “Justin’s not home,” she said as she hurried to swipe a poorly timed tear from her cheek with her gloved hand. Jackson Wade was the last person she wanted to see her in such an emotionally vulnerable state. In fact, she’d prefer not to cross paths with him altogether, now or ever. Unfortunately, “ever” wasn’t in the realm of possibility, considering they were both going to be living in the same small town.

      “I know,” he replied as the sound of booted footsteps treading up the porch steps came from a few feet behind her.

      She cast a fretful glance back over her shoulder as he strode toward her, her attention drawn to his slightly off-kilter gait. A limp she had caused, she thought to herself, guilt making her turn away once more. She couldn’t bear to see the man who had broken her heart. The man she had in turn broken physically.

      A gentle hand came to rest on her shoulder. “Lainie,” he said, his voice filled with concern.

      Jackson, she thought in silent response. Her first love. An unrequited love. But one her heart had never quite gotten over. Even after she had married Will Michaels, a kind, supportive man, the handsome cowboy standing behind her had still maintained a special place in her heart. One of the reasons she had done her best to come home to visit only when she knew Jackson would be away, running stock to the various rodeos. And then after her husband’s death not quite two years before, she had avoided Bent Creek altogether. For her son, who was not dealing well with his grief. She thought that she needed to keep his routine as unchanged and normal as possible. And, if she were being completely honest with herself, it was also because of the feelings she still harbored for Jackson. Feelings she should have been able to put to rest after she’d gotten together with Will, but her stubborn heart had refused to cooperate. Staying away from Bent Creek, away from Jackson, had been the only way she could think of to assuage the guilt she felt.

      “Are you okay?”

      No, she wasn’t. But it was no less than she deserved. She nodded. “I’m fine.” How much of her conversation, of her son’s resentful words, had Jackson overheard? She couldn’t bear the thought of anyone thinking badly of Lucas. “Just a little family disagreement.”

      His large hand fell away, and she found herself wishing it back, needing the comfort that small gesture had provided her. “I’d be happy to have a talk with him if you think that would help matters,” he offered.

      Lainie forced herself to turn and face him, but kept her gaze fixed on the front of Jackson’s shirt instead of on the pity she knew she would see in those eyes. When had his shoulders grown so incredibly wide? “Thank you,” she managed, “but no. I need to see to this on my own.” Just as she had been since her husband’s passing.

      “Then can I at least help you go look for your son?”

      “No,” she said a little more adamantly, shaking her head. She didn’t want Jackson’s help. It had been hard enough turning to her brother as it was. She was Lucas’s mother. She should have been the one to make things right again for her son. “I know where he’ll be.”

      “In the fort?” he replied.

      Of course Jackson would know about the small, wooden fort her brother had built for Lucas in the woods behind his house, just beyond the edge of the yard. He and Justin knew pretty much everything about each other. But then they were close. Had been since Justin’s first day of school in Bent Creek, after their parents had adopted him and Lainie and brought them to the small, welcoming town to live.

      “Yes,” she said with a sigh. The counselor she had taken her son to not quite six months before had told Lainie that there would be times when Lucas would need time and space to grieve and sort through his feelings. She’d given him that, but it hadn’t seemed to make a difference. Her son’s resentment toward her was always simmering close to the surface.

      “Is there anything I can do to help?”

      “Only if you’re a locksmith,” Lainie muttered.

      He chuckled, his chin lifting just enough to free his face from the cocoon his collar had formed around it. The warm sound of it drew her gaze upward until it came to rest on his face, one that had grown even more handsome with age. His chestnut hair was close-cropped under his well-worn cowboy hat, and he wore just a hint of sideburns alongside his clean-shaven face. “It just so happens I can help you out,” he replied with that lone-dimpled grin she had never forgotten as he held up a small brass house key. “Justin called to tell me that he’d forgotten to leave a key under the doormat for guests he had coming to stay with him and asked if I could run the spare he’d given me over to the house.”

      Guests? Had her brother avoided telling Jackson that she was the guest he was referring to? Was he unsure his friend would be comfortable with the given task if he knew the whole truth?

      “Long-term guests,” Lainie supplied with a troubled frown. “Lucas and I are going to be living with my brother until we can find a place of our own.”

      His eyes widened in surprise. “You’re moving home?”

      “Moved,” she corrected. “As of today.”

      He nodded as if struggling to find a response to the clearly unexpected news. Lainie found herself wondering if the kiss they’d shared all those years ago still lingered in the back of his thoughts as it did in hers. And not in the way a first kiss shared between two people should.

      “It’s been hard on Lucas dealing with life in Sacramento since his father’s passing,” she tried to explain without going into detail.

      “I can imagine it would be,” Jackson said. Then his expression grew serious. “I never got to tell you how sorry I was to hear about your loss.”

      “You sent us a card and those beautiful wind chimes,” she said with a grateful smile.

      A frown pulled at his mouth now. “I really am sorry. I should have done more.”

      She shook her head. “You thought about us and that meant a lot.” She reached for the key he was still holding in his hand, feeling the chill of the metal through the fingertips of her glove. “Thank you for going to the trouble of running this over to us in this weather.” She glanced past him. “And by horse, at that.”

      “I can still ride,” he muttered. “Just not competitively.”

      The guilt that filled her at his reminder was almost painful. He’d loved the rodeo and she had taken that from him. “I just meant that you could have driven the key over,” she hurried to explain. “It’s cold out.”

      He shrugged, his broad shoulders lifting and dropping beneath his leather coat. “Cold’s never bothered me. And it’s wasn’t any trouble running this over to you. And, Lainie...” he said, their gazes meeting.

      “Yes,” she replied, unable to look away, and her heart skittered, just as it used to do when she was a lovesick teenager. That thought brought Lainie immediately back to reality. She was not that same girl. She was a widowed mother of a very lost child, and Jackson was no longer that same boy she had once known. He was a grown man with responsibilities,