Hometown Christmas Gift. Kat Brookes

in the direction Lucas had run off in. “I should go see to my son.” She just prayed he’d had time to calm down enough for them to be able to talk. She hated watching her precious little boy slip so far away from her emotionally. Hopefully, her brother would be able to help bring him back.

      “If I can ever do anything...” He let the offer trail off.

      “We’ll be fine,” she replied. “But thank you for offering.”

      Jackson tipped his hat and then turned to leave.

      Lainie watched him go, tears filling her eyes as she took in the change in the confident gait she remembered. That slight hitch to his step made her heart ache. Jackson could have died that day, and she would have had to live with that guilt for the rest of her life, just as she did with her husband’s death.

      You take away everything! Even my dad. I hate you! Jackson flinched at the memory of those harshly spoken words. Words that had to have broken Lainie’s heart. Will had died in a car accident. Why would her son blame Lainie for that?

      Lainie, he thought to himself as he parked his truck in front of the sheriff’s office, regret filling him. The girl he had cared so much about. The girl whose heart he’d broken. If he had the chance to do it all over again, would he have gone about things differently? He’d asked himself that question more times than he could count over the years, but he remained torn over the answer. Lainie had been his best friend’s little sister, which had made him keep his growing feelings for her to himself. It had seemed like a line he shouldn’t cross. But he had and kissing her at the town’s annual Old West Festival Dance that night had been both eye-opening and life changing.

      Jackson stepped down from his truck, closed the door and headed for the nearby building. He let himself inside and made his way to Justin’s office. Shoving open the door, he stepped inside. “You might have told me,” he said, his words tight.

      His friend, the town’s sheriff, glanced up from paperwork and then sat back in his chair. “Would you have gone over to my place if I had?” he asked matter-of-factly.

      It bothered him that his friend had a point. If he had known that Lainie and her son were the “guests” Justin had been referring to when he’d called to ask his favor, he might very well have sent someone in his place to deliver the key. He hadn’t been prepared to see Lainie again. Had even prepared himself emotionally to never see her again. Truth was, he’d made his choice a long time ago and understood her reasons for making certain their paths never crossed. All he could do was respect her wishes. A part of him was grateful for her determined avoidance of him. It meant she hadn’t had to see him as he was now, after the accident, hobbling about instead of moving with the sure-footed grace he’d once had.

      “Your silence speaks volumes,” Justin said, pushing away from his desk to stand. “But you need to get past whatever it was that happened between the two of you before Lainie went off to college, because Lainie’s going to be living here. You will be seeing her, like it or not.”

      If only it were that simple. “Nothing happened,” Jackson replied with a frown. Only because he’d stopped it from going anywhere. When Lainie had kissed him that night after they’d stepped outside for some fresh air following a round of heel-kicking dances and then a long, slow dance, he’d been taken by surprise. He should have put an end to things right then and there, but he hadn’t. He’d kissed her back. And when the kiss ended, all the emotions she’d held back for so long spilled out of her. She loved him. Wanted to give up the full-ride academic scholarship she gotten to go to San Diego State University and stay in Bent Creek instead, so she could be with him. Lainie would have traded an opportunity very few were ever blessed with to be his girl. And someday, he knew, she would have resented him for it.

      “All I know is that Lainie thought the world revolved around you. To the point I thought that maybe someday...” Justin shook his head. “And then she began dating Will, marrying him right out of college.”

      It was when she’d called him with news of her engagement that he’d been taken down emotionally, causing him to lose focus that night during his last ride in the rodeo finals in Vegas, giving Lucky Shamrock the upper hand. The sixteen-hundred-pound bull had put an end to Jackson’s career with one good stomp on Jackson’s leg. In that one day, he lost the girl he’d loved enough to let go, and then his career as a professional bull rider.

      “It doesn’t matter now,” Jackson told him. “The past is in the past.”

      “That means you and Lainie should be able to mend whatever fences the two of you have that need mending.”

      This time Jackson didn’t try to deny what his friend had called him out on. He was just grateful he hadn’t pressed for details. That kiss he’d shared with Lainie all those years ago had meant something to Jackson. More than it should have. “You still should have told me she was coming,” he said with a troubled frown.

      Justin settled a hip atop the corner of his desk and folded his arms. “So you could leave town?”

      “Why would I do that?” he asked.

      “You and I both know that you would have done everything in your power to avoid her, all because of that barely noticeable limp you have, and right now Lainie needs you.”

      Barely noticeable? Did his friend truly not realize how his injury had affected him, not only physically but mentally? And Lainie had been the one doing the avoiding. He was so busy mentally defending himself that it took a moment for Justin’s last statement to sink in. Lainie needs you.

      Jackson met his friend’s sober gaze. “What are you talking about?”

      Justin stood and crossed the room to close his office door. Then he turned to face him. “What I’m about to tell you doesn’t leave this room. My sister will have my head if Mom and Dad get wind of this. Lainie’s hoping things will change and they’ll never need to know what’s been going on.”

      He’d never seen his friend so serious. “It stays here,” Jackson promised with a nod.

      Justin returned to his desk, sinking into the chair with a heavy sigh. “Lainie is moving home because she’s emotionally wrung out and needed to get away from Sacramento.”

      “Understandable,” he replied, his heart going out to Lainie. “She was widowed at twenty-eight, left to raise a young son all on her own.”

      “She wouldn’t have had to handle anything on her own if only she had come home after Will died,” Justin said, a hint of frustration lacing his words.

      “Maybe Lainie needed to at least try to handle things on her own,” Jackson pointed out. “Know that she could stand on her own two feet. Whatever her reason may be, it’s safe to say the past couple of years, twenty months to be exact, couldn’t have been easy for her. Or for Lucas, for that matter,” he added, recalling the boy’s angry outburst.

      “You know the exact number of months?”

      “It happened to Lainie,” Jackson replied.

      Justin nodded. “Sort of burns itself into one’s memory, doesn’t it? And you’re right. It hasn’t been easy for her. Granted, Lainie always tried to sound strong whenever we talked on the phone, but I could hear the strain of what she’s been through in her voice, having to cope with such a tragedy on her own. I know when we went out there for Will’s funeral Lucas was angry with God for taking his father. We all talked to him, trying to get him to see that his anger shouldn’t be directed at the Lord, but at the bad choices people sometimes make. Like the teenager who ran that red light that night, causing the accident. Lainie said Lucas had been coming around, but then eight months ago he suddenly began acting out again. Not only at home, but at school and church as well.”

      “Sounds like his grief is finally surfacing,” Jackson said, his heart going out to the little boy, who’d lost his father so young,