Her Perfect Match (18 page)

Cole was clearly stunned. His lazy pose disintegrated, and he sank to the third step. “And I’m indebted to you for saving her on Thursday. But make no mistake, I protect what’s mine. If you’re here to make trouble for any member of this family or you hurt Elizabeth, you
will
answer to me.”

Jack spread his hands. “I’m not here to cause anyone trouble. I give you my word.”

“And how do I know what your word is worth?”

“What are you two so serious about?” Beth said as she started down the stairs.

“I was telling Cole about what Hobart pulled on Thursday,” Jackson told her. Knowing he needed to leave her alone with Cole, he went on trying to hide
his worry. “Listen, honey, I need to talk to Ross about a couple things down at the stables. Why don’t you and Cole visit a while?”

Beth nodded, and Cole told him where Ross was. Jackson reluctantly turned to walk away, hoping Cole didn’t make her suspicious of his motives again. He prayed he’d get the chance to tell her the truth about himself freely and not under a shadow of betrayal. And he wanted it for her sake as well as his own.

“S
o what’s this big announcement?” Cole asked abruptly.

Elizabeth turned from watching Jack saunter off toward the sunroom. “Announcement?” she asked.

“This thing you told Alton you wanted to tell me yourself. You marrying the guy or something?”

“Oh.” Elizabeth felt a blush heat her face. “There’s no announcement. Jack and I haven’t come quite that far yet. But I am hoping eventually…” She halted when Cole didn’t smile as she’d thought he would. He’d always cared about her happiness. Didn’t he see that Jack was the best thing to ever happen to her? That every waking minute was no longer haunted by the past?

“I hope you aren’t making a mistake,” he said, and sat on the steps where he’d been when she’d started downstairs. He might have appeared relaxed were his expression not so tense. “Something about
that guy still doesn’t add up,” he continued, giving voice to his expression.

Elizabeth’s heart fell, and she sank to the step below him. “You’re wrong about Jack. I hate to insult you but you sound just like my parents.”

Cole grinned. “Ouch.”

“Really, he’s exactly what he appears to be. A wonderful man who loves God and I hope me. He must, or I doubt he’d have been able to put up with me for even this long.”

“There you go, selling yourself short again.”

“That’s not what I’m doing, Cole. The truth is I still sort of freak out when a man gets too close physically. Jack understands and he’s helped me see a lot of what’s happened in a new and clearer light. And regardless of your opinion of him, Jack suggested I release you from your promise.”

“Promise?” Cole asked, frowning with obvious confusion.

She nodded. “The promise you made the day you saved me from Jason Lexington.”

Cole’s jaw hardened, and he pursed his lips. “A lot of good I did. If I’d walked out of that stupid class instead of waiting for dismissal, he wouldn’t—” He broke off and looked away.

She reached out and put a hand on his knee. “Oh, no. You felt responsible, too? Cole, that’s wrong. You saved my life. He had a knife and he’d have killed me if you hadn’t followed us. I owe you a great debt. And as a reward I’ve forced you to carry this awful secret for me even though it hurt your relationship
with your father. I’m sorry for that. I think you should explain to Ross what happened that day. I don’t want to be the reason for a rift opening up between you two again.”

“But—”

She halted his protest with a sharp shake of her head. “No buts. It’s time to heal. For both of us. Talk to Ross. Tell him all of it.”

Silently he nodded and stood, offering her a hand up. “I can’t talk you into being more cautious where Alton’s concerned?”

She sighed. “Honestly, who needs a brother with a friend like you around?”

As if on cue a flurry of indignant yowls flowed down the stairs. Cole snorted. “Yeah, and I didn’t need another hardheaded sister, and now I probably have three, since I thought of you as a sister for years even though we didn’t see each other,” he groused as she took his hand and let him pull her to her feet. “You’d better be right about Alton or I’m going to hand him his head.”

“You harm a hair on his head and I’ll have yours.”

“Fight nice, dears,” Meg Taggert said as she floated down the stairs. Her azure-blue and red caftan wafted in the breeze created by her lively stride. Hope Carrington once said her aunt Meg was the Auntie Mame of the county, and Elizabeth couldn’t think of a more apt description of the forceful matriarch of the Taggert family.

“We weren’t fighting, sweetheart,” Cole said. “I
was just making sure
Beth
here knows what she’s doing.”

Meg smiled, but it seemed almost as if her eyes managed to frown. “I’d count on it, darling boy.” She stared at Elizabeth for a long moment. “Beth. Yes. I think that’s just about perfect.” She clapped her hands. “Now, let’s join the men. Hope and Amelia will be down momentarily, and we can get this celebration moving. You’re both drafted to carry the gifts.”

Cole rubbed his hands together. “Gifts? Well, in that case, lead on. Nothing I like better than my aunt Meg’s gifts.”

Still feeling a little strange to have been included in the Taggerts’ day of celebration when she wasn’t Cole’s date but Jack’s, Beth followed. She listened to Cole and Meg banter and felt a hunger deep in her spirit. She might wish she was a Taggert clan member, but she was ever mindful of her real place and of the pitiful state of her own family.

She hadn’t heard from her parents after Jack left last night, and by midnight she’d realized she probably wouldn’t. So she’d sat herself down and had written to her brother, Adam, through the Navy and the Red Cross, intending to extend a hand to him as Jack had suggested. But as she’d begun writing, memories of him had surfaced, and she’d found herself pouring out her heart to the big brother her parents had expelled from her life so many years ago. God willing, he wouldn’t ignore her as her parents often did.

“Beth,” Jack growled, hands on his hips and a look of exasperation wrinkling his forehead. “If you don’t stop laughing this is never going to work.”

“I’m sorry,” she said as she flopped down on their picnic blanket. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. It just struck me so funny. It’s a ridiculous idea. Why would someone my size attack someone as big as you? How am I supposed to get my arms around you and pin them to your sides? My hands didn’t even meet in the middle.”

Jack dropped his head back and looked beseechingly heavenward at the clear mid-September sky. “You seeing what I put up with down here, Lord?” His hangdog, can’t-get-no-respect expression sent Elizabeth into gales of laughter once again.

A few minutes later, after wiping her eyes of merry tears, she decided it was time to get serious and pushed herself to her feet. “Okay. Come on, Jack. Admit it. This is one move you have to show me with you as the aggressor.” She turned her back to him. “Just grab me and tell me what to do.”

He sighed, then wrapped his arms gently around her. “The first thing you do is stomp on my instep. Then when I’m off guard—and believe me, I would be because it hurts like blue blazes when someone stomps on your foot like that—you kick straight back at my knee. Keep your heel and toes flat and bring your calf parallel to the ground. That helps deliver maximum power and helps you keep your balance. Now try it in slow motion.”

She did as he instructed, and they worked on the
self-defense move several times before they took a break to enjoy their picnic lunch. When they were done, Jack went to check on the horses, and Elizabeth walked to the top of the rise to look over the valley below.

It was her father’s land, and the hill she’d just crested overlooked the main house and the old carriage house. Elizabeth had brought Jack to another of her special childhood places for a reason. As part of her work with Holly Dillon, Elizabeth tried to deal with a different troubling memory each day before giving the pain to God. Some days were more successful than others, and most were difficult. Today Holly had suggested she deal with her memories and loss of her brother, Adam. Elizabeth had been thinking about him so much lately, so she’d picked this place—the last place she’d seen her beloved brother.

Standing where they’d played together, she found it impossible to resist memories of the brother she’d been ordered to forget. She and Adam had often come here with Maggie O’Neill, her parents’ housekeeper, who was really the closest thing to a mother either of them had ever had.

It had been a day much like this one, though it had been early summer and not early fall, when he’d followed her and Maggie there to explain that he was leaving. Elizabeth had been hateful in her pain, lashing out as only an injured, disappointed child can. She remembered that little girl with unusual clarity, and much of her guilt fled. She
had
been but a child.

She could admit her unanswered letters to him were
beginning to hurt. She usually forced her mind onto other things when she grew impatient for news. Or she told herself it had been only a month. That the Red Cross and the Navy had more important things to do these days than to spend a lot of time tracking down one sailor.

Jack had a different take. He wondered if her brother was in the Navy anymore. Seventeen years, he’d pointed out, was a long time.

Without warning a man wrapped his arms around her from behind, and Elizabeth did exactly as Jack had instructed. She stomped down hard on the foot just behind hers. At the sound of Jack’s howl of pain, she managed to check her kick to his knee, giving it only a glancing blow. She whirled to face him as soon as he let go of her.

“Why would you sneak up on me that way? I could have really hurt you.”

He limped to a nearby boulder and pulled off his boot, then rubbed his injured foot. “No could have about it,” he said as he blinked against the pain. “You caught me a good one. Didn’t you hear me say it was time to get back to work?”

“My mind was somewhere else. I’m so sorry. Did I hurt you very badly?”

Jack grinned. “Hurts pretty bad. But, hey, that’s great. Let me tell you,” he went on, still rubbing his instep, “if I’d been a real assailant and that kick to my knee had landed the way you originally intended, I’d have been on the ground howling and you would have had the chance to run.”

His grin faded, and his expression turned serious. “Running is the one thing I want you to always keep in mind no matter how good at this you get. Fleeing danger is always the best weapon. Another is not second guessing a bad feeling. Think of it as God whispering a warning in your ear. According to the experts, women too often become victims because they don’t want to make waves. The worst that can happen if you act is you look foolish. No one’s ever been physically hurt or died of embarrassment, so far as I’ve ever heard.”

“That’s what I did that day. When I got that first funny feeling about Jason Lexington, I should have run. You can be sure I’ll never second guess myself again.”

“Good. Now come give me a hug,” he demanded, grinning broadly. “I’m feeling mighty mistreated right now.”

Without a second’s thought she threw herself into his strong embrace, and for the first time no ominous cloud descended on her mind when his lips met hers. She supposed it was a chaste kiss by many standards, but to Elizabeth it was a miracle and a wonder. And when Jack lifted his head after a few magical seconds, she saw that it was clearly a moving experience for him, as well.

“Oh, honey,” he breathed against her lips, his voice a little rough and his grin a little shaken. “You might have taken a while to get here, but you pack one whale of a punch now. Let’s go have some of
that pie and forget the lessons for today. I think it’s time we celebrated a little.”

Jack might have been willing to take the afternoon off but Elizabeth wasn’t. He’d taught her quite a bit so far about keeping herself safe, and she’d found that with her knowledge of self-defense increasing, so was her confidence as she went about her days. So after they had their pie, she idly asked how his foot felt now that he’d had ice on it for several minutes.

“It’s just a little uncomfortable. I’ll be able to put my boots back on just fine.”

“Are you up to showing me that other self-defense move you talked about? The one to ward off a frontal attack?”

He frowned. “You’re sure? I don’t want to overwhelm you with this stuff.”

“I trust you, Jack. And I promise to let you know if and when I feel overwhelmed. I’m not made of spun glass.”

He leaned forward and kissed her cheek. “How about spun sugar?”

She pushed herself to her feet. “Oh, ho. Now he tries sweet talk. Let’s go, lazy bones, or is it fraidy cat?”

Jack got to his feet, as well. “It’s another leverage move. Face me,” he ordered. “If someone comes at you from the front you grab his wrists. Or just one.” He took her wrist. “Point your index finger and push. Wherever you point your finger that’s where his hand will go when you push his hand away.”

He demonstrated and then had her allow him to
grab her. She pointed her finger, but in a way that brought her lips within a hairbreadth of his. Jack froze, and she gazed into his blue eyes. They were suddenly intensely lit from within, and she could see his desire for her. Each of them ended the mock combat as if they were of one mind, and he wrapped her in his embrace. It was thrilling. Profoundly intimate. And when he kissed her, it was awe-inspiringly beautiful.

He broke the kiss several long moments later. “And that is why I thought we should forget the lessons for today. I just don’t seem to be able to touch you and not want more. You understand, honey?”

“I not only understand. I think I feel the same way.”

“Oh, now I know we had better head on back.”

He set her gently away and went to put on his boots. His response worried Elizabeth, and she guessed that worry showed because Jack turned to her and asked, “Confused?”

She nodded.

That’s when he grinned ruefully. “It isn’t that I don’t want to go on kissing you. But too much of a good thing can be a little painful and sometimes downright dangerous.”

She blushed and turned to start packing up the lunch. “I guess maybe we
should
go back.”

“I know so, honey. At times like this there’s safety in numbers. Besides, aren’t you curious whether Hope’s labor was false again or if this time she finally had that baby?”

She nodded, and when they reached Laurel Glen’s working hub they saw a new bunch of pink balloons had been tied outside the stall of Cobby, the thirty-year-old Welsh cob pony Cole and Hope had ridden as children.

“I imagine it’s a girl! I’m going up to talk to Amelia and get all the particulars,” she told him, and handed him Glory’s reins. Then she stopped, a look of chagrin crossing her face. “Oh, I’m sorry. I should help stable her.”

“Beth, it’s me who’s sorry. I didn’t realize you pay for those services when I opened my big mouth that day I yelled at you for jumping the fence. You run along and bring back good news. I’ll handle Glory.”

She put her hand on his shoulder. “No. Really. I want to start taking care of her again. It’s important to me.”