Leaving Liberty, a Western Romance (Book 5) (Texas Hearts) (13 page)

“I need to help him.

“You say you’re not in love with him. But I can’t understand this hold Cole has over you. He’s a ranch hand.”

Libby shook her head.

“You just don’t understand. He’s family. I don’t need any papers to tell me so. I just know he is.”

Jackson took a step toward her. Libby felt her muscles tense and fought the urge to step away. She had to face this now.

“You should leave now, Jackson. Please leave,” she said quietly.

“Not while you’re this upset. When I know you’re going to be—”

“No, I mean Liberty. Your investigation into my father’s death is over. Whatever it is that you’re looking for, you’re not going to find it here.”

“Don’t say that. You’re what I want.” His voice was a soft caress. She could almost feel it running over her bare skin, bringing her shivers of delight.

“Today. Maybe even tomorrow. But you have this wonderful family with a wonderful life that is whole. It’s suddenly clear to me that no matter how I try, I’m never going to be able to give you what you want. Hell, if I wait too much longer I might not even be able to give you one child, never mind a whole brood of Gentrys like you talked about.”

“You’re upset. Let’s just stop for a minute and talk about this.”

“Why? It’s not going to change things. You’re never going to understand my relationship with Cole because you’ve never been in a place where you needed to step outside your family.”

“No, I ran away from it. I’m trying to rectify that.”

“So go do it. Go back to Steerage Rock. I’ll do what I can to help Cole because he’s my family. I mean it, Jackson. There’s nothing for you here.”

“What are you so afraid of?”

Her bitter laugh was soft. But Jackson heard it. Even more upsetting was the way he gasped when he saw her tears.

“You’re not going to let this go.”

“Not if it hurts you. I want to make it go away. Whatever it is, I want to help you make the hurt go away.”

“You can’t.”

He shook his head. “It takes time, Lib. We’re just beginning. I know I didn’t want anything but work for a long time after my mother passed. I was hurt and angry. But I don’t want to be running away anymore. I want you.”

Her face was wet with tears and she hated herself for it. She’d shed enough tears over this. It was time to move on with her life. Whatever life that was going to be.

“I can’t give you want you want, Jackson.”

He smiled weakly. “You’re pushing me away again because you’re scared.”

“You’re right. I am scared. But I still want you to leave.”

She turned and walked into the house, feeling more shattered than she had last night.

* * *

Jackson felt the air being sucked out of his lungs.

Frustrated, he pulled the screen door open and charged into the house. He wanted to hold Libby in his arms, feel her heart beating strong against his chest. He needed to feel her warm body against his to know those few seconds of terror he’d just felt when she’d told him to leave, he would never have to feel again.

But she turned and walked away from him, shielding herself from him by standing on the other side of the kitchen table.

“What part of leave don’t you understand?”

Anger surged through him. “All of it.”

“Did you hear me? I can’t give you what you want.”

“How the hell do you know what I want?”

Her shoulders fell. “I saw the way you were with Brock. I heard you talk about your family. You’re never going to have this with me. And if this issue with Cole continues to stand between us, the window of opportunity for me to have one child will close before we can ever even try to have a baby together. So you see, it’s impossible. We’re impossible.”

She sat down hard on a kitchen chair and dropped her hands in her lap. She took a deep breath, pressing her shirt tight against the lovely curves of her body. “What I have here is what I’ll have for the rest of my life. So you see, it’s best that we just end whatever was starting last night right now. It can’t go anywhere that will lead to happiness.”

“I don’t believe you.”

She sputtered. “Do you need to see my medical record to believe—”

“No. I don’t believe that we can’t find happiness together.”

She stared at him for a long time, her head slightly shaking. “Didn’t you hear a word I just said?”

“I heard everything.”

He walked slowly toward her and dropped down into the chair next to her.

“It doesn’t change how I feel.”

There was hope in her eyes. Just a flash of it. She quickly turned and looked at the clock on the wall and then back at him. When she did, that hope was gone. But it had been there. She’d wanted it. She wanted him. That gave Jackson enough hope to press on.

“It’s not going to change the outcome,” she said quietly. “Maybe today you think it won’t matter. But one day it will. One day you’ll be really thinking of more than just lust and desire. You’ll be thinking seriously about that future you always envisioned for yourself. You’ll see your brothers and what they have. You’re going to want that too and there is a very real possibility that I won’t be able to give it to you. I’m it.”

“This isn’t just lust and desire, Libby. This kind of thing between us doesn’t just happen every day. At least not to me. I’ve never felt this way about a woman before.” Her eyes met his and their gazes locked. “You know it’s true. Yes, I wanted you last night. But not for some quick fling.”

“You never planned on staying here, Jackson. So what does it make this?”

Anger coiled inside of him. Did Libby really think that?

“I want you to leave, Jackson. My focus needs to be on Cole right now. If it were any one of your brothers you’d do the same.”

He knew that was true. He’d move heaven and earth for his kin.

She got up from the table and said quietly, “Just go. Can you please just do that for me?”

Jackson had never felt emptier than he did when Libby walked down the hall to the office, closed the door, and shut him out of her life.

# # #

Jackson cleared the desk he’d been using down at the police station. There wasn’t much to clear. Most of the files he had he’d kept at the hotel. There was only one thing left he needed to do before he left town.

He said his goodbyes to Dane and the sheriff, and then carried his belongings out to his truck. He was surprised to see Cole standing by his truck. He dropped the box he’d been carrying into the bed of the truck.

“You’re really leaving her?”

“Just in time for you to come back.”

Cole looked at him hard. “I’m not the bastard you seem to think I am. I made a promise to her father that I’d look after her. I intend to do that for as long as she needs me. What’s your excuse?”

It was exactly as Libby said. Jackson was jealous of Cole. That jealousy threatened to choke him. Not because he thought Libby was in love with him. He knew better now. But he did have her love. She had a deep affection for Cole, even though he wasn’t her kin. They had a history and shared a love of the Bucking Hills Ranch. She wanted Cole to come back.

And she’d asked Jackson to leave.

“A man’s word is everything,” Jackson said, taking his hat off his head and tossing it into the cab of the truck.

“That’s it? You’re just going to leave her like that?”

Jackson stopped with his hand on the door. “Libby doesn’t want me here. She made that perfectly clear. Now that I’ve filed my report on her father’s death, there’s no reason for me stay.”

Cole swore under his breath. “She’s not good enough for you Ranger? Is that it? Libby is not damaged goods.”

Anger surged through Jackson, making him jump up from the driver’s seat to face Cole head on. Cole didn’t back away. “And I never treated her that way. She asked me to leave. She doesn’t want me here.”

Cole glared at him. “If that’s all it takes for you to give up on Libby then you don’t deserve her.”

Jackson wasn’t so sure he disagreed.

* * *

Libby dropped into the tub and let the hot water seep into her bones. She remembered her mother doing this years ago, before she’d gotten sick. And even after when the pain had become harder to take. She was getting stronger every day. Today was the last day that Dane’s nephews would be working on the ranch. They’d been a Godsend, and if all went well at Cole’s INS hearing, he’d be coming home soon.

As much as having Cole back home was a blessing, Libby couldn’t help but think about Jackson. He’d been there when Cole had left. He’d been a big help, much as she’d hated to admit it in the beginning. Despite his work as a Texas Ranger, he was a ranch working man and she could tell he had a deep love of the land in him.

It was just one more thing they had in common.

And she’d told him to leave.

She hadn’t been fair to him. Libby knew that. He’d been nothing but wonderful to her. But she couldn’t help that the limitations she had on her life would rob him of the life he’d wanted for himself. She loved him and she was pretty sure he loved her too. He deserved more than she could give him.

She sighed as she sank deeper into the hot water. Soaping a face cloth until it was sudsy and then ran the soapy facecloth over her body, letting it linger over her breast. She closed her eyes imagined it was Jackson’s hand moving over her skin again, awakening senses she’d long forgotten even existed. He’d wanted to make love to her. They would have been wonderful together.

A noise downstairs startled her until she heard the familiar slam of the screen door. Her heart lifted a notch.

Cole was home.

* * *

The phone continued to ring, piercing the quiet of the motel room. Moving too quickly to finish the job he’d started, Jackson nicked his chin shaving, causing his skin to bleed. He bit back a curse, dropped the razor into the sink, and quickly went to phone.

His mood wasn’t any better when he picked up the phone. “Yeah?”

“It’s me.” His brother’s voice took him off guard for a moment. He’d hoped it was Libby. Disappointment that it wasn’t, had his mood sinking further.

“Cody.”

“You don’t sound so good. Are you okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

“When you didn’t answer your cell, I got worried. I was just checking to make sure you were still alive.”

He used his finger to dab at the trail of blood dripping on his chin. “I’m fine. The battery died on the cell. And I just cut myself shaving when you called.”

Cody laughed, irritating him again. “Haven’t quite mastered that yet?”

“At least I have facial hair.”

“Hey, what’s with the bad mood? I thought you were ready to be done with Liberty. We haven’t seen you in a while.”

Done with the town or the woman? Jackson wasn’t done with either.

“I hear congratulations are in order. How’s Lyssa?”

Jackson could hear his brother’s happiness through the phone. “She’s not throwing up at the moment so that’s a good thing.”

“I’m happy for you.” And he was. But it had Jackson thinking about what Libby had said. Yeah, he wanted a family. He’d grown up in a house full of activity. But didn’t a family start with two people? She thought she was holding him back. But Jackson knew she was scared.

“So what’s her name?”

“Who?”

Cody laughed. It actually felt good to hear his brother laughing for a change. The success of Cody’s eye surgery that gave him his eyesight back after months of being blind was only part of his brother’s happiness these days. His brother had fallen in love, something he never thought would happen to Cody in a million years due to his normally ornery disposition and his dedication to training cutting horses. A twinge of envy stabbed him.

“Come on. I know it’s not the air in Liberty, Texas that had you staying so long. So what’s her name?”

“Liberty,” he finally admitted.

“Fine. Don’t tell me,” Cody said, frustrated with him.

“I’m telling you. Her name is Liberty. She’s named after the town. People who know her call her Libby.”

“What do you call her?”

That one was a tough call. Libby was more than just a reason he’d been here in Liberty all these weeks. She was something…special. She was like a drug and his need to be with her was something he couldn’t kick. He loved her.

“Jack? So when do we meet her?”

If Libby had her way, the answer would be never. She didn’t want him in her life.

“Let me get back to you on that.”

* * *

Leaving Liberty, Texas was going to be a hard task. For a broken town that Jackson hadn’t even wanted to drive his pickup through, let alone stay for six weeks to investigate a murder, it had dug under his skin more than any other place he’d lived.

Scratch that, he thought as he drove down Main Street toward Bucking Hills Ranch. It wasn’t Liberty, Texas that would be hard to leave. It was Liberty Calvert and her sass and wild socks that he was going to have a hard time shaking out of his system.

He turned his pickup onto the dusty driveway and drove under the sign with the initials B H R made out of logs. With every roll of the tires his stomach burned. Last night had been the pits after hearing the happiness in his brother’s voice and then replaying Libby’s words telling him to leave over in his mind. Today wasn’t likely to be any better. But he wasn’t going to leave Liberty Calvert until he at least gave it one more shot to win her back.

* * *

Libby got down on her hands and knees and planted the tiny vegetable seedlings she’d started in the small greenhouse out back. She loved her little garden and looked forward to when these little seedlings would grow big and strong. She only hoped she’d get them all planted before the rain came. The sky was getting darker by the moment.

The sound of a truck coming into the driveway had her getting to her feet. She wiped her hands on the back of her jeans as she focused on Jackson’s truck coming toward her. What the hell was he doing here? Hadn’t they said their goodbyes—such as they were—the night before?