BIANCA
By the time Jackson’s charity benefit rolled around, I was jumpy as a cat on a hot tin roof.
Doc Halloran had told us what to expect in the way of side effects of the chemo, but neither Mama nor I was prepared for the reality of it. She felt fine for the first few days, and then everything kicked in with one big wallop.
The nausea and vomiting were the least of it. She also had massive headaches, frightful mouth sores, and fatigue so bad she could hardly get out of bed.
I went with her every day to the hospital for the first week, then helped out at the house during the second, trying to get her to eat and fielding all her callers, turning them away with excuses that she had the flu. Even the poor Colonel wasn’t allowed inside. Mama didn’t have the energy to put on her face and pretend, so away he went, shoulders slumped.
I didn’t think it was right she didn’t tell him what was really going on, but it wasn’t my place to make that decision.
But most of all, I dreaded what would happen when she had to go back for the next round of chemo. The first was so bad it seemed likely to kill her before the cancer did.
“Perfectly normal,” said Doc Halloran every time I called him in a panic. “It’s a sign the medicine is working, Bianca. Just let it take its course.”
It’s so irritating when someone stays calm while the world is ending.
In between all that I worked in a frenzy to get ready for Jackson’s charity benefit. I met with the coordinators, ordered all the meat, produce, and alcohol, and added extra shifts at the restaurant to start the food prep.
And I avoided Trace’s calls.
Twice he called the house. Both times I saw the number and let it ring, flipping the bird at the phone. When the answering machine came on, he hung up with a heavy sigh, like I was being unreasonable.
I gave Mama a pass on account of her being sick, but there was no way I was gonna listen to a single word he had to say. I knew for a fact he was only calling because I’d given him the brush-off. Our time together had proven to me in a hundred ways that Trace was the kind of man who only wanted what he couldn’t have. Rejection heightened his interest. His appetite was whetted by the chase. If I’d shown the least bit of tenderness when we’d run into each other on the street, he would’ve gone on with his life without giving me a second thought, as he’d been doing for the past two years.
In hindsight, I should’ve told him I was still madly in love with him and watched the smoke rise from the rubber burns the soles of his shoes left on the sidewalk as he fled. But my heart was still too bruised to play that game. Instead I started carrying pepper spray in my pocketbook in case I saw him again. I had enough on my plate. I didn’t need a lying, cheating, born-again BS artist to contend with.
“So we’re all set with the canapés and cocktails,” said Claudia, briskly ticking off a box on the list on the clipboard she held in her perfectly manicured hands. “The musicians are warming up on the lawn. In thirty minutes I’ll light all the candles, and fifteen minutes after that the guests are scheduled to start arriving.”
She looked up at me and adjusted her stylish black eyeglasses. “Do you need anything from me at this point?”
I shook my head. “No, thanks. I’m all set here.”
“Good.” Claudia looked at her watch. “I’ll check in with you again in fifty minutes. If you need me, I’m on my headset. The number’s—”
“On the schedule,” I finished. “I know.”
The coordinator Jackson had hired to oversee the event was a sleek-haired brunette, lanky as a giraffe and the most efficient person I’d ever met. She had everyone running around like chickens with their heads cut off, trying to keep to her exacting schedule, which counted time in precise five-minute increments. Though she was perfectly pleasant, I got the impression she’d turn into a screaming meemie if her schedule wasn’t followed.
As of now we were two minutes behind, and her left eyelid had already begun to twitch.
“Ladies. How’re we doing?”
Jackson stood in the doorway of the kitchen, looking at Claudia and me. It was the first time I’d seen him since I’d arrived at his house early this morning to start the setup.
“Everything’s under control,” I said. “Claudia’s doing a great job.”
She smiled tightly and adjusted her glasses again. I felt her gratitude for my small show of support. It was obvious how intimidated she was by Jackson. She could barely look him in the eye, probably because he was wearing a scowl as black as his outfit.
But I was used to that by now. I didn’t let it alarm me.
I asked him, “Is that what you’re going to wear?”
Jackson looked down at himself, then looked up at me with his brows drawn down over his eyes.
Seeing his murderous expression, Claudia ran out of the kitchen like her pants were on fire. “Fifty minutes, Bianca!” she called over her shoulder, then disappeared through the French doors.
Jackson didn’t seem to notice she’d left. He demanded, “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”
I shrugged. “Nothing, if you want people to think you’ve been living under a bridge.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. I tried to ignore how that made the muscles in his biceps bulge.
He said, “You must be mistaking me for someone who cares what people think.”
Propping my hands on my hips, I examined his untucked T-shirt, wrinkled jeans, and scuffed boots, his unshaven jaw, and his hair that appeared to have last seen a comb when he walked by one that had fallen out of someone’s pocket into the street.
I said, “Lord knows I’m no style maven, and I dress for comfort more than anything else, but your guests deserve the best version of you, Mr. Boudreaux. I’m sorry to say this isn’t it.”
His glower was so searing it could have melted a weaker woman. But after the past few days I’d had, I was in an ornery mood. An ornery truth-telling mood, because I’d recently decided life was too short to beat around the bush.
Plus, his check had already cleared the bank.
“Oh, really?” said Jackson, his voice acidic.
“Yes, really.” We stared at each other. It must have been my imagination, but it felt like the temperature in the room jumped several degrees.
He snapped, “So what would you recommend I wear, then?”
“Do you own a suit?”
His expression turned even darker. “I hate suits.”
When he didn’t answer and just stood there glaring at me like he hoped a stray asteroid would smash through the ceiling and land on my head, I said, “That’s what you should wear. With a tie.” I looked at his boots. “And dress shoes.”
He ran a hand over his face—probably deciding whether he was going to pick up the toaster from the counter and throw it at me—and I added, “Also, a shave wouldn’t kill you.”
His looked at me with a strange new expression. “You don’t like beards.”
He said it flatly. It wasn’t a question.
“Beards are fine. But that thing carpeting your jaw? Honestly, I’ve seen tidier jungles.”
For a moment I thought he would let loose a string of expletives so loud it would deafen me. But then his lips twitched, and I realized he was trying not to smile.
He said, “You’re in fine form today, Bianca.”
It was the first time he’d used my given name. I nearly fainted in surprise but managed to control myself. “I’m sorry,” I said, looking down at the schedule I still held in my hands. “You’re right. It’s just . . .” I cleared my throat. “It’s just been a rough few weeks.”
There was silence for a moment, then he walked closer. “What’s wrong?” he demanded, gruff and growly as a bear.
I glanced up at him and was surprised again. I could’ve sworn he was looking at me with concern in his eyes.
Concern and something else a little hotter.
My heart decided it was time to run a sprint. It took off like a jackrabbit chased by a pack of hounds. I said, “Just some personal stuff. My mother . . .”
I trailed off, dazed for a moment by his eyes. I hadn’t noticed before, but they weren’t only blue. He had tiny flecks of green and gold around his irises, warming those steely-blue depths.
And by God, the man smelled delicious. If that was his natural scent, he could make a few more billion by bottling it and selling it to men with less scrumptious—
Wait. What am I doing? Why am I mooning at him? Am I out of my ever-loving mind?
“Your mother?” he prompted, but I quickly stepped away, smoothing a hand over my hair.
“It’s nothing. I’m so sorry, I’m being unprofessional. If you don’t mind, Mr. Boudreaux, I’ll just get back to work now—”
“Jackson,” he said. He gazed down at me, eyes burning. His voice dropped an octave. “I want you to call me Jackson, Bianca.”
My sprinting heart tripped all over itself and fell flat on its face inside my chest. Heat rose into my cheeks. I said haltingly, “Um . . . okay.”
His gaze dropped to my lips.
Every muscle in my body tensed.
When he abruptly turned around and left, my knees shook so badly I had to lean against the counter for support.
What on earth just happened?
The next few hours passed in a blur. In between directing a setup and serving staff of almost one hundred people and ensuring the food was kept at the right temperature until ready to be served, was plated properly before it left the staging area, and that there was enough of it, I didn’t have a moment to catch my breath, let alone reflect on what had happened between me and Jackson in the kitchen. It was nothing, really . . .
But it sure felt like something. I had all sorts of tingling girly bits telling me so.
“Bianca!”
At the sound of my name being shouted, I jumped. I whirled around to see Claudia headed toward me across the lawn at a pace just short of a run, gripping her clipboard against her chest, her face pale as a bedsheet.
I said, “What? What’s happening?”
She hustled up next to me and blurted, “Mr. Boudreaux asked for you. He’s in the tent. You’d better hurry.”
I frowned, handing off two plates of cheesecake to a waiting server, who turned around and sprinted away with them. We’d gone through almost three hundred pieces of my ginger-orange cheesecake already, and though typically not every guest would have dessert, this crowd seemed especially ravenous.
Thank Jesus I’d made plenty extra, because the last thing I wanted was Jackson hearing complaints that there hadn’t been enough.
I said, “In the tent? Why would he want me in the tent? Isn’t the auction supposed to be starting now?”
Claudia—whose hair gel had failed so her coiffure was now frizzed out into a cloudy brown halo around her face—said, “Six minutes ago! Which is why you need to hurry! Go! Now!” She gave me a little shove toward the direction of the tent.
I was perplexed. “Well hold your horses, I’m going!”
“Quickly!” she said, flapping her hands and panting.
Figuring it must be some kind of culinary disaster, I went as fast as I could, my heart in my throat. I trotted over the lush green grass toward the enormous tent set up on the back lawn. It was all white and looked like something from a Cirque du Soleil show. Three tall, flagged peaks reached like ghostly fingers toward the twilight sky. Servers streamed in and out from open flaps around the perimeter, clearing plates and bringing drinks. At one flap near the front stood a young female server, waving madly.
At me.
Fried chicken, this doesn’t look good.
I stopped beside her and peered inside the tent. I didn’t see anyone puking, didn’t hear any shouts of distress, could detect nothing out of sorts in the murmuring, well-dressed crowd of hundreds seated at candlelit rounds.
I asked, “What’s going on?”
“Get up to the stage.”
She pointed to the raised dais at the rear of the tent, where a wooden podium and microphone stood, illuminated by a spotlight. Behind the stage were three large white screens with a backdrop of a shirred black-fabric cloth hung to hide wires and audiovisual equipment.
“The stage?” I repeated. “Why?”
The server threw her hands in the air. “Like anybody tells me anything! All I know is you’re supposed to get up there right now.”
I protested, “But the schedule—”
She turned and walked off before I could get anything more out of her. Then it didn’t matter if she’d left because at that moment Jackson walked out onto the stage and into the spotlight, and I was rendered speechless.
It wasn’t him. It couldn’t be.
Then he strolled up to the microphone and started to speak, and that smooth, rich-like-molasses voice proved that it was.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “I’m Jackson Boudreaux.”
The place went wild. Three hundred people jumped from their chairs and clapped and hollered and whistled, making such a racket it could probably be heard for miles.
I stared around at all the clamoring people, wondering if someone had spiked their drinks with cocaine. All this excitement for the Beast?
“Thank you so much for coming,” Jackson said over the noise. “I’m honored to welcome you to my home.”
Who is this person? I thought, stunned. This polite, charming person?
Standing there onstage, in a tuxedo that fit his large, muscular frame so perfectly it had to be custom-made, with his dark hair slicked back and his face freshly shaved, was a stranger. A smiling stranger who sounded like Jackson and called himself Jackson, but looked nothing like the man I knew.
The Jackson Boudreaux I knew made Chewbacca look well groomed.
The Jackson Boudreaux I knew made King Kong seem civilized.
The Jackson Boudreaux I knew didn’t look like Superman and dress like James Bond and have a crowd of three hundred people on their feet, showering him in adoration.
Maybe I was hallucinating. I put the back of my hand to my forehead, testing for fever, but it was cool and dry.
New and Improved Jackson said, “As you may know, I first became involved with the Wounded Warrior Project after my best friend, Christian LeFevre, was wounded while serving in the Marines in Afghanistan.”
So this is why Jackson’s involved with the charity. How tragic. I listened with my hand over my mouth as he went on.
“A roadside bomb took Christian’s legs but not his love of his country, his joy for life, or his dedication to serving others. Though complications from his amputations ultimately claimed his life, the Wounded Warrior Project was there for him in his final months the way no other organization could have been.”
Jackson’s voice broke. He stopped speaking abruptly, ran a hand through his hair, and drew a slow breath.
I watched, enthralled. He had feelings. The Beast had feelings.
I’d seen his irritation before, of course, and had also seen firsthand his devotion for Cody. But this was something else altogether. This was raw. This was powerful.
This was vulnerable.
If someone pointed a gun at my head and demanded I describe what I was feeling in this moment or get a bullet in my brain, they would’ve had to shoot me.
In a more subdued tone, Jackson continued. “In the four years since Christian’s death, I’ve witnessed firsthand how many lives this organization has touched. How many lives it has changed for the better. How many lives it has saved. This nation and all its citizens owe a great debt to the brave men and women who serve in our military. But the greatest debt of all is to those who are wounded or have fallen in combat. Those who so valiantly and selflessly volunteer to defend us and our allies around the world, and are willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom, must never be forgotten.”
Jackson’s voice broke again, but this time he kept talking.
“It’s through the efforts of organizations like the Wounded Warrior Project that we ensure they never are.”
The crowd went ballistic. It sounded like a rock concert. I stared at Jackson on the stage, not realizing there were tears on my cheeks until I brushed my fingers across my face and they came away wet.
Jackson said, “Coming up next we’re going to start the auction. I’m sure you’ll all be very generous to help our wounded vets, right?”
More cheering.
Then he looked out across the heads of everyone in the room and spotted me standing in the doorway. Even through the distance that separated us, I saw how his eyes burned.
He said, “But before we get to that, I want to introduce you to the woman who made you all the delicious food you’ve been eating this evening. Chef, join me onstage.”
Jackson extended his hand. Three hundred heads turned to look at me.
Inconveniently, the ground didn’t open up and swallow me whole.