Page 68 of Mountain Freedom
“You’re very good at what you do,” I said.
“I am,” she agreed with a twinkle in her eye.
I wanted to hug her and ask her a million questions, but all my attention shifted when I caught sight of Jackson.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Jackson
I had been pacingthe living room for what felt like hours, feeling nearly as nervous as I imagined I would if someone was havingmybaby in there. Just dropping off groceries didn’t feel like enough. I had unpacked Trudy’s and put Allison’s in a cooler in my truck with a fresh bag of ice. Then I had waited. And waited. And waited some more.
When Allison and Fiona emerged from the bedroom, flushed with joy as they congratulated each other on their good work, all I could think was that Allison had never looked more beautiful.
Then she looked at me and her whole face lit up, and somehow she leveled that beauty up even more.
“I forgot all about the groceries,” she said, laughing. “I’ll help you carry them in.”
“No need. They’re all put away. Yours are in a cooler waiting on you.”
“Thank you,” she said, tilting her face and giving me a smile. Her eyes radiated happiness. “That was amazing.”
“Miracle of life, huh?” I asked, unable to hold back a grin of my own.
“It really was. I thought I wanted to go home and crash in front of the TV tonight, but this was so much better.”
“Don’t worry,” Fiona said, interjecting herself into the conversation from where she was starting to scrub things in the kitchen sink. “You’ll get home and crash in front of the TV anyway. Unless you have better things to do.” She winked at Allison, then gave me a meaningful look.
I felt my face turn red.
Allison took a tiny step backward. “Oh, Jackson,” she said, her mood instantly shifting. “Your parents are in town. I completely forgot. I’ve taken you away from them for entirely too long.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I told them I was going to hang around until I made sure things were okay here. Mom’s cooking dinner, and I’ll head over in a few minutes, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave until I knew everything was alright.”
“Give me your keys and I’ll go move everything to my car,” Allison said.
“I’ll do it—” I started to protest, but she interrupted me.
“No, let me do it—please.” She laughed. “I need an outlet for all this energy bubbling up inside me right now. I should be exhausted, but I feel like I could run a marathon.”
“Alright.” I smiled and tossed her my truck keys.
She practically danced out the door, still vibrating from the joy of what she had just witnessed.
“There are better ways than that to burn off excess energy,” Fiona called out, turning around to wink at me again. “You should take that girl home, Jackson.”
“We’re just friends,” I said, joining her in the kitchen. I leaned against the counter and watched as she went to work scrubbing dishes in the sink.
“Right, and I’m Mother Teresa,” she muttered under her breath.
“You practically are.”
She looked up and grinned. Then her face went serious as she peered at me with her sharp green eyes. It was a look I was familiar with, though I wasn’t often on the receiving end of it. Usually, Daphne was the one about to get questioned. I swore Fiona should have joined the sheriff’s office and worked for us as an interrogator.
“Now, Jackson,” she said, pointing her finger at me. “It’s clear as day you’ve got something troubling you.”
“Well, I don’t know if you heard, but Russell just died. So there’s that.”
“Yeah, I heard,” she said, nodding. “But that’s not it. Come on, now.” She rinsed the soap bubbles off her hands and turned toward the stove. “Pull up a chair,” she said, pointing to the chairs surrounding the little kitchen table. “I’m going to put on the teakettle.”
