Page 29 of Letting You Go

“Sorry about that.” I swallowed hard, hoping she didn’t ask any more questions, or worse, that Jackson told her how he had found me.

“It’s okay. I know you were in excellent hands now.” She said, glancing at Jackson.

“How are you doing, Mrs. Scott?”

“Oh, Jackson, don’t be ridiculous. I think we are long past the Mrs. Scott nonsense.”

“You are right. How are you doing, Donna?” he corrected.

Mom stood there laughing as she pulled off one of her gardening gloves to push a strand of hair back off her face. “I’m fine. Always tending to the gardens.”

“They are looking great.” He smiled. “Think you might win that award this year?”

“Thanks. I certainly hope so. So, did you two have a good time last night?” she asked, leaning down on the edge of the car.

Jackson glanced over at me, waiting for me to answer. I cleared my throat. “Yep, great time. Jackson, thanks for the drive home. Seriously, though, I could have taken an Uber from Cara’s.”

Mom looked from me to Jackson and back to me, and the uncomfortable feeling settled around me. I hated lying to her.

“You could have, but then I wouldn’t know where to find you, now would I?” He reached out and tweaked my chin.

Mom let out a little giggle. “I’ll give you two some privacy and let you say goodbye,” she said, and made her way back over to the flowers she’d been working on.

I turned and met his eyes, which were full of laughter, and shook my head. The last thing I needed was my mother to think we were getting back together. I pushed the car door open and climbed out and was about to close the door when he yelled out loud enough for my mother to hear, “I’ll call you later. Maybe we can see that movie.”

I turned around. He sat there with that sexy smile on his face while I glared at him. “Don’t do this, Jackson.,” I said through clenched teeth, keeping my voice low enough that my mother couldn’t hear. He sat there grinning at me as I closed the door and walked away from the car.

“I’ll see you soon!” he yelled as he waved and backed out of the driveway.

I sighed and made my way up to where my mom was sitting digging out weeds.

“Well, that was a pleasant surprise. Did you guys have a good time last night?”

“It was okay.”

“Just okay?” She questioned, looking at me. “Bailey, I’m glad to see you are working things out between the two of you?" Mom stood up from where she’d been sitting and brushed off her pants.

“We aren’t getting back together, Mom. He was there at Cara and Ryan’s this morning, and he did me a favor and brought me home,” I said, heading up the front stairs of the house.

“But you took your car to Cara’s,” Mom said, stopping me in my tracks. “I saw it there when I went out to the garden center this morning.”

I bit my bottom lip and frantically searched my mind for an excuse. “It wasn’t my car, Mom. Sierra has the same car I do. I left mine downtown last night. Now, I need to go shower.”

Jackson

It’s been two weeks since Bailey spent the night on the very couch I was now relaxing on. We had been spending a lot of time together during those couple of weeks working on the plans for Cara and Ryan’s wedding. We’d spent nights sending texts back and forth, about the events for the actual wedding that Cara and Ryan both didn’t want to take on. However, occasionally, the conversations would become fun and flirty. It was something that I could only dream about.

Now that the wedding was drawing near, I was hearing from her less and less, yet she barely left my mind. We’d both been spending time with Cara and Ryan separately and not so much with each other. She claimed that everything we could do together had been done. So you can imagine how surprised I was when my phone rang and I saw her name on the screen.

“Hello,” I answered, turning the TV down.

“Hey, what are you doing?” she asked. I could hear loud music in the background and guessed she was probably at work.

“Trying to find something on TV. You?”

She cleared her throat. “I was wondering if you felt like getting out of the house?”

Sitting forward, I muted the television. I could tell from the tone in her voice that something was up. I cleared my throat and thought twice about asking her the question I wanted to know the answer to for fear she thought I was trying to protect her. “Are you all right? What’s going on?”

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