Page 34 of A Whisper of Summer Magic

So dumb. She shook her head. “I’m fine. Keep stirring. We’re almost there.”

He mashed and stirred with one hand, but his other hand rested on the back of her neck, warm, calloused, and strong. Then he stroked down her spine.

“Does making jam remind you of doing the same thing with Grandma Millie?”

She nodded and dragged in a deep breath, wishing his hand didn’t so utterly comfort her.

“Yes,” she said, “but it’s more than that. It’s being here. Playing with a recipe. Waiting for that ah-yes feeling that I have just the right amount of spice. You made me think of that.”

“It’s good to remember,” Jackson said quietly. “It’s important to hold on to the good memories.”

Now the tears flowed, but the raspberries had boiled for a couple of minutes, so she added the warm, lavender-infused sugar with a hint of cardamon while he stirred, and somehow the tears felt like a necessary part of the experience.

“When my dad left, my mom was in a dark place,” Jackson said, drawing Meghan’s attention back to him, even as she slowly added the sugar, eyeballing the thickness and admiring the smooth way he continued to steadily stir and blend. “She’d cry. Hide herself away. Yell at the littlest things then cry some more, and work herself up so it was scary, so I started reminding her of the good times. The laughs we had. The camping trips. The exploring in the woods. The trips to Myrtle Beach. The way he and my mom would dance in the moonlight on the patio when they thought I was asleep.”

“Did that make her sad or angry?”

“No,” he said. “She’d forgotten all that. She was stuck. Filled only with anger that he’d left. She felt like she’d failed me. She didn’t want to be a single mom. Her parents still loved each other, so we moved in with my grans, with my mom feeling broken and me feeling… helpless.”

“Jackson,” she breathed out his name, hurting for his mom.

“I stopped reminding her of the good, because Gran said it hurt her. But at night, when I’d be sitting up in my windowsill craning my neck to see the stars, I’d remember some good times like an after-dinner run to Dairy Queen for ice cream or picking up some Hillbillies barbecue after T-ball practice. My favorite was remembering watching them dance on the broken patio—weeds growing through—but my mom would put on a sundress; she had a white one with big red roses—and she and my dad would dance on the patio, my dad singing some song.”

“That’s beautiful.” Meghan could see it so vividly—Jackson probably in his pajamas standing on his bed looking out his window at his parents dancing.

“Just because something doesn’t last forever, it doesn’t mean it wasn’t good or valuable. Hey, it’s getting thicker,” he noted, never slowing his stirring speed.

Meghan retrieved the chilled metal spoon from the fridge, dipped it in, and then turned it, watching the liquid drip, but she was more focused on his words than the jam’s progress.

“Another minute or two,” she said, wiping the spoon clean and returning it to the fridge. “Want me to take over?”

“Nah, it’s kinda meditative. I can see why you like making jam.”

“I do. The color of the fruit. The smells. The richness of the color. It’s pretty easy and quick. I do like the stirring part. I think of all the women before me who’ve made jams from their harvests, a treat for their family. It’s a bit of a workout physically and neurologically if I switch hands.”

Jackson did so, and she laughed.

“And I feel a bit witchy. Powerful and feminine.”

She expected him to seize on that, reference the book again, but instead he looked down at the bubbling liquid, his head tilted toward her as if he was waiting for more.

“I like making things for people. Something more personal than clicking the buy button online. And finding pretty bottles online with Jessica reminded me of all the stuff we used to do together as kids.”

He looked over at the small, rounded beveled jars turned upside down on a rack. “I thought we’d be making more. Will you always cook the jam in such small batches?”

“This is a practice run. I can definitely double up or cook several batches at night—put on music or a podcast or HGTV, but I’m not going commercial like I want to get in Harris Teeter or Whole Foods,” she stated firmly. “That’s a whole second career. I want a creative hobby and something that will keep me close to my family, but I’m definitely sticking with law. I enjoy it, though I’ll need to brush up my knowledge of other areas of law at the new firm. It might seem crazy, but over the last few years I realized that I no longer had a… you know…”

“A life.”

“Yeah.” He got it.

“That’s why I moved back home,” he said. “I joined the military to serve. To travel. To get money for school, but I missed home. My family. Friends who’ve known me forever. The familiar. I wanted to do something that mattered and was physical with benefits—ways to advance that didn’t require college. That way I could use the money I’d saved to help my family. The RV lets them travel and see some of the country and get away without a lot of expense. Plus, my granddad can do it—he doesn’t have to traipse around airports. He can rest when he needs to.”

Meghan swallowed hard. Jackson sounded so selfless.

“There’s something else,” Jackson said, his voice tightening like his throat was dry.

Meghan limped over to the fridge and poured him out some water.

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