AND JILL CAME TUMBLING AFTER
by
SIDNEY McCABE
© 2000
CHAPTER 7
Jack didn't remember ever seeing Jimmy this angry.
He stood before her in the kitchen, where she and Lou had been cutting
the dough for biscuits. His face was pale with rage, his jaw clenching
and unclenching as he fought to keep himself from losing the last shred
of patience he was holding on to.
His long bangs swept over his forehead, obscuring the eyes that were
glaring directly at Jack.
"You," he said at last, pointing at her. "I'd like to
talk to you."
Jack gulped and she and Lou exchanged a quick, panicky glance. Jack
wiped her hands down the front of the apron tied around her waist. "Um,
s-sure, Jimmy. What do you need?"
"I need an explanation, dammit! I need answers! And I think I deserve
'em!"
The outburst startled both women. Lou's eyes were huge as she watched
him.
She had never seen Jimmy quite like this, either. "Jimmy, is everything
all right?" she ventured.
"Stay out of this, Lou," he snapped, not looking at her.
Slowly Jack untied the apron and hung it on the peg
by the stove. Her heart was pounding, her head whirling. She could feel
her blood pulsing fast in her veins. God, what was the matter? With
one last, desperate backward glance at Lou, Jack followed Jimmy out
of the kitchen, through the living
room, out to the porch, and all the way to the corral fence, where he
stopped. He turned to her and let loose again. "I deserve an explanation,
Jack! I've kept my peace for over three weeks now!"
"Jimmy --" she began, but he immediately cut her off.
"Tell me, dammit! Tell me about when you left New York!"
"Jimmy, if you'd let me explain..."
"I'm listenin'!" But the moment she opened her mouth, Jimmy
broke in again. "Maddy told me, Jack! She told me about her 'big
brother'."
Jack's color drained completely away. She sat down hard on a bale of
hay at their feet and looked up at him helplessly. "What did she
tell you?" she whispered.
"She told me you told her that when you got back to England there
was a baby boy inside of you, but that he died. It don't take a math
genius to figure out that baby was *mine*, Jack." His voice had
died away to a volume that matched hers.
They stared at each other.
"Why?" he whispered. "Why did you tell your five-year
old daughter but you didn't tell me?"
"I didn't exactly *tell* her," Jack explained. "I told
her as if I were telling a story...but I guess she saw through me anyway."
"Do you have any idea what it's like to hear that you had a child,
and that the child is dead -- *from* a child?" he demanded.
Jack's eyes filled with tears. "No," she murmured. "I
have no idea."
"Tell me what happened," he said simply.
Jack cleared her throat, unsure how to begin. Her
hands were trembling as she raised them to run her fingers through her
hair. 'Begin at the beginning,' she told herself. She looked at Jimmy
and gave him a tremulous smile. She could already feel the weight on
her chest beginning to lighten. Keeping their baby a secret from Jimmy
for all these years had made her feel guilty and just plain worn-out.
She looked into his eyes and sensed it was best to keep her story short
and to the point: he looked ready to explode.
"I was pregnant when I got back to England," she began, rubbing
nervously at the worn knees of her breeches. "I planned on sailing
back to America, but the doctor said I wasn't well enough, that I should
stay till after the baby was born. I didn't listen to him. I bought
a ticket and started packing. I began to feel sick to my stomach, I
had these horrible cramps, I could barely walk or even move. My parents
fetched the doctor and he ordered me to bed. I lay there for the next
couple of months and then decided on my own that I felt better. I started
to walk around the room again; by then I was four months along. The
cramps started again immediately, and after that I stayed in bed, just
as the doctor had told me. Everything seemed to be going fine for the
next four months, but then I started bleeding...bleeding
when I shouldn't be bleeding. Then I started having my contractions.
I was in labor for nearly three days. By the time the baby was born
I was very weak, very ill. He -- he lived for...for two days..."
Jack stopped, unable to go on. Her lower lip was trembling uncontrollably.
She couldn't see for the tears filling her eyes. "He lived for
two days, but I never got to see him. I was unconscious for the only
two days of his life, and I never got to see him." She buried her
face in her hands and wept. Jimmy watched her, his heart breaking. So
neither of them had ever known their child. Somehow it was impossible
to still be angry with her at the realization that they had both been
cheated. Perhaps her pain had been even greater: she had carried the
child inside of her for eight months, nurturing it with her body, and
then been denied the reward of knowing the child at all. Anger melted
away into sympathy. He loved this woman with every fiber of his being,
and he would do whatever it took to make her happy again, no matter
the cost. She had survived enough, he had survived enough. It was time
they put the past aside, once and for all.
He knelt down in front of her. "Jack," he
whispered. Tentatively, he placed a hand on top of her bent head. He
tried again, "Jack."
"I'm so sorry, Jimmy," she managed to say. "I'm so sorry
I kept this from you." At last she lifted her head. Her face was
streaked with tears. The misery in her eyes twisted his heart inside
him. "I had no right to keep this from you, but I just didn't know
what --"
"Hush." He stroked her bangs away from her face, his large,
work-roughened hands surprisingly gentle. "You just hush now, Jack."
He took her by the elbows and stood, bringing her up against him, drawing
her into his arms. It felt so good to hold her. For six years he'd lived
on memories, and now he was reminded just how inadequate those memories
really were. "You just hush now," he said again, putting his
hand to her neck. He made soft, soothing noises against her hair, murmuring
tender words, rocking her in his embrace.
After a moment, he felt her arms moving up his back,
sliding around his shoulders. She buried her face in his shirt and for
several minutes the only sounds to be heard were her subsiding sobs.
"I didn't know what to do," she went on. "For a long
time I couldn't even think straight. I wanted to tell you so badly,
but I was frightened. Frightened you'd be angry with me for not telling
you, angry with me for losing the baby. It was my fault, Jimmy, it was
my fault! If I'd listened to the doctor none of this would have happened!
We'd have a son right now, Jimmy. It was my fault..."
Jimmy stroked her hair, closing his eyes to breathe in the fresh, clean
scent of her. "You just calm yourself now," he urged her smoothly.
"No one's blamin' you. It wasn't your fault. It'll be all right.
I promise. I'm here now, and it'll be all right."
At his words Jack withdrew from his embrace and looked at him. Her face
was wet, her hair a mess. She would have looked like a little girl if
it hadn't been for the very grown-up despair in her eyes. Her hands
were still at his shoulders. "Really, Jimmy? Do you mean that?"
The corners of his mouth turned up in a wry grin. "Well,"
he answered, "I've heard tell that Rome wasn't built in a day,
but I'd sure like for us to try."
"I'd like that, too." She wiped her face and attempted to
dry her eyes. Was he saying he wanted to be with her again, or merely
that he wanted them to repair the damage done to the friendship they
had once had? She continued carefully, "I'd like for us to be...friends
again. I'd like that very much."
Jimmy froze. He was putting his heart on the line again and she was
offering friendship. When would he ever learn? Happiness wasn't his
for the taking. He pulled his arms away and shrugged. "Sure,"
he replied, an edge to his voice. "Sure, we can be friends again.
We're both adults, ain't we?"
Jack felt a shiver run up her spine. He had grown cold and detached
again, retreating emotionally as much as physically. So he *had* been
offering friendship. Well, she would take it. She would take whatever
he was willing to give her so long as he allowed her to be a part of
his life. "Good. I'm pleased."
"Good." He began taking small steps backward. "We'll
have to make the best of the days we got left."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm leavin' with Cody soon as he's ready. We're goin' scoutin'
for the army, maybe just do a little explorin' on our own." He
hadn't realized he had come to that decision until the words left his
mouth. But there was no way he was sticking around here, that was for
damn sure. 'I don't want to settle for less of you than I had before,'
he raged inwardly. He turned and walked to the barn.
Leaving? He was leaving?! Jack began to follow him.
He couldn't leave, not now, not when she'd finally broken through the
impenetrable shields he'd built up around him. She knew she deserved
it, but she couldn't bear it if he left. 'Now you know how *he* felt
six years ago, Miss High-and-Mighty Townsend.'
"You're leaving?" she called after him.
"Not today," he chuckled uneasily. He wanted to shout at her
to go away and let him be.
Jack picked up speed and soon was right at his heels. "You mean
really *leave*?" They had reached the barn doors. She impulsively
grabbed hold of Jimmy's sleeve.
"I mean really leave," he agreed. "It's time to see more
of the world."
"But we just -- we just agreed to..."
"We can be friends even if I'm hundreds of miles away, Jack."
"But I can't -- I can't --" She had to stop herself. She couldn't
say what she really wanted to say; he didn't want to hear it.
"You can't *what*, Jack?" demanded Jimmy.
The anger in his voice angered her in turn. "I can't make you love
me again if you're hundreds of miles away!" she snapped. Her eyes
widened in horror and she clamped her hand over her mouth. To her disgust,
her eyes began watering again.
The expression on Jimmy's face was unforgettable. As long as Jack lived,
she would remember his face upon hearing her outburst: the mask of indifference
dropping away, the broad smile that she hadn't seen in so long lighting
up his eyes, changing his whole face into the Jimmy she had known. With
a soft whoop, he lifted her off the ground and spun her around and around
the barn till they both fell in the hay, dizzy and laughing.
Jimmy rested on one elbow, looking down into Jack's
eyes and brushing aside the straw that had fallen in her hair and on
her face. He was beaming down at her, an unexpected ray of sunshine.
"I start out the day miserable, I get news that makes me angry,
I get sad, I get happy, I get angry again, and now this. You do beat
all for turnin' a man on his head, Jack Townsend."
"Glad I could oblige," she replied huskily.
"It ain't exactly a compliment. Although it ain't exactly *not*
a compliment, either," he teased, thrilled that he finally had
the notion to tease her.
"Jimmy, I don't know how this will work out for us. I don't know
if I can promise the storybook ending."
"We take this one day at a time. We've still got an awful lot of
things to discuss. And I don't know if I believe in those storybooks,
anyway. Happily ever after is a matter of opinion, Jack. Right now I'd
settle for a promise and a kiss."
She raised an eyebrow. "A promise to what?"
He winked. "A promise to kiss me."
"That I can do," she said softly. And then words were no longer
necessary. At least for now.
