She’d been sixteen. While Sawyer had looked over a car he was interested in, she had informed Jazz of exactly what the valley should look like. The house, the boat dock and canoe, and the gazebo.
She wondered if there was a bed in the gazebo as she’d told Jazz she wanted. A big soft one with lace sheets and pillowcases, surrounded by a mosquito net.
The big red barns were in their places. One for equipment, the other for hay and stock should he decide to have any. The stock consisted of what appeared to be two horses. They were older, moving lazily in the huge pasture that surrounded the stock barn.
He’d laid everything out as she’d suggested. That summer she’d been convinced she belonged right there. In the summer she’d have barbecues off the back porch, family reunions and family cookouts.
She couldn’t see the back but had no doubt there was a two-level porch there, one holding the barbecue grill with its iron enclosure, the second level a covered porch with a wide swing and several outdoor tables.
He’d laughed at her, she remembered. His blue eyes had been full of amusement, but when her brother had glanced back at them his expression had been filled with brooding suspicion.
She’d flirted outrageously with Jazz that day and he’d been good-natured about it, she thought. He’d teased her gently, though not sexually. Winked at her a time or two. He’d laughed when she warned him that if he wasn’t careful she’d steal his heart and told her that “maybe” she already had. His maybes were always a little deceptive, though, she remembered. Jazz had loved playing with that word. And he still did.
Sawyer had decided it was time to leave then.
Strangely, he hadn’t warned her against Jazz. He hadn’t mentioned that afternoon, but she knew he’d gone to see Jazz again that evening.
“You have a beautiful place, Jazz,” she said softly when he pulled into the wide parking area on the rise overlooking the sprawling backyard and pond.
She wanted to sob, but tears had been locked inside her soul years before and she didn’t even know where the key was anymore.
“Thank you,” he said simply. When she glanced over at him he was staring out at it as well, his expression somber.
Oh God, what had she truly lost that night? Someone had stolen more than just her family and her life from her. They’d stolen this man from a future she hadn’t even had a chance of fantasizing about. Ten years and countless other women had passed between them now. Any tenderness he might have felt for a sixteen-year-old charmer was no doubt just a vague memory to him. But to her, it was a dagger straight to her soul.
* * *
“Come on, let’s get in the house,” he breathed out heavily. “I think I need a beer.”
She needed something a hell of a lot stronger than a beer, she decided. A few good shots of whiskey maybe.
Something to deaden the overwhelming feeling that in bringing her here Jazz was getting ready to completely up-end her life.
She really didn’t need her life up-ended the Jazz Lancing way. Hell, she’d almost prefer being chased by a car again. At least then, she would know what was coming.
* * *
Damn, it had been years since he’d remembered the stubborn determination he’d displayed when beginning to construct the property the fall Kenni had died with her mother in a hotel fire. They’d buried her and her mother, and according to the rest of the family, life went on.
It had gone on, but it had taken years to forget the pretty teenager. The only female whose father Jazz had ever gone to and asked permission to call on.
She would have turned seventeen that fall, and he knew he was too damned old for her. Twenty-three was a far cry from seventeen, but he wasn’t about to stand and wait for one of those horny little teenage pricks to walk in and steal her heart.
He hadn’t wanted her to know he was asking her father’s permission to see her though. He’d been that certain Vinny Maddox would kick him in the teeth and tell him to go to hell. He’d waited until the afternoon she’d left with her mother to take their yearly shopping trip, then he’d gone to see her father and brothers.
Her brothers had yelled, threatened, and ordered him out of the house. It was the father Jazz had watched, though. Somber, intent, his gaze had seemed to look deeper than Jazz was comfortable with as he listened to all the arguments his sons could come up with. When they’d wound down, he’d asked Jazz if he loved Kenni, and he’d had to be honest.
Hell if he knew what love was, he’d told the other man, but when he looked at Kenni, all he wanted to do was make her dreams come true. He wanted to see her smile and hear her laughter every day, and he wanted to be there to share in all her triumphs. If there were failures then he wanted to be there so she would cry on his shoulder, not another man’s.
The smile that had curled Kenni’s father’s face had confused him. For years Jazz hadn’t understood it, until the day the other man had arrived to see the completion of the buildings that had gone up in the valley.
Kenni’s father had nodded slowly, that sad smile quirking his lips again.
The older man looked out at the house, the valley, and blinked back the moisture in his eyes as he turned back to Jazz. “Sawyer told me last night you’d built what Kenni described to you before she and her mother…” He shook his head, then caught Jazz’s eye again. “Do you know, Jazz, why I gave you permission to court my daughter?”
“No sir.” There were few men Jazz gave such respect to.
“You honored me when you came and asked my permission rather than seducing my baby as many men would have done, but when you vowed that day not to take her to your bed until she was of age, you honored her,” he said softly. “And had I said no, what would you have done?”
Jazz knew he hadn’t expected the answer he got.
“I would have waited until she was of age and asked again.” He’d shrugged.
“Why? I’m nothing to you.” Her father had been confused then. “Why would my permission matter to you?”
“You’re her father,” Jazz had told him softly. “Without your respect, without your acceptance, she would never have been happy.”
The older man had been startled. “You were going to marry her.” He seemed to struggle for a moment with the thought, and with the tears that filled his eyes.
Surprised, Jazz had stared back at him. “Of course I was. Later. Not too soon. We both had some growing up to do…”
And Jazz had left it at that. But her father had looked out over the valley for long moments once again.
“She would have loved this,” he said then. “She would have loved this…”
Why the hell had that memory returned, he wondered as he led his little imposter up the front walk to the porch. It had been years since he’d thought about it. Kenni had been a beginning that had never had a chance to begin, in some ways. She had been gone before he’d had a chance to call on her the first time.
And when it came to the house and grounds, she’d been right about the layout. Everything seemed to fit perfectly where she’d suggested. He hadn’t done it just for her, he told himself. He’d told himself that for years.
He’d done it because she’d been right.
* * *
It didn’t end outside.
The descriptions she’d given him that day of what she would do if the valley was hers, if the house she loved was built, had been carried out as though she’d drawn him a picture.