Page 34 of Just One Look

Maverick

I’m getting ready to meet up with Candice to nail down the final details for next week’s talent show fundraiser when a loud knock on the front door startles me.

“Just a minute,”

I yell out from the bedroom, doing a final once-over of my outfit in the mirror. A tailored camel-colored wool overcoat over a burgundy cashmere turtleneck, dark slate jeans, and brown leather Chelsea boots. “Nice,”

I say to my reflection, nodding in satisfaction.

I feel guilty for being so caught up in what’s been going on with Jackson that Candice has been saddled with all the work. I asked for her help, not for her to carry the entire workload. But she has, and I owe her. Big-time.

My visitor bangs away again.

“Okay, okay. I’m coming. Hold your horses.”

I leave the front door unlocked, so it’s not Wagner or Sammy. They both wander in whenever they like. Adjusting the collar of my coat, I open the door and am met with a furious-looking Clancy.

“You and I need to talk.”

“Not in the mood,”

I say, closing the door in his face, but his foot blocks its path.

“Tough luck, sunshine. You’re going to listen to what I have to say.”

He forces the door open and bulldozes past me.

“Please. Come in. Make yourself at home,”

I mutter under my breath.

I haven’t seen or heard a peep from Jackson since I fired him two days ago. No response to my email either. I hope he got it. I know he doesn’t check his messages often.

Clancy isn’t exactly at the top of my want-to-see people list. I still don’t know how to feel after discovering his love letters to Grandpa Rick. I stopped reading after the first letter. It felt like an invasion of privacy to keep going. But I’m dying to know the full story. Was Clancy cheating on his wife? Was Grandpa cheating on Grandma? Are the Benson men genetically cursed to be adulterers?

I storm into the living room after him and freeze when I see the way he’s staring at the place. It’s like he’s been transported back in time. He presses a hand to his heart, eyes wide with wonder.

“It’s been decades since I last set foot here.”

I leave him alone with his memories and dash into the spare room to grab the bundles of letters.

“I believe these are yours,”

I say, setting them on the coffee table.

He drops to his knees, mouth agape, as he rifles through them.

“Oh my god. I can’t believe he kept them. I was sure…”

He trails off, piling a batch onto his lap as he takes a seat in the recliner. He plucks the top letter and starts reading it.

I comb my fingers through my hair, unsure how to proceed from here. We have two very big unresolved issues to deal with, but the old man is getting teary as he reads, so I’m not about to be an asshole and ruin his moment.

I take out my phone and text Candice, apologizing that something unexpected has come up yet again and asking if we can reschedule and catch up later tonight. Clancy and I need to talk, and it could take a while. She messages back that it’s fine. I am going to have to buy her something very expensive for how great she’s being about everything.

“Can I get you a drink, Clancy?”

“No. I’m fine. Thank you,”

he says without looking up.

His voice is back to the normal voice I’ve come to know over the past few months. Every trace of the anger he marched in here with has melted away.

After giving him some time, I speak up.

“I know it’s none of my business, but…”

Clancy pulls his gaze away from the letters and lifts his eyes to mine, shaking his head as though he’d forgotten I was here.

“We were in love.”

“You and Grandpa Rick?”

“That’s right.”

“What about Grandma?”

“She knew.”

“She did?”

Clancy tucks the letters carefully by his side.

“It was a different time. A lot of things were changing for the better, like women’s rights, but when it came to sexuality, attitudes were still very conservative. The language we have today didn’t even exist back then. Growing up, your grandfather would visit Silverstone in the summer, much like you did. He loved horses. That’s how we met. At my father’s rescue center. Rick and I became friends, keeping in touch via letters throughout the year, excitedly awaiting the summer when we could go camping and fishing and…”

His face takes on a rosy hue.

“Yeah, I don’t need to know the rest.”

Clancy smiles, but a wistful sadness lingers in his eyes.

“He loved it here so much that after high school, he moved in with his grandfather, who was running the winery. Things between us continued, but the pressure for us to marry and have children was intense, not only socially, but also because we both came from families that owned businesses and needed to have children to pass them down to.

“I started seeing Constance, and she was best friends with your grandma. We set her up with Rick, and it was a good match. We double-dated together. Got married the same summer, a few weeks apart. Even started popping out kids at close intervals.”

“Did both women know?”

“Absolutely.”

Clancy shakes his head vigorously.

“We told them right from the very beginning.”

“And were they cool with it?”

“In their own ways, yes. I think it helped that we were up-front about it. Rick and I would go away on our ‘camping trips,’ which they understood was us spending quality time together. But they also knew that we both deeply loved them. Again, we didn’t have the awareness about these sorts of things that people have now. There was no internet or easy way to access information. I didn’t even know what bisexual meant until I was in my thirties. Now, you have open marriages and poly this and poly that. It wasn’t like that back then. In a small town like Silverstone, it was all very clandestine. We had to be very careful to ensure no one found out. It made it feel wrong, but at the same time, when Rick and I were together, it felt right.”

“Wow.”

Clancy offers a friendly smile.

“Wow indeed. Constance tragically passed away before her time, and your grandparents helped me get through it. Your grandmother and I became very close friends.”

“I take it you and Grandpa Rick continued your…thing?”

“We did. It was a little harder to get away once Jackson’s mom left and the kids moved in with me, but we still did from time to time. Your grandmother only had two conditions. The first one was that we spent our time together away from Silverstone. Hence the camping trips. And the second one was that no one found out about us. Ever.”

The color drains from his face.

“But someone found out?” I hedge.

He dips his head.

“Unbeknownst to us, we went camping near Duporth’s estate in Spring Mountain.”

A knot forms in my chest at the mere mention of that name.

“What happened?”

“Forrester Duporth, Ridge’s great-grandfather, caught us in a, let’s just say, compromising position by the lake.”

“Shit.”

“If you think Ridge Duporth is a piece of work, he’s got nothing on Forrester, that duplicitous piece of scum.”

Clancy shakes his head, visibly upset.

“The Duporths didn’t give a shit about the horses, but they always wanted the land the sanctuary was on so they could expand their winery. Forrester gave me an ultimatum—sell the land to him, or he’d expose us.”

“The fucking prick,”

I mutter.

“So you sold the land?”

Tears well in the old man’s eyes.

“I agreed to sell a portion of it, not the whole thing. I was so scared he’d give us away, and if that happened, I knew it would destroy your grandmother. So I didn’t get a lawyer to look over the contract. I stupidly signed away something that had belonged to my family for generations. It was the biggest mistake of my life. In more ways than one.”

“What do you mean?”

“Rick was furious with me when he found out what I’d done. I tried explaining what had happened, but he didn’t believe that it was a mistake on my part. He thought I did it deliberately to betray my family.”

“Didn’t you try to convince him otherwise?”

“Of course I did. So many times.”

He glances down at the letters.

“But no matter what I said or did or wrote, it didn’t make any difference. I even tried to buy the land back, but by then, Forrester had died, and his son sold it to new owners, who wanted double what I’d sold it for. I lost my family’s land and business, and I lost the second of my two great loves.”

“I can’t believe Grandpa shut you out like that.”

“His mind was made up. Rick was a man of resolute conviction, which is a nice way of saying he was stubborn. When he made his mind up that something was over, it was over.”

I never knew that side of him. To me, he was just Grandpa Rick, the guy who’d take me out horse riding and let me eat all the sugary sweets I wanted.

“Are you like your grandfather, Maverick?”

There’s an unmissable undercurrent to Clancy’s question.

“Once something is over, it’s over? Or do you fight for it?”

“Subtle, Clancy.”

“Well?”

“Is that why you came over? To berate me? You were pretty angry when I opened the door.”

“I came to talk some sense into you. Jackson has been moping around, miserable, ever since you…”

“Fired him?”

I complete his thought.

“I didn’t mean to do that, and I clarified that immediately.”

His expression hardens. So does his tone.

“Yeah. I read the email.”

“What was wrong with the email? I made a mistake, and I fixed it.”

“You mean your lawyers fixed it.”

“What?”

“Come on, son. That wasn’t written by you. You didn’t think it’d be better to call or, heaven forbid, talk to Jackson face-to-face?”

“Is that what he’s upset about? The email?”

Now, my tone hardens.

“Did he happen to mention he ended things with us?”

“He did.”

Clancy lets out a weary sigh.

“I know you’ve been angry at him, and you have a right to be.”

“I’m noticing that honesty doesn’t come naturally in your family.”

He recoils in surprise. That was a low blow.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

He glances at the letters beside him and the piles stacked on the coffee table, his face long and drawn.

“Being honest isn’t always a black-and-white matter. Your grandfather and I weren’t able to be honest about our feelings for each other because we wanted to protect the people we loved. And that’s what Jackson was doing, protecting you.”

“I’m not sure he likes me enough to go to that length for me.”

“You’re wrong. He cares about you. A lot. More than he’s cared about anyone else. I’d venture to say he’s in love with you, but he’s just too damn pigheaded to admit it. At least not to me and Pip, and Lord knows the two of us have tried to get it out of him.”

“So why did he push me away? Why would he tell me about his condition and then immediately end things?”

“Because he’s got it in his head that once his vision goes, he’ll be a burden to everyone around him. He already thinks he’s imposing on me just by living with me while his cabin gets rebuilt. He’s a proud man, Maverick. He doesn’t want to weigh anyone down. Especially you. That’s what I meant when I said he’s protecting you, son.”

“But I don’t see it like that. He wouldn’t be weighing me down. I want to be with him. Period. Regardless of his medical condition.”

A smile appears on his face.

“Thought you might feel that way.”

“So what do I do?”

I plead.

“He won’t even talk to me.”

“Fuck words.”

Clancy scoops up the letters and gives them a vigorous shake.

“Words don’t mean anything. They don’t change anything. But actions do. If Jackson isn’t listening to you, do something to prove you’re not going anywhere. That you’re willing to fight for him.”

It’s the kick in the butt I never knew I needed.

I’ve been so stuck on being hurt by him not opening up to me, it never occurred to me he might have been doing it to protect what we had. To make it last longer. All while dealing with the fact that his whole life is about to change forever, in a way I can’t even begin to imagine. I don’t even have anything in my own life to compare it to.

I have to do something. I have to find a way to get through to him so that he knows how I feel about him and that his condition doesn’t change my feelings one bit. I’ve proven him wrong once before when he doubted I could run the sanctuary. Looks like I’m going to have to do it again.

Clancy leans back in the recliner.

“Sorry for barging in all dramatic. It’s an emotional time. I’m not usually one to meddle.”

“You’re fine. Sorry for being rude to you. Are you running a fever, by any chance?”

Wrinkles appear on his forehead. “A fever?”

“Yeah. That thing you said about not being one to meddle. I think you might be hallucinating.”

“Cheeky fucker,”

he says with a good-natured grin. His phone starts ringing, so he reaches into the front pocket of his jacket and takes it out.

“Hey, Verity.”

He listens for a moment, then leaps to his feet, clasping his hand over his mouth.

“I’ll be right there.”

He ends the call and stares at me with wide eyes.

“It’s Sibella. She’s gone into labor.” He starts flapping his arms around, clearly overwhelmed.

“I’ll drive you,”

I say, getting up.

“Okay. Yes, yes. That would be great. Thank you.”

His gaze falls to the letters.

“Take them. They’re yours.”

“Are you sure? They belonged to your grandfather. He kept them. All these years, I thought he hated me.”

My heart clenches, hating what Clancy and Grandpa Rick went through, that they weren’t able to live authentic lives and be together. It makes me even more determined not to suffer a similar fate with Jackson.

“I’m sure he’d want you to have them. Now, come on. Let’s go. Your great-grandkid is on the way.”