Million Dollar Christmas Bride - Holly Rayner Page 0,6

them to the very person who had caused them.

So instead of trying to put the swirling, nebulous aches in his chest and gut into words, he reached for the glass of ice water on the table and avoided his mother’s eyes as he took a sip.

“How was your flight over from Scotland?” he asked, once he’d swallowed.

“Long. Exhausting. Thank goodness I didn’t get a blood clot,” Mary said. She then launched into a long and winding commentary on international travel, which, apparently, she’d done quite a bit of over the years.

Jackson picked up on the fact that she’d continued with the high-society ways that she’d established in Memphis with his father. But instead of balls at sprawling Southern country clubs, she’d turned her focus to internationally flavored events. She spoke of meeting ambassadors, dignitaries, and various European royalty.

Jackson barely managed to keep up with her stories, given the tense state he was in. He was happy when a server brought over his drink and took their order, though that provided only a brief interlude to her tales of traveling the world with the man she’d left his father for.

Finally, she wrapped up. “Anyway, when Lachlan died I was at a loss. It was like my world crumbled right beneath my feet. I’m sure you know the feeling.”

“I’m sure I do,” Jackson said. He took a sip of his drink.

“I was a wreck for months. He was just such a sweet man. We were in love. But life goes on, you know? And I couldn’t continue to grieve forever. His loss taught me that we all leave this earth at one point or another. I started to think about that and really contemplate what I wanted to do with the years I have left.”

Jackson finally managed to look at her. “You’re not sick, are you?” he asked. This talk of death made him feel uneasy. Losing his father fifteen years prior had been hard. He dreaded the idea of seeing another parent succumb to cancer.

“No, no,” she said. “My heart’s not what it used to be, but doctors keep prescribing pills. I forget to take them now and then, and I pay the price for that. But as long as I remember, my heart works fine.

“It won’t forever, though, and that’s my point. That’s why I’m here, back in Tennessee—the state I was born in. I didn’t know what it would be like to come back here, but it’s beautiful. Everything out by the old house is just the same. The trees are bigger, but…” Her voice drifted off thoughtfully just as the server arrived with their food.

Jackson reached for his steak knife and slid it through the meat before him. “About that,” he said. “The house, I mean.” He cleared his throat. “Danielle tells me that you plan to leave the house to charity in your will. Is that right?”

Mary poked her fork into the pile of risotto on her plate. “Mm-hmm… the Memphis Opera. I’ve always loved the productions they put on, and the arts are a worthy cause.”

Jackson felt his cheeks flush. The opera! he thought. He knew for a fact that the opera was hardly hurting for funding—it was a favorite charity for every member of Memphis’s elite that wanted a respectable nonprofit to give hefty, tax-deductible checks to.

“Are you sure that’s what you want to do?” Jackson said, before biting into the steak on his fork. “Danielle and I both grew up in that house. Why not leave it to one of us?”

“Ha!” Mary laughed. “Danielle is married to one of the highest-paid producers in Hollywood. She doesn’t want anything to do with that property. And you inherited your father’s empire! You’re surely one of the richest men in the country. What would you want with that old house?”

She didn’t give him a chance to answer. Instead she said, “I’ve made plenty of mistakes in my life, Jackson, and I’m not about to make another. I’m trying to do good in my limited time left. Now—” She lifted her gaze and focused it on Jackson. “I want to know how it’s been going with your father’s grocery store chain. I hear you’re CEO of Wylde’s now, is that true?”

Jackson nodded. He felt bothered by the fact that his mother had so quickly changed the topic of conversation away from the one thing that he really wanted to talk about. But he saw no way of tactfully bringing up the house again. Besides, thinking about the house