to ask.” My grandmother gestured with her arm dramatically. “What is Love? Who could possibly answer such a grandiose inquiry?”
“I’m hoping our interviewees can.”
It was strange to me that my grandmother didn’t approve of my project. She’d loved love. Exhibit A: she’d been married nine times. Granted, three of those were to the same man, my grandfather. But those were just the ones that she’d walked down the aisle with. She’d been engaged fifteen times.
I’d basically lived with her during my entire adolescence, and she fell in love so many times, I stopped learning her “suitors” names. It had gotten so confusing after they started having duplicate first and last names. When I met my second Robert Jones, I decided to throw in the get-to-know-you towel.
“And where, pray tell, has this quest for the unanswerable led you to?”
“I’m in Texas.”
“Texas? Hmm. That’s full of possibilities.”
“It is?” My grandmother fancied herself a city girl through and through. She despised insects and the outdoors, so the country really wasn’t her scene.
“Yes, darling. Perhaps you can find yourself a strapping cowboy to get back in the saddle with.”
My grandmother did not approve of my single lifestyle. She regularly commented that I was wasting my best years refusing to date. She’d signed me up for countless dating apps without my knowledge and was constantly engineering “meet-cutes.”
“You know what they say, darling, save a horse, ride a cowboy.”
I heard Jackson’s deep chuckle beside me, and I desperately hoped that my grandmother had missed it.
She hadn’t.
Her face lit up. “Oh, it seems I have an audience. One with a seductive baritone, at that. Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?”
“Oh he’s not…I mean…I just met him.”
“Hello!” My grandmother spoke over my stammering and introduced herself to Jackson, who I was sure she couldn’t see because he wasn’t in the frame. “I am Josephine Grace Clarke, and who does that deep cachinnation belong to?”
Jackson’s face appeared in frame, and I wished the hot Texas sun would melt me into the ground. I had no clue what my grandmother might say or if she’d pick up on my attraction to him. If she did, she wouldn’t hesitate to point it out.
“Jackson Briggs, ma’am, nice to meet you.”
“Oh my…” My grandmother lifted her wooden folding fan and began waving it next to her face. “The pleasure is all mine, Jackson Briggs.”
Jackson grinned and I could see that even he wasn’t immune to my grandmother’s enchantment. All my life I’d heard about the “it” quality. That something special that made a person stand out. My grandmother had that in spades. She oozed “it.” It didn’t matter that she was going to be ninety in just a few months, she still had men wrapped around her finger, no matter what their age.
I may have inherited most of my grandmother’s genes, but the charismatic chromosome apparently skipped my generation.
“Are you on a date with my granddaughter, Jackson Briggs?”
“No!” I shouted. I hadn’t meant to raise my voice, it had just happened. “Jackson is Mia’s brother-in-law. He’s just giving me a tour of Wishing Well.”
“Pity.” My grandmother tsked. “You two would make gorgeous babies.”
I wasn’t sure my cheeks could get any redder than they already were, and it had nothing to do with the sun beating down on them.
“I have to go, Grandmother. I’ll speak to you soon. Love you.”
“Ta, ta, darling.” She leaned forward and gave me two virtual air kisses. “And Jackson?”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“It was very nice to meet you. I believe you’re just the cowboy for the job.”
My thumbs fumbled as I quickly ended the call. He must think that my family is a bunch of sex-crazed nymphos. I’d texted that I was horny, and my grandmother had just suggested he get me pregnant.
“I like her.”
“Most men do.” A smile pulled at my face and I was surprised by how much joy it gave me that he’d said that. Everyone loved my grandmother. But for some reason hearing that Jackson did was special. Personal.
“She’s a firecracker,” he added.
“Yes, she is.”
I lifted my eyes to find him staring down at me with an intensity that sent a tingle racing down my spine. Beneath the wide brim of his hat, his ocean blue stare kept me frozen in place. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think.
My heart was pounding as his head dipped, his lips moving closer to mine. I could feel the heat of his breath on my face and I closed my eyes. Before our mouths touched,