Free A Bride for Jackson Powers (Desire, 1273) by Dixie Browning

way, under no circumstances. Not because she didn’t want to, but because she had better sense.
    Once before she had let herself be rescued from an impossible situation by a man. Gus had come along just as she was thinking of running away from home to escape her father. She had known Gus all her life, but only the way people in small towns knew other people by sight or reputation. He’d been a Vietnam veteran. A pilot, a hero, some said.
    He had certainly turned out to be a hero where she was concerned. She’d been seeing him for years in Olesen’s Hardware. She remembered thinking he was nice looking, for an older man. Then one day he drove out to deliver a barrel of heating oil, and he’d seen her with badly bruised arms, a black eye and a swollen lip. And he’d known, because Vern Reynolds’s temper and his drinking were no secret around town.
    So he’d taken her home to his mother, and a few days later they’d been married. She had spent the nexteleven years as his wife, being treated with kindness and an affection that had helped her to heal. She had looked after his mother, who was frail and a little silly, but wonderfully kind. She had done her best with his young daughter, trying hard to overcome the child’s natural resentment. She had been as good a wife to Gus as any frightened, inexperienced young girl could be to a man more than twice her age.
    It had been a busy but safe and comfortable life. With her mother-in-law’s advice, she had learned to be a better cook, to sew, to deal with a rebellious teenager. She had watched her husband eat his supper in silence every night and then doze in front of TV in his work clothes and sock feet. On Friday nights they would go upstairs and make love quietly so as not to disturb either Sadie or Jeannie.
    It had been pleasant. Gus had always fallen asleep immediately afterward, but he’d never failed to thank her the next morning, which she thought was incredibly sweet.
    When he’d been killed, she’d held the family together. When Jeannie had started getting in trouble at school and staying out all night, she had dealt with it the best way she knew how.
    When Sadie had suffered the first of a series of strokes, she had dealt with that, as well, and when Jeannie had run away, she’d been torn between chasing after her and nursing Sadie.
    And then Jeannie had brought her Robert, and between Sadie and the baby, she had really had her hands full.
    She would go back, because it was the proper thing to do. And because she had nowhere else to go. And because family was important, and she missed Robert.
    But this time she would remain independent. Never again would she risk depending on anyone other than herself.

Five
    “I t’s all settled. You’ve got a seat on the flight that leaves at 3:10 for Norfolk.” Jax looked as smug as if he’d just pulled off a major coup.
    As indeed he probably had. It hadn’t taken long for Hetty to discover she could be here for hours, if not days. Half the people around her were clamoring to change their itinerary, their original plans having been ruined by the delay. They’d been arguing the point ever since he’d come back to tell her what he’d done on her behalf.
    “I haven’t actually said I’d do it, not in so many words.”
    “Anyone ever call you stubborn?”
    “Stubborn can be a good trait.”
    “Not if it’s taken to unreasonable lengths. Hetty, you know it’s the right thing to do. Sunny needs you. She’s used to you. What the devil am I supposed to do for the next few days until I can make other arrangements? Take her to the office with me? Sneak her into an adults-only apartment complex? Bring in a baby-sitter I don’t know from Adam and entrust her with my child?”
    She couldn’t answer his question, and so she asked one of her own. “Why would anyone want to live in a place that doesn’t allow children?”
    He closed his eyes momentarily. Hetty knew his head still ached, by now she recognized the