Free Forgiving Jackson by Alicia Hunter Pace

know what you’re talking about.”
    “In addition to finished pieces, Eye of the Needle sells embroidery supplies like silk thread, linen fabric, and really nice tools. String is more about knitting, crochet, and weaving.”
    “You cannot tell me those stores are dependent on a gaggle of women coming around this house to look at some old pillows and stuff. And if they are, they have made some very bad business decisions that I will not lose one second of sleep over.”
    “No. They’re not dependent on us. But”—she hit a key on her laptop and a handful of buildings on the diagram turned bright yellow—“these places are and we on them. They grew up because of Around the Bend. Beauford Catering. Eat Cake. Larry’s Limo Service. Photographs and Memories. Enchanted Garden Floral Designs. They do a little business outside of Around the Bend and Firefly Hall but not enough to keep them going. And there are many more that would be iffy without us.” She hit another key and about twenty of the buildings turned blue. “These would suffer. Some would make it without us, others not. These are people with families. They have homes with mortgages that they entered into in good faith.”
    Jackson wanted to throw up. He wanted to tell her she was lying but he knew she wasn’t.
    “I’ll give them money. I’ve got money. More than I’ll ever spend. I’ll give Christian money. The quilt people. I’ll pay for them to go to—well, wherever there are a lot of quilts. Quilt World. Let them take the knitters with them. Hell. I will pay you
a million dollars
if you’ll take them there and keep them there!”
    As Emory’s eyes grew larger and larger, Jackson realized that his reasonable, modulated voice had grown decibel by decibel until he was screaming—screaming like a little girl who’d seen a snake.
    They were silent for a moment. Then she reached out and placed one of her little hands on his wrist over his braided leather bracelet.
    “Jackson, honey. You cannot support an entire town for the rest of your life.”
    “You’d be surprised.” Not only had he made an obscene amount of money, he had invested well. He’d destroyed what had once been a happy family and he would be damned if he would ever see his brothers want for a single thing.
    “These people don’t want your money. Neither do I. They just want to do the work they love and make a living at it, just like you do.”
    But he couldn’t do his work anymore—didn’t want to. The price was too high.
    “Why didn’t you try to make your case right after Amelia’s funeral when I first told you to start closing down the business?” Jackson asked.
    Emory shook her head. “You didn’t tell me until you practically had one foot out the door, and neither one of us was in any state of mind for a debate.”
    He couldn’t argue with that.
    “Look, you’ve been through a lot these last few weeks—” she said, and would have gone on.
    “No.” Without intending to, he pressed a finger to her lips to silence her. Her mouth was soft and her skin was warm.
    She kept talking anyway, her lips whispering against his fingers. “I get that you want to be alone. I understand more than you know—just wanting to get to a place where there isn’t anybody else.”
    He drew his hand away and opened his mouth to tell her that she had
no
idea but there was something in her eyes that told him she
did
know. On another day he might have asked her what had happened but if she told him a secret, she might expect one in return.
    She left her hand on his wrist. He didn’t like what that was buying her.
    “Truth is, you’ll be leaving soon,” Emory said.
    “You don’t know what I’m going to do.” How could she, when he didn’t?
    “I do.” She nodded. “You think you want to hole up here and lick your wounds. And maybe you will for a while. But in the end, you’ll go back out there. What’s going on here won’t matter one bit to you. I can’t let you ruin all