Somewhere Between Luck and Trust by Emilie Richards Page A

liked?”
    “I don’t have any plans to move back, no.”
    “And the baby? He’s doing all right with your cousin?”
    Jackson knew everything, and he was here to make that clear. Where she lived. Where their son lived. Who was taking care of him.
    She steeled herself. “He’s doing fine. You met my cousin’s husband. You know Wayne’ll make sure the baby’s got everything he needs.”
    “A good choice, I’d say. Considering you had so few, what with you going to prison for all those months. Were you glad it was a boy?”
    She shrugged.
    “Michael—that’s a good name. You have my vote on that one.”
    She took a deep, shaky breath. “You should go, Jackson. The storm’s only going to get worse, and you know how treacherous mountain roads can be.”
    “Oh, I’m in no hurry. I’ve been driving roads like these my whole life.”
    He moved closer as he spoke. She was glad the table was between them, except that she knew it wouldn’t help if Jackson lunged.
    “What do you really want?” She was surprised there was only the faintest tremor in her voice. “You know if you try anything, you’ll be the first person they suspect. Everybody knows our history. Even you can’t cover up everything you do like it never happened.”
    He stopped at the table’s edge. “I don’t know why you’d say something like that. Me? I’m an open book. It still hurts that you tried to frame me for stealing that ring. You got caught with it, and what did you do? You blamed it on the man who’d been thinking about buying it for you. Did you have time to think about that while you were in prison? Did you wonder if I would have stood by you if you hadn’t told those cops who grabbed you in the parking lot that I was the one who dropped the ring in your shopping bag?”
    The scene hadn’t happened that way. At first Cristy hadn’t even considered that Jackson had put the ring in her bag. She’d been sure it was an accident, that someone had unknowingly brushed it off the counter, and it had fallen into the shopping bag filled with socks and dish towels from the Dollar General. Then, when that had seemed like too much of a stretch, she’d blamed the incident on the sales clerk, who must have hidden the ring there for some dark reason of his own. Later, though, with nothing but time to face everything that had happened, she had realized how hard that would have been for the clerk, how nearly impossible from his side of the wide display case.
    Only then, sometime later in her first full day in jail, had she finally faced the truth. And only after a sleepless night had she realized that she had to tell the truth to everybody who would listen.
    Jackson had never intended to marry her, even though he’d known she was carrying his child—something she had tearfully told him the previous morning. He had taken her to the jewelry store to look at rings, and then he had used her enthusiasm against her. While she had been trying on one ring, he had swept another off the counter, then easily slipped it into the bag she carried, since he was standing right beside her. He had wanted his pregnant girlfriend out of his life.
    And now, months later, she finally understood all the terrible reasons why.
    Her hand closed over the flashlight she’d set beside her. As a weapon it was probably useless, but the barrel was something to grip and steady her.
    “There’s nobody here to hear this conversation except us,” she said. “We both know what happened. But it’s over. I’ve paid the price and it’s behind me.”
    “It just confounds me, that’s all. After everything we were to each other, that you could do something like that...” He shook his head slowly. “And now I have to ask myself how I could make so many big mistakes choosing my friends. You, Kenny...” He shook his head again, as if he really couldn’t believe he had ever been such a fool.
    Cristy knew better than to respond, but her hands began to shake. That he would