by Lisa Jackson
“I never would have left you, Laurel.” He cupped my face with his hand.
“Josh, I am so sorry.”
“I am, too, Laurel. I should have fought harder for you.”
“No, you did all you could.” He had called and e-mailed. He had tried to heal us. I wasn’t healable.
He leaned over and kissed me and I kissed him back. It did not take long for things to get heated. He stood up, pulled me into his arms, and we ended up on my bed in my pink bedroom, me on top, then him on top of me, and one time we rolled right off the bed, which made both of us laugh until we cried.
We climbed back onto the bed, Josh pulling me close, and we made love as if there hadn’t been twelve years between us, and miles of pain and grief. I completely lost my little ol’ mind. All I could feel, taste, and hear was Josh.
He had always been an inventive, creative lover, and he outdid himself, as usual. It was like being thrown off a sex cliff.
“I’m glad I don’t have to crawl out the window,” Josh said, kissing me. “It’s cold out there.”
“Me, too, Josh. Me, too.”
I fell asleep in his arms, woke up in his arms, and we made love again, that bright Montana moon shining through.
We smiled at each other and snuggled back in again.
Josh left for work after sitting down and eating scrambled eggs and bacon with my mother, aunt, and me. They fluttered and flittered and declared me a “liberated woman” who had chosen a “fine man who will embrace your independence and life’s goals.”
Josh gave my aunt and mother a hug before he left, kissed me full on the mouth, then picked me up off my feet and gave me a huge hug and another kiss.
My mother and aunt laughed and clapped and said, “A feminist still appreciates romance,” and “equal rights, equal love.” My mother pointed to our Valentine’s Christmas tree. “See? Love.”
They waved enthusiastically at him from the porch. “Come again!” they called out. “You’re always welcome, Josh,” and “We have an apron here for you!”
I handed him a box of Christmas cookies.
I knew what it meant to him.
My cell phone rang. It was Ace Hellfire, real name Peter Watson, son of a pastor, and my former boss.
“Merry Christmas, Laurel.” He was snuffling. “I bet you’ve reconsidered and will come back and work for me next year . . .”
“I haven’t, Ace. I’m so sorry.” We talked, he did some more begging. I thanked him again for the champagne and the gold Christmas tree and asked how his panic attacks were. “Where is Scotty?”
“He’s here. We both miss you.”
Scotty Stanford, devilish, outrageous, long-haired bass player, and Ace’s partner, unbeknownst to their millions of fans, grabbed the phone and whispered, “Crimeny. He’s a total mess, Laurel.”
“I know.”
“We’re both wearing your aprons. The ones with the apples. Red and green. We’re making pies.”
My mother and aunt make Hellfire about fifty aprons a year to give out as gifts. Ace puts bonus checks in the pockets for the employees.
Ace Hellfire, hard-core rocker, infamous for his onstage antics, and off-stage hell-raising, was the most domesticated man I knew. His image of an out-of-control, law-breaking rebel was only that—an image that we cultivated, as we did with Scotty, who had read almost every classic ever written. Favorite: Pride and Prejudice.
They loved to cook and bake and garden. Ace and Scotty both periodically call my aunt and mother for recipes.
“Could you please put your mother on the phone, Laurel?” Ace grumbled. “I’m having a terrible time with my meringue.”
“Here ya go, honey. These are the papers for your house and the five acres,” Josh said. We were at his house, in front of his fireplace, after eating the mushroom and avocado hamburgers he’d made.
Before he flipped the burgers, we took a tumble in his bed. I’d walked in, he’d smiled, I’d smiled, he’d kissed me, I set the banana butterscotch cream pie I’d made on the floor, and we headed to his comfy bed with the blue heron carved in the headboard.
We’d finally eaten. It was late by then.
“Sign on the line and we’re done, Laurel. Thank you for the ten dates.”
I laughed, leaned over, and kissed him. “You’re welcome. Thank you.”
I took the papers from Josh. Much of it was in legalese, but I saw the price of the house and the land.
“You’re kidding me,” I said. I felt about twenty emotions hit at once, all colliding and crashing into each other.
“No, I’m not.”
“We agreed on the price for the house and five acres. Your cost plus fifteen percent.”
“I changed my mind,” Josh said, his tone unbending.
“I will pay you what I told you I would pay.” I tossed the contract back to him. “Write up a new contract.”
“No.”
“You’re making me feel like a hooker. I sleep with you and you do this?”
“You are no hooker, Laurel. You slept with me because we both wanted to.”
“This makes me feel like it.” My voice rose.
“I didn’t mean to make you feel like a hooker. We had a deal. Ten dates. You met the deal.”
“Did you read the numbers you have on this contract? I sleep with you and I get this?” I flung my hand out. “I hope it was worth it.”
“It was worth it, Laurel. But that’s not why I wrote the contract up as I did.”
“Why did you?”
“Because it’s your land and your family’s home. It’s your legacy. I should have called you before I bought it from your aunt and mother. I assumed you knew what they were doing, and I shouldn’t have assumed that and I’m sorry.”
I stalked over to my purse, whipped out my checkbook, and wrote a check for the initial amount. I gave it to him. He wouldn’t take it. “Take it, Josh.”
“No.”
I slammed it on the table. “I won’t sign that contract then.”
“Then you don’t get the house and the five acres.”
“I don’t like that . . . that . . . tone of yours.”
“What tone? The one that says you’re not getting your way? Why are you so stubborn?”
“Because I am, Josh. I am not going to take this from you. I don’t want to owe you. I don’t want to feel like I’m indebted to you. I don’t need this hanging over my head whenever I see you.”
“You’re not indebted to me—”
“Yes, I am—”
“It’s a business deal.”
“It’s a rip-off.”
“The house and land is yours. How is that a rip-off?”
“It’s yours until you take my check.”
I would not be controlled in any way by a man, and this smacked to me of control. I was independent, I worked, I made money, I saved money, I would pay for the house and land at our agreed-upon fair price—whether or not I’d stripped and popped into bed with him.
We argued, and I ended up grabbing my faux cheetah purse and my silver jacket and stalking out of his house.
I heard him swear once, then yell, “Laurel—” He followed me out.
“Call me when you can agree to what we already agreed upon.”
“What the hell are you doing? Are you going to run again? Shut me out?”
“Maybe, Josh,” I shouted back. “I haven’t decided yet because you’ve ticked me off.” I ignored a little voice in my head that said, yes, I was running, again. “We don’t need to talk until you change that contract.”
“Fine.” The blond King Kong stalked after me through the snow. “We won’t talk. Come back in and we’ll eat the pie in silence.”
“Not funny, Josh.”
“We can have breakfast in silence, too.”
“You can have breakfast in silence by yourself or you can talk to one of your elks.”
“I want to have breakfast with you, Laurel. It’s a gift. Take it as a gift.”
&nbs
p; “I don’t want any of your gifts, Josh. There are too many strings attached.”
“There are no strings.”
I turned my car around in his driveway, visions of that contract dancing through my head. I was furious. What did he think I was, some weak damsel in distress? Some helpless woman?
$1.00.
That was the amount that Josh wanted for five acres and a house.
$1.00.
“Drive careful,” I heard him shout.
I was so steaming mad I hit my steering wheel with both hands and said a bad word. Was he trying to buy me with that? Make me everlastingly grateful? I wanted an equal relationship, not this.
Dates and sex for a house and land, from a wealthy man, that was how it felt to me, and I did not like that one bit.
I fell into a dark pit, like I had the first time I lost Josh. I was surrounded by our odd Christmas trees with four-leaf clovers and feminist sayings, Gary the Christmas frog, the wicked witch on the gingerbread house, and Christmas aprons, but I was not in the Christmas spirit.
Every day was worse than the last. The despair didn’t swirl; it settled in.
I couldn’t sleep. I’d get up at night and wander the house, hold Zelda the screecher on my lap, or pat the dogs. I’d watch the snowflakes fall and get lost in them.
Josh did not call, e-mail, or come by.
Camellia and Violet and their kids visited, as they often did, and I could hardly speak. Camellia and Violet hugged me tight when I brokenly told them Josh and I weren’t dating anymore. Aspen, Oakie, and Redwood, visited, too, and were later arrested for pushing the car of the mayor, an unpopular man, to the middle of a city park and dropping a toilet on the hood. My father came by to talk. He patted my hand, the left side of his smile tilted up. “Go to Josh,” he told me, as he’d told me years before.
I called the bank. Josh cashed my check. I knew he did it for me, not him.
I thought about my own fears, my guilt, my pretty strong commitment and abandonment phobias, and the running I’d done. I thought about Josh. I was crushed by what I’d done to him in the past, and now.
My mother and aunt had some honest, blunt words for me, in the midst of me beating myself up.
“A strong woman knows when she has to put her fears aside to grow. . . .” And, “Courageous women understand that life is not always going to be perfect, but they grab the perfect man when they find him.” Finally, “You love him. He loves you. Go get him.”
I had been a scared, untrusting, guilt-ridden fool.
“I need you to stop running, Laurel.”
“I’m not running anymore, Josh.” I leaned against his kitchen counter, my hands trembling. “I’m sorry I did. I truly am, Josh.”
“You pushed me out of your life.” Josh’s jaw was clenched. “Again. Why can’t you talk to me?”
“I will. I am. I should have before.” My knees started to tremble, too. “You gave me the house and five acres for a dollar. I told you I would pay full price. Why did you do that?”
“Because I love you, Laurel.” He was angry, and frustrated. “It’s that simple. I wanted you to have your house and your land.”
“You love me? After all this, all we’ve been through?”
“Yes. I have loved you since we met when we were sixteen. I will always love you.” He looked miserable. Resigned. “We went off on separate paths for many long years.”
“Many long, lonely years,” I said.
“Yes. Many long, lonely years.” His broad, huggable shoulders bent, as if he’d about had it, and I thought I would cry.
“Laurel.” Those tired green eyes met mine. “I want to be with you forever. I will never leave you, I will never abandon you, but I need to know what you want. I can’t go on as we are. I can’t handle being in a relationship with you, making love to you, laughing and talking with you, holding you, and then have you run off, or have you push me away and out of your life for years on end. You’re in or you’re out. We work things through or we quit. We’re a couple, or we’re not.”
“I’m in.”
“You are?”
“Yes,” my voice broke. “I am so in, Josh.”
“I’m glad to hear that, honey.” He looked away, blinked rapidly, then back to me. “I wanted to give you the five acres and the house as a gift. I never meant to insult you. I never meant it as a control type of issue. I never meant for you to think you were being paid to sleep with me. I never wanted to hold it over your head. I wanted you to have it because I love you and you love the house and the land.”
“I understand. I do. I’m sorry, Josh. I overreacted. I ran, again. I shut you out, again. I feel terrible about it.” I told him what I had been thinking about the past days, the tears I’d cried, the hopelessness, the harsh realizations about myself, and how I wanted to start over with him, this time, for forever, if that was what he wanted. “I love you, Josh, and I am so, so sorry. I could not be more sorry than I am.”
Those bright green eyes filled with tears, like my gold ones.
“I have missed you every single day for twelve years, Josh. I tried so hard to not think about you and all we had and all I’d lost. I flew all over the world to forget about you and it never worked. You followed me everywhere in my head.”
“It’s been the same for me, sweetheart. It’s always been you.”
“By the way, I’ve already quit Hellfire.”
“You have?”
“Yes.” I told him how I’d had to quit, my brain too fried, my soul too tired. I stepped forward, he stepped forward, and I wrapped my arms around his neck. “I’m a head case. I know it. But what I know even more is that I want to be with you every day. I want you. I need you. I love you. I can’t be happy without you.”
“I’m not happy without you, either, Laurel. You are not a head case. You’re thoughtful, interesting, fun, smart, and funny. You make the best cookies. How about if we start over for the last time?”
“That’ll work for me, cowboy.”
“For me, too, cowgirl, for me, too.”
His mouth came down on mine.
He is delicious.
Chapter 9
The Kelly Family’s Chaotic Christmas Eve began in the light green farmhouse my great-granddad and grandma built. My mother had the hot buttered rums ready.
Aunt Amy brought her momma’s hash and onion casserole and meat-loaf balls. The scent of the hash and onion casserole about knocked me over, but my smile did not waver when she kissed me and said, “Merry Christmas to my third daughter. I love you.”
Her husband, the former boxer, Richard Longer, hugged me, too, then whispered, “Sorry about the casserole. Trust me, it smelled worse at home, like a dead rodent.”
A truck roared up the drive, way too fast. I saw Oakie at the wheel. He stuck his head out and yelled, “Sister! We comin’ to you, girl! We comin’!”
My two other half brothers, Aspen and Redwood, sons of my father and Chantrea, were in the back of the truck. As the truck slowed, they both stood up and waved, each of them with a six-pack of beer in their hands. “Merry happy beer Christmas!”
Oh, they were trouble. Oh, how I loved them. They leaped out of the truck and hugged me, then because they are big and strong and funny, they lifted me up in the air horizontally, and walked me back into the house like a Cleopatra queen. I would have objected but I was laughing too hard.
When they set me down in the family room, everyone was laughing.
“Okay, okay,” Aspen said. He has a mop of black hair and spends most of his time on the ski slopes. He has a tattoo of a Taz-manian devil on one arm. “We’ve got a song.”
“It’s for you, Dick Longer,” Oakie said, running a hand over his mohawk. He, too, spends most of his time on the slopes. One of his tattoos is a pair of handcuffs. He’d told me it was to remind him to stay out of trouble. “We been workin’ on it.”
“This year, we have a melody,” Redwood said. He is the third black-haired ski bum. He recently got a tatto
o of a leopard on skis. “You know, like a symphony or a rock concert.”
All of them have a tattoo on their right arm that says, “Kelly,” and “Three brothers.”
The girls are crazy about them, their tattoos, ski bum-ness, and their piercings.
“No,” Aunt Amy said. “No singing.”
Richard stood up, bull-like chest out, and said, “You can sing the song, and then we’ll go for a round in the backyard. Three minutes each?”
We all knew what Boxing Richard meant.
“Hmmm.” Oakie put his fist under his chin. “That doesn’t sound pleasant. Sing a song, then I get my pretty nose bashed in.”
Aspen swallowed hard. “With you being a boxer, it does appear that the outcome would be poor for me.”
Redwood said, “I can’t let you hit me, because then I’ll get a black eye and it’ll turn the girls on too much. You know, bad boy gone badder. They like that.”
“We have a decision then,” Richard said. “Let’s forget about the song and all sit down and have a beer.”
The boys cheered and tossed him one.
My mother and Aunt Emma and Aunt Amy sighed with relief.
We were distracted when Camellia and Violet burst in with their husbands and Camellia’s two vampire boys and Violet’s two girls who keep getting expelled from preschool. I went straight up to hug them. The vampire boys were actually wearing vampire teeth.
“I like your teeth,” I said to them.
“Mommy said we wear the teef until we no bite the peoples anymore,” Tad said.
“I a biter so now the teef stop me,” Teddy said.
“It’s best not to bite people,” I said, hugging them. “They might bite back.”
Tad’s eyes grew huge in his cute face. “That ouch.”
“I don’t yike that,” Teddy echoed. “No teef bite.”
I hugged Violet’s girls, Shandry and Lizzy. “How’s preschool?” I asked. Violet sighed. Her husband said, “Who gets expelled from preschool? Our kids. It’s that Kelly Wild Bone. Your side of the family, Laurel.”