Believe Me (Hearts for Ransom Book 3)

by Evans, Georgia A

  “Logan picked him up at Trimble’s on the night they had to have been talking about. He found him sitting at a table pouring his drunken heart out to an off-duty waitress, who was thoughtful enough to sit and listen until Logan got there to pick Mason up.” There was an earnest expression on Emily’s face.

  It still didn’t change anything from Claire’s perspective. “I still don’t understand what this has to do with me.”

  “Please.” Emily looked like she was about to cry. “I feel terrible. Jan Daniels and I both have strong reason to dislike Trimble’s, and I’m sorry, but women there have bad reputations. The one with Mason that night didn’t do anything wrong, as far as I know. In fact, it seems like she must be a very caring person. She made sure Mason didn’t try to drive himself home when I’m sure she had somewhere else she’d rather have been. Then she visited him at the hospital.”

  “That’s all well and good, but—”

  “I think you and I were both too quick to judge that woman just because of how she looks and where Logan met her.”

  “She works at Trimble’s.” Claire kept her voice level. “You, yourself just said what women there are like.”

  “But, Claire.” Emily’s lovely eyes glistened. “Neither one of us knows why she works at Trimble’s, or what kind of woman she really is.”

  “Emily,” Claire said firmly. “They were talking about Mason showing her a good time.”

  Emily shook her head. “Logan said, as drunk as Mason was, the only good time he would have been able to show anybody that night was the time it took for Logan to pick Mason up and haul him out of there.”

  Claire still wasn’t altogether convinced of Mason’s innocence. “I just don’t know.”

  “Well, I do,” Emily declared. “I’m going to go see Mason at the hospital right after this party and tell him I’m sorry. It’s Thanksgiving, and as far as I know, he’s alone, eating hospital food.”

  “Excuse me, Claire,” Stan said from directly behind her. “We’re sorry, but it’s time for you to check your tables.”

  “I have to go,” she told Emily, relieved this discussion was over.

  “Promise to at least think about my explanation; it’s the truth,” Emily asked. “Give Mason another chance to see Zoey.”

  Claire didn’t know if she was telling the truth or not when she answered “I’ll think about it” before she walked back to the door.

  The turkey wasn’t half bad, and at least they’d given Mason enough food to satisfy his appetite. He still felt uncomfortable when the nurse cut his food for him, but he just couldn’t quite manage that for himself with only one functional arm. At least she hadn’t tied a little bib around his neck and patted him on the head like he’d seen parents do to their children in restaurants.

  “Knock, knock.” A hand on the end of a long arm stuck through a crack in Mason’s door, a store-bought pie balanced in it. Jesse Rogers’ usual grin was in place as he opened the door the rest of the way and walked into the room.

  “Happy Thanksgiving.” His big, friendly grin accompanied the greeting.

  “You, too,” Mason returned. “What are you doing here, Jesse? Shouldn’t you be at home with your family in Illinois?”

  Jesse set the pie on the windowsill and shrugged his coat off before placing it on the back of a chair. “Matt’s havin’ a big sale tomorrow.” He was referring to Matt Newman, the owner of a hardware store, and also the Slammers’ center fielder. “He needs as many of us as possible to be there. I’ll be goin’ home for Christmas, so I decided to stick around and work this weekend.”

  The door opened, and a nurse carried a tray into the room.

  Jesse walked over and thanked her profusely as he accepted it.

  “What—” Mason’s thoughts escaped him as he watched his friend. Jesse placed his tray on the windowsill and then arranged each item on the small table as though he were a waiter at a fine dining establishment. When he finished, he carefully situated the chair and sat down.

  “What on earth are you doing?” Mason finally asked, as Jesse gracefully scooted his chair close to the table.

  Jesse shrugged. “I figured the hospital food was bound to be better than anything I could fix for myself, so I decided to eat with you.” He took the lid off his plate and began to cut up his turkey.

  Maybe Jesse always practiced such precise table manners, but Mason didn’t recall seeing them. He decided it didn’t matter to him if Jesse sat on the floor and ate off his chair; his friend was there.

  Shoving back the unmanly urge to cry, Mason scooped a forkful of mashed potatoes and crammed it into his mouth. “You’re my first official visitor since they moved me,” he told Jesse between bites of food. “What do you think of my new place?” Other than a couple of extra chairs for visitors and a second table, which Jesse was currently eating at, it still looked like a hospital room.

  Jesse looked around. “It could be worse.” His green eyes clouded with concern. “How are you doin’, Mason? Can you get yourself around in that chair?”

  “Only if I want to go in a circle.” Mason tried very hard not to sound grumpy, but his immobility frustrated him. “I didn’t realize how much I used my left arm until I’ve had to do without it.”

  “Emily told us the doc said you might only have that cast on your arm for three weeks.” Jesse was uncharacteristically sober. “We all went and looked at your Charger. You’re a mighty lucky man, Mason.”

  “So I’ve heard.” Mason knew he shouldn’t complain—that he could have come out of the accident much worse off—but sometimes it was tough not to. “Jesse, it was hard to really tell anything from what they had in the paper. Do you think you could take some pictures of my car and bring them in sometime? Maybe if I saw it for myself, it would help me appreciate this a little more.”

  Jesse nodded. “I can do that.”

  Mason wanted to change the subject. He set his fork down and rubbed his chin. “How do you like my new look?”

  Jesse gave him an appraising perusal before answering. “I think you look younger without your beard.”

  Mason chuckled. “That’s exactly what I tried to tell the Taylor’s crew when they were here the other day.”

  Jesse swallowed the bite of potatoes he’d put in his mouth. “So, that’s where the teddy bear and balloons came from.” His grin widened again. “Couldn’t Bo find a balloon that said ‘This bites’?”

  “He tried,” Mason told him, sharing in Jesse’s laughter.

  A knock sounded at the door.

  “They might be here for our trays already,” Mason said before calling, “Come in.”

  Betsy Weller walked in, a pie in her hands.

  “I guess I don’t have to worry about going without pie today,” Mason observed. He was relieved to see that Emily’s tirade hadn’t driven his newest friend permanently away.

  “I beg your pardon?” she softly asked, a confused look on her face.

  Mason gestured toward the pie Jesse had left on the windowsill. When Betsy looked over, she evidently noticed Jesse for the first time. Her face turned beet red.

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I didn’t realize you had company. I was just on my way to sit with my mom for a while, so I thought I’d stop by.” She self-consciously placed the pie she held on the table nearest her.

  “That’s okay.” Mason nodded at Jesse. “That guy is Jesse Rogers. He’s one of my buddies. Jesse, this is my friend Betsy Weller.”

  He watched as Betsy said “Hello” to the floor, and Jesse did a good imitation of a goldfish, his mouth soundlessly opening and closing. What was the matter with them?

  “I can’t stay,” Betsy murmured. “I need to see Mom.” She glanced in Jesse’s general direction, and slightly raised her voice. “It was nice to meet you.”

  Jesse finally managed to speak. “It was nice to meet me, too.”

  Betsy softly giggled as she turned and left the room.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Mason
asked his friend as soon as the door was closed. “You’re acting like Andy.” Andy Davidson was Colton’s “little brother,” and as sweet as the kid was, he just didn’t have a whole lot going on upstairs.

  Jesse was back to his goldfish routine again. “Who was that?” he finally managed to ask.

  “Her name is Betsy Weller.” Hadn’t he just introduced her to him? Then he realized why she had this effect on Jesse. “Don’t get the wrong idea about her.”

  Jesse looked at Mason, confusion all over his face. “You don’t think she’s pretty? Or nice? I wouldn’t mind havin’ a friendly girl like that to take home to meet my parents. She kinda reminds me of my mom.”

  Since the Rogers family couldn’t leave their Illinois hog farm long enough to visit Jesse, Mason hadn’t seen them with his own eyes…but looking at his red-haired, lanky friend, he found that hard to believe. “What does your mom look like?”

  Jesse stood up and pulled a wallet out of his jeans pocket. He walked over and held it out so Mason could see the photograph.

  Mason was glad the rails were up on his bed because he was so shocked he just might have rolled right off. Jesse was a younger duplicate of his father, but his mother—with her blonde hair and that figure—could have been a Playboy bunny. And it looked like Jesse had a younger sister following in her mother’s footsteps.

  “Wow.” Mason couldn’t stop himself.

  Jesse looked at the picture. “What?” He frowned as he studied it. “Do you think there’s somethin’ wrong with my family?”

  Mason couldn’t help but laugh. “You have a very nice looking family, Jesse. I’d be proud of them if they were mine, too.”

  Jesse grinned, still looking at the picture. “Thank you.”

  Mason watched as his friend returned to what was left of his meal. He refused to think about his own family. No. That was a door better left closed. The only family he was concerned with was Zoey.

  He was calling Brody first thing in the morning.

  Claire leaned over to pick Zoey’s plastic keys up from the floor and put them back on the high chair tray, thankful for a valid reason to avoid looking at Judy’s brother. The man sitting across the table from her could pass for Mason Wright’s twin brother. It was strange because there was absolutely no resemblance between the rest of the Dyers and Mason. But with that dark hair and those brown eyes…

  And she knew she wasn’t having some sort of breakdown, because when Claire arrived at the Dyers’ for dinner, the first words out of Spencer’s mouth had been, “This is Bryan, Mom. He looks just like Mason, doesn’t he?”

  She found it rather disconcerting to sit at the table with a man who so closely resembled the father of her child. And it didn’t help when every time she glanced at him, his eyes were glued to her.

  “So, Claire, you work with Judy?” he asked. At least he didn’t sound like Mason. His voice wasn’t as deep.

  “Yes.” She tried to remember her manners. “And you just returned from Iraq?”

  “Yeah.” His mouth curved into Mason Wright’s smile. No—she had to stop thinking like that. “I finally decided I’m not cut out to be in the military for the rest of my life. I’m ready for some regular civilian living.”

  “Tell her what you’re planning on doing,” Louise urged her son.

  “I got plenty of practice working on vehicles while I was in the service,” he said. “I’ve already applied at several garages here in town. A couple of them acted interested in hiring me.” He reached over and patted his mother’s arm. “I won’t be moochin’ off Mom any longer than I have to.”

  “You’re not mooching.” Louise’s frown was diminished greatly by her twinkling eyes. “I told you it wasn’t necessary to pay anything, but you’ve already bought a truckload of groceries.”

  “I’m either paying my share, Mom,” he said solemnly, “or I’ll pay you rent.”

  His mother looked at his face and must have seen an expression she was familiar with. “Okay.”

  “Mom, remember when Bryan ate that whole bag of cookies?” Judy was obviously trying to lighten the mood.

  Louise seemed immediately caught up in the memory as she turned to Claire. “Judy thought she was giving her secret pal at church a nice Christmas present by putting a bag of cookies in a cookie jar before she wrapped it.” She sent an amused glance toward her son. “When her friend opened it, the cookie jar was empty. It wasn’t until I found the empty bag in the trash can and Bryan complained of a stomach ache, that I figured out he’d helped himself to a snack before she wrapped it.”

  Claire smiled as the Dyers laughed. Louise brought up another memory, and the three of them were soon caught up in reminiscing. Spencer seemed interested, commenting once in a while, and she just listened. It wasn’t long until empty plates were in front of everybody.

  “Let me help with dishes,” Claire offered once they were all finished eating.

  Judy scoffed. “You’ve been on your feet all day.”

  “Please let me,” Claire requested. “It’s the least I can do to repay you for a wonderful Thanksgiving day.”

  “Okay.” Judy’s sigh told Claire she still wasn’t very happy with the idea.

  A little while later, Claire found herself washing dishes while Judy dried and put them away.

  “So, how did Butlers’ first big catering gig go?” Judy asked.

  Now that it was over, Claire was glad she signed up for the banquet. “It was hard work, but with what I made and tip the hospital administrator gave each of us, I have just enough money to buy Spence a laptop for Christmas.”

  “That’s great,” Judy enthused, and then she sobered. “Claire, you can tell me it’s none of my business, but why isn’t Spencer’s dad helping you? I mean he should at least be paying child support, shouldn’t he?”

  Claire shook her head. “He’s not in our lives…in Spencer’s life…in any manner.”

  “Why not?”

  Claire had never shared her story with another human being before. It would be nice to have a friend to open up to—maybe understand what she’d gone through. She and Judy had been friends for almost fourteen years, so if she were going to trust anybody, it would be her.

  She looked around to make sure everybody else was still occupied. Louise, barely visible through the kitchen door, was sitting in the living room playing with Zoey. Spence and Bryan had planted themselves in front of the television to watch a football game. She and Judy were alone.

  “Spence can never know this.” She kept her voice low.

  Judy solemnly shook her head. “I won’t tell a soul.”

  Claire took a deep breath and dredged up a past she sometimes couldn’t believe was hers.

  “I was fifteen, the same age Spence is now. My parents were very strict. It was my way or the highway, and they really meant it.”

  “Oh, no,” Judy softly whispered.

  Claire nodded. “I wanted so much to be like others my age, running around, dating…And this one boy—every girl in school liked him, and I thought the sun rose and set on him. If he were my boyfriend, I would be accepted. But he was a senior, and way too important to ever notice me.”

  This was more painful to talk about than Claire anticipated. She dug deep in her heart for courage and forged ahead. “Then one night, I finally had permission from my parents to attend a school party. It was a fall festival, after dark, with hayrides, a bonfire, and…a straw maze.” She smiled tremulously. “That night, I felt so good. I was just like the other kids. And when that special boy actually started talking to me, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. He was good. He knew all the right things to say.”

  Judy stopped drying dishes and, with her face full of compassion, looked at Claire.

  “I thought we were going into the maze so he could kiss me. It would have been my first one. But once we were in the maze and found a dark corner, he did way more than kiss me. And I was stupid. I thought if I let him do that, he’d have to love me.”

&nbs
p; “I’m sorry,” Judy whispered.

  Claire continued. “It …hurt. After he was done, he got up and left me there. He just walked away without a word. I was so humiliated. I got lost trying to find my way out, and when I finally made it, my dad was there to pick me up. It was my curfew. When I walked past the boy, he didn’t even look at me. He was standing there with his arm around another girl, talking to his friends.”

  Judy put her hand on Claire’s shoulder. “I know he was a teenager himself, but how can any human being use another person like that?”

  Claire had asked herself that question too many times to count. “I don’t know, but I’ve let it happen to me twice now.”

  “Does Spencer’s dad know about him?”

  Claire laughed humorlessly. “He said there was no way my baby was his. As easy as I’d been, I probably slept with half the guys in school after he broke me in. He didn’t want anything to do with me or my baby.”

  There was trepidation in Judy’s voice when she asked, “And your parents?”

  “My way or the highway, remember?” Claire mentally stiffened her spine. “I had already shamed them with my promiscuity, as they referred to it, but they weren’t going to stand for me shaming them by being an unwed mother and living with my baby in their house. They gave me a choice. I could either put my baby up for adoption, or they would disown me.” In her eyes, there had never been a choice; she would never give up her own child. “I left. I was declared an emancipated minor. Then I worked as much as I could, but I still had to depend on welfare to help us.” She met Judy’s eyes. “I took care of Spencer and myself. Now, we’re not rich, but I manage to keep a roof over our heads, clothes on our backs, and food on the table…without any man helping me.”

  Judy silently set her towel down and put her arms around Claire’s shoulders. “Spencer and Zoey are lucky to have you as a mom. Nobody could ever love their children more than you love yours.”

  “I love them more than anything else in this world, and I would do anything for them. They’re my life.”

  “I know they are.” Judy tightened her arm for just a moment before releasing Claire. “Thank you for trusting me enough to share that with me. I hope you know if you ever need to talk about Zoey’s father, I’ll listen. Just know I’m here for you.”