At the mention of breakfast, Norton abandoned his human and trotted inside, tail banging the door on the way. Cadore frowned. “What did I do?”
“He never obeys around you because you’re fine with everything he does.” Turning to Ben, she rolled her eyes as if they’d had the conversation a hundred times before. “Kids and dogs. What can you do with either of them?”
Cadore made a face behind her back, looking remarkably like Norton, showing more than a few teeth. Ben definitely wasn’t jealous of this guy. He and Patricia were a much better match than she and Ben ever were.
* * *
Wednesday, like every other day in Jessy’s life, had come too damn soon and couldn’t be over fast enough. She’d awakened out of sorts and stayed that way all day. She went to the store and actually came home with groceries this time—fresh stuff, healthy stuff, stuff that promised to aid her digestion, ease bloating, clear her complexion, and protect her from all the nasty illnesses out there. She had even fixed lunch—a fish fillet, steamed green beans, and a salad with low-fat, low-calorie, no-taste dressing—and thought that a future of such meals was no great incentive to actively work at prolonging her days.
What she needed was something to do. Maybe she would join the gym where Fia worked as a personal trainer, though the thought of lifting weights and sweating was enough to make her retreat to bed with a box of chocolates.
Maybe she should get a job. Not that she was qualified for anything besides being an account rep at the bank where she’d been fired or waiting tables. She loved servers—had her favorites at every restaurant where she routinely dined and tipped them well—but she’d already proven she wasn’t exactly qualified for getting along with difficult customers.
If she could cook like Lucy, she could open her own restaurant and hire someone to be nice. If she had wicked math skills like Marti, or was a great motivator like Fia or people friendly like Ilena, or liked kids like Carly and Therese…
Everyone was good at something. What was Jessy’s talent?
Drinking and sleeping around and acting like none of it mattered and feeling guilty and wishing she could change something, anything, everything about herself.
Jeez, the only job she was qualified for was being mistress to a married man.
When the only man who interested her in the slightest was widowed.
The man who would be here before long to take her to dinner. The thought made her hands tremble just a touch.
Was that why she’d been edgy all day? Was she nervous about this dinner date? Ridiculous. She’d started dating when she was fourteen, and she’d been out with enough men to staff a brigade before she’d met Aaron. She’d broken hearts all over Atlanta—had never been at a loss for male interest even when she’d worn her wedding ring and her husband had stood right next to her. How could she possibly be nervous?
Because this was her first, honest-to-God date since Aaron. Her first date where she intended to start sober and stay that way. Her first date where she was no longer a carefree girl who sincerely believed a woman could never have too many beaus.
This was her first date as a woman who knew a little about having too many beaus, too many disappointments, too many sorrows, too little self-respect. This was her first date where she wanted to be good.
Too restless to settle down, she went into the bathroom once more to check her reflection in the mirror. She’d gone through her closet twice to figure out what to wear to dinner with a cowboy. He, she knew from living in Tallgrass, would probably wear indigo blue jeans, probably sharply creased, with his good boots, his good hat, and maybe a big flashy rodeo belt buckle if he’d won one when he was younger and more reckless.
Dalton. Reckless. Two words that just didn’t belong in a sentence together.
She’d started with jeans and an incredibly cool pair of red Justin boots, but discarded them as party clothes, not date clothes. Next she’d tried a peacock blue dress, simply cut, snugly fit, one that Dalton had seen her in before and, as she recalled, had shown a moment’s appreciation. But she didn’t want to be reminded of before any more than necessary.
So here she was: in a forest green sheath that skimmed over her curves and covered a significant amount of thigh, with gold hoops in her ears, an expanse of bangles on her right wrist, heels that raised her to average-woman height, her makeup expertly done, and a subtle fragrance perfuming the air around her. She was shooting for a little demure, a little elegant, with a faint hint of sexy. She thought she’d achieved all three, along with hot damn!
Except for that anxious little wrinkle between her eyes.
“God, I need a drink.”
Mouth watering, she checked the clock again. Dalton was due in five minutes—enough time to take a swig of Patrón, rinse her mouth, and reapply her lipstick. But she didn’t move toward the kitchen. Through sheer will, she held herself motionless, swallowing hard, breathing shallowly, staring at her reflection as her nerves wound tighter.
She’d never been so glad to hear the doorbell in her life.
Grabbing her purse and a black sweater, she negotiated the stairs with a fair amount of skill, given the height of her heels, and a mounting sense of…It wasn’t fun enough to be excitement, not ugly enough to be dread. Maybe equal parts anticipation and anxiety. This was a big deal for her, going out on an honest-to-God date. It was a huge deal, going out with a man she’d already slept with. Doing both when she was trying to clean herself up and get good and permanently sober…
Oh, God. Jessy wasn’t much of a praying woman, but if God didn’t mind listening to her, she didn’t mind asking.
She didn’t bother with the peephole, but unlocked the door and pulled it open, an unsteady smile pasted on her face. It slid away, then she quickly recovered it as her guests gave her the once-over. They knew she went out to dinner a lot and to bars on occasion, or so they thought, but somehow they knew this was more than either.
Ilena gave a wolf whistle while Bennie Ford, one of their semi-regular girls, twirled one finger in the air, drawling, “Oh, my, my, my. Miss Jessy has got plans.”
Obeying the silent signal, Jessy turned in a circle, showing the dress’s modest front, the matching back, the heels that had cost her half a month’s salary, then she placed both hands on her hips. “What are you two doing, wandering the streets?”
“I ran into Bennie after work—”
“Both of us grocery shopping—”
“And we decided we’d much rather go out to eat than cook—”
“Amen, sister—”
“So here we are,” Ilena finished expectantly.
Jessy couldn’t help but check the street for any sign of Dalton. Please be late, please let me get rid of them first. Immediately she felt guilty. She didn’t want to get rid of them. She loved them. She just didn’t want them to know about Dalton until she was ready to tell them.
The block, remarkably, was free of pickup trucks, so she looked back at her friends. “So you’re here…Do you expect me to cook for you? Because you guys know, I don’t cook.”
Ilena laughed the lightest, sweetest laugh Jessy had ever heard. With white-blond hair, fair skin, and blue eyes, she looked angelic and sounded it, too. “We know that. We thought maybe you were tired of eating alone, too, and would like to join us. We’re going to Serena’s or maybe Luca’s. We haven’t decided yet.”
“But,” Bennie said, her dark eyes sparkling, “you obviously have plans of your own. Are you keeping secrets from us?”
God, was she ever. Jessy’s gut clenched, but she managed a cocky smile. “What kind of secrets?”
“The man kind. The fall-in-love, get-married, wind-up-like-this kind,” Ilena replied, patting her belly.
Jessy’s expression of horror was sincere. She wasn’t sure she was cut out for falling in love and getting married again, but she damn well knew she wasn’t cut out for bringing babies into the world. She didn’t know what to do with them, how to treat them, how to raise them to not b
e sorry, screwed-up adults like her. “If any man made me wind up like that, I’d cut his thing off. You can have all the babies, Ilena, and I’ll be the best Aunt Jessy ever—from a distance—but my maternal instincts are sadly lacking.”
“My mother’s older sister used to say, ‘If God had intended me to have children, He wouldn’t have given me such an incredible body.’” Bennie laughed and patted her own solid curves.
Striking a pose, Jessy repeated Bennie’s earlier words. “Amen, sister.”
In a singsong voice, Ilena asked, “So if you don’t have a date, what are you all dolled up for?”
“Dinner with Julia, from the bank.” The lie rolled so easily off Jessy’s tongue, so naturally, that she would be disappointed with herself later. When had she become so comfortable with lying that she could do it with her friends without conscious thought?
Maybe back when she’d fallen out of love with Aaron but continued to tell him the words that had become habit, repeated automatically but without the supporting emotion.
“All right, sweetie.” Ilena leaned forward to hug her. “If you want to have dessert later on, you know where to find us. We won’t be hurrying home tonight.”
Yeah, empty houses could be hard to leave but were damn harder to go home to.
“Have fun,” Bennie said, adding her own hug.
Jessy watched them walk away, envying the laughter that drifted back to her on the evening air. She didn’t deserve good friends, but she had them. They made the lack of a family easier to bear, but…She needed more. Someone she could live with, be contented with. Not another person, not a man or a husband or a sex partner.
She needed herself. She needed to be a Jessy she could be happy with. Proud of.
Rather than climb the stairs again, she locked up, then sat on the cast-iron bench a few yards away. The sun was lowering on the horizon, but the heat of the day lingered, radiating through the metal. She loved hot weather—the sun on her skin, the heat absorbing through her shoes into her feet and up through her body, the moisture evaporating from her pores and making her feel lighter, freer, as if she might blow away with the next prairie breeze.
Sometimes she thought if she sat still long enough in the intense Oklahoma sun, every part of her would dry up and slowly turn to stone, the beautiful tan/rusty/brown shades of the native sandstone, a monument to the meaningless person her parents had always told her she would be.
“Damn,” she whispered over the lump in her throat. “Guess I didn’t disappoint you, Mom, Dad. I lived down to every expectation you had and then some.”
She thought about going back upstairs, stripping, and standing in the shower until the water went cold. She thought about walking down the street to Buddy’s and letting every guy in there buy her a drink or three and going home with one of them and to hell with the remorse in the morning. She thought about standing up and walking away—from the apartment, from Tallgrass, from life. She could change her name, dye her hair, make herself into someone she wasn’t because any kind of fraud she could create would be a whole lot better than the real one.
The problem was the real Jessy was always there, always remembering.
Then a pickup pulled to the curb right in front of her, engine idling, droplets from a very recent car wash gleaming in the evening sun as they slowly disappeared. She was about to rise and cross the few feet of sidewalk, but the driver’s door closed with a thunk and Dalton appeared, walking behind the truck and stepping up.
She’d been right about his clothes. His hat was straw, a shade between white and cream, and his shirt was white, button-down, the sleeves folded back to his elbows. The jeans were deep blue, the color unfaded, the fabric unripped, and the hem unfrayed. His boots were polished, his belt stitched brown leather.
Something inside her stilled, caught the breath in her lungs, and held it a moment longer than usual. That something was quiet, calming, and very much needed. It simmered through her, settled her nerves, and let her breathe deeply for the first time all day.
As he stopped just in front of her, she deliberately shifted her gaze to his middle. “No rodeo buckle?”
“No rodeoing. I did enough steer wrestling, roping, and bronc riding in my job. Why would I want to do it for fun?”
“Because girls love a rodeo cowboy?”
His gaze narrowed, and he tugged his hat a little lower over his eyes. “When I was young enough to rodeo, I had a girl. I wasn’t looking for another. But you’re right. She loved a rodeo cowboy.”
Not Sandra, then. Someone else who’d broken his heart? Or just one of many that he’d had fun with in the course of growing up?
She stood, a much better view of him, and watched his gaze skim over her, all the way down to her scarlet toenails. Though he didn’t comment, she knew approval when she saw it. “Where are we going tonight?”
“Wherever you want.” He led the way to the truck, opening the passenger door, watching as she delicately stepped onto the running board, then slid into the seat. Jeez, with half her wardrobe, she wouldn’t have been able to make the steps without showing her prettiest thong to Dalton and anyone else within flashing distance. But the longer skirt allowed her to do it gracefully while protecting her modesty.
She waited until he sat opposite, a totally effortless step up for him, to respond. “Not Serena’s. Not Luca’s. And not Three Amigos.” That still left a surprising number of restaurants for a town Tallgrass’s size, thanks to the tens of thousands of soldiers stationed there. “You have any preferences I should know?”
He slanted her a look that created a response totally different from her first view of him tonight: shivering, disquiet, a nearly forgotten little trill of pleasure and awareness skipping through her. It felt remarkably like arousal, something she hadn’t experienced, not sober anyway, in a very long time. But no. No, no. She didn’t do sober arousal. She damn well didn’t do sober sex.
“Mom always said my brothers and I would eat dirt if you poured gravy on it and handed us a spoon.”
Brothers. Until now, she’d been aware of only the younger Smith boy. Filing the information away, she considered the food options. “How about Walleyed Joe’s?” Though their specialty was catfish, the place served a little bit of everything, the food was good, and an extra bonus, it was located a couple of miles out of town on the lake. They weren’t likely to run into any of the margarita club there. She definitely didn’t want to see any of her besties. For now, Dalton—and anything that might develop between them—was her secret.
The only good one she’d had in a very long time.
Chapter 6
Walleyed Joe’s hadn’t changed much in the years since Dalton’s last visit. Maybe the wood was silvered a little more, and the deck had a few more tables squeezed onto it than before, but the aromas drifting on the air when he and Jessy walked through the door took him back twenty-five years, when he, his parents, and Dillon had come there the first Sunday of every month for dinner. Eating out had been a rarity back then, and for them it had nearly always been here. The tradition had continued until his parents moved away. He’d brought Sandra a few times, but she hadn’t liked the smell of fried everything. She preferred a tradition of sleeping in late on Sunday, eating breakfast in bed, then making love.
He waited to feel some sense of sorrow or anger, something to remind him of everything he’d lost, but it didn’t come. It was okay to be in this place with all its memories. The past was past, right? At least, he was trying to make it so.
A waitress on the fly hustled them to a table on the deck at Jessy’s request, dropped off menus and napkins, took their drink orders, then disappeared back inside. Jessy chose a chair at the table for four that allowed her to face the lake, and he sat to her right, where the water stretched out into the distance.
When the girl had asked what they wanted to drink, he’d been about to ask for beer—nothing went better with fried catfish—but the last time he’d shared a meal and a beer with Jessy, he’d
wound up drunk and in bed with her. Not his finest hour. No booze tonight. He was driving. He wanted all his faculties intact. He didn’t want to screw up again.
Not that having sex with a woman he knew was the same as having sex with one he’d just met. Besides, this was a new start. Same woman, same man, different situation, for damn sure a different outcome.
So when Jessy ordered iced tea, he ordered Coke.
Neither of them picked up the menus. She unrolled the thick paper napkin from the silverware and spread it primly across her lap, took a deep breath, and sighed. “I had fish for lunch today. Squeezed with fresh lemon juice, seasoned with pepper, steamed to perfection.” The sun glinted off her red hair as she shook her head. “People who eat fish any other way besides fried or in soup should be shot.”
“So why’d you do it?”
“I had this weak moment where I thought I should eat healthy. You know, if I’m going to live another fifty years, I might as well try to be in shape to enjoy them?”
He couldn’t help it. He tried to keep his gaze on hers, but his eyes had developed a will of their own, his attention sliding downward. He’d seen her looking like every guy’s kid sister and every man’s killer fantasy. The dress she wore tonight was definitely in between. The color was good for her. It didn’t hide her assets but didn’t scream look at me! either. Her in-your-face sex appeal was toned down, but the subtlety didn’t hide the fact that it was still there, or that she was beautiful. Red hair, green eyes, golden skin. Lots of curves. Tiny waist. Great legs for someone so short. Hell, she’d look incredible in a feed sack.
“Nothing wrong with your current shape.”
A smile flitted across her face. “Genetics. Mostly my parents gave me a bunch of baggage, but they did share their great genes. The most exercise they’ve ever done is looking for faults, but people mistake them for decades younger than they are.” The smile flitted again. “Their life’s goal is making everyone around them feel inferior, so of course they’ll live to at least a hundred and five.”
A Love to Call Her Own Page 10