A Love to Call Her Own

by Marilyn Pappano

  Even toddlers couldn’t resist him.

  When they were side by side again, Joe gave a mournful shake of his head. “If that’s all the men you know are looking for, Luce, then you know the wrong men.”

  Wrong. She didn’t really know any men who weren’t already off the market. Just Joe and Ben, who probably liked tall and thin, too. She couldn’t do anything about her height, but she would work hard on the other. Today is the first day of the rest of my life, and not as a fat chick.

  Today, even though her breath was getting a little tougher to come by. Even though her legs were starting to tire and she was pretty sure her moisture-wicking socks were rubbing blisters on her little toes. Even though she couldn’t help but notice, mouth watering, how close they were to Serena’s—breakfast, yumm—when Joe took a turn in the opposite direction.

  Today, just like the first day of every other diet she’d started, she was hopeful and determined. Unlike every other diet she’d failed, she was going to claw her way to pre-widowhood weight on that hope and determination.

  Joe was going to help her, and along the way, she was going to find him the perfect girl.

  * * *

  Every time her cell phone rang, Jessy checked the screen, even though the only guarantee that she would answer was if it was one of the margarita girls. She had lied to, withheld things from, and misled them, but other than that, she’d never disappointed them. There wasn’t anyone else in her life she could say that about, not even herself.

  The call coming through Friday morning showed the animal shelter on the screen. A welcome-to-the-poop-crew call? Or sorry-we-can’t-trust-you-with-our-animals?

  With a deep breath—as if something really serious and life-changing was about to happen—she answered with her phony, fooled-everyone cheery voice.

  “Hi, Jessy, this is Angela. You have a pair of work boots or old sneakers?”

  She swallowed back her snort. Seriously? The closest she’d come to work boots was sharing her closet with Aaron’s combat boots. And old sneakers? She didn’t even like brand-new ones.

  “I have some that can get old real fast,” she replied. Did this mean she got the job? Suddenly her heart was pounding double its normal rate. A job would make a difference. She’d convinced herself of that last night in the few minutes she hadn’t been thinking about Dalton or a drink. It would give her a place to go, people to see, a chance to do good.

  It would give her purpose, and she’d been missing that, damn, for a long time.

  “Good,” Angela said. “If you can come after lunch, I’ll show you around, we’ll figure out your schedule, and get you started. Does that work for you?”

  Her heart slammed on the brakes, returning to its normal rate so quickly that she sank into the nearest chair. “Yeah. Sure. No problem,” she said breezily while her brain was chanting, I got the job. I’m good enough to pull ticks off abandoned dogs and walk them and clean up after them. I may not be fit to work at the damned bank, but dogs and ticks and fleas are so much better anyway.

  “Be prepared to get dirty, okay?” Angela advised.

  “I can do dirty.” She hadn’t in years, but she could. There was no shame in getting dirty on the job. Aaron had done it; Dalton did it every day.

  “Then I’ll see you about twelve thirty?”

  “Sounds good. Great. Thanks, Angela.” Jessy hung up, then went to the bedroom closet. She was surprised by the need to tell someone, and naturally the girls came to mind first. But telling them would necessitate admitting that she’d left the bank—been fired from the bank—over a month ago, and that was best done in person. To say nothing of the fact that in person would save her five repetitions.

  Kneeling, she dragged the running shoes from the back corner where she’d thrown them yesterday. She hated those shoes. They deserved to get filthy. Then she sat back on her heels, gazing at the long row of skimpy, sexy dresses hanging above her and thinking that the person she wanted most to tell was Dalton. He would get it. He wouldn’t be surprised, like the girls, or think she was crazy or finally where she belonged, like everyone else.

  Of course, there was the small problem that she didn’t have his phone number.

  But she knew her way to his house.

  Pushing herself off the floor as she shoved the idea aside for this evening, when she could actually do it—or not—she dressed in cropped pants, a T-shirt, cute socks, and the awful shoes again. She rummaged through the kitchen, throwing together a sandwich of chicken from last night’s takeout with lettuce, tomato, and onion bought for the salads she hadn’t made after the first time.

  After scarfing down the food and a bottle of water, she grabbed her purse, paused to stuff a small camera inside, then headed to her car. Though the temperature had passed warm fifteen degrees ago, she rolled the windows down for the drive, letting the breeze chase out the heat and the cobwebs that had taken hold after her month of aimlessness.

  The same dog was standing in the same place when she got out of her car at the shelter. Her entire face scrunched into a frown. “Oh, man, I promised I’d bring treats next time. I was just so”—dare she say it?—“excited that I forgot. But I promise on my margarita girls, next time.”

  She would have sworn the dog gave her a you’ve-gotta-prove-yourself sort of look.

  Purse bumping her hip, she went inside the shelter. Except for the bell over the door, it was quieter than she’d expected, given that there were twenty-two dogs and sixteen cats on the premises.

  “I’ll be right out,” a woman called from somewhere in back.

  “No hurry,” Jessy replied as she wandered around the room. The ceiling was high, two fans slowly stirring the air. The furniture—desk and chair, two wooden chairs, a couple sofas—was hand-me-down, and the floor was concrete, painted at one time and worn bare in the heavy travel areas. Tattered magazines sat on a dented end table, and three cats stretched out on the west-facing windowsills. Only one deigned to acknowledge Jessy’s presence.

  The no-kill shelter was Angela’s baby, along with her partner. They got some money from the city, more from animal aid groups, and relied on a couple of fund-raisers a year, plus small salaries and few benefits—beyond the satisfaction in our souls—to keep the place running. Salary was always nice, but Jessy had some money to fall back on; she had great medical benefits, courtesy of the Army; and she really needed some satisfaction in her soul.

  Footsteps slapped in the hall, then a woman came into the room. “Can I help—are you Jessy?” She walked right up to her, hand extended, a ready smile. “Angela said you’d be in today. Welcome to the Tallgrass Animal Shelter. I’m Meredith.”

  Like Angela, Meredith was blond, tanned, and tall enough to make Jessy aware of the height she lacked. Though she didn’t like words like short or petite, she didn’t mind being the least tall person in a room. There was something about a short woman that appealed to an awful lot of men, and a woman could never have too many beaus.

  Though she could damn well have too many men.

  “I’m glad to meet you.”

  They shook hands, then Meredith went to the desk, searching through piles of papers until she found her objective. “We just need you to sign some forms to make it official. Bureaucracy, you know.”

  Jessy signed the X-ed places, then Meredith stuck the forms in a desk drawer. Pocketing the key to the drawer, she gestured toward the hall. “Want to see what you’ve gotten yourself into?”

  In the next five hours, Jessy saw everything and met every animal, including the handsome guy out in the yard, a mix named Oliver. His protective cone was to keep him from licking the healing wounds where some bastard had shot him with a BB gun. His standoffishness wasn’t directed to her personally, Meredith had explained. He didn’t care for any of the humans he’d met yet.

  She’d taken four dogs for walks, played with others for a while—they called it socializing—and yeah, she’d done some shoveling. Her shoes were officially relegated to the bottom of th
e stairs or the trunk of her car from now on.

  It was the best day’s work she’d ever done.

  By the time she got home at six, she couldn’t wait to take a shower, put on clean clothes, and jump right back in the car. She picked up barbecue from her favorite rib joint, then headed north out of town.

  As town gave way to country, she wondered about her decision. What if Dalton was busy? If he’d seen enough of her for one week? If he wanted a quiet evening at home, just him and Oz and the animals?

  She was a big girl. She’d been raised on rejection. It would roll off her shoulders like rain off the outer coat of his Oreo cows. She wouldn’t even be disappointed. Hell, warmed-up barbecue was just as good as fresh out of the pit. And she had pictures to organize, taken during her afternoon break outside with the dogs. That could keep her busy for a few hours.

  She’d talked herself halfway out of her anticipation by the time she turned off the paved road. It was a good thing, too, she saw a few minutes later. Dalton’s pickup was parked near the house, and behind it were two more, a shiny black one and a rusty, dusty silver one.

  He had company. Not a good time for her to drop in, even if she was bearing food.

  Despite her best plans, a lump of disappointment started in her throat and slid slowly to her stomach. It was okay, she told herself. He had his life, she had hers, and until—unless—they were ever officially together, she was all right with that. She wasn’t a clingy woman. She didn’t need to spend every single moment with a guy, or her marriage to Aaron, with all his deployments, never would have survived the first year.

  But it didn’t survive the last one, Realist Jessy pointed out.

  There was a reason they weren’t best friends, like her and the margarita girls. Realist Jessy was a bitch.

  She kept driving east, past the neat fence, the long driveway that ran between pastures, on down the dirt-and-gravel road. Eventually, she knew from previous rambling, it wound back into town, running along the west edge of the fort. She would come out on Main about half a mile from the gym where Fia worked until seven most nights, and in that instant, she decided she would check on her friend.

  With a flick of her fingers, she turned on the stereo, tuned to a rock station, and turned the music up loud. She sang along with the songs she knew and kept her mind blank for the songs she didn’t. She didn’t think about life or Dalton or guilt or regret or anticipation. She didn’t think at all until she was back in town, skirting the post’s prairie and windbreaks on the left, blocks of cookie-cutter houses on the right.

  Fia’s gym was on the south side of the highway, in a strip center with a Starbucks and a storage facility. Jessy parked in a spot underneath an old oak and hiked the distance to the gym. One rule that had transferred well from Georgia to Oklahoma: The best parking space in summer wasn’t the closest; it was the one with the most shade.

  The place was filled with exactly the kind of people she expected: mostly young, well toned, tanned, long and lean or bulging with hard-packed muscle. They were sweaty with exertion, most of them listening to their own music via earbuds. These weren’t people who strolled.

  Jessy didn’t like them.

  The woman behind the counter scanned her head to toe, then asked, “Can I help you?” in a tone that suggested she was doubtful. Like Jessy wasn’t their kind.

  Realist bitch Jessy might be.

  “I’m looking for Fia Thomas.”

  “Back there.”

  Following the jerk of her head, Jessy located Fia at the back of the gym, head bent, fingers flying on a computer. “Hey, Fee.”

  “Jess!” Fia’s eyes widened. “Wow. This is the first time you’ve set foot in this place.”

  “Probably the last one, too. Listen, doll, I have barbecue—the works—from Bad Hank’s, and I was hoping we could kick back and share it at your place or mine. Do you have the time?”

  A puzzled look flitted across Fia’s face. This wasn’t the first time they’d gotten together without the other girls. It wasn’t even the first time Jessy had brought food to her. But the puzzlement was replaced by a smile that reminded Jessy how young—and how old—twenty-three could be. “I’ve got the time and the appetite. I can be out of here in five minutes. Do you mind if we go to your apartment? Mine’s a mess.”

  “My place is fine.” Jessy had done a lot of cleaning in the past month—much of it late at night when sleep eluded her, but cleaning was cleaning. “Do you want to ride with me?”

  “Nah, I can drive. I just need a quick shower.”

  A little bit of pink crept into Fia’s cheeks as she answered. Twice in the past month and a half, Jessy had picked her up after work, when the kid had a headache too intense to drive. Fia had hated asking, but Jessy had been honored, even if she figured she was Fia’s last choice. She’d worried more about Fia since then, but she was ashamed to admit she hadn’t followed up on it. She had let herself get overwhelmed with her own problems instead.

  She would do better, she promised. Be better.

  “Okay. I’ll head home and stick the Q in the oven to stay warm. I’ll leave the downstairs door unlocked for you.” She started to walk away, then stepped back, bent, and hugged Fia. The woman was five inches taller than Jessy and had no body fat, every muscle sleekly defined, and yet she felt frail in Jessy’s arms. The injuries and illnesses that had been plaguing her the past few months had really taken their toll.

  One of their girls, Bennie, was an LPN, going to school to finish her bachelor’s degree in nursing, and there was Lucy’s doctor crush. Maybe between them, they could get some advice to cure whatever ailed Fia. They would do something, because the margarita girls never let each other down.

  Chapter 9

  After dinner, Ben rinsed the dishes, then put away the leftovers while Patricia loaded the dishwasher. He’d done that, too, a couple of times before he’d noticed her coming along behind and quietly rearranging things. It made him roll his eyes. At home, their dad had just been happy to get the dishes done. He hadn’t cared if the bowls faced this way or the silverware was upside down.

  Then Ben’s mouth tightened. It was her dishes, her dishwasher. Who cared? He was known in the clinic for liking things a certain way, and an irritated nurse at the hospital had once called him fussy. Like a cranky old woman, she’d added.

  Not the comparison a hotshot surgeon was looking for, but the patients were his and the choices were his. The nurse had gotten over it after a while. So had he.

  He fixed a cup of coffee for Patricia, then green tea for himself. As he picked up the two mugs, she started the dishwasher, dried her hands, and smiled wearily. “Let’s take it in the study. Do you mind?”

  It was one of only two rooms he hadn’t gone inside yet. The other was the master bedroom. While there were places a lot more inviting—outside with a view of Lucy’s house came to mind—he nodded and followed Patricia.

  The study was directly across from the living room, and it had obviously been George’s space. The furniture was darker, heavier, and the only art on the wall was military-themed prints. There were plenty of framed citations and letters of commendation, along with his degree from West Point, and a lot of photographs taken in exotic places.

  Patricia settled on a leather couch, feet tucked beneath her, and held her coffee close enough to inhale its aroma. “I wish you kids had had the chance to know George.”

  Ben chose a chair with its back to the wall that gave him a good view of everything and nothing in particular. “Do you think it would have mattered? That we ever would have seen him as anything other than the man who destroyed our family?”

  “I think so. Maybe. Though, Lord, you and Sara always were hardheaded.” She set her coffee on the end table, then clasped her hands in her lap. “He didn’t destroy our family, Ben. If I’d loved your father enough, nothing but death could have taken me away. Even if George hadn’t come along, your father and I would have divorced, maybe in five months, maybe five years, but it wo
uld have happened.”

  His jaw clenched, and following her lead, he set his cup down before he squeezed it tightly enough to break it. “So you weren’t in love with Dad.”

  “Not the way I needed to be.” Her expression was filled with pain. A distant memory popped into his mind: the widow of the only patient he’d ever lost in the OR. A horrific accident, massive trauma to his legs, pelvis, rib cage. His wife had looked totally lost.

  Then an older, more painful memory: His father in the weeks after Patricia left. Also lost. Stunned. Unable to process the information that his wife was gone. He’d stayed lost for the next nine years, when he’d given up trying.

  How could she have fallen out of love with him? How could he not have known? Were there signs? Had her behavior changed those last weeks? Had Dad’s?

  Ben couldn’t remember. He’d been fifteen. His parents hadn’t come high on his list of priorities.

  “I met George at the Gilcrease Museum,” Patricia said, a distant look in her eyes, a bittersweet smile on her mouth. “I loved going to museums, but the only time you kids or your dad was willing to go was for the Christmas tree display at the Philbrook. So I went alone. George was visiting old friends and entertaining himself while they worked. We toured Gilcrease together and had lunch afterward—just two strangers with common interests.

  “Then we did Philbrook and the Fenster and the Will Rogers Museum in Claremore, and we took a day trip to Woolaroc and another to Tahlequah to the Cherokee Heritage Center…He told me about all his travels to exotic places I’d always wanted to see, but your father…”

  His father hadn’t liked to wander far. Rick’s idea of a vacation was puttering around the house or going camping at Keystone Lake, only thirty minutes from home. He’d said Oklahoma was God’s best work, so why waste time looking at the rest of the world?

  It had become a game for Ben and his sisters to try every summer to persuade their dad to take them to Dallas to visit Six Flags Over Texas. He’d held out every time. There’s rides and games and food at Bell’s, he’d said, referring to Tulsa’s now-defunct amusement park.