by Karen Leabo
With renewed determination, she said, “Do you want to try the raspberry tea?” She didn’t want to confess her sins to him in the same room where Cathy slept. She needed complete privacy.
Joe pulled a comical face. “Raspberry tea isn’t on my list of favorite beverages. I don’t suppose that sweet old lady has any Coors beer stashed away in her fridge.”
“Probably not. But I wish you’d come downstairs with me, anyway. I need to have a talk with you.”
Joe arched his eyebrows. She’d obviously piqued his curiosity. “Okay. Think Miss Haskins will mind that I’m barefoot? I’ll put on socks, but I have no intention of cramming my feet into my boots tonight.”
“Risk Miss Haskins’s wrath. Live dangerously.”
He didn’t smile. She wondered what it would take to lull him out of the brooding mood he’d been in since returning to their campsite with the tow truck.
Miss Haskins said nothing about Joe’s stocking feet. She bustled around her doily-laden kitchen, pouring tea, putting out sugar and lemon and some packaged sugar cookies. An orange striped cat wrapped itself around Jenn’s ankles while a black-and-white kitten tried to get into Joe’s lap. He shooed it away, only to have it pounce on his toes.
“Do you think she’d mind,” Joe whispered in Jenn’s ear, “if I drop-kicked her cat into the next room?”
Jenn choked back a laugh. “Miss Haskins,” she said, “would it be all right if we sat on the front porch with our tea? It’s such a lovely evening, shame to waste it.” Perhaps “lovely” was pushing it. Jenn imagined it was cooling down quickly, the way fall days in this part of the country did. But the day had been unseasonably warm, and she was still looking for privacy.
“Certainly. In fact, there’s a screened-in porch out this door with some lawn chairs and things. I might even join you.”
But when they took their tea onto the back porch, they found themselves alone. The only available seating was two rusty lawn chairs with a little table between them. A dim, bare light bulb attracted a few lethargic moths that hadn’t yet succumbed to the fall chill.
Joe eased his lanky frame into one of the chairs, which protested under his weight. Jenn half expected the thing to collapse, but it didn’t. She took the other chair. It was wretchedly uncomfortable.
“You wanted to talk to me?” Joe asked.
Jenn nodded. Now that they were alone, she was having a hard time broaching the subject. She couldn’t just blurt it out. She stood suddenly and walked to the screen, where she could look out into the darkness. The neighbors’ porch lights illuminated clotheslines, sagging fences and patchy lawns.
“This is really difficult....” she said.
“Seems everything is, lately.”
She couldn’t look at Joe. “It’s about...about the accusations I’ve made against Dennis. I...” Oh, God. And she’d thought telling of her abuse during therapy had been difficult. Then, at least, she’d known the psychologist wouldn’t condemn her, or ridicule her. When she’d related those awful memories, her confession only confirmed what Dr. Josephs had already suspected.
This was different. What if Joe didn’t believe her? He knew she was capable of lying. He knew she was desperate to keep her daughter. Would he think she’d cooked up some new scheme?
In her mental agony, she hadn’t heard him rise from his chair, but suddenly she was aware of him standing beside her, his hand resting lightly on her shoulder in a gesture of support.
“Jenn, whatever it is, you can tell me.”
She shook her head. “I’m not so sure of that.”
“Yes, you can. I won’t be angry. If you’ve lied about Dennis, I know you had a good reason. I know how important Cathy—”
“I haven’t lied, not about that,” she said quietly, though she longed to lash out at Joe. He didn’t believe her. He’d never believed her. Did she think humiliating herself would change anything?
Anger and regret welled up inside her. If she’d fought Dennis fifteen years ago, maybe she wouldn’t have to be fighting now, when the stakes were much higher. But she’d been a coward. Apparently she still was.
“Please, Jenn, you can tell me,” he said. “I need to know the true situation, everything, all the facts. That’s the only way I’ll be able to help you.”
“Why would you want to help me?” she asked, knowing she sounded petulant. But she was drowning in a very unattractive self-pity, and she couldn’t seem to find a breath of air.
“Because I like you?” he ventured. “Because you need someone in your corner? Because I’d like to keep you out of jail so that maybe, when your life gets back to normal, I could see you again, and we could get to know each other on new terms?”
“You mean ... like a date?” she squeaked.
“Yeah, like a date. That’s what men and women who are attracted to each other sometimes do. I think we fall into that category, don’t you?”
He’d come closer with each word, until she could feel his warm breath against her cheek. His hand had moved from her shoulder to the nape of her neck, which he gently massaged.
Suddenly the idea of kissing Joe Andresi seemed much safer than telling him about her past. She let herself be drawn in, hypnotized by the flame of desire in his eyes. His lips touched hers, tentatively at first, then with more confidence. She opened her mouth and answered his passion, drinking in the taste and feel and smell of him, losing herself, forgetting everything but how good it felt to be this close to him.
With a will of their own, her hands crept up his chest, reveling in the feel of the hard muscles beneath the soft cotton of his shirt. Soon her arms were around his neck and their bodies were pressed together, her breasts flattened against him.
Something she did aroused him another notch, because his grasp on her became tighter, his mouth more insistent. His tongue invaded, his hands held her captive, and all at once the sensations that had been so pleasurable took on more frightening overtones.
Jenn did what she always did when faced with a man’s overpowering passion: she shut down. She went completely still, utterly nonresponsive, not wishing to add fuel to the fire but knowing she couldn’t stop the inevitable, if the inevitable was what Joe had in mind.
His reaction to her sudden stillness was immediate. He loosened his grip on her and slowly disengaged himself from the kiss, leaving her trembling with an odd mixture of adrenaline, relief and unfulfilled longing.
“Jenn?” he whispered.
“I’m s-sorry,” she stuttered, refusing to meet his gaze.
He pulled away even further, sliding his big, powerful hands from her shoulders down her arms, his touch as gentle as butterfly’s wings, until he held both her hands in his. “Sorry for what?” He sounded bewildered. “I’m the one who should apologize.”
“No, it’s okay. I’m not... I mean...” What did she mean? For some reason, it was important that he not think she found him sexually repulsive, or that she condemned him for giving in to an urge that was perfectly natural at the time. He’d given her every opportunity to object or turn away, and she hadn’t. “There’s no one to blame,” she finally said.
The look he gave her was so intense, she felt completely vulnerable, stripped naked. He was waiting for some explanation for her behavior. Astute as he was, he was going to figure it out sooner or later. What woman in her right mind would resist Joe’s sexual appeal, unless she had a colossal hang-up?
“There’s no one to blame,” she repeated, then took a deep breath and continued. “Except maybe Dennis.”
His eyes closed briefly, and she knew he understood. “Not that,” he said. “Not you.”
“Yes, me.”
“That’s what you wanted to tell me?” His voice was now soft as the evening sky, full of sadness for her, yet rife with understanding. “You know Dennis Palmer is a child molester because you experienced it firsthand.”
She wanted to take it back. She started to shake her head. The reaction was automatic, the denial second nature. T
hen, in a blinding flash of insight, she knew that he would believe everything, that he already knew the truth in the confession she’d been contemplating all day.
“I suspected it,” Joe said.
“Why?” She wanted to know. Was her past gleaming wickedly out of her, for the whole world to see?
“Because you’re afraid of me,” he answered, sounding disgusted. “I’ve never in my life imposed on a woman when she didn’t want me. I take my time, I let her call the shots. Women generally aren’t frightened of me.”
“Unless they’re fugitives,” Jenn said, then gave a nervous gasp of a laugh.
“Afraid of me sexually,” he clarified, obviously determined to make his point. “It’s only happened to me one other time, years ago, with a woman I went out with when I lived in Mobile. She did like you did just now—she gave me all the right signals, then turned into a block of ice. Young and dumb and hot to trot as I was back then, I started to accuse her of being a tease till I saw the look in her eyes and realized she was genuinely scared out of her wits. It was then she told me she was a rape victim.”
Jenn thought carefully before speaking again. She’d been prepared to gut herself emotionally, to spend many words and long minutes, hours even, convincing him of the truth, and here he’d figured it all out without her saying much of anything.
He dropped her hands. “In the car that first day, that was when the thought first occurred to me. But when you said that you’d willingly signed over Cathy’s custody to your mother and stepfather because you didn’t know what kind of monster Dennis was, I just assumed—”
“I really didn’t know,” she said. “I repressed the memories for years. I only remembered when I went in for therapy during my recuperation. It started as grief counseling, but then it went much deeper.”
The explanations came with surprising ease. Somehow, she found the words. “My psychologist recognized that I had several characteristics consistent with victims of child abuse. She hypnotized me, prodded a little, and I swear I didn’t know what she was getting at until one day the memories just exploded, like a dam had burst.”
She shivered, remembering the horror of that day. She’d wanted to die, and the only thing that had kept her alive was knowing that she couldn’t leave Cathy an orphan.
“I didn’t want to believe them at first. I told Dr. Josephs that I must have made this stuff up, that my subconscious must have invented the memories because I was angry at Dennis for trying to steal my daughter.”
“I’ve heard that does happen,” Joe said, though she sensed no accusation, no disapproval, in his tone.
“Dr. Josephs said that was possible. She didn’t push, But as we explored the memories together, it became obvious to me that they were no flights of fancy. There were too many details, sounds and smells and other sensations that were as vivid as if I’d just lived them yesterday. I remembered... scars and other marks on his body. Dr. Josephs discreetly checked his medical records. Everything was as I described.”
Joe looked like he wanted to be sick. She understood perfectly.
“I used to become physically ill during every therapy session,” she continued, “but I kept going because it felt like there was a poison in my body that I had to work through and get rid of before I could be a normal person again.”
“You don’t have to tell me this,” Joe said. He didn’t appear disgusted by her revelations. She got the feeling he simply wanted to spare her the pain.
“I do have to tell you,” Jenn insisted.
“But I believe you. It all makes sense now.”
“Even if you believe me now, what about tomorrow, or the next day? And do you understand exactly what happened? Because maybe you don’t want to know the details. Good, decent people like yourself tend to shy away from certain harsh realities. But I have to tell you everything, because then I’ll be sure you understand. You’ll know why I’d beg in the street before condemning my child to the same fate I suffered.”
Chapter 10
Joe wondered how he could have been so blind. Jenn’s reaction to Dennis, the way she shuddered even at the mention of his name, should have tipped him off. The strength of her determination to keep Cathy away from the man should have clued him in.
Now everything was falling into place.
He wanted to touch her, take her hand or stroke her hair, but he didn’t risk it. He felt like he was in the presence of a frightened, wild animal who would bolt with the least provocation. He also felt a surge of potent anger toward the man who had defiled so brave and lovely a creature.
“I believe you,” he said again. He really did. The emotions flashing behind her turbulent eyes couldn’t be faked, not by the most skilled actress in the world.
She nodded mutely.
“I also have no idea where we go from here,” he said with complete candor. There’d been enough misconceptions, evasions and downright lies between them.
“I guess that means nothing’s changed,” she said in a hopeless-sounding voice that squeezed his heart like a vise.
“Everything’s changed. I just need to think, that’s all.”
“What’s there to think about?” She lashed out suddenly. “Either you let us go, or you turn my baby over to that fiend.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“It should be.”
He struggled with his patience for a moment, then spoke calmly, deliberately. “There might be alternatives you haven’t considered. I want to do what’s right, you can believe that. But I need some time to figure out what that might be.”
She stared at him, challenging, and for a moment he thought she would further argue her case. But in the end she cast her eyes downward and seemed to wilt. “Okay, I guess that’s fair. I should have told you the truth from the beginning.”
“You handled things the best way you knew how. Talking about something so painful must have been incredibly difficult.”
“Please don’t patronize me.”
“I’m not. I’m hurting for you. I can’t put myself in your place. I’ve encountered child abuse as a cop, but only in the most superficial, detached way. I can’t begin to imagine what you went through. But I know you’re hurting. I feel it, inside myself somehow. And I want to help. I sure didn’t mean to come on to you so strong. If I’d had any idea—”
“You did nothing wrong,” she said. “It’s my—”
“Don’t you dare say it’s your fault.”
Finally she looked up at him. “You sound just like my therapist. On an intellectual level, I know I’m not to blame. I was a child, I was exploited, no one could expect me to have known how to handle it. But deep down, I know I could have stopped it, and I didn’t.”
“You were too frightened,” Joe insisted.
“Yes, that’s true.”
“So you couldn’t stop it.”
“It went on for six years.”
“Oh, Jenn.” He couldn’t conceive the horror. He couldn’t even think of an appropriate response. So he held out his hand to her in silent sympathy.
After several tense seconds she reached out and accepted his offer, and his hopes soared clear to the moon, a reaction he knew was out of proportion to the circumstances. But he craved her nearness with a wanting so sharp, so poignant, that it had become a physical pain that needed to be soothed.
Joe wanted more than just her body. He wanted her trust, and he knew that after the antagonism that had arced between them, he would have to earn it.
He pulled her by slow degrees toward him, silently questioning her with his eyes, asking for permission.
Amazingly, she let him pull her against his chest and enfold her incredibly fragile-feeling body within the security of his arms.
“Too close?” he asked.
“No.”
He could feel her heartbeat. It pulsed along his every nerve, twice as fast as his. He waited until it slowed somewhat, until her breathing was more relaxed.
He pressed his face against
her hair. The soft black strands tickled his nose. “You can tell me as much or as little as you please. You can tell it all to me now, or save it till later. But regardless of what you choose to reveal, I’ll believe you, and I’ll continue believing you tomorrow and the next day.”
“Why, when you know I can lie? I’m a good liar,” she admitted without a trace of pride.
“I don’t know. I can’t explain it. Maybe it’s that I think— or at least, I hope—that you know enough about me by now to trust me with the truth.”
Jenn said nothing for a long time, and Joe thought that perhaps she would let things stand. But after a few minutes, she spoke up again.
“1 don’t remember my real father,” she said, her voice faint and thready, but growing stronger as she continued. “He died when I was two. We had a real hard time of it, Mama and Tammy and me.”
“Tammy?”
“My older sister.”
“Oh.” He hadn’t known she had a sister. He couldn’t remember Judge Palmer ever mentioning an older stepdaughter. “Where is she now?”
“She’s dead, too,” Jenn said grimly. “Anyway, when a rich, respected county judge came calling, also widowed, the temptation was too much for Mama to ignore. They married when I was about four. It started when I was seven, shortly after Tammy died.”
As Jenn went on with her story, Joe’s skin crawled. The picture she painted of her stepfather depicted not only a sick mind, but an evil, twisted one, a man who victimized children and got as high from the power and manipulation as he did from the sexual thrills.
Joe tried not to interrupt her. She spoke for almost half an hour, revealing one horror after another, and he often wanted to express his utter disgust, but he was afraid any reaction on his part would make her self-conscious—or worse, that she would think he was disgusted with her as well as Dennis. So he kept quiet, except for an occasional “Uh-huh.”
“By the time I was thirteen,” Jenn said, “I knew it was wrong and against the law, and that he was afraid someone would find out about it. That’s when I finally put a stop to it. I threatened to go to the police, and he left me alone. But I didn’t turn him in. Instead, I swept it under the carpet, pretended like it’d never happened. After a while, I started to believe the lies I told myself. That’s how the memories got buried.”