Before Glory could reply, Adara spotted some people she knew, trilled out a hello, and hurried off toward them.
Glory was relieved. Adara was probably a relatively new arrival in Pearl River, but she had to know that Jesse and Glory had been high-school sweethearts. Like every small town, this little burg had its busybody contingent.
“Ready to go again?” Liza asked eagerly, just as Glory was finishing her cider.
“Sure!” Glory responded. She was exhausted and cold, but she would have sledded forever if it meant she could be close to her daughter. She would be grateful until the day she died for the child’s ready acceptance.
Each of them took hold of the rope and pulled the Flier up the hill, careful to stay out of the way of the sleds zooming down from the top. Once they reached the summit, however, Jesse appeared out of nowhere.
The look he gave Glory was one of annoyance, as though he’d been dragged to the crest of that hill, kicking and screaming. “Once for old time’s sake?” he asked, and the words were, of course, unwillingly spoken.
Glory remembered the winters she and Jesse had sledded down this very slope together, and her heart rate quickened by a beat or two. She looked at Liza and tried to speak in a normal tone of voice. “Would that be okay with you?”
Liza looked pleased, and the pom-pom on the top of her blue stocking cap bobbed as she nodded her head.
Glory settled on the front of the sled, instead of the back as she would have with Liza, and shivered a little when she felt the warmth of Jesse’s breath against her nape. He wrapped his legs around her and hooked his heels into the front of the sled, then his arms embraced her, his hands gripping the rope.
They went careening down the hillside, the wind rushing in their faces, cold enough to sting. At the bottom the sled suddenly overturned and sent them both tumbling over the snow.
When they finally came to a stop, Jesse was lying on top of Glory. He swore and rolled away, but not before she felt the hard evidence of his desire pressing against her thigh.
Five
Jesse dropped Liza off at Ilene’s first, then drove to Adara’s condo overlooking the river.
She stood waiting for his kiss there on her doorstep, and for the life of him Jesse couldn’t give it.
“You might as well tell me about Glory,” she said quietly, holding her chin at a proud angle. “I run a beauty shop, remember, and by Monday afternoon I’ll know every sordid detail.”
He jammed splayed fingers through his hair and swallowed a curse. “We went together in high school, all right?” he finally bit out a few seconds later.
Adara pretended to recoil slightly. “Aren’t we defensive?” she inquired sweetly. “I’m not a fool, Jesse. I’ve already guessed that you loved her.”
Loved her? He’d been so crazy about Glory that he couldn’t put one sensible thought in front of another. And after she’d left without one damn word of explanation, he’d honestly thought he was going to die of the pain. He’d hounded her family and friends for weeks, trying to find out where she’d gone.
“What do kids that age know about love?” he countered irritably.
“Sometimes a lot,” Adara replied.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“That’s obvious, Jesse. But I can’t let things go at that. I won’t stumble along, thinking you and I have a future together, only to find out that you’re still hung up on your high-school sweetheart.”
Jesse thought of the diamond engagement ring he’d bought. Until just a few days ago, he’d been sure he’d finally reached the point where he could put Glory out of his mind, get married and start the family he wanted more than anything else. Now he felt as though he’d just collided with a linebacker at a dead run; not only did he hurt everywhere, he no longer knew down from up, or in from out.
“Jesse?” Adara prompted.
He hated himself for the heartache he saw in her eyes. She was a nice person, and she didn’t deserve to be hurt. “Maybe we’d better cool it for a little while,” he said with extreme effort. “Just until the holidays are over and I can think things through.”
Adara kissed his cheek, and her hand shook as she turned the key in the lock. So did her voice. “Call me when you’ve worked it out,” she said. And then she opened the door and went inside.
Jesse stifled a roar of outraged frustration and flung himself down the sidewalk toward his truck, which was parked at the curb and still running.
He guessed that said a lot, right there. He hadn’t even bothered to shut the engine off, when even a few days before, he would have stayed until just before the sun came up.
Reaching the truck, Jesse jerked off his gloves and flung them into the cab, one after the other, not giving a damn where they landed. Then he got behind the wheel and sped away.
At home, he brought the truck to a lurching stop in the driveway and stormed toward the front door.
Not only had he wounded Adara, he’d stirred up a whole lot of old sensations he didn’t want to deal with. Ever since he and Glory had gone flying off that sled—hell, ever since he’d gotten on the damn thing with her—he’d ached in every muscle between his eyebrows and his shins.
He opened the door, went inside and slammed it again. Instead of hanging up his bulky coat, he hurled it in the general direction of the coat tree. Then he marched into the living room, to the liquor cabinet, and poured himself a double shot of brandy.
A few sips settled him down a little, and he ventured into his grandfather’s study and squinted at the shelves until he found the Pearl River yearbook from when he and Glory were seniors.
After tossing back a little more brandy, he carried the annual to the heavy rolltop desk, with all its cubbyholes and drawers, and sat down in the swivel chair. His fingers flipped the pages unerringly to the layout honoring Glory.
She’d been homecoming queen that year, and head cheerleader, and there were shots of her wearing a sun top and cutoff jeans at the senior picnic, making a speech on graduation day, sitting on Santa’s lap at the Christmas dance.
Jesse couldn’t help smiling at the banner headline spread across the top of the adjoining pages. Glory, Glory, Hallelujah.
“Amen,” Jesse said aloud, his gaze going back to the snapshot of Glory at the class picnic. He’d taken her to his room that sultry afternoon and made slow, hot love to her, and she’d responded without holding anything back.
Just the memory made him harden painfully. He slammed the yearbook closed and tossed it onto the desk.
Whatever he did, he had to remember that Glory was Glory. She’d proven beyond a doubt that she cared only about her own interests and she’d betray people who trusted her, to attain her objectives. As delectable as she looked, all grownup, it was unlikely that she’d changed in any fundamental way.
She wanted Liza, and that meant he had to be on his guard. Despite Glory’s protests that she wasn’t going to upset the child, Jesse had no illusions about her conscience.
She probably didn’t have one.
Still he needed to see her, talk to her, hold her. He phoned the office to let them know he’d be on the road, put his coat back on, and went out to his truck again.
He knew Glory had taken an apartment, he even knew where it was. But some instinct took him by the diner instead, and he saw her through the snow-trimmed window, sitting there all alone, her head bent over a book or something.
Almost as furious with himself as he was with Glory, he parked the truck and strode over to the door.
The “closed” sign was in place and the door was locked, but Glory came and admitted him right away. Her blue eyes were wide and wary, and standing there, Jesse forgot everything he’d meant to say.
“What have I done now?” Glory asked with a sad smile as she relocked the door and went back to the table where she’d been sitting, going over Delphine’s quarterly taxes. Earlier, it had seemed like a good, practical way to pass what remained of the evening, as well as an excuse to get
out of her lonely apartment.
Jesse helped himself to coffee behind the counter, then crossed the room to join her. After taking off his jacket and hanging it over the back of his chair, he sat down. “I just wanted to tell you that Liza had a really good time with you tonight.”
Glory could tell he hadn’t meant to say that, and the bewildered expression in his eyes made her feel strangely jubilant. “She’s a wonderful, outgoing child,” she replied. “You and Ilene must be doing a very good job with her.”
He relaxed at that, and took a sip of his coffee. “Ilene strikes most people as a little weird, at first, but she’d walk through fire for Liza, and the kid knows it. That makes for a lot of security.”
It was so nice to be talking civilly with Jesse for once that Glory felt her throat tighten. “We had that, Dylan and I, whatever else we were lacking. We both knew Mama was committed to us with her whole heart.”
Jesse shifted in his chair, looking slightly uncomfortable again. “I don’t remember my parents very well. Gresh was a lot older than I was, of course, and Gramps had his own fish to fry. As you know, he and I never got along very well.”
Glory found it impossible to picture that vicious old man in such a homey context as “Gramps.” “I’ve heard your grandfather suffered a couple of strokes and had to be confined to a nursing home. I’m sorry.” And she was, though she felt no remorse for hating Seth Bainbridge for so long, just a certain weariness.
“They take good care of him at the convalescent center,” Jesse said. He was avoiding her eyes.
Glory glanced down at her mother’s receipts and tax forms, at a temporary loss for something to say, and Jesse’s chair legs scraped against the linoleum floor as he stood.
The idea of his leaving alarmed Glory, and she was further upset to find herself wanting him to stay.
But he only went to the jukebox and leaned against it, studying the selections. Delphine believed in moldy oldies, as she called them, and many of the songs dated from the fifties and sixties. The latest offerings were from the early seventies.
After a few moments Glory heard a coin drop into the slot, and she braced herself. Sure enough, Jesse chose the ballad that had been playing on the radio when they’d made love for the first time up at the lake.
She squeezed her eyes shut as an avalanche of emotional pain cascaded down on her.
Then Jesse took her hand, pulled her to her feet and into his arms and they danced. Glory was overwhelmed not only by memories but by the presence and the substance and the scent of Jesse. She wanted to melt against him, become a part of him.
He held her close, and the contact was so excruciatingly sweet that it brought tears to Glory’s eyes.
“Don’t do this,” she pleaded in a bare whisper, certain that he understood his power over her and meant to use it. “Please.”
He curved a finger under her chin and lifted. The words he said then were the first gentle ones he’d spared her since her return to Pearl River. “All I want is to hold you, Glory.”
It wasn’t all he wanted, and Glory knew it. She’d felt his need earlier, when they’d fallen off the sled, and she could feel it now. She fought to reason with him, and with herself. “This isn’t right. You’re engaged.”
He maneuvered them over to the switch beside the door and turned off the lights, so that nothing illuminated the diner except for the multicolored glow of the jukebox. Their song finished and started again, and Jesse bent his head to nuzzle at Glory’s neck.
“I’m not engaged,” he finally countered, his voice a sleepy rumble, his breath making Glory’s flesh tingle under its warmth. “I haven’t asked Adara to marry me, and I told her tonight that I needed some time.”
Glory swallowed and wondered if he felt the tremor of elation that went through her at this announcement. She was quick to remind herself, however, that it didn’t really mean anything. For all that he was holding her so tenderly now, a part of Jesse hated her and he wouldn’t hesitate to wreak any kind of vengeance he could manage.
“Jesse, go home,” she said thickly. “You shouldn’t be here.”
He spread his hands over her trim bottom and pressed her close against him and, God help her, she couldn’t even take a step back in the interest of self-preservation. Her nipples were throbbing beneath her flannel shirt and winter underwear, and there was a soft, expansive ache where Jesse would enter her.
He found her lips with his own and kissed her treacherously, encircling her mouth with the tip of his tongue and then invading her with it. Instead of fighting, she bid him welcome with her own, sliding her arms up his chest and plunging her fingers into his hair.
The kiss ended, but Jesse didn’t withdraw. He bit Glory’s lower lip lightly and lifted one of his hands to her breast, cupping it in his fingers, teasing the nipple with his thumb.
“Come home with me,” he pleaded in a ragged whisper, “or God help me, I’m going to take you right here.”
The words brought Glory abruptly to her senses, and she pushed back out of his arms, gasping for breath as though she’d just surfaced after long minutes underwater. “Damn you, Jesse,” she sputtered, “we’re not eighteen anymore. And you’re not going to get back at me for my supposed wrongs by dragging me off to your bed!”
He hooked his fingers in the waistband of her jeans and hauled her forward, so that she collided with his thighs and the hard heat of his shaft. “Remember how it felt when I was lying on top of you in the snow tonight?” he breathed, and Glory was awash in yearning. “I’m surprised we didn’t turn the whole hill to slush.”
Jesse was right; there was something hot burning between them, even after all that time and heartbreak. He could take her there in the dark diner if he chose to, and she despised him for that power.
“Get out,” she ordered with the very last of her strength.
Miraculously he retreated a step, allowing her to put things somewhat back into perspective again. “I want to take you to dinner Monday night,” he said. “We need to talk.”
Glory still couldn’t manage to speak normally. “J-just about Liza,” she stammered. “N-no more dancing.”
He reached out and touched the tip of her nose in a gesture that was achingly familiar. “No promises,” he said hoarsely. And then he opened the door and went out, just as their song began to play for the third time on the jukebox.
Glory spent Sunday working at the diner and then helping Delphine and Harold put away early wedding presents and various personal belongings in their brand new house. The next day she started her job at the bank.
She had a small office and plenty of people wanted to borrow money, since Pearl River seemed to be in some kind of development boom, so the morning went by rapidly. She had lunch in the coffee room with some of the tellers and secretaries, then returned to the pile of work left behind by Mr. Baker’s previous assistant.
It was a surprise when, at quarter after three, Glory’s office door squeaked open and Liza’s bright green eyes peered at her around the edge.
“Am I bothering you?”
Glory couldn’t think of anyone she’d rather have seen, though her mind had been straying to Jesse with disturbing frequency. Thanks to him, she’d been in misery most of the weekend.
“Of course you’re not bothering me,” she said quickly. “Come in.”
Liza took in the office in a series of thorough glances. “Nice place,” she said.
Glory gestured toward a chair. “Sit down, if you’d like.”
The child wriggled into the seat facing Glory’s desk, unbuttoning her coat at the same time. Although she was the spitting image of Glory’s great-grandmother, there were things about Liza that reminded her of Jesse, too, and of herself.
The steady gaze was Jesse’s, the tremulous voice her own.
“I’m adopted,” Liza announced without preamble.
Glory was grateful for the chair that supported her, because she knew her legs wouldn’t have managed it at the moment. “I s
ee,” she finally replied after a long time. She remembered then that Ilene had told her Liza thought a lot about her birth parents.
“Susie Harbrecker says my mom and dad didn’t want me, so they gave me away.”
A momentary desire to find Susie Harbrecker and shake her until her teeth rattled possessed Glory, then she regained her equilibrium. “I’m sure that isn’t true,” she said as evenly as she could. “There are lots and lots of good reasons why people put babies up for adoption, Liza. Sometimes they’re too poor to care for them properly, and sometimes they’re too young and immature.” And scared, Glory added in her mind.
Liza gave a philosophical sigh, apparently willing to accept Glory’s words at face value. She seemed naturally drawn to Glory, just as Glory was to her. “I’m going to be in the Christmas program at church.”
Glory smiled, relaxing a bit. “I know. I watched you practice one night.”
That seemed to please Liza, but then she frowned. “Of course, I’ll probably have trouble coming up with an angel costume. Aunt Ilene sewed in one of her past lives, but she doesn’t know how anymore.”
Before Glory could comment on that startling statement, there was a brisk rap at the door and then Jesse came in. His expression was stormy, as though he’d just caught Glory plotting the downfall of the free-enterprise system.
If Liza picked up any of the difficult undercurrents in the room, she gave no sign of it. “Hi, Uncle Jesse,” she chirped, jumping up and throwing her arms around him.
He gave her an easy hug, but his dark eyes were fixed on Glory, and they were full of wariness and suspicion. “Why don’t you wait outside in the car?” he asked politely, his hand resting on Liza’s shoulder. “I want to talk with Ms. Parsons for a moment.”
Somewhat reluctantly, Liza said goodbye to Glory and left.
“That was some pretty fancy detective work,” Glory said, when they were alone. “How did you know she was here?”
He braced his hands against the edge of her desk and leaned forward, glowering ominously into her face. “I know everything that goes on in this town, so don’t try to pull anything.”
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