Sighing with pleasure, she set her purse down in her old apartment. Flashes of history, and the old Jessie spilled through her brain. Lindsey bringing her there, fresh from the hospital as an inpatient, while learning how to resist the urge to cut up her flesh when in pain. She remembered trying to channel all that grief in ways that weren’t internally combusting inside her. That was not a good time in her life.
But amazingly, living here was. It was quiet. And although she had no happiness inside her, all of her pain, confusion and terror began to diminish. Being away from North Carolina, her father, and even Will, gave her a peace that she never experienced before.
Then… Will came there. She stared at the bed where he first touched her with love, and sex and need. It was the place he first told her he loved her, and also where he left her. She whirled around, trying to avoid the pain his departure caused. But this time, he was right there, behind her, carrying her suitcase and her cats in their small travel carrier. Her big soldier man was actually rather sweet and kind to her cats. Even though he claimed he didn’t like them, she readily observed the sweet way in which he petted and fussed over them. She suddenly threw herself on him and he awkwardly put his arms around her, bumping the bags against her back.
“Hey, I know I’m awesome, but it’s only been about five minutes.”
She giggled in mindless happiness. “I am so happy to be here. With you. For good this time.”
His face softened. “Yeah, me too.”
She was nearly jumping out of her skin, she felt so elated. It was similar to that first rush of happiness she had on their honeymoon. Will was right. There were many more times when she felt a flood of emotions in her stomach, heart and extremities. But it was never quite as shocking and special as the first time. Now she just gratefully accepted it.
Holy crap! She used to be fucked up. Imagine freaking out from feeling the simple, joyful rush of being happy. The thought made her smile.
“You’re like a little jumping bean. Go. I can tell you want to see Noah and the clinic. So go. I’ll get the animals all settled in.”
Her heart bumped. “Really? You don’t mind if I go alone?”
He paused from opening the cat carrier to meet her gaze. “Jessie, I trust you. Always.”
“Okay,” she kissed his cheek and ran out without another word.
****
“Jessie Hendricks?”
She flashed a huge grin when Noah spotted her as she rushed into his veterinary practice. “I can’t believe you actually came back! I didn’t think you really would.”
Noah stepped away from the counter where he was talking to a client, setting the chart down and approaching Jessie. He was tall and lanky with black hair and glasses. He could have appeared borderline nerdy if not for his handsome face and kind, electric blue eyes. She threw herself at him in a tight hug. “Oh, Noah! I didn’t either.”
Noah patted her shoulders. “Okay, okay. Back off. Where’s Will?”
She giggled and touched Noah’s cheek. “Back at the Clapsmiths, unloading our stuff. I could not wait to see you.”
Noah frowned. “You didn’t say that to Will, did you?”
“Oh my God! Are you still such a wuss?”
He nodded. “That’s me. Now, are you really back to stay?”
She nodded, biting her lip in a huge, silly grin. Noah exclaimed, “Thank God.” He suddenly turned and walked over to the receptionist’s desk. Placing his hand on the woman’s shoulder, he leaned down and said something into her ear. The thirty-something lady glanced at Jessie with a scowl as her face fell. Then she stood up with a huff, and yanked her coat off the counter before passing Jessie with an angry jerk.
Jessie’s mouth dropped open. “Did you just fire her? Now? Just like that?”
Noah nodded, grinning. “Total asshole that I am, yes. She sucked. You don’t. Now, come on; and I’ll show you who we have in back and what’s new. I got some new toys for surgery. So awesome,” he said as he headed into the bowels of the building. He stopped and raised his eyebrows at her. “Are you coming?”
She gave him a big, toothy grin and nearly hopped after him. “You don’t have to ask me twice!”
****
She finally felt happy after spending two years just trying to fit into the places she had to be. She couldn’t fit into any of them, not at all. But she survived it, just as she told Will she could. Now, it wasn’t a struggle anymore. It wasn’t about getting through. It wasn’t ticking off the days on a calendar and whiling the time away, or looking forward to the nights so she could cross another day off. She always tried to hurry her life along.
Now she was right there, in the present, and no worries about tomorrow, or next year. It was simply living and being. They set up the apartment, spending three weeks at the Clapsmiths and doing little else. Jessie went to the vet clinic, and Will slept a lot. He was tired for the first time in their marriage and possibly, his life. She knew he was going through withdrawal, depression, and adjusting to civilian life. It wasn’t as easy for him so she let him have more space than usual. It was something she couldn’t totally understand, and just like how he spent most of their relationship doing with her.
“Are you okay?” she whispered in his ear as he held her. His body pinned her to the bed. It was late at night and they just had sex. He stirred at the sound of her voice and his head popped up as his neck muscles flexed.
“Right now? I’m great. Why would you ask?”
She smiled slightly. “I meant, being here. With nothing to do. Without the Army looming over the future.”
“Well, I still have the Army Reserves, so that’s not completely true.”
“That’s not the kind of soldier you prefer to be.”
He sighed and flipped onto his back before pulling her closer, and tucking her into his side. “No. It’s not. But I love you more. It’s okay. I’ll figure it out.”
“Don’t do that. Don’t pat me on the head as if I can’t help you figure it out. We figure our lives out together. Not, you figuring out mine and yours all alone. You really like to do that. Mexico. Revenge. The general’s friends. Anything involving me you think you have a say in, but you hide what you’re doing and thinking from me.”
“All of that turned out well.”
“Yes, but it’s not a way to manage how we, as partners, should handle the rest of our lives.”
Will was right; and it all did work out. They followed the stories of her father’s friends; and within a week of the information reaching the media, the reports about the men were aired. Most were major stories that attracted a lot of public attention. The photos were shown with the inappropriate parts digitized along with the men who hurt her. They were exposed in all their perverted glory. One was under investigation for statutory rape and another was charged with tax evasion. Two were just humiliated. The fifth, Senator Johnstone, watched his entire life fall apart. His wife left him, and his children refused to give statements, but were reported not to be on speaking terms with him. Jessie savored that. He was the most aggressive of the five perpetrators who violated her, and he also demanded it the most often.
“That’s not my point.”
He sighed. “I know. I still treat you like you’re the broken, messed up, in-need-of-me Jessie Bains sometimes.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t mean to. It isn’t like I sit around thinking that. I’m still not that great at sharing. Always working on it though.”
“Well, this you have to share. We were both in the Army for our marriage, so we’re both out.”
“Okay, okay,” he mumbled with a sigh. His hand lazily rubbed her arm. “So I guess, for now, I kind of feel like I’m on vacation. I feel like I’ll be getting back to it soon. I don’t think it’s hit me yet that this is for good. For real.”
“And that’s something you kind of want, isn’t it? Knowing this is for good?”
“Yeah. I do.” His eyebrows knitted. “But then, no, I don’t. I don’t
want to be without you. But reporting back to the Army just seems normal for me. It might take awhile to get used to it.”
She nodded. “Exactly my point. So talk to me.”
He tickled her stomach. “I’d rather have sex with you instead. That gets my mind off it too. But to answer your question, I think I’m okay. I’m really tired, Jess. Since I was nineteen, I’ve always had something to do. I never figured out anything else. I just want to… I don’t know, be. With you.”
“I’m the opposite. I do better as long as I’m doing something.”
“I know. You work and I’ll be here waiting when you get home,” he joked, smacking her butt with a happy, cocky grin.
She finally smiled back. “You’re really okay?”
“I’m really okay.”
Will didn’t do much of anything for several months. Jessie taught him how to ride a horse on the weekends. She loved that, for once, he wasn’t as good at something as she was. She often took care of the horses not only as a meager payment to the Clapsmiths for letting them stay there, but also because she wanted to. She worked nearly full time with Noah at the clinic. He kept urging her to look into the veterinary program at the local college, Central Washington University. It had a pre-vet program. But that seemed like a pie-in-the-sky kind of dream. She doubted she could even enroll. Will and Noah kept encouraging her to try, and finally, she did. She was rejected. She needed credits that she didn’t have. However, an advisor suggested she attend the local community college and get the necessary credits and classes there, along with many of the lower classman requirements.
Unable to make a decision, she sat on it for a few weeks. The thought of walking into a classroom made her hands sweat. She was never good in school. She was always the fast, easy girl, which was all she remembered about classes and school. The boys and the mean girls. Herself notwithstanding. But everyone, including the Clapsmiths, were convinced she could do it. They persevered until finally, she signed up for the fall quarter.
****
“Come with me.”
Jessie swung around when she heard Will’s voice behind her. She was stocking the inventory for Noah in the stock room. Will leaned against the doorjamb, his arms crossed over his chest, grinning crazily. And again, her heart blipped in response to that grin.
“Now? I need to finish this.”
He rolled his eyes. “Please, Jess. I love your work ethic usually, but come on. I have something to show you. I swear it’s worth it. Noah doesn’t care.”
“I care.”
“I know. But just this one time, please come.”
His infectious smile piqued her curiosity and she sighed as she slipped off the lab coat. She wore it sometimes because she liked how it made her feel. Not that she was a smart professional like Noah or anything, but wearing it made her feel like that. She blushed when she realized how stupid that sounded… like she could ever become a professional veterinarian. Ha! As if.
She picked up her purse and let Will drag her by the hand. Noah waved them off as she shrugged helplessly with a grin.
She hunkered down in the new truck Will bought recently. He didn’t have any compunction about spending her father’s money. Jessie preferred an older model, reliable sedan, but Will bought a brand new, pimped out truck. It still startled her sometimes that he wasn’t a bit more frugal. She planned to encourage him to start being so and listen to her once in awhile.
“Okay, so where are we going?”
“You’ll see,” he grinned, wagging his eyebrows as he started the beastly truck. This one was loud. Choosing diesel, it rumbled and shook like a sick animal. She didn’t love it, but he did. His eyes lit up every freaking time he started it, as if the sound were a symbol of his manliness, or a testament to how large his penis was. Without the Army, Will sought other avenues to get his macho fix. For a guy who could be so sweet, tender and wonderful to her, he was also sometimes, a complete and utter cocky, macho man, verging on arrogant ass. Jessie was sometimes annoyed when she witnessed his testosterone-fueled displays; but it also tightened her stomach with desire for him. She just didn’t let him know that.
He drove down the highway out of town, taking a side road and eventually, turning onto a gravel road for several miles. The three-hundred-and-sixty degree views were incredible. The horizon was comprised of low mountains and trees. They were a mixture of leafy alder and cottonwood with deep green, Ponderosa pines. The land seemed rippled as it dipped and swayed in gentle, rolling waves until meeting the surrounding mountains. A river snaked through the hills far above the horizon. Will parked in a large clearing and turned the truck off. The silence was startling after the truck’s loud rumbling. He opened his door and stepped out. She frowned and followed. He leaned his elbows onto the truck and looked at her.
“What is this place?”
“I was thinking it could be our future home.”
Her spine straightened. “Our future h—”
He grinned even wider as her tongue-tied jaw dropped.
She closed her mouth. “Are you for real?”
“So for real.” He grinned and pushed off the truck, going around the hood. “I’ve been searching everywhere while you’re off at work. And finally, I found this place. I checked and it’s got septic, well, and electricity. It’s ready for building. We just have to pick a house design and get permits and all that crap, but basically, it’s waiting for us to break ground.”
Shaking her head, she slowly drifted away from the truck. She wandered around the leveled spot that did resemble the shape of a rectangle, or what could become a house. “Do you remember the dog house? Now you want to build a real house? I mean, I just don’t know what to say.”
“The dog house? Come off it. I can do better than that. I can do this. If I could rescue you against all odds, don’t you think I can figure out how to read a set of blueprints, and hammer a few nails in?”
She twisted around. “First of all, rescuing me required skills completely unrelated to house building. You are not a contractor. You have no contracting skills. It’s far more than reading blueprints and hammering a few nails!”
He flinched. “Okay, okay a lousy comparison. I just meant, I’ve been up against difficult goals before and managed well. I’m ready for this, Jessie. I’m ready for a challenge. For something to do. A project to accomplish. Something real. Something positive. Something for us. Our future. Our family.”
She lowered herself to sit on a big boulder at the left of the site, and took a deep breath. “Wow, you throw a lot at a girl. Okay, so you want to build us a house? From scratch? You know, that’s a bit more than cooking from scratch.”
“Of course, I realize it’s more than cooking from scratch. I really want to do this.”
“How much?”
“How much what?”
“Money? How much money would something like this cost? It sounds very expensive.”
“We have enough to buy this land and build whatever we want. Even fence in some of it.”
Her ears perked up. “How much land?”
“Twenty acres. It’s not a farm, but it could be a mini farm. Think of all the poor, helpless animals you could adopt here. You could have fields of them.”
A small smile brightened her face. “You play dirty.”
He came over and squatted next to her. “I’m not trying to. I’m completely serious. I want you to have all the animals you can collect. Don’t you remember? The farm? Well, this is as close as I can give you.”
She touched his cheek. “I never meant for you to literally give me a farm.”
“Well, I did. Look around, Jess. This view. The space. The quiet. It’s our future. Picture our kids running around here. Picture teaching our son to ride a horse as patiently as you taught me. Imagine our daughter sitting next to you on the porch. Picture this… forever.”
She sucked in a breath. “You paint a lovely picture. But it’s a dirty scheme to use our pretend-and-maybe-future children to suck me in on
this.”
He grinned and swept her hair back over her shoulder. “Picture us at home,” he added softly. “For good. For real. The place neither of us ever had. We can finally have it; the one we create.”
She shut her eyes and let the images he described fill her brain. The feelings they evoked tightened her stomach with longing. Home. Her eyes opened. “Okay.”
“That’s all it takes? Pretend kids?”
“No. It’s being in the home forever, with you.”
He suddenly swung her into a hug. “This is it, Jessie. I can feel it.”
Her stomach churned with nerves. “Glad one of us can. All I can picture is what the taxes and insurance costs will be on so much land.”
He shook his head. “Who could’ve guessed Jessie Hendricks would turn out be the most cautious, tight, careful adult I know?”
“I’m not tight,” she grumbled.
“So tight, you squeak. Now come on, let me show you more.”
“I just don’t like chaos. Or change.”
He touched her face. “I know, baby. I know what you don’t like. But this will be a good change.”
She followed him around the land and listened to his ideas for where the barn could go. Yes, apparently, they would build a barn. And a house. And fences. And animals. And kids. Nearly four times, Jessie sat down to stave off an attack of hyperventilation. Apparently, Will Hendricks could finally channel the endless, boundless energy he had in the Army towards her happiness and their future.
Which was a little scary to contemplate.
****
They purchased the land for ten thousand dollars under the asking price. It had been for sale for a while in a sluggish market and in a remote land sales area. Will had the utilities hooked up immediately and was ready to start the foundation within weeks. They picked a house plan that took about a week to customize. No stairs, not too big with an open, welcoming entry. They wanted a home that invited people into their lives, but did not show off what they had. They realized they had similar tastes; and the multiple times they picked the same thing made them eye each other with goofy grins. They weren’t as mismatched as they used to fear they might have been.
The Years Between (Sister Series, 1.5) Page 23