by Diana Palmer
“Then I’ll see you at six.” He winked and walked out, still feeling a twinge of guilt.
Bess stuck her head into Jessica’s office just before she left. “McCallum said that you and he were just good friends, and you keep saying the same thing,” she began, “so is it all right if I try my luck with him?”
Jessica was dumbfounded, but she was adept at hiding her deepest feelings. She forced a smile. “Why, of course.”
Bess let out a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness! I invited him over for supper. I didn’t want to step on your toes, but he is so sexy! Thanks, Jessica! See you tomorrow!”
She closed the door quickly, and a minute later, Jessica heard her go out. It was like a door closing on life itself. She hesitated just briefly before she turned her eyes back to the file she was working on. The print was so blurred that she could hardly read it.
Whitehorn was small and, as in most small towns, everyone knew immediately about McCallum’s supper with Bess. They didn’t know that nothing had happened, however, because Bess made enough innuendos to suggest that it had been the hottest date of her life. Jessica was hard-pressed not to snap at her employee, but she could’t let anyone know how humiliating and painful the experience was to her. She had her pride, if nothing else.
Sam Jackson heard about the date and laughed heartily. Originally he’d planned to spend only one night in Whitehorn, but he was enjoying himself too much to leave in a rush. A week later, he was still in residence at the small motel and having breakfast every morning at the café across from Jessica’s office.
Jessica was near breaking point. People were gossiping about her all over again. She became impatient with her caseworkers and even with clients, which was unlike her. She couldn’t do anything about Sam Jackson, and certainly McCallum wasn’t going to. He seemed to like the man. And he seemed to like Bess as well, because he began to stop by the office every day to take her to lunch.
“I’m leaving now,” Bess said at noon on Friday. She hesitated, and from the corner of her eye, Jessica saw her looking at her in concern. No wonder since even to her own eyes she looked pale and drawn. In fact, she was hardly eating anything and was on the verge of moving out of town. Desperation had cost her the cool reason she’d always prided herself on.
“Have a nice lunch,” she told Bess, refusing to look up because she knew Sterling McCallum was standing in the outer office, waiting.
Bess still hesitated. She felt so guilty she couldn’t stand herself lately. It was painfully obvious how her boss felt about Sterling McCallum. It was even more obvious now that McCallum was taking Bess out. She hated being caught between the two of them, and it was shocking to see how Jessica was being affected by it. Bess had a few bad moments remembering how she’d embroidered those dates with McCallum to make everyone in the office think they had a hot relationship going.
Jessica was unfailingly polite, but she treated Bess like a stranger now. It was painful to have the old, pleasant friendliness apparently gone for good. Jessica never looked into her eyes. She treated her like a piece of furniture, and it really hurt. Bess couldn’t even blame her. She asked for permission to go out with McCallum, but she’d known even when Jessica gave it that the other woman cared deeply about him. She was ashamed of herself for putting her own infatuation with McCallum over Jessica’s feelings. Not that it had done her any good. McCallum was fine company, and once he’d kissed her with absent affection, but he couldn’t have made it more obvious that he enjoyed being with her only in a casual way. On the other hand, when he looked at Jessica there was real pain in his eyes.
“Can’t I bring you back something?” Bess asked abruptly. “Jessica, you look so—”
“I’m fine,” Jessica said shortly. “I have a virus and I’ve lost my appetite, that’s all. Please go ahead.”
Bess grimaced as she closed the door, and the concern was still on her face when she joined McCallum.
He’d seen Jessica, too, in that brief time while her office door was open. He’d wanted to show her that he didn’t care, that he could date other women with complete indifference to her feelings. But it was backfiring on him. He felt sick as he realized how humiliated she must be, to have him dating one of her own coworkers. It wasn’t her fault that she couldn’t bear a child, after all, and she was right—he’d never acted as if he had any kind of permanent relationship in mind for the two of them. He was still trying to find reasons to keep her at arm’s length, he admitted finally. He was afraid to trust her, afraid of being hurt if he gave his heart completely. He’d believed Sam Jackson because he’d wanted to. But now, as he thought about it rationally, he wondered at his own gullibility. Was he really so desperate to have Jessica out of his life that he’d believe a total stranger, a biased total stranger, before he’d even ask Jessica for her version of what had happened?
Sam Jackson had been having lunch in the café, too, and stopped by McCallum’s table to exchange pleasantries with him and Bess. Sheriff Hensley drove by in the patrol car and saw them in the window. Later that afternoon, he invited McCallum into his office and closed the door.
“I heard Sam Jackson’s been in town six days,” he said quietly. “What’s his business here?”
“He’s just passing through,” McCallum said.
“And…?”
McCallum was puzzled. It wasn’t like his boss to be so interested in strangers who visited town. “And he’s just passing the time of day as well, I guess.”
Hensley folded his hands together on his desk and toyed with a paper clip. “He’s the sort who holds grudges.” He looked up. “I’ve heard some talk I don’t like. It was a closed trial, but a lot of gossip got out anyway. Fred’s wife and daughter left town as soon as the verdict was read, but Jessica had nowhere to go except here. Fred, of course, gave her a rough time of it.”
“Maybe he had reason to,” McCallum ventured curtly.
Hensley put the paper clip down deliberately. “You listen to me,” he said coldly. “Jessica did nothing except try to help his wife and child. Fred was a cocaine addict. He liked to bring his friends home at night while his wife was working at the hospital. One night he was so high that he beat his daughter and she ran away. It was Jessica who took her in and comforted her. It was Jessica who made her mother face the fact that she was married to an addict and that she had to get help for them. Jessica was told—probably by your buddy Sam—that Fred had forced Clarisse, his daughter, to go back home with him. That’s why she went out there that day. He attacked Jessica instead, and she barely got away in time.”
McCallum didn’t say a word. His complexion paled, just a little.
“For her pains, because the court trial was in the judge’s chambers, and not publicized for Clarisse’s sake, Jessica took the brunt of the gossip. All anyone heard was that Jessica had almost gotten raped. It was the talk of the town. Everywhere she went, thanks to Sam Jackson, she was pointed out and ridiculed as the girl who’d led poor Fred on and then yelled rape. She took it, for Clarisse’s sake, until her mother could get another job and they could leave town while Fred was safely in jail.”
“He didn’t tell me that,” McCallum said dully.
“Sam Jackson hated Jessica. He was on the city council. He had influence and he used it. But time passed and Sam left town. It didn’t end there, however. Fred got out of jail in six months and came after Jessica. He was killed in a wreck, all right,” the sheriff stated. “He was out for vengeance the day he was paroled and was chasing Jessica in his car, high as a March kite, until he ran off a cliff in the process. He would have killed her if he hadn’t.”
McCallum felt cold chills down his spine. He could picture the scene all too easily.
“Jessica survived,” Hensley continued curtly, and McCallum barely registered the odd phrasing. “She held her head up, and those of us who knew the truth couldn’t have admired her more. She’s suffered enough. I didn’t realize Sam Jackson was even in town until I happened to see him this morn
ing, but he won’t be here any longer. I’m going to give him a personal escort to the county line right now.” He stood up, grabbing his hat. “And for what it’s worth, I think you’re petty to start dating Bess right under Jessica’s nose, on top of everything else. She doesn’t deserve that.”
McCallum got to his feet, too. “I’d like a word with Jackson before you boot him out of town.”
Hensley recognized the deputy’s expression too well to agree to what McCallum was really suggesting.
“You believed him without questioning what he said,” Hensley reminded him. “If there’s fault, it’s as much yours as his. You aren’t to go near him.”
McCallum’s thin lips pressed together angrily. “He had no business coming here to spread more lies about her.”
“You had no business listening to them,” came the merciless reply. “Learn from the experience. There are always two sides to every story. You’ve got enough work to do. Why don’t you go out there and act like a deputy sheriff?”
McCallum reached for his own hat. “I don’t feel much like one right now,” he said. “I’ve been a fool.”
“Hard times teach hard lessons, but they stay with us. Jessica isn’t judgmental, even if you are.”
McCallum didn’t say another word, but he had his reservations. He’d hurt her too much. He knew before he even asked that she might forgive him, but that she’d never forget the things he’d said to her.
Nine
Sam Jackson left town with the sheriff’s car following him every inch of the way to the county line. He’d had to do some fast talking just to keep an irritated Hensley from arresting him for vagrancy. But his bitter hatred of Jessica hadn’t abated, and he hoped he’d done her some damage. His poor brother, he told himself, had deserved some sort of revenge. Perhaps now he could rest in peace.
McCallum didn’t go near Jessica’s office, for fear that Bess might make another play for him and complicate things all over again. He did go to Jessica’s house the next afternoon, hat in hand, to apologize.
She met him at the door in a pair of worn jeans and a T-shirt, her hair in a ponytail and her glasses perched on her nose. It was a beautiful day, and the Montana air sparkled. The world was in bloom, and the Whitehorn area had never been more beautiful under the wide blue sky.
“Yes?” Jessica asked politely, as if he were a stranger.
He felt uncomfortable. He wasn’t used to making apologies. “I suppose you know why I’m here,” he said stiffly.
She stripped off her gardening gloves. “It’s about Keith, I guess,” she replied matter-of-factly, without any attempt at dissembling.
He frowned. “No. We persuaded the authorities to keep Keith for a few days at the juvenile hall while we did some investigating. I haven’t come about that.”
“Oh.” Her eyes held no expression at all. “Then what do you want?”
He propped one foot on the lowest step and stared at the spotless shine of his black boot. “I came to apologize.”
“I can’t imagine why.”
He looked up in time to catch the bitterness that touched her face just for an instant. “What?”
“I’m a liar and a temptress and a murderess, according to Sam Jackson,” she said heavily. “From what everyone says, you were hanging on to every word he said. So why should you want to apologize to me?”
He drew in a breath and shifted his hat from one hand to the other. “Hensley told me all of it.”
“And that’s why you’re here.” She sounded weary, resigned. “I might have known it wasn’t because you came to your senses,” she said without inflection in her voice. “You preferred Sam Jackson’s version of the truth, even after I reminded you that he was biased.”
“You told me a half-truth from the beginning!”
“Don’t you raise your voice to me!” she said angrily, punching her glasses up onto her nose when they started to slip down. “I didn’t want to remember it, can’t you understand? I hate having to remember. Clarisse was the real victim, a lot more than I was. I just happened to be stupid enough to go out there alone, trying to protect her. And believe me, it wasn’t to tempt Fred! The only thing I was thinking about was how to spare Clarisse any more anguish!”
“I know that now.” He groaned silently. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Why should you have expected me to?” she replied, puzzled. “I don’t know very much about you, except that your mother drank and was cruel to you and that you had a very nasty time of it in foster care.”
He hesitated, searching her eyes.
“You’ve told me very little about yourself,” she said. “I only know bits and pieces, mostly what I’ve heard from other people. But you expected me to tell you things I haven’t told anyone my whole life. Why should you expect something from me that you’re not willing to give in return?”
That gave him food for thought. He ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t suppose I should have.”
“And it’s all past history now,” she added. “You’re dating Bess. I don’t trespass on other women’s territory. Not ever. Bess even asked if I had anything going with you before she invited you to supper. I told her no,” she added firmly.
There was a sudden faint flush high on his cheekbones, because he remembered telling Bess the same thing. But it wasn’t true, then or now. “Listen—” he began.
“No, you listen. I appreciate the meals we had together and the help you gave me on cases. I hope we can work together amicably in the future. But as you have reason to know, I have nothing to offer a man on any permanent basis.”
He moved closer, his eyes narrowed with concern. “Being barren isn’t the end of the world,” he said quietly.
She moved back and folded her arms over her chest, stopping him where he stood. “You thought so. You even said so,” she reminded him.
His teeth ground together. “I was half out of my mind! It upset me that you could keep something so important to yourself. That was why I got uptight. It isn’t that I couldn’t learn to live with it….”
“But you don’t have to. Nobody has to live with it except me,” she said quietly. “I’m sure that Bess has no such drawbacks, and she has the advantage of being completely without inhibitions. She’s sweet and young, and she adores you,” she said through tight lips. “You’re a very lucky man.”
“Lucky,” he echoed with growing bitterness.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” she said with a bright smile, pulling her gloves back on, “I have to finish weeding my garden. Thanks for stopping by.”
“Just like that?” he burst out angrily. “I hadn’t finished.”
She brushed dirt off the palm of one glove. “What is there left to say?” she asked with calm curiosity.
He studied her impassive face. She had her emotions under impeccable control, but beneath the surface, he perceived pain and a deep wounding that wasn’t likely to be assauged by any apology, however well meant. He was going to have to win back her trust and respect. That wasn’t going to happen overnight. And he didn’t expect her to make it easy for him.
He rammed his hat back onto his head. “Nothing, I guess,” he agreed, nodding. “I said it all, one way or another, when I jumped down your throat without knowing the truth.”
“Sam can be very convincing,” she replied. She averted her face. “He turned the whole town against me for a while. You can’t imagine how vicious the gossip was,” she added involuntarily. “I still hate being talked about.”
Jessica didn’t add that he’d helped gossip along by dating Bess, so that his rejection of her was made public. But he knew that already. It must have added insult to injury to have his new romantic interest and Sam’s renewed accusations being discussed at every lunch counter in town. He understood now, as he hadn’t before, why she’d worried so much about being seen in public with him.
“How about Jennifer?” she added suddenly, interrupting his gloomy thoughts. “Any news on her parents?”
>
“No luck yet,” he replied. “But I think I may be on to something with Keith.”
“I hope so,” she said. “I feel terrible that I didn’t suspect something before this.”
“None of us is perfect, Jessica,” he said, his voice deep and slow and full of regret. His dark eyes searched hers in silence, until she averted her own to ward off the flash of electricity that persisted between the two of them. “I’ll let you know what I find out.”
She nodded, but didn’t reply. She just walked away from him.
He talked to a school official about Keith, and discovered that the boy had been an excellent student until about the time his father lost his job.
“He was never a problem,” the counselor told him. “But he let slip something once about his father liking liquor a little too much when he was upset. Things seemed to go badly for Terrance after his wife left, you know. Losing his job must be the last straw.”
“I’m sure it’s unpleasant for him to have to depend on public assistance,” McCallum agreed. “But taking it out on his child isn’t the answer.”
“People drink and lose control,” the counselor said. “More and more of them, in these pressured economic times. They’re usually sorry, too late. I’ll try to talk to Keith again, if you like. But I can’t promise anything. He’s very loyal to his father.”
“Most kids are,” McCallum said curtly. He was remembering how he’d protected his brutal mother, right up until the night she’d broken his arm with the bottle. He’d made excuse after excuse for her behavior, just as Keith was probably doing now.
He contacted the juvenile officer and had a long conversation with him, but the man couldn’t tell him any more than he already knew. Keith hadn’t reached the end of his rope yet, and until he did, there was little anyone could do for him.
McCallum did get a break, a small one, in the abandoned-baby case. It seemed that a local midwife did remember hearing an old woman from out of town talk about delivering a child in a clandestine manner for a frightened young woman. It wasn’t much to go on, but anything would help.