More to Love

by Alison Bliss

  Max sighed. “Yes. I’m an electrician. I run my own business, but my larger jobs usually involve working for Sam’s construction company. That’s why I was able to make my own hours and come by here so often.”

  If she thought that it couldn’t have gotten any worse, he’d just proved her wrong. Fury lit through her faster than a hot fuse on a firecracker. “So Sam and your other friends knew that you were lying to me all along?”

  “No, not the whole time. They found out when you kissed me in the bakery. That’s why I was acting so weird. I was afraid one of them was about to accidentally rat me out so I told them after you left.”

  “Well, that’s just great. Well, I hope you all had a great laugh at my expense.”

  He reached for her, but she moved out of his grasp so he let his hand drop to his side. “Honey, no one was laughing at you. They were all pissed as hell that I was lying to you and have done nothing but encourage me to tell you the truth ever since. This isn’t on them. It’s all my fault. They had nothing to do with it, I swear.”

  “And that’s supposed to make me feel any better?”

  “No, I’m sure it doesn’t. I’m sorry, Jess. If I could go back in time and take all the lies back, I would. I never meant to cause you any pain. You have to believe that. I would never do anything to hurt you.”

  “Yeah, well you did.” Tears burned behind her eyelids, but she blinked rapidly to keep them at bay. The last thing she wanted to do was cry in front of him. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Please leave.”

  “Sweetheart, just listen to me…” He reached for her arm again.

  She shrugged him off and moved away. “Don’t touch me ever again. I mean it. You may have fooled me once. I’ll give you credit for that. But trust me when I say it won’t happen a second time.”

  “Damn it, Jess. It wasn’t like that. I never meant to—”

  “Shut up. I don’t want to hear anything that comes out of your lying mouth. Not anymore. You had every chance to tell me the truth and chose not to. Maybe you’re smooth enough to fool all the other women in this town, but if you think for one second I’m going to believe another word you say, you’re delusional.” She shoved him toward the door. “Now get out of my truck.”

  He stepped outside but stayed on the pavement just outside the door. Apparently, he wasn’t giving up that easily. “Don’t do this,” he pleaded, motioning to the two of them. “Don’t throw this thing between us away over something stupid that doesn’t mean anything.”

  Jessa blinked. “Doesn’t mean any—” She couldn’t believe the nerve of this man. Her gaze locked with his. “You know what, Max? Maybe to you this doesn’t change anything, because you weren’t the one being lied to. But to me, it changes everything.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “You wanted my absence, right? Fine. You’ve got it.” She stepped out of the truck and slammed the back door closed before heading around to the driver’s side of the vehicle.

  He caught up with her as she opened the front door, his eyes wide. “You can’t leave like this. What about us?”

  Although her heart shriveled in her chest under his pleading eyes, she climbed confidently into the cab of the truck and gave him a look filled with disgust. “There is no us anymore. Good-bye, Max.” With that, she slammed the door to the truck closed and locked it for good measure.

  “Jessa, come on. Open the door. Don’t leave it like this.” When she started the truck and turned on the headlights, his pleading became more urgent. “Baby, I’ll do anything to make this right. Please. I don’t want to lose you. I need you.”

  His last words hurt so much that she knew she needed to drive away or she would end up opening the door and falling back into his arms. So she put the truck into gear and pulled away from the curb.

  * * *

  Hours later, Max beat on her front door for the umpteenth time.

  He had no doubt Jessa was inside and just ignoring his persistent banging, but if he kept doing it much longer, someone was going to call the cops. The neighborhood dogs were already barking like crazy, and her neighbors’ lights had recently flickered on.

  “Jess, I know you’re in there. Just let me in to talk. Five minutes, okay? That’s all I ask.”

  “No,” she said from the other side of the door.

  Okay, that was progress. She hadn’t answered him for the last half hour. Maybe he was wearing her down a little. “Baby, please. Five minutes. After that, if you want me to leave, I’ll go and won’t bother you anymore tonight.”

  “Yeah, like I can believe anything you say. You’re a liar!”

  He sighed. “I know I lied,” he told her, his face pressed against the cool painted wood of her front door. “But I’m not going to do it again, I promise. I never meant to do it in the first place.”

  “No, I mean you’re lying right now. If I give you five minutes, you aren’t going to leave when those five minutes are up.”

  He flattened his palm against the door. “I swear I will. If that’s what you want.”

  There was a long enough pause that Max didn’t think he’d gotten through to her, but the front door finally creaked open to reveal Jessa standing there in a white robe.

  For some strange reason, he’d expected her to have a bright red face, filled with anger, as well as surly eyes and an expression that mimicked a shark right before they took a bite out of you. But instead, her face was drawn, and her cheeks were stained with dried-up tears. But it was the deep sadness he saw in her eyes that gutted him completely. He’d done that to her, damn him.

  At first they stood there, regarding each other cautiously. Then she said, “You get five minutes. After that, if you don’t leave, I’ll call the cops on you myself.” It was said in such a civil tone that it was hard to even fathom that it was a threat.

  “I promised you I would. I wasn’t lying when I said it. I plan on keeping every promise I ever make to you from now on.”

  “I don’t want any promises from you. In fact, I don’t want anything from you. I clearly can’t trust you to tell me the truth.” With that, she pushed the door open to allow him access and backed away as he passed by her, as if she couldn’t stand the thought of him accidentally touching her.

  Once they were both in the living room, Jessa pulled her robe around her and tightened the knot. The sore spot he’d created with her had only been festering for about two hours, but seeing her gut-wrenching reactions to him only made Max acutely aware of how much she was trying to protect herself and keep her distance.

  He tried to take her hand, but she took a step back. “Don’t touch me.”

  “Okay,” he said, releasing a heavy sigh and backing away to allow her some breathing room. He shoved his hands in his pockets to keep from reaching for her again. “First off, I want you to know how sorry I am. I know apologizing doesn’t fix this, but I need you to know how sincere I’m being right now. I never meant to hurt you, Jess.”

  “Yet, you still did.”

  He nodded. “You’re right. I did. But you have to know it wasn’t intentional. When I first met you, I didn’t know you were the owner of that truck. You know that, Jess. You were there.”

  “I do know that. But once you found out who I was, you could’ve told me the truth. You didn’t have to keep lying to my face.”

  He shook his head. “You’re right, I didn’t. But I was trying to help out my friend. He’s an old man, and his only source of income is the café across the street from you. He was losing all of his business, and he was going under.”

  “Don’t try to guilt trip me with that. It wasn’t like I was intentionally poaching his customers. I had no idea. Why didn’t you just walk over and tell me that to begin with? I would’ve moved my truck voluntarily. I wasn’t trying to harm anyone else’s business…unlike you.”

  “Jessa.”

  “No, I’ve listened to you. Now it’s your turn to listen to me. What I did to your friend was harmless and unintentio
nal. Hell, I didn’t even know I was doing anything wrong. But what you did to me was despicable and disgusting. All of those ordinances you spouted off. Those were fake, right?”

  He cringed. “Yes. I made them up on the spot. It was stupid and rash, which is why none of them made any sense. I didn’t even think you would buy any of it to begin with.”

  “Yet I just took what you told me at face value and never once questioned it. I guess that makes me the trusting dummy, doesn’t it?”

  “That’s not what I meant, Jess. Yes, you’re trusting, but that’s one of the things I love about you. I don’t want what I did to change that about you.”

  “Well, you’re too late on that one. I told you from almost the beginning that I don’t like being made a fool of. But you couldn’t help yourself, could you?”

  He shook his head. “You’re not the fool here, Jess. I am. This was all on me.”

  “You’re right, it is.”

  “Look, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I care about you, Jess. But when I first started all of this, I didn’t even know you. And once I had already lied, it was too late to back out of it. I was stuck in a bad position and didn’t know how to turn things around. But I didn’t want to lose you. You have to believe that, Jess.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know what to believe anymore. I get wanting to help a friend, even if your methods were questionable. But what I can’t wrap my brain around is why you would continue lying when you knew you would be hurting me. You had to realize I would find out the truth eventually.”

  “I did, but I didn’t have a choice. I owed it to Pops. After everything that man has done for me…”

  Jessa shook her head adamantly. “What could your friend have possibly done for you that would require you to pay him back by screwing over someone you claim to care for?”

  Max stared at her in silence. He wasn’t comfortable talking about his issues with food and didn’t want to explain how Pops made him a special every day so that he could stay on track with his health and fitness goals. So finally, he said, “He’s just been a good friend to me.”

  She gazed at him curiously, her interest clearly piqued. “Why do I get the feeling that there’s more to that than what you’re telling me?”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m betting you do.”

  Damn it. He didn’t want to lie to her again by denying it, but he wasn’t ready or willing to share that part of himself with anyone. “I told you—”

  “Yeah, I know what you told me. And I’m not buying it. As sad as it is, you still can’t be completely honest with me, Max. But that’s okay because I now have the common sense not to listen to you anymore. Nothing else you have to say to me matters. I think it’s time you leave.”

  “Jessa, wait.”

  “No. Your five minutes are up. You promised you would go. I expect you to keep your word. I don’t want to lose any more respect for you than I already have, so you need to leave.”

  Max felt a heavy weight sink inside of him, but he moved toward the door in silence. She followed him, and when he stepped outside, she started to close the door behind him.

  He put his hand against the door long enough to say, “I’m sorry, baby. I know you might not believe me, but I am. And I’m not giving up on us, Jess. I’m leaving now only because I promised you I would, but don’t you think for one second that I’m not coming back for you. I will always come back for you. You can count on it.”

  “Don’t bother,” she said, her voice trembling. “I won’t be here much longer anyway. I’m packing up and leaving town.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Jessa sank to the floor on the other side of the door and cried until her eyes were raw and swollen. She hated to think she was going to have to leave the one place where she felt close to her mom, but she didn’t know what else to do. She couldn’t possibly stay here now knowing that she would run into Max at every turn.

  It was bad enough that she was going to have to face Logan and Valerie at least once more to turn in her keys and tell them she was leaving. The mere idea that all of his friends knew about Max’s lies filled her with embarrassment all over again. Not that she thought any of them would’ve laughed about his deceit. None of them seemed like the kind of people who got their kicks by enjoying someone else’s misery.

  Well, except for Max.

  He was a guy who liked to push other people’s buttons. Maybe it had something to do with his overinflated ego, or he was overcompensating for some strange masculine insecurities, but he got off on riling others up.

  But that wasn’t how she was. Jessa was easygoing and laid back. She liked to live in the moment and have peace and harmony around her at all times. Staying in a town where Max Hager lived and would be coming around would be the exact opposite of peace and harmony.

  She had told Max that she was leaving only to hurt him, which was a rotten thing to do. But now that she’d said it, the idea was sounding better by the second. It was the only way she would be able to move on and not think about Max. Besides, the last thing she wanted to do was stay in a town where he would eventually be dating other women and flaunting them in her face.

  Not that he would probably do that, but it would still feel that way to her.

  The good thing was that she hadn’t been in town long enough to put down any real roots, like buying a house or opening a restaurant here. Sure, she’d fallen in love with…damn it. She hadn’t realized it until just now, but she’d fallen completely in love with that bastard. Just great.

  Now she had no choice but to leave.

  But God, she loved this small town so much. If only her mother hadn’t mentioned Granite to her in the first place, then Jessa would’ve never met Max. Thanks a lot, Mom. You should’ve warned me off this place instead.

  Her eyes filled with tears as she remembered the travel journals her mother had left behind. She had told Max that she hadn’t read the one about Granite because she was afraid that the town would lose some of its magic. But now, she was hoping she was right. Because something needed to push her away from this place.

  She had no family ties here beyond her mother. Sure, she had made plenty of friends, but it wasn’t like she couldn’t keep in contact with them while living somewhere else. That would be better than facing Max every day or running into him every time she turned a corner.

  So Jessa lifted herself up from the floor and did the one thing she’d never thought she would do. She fetched her mother’s travel journal for Granite, Texas, and nestled herself into the recliner to read it. But as she opened the pages, a handwritten note fell out.

  My dearest Jessa,

  I’m writing this for you because my time is almost at an end. Though there are many things I want to tell you, one thing stands out above the rest. I know it will be hard to hear the news after I’m gone, but I didn’t have the strength to tell you before now. I never meant to leave you alone in this world. So to make sure that doesn’t happen, I wrote this journal for you. I hope you’ll read it with an open heart and an understanding mind. Be strong, my darling. I miss you already.

  Love, Mom

  She wasn’t sure what her mother had written for her inside the pages, but she had no choice but to trust her late mother to guide her next move. So with tears in her eyes, Jessa read the journal from front to back. By the time she was finished, her life had unexpectedly changed its course. If she had ever believed in fate and the alignment of the stars, it was right now.

  * * *

  Jessa reined in her nerves and knocked on the door.

  She smoothed her trembling hand over her hair and waited patiently as the sound of heavy footsteps neared. The door flung open, and Logan stood on the threshold, looking as tall and handsome as ever.

  “Hi, Logan. Can I…can I talk to you for a minute? It’s important.”

  Concern filled his eyes, and he pushed the door open wider. “Of course. Come on in.”

  She stepped inside th
e spacious living room and instantly spotted Valerie standing in a kitchen doorway. “Hey, Jess. We were just sitting down for lunch. Would you like to join us?”

  “No, that’s okay. Thank you. I don’t think I can eat right now.” Her hands were shaking beyond all control. “I need to talk to Logan.”

  Valerie came closer as she exchanged a glance with Logan. “Everything okay, honey? You look a little pale. Do you need to sit down?”

  “It’s fine. I mean, I’m fine. I just…uh…came here to tell Logan something that I thought he should know.”

  Logan placed one hand on her shoulder and led her to the couch. “Please sit down. You look so jittery that I’m afraid you’re going to fall over. What happened?”

  “Nothing happened. I just needed to tell you—”

  An older woman with short, light brown hair stepped out of the kitchen. “Logan, I made your favorite…Oh.” The woman froze in place when she noticed that there was a guest in the room.

  Logan spoke up. “Mom, this is Jessa Gibson. She’s the one renting the kitchen at the bar for her food truck business, the Gypsy Cantina. Jessa, this is my mother, Julie Mathis.”

  “Hello,” Jessa said, her voice barely a whisper. God, she couldn’t do this. Especially in front of his mother. This had been a bad idea. The urge to run out of there was strong, but she tried to do it with as much grace as possible. “I…really shouldn’t have come. Please just forget that I said anything. I’m sorry.” Jessa stood and moved quickly toward the door.

  She had barely placed her hand on the knob when a soft voice behind her said, “You look just like your mother.”

  Jessa stopped dead in her tracks, hesitated, and then turned back around. “How do you…”

  Logan’s mother smiled sincerely, her hands clasped in front of her. “I recognized your last name. You’re Mariah’s daughter.”

  She blinked. “You…uh, knew my mother?”