Heaven Beside You

by Christa Maurice

  “Hey, Conjob, this is too short,” he pointed out.

  On her knees in front of Bear’s fiancée, Maureen, adjusting the hem of her dress, she glanced over her shoulder at him. “Don’t call me that. It’s supposed to be that length.”

  “It’s too short.”

  “No, it’s revealing the cuffs of your shirt. Tonio is waiting for you.”

  Jason slumped into the hairdresser’s chair. Around him everyone chattered, fidgeting with their dress up clothes and trying not to muss their hair or makeup. In this sea of happiness and excitement, he was an island of misery. He’d have cut off his right hand for the opportunity to sit on Cass’s couch watching the Grammys with her leaning against him. There had to be some way to get a little bit of her. But if she wanted everything, she would never settle for some, and he couldn’t let another woman dictate the color of his kitchen unless she was his sister.

  Eleanor pulled a kitchen chair next to him and sat. In her jeans and t-shirt, hair pulled back in a ponytail, she looked as out of place as he felt. “I hear you met up with Stella the other day,” she said.

  “Bitch,” Tonio snorted. “I worked with her on a commercial last year. I told her I’m not a plastic surgeon or a magician. It ain’t happenin’.” He snapped a Z in the air.

  Tonio might like to meet Paul.

  Eleanor smiled at Tonio’s outburst before focusing on Jason again. “I hear it went well.”

  Jason shrugged. “Well enough.”

  Eleanor reached up to brush his hair off his face as she’d done when he was a little boy, and hesitated. She must have remembered where they were. “So what is it?”

  Jason shrugged. He couldn’t hide his face because Tonio had hold of him. “Nothing.”

  “You can’t lie to me. Is it this woman you met in West Virginia?”

  “How do you know about her?”

  “Brian can’t lie to me either. I used to babysit you guys. Tessa said you asked her to dig up dirt on her. Divorced, single, former artist. What’s she like?”

  He closed his eyes, and was with Cassie again. Bright eyes smiling, she laughed with him, that warm, husky sound that proved whatever he’d said, she thought it genuinely funny. Her hands were on him again, gentle, caressing. The clean, citrusy scent of her hair surrounded him and he could taste her salty sweet skin.

  His breath hitched. Eleanor put a hand on his arm and the touch reminded him of Cassie. Those non-sexual, undemanding touches she never hesitated to bestow on him that made him feel loved instead of just desired.

  “So you loved her?”

  “I only knew her for a week,” he said. He opened his eyes, ashamed to discover tears in them.

  “Sometimes you know right away. What happened?”

  “She didn’t love me.”

  Eleanor nodded. “She rejected you.”

  “No, she manipulated me. She wanted to be the next Stella.” The ever present vise around his chest tightened. All these people loved him. Three of the five members of his family were here, his best friend from childhood, his closest adult friends. He shouldn’t feel so alone, like some important part of himself was missing.

  “Are you sure?” Eleanor asked.

  Jason thrust away from the chair, losing a few hairs to Tonio’s comb. “Jesus, would you all stop it?” he shouted.

  Utter silence, and everyone’s eyes on him. Then Tonio’s comb clattered to the floor. The front door opened a moment later.

  “Hello! Have I missed anything?” Tessa barged into the living room wearing a neat pink suit and black pumps. Her gaze honed in on him, joining those already staring at him. “Oh. It looks like I’m right on time,” she said.

  “Jason Albert, you behave yourself!” his mother bellowed.

  Jason turned away, putting his hands over his eyes. Someone behind him whispered his name with wonder. Probably Maureen. His middle name wasn’t common knowledge, and she was new to the group. He hated it. Albert was his father’s name. He didn’t know why he hadn’t changed it years ago.

  “Jason, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up a sore point.” Eleanor rose and rested her hand on his arm.

  Cassie had stood in the window behind him, painting, while with his back to her, he sat on the couch, playing his way through the Harrison catalog from memory. She’d stepped away from the easel to check to her work and lain a hand lightly on his shoulder. The touch had made him fumble a chord, and had felt so incredibly good. He wanted that again. Even if it was an act, he wanted it.

  “Don’t coddle the boy, Eleanor.” His mother scowled. “Jason Albert, you are such an ungrateful little monster.”

  Dressed in a designer gown dripping in diamonds, she glared up at him, calling him ungrateful? Monster he could admit to, but he’d done his best to never be ungrateful. And he wasn’t little.

  “Just because your papa walked out on you when you were a little boy doesn’t give you the right to act like a beast all your life.”

  The chorus of shocked sounds seemed to echo for a long time. His sisters didn’t even flinch, but suddenly found fascinating points of interest on various walls. They must have discovered the letter, too.

  “You don’t think we didn’t know?” Mom yelled. “Did you think your mother was stupid? Why do you think you got that guitar for your birthday? We had to use money from Tessa’s college fund.”

  “Well, I paid it back. I put her through law school!”

  “That’s not the point,” his mother shouted, louder than him.

  “Please, stop,” Eleanor pleaded. “There’s no need to yell.” She tried to step between them.

  “Talking hasn’t gotten through.” His mother reached around Eleanor and shoved him back a step. “Your father hurt you. He hurt all of us. You let that ugly, skinny woman hurt you. And now you won’t see when someone really loves you because you have cold feet.”

  About to yell something even more unfortunate at his mother, he closed his mouth. Not only his feet were cold. No single part of his body felt warmer than it had when he’d been building snow sculptures in Cassie’s yard. Why did everything come back to her? Cassie, who sight unseen, his mother believed loved him. “How do you know that? You’ve never even met Cassie.”

  “I don’t need to. I can read you better than I can read a book. I see when the pain comes to your eyes and the tears you don’t cry, the way you clench your fist. You aren’t stupid, Jason. You know when someone loves you but just can’t accept it. You push them away because you’re scared. You reject them before they can reject you.”

  “Mama,” Tessa put her hands on their mother’s arms, trying to guide her to a chair, “you’re going to hurt yourself.”

  Mom pulled against Tessa’s hands as if she wanted to lunge at him. “No, I’m going to hurt my only son because he seems to think that’s what he deserves.”

  Her words rang off the walls. Jason checked to make sure he was still standing. He should have been beaten into the fetal position by now. That, or this was the worst nightmare he’d ever had and he’d be waking up any minute now. Around the room, his family’s expressions were grim, his friends, shocked. The other day he’d told Brian’s daughter people fought because they had something they wanted to save.

  “Why didn’t you tell me, man?” Brian asked.

  Unable to form a response, Jason shook his head. He’d been so humiliated to discover his dad wasn’t there, not because he couldn’t be, but because he’d chosen not to be. On some childish level, he’d been sure if his friends knew, they’d leave him, too. It had never gone away.

  After he’d told Cass, she’d wanted to be with him. Even as he’d pulled away, she tried to comfort him, warm him from a coldness that had nothing to do with the winter hike.

  “Son, you love this girl.” His mother stepped toward him, twisting off the wedding ring she’d always worn. “Go to her. Give her this, and love her always,” she said, and folded it into his hand.

 
The solitaire diamond was so riddled with incursions from hard wear, it was cloudy. Why hadn’t he replaced the stone for her a long time ago? He laughed bitterly. “It didn’t work for you, did it? He left anyway.”

  “Jason!” Eleanor scolded.

  “He left me, but I never betrayed my vows.” His mother lifted her chin.

  A sob came from Bonnie. Marc’s sister Becky, who had been doing her makeup, put her arms around her and hid her face in Bonnie’s hair, destroying the perfectly coiffed arrangement.

  “You could go now,” Tyler suggested. “It’s not like we can’t go pick up the award without you, and this is kind of important.”

  Jason set his jaw. They didn’t understand. It wasn’t some baggage he had that was the problem. His mother wasn’t all right. Cass didn’t love him. She wanted to use him. Well, he could manipulate back. “Tessa, I need you to buy some property for me.”

  “What? Property? What are you talking about?”

  “Potterville, West Virginia. It’s owned by a guy named Bill Wernick and everybody calls it the high pasture. Just give him whatever he asks.” Jason jammed the ring in his pocket and stalked out the door.

  “Why?” Tessa demanded, hurrying outside after him.

  “Because I need a bargaining chip.”

  “Jason, this is a really bad idea,” Brian said. He passed Tessa in the driveway. “You really don’t want to do that.”

  “It’s the only thing I can do,” Jason snapped, lengthening his strides as he neared his car. He pulled out his phone and dialed his office. “Jody, I need the first flight to Pittsburgh on any airline, any seating. I’m going to be at the airport in half an hour. I need a car in Pittsburgh, too, and snow shoes. Just do it.” He shoved the phone back in his pocket.

  “Jason, I have to advise you not to run off like this.” Tessa trotted alongside him.

  “Are you speaking as my sister or as my lawyer?”

  “Both. What do you want this property for?”

  “I’m gonna let Cassie use it as long as she…” Jason couldn’t finish his own sentence.

  “As long as she lets you use her,” Brian said.

  Tessa gasped. “Jason, you can’t. It’s illegal, it’s immoral, it’s totally scummy— Ow!” She’d stumbled as her heel caught in a crack in the drive and Brian caught her.

  Jason jerked open the door of his car. “Just buy the property. I want to own it by the time I land in Pittsburgh.” He slammed the door and revved the engine, peeled out of Connie’s driveway.

  Chapter 19

  Cass sat on the couch, immobilized. Any progress she’d made at pulling herself together had been shot to hell by three massive blows.

  Yesterday Gretta’s package arrived. Cass had opened it, and set it on the table, unable to look at it or look away. She couldn’t even summon the energy to open the one-pound bag of M&Ms Gretta had included.

  Then, last night at sunset a massive winter storm had howled over the mountain, dumping four feet of snow in six hours. She’d called her parents before they got the state troopers to pull her out. According to them, a seven-foot wall of snow hid her road and the temperature drop after the storm had frozen it to a solid block of ice. It might require a backhoe to tear down. If she wanted out at all, she would have to climb. By that time her fire, unattended since the arrival of the package, was nothing but embers. When she’d fallen asleep in the middle of Pinocchio, the glowing coals were just ash.

  This morning, she woke up already running for the bathroom. As she’d washed her face, she’d remembered today was the day of the Grammys, which brought on another round of dry heaves. She’d turned on the television, wrapped herself up in the blanket, stared at the screen and hadn’t moved since. Now it was nearly ten PM.

  The Grammys were leading up to the rock album of the year. She’d been studying the crowd shots, trying to catch sight of Jason. So far, she’d managed to spot Brian’s blond head and Marc’s brown hair, but not Jason. She felt queasy and light headed. If she still felt like this in the morning she was going to have to let them come get her. She’d managed to keep down only a glass of water and a slice of dry toast all day.

  Outside, there were crunching noises. The bears should all be hibernating, and even the wolves weren’t stupid enough to be out in this weather. Stupid wolves didn’t bother her much. Rabid ones were a problem. A sick one might get enough height from the snow banks, break through one of the windows and attack. Could she deal with a rabid wolf in her condition? Doubtful.

  She rolled off the couch and crawled to the office because she didn’t think she could stand up. Her shotgun leaned beside the desk, and she kept the shells in the desk drawer. As she loaded the shells, she thought of another possibility. It could be a human predator. Everyone knew she was up here alone and trapped in.

  Too much A&E. She had to stop watching those shows about serial killers.

  She pulled herself to her feet and looked out the front window.

  A person waded through the snow about twenty feet from her door. He was tall, wearing a parka with a hood that shadowed his face, and was equipped with snowshoes. As she watched, he gained another five feet. She could call the troopers, but it would take them forty minutes to get here. Instead, she shoved open the door, letting it bang against the side of the house.

  “I don’t know who you are, but I suggest you turn right back around and leave. I’ve got a shotgun here and I know which end is which,” she shouted. She racked the gun and sighted down the barrel. All the strength had drained from her legs, so she leaned against the wall, bracing the barrel against the door jam. If she fired, the recoil would knock her on her ass.

  “Cassie?” The figure floundered forward another step and stopped, shoved back his hood.

  No wonder she hadn’t seen Jason on television. “Jason?”

  He held out a hand. “Look, I know you’re pissed, but could you put the gun down?”

  Cass lowered the gun as he continued to struggle toward the door. When he got to the step she reached down and helped him inside. She fell into his arms. He felt so warm and solid. Inexplicably here. He kissed the top of her head.

  “Come on, let’s go inside,” he murmured.

  All the grief, fear and anger she’d numbed herself against for the past three weeks spilled over, and she shoved herself away from him. “How dare you come here, after what you said? The way you left here. You should know you’re not welcome. How did you even get here?”

  Jason closed the door and bent, unlaced his snowshoes. “Same as last time, but I don’t think the rental company is going to be very happy with me. There’s a Buick LeSabre sticking out of a snowdrift at the end of the road. I hope nobody plows into it from behind.”

  Cass stomped up the stairs. “What makes you think you can even come here anymore?”

  “I have an offer for you.”

  “An offer?” She walked across the room to the table and leaned on it to keep from falling over.

  “I bought that land.”

  She frowned. Her head was pounding. “What land?”

  “The pasture where we got stuck.”

  That land? “Why? Isn’t it enough to ruin me emotionally, you have to ruin my business too?” she shrieked, which hurt her head, but she drew some satisfaction from the way it made Jason flinch.

  “No, I have an offer for you.” He closed the living room door behind him, glancing around the room. His gaze fell on the fireplace. “Bella, your fire’s gone out,” he murmured.

  “Forget about the stupid fire.” Twisting her features, she battled against tears.

  * * * *

  “You never let your fire go out.” Ruin me emotionally, she’d said. Ruin me.

  She looked awful. Her hair had escaped its braid and frizzed around her too-pale face. The expression in her eyes seemed almost feverish and the bones of her face stood out more than he remembered. Suddenly, every moment they’d shared, from the instant he’
d set eyes on her, to walking through the door just now, flooded him. Every kiss, touch, every sweet sigh. The memories assailed him like a high wind peeling back layers of snow and rock, revealing the geological record of his soul. This information didn’t match what he’d been thinking for the past couple of weeks. “And you’re wearing my sweater.”

  “You left it here.” She folded her arms beneath her breasts.

  He’d never unpacked. The bag he’d brought home sat in the closet, where he’d dropped it.

  “Is there something you came here for? Because I was busy.”

  Behind him on the TV, Steven Tyler announced nominees at the Grammys. “I see that,” he said, narrowing his eyes at her.

  “Are you going to tell me why you bought that property out from under me?” she demanded. She clutched the table behind her.

  “Shouldn’t you light a fire? It’s cold in here.” He shrugged off his coat and draped it across the back of the couch. Her place was a mess, and the air held a distinct chill not entirely due to the glare she’d focused on him. A nearly finished painting leaned against the wall sideways, like a window that had fallen over but kept displaying the same view. Her easel sat against the far end of the couch facing the dining room with a canvas on it.

  “Shut up about the goddamn fire,” Cass snapped. “I’m just not that worried about making you comfortable.”

  Jason’s jaw tightened. He needed to pull out of this maudlin mood. This woman didn’t love him no matter how much his mother thought she did. “I have a business proposition.”

  “Which is?”

  “I’ll give you the right to use the land if you’ll just—” His throat spasmed. What if she said no? What if she threw him out at the point of that shotgun leaning on the wall behind him? What if his mother was right? “If you’ll just keep pretending to love me the way you have been.”

  Her face went paler.

  “I’ll only come here in the winter,” he said. “I won’t interrupt your regular season. I’ll be discreet. No one in town will ever know I’m here.”