One thing Deuce did do right was bury Rachel in a cemetery after a brief service, mostly for the benefit of her co-workers at the time. The Keating attorneys filed papers to have her exhumed, and then Jessie purchased plots in a serene cemetery on a gently sloping hill just outside the city. There was a short wait, even with the strings pulled by Charles and Matt, so Jessie spent her time with Dee and Susanne visiting Charleston landmarks like historic Fort Sumter, the Civil War fortification she and Josh once playfully argued about in his media room. Jessie, Susanne and Dee dined at fine establishments like High Cotton, and Jessie treated them all to a private carriage ride where they oohed and aahed at the charming mansions on the Battery. She also half-heartedly reviewed more scripts Dee wanted her to consider. Songwriting was on the list, but Jessie was having a difficult time wrapping her mind around writing without Jacob by her side. She had gotten used to him sitting across from her with his head down picking out tunes, eating homemade chocolate chip cookies that sat on a plate on the floor between them, laughing at her and, often, getting sidetracked and having to take long breaks in the bedroom.
Jacob. Jessie phoned him on his birthday, but he didn’t take her call. Instead, she dialed Katrine and ended up talking to her for over an hour. They hashed out Jacob’s state of mind, which Katrine lightheartedly said was dour but “nutting good orgasm wit many wimmin not fix”. She also sadly admitted Jacob told her about having Josh clearly in the gun’s sight that fateful night at the bottom of Seymour Mountain. So that led to a heart-to-heart about love.
When Katrine asked if Jessie hoped to get back together with Josh, Jessie’s reply was honest.
“I don’t know, Katrine. Maybe.”
In her heart that was what Jessie wanted, but she felt the ball was now in Josh’s court. She also knew the two now needed serious healing; that there were still hurts and anger simmering between them on some level. Diving back into a relationship would not necessarily be an easy ride. Still…
Most importantly, Jessie learned Jacob had travelled back to Scotland and planned to stay for a few weeks, but was going to pack up and spend the fall in Vancouver, finishing the recording with Charles. His Scottish visa would be up by then anyway, and Charles could easily make arrangements for Jacob to work in Vancouver. No charges were being filed against Jacob for either possession of a weapon or for killing Deuce. The attorneys – Kayla’s Paul included - did their job, and proved self-defense to the Crown Attorney’s office. Jacob’s dream was coming true and, with Jessie’s blessing, Charles was making it happen.
Maybe one day Jacob would talk to Jessie again, maybe not. But as for her, she held no ill will towards the boy she grew to love in Scotland, regardless of his brief diabolical thought. To her, Jacob would always be the man who set her free from a tortured man. And perhaps, by virtue of his actions and choices that night, the man who gave her back to Josh.
They ended their chat with promises to stay in touch, and Katrine pinky-swore to watch over Jacob, to “pick up the pieces” as she had intuitively felt she would end up doing not so many short months ago.
The day to bury Sandy and Rachel approached. When Dee asked Jessie whether she wanted to invite her friends, she nodded yes. She wanted to keep it quiet, but her Drifters friends as well as Charlie and Jane were now integral parts of her life, good solid friends she knew could be counted on, and who could also, if the time ever came, count on her as well. So they came, all of them, Kayla and Paul included.
Sandy’s family did not come, although Jessie took the time to invite them with a handwritten card. A personal call was not an option for her - Sandy only rarely spoke of his father, usually in a voice laced with fear. Still, Sandy’s father’s written response to Jessie’s overture seemed genuine despite its brevity, and Jessie couldn’t help but wonder if, had her teen boyfriend lived, the family might have someday reunited.
Although myself and Sandy’s siblings appreciate what you are doing for our boy, this last while and the news about what happened to him has thrown us all. Thank you for closing this chapter of our lives, and please let us know where he is buried. Perhaps someday we will visit Charleston, but for now it is enough to let the healing begin amongst ourselves.
The reflective service in the local Catholic Church was overheated and quiet, but healing. Charlie stepped up and gave a fine eulogy for the two young people he had come to know through Jessie these past few months. At the graveyard, where she saw to it that sun-kissed images of both Sandy and Rachel were placed on their tombstones, the friends stood in silence within the confines of the pretty white picket fence surrounding the graves as the priest recited the twenty-third psalm: The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
Later, as the sun peaked in the azure sky and the crystalline waters of the Ashley and Cooper Rivers sparkled brightly on their forever journeys, the group left Jessie to her remembrances, with light touches and gentle hugs. She seemed at peace then, standing by the gravesite of two special friends from long ago, and Dee wondered if she was writing them a new song or was she just somewhere in the past in her head, thinking maybe of old times enjoying carriage rides or late night pizza at some joint downtown.
A quiet figure was watching from a distance, leaning under the Spanish moss canopy of a grand live oak at the junction of the main road and one of the cemetery’s feeder lanes.
Josh, one shoulder hunched against the expansive tree, was watching Jessie, giving her space, wondering what was appropriate for him to do and where he belonged. He was a survivor of Deuce McCall, and this day belonged to those who were not, and so he kept his distance. But the friends present were their friends, and so as they passed by him they all stopped for hugs and to say hello.
Stephen and Sophie were the last to meander by him. After a few brief words of greeting and well wishes, Steve craned his head around to see Jessie standing alone at the top of the small hill silhouetted against the sky, her short skirt wafting in the moderate breeze puffing in off the bay by Fort Sumter. She turned at just that instant, as if she knew she was being watched, and he noted with a pleased grin that she spotted Josh underneath the immense tree. Patting his friend on the shoulder, Steve tucked an arm around Sophie’s waist and walked the petite blonde to the assorted folks by the posse of vehicles. They had to figure out where dinner was going to be, after all, and he didn’t want to miss out on the discussion.
Jessie left the gravesite, wringing her hands nervously. Josh thought she never looked more beautiful with her shoulder length hair catching in the breeze, pretty curls being tossed every which way. She grabbed her skirt at one point and he couldn’t help but notice her blushing like a schoolgirl who thought a boy in the class saw something he shouldn’t.
When she reached him Jessie was still pink cheeked and embarrassed. Shyly, heart pounding in relief and wonder at his appearance in Charleston, she looked up at Josh with a half-hearted grin.
“Mr. Sawyer,” she said playfully, aching to touch him, “you like to keep a gal waiting, don’t you?”
“Well,” he replied in an all-knowing way, “I had to run the gauntlet to get in here. Something about the famous Jessie Wheeler being spotted in these here parts.”
“I see,” she replied, and then crossed her arms and cocked her head at him. “And how are you feeling, Mr. Sawyer?” He saw a sadness flit across her face just then, but she was adept at burying sorrowful thoughts these days and so, like a rainbow in the sunshine after a rainfall the fleeting gloom vanished.
Examining her tanned face, Josh decided that apart from appearing tired, she seemed to be doing okay, at least outwardly. Dee had already admitted over the phone that nightmares were a constant source of aggravation for Jessie, psychologically as well as for the lack of sleep.
Josh took Jessie’s hand and studied her face as he placed the hand just under his cream striped linen shirt, where she grazed her fingers over a large bandage. She let her touch linger after he let go, and so he used his own hands to raise his shirt a little
higher so she could see. Her eyes were quizzical, afraid, and so Josh placed his fingers over hers and pressed, just a little. He soaked in the feel of her skin on his, her energy, knowing it wasn’t just her songs that had the power to heal - her touch did, as well. At least – to him, it did.
Jessie’s eyes were liquid pools when she finally looked up at him, but his smile eased her worry.
“Jessie,” he said softly. “I’m here.”
She nodded, voiceless for a moment. “Josh, I…”
He placed a finger over her lips and shook his head no. “Not today, little one,” he said definitively. “No bad stuff today.”
“I just…”
His tender look silenced her. She sighed.
Then he added, as if he could read her mind, “I know, anyway. You don’t have to say it.”
Jessie tapped him gently on the belly, just over his belt buckle where it wouldn’t hurt the still healing scar. “I do, actually, Josh. I do have to say it. I’m just…I’m just…sorry, that’s all. Really sorry. For all the things I…”
He straightened and put a finger more firmly on her lips. “I know. Don’t you think I know? Jessie?” He added, “I’m sorry too. But we can’t change the past. We can’t change what happened, the choices we made…”
She cut him off. “The choices I made.”
“Doesn’t matter now.”
“Yeah, actually. It does. Still. It always will, Josh. But you need to know something…”
He frowned. “What?”
She whispered, her eyes lightening as the hot afternoon breeze played with her curls and let the sun, instead of shadows, warm her face. “I wouldn’t change anything, Josh. I wouldn’t. Not if it meant you would still be at risk. Things might have happened sooner, but then…” She shook her head, unsure what to say next, her eyes opening a little wider as dark thoughts passed through the slide show in her mind.
He finished for her. “But then Jacob wouldn’t have been around to shoot the bastard. And...to save my life.”
“Jacob…” she breathed.
He took her in his arms and held on tightly as she swallowed back tears. “I’m sorry about him, Jessie. I know what he means to you.”
After a moment he felt her stiffen as she summoned up her courage and whispered more, “Josh, I don’t know that I could have done anything differently. Anything at all.”
“I know,” he breathed into her neck, “I hear you, Jessie. Although I will always wish you would have talked to me, to someone. Or let us know where you were after you took off. At least that.”
“And I suppose maybe not…sleep with Ryan Forester, eh?”
“Ahhhh, that,” Josh murmured. “So much for not bringing up bad memories, eh Jess?”
Backing out of his embrace, Jessie took his hand.
“Okay then. Enough of that.” Swallowing back the age-old hurts, she tilted her head and asked, “Do you want to meet my friends?”
The corners of his lips curved up in a little smile as the piece of hair Jessie loved to tuck behind his ear eased its way free, tantalizingly. She smiled, reached up and tucked it back just because she could.
He answered, grinning. “Yeah. I do.”
Josh entwined his fingers tightly around hers, and Jessie led the way back up the small hill.
Halfway there he turned to her and said, “By the way, the answer’s yes.”
Still walking slowly, savoring the presence of him, she covertly glanced over at Josh. Jessie still wasn’t sure if this day was real, or perhaps just another lovely sun-kissed dream. Her friends were finally, as far as she was concerned, at rest. And the man she loved was by her side.
She blushed and replied, “What? What answer?”
And then Josh stopped and faced her, and from the cars below Stephen tapped on Dee’s arm and gestured. Soon they were all watching as Josh held out the ring Jessie wore around her neck for so long in the hope she and Josh would find their way to each other again one day. No one breathed down below, but it didn’t matter, because only the couple on the hill, framed by the big live oak below on one side, and the youthful sunlit golden graves at the top on the other, could hear what was being said.
“The answer’s yes, that I’ll marry you.” The chocolate eyes were solemn, searching, aching. They were not sorrowful.
She paused as her mind caught up to what he said. Suddenly Jessie was holding her breath, too, like their friends down below. Still, she managed, “Um, I didn’t ask.”
“Nope. But I know you were going to. Someday. I just thought I’d cut to the chase. Since I have this ring and all.”
“Oh.” Jessie honestly did not know what to say. All of a sudden her life was magical again, rich and full and joyous. She felt overwhelmed by the thought that most people don’t seem to get through this life without a dose of the negative. It was like you need joy and beauty, but in order to really truly appreciate it you must have a touch of the adverse as well.
And standing here before her, soulful and determined, was the man she waited so long to try to find a way back to, a symbol of the love and devotion one could find if one could just hang on during the troubled times. In truth she didn’t think she deserved him, but the thing was - Jessie knew she did not want to go on without him.
He was worried, but only for a second. Josh knew the exact moment when Jessie fully comprehended what he was saying. And then his grin was as wide as the biggest branch on the great old Angel Oak back on Johns Island.
“What do you say?” he asked humbly. “Can we try this again, Jessie?”
Throwing both hands up to her mouth, muting a shocked and blissful cry, Jessie found it within her soul to nod frantically – words were not forthcoming. And then Josh lifted her left hand and placed the ring he gave Jessie two Christmases earlier on the finger where it belonged. It fit perfectly.
She met his steady gaze and knew all they had endured since the day Deuce posed menacingly in their photo at Agassiz was worth it, was worth all the sleepless nights and the forced sex and the devastating loneliness. Now they were meant to be happy, and Jessie knew with all her heart that she and Josh would grab their brightly glistening bow in the rainbow and run with it, despite all, in the simple knowing they were once again going to face the future and all its perils - and simple joys – together.
Jessie threw her arms around his neck then, and he grabbed her in the way men embrace the women they love, so tightly his biceps were almost touching, his hands coming round almost all the way back to the front. Jessie’s legs gave way, and so he swept her up and around, and in the distance somewhere beyond their ecstasy they could hear exuberant cheers from the group below.
At the top of the hill she finally introduced Josh to Sandy and Rachel. He studied their pictures – Sandy, almost blonde and tanned from the sun, and Rachel, barely more than a child, stringy haired and freckled. Josh pictured Jessie in their exultant company, and he pulled her close, wishing he had known her then, when her future was filled with promise, before.
He touched each gravestone and introduced himself.
“Hello Sandy, I’m Josh. Cool to meet you, buddy. Hey Rachel, my name is Josh and it is my great pleasure to meet you.”
He finished with, “I am going to marry your friend and I promise to take care of her and cherish her and love her, always and forever. I hope I can count on your blessings.”
Later, as Jessie walked down the hill hand in hand with her man, she answered for them. “You can, Josh. Just so you know. Count on their blessings, I mean. I know they would both approve.”
He paused, and smiled at her. “Hope so.”
“Yup. No worries. You bet.”
And then they were surrounded by a jubilant group of folks who felt, once and for all, that the stars were once again aligned and that, finally, everything would be A-okay.
***
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Charleston celebrated a week later, when Jessie Wheeler finally disclosed her history with the city,
beautiful and turbulent in turn, and she performed for the residents, all proceeds going towards a new shelter she and Deirdre would build on Johns Island.
There was a lot more than that to celebrate, too. She and Josh were planning a wedding finally, happily, and at dinner just before the concert Charlie and Jane announced they were expecting a baby.
Josh squeezed Jessie’s hand at the news. Suddenly there was so much to look forward to. Jessie jumped up and ran around the table to hug her old fiancé - turned very good friend - and his wife.
“I am so happy for you guys,” she cried, and then asked, “Can I babysit?”
It was a time to cherish.
The Drifters friends all sat together for the concert, causing a stir in the audience and many requests for autographs and photographs. The popular series was still running, and winning many awards as well. There was talk of a film to follow up, but none of the cast had heard anything official from Jonathon about that yet.
As the concert started, Josh sat in the darkened audience and thought about the night Jessie pulled away from him after Agassiz, when he and Steve found her in the second rate actor’s bed, her message to Josh to leave her alone. That was one of the lowest times of his life, second only to the days people died – his mom, and then the kid after the motocross accident when Josh was younger - and when he discovered Jessie had been beaten and raped by some deranged lunatic, and the responsibility for that had been assigned to Josh.
Now, here, he could watch her sing and play music again, and know she was still the person he always thought her to be. Yeah, she was a big star in the world of music and acting, but try telling her that – no, to Jessie, she was just a lonely, troubled girl who wanted to be loved. Who deserved to be loved, the same as everyone else on the planet.
No Greater Love Page 44