A Christmas to Believe In (34 page)

manners
gesture he'd become so familiar with as a child. "I

think someone got up on the wrong side of the bed." She took

another bobble-step toward the door. "Then again, someone

didn't get much sleep either. Take a nap, Clint."

He gawked at her. "How the hell would you know how

much sleep I got?" Instantly, he cringed. His mother didn't

deserve his harshness. She might have stuck her nose in,

might have some weird obsession with his sleeping with

Jesse, but he knew better than to talk to her that way.

"Sorry." He sighed. "I've just got a lot on my mind. I'd like to

be alone for a while."

Not taking his hint, she dropped his bedding on the floor

and limped to his desk chair. In a frighteningly calm tone, she

answered, "I know, because my room's across the hall. It's

the same room you were conceived in. In case you forgot you

spent eighteen years in this house."

He hung his head and clamped his teeth against a groan.

He waited for her to accept his silence, to get up and leave.

Instead, she leaned forward, her hands folded in her lap.

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"What's eating at you? The last couple of days when you've

been here without Jesse, you've been moody."

"I'm not moody. Go bug Heath if you want moody."

Her voice softened with the wisdom of her years.

"Something's bothering you."

On a resigned sigh, he raked his hands through his hair

and flopped backwards onto the bed. "There's all kinds of

things bothering me. I came back here, and they all got

worse."

"Do you love her?"

Not trusting his mother's leading question, he answered,

"I'm not getting married, Mom."

"Sit up, Clinton King. It's time we had a talk."

He groaned aloud. Here it came. The inevitable lecture on

how he shouldn't toy with Jesse, and how a woman like her

deserved all the things he couldn't give—exactly why he

couldn't marry Jesse.

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As Jesse set the last dish in the dishwasher, the crunch of

tires sounded outside. She glanced out the window, took in

Barbara's dark grey sedan. Nerves tied her stomach into

knots, and she smoothed her hands on her thighs to stop

their shaking. After last night's episode, the last thing she

wanted was a repeat. She had to get through to him this

afternoon. Make sure he realized the reason she put so much

effort into talking about it was because she cared. Not

because she wanted to force something on him.

She hadn't wanted to fall for Clint. Every bit of logic in her

head sirened that doing so would be disastrous. But hearts

were mysterious things, and much to her displeasure, she

couldn't help whom she loved. No more than she could have

stopped loving Ethan when he walked into her house.

As Ethan ambled toward the door, she turned around to

check the brownies. Five minutes more. At least luck decided

to cooperate with her in that respect—Ethan could eat a

whole pan of warm brownies. She went to the fridge and

poured a cold glass of milk. Waiting for him, she set it on the

counter and fastened a smile on her quivering lips.

The door thumped open. Ethan made a beeline for the

stairs.

"Hey, I have brownies."

He startled, then turned with wide eyes. "Oh. Hi. I didn't

know you were in the kitchen." In his apprehensive

expression, she read his fear that she'd scold for his behavior.

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His eyes darted, resting everywhere but on her. With a shuffle

of his feet, he looked to the floor.

"Come have a seat." Jesse patted a barstool. "They'll be

out in a jiff."

Palpable tension hung between them as Ethan made his

way to the stool and sulked down with his elbows on the bar.

She slid his milk in front of him, patted his shoulder as the

oven dinged.

"How was Sam?"

"Fine."

So much for pleasant conversation. Jesse resigned herself

to the fact that Ethan still carried the same anger as when

he'd fled the house. Not the kind of ingredient that would

make a cordial conversation on the one subject he couldn't

tolerate. Nevertheless, she couldn't let him harbor all this

unnecessarily. She had to do whatever it took, sacrifice

whatever she could, to make him believe her love for him

wouldn't vanish just because she loved Clint too.

She cut the brownies into neat squares and put two on a

saucer. Taking the stool next to his, she pushed the plate in

front of him. As he picked one up and bit into the gooey

chocolate, she propped her elbows on the bar and set her

chin in her hands. "I'd like to talk to you, Ethan."

"Go ahead," he said around his food.

"Do you think you could look at me?"

His eyes slid sideways, followed by his head. Cautiously,

he turned on the stool. "What?"

Jesse took a deep breath and stepped through the things

she'd planned in her head. She'd worked it over time and

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again while cleaning the house. Organized everything into

tidy fashion. The trick would be to get everything important

out first, before he could blow up.

"I don't want you to say a word until I finish. Agreed?"

His eyes narrowed, but with another bite of brownie, he

nodded.

"Clint wants to take us to dinner. He wants you to be

there. I know you, Ethan. I know why you're acting this way."

"You don't know anything." He tossed his unfinished

brownie onto his plate and stood. "You lied to me, and I don't

want to talk about this."

"Wait. You said you'd let me finish." Jesse clenched her

hands together to temper her rising frustration.

"So?"

"So, sit down and hear me out."

He made no move to reclaim his stool. But he made no

attempt to leave either. His jaw worked as he stared at her.

Belligerence gleamed in his eyes. If he weren't so stubborn.

Weren't so insecure...

She sighed inwardly. He was. She had to learn to navigate

around it.

"Ethan, Clint's been my best friend. I didn't mean to lie to

you. I didn't plan for any of this to happen. I fell in love with

Clint. We're trying to make things work. I would like you to

help me out a little."

"Or what?" A rush of rage turned his features crimson.

"You're just like my mom! Get rid of me like she did. It's what

you want!" His glass jumped as he slammed his palm on the

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bar. "You don't want me any more than she did. That's why

you cancelled court. Did you think I wouldn't find out?"

While she spluttered in stunned surprise, Ethan shoved

away from the bar and bolted for the stairs. Jesse recovered

enough to rocket to her feet. "Ethan! That's not true!"

Cancel court? He knew? How the hell had he found out?

"It is true! Cindy left a message on the phone. Take me

back, Jesse," he screamed from the top of the stairs. "I don't

want to be here. I don't want to
see
you ever again!"

The slamming door ricocheted through the house like

cannon fire. Jesse's heart shattered on the echo. Tears

welled, burst free. She'd tried to protect him. In the process,

Cindy, the woman assigned to his best interests, crushed him.

All of this was her fault. Ethan hated her, and it would take

months to repair the damage her sheltering silence had

created. Clint didn't have a chance. He'd been doomed from

the beginning. Maybe Ethan would have gotten over the kiss

he'd witnessed. But the very next day, Ethan's worst fears

came true. No wonder he hated Clint. In Ethan's eyes, Clint

was his almost stepfather all over again.

Jesse's knees gave out, and she collapsed in a helpless

puddle to the floor.

Clint stopped pacing long enough to watch his mother for

some sort of reaction. He'd told her everything. Every last

embarrassing detail of his faltering racing operation, and

every unacceptable solution Jesse had proposed. He exposed

himself to her criticism, to a damning
I told you so
, and now

he stood, holding his breath, waiting for her shame.

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Filled with wisdom beyond her years, his mother's gaze

tracked across his face. "I'm going to ask you again, Clint. Do

you love Jesse Saurs?"

He slumped under the weight of his conflicted emotions.

"Yeah." He nodded his bowed head. "I do, Mom."

"Then you sit down and listen to me."

"If you're going to blow past everything I've said—"

"Clint," her voice rose a fraction. "Sit down."

He dropped onto the edge of his bed and pursed his lips.

This wasn't the time for noble stories about love conquering

all, or how he owed it to Jesse to marry her because they'd

slept together. He loved his mother, but sometimes, she

could be so old fashioned it made his skin crawl.

"I don't know where you got this silly notion that your

father was perfect. But you created it, and for far too long

you've walked under a shadow that didn't exist. It's time you

faced some facts."

His head snapped up. His jaw dropped. He quickly shut it

and blinked. No lecture on morals? When had his mother

changed so much?

"In case you haven't noticed the obvious, your father had

an affair. The byproduct of cheating on me is spending

Christmas with us. So let's start there with just how imperfect

Franklin King was."

He winced. He'd done everything he could to overlook their

father's wartime affair. With his mother's easy acceptance of

Keeley, she made it possible to pretend there'd been no

cheating, no betrayal...no failure.

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The harshness in her voice lessened as she scooted her

chair closer and said, "Let's talk about 'Nam. To this day, I

don't know what all your father faced over there. But I know

it was hell. I know when he got back he couldn't function.

Some days, he could hardly drag himself out of bed. For the

first three years of your life, how do you think we survived?"

He shrugged. "Veteran's pay, I guess."

"No, Clint. Sure, we had some. But I worked. You don't

remember it because you were too young. I worked my

fingers off as Doctor Holmstead's secretary during the day. I

came home long enough to kiss you goodnight, make sure

your father had something to eat, and then I ran out to the all

night diner on Brockman, and worked until two in the

morning."

Wide eyed, Clint drew back. "How come you never said

anything? All us kids think you stayed at home with us."

She gave a sad shake of her head. "I was lucky to get six

weeks with you. You stayed with my mom. Your father wasn't

in any shape to take care of an infant. He could hardly take

care of himself. When Heath came along the following

year...he wasn't there for Heath's birth, Clint."

Clint spread his hands, stared at them. A scratch on the

inside of his thumb grabbed his focus, and he rubbed at it.

"Dad never said anything either."

"Of course not," she answered on a chuckle. "Where do

you think you get your stubborn pride?" The humor vanished

from her voice, and he felt the weight of her stare boring into

the top of his head. "I'm not sure your father remembered

much of the early years. If he wasn't smoking pot, he was

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locked somewhere in his head. Right around the summer of

your third year, I came home and literally found a different

man sitting in my living room."

Clint lifted his head, caught his mother's wistful smile.

"He stood up. Took me in his arms. Asked where you and

Heath were, then told me he had it all worked out. He had a

job a month later. Three months after that, I quit both of

mine. The next year we opened the car dealership."

A frown creased his forehead as Clint struggled to

comprehend the vastly different truth to the perception he'd

held of his parents' life. "Why didn't you leave, Mom?"

"Leave?" She shook her head firmly. "Leaving wasn't an

option. I loved him. I'd have crawled on my hands and knees

and begged to keep this family together. And...I believed in

him. He survived the war. He could survive the homecoming."

The same thing Jesse had said—she believed in him. The

surreal similarity rolled around in his gut like a heavy ball of

lead.

"Clint." His mother reached across the distance between

them to set her hand on his knee. "Jesse wants to do this.

She's got the means to contribute to what she sees as a

family
. There's no shame in accepting someone's help."