Dylan's Redemption (10 page)

“I don’t deserve what you’re doing for my family and me. I’ve never been more proud to call you my sister than I am right now. Somehow, I’ll make it possible for you to be proud to have me as your brother.”

She turned away from the sky and let the tears roll down her cheeks. She didn’t want to see those images in her mind again. Brian needed to heal, like she’d tried to do over the years. He wanted her to know where he was in that process.

“You’re not to blame where Buddy and I are concerned. As much as I regret the past, the only thing I’m thankful for is you didn’t have to go through what I did.” His eyes widened with shock, and he actually took a step back, absorbing an imaginary blow. “Better me than you. If you were in my shoes, you’d feel the same way. You wouldn’t wish Buddy Thompson on someone else if you could help it. That’s why I always nodded for you to leave.

“You want to make me proud. Quit killing yourself slowly with booze. Be a good husband and father. Be the man Buddy never was, but I know you are.”

Stunned by her words, it took him several seconds to give her a nod of agreement. “I’ll see you at work.”

Chapter Ten

O
NE OF THE
grounds keepers uncovered the mound of earth by the graveside and stuck a shovel into the pile of dirt. After handing him some money, Jessie told the guy, “Take a hike.” Bills in hand, he left without looking back.

Dylan leaned against a tree about ten feet behind her. Frozen, she stood with her back straight and her head bent, looking down at her father’s grave where Buddy’s casket had been lowered moments ago. Jessie felt Dylan behind her and wondered if he’d leave, so she could do what she’d come here to do in peace.

The longer she stared at that grave the more the memories came to the surface. Memories full of abuse and hate were all she had from the old man, and as hard as she tried, only a handful of good ones came to mind.

Her father took her and Brian fishing. She was maybe ten years old, they’d spent the day sitting by the quarry lake, poles at the ready, red-striped white bobbers drifted on the serene surface. Light and happy, her father hadn’t been drinking that day. She remembered he’d laughed.

He’d helped her bait her hook and cast the line into the water. When it tangled on a rock, he didn’t criticize or yell. After wading out into the water, he untangled her line and helped her cast off again.

Such a simple memory and an ordinary day for most people. Why did she still feel that anxious panic in her stomach? She remembered feeling this way all the time growing up, like a clock ticked down on a bomb while you watched and waited for it to explode. That’s what it felt like to live with an alcoholic, only their clock was haywire. You thought you had an hour; in a blink it zeroed out and boom—all hell broke loose.

She’d felt it that day at the lake. As good as the day had been, she’d always been waiting for him to turn on her without warning.

She took a deep breath to relieve the fluttering in her stomach and tension in her shoulders and reminded herself those days were long behind her. Buddy Thompson couldn’t hurt her ever again.

“You going to arrest me, Sheriff, if I desecrate this grave?”

“Here I thought you’d continue to ignore me. As for the grave, depends. You plan on doing something to the body?”

She grimaced and shook her head. “Gross. But it’s a thought. He’s lucky I don’t bury him with my boot up his ass.”

“Do what you have to do. I’ll be waiting over here when you’re done.”

Relieved he wouldn’t stop her, she wished he’d leave her alone to finish burying her past.

She tried to ignore the pull between them. Impossible. Even now, she could close her eyes and feel his hand glide down her hair like he used to do every time he was near. That was then. This is now. Too much stood between them for her to give in to her emotions and walk into his arms and let the past fall away and find that safe place she’d only ever found with him.

She’d seen the way he looked at her. The same way he used to, but with an intensity that smoldered and threatened to flash every time she looked back at him.

Ignoring everything, including him, she took out the bottle of whiskey from her bag and unscrewed the cap. Even the smell took her back to nights of terror and pain and so much hurt. She took a long, deep swallow. She wondered if her heart hadn’t taken the worst of it, every blow and horrible word echoed deep into her soul.

One last swallow and Jessie poured the contents of the bottle over her father’s casket. Her perverted way of sending the old man off in the manner befitting his life.

Dylan stood back watching her, his gaze boring into her back. She contemplated lighting a match to it. Dylan would have no choice but to stop her. Besides, in her mind he burned in hell. Anger burning in her gut along with the whiskey, she let it fly along with the bottle she threw at the casket with as much force as she could put behind it, smashing the bottle into bits. She’d have liked to do that very thing a thousand times over the years.

She pulled her blouse off over her head, revealing a tank top underneath. Tossing the shirt on her bag, she walked over to the pile of dirt, took up the shovel, and began filling in the grave, dismissing the backhoe nearby.

At first, it was just hard work, but as each shovelful went into the hole, she remembered something horrible he’d said or done to her. She gave into the rage and the hurt and the sadness. Tears streamed down her face faster than she could shovel. Each memory a blow to her all over again. Each shovelful of dirt, her way of burying those memories forever.

This man could never hurt her again. That’s why she’d never come back to town. Instead of facing him, she hid. She didn’t like it that he made her feel weak and vulnerable. The only person in her life she couldn’t seem to assert herself with enough to stop him from hurting her with his words or his fists. In the end, she’d chosen to cut him out of her life like some cancerous tumor. It had been the only way to save herself.

She shoveled in the rest of the dirt. Hard work, but nothing she wasn’t used to. Her job conditioned her body for physical labor. She didn’t ask anyone on her work crews to do anything she couldn’t do herself. She often worked alongside them and did her office work after the crews went home for the day.

Once she filled the hole, she leaned against the shovel and studied the mound of dirt. He didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve to be buried beside good and decent people. A good person, she couldn’t have done anything less. She gave him a proper burial. That was for her, not because he deserved or earned her kindness.

Tears continued to track down her cheeks and it pissed her off. Raising the shovel over her head, she swung it as hard as she could at the mound of dirt. When she got the resounding thud she wanted, she picked up the shovel, and did it again. And again. And again. She did it until her arms ached and every last tear on her face dried. Then she stabbed the shovel into the dirt at her father’s head as if she chopped it off and left the shovel there buried almost up to the bottom of the handle.

“Feel better?” Dylan asked from behind her.

Just for good measure, she stepped up on the dirt and jumped up and stomped. She did that a few times, smiling to herself. The bastard deserved to be buried with her boot up his ass. Her little dance upon his grave was as good as she was going to get.

She flopped onto the grass beside the freshly filled grave with her knees up and pulled out a handkerchief from her bag and wiped her face and blew her nose. She reached into her bag and pulled out the two bottles of beer and popped the top on one and downed a huge gulp. Breathing hard, covered in dirt and dust, she didn’t care. A weight had been lifted, leaving her lighter. Free.

Dylan sat next to her, and she offered him the other beer. She’d intended to pour her dad a beer chaser, but where he was, he didn’t need it. Of course, if he was burning in hell, he probably wished for a cold one about now.

Dylan accepted the beer and popped the top. After taking a deep swallow, he bumped his shoulder into hers, then reached out and ran his hand down her hair. Unable to help herself, she leaned into his sweet touch. “All done?”

She smiled, sat straight again, missing his hand on her hair and neck when he took it away to give her some space. “I’m sure it looked pretty childish. And it was,” she admitted, “but I feel better.” She took another swallow and let the cold beer wash the dust from her throat. A slight breeze rustled the leaves in the trees nearby. Peaceful. It had been a long time since she’d felt it.

“It’s not childish to get your anger out. I almost feel sorry for that poor shovel, though. It took one hell of a beating.”

“Yeah, well just be thankful I didn’t come back when he was alive. I’d have buried that shovel in him instead of the dirt.”

“Is that why you’ve stayed away all this time?”

She thought about it and realized more than just Buddy kept her away. “There was nothing left for me here.” That simple, and that complicated.

“Brian was here.”

“At first, I was too angry with him. Then I had my own problems to worry about. There was a time I didn’t care about anything, not even myself. It took a long time to come back to myself and begin to care again.”

“What happened to you, Jess?”

So much happened in such a short period of her life, she wished she could make it all right just by telling him. It wouldn’t be right. Not ever again.

“Life happened to me.”

She caught his frown out the corner of her eye. She’d come back to put the past behind her. She’d made her peace with his leaving and what happened with Hope. She couldn’t change it. Better to move on.

“I spoke to my mother. While she didn’t outright admit to what I can only imagine she said to you in that email to make you so angry and upset with me, she did send it. I’m sorry, Jess. My parents were beyond pissed I gave up my scholarship to college and joined the military. She took it out on you.”

“I get that. I’m sorry I yelled at you yesterday. Now that I know it was her, it changes things for me. I’m still angry, but now it’s at the right person.”

“I owe you another apology. Well, probably a couple dozen for everything stupid I ever did to you, but I’m sorry about prom. I should have told my parents I was taking you, stood up for what I wanted, for you, and done it right. I should have picked you up, taken you to dinner, and we should have gone to the dance as a couple. Making you meet me there only made it easier for everyone to tease you more, and for my parents to say that even I didn’t want to admit we were seeing each other. That’s not how I meant it, but that’s the impression I gave to everyone. It contributed to my mother sending that email. I hope you can forgive me.”

“Dylan, that’s the past. It doesn’t matter now.”

“It matters to me.” He took a deep sip of his beer, stared off across the cemetery, and sighed. He shifted next to her and faced her. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you that night that I was leaving for the military in just a couple of days. I wanted to. I knew you’d be the one person to understand why I needed to do it.”

“Yes, poor Dylan had a full-ride scholarship to play football and attend one of the best colleges in the country. You’d earn your business and finance degree and in a few short years, you’d be your father, working in an office, bored out of your skull. That’s what they wanted. You wanted the freedom to figure out what you wanted to do with your life. With your grades and money, you could do anything, but you chose the military where you’d be part of a team again. Not exactly playing sports, but still, something familiar.”

“How is it you know me that well, yet you believed some email saying I didn’t want you in my life?”

“I didn’t at first. At least, I hoped to change your mind. I hoped what I felt, what I thought you felt wasn’t just an illusion. I didn’t want to be just a distraction for you one minute and forgotten the next.”

“Jess, no. You were my best friend and then so much more. I fell so hard for you. All I wanted to do is take you with me, but—”

“I wish you had, but we were just kids, making stupid mistakes, and here we are living with the consequences. So, you’re sorry. I’m sorry. You’ve moved on and so have I. What does it matter now that all these years have passed?”

“You matter to me, Jess. Tell me what you want me to know.” Dylan took another swallow of beer and prayed she’d open up to him. About to say something to her, he lost the thought. The look of utter despair on her face left his mind blank and his heart shattered.

“Maybe it really is too late. I can’t give you back what you’ve lost. I hated you all these years for leaving me. If I tell you now, it will only hurt you and make you hate me.”

“Jess, I could never hate you. Just tell me. I’ll listen. I’ll understand whatever it is. I promise.”

She stared off into the distance, silent, the weight of whatever burden she carried too much to unload on him. She didn’t trust him with her secret. Why would she? He’d left her when she needed him most.

Maybe if he opened up about himself, she’d open up and share whatever it was that made her so sad.

“I chose to be a police officer because of you.”

That got her attention. She turned her head and her eyes lit with disbelief. “You did?”

“I met this guy in basic training. We sat around one night, swapping stories about why we joined up. He pulled up his shirt and showed me his black-and-blue ribs. He joined the military because he had to get away from his old man. He said the next time he went home, he’d be just as strong, just as tough as his father, and he’d stop him from hurting his younger brother and sister.”

“So you thought, ‘Poor Jessie. Can’t take care of herself.’ You thought you’d come back and put a stop to big bad Buddy Thompson.”

“No. Well, yes, but that was the moment I realized what a colossal idiot I was. I never knew he hurt you. I never saw what was right in front of me.”

That also went for the fact she’d been right in front of him and he’d never realized he loved her. They’d been friends practically their whole lives, and he hadn’t really seen her. She was always there when he needed to talk, when he wanted to have fun, just all the time. He took her friendship for granted.