Loving Jessie (20 page)

His eyes half-closed, Matt looked at her through the hazy shield of his lashes. She was wearing a pair of pumpkin-colored leggings and a rust-colored sweater that hit her about midthigh and had a wide neckline that showed a distracting tendency to slip off her shoulder. With her hair tumbling around her shoulders in dark gold waves and her feet bare, she looked like a wood sprite.

“I’ve already asked Gabe to join us, and Lurene doesn’t have any family out here, so I thought I’d ask her.” She glanced at him, smiling when he nodded his approval. “And I thought I’d ask Reilly and Dana. I think his mother is staying in Sante Fe, so unless they’re going back East to visit Dana’s family, it will be just the two of them, and since they’re practically family—well,
Reilly is, anyway—I thought we could have them over here. I know Reilly really misses his parents around the holidays.”

“Fine with me,” Matt said, refusing to acknowledge the twinge of jealousy he felt at her obvious concern for Reilly. Of course she was concerned. Reilly was her friend.
Their
friend.

“I thought I’d go with a mostly traditional menu,” she said again. “Nothing too fancy.” Her eyes were slightly unfocused as she mentally composed her menu. “I’ve got this wonderful recipe for a turkey that you cook in a brown bag and an apple-cider gravy with just a hint of thyme. Or there’s one I’ve never tried where you start with the oven at two hundred degrees and then…”

Matt let his eyes drift shut. He hadn’t gotten much sleep last night—or the night before, for that matter—and he was feeling pleasantly somnolent and lazy, lying there, listening to Jessie’s enthusiasm more than her actual words as she analyzed half a dozen different methods for cooking the turkey before moving on to the stuffing. He made approving noises as she debated the merits of oysters, wild rice, spiced pecans, bread crumbs and shiitake mushrooms in various combinations.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Most years he was out of the country, but even when he was on the right side of the globe, he hadn’t bothered to seek out a traditional meal. Somehow, spending Thanksgiving dining alone in a restaurant had always seemed more depressing than eating a frozen dinner and watching football games on TV alone.

The last holiday dinner he could remember had been when he was a kid, before his father left. It wasn’t a specific holiday that he remembered, just a gray parade
of meals consumed in near silence, one eye on his father, trying to gauge his temper, the other eye on his mother, seeing the vacant smile and glazed eyes that made it clear she’d nipped her way through enough vodka to put herself in a more pleasant place. There had been no laughter, no conversation beyond his father’s requests to be passed one dish or another, just that quiet tension that had pervaded his childhood. He couldn’t even remember what the food had been like, only the need to finish as quickly and quietly as possible so he could escape the table.

Not exactly the kind of memories to inspire nostalgia.

Jessie had reached dessert and was debating the merits of adding a touch of bourbon to the pumpkin pie and wondering if she should make a crème brûlée for a second dessert or stick with something more traditional, like apple pie. Matt grunted and hoped she would take it as encouragement or agreement, whichever she preferred.

He could have told her that he was sure anything she made would be fine, but she was obviously having fun trying out menus. As long as she didn’t expect any intelligent input, he was content to listen. It was pleasant, lying there, listening to her make plans for their first Thanksgiving together. He was halfway between waking and sleeping when he realized Jessie had asked him something.

“What?” He opened his eyes and tried to look alert.

“Now I know we’re married,” she said dryly. She’d picked up the knitting again and was carefully unraveling the mangled stitches, winding the yarn back onto the ball. “You’re falling asleep while I’m talking.”

“Sorry.” Matt smiled sheepishly and sat up, trying to shake off the lingering grogginess. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a solid night’s sleep, and it was starting to catch up with him. “I was listening to every
word. You’re making a turkey basted with bourbon and stuffed with pumpkin pie.”

Jessie pursed her lips and shot him a look of mock disapproval. “It would serve you right if I did,” she muttered.

“And I’d eat every bite,” he swore, pleased when she grinned. “Now, what did you ask me?”

“Well, I was wondering if you wanted to invite your mother to join us for the holiday.” Her attention on the yarn in her lap, Jessie didn’t see Matt’s smile vanish, leaving his eyes cold and hard. “There wasn’t time to invite her for the wedding, and I know you said it didn’t matter, but I can’t help but feel a little bad about it. And since we haven’t heard from her, I thought maybe she was hurt that we got married without her, so maybe inviting her for Thanksgiving would—”

“No.”

The stark negative brought Jessie’s eyes to his face. “No…what?”

“No, I don’t want to invite her here for the holiday. Or for anything else. Ever.”

Jessie blinked, her hands falling idle in her lap. She knew his father had abandoned the family when Matt was in his teens, and she’d guessed that Matt wasn’t particularly close to his mother. If he had been, he wouldn’t have brushed off her suggestion that they postpone the wedding until she could make the trip from Florida. Since Jessie had spent a lifetime missing the mother she’d lost, she’d found his indifference difficult to understand, but what she saw in his face now was a long way from indifference.

“I know you’re not…close to her, but she
is
your mother, and you haven’t seen her in a long time, so maybe it’s time to let bygones be bygones and reach—”

Matt came to his feet with a lunge that held coiled violence, and Jessie caught her breath in a startled little gasp.

“Leave it alone, Jessie.” He rammed his fingers into his pockets and turned away from her, struggling to contain the anger that was suddenly boiling in his gut. God, where was this coming from? He’d made his peace with his parents a long time ago. Hadn’t he? But there was something about having Jessie sitting there, her big brown eyes full of understanding… She couldn’t even begin to understand.

She couldn’t possibly understand.

He drew a deep breath and turned to look at her. “Just let it go, Jessie.” He kept his voice calm, his words even. “I don’t want to invite my mother here. Understood?”

“No,” she admitted. “I don’t understand.” She tossed the abused knitting onto the coffee table and rose to face him, her eyes searching his. “I know what it’s like to lose your parents, Matt. To spend your whole life without being able to talk to the people who brought you into the world. I don’t know what happened between you and your mother, but you still have a chance to—”

“I don’t want a chance,” he snapped, feeling the leash on his temper slipping through his fingers. It was lack of sleep, he thought, making a desperate grab for his control. Waking every night, hearing gunshots and screams, knowing he was too late. Forever too late. It wasn’t Jessie’s fault.

“Everyone wants a chance,” Jessie said softly. “Maybe you should—”

“Maybe you should mind your own goddamned business.” He saw her eyes widen in shock, but he couldn’t snatch the words back, couldn’t stop more words from spilling out. “I don’t want to talk to my mother. I don’t
want to talk
about
her. And I sure as hell don’t want her here. And I don’t want a lecture from you or anyone else about the importance of family ties. This is real life, Jessie, not a fucking episode of ‘The Brady Bunch.’ Everyone doesn’t join hands at the end and sing ‘We Are the World.”’

He stared at her, breathing too quickly, seeing shock and a trace of fear in her eyes. It was the fear that cut through his anger, made him hear his own raised voice. For an instant he flashed on himself as a child, saw his father’s face flushed red with booze and temper, his voice raised in anger.

Matt stared at Jessie, appalled by his own loss of control. He started to reach toward her, stared at his own outstretched hand for a moment and then let it drop without touching her.

“I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely. “I didn’t mean to—” He broke off and stared at her blankly.

“Matt—” Jessie moved as if to touch him, and he stepped back.

They stared at each other for a long moment, neither sure where to go from here, what to say. Matt moved first, taking another step back from her.

“I need to… I’ll be back in a little while.” He didn’t wait for a response before turning on his heel and walking out of the room.

Jessie stayed where she was, hearing the faint jangle of his keys as he picked them up off the table in the entryway, then the quiet snick of the front door closing behind him. She didn’t move until the sound of the Jeep’s engine had faded into the night. Only then did she sink slowly down on the edge of the sofa.

What the hell had just happened?

G
abe was halfway through editing the chapter he’d finished during his afternoon session when he heard a car coming up the long, twisty drive from the highway. He glanced over the top of his reading glasses at the clock. Ten o’clock. His brows rose slightly. Not quite the witching hour, but late in the day for drop-in visitors. What would have brought Matt out here this late? he wondered as he recognized the sound of the Jeep’s engine. Maybe he’d left something here when he was working earlier, but it was hard to imagine what could be so important that it would drag him all the way out here at this hour.

Gabe took off his glasses and set them on the table. It was time to quit for the day anyway, he decided, rubbing the bridge of his nose. The words were starting to blur on the screen, and now that he thought about it, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten. There were leftovers in the fridge, courtesy of his new sister-in-law, who sent regular care packages with Matt. He would have to remember to thank Matt for marrying a woman who liked to cook.

He pushed away from the table, arching his back in a long stretch, bending first to one side and then the other to work out the kinks caused by too many hours spent hunched over his laptop. He ambled over to the refrigerator as he heard the Jeep stop out front. Maybe he would even be gracious and share whatever was in the neat little package Jessie had sent earlier today. It all depended on what it was. If it was another batch of beef bourguignonne, then Matt was out of luck. Brotherly love only stretched so far, and it stopped short of sharing Jessie’s beef bourguignonne.

A few minutes later he shut the door of the microwave and punched the buttons to reheat something labeled “pasta quatro fromage” that looked like a first cousin to macaroni and cheese and smelled like heaven. If Jessie kept feeding him like this, she was going to spoil him for TV dinners and cold pizza.

Since Matt hadn’t made an appearance, Gabe wandered toward the front door. The Jeep was parked out front, paint gleaming in the moonlight, but there was no sign of Matt. Frowning, thinking maybe Matt had gone into the back bathroom, where he’d been working earlier that day, Gabe started to turn back into the house, but a flicker of light from the ramshackle garage stopped him. His brows rose as he contemplated the light. Considering his brother’s desultory progress on the old Chevy, it didn’t seem likely that he’d been seized by a sudden desperate need to take a part off or put one on.

Hesitating only long enough to snag a lightweight jacket off the hook near the back door, Gabe slid his feet into a pair of scuffed leather moccasins and let himself out of the house. The last time Matt had felt the urge to indulge in late-night labor, he’d taken his frustrations out on the woodpile. Gabe was willing to bet that, whatever
had driven his little brother out here at this hour of the night, it wasn’t a sudden urge to rebuild a carburetor.

The door hung at an angle and scraped the ground when Gabe pulled it open. Matt was standing near the front fender of the Chevy, staring down into the half-gutted engine compartment. His hands were shoved into the pockets of his jeans, his shoulders hunched against the chilly air, his arms bare beneath the sleeves of his T-shirt. Sighing, Gabe shrugged out of the jacket. He had on a flannel shirt, which was warm enough as long as they didn’t stand out here all night.

“Here. Put this on,” he said, waiting until Matt looked at him before tossing him the jacket.

Matt caught it automatically, staring at it blankly for a moment before sliding his arms into the sleeves. “Thanks.”

“You want to talk about it?” Gabe asked. “I don’t think you drove all the way out here to commune with that wreck. You and Jessie have a fight?”

“Not exactly.” A fight implied a certain amount of give-and-take.
I say stupid things to you and you say
stupid things back. We both say things we don’t mean
and then we both apologize and make up
. No, they hadn’t fought. He’d blown up, raised his voice and put that shadow of fear in Jessie’s eyes. He wasn’t sure how he could ever forgive himself for that, let alone ask her to forgive him. “She wanted to invite Mom to join us for Thanksgiving,” he said finally, turning to look at Gabe to see his reaction.

Gabe’s brows shot up. “Mom? Here? For God’s sake, why?”

“Because she’s family.” Matt’s tone made the word an epithet. “And family belongs together during the holidays.”

“Hmm.” Gabe slid his big hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels, his expression considering. “I take it you haven’t talked to Jessie about what our childhood was like?”

“It’s not exactly something you bring up in casual conversation,” Matt snapped. “‘Pass the mashed potatoes and, by the way, did I ever tell you that my father’s favorite sport was beating his children, and my mother was a lush who spent most of her time at the bottom of a vodka bottle?”’

“It’s not exactly dinner-table conversation,” Gabe agreed. “But I imagine you could work the conversation around to it some other time.”

“Why the hell would I want to?” Matt bounced the toe of his sneaker off a rusted wheel, hands shoved deep in his pockets, shoulders hunched under the jacket. “I don’t want to talk about it. Or think about it. Our childhood sucked. You know it. I know it. What the hell’s the point of talking about it?”

“Well, it might have given your wife a clue that you wouldn’t be thrilled at the idea of having your mother join you for the holiday,” Gabe pointed out mildly. “Jessie probably thought she was doing you a favor. It was probably quite a surprise to find out you weren’t thrilled with the idea.”

Remembering the shock in Jessie’s eyes, her attempt to soothe his temper, Matt’s hands clenched into fists, straining against the denim of his jeans.

“She understood when you explained it, though,” Gabe said. When Matt didn’t respond, he prodded. “You
did
explain it?”

“I…just the thought of having
her
here…” Matt swallowed hard, and then lifted his head and looked at Gabe directly for the first time. “I thought I didn’t care any
more. I thought I quit caring a long time ago, but I—” He broke off and shook his head.

“What did you tell Jessie?” Gabe asked.

“Nothing.” Matt’s eyes slid away from his brother’s. “I blew up, told her it was none of her business and that life wasn’t like an episode of
The Brady Bunch
. I think I called them the fucking ‘Brady Bunch.”’

“Ah, the little-known alternate version,” Gabe said. “It only showed up on the late, late, really, really late show.”

Matt’s smile was strained. He pulled his hands out of his pockets and set them on the fender in front of him. “Do you know what I realized tonight? I have his hands.”

Gabe didn’t have to ask whose hands.

“I have his hands,” Matt said again, staring at the broad palms and long fingers as if seeing them for the first time. “What else did I…” He let his voice trail off. For a moment there was such naked vulnerability on his face that Gabe looked away.

“Did you hit Jessie?” The question was so matter-of-fact that it took a moment for it to sink in. When it did, Matt jerked as if hit with a cattle prod.

“No! Jesus God, Gabe, you know me better than that.” Appalled, he stared at his older brother in horror. “I would never hit Jessie.”

“Then what’s with the maudlin crap about having our father’s hands?” Gabe asked ruthlessly. “I know you would never hit Jessie, and you know you would never hit Jessie. Who gives a shit whether your hands happen to look like his or not?”

Matt was silent for a long time, staring down at his hands as he tried to order his thoughts. How could he
explain being afraid of something, even though everything in him said it could never happen?

“Sometimes I wonder if maybe it’s foolish to think you can escape heredity,” he said slowly. “No, wait.” He shook his head when Gabe would have interrupted. “I know it’s not like inheriting blue eyes or a dimple, but where we come from, how we were raised, it’s bound to leave a mark.”

“Nobody gets out alive or unscarred,” Gabe pointed out. “Sure, our childhood sucked. Our parents were both drunks, and our old man got his rocks off by beating the crap out of us. You don’t walk away from it without having some scars, but if you’ve got some stupid idea that you’re going to follow in their footsteps, you’re dumber than I thought you were.”

“Gee, thanks,” Matt said dryly. He stared at his hands a moment longer and then lifted them off the fender, sliding them into the pockets of the borrowed jacket as he turned restlessly to face Gabe. “What if all of that—what they were—is inside me? Inside us both?”

“What, like some kind of psychological time bomb?” Gabe asked with a noticeable lack of concern. “What are you afraid of? That you’ll be an abusive father yourself?”

“No.” Matt’s sharp denial ended on a shrug. “Maybe. Hell, it does sound stupid. I
know
I would never do that. And then I think maybe I was crazy to agree to having a kid.”

“The fact that you can even worry about it should give you your answer,” Gabe said. He nudged a rust-pitted bumper with the toe of his moccasin, his expression thoughtful. “But let’s say you and Jessie do have a kid, and you did take after dear old Dad. What do you figure Jessie’s going to do the first time you take a belt to a child of hers?” He raised his eyebrows in question.

Matt stared at him for a long moment, and then his mouth began to curve. “She’d rip my head off and hand it to me on a platter.”

“That’s pretty much what I figure,” Gabe agreed, smiling a little. The smile faded, and his eyes suddenly held a darkness that Matt understood—old memories, old wounds. His voice was quiet. “He was the one swinging the belt, but she let him do it, Matt. She could have tried to stop him, could have called the authorities, but she didn’t. She was as much a part of it as he was. It would never be an issue with you, but, if it was, Jessie would never let that happen.”

“No. No, she wouldn’t.” Matt took a deep breath and released it slowly.

He’d spent the last two hours driving around, telling himself that it was ridiculous to think he was anything like his father and then hearing the echo of his own raised voice, seeing the shadow of fear in Jessie’s eyes. And hating himself for putting it there. But Gabe was right. Even if he didn’t quite trust himself, he could trust Jessie. There was no way she would ever do what his mother had done, stand silently by while her child was abused.

Gabe saw the tension ease from his brother’s shoulders, saw relief ease through the shadows in his eyes. “Sometimes you’re dumb as a rock, little brother.”

“So you’ve said.” Matt’s grin was crooked. “But at least I don’t look like I crawled out from under one.”

“True.” Gabe grinned and moved forward to throw his arm around Matt’s shoulder, pulling him into a rough hug. “You got the looks and I got the brains.”

“Too bad you don’t know how to use them.”

“Don’t start,” Gabe warned, walking him toward the door. “In a battle of wits, you’re only half armed. Now, I want you to get your sorry carcass off my property so
I can go eat some of the mac and cheese your lovely wife sent over.”

“I’m not sure Jessie would appreciate you calling it mac and cheese,” Matt pointed out as he swung the garage door shut behind them, lifting up on the handle to prevent it from catching on the ground. “It’s some sort of French thing.”

“So it’s mac and cheese with an accent,” Gabe said, following him across the yard to the Jeep.

Matt pulled open the driver’s door but didn’t immediately get behind the wheel. The glow from the courtesy light cast muddy shadows across his face as he looked at his older brother. “Thanks, Gabe.”

“No problem.” They both knew that Matt’s thanks were meant for more than just the past half hour. “Now get off my property. I’m starting to think about salting the driveway with land mines,” he grumbled.

Matt laughed and slid behind the steering wheel. Gabe grinned and pushed the door shut, lifting one hand in farewell before he turned and strode back into the house. Matt watched him disappear inside before putting the Jeep in gear and easing his way down the ragged driveway.

He had some major fences to mend tonight.

Jessie was rolling out cookie dough when she heard the front door open and the faint jangle of Matt’s keys as he dropped them on the little table in the entryway. She froze, her heart suddenly beating much too quickly.
Thank God, he was home safe
. She closed her eyes for a moment, almost sagging with relief. In the three hours since he’d walked out, her imagination had worked overtime, presenting an endless array of possible disasters, each more terrifying than the last.

Anger edged through the relief.
How dare he scare her
like that!
And nerves.
What was she supposed to say to
him now?
They’d had a quarrel. Sort of. Maybe. Now they were supposed to make up, but it was hard to know how to go about making up when she wasn’t even entirely sure they’d quarreled.

One thing she knew for sure was that she didn’t want him to find her standing there, waiting for him. Picking up the rolling pin, she pressed it against the dough, trying to look cool, calm and collected, even as every sense she had was tuned toward the doorway. Distracted, she put too much pressure on the rolling pin and tore a hole in the tidy circle of dough. Muttering under her breath, she set aside the rolling pin and tugged a piece of dough from the edge, using it to patch the torn spot with fingers that were not quite steady.

She didn’t have to turn to know the exact minute Matt stepped into the doorway. She promptly poked another hole in the dough and, abandoning all hope of presenting a cool facade, burst into nervous speech.

“I was going to get up early in the morning and make the desserts for Ernie’s, but I decided I might as well get a jump on things. Did I tell you that the lemon cheesecake I took in last week was gone in less than an hour? I decided to make another one, but I tweaked the lemon topping just a little, and I think it’s even better now.” She evened the edges of the cookie dough with quick, nervous little movements.