Читать книгу Be My Valentino - Sandra D. Bricker - Страница 8

Chapter 1

1

Jessie gazed at the people gathered around the warm and beautiful table near the hearth on the back wall of Tuscan Son. Beneath the yellow glow of the chandelier overhead, she tallied the ways that each and every one of them had played a part in getting her to this place. To the top of the insurmountable mountain, where she could finally look down at the path she’d taken and see it for what it was. The road toward her destiny.

Piper—her beautiful friend. Jessie wondered what she’d ever done to earn a friendship like that one. Piper had carried her to the bottom of the mountain that Jessie felt sure would be the end of her, and Piper looked up and saw only possibilities.

“Your confidence has taken a very hard blow. I get that,” she had said with confidence after Jack disappeared. “But it doesn’t change who you are, Jess. You can do this. You’re going to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and you’re going to start a whole new life.”

Like in most things, Piper had been right. Against all those horrifying odds.

Beside her sat Amber. If Piper was the driving force to begin the climb up the mountain, Amber was the pickax that helped clear away the clutter.

“I’m your girl,” Amber had said to her when they met for the first time to talk about the future. “I’m available today. Do you want to take me home with you and show me your closet?”

What if she hadn’t gone into the ladies room that night, at the precise moment that she did? She might never have crossed paths with Amber Davidson, Force of Nature.

Next to Amber sat Courtney Alexis, the raven-haired angel who had taken a turn at carrying Jessie’s backpack up the side of the treacherous mountain when it became too heavy to bear. Jessie’s first guest blog for Courtney had garnered more than 200,000 views . . . and roughly 87 new Adornments customers. After Amber’s first blog and Jessie’s second, six designers had sent inventory to the store in the hope that Adornments’ new stylist might introduce them to a demographic they might never have known otherwise. Just a few weeks from the adoption of her bouncing baby girl, Courtney’s gut feeling about Jessie had changed the course of her life . . . and taught her what it meant to renew a dream.

After a full day of painting the nursery and laughing over trying to assemble a Bellini crib on their own—and finally summoning the big guns with a call to Danny—Courtney had reached across the floor and jiggled Jessie’s hand. “You’re going to be doing this for your own nursery, Jessie. I just know God’s heard your secret dreams and will bring you the babies you yearn for.”

Far too soon in her relationship with Danny to start talking about babies, but still . . . the hope of becoming a mother had been rekindled in her, and she felt a joyous assurance in Courtney’s words that day.

Jessie continued her survey of the table. Next to Courtney, Antonio—the owner of Tuscan Son—smiled and gave Jessie a little wink.

“Okay, the truth is,” he’d told her that very afternoon when she’d arrived, “I have been blessed beyond measure in my life. This kind of blessing is not meant to be hoarded. I may have encouraged Piper to help out with the furnishings and a couple new appliances. Just to give you solid footing to make your leap to the next phase of your life. Did I tie a big red ribbon on a used car for you? Yes. I admit it, carissima. I’ve been found out, and Danny insists that I tell you. But you needed transportation. You are famiglia to Piper and me, Jessie. This is what we do for famiglia, for the ones we love.”

Next to Antonio sat Aaron Riggs. She’d had no idea when he offered one of the vacant apartments in the building he owned that he would become the rope-and-pulley for this climbing expedition her life had become. As she watched him, Riggs leaned into his chair, tossed back his head, and unabashedly laughed. That was something she’d come to love about Riggs. There wasn’t a false bone in the guy’s body. He lived in a van, for crying out loud; and made no excuses about it either. He did whatever he had to do in order to provide everything his daughter needed in life; lending a helping hand to others came second on the list; he was a distant third.

And Danny.

Jessie’s heart melted a little as she looked at him. If life had moved a mountain before her, Danny was the summit she had finally reached. When he glanced up and met her gaze, he narrowed his steel eyes and smiled at her . . . and the world stopped rotating in that moment; everything in it fell away. There was only Jessie and Danny, and her chest squeezed with heartfelt emotion.

How did this happen? she asked herself in wonder. How did this man happen to me?

She’d found so many things to love about Danny, so many qualities that made him the most unique person she’d ever met. Laid-back and cool, sweet and funny, a warm and golden heart encased by a Christian faith that she both admired and feared, wondering if she might find something like it for herself one day. Her Grampy had faith like that—completely confident and utterly submissive at the same time—but for some reason, she’d largely dismissed it in younger days. But now . . . after everything . . . it tugged at her from somewhere deep inside.

Nearly everyone at that table with her had a deeper faith and followed some invisible guide; a guide that had somehow led them straight to her, equipped them with the net she would so desperately need, and the tools to make them ready to catch her when the moment arose. Even while chastising herself for the cheesy sentiment, Jessie suddenly imagined that back room of Tuscan Son restaurant—filled with the helpmates without whom she might never have triumphed—as some consecrated place and moment where everything she needed had intersected sublimely.

She almost laughed out loud at her own dramatic emotion. Instead, however, she picked up the Toscana glass tumbler of tea sitting in front of her and stood. “I need to say something to you all.”

The various pops of chatter faded away, and all eyes nestled sweetly on Jessie.

“When the tsunami came and washed me out of the life I had known,” she began, pausing for a moment to form the words. “Well, I didn’t think there was anything left for me. But what I’ve learned because of each and every one of you at this table is that . . . new beginnings aren’t possible until old obstructions are destroyed. Bit by bit, every one of you has helped me stand up again and move forward, and because of you I’ve found something I never thought was possible for me. I’m not sure there are words adequate enough to thank you.”

Danny stood and rounded the table, finding a place beside her. He kissed the side of her head and placed his arm loosely around her shoulder. When she looked up into his eyes, Jessie evaporated a bit under his warmth.

“Raise your glasses,” he told them all. “Let’s drink to the new future of Jessie Hart.”

Glasses of wine, tea, and club soda were lifted all around the table. Jessie felt as if a shower of joy had begun to rain down on them as she raised her own glass.

“A new future,” she repeated. “I love that.”

And just as the last clink of glasses was heard, another voice chimed in.

“Hello, Jessie.”

As she turned and looked into the familiar gray eyes of Jack Stanton, a horrified Jessie dropped her glass and it crashed on the floor.

She’d seen it in the movies, but never felt it for herself. That moment where the live wire of horrified shock meets the damp floor of reality and the sizzling begins. The background moves toward a person until it becomes more sharp and clear than the foreground, and something far behind begins to swirl—around and around until they can’t stand to focus on it any more. The eyes of the movie character usually rolled back in their heads about then, and a slow-motion shot dollied along with them as they fell to the ground, unconscious.

“What are you thinking?” Piper exclaimed as she jumped to her feet and blocked the way between Jack and the table. “You have no right to come here. Not after all you’ve done.”

Jack had long ago dubbed Piper as a “mama bear,” and Jessie could see from the somewhat amused expression in his eyes that he remembered why.

Raising both his hands in a mock surrender, he told her, “I just came to talk to Jessie for a minute.”

Jessie’s dinner rose halfway to her throat on a wave of burning acid.

“I don’t think so,” Piper said. “Do the police know you’re here? Maybe we should call them and let them know where to find you.”

Jack lifted his pant leg to reveal what looked like a large, square-faced watch strapped around his ankle. “As you can see, the authorities know where I am every minute.”

“And yet you’re roaming around anyway.”

He shifted his eyes from Piper to Jessie as he said, “You have nothing to worry about here.”

Jessie jerked toward Danny, looking up at him with panic and churning emotion. “Did you know about this?”

“I didn’t,” he muttered, just to her. “Steph called earlier and left a message, short and sweet. But I didn’t have time to call her back.”

Danny’s friend Steph worked for the FBI as an intelligence analyst, and she’d utilized her handy connections to help them in their quest to find Jack. She’d revealed to Danny that, along with rolling Jessie’s life up into a tidy little rug and leaving town with it under his arm, Jack had also absconded with a fortune exploited from the accounts of his financial clients. She’d unknowingly shared more than a decade with a younger, more stylish version of Bernie Madoff.

Jessie groaned under her breath and turned her focus back on Jack, who didn’t look any worse for wear now that she took a moment to notice. He wore a casual black blazer over a black sport shirt and jeans. If you could even call what looked to be never-washed, still-creased dark gray denim trousers “jeans.” Apparently, he’d had time to go wardrobe shopping before popping in to ruin her evening with friends.

“Jessie?” he inquired. “Can we talk, please? For just a minute?”

A minute? That’s all you think it will take to explain yourself? Sixty seconds?

She swallowed around the acid that had pooled at the base of her throat. “I can’t imagine that you could have anything worthwhile to say to me, Jack. I think surrendering my car, selling the house, and leaving me nothing but some cheese puff snacks in the cupboard kind of said it all for you.”

He hesitated, taking a few seconds to glance down at his shoes. “Jessie, please,” he finally piped up. Holding up one hand, fingers splayed, he added, “Five minutes.”

“You haven’t even earned five seconds of her attention,” Piper snapped. And with that, Antonio squeezed his wife’s arm and made his way toward Jack.

With a nod from Danny, Riggs got up too, and the two of them rounded opposite sides of the large table and followed Antonio as he escorted Jack to the door. Jessie exhaled the breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding and deflated into her chair. An instant later, Piper was on one side and Amber on the other.

“Are you okay? What can I get you?” Piper asked.

“Do you want me to drive you home?” Amber chimed in. “Danny can follow after he takes care of this.”

“I’m okay. I just need to”—she rolled her hand as if to push oxygen into her nose as she breathed in deeply—“recover.”

“It’s a shock. Anyone would be shocked,” Piper said, and she grabbed Jessie’s hand and held it for a moment. As Antonio and Riggs walked back to the table, she gave a sigh of relief. “Look. He’s gone now. It’s okay.”

“Where’s Danny?” Jessie asked them, rising to her feet.

“He said he had to make a call.”

“And Jack?” Piper inquired.

“In his car and on his way,” Antonio replied.

“What did he say?” Jessie said, reeling. “What did he want?”

“He’s under the delusion that he can make things right with you in a few words,” Riggs cracked, sinking back into the chair he’d occupied throughout dinner. “I think we set him straight.”

Jessie craned her neck to get a glimpse of Danny when he stepped into view, then stopped again, his cell phone pressed to his ear. The instant their eyes met, she hurried across the restaurant toward him, touching his arm when she reached his side.

“Is that Steph?” she asked quietly, and he nodded.

“Thanks, Steph. I’ll check in with you tomorrow.”

She waited until Danny tucked the phone into his pocket. “What’s going on? He’s been arrested?”

“They apparently got a tip that the alias he might have been using was flagged on a flight out of Indonesia and into Australia, which is where the authorities caught up with him.”

“Why didn’t someone let me know?” she whimpered. “Instead of letting me be blindsided like that. And how did he know where to find me?”

“It all happened pretty quickly, and Steph didn’t hear about it until after he’d already been extradited. He was only just brought to the States and arraigned last night, and he had to surrender both passports and wear the jewelry provided by the feds.”

“Is Patty with him?”

“I don’t know. Steph is going to gather whatever information she’s free to share, and we’ll meet up tomorrow.”

“I want to be there.”

“Okay,” he said with a nod. “I get it.”

“But if he could find me here at the restaurant, does he know where I live too? Will he just walk up to my front door later?”

“It won’t matter,” Piper said as she joined them. “You’re coming home with us tonight.”

“Oh, Piper,” she replied, “I can’t. I have a blog due to Courtney tomorrow, and I’ve got to finish it up tonight. All my notes are at home and—”

“Danny, will you talk some sense into her?”

“No need to worry,” he reassured her. “Riggs and I are swapping rides. He’ll go back to my place for the night, and I’ll park his van on the street outside her door and keep watch.”

Piper sighed, her relief showing in her smile. “That’s great.”

“Danny, you don’t have to—”

“I am aware. But stakeouts are old hat to me. It’s a piece of cake. Now I’m going outside for a minute to make another call.”

“Who?” Jessie asked, wide-eyed.

“Rafe. He can help grease the wheels to get us started on an order of protection. A restraining order.”

“Good thinking,” Piper said. “Let’s go back inside and relax for a few minutes while Danny does his thing, yes?”

Jessie nodded and followed, stopping halfway across the restaurant to cast a look back to Danny for one comforting moment.

“I really do think I’m falling in love with him,” Piper muttered softly, and they exchanged a grin.

“Yeah,” she replied with a sigh. “Me, too.”

* * *

Danny swiped the page on his tablet, then swiped it back again when he realized he hadn’t retained a single word he’d just read. Despite his anticipation for the release of this third book in a popular series of suspense fiction, he just couldn’t seem to concentrate on anything except the unexpected and jarring resurgence of Jack Stanton.

The guy turned out to be more imposing than Danny had imagined. Tall, muscular, a little chiseled in the jaw line. And far more suntanned than any of the pictures he’d seen. Apparently, Stanton had been enjoying his exile to the fullest. Maybe those visions Danny had of him on a Bali beach sipping exotic drinks weren’t so far off after all.

It wasn’t hard to picture Jack standing on top of a high-end wedding cake with Jessie at his side, or sauntering about that 3,000-square foot Malibu rug he’d pulled out from under his wife.

Wife.

The reference left a bitter taste at the back of his throat. More than just the simple aversion to thinking of Jessie as anyone else’s wife, Danny found it particularly repugnant to envision this particular person tied to her until death they did part. Or until abandonment and possible divorce.

He reminded himself as he gave up and switched off the tablet that there was always the possibility that they’d never been legally married in the first place. He couldn’t gauge how detestable it made him that he found a strange degree of comfort in that painful scenario, but he harbored the secret notion that it should be a relief to Jessie as well.

His startled reaction to the sudden rap on the window sent the tablet flying out of his hand to the floor on the passenger side. He looked up to see Jessie’s face beaming at him from the other side of the glass.

Man oh man, she’s beautiful.

He reached across the seat and pushed the stubborn door of Riggs’s old van until it creaked open. “You scared the living breath out of me.”

“I’m sorry. I thought maybe you’d like some coffee,” she said, lifting a travel mug with a ribbon of steam emerging from the opening on top of it.

“Thank you.”

He reached across the seat to take it from her, but she slipped into the van instead and yanked the door shut behind her before handing him the cup.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she told him, her eyes trained on the deserted, dimly lit street. “My mind is just racing with . . . all sorts of thoughts.”

Danny inched over to the edge of the driver’s seat and angled toward her. The instant he stretched out his arms, she did the same on the passenger seat and fell into his embrace.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” she whispered.

“Not going anywhere,” he returned, and he planted a kiss on the top of her head as he held her.

“Danny, can I ask you something?”

“Always.”

“Do you think Jack is . . .”

He waited, but she didn’t complete the thought. “Do I think he’s what?”

Her voice was raspy and emotional as she finally said, “Dangerous?”

Where had that come from? He’d scammed clients, jilted Jessie, absconded with every cent they’d had, but dangerous?

“Why do you ask that?” he inquired, nudging her away slightly so he could get a good look into those crystal blue eyes of hers. “Has he ever hurt you?”

“No,” she answered then shrugged. “Not physically.”

“What makes you worry about your safety?” He twisted a lock of hair near her face around his finger and moved it back.

“I guess I just realized everything I thought I knew about us—Jack and me—was a lie. It wasn’t real. So how do I really know what kind of man he’s become?”

“I can tell you this,” Danny reassured her. “You know what kind of man I am. Would I ever let him hurt you again?”

Her smile appeared edged with timid confidence. “No.”

“We’ll get to the bottom of all of this,” he promised. “And you’re going to be free of Jack Stanton sooner rather than later.”

She wriggled toward him and planted her head underneath his chin with a sigh. “When you say it, I almost believe you. You’re good at that.”

“Yes, I am,” he teased.

After a few minutes of comforting silence, Jessie tilted her head upward and stared into his eyes.

“What?” he asked, and she smiled.

“You know what else you’re good at?”

“So many things,” he replied.

“Yes. But would you kiss me? I feel safe when you kiss me.”

Without another random word, Danny leaned down and placed his lips on Jessie’s. A muffled sigh came from deep within her throat, and he raked his fingers through the silky hair at the side of her head. When their lips parted, she snuggled beneath his chin again and softly moaned.

“Thank you, Danny.”

“For?”

“All of it. Every bit of being you. Thank you.”

He chuckled. “Glad I could be me for you.”

“Me too,” she said, sincerity apparent in the expression. “I’ve never had a Danny Callahan in my corner before. It’s startling . . .and a relief, really.”

“Yeah. I get that all the time.”

The two of them sat there together in Riggs’s questionable-smelling van for an hour or so as Danny sipped his coffee and Jessie talked through the details of the blog post she’d just completed. He didn’t have a clue what it all meant in the great scheme of the world of fashion, of course, but she seemed adequately distracted by it, and that was all he really cared about.

“Do you want me to walk you to the door?” he asked her.

“No. I thought I’d dazzle you by making the journey all by myself. Want to watch me?”

“Sure. Make it entertaining for me?”

“Sure thing,” she chirped, and she quickly pecked his lips before pushing out of the van.

At the edge of the sidewalk, Jessie raised her arms to an imaginary partner and gave him a comical glance before she waltzed up the middle of the driveway toward her apartment door. Danny’s laughter followed her, and he watched closely until he felt certain she was tucked safely inside.

Two very round headlights appeared at the corner a short time later, and the sedan-shaped car moved slowly up the street toward him. When it passed the apartment building without altering speed, Danny leaned down and watched the car’s retreat in his side mirror before dialing Rafe on his cell.

“Hey, Detective,” he said when Padillo answered, the familiar hum of the precinct behind him.

“Hey, Callahan, where you at?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“What’s up?”

“Jessie Stanton’s husband—I mean, Jessie Hart’s husband—is back in town,” Danny advised. “Anything you can do to help us hurry along a restraining order?”

“I thought he was living high in Costa Rica.”

“Bali. It’s a long story, but he’s back in the States, modeling some ankle armor courtesy of Uncle Sam.”

“But you’re still worried he’ll try to make contact?” Rafe asked.

“He already has. Walked right into a public restaurant and tried to have a chat with her. Fortunately, we were able to dissuade him, but only for the time being. Can you help lead the way toward an order of protection?”

“Text me his details and I’ll make a call. Hang in there, and I’ll try to get back to you tonight.”

“Good deal. Thanks, Rafe.”

Danny keyed in the vitals the second they ended the call.

John Fitzgerald Stanton. Driving late model green hybrid Accord. Picked up by feds for fraud, embezzlement, possible bigamy. Ankle bracelet while pending prosecution.

An odd-shaped car turned the corner and cruised up the street. It bore no resemblance to the Accord he’d seen Stanton drive away earlier in the evening, so Danny barely gave it a glance. He bent down and retrieved the tablet Jessie had picked up and stowed under the dash. Just as he started to take a second stab at reading, another set of headlights rounded the corner of Pinafore Street. The form could possibly be an Accord, but he couldn’t be sure. He tossed the tablet to the passenger seat and slouched down anyway.

The car swerved into the driveway to Jessie’s apartment building and cut the lights before the engine. Danny’s pulse went from a soft drum to urgent pounding as the dark shape of a man emerged from what could definitely be an Accord. Tall . . . broad-shouldered.

Yep. That’s Stanton.

Danny pushed open the door and it cracked, metal against metal, drawing the attention of the unwelcome visitor. As he turned toward the sound, Jack stepped into the yellowish bath of light from the street lamp. Danny closed the distance between them and stood face-to-face with Jack Stanton for the second time that day.

“What are you doing here?”

“I came to speak to Jessie.”

“I thought we covered this at the restaurant,” he said evenly. “What could you possibly have to say to her at this late date?”

Stanton sighed and, shaking his head, peered down at the uneven concrete driveway. “That’s between me and my wife.”

There was that word again.

“You sure do toss that wife label around lightly, don’t you?”

“Look,” he said, slamming the car door shut, “this is really none of your business. What are you, the new boyfriend? That’s . . . well, it’s adorable.”

Stanton’s sarcastic lilt set acid to churning in Danny’s gut, lifting a foamy fire into his throat. “Almost as adorable as you leaving one wife to flop on a beach with another. Grow tired of the little umbrella drinks, did you? Oh, wait, no. Once you were stupid enough to try and vacation in a country with an extradition treaty, you probably didn’t have much choice in the matter. You received your return flight ticket courtesy of the FBI, I believe.”

As Stanton turned away from him, Danny quickly patted every pocket with open palms in search of his cell phone. When he finally found it tucked into the front of his shirt, he grabbed it and redialed Rafe. Just as he answered, Danny spotted Stanton already at Jessie’s door.

“Rafe!” he exclaimed, sprinting up the driveway. “We need some help over at Jessie’s apartment on Pinafore. Stanton is—” His words came to a grinding halt as Jessie opened her door. “No! Jessie, go back inside.”

“Callahan?” Rafe bellowed over the line. “What’s going on?”

“Go back inside and bolt the door.”

He watched helplessly as Jessie’s terror-ridden face curled up and she pushed the door shut; but his insides flopped with a thud as Stanton pushed it open again, charged inside and closed it behind him.

* * *

Jessie backed away from Jack in three enormous steps, grabbing the first thing her hand touched and whipped it in front of her. The large candle fell to the floor as she wielded the holder like a sword.

“Are you serious?” Jack asked her, one corner of his mouth twitching in amusement.

“Get out of here now, Jack, or I’ll show you how serious I am.”

Danny’s thunderous pounding on the front door let her know Jack had locked it behind him. She scanned the bolts and realized it was just the doorknob latch he’d secured, and she almost laughed out loud. That flimsy thing wouldn’t keep Danny out for long.

“What do you want, Jack?”

“I just want to talk to you—”

“I’m guessing you’ve got about thirty seconds, so you’d better be succinct.”

“—make sure you understand.”

“Understand which part? There are so many facets to my confusion.”

Jack darted toward her and grabbed her by the wrist, twisting until the candle holder fell to the floor, bounced twice, and rolled away.

“Let go of me!”

“It wasn’t supposed to go the way it did,” he blurted, sparks of desperation flickering in his eyes. “I didn’t mean to let it get so out of hand. I need you to know that, Jessie. I always loved you.”

She tried to wriggle out of his grasp, but couldn’t manage it. She winced in pain.

“I need you to back me up. I need you in my corner, or they’re going to put me away.”

Not that she found anything about the current situation the least bit funny, but for some reason, she chuckled. “Are we even married, Jack? I need to know because there seems to be some confusion about whether you and Patty ever even divorced.”

“I . . .”

With that, the front door flew open and Danny stormed in.

“I really need to know,” she cried as Danny pried Jack’s grip loose. “Jack, you owe me the truth. Were we ever married?”

Before he could answer, Danny sent him flying backward with one punch to his midsection, and he crumpled like a wadded piece of paper on the floor. While he groaned, Danny stepped in front of Jessie, acting as a barrier between them, leaving Jessie to peer around the slope of his muscular shoulder.

“Please,” she appealed to him. “Just tell me.”

Jack raked back his hair with both hands as he glared up at them. Just when she thought she might have to give up on getting a straight answer out of the complete stranger on her floor, he let out a grumbly sort of sigh.

“No,” he stated. “I never divorced Patty.”

Those four words swirled around in her ears until she could hardly stand them anymore.

“Thirteen years,” she muttered. “You let me believe we were married for thirteen years.”

She collapsed to the arm of the slightly used charcoal chenille sofa that had replaced the pale sage Tommy Bahama in their sham of a dream house, and she rubbed her forehead until it ached.

She hadn’t realized Jack made it to his feet again until he spoke. “I’m so sorry. I never wanted to hurt you. I really need you to understa—”

“That’s enough,” Danny declared as he stomped toward Jack and grabbed his arm. “You need to leave.”

“So this is the new one, Jessie?”

She jerked her attention to Jack and dropped her hands to her lap. What did he mean? The new what?

“He’s not doing a very good job taking care of you. I mean, look around at this place. It’s a dump.”

“But it’s my dump,” she muttered. An assertive wave washed over her as she added, “And I don’t need anyone taking care of me. I can do that all by myself.”

“Oh, come on. You’ve been wobbling around on those two feet for . . . I’ve known you for how many years?”

“Zero,” she replied, popping up off the sofa and planting herself next to it. “You don’t know me at all. And heaven knows I’ve never really known you either.”

“Jessie, listen—”

“I’m through listening to you, Jack.”

“On your way,” she barely heard Danny tell him.

“Jessie, listen. They’re going to be hauling you in to talk to you about—”

“Am I not speaking English?” Danny chided. “Move it. Let’s go.”

Jessie didn’t turn around until she heard Danny struggling with the door and turn the deadbolts, one by one.

“We’ve got to get you a new door,” he said. “I’ll take care of that tomorrow.”

“No,” she blurted, rigid as she yelled at him. “I’m not your project, Danny. You don’t have to replace my door . . . or even break it down when the big, bad wolf comes knocking. Although in this case, I didn’t entirely mind that you did.”

He moved cautiously toward her and touched her arm, speaking in the softest, sweetest voice. “You’re okay, angel. He’s gone now.”

For some odd reason, it galled her that he seemed to know her so well. She wasn’t angry at him at all, and he instinctively knew it. She wondered if he also discerned the direction of her anger; toward Jack and the words he’d so callously spoken. She despised the truth lingering in what he’d said, hovering over the accusations of frailty and weakness like a pregnant storm cloud. Frowning, she turned away from Danny and sighed.

“You can go now,” she somehow managed to say without whimpering.

“Jessie . . .”

“Please go.”

With her back to him and her ears perked, she listened as he considered her words and sighed. His footsteps creaked over the floorboards—those dumb laminate floorboards—and he released a soft groan as he wrestled with the door.

“Lock this behind me.”

Several seconds ticked past, the high-pitched silence of her apartment screaming in Jessie’s ears. She finally fell limply into the corner of the sofa and brought her knees upward and hugged them. Just before the emotional tsunami crested.

* * *

Jessie never did take kindly to a light shinin’ up on her shortcomin’s. One of her school chums called her a “messy bess” one day, and the next afternoon she shows up at her grandpa’s place and tells me, “I can’t stay around today, Grampy. I have to go home and clean my bedroom.” Her mama said that little girl organized and dusted and cleaned her room spic ’n span that day. Re-shelved and alphabetized her Nancy Drew mystery books too. Her mama wanted to know what’d got into ’er. Even skipped supper to get ’er done. Just to prove that school chum wrong, I’m guessin’.

Since she popped outta her mama’s womb, my Jessie’s been fightin’ the odds against her. Most times, that’s a good thing. Gives her a target to aim her efforts t’ward. Other times though, I seen her rebel hard in the altogether wrong direction, just for the sake of goin’ agin the grain. Sure can make for a lotta unnecessary thrashin’ around. But my Jessie ain’t learned that lesson yet.

Hope she will someday.