Always Remember (3 page)

Relief swept through Jessie and she went into his open arms. He clasped her tightly to his chest, squeezing with a strength that belied his feeble appearance. “Oh Dad. I’m sorry I didn’t come earlier.”

“Hush, sweetie. It’s enough you made it now.”

She wanted to stay there forever, her cheek pressed against his shoulder, safe and secure like when she was a child. Jessie inhaled the familiar scent of pipe tobacco that clung to his clothes as if he’d just left the porch swing moments before their arrival. Too soon, he released her and turned her toward the bed.

For the first time since she entered the room, Jessie looked at her mother. Really looked. Her knees turned liquid. Guilt slammed the breath from her lungs.

“Your Ma’s been asking for you day and night. So afraid we might not get hold of you in time.”

Without taking her eyes off her mother’s haggard features, she was aware of him moving around to the opposite side of the bed and of Nate stepping forward to stand at her side.

“She has good days here and there, but mostly now she just wants to sleep. Asks for you whenever she wakes up though.”

The robust, energetic woman Jessie remembered was gone. The woman lying on the bed was a shrunken, fragile replica of her mother, skin stretched tight over the bones in her face. Hands, once strong and beautiful, were lined with prominent veins and covered with translucent flesh.

The woman asleep on the bed wasn’t robust and indestructible. She was frail and small and helpless.

Jessie took her mother’s hand into her own. It was warm, the skin soft as a newborn’s, the flesh sagging with the passing of years. So many of them gone, lost. Wasted.

As the wail of a long lost child echoed through her thoughts, a sob worked up her throat.

Oh God, Mother, what did I do? What did
we
do?

A tear slipped down her cheek. Choking back a sob, Jessie gently laid the fragile hand back on the bed, turned and collided with the broad expanse of Nate’s chest. He caught her by the shoulders, his touch firm, warm, familiar...missed.

“Jess?”

Concern flashed in the shadow-darkened depths of his gaze. How could he still care after all she’d taken away from him? Because he didn’t know. He might never know.

Pulling free of his hold, she raced from the room, out the front door, and into the quiet darkness of the night.

CHAPTER FOUR

The screen door slammed shut, the sound magnified by the silence in the room, the stillness of its occupants. Nate smothered the instinct to follow Jessie and offer comfort, drawing instead on the anger he’d experienced when she’d first walked out of his life. He should have known she’d react like this, run when things got tough. He should have warned Sam her visit might not work out the way the old man was hoping.

“Suppose my girl’ll be hightailing it out of here before the morning sun rises.”

“Maybe.”
Stay non-committal. Give nothing away.

For once in his life, he’d like to be selfish, to let Jessie leave. In fact, he’d drive her back to the airport if she asked him.

Nate scratched his chin, rubbed the back of his neck.

Only thing was, if Sam or Maude found out he’d helped her escape, would they ever forgive him?

Would Sara? She’d be plenty mad if she learned he hadn’t done everything in his power to ease Maude’s final days.

He shifted restlessly, leaned against the doorjamb, and as unexpected compassion softened the anger, wished he could disappear into the woodwork.

It had to be hard on Jessie, coming home, facing her parents and everything she’d run away from. He didn’t want to feel sorry for her, but the hell of it was, he did.

Poor Sam. He watched the old man swipe at the moisture in his eyes, his bony shoulders drooped with fatigue and sadness. The crisp swish of material from down the hallway drew Nate’s attention. He moved aside as a woman dressed in a starched white nurse’s uniform slipped into the room and pressed her fingers against the inside of Maude’s wrist. She glanced at her watch, then fixed Nate with a steady look.

“Back already? Where’s Jessie? Wasn’t she at the airport?”

Harley Jane Davis. She could either be a guy’s best friend or his worst enemy.

“Yeah, she was there.” He pushed away from the wall, uncomfortable under the intensity of Harley’s gaze, and hooked his thumbs into the belt loops on his jeans. “Sam, want me to bring Jess back?”

“Best leave her alone for tonight, boy, but you gotta convince her to stay.” The old man slumped against the backrest, weariness etched across his face. He scraped one hand across his eyes and grasped Maude’s hand with the other. “She’s never said it aloud, but I know my wife. If she has one regret in life, it’s losing Jessie to the city. I’d like to help her go to her Maker in peace.”

“I’ll do whatever I can to help, you know that, Sam. But I can’t force Jessie to stay if she doesn’t want to.”

“She has to stay. Her ma...my wife...well, she got a whole heap of reconciling to do. She can’t if Jessie ain’t here.”

Instantaneous anger fizzled deep inside. “Maude wasn’t the one who left.”

“Shush.” Harley swatted at him, missed, turned back to her patient and smoothed out the blankets. “You better learn to control your temper, Mister, or I’m not going to let you in here again.”

“I don’t have a temper,” he muttered. “And you’re too damn sensitive.”

Turning on his heel, he headed out of the room, silently cursing the woman who followed him out the front door and onto the porch.
Harley Davis.
Her old man had named her after the beast of a motorcycle he drove around town. Sometimes she was a real pain. She’d known him for too many years, figured she had every right to interfere in his life.

Like now.

She grabbed him by the arm before he could escape to find Jessie. “No, you’re the sensitive one, at least when it comes to Jessie.”

“Drop it, Harley.”

“Every time anyone mentions her name, every time one of her songs plays on the radio, you go into one of your sulky moods. Poor Sara has to sneak around behind your back just to listen to Jessie’s music.”

“No, she doesn’t.”

“Yes, she does. When are you going to quit deceiving yourself, Nate? I saw how much Jessie hurt you when she left. Everyone did. This is a chance for you to close the door on that part of your life and move on.”

Move on? Where?

The memories were with him every day and in all the years that had passed, he’d never been able to escape them. He shoved his hands into his pockets and searched the darkness.

“Why don’t you go find her and offer her a shoulder to cry on?”

He glanced out at the empty yard. “Anyone ever tell you that you interfere too much?”

“All the time.” She started for the door, stopped, and patted him on the arm. “Maybe it’s time you both had a chance to say goodbye to the past.”

Left alone on the porch, he considered all the reasons why he should let Jessie hotfoot it off the ranch, weighing them against the single reason why he had to keep her from doing so. If not for the woman lying inside, he might never have known the love of his child.

He squared his shoulders.

One way or another, he’d make sure Jessie stayed. Even if he had to spend every moment of the day —
and night
— in her company.

A light in the main house came on. Had she gone to use the phone, maybe call a cab? Nate thumped down the steps of the veranda and headed across the yard.

Harley was right about one thing. He’d never allowed the anger to heal. This would be the perfect time to find out why she’d made the choices she had. Then, when she left again, maybe he wouldn’t feel like a part of him had gone with her.

He bounded up the stairs to the front door and entered the house. Silence. He hated it when Sara was gone, always avoided the house when it was empty — a quirk left over from the early days after Jessie had left and his life had irrevocably changed.

Within months, he’d lost Jessie, lost his father, then been saddled with a baby. Oh yeah, he’d been hell on wheels that first year. Startled awake twice a night by the hungry cries of his new baby daughter. Struggling to keep a failing ranch afloat. His heart breaking at every turn.

But he’d gotten over Jessie, or so he’d thought. Now, he found her in the kitchen, leaning against the front of the stove, staring at the floor as though mesmerized by the pristine whiteness of the tiles.

“Jess?” She didn’t respond. As Nate felt his anger drain away, something far too dangerous to ignore took its place. Tenderness and affection. Once she’d been the center of his world. Why did he have to remember that now? “You okay?”

She turned her gaze on him. Eyes dull with pain, she reminded him of one of his mares just before he’d had to put the animal down, betrayed by those she’d trusted to take care of her. Jeez, what a hell of an image to conjure up now.

He closed the distance between them, conscious of her gaze on his face and the familiarity of having her in his home. Reaching into the cupboard over her head, careful not to touch her, he breathed in the scent of her hair as he pulled out a bottle. “I’ve still got your favorite brew. Want a drink?”

Hormones he thought he’d left behind with his youth flared to life. His attention dropped to her face, to the smoothness of her skin, to the remembered pleasures of exploring her mouth with his. She wrinkled her nose at him.

Find her and offer her a shoulder to cry on. Not seduce her.

“Is that your dad’s whiskey?”

He blinked and shifted away to the cupboard over the sink, hoping she might have missed his tiny lapse of control. “Want some?”

“You know I hate that stuff.”

“But you used to drink it anyway, didn’t you?”

She turned her head away, the curtain of her hair hiding her expression. But nothing could hide the wistful tone of her voice. “Those were good times, weren’t they?”

Too good.

He glanced at the bottle in his hand. The last thing either of them needed was a drink. He’d probably end up thinking about all the times they’d made love instead of concentrating on the reason she’d come home. Nate closed the cupboard door and retraced his steps, setting the bottle away. He looked down at the top of her head and the next thing he knew, he felt the softness of her hair against his palm. She stilled, turned her face up to him, her eyes wide with surprise, alive with vitality when only moments before they’d been bruised with hurt.

He dropped his hand to his side, but didn’t move back. “You upset Sam.”

“I didn’t mean to. They just got so old. When did they get so old?”

“You’ve been gone a long time.”

“I know, but...” She shook her head. “Did you come to drag me back?”

“You’re off the hook for tonight, but I promised Sam I wouldn’t let you leave.” His voice came out firm, determined, but how far would he really go to keep her here? And why? For Sam and Maude, or for himself?

He caught back the thought, but couldn’t avoid the intensity of her gaze. The memory of all they’d shared, all they’d been to one another, flared up inside him. How many times had they made love? How many times had he kept her out till the sun came up? He’d have to half drag, half carry her back to her parents’ house before they’d wake up because Jessie would be too tired to make it on her own.

Damn lucky Sam had never caught them. He’d have taken that old shotgun he kept above the fireplace and filled Nate’s backside with lead.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come home for your dad’s funeral, Nate. By the time I found out, it was weeks later and—”

The phone rang. Her voice drifted away, her gaze shifting from his face to the wall behind him. She looked fragile, ready to shatter with the slightest pressure. And Nate felt the ache deep inside of him grow.

Comfort. Maybe he could offer her comfort and hope for some in return. The ringing of the phone shattered the heavy silence between them. He forced himself to turn away from her and grab the receiver.

“What?” He should have sent up a prayer thanking God for this timely interruption.

“Dad?”

He slammed his eyes shut, turned his back on Jessie, and wished he’d ignored the call. “Hi, sweetie.”

“You sound upset. What’s wrong? How’s Maude? Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine.” He glanced at his watch, frowned, tried to ignore Jessie’s presence. Was she even breathing? “It’s awfully late. Shouldn’t you be asleep by now?”

“Dad? What if it happens while I’m gone?”

Nate bit back the promise that rushed to his lips. He wouldn’t — couldn’t — make this promise. He glanced over his shoulder at Jessie. Had he made Maude a promise he couldn’t keep?

“Dad?”

The sweetness and hesitation in Sara’s voice drew his full attention. Nate clenched his teeth, waiting for the bombshell to drop.

“I want to come home.”

Panic tumbled through him. “Sara, this isn’t a good time.”

“Dad, I want to be there in case something happens.”

“No.” He forced himself to calm down. “Look, I can’t talk about this now. I’ll come up there this weekend. We’ll sit down and discuss it.”

The sound of footsteps crossing the kitchen floor drew his attention. Nate turned to find Jessie at the entrance to the porch.

“Hold on a second, sweetie.” He covered the mouthpiece with his hand. “Where are you going?”

“You’re busy. I’ll just get out of the way. Go for a walk or something.”

“Jess?” He waited for her to look at him, held his breath as the seconds ticked by, very nearly forgot about Sara and dropped the phone. When Jessie turned to face him, tears shimmered in her eyes and he gripped the receiver, forced himself to remain strong and impartial. “I promised Sam you’d stay.”

“I came this far, didn’t I?”

“You’re not going to leave in the middle of the night, are you?”

She shrugged, turned her back on him and wandered from the room, her footsteps muffled against the floor rug. The back door creaked open, then clicked shut. He stared after her and wondered if she’d still be around come morning.

“Dad? Are you still there?”

He hoped she didn’t stay. He had too much to lose. Absently he lifted the receiver back to his ear. “What?”