Redemption Road (Jackson Falls #5) (12 page)

Colleen

The woman who answered the door was petite and slender, striking,
her features too strong for pretty. But she was attractive, in a bold,
no-apologies way, with a strong MacKenzie jaw, green eyes, and a mop of curly
red hair that fell past her shoulders. Grim of face, she eyed Colleen for a
long minute without speaking.

“Hi,” Colleen said. “You must be Rose. I’m—”

“I know who you are.”

Fists clenched in the pockets of her jacket, she said, “Can I talk
to Jesse?”

Nostrils flared, her ex-husband’s new wife studied her for another
long moment before coming to some kind of decision. Rose nodded. “Come in. I’ll
get him.”

The woman disappeared into the depths of the house, leaving
Colleen alone in the entry hall. Last time she’d been here, the hallway and stairwell
had been papered with a faux velvet print, pine tassels set against a faded
gold background. The wallpaper was gone now, the walls painted a smooth, tasteful
taupe. How many Thanksgivings and Christmases had she spent in this house?
Summer barbecues, birthdays? She’d never lived here, but her in-laws had. Although
she hadn’t been close to Jesse’s parents, she’d known them all her life, and the
Lindstroms had been good to her, in spite of the fact that she’d snared their
son by deliberately getting pregnant. This was the house where Jesse had grown
up, and it seemed strange that he now owned the house, that he lived here with
his second wife and their mixed brood.

Quiet footsteps approached. Colleen took a breath to steel herself.
She turned, and there he stood, her ex-husband, the man she’d walked away from,
the man who could still make her hands tremble and her stomach churn. Jesse
Lindstrom was as handsome as ever, with that neatly-trimmed, silvery blond hair,
so at odds with his dark eyes. She hadn’t seen him in years, but he hadn’t
changed. Nothing really had. Despite the fact that they’d both moved on, despite
the fact that she’d loved Irv Berkowitz with every fiber of her being, Jesse
could still reduce her to that sixteen-year-old girl she’d once been, ripe on
hormones and weaving elaborate fantasies about her sister’s beau. She didn’t
understand it, didn’t like it. But she couldn’t escape it. Her ex-husband still
sent the Colleen-o-meter through the roof.

He looked stressed; he had that furrowed brow thing going on that
she’d seen in Mikey last night. She’d always been able to gauge Jesse’s moods,
and right now, he was agitated, angry and frustrated. Her ex was an easygoing man;
it took a lot to set off his temper. Their son had apparently met with blinding
success in that department.

Ignoring the wife who stood possessively behind him with narrowed
eyes and a sweet-faced toddler on her hip, Colleen said, “Hello, Jesse.”

“Colleen.”

“I hear you and Mikey had a bit of a go-round last night.”

“He’s ruining his life. And if you’re here to plead his case, you
might as well walk right back out that door.”

“You know, whenever I think of you, the word
inflexible
isn’t generally the first one that comes to mind.”

“I wasn’t expecting this,” he said. “He hit me out of the blue. Just
showed up at my door. I thought he was in California. It wasn’t a pleasant
surprise.”

“Tell me about it. Imagine my surprise when he came knocking on my
door at two o’clock in the morning. I thought somebody was dead.”

“My fault. I’m the one who pointed him in your direction.”  He let
out a hard breath. “Come in,” he said. “You might as well sit down.”

The furniture was new, the house thoroughly refurbished, the walls
filled with colorful, original artwork. She knew where the money had come from.
At his day job, he was a mild-mannered high school English teacher-turned-principal.
It was his night job as a highly successful author of suspense novels that had
paid for the buttery-soft leather furniture, the beautiful hardwood floors, the
new roof. She’d be willing to bet there was a shiny new kitchen as well. He
could have quit the day job years ago, but he stayed, not because of job
stability, but because he liked it. He’d made enough money from the writing to
never have to worry about job stability again. But Jesse had never been one to
put on airs or care about what people thought. It wasn’t that he was a rebel; quite
the opposite. He simply had a strong sense of self and the strength of his
convictions. He liked writing and he liked teaching, so he did both.

She sat on the couch and sank into soft leather, surprisingly warm
to the touch. Jesse sat on a matching armchair, his posture ramrod straight. In
all the years she’d known him, she’d never seen him slouch. “So,” she said,
“what are we going to do about this mess?”

“He needs to go back to school.”

“I agree with you, but how are we supposed to make that happen?”

“Tough love. I’m not backing down.”

“Jesse.” Arms crossed, she leaned toward him. “Just because
getting an education was the right path in life for you doesn’t mean it’s the
right one for him.”

His eyes narrowed. “I thought you weren’t here to advocate for
him?”

“I’m not. I’m just repeating what he said to me. Apparently he was
very unhappy there.”

“That’s not a valid excuse. Life isn’t supposed to be one big
garden party. If you’re unhappy, you work your way through it and figure out a
solution. You don’t turn tail and run.”

“Maybe turning tail and running was his solution.”

“Was it? Well, it stinks.”

She straightened and said, “Do you suppose there’s something else
going on?  Something we don’t know about?”

“You mean drinking? Drugs? That doesn’t sound like Mikey.”

“Maybe a girl?”

He tilted his head. “You think there’s a girl involved? Did he say
that?”

“He didn’t mention any girl. It’s just that yesterday, I was
talking to Paige. Rob’s daughter? And when she realized I was Mikey’s mother,
she had the oddest reaction.”

He was quiet, considering what she’d said. While he ruminated, she
studied the artwork on the walls. The colors were stunning, the style expressionist,
wild and untethered. Somebody local; she recognized the locations of several
landscapes. The biggest painting, the one that hung over the fireplace, was of
Jesse himself, in a relaxed mood, reading in his rocking chair. “Who’s the
artist?” she said.

“My wife.”

“Really. She’s very talented.”

“Yes, she is. Mikey and Paige were friends when he was still in
high school. They spent time together. I don’t know that you could actually
call it dating. I don’t believe it ever went that far. And it didn’t last long.
They seemed to lose interest in each other, and I never saw them together
again.”

“Maybe there was more to it than you knew.”

He stared at her, then turned and shouted, “Rose! Can you come
here a minute?”

His wife appeared in the doorway so quickly that Colleen wondered
if she’d been hovering, eavesdropping on their conversation. “What?”

“Is there anything I should know about Mikey and Paige? Anything I’ve
missed?”

She crossed her arms and leaned against the door frame. “You mean
like the fact that she’s refused to even be in the same room with him for the
past year?”

“Seriously? How did I not notice something like that?”

Rose shrugged. “If you recall, when he was home for Christmas,
every time we got together with my brother and his family, one or the other of
them conveniently had somewhere else they had to be.”

“I don’t—” He paused, thoughtful. “You’re right. Mikey skipped
Christmas Eve at your mother’s house. And Paige—”

“Was sick on New Year’s Eve and stayed in her room the whole
evening.”

“Damn. This one flew right by me. I must be losing my touch.”

 “All I can say is that for a man who’s had a lengthy career
working with teenagers, sometimes you can be really blind about what’s going on
right in front of your eyes.”

“So there was some kind of relationship between them. What
happened? Do you know?”

“I don’t have a clue,” Rose said. “Rob doesn’t know, either. All
we know is that something went down, Paige ended up getting hurt, and they
stopped speaking.”

“Maybe it was a one-sided thing. She had a crush on him, and he
didn’t return her feelings.”

“Maybe. Or maybe not.”

“Do you suppose it’s even remotely possible that she had anything
to do with him leaving school?”

“That possibility did occur to me last night. But after I thought
it over, I realized it’s not very likely. A year is a lifetime to a teenager. Whatever
happened between them is ancient history by now.”

“Except that they’re still avoiding each other. Christmas was only
a month ago.” He turned back to Colleen. Said, “You need to keep an eye on him.
On both of them. Find out if there’s anything going on between them.”

Rose said, “You shouldn’t put that responsibility on her shoulders.
Besides, Mikey’s eighteen years old. A grown man. And Paige is seventeen. If
there is anything going on between them, there’s not a lot we can do about it.”

 “I’ll believe he’s a grown man when he starts acting like one.”

“Wait just a minute—” Colleen couldn’t keep the dismay from her
voice. “I thought you’d let him come back here.”

Jesse met his wife’s eyes. Quietly but firmly, he said, “He’s not
coming back here. I won’t back down on this. And I’m cutting off his allowance.
If he can’t be bothered to stay in school, he can find a job and support
himself. He thinks school’s hard? Wait until he finds out what the real world
is like.”

“Jesus, Jesse,” Rose said dryly. “Why don’t you just stand him up
in front of a firing squad?”

Colleen hadn’t expected his wife to be her ally. She shot the
woman a look of gratitude. Jesse closed his eyes, slowly rubbed his temple. Opened
them and said to both women, “Look, I deal with teenagers every day. I have for
the last fifteen years. I understand how they think, what makes them tick. You
wouldn’t believe some of the situations I’ve had to deal with over the years. And
one thing experience has taught me is that when things get really bad, unless
there’s some pathology involved, tough love is almost always the right way to
deal with it.”

Colleen couldn’t argue with him. What she knew about teenagers
came from the personal experience of having been one a couple of decades ago. He
was probably right. It just wasn’t the answer she’d hoped for.

“So,” she said, “you’re telling me he’s mine until, or unless, he
bows to your will.”

Jesse raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t that what you’ve always claimed
you wanted? Now’s your chance. You have to be careful what you wish for. You
might get it.”

She let out a hard breath and said, “What the hell am I supposed
to do with him?”

“I don’t know,” he said, and got up from his chair. “But if you
coddle him, we’ll all end up paying the price. Mikey most of all.”

***

Despite the fact that the outside temperature was holding steady
at eleven degrees, underneath her coat, terror had her in a cold flop sweat. She
gripped the steering wheel and watched her knuckles go bone white. Jesse was
right, of course; but then, when had he ever not been right? She’d spent years unsuccessfully
trying to convince him that their son would be better off with her. Now that
Mikey had unceremoniously dumped himself in her lap, with full benefit of his
father’s blessing, she wanted to be happy about it. Instead, she was resentful,
frightened, uncertain of which direction was true north. Her mothering skills
were rusty. It had taken Jesse a long time to get past the fear that she’d do
something crazy with their son. Over the last few years, she’d had Mikey for a
week here, a week there. Holidays, school vacations. But she hadn’t been a
full-time mom since he was nine years old. Her son was eighteen now. He didn’t
need a babysitter, and after all this time, it was a little late for mother-son
bonding.

So why now?  Was this the universe’s way of blowing her a
raspberry?  Or was there some greater lesson to be learned here? She’d never
been a fatalist, but she had come to believe, somewhere along the line, that
everything in life was a learning experience. So what was she supposed to be learning
from this? Why had her son shown up on her doorstep now, while she was in a
state of transition between her old life and something else she hadn’t even
found yet? She was desperate to leave this place before she found herself
entangled in any family drama, but already she could hear the closing of doors,
the clanking of chains. Already she could feel the heft of the padlock that
threatened to bind her here indefinitely. Damn Jesse! Damn him for putting her
in this position, for making her choose between her own needs and those of her
son.

And damn him for still being the man who’d put foolish notions in
a young girl’s head. For opening up the cold steel box she’d locked all those
emotions in and letting them fly free like butterflies. She’d long since gotten
past her obsession with Jesse Lindstrom, but that didn’t stanch the flow of
memories. Just being in the same room with him made her think of things that
were better left forgotten. Dark, steamy summer nights, his muscled body
gleaming, rising over hers. His hands, his mouth, the unspoken delights they’d
shared. Their marriage might have been lacking in the communication department,
but between the sheets, it had never suffered. In a decade of marriage, sex was
the one thing, besides their son, that they’d gotten right.