Loving Jessie (6 page)

“I half expected them to come to blows a time or two,” she said.

“Pruning shears at twenty paces?”

“Or a duel to the death with trowels.” Her smile faded, her eyes suddenly shadowed with remembered grief. “But as much as they argued, he respected Mrs. M more than anyone else in the rose club. He really missed her when she moved to Sante Fe.”

“And you really miss him,” Matt said softly.

“Yes.” She sighed, then looked up with a quick smile, her eyes a little too bright. “He was one of my best friends.”

“He was a great guy.” Forgetting all about keeping his distance, Matt reached out and took her hand in his. “I was in his class the last year he taught English lit. I planned on coasting my way through, doing no more than I absolutely had to to pull a passing grade, but he really made the books come alive. He was a hell of a teacher.”

Jessie blinked back tears as her smile widened. “I don’t think you could say anything that would have pleased him more.”

They sat quietly for a few moments, their hands still linked, remembering. It was Matt who broke the silence.

“So tell me about this book he was writing.”

She did. She told him about her grandfather’s plans to write a book that would offer advice for growing roses, with an emphasis on the special needs of people dealing with the Salinas Valley’s unique climate and soil conditions. But he wanted it to be more than just a how-to book. He wanted it to be a sort of memoir of sixty years spent working with and growing roses.

“He had finished most of the writing before he…before he got so sick,” Jessie said. “And he left detailed notes for the rest of it, so I’m pretty sure I can finish it for him. There’s a publisher interested in it. It’s a small press out in San Francisco. This isn’t the kind of book that’s ever going to hit the bestseller list, but the editor I spoke with seemed to think they could do fairly well with it, particularly if they focus on the regional aspect of it. Getting the book published was a big dream of Grandad’s, and even though he’s not around to see it happen, I’d really like to finish it for him.”

“Sounds great.” He was still holding her hand, and he tightened his fingers around hers, his smile encouraging. “I’ll buy the first copy, hot off the press.”

“Actually, I was hoping you’d be willing to make a
more substantial contribution,” Jessie said, and he remembered that she’d said she’d come out here to talk to him. He looked at her, brows raised in question.

“I was hoping you’d be willing to do the photography for the book.” She rushed the words out, looking at him directly now, her eyes wide and anxious. “I know it’s a lot to ask. Grandad left some money to finish the project, but I doubt if I can pay you anywhere near what you usually get. And it’s not exciting work or…or important. I mean, it’s important to me, but it’s not exactly on a par with the kind of work you usually do. And I don’t want you to feel like you have to do it, because I
could
hire another photographer.”

She was babbling, Matt thought. Jessie always babbled when she was nervous.

“I wouldn’t expect you to do all of it, anyway, since we really need pictures taken over the course of a whole year. Showing the garden in all seasons, you know. But if you could do some of it, it would be great. And if you can’t, that’s okay. I hadn’t planned on asking you, but then you came back and you said—when we were at Ernie’s the other day—that you were between jobs right now, so I thought…”

She let her voice trail off and looked at him, her big eyes full of a mixture of hope and uncertainty as she waited for his response.

Matt withdrew his hand from hers and rubbed his damp palm lightly down the leg of his jeans.
Between jobs?
Was that what he’d told her? Probably. It was as good an explanation as any, better than admitting that he had no idea where his life was going anymore. It was pretty obvious that he wasn’t ready to pick up a camera again. Not when the thought of it was enough to give him
sweaty palms. Ridiculous. Jessie was asking him to take pictures of a freaking rose garden, not a mass grave.

God, had he thought that a week spent nailing down shingles and hanging lath had worked a miracle cure? All it took was Jessie asking him to pick up his cameras to show him how far away that cure was.

But she was sitting there, looking at him, waiting for an answer, and he couldn’t tell her the truth. That he hadn’t touched his cameras in months. That he didn’t know if he would ever touch them again.

Forcing his mouth to curve in what he hoped was a natural smile, he gave her the only answer he could.

“Let me think about it.”

The beginning of the dream was always the same. He was standing in the middle of the road. It was an old road, built centuries ago, intended for carts and wagons and foot traffic. Never wide, it was made narrower still by the piles of rubble that spilled in from either side. He knew that, a few weeks ago, that rubble had been homes. There had once been life here. Children had grown up here, married, had children of their own, grown old and died here. But there was nothing left of that now, only the jagged remnants of walls, and empty black holes where windows and doors had been.

The clear winter sunlight lit the destruction with brutal clarity, and, in the dream, just as it had been in reality, he was analyzing the play of shadows and light, choosing the best angles to catch the full drama of the scene before him.

He could feel the weight of the camera in his hands, so familiar that it was more an extension of himself than a tool. The Nikon wasn’t his newest camera, or the fanciest, but it was the one he reached for first. It fit his hand
perfectly, responded to his touch like magic. In the dream, he could feel the faint roughness of the case beneath his fingers, and he wondered if he should change lenses. Maybe a wide angle would best capture the full impact of the devastation.

He reached for the leather case slung over his shoulder, his movement slow and unhurried. It wasn’t until he heard the voices that he realized he’d been standing amid utter silence. The shrill, frightened voice of the woman tore the silence like a blade slashing through raw silk. And then there were others. Hard, male voices, rough and angry. He couldn’t understand what they were saying. Funny that, even in the dream, that remained true. But he recognized violence. Smelled hatred.

Turning slowly, so slowly, he saw them drag her into the street. Four soldiers. And her. A woman. No, a girl. Hardly out of her teens, if that. Impossible to tell what she looked like. Her face twisted with fear.

The bleak gray and tan winter landscape was suddenly drenched with color. Eye-searing crimson and jet black. Their uniforms were vivid green, the sky a slash of cerulean overhead. Color seared his eyes, making him flinch back, dazzled.

And this was where the dream varied. Sometimes he stood watching, as if glued in place. Watching through the lens of his camera as the soldiers dragged the girl into the center of the street, only his finger moving, triggering the shutter as they shoved her to her knees and put the gun to her head.

Other times he dropped the camera, the clatter as it hit the ground loud enough to drown out her screams. When he looked down, he could see it in pieces in the dirty street, the back open and film trailing out in a long, black tongue. And then he was moving forward, mouth open
as he shouted. Except there was no sound. His throat ached with the force of his shouts, but there was never any sound at all.

Matt shot up in bed, the sound of a gunshot echoing in his head. His heart was pounding in his chest, his breath coming in deep gasps that hovered on the edge of becoming sobs. A thin film of sweat covered his body, his skin chill in the warm night air.

He hadn’t made a sound. He knew that. When the nightmares had first started, he would awaken with the sound of his own scream echoing in his ears. It had always struck him as ironic when, in the dream, he couldn’t make a sound. Somehow he’d conditioned himself not to cry out, waking himself a split second before his screams of rage became reality. It was too damned bad he couldn’t condition himself not to dream at all.

He swung his legs off the bed and padded barefoot across the room. Experience had taught him that trying to go back to sleep was worse than a waste of time. If he did manage to fall asleep again, the dream would probably return. Finding his way in the dark, he moved through the house. The doors and windows had been left open to allow air to stir through the rooms. Flipping up the latch on the screen door, he stepped out onto the porch. He was wearing only the white cotton briefs in which he’d slept, but there weren’t any neighbors near enough to care, even if they happened to be awake at two o’clock in the morning.

The air was still and warm. September was just around the corner, but there was nothing even remotely autumnal about late August in the Salinas Valley. The heat would linger for another month or more, until the fall rains came, bringing with them new growth, new beginnings.
He heard an owl hoot nearby and a rustle of leaves as if some small creature had just burrowed into deeper hiding.

Leaning his hands on the porch railing, Matt forced his breathing into a slow and steady rhythm. It wasn’t as bad as it had been at first, he told himself, wishing he believed it. Closing his eyes, he leaned his forehead against one of the roof supports. It felt worse, maybe because he’d had a whole week without the nightmare and had half started to believe that coming here had worked a miracle cure.

Behind him, the screen door creaked softly, but he didn’t turn.

“Here.” Gabe set a plain white mug on the rail in front of him. “Tea. It’s herbal crap. Tastes like boiled weeds, but it’s supposed to be soothing.”

Matt nodded and picked up the mug, finding the heat comforting, even though the night was warm. Behind him, he heard Gabe sink down on the glider and the barely audible creak of the chains as he set it in motion.

“You want to talk about it?” Gabe asked after a while.

“No.” Had he cried out after all? Or was it just that instincts honed thirty years ago were still functional? How many nights had Gabe snuck into his room when they were children, saying nothing but just sitting with him, sharing the pain of their father’s latest beating?

“Okay.” Gabe accepted his refusal to talk about what was bothering him without question, just as Matt had known he would. Gabe never pushed, but Matt knew he would be there if he ever needed to talk.

Cradling the mug between his palms, Matt leaned against the porch railing. Gabe was right. The stuff tasted like boiled weeds—
old
boiled weeds. He was fairly sure that any soothing effect was more likely caused by the
soft night air and Gabe’s quiet company. Like Jessie, Gabe never felt the need to fill every silence.

“Did you know Jessie’s grandfather was writing a garden book?” Matt asked suddenly.

“I’ve read some of the manuscript. He had a good style. Jessie said he had a publisher who was interested in it.”

“Yeah.” Matt frowned down at the mug, gleaming white in the darkness. “She asked me to do the photography for it.”

“Can’t blame her for wanting the best,” Gabe said. “You going to do it?”

“I don’t know.” Suddenly restless, Matt set the cup down on the rail and turned to look at his brother for the first time. “It’s not exactly my line of work. I don’t take pretty pictures.” He reached up to rub his shoulder, suddenly aware that it was aching like a sore tooth. He laughed, the sound sharp and humorless. “Now, if someone was torturing rosebushes to death, that would be right up my alley.”

He could just make out Gabe’s nod in the darkness. “It would be different, all right, but sometimes change is a good thing.”

“Sounds like something out of a fortune cookie,” Matt muttered irritably.

“Probably where I got it.” Gabe lifted his own cup and sipped. “How long has it been since you picked up a camera?”

The quiet question caught Matt off guard. He should have known that Gabe would have guessed. Not much slipped by his older brother.

“Not since I was shot,” he said after a long moment. “I don’t know if I even want to pick them up again.”

Gabe didn’t protest. “You want to tell me what happened over there?”

“No.” Matt drew a long, shallow breath. “No, I don’t.”

“I suppose you haven’t talked to anyone else, have you?” Without waiting for a response, Gabe shook his head. He stood up, setting the glider into trembling motion behind him. “You always were pigheaded as hell.”

“One of my charms,” Matt said, a little shakily.

“Give it time.” Gabe’s hand squeezed his shoulder for an instant. “You always know where I am.”

He went inside, and the screen closed quietly behind him, leaving Matt alone on the porch.

M
att had been in Beirut during his tenth high-school reunion and covering the aftermath of an earthquake in Afghanistan when the twentieth rolled around, but if he’d felt any regret at missing an opportunity to touch base with his old classmates, he could now put it to rest. As near as he could tell, everyone he’d ever gone to school with had come to the welcome-home party Reilly had insisted on throwing for him. A lot of them had been guests at Reilly’s wedding five years ago, so there wasn’t that sense of shock he would have felt if he hadn’t seen them in twenty years, but there were some…

“Who’s the redhead with the large…attributes?” he asked Reilly, pitching his voice low to avoid being overheard. “The one talking to Randy Harris?”

Reilly followed Matt’s eyes to the tall, striking woman with truly astonishing curves. He swallowed the last of the bacon-wrapped oyster he’d just popped in his mouth and grinned. “Livvy Bradford.”

Matt’s brows drew together as he tried to place the name. When he did, he shot Reilly an astonished look.
“Captain of the debate team Livvy Bradford? Head of the class Livvy Bradford? Computer nerd Livvy Bradford?”

Reilly’s grin widened. “That’s the one.”

“Can’t be.” Matt shook his head. “Livvy Bradford was built like a swizzle stick. Couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred pounds soaking wet. And she had carrot-red hair, buck teeth and glasses.”

“Amazing what silicone, Miss Clairol, an orthodontist and an optometrist can do for a girl, isn’t it?”

“Amazing.” Matt shook his head, unable to reconcile the woman he was looking at with the skinny, gawky teenager he remembered. “What happened?”

Reilly lifted a fat pink shrimp from its icy bed and bit into it. “She got married, got divorced. Started some sort of software company. She made a fortune. That’s when she got the large…attributes and new teeth. Got married again, divorced again. Started a consulting business. Made another fortune. I think after that she got the hair extensions and contacts. Married again, divorced again. Started an Internet business that does something or sells something. She’s still working on that, but, a couple of months ago, she had her lips done.”

“Done?”

“Collagen injections.” Reilly tapped one finger against his own pursed lips. “If you were closer, you’d notice. Mouth looks just like a mackerel now.” He grinned when Matt laughed. “If she follows her usual pattern, she’s about ready for husband number four. Maybe you should put yourself on the list for the job. Woman’s got more money than God. If you played your cards right, you could become a very well-kept man.”

“Yeah, being a gigolo has always been one of my
burning career ambitions.” Matt lifted his glass and took a swallow of beer.

“I don’t think they call it a gigolo when you’re married. Besides, weren’t you and Livvy friends or something?” Reilly popped another oyster in his mouth and gave Matt a questioning look.

“We were lab partners in biology one year. She had a tongue like a pit viper and bitched endlessly about the way I took notes.”

“No romance amid the formaldehyde and dissected frog parts?” Reilly asked, looking disappointed.

Matt laughed out loud. God, he’d missed this. It had been too long since he’d just let himself enjoy life’s absurdities. He’d spent too many years looking into the darkness, capturing it forever on film. He’d almost forgotten that there was a world where famine and war were not a daily part of life. It felt damned good to be reminded.

He’d never been particularly fond of parties. Too many people, too much noise, too much booze and bad food. He generally preferred his socializing on a smaller scale. But he had to hand it to Dana McKinnon, she knew how to avoid all the usual problems.

Despite the fact that half the county seemed to be here, the big house didn’t feel crowded. The French doors had been left open, encouraging the guests to spill out onto the patio and pool deck and enjoy the warm summer night. The furniture in the living room had been pushed back to provide room for dancing. So far, the music had ranged from old rock and roll through disco, with a few side trips into old standards. Right now he could hear a plaintive plea for Sloopy to hang on and see half a dozen couples gyrating with varying degrees of skill.

“I’m not sure, but I think there’s a law against any
thing that tastes this good.” Reilly’s groan of pleasure drew Matt’s attention back to him. He nodded sympathetically when he saw the slice of dense, nearly black chocolate cake on his friend’s plate.

“Jessie calls it death by chocolate, and I think she may mean it literally. I thought about having a second piece, but I don’t think my arteries would survive.”

Reilly took another bite and sighed with pleasure as the thick chocolate melted on his tongue. “Deadly. Who would have thought that sweet little Jessie would grow up to be so vicious?”

“Who would have thought she’d grow up?” Matt murmured, his smile fading a little as his eyes sought her out. She was standing across the room, talking to Gabe, who was laughing at something she’d said.

She was wearing a dress again. This one was black and made of some kind of thin fabric that clung to every curve. And there were plenty of curves for it to cling to. Warm feminine curves that turned his mind in directions it had no business going. God, didn’t she own any pants? he wondered irritably. Or a nice, ankle-length skirt? Did she plan her whole wardrobe around garments designed to show off those mile-long legs?

“I still can’t believe she’s the same skinny little kid who used to tag along after us,” Reilly said, following his gaze and apparently reading his thoughts. Matt hoped he couldn’t read all of them.

As if sensing his gaze, Jessie turned her head, her wide mouth curving in a smile when their eyes met. She said something as she touched Gabe’s arm, and Matt lifted his beer in acknowledgment when his brother glanced across the room. He was willing to bet that Gabe was already thinking about making his getaway. Parties ranked a half step ahead of visits to the dentist on his older brother’s
list of favorite ways to spend his time. He’d only come to this one because it was intended as a welcome-home for Matt.

With a last word to Gabe, Jessie turned and walked toward him, and Matt promptly forgot his brother. She couldn’t possibly be wearing a bra under what there was of that dress, he thought, and then wished he hadn’t. It was bad enough that he couldn’t ignore those legs. He didn’t need to think about her underwear. Or lack thereof.

“You are a cruel woman,” Reilly said as she approached. “You may even be evil and depraved.”

Jessie glanced at the last bite of cake on his plate and grinned. “You can hardly blame me for your lack of willpower.”

“I’m considering an exorcism,” Reilly said darkly.

“For me or the cake?”

“I think it should be exorcized,” Matt said. “If it’s devil’s food.” He threw up one hand in laughing defense when his companions groaned. “Sorry.”

“You should be,” Reilly grumbled.

Standing there with the two of them, Jessie felt something shift inside her, a slow easing of a kind of emptiness she hadn’t even realized was there. Her grandfather’s death had left her alone, but she hadn’t realized just how lonely she’d felt until this moment, when she realized that she still had family, though it was of the heart rather than by blood.

Reilly sighed as he finished the last bite of cake and set the plate aside. He gave Jessie a reproachful look. “I figure I’m going to have to run an extra fifteen miles next week just to work off all those calories.”

“Poor baby.” Her grin made the sympathy decidedly suspect, and she laughed when he scowled at her.

“Just for that, you can help me work off the calories.”

Jessie shook her head. “I’m not going running with you. No way. Last time I went running with you, you tried to kill me. You made me run off a cliff.”

“That was ten years ago, and it wasn’t a cliff. It was just a little wash, and I thought you knew it was there.”

“I was picking gravel out of my knees for a month.”

“You weren’t supposed to slide down it on your knees.”

“Now you tell me.” She shook her head. “I don’t care how many calories were in that cake, I’m not going running with you.”

“I had something more immediate in mind.” He cocked his head toward the living room, where Sloopy had given way to Little Eva urging everyone to do the Loco-Motion. Jessie’s eyes widened, and she shook her head, laughing. “Oh no. You’re not going to drag me out there to make a fool of myself.”

“You owe me, Jess.” Grinning, Reilly caught her hand and tugged her toward the living room. “If you don’t help me work off some calories, I’ll have to buy a new wardrobe, and I’ll bill you for it.”

“Reilly, I haven’t danced in ages. I don’t remember how.”

“It’s just like riding a bike,” he said, ignoring her laughing protests.

“Can’t I just ride a bike instead?” Jessie threw Matt a pleading look. “Do something.”

“I’ll come watch,” he offered, following them across the hall.

“Traitor,” she accused, but she was smiling when Reilly pulled her onto the floor just as the song changed and the plaintive inquiry of “Do You Love Me” echoed in the room. Matt heard Jessie laugh as Reilly swung her into his arms.

It wasn’t the first time he’d seen them dance together, he reminded himself. He’d been present at more than one of their practice sessions—God, had it been more than ten years ago? But for some reason, this time, he was aware of how…sexual some of the moves were.
Idiot.
Why do you think they call it dirty dancing?
When Reilly set his hands on Jessie’s hips and pulled her against him so that they were pressed pelvis to pelvis, Matt was startled by the urge to yank her away from him. It was bad enough that he’d been thinking about her underwear. Now Reilly had his damned hands all over her.

“They look good together.”

He hadn’t been aware of Dana’s approach until she spoke. He turned his head to look at her, struck as he was each time he saw her by the sheer beauty of her. But it was an impersonal admiration, the same way he couldn’t help but notice a beautiful sunset or admire a striking piece of artwork. He didn’t give so much as a thought to her underwear. There was probably a message there, he thought uneasily, before turning his attention back to the small dance floor.

“They should look good together,” he said, responding to Dana’s comment. “Reilly taught her to dance. He had the hots for some girl who had a thing for that guy in
Dirty Dancing
. Remember?”

“Patrick Swayze,” Dana said, her eyes following the couple on the dance floor, which had cleared around them.

“That’s the one. Reilly decided to impress her with his dance skills, so he talked Jessie into being his practice partner.”

Jessie laughed as Reilly drew her knee up alongside his hip and dipped her backward until the ends of her hair brushed the floor, before swinging her back up and catch
ing her against his chest, her arms around his shoulders, her smiling mouth inches from his. Matt made a conscious effort to loosen his white-knuckle grip on his beer. This was just for fun, he reminded himself. Playful. Innocent. People were laughing, clapping.

Why the hell wasn’t this illegal?

“Did he get the girl?” Dana asked.

With an effort, Matt dragged his attention from the couple on the floor. “Girl?” he asked blankly.

“The one with the Patrick Swayze fixation.”

“Her.” Matt blinked and tried to remember back to that half-forgotten summer. “Yeah, and when he took her dancing, she turned out to have two left feet.”

Dana smiled faintly, but her expression remained unreadable. He wondered if masking her feelings came naturally to her or if it was something she’d learned during the time she was a pageant contestant. He looked back at the dance floor in time to see Reilly spin Jessie out and then back, catching her close against his chest as the music came to an end. They stood pressed together for an instant and then broke apart, smiling and laughing a little at the smattering of applause. Still holding hands, they swept an exaggerated bow before moving off the floor as the next song began.

“I can’t believe I let you drag me out there,” Jessie said, laughing and breathless.

“I told you it was just like riding a bike.” Reilly threw his arm around her shoulders, hugging her close as he brushed a brotherly kiss against her temple. “You didn’t step on my feet more than three or four times.” He had to release her to dodge the elbow she aimed at his ribs.

He was still smiling when he looked at his wife. “Care to take a spin?” he asked, holding out his hand.

Dana seemed to hesitate, and, for just a moment, Matt
thought he saw something almost wistful in her eyes, but then she shook her head.

“I need to check on things in the kitchen. Besides, I couldn’t possibly follow that exhibition,” she added lightly. “Too bad there’s not much call for baton twirling.”

Reilly let his hand drop, his eyes following his wife as she walked away. Matt looked away from the naked emotion in his friend’s eyes, hunger and pain tangled together. Shifting his gaze, he looked at Jessie. And found a nearly identical look in her eyes as she looked at Reilly.

Well, hell. She’s in love with him
. More shaken than he had any right to be, Matt fixed his gaze on a nice, neutral spot somewhere between the two of them and contemplated the possibility that he’d spent too much time looking at the world through a camera lens and not nearly enough paying attention to what was right in front of his nose.

Her head tilted back against the leather seat, Jessie hummed tunelessly, the sound barely audible over the quiet purr of the Jeep’s engine. If she turned her head slightly, she could see Matt’s hands on the steering wheel. He had good hands, she decided. Wide palms and long fingers. Strong hands. The kind of hands that made you feel safe. She’d always felt safe with Matt, she thought, smiling a little. She was so lucky to have him for a friend.

It was past one o’clock in the morning, and they had the road to themselves. Millers Crossing didn’t boast much by way of a nightlife, not even on a Saturday night.