“A bossy six-year-old girl telling him what to do all the time?”
Allie shook her head. “No. A friend,” she said simply. And Jax smiled, even though something caught in her throat at the thought of what Wyatt and Allie had been through.
“How about a cup of coffee?” she asked Allie, leading her to the kitchen. “Or on second thought, how about an iced tea? It’s way too hot for coffee this morning.”
“An iced tea would be nice,” Allie said, sitting down at the kitchen table.
Jax busied herself, taking a pitcher of iced tea out of the refrigerator and two glasses out of the cupboard. “By the way,” she said, “did you get a lot done at the cabin on Saturday? I forgot to ask you when we brought Wyatt home.”
“Oh,” Allie said, looking a little vague, “I didn’t get as much done as I thought I would. But thanks for taking Wyatt, anyway. It was so good for him. He doesn’t spend as much time with other children as he should.”
“Have you thought about sending him to day camp?” Jax asked, carefully, setting the glasses of iced tea on the table. She sensed this would be a sensitive subject for Allie. Wyatt, she knew, wasn’t the only one having difficulty separating.
“The one your daughters go to?”
“Uh-huh. It’s at the little nature museum, right outside of town. They call the campers there ‘junior naturalists.’ And there’s a different theme there every week. The girls love it,” she added.
“That sounds like fun,” Allie said, a little wistfully. “I’ll ask Wyatt about it.”
Just then, they heard a car’s engine backfire down the street, and Jax’s hand jerked, spilling iced tea on the table.
“Jax,” Allie said, gently. “Do you think maybe you should cut down on the caffeine? You seem a little . . . tightly wound this morning.”
“Oh, this is decaffeinated,” Jax assured her, wiping up the spill with a dish towel. “Really, I’m fine. I just couldn’t sleep last night. And this morning I feel a little tense.”
A little?
She felt like the proverbial live wire, her body practically humming with anxiety.
“Anyway,” she said, changing the subject, “in case you’re wondering why I asked you to stop by this morning, it’s because I wanted to invite you to a party.”
“A party?” Allie echoed. She looked horrified, like Jax had said
electric chair
or
plane crash
instead of
party
.
“Yes, party,” Jax said. “Parties are supposed to be fun, remember?”
“Not really,” Allie confessed. “It’s been a while since I’ve been to one. I’ve tried to avoid them, I guess, over the last couple of years.”
Jax hesitated. She couldn’t blame Allie, really, for not feeling as if she had any reason to celebrate. Still, Jax thought, she couldn’t avoid parties forever, could she?
“Look, you don’t have to come,” she said. “But I hope you will. Our third of July party has become something of a Butternut tradition.”
“A
third
of July party?”
“Uh-huh. To celebrate the day Jeremy and I met. Well, not met for the first time, because we lived in the same town all our lives. But the day we met again, after Jeremy came home from college.” She added, “And making things more complicated is that we can’t actually celebrate on that day, which was the Fourth of July, because nobody would come. Everyone in Butternut goes to the fairgrounds for the fireworks. So instead, we have it the day before. We buy the burgers and beer, and we hire a band, and everyone else brings a side dish or a salad or a dessert. And it’s fun.” She concluded, “Or at least, that’s the plan,” seeing the same apprehensive expression on Allie’s face.
“Jax, I’m sure it is fun,” Allie said, with a determined smile. “And Wyatt and I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
“Really?” Jax asked, hopefully.
“Really,” Allie said. “Now, what can I bring?”
“Can you can bring your chocolate chip cookies?” Jax asked.
“Of course. How many?”
“Well, let’s see, They’ll be about two hundred people there—”
“
Two hundred?
” Allie said, in astonishment. “Jax, how do you even
know
two hundred people?”
“Easy. In a town the size of Butternut, you know
everyone,
” Jax explained. “Whether you want to or not. But I’ll tell you what, I’ll settle for a couple dozen cookies. We can just let our guests fight it out for them.”
Their conversation was interrupted by a car horn honking in front of the house.
“Jeremy’s here to drive the girls to camp,” Jax explained to Allie, and she went to the bottom of the stairs to call up to them.
Jade and Wyatt were the first ones down, Jade still clutching Wyatt by the hand. They were followed by Josie, Jax’s nine-year-old, who came dragging down the stairs with a scowl on her face that told Jax she’d been fighting with her older sister, Joy. As Josie reached her, Jax gave her a gentle push in the direction of the kitchen.
“Josie, please get the bag lunches out of the fridge,” she told her.
“Why do I have to get them for everyone?” Josie objected.
But Jax ignored her. Instead, she looked up at Joy, her twelve-year-old, coming down the stairs. Unlike her sister, she didn’t look angry. Her fight with Josie was already forgotten, and she had a soft, dreamy expression on her face that told Jax she was thinking about Andy Montgomery, the thirteen-year-old boy who lived across the street. Jax groaned inwardly. She’d hoped the whole boy thing might still be a few years away. She should have known better.
When Joy reached the bottom of the stairs, Jax took her by the shoulders and, looking into her pretty, freckled face, said sternly, “And you, you stop fighting with your sister. Is that understood?”
“Uh-huh,” Joy said, in a way that let Jax know she hadn’t heard a word she’d said.
Jax sighed, but there was a flurry of activity now as she got the girls out the door.
“Are you sure you can’t stay a little longer,” Jax asked Allie then, not wanting to be alone. Because as hard as it had been to be with people since she’d gotten Bobby’s letter, it was harder to be alone. Alone with her fear.
But Allie shook her head. “We’d better be going, too,” she said, giving Jax a hug. “We have groceries in the trunk.”
And then they were gone, and Jax walked, mechanically, to the kitchen. The morning’s breakfast dishes were still stacked in the sink. She put the stopper in the drain, turned on the hot water, and added a squirt of dishwashing liquid. Then she waited for the sink to fill up, staring absently into the cloud of steam that rose from the faucet. This was one time, she thought, as she picked up a sponge and a dish, that her dishwashing ritual wouldn’t give her any pleasure.
Then the telephone rang, too loudly in the quiet kitchen, and Jax dropped the dish she was holding. Luckily, it clattered to the bottom of the sink without breaking. She walked over to the cordless phone on the counter and picked it up. It felt strangely heavy as she lifted it to her ear and spoke into it.
“Hello,” she croaked, her mouth as dry as sandpaper.
“Jax?” Bobby drawled from the other end. Strange, she thought. It had been so many years since she’d heard Bobby’s voice, but it sounded utterly familiar. Familiar in an awful kind of way.
She almost hung up, but she restrained herself. Because if she did hang up, he might get angry. And, insofar as she had a strategy, it involved not making Bobby angry. Or at least not any more angry than was absolutely necessary.
“Bobby?” she croaked in answer, her tongue clumsy and uncooperative in her mouth.
“That’s right, baby,” he said. And then he added, a little peevishly, “You don’t sound very happy to hear from me.”
“I’m just surprised,” she said, looking up at the kitchen clock. “You weren’t supposed to call for another hour.”
“Change of plans,” he said, carelessly. “Besides, I thought if I called you earlier,
she
might answer the phone. And I’ve never heard her voice before. I’d like to know what Joy’s voice sounds like, Jax. She is my daughter, after all.”
It was so quiet in the kitchen that the steady drip of water from the faucet sounded almost painfully loud. Jax groped for a chair at the kitchen table, then sank down on it just as her knees buckled uselessly beneath her.
“She’s not your daughter, Bobby,” she breathed. “I told you in my letter to you. She’s Jeremy’s daughter. I was pregnant with her when I married him.”
“Oh, you were pregnant all right,” Bobby said with a snort. “But it was with my baby, not his.”
“And you know this because . . .”
“I know this because a couple of weeks before you were hooking up with Jeremy, you were hooking up with me. You and I conceived that baby together, Jax. I know it. And you know it. And now you know that I know it.”
“But—”
“Jax, I don’t have time for this now,” Bobby snapped. “I’ve got five minutes on my calling card, and twelve guys standing in line behind me, waiting their turn. You think it’s easy to make a phone call in prison? Think again.”
Jax took a deep breath. She had to get a handle on herself.
Now
. But she also had to change her strategy. Because her denials weren’t going to work. And Bobby, for once, had the truth on his side.
“Look, Bobby. Let’s not argue about this, okay?” she said, trying a different tack. “I mean, what difference does it make, in the long run, whose daughter Joy is? Isn’t it enough to know that she has a good home here with me and Jeremy?”
“But what about me, baby? What have I got?” Bobby whined, and he sounded so exactly like one of her children that Jax almost laughed.
Almost
.
“What you’ve got, Bobby, if you really believe Joy is your daughter, is the satisfaction of knowing she’s well taken care of,” Jax said. She didn’t think for a minute this gambit would work. But she was hoping, somehow, to increase her negotiating power by appealing to his conscience. Assuming, of course, that he
had
a conscience. And she was not at all sure that he did.
“Look, now you’re just wasting my time again,” Bobby muttered. “My time
and
the minutes on my calling card. I told you all this in my letter, Jax. Joy’s my daughter. And when I get out this summer, I want to be part of her life. I’ve got rights. Don’t think I don’t know about them. The library here’s got a legal section in it, and I’ve done my homework. So you and I can either work something out now, or after I’m released, in another six weeks, I can swing by the hardware store and talk to Jeremy about it. Because I’m willing to bet, sweetheart, that the subject of who Joy’s real father is doesn’t come up very often at the dinner table. Am I right?”
Jax didn’t answer. She didn’t need to.
“Okay, good. We understand each other,” Bobby said. “I’m glad. Because I’m not entirely unsympathetic to your little, um . . .
predicament
here. And, as much as I want to see our daughter, if you think it might be too much of a shock to her if I did, well, then we might be able to work something out.”
“Keep talking,” Jax said, a tiny hope stirring inside her.
“Well, here’s the thing. When I leave here, it’s with nothing but a couple of homemade tattoos. And those aren’t going to pay the bills. I’ve got to start over now. From scratch. And that takes money.”
Jax’s head cleared instantly.
Money
. She’d hoped it would come to this. She could pay Bobby off, she knew, if the price wasn’t too high. “Fine,” she said. “How much are we talking about? I don’t have a lot, obviously, but I might be able to arrange a small loan to get you started somewhere.”
Somewhere far away from here
.
“Uh, I wasn’t thinking of a loan, baby. I was thinking more of a
gift
. And I was thinking, maybe, fifty thousand dollars of seed money ought to be enough to get me started in some business. Some
legal
business,” he added.
Fifty thousand dollars? Are you crazy?
Jax almost blurted out. But then she reminded herself that this was a negotiation. And that fifty thousand dollars was only Bobby’s opening offer.
“Look,” she said, “there is no way I can get my hands on fifty thousand dollars. But I can offer you twenty-five
hundred
dollars.” She added, sternly, “And that’s a lot of money for me.”
“Sorry, baby, that’s not going to do it,” Bobby said flatly.
“Five thousand then,” Jax said. She knew she was giving in too quickly, but she couldn’t help it. She wanted to get this over with.
“I’ll come down to twenty,” Bobby said, just as quickly.
“Ten is my final offer,” Jax said. “You can take it or leave it. But I’m not going any higher.”
Bobby was silent for a long time. “All right,” he said finally, in a sulky tone of voice.
“And in exchange, Bobby, you stay away from her. And the rest of my family. And another thing, Bobby. You stay away from Butternut, too. Is that clear?”
“You can’t tell me where to live,” he grumbled.
“I can if you want the money,” she shot back.
He was silent. “Yeah, okay,” he said, finally. “I don’t want to start over in your stupid little town, anyway. But I do need to come there, for a couple of days, after I get out. I’ve got some loose ends that need tying up. I can get the money from you then, Jax.”
“No, Bobby. I’ll mail you a check. Just give me a few days to get the money together.”
“Oh no, babe, you’re not getting off that easily. Besides, I prefer to conduct my business in person.”
“Bobby, no. I can’t see you in person. It’s too big a risk.”
“Yeah, well, life is full of risks,” he said, darkly. “I learned that the hard way. So I’ll see you in Butternut on, uh, August fifteenth. I should be there by then. Why don’t we say nine
P
.
M
. at the Mosquito Inn.”
The Mosquito Inn?
Jax thought, appalled. The place was a dive bar on Highway 169 that catered mainly to motorcycle gang members and ex-cons. The thought of her going there, when she’d be nearly eight and a half months pregnant, was ludicrous, and she almost said so. But then something occurred to her. Her chances of seeing someone she actually knew there, someone other than Bobby, were almost nonexistent.