Dylan's Redemption (2 page)

Jessie hadn’t spoken of the past in a long time. Part of her daily existence, she tried her best to push through, cope. Today felt different. She wished she knew why, so she could put a stop to it.

“And you lost her. Not your fault. You did everything possible. No one could have asked more from you. It just happened. The doctors tried everything and did their best to save her.”

“I still feel like I failed. Maybe if I’d taken better care of myself?”

“You did everything right.”

She shook off her mood and the past and glanced up at Greg. Thick golden hair, blue eyes, square jaw, tall and lean, tanned from working outside, quite a handsome package. Rich, smart, funny, and a good friend. All the things a woman could want in a man. So why, when she looked at him, didn’t she feel anything? No longing to touch him, or to be anything more than friends.

It was the same with every man she met. Maybe she died along with her daughter and lived as a ghost of herself in some warped reality.

Besides, she thought of Greg as a brother. An only child, he’d always wanted a sibling and adopted her as his sister. What could she say? For them, it worked.

“Why are you here?”

“Did you get any calls today?” His tone asked a lot more than a simple question.

“I get about a hundred a day. Any call in particular you’re referring to? Did Pop outbid me on a job again, and he sent you here to rub my nose in it?”

“No.” He chuckled, though with little enthusiasm.

Ever since Pop fronted her the money to start her own business, they’d cultivated a friendly rivalry between their construction companies. She’d worked for Pop and Greg starting at fifteen, pregnant and alone, looking for a job to support herself through her pregnancy. She’d started in the office, helping Pop plan and organize jobs since she couldn’t do any manual labor in her condition.

Later, to their utter fascination, she’d taken on any and all jobs on the projects. They had no idea a young girl could do everything from frame a house to roof it. She’d earned their respect, their admiration, and their love. And one day she found she’d grown so close to them, they made her part of their family.

At eighteen, she’d even changed her last name to Langley to hide from her father, or anyone else who came looking for her. Not that anyone had, but she’d needed the security of knowing no one could find her.

“Dad says hello, but I’m not here about any bid. He called about some news he heard today. He wanted to come himself, but you know how poorly he’s been feeling lately.”

“Is it his health? Did the doctor say something about his condition?”

“No. Dad’s fine. Nothing’s changed. The news is about something else.”

Pop suffered from a heart condition over the last ten years. Some days it got the best of him. Most days, he got the better of it. Greg took after his dad and his zest for life. You couldn’t hold either of them down.

“How’s that new job you’ve got going on the outskirts of Fallbrook?” he asked, stalling, though she didn’t know why.

She eyed him warily. She hadn’t wanted to take the job near Fallbrook. The last place she wanted to go back to was her old hometown. Granted, she hadn’t moved far. She lived in-between the two towns, closer to Solomon, where most of her business projects were located. She avoided Fallbrook like cats did water and hadn’t been back, except to sneak into town to her and her partner’s antique and furniture shop.

“Running smoothly. Fifty track homes and a community park. My biggest project yet, thanks to Pop’s recommendation. Why?”

“Just wondering if you’ve gone into town.”

“You’re wondering if anyone knows I’m working there?” Still stalling, she waited him out.

“Something like that. Have you heard from your brother?”

“Not since he walked out the door while my father pummeled me in the kitchen. Why? You’re fishing, spit it out.”

Grimacing, he said, “I hate thinking about what happened to you.”

“You and me both.” The images crowded her mind clear as day. Her father beating her, her brother walking out the door, leaving her to fend for herself. Not his fault. Not really, when staying would have only made things worse.

“Rumors are still circling that you’re dead.” The grin died on his lips before he added, “At times, I thought you were close enough to it.”

Jessie didn’t have an answer and waited to see if Greg’s train of thought took another detour.

“Do you know who the new county sheriff is?”

“No. Should I? Did I break some kind of law becoming a business owner and building a new track of houses?” She didn’t mean the snippy tone. Greg’s hedging irritated her and made her nervous. “Out with it. What’s this all about?”

“The new sheriff goes by ‘McBride.’”

At the mention of his name, her breath stopped, and she stared at Greg as if he’d grown another head. “Mc—” She couldn’t even spit out the whole thing.

“That’s right. McBride. Looks as if your Dylan moved back to his hometown.”

She slapped her hands down on her desk and squared off with Greg. “He’s not
my
Dylan, first of all. Second, what’s this got to do with anything? You know I’ve put it all behind me.”

“Bullshit. Let’s leave off the fact that when I walked in you were reliving prom night and its aftermath. You may have gotten your GED, graduated college, worked your ass off to start your own business, and transformed from a broken girl into a strong woman. What you haven’t done is put the past behind you. You live with it every day. You don’t smile, you don’t date, you haven’t had sex in eight years, as far as I can tell, you won’t contact your family, and you spend all your free time alone in your workshop.”

True. Every word. Greg knew her well. She hadn’t realized just how good a friend he’d been to her all these years. He and Pop were the only people she allowed close.

With little choice in the matter, she’d told them what happened to her. When she’d gotten off the bus in Solomon, showed up at their office, fifteen and a lot worse for wear, they’d threatened to call the police and have her sent home. Once she spilled her guts, they’d given her a job and let her be the woman she’d become the night of the prom.

“Why are you harping on me today? Why are you bringing up my brother and Dylan?”

“Dad does a lot of business in Fallbrook. He got a call from a friend who mentioned something interesting. There’s no easy way to tell you.” He walked around her desk and crouched down in front of her. Taking her hands in his, he looked her right in the eye. “Your father died in his sleep last night. Heart attack.”

She exploded out of her chair and almost toppled Greg. Coming to his feet, he held her in place. Her whole body filled to bursting with rage. Her head felt like a plug on a volcano, the pressure building until she might actually explode.

“Are you telling me that bastard died
peacefully
while he slept?”

“Damn, honey. I didn’t want to tell you at all.”

“Why is it some people can be as bad as they want, do what they want without regard to how it affects anyone else, and get away with it? I always thought, at least in the end, he’d get his due. Maybe he’d end up wrapped around a tree after driving drunk one too many times, or he’d die a miserable death from liver failure. Hell, even a heart attack on the job could have been excruciating, long suffering, and scary. Never, not one time, did I ever consider he’d simply drift off to sleep and slip into death without so much as a whimper. I should have picked up the knife he dropped that night and gutted him where he stood.”

“Vivid image, J.T.” Greg’s shoulders shuddered. “What are you going to do?”

“What am
I
going to do?” She threw her hands up in the air and let them fall to her sides with a slap against her thighs. “Nothing.”

“He’s dead. You’re not going to the funeral? Don’t you want to know about his business, or your brother? Dance a jig on his grave?”

“The last is the only one that sounds appealing.” She smiled, but let it fall away. “Why the hell should I clean up the mess?”

“What mess?”

“Oh, I don’t know. How about the trouble my brother’s gotten himself into? He’s a drunk just like the old man. He got married two years ago, and they’re expecting a baby. He doesn’t work, and they have bills up the ass. My father sold the business four years ago to his partner. He worked off and on since then. Mostly off. As far as I know, he’s been living off the money he got for the business and social security, not that it’s much.”

Amazed, Greg asked, “How do you know all this? You said you haven’t been in contact with your brother. I know you haven’t talked to your father, or he’d be dead already.”

She’d kept some things to herself over the years. Things she didn’t want anyone to know, because . . . Well, they might question her sanity, quite frankly. At this point, she’d given herself away in some respect. Several ways, actually. Look where she lived. She’d bought the property above the road where she and Dylan spent prom night naked in the backseat of his car.

How sane are you, Jessie? A psychiatrist would have a field day with you and the many ways you torture yourself.

Sighing, she looked at one of the two men she trusted with her life. Without Greg and his father, she wouldn’t be where she was today. She owed him an explanation.

“You know how you tease me about locking myself in the workshop. Well, when I go in there I work. I work until I’m numb and nothing is in my mind, so I can sleep without dreaming.”

“I’ve heard the tools.”

“Yeah, but you don’t know what I’ve been doing. I build furniture.”

“I’ve seen all the furniture in your house. You’ve given Dad and me some really nice pieces for Christmas and our birthdays. I know you made it yourself.”

“Once I finished the house, I kept making it. It’s kind of an obsession.”

“So you have a barn full of furniture. How does that explain how you know about your brother and father selling the business to his partner?”

“I have a store in Fallbrook where I sell the furniture.” Sheepish, she fell into her seat.

Greg rested his hip on the corner of her desk, folded his arms over his broad chest, and waited for her explanation.

“Okay, fine. I heard through some business contacts a shop owner needed a business partner. She sells antiques and collectibles and wanted someone who made fine furniture. It started off small with custom curio cabinets, headboards, hutches, and things like that. Then, people started asking about matching pieces and bigger pieces. Now, I stock the store with all kinds of things. I make a lot of money, and my hobby has turned into a second business.”

He continued to stare at her with his determined chin stuck out, waiting for her to continue.

“I’m a silent partner. She runs the store and I provide the merchandise. She takes a small percent, and in exchange, she’s agreed to keep her mouth shut about where the furniture comes from.”

“J.T., that’s amazing. How long have you been doing this?”

“Six years.”

“Since we were in college. I had no idea.”

“I think Pop knows. I used to stay late sometimes at the jobsites to use the tools. I’d buy the wood and set up in one of the unfinished houses. I’d spend a few hours making a chest or a table. It was just something to do. I’d imagine someone sitting at the table having dinner with their family, or putting a favorite quilt in the chest.” She shrugged and tried to fight the crooked smile creeping across her face. “Stupid, huh?”

“No. Not stupid. I’ve never known anyone better with their hands and power tools. You have a gift.”

“It’s the only thing the old man ever gave me. He always demanded I be the best one on any jobsite. He’d ride me all day, every day, to make sure I did the job right. I hated that, but I always liked the satisfaction of seeing the finished product. There’s nothing like stepping back and looking at what you’ve built out of pieces. I like it when those pieces make a whole.”

She wished she could do the same with her heart. It seemed the pieces would forever lie scattered in the chasm of her soul.

“I know how you feel. I felt the same way the day we finished my house. I feel the same way whenever I work on something.” Taking a deep breath, he asked, “Are you going back to Fallbrook now that your father is dead?”

“You won’t leave this alone, will you?”

“No. Dad and I agree. Go home and put the past to rest. Find a way to be happy.”

“I’m happy.” She’d spoken too quickly. His disapproving glare told her he didn’t believe a word. “I am, damnit.”

“You’re not. What you are is a successful businesswoman. You aren’t that poor little girl who had the misfortune to grow up with Buddy Thompson for a father.”

“Well, the joke’s on me, because he wasn’t my father.”

That little gem came out of their last fight. Buddy, drunk and cussing her out, went over the top, revealing her mother confessed to an affair in her suicide note. She’d loved the man, and he’d left her to go back to his own wife and children. Devastated and pregnant, she passed Jessie off as Buddy’s daughter, until she couldn’t take Buddy’s drinking, or the loss of her one true love.

Every passing day Jessie looked more and more like her mother. She’d been a living reminder of her mother’s betrayal. Buddy spent eleven years making Jessie pay for her mother’s mistake.

“He’s the only father you had.” Leave it to Greg to speak the cold, hard truth.

“Lucky me.”

He and Pop wanted her to finish it. Tidy up her past and get on with the business of living. They wanted her to be happy. After all these years, she didn’t know if she remembered how to do that seemingly simple thing.

“Fine. I give up. I’ll go to Fallbrook and exorcize the demons. Satisfied?”

“It’s a start.” He pulled her up out of her chair and wrapped her in his arms.

Greg and Pop were the only ones she’d allow to touch her. “I’m not going to see any of the McBrides. Even you can’t ask that much of me.”

“Just go and put your father to rest and check on your brother. That’s all I ask.”

She hugged him tighter and thought he might be asking too much. Even of her. She’d been tough and strong the last eight years, but even she had limits. She reached and surpassed them when she lost Hope. She didn’t know if she could ever survive that kind of hurt again.