Past Due (8 page)

“Jenna’s sister died?”

Russ nodded. “Yep. Died a month or two before Jake and Jenna got hitched.”

“I can’t believe it.”

“Oh, everyone was shocked. Especially Jenna’s dad. Pastor Privett was fit to be tied when he learned Jake was the last to see Angel alive. And then to beat all? Within a month of Angel’s death…Jake was dating Jenna. The only child Sam Privett had left. That sent the poor man over the edge. Heard tale he told Maureen to keep her son away or he’d take care of him himself. And he did too. Jake kept going up there, so Sam shot him. Damn near killed the boy.” Russ shook his head at the memory. “It was a bad time. Sam got himself sent to jail. Jenna moved in with Maureen. Now, Jenna... I come to learn she’s the right opposite of her sister. Quiet,
hardworking
, easy to get along with. But, unfortunately, she wasn’t enough for Jake. He was gone within a month of the nuptials.” He paused long enough to take a drink and piece together his recollections of his wife’s gossip before continuing, “The marriage caused quite a stir what with the blow out with her dad, the immediate wedding, and then Jake’s disappearance. The wife says he never got over the sister. Some say he just married Jenna to get even with Sam. Some say he married Jenna to save her from Sam’s wrath. Everybody has a theory. All I can tell you, honestly, is that he wasn’t much of a husband. But I s’pose that’s none of my business. Jenna never seemed to pay any mind to her husband’s absence and rumors of philanderin’. She seemed content to raise the kid.”

“They have a son, right?”

“Yeah, Tanner. Plays football. They say he’ll start varsity this year, though he’s just a freshman.”

Tres rubbed his chin. “I guess I’m glad she’s been happy.”

Russ grunted, exhaling the smoke from his cigarette through his nose like a dragon. “It ain’t been a walk in the park for that girl. She raised the boy on her own. Jake didn’t slow down or help out ‘til he came home dying. For three years, Jenna took care of him. Hardly ever left his side.” He pointed out the blackened window with his cigarette. “She would stroll him out on the pier over yonder almost every evening. And of course you know she won’t date, but I can’t say I know what she saw in him or why she put up with his antics. I just know she did. Like I said, she’s an artist.” Russell lit another cigarette.

“You said Angel died of a drug overdose?”

Russ nodded and Tres’s heart broke for Jenna and the pain she suffered, and selfishly, he admitted the sting of jealousy drove clear through him. She hadn’t turned to him. She’d run to Jake. Confusion and whiskey made his head ring.

Russell took a deep breath and shook his head, the air leaving his lungs hard, “Jenna grew up hard that summer, son. She lost her sister and watched her father break down. Maybe Jake being a bit troubled just made them a perfect match. Hell if I know.”

Tres nodded, though he’d never truly understand how he could have been so wrong about Jenna’s love for him, he at least realized now he was wrong.

Russell took another drink of his beer before he asked, “So, now what’re ya’ going to do?”

Tres shrugged. If he’d lost one of his brothers, he would have wanted Jenna for comfort. She wanted Jake. That explained it all. Feeling the mystery solved, Tres scooted his chair away from the table and answered, “I’m going home, Russ. I appreciate you filling me in. I’ve loved someone for years and it’s all been a lie. I get it now. I used to think I was missing something. I thought if I could just get to the bottom of it then we’d laugh at the misunderstanding. But hell, the misunderstanding was she never loved me.”

Tres swallowed the last of his drink, gave Russell a firm pat on his shoulder, “Well, I’m headed off to bed. It was nice knowing you, Russell, whatever the hell your last name was.” He pulled several bills out of his pocket and placed them in Russell’s hand. “Here, I trust you’ll clear my tab,” Tres said and stepped past the waitress unseen and out the door.

He intended to return to his hotel room, but he needed air and still despised the idea of being alone, especially when knowing what he desired most lived so nearby. He walked past his hotel, across the highway, and down the grid of roads leading to her house. In the dark, the roads all looked alike and every single one was cleverly named after a fish or a bird. After several wrong turns, he eventually stumbled upon the house he’d visited earlier. A light still glowed inside, so he moved toward it like the proverbial moth, coming around the back of the house. He peered in the window and found her there, sitting at the kitchen table with a coffee mug in her hands.

Tres desperately wanted to walk through the door as if he belonged. He’d kiss her and pull her into him. Closing his eyes, he imagined he was finally home. Leaning his elbows on the window sill, he felt the pain of being on the outside scrape at his soul, but he couldn’t leave. Tonight he’d allow himself to revel in the pain, and tomorrow when he rose, it would be done. And he would move on, never to look back.

He leaned his forehead against the glass wedging himself between the two large trash cans on her deck. They seemed sturdy and his legs were beginning to feel heavy, so he leaned against one of them. Miscalculating the weight the half-filled could support, he fell. Arms flailing, grasping at air, his alcohol-dampened reflexes slowed his reactions and caused him to land with a thud and a curse. The gravity of his bad luck left him immobile. Lacking any energy to struggle, he rested his head on the overturned can.

***

Alone at her kitchen table, Jenna scanned through the photos of Tres. It all felt so bizarre, this disruption in her boring life. Touching her fingers to her lips, she recalled his kiss. The initial feeling of pleasure from the memory was aborted as she forcefully reminded herself not to yield to weakness. She would not miss a man who could say he loved her then walk away when she needed him most. Shutting off her camera, she slid it out of her reach as if removing temptation.

Taking a sip of her tea, she realized it was cold again, so she headed to the microwave to heat it for the third time. A commotion on her back deck grabbed her attention and she pulled a steak knife from her silverware drawer. Wielding the knife at shoulder level, she sidled up to her back window just in time to see the cans tumble. She gripped the knife and flipped on the porch light. There, in the soft yellow glow, lay the ever collected Tres Coulter.

Opening the door, she offered him her hand and he took it. Standing appeared to be a struggle for him and Jenna feared he might just fall over, so she dipped her body under his pulling his arm across her shoulders. Allowing his weight to lean against her, she maneuvered him into the house. He looked like hell, smelled of booze, and had bits of trash stuck to him.

“Sit.” She ordered, nudging him into a kitchen chair. Wordlessly, she began plucking pieces of garbage from his shirt and from his hair. Once clean, she straightened his collar and kneeled in front of him and asked, “What’s gotten into you, Tres?”

“I had to walk alone ... you know walk down the lane with the memories and all ... it was a lonely walk, but I had a new friend, and the waitress, I think she wanted to be my friend, but she’s not you, fair Jenna. She was short and round, and her hips wouldn’t have felt so good under mine as yours did.”

“Is that so?”

He dropped his face in his hands and rubbed his eyes before looking up at her looking defeated and ready to pass out.

“I should leave you for the crabs and mosquitoes to nibble on,” she threatened bitterly as she wiped him off with the dishcloth. “Come on,” she said, “you can sleep it off in here.” Pulling him to his feet, she walked him toward Tanner’s room, the humanitarian winning over her anger. 

“I didn’t mean to bother you, Jenna. I just wanted to see you. I just wanted to see where you lived and see if I could ever fit in here.”

“Well, do you?” Jenna asked removing his shoes and socks, shoving his long legs under the covers.

Closing his eyes, he said, “No. I certainly don’t. But I wanted to, if even for just a little while. Guess now I just need to wrap up business so I can go home. I best get my personal life on track. You know Jenna, the only thing I ever wanted was a family and it’s still the one thing I don’t have.” Jenna ignored his babbling as she pulled the covers to his chin.

Placing a pillow under his head, she stroked the dark hair until she felt him relax. She sat quietly, touching him gently, as she would a child, and contemplated the day’s events. What was it about this man that drove every sensible thought from her skull? Leaning forward, she kissed his forehead, allowing her lips to linger against the warmth of his skin. “I love you Tres Coulter, I always have and I’m certain I always will.” As he slept, she traced his profile with her finger. Tanner’s nose and jaw were so much like his. The resemblance was uncanny, almost too obvious. If he stayed in town too long and became associated with her and Tanner, people would surely begin to talk. Again.

And she had enough of being the subject of everyone’s gabbing by the time she was twelve. If she was smart, she’d write a book ending all the rumors and make some money from the chaos she called her life. But she wouldn’t. She had given Tanner a normal life. And she wouldn’t yank that from him now. Tres had to go home.

And he said he would, as soon as he wrapped up his business. Did he say he had personal business? Say he wanted a family? She should have asked him before he passed out.

She shook his shoulder hard, but he didn’t flinch. Shaking him harder and harder, she tried desperately to rouse him as warning bells rang in her head and panic shot through her. He wanted a family. Did he come here to take hers?

She couldn’t lose her son.

But then maybe Tres just wanted to be certain of her silence? Didn’t he say he planned to run for office? Maybe Tanner presented him with a hurdle, a smirch on the perfect past of North Carolina’s young political wonder? That was most likely it. She and Tanner were no more than rattling skeletons. Why hadn’t he just asked her directly? Why play the lost lover game? But then why had he lied all those years ago, preying on her innocence and wonder by building her a fantasy trap? Because he wanted something from her and he used the easiest means to an end, even if it meant deception.

Chapter 6

Anger and resentment flourished, scorching all tender feelings. Looking again at his sleeping form, she decided a punch to his perfect nose would be comforting, but what she really needed was an attorney. Just in case.

The cost of battling him could be immense. And although she was comforted by the knowledge that she had the tactical advantage of holding the moral high ground, he could flatten her in dollars alone. Pulling the band from her pony tail, she rubbed her aching scalp and admitted to herself that she was in over her head.

She’d think on this problem tomorrow. After a good night’s sleep.

But sleep never came. She tossed and turned until her blankets twisted around her, and she felt more frustration than respite from her bed.

Rolling onto her back and staring into the darkness, she rehashed her life and began to wonder if existence had any meaning at all. By her reasoning, life offered nothing more than one painful event linked to another, then another, with bits of contentment tossed in to keep a soul going. There was a brief happiness with Tres, a small amount of time when bliss was a word she thought she understood.

But bliss, like Cinderella’s coach, transformed back into a pumpkin at midnight. Jenna was fully aware that fantasies come with expiration dates. Growing up with a single mom, who spent her entire life waiting for a prince to ride in on his white horse and rescue her, taught Jenna to recognize the insanity of it all. For some reason ordinary could never satisfy her mother, whose quest for prosperity was only taken off track when she stopped to seek revenge.

Squeezing her eyes tight, she tried to drive away the memories, but still they came. Short snippets of life with the much too beautiful Jennifer Morris plagued her. “Jenna, wait until you meet Joshua. He’s an attorney. and not just any attorney, but a very successful one.” or “Jenna, I signed you up for dance...Your father’s wife signed their ugly little duckling up also, but I know you will shine. Really, Angel just isn’t nearly as talented as you are. Your father will see how brilliant you are and come home to us, where he belongs.”

Sitting up, Jenna shook her head as if to clear it. Her mother’s wasted life did teach her what she called pragmatic truth- to take care of herself, to not expect joy, and to be satisfied with contentment. It was a life philosophy that helped her survive, even after suffering a brief period of insanity when Tres made her feel differently; when he made her believe.

Rising from bed, she untangled the covers. She wasn’t sleepy at all; just tired of the longing and repulsion that made her uncomfortable and restless in her own skin. She decided she would just get this day over with. Stepping into the shower, she let the hot water pour over her body until the tank ran cold. Drying off, she dressed in blue jean shorts and a t-shirt.

Pausing at his door, she debated sticking around and having an adult conversation with him, asking him just exactly what he was after. Knowing it was the mature thing to do, she still nixed it. The reality was…if he touched her or looked at her…shared the same air molecules…no, she decided, she couldn’t trust herself around him at all.

Hurrying to the kitchen, she grabbed a notepad and pen. Chewing on the end of it, she thought hard about what to write. Irritated with herself for giving a damn, she gripped it tighter and allowed the pen to cut the words into the paper. “Don’t bother locking the door on your way out, Jenna.” Dropping the note on the counter, she bolted.