The Giving Season (2 page)

“Who’s there?” she rasped, too weak to sound tough or confident.

“And you’re sick, too,” the man said, the faintest hint of disapproval in his husky voice. He took a few shuffling steps forward. “Have you got a death wish or something? It’s freezing out here.”

He stepped into a slant of light from the motel sign and Jessy instantly recognized him. Seat 2A: The scruffy, stubbly guy who had snuck stares at her over the top of his book for the last three hundred miles like she was the featured attraction at a freak show. He’d introduced himself as Michael Forrester when they’d boarded the bus in Illinois after a dinner stop, then asked if he could use her empty overhead compartment for his multitude of luggage. He’d gone a little overboard Christmas shopping, he’d explained with a way-too-charming dimpled grin that had immediately set off her insincerity alarms. Jessy had given him a vague smile and tuned him out after that.

Stifling a groan, she turned on the seat light and wearily glared at him—dark hair dusted with snow, piercing gray-green eyes, wide, slightly smirking smile.
Now
she remembered why she’d kept her distance from him: He was too damned good-looking. And if there was one thing she trusted even less than a drinking man, it was a handsome man.

“Thanks for the weather report,” she said and cleared her throat, wincing as she did so. “Good night, Mr. Forrester.”

“You’re not staying out here, are you?”

“Looks that way,” she said, closing her eyes as she settled back against the cushions again. Maybe he’d just take the hint and leave her alone.

“Fifteen below and you’re going to sleep on the bus. Lady, you’re either trying to kill yourself or you’re as dumb as a box of rocks.”

Jessy pried one eye open. He was staring at her again, trying to goad her into a response. God, how she disliked arrogant, know-it-all men.

“There aren’t any more rooms left at the motel,” she said quietly. “Now if you’ll please leave me alone—”

He smiled slightly as she spoke, as if she were just amusing the hell out of him. Jessy began to tell him exactly what she thought about that arrogant look, then crumpled in another coughing fit, this one worse than before. By the time she managed to raise her head to look at him again, he was watching her with an odd mixture of worry and sympathy.

“Listen,” she croaked, “why don’t you just go back inside and let me get some sleep, okay? And quit looking at me like that.”

“Like what?” he asked, a faintly teasing smile in his eyes. “Like I’m waiting to see how long it’ll take until you freeze solid?”

“Would you
please
just leave me alone?”

He folded his arms over his wide chest, smile slowly fading. “No.”

Jessy clenched her teeth, dropping her chin to her chest as she groaned in exasperation. She wasn’t usually so combative, but she was too cold, too tired, too sick to deal with this man right now.

“Like you said earlier, you don’t have too many options.” Michael leaned against the seat in front of her. “If you stay out here, you’re going to get sicker. And you already sound like you’re going to choke on your own snot before morning.”

“Gee, thanks,” Jessy muttered.

“So why don’t you just make things easier on yourself and bunk in my room with me.” He smiled again, wider this time. “I’m perfectly harmless. I promise.”

Jessy stared at him, too surprised by his offer to speak. He honestly expected her to stay in his room with him? This guy she’d never met before? This total stranger?

“How dumb do you think I am?” she asked, unable to keep from laughing. “Thanks, but I’m fine out here.”

“It’s supposed to dip down to twenty below tonight.” The smile in his eyes disappeared. “How ‘fine’ will you be then?”

“I
said
I’ll be okay.”

“Good Lord,” he muttered, turning away to open the overhead baggage compartment. His leather jacket opened as he reached up, revealing a flannel shirt pulled taut over his broad chest. Jessy stared despite herself.

“Just what is your problem anyway?” The unexpected frustration in his voice startled Jessy out of her reverie. She raised her gaze to his and saw something like anger in his eyes. “You know, I’m trying my damndest to be a decent guy and you’re acting like I’m some kind of pervert. What is it with people nowadays that you can’t even try to do something nice for somebody?”

Caught off guard, Jessy couldn’t immediately respond to that. To her dismay, another round of gut-deep coughs ripped through her, leaving her breathless and weak.

“Listen,” Michael said quietly, his expression softening as he looked at her. “I realize that you don’t know me and that as far as you’re concerned I could be a serial killer, but I’m just a dairy farmer from upstate Minnesota—and I hate to be the one to break it to you, but dairy farmers just aren’t interesting enough for that kind of thing.”

“Wasn’t Ed Gein a farmer in Wisconsin?”

Michael smiled slightly and Jessy’s instincts got the better of her. She didn’t want him to be this nice. It made things that much harder for her.

“I would really appreciate it,” he said softly, “if you’d do me the favor of coming in from the cold. You can trust me. Honest.”

Jessy studied him for a few moments. Yeah, he looked like a decent enough guy—but then again, so had Ted Bundy.

“Besides,” he added, “if you don’t come in, I’ll worry myself to death. I’ve got three kids. Worry is coded in my DNA.”

He smiled at her again, and as much as Jessy wanted to see something devious and insincere in that smile, she couldn’t. She couldn’t even pretend. And maybe she’d live to regret it, but she sensed that she could trust him—for one night, anyway. She’d just sleep lightly and keep her guard up. And since she figured she probably outweighed him, she was fairly certain he wouldn’t attempt to try anything. Besides, it was
her
. When had a man
ever
attempted to try anything with her?

“Fine,” she said as she rose, faltering as the bus seemed to tilt and rock beneath her feet. She staggered slightly and Michael instantly grabbed her elbow, steadying her as she regained her balance. Jessy tried to ignore the gentleness of the gesture.

“But I’ve got one condition,” she said as she took her arm back. “I’m paying you back for half the room. That way I don’t owe you and you don’t owe me. Deal?”

“Sure thing.” Michael grinned as he allowed Jessy to step in front of him, following her down the bus aisle. “But I call dibs on the little bars of soap.”

Jessy stopped in her tracks and turned to face him again, shaking her head slightly when she saw the wide, teasing smile on his face.

She had a feeling it was going to be a long night.

The lock clicked softly as Michael closed the door, plunging the room into darkness.
Jessy instantly stiffened, suddenly all too aware that she was alone in a locked room with a strange man. God—how did she manage to get herself into these situations?

“You wouldn’t happen to be close to a light, would you?” Michael’s voice in the darkness was followed by a solid thud—his shin against a table, from the sound of it—and a muttered curse. Jessy found the bedside lamp, turning it on to find Michael sitting in one of the molded vinyl chairs, gingerly massaging his right shin.

“Found the dresser,” he said with a crooked grin.

Jessy nodded, managing a faint smile as she forced herself to look away from him and study her new surroundings. It was a motel room like every other motel room she had ever seen in her life, filled with bad artwork, cheap fabrics, and cigarette-scarred furniture. She hefted her threadbare suitcase onto the dresser, setting it beside the bolted-down television. At least the place didn’t have a mirrored ceiling.

“Not bad for twenty bucks,” Michael said, smiling as he put his suitcase on the small table centered between two plastic chairs. “What do they call this decorating style anyway? Early American Fugly?”

“I think it’s stuck in the ’70s.” Jessy had to smile, glancing back at him as he shrugged out of his coat. In his flannel shirt and jeans he appeared sturdy and strong, the classic farm-boy look. He glanced up and caught her staring, and Jessy quickly averted her eyes, huddling in the safe depths of her coat.

Damn it, why was he making her so nervous? It wasn’t
just
because he was a stranger. It was because Michael Forrester was a good-looking man, and she knew all too well how good-looking men tended to react to her. Once they saw how overweight she was, they either ignored her or pitied her or, in some cases, ridiculed her. If given the choice, Jessy would rather be ignored. Especially since the whole Charlie fiasco.

She couldn’t look at him, so she focused her attention on the room instead. “Tacky” was about the kindest thing she could say about it. The orange and green polyester bedspread shared the same zigzag pattern as the curtain. The lamps, in the shape of chubby, gold-plated cherubs, were sorely in need of a paint job. The shag rug, an unnatural shade that managed to blend every color in the spectrum into a sickly gray-green, was bare in patches, a path worn between the bed and the closeted bathroom.

And in the middle of all this splendor, she noted with a sudden jolt, there was only one bed.

One bed. Two people. She didn’t have to be Einstein to do the math on that one.

“You’re going to keel over if you don’t get out of those wet clothes,” Michael said as he pulled off his heavy work boots. “That cough sounds bad enough as it is. You don’t need it to get worse.”

Jessy nodded, but made no move to get out of anything as she sank down on the foot of the bed. Her heart pounded hard and fast, her palms slick with cold sweat. Oh Lord, but she hated to feel this way. She knew from long years of painful experience that it did her not one iota of good to let herself be aware of attractive men—especially a man as handsome as Michael Forrester. He probably had that all too typical male mentality that decreed a woman should have a chest the size of Texas and a wasp waist—with an I. Q. to match her age. On that standard, Jessy knew she failed big-time. A supermodel she was most definitely not—although lately she’d been questioning her own intelligence. She hadn’t exactly been making the wisest of decisions.

“Listen,” Michael said, startling her into looking up at him again. He was unbuttoning his flannel shirt, revealing a black thermal undershirt beneath. “I know we didn’t exactly get off on the right foot—”

Jessy smiled faintly, not quite able to maintain eye contact with him. “I think that’s pretty much safe to say.”

“So let’s start again.” Michael sat beside her on the bed and she immediately tensed. She couldn’t look at him, staring at the rug at her feet while her cheeks burned with embarrassment and her entire body trembled. She silently cursed at herself; now she was just being ridiculous. She was far too old to be acting like such a child.

“I’m Michael Forrester,” he said and smiled, extending his hand. “And you are—?”

Jessy hesitated a moment, gazing at his offered hand. She had to admit it was one of the nicest she’d ever seen: long fingers, neatly trimmed nails, and wide, almost delicate wrists. His forearms, exposed by his pushed up sleeves, were sprinkled with dark hair and nicely muscled. He had the hands of an artist, not a farmer.

“Uh—Jessy,” she finally stammered, managing a very faint smile as she quickly met his gaze. “Jessy Monroe.”

Tentatively, she slipped her hand into his. His palm was warm, with a wonderful texture that fell somewhere between soft and rough. Touching others, even in such a casual way, had never come easily to Jessy, but she found herself relaxing as his fingers enveloped hers and they shared a smile.

“I’m glad to know you, Miss Jessy Monroe.” His dark eyes shone with an almost teasing glint as he studied her, and Jessy suddenly felt acutely self-conscious. Reluctantly, she slipped her hand out of his grasp and stood, crossing the room to the clothes rack bolted to the far wall. Distance was good. Distance was very good.

“So,” she said, and laughed nervously. “Mr. Forrester—”

“Please,” he said, and smiled. “Call me Michael.” He leaned against the headboard of the bed, folding his arms behind his head as he crossed his long legs at the ankles. “‘Mr. Forrester’ just makes me feel old.”

“Okay—” Jessy returned his smile, glancing over her shoulder to him as she fumbled with the buttons on her coat. Her skin felt as cold and slick as ice, but she dreaded shedding the one crucial layer that skimmed over the bulges without clinging, almost disguising the extent of her size. The only person she fooled was herself—after all, no amount of ‘slimming’ black could disguise a hundred extra pounds—but she took her comforts where she could. Right now Michael was treating her, more or less, like any other woman he might meet, but Jessy knew that once he saw how big she really was his whole attitude towards her would change. One glimpse of her less than perfect body and the smiles would stop as she ceased to exist in his world.

Suddenly angry that she should even care what he thought, she kept her back to him and peeled off her sopping coat. She wore a baggy green sweatshirt over loose jeans—both of which made her look even bigger and dumpier, she thought grimly. It was too late to do anything about it now anyway. She turned to face him again, expecting to see disgust or surprise or disappointment—or all three.

But instead he was watching her with an unsettling intensity, one corner of his wide mouth curled up in a half-smile. Jessy didn’t know how to react to that. And it made her even more nervous than before.

“So—” Jessy cleared her throat, fighting back a cough as she sat in one of the plastic chairs, careful to keep a good distance between herself and the bed. She smiled pleasantly and forced herself to keep eye contact with him. “I guess we should try to get to know each other, huh?”

He nodded, an amused glint in his eye. “Yep—I guess so.”

“Yep—” Jessy absently chewed on her lower lip, eyes darting from his steady gaze to the bed to the ceiling to the floor to anything but those smiling dark eyes. What was his problem? Why was he staring at her like that? Didn’t he get the memo that said he should be ignoring her by now?