A Love to Call Her Own (22 page)

She made it sound so simple, as if uprooting her life and moving from Los Angeles to small-town Oklahoma was no more difficult a decision than what to have for dinner.

But it really wasn't, Jessy reminded herself. Not when you were going with someone you loved. She'd done it. So had all her friends, numerous times, and they would all do it again if necessary. She hoped it never became necessary…though she wouldn't mind a move of six or eight miles.

If
things progressed to that point with Dalton. He hadn't even kissed her yet. She hadn't even kissed
him
yet. She knew he wanted to, and damn well she wanted to, but there was that nagging worry. What if they did it too soon again? What if they screwed up what was turning into a very good thing?

But what if they waited too long and he met someone else? She knew too well how loneliness and dissatisfaction turned a rational person into an easy pickup who felt like crap in the morning.

“You look awfully somber,” Angela said, drawing Jessy's gaze. “If you need to talk about something, I'm a very good listener.”

“Thanks.”
But I'm a very good secret keeper.
But keeping secrets took its toll on her. It made her antsy and embarrassed and filled her with dread. Look at how hard she'd tried to keep her drinking and attempts to stop it to herself, convinced the margarita sisters would be so disappointed in her that they'd dump her, but they hadn't. They'd supported her. Encouraged her. Fia said she was proud of her.

And keeping getting fired to herself…Dalton hadn't gone running the other way. He'd seen the humor in it. He'd smiled about it. He'd made
her
smile about it.

She swallowed the last bite of her wrap, then slowly put another together. “There's this guy,” she said with a calculatedly careless shrug.

“Oh, honey.” Angela laughed. “Do you know how many stories start with ‘There's this guy'? That's why I prefer women.”

Jessy laughed, too. “No, this guy…he's a good one.”

“Is he the first one since your husband?”

Not the first, though she wished he were. But the first serious one? “Yeah. His wife died in the war, too. We're kind of…feeling our way, I guess.” Feeling emotionally, but not physically. Wednesday night, when Dalton had held her hand, it had made her almost light-headed. Like she was young and innocent and starting all over again, luxuriating in that small intimacy and anticipating more.

But when they got back to her apartment, he hadn't done anything more. He'd seemed reluctant to let go of her, but he hadn't moved closer, hadn't nuzzled her neck, hadn't wrapped his arms around her. He hadn't even looked her longingly in the eyes, though he'd asked if he could take her to dinner after the wedding rehearsal. Since this was the second time for both of them, Carly and Dane had decided against the formal rehearsal dinner, along with most of the other trappings of a wedding. They were committing to each other, not to a ceremony.

“Wow. You don't look for the path of least resistance, do you?” Angela said. “Was he happy with his wife?”

Jessy's muscles went stiff, her jaw clenching, as she lifted her gaze to her boss's face. Angela's blond hair was pulled up on her head with a big clip, her blue eyes were clear, her expression showing nothing but curiosity. “Why do you ask that?” Jessy asked, wondering if her voice sounded hollow because of the fifteen-foot metal walls and ceiling or because she'd suddenly gone empty inside.

“A lot of married people aren't happy.” Angela shrugged. “And sometimes fate interferes before they have to do anything about it. I had a friend in L.A. who'd wanted a divorce practically from the beginning. The day she planned to tell her husband, he was in a wreck on the way home. Died at the scene. I had another friend in the same situation—trying to find the courage to get out of a marriage with a guy who absolutely adored her. She worked out what she was going to tell him and practiced in front of us, like auditioning for a part on TV, and when she was finally ready to tell
him
, she went home, found his stuff gone, their bank accounts cleaned out, everything she had of value disappeared, and a note from her adoring husband who'd run off with his pregnant girlfriend. Fate,” she repeated with a shrug.

Jessy had wanted out of her marriage, but a few weeks before she'd planned to tell Aaron, he'd died. Fate? Was that all it was? Some universal force taking things into His/its own hands? Or had Angela's friends set off some sort of bad karma in the universe that caused the results they got? Had Jessy's bad karma made Aaron the target of that sniper's bullet?

She shook her head, trying to clear it. “No, Dalton and Sandra were very happy.” All of her friends had been blissful in their marriages; they'd all had tough times, but they had survived them. Only Jessy had given up. Only she had planned an escape.

For two years and nearly nine months, that knowledge had made her feel so much
less
than them.

“So if you're feeling your way, I'm guessing you're the first woman Dalton's been serious about since his wife. I can see where that would be tough…but worth it. Sometimes that's how you get through, by keeping your eye on the prize. You may make some missteps, but look at the reward. Forever with a good man. How cool is that?”

Everything inside Jessy wanted that—believed she could have it. But she summoned a careless grin to hide that aching need. “Cooler for me than it would be for you.”

“True. I'm perfectly happy with Meredith, thank you.”

“How long have you two been together?”

“Twenty-one years. Since we were fifteen. We always figured we'd get married someday, but then we chose to live in Oklahoma, so not for a good long while.”

Probably not. Oklahoma was a great place, but the state as a whole bled conservative red.

Outside a bark sounded, followed by more both inside and out. Two cats scurried for dark corners while two others, tails held high, regally walked down the hall preparing to be worshiped. “That should be our prospective parents,” Angela said, starting to gather leftovers. “Right on time.”

“Go on. I'll clean up here.” Down the hall, Jessy saw a mother, well dressed, with matching children, clean and neat and waiting politely. A doctor's wife, according to Angela, who homeschooled her ten-year-old daughter and twelve-year-old son, had a large fenced yard, was active in her church, fervently believed in pet adoption, and was a major donor to the shelter. Jessy wished the family could take all of the animals. Hell, she wished
she
could take all of them, but her apartment was too small, and more puppies and cats in need would come along. They always did.

After straightening the break/storage room, she went outside, put clean water in the bowls, and refilled the plastic wading pools in the backyard. After she'd scratched every furry bundle of quivering joy there, she went to the front yard and took a seat on another cheap lawn chair.

Oliver stood about six feet away. He tolerated people getting closer but didn't like it. His cone showed little battering from miscalculating doorways or play, maybe because he spent most of his day in the same spot. Was he waiting for his owner to find him? Did he like the way the sparse grass smelled there? Did he simply like doing something that made humans wonder?

“You're a pretty boy, Oliver.”

His brown eyes didn't blink.

“I wonder what happened to you.” When the economy started to tank, Meredith had told her, a lot of people couldn't afford to feed their pets so they surrendered them or, worse, dumped them somewhere. Sometimes people moved to a place that didn't allow pets, or they didn't want the hassle of taking their animals with them, so they just left them behind.

“You know you've got people out there somewhere. They might not know they're yours yet, but they'll figure it out.”

He gazed at the front door for a moment, then turned in a circle and settled to the ground, chin resting on his cone, front paws flat on the grass as if he might need to leap to his feet unexpectedly.

“In the meantime, this isn't a bad place to be. You get to lie in the sun when you want, go inside where it's air-conditioned when you get hot. Your belly's full, Meredith's taking care of all your owies, and you've got me.” She laughed softly, first at the idea that she was having an actual conversation with a dog, and second at the proposition that she was any great prize, even for a homeless puppy who'd just had pellets picked out of his flea- and tick-riddled hide.

She raised one finger to the dog. “Don't go thinking like me, that I'm no big deal. I've been good, and I've been bad, and a lot of places in between, but I'm getting better. I haven't had a drink in…hell, a lot of minutes. At least a year in doggie time. I'm a work in progress, just like you.”

Oliver stretched out his front legs, then scooted forward on his belly. He repeated it until he'd closed half the distance between them, where he settled again.

“Aw, see? You do like me. A lot of people do.” A faint smile curved her lips at the truth of her comment. “Some people, in fact, adore me. And some don't. But you know, life is too short to care about people who don't care about you. So if you sit out here alone all the time because you like it, that's fine, but if you're watching for your old humans, don't bother, sweetie. Your new ones will be so much better.”

And everyone deserved better humans, just as she deserved to be a better one.

“You having any second thoughts, son?”

Standing in a corridor that opened off the sanctuary of Carly and Dane's church, Dalton looked up as the pastor joined them, offering his hand to Dane. It was a rhetorical question. A blind man could see that hesitation was the last thing on Dane's mind.

“No, sir. I'm ready to make it official.”

“You'll never meet anyone more ready than him.” Keegan Logan, the other groomsman, was leaning against the wall with his little girl holding his hands, her feet planted between his, swinging her chubby little self left to right like a pendulum.

Though Keegan himself might be more ready. According to Jessy, the guy was crazy mad in love with their friend Therese and counting the days until his current enlistment was up so he and Mariah could move to Tallgrass to make a family with the Mathesons.

Family. Dalton had resigned himself to not having one of his own. He'd figured he'd be the odd uncle that Noah's kids didn't quite know what to think of, nothing more. But for the first time in a long time, he could see himself getting married again. Maybe having kids, maybe not, but definitely not spending the rest of his life alone.

He could see himself with Jessy.

Somebody signaled to the pastor that the rest of the wedding party was ready, and he walked into the sanctuary. The setup was pretty much like every wedding Dalton had ever seen. He, Dane, and Keegan followed the minister in; Carly's niece and nephew came down the aisle with flowers and the ringbearer's pillow; Therese and Carly's sister-in-law Lisa followed; then the father of the bride escorted her to the altar.

After a quick run-through, Dalton met Lisa at the center aisle and they headed to the back behind Carly and Dane. “So you're the cowboy,” she said. “Yippee-kai-yai-yay.”

“And you're the rocket scientist.”

“Anthropologist, actually. These days I'm mostly mom to Isaac and Eleanor.” She gestured to the kids at the back tussling over the embroidered pillow. “At the moment, I'm pretending I don't see them misbehaving. Our entire family is thrilled to see Carly happy and in love again, though you might miss the obvious signs.”

She gestured again, and he looked at the large group filling the two back pews: mother, father, three brothers, two wives, a passel of kids. The kids mostly appeared bored while the adults looked, alternately, uncomfortable or lost in thought. They were absentminded professors, Dane said, every last one of them a bona fide genius.
Lacking at least one social skill for every ten points of IQ over 140,
Carly had added with obvious affection.

Across the aisle from them, Dane's mother and a couple he'd pointed out as Carly's former in-laws seemed over-the-top engaged-in-the-moment in comparison.

“Do you have a wife hanging out here?” Lisa asked with a glance at the others in the back, more relatives, he assumed, but strangers to him.

“No. She died on her second tour.”

Lisa's fingers tightened around his arm. “Oh, sweetie, I'm so sorry.” They reached the end of the aisle, and she released her hold only to wrap her arms around him in a quick hug. “Now that Carly's found Dane, I'll worry about you in her place. I'm so sorry.”

A lump formed in his throat, heat flooding his face. He wasn't embarrassed exactly. Just taken aback that a woman he'd met minutes ago could be so bone-deep sincere and make him feel that she really cared.

As Lisa's hug loosened, he cleared his throat and gazed past her to make sure his eyes weren't damp. “Thanks. I appreciate it. But right now Eleanor's hitting Isaac with his pillow. He's got age and height on her, but she's got a pretty wicked swing going for her.”

Lisa rolled her eyes, then gasped as she turned in time to see Isaac hit the floor and roll under the nearest pew. “Eleanor! Isaac! Roger!”

One of the Andersen brothers turned, brows lifted, and automatically said, “I didn't do anything.”

“Your children are wrestling right underneath you! In church!”

Roger looked over his shoulder, twisted, and hauled Eleanor over the back of the pew into his lap while Lisa pulled Isaac to his feet. Both kids were sticking their tongues out at each other from the protection of their parents' embraces.

Dane and Carly, arms around each other, stopped beside Dalton. “Isaac's going to be a scientist and make clones of his sister that can't talk and have to do everything he says,” Carly said.