Lost and Found (33 page)

“Out of respect for you, I’m going to try really hard to respect your mom,” Jesse whispered over to me, keeping my hand in his. “But if she keeps saying stuff like that, I’m not going to stay quiet.”

“Jesse—”

“No,” he interrupted, “I don’t care about her. I care about you. Because she’s your mom, I will try to tolerate her, but I won’t let her say those things to a person I love.”

His words, his touch, his presence . . . all of it helped relax me some.

“Where were you five years ago?” I said.

“Right here,” he answered, squeezing my hand. “I was right here.”

A bit more of that relaxation thing trickled into my veins. I could handle one dinner.

“Dinner smells amazing, Rose,” Mom announced as we entered the kitchen.

“Thank you. Rowen spent most of the day working on it,” Rose replied.

Mom chuckled and patted Rose’s back on her way to the table. “Getting in the way doesn’t count.”

Jesse was just opening his mouth and I was just getting ready to clamp my hand over it when Neil came through the back door.

“Washed up, cleaned up, and here a minute early,” he announced, plunking his hat on one of the pegs. “No barn detention for me.”

“Well if that isn’t the bastard who moved my best friend out to the middle of nowhere.”

Neil smiled his own version of her fake one. “So happy you were able to join us out here in the middle of nowhere, Kate.”

I caught Rose giving him a
Watch it, buddy
face.

“After all you and Rose have done for Rowen this summer? Of course I had to pay you all a visit,” Mom replied, sliding into a chair. “Rose swears up and down Rowen’s been a huge help around here, so I had to come see it with my own eyes.”

Neil took his time approaching the table, like he was putting it off for as long as he could. “I’m sorry to say it, but most of my hands don’t work as hard as Rowen does. We’ve been lucky to have her.”

The three girls sat on the opposite end of the table from my mom. Lily and Hyacinth just tried not to make eye contact with the swearing, blunt woman, but Clementine stared at her like Mom was a train wreck she couldn’t look away from.

Jesse led me to the seat next to Lily and he took the one across from my mom. Mom gave Jesse a once over that made me blush from embarrassment and from anger.

My eyes shifted to my perfectly imperfect fruit salad. “Oops,” I said, getting out of my chair. “I forgot the whipped cream.”

I had just pulled the bowl of whipped cream I’d whipped my tail off making earlier out of the fridge when I heard heavy footsteps lumbering into the kitchen. Nice of the boy-toy to make it in time for dinner. As soon as I glanced at Mom’s plus one, I froze. When his eyes slid my way and his mouth turned up into a familiar smile, the bowl slipped from my fingers.

Glass and whipped cream exploded at my feet, but that wasn’t enough to break my frozen stare. Only when Jesse rushed over and blocked my view of the guy still smiling at me could I move and breathe again. Rose tossed Jesse a handful of paper towels.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, inspecting the damage at my feet.

“Don’t worry about it,” Rose said. “Homemade whipped cream is my weak spot. My hips are thanking you right now, Rowen.”

I kneeled down beside Jesse. He was busy collecting the glass shards.

“What’s the matter?” he whispered, concerned.

What should I tell him? Should I tell him anything at all?

“I’m fine,” I went with, mopping up the whipped cream with the towels.

“Rowen—”

“Here’s a paper bag you can toss the glass and dirty towels into,” Rose said, kneeling down beside us.

With Rose in earshot, it was decided. I couldn’t say anything to Jesse.

Once we’d cleaned up the spill, Jesse picked up the bag and took it over to the garbage.

My mom had watched us clean up with a frown on her face. “Just let me know how much Rowen’s damaged this summer, and I’ll write you a check.”

“Other than a couple batches of burnt pancakes, that’s the only thing Rowen’s broken the whole time.” Neil grinned at me as I made my way back to the table. I avoided eye contact with mom’s boyfriend as he introduced himself to Rose and Neil.

I slid into my seat and hunkered down. I even closed my eyes for a few seconds, sure I would open them to discover I’d just been seeing things.

When I finally did open them to find the same man who’d just walked in sitting in the chair across from me, I knew it hadn’t been a hallucination.

“Hello there, Rowen,” the man said, unfolding his napkin and dropping it into his lap. “It sure is wonderful to see you again after all of these years.”

My hands trembled in my lap, and the only emotion I felt was helplessness.

“It’s nice to have you back after all of these years,” Mom said to him, leaning over and giving him a full on-the-lips kiss.

Neil cleared his throat. I wasn’t sure if he could tell I was uncomfortable or if a couple of adults practically making out at his dinner table made
him
uncomfortable, but at least it made them come up for air.

Jesse was washing his hands at the sink, and I had the worst urge to get up and go to him. To have him wrap me in his arms like he did so well and shelter me.

“Oh, so you all already know each other?” Rose came back to the table with a basket of rolls.

“We’ve got quite a bit of history,”
he
said. “Rowen, I must say you’ve turned into quite the young woman. When was the last time I saw you?” I couldn’t take the way he leered at me. I couldn’t take the way he smiled at me. I couldn’t take the way Mom gazed at him like he was something to be celebrated. “Thirteen, wasn’t it?” My legs trembled, too, as the string of memories played through my head. “I hope you can support your mom and me this time and not try to come between us.” His eyes changed then. They went dark. Dark like that day in my bedroom when he’d cornered the scared girl I was again. “I’m really hoping we’ll be able to pick up where we left off, Rowen. You and I always had a special kind of relationship.” He winked at me.

I was out of my chair before I knew I would run. In fact, I shoved back so hard in it, the chair toppled to the floor.

“Rowen?” Jesse said, coming toward me.

I was past the point of being calmed. I was long past the point where his presence or his touch could relax me. I had to run.

Run the way I had the last time I’d seen that man staring down at me.

As I rushed out of the kitchen, a few more
Rowen!
s were called after me. I even made out my mom’s irritated sigh over my mad dash for the front door.

I heard a heavy set of footsteps racing after me, and part of me wanted him to catch up. But another part of me wanted to get as far away from that kitchen as I could.

I’d just made it out the front door and was charging down the porch steps when a hand reached out and grabbed mine. A strong arm held my waist the next moment.

“Jesse, no!” I shouted, struggling against him. “Let me go! Just let me go!”

He pulled my body back into his and his face moved close to mine. “No,” he said, just outside of my ear. “I will not let you go. I’m not going to let you shut me out of this. I’m not allowing you to push me away.”

I slumped against him, sagging into his arms. I couldn’t hold myself up, but Jesse wouldn’t let me fall.

“Now tell me,” he said, almost rocking me back and forth. “What happened in there? What made you run out of there like you were being chased by a demon? What am I missing?”

I shook my head against him. If I told him, I couldn’t try to pretend the whole night had never happened. If I told him, I’d have to accept that my mom had done the unthinkable. And the unforgivable.

“Tell me,” he said, his voice quiet, yet strong in my ear. “Trust me, Rowen. Prove to me you trust me the way I trust you.”

Trust.
Trust
. What I’d lost, if I’d ever had it, from my own mother. What I’d found in the man holding me in such a way I could feel his love in his touch alone.

I couldn’t show him I didn’t trust him when he needed it most. We were at the place where trust was really made or broken.

“That man’s the one,” I said, my voice wavering. “He’s the one who . . . the one who . . .”

“The one who tried to rape you.” Jesse’s arms still held me to him, but his body started to quiver. Mine did too when he said the word I’d never allowed myself to admit. I didn’t apply the R word to what had happened to me because that was too much reality for me to handle. That was too much messed-up to repress.

It was the truth.

“Yes,” I admitted at last. I admitted to the guy I loved that the man sitting inside his family’s kitchen was the man who’d tried to rape me years ago.

Jesse’s entire body tensed, but he managed to rub my arms and keep the rage I felt brewing beneath his surface contained. I started crying. “Shhh, I’m here. You’re safe now. He can’t hurt you, Rowen. I won’t let him ever touch you again. It’s all right.” He kept repeating those words into my ear. Over and over until they started repeating in my head on their own.

After a minute of Jesse holding me and saying those words, I started to
feel
those words. I was safe.
He
wouldn’t ever touch me again. It was all right.

I was just about to the point I could hold my own weight if Jesse’s hold loosened when the screen door screeched open.

“Jesse?” Lily’s voice was small and unsure. “What’s going on?”

“Lily, I need you to do me a huge favor,” he said, setting me down onto the steps. “Grab one of those blankets up there and come hang out with Rowen for a few minutes, will you?”

I didn’t want him to leave me, but he’d given me just enough of a boost to know I could manage without him. He’d talked me back from the cliff, and I could keep backing away from it on my own.

Lily walked down the steps and sat beside me after handing a blanket to Jesse. Her face was full of concern when she looked at me. “Is everything all right?”

I wiped my eyes and tried on a smile for her as Jesse wrapped the blanket tightly around me. “It’s all right,” I assured her.

Jesse grabbed my face in his hands, kissed my forehead, then bounded up the stairs. “It’s about to be all right.”

The tone of his voice put me on high alert. “Jesse?” I called after him as he stormed through the screen door. “What are you doing?”

“Putting a piece of shit in his place,” he said, his voice murderous. “Lily, keep Rowen out here.”

Oh, crap. I tried standing up, but Lily clamped her hands down on my shoulders and kept me where I was. For a sweet, little thing, she had some serious strength. She shook her head when I looked at her with exasperation. “I don’t know what’s going on, but let Jesse take care of it. He usually knows what’s best.”

“And that ‘usually’ part is supposed to reassure me?”

Lily wrapped an arm around me and looked like she was about to say something else when the sound of a familiar voice caught both of our attentions.

“Get out,” Jesse demanded, his voice so loud it sounded like he was just a few feet away, not back in the kitchen. A few seconds of silence passed. “Get out of our fucking house!”

I heard a few
Jesse
s called out from Neil and Rose before the sound of a serious brawl came through the open kitchen window.

I tried shooting up in my seat again. Lily caught me and pulled me back down. “Lily!” I said frantically. “Let me go. I’m not going to let Jesse get hurt over me when I could go break this up.”

The sounds of glass breaking and things clattering to the floor, interlaced with the sounds of punches being thrown and followed by loud grunts, came next.

It sounded like everyone was shouting in the kitchen. Even Mom and the two youngest girls.

“Trust me. You don’t have to worry about Jesse in a fight,” she said, wincing when a particularly loud shattering sound came from the window. “I’d worry about the other guy.”

I could never find one scrap of worry for the other guy. Not in this lifetime.

The clattering and shattering came to a sudden stop right before the back door off the kitchen busted open. Jesse had Pierce by the hair and arm, dragged him down the steps, and down the driveway. Neil and Rose charged out the door right after, followed by Mom and the girls. All Pierce could do was stumble along and try to stay upright. His suit was rumpled, his dress shirt stained with food and blood, and he’d be sporting a couple of black eyes for the next few weeks.

Other than enraged, Jesse didn’t look like he’d just been in a fist fight. As they passed us, Jesse stopped and lifted Pierce’s head so he looked my direction. “I want you to look her in the eyes. And I want you to apologize.”

Pierce was scared. Frightened. Like he was the one who’d been thrown to the ground and hovered over. “I’m sorry.”

I didn’t say anything. I forced myself to look at him so I’d remember him that way: scared, beaten, and repentant.

“I want you to swear that you will never, ever come anywhere around her again,” Jesse seethed. “Ever! Because if you thought the beating you took tonight was bad, just you come within a state of her again and I’ll show you bad.”

When Pierce stalled, Jesse drove a fist into his side. Lily and I covered our mouths. Neil moved closer, lifting his hands. “Easy, son. You’ve taught him a lesson. It doesn’t need to go any further.”

“It’s going to go plenty further if he doesn’t swear he’ll never show his face around Rowen again!” Jesse shouted.

“I swear it,” Pierce said instantly. “I swear I’ll stay away from her. She’ll never see my face again.”

Jesse released him and shoved him down the driveway. “Now get the hell off of our ranch.”

Once Pierce lifted himself from the ground, he fumbled in his pocket for the keys and hurried for the car. Mom broke away from Rose and the girls and marched up to Jesse like she was about to slap him.

That got me off of the steps. Lunging toward Jesse, I pivoted in front of Mom and caught her hand mid-air. Instead, she lifted her other hand and slapped me hard across the cheek. I whimpered, and Jesse pulled me out of reach and threw himself in front of me.