by Peak, Renna
My voice was gone. “Uh…” It was all I could manage to be able to get out. Talking about Brandon was about the last thing I expected to have to do today after what had happened with Will.
She chuckled. “Never mind.” Her gaze went over my shoulder. “Oh, here’s my husband.”
I turned to face the tall man dressed in a military uniform, silently willing my face to go back to its natural color.
She continued. “Jenna Davis, this is my husband, Lieutenant Colonel John Martinez.” She smiled up at him.
He extended his hand to me. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Davis. I’ve been a huge admirer of your family’s for some time.”
I shook his hand. “Please, the honor is mine. Thank you for your service.”
He nodded with a smile and turned to face his wife.
“Honey, she’s friends with Brandon. You remember how he helped me out of that jam a few years ago during my last election?”
“Of course. Great guy.” He gave me an unsure smile. He seemed almost as uncomfortable with the topic of conversation as I was.
My eyes darted between the two of them. I wasn’t even sure how to respond.
“Well, be sure to tell him that Di says hello the next time you see him, okay?” She grinned widely at me. “And give my regards to your father, would you?”
I nodded and managed to find my voice, though it barely sounded like more than a hoarse whisper. “Of course.”
She took her husband’s hand and walked away.
Krystal walked over and lifted an eyebrow at me. “What was that about?”
I shook my head. “Nothing. Old friend of Brandon’s, apparently.”
Her lips turned up into something of a smile. “You’ll find quite a few of those out there, unfortunately.” She glanced down at the phone in her hand then looked back up at me. “Your father is on his way.”
My eyes widened into saucers. “What? Here?”
“Yes here. Where else?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. Why is he coming here?”
“He was invited, Jenna. That’s why you’re here, remember?” She gave me a knowing look. “Just because none of the other candidates came today, doesn’t mean they couldn’t have.”
“Right, but they didn’t. So why is he coming?”
“I think he wants to be sure you aren’t caught up in Will’s…” She trailed off. “…unfortunate events. I think he just wants to be sure you’re okay.”
“I’m fine. You could have told him that.”
“I did tell him that. He didn’t believe me.” She glanced down at her phone again, then over at the entrance. “I think he’s coming in now. I’ll be right back.”
I watched as she walked over to the entrance and led my father over to where I stood.
He leaned down and kissed my cheek. “How are you, sweetheart?”
I gave him a quick embrace, then took a step back. “I’m fine, dad. You didn’t need to come today. I think I’m handling this fairly well.”
His brows furrowed a bit. “You’re standing alone in the corner with a banquet hall full of people. It doesn’t look like you’re handling anything very well.”
I couldn’t really argue with that. Not that I was a social butterfly on a good day, but I wasn’t usually one to stand in the corner, either.
He gave me a knowing look. “He’ll be dealt with, Jenna.”
I nodded. “I think he should be given the chance to deal with it himself. Let him clean up his own mess.” I glanced around the room to see where he was. It looked like he was trying his best to engage with people one-on-one, just like we had talked about earlier. Maybe he really could learn his lesson, change his stripes. Unlikely. I didn’t really even understand why I wanted to give him a chance to prove himself after the way he’d treated me, but there was just something so sad about how far he had fallen. And how fast. It made everything seem tenuous, even my own life.
He pursed his lips, nodding, like he might actually give it some consideration. “We’ll see.” He motioned with his head toward Krystal, who was off talking with a reporter several feet away. “You should go get some rest. You’ve had a long day. I’ll stay and work the room a little.”
“I’m okay, dad. I’ll stay.”
He touched my shoulder and gave me a warm smile. “It’s not a punishment, Jenna. I’m worried about you.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
“I’ll have Krystal take you back to the hotel. And Jenna…”
I looked up at him. “Yes?”
He rubbed his lips together, pausing for another moment. “I’m sorry. I should have listened to you. There won’t be any more matchmaking coming from your mother or I. I’m sorry we pressured you into this.”
I nodded again. Had he really even just said that? “Okay.” It was the only response I could even think of at that moment.
He patted my shoulder and walked over to Krystal, motioning back at me.
I watched him as he began to interact with the crowd of people that had formed around him. He was a natural politician. Or maybe just well-practiced.
Krystal sidled up to me. “Shall we get out of here, kid?”
“Yeah.” I turned to her. “Do you mind if we stop for something to eat on the way back?”
“I don’t care. What are you in the mood for?”
I shrugged. “Burgers sound okay?”
She grinned. “Sounds divine.”
11
We had a few hours to kill before Melissa’s plane was due to arrive. We found a diner, a little hole-in-the-wall type place that was clean. We both ordered a burger and fries.
“I’m worried about you, Jenna.” Krystal gave me a stern, almost motherly look. Disappointed might have been a better term for the way she looked at me.
I lifted my shoulders in a little shrug and took a sip of my water. “I’m fine. Nothing to worry about here.”
She tilted her head and regarded me, her gaze sweeping up and down over me. “I’m not so sure about that.”
I gave her another small shrug and decided to change the subject. “How’s the campaign going? Other than Will, I mean.”
Her mouth twisted into an expression I didn’t recognize on her. “Will is an idiot. He should have known better. His campaign manager should have known better.” She shook her head and took a sip from her drink. “Girls always talk. Women, not so much. But girls…” She pressed her lips together. “Girls always talk.”
My eyes dropped to the table. “Is this going to affect my father’s campaign? I’d hate for him to suffer for Will’s stupidity.”
I saw her shrug before she took another drink from her glass. “Probably not. It’s a long term thing. By the time he’s actually running, everyone will have forgotten about Will Howard. He’ll be a long lost footnote.”
I looked over at her, my brows knitted together. “It’s not that long. The primaries aren’t very far away.”
Her lips turned up in a crooked smile. Her head cocked to one side. “You know he’s not really running this year, right? Running against an incumbent is political suicide.”
My jaw dropped open a little. “Then what am I doing in Iowa?”
“Helping your father win the straw poll.” She shrugged. “It’s a non-binding thing, but it gets his name out there, let’s everyone know he’s serious. Running for the presidency is a six year plan, if you’re smart, anyway.” She smiled over at me, her look of pity obvious. “I thought he would have talked to you about this.”
I twisted my mouth around and looked down at my glass. “No, he didn’t say anything.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Well, he probably wanted you to take it seriously. This is going to help him tremendously in the long run. Just the cable news appearances he’ll get out of this will be worth every second.”
“Every second that I’ve spent here, you mean.” I took a sip from my water. “Why didn’t anyone think I could handle knowing that little bit of information?”
She tilted her head from side to side, considering my question. “I don’t know, Jenna. You’ve been through a lot.”
“I’m getting really tired of people saying that.”
The waitress brought our food to the table and I took a bite of my burger, thankful I didn’t have to talk about anything else for the moment. I was tired of hearing about how much I’d been through. When would it stop already?
“God, this is so much better than that crap they served at the luncheon. The roast beef there was more like beef jerky.” Krystal was wolfing down her burger between sentences. “A good burger makes everything better.”
I smiled in response, nodding, enjoying my own lunch.
She wiped her mouth off with a napkin and took a long drink of her soda. “I’m sorry I didn’t make things more clear about the campaign, Jenna. What you’re doing here is important. It raises awareness and money. Both important.” She took another bite of her hamburger.
I nodded in response. “I’m glad I was available to help.” I took another bite of my own food.
“It all worked out in the end, didn’t it?” Her lips tugged into a tight-lipped smile.
“I suppose it did.”
She nodded again. “So what’s up with your friend? Is she coming out to stay?”
I managed a small shrug. “I have no idea. She was pretty upset when I talked to her this morning. I think something happened in Portland.”
“Hmm.” Krystal took a bite from a fry and pointed it at me. “She’d make a great assistant for you. I thought so before. You should talk to her about it. It would give you something else to do…” She averted her eyes over my shoulder.
“Something other than your brother, you mean?” I raised an eyebrow in her direction.
Her eyes darted back to mine. “Exactly.” Her mouth widened into a grin. She flipped the rest of the fry into her mouth and took a long drink from her soda. “You’re a funny girl.”
I made a sound through my nose, but couldn’t help but return her smile. “I don’t think she’ll stay very long. I’m going to try to get her back to San Francisco.”
She nodded. “I imagine she’ll want to get back to her family.” She tossed another fry into her mouth. “So no ideas about what happened with her boyfriend?”
I shook my head. “No. It didn’t sound good, though. She’s a pretty tough girl, so it must have been bad.”
Her brow furrowed with concern. “Let me know if I can help, okay?”
I nodded. “Can you clear my schedule for a few days? I’m not sure what I’m going to find when she gets off the plane. I don’t think she’ll be up to doing campaign events, though, for sure.”
She nodded. “Yeah, of course. For as long as you need. I’ll see if your father wants to hang around for a few days and do some of these things himself. It’d be good for him.”
The thought of my dad going to a county fair to judge a “Most Beautiful Cow” contest made me smile. I took another fry and shoved it in my mouth to cover my amusement.
“I know; you’re thinking about him getting his loafers dirty. It is a pretty funny thought.” She grinned.
I couldn’t help but snicker a little. I’d never seen my father do anything remotely outdoorsy, which explained why he needed a surrogate to do most of his person-to-person campaign events in Iowa. I’d never been much of an outdoors-type of girl myself, but I wasn’t afraid to do it when I had to.
Her grin widened. “Okay. Let me see what I can do. If it turns out that a pig or some other farm animal will go without being judged, we might have a problem. Otherwise, take a few days off and help your friend.”
“Thanks, Krystal.”
12
My decision to go to the airport to pick up Melissa caused a little bit of a freak out with my security people. I was able to convince them that it would be fine for me to actually enter the airport only about five minutes before Mel’s plane was due to land. I had no idea that airports were such a high security risk for me. Having to vet every place I wanted to go with a security chief was still such a foreign concept to me.
It seemed like forever before Melissa made her way down to the ticketing area, where she’d asked me to meet her. I saw her blonde curls first, not bouncing as much as they usually did. I hoped that she was just disheveled from the plane and not from anything more nefarious.
I waved at her, and she made her way toward me. She was wearing a neon pink t-shirt with “PDX” emblazoned across the chest and shorts that were just this side of being too short.
She walked closer and I could see what had made her so upset. Her nose was swollen to about double its normal size. She had purple streaks under both eyes, worse on the right than on the left. Her right eye also had a cut above her eyebrow and a scabbed over scrape just below it. She looked like someone had beaten the hell out of her.
Melissa threw her arms around me without a word. She didn’t need to say anything. I knew what had happened without her needing to tell me.
I put my arms around her and tried to hold back the tears that were threatening to spill down my cheeks.
She sobbed into my shoulder and we just stood there, stuck in our embrace, for what seemed like forever.
She finally pulled away from me, wiping the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand. “You have clothes?”
I nodded. “Lots. My mom went a little nuts before I left, remember?”
She sniffled and stifled a little laugh. “Yeah. Thank God.”
“Yeah. That might be the first time anyone has thanked God for my mother in a long time.” I swiped at the tears that had formed at the corners of my eyes. “Mel…”
“Not. A. Word. Not one word. I mean it.” The look on her face became stern, almost threatening. “I don’t want to hear it.”
“Okay.” I nodded in agreement. “We should at least get you to a hospital to get checked out.”
“No. I’m fine. Just get me somewhere with a shower so I can get these fucking clothes off.” She looked down at her shirt. “I had to get this at the airport in Portland. My other shirt…” Her gaze fell to the floor. “I had to get a new one.”
“Okay.” I felt like a broken record just repeating the same thing over and over. The cut over her eye looked pretty nasty and I was pretty sure she needed some stitches. “Mel, I know you don’t want to talk about it, but your eye…”
“Jenna, don’t. I’m serious.”
I nodded again. “I know. But I think you need some stitches.”
She shook her head, her gaze now somewhere over my shoulder. “We can stop for some super glue or something. I’m not having anyone tell me I need to call the police or any bullshit like that.” She finally met my gaze. “Can we just get out of here?”
I nodded and motioned at my security guard. We all walked out to the car that was parked just outside the sliding doors. Melissa and I slid into the back seat and the guard took his seat in the front.
She turned to me. “You deal with this shit every day?” She motioned with her head toward the guard in the passenger seat. “They go everywhere with you?”
“Pretty much.” I leaned back into the seat, resting my head against the back of it. “At least I’m never lonely.”
She snorted. “I don’t think I could deal with that.” She leaned herself back, too. She was clearly feeling some stiffness from whatever it was she had been through. She worked on her shoulder with her opposite hand and then rested her head against the back seat. “I’m so fucking sore.”
I winced, almost feeling her pain myself. “Melissa, you can tell me. Whatever it is, you can tell me.” I looked over at her.
She still had her eyes closed. She took in a deep breath. “I don’t want you judging me, Jenna.”
“I would never judge you. You can tell me anything.”
She nodded a little, her eyes still closed. “Let’s just say I’m done with men for a while.”
“Did you…” I bit my lip, considering how I could
ask her without pissing her off. “Did you call the police?”
Her eyes jolted open and snapped toward me. “No, I didn’t, Jenna. I already told you I didn’t want to hear that I needed to, okay? I called you and I bought a plane ticket to Iowa. That’s how I dealt with it, okay? I beat myself up enough about it on the flights I had to take to get here. Don’t think I don’t know what everyone thinks when they see a woman with black eyes and a bloody nose. But no, I didn’t call anyone but you. I just wanted to get the fuck out of there so he didn’t do it again, okay?”
My voice dropped to a whisper. “Okay.” My heart bled for her. I wished there was a magic wand to help me to help her. I didn’t know what to do other than be there for her.
“Good. Now tell me about the hotel. Fancy digs?”
I forced a smile to my face and a chuckle to my lips. “No, not so much. Just your standard hotel room. A couple of beds and a desk, pretty much.”
Her head dropped against the back of the seat again before she closed her eyes. “It sounds perfect. Just perfect.”
I took a deep breath before I said anything else. “Mel, if you change your mind and want to talk…”
“I’ll let you know, Jenna. I just…” She broke off and opened her eyes to meet my gaze, her head still resting against the back seat of the car. “I don’t want you to judge me.”
I nodded. “I’d never judge you. I’m just worried about you. And your eye…”
“Battle scar. It’ll remind me to never do this again.”
I bit at my bottom lip. “Okay. If you’re sure…”
She nodded and closed her eyes again, exhausted. “I’m sure.” I could hear her snoring a little and I knew she’d dropped off to sleep.
I grabbed her hand and held it in mine for the rest of the way to the hotel and watched her as she slept. My heart ached for her with what she had been through and I felt desperate to help her in any way I could. Even if it meant doing nothing.
13
The next morning, Mel tried to cover her bruises with several layers of makeup. She turned to me. “What do you think?”
