Up at Butternut Lake: A Novel (The Butternut Lake Trilogy)

by McNear, Mary

  “I didn’t realize there were guidelines about that,” Caroline said, gently.

  “There aren’t. But sometimes I wish there were. I mean, how do you fall in love with someone, while still remembering how much you loved—how much you still love—someone else?” Allie asked. But the infant monitor chose that moment to crackle to life. The three of them listened. There was a faint rustling, a tiny whimper, then silence.

  “Close call,” Caroline said, as she stood up and started to clear the table. Allie helped her.

  “This is the longest she’s ever slept,” Jax said, glancing at her watch. “Six hours.”

  “Six hours is amazing for a two-week-old,” Allie said, encouragingly, stacking the dirty dishes at the table. “I think she’s going to be a really good sleeper.”

  “Maybe,” Jax said, frowning. But she wasn’t thinking about infant sleep cycles. She was thinking about why Jeremy hadn’t come home yet tonight. He’d called earlier and told Jade to tell her he’d be home late. But it wasn’t like him not to ask to speak to her directly. And it wasn’t like him, either, to stay out late. Especially when they had a newborn at home.

  As if reading Jax’s mind, Caroline asked, “Where’s Jeremy, hon?”

  “Oh, he’s working late,” she said vaguely. “He’ll be home soon.” She started to put the leftover pizza away.

  “Oh no you don’t,” Caroline scolded, whisking the pizza box away from her. “We’re doing all the work tonight. Even if you make it harder for us by refusing to get a dishwasher.”

  “I like hand washing dishes,” Jax said. But still, she didn’t try to help them as they washed them for her. Being taken care of didn’t come naturally to her. But tonight, she was too preoccupied by Jeremy’s absence to object. Too unsettled by what it might mean. And too frightened to consider the question very closely.

  “Something wrong, Jax?” Allie asked, drying a dish.

  “No,” Jax said quickly, shaking her head. “I’m fine.”

  But Allie didn’t believe her. She put the plate she’d finished drying in the cupboard, hung up the dish towel, and came over to sit next to her at the kitchen table.

  “I wonder,” she asked Jax. “Does bringing home a new baby get easier every time? Or does it always feel like you’re doing it for the first time?”

  “A little bit of both,” Jax admitted. And then, much to her surprise, she started to cry.

  “Oh, Jax,” Allie said, giving her a hug. Caroline stopped wiping down the counter and came over to comfort her, too.

  “I’m fine, really,” Jax protested. “Just a little emotional.”

  “Of course you are,” Allie said, reassuringly. “How could you not be? It’s overwhelming, isn’t it? Especially the sleep deprivation.” She gave a little shudder, obviously remembering Wyatt’s infancy.

  “And the hormones,” Caroline chimed in. “When I brought Daisy home from the hospital, I cried if anyone so much as said ‘boo’ to me.”

  Jax tried to smile as she mopped at her tears with the tissue Caroline had helpfully provided for her. But she knew it wasn’t sleep deprivation. Or hormones. It was fear. Plain and simple. Fear that Jeremy’s absence had something to do with him finding out about the money missing from the college savings account.

  “I don’t deserve you, either of you,” Jax said gratefully, hugging them both, one after the other.

  “Of course you do,” Allie said, just as Wyatt appeared in the kitchen doorway.

  “Mom, the movie’s over,” he said, rubbing his eyes sleepily.

  “Already?” Allie asked. “Didn’t we just put it in the DVD player?”

  But he shook his head. “No, it’s really over. Do you want to know what happened? I can tell you the whole movie.”

  “Oh, definitely,” Allie assured him. “But let’s save it for the drive home, okay?”

  She smiled apologetically at Jax. “Are you okay?” she asked. “We don’t have to leave now. We can wait until Jeremy gets back.” Caroline nodded her agreement.

  “No, absolutely not,” Jax said. “You both have work tomorrow, remember? And I’m much better now that I’ve had a good cry.”

  There was a flurry of activity, as Jax said good-bye to Allie, Wyatt, and Caroline and supervised the girls’ bedtime routines. By some miracle, all three of them went to bed without complaint or incident.

  Afterward, Jax checked on Jenna. She was still asleep, her breathing regular, and Jax adjusted her cotton blanket and left the room, closing the door silently behind her.

  Then she went downstairs to the living room and waited. And waited. And waited. It was nine thirty. Then ten o’clock. Then ten thirty. Where is he? she wondered, with a rising sense of panic. And why hasn’t he called?

  Finally, a little before eleven, as a light rain started to fall, she heard a car pull up in front of the house. Someone got out of it, and it drove away. She listened to the footsteps crunching up the gravel walkway. Then she got up from the couch and looked out through the living room window.

  It was Jeremy. But he seemed . . . different. Unsteady on his feet. Was he ill? she wondered, hurrying to open the front door for him.

  “Jeremy? Are you okay?” she asked.

  He stopped on the doorstep, listing slightly to one side. “I’m fine,” he said, thickly, as he brushed past her on his way into the house. She cringed, reflexively, as she caught the scent of whiskey on him.

  “Jeremy, are you drunk?” she asked, not trusting her powers of observation. She closed the door behind him and followed him into the living room, where he lowered himself, clumsily, into one of the armchairs. She sat down on the couch, careful to keep her distance from him. She felt as if she didn’t know this Jeremy. She felt like he was a stranger to her.

  Maybe that was because she’d never once, in all their years together, seen Jeremy drunk. Unlike Jax, who was a teetotaler, he did drink occasionally. A glass of champagne at their wedding. A beer at his poker games. But he never drank too much. He’d told Jax, once, it was because he’d decided, early on, that being drunk the night before wasn’t worth the price of the hangover the next morning. But she had another theory about why he never crossed that line. It was out of respect for Jax. And the havoc that alcohol had wreaked in her life.

  “What’s wrong, Jax?” Jeremy asked, looking at her a little blearily.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” Jax said tightly, looking away. “It’s just that being drunk doesn’t suit you,” she said, finally.

  There was a long silence. “Doesn’t suit me, huh?” he asked, with uncharacteristic sarcasm. “Well, you know what doesn’t suit you, Jax? Being a liar doesn’t suit you.”

  Jax jerked her head up and looked at him, too surprised to say anything.

  “Oh, don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

  “I don’t,” Jax said, when she finally found her voice again. And it was true. To a point. There had been so many lies—not lies she’d told him, exactly, so much as truths she hadn’t told him—that she didn’t know which one he was referring to.

  “Did you really think I wouldn’t notice the missing money, Jax?” Jeremy asked now. “Ten thousand dollars is a lot of money to overlook, don’t you think?”

  She felt all the air rush out of her body at once. But when she could suck in a little breath, she whispered, “I knew you’d find out about it eventually. If I couldn’t replace it first.”

  “Replace it?” he repeated, mockingly. Jax flinched. He’d never spoken to her in that tone of voice before. He’d never spoken to anyone in that tone of voice before, as far as she knew.

  “And how were you going to replace it, exactly,” he continued. “Who do you know who would lend you ten thousand dollars?”

  “Nobody,” she breathed, shakily. “I don’t know anyone who could lend me that much money. But I had a plan . . .” Her voice trailed off. It was a lousy plan, and she knew it.

  “A plan?” Jeremy mocked again. “You mean, like robbing a b
ank? Or was it robbing a liquor store, Jax?”

  Jax’s head jerked up again. So he knew. He’d made the connection. But how?

  Jeremy watched the understanding register on her face, then shook his head. His anger seemed to have dissipated. But in its place was sadness. And the sadness, Jax decided, was worse than the anger. “If you wanted to throw that money away, Jax, why didn’t you just do it?” he said now. “I could have forgiven you for that. But giving it to Bobby Lewis? Jax, what were you thinking?”

  Jax’s mind was racing. What did Jeremy know? And what didn’t he know?

  And Jeremy, seeing the expression on her face, laughed. A bitter laugh. “Jax, if I weren’t so angry at you right now, I would almost—almost—feel sorry for you,” he said. “Because it’s making you crazy, isn’t it? Trying to stay one step ahead of me. Trying to figure out where your plan went wrong.”

  Jax swallowed hard. But she didn’t say anything. She couldn’t. She was too terrified to speak.

  “Well, I’ll tell you where your plan went wrong,” Jeremy said, with an almost eerie calmness. “It went wrong right from the very beginning, Jax. Because that’s when you forgot how hard it is to keep secrets in Butternut. Big secrets. Little secrets. They all come out eventually in this town.”

  Jax was still trying to breathe normally. Trying, really, to breathe at all.

  “And you know what, Jax?” he continued. “When I found out about your secrets—and your lies—I was willing to forgive you. Right up until today, I was defending you to myself. And then I had to make a deposit at the bank. I know ordinarily you’d handle that, but you were up with the baby last night, so I thought I’d give you a break and do it myself. Imagine my surprise when I saw John Quarterman and he mentioned your withdrawal. I didn’t believe him at first. I had to see the account statement with my own eyes.”

  “But how . . .” Jax muttered, still not understanding how he’d put the two together.

  “I knew Bobby had gotten out of prison, Jax,” Jeremy said, understanding. “I knew he’d been here a couple of weeks ago. So it wasn’t that difficult to put the two together.”

  He leaned forward now, resting his elbows on his knees and putting his head in his hands. He looked broken, almost. Defeated. And Jax’s heart went out to him.

  Sadness welled up inside her. I’m sorry, she thought. I’m so sorry. But she didn’t trust her voice to speak the words.

  “Why’d you do it, Jax?” he asked now, quietly, not looking up at her. “Why’d you give him the money?”

  Again, she didn’t speak.

  He looked back up at her, sighed, and looked away. “Look, I know why you did it,” he said, finally. “He was blackmailing you. But why did you let him blackmail you? Why didn’t you come to me, Jax? Why didn’t you tell me about it?”

  She tried to swallow past the lump in her throat. Her eyes burned with tears. “I was trying to protect you,” she said, softly.

  “Protect me from what?” he asked, slumping back in his chair.

  “From the truth,” she said, simply. And it felt good, for once, to be honest. Whatever the consequences might be.

  “Jax,” Jeremy said, “I know the truth. I’ve always known the truth.”

  Jax looked at him now, questioningly. Were they talking about the same thing? she wondered. But she didn’t see how they could be.

  But Jeremy nodded. “Yes, Jax, that truth,” he said, staring straight at her, his slightly bloodshot eyes suddenly coming into focus. “I know Bobby is Joy’s father. I knew it the day she was born. I knew it the day you told me you were pregnant.”

  Jax stared at him uncomprehendingly. Her brain tried, and failed, to process what he’d said.

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Jax,” he said, impatiently. “That first night, at the Fourth of July picnic, I heard you’d been seeing Bobby Lewis. That probably should have been the tip-off, right then and there, for me to stay away from you. Don’t you think?”

  Jax flinched. It was the first time she’d ever known Jeremy to say something cruel.

  “But you know what, Jax? I couldn’t stay away from you. I just couldn’t. And I thought I had everything under control. Until the end of the night, when we were under that rowboat at the lake. And you seduced me, Jax, didn’t you? Not that it was that difficult to do. I was in way over my head by then. I wanted you so badly. You were so innocent, and so knowing, at the same time. It was a pretty irresistible combination. For me, anyway.”

  Jax sat still, willing herself to listen, even though inside she was still reeling from shock.

  “I told myself, that night, ‘be careful.’ ‘Watch your step,’ ” Jeremy continued. “I knew you had an ulterior motive. And I thought I knew what it was, too. Because the only reason you’d be so casual about not using birth control was if you didn’t care if you got pregnant. Or if you were already pregnant. I wasn’t an idiot, even then. I knew about paternity tests. I knew I couldn’t be held responsible for a child I hadn’t fathered. I thought I was prepared for any contingency. But you know what, Jax?”

  She shook her head. She didn’t know. She didn’t know anything anymore.

  “There was one contingency I wasn’t prepared for. And that was falling in love with you. Because by the time you told me you were pregnant, a couple of weeks later, I didn’t care anymore who the father was. I figured raising another man’s child was a small price to pay for spending the rest of my life with you. And then, when Joy was born, I realized it didn’t matter whose child she was. I couldn’t have loved her any more if she had been mine.”

  He looked at Jax, his face suddenly softened by some memory. Maybe the memory of the first time he’d held Joy.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” he went on. “I wasn’t sorry when Bobby Lewis went to prison. I didn’t really want him hanging around, making trouble for us. And I was relieved, too, that Joy looked so much like you. I mean, I would have loved her all the same if she’d been the spitting image of that man. But still . . .”

  “You knew?” Jax said, softly, wonderingly, still trying to understand what he was telling her. “You knew that whole time? Why . . . why didn’t you tell me you knew?”

  “Why?” Jeremy asked, his head back in his hands. “I don’t know. Now, of course, I wish I had. But at the time, I guess, it seemed so important to you that I not know. And I was worried, too, that if I told you I knew, you’d always be looking for signs that I didn’t love Joy as much as I loved our other girls. Which I did. Which I do. I love her every bit as much as I love them.”

  “I know that,” Jax said, her throat tightening. And it was true. She did know that. In retrospect, there had not been the least bit of difference in the way Jeremy had treated the girls over the years. But knowing that now only made her pain more acute. Because it only made her love him all the more, even as she knew she was about to lose him.

  Now Jeremy sighed, heavily, and said, “Look, Jax, I don’t want to leave you this way. But I can’t stay, either. Not after what happened. I can forgive you for not telling me about Bobby being Joy’s father. But this? I can’t forgive you for this.”

  “Why not?” Jax asked, desperately fighting against what she knew now was inevitable. “Why is this so much worse?”

  “Because you lied to me again,” he said, an edge of anger returning to his voice. “And you took something that belonged to us—all six of us—and you threw it away. And not only that, Jax, but you didn’t trust me enough to tell me the truth. Not in all the years of our marriage. And not now, either. Instead, you just kept lying. And hiding. And keeping secrets. And I can’t stand it anymore, Jax. I can’t live this way.”

  He rubbed his eyes, impatiently, and Jax realized, with surprise, that he was crying. Tonight was a night of firsts. The first time she’d ever seen Jeremy drunk. And the first time she’d ever seen him cry.

  She took a deep breath now, working to keep the tears at bay. “Jeremy, you don’t have to live this way anymore,” she said. “You know the tru
th now. All of it. And I’ll never lie to you again.” Even as she said it, though, she knew it was too late. Way too late.

  He said as much, too, by the way he looked at her, anger and pity mingling in his expression. “I hope you’re not naive enough to think, Jax, that we’ve seen the last of Bobby Lewis,” he said, ignoring her plea. “Because that’s the problem with blackmail. It doesn’t end with the payoff. Even if you tell him I know about Joy, it won’t matter. Then he’ll just threaten to have Joy take a DNA test. And while you and I both know he doesn’t have any real interest in being Joy’s father, the courts won’t know that. So we’ll probably pay him off again. Anything to keep him away from her, right?”

  “Wrong,” Jax said, shaking her head vehemently. “He’s not coming back. He left town after I gave him the check. I haven’t seen or heard from him since.”

  “Oh, give him time. He’ll be back,” Jeremy predicted, disgustedly.

  “No, I’m positive he won’t be,” Jax said. “I’d stake my life on it.”

  Jeremy looked at her with curiosity. Then concern. “What’d you tell him, Jax?” he asked, a frown creasing his brow.

  “I didn’t tell him anything,” she said. “But Frankie did. He was there the night I met Bobby, at the Mosquito Inn, and he knew Bobby was threatening me. So he walked him out to his truck. He told Bobby to leave and never come back. He told him if he ever did come back, he’d kill him. Just like that.” Jax snapped her fingers. “And he meant it, too, Jeremy. Frankie’s killed a man before, in self-defense. And he told me he’d do it again. To protect me. To protect us, actually, is what he said.”

  She’d hoped telling him this might bring Jeremy some relief. But she was disappointed. He didn’t look relieved. He only looked angrier than he had been before.

  “That’s great,” he said. “I’m thrilled to know that another man is fighting my battles for me. I mean, come on, Jax, don’t you see? That was my conversation to have with Bobby. Not Frankie’s. And if you’d told me ahead of time you were meeting him, I could have come with you that night. We could have settled this with him together.”