Jessy hated her customer-service job at Tallgrass National Bank. She’d told her friends so often, and yet hadn’t done anything about it, that they didn’t take her seriously anymore. It was just all so routine. Open accounts, close accounts, make transfers, set up automatic withdrawals, answer the same questions over and over with a smile and not even a hint of the frustration that lived inside her, then repeat again and again. About the best thing she could say for the job, in fact, was that it was convenient, seeing that the bank was only a few hundred feet from her apartment. Close enough to walk in heels, in good weather and in bad, in sickness and in health…
“Get a grip, Jess,” she murmured as she pushed open the door that led onto Main Street. The morning was so bright that she automatically reached for her shades, muttering a curse when she realized she’d left them upstairs and had no time to go back for them. Thanks to the extra hits on the snooze button, she was going to be late as it was, only one of the many things her supervisor held against her.
A breeze tousled her hair as she headed toward the intersection of Main and First. Oklahoma, wind, plains…it wasn’t often the air was really still. She liked the wind, though. Liked the weather: the hundred-plus-degree range in temperatures, the hard pellets of winter ice, the fat flaky snows, the unforgiving summer sun, the furious storms, the delicate but too short springs and falls.
Oklahoma weather reminded her of herself: extreme, ever-changing, rarely doing anything halfway.
She said hello to everyone she passed on the way: the regulars headed to work, the early shoppers, the unfortunate folks with early appointments. As much as she disliked work, she loved the building where she did it. It stood on the southwest corner of the main intersection in town, two stories built of sandstone chipped into 8-by-12-inch blocks, with sections of smooth concrete arching above the windows and doors and wrapping around the corners. It dated back to the first year of statehood—1907—with the year chiseled above the main entrance, and every large window was topped with a leaded-glass panel that scattered light inside in prisms that danced on wood floors and marble counters.
When she’d first started working there, she’d taken hundreds of pictures, both inside and out. She had even gone to the roof and hung over the edge for upside-down shots of the cornices circling the top floor. She’d documented the building thoroughly, always when it was empty. She didn’t care much for people in her photographs.
Jessy breezed through the leaded-glass double doors with their polished brass push-bars, across the vestibule and through another more elaborate set of doors into the lobby. All of her co-workers were at their places, including Mrs. Dauterive, her supervisor, who scowled at her from her office. Giving her a smile and a wave, Jessy hurried to the break room, stuck her pop in the fridge, and shoved half of the candy bar into her mouth, chewing quickly, before she went to her desk in the northwest corner of the lobby.
“You’re late.”
She stashed her purse in the bottom drawer of her desk before giving Mrs. Dauterive another phony smile. “I’m so sorry. I was halfway down the stairs when my mom called on the landline to give me an update on my father. He’s in the hospital, and she’s been so worried about him. I couldn’t just let it go to the answering machine, and Mom never remembers my cell number.”
The older woman’s gaze was glacial, but a tiny nerve ticked at the corner of her eye. She wanted to call Jessy a liar, anyone could see that, but two things held her back: common courtesy and an unwavering loyalty to family. She’d given up a career in New York—and a serious romance, according to gossip—and returned to Tallgrass to care for her mother, to whom she was devoted. With all of Jessy’s flaws, her own “loyalty” to her family was the only trait Mrs. Dauterive appreciated.
After a long moment, Mrs. Dauterive said, “Ask the hospital staff to program your cell into her phone.” She turned curtly and was several steps from the desk before she grudgingly added, “I hope your father is improving.”
So many lies, Jessy thought as she logged on to her computer. She didn’t have a landline or an answering machine, and though she did have parents, her father was healthy as a horse and her mother didn’t call her middle daughter. Not ever.
She was going to go to hell for lying—among other things—but not today.
A short while later, a customer walked into the lobby and made her question that. It was Dalton Smith.
She considered sliding bonelessly out of her chair into the protected space underneath the desk just until he was gone. Only a few customers seated in the chairs at an angle to her desk, waiting for loan officers, would actually be able to see her, and odds were they would look at her funny but not say anything. She could huddle there, listening to the hollow clunk of his well-worn cowboy boots on the wood floor, until they clunked right on out of the bank.
She didn’t do it, of course. Not so much because it was a juvenile response but because she couldn’t make her body relax enough to slide anywhere. Her muscles were clenched, her spine rigid, her heart pounding hard enough to echo in her ears.
The first time she’d seen him, they’d had lunch and too much booze and spent a few sweaty hours in the seedy motel across the parking lot from Bubba’s. The next time, only a week later, she’d been waiting for a pick-up order at Serena’s Sweets down the block from her apartment and he’d been paying for dinner. His younger brother had been with him—no question they came from the same parents—and Dalton had looked at her, not as if he’d never seen her before but as if he’d seen way too much of her and never wanted to again.
He’d made her feel an inch tall and about as desirable as something he would scrape off his boots after working with the cattle.
He wasn’t the first man who’d wanted nothing to do with her after, well, doing her. Maybe she should change her behavior so he was the last.
The phone on her desk buzzed, and she automatically answered, propping the receiver between her ear and shoulder. “This is Jessy,” she said in her fraud voice.
“I see you’re doing the same thing I am.” It was Julia, the account rep whose desk sat catty-corner from Jessy’s, near the massive stone fireplace. With her name and fragile magnolia appearance, people often mistook her for a Southern belle, but her nasally Boston accent quickly cleared up that matter. “That is one handsome cowboy, and you know, I do love me a cowboy.”
“You do love you a man, period,” Jessy said. “His name is Steve, and he’s in Korea.” Though Julia talked a lot, she never acted on it. She was too crazy in love with her husband.
“I can look, as long as I don’t touch. You, on the other hand…It’s about time that you looked and touched.”
Thankful Julia couldn’t see her, Jessy winced. Every woman she knew thought she’d remained faithful to Aaron’s memory, even her margarita sisters. She felt crappy for lying to them, but she didn’t want them to know what kind of person she really was. They wouldn’t understand, and they might not want her around anymore.
Without them in her life, she would break apart into a thousand little pieces, each one sorrier than the one before, and simply cease to exist.
“It’s time for me to get some work done,” she said primly.
“Yeah, I saw you were late again. One of these days, Jessy…” Julia’s voice lowered. “Gotta go.”
Jessy hung up, then glanced over her shoulder. The vice president of investments had come out of his office, only a few feet from Julia’s desk, and was leaning over to examine her computer screen. Relieved the conversation was over, Jessy turned back to her own work…and found Dalton standing in front of her own desk.
His glower was world-class, making the strong lines of his face look granite-hard. In her brief experience, hard looks and hard actions were normal for him, though she suspected they had been the norm only for the past four years, since his wife had died in Afghanistan. What had he been like before then? Had he smiled, laughed, unbent that spine, and had a little fun?
She woul
d never know, and somewhere deep inside, she regretted that.
Steeling herself, she politely asked, “Can I help you?”
* * *
She may not have had a clue who Dalton was last Saturday night when she’d been flirting with Noah at the café, but she remembered him now. Just for an instant, when she’d looked up and seen him standing there, panic had flooded through her green eyes.
He didn’t know whether the odd churning in his gut was satisfaction that he wasn’t so forgettable, after all, or annoyance that the sight of him was enough to panic her. Did she think he was thrilled to run into her again?
Deliberately he looked around the lobby. Two desks were empty, and the woman at the fourth desk was busy with some suit leaning over her shoulder. He could wait until she was done—though how middle-school did that sound?—or he could take care of business and get back home to work.
He pulled back one of the two chairs that fronted Jessy’s desk and sat down. Unlike the other desks, there was nothing personal on hers: a pile of folders, a phone, a nameplate with only her first name. No picture of her dead husband in uniform. No pictures at all except one of the bank itself, a black-and-white print with storm clouds looming overhead. With no people or vehicles in it, no sign of power or phone lines, it was impossible to tell if it had been taken this year or fifty years ago.
Realizing she was waiting, and none too easily, he pulled a piece of paper the teller had given him from his pocket. “I have a problem with one of my accounts.”
He set the paper on the desk, and she picked it up, then turned to the computer on the L-shaped extension and began typing.
“I didn’t know you worked here.”
She gave only the faintest response to his remark: her jaw tightening, the tip of her ear turning pink. “I didn’t know you banked here.”
The sad truth was, neither of them knew anything about the other, except that her husband and his wife had died in the same faraway place, that they took flowers to the graves and liked greasy burgers and, at least on occasion, drank too much to retain any good sense.
Two people should know more than that about each other before they have sex.
That Saturday afternoon hadn’t been one of his better moments.
“What’s the problem with the account?” she asked, barely glancing at him before looking back at the computer.
“There was supposed to be an automatic transfer made Friday from my savings account to that checking account. It didn’t happen.” Noah had stayed over last night, leaving at dawn to get back to Stillwater in time for his morning classes, only to find that the power at his apartment was off: no coffee, no cooking breakfast, no lights to shave and no hot water to shower. Turned out, the payment he’d made Friday had been denied due to lack of funds.
The kid did a pretty good job of limiting his expenses so his education didn’t cost Dalton any more than necessary, and he’d been apologetic about the complaint. Dalton didn’t care. The money came from Sandra’s life insurance. Hell, something good should come from her death.
Thinking about Sandra, even vaguely, while sitting across from Jessy gave him an itch in the middle of his spine. He shrugged, then fixed his attention on Jessy again. She was clicking through screens, occasionally pausing to type a few characters.
“There was apparently a glitch in the system, but it’s fixed now.” She clicked one final time before swiveling her chair back to face him. Not exactly look at him. “Is there anything else?”
He thought of the last time they’d met, when she’d paid so much attention to Noah, who was obviously way too young for her, and pretended she’d never seen Dalton before—hell, pretended she’d hardly seen him even then, standing a few feet away—and he stiffly got up from the chair. “Just one thing.”
That brought her gaze to his, surprise in her eyes.
“Leave my brother alone. Don’t flirt with him. Don’t try to charm him. And don’t even think about doing anything else with him.”
His warning left her at a loss for words, momentarily, at least. Her cheeks paled, and her mouth opened as the air around her turned electric. She moved as if to rise from her chair, anger fairly humming along her skin, but he didn’t give her the chance. He’d said what he wanted.
He turned his back on her and walked away.
He was at his truck half a block down the street before he realized his hands were clenched. Forcing his fingers to uncurl, he pulled out his keys and beeped the lock, rousing the dog sleeping in the passenger seat. He stood, stretched, then sat down again with a yawn. Dalton hadn’t intended to bring the mutt into town with him. He’d just jumped through the driver’s door before Dalton could stop him and settled in the other seat with a try-to-make-me-move look on his ugly face.
Maybe one of these days Dalton would come up with a name for the animal, if it didn’t wander on down the road first. It seemed everyone else did.
After sliding behind the wheel and buckling his seat belt, he drew a deep breath and inhaled regret with it. Had the warning to Jessy been a mistake? Would she take his advice and stay away from Noah, or was she just stubborn enough to accept it as a challenge? He didn’t know.
He did know Noah, though. His brother was a sucker for a pretty woman, and he didn’t always think with his brain when he met one. A woman like Jessy could tie Noah in knots and hurt him bad.
Besides, Dalton had been with her first. While little details like that hadn’t mattered to Dillon, Noah had a stronger sense of loyalty. Hell, this stray dog that he’d spent more hours than he’d had to spare doctoring, feeding, and bathing had more loyalty than Dillon.
Good or bad, what he’d said to Jessy was said. He couldn’t recall the words. But he could keep an eye on Noah the next few times he was home, and if need be, he would tell him just how he knew her. Given the fact that Noah viewed Dalton about as much father figure as brother, that would be more than enough of a gross factor for him to keep his distance from Jessy Lawrence.
Just as Dalton intended to do.
* * *
Therese and Carly stopped in the doorway of the elementary school building, shifting bags, looking for keys. The hallway behind them was empty, and no sound came from the classrooms. Most of the teachers had left for the day, and the ones still working were doing so in silence—a valued commodity in a school.
“What are your plans for the rest of this beautiful day?”
Therese looked out at the rain steadily pouring, leaching the vibrant spring colors from everything it touched. In recent years, much of Oklahoma had suffered from drought, so she wouldn’t wish for the rain to go away, but if it stopped long enough for her to run errands and get home, curling up in a chair and watching it fall was one of her favorite pastimes.
It showed no signs of letting up at the moment.
“I have to go to Walmart. Did I tell you that after her mother bought her all new thongs and push-up bras, Abby left her own underwear there, along with the rest of her old clothes?” She and Carly both rolled their eyes at the same time. “Yesterday morning she tried to persuade me to give her just one set for church, preferably the lavender satin or the red ones with black lace, or she’d have to go without. Unfortunately for her, there were two pairs of white cotton panties left in her drawer and one sports bra. She’s going to be so unhappy when she sees what I come home with.”
Carly shook her head. “I can’t believe her mother— Well, actually, I can believe it. Catherine seems to think Abby’s her new best girlfriend or her latest dress-up doll. The girl’s no one’s doll, and she’s got friends. She needs—”
A mother. Therese adjusted the straps of her shoulder bag and the tote that carried her papers over her shoulder, then shoved the door open. Quickly, before the rain could do more than sprinkle against them, she popped open the giant umbrella she kept in her classroom and made room under it for Carly to join her.
“What she needs right now is underwear that covers the essentials and doesn’t look
like it belongs in a porn film,” Therese said as they started toward the parking lot. “She called her mom yesterday—got her voice mail—and very reluctantly asked her to return her clothes if she hadn’t already thrown them out. According to Catherine, they weren’t even worthy of donating to a homeless shelter.”
“Do you think she’ll send them?”
“Find a box, shove clothing into it, tape it, address it, and take it to the post office? Nah. Way too much trouble for her only daughter. She probably thinks I’ll give in and let Abby wear the stuff she bought her.” Which proved just how little Catherine knew.
Water streaming from the parking lot down the sidewalk seeped into Therese’s shoes and dampened the hem of her pants. If she had a pair of the heavy-duty, knee-high rain boots she’d worn on the ranch when she was a kid and a good slicker, she would take a long walk to simply enjoy the wetness and blurriness and freshness of the deluge. While she did have a slicker at home—hot pink with yellow madras lining—she lacked the boots. She’d been happy to leave them behind when she’d left Montana. No more mucking stalls and trudging through mud or slush for her.
There were a lot of things worse than muck and mud.
They hurried to their cars, parked four spaces apart, and Therese waited while Carly unlocked her door and tossed her bags inside. “Have fun shopping. And be sure to take cover when you give Abby the new undies.”
Therese grinned evilly. “I’m getting cotton. White. Granny panties.”
With a wince of sympathy, Carly slid into her car, and Therese splashed the short distance to her own. She closed the umbrella, gave it a good shake, then put it in the passenger floorboard and slid her purse and tote onto the other seat. Damp and feeling as if everything about her were curling, from her hair to her clothing to her toes inside her shoes, she wished she could go home. But since Abby going commando wasn’t an option, neither was going to Walmart.
A Man to Hold on to (A Tallgrass Novel) Page 7
