Glory, Glory

by Linda Lael Miller

  Glory snapped the pencil she was holding into two pieces, though her manner was otherwise pleasant. Or at least courteous. “Why are you acting like I was about to kidnap her and head for South America? We were only talking.”

  “You have a nasty habit of skipping out at the most inopportune moments,” Jesse said. “I wouldn’t put anything past you.”

  “Then there would seem to be no point in our going out to dinner tonight and talking this thing over like adults. You’ve already drawn the battle lines.”

  Jesse sighed raggedly and turned away to stand at the office’s one window. Once again, snow was coming down. “Maybe I did overreact,” he conceded in a barely audible voice. He looked back at her over one sturdy shoulder. “I don’t know if I can talk this out with you, Glory, when I haven’t even managed to work it through for myself yet.”

  “Have you told Liza that you’re her father?”

  He rested his back against the sill and folded his arms. “No,” he replied. “She’s a sharp kid. If I told her, it wouldn’t be long before she guessed who her mother is.”

  “What would be so terrible about that?”

  Jesse thrust himself away from the window, crossed the small room, and opened the door. “It would give you a kind of power I don’t want you to have,” he answered flatly. “I’ll pick you up at six and we’ll have dinner in Fawn Creek, if that’s all right with you. They’ve got a pretty classy Mexican place.”

  Glory couldn’t imagine why she wasn’t refusing to go out with him, why she wasn’t telling Jesse Bainbridge what to do with his Mexican dinner. “Okay,” she said. “You know where I live?”

  He raised one eyebrow. “I know where you live,” he responded. And then, to Glory’s enormous relief, he was gone.

  At five she left the office, bundled up in her coat, laughing and talking with the other employees who were on their way out, too. In just a few minutes she arrived at her apartment.

  There, Glory stripped off the blue-and-gray striped suit she’d worn to work that morning, took a shower, blew her hair dry, and put on a black crepe pleated skirt that reached to mid-calf and a long sweater of the same color, threaded through with silver. She had just finished applying her makeup when the doorbell rang.

  Glory crossed her empty living room and opened the door to admit Jesse, who looked handsome in charcoal slacks and a cream colored fisherman’s sweater. He wore a tweed overcoat, too, and his brash brown eyes moved over Glory’s figure with undisguised appreciation.

  She longed for an excuse to touch him, but there was none. “You look very nice,” she said.

  There was something wry about his grin. “So do you,” he answered.

  At first, it was like old times. Jesse helped Glory into her coat and held her elbow protectively as he escorted her to the classic old luxury car parked outside.

  “No truck?” Glory teased, as she sank into the cushiony leather seat.

  Jesse shut the car door and came around to get behind the wheel before answering. “Nothing but the best for you,” he said, and each word was stretched taut, like a violin string.

  Heat flowed out of the vehicle’s heater, ruffling Glory’s thin skirt, and soft music streamed from its impressive stereo system. “Your grandfather’s car,” she reflected, just to break the silence. “We went to the prom in this car, didn’t we?”

  She regretted the question instantly.

  Jesse’s eyes smoldered as he looked at her for a long moment before nodding and pulling away from the curb. They’d made love that night after the dance, and they’d been so excited that they hadn’t even taken off all their clothes. Jesse had set Glory astraddle his lap and, gripping her hips, lowered her onto his shaft…

  She was desperate, so she tried again. Reaching out to switch off the heat, she asked, “Do you think it’s going to keep snowing like this?”

  Jesse was no help, at all. “Until February or March, probably. I guess you’re not used to it anymore, since you’ve been living in the western part of the state.”

  Glory gave a strangled cry of frustration. “Jesse, don’t just leave me dangling. I need some assistance here.”

  He gave her a teasing glance that did as much to ignite her senses as her memories had. His eyes said assistance wasn’t what she needed, though his lips moved only to curve into a half grin.

  “So, did you win the election by a wide margin, or what?” she threw out, in another wild attempt at normal conversation.

  “Were you in love with that guy you left behind in Portland?” he countered out of the blue.

  Glory was instantly defensive, and she was grateful for it. “How did you know about Alan?”

  “I asked you if you loved him.”

  “No—yes—I don’t know!” How could she say, straight out, that she’d never loved another man besides Jesse himself? “Damn it, this isn’t fair. You said we were going to talk about Liza!”

  Jesse was shaking his head, and though his tone was polite, his words were downright inflammatory. “At least I know I’m not the only guy you ever ran out on. How many others were there?”

  Glory wanted to slug him, but the roads were slick and she couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t lose control of the car, so she knotted her fists in her lap and savored the fantasy. “Take me home.”

  “I’ll be glad to—at the end of the evening, when we’ve settled something. Anything.”

  They were leaving the city limits and climbing along the well-plowed tree-lined highway that led to Fawn Creek. Glory was startled when Jesse pulled the car off the road into a secluded rest area that was familiar for all the wrong reasons.

  He shut off the engine and the lights and, after Glory’s eyes adjusted, she could see him fairly clearly in the muted glow from the dashboard. “You’re driving me crazy,” he said, as though that explained everything.

  “Start this car this instant,” Glory sputtered, on the verge of panic. She was a strong woman, certainly not promiscuous, but Jesse Bainbridge had always been her downfall. “I want to go home.”

  “I know damn well what you want, and so do you. And maybe we’re not going to get anywhere with the rest of our lives until we’ve taken care of it.”

  Glory grabbed ineptly at the door handle, but she never made contact. “Jesse, if you force me—”

  “I won’t have to force you,” he pointed out, his fingers resting lightly on the back of her neck. “And we both know it.”

  He pushed a button somewhere, and the seat back eased slowly downward until she was lying prone. Before she could cope with that development, Jesse was kissing her, and one of his strong hands was resting on her thigh.

  He snapped open her seat belt and laid it aside, then went right on kissing her, while his hand moved her skirt slowly upward.

  She managed to free her mouth from his, though it didn’t like its liberty and wanted to surrender. “Jesse—”

  Jesse eased her long, glistening sweater up and over her head, and deftly unfastened the front catch on her bra. He was watching, waiting, when her plump breasts spilled out, their tips already seeking him.

  With a husky chuckle, he took one nipple into his mouth, and the sensation made Glory moan aloud and stretch out on the seat in involuntary abandon. His hand found the top of her panty hose and began rolling them slowly and surely downward.

  Everything was happening as fast as a sleigh ride down McCalley’s Hill, but Glory couldn’t put on the brakes. She’d been without Jesse’s touch for too long, craved it too desperately.

  He found the aching center of her femininity and delved under its mat of silk to the quavering nubbin beneath. Glory groaned again as he rolled her between his fingers.

  “Oh, Jesse—” she pleaded.

  He bent until his head was lying in her lap, and then his lips and tongue replaced his fingers, and Glory gave a lusty shout and thrust her hips high.

  Jesse chuckled against her, but he showed no mercy of any kind. His hands clasped her bottom, and he held her
to his tender vengeance, taking everything she had to give. He laid her back on the seat, only to ignite the blazes all over again by sucking at her breasts and stroking them.

  When she was twisting beneath his hands and mouth, feverish for the union she knew she should deny herself, he shifted her, so that he was lying on the seat and she was kneeling over him. He opened his slacks and lowered Glory onto him.

  Her body surged into reflexive action, but Jesse gripped her hips and measured the pace, whispering ragged, senseless words as he sheathed and unsheathed himself in her.

  “Jesse—Jesse—” She sought his mouth with hers, and he gave her a brief, fiery kiss. But he was caught up in a tender agony of his own, and he finally thrust his head back and uttered an exclamation.

  In the next moment, their bodies made a pact independent of their minds, fusing together in a hot, searing thrust. Glory cried out and arched her back when Jesse intensified every sensation by pulling her forward and catching one of her nipples in his mouth.

  When she collapsed against him, she was crying. “Damn you, Jesse,” she sobbed brokenly. “Are you satisfied now?”

  His chuckle was more tender than amused. “A strangely appropriate question,” he gasped. And then he wrapped his arms around Glory and he held her for a long time, until they’d both recovered a little.

  Only then did Glory realize that Jesse had shed not only his overcoat but his sweater, too. And her coat was jumbled into a corner with them. It scared her that she didn’t remember the process of that.

  “Oh, God,” she sniffled, as Jesse dislodged himself to pull on his sweater and raise the seat back.

  “Glory, it’s all right,” he rasped, as she dried her eyes with some tissue from the glove compartment and did her best to straighten her clothes.

  Glory slammed the glove compartment and snapped her seat belt back into place. “Well, now you’ve proved it,” she said, in a furious, singsong voice riddled with tears. “For a good time, a guy just has to call Glory Parsons!”

  He silenced her by taking her chin in his hand. His grasp was hard but not painful. “Don’t ever say that again,” he bit out. “I made love to you because I wanted to, not because I was trying to make a point!” He paused to drag in a deep, ragged breath. “Now, maybe we can concentrate long enough to figure out what the hell we’re going to do about our daughter.”

  Six

  Because Jesse insisted, they went on to the restaurant in Fawn Creek, and Glory headed straight for the women’s room to make repairs on her hair and makeup. When she came out, Jesse was waiting for her, and his brash brown eyes smiled even though his lips were still.

  “Don’t worry,” he whispered a few moments later, as they followed a waitress to their table. “Nobody would ever guess that half an hour ago you were having your way with me.”

  Glory’s cheeks burned and she glared up at Jesse, her lips drawn tight across her teeth, as he pulled back her chair for her.

  “You did all the seducing,” she pointed out, once they were alone with their menus and a flickering candle.

  Jesse leaned forward in his chair. “Maybe so.” He grinned. “But when you got warmed up, you were plenty willing to play the game.”

  “We came here,” Glory reminded him stiffly, snapping her menu open, “to discuss Liza.”

  “By the way,” Jesse began, drawing his eyebrows together briefly in a frown. “Are you doing anything for birth control, or did we just make the same mistake twice?”

  Glory gave a hissing sigh and slapped her menu down on the table. “It’s so typical of you to ask after the fact. Yes, I’ve got an IUD. And furthermore, I don’t consider Liza a mistake.”

  “I can see we’re going to get a lot settled tonight,” Jesse replied through his teeth.

  The waitress returned, and they both ordered chicken enchiladas with beans and rice. Glory wondered why they couldn’t agree on anything besides food and sex.

  Neither of them spoke again until their dinner salads had been delivered.

  “I guess things must have been pretty serious between you and that Alan character, if you have an IUD,” Jesse commented.

  Glory took aim and fired back. “I guess things must be pretty serious between you and Adara, too, since everybody in town knows you bought her an engagement ring for Christmas.”

  “Adara and I are finished,” he said, stabbing at his salad with his fork.

  Glory smiled acidly. “What a coincidence. So are Alan and I. So why would we want to talk about them?”

  Jesse shrugged and tried to look nonchalant, but Glory wasn’t fooled. It troubled his male ego to know she’d had a long-term relationship with another man; Jesse had always been a very proprietary animal.

  “I think you should tell Liza you’re her father,” Glory ventured to say, long minutes later, when their dinners had arrived. “I mean, it must have been hard on her, losing Gresham and Sandy.”

  Jesse sighed, and the look in his eyes was, for a moment, grievously sad. “It was,” he said gravely. “I don’t mind admitting I had some trouble with it myself. Gresh was busy with politics, even when I was a kid, but he always had time for me.”

  A knot formed in Glory’s throat. She knew how close a person could be to his brother, and how much it hurt to lose him. A part of her was still standing beside Dylan’s grave, watching in numb disbelief as they lowered his coffin into the ground, aching because a stupid mistake on another airman’s part had robbed him of his life. She nodded, because that was all she could manage.

  Accurately reading the expression on her face, Jesse reached out and closed his hand over hers. “If Gresh and Dylan were here,” he said quietly, “they’d tell us to stop worrying over the dead and think about the living.”

  Glory nodded again. “I know.”

  Over coffee, Jesse was the one to bring up the subject of their daughter. “Why is it so important to you that I tell Liza I’m her father?”

  It was a question Glory had thoroughly examined in her own mind. “Kids tend to find out things like that. And when they do, they’re devastated because nobody told them the truth.”

  He arched one eyebrow. “No ulterior motives? Like wanting her to put two and two together and decide that if I’m her father, you must be her mother?”

  Glory met his gaze steadily. “I’d love for Liza to know who I am, under the right circumstances. But I care more about her happiness and welfare.”

  At that, Jesse looked skeptical, and their brief, tenuous truce was over. “Either that, or you have a rich relative somewhere, and the only way you can inherit is by proving you’ve produced offspring.”

  Even though his expression had forewarned her, Jesse’s words still came as a slap in the face. “Did I hurt you that much?” she asked, when she’d gotten her breath back.

  “Yes,” he answered coldly. “I was eighteen, Glory, and gullible as hell. You’d told me with words and with your body that you loved me. When you ran off without telling me why it was over, the pain was so bad that I couldn’t stand still. When I tried, it consumed me like fire.

  “I did everything I knew to find you, but nobody wanted to help me, including Dylan and your mother.” He paused, and his eyes, averted from Glory’s face, were haunted. “I’ll never forget the day I finally had to give up. Gresh had taken me fishing, trying to snap me out of it. He said if I didn’t tell somebody about my feelings, they’d never go away, they’d just get worse. I threw my fishing pole down and yelled, it hurt so much. When Gresh put his arms around me, I cried like a two-year-old.”

  Glory had seen the images vividly in her mind as Jesse was talking, and she ached. Driven to distraction by her own pain, she’d inflicted agony on a person she loved with her whole heart. “I don’t suppose it would help to say that I’m sorry, that I was hurting, too?”

  Jesse threw two bills down onto the table to cover the cost of their meal and shoved back his chair. His eyes were hot with remembered frustration, as Glory stood with him. “Maybe s
omeday it will,” he responded in a low voice. “Right now, I feel like it all happened last Tuesday.”

  At the coatrack beside the restaurant’s front door, he settled Glory’s coat on her shoulders, then shrugged into his own. Although he was unfailingly polite, linking her arm with his so she wouldn’t fall in the icy parking lot, opening the car door for her, something in his manner chilled Glory through and through.

  Shame all but crushed her as she realized that, whatever he’d said to the contrary, Jesse had made love to her that night to avenge himself. He didn’t care for her, and probably hadn’t even especially wanted her. God knew, Jesse could have had just about any single woman in Pearl River County for the asking.

  “We should have left well enough alone, Jesse, and stayed away from each other,” she said miserably, when he brought the elegant old car to a stop in front of her building.

  He was staring straight over the wheel instead of looking at her, and his profile was rigid. “I tried to tell you that,” he answered gruffly after a long, difficult interval. His brown eyes were full of accusations when he turned to her. “For your own sake, Glory, and for Liza’s and mine, please let this thing alone. Go back to Portland and your boyfriend and forget we made a baby ten years ago.”

  Glory’s eyes filled with tears. In a way, she thought Jesse was right, she should go, but she knew even then that she wouldn’t be able to make herself do it. The knowledge of Liza’s existence would haunt her for the rest of her life.

  “If you and I never exchange another civil word,” she said, unfastening her seat belt and pushing open the car door, “it’ll be all right. But I can’t leave my daughter. I won’t.”

  She was halfway up the walk when Jesse caught up with her and forcefully took her arm. The irony of it would have made her laugh out loud, if she hadn’t been in so much emotional pain. The sheriff of Pearl River County didn’t mind ripping out her heart and stomping on it, but he’d be damned if he’d let a lady walk to her door unescorted!

  She shoved the key into the lock and would have gone inside without another word, if Jesse hadn’t grasped her shoulders and forced her to face him.