Rose was one of the sweetest people out there, but I’d learned no one wanted to mess with her. The ranch hands listened to her better than they did Neil most of the time.
As we approached the door, I already felt Mom. I started worrying my eyebrow ring as I felt my steel gates and concrete walls begging to be raised. I felt my arms wanting to cross and my scowl wanting to form. I felt the little girl inside of me searching for the closest hiding spot.
Rose’s arm tightened around me, and then Lily moved up beside me. She gave me a reassuring smile and, just like that, I was back at Willow Springs. Safe. Loved. Trusted.
The doorbell went off again. I heard my mom’s drawn out sigh from the other side of the door.
Rose reached for the handle and pulled the door open.
There she was. Not a platinum strand of hair out of place. Not an article of clothing or accessory that wasn’t designer. Not a hint of a smile.
“Kate,” Rose greeted, opening her arms. “It’s been too darn long, and you look too darn good after twenty years.” When Rose’s arms wrapped around her, Mom went stiff as a board and her expression twisted as though the hug was almost painful.
After a moment, Mom forced something meant to be a smile and patted Rose’s back. “It’s amazing what a good surgeon and money can do these days to erase a couple of decades,” she said, practically breaking out of Rose’s hug.
“Well, the only good surgeons we have in these parts are the ones that work on animals,” Rose chuckled. “My beauty routine consists of a multi-vitamin and avoiding mirrors under overhead lighting.”
Mom inspected Rose with that fake smile I’d grown up with. When her eyes trailed down to Rose’s boots, I could tell it took everything inside of Mom to keep from cringing. For the millionth time that summer, I wondered what had brought those totally opposite people together in the first place. Or what had kept them connected, loosely as it might have been, for all of those years.
“And who are these lovely ladies?” Mom asked, moving on to the girls staggered around the door, after giving me a quick nod of acknowledgement.
“This is Lily, Hyacinth,” Rose motioned at each girl, “and the little one here is Clementine. Jesse’s in the kitchen finishing dinner, so you can meet him in a couple minutes.”
Mom nodded her acknowledgement at each girl, keeping the plastered-on smile in place as she inspected them like they were last season’s handbag.
Since she obviously wouldn’t make the first move, I beat down the urge to cross my arms and said, “Hey, Mom.”
“Rowen,” she said, the fake smile going faker. “I barely recognized you. It’s been so long since it hasn’t been dyed black, I’d forgotten what color your hair was.” Yeah, I’m sure forgetting the color of her only child’s hair was easy. “And, my oh my,”—her eyes skimmed down my dress to the boots Jesse had gotten me—“how lovely to see you in non-freak wear for once.” One wall went up before I knew it. “I don’t know how you managed it, Rose, but I owe you for showing my daughter the error of her fashion ways.”
Rose took a step back and hung her arm around my waist again. The small comfort in that brought me close to crying with relief. “I love Rowen’s sense of style. If I was younger and braver, I might sneak a couple things out of her dresser when she wasn’t looking.” Rose grinned over at me. “However, it’s better to keep as much skin covered by no-fuss clothing when you’re working on a ranch with a bunch of single men.”
Mom gave that shrill, choppy laugh of hers. “When Rowen’s concerned, it isn’t her virtue you need to worry about.”
Another wall went up and my arms crossed. I’d felt so strong, so sure of myself, just moments before she’d whisked through that door. She had me almost reverted back to that scared and confused girl I’d been weeks earlier.
Someone slid up beside me, grabbed my hand, and angled himself ever so slightly in front of me. “That’s a joke, right?” Jesse asked, making his greeting.
Mom’s eyes darted his way, and if a woman like her could get stars in her eyes, she got them. Her gaze drifted down his body in a way that made me feel territorial and icky all at once. “You can take it however you want.” She flashed her charming smile—which was also fake—and lifted her eyebrows.
Since Jesse didn’t look in the mood to make introductions, Rose stepped in. “Kate, this is my son Jesse.”
“Wonderful to meet you, Jesse.” Hearing her say his name made my stomach turn. Or was it the tone in which she said his name? Or was it the way her eyes dropped when she was done?
When she noticed my hand clasped in Jesse’s, Mom’s approving expression morphed into shock. “Oh, dear God. Rose, I am so sorry. If I had known Rowen would go after your boy, I would have never sent her here this summer.” Mom’s hand went to her chest and she shook her head. “I would have hoped she’d show better restraint when it came to hooking up with the son of one of my oldest and dearest friends.”
I didn’t need to hear anyone else talk about why I was all wrong for Jesse. I did enough of that on my own.
“Rowen didn’t pursue me,” Jesse said, his whole back going rigid. “I pursued her. And we are not ‘hooking up.’ We’re in love.”
“Oh, dear God,” Mom said again, practically cringing. “I am so, so sorry, Rose.”
Yeah, because a guy admitting he loved me was so much worse than one admitting he was just screwing me.
“What for?” Rose asked, resting a hand on Jesse’s arm. It was a gesture of comfort and stand down, I’ve got this. “She challenges him. He challenges her. They love each other. As far as young relationships go, we couldn’t be happier Jesse’s with a girl like Rowen.”
I doubted Mom would look so flabbergasted if she woke up the next day to find zombies stumbling down her driveway. “You’re all right with this?”
“Yes,” Rose replied. “These two have some good kismet. Don’t you think, Kate?”
“They’ve got . . . something,” Mom said, pursing her lips when she rechecked our connected hands.
“Where’s your plus one?” Rose asked, shifting the conversation.
“He’s still in the car on a business call,” Mom replied, rolling her eyes. “Can you believe that when we checked in at the rental center, they didn’t have a luxury option? The best they had was a mid-sized Dodge. I haven’t been in a mid-sized anything since I was in college.” Mom stepped inside and closed the door. Apparently “plus one” would be a while. “I don’t know how you do it out here in the sticks, Rose. I don’t think I could make it a day.”
“I don’t either,” I muttered as we filed into the kitchen.
“I heard that, Rowen,” she said over her shoulder. “Try to do something out-of-character and behave yourself tonight.”
So my answer to my question? It didn’t matter that I’d changed. She hadn’t. Our relationship hadn’t either.
“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 cam
e 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!”