Day 2
Brandt hadn’t stopped by. He hadn’t called. Jessie took advantage of the Monday holiday to work with her horses. Then she fed the animals. She drove to the store for ice cream. She watched TV. She called her mother. She fell into bed alone.
Day 3
Brandt hadn’t stopped by. He hadn’t called. Jessie couldn’t face going into work at Sky Blue so she called in sick. And she was heartsick. She curled up on the couch with Lexie. She drank tea and ate toast.
Between the bouts of sniffles, she checked her phone to make sure the damn thing was working. She fed the animals. She heated up a can of soup and shuffled off to bed alone.
Day 4
Brandt hadn’t stopped by. He hadn’t called. Just how much time did the man need? But Jessie couldn’t face Skylar or India or Kade or Kane or Ginger or Simone without breaking down completely. She needed another day. Despite the guilt, she called in sick.
Jessie assumed the person rapping on her door at ten a.m. would be Skylar. Jessie considered ignoring it, but it’d be easier to ’fess up here, rather than in an official capacity at Skylar’s office. She shushed Lexie and opened the door.
Joan McKay stood on her porch. She looked different but Jessie couldn’t put her finger on what it was about her that was off.
It hit her. Jessie grabbed Joan’s arm. “Has something happened to Brandt?”
Joan shook her head. “As far as I know Brandt is fine.”
She sagged against the doorframe. “Thank God.”
“Haven’t you heard from him?”
“Not at all.”
Sorrow flickered in Joan’s eyes. “Can I come in?”
“Ah sure.” Jessie poured two cups of coffee while Joan took off her coat and settled on the couch. She handed her a cup. Did she sit next to her former mother-in-law? Or keep her distance, like she always had?
“I imagine you’re wondering why I’m here.”
Jessie sat beside Joan on the couch. “You never were one just to stop by to chat.”
“How sad is that? Anyway, I wanted to clear a couple of things up before I…” She set her cup down on the coffee table with a resounding thud. “Actually, I want to apologize.”
“For what?”
“For not standing up to Casper after Luke died. I’ve convinced myself I was so lost in grief I wasn’t thinking straight. But the truth is, making waves wouldn’t have changed anything, Casper does what he wants and to hell with everybody else. That was how I justified my ‘head in the sand’ behavior when it came to you and everything else in that situation. I’m sorry.”
Jessie didn’t know what to say. She watched Joan struggle, this woman she’d always seen as torn between her duty as a wife and as a mother.
“And I should’ve tried harder to have some kind of relationship with you, Jessie, after you and Luke got married. Casper didn’t like you, and I figured after you lost the baby early on, he’d do everything to break you and Luke up.” She distractedly rubbed the center of her forehead. “I felt bad for you, but us being friends would’ve just pissed Casper off even more and he would’ve taken it out on both of us. And Luke. Trust me.”
“Know what I never understood? Why Casper hated me so much in the first place.”
Joan drained her coffee and walked to the kitchen. Almost on automatic, she poured herself another cup, but it sat cooling untouched on the counter for several excruciating minutes while she stared out the front window.
Jessie followed her, a feeling of dread settling in her bones. “Joan? Is everything all right?”
“No. I can’t even begin to tell you how wrong it is. All of this.” She braced her hands on the counter in front of the sink. “Casper hated you because your bun-in-the-oven marriage to Luke reminded him of me. Of us.”
Okay. That was news. Luke had ever mentioned it. Or maybe Luke hadn’t known. “Yours was a shotgun wedding?”
“Yes. Are you shocked?”
Jessie had to tread lightly. This was the most Joan had ever opened up to her. “Yes. I am.”
“Because Casper ended up with someone like me?” Joan asked, not bothering to hide her petulance.
“No. The opposite. I can’t fathom how a woman like you ended up with a man like him.”
“You really are sweet,” Joan murmured. Then she sighed. “The truth is, at one time, Casper was considered quite a catch. He came from a good family. His future was set as part of the ranching McKays.
He was good-looking, charming, fun, wild as hell, but that bad boy side is always so appealing, isn’t it?
Why do women have this overwhelming desire to tame a bad boy? Then we’re shocked when that taming doesn’t happen. Or worse, when it does stick we lament the man they used to be.”
Joan seemed lost in thought so Jessie stayed quiet. But she hadn’t seen Luke as the bad boy to tame.
Brandt was the polar opposite of a bad boy, so it wasn’t a female mindset she understood, but she’d seen friends drawn to that type of man again and again and it rarely ended well.
“Anyway, I wasn’t particularly pretty. I wasn’t particularly charming. I wasn’t particularly clever. I was actually pretty plain. I knew plain, shy and boring would never catch the eye of a dynamic man like him. And I wanted him more than anything on earth.”
As hard as she tried, Jessie couldn’t make the connection between that man Joan was describing and the Casper she knew.
“Casper had half a dozen girls on the string at any given time. So I became the type of girl he couldn’t resist.” She paused for effect. “Easy. He’d come to me after his pretty, clever, charming little girlfriends wouldn’t put out. He came to me often because I’d do anything in bed he wanted. Any time, any place.
“This went on for about six months. At first I believed I could get him to fall for me. That our bedroom romps would make him like me. Would make him willing to have me on his arm in public, instead of just his dirty little bedroom secret. I dreamed he’d take me dancing. Or out for dinner. But like most nineteen-year-old girls, I was naïve. I’d heard a rumor from my friends that Casper was getting serious with a woman from Spearfish. One night I snuck into his favorite bar and watched them. She was one of those beautiful blondes, curvy body, perfect face, life of the party. She was everything I wasn’t. I knew Casper was head over heels in love with her. I knew after the first time he took her to bed I’d never see him again.”