Cowgirls Don't Cry(86)

She wandered into the kitchen and snatched an oatmeal raisin cookie. Her eyes nearly bugged out at the three different kinds of pie, and cinnamon rolls, and brownies, and two different types of cookies—all homemade—that crowded the countertop.

“You want milk with that?”


Milk. Right. Jessie smiled. “Nope. I’d rather have a beer.” She helped herself to one from the fridge.

“Do you have time to sit down? Or are you still whipping up food for tomorrow?”


“I’m mostly done. Gotta get up and put the turkey in, glaze the hamballs and peel the potatoes, but I figured you could help me.”


“Sure thing. How many people are you feeding?” She took a long pull off the Corona.

“Eight. Our friends Barb and Tim, our empty nest neighbors Rich and his wife Dawn, and Roger’s new teaching assistant, Jake.”


Jessie slowly lowered the bottle. “Mom. Please tell me you’re not trying to fix me up with this Jake guy.”


Her mother grabbed a dishrag and wiped cookie crumbs from the counter. “Not a fix up. But Jake is a really great guy. He’s single, so are you. You’re around the same age, I thought it’d be good for you to have someone show you around while you’re here.”


Regardless of what her mom claimed, this was a fix up. Although she and Brandt were exclusive while they were living together, this thing, whatever it was, was temporary.

You don’t really believe that. There’s more going on between you and Brandt than just hot sex. This thing could be the start of something big.

But her cynical side reminded her that there already was something very big between her and Brandt, something insurmountable: Landon’s future.

“Jessie?” her mother prompted. “I see the wheels turning. What’s going on?”


“Besides the fact I’m currently helping my former brother-in-law take care of my dead husband’s secret love child from a jailbait jailbird? Oh, and just to make it even more interesting, I’m now sleeping with said brother in law.”


After her mom picked her jaw up off the floor, she pointed to a dining room chair. “Sit and start talking. I’ll get more beer.”


Jessie knew her mother intended to grill her when she ditched her apron, embroidered with a big “L”


for Lisa. Removal of the apron indicated the shift in parental roles from cookie and comfort giver to interrogator. She sipped her beer and waited for the barrage of questions.

It didn’t take long.

“Did you end up in this situation with Brandt out of guilt?” Her mother raised her hand when Jessie began to object. “I know you’re in the situation with Landon out of some obligation you feel to Luke.”


Jessie ran her thumb along the edge of the sandstone coaster as she tried to figure out a way to explain it, when half the time she didn’t understand it herself. “Being in such close quarters with Brandt felt different from the start. That everyday familiarity between us built pretty damn fast and in some ways, it was more intimate than sex. I missed that physical closeness, and since we were already acting like a married couple, I told him I wanted all of the benefits of being married.”


“So you approached him?” her mother asked.

“Yes.” Jessie swallowed a mouthful of beer. “Hard to believe, huh?”


“I’m happy you did. At least you’re getting something you want out of this lousy situation. How you’re able to handle…” She shook her head. “I don’t know what I would’ve done if one of Billy’s floozies would’ve shown up with a kid he’d fathered.”