“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 came 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 h*ps 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.