Chapter Five
“T hat’s it?” Caleb asked, passing back the lawyer’s pen.
“That’s it,” she confirmed. “I’ll get these filed, you’ll sit out the waiting period, and then you’ll get your divorce decree.”
Jessa exhaled. “Thank you so much for your help.”
He and Jessa said their goodbyes to the lawyer and made their way outside. Caleb squinted into the glare, settling his straw cowboy hat on his head as they traded the attorney’s air-conditioned, fluorescent-lit office for the blistering Texas heat and midday summer sun. He welcomed the initial blast of warmth on his chilled skin, but after a few seconds he was looking for shade.
“That didn’t take long,” he remarked to Jessa, who was pulling her sunglasses from her purse.
“Like she said, all it takes to dissolve lifelong vows is the right paperwork. The car is this way.”
Caleb didn’t follow Jessa as she started down the sidewalk, not quite ready to face the return trip. Paranoid that Georgia would get wind of their divorce filing if they used an attorney anywhere near Last Stand, Jessa found someone a two-hour drive southwest who also met clients on Saturday mornings, saving them from the pressure of getting back in time for dance classes. They’d left town at sunrise and Caleb had spent most of the journey doing his level best not to comment on Jessa’s painfully overcautious driving, literally biting his tongue through several slow-motion passing maneuvers.
He was in no rush to jump back into the car, and at the same time, he felt like they should mark this occasion somehow. Even if this was only the fortuitous end to an impulsive misstep, they should do something special. Give themselves another reason to remember this strange, sunny day.
“We came all the way here, let’s check out the place. Sign says there’s a historic downtown.”
Jessa turned, her expression pinched. “I don’t know, it could be a long walk. What if nothing’s there? It’s hot, and it’s almost lunchtime. We should head back.”
“We won’t be home in time for lunch either way. Might as well give it a shot.”
She wrinkled her nose, and he didn’t bother stifling his affectionate smile.
Caleb had less than a week until his doctor’s appointment. His head felt great and his shoulder was improving, and they’d just signed everything they needed to get divorced. His payout from the rodeo had come through, and he could almost feel the road under the wheels of his truck. He’d kept his hands to himself, his heart even closer. The end was nigh, and he was increasingly confident he could ride this situation like a fifteen-hundred-pound bull and walk away unscathed.
Surely, he could have this one, fun day with Jessa without messing anything up.
“Look at you, pretty girl, all dressed up with nowhere to go. Let’s go for a walk and I’ll buy you lunch.”
She slanted him a chiding gaze, but he could feel her resolve loosening. “You’ve already paid for gas, groceries, and the filing fee for the divorce.”
“And that still doesn’t cover what you’ve spent on me this last week.”
“You don’t need to repay me. I’ve told you that from—”
“Come with me,” he urged, taking her hand and leading her in a slow spin. She pulled it back as soon as she could, the disapproving tilt of her head utterly betrayed by the twitch in her lips.
He extended his good arm. “No one knows we’re here, and no one here knows who we are. Come on, Jessa. Let’s have an adventure.”
Jessa’s muted smile was like the first, tiny flower bud daring to arc toward the springtime sun amidst an acre of dry, dead grass.
“We can have a look. But if it’s too far, or not nice, we’re leaving.”
“Deal.”
He held out his hand, palm up. After a moment’s hesitation she slipped her soft, slender fingers over his.
He tightened his grip and didn’t let go.
Jessa spent the first block fretting aloud about whether she needed to move the car. The breeze picked up, stirring her knee-length red dress and tugging a few strands loose from her ponytail—strands she didn’t drop his hand to fix. He coaxed her onward, gently teasing her, playfully squeezing her fingers, imagining out loud the picture-perfect Main Street they were surely just steps from finding.
Then they turned the corner, and it was even better.
The small, rural town’s main square was a meticulously preserved slice of Texas history, anchored by a late-nineteenth-century limestone courthouse boasting a central clock tower. The four roads surrounding it were lined by local businesses operating behind antique storefronts, but it wasn’t the variety of shops and restaurants that stopped them both in their tracks—it was the street fair in full swing.
Closed to traffic, the square hummed with people and music and mouth-watering scents. A mariachi band played in front of the courthouse, the sunlight danced over a veritable rainbow of vendors’ wares, and the smells of barbecue and cinnamon and ice-cold lemonade had his stomach begging for an early lunch.
“What is all this?” Jessa wondered aloud.
“Some kind of festival, I guess. ”
“I can’t think what the occasion would be.”
“Does it matter? We’re here.”
She smiled up at him—really smiled. Not the tolerant smiles she gave him in their stilted encounters in the house, or the too-bright versions she flashed at her students’ parents. This one curled up and out from that soft, secret part of her, that core of her being she kept so buried in this new life of hers that he’d begun to doubt whether he’d seen it at all. But he had—he’d gotten the barest glimpse two years ago, and it still burned on the backs of his retinas like sunspots.
“There you are,” he murmured.
Her eyes twinkled as she reached up and tugged on the brim of his hat. “What are you waiting for, cowboy? Let’s go.”
They threw themselves into the celebration, greeting people, making friends, easing into the fabric of this community as though they’d lived in this town their whole lives. Jessa was magnetic as she swept from stall to stall, charming a free sample from every food seller, bubbling with enthusiasm over beaded jewelry and scented candles and brightly colored silk scarves.
“I’m definitely buying you one of these.” He peered at an array of handmade soaps.
“You don’t have to.”
“I want to. Now pick one or I will, and it’ll almost certainly clash with your bathroom décor.”
The playfully reproachful smile she sent his way sounded a faint warning way back in his consciousness, but he shoved it aside.
He could handle this.
He could handle her.
She settled on a lavender bar stuffed full of what looked like twigs the seller insisted were good for your skin. He didn’t care about that, but the way Jessa kept opening the paper bag and sniffing it made it worth every penny.
Their initial circuit of the stalls ended back at the barbecue place where they’d started, which Caleb took to be a sign—and told Jessa so.
“A divine steer toward brisket tacos. I can get behind that.” She beamed.
He paid for their lunch, and they sat down on a bench shaded by a tree, balancing the cardboard containers on their knees. For a few minutes they ate in silence, watching the lively scene before them. Then Jessa turned to him abruptly, her smile warm but a little wary.
“Thanks for schlepping all the way out here to get the divorce filed. And for being so good about getting it done quickly.”
“Did you think I’d put up a fight? Try to come after your assets?”
“No, nothing like that,” she said hastily. “I’m just appreciative, that’s all.”
“It’s all good. Actually…”
He shouldn’t tell her. He didn’t even know why he wanted to tell her. He’d never told anyone.
But he would. Maybe because they’d never see each other again after he left—or maybe because he needed to remind himself that the signatures he’d scrawled that morning were as meaningless and disposable as the cheap, plastic pen he’d used.
“I’ve gotten divorced before.” He kept his tone casual, his eyes on the mariachi band across the square.
He caught her jaw drop in his peripheral vision.
“Really?”
“It was a long time ago.”
“Was it another quickie marriage like ours?”
The comparison prompted a bitter smile. “Nope, it was the real deal. Girl from my church. Our parents started hinting at it when we were eighteen, and I went through the whole rigmarole. Got her father’s permission to court her, went on chaperoned dates, eventually had our first kiss on the altar. Lasted about three years.”
“What happened? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“I came home one day and she was gone. Left me a long letter—a nice one. Said it wasn’t my fault, but she’d only gotten married to please her parents, and she didn’t want to live like this anymore. She felt stifled —that was the word she used.”
“My God, Caleb. That must’ve been a huge shock. Were you upset?”
He shrugged, recalling his resignation that years-ago evening. He’d calmly refolded the piece of notebook paper and sat for a few minutes at the kitchen table, the house so quiet he could hear an acorn drop into the gutter on the other side of the ground floor. He made a mental note to trim that tree branch, then stood up, opened the fridge, and began making dinner.
“I was sad, but I understood. It wasn’t a great life for her out there. We lived on my parents’ farm, and I was gone all day working as a tractor mechanic, so she was alone a lot—or with my mom. And my mom could be pretty severe.”
“What did your parents say when you told them?”
He found the wherewithal to finally look at her, her intent expression a welcome, surprising support as he shared the ugliest part of this story.
“They blamed me. Her parents did, too. Said I was too gentle, too weak. That I should’ve taken a firmer hand with her. That women didn’t run from men they feared.”
“That’s horrible,” Jessa said, disgusted.
“That’s how I was raised.”
“But you’re not like that.”
He shook his head. “No, it never quite sunk in. Don’t know why. I’ve got five brothers and sisters and they’re all still deep in that life.”
“Was it the divorce that made you leave?”
“That was the start of it. I didn’t see Annette again—that’s my ex-wife—but I saw the claims the attorney was using for the filing, the accusations, the lies. My parents were trying to get a financial settlement from my in-laws, and it was all a nasty, mean-spirited mess. I fought with them about it—first time I’d ever stood up to them. The closer we got to the final decree, the more things deteriorated, until I decided maybe Annette had the right idea all along. The day after it was issued, I packed up my truck and hit the road. Haven’t spoken to them since.”
“How long has it been?”
“Six years.”
Jessa’s gaze shifted to her lap, and then to a family of three passing on the sidewalk, swinging their giggling toddler between them. Wordlessly she reached over, took his hand, and squeezed it tightly.
He felt that pressure all the way into the center of his chest.
“You’re a good person, Caleb. One of the best I’ve ever met. I’m sorry your parents couldn’t see that.”
Something lodged in his throat, constricting his airway, tightening his stomach. He was suffocating, but it didn’t scare him—instead it was oddly comforting. Like the unyielding reassurance of the ground after the dizzying, airborne seconds that followed being thrown by a bull. As welcome as it was painful.
All at once the breath rushed back into his lungs, with an unnerving reality borne upon it.
He shouldn’t have told her all of this. It didn’t matter to him anymore, and soon it wouldn’t matter to her, either. Disclosures were power, and he’d just handed her the heaviest one he carried even as he was scrambling to keep himself to himself, to ride out of here with his full inventory intact.
Still, he felt lighter than he had in years.
He pretended to ignore her comment. Told himself he wouldn’t remember each syllable forever, and promised to clear out that corner of his heart where he tucked it as soon as he had the chance.
He scooped the trash off both their laps and dumped it into the bin a few feet away but didn’t sit down when he returned. Instead, he offered his hand, nodding backward at the Tejano group that had taken over from the mariachis.
“Dance with me.”
She didn’t argue. He ignored the fact that he had one arm in a sling, that he was twenty-two when he first dared move his body to music, and that he’d spent his entire life up to that point believing that dancing was impure and morally dangerous, a surefire way to thrust yourself into the devil’s hands.
On second thought, maybe that wasn’t but half-wrong. Because when Jessa took his hand with a twirl, dark hair flying and red dress practically alight, he was as good as damned.
He escorted her across the street but then she took over—literally. Overruled his reason, overruled his safeguards, overruled every thought in his head that wasn’t about how magical she was.
Even with two working arms, he had the musical intuition of a lumbering bison. His feet were leaden and clumsy, his timing was all wrong, and the addition of the sling made him off-balance and stiff. He was a disaster, but she was beautiful, fluid and graceful, subtly guiding him to the beat. She flashed him coy, coquettish smiles as she spun and arched and then came close again, close enough to catch her scent, peonies and raspberries and sun-warmed skin.
The song ended and he stepped back into the shade of a tree, motioning for her to go on without him. For a second her expression collapsed into uncertainty, then brightened when the band began again, more up-tempo this time.
She’d barely turned around when a much older man with silver hair peeking from beneath his camel-colored hat approached her. Caleb heard something about how he used to dance with his daughter, and then the two of them were off, the man holding her at a respectful arm’s length, her answering steps less flamboyant yet still elegant and graceful.
At the end of the song, he bent forward in a gentlemanly bow, then led her back to Caleb, pressing her hand into his.
“You’re a lucky man,” the old-timer told him sincerely. Caleb simply nodded, torn between his pride and the truth that he had no claim on this woman—his wife—whatsoever.
That thought twisted him up, discomfited him, had a sharp point he knew he shouldn’t touch but did anyway, just to see if it stung.
It did.
So he shoved it in the back of a drawer and slammed it shut, pulling Jessa close, wrapping his arm around her waist. She looked momentarily startled, but then she softened against him, her palms flat on his chest.
The music resumed, a slow, hopeful tune—a love song. Jessa swayed gently in his arms, trying to pull him into the melody, but he didn’t move, too captivated by what he found in her hazel eyes.
She was there—right there. Beneath his hands, close enough to taste. That girl he met in Hawaii, gorgeous and fun and full of surprises.
Unburdened. Wild. Free.
His.
Goddamn him, he kissed her.
If she wasn’t expecting it, if she was unready in any way, he couldn’t tell. She responded eagerly, hungrily, her sweet, soft lips parting almost as soon as their mouths met. The tip of her tongue brushed the seam of his mouth and he neatly stepped out of his good sense like it was a too-big pair of boots.
He devoured her. Two years of disciplined detachment dissolved in an instant as he let his reckless impulses take the reins, drinking her in, tongues tangling, his hand journeying up her back to tighten on her nape.
Each curve pressed against him was at once familiar and exhilaratingly new. Her body was different, fuller and softer, and the wheels of his imagination turned so fast they were practically on fire picturing how these changes might look in the flesh. He wanted to rip open the buttons on her dress and bury his face between her breasts—and from the way she pushed harder into his embrace, he thought she might not disagree.
If they weren’t in public… But they didn’t have to be. Where could they go? The car was a hike, but as a last resort… The courthouse was right there. Courthouses had conference rooms, empty offices, storage closets…
Abruptly the music died, and with it his fantasy of having sex in a taxpayer-funded building. He broke off the kiss, blinking up into the sun, disoriented and full of dread.
Then he looked down at her and his whole world darkened as if a thick, black, apocalyptic cloud had filled the sky as far as the eye could see.
The face she tilted up to him was wide-eyed and smiling, brimming with so much optimism he nearly choked on it.
He couldn’t do this. He wasn’t this kind of man anymore and hadn’t been for a long time. He didn’t stay. He didn’t care. He sure as hell didn’t love. Not now, not her, not ever again.
He made his grin extra broad, his tone extra dismissive as he said, “Got a little carried away there. Heat must be messing with our heads. We should get back to the car.”
Caleb had to give her credit—she masked her disappointment so quickly another man might’ve missed it altogether. A man who didn’t know her like he did. Who hadn’t spent countless nights recalling every detail of her perfect face. Who never had reason to clutch his memories of her like talismans, desperate wards against making the same mistake twice.
“Good call,” she agreed pleasantly, but the way she wrenched out of his grasp told him loud and clear how much he’d wounded her.
Good , he thought grimly.
They crossed the street and turned between two buildings to leave the square. With every step, the noise of the festival receded, and Jessa closed up, the vibrant, freewheeling woman of just moments before becoming the rigid, tight-browed bundle of neuroses who inhabited her body in Last Stand. Caleb wished desperately he could pry her open again, but he knew that was the wrong choice. That it would only make everything worse.
So when they reached the car he winked at her over the hood, raising his hammer to pound another nail in the coffin.
“Hey, Jess. What happens in whatever this town is called stays in whatever this town is called, right?”
“Of course,” she said primly, and took her seat behind the wheel.
It’s for the best , he told himself, taking one last look at this place he’d never forget. Promises you can’t keep are just lies .
He was no liar.
Caleb blew out a breath, adjusting his hat on his head before sliding into the passenger side.
His divorce from Annette had hurt. He’d make damn sure this one didn’t.