Well, maybe one time she’d needed Dylan, but he’d abandoned her.
Brian pulled her focus back. “Jessie. I need to know what happened that night. It’s haunted me for too long. Did he stab you? Did you end up in the hospital? Where did you go?”
Brian stood up to face her. Time to put the past to rest and move on, but Brian couldn’t do that until she told him what happened. She wouldn’t get away without telling him.
“After you left . . .” She took a breath when her emotions backed up in her throat. She started again, “After you left, he kept at me. Usually, he’d wind down and start drinking until he passed out. That night he just kept at it. I don’t know what set him off, but I made it worse when I took a swing at him and gave him a nice shiner.” She smiled a little, proud of herself for standing up to him. “I knew better than to provoke him. I’d never back down from an argument, but I also wasn’t stupid enough to take him head on. That was the one and only time I took a swing at him.” At least she had that. “He grabbed the knife I’d been using to cut the apple and came after me.”
She stood there looking at Brian and seeing the past.
“Did he stab you, Jessie?” Brian’s soft, sad voice had her choking back tears.
“I turned to run as he swung the knife down. He cut a gash down my back.” The only way for him to know what happened was to show him. She turned around, crossed her arms over her middle, and pulled the hem of her tank top up to reveal the long scar down her back. Brian inhaled sharply. She put her shirt down and turned back to face him.
“As the knife went in, I fell to the floor. I rolled over and he stood over me with the knife in his hand. I could smell the whiskey on his breath. I thought he’d finish it then, but something came over him and the knife slipped from his fingers and landed at my feet. He grabbed a bottle from the table and rushed out the back door. He probably drove somewhere and drank himself unconscious.
“I dragged myself up off that floor and left. I refused to take it from him one more second of one more day. I’ll spare you the gory details about how many stitches it took to close up the gash.”
“Jessie, how the hell did you survive that?”
“I sucked it up and moved on. Which is exactly what you are going to do now.” Overwhelmed with her past, she needed to get out of there. She knew this would be hard, but not like this. She hoped this was the last time she ever had to think about and relive that night. “Marilee has all the information for the funeral and your job. I hope you come tomorrow. We both need to bury the old man and our past. It’s over. I hope you start new today. Either way, on Monday you better be at work, or I will come and get you, and you won’t like it if I do.
“And another thing, I’d make things right with your wife. I’ve already told her I’d help her leave you. I’d be scared if I was you. She actually took a minute to think about my offer. I won’t have another Thompson grow up with an alcoholic for a father. Clean up your act.”
With that hanging between them, she walked out the front door and ran straight into the one person she never wanted to see again. Dylan.
Chapter Six
* * *
DYLAN PULLED UP to Brian’s house and parked behind a sleek, black Porsche at the curb. Nice car, not exactly something you’d see in this part of town. He walked up the cracked path to the front door, but five steps away, the door opened and a beautiful woman walked out. They stared at each other. His heart stopped, his throat closed, cutting off his breath, and everything inside of him froze for a second before the relief washed over him and he realized he wasn’t staring at a ghost.
“Jess.” Her name came out on an exhale.
God, she was beautiful. And all grown up. Fifteen the last time he’d seen her, at twenty-four she was a knockout. He took her in from the fall of her rich-brown wavy hair pulled back into a ponytail, to the tight white tank top hugging the curve of her full breasts and slim waist, to the tight blue jeans that showed off the slender curve of her hips and strong thighs, down to her black cowboy boots.
No wedding ring. If he’d been relieved to see her alive, it was just as powerful to discover she wasn’t married.
A gold chain hung around her neck and disappeared down the front of the tank top and into her cleavage. Light makeup enhanced her eyes and mouth. God, that mouth. He wanted to kiss her.
Dylan wanted her as much today as he had at eighteen. All the years he’d thought about her, wondered about her, dreamed of her, hadn’t done justice to having her close. His chest hurt just looking at her.