Midnight Confessions Page 17

  Or, worse, what if he now felt obligated to her in some way? Joe struck her as a practical, levelheaded man, but sex and hormones could start anyone to thinking cockeyed.

  “Joe,” she said, her voice as sharp as the crack of a bullet in the still night.

  He sat down next to her to pull on his boots. “What is it, darlin’?”

  Darlin’. The endearment fell all too easily from his lips, she feared.

  “No strings, okay?” she said.

  He froze and looked at her. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, this doesn’t change anything. We’re still the same two people, with the same choices we had an hour ago.”

  He looked away. “It meant that little to you?”

  “No, that’s not...” Somewhere, an owl hooted mournfully. “Of course it meant something to me. It was fantastic, better than I ever imagined making love could be.”

  “Then what are you talking about?”

  “I made love with you because I wanted to, not because I felt like I should. There’s no hidden agenda, no ulterior motives. I just wanted you to know that.”

  His tension seemed to ease with her explanation. “I’m glad you elaborated. For a minute there, I was feeling just a mite taken for granted.”

  She laughed, suddenly giddy. “Not that. Never that.”

  He turned serious. “I’m sorry to say my conscience isn’t as clear as yours.”

  “No? Does that mean you’re taking me for granted?”

  Her lightheartedness pulled a reluctant smile from him. “No. But I took advantage of you.”

  “In what way?”

  “Don’t be naive, Jenn. You’re still my prisoner. I’m in a position of authority. I’ve just crossed the line into unethical conduct.”

  “All depends on your motives. It wasn’t exactly as if I was unwilling.” Big understatement, she added silently, biting her lip. “If you’d hoped to gain something, that would be one thing. But you didn’t. That’s why I made a point of saying that this didn’t change anything.”

  He studied her, his expression impossible to read. Was he angry? Amused by her simplistic logic, perhaps? Or suddenly bored with her?

  “I’ll agree, one physical act, all by itself, doesn’t make a big difference.” he said. “But that doesn’t mean things haven’t changed.”

  “Joe, I think you just contradicted yourself.”

  “So, I’m not making a lot of sense,” he said with a self-deprecating smile. “Tell me something I don’t know.” With that he turned and headed down the trail, leaving her to wonder if she’d said or done something that annoyed him.

  By the time they reached the Connally house, it was dark. Jenn’s leg, which had already been bothering her from all those cramped hours in the car, now ached unmercifully from the unaccustomed exercise, and she had to struggle not to limp.

  Even worse, she felt a colossal case of nerves coming on. If anyone asked where she and Joe had been, she wasn’t sure she could answer with a straight face. She might burst into hysterical laughter, or crumple into anguished tears. Her emotions were very near the surface and so stirred up she couldn’t even identify what she was feeling.

  But no one asked them anything. As she and Joe entered the living room, a crisis was brewing among the children, something to do with the boys cheating the girls during a board game, and Jenn was called on to referee because Cathy was at the center of the controversy and she was crying.

  Jenn never did learn exactly what had happened, but she managed to extract apologies from both sides. A plate of Fran’s chocolate-chip cookies smoothed over the last of the ill feelings.

  “No more cookies,” Jenn said when Cathy reached for her fifth. “I think it’s time for us to hit the sack, don’t you?”

  This suggestion produced a shriek of protest from Jenn’s normally obedient daughter, followed by a temper tantrum the likes of which Jenn hadn’t witnessed from Cathy in at least two years.

  “Definitely time for bed,” Jenn said, flashing an apologetic smile toward Fran. Why was it that children chose to misbehave at the most inopportune times? Jenn started to reach for Cathy, who snatched her hand away to make an escape attempt.

  Fortunately, she fled right into Joe, who scooped her up into a bear hug.

  “What’s all this?” he said, feigning amazement. “Where’d all these tears come from? What’s got you so upset, huh?”

  Cathy responded to his crooning tones by burying her face against his shoulder. Her wails softened to sobs. She clung to his neck, and the two of them looked disturbingly like a father and daughter.

  “I’ll take her,” Jenn said, holding out her arms.

  “She’s too big for you to haul around,” Joe admonished. “I’ll carry her to the bedroom.”

  “I’ve been carrying her around since the day she was born,” Jenn said, though her objection sounded weak even to her. In her present debilitated condition, she probably wouldn’t have been able to lug Cathy’s forty-plus pounds up the stairs.

  “So does that mean you’ll still be carrying her around when she’s twenty-one?” Joe argued good-naturedly as he headed for the stairs. “Say good-night to your new friends, Cathy.”

  Cathy quickly recovering from her brief tantrum, raised her head off Joe’s shoulder long enough to murmur a watery, “’Night.”

  “I’m turning in, too,” Jenn said. “It was nice meeting all of you.”

  The Connallys issued similar pleasantries and goodnights. Jenn felt a genuine warmth and affection coming from all of them, even the kids, and she wondered what it was that made some families, like this one, so happy and well adjusted, while others, like the family of her childhood, were so screwed up.

  Joe led the way into a cozy bedroom off the upstairs hallway with an iron bed similar to the one Cathy had admired at Miss Haskins’s home. Jenn peeled back the wedding-ring quilt and Joe gently deposited Cathy onto the floral sheets. She wasn’t quite asleep, but she would be in another thirty seconds. Jenn saw that their shopping bags had been brought up from the car. She fished out a clean set of pajamas for Cathy and began undressing the sleepy little girt.

  “It’s been a long day for her,” Joe commented. “No wonder she’s cranky.”

  “I guess she’s entitled every once in a while, poor baby,” Jenn said, a touch of sadness in her voice. “How long has it been since she spent the night twice in one place?”

  “I guess some sort of discernible pattern in her life would benefit her a lot,” Joe agreed.

  “Pattern,” Jenn repeated, growing very still. “Oh, that’s it!”

  “What?”

  “Isn’t it funny how you’ll rack your brain trying to remember something, and you can’t, and then hours, maybe days later, the answer just pops into your head when you least expect it?”

  “What are you—”

  “Hank’s last name. It was Patternson, with an ’n.’ Hank J. Patternson. Now I remember! Tammy used to write it all over her schoolbooks, the way a young girl with a crush on a boy will do. ‘Mrs. Hank Patternson. Mrs. Henry J. Patternson. Tammy Patternson.’ Can you do anything with that?”

  “It’s enough to go on,” Joe said with a reassuring nod. “But that’s not any Confederate general’s name that I know of.”

  Jenn shrugged. “Memory is a strange thing.”

  “Well, put that strange memory of yours to work again. What’s the closest you can come to Hank’s date of birth?”

  “Um, he was three years older than Tammy, so nine years older than me. He’d be around thirty-nine or forty.” She felt a tiny pinpoint of hope. “Oh, Joe, do you think it’s really possible to track him down and get some useful information from him?”

  “I can track him down,” Joe said confidently, “unless he’s dead, or he’s gone to great lengths to disguise his identity. As for useful information, that remains to be seen. But he was around when the abuse was going on. Even if Tammy didn’t confide in him, he might have suspected something or heard
stories. It can’t hurt to talk to him.”

  “When will you start?” Jenn asked excitedly.

  “Tonight. All I need is a phone and a computer with a modem, which Zig can provide.”

  “Great. Is there anything else I can do to help? I’m great at phone calls, pretty useless with computers.”

  “Nah, I can handle it. All I need from you is a description of Hank as you remember him.”

  Jenn wasn’t much help there. She recalled an averagelooking boy with glasses and shoulder-length brown hair. He was thin, wore faded bell-bottom jeans and tank shirts, and her stepfather had called him a dirty hippie behind his back and nothing much nicer in front of him.

  “I’ll know something in a few hours,” Joe said confidently. He kissed Cathy on the cheek, then a surprised Jenn on the lips.

  She touched her lips with her fingers, reveling in a feeling of wonder. She hadn’t known how much of their intimacy they would be able to carry over into real life, if any. She’d been afraid to test it, to try Joe’s possibly thin rope of desire for her. But he, apparently, didn’t intend to return to their previous hands-off policy, and she didn’t really want him to. She didn’t know how much time they had left to spend together, and she didn’t want to waste it with doubts and hesitation.

  “Do you think Cathy would like staying here for a few days?” Joe casually asked.

  “Are you kidding? She’d love it.”

  “And how about her mom?”

  “Her mom would love it, too. This is one of the most peaceful places I’ve ever seen, even with that big, boisterous family around. But I don’t want to impose on the Connallys—”

  “It’s okay. I’ve already checked it out with them. Fran says you can help her with her fall garden, and Cathy can keep Fran’s two grandkids busy.”

  The prospect sounded delightful. The last week—in fact, the last six months—had given Jenn a new appreciation for simple pleasures. To plunge her hands into cool, fertile soil once again, to hear her daughter’s laughter or enjoy a glass of lemonade on a front porch—these were the experiences she treasured now, and would remember always.

  She nodded enthusiastically to Joe’s suggestion. “And what will you be doing?”

  “I’ll be...away.”

  “Away?” Jenn’s pleasure evaporated like morning mist off a lake. “Where?”

  “I may need to do some legwork. A voice on the phone isn’t as persuasive as an in-person visit. And if I have to go back to Rhymer, I don’t want to bring you and Cathy with me, not yet. Let Dennis stew awhile longer.”

  “He’s going to be plenty P.O.’d,” Jenn said. “He can’t trace us here, can he?”

  “Only if he makes a really, really lucky guess.”

  Jenn folded her arms. “Let me get this straight. You’re going to leave me and Cathy here, alone, unguarded, while you gallivant around looking for witnesses? Who will you appoint as jailer in your place?”

  He flashed her a bittersweet smile and kissed her cheek, never answering her question. His attitude left her feeling vaguely unsettled.

  A restless night’s sleep didn’t do anything to lay Jenn’s uneasiness to rest. When she got up, she was sure something, somewhere, was out of kilter. She soon found out what it was. When she peeked into Joe’s bedroom, the bed was made and the room was empty. Fran, putting coffee on in the kitchen, confirmed Jenn’s suspicions.

  “Zig took Joe to the bus station early this morning,” she said.

  “The bus station?”

  “He left the car for you and Cathy to use. I told him you could borrow one of our cars any time you want, but he still wanted to take a bus.” She pointed to the Monte Carlo keys, which Joe had left on the kitchen cabinet.

  “Where’d he go?” Jenn asked, trying not to sound too panicky. “When’s he coming back?” As many times as she’d prayed to be free of Joe, now that she was, she felt lost.

  Fran shrugged. “I thought you’d know. This is a surprise, I take it?”

  “Well, no, not exactly. He said he needed a few days to track someone down, someone who can help me, we hope. I just thought he would be a little more specific before he took off.”

  “You know how men are sometimes,” Fran said in a conspiratorial whisper. “When they’re on a mission, nothing’s going to stand in their way. Don’t worry, hon. You and Cathy are more than welcome to stay here until he comes back.”

  “That’s very generous of you, Fran,” Jenn said, stepping over to give her new friend a quick hug.

  “Nonsense. Y’all are a pleasure.”

  As Jenn put a protesting Cathy into the tub a few minutes later, she pondered her newest circumstances. She wasn’t at all satisfied with the way Joe had snuck away before she was awake. She wasn’t sure why he’d done that. She would have liked to wish him good luck, tell him... goodbye?

  That was it. She should have seen it immediately; the message was all too clear. He’d left the car behind so that she and Cathy could disappear again, only this time with his blessings. He wouldn’t chase them down.

  The realization didn’t make her happy at all, which only went to prove how radically things had changed—she had changed—during the last few days. If she went back on the lam, Dennis would simply hire someone else to hunt her down, someone not as ethical as Joe.

  She might have been willing to face that risk, if Joe hadn’t given her a tantalizing glimpse of hope, if she hadn’t started daydreaming about a bright future for her and Cathy, living in her hometown in peace...living with Joe. God help her, she was falling in love with the man.

  Cathy stopped splashing in her bubble bath long enough to look up at her mother. “Mama, why are you sad?”

  Jenn touched her face, surprised to find tears coursing down her cheeks. She cleared her throat. “I’m sad because I miss Joe, I guess,” she said. “Isn’t that silly? A few days ago I couldn’t stand him.”

  “Me, neither,” Cathy said. “Where’d he go?”

  “He’s trying to find someone who can help us, an old friend of Aunt Tammy’s. Remember, I showed you a picture once of my sister, Tammy?”

  Cathy shook her head unconcernedly. Tammy, someone she’d never met, clearly didn’t interest her. She was still pondering Joe’s absence. “When’s he coming back?”

  Jenn shrugged. “He didn’t say.” She took a deep breath. “Cathy, he left us the car keys. He said we can go, any time we want.”

  Her eyes lit up. “You mean we can go home and see Mrs. Valenti again?”

  Jenn hesitated. “No, not back to Seattle.” That would be the first place Dennis would look for her. “We’d have to start again somewhere new.”

  Cathy made a face. “Will Mr. ’Dresi come visit us?”

  Jenn felt tears building behind her eyes again. “No, punkin, I’m afraid not.”

  “Then I don’t want to go,” she said with a definite nod of her head, as if the issue were closed.

  Neither do I, Jenn silently agreed. But it was in their best interest to free themselves, wasn’t it? She couldn’t let a momentary rush of hormones, a falsely placed sense of loyalty, influence a decision that would affect the rest of their lives, could she?

  Joe couldn’t get comfortable in his narrow bus seat. Last night had been the first time in days he’d bedded down without Jenn in sight, and he found that he missed her even more than he’d feared. Putting physical distance between them wasn’t helping matters any. She was constantly in his thoughts.

  His initial efforts to locate Hank Patternson had yielded no results, but the person he really needed to talk to, his contact at the Department of Motor Vehicles, wouldn’t have any answers for him until later today. Still, it appeared on the surface that Hank had moved out of state, which made Joe’s job more difficult.

  He couldn’t guarantee that he could find anyone to help Jenn’s cause. Without a willing ally, Jenn stood a good chance of going to jail, and her daughter to Dennis Palmer.

  The thought nauseated Joe. He couldn‘t—w
ouldn’t—let it happen that way. That’s why he’d handed Jenn and Cathy an escape on a silver platter. She wouldn’t mistake his intention. She would understand exactly why he’d left his car behind. He expected she would take it as far as she needed to go, until she found alternate transportation. Then she would leave it somewhere for him to find, the keys under the mat.

  The possibility that he might not ever see them again left him feeling empty and purposeless. He almost wished he’d let Jenn get away back when she’d tried so hard to make a break for freedom. But then he never would have known the ecstasy of lying with her on a hilltop in the Ozarks, buried deeply inside her, seeing and feeling her first moment of grand passion.

  He still didn’t know if he’d done the right thing by giving in to desire. All he knew was that he’d reached a point where he couldn’t hold back any longer, not when she was so sweetly willing. And that he would never forget those few shared minutes of intimacy for the rest of his life.

  He guessed there was no hope of repeating the experience. By the time he returned to Lake of the Ozarks, she would begone. That didn’t mean he’d given up on her case, though. He intended to follow it through. If he found the evidence she needed to clear her and get full, uncontested custody of Cathy, he would try to track her down again. Even that remote chance of seeing her again picked up his spirits.

  The trees flying by the bus windows were ablaze with fall foliage, but Joe scarcely noticed. He was thinking about the steps he needed to take to find Hank Patternson. He made sporadic scribbles in his notebook, wondering how long the hunt would take him. Sometimes these things resolved themselves in a matter of hours; other times it took days, weeks.

  By the time the bus reached Birmingham, where he had to make a transfer, Joe was bone tired but antsy to be doing something. He had an hour and a half layover. Hell, he might as well put it to good use. He found a pay phone and checked in with Margo Clanahan, a woman from the D.M.V. whom he’d once briefly dated, and who did him favors now and again. He’d already talked to her once today, giving her the information he had on Hank Patternson and asking her to do her damnedest.