No, thanks. There would be no Cinderella story here. She could save her own damn self, and Davey, too.
And she had. It took her nine years, but she got her master’s in marketing. She had a fantastic job with Blue Heron now, something she couldn’t have called five years ago, working for the family that had once brought her hand-me-downs.
She had a decent place to live. Her brother was stable and doing well with his job, packing boxes at Keuka Candles. She was practically respectable now. The last hurdle would be owning her own house, and that was only a year, maybe fifteen months, away. She was planning to buy a place in the Village, a place that seemed as magical to her as Narnia, the sweet Victorians spreading out from the town’s tiny green, views of Keuka Lake from every street. It would happen on her own terms, because Jessica had learned a hundred times that she was the only one she could count on.
Three years ago, after her mom had been gone awhile, and Davey had finally seemed to adjust, Connor and Jess had a week together, their shortest stint yet. Her appendix ruptured on the eighth day, and it was ugly. Full-blown peritonitis and everything, because that was the way things seemed to go for the Dunn family.
When the nurse had told her that Connor was there to see her, she said no. What if Davey came in? He was upset enough, terrified that she would die, and the fact that Connor was probably a little terrified, too...well, she just couldn’t take it. They didn’t have an ICU kind of relationship. It would make things seem more solidified than they were.
Her emergency drove home the fact that she had to find a conservator for Davey, and as soon as she was out of the hospital, she started talking to lawyers and trying to find someone who could be his guardian just in case. All those years, and it had never occurred to her that she could die and Davey would be alone.
Connor didn’t even bother coming over after that one. He didn’t have to. Being turned away in the ICU... Sorry, your name is not on the list... She’d been pretty clear.
And still he was nice to her. Still she came home to a fridge full of food, a packed freezer and clean sheets on her bed and Davey’s, too.
This last time she and Connor had started seeing each other, it was because of a sneak attack at his sister’s wedding. For months before, she’d suspected he’d been dating someone, and she’d been so, so careful not to let it bother her. He deserved a great relationship. A full, normal relationship with a woman who didn’t have conditions and rules and a stunted ability to trust. She hadn’t gone back to him in all that time, because she hadn’t wanted to leave him again.
Colleen and Lucas’s wedding day last fall had been perfect—a sunny and beautiful day, a huge tent in a meadow, and good old Colleen, who’d always been nice to Jess (and had a bit of a reputation herself, though not quite as nasty as Jessica’s) had been so happy.
And there was Connor, doing his shtick as single brother of the bride, dancing with everyone from Carol Robinson to Paulie Petrosinsky to his mother.
He hadn’t brought a date.
And then he asked Jessica to dance, too, and she said yes, because it was the Chicken Dance and nothing romantic, and it had been fun.
She pretended her heart wasn’t stuttering and that he was just an old friend from high school, the guy who made the best burgers in the state of New York, the charming brother of the bride who made everyone cry with his speech.
When they were done flapping wings and twisting and clucking, he’d smiled, thanked her and then said, “I miss you.”
How was a woman supposed to handle that? Huh? For the rest of the wedding, it felt like bees were humming under her skin, and it was hard to remember how to breathe.
She ended up at his house that night. The second Davey was asleep, she asked Gerard if he could watch Davey overnight. The second he got there, she took off for Connor’s. He opened the door, and she pretty much devoured him right there in the front hall. Not that he minded.
And afterward, with her dress lying in a puddle and her panties MIA, she spelled out exactly how it could and couldn’t be. Again.
Three people knew about her on-again, off-again thing with Connor, three rather unlikely people. Gerard, her old buddy from the fire department. They’d slept together once in high school; Gerard had been on the football team, a big, strong guy, and a nice guy, too. Just one hookup, in his car at the edge of the soccer field, and he’d been her friend ever since. Looked out for Davey, too.
Gerard had always been her go-to guy for babysitting, physically big enough to handle her brother if he went into one of his rages, nice enough that Davey really liked him. The fire trucks didn’t hurt. So he knew, because he had to know, since he was the one who kept Davey company on pizza nights. Ricky was the other person. He didn’t mind doing a few hours of baby-monitor listening at night, either.
It worked. In the almost seven months since Colleen’s wedding, it worked.
And then wham, Connor got down on one knee. Held up a ring, for the love of God.
Why did he have to do that? It ruined everything. And it hadn’t been easy, sitting there, pretending to be casual and...and...calm, not when he was rocking her world, and most definitely not in the good way. More like he was taking a baseball bat to her world.
Once or twice a week had been safe.
Marriage... God, no! The thrill of their illicit relationship would wear off, and he’d think Why did I want to marry her again? and then, just assuming they somehow pulled off a miracle and Davey wasn’t an issue...then Connor would leave her. And she’d be worse than Jessica Does. She’d be Jessica Was, as in Jessica was married to Connor O’Rourke, but obviously, he moved on.
There were times when what she felt for Connor was so...big...it was a terrifying. Times when they were in bed and his hands were on her. When he smiled, and she felt it in her bloodstream, in her lungs and stomach and bone marrow. When he said her name in that soft growl, when he just appeared at her door at one in the morning, when he looked at her on Wednesday nights at O’Rourke’s, and there was that hard, almost painful pulse between them that no one else could see or feel.
It was almost too much. Anything else, anything more, was just not possible.
* * *
JESS LIKED TO get to Blue Heron about an hour before anyone else. Davey got on the bus to the candle factory where he worked every morning at 7:45, so she was generally at the vineyard just before eight.
And this morning, after the weekend she’d had, she could use the quiet time to get her head straight.
The beautiful April day did little to brighten Jessica’s mood as she drove to work. The apple trees were starting to bloom, the air infused with a hint of grapes, and Keuka, called Crooked Lake because of its odd shape, winked blue in the distance. The Holland land stretched from the lake all the way up to the ridge, hundreds of acres of farm, field and forest, and right in the center, the compound—the barns where the grapes were turned into wine, and the big, graceful post-and-beam tasting room, which also housed the gift shop and the corporate offices.
A few hundred yards away was the Holland residence, where Honor, Jess’s boss, lived. Mr. Holland, Honor’s dad, and his wife lived over the garage, and way up on the ridge was Jack and Emmaline Holland’s house, only visible if the sun hit the windows just right, almost camouflaged up there. Across the field and through the woods was another Blue Heron structure—the old stone barn that had been renovated two years ago and turned into an extraordinarily popular wedding venue.