The Sweethearts’ Knitting Club (16 page)

“Who wouldn’t?”

“I took him some cranberry walnut muffins.”

“Well, of course you make the best cranberry walnut muffins in Twilight.”

“Thank you. Anyway, I walked right in, and let me tell you, girl, you could have knocked me over with a feather. Jesse’s right eye was swelling shut and his bottom lip was cut and bleeding.”

“My heavens!”

“I’m telling you, I’m pretty sure Beau smacked him a good one. I asked Jesse what happened, but he claimed he ran into the door. Ran into the door, my left foot! Let me tell you, something’s going on between those two.”

“You suppose it has anything to do with Flynn
MacGregor? She finally accepted Beau’s ring, but I’ve seen the way Jesse looks at her. That man’s in love.”

“Or serious lust.”

“He
has
been ten years in prison. That’s got to put the starch in a man’s jeans.”

“Penelope! You naughty thing.”

“I’m just saying. Ten years without s-e-x…” She spelled it out.

Vida Lewis and Penelope Cantrell, two of the busiest busybodies in Twilight, stood gossiping at the fabric counter at Wal-Mart, while the checkout clerk flipped a bolt of forest green corduroy and measured off a yard. Flynn could only assume that the women didn’t see her perusing the yarn and knitting selections a few feet over. Either that or they
wanted
her to overhear their pernicious gossip.

She had the urge to give the old biddies a piece of her mind, but she held her tongue and slipped out through the automotive center where she’d been having the oil changed in her pickup. No sense in giving them added fuel to the fires of their rumor-mongering.

However, their conversation dug right down into her brain. Had Beau gotten into a fistfight with Jesse?

Over her?

But how could he? Beau was at his law enforcement convention in Dallas.

Or was he? Had Beau somehow found out that she had kissed Jesse and come home early? Shame burrowed into her head, snuggled up tight next to Vida and Penelope’s tittle-tattle. She’d cheated on Beau.

Her fingers fumbled the debit card as she paid
for the oil change. She was shaking so much she had to slide the card through twice before it was accepted. But it was only when she was in the Ford Ranger and flew past the cutoff that she took every single day of her life that Flynn realized just how upset she was.

After circling back, she took her exit and drove to the town square. She found a parking spot not far from the theater and didn’t even take the time to feed the parking meter. Flynn sprinted around the back of the building—the front entrance was still boarded up with plywood—and dashed inside.

“Jesse!” she called.

Her voice echoed back to her in the empty, high-ceilinged room.

Jesse…Jesse…Jesse.

And then she saw it. Two drops of bright red blood spatter in the middle of the cement floor. Her body went at once icy cold and red-hot livid, and she knew what Vida and Penelope had said was true. Beau had beaten Jesse. She spun around, saw Jesse in the doorway, a cardboard box in his arms. The sun was behind him so she couldn’t see his face.

“Fancy meeting you here, Dimples.”

“Jesse.” Flynn breathed and rushed across the room toward him. She stopped when she saw his face and raised a trembling hand to her lips. “Omigod.”

“It’s not as bad as it looks.” He tried to grin, but only one side of his mouth crooked upward.

“Beau did this to you?”

“Who told you that?”

“Vida Lewis and Penelope Cantrell.”

“Those two busybodies?” He shrugged and stepped across the threshold and then balanced the cardboard box between a pair of parallel sawhorses. “When did you start listening to anything they had to say?”

“You’re telling me that Beau didn’t have anything to do with this? Oh, your poor eye.” His right eye was almost completely swollen shut. She raised a hand toward him. “And your lip!”

Jesse flinched, stepped back.

“I wasn’t going to touch your face.”

“Sorry, reflex.”

“It looks horrible.”

“No big deal. I’ve had much worse.”

“It
was
Beau, wasn’t it?”

“I ran into an immovable object.”

“And would that immovable object be six-foot-four with a fist like a bowling ball?”

“Bowling ball?”

“Figure of speech. Why are you protecting him?”

“I’m not protecting him, I’m protecting me. I have no desire to go back to Huntsville. Your fiancé is the one with all the power.”

“So he did hit you.”

“Look, I’ve got work to do…”

“Were you fighting over me? Did he find out that—”

“Cute as you are, Dimples, it’s not always about you.”

That irritated her. She sank her hands on her hips. “Are you trying to piss me off?”

“Hey, you’re responsible for your own emotions.”

“You don’t want me to care if you got your face bashed in? Fine, I don’t care.” She snorted out a
breath of frustration, turned her head. Men. Stubborn as hell, all of them.

“Liar.”

“What?” She whipped her head back around.

“You care.”

“Okay, I care, but for the life of me, I don’t know why.”

He grinned at her as best he could through the swollen eye and busted lip. “Because I’m simply irresistible.”

“Yeah, keep telling yourself that.” She slung the strap of her purse up onto her shoulder and stalked toward the door.

“Hey, Dimples, where you going?”

“I’ve got an immovable object to budge.”

Flynn marched from the theater across the street to the sheriff’s office. “Where is he, Madge?” she asked of the dispatcher seated inside the protective cage at the front desk.

“He’s in his office.”

“Buzz me in.”

“Sure.” Madge hit the buzzer underneath her desk that unlocked the door from the lobby to the back offices. Flynn pushed her way through and barreled into his office.

“Flynn,” Beau said. “This is a nice surprise. I’ve been calling around to caterers for the wedding and—”

“Stop!” she commanded.

He blinked at her. “What’s wrong? Something’s happened. What’s happened?”

“You, you’re what’s happened. Why aren’t you in Dallas?”

“They switched the time of my speech. I gave it last night, came back home early to be with you.” He pushed back from his chair, came toward her, an expression of confused tolerance on his face. “You’re upset.”

“Don’t patronize me.” She raised both her palms, took a step back. “And don’t touch me.”

“I don’t understand. What’s going on?”

She slipped his ring off her finger, held it out to him. “I came by to give you this.”

“What? Is something wrong with the ring? Isn’t it big enough?” he asked.

“Don’t play dumb. I know what you did and I’m breaking up with you, Beau.”

He looked like she’d socked
him
in the jaw. “Wh—wha—” he stammered. “Haven’t I been good to you? Haven’t I been patient and understanding and—”

“You beat up Jesse Calloway.”

The guilty look on his face said it all. “He’s a convicted criminal, Flynn. Don’t believe everything he tells you.”

“Jesse never mentioned your name. He even denied you beat him up, but I know it was you. He’s served his time, Beau. He’s paid his dues. He has a right to live his life in peace. Why are you harassing him?”

“You’ve always had the hots for him, admit it,” Beau said. “Secretly you’re attracted to riffraff.”

Flynn hardened her jaw. “Take this ring right now before I throw it in your face.”

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that, but I love you so much, Flynnie…”

“You’ve got a stupid way of showing it, Beau
Trainer.” Rage and hurt burned her throat with unshed tears. She wasn’t about to let him make her cry.

“You’re my best friend.”

“No, I’m not. You treat me like I’m your possession. Like you’re a dog and I’m your bone.”

“That’s not true.”

“Then why did you beat up Jesse? He can’t fight you, Beau. He knows he’ll go back to prison if he does. And you know it too. You were trying to get him to fight with you. Admit it. You’re gunning for him.”

“Why are you so hung up on Calloway?”

“Beau, you busted up his face!”

“I know what it is, you’ve got this need to fix everyone, and I’m not broken so you go looking to fill that need somewhere else. But you can’t fix someone like Jesse Calloway.”

“You’re not broken? Excuse me, Beau Trainer, that gun at your hip doesn’t make you superhuman. Nor does that Eagle Scout badge in your top dresser drawer. It’s all just a cover because deep down inside you’re nothing but a bully, just like your old man.”

Beau’s sharp intake of breath told her that she’d stepped over the line. Not only had she crossed the line, but it wasn’t really true. Yes, Beau might have bullied Jesse, but that wasn’t his basic nature. That was what made this all so unbelievable.

“I can’t believe you’re siding with this scumbag over your husband-to-be.”

“You’re no longer my fiancé.” She tossed the ring on his desk. “I’m sorry, Beau, it’s over. And this time I mean it.”

His face shifted, he was trying to be rational, to get his emotions under control, but she could see the pain in his eyes. “We’ve been together for ten years, Flynn.”

“We were together because it was easy for us both, not because we’re right for each other. If we were truly meant to be, we wouldn’t have allowed circumstances to stop us from getting married.”

“You were the one dragging your feet, and now I figure out it’s because you’ve been mooning over a convict for ten years.”

“That’s ridiculous. I wasn’t mooning over Jesse. I was taking care of my dying mother and trying to keep my family from falling apart.”

His graze drilled into hers. “Is it ridiculous?”

She made a derisive noise, but her stomach roiled. “Yes it is. I’ve never even dated Jesse.”

Not officially
.

“I saw you.” He’d gotten his emotions under control. His face was marble now, impassive, cold. That immovable object.

“What are you talking about?”

“I saw you and Jesse last night. Underneath the Sweetheart Tree. Do you have any idea how that made me feel?” He went on in a voice so empty it chilled her to the bone. “You were mine, and when my back was turned you—”

“It was just a kiss.”

“Don’t give me that,” he said harshly.

“It didn’t go any further. I didn’t cheat on you.”

“Maybe you didn’t screw him, but you cheated on me just the same. In your heart, and you know what? That’s worse.”

She could feel his distress. It hurt, knowing she
was hurting him. She hoped he didn’t touch her. If he touched her, she feared she’d break into a million fragile pieces. “How is that worse?” she whispered.

“Pretending to love me when you wanted to be with him.”

“Beau, I didn’t pretend.”

“Then if you love me, why are you breaking up with me?” He looked so sad.

It was her instinct to wrap her arms around him to comfort him. She hated to see people suffer. But she didn’t want him to misinterpret the gesture. “Leave Jesse Calloway out of the equation. You and I, we’re really too much alike to be a good fit.”

“It took you ten years to realize this?”

“No, I just kept telling myself it was enough that you were a good person, that you cared about me and I cared about you. But Beau, it isn’t enough. Not for me and not for you. The truth is you deserve someone who is wildly, madly, deeply in love with you. You deserve the woman who would have said yes the first time you asked her to marry you, circumstances and complications be damned.”

“You’re just upset.”

“I’m upset with you, yes. But it’s more than that. Why are you willing to settle for something less than you deserve?”

“I deserve you.”

“You’re attached to the idea of me.”

“You’re the one I want.”

“I’m sorry, Beau, no. It’s over.” Then marshalling every bit of courage she possessed, Flynn turned and walked away.

For the next couple of days, all over town, Flynn imagined she heard the whispers.

“I heard she threw over the sheriff for that convict.”

“You know how women act stupid over bad boys.”

“Such a fool, Beau treated her like a queen.”

“I thought Flynn had more sense than that.”

“Her mother would be so ashamed.”

That last one hurt the most, even if it was just conjured up by her own mind, because Flynn knew it was true. Her mother would be ashamed of the way she’d behaved. Why had she done it? What was this dark sway Jesse held over her?

She knew what her mother would say, because she’d heard her say it before. “Jesse Calloway is bad news, Flynn. I don’t want to judge, because heaven knows I’ve made my own mistakes, but his mother died of a drug overdose. No one has any idea who his father was. He ran away from foster homes. No telling what all he’s suffered. The boy’s emotionally damaged. Even his Aunt Patsy admits he’s troubled.”

“But Mama,” she’d murmured. “You don’t know him like I do. Yes, he’s got a tough outer shell, but that’s just to protect himself. Doesn’t Jesse deserve a chance?”

“Certainly, but you don’t have to be the one to give it to him.”

The truth was, Flynn didn’t know if her feelings for Jesse were real or if he was just the catalyst she’d needed to break her engagement to Beau. Maybe her feelings for Jesse were nothing more than a desire to toy with the forbidden. She’d been good
for so long, was he merely an excuse to indulge the bad-girl side she’d always struggled to deny? Was she making a big mistake? Was he just using her to humiliate his nemesis, Beau?

But no, you couldn’t fake a kiss like the one he’d given her on his birthday underneath the Sweetheart Tree. The man wanted her. She had no doubts about that. And she wanted him.

He’s been in prison for ten years. At this point he’d take a blow-up doll.

“It’s Jesse,” she murmured to herself. “He’s not like that…he’s…he’s…”

What? The man who could ruin her reputation in the town that meant so much to her. Flynn was a people person. Being with Jesse could damage her standing in the community. Did she really want to risk everything that was important to her for the promise of great sex?