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Jesse, Sisters by Design, book 4

By Sharon Srock

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Chapter 1
“Yes!”
Jessica Grey had sixty seconds to revel in the sweetness of accepting Garrett’s Tuesday night proposal of marriage before reality slapped her in the face.
Garrett, his hands holding hers, his thumb tracing the line of the new ring on the third finger of Jesse’s left hand, trailed nibbling kisses from the hollow of her throat, up the sensitive skin of her neck. When he arrived at her mouth with a whispered “I love you,” she gave in to him willingly, sealing their proclamation of love and their plans for the future with a kiss that sent every nerve ending in her body into hyperdrive.
She opened her eyes and stared at him through fogged glasses. “Wow. Where have you been hiding those?”
Garrett’s brows rose, and his blue eyes lit with a hint of wickedness. “All saved up for the future Mrs. Garrett Saxton. Want another?” He didn’t give Jesse a chance to answer before moving in to claim her lips a second time.
Jesse tugged her hands free and let them roam. They traveled up his arms and over his sturdy shoulders before coming to rest on either side of his face and the trim, dark beard that she found incredibly sexy. She pulled away, just a bit, and whispered against his lips. “Garrett, I love—”
“I’m out of here.” The shout had them both backing up.
“That’s right, Walter, tuck your tail between your legs and leave. Heaven forbid you should stick around long enough to actually finish an argument.”
Romance evaporated faster than water left boiling on the stove as Jesse’s parents shouted at each other in the driveway below her apartment. Divine intervention or her parents’ unerring and unfortunate sense of timing? Either way the newly engaged couple eyed each other like guilty teenagers.
“You won’t like me very much if I stick around.”
That from her father, followed closely by her mother’s next volley.
“I already don’t like you.”
Jesse shifted forward on the sofa, ready to stand.
Garrett tightened his grip, holding her in place. “Ignore them.”
Jesse leaned her forehead against his. “I can’t. They’ll have the whole neighborhood awake.” She laid a hand against his cheek. “I know their timing stinks, but it’s probably for the best. We both have work tomorrow and”—she pulled out of his arms and fanned a hand in front of her face— “the heat in here was getting a little too intense.”
She pushed herself out of the corner of the sofa, leaving Garrett to sprawl against the cushions. Jesse straightened her glasses, allowing her gaze to travel from his size-twelve loafers, up his long denim clad legs, and over his broad chest. Her gaze passed the bearded line of his jaw and traveled up to his mane of dark hair. Six feet, two inches of God-loving, hardworking, funny, and very sexy man.
All hers.
So different from the shallow pretty boy Tyson had been.
The unbidden comparison to her first husband sent a shiver down Jesse’s spine. Shallow and pretty, but you loved him. Jesse shoved the acknowledgement and the memory aside. Garrett held her future now, and he was nothing like Tyson. This man valued her dreams as much as he did his own.
“Babe, you’re killing me.”
Garrett’s words jerked her back from unpleasant reflections and refocused her on the present. “We have our whole lives to enjoy each other.” The truth of that sent a bubble of delight straight to her heart. The bubble burst when tires screeched in the driveway.
Jesse closed her eyes. Why did her mom and dad’s decades-long marital battle have to boil over tonight? The logical part of her brain told her they hadn’t…couldn’t have planned it, but it seemed an untimely reminder about the rocky landscape marriage often became.
“This is bad,” she said. “I need to go down there.”
Garrett groaned. “You need to let them figure this out on their own.”
Jesse took no offense at his comment. Her brain actually agreed with him, but her heart rebelled. She’d always been the peacemaker in the family. “Maybe so, but...” She licked her lips. The taste of him lingered there, testing her willpower. “Whatever I do, you still have to go.”
She crossed to the door, retrieved her jacket from the hook on the wall, and held Garrett’s out to him. “Come down with me.”
Garrett shrugged into the jacket. “You know she doesn’t like me, right?”
“Mom?”
His response was a grunt.
“What makes you say that?”
He held up a finger. “The daggers in her eyes when she looks at me.” A second finger came up. “The fact that I’ve never seen her smile.” A third finger joined the first two. “The whole name thing.”
Jesse took his hand and led him down the steps. “I love you, and I’m the one wearing your ring.” She pulled him across the walk and up to the back door of the big house. She gave a quick knock, opened the door, and stuck her head into the kitchen. “Mom.”
Her mother swept into the room. “Jessica, you won’t believe—” She stopped short. “Oh, Gavin. How…nice to see you again. I didn’t realize you’d stopped by for a visit.”
Jesse rolled her eyes. Garrett’s car was parked in the drive, the same drive where World War III had just occurred. Why tonight. She slid her left hand casually behind her back. This probably wasn’t the best time to share the news of her engagement.
She shrugged out of her coat and draped it over the nearest bar stool. “Garrett was just leaving. He came with me to make sure you were OK.”
“I’m fine.”
“Are you sure? What we heard sounded pretty ugly.”
Her mother dabbed at her eyes with a crumpled tissue and turned her attention to Garrett. “I appreciate your concern, Greyson. I know you’ll understand that Jessica and I need to have a conversation…privately.”
Jesse narrowed her eyes at her mom’s abrupt dismissal and her refusal to get his name right, but Garrett held up a hand. “Not at all, Mrs. Cooper—”
“Now what have I told you?” Mom asked, her hands fisted on her hips.
“Not at all, Mavis,” he corrected, using her first name. Her actual name. Jesse wouldn’t have balked if he’d called her Mabel or Marybell in protest, but Garrett was far too polite to pull a stunt like that.
“So good of you to understand.” She turned her back and her attention away from Garrett. “I need coffee.”
Jesse frowned at her. “It’s almost ten-thirty at night.”
“No worries,” Mom headed for the coffee maker. The words that followed carried a small dramatic tremor. “I’m much too upset to sleep.”
Garrett grabbed Jesse’s hand and pulled her onto the small back porch. The cold produced an immediate shiver, but he wrapped her in his arms, and she relaxed against the warmth of his chest.
“What did I tell you?” His voice was rumbly and amused in her ear. “Gavin…Greyson. She hates me.”
“I don’t think she hates you, but she’s driving me crazy. I should never have let them talk me into taking this apartment, no matter how much money it saves me.”
“Think of it as incentive.”
Jesse tipped her head back and peered up at him.
He waggled his eyebrows. “Short engagement.” He dropped a kiss on her nose. “I’ve got all that space just waiting for you to come make it yours. Space fifteen miles away from your parents instead of just across the driveway.”
“Tomorrow?” she asked hopefully.
He laughed. “I wish. Call me in the morning?”
“You got it, and I’m sorry you got dragged into this.”
“Not your fault.” He put enough space between them so that he could hold Jesse’s left hand and the new engagement ring to his chest. “We’re going to be a family. That means we have to learn to deal with the good as well as the bad.”
His words melted her heart. Despite her disastrous six-month marriage to Tyson Grey and the unhealthy example her parents often exposed her to, Jesse wanted to believe that there were more positives than negatives to marriage. She wanted to find those positives with Garrett.
“Thanks for that. I know they love each other, they just aren’t good at showing it sometimes.” Something rattled loudly from inside the kitchen, a not so subtle hint that her mother awaited her undivided attention. “You better go.”
He bent and covered her lips with his before reaching around and unlatching the door. “Call me if you need me.”
“I will.” Jesse stepped back into the warmth of the kitchen, closed the door, and leaned against it, rubbing the goose bumps from her exposed arms. “OK, Mom. I’m all yours.”
“Did your young man finally leave?”
Jesse studied her mother. She doesn’t like me. She frowned when Garrett’s words replayed in her mind. One thing at a time. “What did Daddy do this time?” she asked with a small sigh.
Mom set a cup of coffee and a mug of hot chocolate on the table and took a seat. “Well, I can certainly hear the concern in your voice.” She took a hesitant sip of the coffee. “Go on home, I’ll be fine.”
Jesse raised a hand. “Sorry…I’m sorry. You caught me at a bad time. Now tell me what happened.”
“Your father is an impossible man.”
“According to you, he’s been impossible for more than three decades. What’s different about tonight?”
Her mom started to stand, and Jesse laid a hand on her arm. “Mom, I’m not trying to be sarcastic, just stating a fact. You and Daddy have been bickering and sniping at each other my whole life. The only times I’ve seen you guys even remotely on the same page was when Dane got into trouble and when Tyson…” Jesse looked away, swallowed, and let the word hang.
“We aren’t going to talk about Tyson Grey…tonight or ever.” Mom laced her fingers with Jesse’s and gasped.
Uh-oh.
Her mother turned Jesse’s hand over and examined the ring. “Oh, baby. You can’t be serious. Cabot—”
Jesse yanked her hand free. “Garrett, Mom. His name is Garrett.”
She dismissed her daughter’s frustration with a wave. “Whatever. Tell me you aren’t considering tying yourself down to another man.”
“I love him.”
“I’ll tell you the same thing I told you the last time you dragged home an abandoned kitten. They’re sweet when they’re new, but the new wears off, and then they’re more trouble than they’re worth.”
“Garrett is not a kitten.”
“Still applies.” Her mother sighed. “Sweetheart, I only want what’s best for you. You have a secure job that you enjoy. You’ve almost saved enough for the down payment on that house you want. Why do you want to complicate your life? Marriage—”
“Can we stay on track? What did Daddy do tonight?”
“Fine.” Mom shoved away from the table. “He laughed at me.”
“About what?”
She paced. “The last few months have been so tedious.”
“Since you retired?”
“Exactly. I should never have taken the early retirement option.” She faced her daughter. “I started that job straight out of high school, way before I met your father. All the years raising you and Dane, I worked. It was fulfilling, it provided a wonderful second income, and it gave you kids opportunities you might have missed otherwise. Especially in the early years when your father was working to get the pharmacy in the black. In spite of that it’s always been a bone of contention between your father and me. With each pregnancy, he tried to get me to quit. When I miscarried between you and Dane, he blamed it on the pressures of the job. When Dane got into trouble in high school, your father pointed at my job. If I’d been a stay-at-home mom, maybe our son wouldn’t be so out of control. When you got married so young and Tyson…” Mom stopped herself and hurried on. “Well, if I’d spent more time raising my daughter, maybe she wouldn’t have been in such a hurry to marry the first idiot who proposed to her.” Mom waved a hand. “The list goes on and on.” She stopped mid-stride and rubbed at her temples. “I love your father, but it doesn’t keep me from disliking him sometimes.”
She came back to the table. “So when they offered that early retirement, I thought, why not? Now that you guys are grown, we don’t need the money, and maybe the job has been part of the problem for all these years. Maybe if I took the time to be a housewife for the first time in my life, I could make things better between us.”
“Not so much?” Jesse asked.
“Not even a little. I’m bored out of my mind. You and Dane have lives of your own. Your dad still works all day. All of my friends have jobs. The house is spotless, daytime TV is a joke, and if I keep making shopping my hobby, I’ll need to go back to work.”
Her mom picked up her coffee, sipped, frowned, and pushed it aside. “I’m sixty years old, and I have no purpose.”
“That’s not true.”
“It feels like it is.”
Jesse leaned back and studied her mother. “So, what do you want to do to fix it?”
“I want to go back to school.”
“I think that’s a great idea. Did you tell all this to Daddy?”
“I did.”
“What did he say?”
“I already told you. He laughed at me.” Her mother stood and paced away a second time. Agitation rolled off her in waves. “I told him I wanted to get my teaching certificate, and he busted up. He made jokes about me being the oldest student in class.” She deepened her voice and continued, “You’ll be sixty-four when you graduate. People don’t start new careers at that age.” She swung around. “Maybe not, but if going back to school makes me happy, why shouldn’t I try? What difference does it make to him? He’s gone all day anyway.”
“I’m sure he didn’t mean it the way you took it.”
Jesse watched her mother’s shoulders droop. She swallowed. She hadn’t meant to sound like she was taking Daddy’s side, but Mom could be quite the martyr when it suited her purposes. “And now I’ve hurt your feelings.”
“No.” The single word was a lie, and they both knew it. “Always Daddy’s girl.”
The words were barely a whisper, but Jesse heard them.
Mom put her cup in the sink and stepped to the back door. “It’s late. We can talk about this tomorrow.”
Jesse drained her lukewarm cocoa, reached for her jacket, and joined her mother. “You know I love you both, right?”
Mom cupped her cheek. “You’re a good girl, Jessica.”
Jesse met her mother’s gaze. “Get some rest. Things will look better in the morning.”
Mom gave her a half smile and shooed Jesse out of the house.
Jesse hesitated on the small step and leaned her head against the closed door. “Father,” she began in a whisper. “I know I’ve asked You hundreds of times over the years to heal what’s broken between Mom and Daddy. I’m asking again.” She paused and twisted the new ring on her finger. “I really feel like You’ve brought Garrett and me together. I’m thankful, but it’s still a little scary. I’m sorry if asking for a positive change in my parents’ marriage sounds a little selfish. I don’t mean it that way, not entirely. But I’d sure rest a lot easier if I knew You had good things for them in the future.”

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