Chapter 1

She had pink hair. Pink hair! Not my type. Not my type, at all. I’ve walked by thousands of pink haired girls before. Austin, San Francisco, Denver, New York City, Portland, Seattle, San Diego, any number of places where pink hair is or was in vogue and I never took a second glance. But the look on her face and her eyes, her bright blue eyes ... The kind I haven’t seen since the last time I saw that Meg Foster lady on the cop show years ago. She was Cagney for a while, I think. Oh, my Lord. This little girl’s eyes were captivating. Her lips made for a little cupid’s bow and her nose ... Her nose was the cutest. Her freckles set the whole look off. Jesus, she was pretty!

I can’t believe, at my age, thirty-three, last May, I had fallen in love at first sight with this young girl. She called her supervisor over to check the beer out after she had done the rest of my loot. She was new in town. She had to be. I hadn’t been in for several weeks, but I shopped there quite often and hadn’t seen her there, or anywhere else around town. It’s not a big town.

She was so damned cute, though. I thought about her quite a bit, fantasizing as men do. You know, the usual. Can she cook, does she like cats, when she washes a car, does she get under the door handles ... The important things a guy thinks about as they fantasize about a woman they’ve seen. (Smiley face emoticon would go here about now, or maybe the grinning one.)

A few days later, I was short on beer again, it happens quite often, and just before closing time I made it through the doors. I grabbed some chips, and the beer, then I went through her line again, this time on purpose, knowing we’d have to wait for Diana to come over and ring the beer through.

“New in town?” I asked her.

“Sorta. My mom’s lived here for ages. I’ve been away at school. Just moved back.”

“Your mom, huh? What’s her name?”

“Justine Perry.” I knew her. Not well, but I knew her.

“And yours?”

“Jessie Tillotson. Jessica Tillotson.”

Justine Tillotson was her mother. It made more sense now. “Well, Jessie Tillotson, Jessica Tillotson, I’m pleased to meet you. I’m Charlie Cantley. Charles Cantley. I come in a lot, so I’ll probably see you once in a while.”

“Yeah, prob’ly.” She looked up and I got a bit of a smile.

Diana came over and rang the beer up then pushed it down the checkout stand to me. She looked at me with a grin. Probably knew what I was up to.

“Stop harassing the hired help, Mr. Cantley. It’s hard enough to keep these kids working without you harassing them or running them off.” She laughed. Diana and I graduated from school together not six hundred yards from where we were all standing.

After I was checked out, I talked to Diana for a bit. We didn’t spend much time doing that, normally. Her husband and I were high school football teammates and friends, still are, friends that is, but she and I were never in the same cliques back then. She was a smart track star and I was a dumb football player. Early in school, maybe I showed some interest, but she had other things to do. We had friends in common and became closer as time went on. She’s married and has a couple of kids. I never did marry. I thought about it a couple of times, but women like Diana were few and far between, and I never found one of my own. Not one I wanted to be with the third time, anyway. With one exception, but she evidently didn’t want to be around me the third time. I still think of her, but Dear John letters being what they are ... Oh, well.

I saw the lights start to come down, apologized for keeping her and was told not to by Diana. “Don’t apologize,” she said. She didn’t mind catching up and it was nice to talk to an adult now and again, she told me. She ran the front of the store, almost all high school kids, then went home to her kids while her husband was out driving around our beautiful country hauling whatever they wanted him to haul that week. They farmed part time and worked regular jobs, like most small family farmers did those days.

I left out the doors for my truck and saw Jessie under the hood of her car. She looked at me as I approached, and I saw a tear track running down her face.

“Can I give you a hand, Miss Jessica?” She shrugged, a dejected look forming. “Look, hon, nothing is that bad. What’s it doing?”

“Won’t start. Just clicks.”

I twisted the terminals on the battery. They were loose. “Hang on a second, hon.” I went to my truck, grabbed a little Crescent wrench I carry just for special occasions, pulled the terminals off, scraped the insides with my trusty pocket knife, and put them back on, tapping them and tightening them. “Try it now.”

The car started. I let the hood down and latched it, making sure it was down good. She rolled her window down to thank me, then I warned her, “That may be a temporary fix. Keep an eye on the battery. If those came loose, it’s probably been around a while and could use some TLC, or a replacement.”

“OK, sir. Thank you. Not many nice people around here. I’m glad I ran into one of them tonight.”

“Doll, this town is full of nice people. Smile at them once in a while and they’ll come around. Pink hair and all. By the way, if anyone tells you you’re very pretty and your eyes are gorgeous, they’re NOT lying to you. You have a good night, Jessie, and I hope to see you around. I really do.”

“Likewise, Mr. Cantley.”

“Call me Charlie, Jessie. Just call me Charlie, for now.”

“OK. Likewise, Charlie. Thank you again. I need to get home to Momma.” She smiled, let the clutch out, and off she went. Oh, she drives a stick. Good to know.

Again, I spent the night wondering if she liked cats, whether she ate leftovers, how she liked her steak cooked, and other very important details such as that.

I made sure I went to the store in the evenings after school, since I had a feeling Diana was telling me that Jessie was one of those that were still trudging through that part of life. I tried to make conversation with her each time I went, asking her about school, after school, if she did anything besides work and the like. Yes, I was trying to make more than just conversation. I was trying to make time. Sorry. Sue me. I was infatuated with this girl, at the very least. Probably more.

“Mr. Cantley?” I scowled at her. “OK, Charlie. Is that better?” I nodded. “Charlie, are you a stalker or anything like that?”

“No, Jessie, I’m just enthralled by your eyes. Your face, your smile, your ... Jessie, I think you’re gorgeous. I’m not going to apologize.”

“I’m not asking you to. I asked my mother about you. Uhtt. Wait over there for a sec, please, I have another customer.” She rang up the person behind me, then had a minute or two, as no one was in line. “I asked her about you, and the only things she said were that she thought you were too old for me and you were one of the most respected men in town. I don’t think you’re too old for me. I think the boys in that school over there are too young for me. In any case, I want to know what you think.”

“I think your mother may be right, but I hope not. I hope you are. I’m not a crook,” I told her in my funny Nixon-like voice, “and I have some friends around here. The rest of that you’ll have to ask other people about. I’ve never been told that, and never heard that about myself directly. If it’s true, and you get more indications that it’s true, would you go out to dinner with me sometime? If I can talk your mother into it? I think I’d like that, myself.”

“Yes. Write your number on this.” She hit a button on the register, and it put out about four inches of blank receipt paper. I wrote the number down and handed it to her. She stuck it in the pocket of her little black miniskirt. “I’ll call when I get done with my homework tonight. I hope you don’t go down too early.” She smiled at me.

“No, I’ll wait to go down until after we talk. I’ll be up, I mean.” I returned her smile, turning beet red, causing her to giggle, and walked out. Flustered. That didn’t happen often, but it did happen now and again. That was a now when it happened again. I couldn’t believe she got me. I did, I turned red as a beet.

I was watching the news with Buster in my lap, his tail swishing back and forth on my stomach. He knew exactly what he was doing, so I scratched around his ears, neck, and back. He quit swishing. About five minutes after I quit scratching, he started swishing. That went on until about ten fifteen when the phone rang.

“Cantley.”

“Charlie, it’s Jessie. Jessie Tillotson. Momma said she didn’t mind if I call, but she’ll want to talk to you before we’re out together. She’ll probably tell you about my past, and why I’m here in town instead of still at boarding school, and similar other things, but I think if you put down a sizable deposit, in cash money and dark chocolate, she won’t mind too much. My mother is a year or two younger than you, Charlie. She graduated the year after you did, but not from this school. She kind of had to move. My grandparents weren’t happy. She said you probably wouldn’t remember her. In any case, you all can talk, and if you still want to see me, I’d love to ask you out for dinner, then have you pay for it. Sound good?”

“Yes. When?”

“When you pay for my dinner, or when you talk to Mom?”

“Shock me and prove you can multi-task. Try to answer both questions for me.”

“You’re cute. I’m off Friday night. The store likes to have the kids at the football games, so the older folks without kids playing work on Friday nights. Either that or Sunday. I’m off Sundays, too. It’s totally up to you. The Momma discussion thing is up to you, but she’s home all the time. She’s still able to work from home, for now, so it’s working out pretty well and keeping her occupied. Call her first. She’s in the book, but you know that. She says you know her, or of her, at least.”

“That’s true. We’ve seen each other around. Jessie?”

“Yes, Charlie?”

“Thank you for calling.”

“Thank you for giving me your number and then answering. This may be hard to believe, Charlie, but over the last month or so, I’ve come to think you are the only decent man I’ve met in the last four years. I’ll tell you more later, and Mom, I’m sure will tell you enough about me to make you think twice, but I think you’re a peach, and I’d like to get to know you better. Away from the register. Giving money to a woman to talk to her is not really the ideal way to meet them. Wouldn’t you agree?” She giggled.

My bow rose, my stern broke the surface, falling under, slowly, slowly down, down ... I was sunk.

“Yes. I see your point. Money changing hands in order for a man to spend time with the woman of his dreams and fantasies could be problematic.” She giggled again. Glurb, glurb, glurb, the bubbles rose to the surface as Charlie Cantley sank to the bottom of the lake of love.

“Good. Talk to Mom. I’ll see you soon, I hope. You know where to find me. Goodnight, Charlie. Thank you, again.”

“Thank you, Jessie. Talk soon.” Click. She ended the call.

Sleep came a bit late. I was thinking more about the mystery behind the call but decided not to lose any more sleep than I had to. Just before I fell asleep, though, I remember asking myself what could be bad enough, serious enough, that I would choose not to see this beautiful creature, especially if she, too, desired it. The only thing I could come up with was, ‘nothing’.

I stopped by the store to ask Diana, though, hoping she’d know something.

“Yes, Charlie, I remember her. Justine Tillotson. Craig Walker got her pregnant and her parents sent her off somewhere. I never asked her where. She was a year behind us, and we never really hung out. Jessica Tillotson is Craig Walker’s illegitimate daughter. At least from what I understand, he never claimed responsibility, and she certainly never used their last name.”

“Craig was a year ahead of us.”

“Yep. She was a ‘wet behind the ears’ sophomore and he was the senior quarterback and captain of the football team. Remember, that was when the middle school was a junior high and went through the ninth grade. He did the deed during the early part of football season and she was gone before Christmas Day. Hell, Charlie, he screwed half the girls in that school. Rich, irresistibly good looking, did I mention rich? They never saw it coming until he was balls deep in them, I’ll bet. I’ve heard he fathered at least three kids. I know of two. Jessie and Charlotte Hanson’s little girl, Christie.”

“Did you ever... ?”

“Oh, hell, no. Thankfully, I was flat as a board and skinny as a rail. No one wanted anything to do with me except you and Donnie, and we all know where that went. Oh, Donnie said to say ‘Hi’. He said you can come out to the farm to hunt this year if you want. Open invitation.”

“Tell him thanks, Diana. I might just do that. I need to go see Justine. I need to clear it with her before I take your star cashier out to dinner.”

“YOU’RE NOT!”

“I am.”

“You dog.”

“Bow wow?” I smiled, hugged her and left, not buying a thing. I’d spent more money in that store this month than I can remember, though, and Diana knew it.

I called Justine Perry.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Justine? Charlie Cantley. Jessie thought you and I might want to talk, before I do something stupid like ask her out to dinner.” I heard a very slight giggle.

“Yeah, that would probably be prudent. You know she won’t be eighteen until May, right?”

“I kind of put two and two together. Yeah, I guess I did. Is that a huge problem?”

“Probably not. Why don’t you come on over, we can have a cup of coffee and talk, Charlie? I can take a break for a bit. Door’s open, come on in when you get here.” Click.

When I got there, it was in fact unlatched, so I pushed it open and there on the coffee table were two cups of coffee, one with creamer in it, and the other black, with sugar and creamer next to it. Pretty obvious which was whose, so I dropped a teaspoon of sugar in the black one and stirred. Pretty good coffee. I heard a voice in the background which sounded like someone explaining a computer sequence to someone else, probably over the phone since it was a one way conversation, then she thanked them for their patience, and signed off. Then she said, “Gloria, I’ll be back in a bit. I have a visitor and need to take care of something. I’ll be right back.” then came into the room.

I stood, and when she approached me, I stuck my hand out. She took it in both of hers, then pulled me to her and hugged me. “Thanks for coming over, Charlie. I don’t have a problem with you seeing Jessica, but you need to know a few things, then you two can figure out what you want to do.”

“This sounds serious, Justine. What’s going on?”

“What went on. She was kidnapped last year and held for ransom. The kidnappers thought she was my ex-husband’s daughter, when in fact, of course, she was only his step-daughter. She was in private school and was back visiting some friends between semesters where we lived, staying with him in her old room. She was taken when walking back from one of the friends’ houses. In any case, he told them they could keep her and that he wasn’t paying the ransom. She was raped, three times in all, we think, with pictures sent to him to try to convince him. It didn’t work, naturally, since he didn’t really care that much. The man’s not capable. If he was, I wouldn’t have left him. Charlie, I left a man that poured money over me like syrup, but he had turned into an ass, and I just couldn’t handle it anymore. He was nice, at first, and even for a while, but he started getting more and more successful and more and more assholey. Assy? If either of those is a word, he got more so as it happened. It just got worse and worse as he got more and more successful. And to be honest, he got to be VERY successful.

“In any case, you’ll remember last year I disappeared for a bit. I think I heard there was a rumor that when the ambulance took me, I had died. I woke up from my fainting spell and went back out to California, only to find that the police had found Jessie, quite roughed up, and quite badly abused, sexually for the most part. She spent the rest of the year, what little was left of it, in and out of the hospital out there, then actually living in a recovery center during the trial, finishing the school year, with the help of a personal aide, then afterwards, she came home to me. We were in touch constantly and became much closer again, long distance.

“She’ll need time. She’ll need space. No one knows what else she’ll need, but I have been told by at least two psychiatrists, professionally, and a psychologist friend, personally, that there will be bouts of PTSD, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, like some combat soldiers have, some might even be extremely serious, and possibly dangerous, but you won’t know when, where, how bad, or what they will look like.

“With your background, Charlie, you may be just what the doctor ordered.”

“Wow. With that pink hair, gorgeous eyes, and beautiful smile, no one would even guess ... You know, Justine, I just realized it, but it took me a while to get her to smile for me, and I’ve never seen her smile at anyone else. Maybe Diana. She’s friendly, but distant. Are you sure you’re OK with this? Honestly, I didn’t set out to save Jessie, though. I wanted to see her, date her, get to know her, long before I heard this from you.”

“I know, Charlie. She told me the second time you talked to her that you were either a perverted stalker or my son-in-law. She didn’t know which yet, then. I told her you were way too old for her. I also told her she could do worse and while I didn’t tell her of your background, which I know only a little about, I did tell her you were pretty well respected around town.”

“Thank you for that. OK, then. Rules?”

“Don’t break her heart, or I’ll break your head. That simple. She’s been through a lot, but she’s almost an adult, and she needs to get through it, over it, around it, or whatever. She needs to move on, and this might be a way to do it.”

“You said she was in private school?”

“Part of our settlement. I don’t have to work, but I do because if I don’t do something, I start to fade. I have MS and it’s not getting any better. Quite the contrary. Oh, the settlement states he had to put her through school where he insisted she started several years ago. One of the best educations you can get in the Silicon Valley. It’s a Stanford feeder school, actually. He allowed her to stay at his house on breaks and such. They got along OK, he just didn’t love her enough to hand over ten million dollars to keep her alive.

“Thankfully a smart cop heard or saw something and had a hunch. The next thing I knew, they had her back in one piece, almost, and both of the bad guys were wounded and in custody. During the siege of the house where they were holding her, she broke loose and put a fireplace poker through one of the rapist’s hip sockets. She can swing a bat, evidently. He tried to sue because there’s a chance he won’t walk straight again. That got shut down pretty quickly. Anyway, she wasn’t happy, but she knows she’s alive and that’s better than it could have been.”

“The ex-stepfather?”

“Don’t really know. He hasn’t said anything or contacted us since. No problem. He settled with her for the last year of school. Ten grand she can use for college, and I’m already set for life with his medical insurance to take care of my condition and a stipend that’s about ten times what I would make if I was still working at the Post Office. That’s what I did for fun after I was diagnosed. They said to stay busy, and I did. Drove old George nuts, knowing he was making millions and his wife was working at the Post Office for fun. It was only part time. I learned a lot. NEXT?” She giggled, then stood, shakily. I held her hand and helped her up. It was obvious she wasn’t in very good physical shape.

I picked up the tray with the cups on it and walked it to the kitchen, setting it on the counter.

“That’s fine right there, Charlie. Thanks. Hug me again. I have to get back to work. By the way, do you remember why I’m hugging you?”

“I think so. When I saw you with Craig, the first time, I told you that I thought you could do better and to be careful. I just remembered that while we were sitting in your living room.”

“You warned me. I didn’t listen. Mother always said I should have listened to you and sang your praises until the day she passed. Daddy still won’t speak to me.”

“Does Jessie know who her father is?”

“Yes. She wrote him two or three times, I think. He never answered. It’s not like we don’t know his address or anything. Kind of hard to miss. Maybe his parents didn’t forward it. Who knows? Last I heard he still lived out on their farm, though.”

“He still does. What a screw up. Lost his knee in his Junior year at Miami and quit school because he couldn’t play a stupid game.”