Chapter Twenty-Eight
"So what'll it be, Jessie? Am I staying or am I going?" Langley asked as he stood there at the door to their hotel room and studied her with sad eyes.
Jessie leapt from the bed and ran to him. "You're staying, Langley!" she exclaimed as she threw her arms around his neck and buried her tear soaked face in his chest. "You're staying because I can't live without you."
"I'm glad you finally realized that, you stubborn woman. It only took dying to open your eyes."
Jessie pulled away, a frown curving her lips downward. "Dying? I'm dead?"
He nodded as he ran a gentle knuckle down her cheek. "You got shot in the chest, remember?"
"Yeah but you got shot in the chest and you didn't die. That stupid book you loved so much saved you. Remember?"
Langley chuckled sadly and cupped her chin in his hand, stroking the cleft in the center with his thumb. "Yeah, but you don't read."
Jessie let out a choked sob. "But I don't want to be dead! I want to spend my life with you."
He shrugged one shoulder. "Sorry."
Jessie stomped her foot and clenched her fists. "No! No, no no!"
"Jessie, wake up!"
Jessie's eyes flew open when she heard her mama's voice desperately trying to calm her. She looked around and felt panic. Where was she? And why did her chest hurt so damn bad?
Jessie tried to sit up but was so weak she couldn't manage even that simple movement. "Relax now," her mama urged. "I've sent one of the other ladies after the doctor now that you seem to be awake. I'm so happy you're awake!"
Jessie let her eyes find her mother. The woman looked different. Her face was clean and paint free. Her eyes were clear without a trace of redness and while they seemed tired they weren't bloodshot. She looked clean, completely fresh and entirely sober.
"Where am I?" Jessie asked, her voice barely more than a cracking whisper. "What happened?"
"Here, drink this," Leah said, holding a glass of water in one hand and lifting Jessie's head with the other. Jessie drank several swallows, grateful when the cool liquid soaking into her parched tongue and throat.
"You are in my room, Jessie. You should remember why you're here. You were shot, you foolish girl."
Jessie watched as her mother paced about the spotless room, tidying tidy shelves and adjusting smooth curtains. "I was shot?"
"Don't you remember?" Leah demanded.
Jessie closed her eyes and, yes, she did remember. The man, the blood, the pain—it all came pouring back.
"He shot you in the chest but it was far enough to the side that it missed your heart and only managed to break a rib. But the fever nearly took you from us. You have been out for four days! Four days I've been sitting here thinking my little girl was going to die! Do you have any idea how terrible that is?"
"Like you care," Jessie snorted, regretting the sarcasm instantly.
"I did care," Leah snapped, slamming a book down with force. She crossed the room the Jessie's bedside and tears were in her violet eyes. "Of course I care. You're my daughter."
"You've never cared, mama," Jessie countered quietly. "You ran off and left me behind a long time ago."
"You were better off with your pa then you were with me!" Leah insisted. "I didn't want you turning into what I am. Now I hardly think that now is the time to be discussing this. You're weak and I'm sure you're hungry. The doctor will be here any moment and it's nearly time for me to go to work in the room Madame Francine had given me to work out of while you recover."
"Mama...." Jessie struggled to think of exactly what she wanted to say. Before she could make up her mind, the door opened and an elder man with wild white hair, thick glasses and bushy eyebrows stepped into the room with a black satchel in his hand and a gold watch chain across his middle.
"I hear our patient is finally awake," he announced.
Jessie's head began to ache. "So it would seem."
"I'll come back and check on you in the morning," Leah assured her and then she slipped from the room.
"You're a lucky girl," the doctor informed her as he sat down in the chair beside her bed and opened his bag. "That bullet would have killed you if it hadn't bounced off your rib."
"Was I really asleep for four days?"
"Yes, you were. We were quite worried about you but you'll be fine now. A bit sore but fine. It's gonna be a good few weeks before you're able to move around without a good deal of pain. I've told the Madame here to get you something to eat and she should be bringing it up soon."
"Thank you," Jessie said. She winced and hissed in pain as she pushed herself up against the wall so she was sitting instead of flat on her back.
"Would you like something for pain?" the doctor asked.
"Not right now," Jessie refused, figuring she'd been out of it long enough already. "I'll take something before I go to sleep."
"Here's you a deck of cards so you can play solitaire to pass the time. You need rest, dear, so make sure you get some."
"This isn't my first time being shot, doc," Jessie grumbled. "I can take care of myself."
He looked taken aback by her grumpiness a moment before getting to his feet with a huff and straightening out his jacket. "Yes, well, if you do find yourself in need of me, you can send someone to fetch me."
Jessie waited until she was alone and then lifted up the neckline of the loose sleeping gown she'd been dressed in. Thick white bandages were wrapped tight around her ribs.
Jessie relaxed against the wall and sighed. She'd gone a long time without getting shot and now she'd been shot and nearly died twice in less than six months.... Maybe it was time to start reevaluating her life and the way she lived it.
***
"Good to see you up and moving around again!" Leah Burke exclaimed when Jessie came down the grand staircase less than a week later. She might have been moving very slowly and leaning heavily against the railing but she was moving.
"I'm ready to get better so I can get out of here," Jessie assured her. "I hate this place. No offense to you, of course," she said to Madame Francine as the regally dressed woman lounged on a chaise beside the fireplace.
"None taken, dear," Madame Francine replied warmly. "You have certainly earned the right to say anything you want."
Jessie shrugged. "All I did was kill a man who needed to be killed. And I almost got killed doing it. That hardly makes me a hero."
"We'll just agree to disagree on that," Madame Francine countered.
Jessie rolled her eyes and walked to the fireplace. She smoothed out her cream leather skirt and tugged at the sleeves of her white blouse. She felt antsy and itchy. She didn't like being here and yet she wasn't well enough to leave.
"Jessie, can we go down to the café and eat? I'd like the chance to talk for a while," her mama offered.
Jessie frowned at the woman attempting to figure her out. Why was the woman suddenly acting like a mother after years of neglect? Jessie wasn't sure to make of her sudden caretaking role and she couldn't help but be suspicious of it.
"Well I'm hungry so why not?" Jessie replied.
Leah was smiling as she grabbed her coat, slipped it on and led Jessie out the door. They walked silently down the road to the café and once they were seated with soup cooling in front of them, Leah broke the silence. "I know that I have never been a good mother to you but I have loved you. You probably don't believe that but it's the truth."
"It's easy for you to say that now but the past speaks for itself," Jessie countered bitterly. "If you loved me so much then why did you leave?"
Leah stirred at her soup. "I left because I knew I wasn't what you needed. Your pa might have been a card cheat and a con but I knew he could take better care of you than I could. I didn't want you to grow up to be a whore like every other woman in our family."
"You've always said you're proud of what you are," Jessie reminded her before blowing on her steaming spoonful.
"I never once said I was proud, Jessie. I simply said that I am what I am and I offered no apologies. I wanted more for my daughter."
"Then you should have been more."
"Is there really a point in rehashing all this?" Leah snapped impatiently. "Unless you have figured out a way to fly backward in time, I can't fix my mistakes. I can only offer an apology."
"I can't forgive you for what you did, mama. All I can say is that I turned out okay." Jessie shrugged. "I lived."
"You more than lived," Leah argued. "You are a beautiful young woman. You are smart and brave and you know how to take care of yourself and you try to take care of others. Just like with Francine."
"I never used to take care of others," Jessie noted. "Not long ago I probably would have walked right past that and figured that Francine had asked for what happened to her by being what she was."
"I don't believe that," Leah winced.
Jessie shrugged and burped before taking another bite of soup. "Believe what you want."
Leah braced her chin in her hand stared hard at her daughter. "Well, if that is true then what made you change? What made you decide to help?"
"I don't know," Jessie lied.
Her mother frowned. "Does it have anything to do with Langley?"
"How in the hell do you know about Langley?" Jessie demanded, angry to hear his name on her mother's lips. Langley was her secret. He was dream to carry with her forever. She didn't want what they had shared to be cheapened by whatever her mother would say about him and how love wasn't for people like them.
"You mentioned him quite often while you were sick with fever," Leah replied with amusement. A smile lit up her face and caused the wrinkles around her violet eyes to deepen. Jessie felt out of place. She was used to her mother being falling down drunk and disdainful not happy and completely sober.
Jessie shrugged. "He's just some man that I met and he helped me avenge pa."
Leah tilted her head. "I think he was more than that." Then Leah held up her hands when Jessie's eyes narrowed and her fists clenched. "It's not my fault that you talk quite a bit when you're delirious."
"Ma, why the hell are you being so damn nice?"
Leah took a sip of her soup and shrugged. "I very nearly lost my daughter. I realized that I've been more worried about myself and my vices than I have been getting to know my daughter. I didn't want to die with those regrets. I know that I don't have what it takes to be your mother but I'm hoping that maybe we can be friends."
Jessie didn't meet he mother's gaze. "Kind of late, don't you think?"
"Better late than never," Leah countered.
Jessie sighed. "I suppose."
"So who is Langley?"
"Mama, he's not really someone I want to talk about with you. He's...." Jessie couldn't think of a way to put into words what Langley was.
"You love him," Leah stated. "You said so in your sleep."
Jessie shook her head and threw her chair back as she got to her feet. "It doesn't matter."
Before her mama could see her tears or speak a word, Jessie quickly left the café. She wasn't paying attention to where she was going and she ran headfirst into a broad chest.
Pain ricocheted through her body.
"Sorry ma'am," a man exclaimed.
Jessie opened her eyes through her pain filled haze and saw a badge on the man's vest. She looked up at his face and it was like she was seeing Langley thirty years in the future. The man had freckles, a crooked grin and blue eyes as bright as the autumn sky.
"Uh.. it was my fault," Jessie muttered, stepping back and laying her hand over her sore ribs.
"No, it was mine. The name's Sheriff Polly, ma'am." The lawman stuck out his hand and smiled warmly.
Jessie attempted to avoid looking at his face as she shook his offered hand. "Jessie Burke."
"Yes, I know. You're the one who took care of that man at the brothel. I want to offer you an apology. You shouldn't have been forced to deal with that man and I hate knowing you were injured so badly."
"It's not your fault, sheriff. You couldn't have known he was going to do what he'd done. Now if you'll excuse me......"
Jessie walked away as quickly as her sore chest would allow. She didn't like lawmen and she especially didn't like lawmen who looked so much like the man currently occupying every single thought she had.
Jessie went straight to her room at the brothel and locked the door behind her. She pulled off her gun belt before gingerly laying down upon the bed and staring up at the ceiling.
A tear ran down her cheek. Langley. She missed him. More than ever her entire being ached for him. Jessie had thought that by leaving him she could keep herself from being hurt again or from hurting him. She'd been wrong. This constant pain was more than she could stand.
And to have her mother suddenly pretending to be her best friend? The world had certainly been turned on its head.
As if on cue a knock came to the door. "Go away, mama," Jessie called out. "I'm not in the mood."
Jessie angrily swiped her shirt sleeve across her face as a key rattled in the lock and the door opened. She walked over to the bed and looked down at her daughter, her face full of sympathy and sadness.
"You really love him, don't you?"
Jessie nodded as more tears slipped down her cheeks. "Yes, I do," she gasped.
"What did he do? Did he break your heart?"
"No." Jessie shook her head. "No, he didn't break my heart. I broke his."
Leah settled herself on the edge of the bed. "Tell me about him."
Jesse sat up folded her legs beneath her, wincing in pain as she moved. "He was pretty damn close to perfect. Open, honest, caring and funny. He made me smile. He loved to read and he hated snakes. He was a caring man, mama, and a strong one. I could trust him with my life."
Leah shook her head and seemed more than a little confused. "Then why in the world did you let him go?"
"You said it yourself, mama. Love ain't for people like us."
Leah's head shook with force. "No, I said it wasn't for people like me and your grandmothers. We're whores and I for one will be until the day I die. Love isn't for women like us. Men tend to get jealous when you're bedding someone who isn't them even if it's all only business."
"Of course that pisses a man off, mother!" Jessie exclaimed. "Pa loved you and you broke his heart!"
"Your pa was a drunk and he was not a good husband. I tried to reason with him about my business but he refused to listen." The tone in Leah's voice made it clear she was done speaking upon that topic. "Why on earth would you turn away from a man you love so much? You miss him, Jessie."
"I do." Jessie stared down at her dirty fingernails. "But love only hurts you. Look what happened with you and pa? Love only breaks a heart."
"Jessie, if you love that man and he loves you, then you should be together. You shouldn't be looking at what your father and I as an example of what will happen to you and Langley. From everything you said, Langley isn't your pa, and you, my darling, you are so much more than I ever was."
"Mama, I want him back so badly...." Jessie whispered, her heart bared and completely exposed.
"Then go get him back."
Jessie shook her head. "I can't. Not after what I did to him."
"Why don't you tell me what happened?" Leah insisted.
Jessie did. She found herself opening up to the woman she had never opened up to before. She told her mama everything about her time with Langley. She told her how warm and safe the man had made her feel—then she told her about their last night together and the pain she had seen in Langley's eyes when he'd stood in that doorway and she hadn't said a word to make him stay.
"See?" she finished. "That's why I can't go back to him."
Leah was quiet a moment before placing her hand on her daughter's cheek. "Jessie, he sounds like a very good man and it sounds as if he loved you a great deal. Go after him, Jessie. Love can be great—it really can. You are not me, dear. You are so much better, so much more, than I've ever been. You deserve happiness."
"I want happiness," Jessie admitted. "And he does love me."
Jessie felt hope blossoming within her for the first time since Langley had walked away.
"Then go to him," Leah insisted. "Do you know where he might be?"
"He was always talking about his family and how he wanted to go visit them."
Leah smiled. "And where are they?"
"Windfall." Jessie squared her shoulders. "I have to go to Windfall."