Chapter 13 - The Future She Left Behind

“Walter thinks you snubbed his invitation to dinner because of Jackson.” Layla stepped behind Katelyn’s register.

“That’s not true. I don’t like steak.” Three hours had passed since Jackson had left the store, and Katelyn figured Layla would ask about him.

“Jackson hasn’t come into the store in a while.” Layla winked. “Maybe he still has a crush on you.”

Jackson had always been a private person and he wouldn’t appreciate her sharing their history with others. “We’re too old for crushes.”

“Maybe, but you’re not too old to have sex with him.”

Katelyn fumbled the role of nickels she was emptying into the money drawer and two of the coins spilled onto the floor. No matter how intriguing a fling with her old flame sounded, she didn’t need another complication in her unsettled life.

“Don’t worry about Walter. If you decide to hook up with Jackson while you’re here, the boss will have to deal with it.”

“I’m not getting together with anyone.” Maybe saying it out loud would make it so.

Layla peeked over her shoulder at Walter’s office. “You do know that he divorced his wife, Missy, because she had a one-night stand with Jackson.”

No wonder Walter’s greeting had been cool toward Jackson. A sliver of jealousy pricked Katelyn. She’d rather not put a face to the women who’d shared Jackson’s bed. “Brian seems like a nice guy.”

Layla laughed. “Okay, I’ll stop talking about Jackson.” She expelled a loud sigh. “Brian’s nice, but he’s not exciting.”

“What happened with Gavin’s father?”

“Mike comes around once in a while. Mostly when he’s broke or needs a place to stay.” Layla’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. “I was crazy for him, but he could never hold down a job, so I filed for divorce. Mike didn’t even put up a fight.”

Shirley thought Katelyn should fight for her marriage. Maybe if Don hadn’t had an affair, she’d consider counseling, but not after he’d cheated on her.

The office door opened and Walter said, “It’s almost five, Katelyn. Time to cash out.” He watched her transfer the money from her drawer into the bank bag; then he took it back to his office and deposited it in the safe.

“Enjoy the rest of your day,” Layla said.

“See you tomorrow.” Katelyn cut through the produce department and entered the employee lounge located in the back of the storeroom.

Five lockers, a card table and chairs, an old fridge and a microwave sat in the corner next to the loading-dock door. She punched in the date of her parents’ anniversary on the keypad, then opened her mother’s locker and hung up her smock. She caught her reflection in the magnetic mirror on the inside of the door and studied her drawn face. Stocking tomato soup and scanning groceries for twelve customers shouldn’t be that taxing, but she looked exhausted.

And to think her mother had done this job for decades.

She dabbed a little color on her pale lips, powdered her nose, then removed the elastic band that held her hair in a ponytail and tossed it onto the shelf before grabbing her purse and closing the locker.

She’d walked down the hill to the store earlier in the day, leaving the Mercedes at the house in case Shirley talked Birdie into taking her somewhere. She flipped the light off, then left through the back door. She’d made it to the bottom of the ramp before she saw Jackson’s pickup and stopped short. He leaned against the passenger-side door—arms crossed over his chest, boots notched at the ankles. His red T-shirt matched the color of the truck. His lips spread into a lazy grin and her pulse kicked up a notch.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“I thought you might want to take a ride.”

His words sent her reeling back in time to the spur-of-the-moment drives they’d taken in Jackson’s old Mustang.

She walked over to him and smiled. “Remember the drive we took on Highway Twenty-nine and we ended up at the abandoned mine?”

“All I wanted to do that afternoon was make out with you in the cave, but you had to draw it on your sketch pad first.”

Jackson had always been patient with her when she’d wanted to draw, sitting next to her quietly, studying her—like he was doing now. “You were a good sport.”

“The waiting usually paid off,” he said, then opened the door and stood back.

What could it hurt to climb in, buckle up and pretend she was eighteen again? She glanced at her mother’s house on the hill, where Birdie and Shirley waited for her to get off work. A gust of wind stirred the scent of Jackson’s cologne, propelling her forward into the passenger seat.

He walked past the hood of the pickup and got behind the wheel, then drove around the corner of the building and cut through the parking lot. Walter stood at the front window next to the “Get It While It’s Hot—Glacier Bag of Ice $2.99” sign. The boss’s mouth dropped open when he recognized Katelyn in the front seat of Jackson’s truck.

“We’re going to be the topic of conversation at Mama’s Kitchen tomorrow,” she said.

“Like old times.” He flashed a smile and hit the gas as they headed out of town.

“How about the railroad tracks?” What would he think of her wanting to visit their special place? She reached into her purse for her cell phone.

“I heard about your divorce,” he said.

“And I heard you cheated with Walter’s wife.”

His mouth twitched. “Welcome back to Little Springs.”

They drove in silence, the truck whizzing past an abandoned mobile home park with a handful of dilapidated trailers propped up on cinder blocks. Past acres of scrubland fenced in by barbed wire. Past an abandoned car with its hood missing and weeds growing up through the engine.

He slowed the truck and moved onto the shoulder, then turned down a familiar dirt road. The same path she’d walked with Jackson numerous times. “What happened to that house?” She pointed to the charred remains.

“Meth lab blew up.”

“Little Springs has a drug problem?”

“The meth cooks weren’t from here. No one knew they’d been using the abandoned house until it caught fire.”

“Back in high school, it was beer and pot. Kids today are taking prescription drugs and sniffing bath salts,” she said. “Do you have any kids?”

“Not that I know of.”

His flippant response surprised her. How many casual affairs had he had since their breakup? She’d slept with only two men in her lifetime, and one of them was sitting next to her.

Jackson slowed the pickup as he navigated the potholes in the road. “When was the last time you came down to the tracks?”

“The night before I left for college.” When she’d brought Don home to meet her parents, she’d thought about visiting this spot, but hadn’t wanted to bring her fiancé to the place that held special memories of another man. “What about you?”

“I came out once after I moved back.” He stopped the truck, shifted into park and then turned off the engine. “I had to know if the tree was still here.”

Their tree. The live oak they’d spent hours sitting beneath, talking. Kissing. The place where they’d said their final good-bye.

“How did you end up with Walter’s wife?” she asked as they hiked along the path leading to the tracks.

“There’s not much to the story.” He took her hand and helped her step over a fallen branch. His grasp was as secure as she remembered, but his skin was rougher, the calluses thicker—as if her fingers held a coarse sanding block. Years of manual labor had left his knuckles covered in scars. After she cleared the branch, he released her hand and she curled her fingers into her palm, to keep the warmth of his touch from escaping.

“I see the path hasn’t completely disappeared,” she said.

“We weren’t the first or the last teenagers to discover this spot.” They walked through a wooded area filled with oak trees and pine, weeds, sparse grass and leftover trash from numerous drinking parties. As they emerged from the woods, memories of Jackson trying to impress her pulled her back in time.

She spotted the huge oak they’d carved their initials in and walked up to it. After a few seconds of searching, she found the JM + KC and traced her finger over the outline of the heart encircling the letters.

“Let me check for snakes.”

She smiled. “I swear to you I saw a snake that day. I wasn’t imagining it.”

“When you screamed, I thought you’d found a dead body.”

Jackson had gone to his car to fetch her sketch pad from the front seat. A minute after he’d left, a Western diamondback had slithered across the ground in front of Katelyn’s foot and she’d shrieked like a banshee. Jackson had raced back to the tracks and when he’d burst through the trees, his tan face had been paler than his white T-shirt. He’d never said the words—in fact, the whole time they’d gone steady, he’d never confessed his feelings for her. But when she’d seen the abject fear in his eyes that afternoon, she’d known that he loved her.

Jackson kicked up a cloud of dust. “All clear.”

Katelyn sat with her back against the trunk. “My mother never told me that you’d moved back to Little Springs.”

“It took a while to find my way home.” He joined her on the ground.

“Where were you all these years?”

“I worked the oil fields in North Dakota for a while. Did construction in California and Nevada. I was in Odessa when I ran into Vern and he told me Al planned to retire to Florida. I made Al an offer for the garage and he accepted.”

“You own Al’s Auto?”

“Mendoza Auto.” He grinned. “Didn’t you notice the new sign?”

“Sorry. I guess I wasn’t paying attention when I drove through town.”

“I’ll never be rich, but I get enough business from folks in Pecos and Odessa to pay the bills.”

“What happened to your father?” She knew his mother had run off when Jackson was a young boy.

“Dad left town a year after we graduated from high school. He hooked up with a woman named Rosa and moved to Reno with her. I visited him once in a while, and we spoke on the phone every month. He passed away five years ago.”

“Of what?”

“Cirrhosis of the liver.”

Katelyn wasn’t surprised. Everyone in Little Springs had known that Ricky Mendoza had had a drinking problem—it was the reason Jackson had never invited her over to his house. He’d worried his father would say or do something to embarrass her.

“Was your relationship any better with your father before he died?”

Jackson picked up a stone and threw it at the tracks. “He quit drinking before he passed away and apologized to me for being a crappy dad. I appreciated that.”

Katelyn gathered her courage and said, “I owe you an apology, too.”

“For what?” He brushed a speck of dirt from his jeans.

“I should have called you instead of writing to you,” she said.

“It’s not a big deal.”

“You deserved better than a Dear Jackson letter.”

“I’ve been treated worse.”

She sprang to her feet and paced in front of him. “Don’t make this easy on me.”

“We’ve all done things we wish we hadn’t.”

“Like sleeping with Missy?” She groaned out loud and turned away from Jackson. What was the matter with her? She was acting like a jealous girlfriend.

“It was only one time.”

“Once is enough to break up a marriage.” How many times had Don slept with Lauren or whomever else before he’d decided to divorce Katelyn?

“I wasn’t the first guy Missy cheated with, but Walter made sure I was the last.”

“What happened?”

“I ran into her at Logan’s Bar in Pecos. She made the first move.” He raised his hand. “I realize that’s no excuse, but I was drunk off my ass and I didn’t care what the hell I did that night.”

Didn’t care? She stared at him, speechless. That wasn’t the Jackson she’d dated in high school.

“You don’t know, do you?” he asked.

“Know what?”

“I’m an alcoholic.”