Comfort and Joy Read online

  Philip scowled at her lecture. “Of course I’ll brush my teeth. Toothpaste is the only sweet thing I ever get to eat around here,” he grumbled. Perhaps Mrs. Lindblad was moved by his lament, but Robin and Kate knew better. It was hard to feel any pity for the boy while Kate was slicing him a hefty wedge of pie.

  Robin joined Jesse by the front door, pulled her coat from the closet, and picked up her purse. “Are you sure you don’t want me to drive?” she asked as they strolled down the walk to the driveway.

  Jesse’s answer was to unlock the passenger door of the Mini-Cooper. “I’m not going to drive into any more electrical poles, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he assured her before closing the door and moving around to the driver’s side.

  That wasn’t what Robin was worried about. She was worried about whether he might be nervous about driving at all, given what he’d recently been through. She knew the old adage about climbing back on the horse after it threw you, but still, she was more than willing to drive if Jesse wanted her to.

  Obviously, he didn’t. He cruised to the corner, the steering wheel rubbing his knees whenever he turned it, and headed up the hill to the main road. “I want to do it right this time,” he explained her unvoiced question. “That includes my doing the driving. In the words of Phil, I owe you one.”

  Robin shifted uneasily in her seat. “I wish you hadn’t asked me out in front of him,” she said. “It kind of put me on the spot.”

  “Oh?” Jesse halted at a stop sign and turned to her. “If he wasn’t there, would you have said no?”

  Robin returned his gaze. All afternoon, she’d been inhaling the tangy perfume of pine, thanks to the tree in her living room, but now that smell was replaced by the scent of Jesse, a warm, musky, undeniably masculine fragrance. His eyes were piercing, his hair thick and velvety, his hands on the wheel strong and certain. No matter what the circumstances, Robin could never have said no to his dinner invitation.

  “I just—I’d rather you had asked me in private,” she explained. “So much of what we’ve done has been all three of us. If this was just going to be between the two of us, then that’s how you should have asked me.” As soon as she uttered the words, she realized how much she had divulged. Her confusion about whether Jesse liked her because she was Philip’s mother or because she was herself had to be evident to him.

  He considered her words for a long moment, then nodded. “You’re right. I’ve never been involved with a mother before. I guess I was a little clumsy. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s okay. I’m just saying it would be better not to do certain things in front of Philip” she said, thinking, he’s involved with me. As far as he was concerned, they were involved. What precisely that meant, she wasn’t sure. But she liked it. Involved.

  He drove to a Mexican restaurant on the eastern end of town. After hurrying inside to escape the evening chill, they were seated at a cozy, candle-lit table. Robin removed her coat, Jesse his scarf and jacket. A classical guitarist stationed not far from them serenaded them with delicate arrangements of Bach fugues. Not very Mexican, but lovely.

  A waitress approached their table and asked if they wanted drinks. Robin pondered her options. What went with Mexican food? A Tequila Sunrise, maybe, or a Margarita, or—

  “Have you got any wine?” Jesse asked the waitress.

  Robin’s jaw dropped. Wine? With tacos and enchiladas?

  “We’ve got a house burgundy, Chablis and rose,” the waitress informed him. “You can order it by the glass. We’ve also got Sangria.”

  Jesse turned to Robin. “I think beer might go better with this food,” she suggested. “Sangria’s too sweet.”

  “I hate beer,” Jesse said.

  The man hated beer? She’d never met a man who hated beer. She didn’t even know such a thing was possible.

  Well, she wasn’t going to drink alone, and she wasn’t going to drink wine with Mexican food. “Just water would be fine,” she told the waitress.

  “Water for me, too.” Jesse accepted two menus from the waitress. He handed one to Robin, but she didn’t bother to open it. She was too busy trying to figure him out at him. “Is something wrong?” he asked.

  “I thought all men loved beer.”

  “You thought wrong,” Jesse said, sounding not the least bit defensive. He must have sensed that she was awaiting an explanation, because he added, “I tried beer in law school. Not only did it taste awful, but it gave me a whopping headache.”

  “Law school?” she blurted out. “What did you drink in college?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?” Her gaze narrowed on him. “You were a teetotaler?”

  “Yes. I’m not anymore, Robin. I do like wine.”

  She lowered her menu to the table and studied him in fascination. “Why didn’t you drink?” she asked. She thought everyone in college drank at least sometimes. Usually more often than sometimes.

  “I was raised strictly,” he said. “I told you my parents are very religious. They raised me to think drinking liquor was a sin.”

  “In excess, maybe,” Robin granted. Then she refuted herself. “No—it’s a problem, and sometimes a disease, but it isn’t a sin. I’ve known a lot of heavy drinkers, Jesse. My mother had some rough times with booze—lots of army wives do. It’s a lousy life, being uprooted all the time, and they do whatever it takes to help them feel like they fit in. But my mother’s problem resolved itself after my father retired. And it wasn’t a sin,” she stressed.

  “I know that now,” Jesse said. “I had my doubts even as a child. But when drinking isn’t a regular part of your life, taking that first taste of liquor is a scary experience.” He shrugged. “I think I can survive the rest of my life without beer being a part of it.”

  The waitress returned to take their orders. Once they were alone again, Robin regarded the man seated across the table from her. “I just can’t picture you, of all people, as devoutly religious,” she said.

  He chuckled. “I’m not sure I ever was. My parents were. I always had too many questions. There’s no room for questions if you’re buying into fundamentalism, Robin. You either accept it or reject it. You swallow all of it or none of it.”

  “And you couldn’t swallow it.”

  “I tried,” he admitted, his smile expanding. “But I kept choking on it.”

  It dawned on Robin that her knowledge of Jesse Lawson was woefully slim. All she knew about fundamentalists was what she saw and heard in the media: militant preachers spewing sermons of hellfire and brimstone, preaching against sex and the theory of evolution, alerting parents to the perils of exposing their children to certain books and ideas. She could scarcely believe that a man as sophisticated as Jesse had been raised in such an environment.

  You either accept it or reject it. Apparently, he refused to recognize any middle ground. Unable to accept any part of it, he’d rejected all of it.

  He was smart enough to understand that religion didn’t have to be an all-or-nothing thing, though. Most people believed in a religion while reserving the right to make certain decisions about the details themselves. Robin had Jewish friends who are lobster but still believed in God and went to synagogue. She had Catholic friends who used birth control.

  But for Jesse, it was all black or white. That, to her, was the strangest belief of all.

  “How did you wind up in Belleford?” she asked, determined to learn more about him.

  “I was offered a job with New Haven Legal Assistance,” he replied. “It was exactly what I was looking for, so I took it.”

  “Were you doing legal aid work in Los Angeles?”

  He shook his head. “I was raking in the bucks working for a big company.”

  Robin could imagine Jesse as a high-powered corporate attorney more easily than as a fundamentalist. But the pieces weren’t falling together, and she plowed ahead, ignoring the waitress who came to deliver their dinners. “Why did you have to come all the way across the country j
ust to switch jobs? I bet there were plenty of legal aid-type jobs in L.A.”

  “I was ready for a change of scenery along with the change of jobs,” Jesse told her.

  She tasted her quesadilla, smiled at how delicious it was, and cooled the fiery spiciness from her mouth with a long sip of water. “I’ve lived in so many places,” she mused, “but never Southern California. I know it’s wrong to think of Los Angeles as a bunch of movie stars and television production companies and Disneyland, but that’s what I picture.”

  “Add a few palm trees, and you’re there,” Jesse joked.

  “What big company did you work for?” she asked.

  “G.C.E.”

  “Was that a show-biz company?”

  Jesse’s smile was tinged with irony. “In a sense.” At her bemused stare, he explained, “G.C.E. stands for Grace Cathedral Enterprises.”

  “Grace Cathedral? You mean—that big chapel on television, with the Reverend Robert Shepherd and his famous choir?”

  For the first time since Robin had started grilling him, Jesse seemed irritated by her questions. “Don’t tell me you watch Blessings at Noon.”

  “I don’t,” she said, surprised by the stinging bitterness in his words. “But it’s hard not to know about the Grace Cathedral. I’m sure everybody’s caught a few minutes of Shepherd’s shows at least once in their lives. You really worked there?”

  “I did.”

  Perhaps the Grace Cathedral broadcasts were a bit overdone, but Robin found it exciting to think that Jesse actually worked with a genuine television star. “What’s he like?” she asked. “What’s Shepherd really like? Is he just as bombastic when the cameras aren’t on him? Or is all that sanctimoniousness just an act?”

  Jesse toyed with his fork for a minute, then placed it on the edge of his plate. “He’s an actor,” he said, laboring over his words. “He plays to his audience.”

  “But when he’s off the air—”

  “He’s an actor, just like any other TV performer. His concerns are the same—ratings, popularity, audience. He’s never ‘off.’”

  The difficulty Jesse seemed to be having in describing his former boss indicated to Robin how uncomfortable he must have felt in his work for the man. “What do all those holy people need a lawyer for?” she asked.

  Jesse let out a caustic laugh. “Don’t you know what outfits like Grace Cathedral are all about?” He consumed some of his chicken, then elaborated. “Money, Robin. Contributions. Distribution rights, royalties, agency fees, air time and commercials. Money. Whenever you’ve got that much money pouring in, you’d better have a lawyer handy to protect your interests. And to oversee contracts, to avoid law suits. To make sure that the cured cripples Shepherd likes to parade across the screen aren’t phonies.”

  “So Shepherd really does cure cripples? Doesn’t that qualify as a miracle?”

  Jesse shook his head. “People who are injured can sometimes defy their prognoses and get better. People facing seemingly insurmountable personal problems can sometimes overcome them. But that doesn’t mean miracles have occurred. It just means that prognoses are sometimes wrong, and that with enough determination, most people can overcome their personal problems. It isn’t God. It’s people working hard to improve their lives and reach their goals. But...yes, as a lawyer, I had to get affidavits from all of Shepherd’s guests, from the doctors and witnesses and all, to avoid legal problems over false claims.”

  “Why would you ever take a job like that? I mean, given how you feel about all that stuff…”

  Jesse mulled over his answer. “Let’s just say it was part of my upbringing,” he answered vaguely. “I may have started experimenting with liquor in law school, but there was still too much of the obedient son in me. I questioned a lot, but... There were some things I should have questioned that I didn’t.”

  Robin leaned back and examined him. Except for that one tiny flare of annoyance, he didn’t seem to mind her questions. If he did, he would have changed the subject. Instead, he appeared surprisingly willing to talk about his background and his beliefs. His gaze was unwavering, his smile hesitant, his bandaged left hand resting palm up on the table, cupped slightly, as if shaped to hold whatever she might give him, to lift whatever might be weighing on her.

  “I’m sorry,” she mumbled, not sure why she was apologizing. “I must seem so nosy, but I’m trying to understand. It’s all kind of…bewildering.”

  “It doesn’t have to be.” Jesse extended his arm across the table and captured her hand in his. “I’ve told you who I am and what I think,” he commented. “I respect you for asking. That’s my favorite yardstick for measuring others, Robin. I like people who are willing to ask questions.”

  “But still...” She tried to unravel her thoughts. “For someone who choked on religion and rejected it, how come you got into decorating our Christmas tree? And let’s not forget that you accepted a candy cane from Santa,” she added, hoping to coax a smile from him.

  She did, although his smile was tentative. He might admire people who asked a lot of questions, but this question held a challenge. He didn’t back away, though. Nor did he release her hand. He simply held it, curling his fingers loosely around her slender wrist. “I’m really not sure,” he admitted.

  “And Christmas shopping at the mall...”

  “The mall has nothing to do with religion,” he argued. “Visiting Santa made Phil happy, and keeping him entertained while you shopped made you happy. And the tree...” He hesitated, a wistful smile curving his lips. “The tree was beautiful because it means so much to you both. I was honored to be included in something that special to you and Phil. It was fun. And the mall was kind of fun, too. A zoo, but fun After what happened Friday night, all I wanted was to have some fun.”

  That hadn’t been all Jesse had wanted. Particularly not on Friday night. Jesse had wanted more from Robin, infinitely more. More than he’d been able to ask for. They both knew that.

  Everything about Friday night was etched into her soul. Every excruciating detail, every sensation, every inchoate thought that had flitted through her brain during those few heady moments when she’d stood kissing Jesse on his porch—it was all still with her, perplexing her. Her confusion must have shown plainly in her face, because Jesse’s hand tightened slightly on hers and his smile disappeared. “If there’s more you need to know, ask.”

  She raised her eyes to his. “I don’t even know what question I’m supposed to be asking,” she confessed with a nervous laugh.

  He regarded her for a long, contemplative minute, as if trying as hard to understand her as she was trying to understand him. “When I was in that accident,” he said, “it wasn’t just the seatbelt and the airbag that saved my life.” He paused, his gaze holding hers, uncompromising. “You saved my life, too.”

  “Me?” she sputtered. “All I did was pick you up at the hospital—”

  “You did much more than that. Or maybe—maybe we did it together.” His thumb moved against her wrist, tracing the bones, dancing across her throbbing pulse. “I kept thinking of you throughout the accident, clinging to thoughts of you. And that’s what pulled me through. I’m convinced of it.”

  Stunned, Robin fell back in her seat. She was incredibly flattered by what Jesse had said—flattered and frantic. How had she pulled him through? How had she come to mean that much to him?

  The same way he had come to mean that much to her. Her shopping trip with Philip on Saturday had been one of the most enjoyable she’d ever had, not only because Jesse had kept Philip occupied for her but because Jesse was there. Her outing to purchase a tree that morning had been wonderful because Jesse was there. Decorating the tree had been joyous, because Jesse was there.

  She had always believed that what made the holiday special was the tradition of it. Jesse wasn’t a part of any tradition for her. Yet his presence had somehow made the traditional activities much more meaningful.

  “You look worried,” Jesse observed, with
drawing his hand and leaning back in his chair.

  “I don’t think I am.” Robin emitted a small, breathless laugh, and then, as she absorbed Jesse’s affectionate smile, a more confident chuckle. “What I do think is that you’re just too stuck on being an atheist to admit that it wasn’t me who pulled you through. It was God, watching over you.”

  “I think I know the difference between a beautiful blond woman and a bearded old geezer in the clouds.”

  “Your idea of God is ridiculous,” Robin retorted, laughing even harder.

  Jesse joined her laughter. “That’s probably why I don’t believe in him. Do you want dessert?”

  “No.” What Robin wanted was time, time to shape all the questions she had for Jesse, time for him to provide all the answers. What she wanted was time alone with him, time to come to terms with the fact that he held her responsible for saving his life.

  Time to figure out what it all meant, what Jesse meant, how much he was coming to mean to her.

  Chapter Seven

  “I’LL DRIVE you ladies home,” Jesse offered as Kate O’Leary and her friend reached for their coats.

  “That’s very nice of you,” Kate said, “but you don’t have to. We’re only going down the block.”

  “Then I’ll walk you home,” Jesse said with a finality that even Kate wouldn’t dare to contradict.

  The two women exchanged impressed glances behind Jesse’s back before allowing him to escort them out of the house. Robin imagined that Kate would be doing penance for weeks to atone for having once implied that Jesse Lawson was no better than vermin. She watched as the trio strolled down the front walk, Jesse turning up the collar of his jacket and tightening his scarf against the frigid December night. Then she closed the door, leaving it unlocked for him, and removed her own coat. She stepped out of her shoes, tiptoed up the stairs to check on her sleeping son, and returned to the living room.