When she looked at Jess, he was staring at her with an intensity she hadn’t seen before.
“Jess, the boy was Jess Jr.”
“He told me he knew you.”
“Was that all he said?”
Jess swallowed. “He said you were wild. You aren’t going to tell me Annie is my granddaughter, are you?”
She hesitated for a beat.
“No, I’m not. Annie is Jim Hearne’s daughter.”
Jess was speechless.
“He was the friend I called to take me to Spokane to try and find out what happened to J.J. He was my father’s best friend, and I think he felt he owed something to me and to you. But one thing led to another. Neither of us planned it, and afterward, Jim felt horrible. He said he’d get a divorce if I wanted him to, even though he loved his wife, because he’d betrayed her with his friend’s daughter. I told him never to say that again, and to go home to Laura. I never told him I was pregnant. I let him think the baby-Annie-was J.J’s. But she wasn’t. J.J. never completed the act, but Jim did. So I know for sure. In a way, I think he knows, too, but he’s been too frightened all these years to ask. If you’re wondering why the local banker is on that horse right now, I think you’ve got your answer.”
“My God,” Jess said. “Now I know what Hearne was trying to tell me.”
She said, “I’m no victim. He didn’t take advantage of me like it sounds. He gave in to me. I was like that then. But I didn’t want to ruin a good man or bust up a marriage. I had some dignity, I guess. And Annie is such a joy, such a wonderful, wonderful girl. I’m blessed to be her mother. She’s a freak of nature because she’s special, and better than both her parents, I think.”
She tried to guess what he was thinking. It was as if he couldn’t quite process what she had told him, and she couldn’t tell if he was relieved or disappointed.
“I wanted to tell someone so many times,” she said, “but I didn’t. I guess I was waiting for the right time, and that never came. When I was married there was certainly no point. My husband never knew who Annie’s father was. I kept that from him. So it’s amazing to me how things worked out. It’s like there was a reason we were brought together tonight, and the least I could do was let you know.”
He smiled sadly. “I was kind of hoping you were going to tell me I had a grandchild.”
“I’m sorry she isn’t.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said, excited. “I like ’em just the same.”
She laughed at that, and he smiled. “Jess, I don’t know how much you’ve heard about me,” she said, seeing his eyes flinch and knowing he had heard, “but I’ve made a vow to myself during all of this that I’m going to keep: My kids come first. If there is anything good at all to come out of all of this, it’s that I’ve learned that lesson. No more Tom Boyds, no more J.J.s, no more Jim Hearnes, no more anyone. Annie and William come first. I’ve made that promise with God.”
He nodded. “I think that’s good.”
“I think that’s good,” she mocked good-naturedly, causing him to smile again. “Yes, it is. I need to make my own way in the world without relying on any man to make things happen for me. I think that’s possible, don’t you?”
“Sure,” he said. “Might as well try.”
“I’ll prove it can be done,” she said, holding up her hand over her heart as if taking a pledge. “I may have to take the kids and move to somewhere I don’t have any history, but I’ll prove it can be done.”
He flinched again, which surprised her.
“What’s wrong with that?” she asked.
He looked down. “Nothing, I guess.”
“What, Jess?”
He looked at his boots, at the cow, at the bare lightbulb, anywhere but at her. Then, when he turned his head and looked at her full on, he said, “However things work out, I’d kind of like to keep up with Annie and William. We can pretend they’re my grandkids.”
This time, it was Monica who was speechless.
“My own family got pretty screwed up,” he said. “I’d like to help your kids if I can, maybe make up for the damage I’ve caused around here.”
She reached up and blotted her tears with the rolled-up cuff of the barn coat. She was surprised that he continued.
“This place,” he said, gesturing toward the open barn door but meaning the ranch, “is the only thing I’ve got that connects me to my own father and mother, and to my granddad, who homesteaded it. They passed along a pretty good thing. They said to work hard and pass it on to my own kids. That’ll never happen. It doesn’t look like I can keep it, or leave it to anyone. Developers want it, and they’ll likely get it. It belongs more to the bank than it does to me.
“So,” he said, “there’ll be nothing for me to pass on. I’ll leave no mark on this valley. But if I can help out Annie and William, maybe help them get a leg up, well, that’ll be fine. It means I’ve got something to live for. I’ve got someone to defend. That means…everything.”
He turned away, the expression on his face telling her he thought he had said too much. But he hadn’t, and she leaned over and hugged him, buried her face into his neck, said, “You’re a good man, Jess. You’re such a good man,” and meant it, feeling such affection for him, wondering why she hadn’t called him years before to see how J.J. was doing, thinking how sometimes, it was the hardest men who were the softest.
Monday, 2:41 A.M.
JIM HEARNE thought, It feels good to sit a horse again.
He had slowed Chile to a walk once they entered the timber on the other side of the meadow. He wanted both to conserve her energy and give her the opportunity to pick her way through the gnarled undergrowth. She could see much better than he could in the dark beneath the closed kettle lid of the tree branches, so he gave her her head and let her go. She picked through the downed timber, placing each front step carefully, her back feet knowing instinctively how to mirror the movement to keep them going forward. He also slowed her down because he knew there was a barbed-wire fence ahead somewhere, the fence that separated the Rawlins place from forest service land. She would likely see it before he would.
She was purposeful, he liked that. He could see why Jess liked this horse. She was the kind of horse that was best if she had a job: cutting cattle, herding, or, in this case, delivering him to Kootenai Bay. He was glad he had a purpose, too, that he was doing something that might save the lives of the Taylors, Villatoro, and Jess. It was the least he could do. He was glad it involved doing something physical. He didn’t want to have the time to think about how his own actions had incubated the whole situation, how he was culpable. He was finally doing something good, doing something right, for Monica and Annie. This ride was his ride of redemption. When he thought about those words, he smiled. Man…
The rain had stopped, and the sounds of the forest returned: chattering squirrels warning of his arrival, the crunch of pine needles beneath the hooves of the horse, the panicked scuttling of creatures he never saw getting out of his way. Sitting the horse connected him to the ground, made him part of it. He could feel the softness or hardness of the ground transmitted up her legs through the saddle. It was as if sinews had reached up through the dirt and reattached themselves to him. He had forgotten about the feeling of being connected. It wasn’t something he felt in his car.