Loving Jessie by Dallas Schulze Page A

Beach.”
    “Must’ve been a walk-in closet,” Matt said, grinning.
    “Extra large.” Reilly laughed. “Hey, you know what we ought to do? We should throw a party, give everybody a chance to say hi.”
    “I’ll catch up with everybody sooner or later,” Matt said, knowing it was probably a lie. The truth was, he didn’t care whether or not he caught up with most of the people Reilly had mentioned. Not that he would mind seeing them again, but it didn’t matter enough for him to seek them out.
    “A party’s a great idea,” Reilly said, ignoring Matt’s vague protest. “What do you think, honey? We could pull something together, couldn’t we? Maybe next Saturday night?”
    “Of course,” Dana said without looking at him.
    “There’s no point in going to a lot of trouble,” Matt said, knowing he was going to be ignored.
    “It won’t be any trouble,” Reilly said with the blithe assurance of someone who had never put together anything more elaborate than a keg party in college. “We could get that friend of Jessie’s to cater. You know, the woman who bought Ernie’s.”
    “Lurene. I stopped by Ernie’s when I got into town,” he said when Reilly looked surprised.
    “Looking for a chili fix?” Reilly asked.
    “Actually, I saw Jessie’s car out front and stopped in. I figured she had to have sold it years ago, but there shewas.” Smiling a little, Matt shook his head. “I can’t believe she’s still driving that thing.”
    “I think she’s planning on being buried in it.” Reilly’s grin was warm with affection. “So you’ve already seen Jessie.”
    “Yeah. She looks good.” Too good, Matt thought irritably, remembering miles of legs and the softness of her breast against his arm. He’d thought about both those things more than he should have over the last couple of days. Dammit, this was Jessie . He cleared his throat. “It was great seeing her again.”
    “Hard to believe she’s the same skinny little kid who used to follow us around, isn’t it?”
    “Yeah.” But he was working real hard on keeping it in mind.
    “When she took off for Paris, I figured she’d come back wearing one of those tall white hats and spend the rest of her life making éclairs and onion soup.”
    Matt tried to see it, but a chef’s toque had always seemed somewhat pompous to him, and he just couldn’t picture Jessie being able to keep a straight face with one of those perched on top of her head.
    Reilly leaned forward suddenly. “Hey, do you remember the time Jessie talked us into taking her camping and she fell into the stream the first day out?”
    “Twice,” Matt said, grinning at the memory. “And the next day she slid off the trail into a patch of poison oak.”
    “It was like some sort of curse.” Reilly chuckled. “By then, we just wanted to get her home in one piece.”
    Matt shook his head. “But she managed to sprain her ankle on the way back to the car, and we had to carry her the rest of the way down the mountain.”
    “She was…what? Eleven? Twelve? Just a kid, but shedidn’t cry.” There was admiration in Reilly’s tone. “By then I was just about ready to sit down and bawl, but she managed to crack jokes.”
    Dana rose suddenly, her mouth curved in a faint smile, her eyes cool. “I really should see about getting dinner started. You’re welcome to stay, if you’d like, Matt. There’s plenty.”
    “Thanks but I should head out pretty soon. I told Gabe I’d pick up some groceries on the way home.”
    “I’ll let you know about the party, then,” she said, and left the room without a word or a look in her husband’s direction.
    Matt glanced at Reilly and then looked away, uncomfortable with the glimpse of raw vulnerability in his friend’s eyes. Something told him that, whatever was behind the subtle tension between Reilly and his wife, it went deeper than a minor marital spat.
    “I’d forgotten how beautiful she was,” Matt commented, breaking the silence Dana