Country Lovin': Chapter Seven

"That was very sweet of you." Kitty said after Valene told her the story of Jessie falling from his horse and she taking him back to his house to tend to his wound.

"You make it sound like I saved his life. And it wasn't a wound, it was a gash." Valene replied, knowing full well that a gash and a wound meant around the same thing.

Kitty just smiled and tapped her hand. "You did save his life." Then she looked around the room and came back to looking at her niece. "Are you going to go back with Laremy?"

Valene raised her eye brows. "I don't know. He hasn't called. I gave him the phone number here. I don't know. He's sweet enough, just...I don't know." Valene sighed.

"He's just not the man you want to spend every waking moment with?" Kitty filled in as she raised from her chair.

Valene's eyes followed her aunt. "Yeah. That explains it." Then she released a deep sigh. "He's such a nice guy though. I would like to go back out with him. He's so funny. I only had one ciggarette the entire date. That's so unusual for me."

Kitty sighed. "You should really give up on them, your ciggarettes."

She closed her eyes and pressed her palms to them. "I wish I could, but I'm so afraid that I'll get that feeling. I got so sick the first time. The feelings I had tried to put behind me, they...they all came flooding back."

"Hon, I doubt that had come because you didn't smoke..."

"Then why did everything come back as soon as I stopped? Huh? I want to stop, but I can't. I won't. I'm too afraid that all of those memories of my mother, what I can't do."

"What can't you do?" Kitty had placed her hands around Valene's.

"I can't open up to anyone. You don't know the secrets I know. I can't tell anyone. No one. Only my mother. She was the only one who understood. The only one." Valene murmured. She lowered her head and her hair fell down her shoulders.

"I can understand." Kitty replied simply.

"You don't understand. She knows everything. She knew everything I told her. If I told you things, I'd have to start from the beginning. It's so hard. So damn hard."

"I doubt that it would be. I know more about you, then you think I do."

"Did you know that on my first date in the eighth grade, someone put gum in my hair, and the guy never talked to me again because people were laughing and it had embarrassed him? That I had to have a pixie style hair cut? Did you know that?"

Kitty tried to smile and shook her head. "No. I'm afraid not, but I do now."

Valene stood. She walked to the window. "It's not the same. You're supposed to know already."

"Would it be better if I told you something?" Kitty asked. She walked behind Valene and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Something I've never told anyone. Not even Jessie?"

Valene turned around and looked at her aunt. "What?"

Kitty closed her eyes then clasped her hands together. "I have a problem. A health problem."

Valene grasped her aunt's shoulders. "What kind of health problem, Aunt Kitty?"

"It's my heart. I have a weak heart." Kitty said weakly.

"Your doctor doesn't know about this?" Valene asked.

"Of course he knows, he's the one who told me. He's the one who tried to tell me to tell my family and friends. I couldn't."

Valene pinched the bridge of her nose. "Isn't there something you could've done? Why didn't you tell someone? Couldn't you have gotten a second opinion? Something?"

Kitty just shook her head. She turned away and walked back to her chair. "No. I didn't want to tell anyone because there was nothing that could be done. I didn't want them to think that I was a nusience. 'Cuz, I'm not. I just can't lift heavy things. I could strain my heart and have a heart attack."

Valene wiped her eyes. "How could this have happened? When did you find this out?"

"Oh, about five months before you arrived. I was picking up some wood when I felt a sharp pain through my arms and chest. I went to my doctor and he did some tests and that was when he told me. I was not to pick up anything heavy. He's giving me some antibiodics." Kitty smiled and looked at her niece. "Don't worry about me, Valene. I'll be just peachy."

Valene groaned and stood up. "Don't worry about you? I'm supposed to worry about you. You're my aunt, damn it. I have to worry about you. If I don't I'll still worry about you, so it doesn't matter." She crossed her arms in front of her chest. "I'm going to go out and have something to drink. I'll be back once this settles."

She walked into the Bar and Grill and this time, she walked into the Bar area. She hadn't gotten drunk since she had snuck out of her house to days after her mother's death. Another thing no one knew about. Or the time she had tried pot for two weeks after her mother's death. That, too, was a secret that no one knew.

She rubbed her forehead as sat down at a table. The jukebox was playing some tune that she didn't know. Some country hit, she supposed. She heard someone stand next to her table. She looked up and saw a man with a waist apron. "Can I help ya ma'am?"

"Yeah, a vodka on the rocks." She replied dully.

"Sure." With that, he walked away.

She placed her face in her hands and tried to breathe deeply and evenly. What her aunt had told her, shocked her. Could she really be that sick? Could she easily strain her heart and have a heart attack? Could she stand losing someone else who she had gotten close to?

Tears brimmed her eyes and she tried to shoo them away. She couldn't cry. She had cried over Brad and her father. She wasn't going to cry now. Not now and not here. Especially, not here.

She felt someone sit next to her and when she looked up she gasped. "Didn't think I'd see you here." Jessie replied.

She groaned and placed her face back in her hands.

"No insults today? Want to know why I'm up and about and not sitting with my feet up and drinking water?" Jessie asked with a smirk.

"I don't give a shit what you do, Jessie. Okay? Could you go back to the bar? Why don't you just leave me the fuck alone?" She eyed him down and his face and attitude changed drastically.

"What's wrong, Valene?" He asked, voice full of sympathy.

"Nothing that concerns you." Then remembering that it dealt with her aunt and that she and him knew each other, she felt a pang of regret.

"Well, ya practically bit my damn head off. I think I deserve some reason, plus, it looks as though someone--Did you and Laremy have a fight?" He asked.

She laughed and looked over at him. Her eyes felt as though they were going to explode with tears and she didn't want to show them in front of Jessie. "No, we didn't fight. I haven't seen him since the other night. It deals with my aunt. Okay, so you know what it's about."

He placed a hand on her shoulder. "Your aunt? What about your aunt?" His voice was demanding, yet soft and gentle.

"She's sick. It's her heart. She's got a very weak heart. If she does any heavy lifting, she could strain her heart and have a heart attack. There isn't anything anyone can do and I'm afraid I'll lose her. I can't lose her." A tear trickled down her cheek and she quickly wiped it away when the waiter returned with her drink.

She reached blindly into her purse and handed the bill to the waiter. "Keep the change. I'll use it to buy another."

The waiter walked away with the twenty she had given him.

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She took a drink of her vodka and sighed deeply. He watched her and curved both of his hands into fists and rested his chin on them. "You aren't going to lose your aunt. You can't drink either. It isn't going to help."

"It'll help me accept the idea that I'll most likely lose someone else close to me." She replied dully.

Obviously, she had been close to her father, Jessie thought as he kept his eyes on her. The pain in his head had gone down a lot since the day before, but he was still taking aspirin and his upper body was stiff as all hell.

"You aren't going to lose her. Not while you're here."

She eyed him. That look told him that he shouldn't have said what he had said. "Is that supposed to make me feel better, Jessie? If that is your way of trying to make me feel any better, then I'd leave, because I don't need that. I'd feel worse if she died after I left." She muttered as she took another drink.

"I didn't think that you'd feel any better if she died while you were gone, I just figured...okay, maybe I did intend on thinking you'd feel better, it's just that...you wouldn't have to see it."

"I'd see it whether I was there or not. She's my aunt, damn it. I love her. I haven't seen her everyday of my natural life, but I love her like a mother...like a mother I once had." Her voice got all thick and dry.

He slid a little bit close to her. He wanted to be there if she started to cry. He wouldn't be able to stand it if she began to cry. He hated the sight of women crying.

"Are you going to cry?" He asked bluntly.

She looked up at him with her eye brows raised. "Excuse me?"

"I asked if you were going to cry." A smirk came across his face as he watched her.

She let out a laugh and ran a hand through her hair. "You sure are a sympathetic kind of guy, Jessie." She let out another laugh and sipped her vodka.

"I guess I can't help the way I am." Jessie smiled and leaned back in his chair. He tilted his hat forward.

"No. I don't suppose you can." Valene agreed.

Then, before he could stop himself, "Would you like to go and have lunch with me?"

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She jerked her head up and stared at him. "What did you just say?" She asked.

He opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it. "I would like you to come to lunch with me." He stated.

A smile spread to her lips as she nodded.

She didn't know what possessed her to follow him. There was just something...something about him that seemed to cast a wash of calmness over her. She grabbed her purse and followed him.

They drove to a small diner across from the Almira Community Bank. It was a quaint little diner that Valene only remembered faintly when she drove by on her first day here.

It smelled of heaven when they walked through the door. She closed her eyes and she could smell hamburgers, french fries, chicken, steak, beef, bread. "C'mon, I'll get us a booth." She opened her eyes and followed Jessie to a booth by a front window.

"Have you been here before?" She asked him.

He nodded and removed his hat. "I eat here when I can." He replied.

"Ah, I see." She replied. She went to her purse, not for a ciggarette, because, for some reason, she didn't feel the urge to smoke one. Instead, she was looking for her chapstick. Her lips felt awfully dry.

"Is that your damn luggage?" She heard Jessie ask as she placed some of her purse's contents on the table.

She raised her eye brow and shook her head. "No. This is just some of the things I can't live without. I need them with me." She went back to her purse and found the chapstick, all the way to the bottom of her purse.

"Women. One species I don't understand." He shook his head and a smile crossed his face.

A very bustic woman with beautiful curves and wavy black hair and gorgeous large blue eyes walked over to the table. "How are ya, Jessie? Didn't 'spect you here." She said, totally ignoring Valene.

Jessie ran a hand through his hair and sighed deeply. "What are you doin' here, Molly? I thought I told you the other day I wasn't interested? You're a purty lady, but I just ain't interested in ya." Jessie said, trying to stay calm.

Molly looked over at Valene. "So, this is the type ya're interested in, Jessie? I thought you'd better than that." Valene raised her eye brows.

"Excuse me?" Valene's voice wavered as she spoke.

"Ya heared me. If I had known what Jessie's tastes were, I would've stood out there in the road and let a sixteen wheeler hit me in the face."

Jessie stood and stared down at Molly. "I think ya better leave, Molly. This ain't a place for jealousy, now. Ya hear?"

Molly smirked at Valene and walked out the door. Valene was, for once, speechless. She didn't know what to say about Molly's thoughts of her. She had been told that she hadn't been the beautifulest of women, but thought to have been as ugly as someone getting hit by a sixteen wheeler, well....

"I'm sorry 'bout her." Jessie apologized. "She came up to me a coupla days ago and tried to hit on me. I don't think she's a taken it too well." He rubbed the back of his neck and sighed.

Valene sighed lightly, still trying to take into consideration what Molly had said. "It's all right. I know I ain't beautiful, but I've never had it put into graphic details before."

"Don't say that, Valene. Ya are purty, ya know that, don't ya. Don't let what Molly said offend ya." Jessie stated. He leaned against the table and looked directly at her.

"It didn't. I'm only stating the truth." She replied dully.

"Oh don't start with me." He said dryly.

"Start what?"

"This crap about you being insecure."

"I'm not insecure. I'm only stating what I've been told."

He closed his eyes and sighed. "By men no doubt. Am I correct?"

"And women. I guess I figured that enough people have told me the same thing, so it must be true."

"Then you're stupid."

"I'm not stupid. I'm just telling you what I've been told. I didn't tell you I believed it, did I?"

"I can see it in your eyes that you do."

"Do what?"

"Believe it. Stop trying to act naive, because I know for a fact you're anything but."

"How do you know who and what I am?" She demanded.

"I've spent enough time to know that you're a sensitive woman and if you're told it enough times you just might begin to believe--"

"You don't know what I believe, Jessie. You don't know anything about me." Her voice wavered as she was half raised from her seat.

Jessie just looked up at her, his eyes wide. Something sparked inside of her. "Why don't you tell me about yourself. Get it out. Tell me."

She gently closed her eyes and sank back down into the seat. A waitress came by, but Jessie waved her off. "Can we go talk somewhere more...private?" She asked, hoping that it would help, knowing that it probably wouldn't.

"Country Lovin': Chapter Eight"